This one's going to be long, I'm afraid...
Didn't like the last one a bit (except for De Niro falling for the pen). The problem for me was really in the writing, though.
This episode tried to do so much: Andy gets popular 'acceptability' as Jonathan Woss' new best friend. (why does Jonathan like him so much? Beats me) Then he's still an arsehole over the sick child (doesn't want to behave honourably, too much of a coward to come out and just say no). Then he totally outgrows his pals, neglecting Maggie (who had it coming since season One with her utterly destructive behaviour towards him) and firing Darren (who had it coming even BEFORE season one)over the wanking incident (not funny in my book). On top of this we have Robert Lyndsay behaving like the Actor from Hell (over-the-top, not in a good way). And by the end he has to become Mr. Nice-ish Guy again (aaawww...) AND get his cake and eat it (meeting DN after all)... Compare this to the very slow character development in previous episodes, and it becomes clear Gervais and Merchant tried to cram far too much into thirty minutes, especially where Andy is concerned.
Looking back on both series, I find Extras to be a bit too schizophrenic. On the one hand it lampoons stars, sometimes quite viciously - and it also manages to get some career-best performances from its 'victims' (Orlando and Daniel Radcliffe were both far better here than I've ever seen them before, Les Dennis was scarily convincing, as was Cheggers). Compared to them, Andy and Maggie fall into 'nice, everyday people'-mode, looking on with amusement or horror (as would we all) as the stars misbehave completely. On the other hand, we get a sitcom about a petty, selfish, cowardly little man who wants to become an actor (why is never made clear), has an unbelievable amount of success (in series 2) despite starring in an awful show (am I 'aving a laff? Am I 'aving a laff?! I don't think so), yet remains the sad little loser he's always been.
Personally, I've much preferred the 'piss-take on luvvies'-aspect of the show to the 'sad little loser gets into well-deserved embarrassing pickle'-aspect of it, but I'm sure many will feel exactly the opposite. However, I think this dichotomy in the show is exactly what will keep it from all-time-great status. The celebs are a great gimmick - and in several episodes more than that. It's also what sells the series. The adventures of Andy Millman in themselves aren't really that interesting.
There's also a lack of 'realism' in the personal relationships which undermines the whole thing, as far as I'm concerned. Maggie is Andy's best friend, but time and time again she says exactly what she shouldn't say (out of rampant idiocy, or repressed hostility? Not clear) to the wrong people, causing Andy an enormous amount of misery over time. Would a platonic, non-committal friendship survive all that grief? Similarly, why does Andy stay with Darren? He's intelligent enough to see how crap he is as an agent, and once his career takes off, Darren is a liability. Yet he doesn't even try to get Darren to pull his finger out until the last episode (where Andy has done over to the 'Dark Side'.
It's also in little things we see this reflected: would Barry from Eastenders be wanking with the pen seconds after Darren had been caught out? Would Darren stand up with his member exposed (and dribbling... yeucch) when being told off by Andy, or would he pull his underpants up first? More to the point - how did he get such an amazing bachelor pad apartment, and since when does an obviously good cook use an egg beater to 'whisk' a turd through his toilet while entertaining a woman? Was there no funnier scene (or sequence of scenes) imaginable between Maggie and Darren during the seduction date?
Similarly, I found that several humiliation scenarios were just a bit too heavy-handed to be 'real', even within this comedic world (the play comes to mind, but also the insulting of the catholic priest in season one).
Kudos for Stephen Merchant for some of the funniest scenes of the series. And several scenes and sketches will remain in my memory for the rest of my life. However, these are almost all celeb-based (man, I'd love to see Patrick Stewart's screenplay brought to life
). If Extras had concentrated solely on this aspect, it would have been an all-time great, I feel (even if it had only lasted one season). Now, I feel it's destined for the lower end of the sub-top of comedy history.
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