Meet Derek

There is a new original series on Netflix, and it’s from one of our favourite funnymen Ricky Gervais.

In the latest of a long line of original programming by Netflix comes a new comedy by Ricky Gervais.

This series is about a man named Derek who is an assistant at a Nursing home that has quite a sunny disposition regarding everything, even if people are humoring him in the process. Watching the show will be quite familiar as well since they chose to also film it in same fashion as The Office.

Included in the cast we have a great cast of British comedians Kerry Goldiman, David Earl, and my personal favorite Karl Pilkington.

The pilot has no straight line plot and jumps around to multiple situations in the nursing home, most quite funny, some awkward, but also with what Ricky does very well is include some powerful drama into the show. He is able to show an awkward funny moment, and introduce a purely human moment into the scene.

Some of the best moments in the show are the interactions between Ricky’s character Derek and Karl’s character Dougie. They are very good friends in real life, and that is shown in the show considering how well they feed off each other in the scenes.

This show did premiere first in the UK in 2012, and had some backlash because people thought Ricky was poking fun at people with autism or down syndrome, but Ricky has gone on file to say that his character has no disability whatsoever, that’s just how the character acts.  Regardless of the controversy regarding it, Ricky creates a funny character that gets in to some great funny situations and also makes you feel for the character when things really do get rough. Since it is set in a nursing home where is the last stop for a lot of people in their lives, so that moment does come whether you like it or not.

The series is 7 episodes long and each have it’s charm and laughs. If you are a fan of the Office, An Idiot Abroad, or British comedy, this is a for sure thing to check out.