Extras Christmas Special - DVD Review (Extras Christmas Special)

Member Name: DavidJay

Product:	Extras Christmas Special
Date:	08/01/09 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Much better written than the series proper.

Disadvantages: The odd forced-feeling celeb moment.

Extras, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's follow up to the outstanding The Office, was, on initial viewings at least, fairly disappointing. The beautifully observed moments of human foible and social embarrassment that defined the earlier show were herein welded to a much broader, much more hyperbolic style of sitcom writing - the "cringe" moments were amplified and exaggerated to seriously detrimental effect, an emphasis was put on unrealistic and unbelievable "Big Laugh" moments totally at odds with the much more considered material on either side, and the much-discussed celebrity cameos often threatened to derail the whole enterprise - there is nothing new or especially funny about celebrities poking fun at themselves or their public persona, and such moments often felt forced, shoehorned into narratives that would have been all the more engaging without them. The horrific David Bowie sequence arriving early in series 2 is one such example.

There is also a deeply unpleasant air of self-importance and snobbery about Extras. It goes out of its way to announce its own Importance, its distance from the generic, lazy comedy propping up the schedules on either side. In truth, though, it is at times as cynical and as lazy as anything you might encounter on BBC3 or ITV of an evening - the fairly nicely handed relationship between Gervais' Andy Millman and a nice but overly-clingy co-extra in series 1 is brought to a conclusion via a Big Slapstick face-in-bowl-of-soup gag that feels absolutely out of place given the finely crafted preceding scenes - it's a moment of unreality that ruptures the sense of reality the show works so hard at maintaining elsewhere. The same charge can be levelled against two-thirds of the celebrity appearances.

It is important to note these flaws because so much critical blather about anything Gervais and Merchant concoct either ignores them outright or paints them as virtues. To do so is to degrade the Good Stuff that keeps the series afloat in spite of these annoying blemishes. For the Good Stuff is exceptionally Good, and shines brightest in the Christmas Special, an almost-perfect piece of television comedy.

The special finds Millman struggling with the old art / commerce conundrum. He is the writer and star of a successful prime-time sitcom, but he detests the show, which he considers lazy "catchphrase" comedy, and its audience, who he considers "morons". Whereas Extras hitherto seemed entirely sympathetic to Millman's elitist, pompous wailing, the special is much more critical.

Half-way through, he walks out of the show, certain that "Proper" roles will be waiting. They aren't, and before long he's doing bit parts on Doctor Who and Hotel Babylon (Extras curiously correlates the two, even though Who is in a different universe, insofar as critical and popular opinion is concerned), finally taking up the offer of a spot on Celebrity Big Brother.

Millman's progression (regression?) from miserable but ultimately (in the show's eyes, anyway) lovable fool to nasty, self-obsessed villain is beautifully graded, and benefits no end from the wonderful work of Gervais' co-star, Ashley Jenkins. Playing Millman's best friend Maggie Jacobs, she provides the heart of the show. Her decision to give up working as an extra (following a typically uncomfortable - and not necessarily in the way it was intended - scene involving Clive Owen) to take a job as a cleaner, is contrasted repeatedly with Millman's luxury and comfort, and her REAL struggles with his trivial concerns about fame and respect.

The big comedy moments work much better here than in the regular series, also. One of the best scenes, in fact, is an extended and wholly excruciating affair involving a pompous Millman, a bemused Guardian journalist, and a totally lost Maggie pretending, on a second's notice, to be the star's personal assistant. Millman desperately tries to appear much more important and connected than he is. Maggie has no idea what she's supposed to be doing, botching the lines Millman attempts to communicate to her when the journalist's back is turned. A faked phone call from Ridley Scott ("Wiggley Scott on the phone" says Maggie) is revealed as such when the journalist begins passing on messages to the director via Andy. So on and so forth. It is, as Merchant and Gervais say on the DVD commentary, pure farce, and it is expertly handled.

Merchant himself gets much more screen-time than usual, playing the hideously incompetent agent Darren Lamb, nailing that lovable goon / destructive fool character so beloved of the pair. Shaun Williamson as his sidekick, "Barry from Eastenders", is wonderful also, fearlessly mocking himself in a way that seems much less contrived and back-slappy than it does when, say, George Michael shows up to make some jokes about his cruising exploits. So too the cameo from Hale and Pace, which, like Les Dennis' appearance in the first season, is genuinely surprising with regards the degree of self-laceration on display.

The Extras Christmas Special absolutely redeems the show, highlighting its many virtues and making its flaws all the easier to accommodate. The DVD, cheaply priced in most outlets, has a fair smattering of, um, extras, including a nice (and "straight" for the most part) commentary track from the writing / directing / starring duo and, perhaps best of all, an extra concerning the extras on Extras in which Karl Pilkington - cult hero and foil of Gervais and Merchant on their much-loved podcast - becomes an extra for the day, recording a video diary of his experience.

It's certainly well worth seeing - the Big Brother sequence alone is a must. It provides a humane, warm, admirably (or infuriatingly, depending on your disposition) open-ended conclusion that fans of the show will adore, and that may well win over even those of us who remained alternately sceptical and disappointed throughout the bulk of the seasons proper.

Summary: An excellent conclusion to a sometimes dissapointing series.