Ricky Gervais Podcast Series 3: Halfway Through

 

I've just listened to the third episode of Season Three of The Ricky Gervais Show and here are my thoughts . . .

The setup is pretty much the same: Ricky, Steve and Karl chatting for half an hour. So far, there's been no input from the listeners: no emails have been read out and there has been no sign of Monkey News or Rockbusters. The only feature that is still there is Karl's Diary, exceprts of which are read from by Steve. In addition to that, Series 3 brings something akin to Karl's diary, his poetry. Yes, Karl has started to write poetry.

So far the series is certainly very funny but for me it doesn't quite have the same hilarity as the previous two series. I was always a huge fan of Monkey News and I think the show definitely suffers in its absense. Karl's poetry is funny but I can't imagine it having as long a shelf life as his diary which is still as funny as it always was. The chit-chat is like it always has been. The usual topics of how Karl's week has been and what he thinks of animals and various scientific theories still make me laugh. The banter between the Ricky and Steve is still there, as strong as ever, and Steve's contribution is . . . not much really. He doesn't hamper the show really, I just don't think he contributes much to the hilarity. If you took Ricky or Karl out the show wouldn't be worth listening to - I think it would be almost as funny if Steve wasn't there. I'm saying I dislike Steve (The Office and Extras are great sitcoms) I just think he makes a better script writing than he does broadcaster.

Overall, I don't think series three is quite as good as series one and two. Maybe, it's wearing thin, maybe I haven't listened them enough times yet or maybe you can have too much of a good thing (if you add up the XFM archive and all the podcasts there must be over fifty hours to listen to). Given the feedback on the Pilkipedia Forums I'm in the minority.