"Extras" Review

I recently re-watched one of my all time favorite shows title "Extras". After watching both seasons and the final Christmas special I decided to do a review on it. If you are not familiar with the show Extras I highly suggest you check it out and this is why:

"Extras" stars one of the greatest and hilarious comedians of our time Ricky Gervais (The Office UK, Ghost Town). Gervais plays the character of Andy Millman an out of luck background artist (extra) who is struggling to be a full time actor but has yet to have an actual line of dialogue in his career. One of the main reasons behind this is because of his ridiculous manager Darren Lamb (Stephan Merchant). Gervais's character Andy is best friends with another extra who he always works with, Maggie Jacobs (Ashley Jensen).

Season 1

Season one of extras is a short but amazing comedy season. We are introduced right away to the character of Andy Millman. Andy claims to his fellow peers and co workers that he is an actual actor and is just doing extra work for spare time, though he has never actually had any lines of dialogue. He is often teased for this by another extra Greg Lindley-Jones (Shawn Pye). The season shows the characters working on a different project each episode. Every episode usually has at least one big star who will do an hilarious cameo.

Ricky Gervais has a great and strong performance through out this whole season. Ashley Jensen and Stephan Merchant are also hilarious. The great thing about this show is its sense of humor. It's very dark and witty unlike most sitcoms. The characters are always put in the most awkward situations which will make you laugh and cringe at the same time. One of the best things about the season would be celebrity guests they have portraying outrageous versions of themselves. We have Ben Stiller in the first episode who is directing a movie that our extras are staring in. Ben Stiller is great in this because he come of as such a dick that you just have to laugh. Another celebrity that did great was Kate WInslet, the dialogue that came out of her mouth was completly shocking, vulgar and hilarious. The season ends with Andy getting a chance to produce a pilot he wrote for BBC titled "When The Whistle Blows".

Season 2

In my humble opinion season two of Extras is even better than the first. We start were we left off last season with Gervais's character Andy Millman producing and starring in a pilot he wrote for BBC "When The Whistle Blows". However things are not going the way he had hoped the script he had originally wrote has been twisted around by the production company and been made into immature and tasteless humor. Throughout the season Andys problems just gets worse and worse, his manger Daren is not helping things get better at all. Andy is finally starting to gain fame but not the kind he had wished for. He is constantly being criticized which causes him allot of stress.

Once again everything worked out great this season, the characters, witting and acting was spot on. This season also showed many more celebrity guests that were just as hilarious if not more than the first seasons guests. Orlando Bloom was the first celebrity to appear this season, he came off as extremely cocky and arrogant which worked out perfectly. I would have to say one of my favorite celebrity guests would be Danile Radcliff. Radcliffe is shown hitting on every female on the set and proving he is mature, this is sure to bring laughs. As the season goes on you can see Andy getting more and more stressed out over his job. It ends in good way but also leaves allot of blanks.

Christmas Special

Now when you hear the the word "Christmas Special" it usually comes with a sigh of disappointment, well in this case it is the exact opposite. This "Christmas Special" was the perfect way to end the series. The episode itself is an hour and half which is the length of half a season of Extras, so it's basically a TV movie with a sitcom budjet.

Andy Millman's sitcom "When The Whistle Blows" has been on for 3 seasons now and he is now very famous. However Andy is not happy at all because he does not have the respectable fame he was hoping to get. His former extra nemesis Greg is actually getting the fame and respect he believes he deserves. Andy becomes sick of the life he has. He decides to change things around. He starts his change by firing his manager Darren. Andy finds a new manager that seems to be much more professional. Andy finally decides to quit his show because he has had enough of the criticism, he wants a respectful career that he can look back on. Unfortunately for Andy nothing comes in for months and he is forced to ridiculous roles on mediocre shows and his new manager is ignoring him. through out all of Andy's misery Maggie is there trying to keep things on a positive note. Though Andy has had enough of her and is just merely fame hungry.

What makes this series finale so spectacular is the fact that it has a great balance between comedy and drama. The ending of this special has such an emotional and important scene that deals with serious media issues that it just has to be watched. Another great thing about this special is once again the celebrity guest stars. This episode features quite a few stars such as Lionel Blair, Dean Gaffney, Toby Foster, Hale & Pace, George Michael, Clive Owen, Gordon Ramsay, Lisa Scott-Lee, Chico Slimani, June Sarpong, Vernon Kay, Karl Pilkington, and David Tennant. The scene with George Micheal according to Ricky Gervais was "The furthest we have ever gotten a celebrity to go in the show" which is probably true. The scene with Clive Owen may just be one of the funniest scenes on extras. This episode will give the audience a huge emotional impact and perhaps even teach people a thing or two. I'm sad to such an amazing show leave so soon but it was indeed a perfect ending to a perfect show.

So in conclusion Ricky Gervais's "Extras" is to simply put it: Awesome! If you have yet to see this show I highly recommend you watch it. It's the perfect mix of awkwardness and dark comedy that just makes you cringe and laugh out loud. Bravo Mr.Gervais, bravo.