Peep Show: Reflections on a TV Masterpiece

The mountains outside shone brightly, reflecting the warm Alpine sunlight. It was April 2017, and the uni ski trip was in full swing. Skiing and two pints of beer had tired me out, but in this blur of holiday euphoria a common theme popped up again and again: Peep Show. Integrated into conversation after conversation on the slopes, I realised this was more than a show; I had discovered a student cult…

A positive cult, it must be said. This trip made me realise that I must investigate. And so for (only) the third time in my life, I embarked on a Netflix binge. Series 1-4. Few breaks. Work? Forget it! Mark and Jeremy became a part of my life this summer. Briefly interrupted by a quick wander up Kilimanjaro, I finished the series fairly quickly. Thanks to my 1^st year at Bristol, the drug references made sense, and I could suddenly relate to the student-esque lifestyles of Mark and Jeremy. The kitchen politics made sense, and I still can’t decide between Frosties (Jeremy) or Crunchy Nut (Mark). The fact that the show ended in 2015 makes it all the more appealing: It can be seen as a time capsule into early noughties social history, even though it seems like just yesterday.

In many ways, it represents a student’s inner conflict. Part of me is Mark, wanting to have a professional life and grow up. But part of me is still Jeremy, trying to have a fun social ego and party. Although on the latter, Jeremy does seem to have a little more success on the female department, albeit much a result of some pretty cruel manipulative tactics. The Mark/Jeremy conflict is quintessentially Bristol; the inner Wills Library V the inner Lizard Lounge. Of course, Schadenfreude plays a great deal, with the viewer perhaps relieved that his/her social awkwardness isn’t quite on the scale of Mark. It is in many ways a window into the expected extraordinary ordinary of nature of  professional working life, it is also a throwback to the past. Not just the analogue TVs in the intro and box PCs scattered across the homogenous JLB Credit workplace, but the hilarious awkwardness of the Mark-Sophie ‘will they won’t they’ dynamic. For the slightly awkward male, it perfectly encapsulates the romance and the excitement of teenage courting. Those little looks, subtle hints, and eventually a complete screw up that becomes a group in joke for decades. It’s a window into the past self; repressed, but nostalgically loved.

The show is a departure from the usual good/evil Hollywood dramatism, or the formulaic crime drama. It offers a vision of a future that doesn’t promise grandiosity, a counter to our modern day hero worship. Jeremy’s ill fated music career is in fact a parody of this, a comic-tragedy of the great idealism-reality dichotomy. Of course, the show has a dark side. Jeremy’s misogyny is ever present, and his snobbery when he embarks on a cleaning job at the gym is shameful, likening the minimum wage to ‘the other side of a potato’. Undeniably funny, but also out of touch. Surely the best humour is funny without controversy? Michael Macintyre for example has made jokes about bin disposal, and filling forms out on websites, surely Cambridge educated Mitchell and Webb can too? Although it can be said that this was before the age of the zero-hour contract and the press narrative of Tory antipathy towards the working class. Jeremy Clarkson could get away with much worse in the 2007 era of peak Top-Gear, making Peep Show pale in comparison in terms of risqué humour. In short, with the issues in society not as stark, the occasional Peep Show faux pas was relatively acceptable.

 Peep show represents an era when times were brighter, giving our personal nostalgia societal reinforcement. The biggest EU related worry, as Mark frequently alludes to, was the Euro. Much of the early seasons were shown amidst a time of 2.5% growth rates, more home ownership, increasing wages and a stable financial sector that seemed to bring countrywide benefits (if you could stomach the inequality that is). It was a brighter era, when post-grad life wasn’t afflicted by the unstable nature of the gig economy. Work was still boring yes, but there was a glut of ‘good jobs’. 2017 Jeremy might have been much more thankful for his job at the gym. If not, it would be pretty astounding if Mark continued to let Jeremy stay rent free at their Corydon flat, given the average £1500 rent p/m in the capital, double the national average. Therefore, its economic as well as social escapism.

But like its storylines, the setting also seems vaguely in reach. Yes, a London flatshare and life on an average salary in an office may not be the dream, but once a student it becomes a comfortable acceptable goal. The inner 5 year old may wanted to be a BA long haul pilot, or perhaps a frog, but Peep Show aligns with ambitions thwarted to a nice acceptable degree (pardon the pun) Its storylines make ‘average’ on par with ‘economic success’, thanks to the social misadventures and friendship that transcends traditional career chasing. It gives ‘real life’, as a goal at least, a post-modern, mature shine.

The show takes the unusual route of dilemma, without a resolution; digging that hole deeper and deeper. But it didn’t matter, because Mark and Jeremy had each other, so no matter what social or economic mishap occurred, inside (and often outside) they were just two boys trying to get through life. That gives the viewer a kind of certainty, that everything will be ok; that career failure, the odd silly comment or even total unmitigated romantic disaster won’t deter one exclaiming c’est la vie while holding a glass of cheap rosé to the air. This humorous nihilism of Peep Show now represents an even stronger guide going forwards amidst the volatile era of Brexit and Trump’s Twitter feed. And of course now its finished, there’s the inner economist exclaiming ‘less supply=more demand!’ And finally, its themes of imaginative social disasters, workplace screw ups, subtle nihilism and most importantly, friendship, are universal. And that, I would argue, makes it a classic.