Arnold
Tash Jayasinghe
CibbuanoExtras, Episode 5, Series 2
October 18th 2006 06:36
Watch it here - BBC website
Oh wow. What's happened to this show? I said last week that it's starting to look like one great big Andy Kaufman joke, and now I'm really starting to feel that this might be the case. I heard someone mention the other day mention the words 'jump the shark' in relation to Extras and after seeing the latest episode I'm inclined to agree.
Gervais has said that he won't go beyond two series with this show, so I really hope he has something up his sleeve for the final episode! He's got a lot of redeeming to do!
This episode sees Andy in trouble yet again, his show 'When The Whistle Blows' has come under fire for being misogynistic and just generally backward. He complains to his agent that he wants to do some theatre, to start a body of work that he can look back on be proud of, and so he gets an offer from Ian McKellen to come and be in a play.
Prior to this, we're set up with Andy meeting an old school 'friend' - a bullying, alpha-male type who likes to imply that Andy is a homosexual. Of course, McKellen's play is about gays, and Andy has to play gay. At first he is hesitant, but his career is well and truly being panned by the critics so he relents, but then this alpha-male dude comes to watch the play and Andy startes to waver...
I won't go any further into the mechanics of the plot, but it's really starting to wear thin. A formula has definitely emerged, and the set ups are all too obvious, it's becoming increasingly contrived and painful to watch. The cringe moments are too much - there aren't enough laughs anymore, it just made me unfomfortable. I think I barely managed a smile in this episode, maybe I need to watch it again, I dunno.
I have a theory that it's all a big con. Gervais and Merchant are playing their audience, making us watch shit because they can - the sort of thing Andy Kaufman used to do. Someone's definitely having a laugh - when the parody show (When the Whistle Blows) is more entertaining than the show around it, well, they've got to be putting it on? Right?
Right?
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