I'm watching this now (happened across it on 4seven). It's awful. I actually want to inflict physical pain on Gervais. I mean, he generally makes me think unpleasant things about him, but this is just so shite and I find his physical portrayal of Derek really offensive for the reasons onimo has mentioned there.
And to make it even worse, there's an ad for Mumford & Sons just turned up in the break.
― ailsa, Saturday, 2 February 2013 23:21 (eleven years ago) link
coming from a background where my main exposure to british comedy was the late-night pbs "sitcoms" such as keeping up appearances and as time goes by (along with funnier stuff, tbf, such as flying circus & aybs), it's surprising to me that some of the personalities such as gervais, jimmy carr, justin lee collins etc. are even more abrasive than their us counterparts
― chilli, Sunday, 3 February 2013 02:01 (eleven years ago) link
the frankie boyles rely on the 'brute force' method of being funny
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 3 February 2013 09:07 (eleven years ago) link
the frankie boyles rely on the 'brute force' method instead of being funny
^^^ fixed that for you
― SOYLENT GREEN IS SHEEPLE (stevie), Sunday, 3 February 2013 15:43 (eleven years ago) link
otm
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 3 February 2013 20:49 (eleven years ago) link
It is so heartening to see that most of you people think entertainers like Gervais, Boyle etc are wankers and sort of beyond the pale. I despise 'em and am sick of listening to apologists. Just sort of saying well done ILX for maintaining a level of decency that seems to be quite rare these days.
― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Monday, 4 February 2013 02:43 (eleven years ago) link
they're not even doing it for the greater good or anything, they're doing it solely to be more famous
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 February 2013 03:56 (eleven years ago) link
it seems to be a fairly uncomplicated stance tho inasmuch as no-one here seems to think they're funny? I guess if a bunch of ppl itt had reported back saying "well I got lots of guilty laughs out of it but overall fuck this guy" it might have piqued my interest but going on the examples cited above...
― ima go (DJ Mencap), Monday, 4 February 2013 10:18 (eleven years ago) link
My problem with Derek is different. I don't think he's punching down, he's just colossally condescending. Derek is the mental-health version of the Magical Negro, wiser and kinder than anyone else. The dialogue directed against the strawman guy-in-a-suit was so hideously didactic and sentimental. I find it amazing that someone who made his name mocking characters for their lack of self-awareness now appears to have none itself. Derek is like a movie that Gervais would have been parodying in an episode of Extras. It's The Day the Clown Cried territory. And as one critic pointed out, a show that ostensibly complains about the marginalisation of old people by the uncaring, red-tape-obsessed state manages not to give its pensioner characters a single line of dialogue.
― Deafening silence (DL), Monday, 4 February 2013 10:38 (eleven years ago) link
best review i've read of it so far, DL.
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Monday, 4 February 2013 10:42 (eleven years ago) link
Yes, that's absolutely spot on.
fwiw, I am happy to admit in public that I have been known to find Jimmy Carr reasonably amusing, and used to like Frankie Boyle before he hit the self-destruct button (i.e pre-Tramadol Nights). His nihilism is too much for me now, and he seems to have entirely sacrificed the lolz in order to just be controversial. Or "controversial" with exaggerated scare quotes.
― ailsa, Monday, 4 February 2013 11:41 (eleven years ago) link
Still, well done Frankie on getting that column in the Sun
― Designated Striver (Tom D.), Monday, 4 February 2013 11:44 (eleven years ago) link
I watched the Office again recently and still loved it, but it's not surprising that Gervais actually is Brent.
― abcfsk, Monday, 4 February 2013 11:46 (eleven years ago) link
I think Carr can be funny, but maybe in a way that's only notable by the ridiculously and confusingly low standards of (British) comedy. I mean, being funny isn't that hard, is it? If being funny is your job then how can you, average comedian, fail to do it so comprehensively?
― hot young stalin (Merdeyeux), Monday, 4 February 2013 11:48 (eleven years ago) link
Be fair, damn near everyone is shit at their job.
karl pilkington do we think he's funny? I like him
stewart lee's carpet remnant world was good, v much of a piece with his last few shoes but not yet bored of it
― ben foster five (darraghmac), Monday, 4 February 2013 11:51 (eleven years ago) link
Fuckin android tho
ya tbf i'm here discussing comedy when i should be writing, maybe when that bald cunt from mock the week should be thinking up funny things he's instead writing about structuralism.
― hot young stalin (Merdeyeux), Monday, 4 February 2013 11:53 (eleven years ago) link
DL otm, and i also don't get why pilkington is in this at all. he plays pilkington (because he's not an actor), so you're never seeing dougie at all, you're only ever seeing pilkington.
the line of pathos that burns through this show is p clearly an excuse for gervais to say 'hey see, i am sympathetic toward mongs after all'. i don't get why he has to play the bloke with learning difficulties (beyond narcissism obv).
btw now we know how this is structured as a whole series: some people from head office the government have visited to close down the slough branch the care centre due to cutbacks cutbacks, and the office the heartwarming ending writes itself.
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 February 2013 20:44 (eleven years ago) link
gervais is a classic dostoevskian buffoon, making a proud capering display of his expertise on his own dickishness, repellent to all.
― Say Bo to a (Fizzles), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 05:17 (eleven years ago) link
another five years of this and he will very literally disappear up his own arse. meanwhile I'm keen to see what stephen merchant (who was not involved in 'derek') produces for hbo in america. I'm starting to suspect he's the ego restraint that gervais desperately needs.
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 05:52 (eleven years ago) link
jimmy carr is slightly different than the other comedians mentioned perhaps — i've found him funny on supporting appearances on shows like qi, and he obviously has a quick wit. i find the role he plays in planned stuff, stand-up or various hosting gigs, to be very obnoxious. there he seems a detached, bigoted, and utterly unlikeable person, which i don't believe he is in everyday life even with all the personal scandals. boyle has a similar persona but is somewhat funnier with it imo
― chilli, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 07:27 (eleven years ago) link
Stephen Merchant, currently seen in MOVIE 43: this is guaranteed to be hot garbage, right
I've seen Jimmy Carr and David O'Doherty do an odd double act where Jimmy Carr just reads out one-liners and DOD vamps on his keyboard. I didn't hate it (though it's always been very mid-bill).
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 08:24 (eleven years ago) link
Actually, what was Life's Too Short like?
Also from IMDB, ooof:
Hello Ladies (2013– )TV Series - ComedyYour rating: -/10 (awaiting 5 votes) Reviews: write reviewA gawky Englishman comes to Los Angeles to find the woman of his dreams.
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 08:29 (eleven years ago) link
Oh, he was talking about that on Graham Norton last week. It's the premise of his stand-up tour, turned into a sitcom. In my head, it's a direct successor to Jim Carrey's version of Danny Wallace in Yes Man.
― ailsa, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 09:21 (eleven years ago) link
not sure tbh. the first episode had warwick davis playing david brent lite for the first half, and the second half was a completely out-of-place comedy sketch feat. ricky gervais and liam neeson. i don't even remember whether davis was in that entire scene. after that i gave up and wrote off the whole thing as another gervais vanity project (as did most of britain iirc).
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 09:40 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah I have in my head that there's a direct line from Life's Too Short to Derek (er, not that I've seen either of them), but Merchant was definitely on board with Life's Too Short, is why I was asking.
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 10:06 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, that surprised me too. perhaps that was his breaking point.
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 10:20 (eleven years ago) link
(he wasn't involved in the final idiot abroad series either iirc)
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 10:21 (eleven years ago) link
Ricky Gervais is such a blight these days.
― dog latin, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 11:26 (eleven years ago) link
I think Boyle is 100% persona. Reading him Tweet back and forth with other comics (some unlikely - he seems to be pretty tight with, like, Robin Ince) you get such a different sense of that guy.
― Walter Galt, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 11:44 (eleven years ago) link
gervais comes off well here (doesn't necessarily prove anything tho - most comics do given the opportunity to explain their behaviour in print - see also boyle)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/feb/02/ricky-gervais-interview-derek-comedy
― nashwan, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 11:54 (eleven years ago) link
Life's too short had brief moments of greatness but otherwise was either dull Brent rehashed or unlikely "excruciating" moments rehashed (e.g. Crap wedding speech that wouldn't have made it into the first draft of The Office). Also the Gervaise and Merchant or celeb bits were just bizarrely crowbarred in.
― kinder, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 13:13 (eleven years ago) link
One episode of Life's Too Short had a grotesque scene in which Gervais accidentally offends Steve Carell over Skype, thus blowing any chance of him returning to the US Office, and complains about how much money he's just lost as a result, thus indicating that he has already made a far greater sum from The Office. Multi-millionaire loses chance to earn even more millions with a single Skype call - this is not a winning comedic premise. It was such a bizarre misjudgement to cast Warwick Davis as an early-Gervais-style no-hoper while Gervais himself plays a smug mogul, surrounded by framed posters of his movies and courted by celebrities, and gives himself a much easier ride than he gave, say, Ben Stiller in Extras. If ever somebody has become what he once despised.
Liam Neeson's bit was good though.
― Deafening silence (DL), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 14:12 (eleven years ago) link
Liam Neeson's bit was amazing, one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The rest was generally somewhere between crap and mediocre.
― nate woolls, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 15:06 (eleven years ago) link
One episode of Life's Too Short had a grotesque scene in which Gervais accidentally offends Steve Carell over Skype, thus blowing any chance of him returning to the US Office, and complains about how much money he's just lost as a result, thus indicating that he has already made a far greater sum from The Office. Multi-millionaire loses chance to earn even more millions with a single Skype call - this is not a winning comedic premise.
this, in a show about warwick davis
― walloreinhart (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 20:57 (eleven years ago) link
so...the prospect of new David Brent stuff for Comic Relief then...
― the Shearer of simulated snowsex etc. (Dwight Yorke), Monday, 11 March 2013 23:47 (eleven years ago) link
is the brent stuff worth watching?
shame how poor the kevin eldon sketch show is. not hugely surprising though, v late in the game to be busting out a sketch show. if he had it in him he'd have done it long long ago.
in happier news, anna & katy, while not perfect, has some great moments (congratulations, the countdown thing before they milk it too much).
― NI, Sunday, 17 March 2013 23:43 (eleven years ago) link
do wonder how the critics will respond to It's Kevin as he's the ultimate broadhseet comedy goldenboy. twitter seems divided between hate/love, but then again the same can be said for derek and that's probably the worst thing ever ever ever
― NI, Sunday, 17 March 2013 23:45 (eleven years ago) link
gervais is over
― Esteban Buttiérrez (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 18 March 2013 00:10 (eleven years ago) link
nope, Derek got recommissioned
― ( ͡° ͜ʖ͡°) (sic), Monday, 18 March 2013 00:16 (eleven years ago) link
no i mean gervais is over
― Esteban Buttiérrez (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 18 March 2013 00:25 (eleven years ago) link
he will keep doing stuff but most people seem well sick of him
― Esteban Buttiérrez (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 18 March 2013 00:26 (eleven years ago) link
except that he is still hugely popular
― ( ͡° ͜ʖ͡°) (sic), Monday, 18 March 2013 00:38 (eleven years ago) link
tragically
the story of gervais decrees that he will suffer a massive massive fall from grace at some point soon. i don't mean artistically, he's done and dusted that, but some huge personal meltdown - his persona on twitter is so weird, the whole arrogant atheist thing is tiresome enough but the relentless retweeting of praise shows signs of someone who doesn't really know what he is anymore. i've been listening to the (very good) xfm shows from 2003 and there's no way that RG would behave like the one we have now
― NI, Monday, 18 March 2013 00:59 (eleven years ago) link
oh and merchant is kindof a dick in them. barely ever funny and often lets some v unpleasant thoughts slip out, about women, the poor, etc. i think his role in the brilliance of the office is overstated, esp after the next-level shite that was his standup show of the other year
― NI, Monday, 18 March 2013 01:00 (eleven years ago) link
he was good as the voice of portal 2, mind. not sure how much input he had into the writing of that
― NI, Monday, 18 March 2013 01:01 (eleven years ago) link
but yeah gervais is living out some kind of greek tragedy, he's had his artistic downfall and i'm convinced he has a bigger one to come. if he doesn't then... guh, cunts really do run the world
― NI, Monday, 18 March 2013 01:02 (eleven years ago) link
also, in defence of 'mong': a symphony in 26 parts
― Esteban Buttiérrez (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 18 March 2013 01:05 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zEqfle758M
― NI, Monday, 18 March 2013 01:21 (eleven years ago) link