Well maybe I like it all wet.
Extras Christmas Special Page 11
Quote: Leevil @ December 30, 2007, 12:47 AMWell maybe I like it all wet.
I am getting f**king horny now!!!!
Well that was pretty easy, hang on, I'll make it harder...
Quote: Leevil @ December 30, 2007, 12:50 AMWell that was pretty easy, hang on, I'll make it harder...
I am gonna explOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODE!!!!
Come now, come now. You two, take this private. (Or at very least over to General Discussion!)
Hee.
Leevil has the best sig line EVER.
Quote: Aaron @ December 30, 2007, 12:51 AMCome now, come now.
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! ohhhhhhhhh.
All done fankoo for the incentive 
Quote: zooo @ December 30, 2007, 12:51 AMHee.
Leevil has the best sig line EVER.
Normally I get complaints about it being too big.
Oh ho.
Just seen it on the BBC iPlayer. I'm not one who is easily moved to tears by television, but this actually did. Gervais really proved himself to me as a good actor.
I thought the ending was very Scrubs-esque.
Quote: Aaron @ December 29, 2007, 9:42 PMJesus. 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.
Do I have to write it in blood?
It.
Was.
An.
Example.
Rather than dissect every gag, which would be tedious, I'm using the technique of using one example to illustrate a wider problem - there were similar moments in the whole show; it didn't seem quite right.
You fail to understand the point. Re: The Office: Certainly, to say 'art reflects life so it can't be groundbreaking' is rubbish, as it take the point out of context. And as I say, when you generalise any concept enough you can always say it's been done before. It's a fatuous and witless exercise.
And even on its own, even if the whole rest of the episode was pitch-perfect, it still stood out as not in keeping with Gervais's apparent 'ideals'. He takes the piss out of such hackneyed jokes in WTWB. Therefore to use them in the main body of the piece jars. Just because it made people laugh doesn't mean it fits in with the piece. You could have an alien walk into a scene and crack a hilarious joke that leaves you in stitches for an hour, but it still wouldn't fit in with the piece. And when Gervais et al go to such pains to mock old-fashioned sitcom convention, he simply cannot get away with it. The fact that I found people citing that very gag on a different forum within 5 seconds on Google, and agreeing with me, speaks volumes.
"End" indeed! I really wish people would actually read and try to understand some of the arguments before going off half-cocked. I certainly always make it explicitly clear what my opinion is, and while I can understand that people may disagree with it, it's frustrating to talk at cross-purposes. To reiterate: I'm not a nit-picker. I was using an example!!
Surely the bigger picture is the unrealistic character and relationship with Darren, "Barry" & Gaffni? It was weirder to me seeing Darren stand next to Maggie as Darren is such a cartoon. It's almost a Roger Rabbit character on screen or as if he's been plucked straight from WTWB.
It's all part of a bigger picture. I don't think Gervais and Merchant can resist putting in cheap jokes - they're funny - but they're too snobby to use them straight-up. Hence putting them in the mouths of idiots in The Office, and in the mouths of awful characters in the sitcom-within-a-sitcom WTWB in Extras. But by the end of Extras the lines are becoming blurred and Gervais and Merchant, for whatever reason, are not qualifying all of this material with their usual "we know this is hackneyed but it's still funny so we'll be all postmodern with it and show we're aware it's hackneyed". And so they were knocked off their self-imposed pedestal a bit by the end of the Christmas special, I thought, because a lot of the clichéd or overly formulaic stuff wasn't self-aware, and so it didn't quite work.
Perhaps the writing team has changed to a level where they don't need to try and be all clever with it - and even pen a sitcom like WTWB. The progression from The Office to Extras suggests this - you can see the classic sitcom technique and structure in Extras and it's still a great piece of work - just different to The Office.
FINALLY! sat down and watched this tonight, going all out here, but thought it was flawless!!!!
It could be argued that Ricky is similar in cast, as he is himself, but nevertheless, he pulls it off on screen ... and he is believable. So ironically, if you like him on the telly, you may just like him in person too?
FAB.
Quote: Martin Holmes @ December 29, 2007, 11:09 PMI disagree that we shouldn't look into the smaller details and smaller gags, surely that's what a lot of us who are writers or those who criticise other writers work on this forum do all the time? It would be no interest to your average, casual viewer but speaking for myself being a "comedy-nerd" so to speak and an aspiring writer I like to look in to all the details that make something great, good or bad, so I see no problem with people discussing the very tiniest of gags to the biggest of gags.
I agree. I mentioned recently to someone that I'm looking at old shows and I can see they're trying to get the door into shot for when someone walks through it. But it's so blatant. If they'd have the shot ready and nothing happened for a while and then somebody walked through it, fine. But they're changing angles so a few seconds later they've got whoever walking through. Bad directing IMO.
Also, with regards to the catchphrases Gervais so despises. I'm not a big fan of them myself, but which ones do you call catchphrases? Because Cheers is a show liked by Gervais and you could argue "Norm!" is a catchphrase as it's said nearly every episode. (By the way, what is George Wendt doing in Green Green Grass with a pint? 
)
Is "I don't believe it!" a catchphrase or just something Victor says often. (A friend of mine says "Like you say" to start most sentences. Is that a catchphrase?) Rachel in Friends says "Oh my God!" an awful lot. Are we saying that's a catchphrase too. Or just ones that are printed on T-shirts.