I just finished the Netflix series, After Life starring Ricky Gervais. Is anyone else watching? A great series, I loved it! I want more! I hope there’s another season. I also loved Derek, The Office, and Extras. Oh, and of course An Idiot Abroad. I wish they were all still on.
It was nice. It made me cry. His series’ always seem to do that (except Idiot Abroad :P)
Loved it. Season 2 will be out next year.
I also loved it and was so excited to see Ashley Jensen! She was the best part of Extras. Gervais is such an interesting combination of snark and compassion and this is one of his best efforts. I adored the dog - I think she was my favorite cast member.
Very much enjoyed it.
It follows Gervais’s general shtick that niceness is a good in and of itself. It is nice to be nice. He may lay it on with a trowel now and again but it doesn’t stop it being very funny and often deeply moving. It is an excellent portrayal of the devastation of loss and the way it can twist you.
I confess I’ve never quite understood the ire some people have for him. His stage and screen persona seem to me to be precisely that. Exaggerations of the worse aspects of his and our natures. However whenever I’ve heard him speak as himself in interviews over his career I find very little to object to. Is it simply that people think what he says on stage is what he actually thinks? Seems crazy to me.
He’s so unlikable for the first, let’s say, 4 episodes that I still wasn’t sure I would like the series as a whole (yes I understand the whole point of it is that he’s become so unlikable, but even with his wife I thought he was obnoxious)
But I really did like the last episode, and I love Ashley Jensen a whole lot.
I enjoyed it, and had the same feeling I always do about Gervais. Which is, I agree with about 99% of what he says and am still pretty sure I would not like him (or more precisely, his character) personally.
This is great news.
I’m glad you said this because 4 eps is about where I dropped out. I really like RG but I was finding this character and his situation to be a little too dark. I know his characters are often acerbic but this was almost too much for me. I will definitely give it another chance. Yay, Ricky!
I’d finish it off if I were you. Ep4 was as black as it gets. I know what you mean about the darkness but you don’t get to enjoy the Redemption without a lot of Shawshank first.
My wife and I watched it. I enjoyed the whole thing, she thought it was good up until the last episode, where it became too cloying.
He was such jerk in the beginning, that you wonder what his friends see in him (even allowing for what he was going through).
I watched the whole thing one Sunday a few weeks ago, and loved it. I’m a Gervais fan in general, and I thought this was excellent. And I was pleased to recognize/see Kerry Godliman as Lisa (she was Hannah in Derek). Happy to hear there will be a second season. 
Spoilered in case anyone hasn’t seen it yet.
I binged this last night. I was only going to watch one or two episodes, but I couldn’t stop watching. The show was far from perfect, but I loved it anyway.
The cons:
The hammer Tony carried around was a perfect metaphor for some of the dialog in the show, especially in the last episode. A hooker with a heart of gold. The magical nan. The fact that Sandy, who didn’t meet Tony until after he became a misanthrope, thought he was a good man. And, I cringed a little at all of the times that Ricky Gervais had a character tell Tony what a good man he was.
The pros:
Ashley Jensen. Ricky Gervais absolutely nailed his portrayal of a man who was simultaneously trying to kill himself and save himself. I loved the way he used his obligations to his father and his dog as a cover for his own desire to not die; like he needed an excuse to continue living without Lisa. The recording that Lisa made on the laptop; Kerry Godliman was great. Even though he was being a jerk in most of the flashbacks, she made me believe that Tony was a good man. I also really liked the story arc between Tony and Julian. Anne, in the first few episodes, before she became the magical nan.
As an aside, I like to watch British panel shows on youtube, and it has exposed me to entertainers who haven’t yet made it to the US via traditional channels. So, as I was watching After Life it was kind of fun to play “Spot the 8 out of 10 Cats panelists.” I kept thinking, “Oh, there’s Kerry Godliman. There’s Joe Wilkinson. There’s Roisin Conaty.” Fun for nerds of all ages.
We finished season two last night. Honestly, this has been some of Gervais’s best work. He’s done this sort of thing before, of course, with a guy who acts like an asshole and then has a huge redemptive episode at the end. I was expecting that from this series, but it was much more finessed, and Gervais really brought the pathos of a man struggling with his grief, right up to the end.
I watched all of series one yesterday. There were times I was laughing so hard that I was gasping for breath. Gervais said what I think, especially to the little ginger kid bully. There was a time I laughed at a line, then cried at the next line. In a way, I don’t want him to “get better.”
Major spoiler:
He doesn’t.
My heart leaped for joy when I saw there was another season ready to watch! I’m just a few episodes in - I want to savor it.
I finished series 2. He is showing a bit, and I mean a bit, of getting better.
Not as crazy about Season 2 as I was about Season 1. Wasn’t nearly the amount of character development. Just seemed like the character was treading water the whole season.
Enjoyed the first two episodes of season 2 very much. I especially liked the elderly woman who kept repeating the c-word. That must have been an interesting piece of casting.