Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale (2007)

Powerful

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It's been a while since I last watched "Extras" and actually wasn't aware of this final extended episode which aired originally as a Christmas Special, I believe. Now "on-top" as a household name TV star with his own inane catch-phrase in an imaginary series which eerily prefigures the awful, but apparently awfully successful "Mrs Brown's Boys", Gervais's Andy can now hob-nob at the best club in town brushing shoulders with other celebs and live in a swank pad, but he's not happy. Frustrated that he might be wasting his potential as a typecast character in an outdated show, he changes agents, spurred by the growing success of old rival Shaun Pye. The show follows his "journey to redemption" taking in some so-called highs and very definite lows, ending up on "Celebrity Big Brother", which is about as low as you can get I would imagine, the last refuge of the used-to-be-famous.Gervais is playing with a lot of clichés here and as ever, many of them are in character form, particularly his new hot-shot agent but as before he manages to mix well the humour and the bathos, the latter we see in particular through his worsening treatment of his down-on-her-luck old chum Ashley Jensen's Maggie.Again as before, Gervais makes use of his A-list contacts to bring in some very funny celebrity cameos, with George Michael lampooning his wastrel image, Clive Owen as an odious, sexist, dismissive leading man and Gordon Ramsey as a loud-mouthed, vulgar social climber, with maybe two out of three of these looking like rather thinly-veiled thumbmail sketches drawn from life. Stephen Marchant and Shaun Williamson (Barry from "Eastenders") are also caught in the fall-out from Andy's rebellion and wind up hilariously working at "Carphone Warehouse".Arguably Gervais overloads his tale with too much morality where a few more belly-laughs might have been welcome, but by the time Andy recovers his soul at the end, I had found much to savour over the intervening ninety minutes and admired his ability to so effectively satirise the lives of the acting community.

I have been a huge fan of this side-splittingly hilarious series since it first aired on HBO in 2005 and have always admired the writing, the acting, and the outrageous situations created by the ingenious minds of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.I didn't think anything in the show's finale could possibly top what I'd already seen in prior episodes, but Gervais and Merchant managed to take the show's screwball concept, turn it upside down, and deliver an incredibly moving and heartfelt dramatic ending. It was a big gamble to toss aside the comedy and go for the serious stuff, but it paid off.The episode begins lightly enough, with Gervais' character, Andy Millman, struggling to adapt to his sudden fortune and fame. No longer an extra scraping to get by and dreaming of making it big, he's now the star of a hit sitcom on the BBC, he has his own catchphrase that's bigger in Britain than "You ARE the weakest link" - he even has a doll in his TV character's likeness. Trouble is, being famous isn't at all how Andy envisioned it. He feels like a sellout - a one-trick pony who will never be able to rise above the sitcom cesspool he now finds himself in.And this is where the show takes a dark turn. Andy becomes increasingly embittered, jealous, and egotistical, to the point where he fires his inept agent and literally pushes his best friend Maggie out of his life. Ashley Jensen delivers the single finest small screen performance by an actress this year as Maggie Jacobs, the long-suffering, not too bright, yet unwaveringly loyal best friend of Andy. In a pivotal scene featuring Clive Owen as himself, Maggie comes to the sad conclusion that she can no longer continue to work as an extra. The scene is played for laughs, but it's uncomfortable to watch, because although we're witnessing the ongoing degradation that Maggie has always suffered as just another warm body on the movie set, it's really the first time Maggie herself realizes what's happening to her. Jensen brilliantly plays it out through nothing more than her facial expressions, and her pain is palpable.Maggie's despair continues as she becomes more distant from Andy and ends up taking jobs as a maid and a dishwasher just to survive. The scene in which she begs Andy's former agent for a job at his new workplace, Car Phone Warehouse, is particularly heartbreaking. Why Jensen was denied a Golden Globe nomination this year is beyond me.Meanwhile, Andy discovers that his new affiliation with a hip and sexy talent firm isn't all it's cracked up to be. Andy wants to be a "serious actor," but all he's offered are throwaway roles in "Dr. Who" and "Hotel Babylon." His new agent stops taking his calls altogether, and Andy realizes the only way to get work is to throw his legitimate acting aspirations out the window and go exclusively for the fame and fortune. He winds up as a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother - something he swore he'd never do - and it's here that the realization of what his life has become finally sets in.In what's probably the most poignant and moving scene in television this year, Andy bares his soul to the watchful eye of the Big Brother camera. Here, Gervais shows he's just as adept at drama as he is at comedy.Just when you think it can't get any worse for the show's characters (Andy's sunk to the lowest of lows, Maggie's living in a run-down, one-room flat, and Andy's agent is a cell phone salesman), Andy has an epiphany, and ultimately, a redemption. What better ending could you hope for than watching Andy and Maggie drive away in her beat up little car, headed for Heathrow airport, the promise of new hope and new adventures in front of them? When a brilliantly executed series ends after such an abbreviated run (see Gervais' "The Office"), I usually feel cheated and longing for more, but not in this case. "Extras" takes us to the place we know these characters need to be, then fondly waves goodbye and doesn't look back.

Having been a fan of The Office and an underwhelmed viewer of the Extras series I approached this 'Special' with caution.In this 90 minuter, Gervais battles with his ambition to create something admirable but struggles to overcome his urge for fame. Colliding with a host of superbly performed celeb cameos he finds himself free-falling into mediocrity and is forced to re-arrange his priorities.This was a 'special', deserved of the title. Gervais rewarded viewers who stuck with him through the previous two series which gave us no plot, no story and over-reliance on star cameos. In Extras, Gervais ambition had always been to communicate his view on the TV and Film industry but, in the series, this message always became diluted.In the 'Special' the cameos were used sparingly whilst that enforced awkward silence that usually accompanies his work was rarely used. It was out with the dead-air moments and in with themes and story. Gervais performed well, proving himself to be a capable actor at long last, with some excellent dramatic and emotional moments - his final speech particularly resounding, and yes, quite moving too.What I like about Extras and this special episode is his emphatic case against lazy comedy and cheap gags. He subtly makes numerous digs to Catherine Tate and shows like Hardware.Though they've taken their time, I believe Gervais and Merchant have finally made their point, or rather, protest against the fame factory. I strongly recommend this, not just as an excellently written comedy but as an engaging piece that examines celebrity culture. It's comedy with something a little extra. Yes, finally, Gervais isn't the one making the cameo!

80 Minutes Special (contains general overview and basic commentary): Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais) in the Series Special is at a crossroads in his life and career. The former movie extra turned successful, albeit self-deprecating, TV actor must decide whether to further compromise his artistic integrity and continue shooting his unsophisticated, obnoxious, and lame-demographic television series. The special literally chronicles the ardent behavior that comes with fame, how one becomes affected, and how one can see past fame by putting oneself outside the joke. The most intriguing moments in the episode's entirety are when Ricky Gervais ponders the general state of being in society, in what is as close to an effective "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore"-moment as you're likely ever to get on television. Maggie is as unsinkable as ever and at her best as Millman's closest friend. Written and directed by Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the Special manages to touch on issues of philosophy, fame, sexuality, and societal behavior in its story's subtext while not detracting from its impressively diverse story arc. For a show that restores one's faith that modern media can produce original, prodding, yet hilarious material, "Extras" at its end is unwittingly at its best (except maybe for Kate Winslet's performance).