Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we are taking
an unflinching look at one of the most uniquely
awkward and just persistently brilliant comedies
of the 21st century. The British sitcom Peep
Show. Yeah, Peep Show. It's a show that's just
full of contradictions, isn't it? Ran for an
incredible nine series on Channel 4, 2003 right
through to 2015. Nine series. That's a long run.
It is. And get this. By 2010, it was already
the longest running comedy in Channel 4 history,
just in terms of years on air. Which is pretty
amazing. But, and this is the kicker, it never
quite became that huge ratings hit you might
expect, right? Yeah. Despite all that time on
air, despite the critics loving it. Exactly.
For all its staying power, all that critical
loyalty, it just wasn't a ratings juggernaut.
Not in the way other big sitcoms were. So that's
the core paradox we really want to get into today.
Our goal. for you listening, is to figure out
how this series, a show often pulling in just,
what, maybe a million viewers, managed to get
such glowing reviews and build this incredibly
dedicated, almost religious cult following. We're
going to unpack the technical side, that unique
format, which seems to be both its genius and
maybe its stumbling block for mass appeal. And
the themes, of course, that relentless bleakness
about modern life. Definitely. So structurally,
it's simple enough on the surface. Right. Nine
series, 54 episodes. And it all revolves around
these two best friends, Mark Corrigan and Jeremy
Osborne Chess. Total offices, totally codependent.
Completely living together dysfunctionally in
a flat in Croydon, South London. But the show
itself, it's this complex mix, isn't it? It feels
like a standard sitcom sometimes. But then it
throws in farce, pure black comedy, and oh God,
the cringe. So much cringe. It's like weaponized
cringe comedy. It doesn't just let you watch
the awkwardness that forces you inside it. Yeah,
you're implicated. And the writers, Sam Bain
and Jesse Armstrong, they were pretty upfront
about the darkness they were exploring. What
did they say? Well, Bain described it as showing
the stubborn persistence of human suffering.
Pretty heavy for a comedy. And even more provocatively,
he said it was about... Why ordinary people are
evil. Just wow. That's quite a statement. Ordinary
people being evil. Yeah. Armstrong, on the other
hand, kind of framed it a bit more personally,
calling it an exploration of oddball male friendship.
And you feel like those two things, the suffering,
the evil, the oddball friendship, they're all
tangled up together in the show. Absolutely.
They feed each other constantly. OK, so let's
get into that technical side, the production,
the point of view thing, because that's really
the reason we're here. And it's even in the title,
Peep Show. Right. It's not about. you know actual
peep shows no thankfully it's because you the
viewer are constantly peeping inside the characters
heads yeah you get their literal point of view
shots seeing what they see and crucially you
hear their inner thoughts their voiceovers that's
the absolute masterstroke we don't just see the
action unfold we see it almost entirely through
mark's eyes or jeremy's eyes and we hear that
running commentary inside their heads and the
comedy comes from that gap right The huge difference
between what they're actually saying you're doing.
And the awful, petty, insecure, or just completely
narcissistic stuff they're thinking. Yeah, like
Mark will be nodding politely at someone at work.
And inside his head, he's thinking, God, I wish
he'd just leave. Or worse. Or much worse. And
that's what makes the cringe so potent. It's
not just watching an embarrassing situation from
the outside, like in, say, The Office. Right.
That's observational cringe. Exactly. With Peep
Show, you're forced into the thought process
that leads to the cringe moment. You understand
why they're making this terrible decision. You're
kind of complicit in their failure before it
even happens. It's uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.
And making it work, production -wise, must have
been a nightmare. Because that style, it wasn't
optional. It was everything. So how did they
actually do it? Single camera, obviously. Yeah,
single camera. And a lot of technical juggling.
In the early series, they properly experimented
with head -mounted cameras, like literally strapping
cameras to helmets or hats. Wow. To get that
exact eye -level perspective? That was the idea.
Give the viewer the identical visual viewpoint.
Sound incredibly fiddly. And I guess the footage
wasn't always great. That's what the sources
say. The concept was strong, but the actual footage
quality, especially if Mark or Jez moved suddenly,
could be pretty poor, so they gradually moved
away from relying solely on that. So what did
they do instead? They started using other techniques
more often. Filming scenes multiple times from
different angles, sometimes holding the camera
right over the actor's shoulder, trying to mimic
the POV. Or right in their face. Or right in
front of their face, yeah. Which meant every
single interaction, every glance, every reaction
needed incredibly careful planning. Lighting,
focus, continuity. Must have been intense. Way
more complex than your standard sitcom setup.
Oh, absolutely. No wonder, David Mitchell. Mark
joked at a screening that filming POV is just
a stupid way to film things. He probably wasn't
entirely joking. Probably not. He said it was
much harder than the normal way. And that difficulty,
maybe that's why Noby really tried to copy it
wholesale. It was too much hassle. So where did
this stupid, brilliant idea actually come from?
It's quite an interesting lineage. Bain and Armstrong
saw this Channel 4 documentary in 2000 called
Bean Caprice. It used POV shots. Okay. But Bane
himself called it a third -hand steal because
being Caprice had basically lifted the technique
from the Spike Jonze film, Being John Malkovich,
from 1999. Ah, right. Being John Malkovich. Makes
sense. Yeah. So they saw that literal viewpoint
in the documentary and immediately thought, hang
on, we can use this for comedy. Trap the audience
inside someone's head. And the voiceover part,
the internal monologue. That apparently came
from Woody Allen. Specifically, a scene in Annie
Hall where subtitles pop up showing what the
characters are really thinking while they're
having this polite conversation. Oh, yeah. I
remember that brilliant scene. Yeah, isn't it?
So they combined the visual POV with that internal
thought reveal. And Mitchell was probably right
when he said that without that style, the show
could have just felt like, you know, spaced or
men behaving badly. Good shows, but different.
The tech wasn't just a gimmick. It was fundamental.
It was the show in many ways. It's also interesting
how it developed. It wasn't peep show from day
one. No, it grew out of an unproduced script
called All Day Breakfast. Mitchell and Webb weren't
even attached initially. And the working title
was just POV. Very literal. Very literal. And
there was another dropped concept where the characters
just watched and discussed TV, which sounds less
exciting. Definitely less exciting. And originally,
Olivia Colman's character, she had a voiceover
too. In the pilot. Yeah, apparently so. But they
cut it. Good call, probably. I think so. Keeping
it just Mark and Jez really doubles down on their
isolation, their self -absorption. You only ever
understand the world through their warped perspectives.
Adding Sophie's thoughts would have, I don't
know, maybe deleted that focus. Made it more
balanced, less intensely claustrophobic. Exactly.
Which wouldn't have been peep show. Okay, one
last thing before we dive into the characters
themselves. The setting. Yeah. Croydon, South
London. Specifically Zodiac Court, a .k .a. Apollo
House. That's the nominal setting, yeah. But
Jeremy Wooding, the director on the first series,
apparently made a conscious effort not to make
it feel too specific. How so? He aimed for a
kind of Nowheresville and Anywhereville vibe.
Like it could be any slightly grim suburban block
of flats anywhere. Which kind of fits the theme,
right? Generic modern failure. Perfectly. It's
the anonymous backdrop for their very specific
kind of misery. Or the theme tune. We should
mention that change, too. Oh, yeah. Good point.
Everyone knows Flagpole Siddha by... harvey danger
iconic total earworm but that only came in for
series two the first series used a different
track pit pop plop by daniel pemberton pit pop
plop doesn't quite have the same ring to it not
really maybe switching to the more upbeat known
song was a little nudge towards trying to get
more viewers early on before it really found
its uh its cult groove could be okay let's get
into that groove let's talk mark and jazz Right,
so we've got this unique technical setup forcing
us inside their heads. Now we need to look at
the minds themselves. The voiceovers show us
everything. Everything. And what they show is
that while Mark and Jez seem like polar opposites
on the surface. One's uptight and anxious. The
other's laid back and irresponsible. Functionally,
they're two halves of the same broken mechanism.
Completely codependent. They need each other
to maintain their own specific brands of dysfunction.
Let's break them down. Mark Corrigan. David Mitchell.
He's the sensible one, right? Sort of. On paper.
He owns the flat. He has the job loan manager
at JLB credit. He presents himself as intelligent,
tries to be hardworking. But he's riddled with
anxiety. Deeply pessimistic, socially just. Painful.
Painful is the word. And he has this desperate
lifelong dream of being seen as an intellectual.
Morally superior. Reads history books, listens
to classical music, judges everyone. But the
voiceover. Oh, God, the voiceover. It just reveals
this pit of petty resentment and malice, doesn't
it? Absolutely. His moral superiority is just
a flimsy cover for intense self -interest, cowardice,
and just plain meanness. He thinks terrible things
about everyone. He's the king of passive aggression.
He rarely does anything. Truly awful, not directly,
but he fantasizes about it constantly. And his
inaction, his little acts of cowardice and spite,
they just slowly poison everything around him.
He lets things fester until they explode. Then
you've got Jeremy, Jez, Robert Webb. The fun
one. The supposed fun one. Unemployed, naturally.
A self -proclaimed musician destined for fame,
obviously. Lives in Mark's spare room, pays no
rent, contributes nothing. Total work -shy freeloader,
as the show puts it. Exactly. And Jez has this
veneer. of social confidence. He thinks he's
cool, desirable, charismatic. But the voiceover
again, it just exposes him as utterly juvenile,
selfish, arrogant, and just as socially inept
as Mark, really, just in a different way. He's
a narcissist. Totally. Where Mark's failures
are often internal, stemming from anxiety and
overthinking, Jez's failures are external, driven
by pure impulse and vanity. He just does stupid
things without a second thought. And they need
each other for this to work. Mark needs Jez's
chaos to feel superior and justified in his own
miserable caution. And Jez absolutely needs Mark's
boring stability, the flat, the occasional loan
to avoid any semblance of adult responsibility.
It's a perfect storm. The self -sustaining failure
loop. Couldn't put it better myself. And that
loop is constantly fueled and complicated by
the supporting cast. They aren't just background
characters. They're like catalysts for disaster.
Emotional punching bags almost. Or aspirational
figures who just highlight Mark and Jez's inadequacy.
Exactly. And the prime example of collateral
damage has to be Sophie Chapman. Olivia Colman.
Oh, Sophie. Her journey is just heartbreaking,
isn't it? It starts off as Mark's office crush,
his big romantic goal. Becomes his colleague,
his fiance, his wife, his ex -wife, the mother
of his child. And her arc is just this slow,
tragic decline. Because Mark treats her like
an object. Right. A goal to be achieved rather
than a person. Pretty much. His obsession combined
with his... Utter inability to be honest or brave
just grinds her down. It pushes her towards instability,
the drinking, the drugs we see later on. She's
like the walking embodiment of the damage Mark
and Jez inflict when they try to interact with
the normal world. Good, yeah. Then on the other
end, you've got the person Mark wants to be,
Ellen Johnson. Ah, Johnson. Patterson Joseph,
brilliant performance. Mark's boss, his senior
manager at JLB. And Mark absolutely worships
him, sees him as this incredibly suave, confident,
successful alpha male. He's desperate for Johnson's
approval. But we, the audience, and even Mark
deep down, can see Johnson is just... Yeah. He's
reckless, completely self -absorbed, kind of
predatory. He's just another type of failure,
really. Just one wrapped in a nicer suit. He's
the hollow male fantasy Mark chases. Exactly.
Then there's the agent of pure chaos. Super Hans.
Super Hans. Matt King. Has to be mentioned. Jez's
bandmate, main drug buddy, appears in, what,
36 out of 54 episodes? Practically a main character.
We don't even know his real name for ages. Until
series nine. Turns out it's Simon. But yeah,
Hans is just this force of nature, constantly
dragging Jez, and by extension Mark, into more
and more ludicrous and dangerous situations.
He's Jez's id unleashed. Can't forget Jeff Heaney
either. Neil Fitzmaurice. Jeff. Mark's office
nemesis. The manly one. Always competing with
Mark, especially over Sophie early on. Mark hates
him because Jeff is everything ever. Mark isn't
outwardly confident, reasonably socially functional,
blokey. He represents that uncomplicated masculinity
that Mark both despises and secretly envies.
And later on, there's Dobby, IZ SETI. Right,
Dobby, the IT worker. Mark sees her as a kindred
spirit, another misfit, his chance at real connection,
the one. Which, naturally, leads to another incredibly
dysfunctional relationship, largely because Mark
can't help but sabotage any chance of happiness
he gets. It's par for the course with Mark. If
something seems good, his internal mechanisms
kick in to destroy it. Hashtag tag tag tag five.
The nine series of struggle and humiliation series
overview highlights. So across these nine series,
it's not really about growth, is it? It feels
more like a downward spiral, or maybe running
in circles in mud. That's a good way to put it.
It's a chronicle of escalating failure. Mark
and Jez constantly try to achieve normalcy, love,
career, just basic stability. But their inner
flaws, the ones we're constantly hearing in the
voiceovers, they just guarantee self -destruction,
often in the most spectacular public ways. Let's
track some of those key moments of self -implosion.
The early series really set the pattern. Series
one, you've got Mark's consuming obsession with
Sophie. While Jez is chasing their neighbor,
Tony. Typical jazz. And we get that early glimpse
of Mark's moral slipperiness with the whole teenage
goth one -night -stand incident. Very awkward.
Ends terribly, obviously. Of course. And the
series culminates with Mark getting trapped in
the engagement. Sophie finds the ring he bought,
and he just doesn't have the guts to admit he's
already realized he doesn't want to marry her.
He just sort of goes along with it. Setting himself
up for disaster down the line. That inability
to face small awkwardness leads to huge catastrophe
later. Textbook Mark. Then series two ups the
ante. Jez gets into that bizarre relationship
with Nancy, the American free spirit. The one
who's supposedly celibate. Supposedly. And Jez,
because he can't resist the idea of marrying
an attractive American woman, ends up in this
sham visa marriage with her. Pure ego and terrible
judgment. Meanwhile, Mark tries making a normal
friend at work, Daryl. Oh, God, Daryl. And then
the voiceover drops the bombshell. Daryl's a
neo -Nazi. And Mark's dilemma is just perfect.
Is the awkwardness of dumping a Nazi friend worse
than the crushing loneliness? For a while. Loneliness
wins. Until he just can't take the guilt anymore.
Classic Mark paralysis. Series 3 is all about
the engagement grinding him down. He's so scared
after getting mugged he starts carrying an illegal
knife. Which obviously horrifies Sophie when
she finds out. Peak Mark cowardice leading to
disproportionate reactions. And Jez's being Jez
getting jealous of Big Suze's boyfriend Stu leading
to that pathetic fight. And trying to run a pub
with Super Hans which involves a magic mushroom
party. Naturally. Naturally. But the real crux
of Series 3. is that proposal trip to the Quantox.
The Quantox. Mark gets lost on the hills with
Jez and has this moment of horrible clarity.
He realizes he finds Sophie incredibly annoying.
He almost tells her. He almost breaks free. Almost.
But he chickens out or gets interrupted and then
she finds the ring anyway and boom, trapped again.
The writers are just relentless in showing how
Mark engineers his own misery. Okay, series four.
This is where things really peak in terms of
pure, unadulterated chaos and horror. Oh, series
four is legendary. Jez sleeps with Sophie's mom.
Just because. Because he's Jez. Then Mark tries
to escape the wedding by getting a job transfer
to India. His big escape plan. And Jez completely
screws it up by accidentally killing the dog
belonging to the guy Mark needs to impress. Accidentally
kills Mummy, the dog. And the cover -up. Oh god,
the cover -up. Eating the dog. Jez, in a complete
panic, tries to dispose of the cremated remains
by... Yeah, eating bits of turkey, pretending
it's the dog. Yeah. It's one of the darkest,
most infamous moments. Truly shows the depths
of his self -preservation and delusion. It's
horrifyingly funny. And then the wedding day
itself. The climax. The inevitable train wreck.
Mark literally hides in the church attic. Can't
go through with it. But can't admit it. Jez tries
to cover, fails spectacularly, gives away their
hiding spot. Mark is dragged to the altar. They
actually get married. For about five minutes.
Before Sophie realizes the full extent of how
horrible Mark is and runs out, demanding an annulment.
Finally, a moment of truth, but only because
Mark's cowardice reached critical mass. So after
that peak, where do they go? Series 5, Mark's
back on the hunt for the one. Ender Dobby. Ender
Dobby, and Sophie drops the bombshell. She's
pregnant. Oh, right. But is it Mark's? Exactly.
Because Jez, with his impeccable timing, immediately
confesses he slept with Sophie around the potential
time of conception. Maximum chaos from minimum
impulse control. That's Jez. Textbook. Mark also
gets a promotion, but it's all overshadowed by
the pregnancy drama and his new obsession with
Dobby. Jez also briefly joins a cult with super
Hans, as you do. Standard Tuesday for Jez. Series
six, the paternity gets resolved. Yes, Mark is
confirmed as the father. Baby Ian arrives. But
Jez, still refusing any personal growth, falls
head over heels for Elena. Who is already in
a serious relationship with Gail. Yep. Leading
to the dramatic climax where Sophie goes into
labor, Mark, surprise, surprise, has lied about
passing his driving test. Of course he has. So
a very drunk Jez has to drive her to the hospital.
He nearly runs over Gail in the process and then
blurts out his affair with Elena in the car.
Just utter carnage. And again, you see how their
flaws enable each other. Mark's lie puts Jez
in the driving seat, literally. Their codependency
is actively dangerous. Okay, series seven. Mark
finally gets together with Dobby properly. This
should be good for him, right? You'd think. But
no. Mark being Mark, he ruins it. At Christmas
dinner with his parents, his social awkwardness
is so extreme he pretends Dobby is just a platonic
friend. Oh, Mark, no. His dad then humiliates
Dobby, she leaves heartbroken, and Mark's response
is, well, iconic. He shreds his entire Christmas
dinner in the waste disposal. A perfect visual
metaphor for his emotional state. Yeah. Grinding
everything good into mush. Pretty much. That
series also has that great plotline where Jez
pretends to be really intellectual to impress
Zara. Leading to them getting locked in her flat.
And Mark missing his own son's christening as
a result. See? Their friendship actively sabotages
any chance either of them has at a normal life
event. Okay, nearing the end. Series 8. What
fresh hell awaits? Well, Gerard, Mark's other
nerdy colleague and rival for Dobby's affection,
dies. which complicates things. Mark is waiting
for Dobby to move in. Jez tries therapy, paid
for by Mark. Briefly, then immediately tries
to become a life coach himself, using a fake
certificate Mark helps him make. It's always
one step forward, three steps back into delusion.
And how does the Dobby situation resolve? It
culminates with Dobby deciding she's had enough
of both of them and taking a job in New York.
She literally runs away as Mark and Jez are declaring
their love for her while simultaneously having
a physical fight. That sounds about right. A
fitting end to that whole saga. Utterly fitting.
Which brings us to the final series. Series 9.
The final act. The final rut, perhaps. It's definitely
the final rut. Jez has to move back in with Mark
after an incredibly bleak period living in Super
Hans' bathroom. Mark, incapable of learning,
becomes obsessed with finding April, that woman
from Series 2 he thought was perfect even though
she's now married. He even tracks Dobby down
in New York, doesn't he? He does. Flies all the
way there only to get beaten up by her new American
boyfriend. Mark's failure goes international.
And the finale. How does it all unravel? Predictably.
Catastrophically. All the wise catch up. Mark
loses his job at JLB finally because of a dodgy
loan he approved for Jez using fake ID. Their
codependency literally costs him his livelihood.
Jez loses his latest partner, Joe. Super Hans'
life implodes after he kidnaps April's husband,
Don't Ask, and his wife leaves him. So he flees
the country to start a moped rental business
in Macedonia. Macedonia. A truly Super Hans exit.
It had to be somewhere random. And after all
that, after nine years, 54 episodes, countless
humiliations, moments of genuine horror, where
did Mark and Jez end up? Right back where they
started. Exactly. In the flat, on the sofa, watching
TV, trapped. And that final voiceover exchange
is just perfect, isn't it? It sums up the entire
show. Jez, ever the optimist, or perhaps just
deeply deluded, thinks, we love each other, really.
While Mark's final thought, after everything,
is just... Cold, quiet desperation. I simply
must get rid of him. The cycle remains unbroken.
Failure persists. Hashtag tag tag V. Critical
acclaim versus commercial realities. That theme
of persistence, it applies to the show's own
life too, doesn't it? The persistence against
commercial odds. Because the critics adored it.
Unanimously, really. Oh, completely. The Guardian
called it the best comedy of the decade. The
Times praised the scorching writing, put it in
their top TV shows of the 2000s. The acclaim
was consistent and widespread. It wasn't just
broadsheet critics either. You had big names
in comedy championing it. Right. Ricky Gervais
was a massive fan, called it the best sitcom
since Father Ted. High praise indeed. And he
actually called it a debacle that it wasn't winning
more awards early on, specifically mentioning
the 2005 British Comedy Awards. He felt it was
being overlooked. But its reputation has only
grown since it ended. It still pops up in best
ever lists. All the time. Like 13th greatest
British sitcom in a Radio Times poll in 2019,
The Guardian ranked it the ninth best TV show
of the entire 21st century so far. Wow. And the
industry did eventually catch on with awards.
Yeah, it picked up some big ones. The Rose Door
for Best European Sitcom back in 2004. And the
BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy in 2008. Plus,
David Mitchell won personally for his performance
a couple of times. So, glowing reviews, industry
respect, longevity, awards. But the ratings just
never matched up. That's the core puzzle. It
is. How could something so lauded never garner
consistently high viewing figures? It really
struggled. Often hovering just over that one
million viewable mark, which for Channel 4 even
then wasn't huge for a flagship comedy. That
is amazing. I read it was genuinely close to
being canceled around Series 4. Yeah, the rumors
were strong. Low ratings were biting. So what
saved it? What did save it? It wasn't a sudden
surge in viewers. No. It was the DVDs. Its cult
following expressed itself through sales. The
sources mention around 400 ,000 DVD sales being
cited at one point. The old physical media lifeline.
Exactly. It proved that even if people weren't
watching live, there was this incredibly dedicated
audience willing to pay money to own it. It gave
the execs a different way to measure success,
a nontraditional metric. It basically bought
the show more time repeatedly. It's a fascinating
early example of how. Viewing habits were changing.
Finding an audience outside that traditional
broadcast slot. Definitely. And ask anyone involved
why the mainstream ratings were low. They all
point to the same thing. The POV filming style.
The POV style. The very thing that made it unique
and brilliant was also its biggest commercial
barrier. That's the irony. Producer Andrew O
'Connor, Bane, Armstrong. They all basically
said that while the POV got it commissioned,
maybe even saved it after Series 1, it actively
stopped it from being a breakout hit. It just
prevented it from crossing over into the mainstream.
Because it's demanding, right? You can't just
have it on in the background. It forces you to
engage, and it's often uncomfortably intimate.
Exactly. Too much effort, maybe too much psychic
discomfort for casual viewing. Did changing the
time slot help at all? A little bit. When they
moved it to 10 p .m. for Series 6, it did get
its highest ratings, about 1 .8 million. But
that was kind of a blip, not the norm. Still
not huge numbers, really. Not compared to the
big hitters. Just one final point on its media
life. Even cult classics aren't immune to changing
times. How so? Well, in 2020, a scene from series
two, the one where Jez wears blackface as part
of a doomed relationship plan. Oh, right. That
scene. That was removed from Netflix due to concerns
about racism. Yeah. Shows how even established
works get reassessed through modern lenses. Hashtag,
hashtag, tag six. The American Adaptation Challenge.
OK, so critically adored. Cult hit in the UK.
Surely America came calling. They love adapting
British shows. Oh, they tried. Repeatedly. The
story of the U .S. Peep Show adaptations is a
story of consistent, almost comical failure.
Really? None of them even got to series. Not
a single one, which maybe tells you everything
you need to know about how uniquely British or
perhaps just uniquely peep show the formula was.
When was the first attempt? Way back in 2005.
Carsey Verner, the company behind huge hits like
Cosby Show and Roseanne, they made a pilot. And
who was in it? Johnny Galecki. Before the Big
Bang Theory, he played the Mark character. Wow,
okay. So they had recognizable talent. What happened?
Why didn't it fly? You have to imagine it just
didn't translate. That specific flavor of British
awkwardness, the deep -seated pessimism and self
-loathing of Mark Corrigan, it's hard to picture
that landing in a mainstream U .S. sitcom format.
Which often needs characters to be, you know,
fundamentally likable or at least redeemable.
Mark and Jez are challenging on that front. Very
challenging. And the POV style, the slower pace
compared to typical U .S. comedies, it probably
just felt weird. So that 2005 pilot went nowhere.
But they didn't give up. Nope. In 2008, Spike
TV, remember Spike TV, they commissioned another
version. This one had some serious behind the
scenes talent initially attached, like Robert
Wide from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Eventually, Bain
and Armstrong themselves were brought in to write
it. So the original creators were involved. Still
no dice. Still no dice. Never got past the development
stage. It just seemed uncrackable. Then silence
for a bit or more attempts. More attempts. In
2016, Starz had a go. That fizzled out quickly.
It felt like the networks just couldn't figure
out how to replicate the magic or maybe how to
sell Mark's particular brand of miserable inertia
to American audiences. Maybe they thought changing
the leads might work. Gender swapping it. That
was the next phase. In 2019, Sam Bain confirmed
they were trying again, this time with FX networks.
And the plan was for two female leads. Interesting
idea. Did that get anywhere? Nope. Failed to
materialize like all the others. It's becoming
a pattern. A very clear pattern. But the most
recent attempt seemed like it might finally break
the curse. FX ordered another pilot in 2022,
announced in 2023. Also female -led. Yeah. Written
by Stefani Robinson, who's done great work on
things like Atlanta and what we do in the shadows.
And it starred Minnie Driver and Amanla Jehovah.
That sounds like a strong team. FX Robinson driver.
That feels like it should have worked. You'd
think so. There was definitely more buzz around
that one. But yeah, no. In September 2024, the
news came out. FX confirmed it wasn't moving
forward either. Wow. So after almost 20 years,
multiple networks, big names, different approaches,
gender swaps. Nothing. Nothing. It's kind of
the ultimate proof, isn't it, that the specific
chemistry between Mitchell and Webb, the exact
tone of that British self -flagellation, and
that difficult signature POV style, they were
inseparable. You couldn't just transplant it.
It really seems like peep show is just peep show.
Unadaptable. Hashtag tag tags is the outro. So
stepping back from it all, this deep dive really
highlights a few key things about Peep Show.
It's fundamentally about those dark things, isn't
it? That stubborn persistence of suffering, as
Bain put it. The sort of everyday ordinary evil
born of cowardice and self -interest. And it
channels all of that through this incredibly
specific, innovative technical approach. The
POV shots, the voiceovers. That technique was
the engine. It created the unique humor, that
uncomfortable intimacy. But it was also... paradoxically
what held it back from huge mainstream success.
Yeah. It made it a critical darling, a cult classic
saved by DVD sales. Yeah. But maybe too demanding,
too weird for a massive audience. And ultimately,
after all the schemes and disasters, Mark and
Jez end up stuck. Yeah. Right back where they
started, trapped by their own failures and their
toxic dependence on each other. The journey was
entirely circular. Nine years of chaos leading
precisely nowhere. It was kind of the bleakly
brilliant point of it all. It perfectly illustrates
that theme, the stubborn persistence of failure,
zero progress. And that circularity, that final
scene, Jez thinking they love each other, Mark
thinking he has to get rid of them. That's what
sticks with you. It ends on this note of profound,
unresolved stagnation, which leaves us and you,
the listener, with a final thought to chew on.
The show puts us right inside their heads. We
know everything they think. So is the stubborn
persistence of this oddball male friendship,
as Armstrong called it, is that bond actually
more profound? Or is it just more tragically
inescapable than the persistent suffering it
clearly causes both of them? Are they bound by
affection deep down? Or just by mutual failure?
Something to think about.