Worried about Derek

[Kankurette]

Didn't he turn up to some tv magazine's readers choice awards around that time? Had a face like thunder when Mrs Brown's Boys won instead.

This is the one time when I'm rooting for Mrs Brown's Boys.

No. It's back to the Baddiel's Syndrome mines for me! They know a thing or two about laughter there.

Every time Baddiel makes a Slovenia joke, Jan Oblak boots a kitten down a football pitch.

Think of the kittens.

[TommyTurnips]

I decided, for no reason other my own amusement, to trawl through one of the original Derek threads to find the first poster to use the phrase "Robot Grief Dog" and I believe I've found it. There was discussion of "Robot Dog" before this but the first person to use all three words was one particular user, so congratulations @Moribunderast you were the first to put those three words together in a sentence and here is the first time they were spoken on this forum.

That was genuinely the funniest episode of this show. I was STANDING and APPLAUDING as I cackled through the last ten minutes. To quote myself from very early in the thread:

Perhaps not the bravest prediction buy my GOD did it ever exceed expectations! Ricky is generally a good television cryer but this was a tour de force. Sobbing like a wreck while a dog we've just met is put to sleep. There's literally nothing there other than audience manipulation. Much like Kev and his Art Robots and Dad's Illness, these "important" "character-defining" moments and stories pop up out of nowhere and we're expected to react as if they've the weight of a Cormac McCarthy novel.

Dawn and Tim 2.0's relationship problem was introduced out of nowhere with the revelation that Tim has another lady and her name is the sea. Within three minutes we had THREE talking heads by Hannah saying that the relationship is over if he leaves. As BHobo says, there's no room to breathe or take anything in - it's the equivalent of Steve Coogan in The Day Today showing grisly car-crash injury photos and yelling "Is this cool?" It's an absolute barrage of contrived emotion. I've never seen anything like it.

As mentioned by others, Geoff as a villain makes no sense in the show, given he's no worse than Kev. In the broader aspect of Gervais' writing career, he makes even LESS sense. He was saying "villanous" things that I've literally heard come out of Gervais' mouth. It's utterly bizarre. I don't know what's going on in Ricky's brain - is there a complete disconnect? Does he just not care? I can't imagine any of these scripts have been tweaked beyond the first draft ("rewrite, rewrite, rewrite!") so maybe he's just piling in things he knows upset people and then not giving any thought to the wider context.

KEV MADE A ROBOT SEX SCULPTURE OUT OF SCRAP METAL AND THEN MADE A ROBOT GRIEF DOG.

Adored Hannah's "Worst of all, Ivor has to be put down." Yes, there's an alcoholic perv STEALING FROM THE HOME while bringing hazardous material with him - a man who, by the way, Dawn has STATED has no reason to be there - but no, worst of all, a dog Derek likes is ill.

Her popping up like something out of The Ring behind Derek and his Dad (and then giving them shot glasses because, hey, why not?) was glorious. And that ending, what can you say? Beyond parody is probably the perfect term. NavyMan left, Hannah cried, thirty seconds later he returned and everything was fine. WHAT EVEN IS THAT? This show takes every basic tenet of writing and turns it on it's head! It's a work of subversive genius.

The last two episodes of this show have been truly amazing. I'm actually enjoying this more than any of Gervais' work bar the podcasts and The Office. It shits all over Extras, that's for sure.

KEV MADE A ROBOT SEX SCULPTURE OUT OF SCRAP METAL AND THEN MADE A ROBOT GRIEF DOG.

Also some weird poster turns up in the thread to tell us off for laughing at the robot grief dog for being shit because we shouldn't laugh at it because " no, you don't get it, the dog is supposed to be shit, do you not see? Aaaaaah!". Kinda de rails the thread a bit but there's some good stuff in there.

[Matthew Dawkins Jub Jub]

I blame this fucking forum for messing with my algorithm to the point it recommends this shite.

[willbo]

Not joking saying this. I think the character fulfils some deep need for him. Some kind of childlike innocence that he can only reach by playing a special needs person.

[A Car With No Doors]

Not joking saying this. I think the character fulfils some deep need for him. Some kind of childlike innocence that he can only reach by playing a special needs person.

Every now and then I want to say something like "he's our Jerry Lewis", but I actually really like Jerry Lewis, so I don't.

Hopefully someone gets what I mean, though.

[Barry Admin]

He got a lot of praise for doing a crying scene in one of his shitty movies, and I think that contributed to really ruining him. Mawkish sentimentality was the sort of stuff he used to be against, but... It's so easy isn't it, and there's always a bunch of people who will be easily emotionally manipulated by bullshit like Derek and After Life.

[Kelvin]

Aren't Downfall memes a bit old hat?

[dead-ced-dead]

He got a lot of praise for doing a crying scene in one of his shitty movies, and I think that contributed to really ruining him. Mawkish sentimentality was the sort of stuff he used to be against, but... It's so easy isn't it, and there's always a bunch of people who will be easily emotionally manipulated by bullshit like Derek and After Life.

I think it may have been The Invention of Lying. A film where Jennifer Garner inexplicably falls in love with him.

I do quite like Ghost Town, though. A properly decent romcom. Though he didn't write or direct that, that was at the point where he was trying to make it in Hollywood and his eagerness is fairly winning there.

[Ferris]

I blame this fucking forum for messing with my algorithm to the point it recommends this shite.

I'd forgotten all of Derke's idiosyncratic pluralization. Sensational.

[Bentpitch]

I'd forgotten all of Derke's idiosyncratic pluralization. Sensational.

I like how he can still use complex conditional clauses correctly but says "misses".

[Ferris]

I like how he can still use complex conditional clauses correctly but says "misses".

He's evidently a complex and multi-layered character!

[madhair60]

i find it interesting that Derek is surprisingly difficult to illegally download. i mean it's out there but good quality is harder to find or just not seeded, which is a decent metric for just how little people actually remember or care for it. related, anyone got the Special in 1080p?

[madhair60]

[Ferris]

Escape from Monkey Island has let itself go.

[TommyTurnips]

What happened to the robot grief dog? Can I buy him? Imagine if we were able to get ahold of it. What a prize that would be. It could be brought along to CAB meetings and used as a centrepiece for the table. No more searching for the meet up table, just look for the robot grief dog. Could one of us build a replica? Is anyone here an alcoholic sex pest who secretly builds robots?

[Matthew Dawkins Jub Jub]

What happened to the robot grief dog? Can I buy him? Imagine if we were able to get ahold of it. What a prize that would be. It could be brought along to CAB meetings and used as a centrepiece for the table. No more searching for the meet up table, just look for the robot grief dog. Could one of us build a replica? Is anyone here an alcoholic sex pest who secretly builds robots?

David Earl's character fucked it and left it on Kerry Godliman's character's doorstep as a gift.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Wasn't there some story doing the rounds at the time that the RGD was going to be auctioned off - possibly as part of a general auction of props from the series?

Also: another thank you to mbedd. RRRRRRRRAMMSTEINNNNNNN

[Noodle Lizard]

Wasn't there some story doing the rounds at the time that the RGD was going to be auctioned off - possibly as part of a general auction of props from the series?

Yeah, that was official, although I don't know if anything ever came from it. I think I reached out to them directly to inquire about privately purchasing the Robot Grief Dog but heard nothing back.

[Vince the Shirker]

Went to Channel 4's website and it highlighted Derek as "New to Channel 4", and every episode is there. Is there any point in trying to watch any more of it, or is it absolutely a case of you had to be there when it was happening?

[dontpaintyourteeth]

don't watch Derek

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I mean, not forbidding you from doing so or anything. But no good will come of it.

[Vince the Shirker]

I mean, not forbidding you from doing so or anything. But no good will come of it.

I have willingly subjected myself to five episodes of h&p@bbc., so you'll need to elaborate further on what exactly will happen if I do watch Derek if you want to sway me away from making potentially a very bad decision.

[TommyTurnips]

Derek: I loveses this dog, it is my favouritist dog. It has sausage tail

Vet Probably: The dog has cancer and is now dead

Derek: *crying* I lovedsed that dog, it was my favouritist dog

Kev: I make robots out of junk. Did I not mention that before? Well I do. Don't dwell on that sudden revelation too much. Anyway I've made you a robot grief dog

Derek: Now is better

Fin

[frajer]

If Gervais had any cojones he'd have given us the natural progression to Robot Grief Merchant Navy.

Instead he brought back the human one after 15 minutes (although in fairness that one was already very robotic).

[TommyTurnips]

Merchant Navy: BRB.. going to merchant navy

Tabbard: I don't want you to go merchant navy

Merchant Navy: K back from merchant navy now

[Noodle Lizard]

Merchant Navy: BRB.. going to merchant navy

Tabbard: I don't want you to go merchant navy

Merchant Navy: K back from merchant navy now

IIRC, it's someone with a vaguely similar silhouette who returns from the Merchant Navy at the end.

Would've been a good arc. "He's come back wrong".

[Mobius]

ridiculous seeing merchants navy in all big movies and shows now

[Captain Z]

I didn't really join in with the Derek stuff, but I did occasionally scan the threads and I do remember where "Derke" came from. It was an accidental misspelling in a printed TV guide (Radio Times or something similar) that somebody spotted, photographed and posted here. It caught on as a more suitable name for such drivel.

[TommyTurnips]

Tabbard: Am no longer prangant with babby because miscarriage

Merchant Navy: Gutted

[Bobloblawslawbomb]

Tabbard: Am no longer prangant with babby because miscarriage

Merchant Navy: Gutted

What's funniest about that is that (if my memory serves me correctly) was actually the dialogue. Merchant navy just shaking his head into the camera, "gutted".