Quote: Martin Holmes @ December 29, 2007, 11:44 AMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGzCjxvoJNI
The full set of the When The Whistle Blows clips. I think I'd rather see a full series of that than Extras! There's actually some decent gags in it.
Haha! Thanks for that Martin.
It was ok. Not brilliant. It was overly long and in my opinion had, surprisingly, a few weak/slightly clichéd stuff in it, like when Merchant got the tissues for himself when you think he's going to give one to Maggie. That's definitely been done before. I thought it was ironic that Gervais pokes fun at naff sitcoms, with how mutable the dopey character in 'When The Whistle Blows' is (he bangs his head and becomes clever) when the actual Andy Millman character, as has been mentioned before, undegoes a similarly unbelievable transformation into a humourless Scrooge character for the benefit of the Christmas special. I thought the whole thing was a bit lazily written - not polished enough to the ridiculously high standard that Gervais and Merchant usually set. It had some gold moments in there - a lot of the Carphone Warehouse stuff was great - but much just wasn't as good as it could have been, I reckon.
(And any debate about the state of the flat is frankly pointless. Yawn.)
Quote: James Williams @ December 29, 2007, 4:19 PMThat's definitely been done before.
Surely everything has been done before?
sorry but i can't be bothered to read all the posts on this thread, so i may repeat what others have said.
i love gervais and merchant. the office, in my view, is a work of art. i've never really watched extras but i've read the scripts for series one and two and i think they are clever and well-written.
i watched the christmas special but i didn't like it very much. i thought it was all a bit obvious and not very funny. there were lots of scenes which repeated the same joke or the same dramatic point - ashley jensen cleaning on her own means she is lonely. ricky gervais trying to get hold of his agent shows he is something.
the scene where he was being interviewed by the guardian was just david brent. in fact it really reminded me of the scene in the office where brent is being interviewed by that woman who is in peep show and dawn is there.
overall the show just felt a bit lazy. and not funny enough.
Quote: johnny roulette @ December 29, 2007, 4:31 PMsorry but i can't be bothered to read all the posts on this thread, so i may repeat what others have said.
i love gervais and merchant. the office, in my view, is a work of art. i've never really watched extras but i've read the scripts for series one and two and i think they are clever and well-written.
i watched the christmas special but i didn't like it very much. i thought it was all a bit obvious and not very funny. there were lots of scenes which repeated the same joke or the same dramatic point - ashley jensen cleaning on her own means she is lonely. ricky gervais trying to get hold of his agent shows he is something.
the scene where he was being interviewed by the guardian was just david brent. in fact it really reminded me of the scene in the office where brent is being interviewed by that woman who is in peep show and dawn is there.
overall the show just felt a bit lazy. and not funny enough.
Yes, definitely.
As I say, still some funny moments though.
Quote: charisma @ December 29, 2007, 4:26 PMSurely everything has been done before?
Not a valid excuse for re-using a memorable joke that has been used elsewhere. And this was just one example of what I perceived to be a programme less fizzing with original humour than I would expect.
In fact, the idea that 'everything's been done' or that 'there's nothing new under the sun' is bollocks, and should never be used as an excuse for creative bankruptcy. Just 'cos it sounds purdy it don't make it so!
Obviously if you reduce jokes down into categories or whatever things aren't 'new', but this is sophistry, plain and simple.
Quote: James Williams @ December 29, 2007, 4:57 PMNot a valid excuse for re-using a memorable joke that has been used elsewhere. And this was just one example of what I perceived to be a programme less fizzing with original humour than I would expect.
In fact, the idea that 'everything's been done' or that 'there's nothing new under the sun' is bollocks, and should never be used as an excuse for creative bankruptcy. Just 'cos it sounds purdy it don't make it so!
Obviously if you reduce jokes down into categories or whatever things aren't 'new', but this is sophistry, plain and simple.
Yeah, but maybe it's not just plagiarism - is it possible that in the history of comedy, two jokes might be alike? I haven't encountered a similar gag (it doesn't seem like you can remember one either), and if I had, it wouldn't matter as I still laughed at it. It was a throwaway joke, but well-timed; because it may have been done before is thin grounds for criticism. I'm not sure exactly what you were expecting from it. The show generally isn't derivative (except maybe in the case of similarities between Brent and Millman/ the guest stars yeah, yeah...) - "creative bankruptcy" might reclaim the 'Most outlandish statement made about Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant 2007' award from Mannikin Bird. This and the debate over whether Maggie's room was realistically austere (it looked pretty horrid to me) are clear nit-picking.
Quote: Retinend @ December 29, 2007, 5:26 PMYeah, but maybe it's not just plagiarism - is it possible that in the history of comedy, two jokes might be alike? I haven't encountered a similar gag (it doesn't seem like you can remember one either), and if I had, it wouldn't matter as I still laughed at it. It was a throwaway joke, but well-timed; because it may have been done before is thin grounds for criticism. I'm not sure exactly what you were expecting from it. The show generally isn't derivative (except maybe in the case of similarities between Brent and Millman/ the guest stars yeah, yeah...) - "creative bankruptcy" might reclaim the 'Most outlandish statement made about Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant 2007' award from Mannikin Bird. This and the debate over whether Maggie's room was realistically austere (it looked pretty horrid to me) are clear nit-picking.
Stop being so reactionary and reading/using what I say out of context.
I didn't say it was plagiarism. I just said I have seen a very similar joke before. (Can't recall where... so what? I'm not going to spend hours Googling it. I'm not lying!) Again, it was one example.
**
An utterly despondent Maggie goes into Carphone Warehouse to ask for a job. Merchant tells her that, unfortunately, there are none available. Maggie starts to sob. Merchant looks concerned and asks Barry for a box of tissues. Merchant takes out a hankie, blows his nose on it, and puts it in his pocket.Jerry did the same thing when Elaine was crying over The Bubble Boy.
So any actual examples of this gag cropping up pre: Seinfeld? Gag geneology is fun.
**
Sounds very much like a variation on the same gag thats been used a million times before with drinks, food etc. I'm pretty sure its used in the Ollie pretending to be ill scene in Sons of the Desert but I can't remember the exact details.
*
*http://chilled.cream.org/boards/index.php?topic=16283.180
Actually, sourcing proof took about 5 seconds, so here we are. Try research sometime before essentially calling me a liar!
I shall say again, a lot of the stuff was too derivative of either The Office or just other stuff in general. Saying Extras isn't 'generally' derivative is no counter-argument to my thesis that that particular episode was weaker, and more derivative, than I would expect. (Besides, you even undermine your own misguided counter-argument in parentheses at the end!) As I said, I still enjoyed it. And The Office and Extras are two of my favourite shows. I think Extras can be seen in many ways to be a template of how to write a good sitcom. Which was why I was disappointed to see that the Christmas special seemed overly long, rushed out, comparatively derivative, with lots of celebs bunged in to shore up the holes. Compare the Patrick Stewart bits of series one to any of the celeb cameos in the special - no contest, no contest at all.
I'm not sure exactly what you were expecting from it.
I was expecting it to be as good as the best episodes of 'Extras'. It was still good, but I was disappointed.
And if you read my post properly you will see that I did not accuse the writers of being creatively bankrupt. I said that claiming 'nothing is new' is not an excuse for creative bankruptcy. Even taking me to mean that I did think that particular joke was creatively bankrupt, you can't extrapolate my opinion of the low points of one show to the whole series or indeed the writers themselves. Please don't mangle my words in such a way to frame any argument, let alone one that is absolute twaddle.
I agree that the whole 'Maggie's room' nonsense is bollocks and not worthy of debate, as I said, but I think most of it was tongue-in-cheek.
Re: the tissues again, it IS an old joke - that's just a fact - and I was using it to illustrate a malaise that seemed to have affected moments of the whole show. Frankly, Gervais and Merchant can't rip the piss out of sitcom unoriginality as they do so well in their mise en abyme 'When The Whistle Blows' - and fall victim to the same errors themselves - without coming away with a smattering of egg on the face. I wanted comedy perfection, and they just did not deliver this. But again, I liked it. It was funny. But far from perfect on many levels.
Quote: Retinend @ December 29, 2007, 5:26 PMThe show generally isn't derivative
Are you serious? The show is totally derivative of Curb, Seinfeld and Larry Sanders.
Unless you were just talking about it been derivative from The Office? If so then ignore my above statement.
And yeah that tissue gag has been used in Seinfeld. I still laughed at it in Extras though it was well timed and not in your face, like the humour tends to be in Extras usually.
As has been said elsewhere, not only has the tissue gag been used elsewhere, the whole gag is a black-and-white era 'oh, the lady's fainted, pass me the brandy (HE DRINKS THE BRANDY HIMSELF)' gag. It's old. It made me laugh a bit but Gervais can't have his cake and eat it when he's ripping it out of the sitcom genre for being hackneyed - the writers have to produce something really special when they use those kind of self-reflexive messages. As I say, the whole special was peppered with similar material.
If it was cut into a normal half-hour episode it could have been outstanding.
Quote: Rick Skelton @ December 28, 2007, 10:21 PMIt was a total shithole, whether you live in London or anywhere else.
When I was a student I lived in a tiny rundown room above a porn shop on Eversholt street opposite Euston station. I had a drug addict living on my rhs and a prostitue living on the lhs.
I f**king loved it. 
LOL!
any body else find themselves wondering what picture had left the dirty marks on the wall?
Haven't there been some lengthy comments here? Obviously created lots of talking points.
But I prefer Lee's comment.
Quote: Leevil @ December 29, 2007, 9:12 PMLOL!
Jesus. Christ.
I cannot believe people are arguing over a totally throwaway blink-and-you'd-miss-it visual gag. General point that there may have been a lot of what he's actually arguing against in the show, granted. Gervais is a cock who does exactly what he professes to hate, and looks down on others for doing. That's been established by numerous parties. But come on, this is pathetic. If it was a huge, plot-crucial, pivotal joke then fair point. But it wasn't. It was a tiny little visual moment which made some people - myself included - laugh.
If we're going to criticise something because it's been done before, then the whole of The Office is shit. I mean, person A saying something which makes everyone else feel awkward, but person A doesn't notice anything themselves, is hardly ground breaking shit, is it?
End.
I'm a man of many words, unfortunately none of them relevant to this conversation.
