When good TV goes bad: how Ricky Gervais’s Extras went off-script

In the second series of the meta comedy, its lead and creators found fame, making it a sanctimonious sitcom rife with celebrity schmoozing
There is an awkward moment during an episode of Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Podcast when its host raises his antipathy towards the second series of Extras. His guest is the sitcom’s co-creator Stephen Merchant. Now, Herring may not have any Bafta statues to line the mantelpiece alongside his numerous chortle.co.uk internet awards, but the underdog podcaster raises a good point: the magic of earlier episodes was jeopardised when the show’s lead character became successful. Extras wasn’t about extras any more.
There had been a fresh feel to Extras’ first series. It broke from the mockumentary style of Merchant and Ricky Gervais’s previous triumph, The Office. Each episode featured at least one VIP willing to send themselves up in hilarious fashion. Kate Winslet, for example, had the mouth of a sailor. The tabloid image of Les Dennis was taken to new levels of comic tragedy. Patrick Stewart yearned to telepathically remove women’s clothes. Gervais’s Andy Millman and Ashley Jensen’s big-hearted fellow extra Maggie, meanwhile, just looked on in bafflement.
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