Extras (TV series)

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This article is about the British sitcom. For other uses, see Extra.

Extras

Genre	Situation comedy
Creator(s)	Ricky Gervais Stephen Merchant
Starring	Ricky Gervais Ashley Jensen Stephen Merchant Shaun Williamson
Country of origin	United Kingdom United States
No. of episodes	12
Production
Camera setup	Single camera
Running time	approx. 0:29 (per episode)
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC Two / HBO
Original run	July 21, 2005 – present
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Extras is a British television sitcom about extras working on film sets and in theatre. The series is co-produced by the BBC and HBO, and is written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, both of whom also star in it.

Extras has two series of six episodes each. The first episode aired in the UK on 21 July 2005 on BBC Two and on 25 September 2005 on HBO in the US. The second series premiered in the UK on BBC Two on 14 September 2006 and began airing in the US on HBO and in Australia on ABC on 14 January 2007.[1]

The series is filmed in a more traditional sitcom style than the mockumentary style used by Gervais and Merchant's previous award-winning series The Office. Each episode has at least one guest star; a television or film celebrity, who play what Gervais and Merchant have referred to as "twisted" versions of themselves^[1]; an exaggerated or inverted parody of their famous public personas.

1 Synopsis
2 Influences
3 First series episode order
4 Third series possiblities
5 Cast and characters
- 5.1 Main cast
6 Episode guide
- 6.1 Series one
- 6.2 Series two
7 When the Whistle Blows
- 7.1 Characters
8 Trivia
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Synopsis

The first series follows Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais) and his friend Maggie Jacobs (Ashley Jensen) as they work as extras and minor characters on film and in theatre. Darren Lamb (Stephen Merchant) is Andy's substandard agent, who fails to procure Andy substantial roles.

Most episodes in the first series are based around a different production in which Andy and Maggie are appearing, with the celebrity guest star usually playing the star of the show. Andy tends to spend a lot of his time looking for ways to get a speaking role, while Maggie is more content with looking among the cast and crew for a boyfriend. At the end of the first series Andy successfully pitches his sitcom, When the Whistle Blows to the BBC.

The second series focuses on Andy's continuing attempts to be taken more seriously as an actor starring in his sitcom, while struggling with having sold out his vision for the show.

Most episodes in the second series begin with a cold open on a short segment from the production on which Andy and Maggie are working, followed by a fade into the white Extras logo on a black background without an opening credits theme tune. Each episode ends with Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman" over the closing credits, a track from his 1970 album of the same name.

[edit] Influences

The HBO series The Larry Sanders Show is a big influence^[2]: It also had celebrities guest star as exaggerated versions of themselves, mocking their public images. In addition, TLSS showed what happens behind-the-scenes of producing a talk show; Extras does the same for film and drama.

Gervais cites the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm as one of his favourite shows.^[3] Curb Your Enthusiasm follows the everyday life of Seinfeld co-creator Larry David - the comedy often coming from friction that develops between David and others. These others often include celebrity guests like Ted Danson, David Schwimmer and Ben Stiller (who has appeared as himself in The Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Extras).

Andy seems to hold similar views on comedy to Ricky's own, his lament in the second series that he wanted to produce something "people can relate to" mirroring the commercial and critical success of The Office.

[edit] First series episode order

When the first series was first broadcast in the UK, the episode featuring Ben Stiller was broadcast first, followed by the Ross Kemp and Vinnie Jones episode the following week. When the series was repeated over the Christmas holiday 2005, the episodes were returned to their intended order, with Ross Kemp first, followed by Stiller. The first series DVD, released in the UK on 31 October 2005, also preserves this same order, along with the Extras script book.

When the first series is shown in the US yet another order is used:[2]

Kate Winslet
Ben Stiller
Ross Kemp/Vinnie Jones
Samuel Jackson
Les Dennis
Patrick Stewart

This episode order was maintained for the North American DVD release, issued on 9 January 2007.

[edit] Third series possiblities

Gervais has stated that he can't see himself doing a third series, as he and Merchant have this "thing" about doing only two series (like The Office).^[4] However, after the second series had finished, he was quoted in the Mirror as saying that there was "some mileage in it" and suggesting there could be a third series,^[5]. In December 2006, Gervais announced that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [3] was on his wishlist to appear in "another series", but then denied it a month later[4]. Gervais has also mentioned Bruce Willis, Mickey Rooney and Dick Van Dyke as possibilities for the third series[5].

On March 19, 2007 the BBC reported that Gervais and Merchant would be writing a one-off finale episode (similar to how they finished The Office). A spokeswoman for Gervais said that the idea was in its "very, very early stages".^[6] This final part, like The Office, will allow the series to be sold into syndication worldwide.

[edit] Cast and characters

[edit] Main cast

Andy Millman (left) and Darren Lamb

Ricky Gervais as Andy Millman

Andy used to work in a bank, but left to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. He is forced to scrape a living as an extra on the sets of various film and television productions. Being around more successful performers has made him cynical and bitter about the whole process. He usually fails in his attempts to improve his lot; partly due to his agent's incompetence, partly due to events and people beyond his control, but mostly due to his own ability to step right in it and then dig a hole for himself. As of the end of the first series Andy manages to get his sitcom made by the BBC. Although at first this is a boost to his morale, he soon returns to his cynical nature when his show is tampered with and becomes the laughing stock of the country, relying on catchphrases and props to get laughs.

Stephen Merchant as Darren Lamb (credited as "Agent")

Darren Lamb is Andy's incompetent agent. Incapable of breaking an act, his usual negotiating tactic is to agree with whatever anyone else says, or, more likely, suggest someone other than Andy for the part. He is very good at deducting his 12.5% commission. He doesn't watch Andy's sitcom, much to Andy's annoyance.

Ashley Jensen as Maggie Jacobs

Maggie is Andy's best friend and a fellow extra. Maggie is a sweet, well-meaning Scottish soul, who only wants to help. Unfortunately, her general social incompetence means that she is more likely to say precisely the wrong thing to the wrong person at exactly the wrong time, despite her lack of malicious intent. This usually means that she is just as likely to humiliate Andy as help him. Maggie is constantly on the lookout for "Mr. Right", but her frequent attempts are usually frustrated quite spectacularly.

Shaun Williamson as Himself (credited as "Barry")

Shaun Williamson plays himself as one of Darren's clients. He used to play Barry Evans on the British soap opera EastEnders, but left to pursue a multi-million pound contract elsewhere and failed. Darren Lamb doesn't know his real name, but instead calls him "Barry off EastEnders" or just "Barry". He carries an air of accepted defeat, and helps Lamb around his office.

Shaun Pye as Greg

RADA grad and Andy's arch-nemesis Greg started out a fellow extra but became a successful stage and television actor. Unlike Andy, he has often secured a line in various productions such as The Bill; as a result, he possesses an extremely high opinion of himself and is constantly belittling to Andy and his fellow extras. Underneath this, he is generally petty, jealous and snide.

[edit] Episode guide

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Series one

#	Episode	Celebrity guest star(s)	Original airdate
1	"Episode 1.1"	Ben Stiller	July 21, 2005
Ben Stiller is directing a film based on the life of Goran, an Eastern European man whose wife and son died in the Balkans War. Andy and Maggie are playing extras in the film. Andy attempts to get a speaking part by befriending Goran, who gets him a spoken line in the film. However, Andy then gets in an argument with Stiller and is kicked off the set. Maggie, meanwhile, takes an interest in one of the crew but it goes wrong after Maggie learns that he has one leg shorter than the other.
2	"Episode 1.2"	Ross Kemp and Vinnie Jones	July 28, 2005
Andy is working on a television period drama starring Ross Kemp. Andy's rival, Greg, is working on a film with Vinnie Jones in the same studio. Kemp claims he has had SAS training and tells Andy that he is more "hard" than Jones. Jones confronts Kemp, who denies that he said anything. After this embarrassment, he admits to Andy that none of his claims were true.
3	"Episode 1.3"	Kate Winslet	August 4, 2005
Working as extras on the set of a World War II Holocaust film, Andy and Maggie meet the star, Kate Winslet. Maggie is in a relationship with a set assistant who wants her to talk dirty with him over the phone. Maggie has no idea what to say but is given explicit advice by Winslet in a nun costume. On finding out that everyone knows about this, the set assistant dumps Maggie. Meanwhile, Andy takes a liking to a fellow extra who is a Catholic and claims also to be Catholic in order to get closer to her. However a "get together" with her and "some friends" turns out to be Bible study group and Andy's deceit is exposed.
4	"Episode 1.4"	Les Dennis	August 11, 2005
Les Dennis is starring in the pantomime Aladdin in Guildford with Andy as the Genie. Dennis is engaged to a much younger woman and is on the verge of a breakdown. After discovering his fiancé cheating with a stagehand, he stops in the middle of the first performance of the pantomime to berate the futility of his life. Maggie bumps into an old friend in the chorus line, whose gay father (Gerard Kelly) is directing the play and controlling the girl's life. Maggie attends the girl's birthday party but is asked to leave after encouraging her friend to find her own way in life.
5	"Episode 1.5"	Samuel L. Jackson	August 18, 2005
Samuel L. Jackson is starring as a maverick American cop in a UK police thriller. Andy uses lies and excuses to shake off a dull extra who wants to befriend him. The man's insistence causes Andy to cave in and have dinner with him, but it ends awkwardly. Maggie is attracted to a young black actor. Despite some initial misunderstandings due to her over-sensitivity about race, she successfully asks him out on a date, but further misunderstandings end the date early. When she chats with Jackson on set the day after, she confuses him with Laurence Fishburne. Andy tries to save the ailing conversation and, when this fails, Andy is asked to leave the set, forfeiting the line he had earlier managed to get with Jackson.
6	"Episode 1.6"	Patrick Stewart	August 25, 2005
Andy and Maggie are working on a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest alongside Patrick Stewart. Eager to get his sitcom script noticed, Andy gives a copy to Stewart, who tells him about his own script for a lewd film in which he will star. Stewart agrees to circulate the script, and the BBC invite Andy for a meeting. Andy is asked to rewrite his script with a camp co-writer with a view to a pilot episode being filmed. Andy almost has the plug pulled on his sitcom after some of his comments to Maggie are misinterpreted as homophobic by his BBC producer. Andy is not comfortable with the way the script is developing but is carried along by the momentum, aware he is selling out on his comedic ideals.

[edit] Series two

#	Episode	Celebrity guest star(s)	Original airdate
7	"Episode 2.1"	Orlando Bloom and Keith Chegwin	September 14, 2006
Andy's new sitcom, When The Whistle Blows, is being filmed, whilst Maggie appears as an extra in a courtroom drama with Orlando Bloom. The audience find the heavily-rewritten sitcom funny but Andy, forced to wear glasses and a wig, feels like he has sold out. Meanwhile, Bloom refuses to believe that Maggie does not find him attractive.
8	"Episode 2.2"	David Bowie	September 21, 2006
The critical response for When the Whistle Blows is entirely negative but Andy gets encouragement from the public as he is recognised in the street and in his local pub. However, he isn't eager to endlessly repeat his catchphrase from the show. Andy visits a celebrity bar, where he is briefly treated as a VIP. He tries to talk with David Bowie, who proceeds to make up a song ridiculing him, resulting in Andy returning to the pub to be surrounded by genuine fans.
9	"Episode 2.3"	Daniel Radcliffe, Warwick Davis and Diana Rigg	September 28, 2006
Andy receives a bit part in a new fantasy film starring Daniel Radcliffe, who appears as a highly sexed teenager trying to seduce every woman he meets. During filming Andy takes Maggie out for a meal and inadvertently offends the mother of a disabled teenager in a restaurant, leading to an increasingly hysterical reaction in the British media, who take his comments out of context. Andy manages to quell the anger, but gets into a fight with dwarf actor Warwick Davis, leading to the loss of his bit part and further embarrassment.
10	"Episode 2.4"	Chris Martin, Ronnie Corbett, Richard Briers, Moira Stuart, Davina McCall, Patricia Potter and Stephen Fry	October 5, 2006
Andy makes a charity appeal video and meets Chris Martin from Coldplay, who appears as a shameless self-promoter interested only in advertising his album. Martin requests to make a cameo on When the Whistle Blows and appears on the show to play "Fix You." Despite angry reviews at the shameless celebrity appearance on his sitcom, Andy is nominated for a BAFTA. During the award ceremony, Andy manages to upset both Richard Briers and an ex-girlfriend, who goes on to humiliate him from the stage. Stephen Fry wins the award and privately rebukes Andy for his sitcom's use of laughter tracks, silly wigs and catchphrases. Andy, Darren Lamb and Ronnie Corbett are banned from future BAFTAs after they are caught with drugs. Martin sings "Tea for the Tillerman" at the end of the episode. (In the US version, after the end credits, Martin and Andy - in character as Ray Stokes - perform a rendition of "Fix You" together.)
11	"Episode 2.5"	Sir Ian McKellen, Germaine Greer, Mark Kermode and Mark Lawson	October 12, 2006
With the critical reaction to his sitcom getting more scathing, Andy is desperate for any role to show his credibility. He is recommended to Ian McKellen, and is cast in a play about a homosexual relationship. With his school friends coming to the first night, and McKellen's sudden decision that Andy should kiss another man in the play, he feels increasingly uncomfortable to the point of leaving the play midway through the first performance. Darren Lamb asks Maggie on a date, which comes to an awkward conclusion.
12	"Episode 2.6"	Jonathan Ross, Robert Lindsay and Robert De Niro	October 19, 2006
Convinced that he can outgrow his sitcom and agent, Andy becomes detached from his friends in his pursuit of media connections. Andy appears on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and becomes friends with Ross. Despite making excuses, Andy has to agree to visit a boy who is in hospital with cancer. He asks Maggie to go with him. Andy is determined to fire Darren Lamb for incompetence, until Darren tells Andy he has arranged a meeting with his idol Robert De Niro. The meeting clashes with one of Andy's visits to the sick boy, but guilt at the burden he is imposing on Maggie and his suspicion of Darren's promises force him to visit the boy, at the cost of meeting De Niro. Lamb pacifies De Niro with a pornographic biro. At the hospital, Andy receives a call from Lamb to meet up with himself and De Niro at a pub, which he and Maggie accept.

[edit] When the Whistle Blows

When the Whistle Blows is the show-within-a-show sitcom in Extras created, co-written by and starring Andy Millman. It was first mentioned in episode "1.3", as a script that Millman had written and given to his agent who neglected to read it. The script was turned into a sitcom on BBC2 in the first series' finale, episode "1.6", after Millman gave the script to Patrick Stewart. Excerpts from the sitcom are featured in the second series, and many of the Extras plotlines have revolved around Millman's experiences with the show.

When the Whistle Blows is set in a Wigan factory canteen. The humour is broad and lowbrow in the manner of, for example, Are You Being Served?. The show is unpopular with reviewers but popular with the public.

Millman is deeply unhappy with the show, feeling that too many people have interfered with his original ideas in the hunt for ratings. It appears that Millman originally set out to do a comedy similar to The Office, with true-to-life characters in a realistic work environment, without a studio audience or laughter track. The show has turned out to be the opposite of what he originally intended. The show is further debased by the unexplained guest appearance by Chris Martin of Coldplay, in episode "2.4", which bears no relation to the plot.

It has been suggested that the presence of studio audiences/canned laughter, and the reliance on funny wigs, costumes and catch phrases for humour is a comment on recent comedy hits such as Little Britain.^[7] Many people that Millman sees at the recording of the pilot wear T-shirts displaying recent comedy catchphrases, such as "Wassup", "It's Chico Time", "I'm a lady!", "Am I bovvered?" and "Garlic bread?". It should be noted that in the US version of that episode, the shots of the catchphrase t-shirts have been cut out of the show, presumably because American audiences would not understand the references.

[edit] Characters

Ray Stokes: Ray is the manager, played by Andy Millman, in turn played by Ricky Gervais. His catchphrase is an incredulous "Are you having a laugh!? Is he having a laugh?". The character was based on a man Millman worked for before deciding to pursue acting full time, and originally his catchphrase was merely something Millman wrote in because it was something that man used to say. Millman's co-writer decided to develop it into a catchphrase. To play the part of Ray, Millman is forced into wearing oversized glasses and a curly black wig to add the "hilarity", despite the fact that the real Ray did not look like this.

Rita: Rita is played by Liza Tarbuck, who also sings the When The Whistle Blows theme song. She is a single parent and is the central, straight character of the show.

Gobbler: Gobbler is a large, unintelligent character, played by Andrew Buckley. His inability to understand his co-workers' jokes often prompts his catchphrase, "I don't get it!".

Brains: Brains, played by Jamie Chapman, is the stereotypical smart one of the group, sporting glasses and a pedantic voice.

Keith: Keith is played by TV presenter Keith Chegwin in the pilot episode. His character was originally called "Alfie", but a frustrated Millman changed it because Keith Chegwin was confused at being addressed with a different name. We are told he is always late for work, but in this instance turns up late because he was at his sister's funeral. This also confused Chegwin, who confided: "the thing is, my sister's not dead".

[edit] Trivia

Jude Law was scheduled to appear in one of the episodes, after meeting Gervais backstage on the David Letterman Show, but had to pull out due to film commitments. This resulted in Gervais and Merchant having to scramble to find a replacement actor at the last minute, with Leonardo Di Caprio being considered. A featurette on the first series DVD release, "Finding Leo", consists of late-night videocamera footage (shot mostly by Merchant) chronicling Gervais' fruitless and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to contact Di Caprio's manager. Law was ultimately replaced by Patrick Stewart in the series 1 finale, although a poster for the Jude Law film Alfie appeared at the end. Other actors that did not appear in Extras despite initial reports from Gervais include Madonna, Brad Pitt [6] and Tom Cruise [7].
Extras was launched with promotional appearances from Gervais and Merchant at Live 8, as well as multiple covers of the Radio Times, which featured many of the series' A-List celebrities. The publication, still Britain's most popular listings magazine, also carried an interview conducted by respected BBC journalist John Humphrys. In the interview, Gervais made clear his desires for Extras to receive a low-key launch on BBC2.
In the US, the phrase "You having a laugh?" has been used as a sports catch phrase on ESPN's Sportscenter by host Kenny Mayne.
On an episode of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Gervais asked John Travolta to appear in the Extras special on air. At the end of the show, Jonathan Ross persuaded them to dance together in order to seal their deal, in reference to Travolta's story of how he danced with Sean Connery.