Watching all three seasons of The League of Gentlemen didn't take quite as long as I had expected. Each season only comprises of six episodes, as compared to, say, other half-hour counterparts from the US, where we can expect typically twenty-two to twenty-four in each. And it probably helped a lot that each episode was fascinatingly well-written, carrying you into the next episode so seamlessly that you almost had to compulsively flick to the next episode straight after the credits rolled.

Not to be confused with the movie of a similar name, this BAFTA-winning comedy from the BBC comes across as a breath of wildly fresh air in a sea of increasingly celluloid sitcoms — fed mainly from the US, as it would seem. (Or at least here in Singapore, where we get most of our goggle-box fodder from.)

Season one was more studio-based, with infrequent shoots outside, and it carried a lighter air of parody, of very typically dry British laughs. Towards the end of season three, the humour became a lot darker, and I confess to actually cowering behind a pillow during one of the scenes in the last episode.

One thing about the entire series is that you'd have to watch the seasons progressively to fully appreciate all the jokes, because they often pick up from where they left off, and also dig up older references from seasons past to construct their discourse.

All the characters (well, all the main ones, for sure) are played by three men in various get-ups — Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith. They write the episodes as well, together with Jeremy Dyson. I'd say that Pemberton's acting truly shows his talent, and it's most obvious in the varied characters he plays. But Shearsmith is quite versatile, appearance-wise, at least, and I do find his Papa Lazarou absolutely delightful. (And he looks most convincing in drag, too.)

Perhaps the one most obvious thing about the series in succession is that they got increasingly ambitious as they went by — and succeeded. While season one was mostly a sketch show, with little intertwining of characters, season three was more complex in that they centered on fewer characters and went deeper into the plots; cleverest was their tying in all six episodes in the final season to one, giant bang (and I mean bang) of an ending. Great writing.

They first aired in 1999, and last in 2002; the last I heard, they're coming back with either a new season, or a special mini-movie sort of thing. I certainly hope so. There's so much they could do with the show, even if they did achieve some sort of closure in the last episode — just enough to feel settled, but not quite enough that they sealed the show up permanently.

Let's hope we see the return sometime soon — it'd be hard to outdo the Gents, but if anyone's going to do it, it'd be them.