Black Books

2000s British tv sitcom

Bernard Black is owner of small old-fashioned bookshop that barely breaks even, mostly thanks to Bernard’s customer service skills... that he has none. He hires Manny to help around the shop, but his happy-go-lucky attitude really gets on Bernard’s nerves.

Black Books was created by Dylan Moran and Graham Linehan (who left the show after first season) and carries the trademarks of Linehan style (Father Ted, IT Crowd) - bit gloomy atmosphere, surreal humour and socially inadequate characters.

It was interesting idea to create another Basil Fawlty in modern comedy - a bookshop owner, who actually hates his shop and his customers. And in first season it worked rather well, even though Dylan Moran lacks the acting skills that could have made the character even better. The surreal elements, original characters and strange atmosphere were ok.

Second season that was written by Moran alone was fun, but bit of a mess. Although the plots were interesting they were often lacking any conclusion. In third season Moran was joined by Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley (who laters were creators of Hyperdrive) and it was much better, but thewhole overtone of the series changed to more "civilized" and lost some of the originality.

Overall it was good idea, good set of main characters, interesting atmosphere, well known actors making guest appearances, but the scripts were often lacking the jokes or any conclusion. To summarize: good idea with good comedy potential that never rose above mediocrity due to underdeveloped scripts.

Rating	6.0
Funny	4 / 10
Entertaining	4 / 5
Characters	4 / 5
Nonrepetitive	3 / 5