erin s. In On the Hour and The Day Today, the character of Alan Partridge is introduced as a bumbling, easily exasperated sports reporter. The audience gets a more focused look at him with his "failed" chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You… with Alan Partridge, but the character does not really "come into his own" until the sitcom I'm Alan Partridge.Sometimes mistakenly labeled as a mockumentary, I'm Alan Partridge is immediately removed from that label by its use of a laugh-track. In KMKYWAP, the audience sits in the same studio as Alan's, and he often reacts to their laughter as though to heckling. With IAP, the hand-held camera-work does somewhat mimic that of a documentary, but that non-diegetic tittering causes a riff in the realism of the show, as Coogan and other cast members will time delivery in accordance with the track. Partridge is thus occasionally portrayed as a bit more of a "doof" than he might have been otherwise, in his "hamming it up" like other sitcom characters.In the first series of IAP, though the laugh-track is a bit jarring, there is still a deep sadness to Alan Partridge. He still often acts like a buffoon, but the series is emotionally connected by his fear of failure (to get his chat show renewed). This is represented visually by a dream motif, depicting Alan gyrating in a strip club for the BBC's Tony Hayers and other television executives. Alan will often act like a fool to try to avoid this nightmare, but as the other characters (particularly Sophie and Ben of the Linton Travel Tavern) are aware of how outlandish Alan is acting, the realism is reaffirmed. Realism is not a necessity for a comedy show, but as Alan Partridge was initially conceived as a lampoon of a particular type of media personality, it is important for him to be grounded in reality. Thus, the world is not wacky, but a desperate Alan Partridge is. This is particularly revealed when, so determined to please some Irish television executives, Alan shows them to the house of a random fan in lieu of his own, and that aficionado ends up being an obsessive stalker. In IAP, however, even this "crazy" fan pales in comparison to Partridge's reactions to him.The first series meanders in terms of quality, with the best episodes directly connected to Partridge's fear of failure (and thus his unhappiness), and the worst feeling undeveloped and rather pointless (in "Basic Alan," a bored Alan makes for a bored audience). The last episode brings the series to a nice close, with Alan so desperate for his career not to die, that he uses a dead man's hand to sign a contract. The cackling audience does not know whether Alan will succeed, but they do know how low he will stoop to ensure it.In the second series of IAP, filmed five years after the first (2002), Alan is immediately brought back to his "roots" in the premiere, by giving a talk at his childhood school. But these are roots the viewers know nothing about, having never been established in the first series or before. Likewise, this episode is largely about exposition – Alan's career got somehow even worse, he had a breakdown, and he got fat—all sort of "funny" things that would leave a man as fragile as Alan shattered. Instead, Alan, having "bounced back," careens around, acting doofy as ever. Yet unlike the first series, in which almost every character seems to act as a rational foil to Alan's out of touch personality, a parade of guest stars enter into the world of IAP, each seemingly trying to outdo Alan with their wackiness. There is Alan's young Ukranian girlfriend Sonja (Amelia Bullmore), who in her broken English constantly plays practical jokes that even Alan knows are shamefully unfunny. There is Stephen Mangan as Dan, a seeming younger incarnate of Partridge's personality, yet no longer is it crazy enough just that there exists another human being with Alan's god-awful disposition, and Alan ends up the saner one of the pair, as Dan is into orgies and "sex festivals." The undercurrent of melancholy in first series is replaced by a more "tragic" back-story, and "front"-stories obsessed with Alan not just embarrassing himself, but everyone else embarrassing themselves as well.(Also, the former Linton staff-member Michael, someone whom Alan never previously seemed to like or be able to understand, is elevated to the spot of Alan's best friend.) In the last episode of the second series, as Alan's book is pulped and officially regarded as a failure, the tragedy mentioned in the premiere is finally dealt with. As Alan is confronted with failure once again, he has a series of flash backs to his "Fat Alan" stage. He is invited onto a Christian radio show, and in an attempt to not look like the biggest failure there, he insults the other guest in exceedingly outlandish ways. Yet instead of responding with some bigger, hammier reaction, the other guest stops him like a rational human being would, and leaves. A sense of realism is restored. The Christian radio host remarks on Alan's book ending every anecdote with the line "Needless to say, I had the last laugh." IAP's second series seems to suffer from this obsession as well. In order for IAP to be not only funny but compelling, the characters do not need to try to outdo each other with their wacky hijincks and clever jokes. The goofy, but more subdued Alan Partridge of The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You can already bring laughs just with his exasperation. But IAP's second series, so desperate to make the audience snicker, largely dismisses realism, and in doing so, reduces much character quality and consistency, and Partridge's fear of failure does in a way come true.SERIES ONE: ********/10 (8/10) SERIES TWO: *******/10 (7/10)

jayroth6 Up with the PartridgeDVD review: "I'm Alan Partridge" (1997) BBC Video http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129690/ "The bitter life of a failed talk show host turned early morning local radio presenter.""I'd personally like to understand man's inhumanity to man. And then make a program about it." Has there ever been a portrayal of social self-humiliation as unsparing and cringe-inducing as I'm Alan Partridge? A UK TV series, it is at times unbearable to watch. When Alan stumbled over his own words and emotions while doing his best trying to chat up the beautiful front desk clerk at the Linton Travel Tavern ("equidistant between London and Norwich") one must look away. When he bulldozes through a funeral reception in a black jacket emblazoned with the Castrol logo in hopes of putting the professional squeeze on a TV executive, the sheer dread makes the flesh creep.I'm Alan Partridge follows the arch of Partridge's career as he scrambles to organize a professional comeback. The first Alan Partridge series, Knowing Me Knowing You depicted his dire chat-variety show and ended when Partridge accidentally shot and killed a guest while on the air. The prospect of someone expending such huge amounts of money and time and energy trying to get on TV is a hilarious achievement for actor/co-creator Steve Coogan and his collaborators. At every turn, when easy pathos comes close at hand, the show steers clear with another Partridgean outrage to human feeling. Indeed, at the end of the final series episode ("Towering Alan") Partridge triumphs when he takes up a dead BBC Chief Commissioning Editor's hand to forge a signature on the contract for his professional comeback.Alan Partridge is more than a silly-ass Bertie Wooster without Jeeves. He is lightyears beyond Basil Fawlty in being socially beyond-the-pale. He is a man gifted with the ability to always share his worst thoughts and instincts at the wrong time. He tells RTE executives from Dublin this about the Irish Potato Famine: "You'll pay the price if you're a fussy eater. If they could afford to emigrate they could afford to eat in a modest restaurant." He castigates farmers on his late night radio show for animal experiments, only to end up trapped under a Holstein carcass on the deck of a canal boat.If Partridge is a luckless Visigoth, those around him make out even worse. His receptionist finds out she has been fired when she hears it on Alan's radio show as she rides home in a taxi from their tryst. In each episode, the harrowing martyrdom of his PA Liz is explored and given a scale something close to the sufferings of Job. Liz never seems able to catch up to Alan's latest whim or mania. She is treat as what used to be called a "pen-wipe." Michael, a maintenance worker at the Linton Travel Tavern where Alan lives, is continually upbraided by Partridge for this "Jordy" accent.I'm Alan Partridge is a quasi Samuel Beckett comedy about a man so corkscrewed by life that he cannot have a normal or typical social instinct about his circumstances or those of other people. His daydreams are abashedly homoerotic and his Linton Travel Tavern Pay per View orders run to Bangkok Chick Boys.Partridge sees people around him as extensions of the cash nexus, step-stools for his own egomania. Perhaps they do not appear to him as human at all. In the episode "To Kill a Mocking Alan" he meets his #1 fan Jed Maxwell. Partridge takes it as perfectly natural that his talentless TV hackwork would earn him a fan. Not until the end of the episode does he realize the fan is a stalker psychopath, and that his adoration of Partridge is simply an expression of mental illness. "You're a mentalist!" Partridge yells at Jed as he flees from the man's house in horror.The 2 disc DVD package from BBC Video is an affectless treat. In addition to the usual deleted scenes and outtakes, there is audio commentary by Alan Partridge himself, joined by Liz. The DVD menu itself recapitulates the TV menu system from the Linton Travel Tavern: adult PPV options, elevator music, and parking lot security camera footage included.Watch and weep.___________________________________________

lauraeileen894 What Martin Short's fake talk show host Jiminy Glick is to the states, Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge is to the U.K. (albeit funnier and more sophisticated). Coogan's fictional alter ego Partridge had his own "chat show" in 1995 called "Knowing Me, Knowing You- with Alan Partridge" (which many British viewers thought was the real thing!). The show was strategically made to only last one season in order to bring about the spin-off "I'm Alan Partridge", which dealt with the demise of Partridge's show and his not-so-brilliant career.Rubber-faced, snaggle-toothed Coogan creates one of the best unlikable characters since John Cleese's Basil Fawlty. Alan "A-Ha!" Partridge is an untalented, unprofessional, self-deluded, insensitive buffoon who's blissfully unaware of the fact that no one likes him and that no one misses his short-lived show. Forced to work as an early morning disc jockey and live in a fleabag hotel, Partridge struggles to rebuild his career, but always failing due to his own stupidity and tactlessness. He is a burden to the hotel staff (he's lived there a whopping six months), a tyrant to his loyal assistant Lynn, and thorn in the side of BBC executive Tony Hayers. It is a bit depressing, watching Partridge fail episode after episode, but he's such a pompous twit you quickly stop caring and just enjoy the darkly comic ride. One episode dealt with Partridge's insulting England's farmers (I don't dare spoil how they exact their revenge). Coogan hams it up as vile Alan Partridge, who's unsympathetic to the point of pure evil (in one episode, he uses a recently dead man's hand to finish signing the TV contract to relaunch his career). The supporting cast gamely keep straight faces amid Partridge's idiotic antics. Watching someone else's failure was never so much fun!

VictorianCushionCat Following up to the origional "I'm Alan" was a tall order.As an avid fan of the radio/TV/live shows (basically anything Coogan has done as Alan P) I was worried that this follow up would be hard pressed to match the genius of the Travel Tavern episodes.And it is true, it is not quite as good, but then the first series was sublime, not only because of the classic quotes I still share withfellow fans today, but because of the direness of Alan's Situation and how he handles it.His lot is better in 'I'm Still Alan' albeit still pretty desperate, and the series is basically very good, not a great, but very good. Plenty of 'cringe' moments and memorable lines 'back of the net!' being the most repeated that have since been added to the mix of over a decade of Partridgeisms.Partridge was easily the funniest character to emerge in the 90s however I would be worried any further series could see declining returns.