Derek

It's a very downbeat time at Broadhill at the moment: Hannah and Tom are navigating fairly choppy seas in their relationship, as he considers rejoining the merchant navy, much to Hannah's dismay. Kev - currently making sculptures out of the found objects he and Derek go scavenging for - has taken to stealing items from the home's kitchen for his art, which drives Hannah mad. And in between attempts at sneaking in whisky for his father, Derek has to face up to some sudden sad news about a friend.

Derek is a so-called comedy about a care home worker with learning difficulties. This self-indulgent vanity project attempts to be movingly bittersweet but is instead mawkish and embarrassing. Most of this penultimate episode was dedicated to a dead dog, while Gervais's eponymous character cried, gurned and mugged for the camera. As deceased pets go, it was no Norwegian Blue parrot.

The Office was a work of comic genius but in the decade since, Gervais's output has been on a downward curve. Derek is the trough. It borrows devices from The Office (the mockumentary format, the Tim 'n' Dawn-style romance to lend it heart) but uses them ham-fistedly. Gervais's patronising central performance is based on crudely drawn mannerisms and fortune-cookie clichés. Do we really need a multimillionaire to don a cardigan, cock his head to one side and tell us, "Be nice to animals" or "Kindness is magic"? The cast, especially the excellent Kerry Godliman, do their best with a clumsy script, but the only three-dimensional character was that dead dog.

Twitter hails 'genius' Ricky Gervais after best Derek

Tonight's episode of Derek has been dubbed Ricky Gervais' best ever thanks to a welcomed cameo from Joe Wilkinson.

Derek season 2 - the series so far in GIFs

When Derek's not giving Hannah relationship advice he's watching Kev drink Special Brew from the carpet and/or look up the skirts of the residents. Here is a list of what else has been going on.

Derek - Series 2, Episode 2 review

It was all pretty simplistic stuff, but of the kind that never normally gets an airing on prime-time telly.

Hannah and Tom are trying for a baby, so naturally everyone at Broadhill is taking an unhealthy interest in their sex life; Derek has made a copy of Hannah's ovulation chart and times their sex breaks. With a job opportunity at the nursing home opening up, Kev attempts to change his ways, working on his appearance - he has a shower, combs his hair and puts on a dead man's tie, quits drinking and even attends an AA meeting. Elsewhere, a resident's city boy grandson spends some quality time at the home.

Radio Times review

It might be set in a care home, but Ricky Gervais's mockumentary is often cringingly lewd and crude, largely courtesy of potty-mouthed Kev. This week he has a job interview so swaps his habitual tracksuit and can of Special Brew for a dead man's tie and 12-step programme - and somehow manages to look more disreputable than ever. The highlight - briefly recalling the brilliance of The Office - has to be the shambolic interview: you almost feel sorry for Kev.

Meanwhile, long-suffering manager Hannah discovers everyone knows every last unedifying detail about her attempts to procreate, and Derek teaches a smug financier a few life lessons.

Ricky Gervais's Derek takes aim at the elderly

Ricky Gervais wrote Derek, and he's decided it's not offensive - so it can't be, can it?

Derek splits judgment: some see it as heartwarming and touchingly witty, others as gormlessly mawkish and actionably insulting to the elderly and mentally challenged. I'm in the second camp. But this opener to the inexplicably recommissioned second series had some decent moments - the extraneous characters are well-drawn - and might grow to become something better than its genesis, if only bloody Derek wasn't clogging up the screen all the time with his idiot-savant saccharine bullcrap.

I happen to be one of the few apparent remaining fans of Ricky Gervais, but can today say, hand on heart, this would be a better series if Ricky Gervais wasn't in it.

Review: Channel 4's Derek - series 2

Derek's a bad, ham-fisted, mawkish mess of a comedy; but it's created from the man who launched a thousand TV mockumentaries with The Office.