Extras – The Special (2007, Dir. Ricky Garvais & Stephen Merchant) Andy Millman (Gervais) is finally no longer an extra and has his own sitcom, but still, Andy is not happy with everything. Whilst his long-term friend, Maggie (Jensen) struggles to earn a living from any job she can get, Andy still wants to be famous amongst the A-List stars, even if it means cutting back on a few things, including close friends.Whilst the jokes may not be up to par as the series, the final 'Extras' is a worthy finale which has not only some well written comedy but a wonderful and emotional end to Andy's and Maggie's long road. Andy's final speech is rightly deserved.I saw you was in Doctor Who as a slug. Very convincing. - Greg Lindley Jones (Shaun Pye)

Before this finale, I loved Extras, but I did not hold it up there with the legendary television programs. I thought it was excellent, but if every show could end with a finale like this the would of television would be a better place.First, let it be said that there is not that much comedy to the finale. Some people might have a problem with this, but anyone invested in the characters will be fine. This is not to say that there is no comedy. Wonderful little gags are placed around the "finale" or basically a made-for-TV-movie more than a finale. And the jokes hit their mark very well. Stephen Merchant, scene-stealer of the entire program, has some great scenes, and the only down part of the finale is that he does not have many scenes in it. I know he is a supporting character, but in my opinion he was the funniest character in the show.But there is little room for Merchant in an episode that spends most of time with Andy and Maggie evaluating their lives. This is the main point of the episode, and I'm not going to give any thing away here, but while many writers over the years have had character tackle this existential question of 'what am i doing with my life?', no one has done it better than these two fellows here. I never thought that a comedy could almost bring me to tears, but this finale did it without feeling like a depressing Oscar story.Job well done. Every time you expect a cliché plot point to pop up and take the story where every story like this usually goes, they go the other way. It's even more sad that this is the end of a great television show, but I guess Gervais and Merchant take quality over quantity to heart.

This was the worst ever episode of Extras and a particularly feel-bad Christmas special. Gervais appears to be able to set up a series which is brilliant and then let it disintegrate well before the end (the second series of The Office was many times worse than the first). Although constantly watchable, this was dismal stuff. Extras is meant to be a comedy – this wasn't funny and barely tried to be. What was the point of having the characters' lives collapse? What was achieved by it other than to be depressing? How bad it looked to have Ricky Gervais, a rich and famous person who hangs out with the Heat crew and loves wealth and fame, to tell us how awful it all is. His criticisms carried no weight at all. He came across as a whining, joyless, navel-gazing, self-indulgent misanthrope.One other thing that should be noted about Gervais shows is this: his characters do not act like normal people would in terms of considering others' feelings. People, particularly the English middle class, are incredibly sensitive to how the other person feels and go out of their way to not offend. In Gervais shows they do the opposite. To cite just one example, the Clive Owen character saying what he said in front of that female extra is simply not credible. No one is that nasty to another's face. When so many of your characters behave in non-realistic ways, the show is robbed of its verisimilitude and ability to make us laugh through tapping into our everyday experiences. That and the fact that there were no virtually no jokes in it made Extras a show which ended with a miserable whimper.

So good I watched it twice! I have never seen "Extras" before but nonetheless I had no problem working out what was going on. The sinister thing is that I actually found Andy Millman in his comedy persona quite funny. The scenes between him and Maggie became quite moving as the show went on. Excellent writing as one would expect from the Gervais-Merchant team and a bewilderingly eclectic collection of celebrity cameos and not-so-cameos. Ashley Jensen as Maggie is of course the moral and emotional centre of the piece. The device of Maggie watching him on telly was sublime. So nice that people (including some celebrities) in the UK can still send themselves up! Are you listening America? Minor niggle: why pretend to be in The Ivy when they weren't?