Extras – The Extra Special Special

Posted May 22, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Andy Millman has made it. He’s the lead actor in his own show and millions of people are watching him each week saying stupid one-liners like “Is he havin’ a laugh?”. Personally, he’s not all too happy with this though, as he was to do some more serious work but while his former colleague “extra” Greg is being marketed as the next great actor, all he gets is small and stupid roles in popular tv series. He fires his manager and signs up with a big agency but this doesn’t really help much and when he finally decides to publicly announce he’s stopping his show, things turn for the worse.

Sound and Vision:
This special has the same image quality as the episodes of the rest of the series although some more “filmic” techniques have been used. Compression errors are absent and there’s plenty of detail but for the rest there’s little worth noting.

We can say the same about the sound. Dialogues are clear and understandable but there’s nothing special to be said for the rest.

Extras:
– Q&A
– Being an Extra in Extras
– Deleted Big Brother Scenes
– Bloopers

Except for the bloopers we get some interesting extras. The Big Brother scenes don’t sound all too great but when you’re in the atmosphere of the series they’re actually quite interesting to watch. Even more interesting is the “Being an Extra in Extras” feature where you follow a guy as he goes to the set for a day and shows what these people actually have to endure. Finally there’s the standard Q&A which Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais manage to make funny and entertaining. All in all some good extras for this special last episode.

Conclusion:
This Extra Special Special is the ending for the series “Extras” and although there’s still quite some comedy present, the tone is more dramatic so people looking for a laugh may be quite disappointed. Not to say that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s got a different focus than the rest of the series. As painful as certain situations have been in the past, the more painful are they here but while you could laugh with most of them, this time they’re too serious to be funny.

So, people with the expectation to check out yet another episode of “Extras” may find they’re watching something completely different. For me, this ending was exactly what the series needed. A closure that perfectly fits the emotions and thoughts of the main characters. Good work from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant! Also the extras on the disc are worth checking out so for fans of Gervais this is certainly one you shouldn’t miss.

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