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Extras, Series 2, Episode 4

October 8th 2006 10:57

Extras, Series 2, Episode 4...

Watch it here - BBC website

I don't know what's going on with this show now. In this episode, Andy Millman starts out filming an insert for a starving-children charity ad where he meets Coldplay singer Chris Martin, who turns out to be a single-minded rockstar obsessed with promoting a Coldplay greatest hits album. Anyway, Martin asks to do a guest appearance on Millman's show, and the result is pretty bad... like one of those old sitcoms where a famous person comes on and they almost break the fourth wall in their attempts to promote whatever said famous person wants to promote. Millman's integrity is at an all-time low and then... he gets nominated for a BAFTA.

And they push and they push and they push... things just get worse and worse for Millman as he is humiliated again and again. His sitcom seems worse with every episode of Extras. Maggie seems only to exist as a kind of anti-deus ex machina - functioning as a plot device to bring about Millman's final moment of humiliation. The episode also features the cast of Holby City, Ronnie Corbert, Stephen Fry and a couple of other people. It seems they're cramming in more famous faces with each episode.

What are they doing? I don't understand anymore! This show started out as an outside-of-the-box sitcom... making you cringe, but making you laugh too. But this second series has pushed it's boundaries so far that I don't really find myself laughing so much as just wincing as they do their thing in more and more exagerrated strokes. They're pushing it all so far that it's starting to blur the lines between good and bad... I really, really hope that Gervais and Merchant have an idea of where they're heading and that it pays off big time cause at the moment it's starting to look like one great big Andy Kaufman joke - is Gervais laughing at us by feeding us exceedingly torturous television? It's commendable, but it could also be the quickest route to shooting oneself in the proverbial foot, career-wise.

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Television

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Extras, 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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Posted By: Luke - Category: Television

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Extras Series 2

September 26th 2006 06:29

Well, the second episode of the second series of Extras went to air just the other night in the UK. I didn't realise the second series would be upon us so soon!

How does it shape up?
Well, we pick up Andy Mailman's story just after series 1... he's filming a pilot with the BBC and having trouble maintaining integrity in the face of network-control. Meanwhile, Maggie continues her extra work on various films.

In the first episode of the series Maggie is working on a film with Orlando Bloom. Bloom turns out to be tremendously vain and over-the-top with jealousy in regards to Johnny Depp, which makes for marvellous self-parodying. Andy's sitcom pilot is almost painful to watch, and the batterings issued to self-esteem all round make for much cringing and laughing - as we've come to expect from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

'Barry from Eastenders' seems to be very much a supporting member of the cast now, as he features prominently in both episodes so far screened of the new series. Barry's bits are probably some of the funniest in the first episode. And some of the most embarrassing.

The second episode, screened just two or so days ago and featuring David Bowie, is very hard to watch. It's still funny but I'm not sure if I'll be able to take it if it sinks any lower! How low will Gervais go? How much of a beating can he take? How much of a beating can an audience take? The fact that it remains top quality and manages to break such new ground never ceases to astound me... Gervais and Merchant could shape up to be the first truly genius comics of the 21st century.

Other celebrities set to appear in the next four episodes of Extras Series 2 include Daniel Radcliffe, Chris Martin, Ian McKellen and Jonathan Ross.

Extras Series 2 - watch clips and episodes on the BBC website!

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Television

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Degrassi

September 19th 2006 10:43

As if Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High aren't the greatest shows ever! I used to watch these shows religiously when I was a kid and I was over the proverbial moon when all the episodes started getting released on DVD just recently. Suffice to say, I snapped them all up and watched them in no time

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Press Gang

August 30th 2006 06:51

Recently I just finished watching the entire series of the UK tv show 'Press Gang'. All five seasons have been released on DVD over the past two years, and after much scrounging and lounging I watched them from beginning to finish

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Blackadder

August 15th 2006 06:04

Blackadder is one of my favourite TV shows. It's very rewatchable and features some of the wittiest, blackest dialogue to ever be let loose on the small screen. The biggest thing it probably had going for it though was the fact that it's main character was a morally reprehensible villain - hating everyone, always looking to sell out his 'friends', always looking out for number 1 - which makes for hilarious television.

What also always made this so amusing was that he was surrounded by people completely in the dark on such matters, sometimes through virtue of a poor mind, sometimes through virtue of Blackadder's own duplicity, and sometimes through both. Rowan Atkinson plays the character brilliantly, put Blackadder next to Mr. Bean and you have the two polar ends of repugnant behaviour stitched up completely

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Television

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