Extras Extra

Wow. Not sure what to say. Where did I hear about it first? BBC? The paper? Or internet? Ah, I can't remember.

Last night, it was planned that I was to have a Ricky Gervais night at mine. Featuring a playlist of The Office Christmas episodes, his live 'Fame' standup and finally, on TV, Extras.

Oh, it was hilarious. The Office was because Christmas has just gone, and as host, I wanted to make it contextually fitting!
Fame well that was funny, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

TV on, volume up, lights dimmed, doors closed, bladder emptied! BBC ident showing, intro sequence begins.

Big Brother? Wow! I let out a laugh (a quiet one, so that I don't miss a thing) because opening sequences that I don't expect (the intros to Extras always begin as a scene from a film or from the show that Andy, the programme's protagonist, for all you not knowers, is in).

From thence forth, I didn't know what to expect. I knew from watching the Office Christmas episodes that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant could pen good series conclusions. But not the way last night.

As each episode in each series progressed, we see Andy climbing the slippery ladder to fame, and each time, Maggie sees him becoming a worse friend than before. So that had to go somewhere. Part of me was hoping there would be a romance. I've never seen Gervais do that. Oh, apart from in the Office. But you can see that sort of bond there between them, can't you?

I expected to laugh a bit more. But you're tipping the scales there between the midlife crisis Andy (and Maggie for that matter) is in with humour. Still, being Gervais, he never fails to make a cringeworthy fool out of himself anyway (stomach girdle snapping - LOL!).

Yet at the same time, and I respect Gervais for doing this as anything he puts his name on is a cash cow, manages to put every critical thing I have to say about fame and celebrity into the storyline/dialogue. Wow. I mean, is he doing that deliberately to let his fans know that being famous isn't everything, even though Extras could loosely be based around his climb to fame? Where did he learn to act for example? Because a long, emotional monologue (with real tears?) to the camera to Maggie watching at home was like "Whoah, that's powerful stuff from the man I seen on the extras of his DVDs, who clearly acts like a prat most of the time!"

"I'm sick of these celebrities living their life out in the open. Why would you do that? Fuck the makers of this show! The Victorian freak show never went away. Now it's called Big Brother or The X-Factor. We wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multi-millionaires. Fuck you for watching this at home! Shame on you and shame on me!"

*applause from my settee*

Nancy Banks-Smith gave it an okay review in the Guardian. That's all well and dandy, but I would have preferred that Sam Wollaston fella myself. She said that the celebrity appearances were "etched in acid" and most of them were "good sports or... glad to be asked." I agree. George Michael turning up on the 'queer bench' as that Scottish character (the name escapes me) from the first series is talking to Andy - loud laughs among all! I, like her, thought that Hale and Pace were Chas and Dave...

Anyway, for me, it would be biased to try and review last night's episode like a TV reviewer as I'm a Gervais fan, it wouldn't be fair. Rather, I'll rate it on its 'wow' factor for fans, and I have to say, he did a great job with it. There was some different soundtrack throughout, which I'm not too sure fitted well with transitions. It ended negatively, highlighting the mid-life crises they were both facing, Andy, Maggie, Andy's agent and 'Barry' all lost their jobs, and in the end, Andy deceives his agent and quits fame forever. Sure, it was long, but fans such as myself stuck with it through all one hour and twenty-five minutes of it, and every up and down kept me hooked to see how Gervais was going to end it. As I said before, I don't know where he learned to write his scripts, or do emotional monologues (it was a good thing, as you never expect his characters to have the depth of emotion), but he did a good job.

So, "Wow."

And the figures are in: it scored 5m viewers!