“Extras” — The Extra Special Series Finale
Picture via NYTimes.com
I have to make this super-quick as I have to catch a flight in a few hours and could use a little sleep. Join me after the jump for some parting words for HBO and the BBC’s Extras…
It’s not that it was bad. It was actually kind of good. It just didn’t feel entirely necessary, nor was it particularly funny. Don’t get me wrong, I laughed. At times I laughed hard. Though more often I was being lulled into a slow and steady depression because — good god, man — that was depressing. The Chirstmas Special for The Office was depressing too, but since it was in the form of a documentary it wasn’t allowed to heap on the drama with things like music cues and mood-lighting. There, David Brent spiraled out of control without the magic of film technique to tell us he was spiraling out of control. Extras is much slicker and thus its drama (and there was a lot of it) was layed on thick.
I feel like the biggest problem was the music cues. It was just all so brooding. Thank god for Stephen Merchant whose screen time provided us with the most laughs, even when everyone around him was crying — I love how he asked for the tissues while Maggie was falling apart in front of him, then used them himself. While by no means as laugh out loud funny as the Clive Owen scene (I’m f**king Clive Owen!), perhaps my favorite moment in the whole 80-minute movie was Merchant’s reaction to news that the telephone company was going to offer him free nights and weekends. He seemed so genuinely touched. I loved it.
Unfortunately, Extras, unlike The Office, ended its proper run with such an optimistic finale I never really felt like this capper had anything left to say that wasn’t already said during the series making this latest exercise feel like it was more for Mr. Gervais than it was for us. For a guy so concerned with not selling out, he’s gone to great lengths to make sure we know this — not that I fault him, or wish he didn’t. When all is said and done the Extra Special Series Finale was worth the price of admission, but when the dust settles I fear it will be considered a minor work in his catalog. It’s interesting to think that a series that only had twelve episodes could actually be shorter, but this was a case where everything that needed to be said was said the first time around.
Tags: Extras, HBO, Season Finale
