Extra Smug

The Office stopped after two series. After seeing Thursday's finale, maybe Ricky Gervais’ Extras should have stopped after the first.

It started off so brightly as well. The opener, starring a racist Keith Chegwin and an egotistical Orlando Bloom was hilarious from start to finish and crammed more laugh out loud moments into one episode than most comedies manage in a series. The Lenny Henry gag, the catchphrase T-shirt wearing front row studio audience, the on-set handyman turning down Maggie etc.

But since then, each episode has worsened in quality, the celebrity cameos have become predictable and the storylines have become completely far-fetched. For example, Andy’s sitcom was supposed to be a critical disaster, watched by just a few million. Yet he seemed to become a celebrity on a Posh and Becks scale. Everyone recognised him, anything he did was front page news, he was invited onto chat shows and he received a BAFTA nomination, all this while his show hadn’t even finished filming.

Giving more screentime to Barry and his completely hopeless agent was an inspired move but sidelining Maggie, the most likeable character from the first series, to basically the village idiot was a mistake. She landed Andy in it so many times you started to wonder whether she was deliberately trying to sabotage her friend’s rise to stardom.

There were still a few classic moments, David Bowie’s “Chubby Little Loser” song, Chris Martin’s shameless plugs, the “Are You Having A Laugh” doll interrupting the BAFTAs, but on the whole, the series was just a little too knowing and a little too smug.

That Mitchell And Webb Look also finished its six-part run last night, and on the whole, was just as patchy.

It had its moments of brilliance - Numberwang, the piss-takes of hospital dramas and lifestyle shows, the Green Clarinet sketch etc. But it also seemed to think it was far more clever than it actually was and several sketches waffled on with no point and no punchline.

And for a show that seemed to pride itself on having very few recurring characters, why they chose the terminally dull snooker commentators to appear at least three times every episode is beyond me. It was watchable but I’d rather have a new series of Peep Show next time.