Graham Linehan has confirmed that The IT Crowd is to end next year, following an extended special.

Previous announcements were made in regard to a fifth series expected in April 2012, and indeed, writers were attached to the show’s brainstorming stages in a bid to support Linehan’s scriptwriting work on the show.

TVO had heard mumblings that the fifth series may not be emerging some time ago, but naturally, kept silent until we could be certain.

That certainty arrived last night, when Linehan engaged in a Reddit chat with fans, stating:

“I’ll say right off the bat…the bad news is no IT Crowd Series 5. The good news is an extended special next year called…actually I won’t tell you the title because you’ll end up imagining better storylines than the one I’ve written.”

Answering questions from fans, he continued by explaining that he “just wasn’t looking forward to it the way [he] used to”, despite the last series giving him some of his favourite episodes.  However, he promised a big special to round off and didn’t rule out a movie if the idea was strong enough.

Taking to Twitter post-discussion, he also defended the increasingly popular cast from accusations they had become too big for the show stating: “They were all up for it. Even Chris [Morris]. I was the one who couldn’t face it.”

So there you have it – we at TVO will naturally be sad to see it go, as will a great number of people worldwide, but with one more special episode to look forward to next year, and maybe even a film version in the pipeline, there’s just enough life in the Crowd yet.  And what a glorious run of episodes they leave behind – all of which you can buy on dvd now from The Velvet Onion Amazon Store!