Arnold
CibbuanoExtras, with Harry Potter
October 3rd 2006 06:56
Extras, series 2, episode 3 - watch the latest episode
Well, the third episode of Extras was shown the other night in the UK. This episode guest-starred Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter 'imself), Dame Diana Rigg and Warwick Davis, as well as a whole host of small-screen UK personalities.
Andy's sitcom is still as crap as ever, but it's popularity with the masses helps get him a small role in a film with Daniel Radcliffe and Warwick Davis. The appearance of the diminutive Davis allows for a series of embarrassing and hard-to-watch faux pas' involving people of short stature. Davis is a pretty good sport and even gets into an onscreen fight with Ricky Gervais at one point, with cringeworthy results.
The must amusing facet of the episode would have to be Radcliffe though... at first I thought they were just re-treading the vanity thing that they'd done with Orlando Bloom but it ended up being a lot funnier than that. Radcliffe plays himself as a little boy trying to act cool and all adult-like... he carries around a wrinkled condom trying to 'have intercourse' with various uninterested ladies, swears, claims to drink and smoke, and generally comes off pretty badly - always calling for his mum! Props to Radcliffe for allowing himself to be depicted in such a hilarious and humiliating way.
This episode isn't anywhere near as hard to watch as the David Bowie episode last week, but the sequences involving Andy's inadvertant swipes at a boy with down syndrome were particularly squirm-inducing, and I found myself unbelievingly gasping at the screen with every gaff he makes, "Oh no!" and "Oh you've got to be kidding!"
Whilst there is a kind of formula at work here - what with Andy fucking things up for himself one episode after another, there's still a real uncharted-territory feel to the proceedings. I really can't predict where they're heading with this show. It was good to see some fleshing-out of Stephen Merchant's character in this episode too. Maggie, on the other hand, has been a little underused in the last few episodes, but as Gervais doesn't intend to take this show past 2 series, I hope they'll use her a bit more in the next three series.
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