My overall rating of "The Ricky Gervais Show"'s Season 1: 5/10
Now, generally Ricky and especially Stephen improve the show, or at times simply make it watchable, but here they actually manage to sink it a bit. The school discussion is bad/dumb, the time discussion has them dismiss Karl out of habit without thinking on the finer points, and why do they play the usual mockery/dismissiveness of the "Monkey News" bit, when it's clearly a joke story this time? It's not Karl making some wild, strange stuff up, it's clearly a comedic framing! By the way, while this "Karl's Diary" segment was pretty good, I will say that it's generally a contrived kind of format.
But as for the good, Karl's girlfriend/fight story is absolutely hilarious, and there Ricky and Stephen really do boost it.
Now, generally Ricky and especially Stephen improve the show, or at times simply make it watchable, but here they actually manage to sink it a bit. The school discussion is bad/dumb, the time discussion has them dismiss Karl out of habit without thinking on the finer points, and why do they play the usual mockery/dismissiveness of the "Monkey News" bit, when it's clearly a joke story this time? It's not Karl making some wild, strange stuff up, it's clearly a comedic framing! By the way, while this "Karl's Diary" segment was pretty good, I will say that it's generally a contrived kind of format.
But as for the good, Karl's girlfriend/fight story is absolutely hilarious, and there Ricky and Stephen really do boost it.
