To think Gavin and Stacey is like The Office?

[Jumell]

In terms of clever, subtle humour?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 love this !!

The two shows can't be compared.

I really disliked The Office, I couldn't watch it at all, it was awful. I honestly don't know why people liked it.

Gavin and Stacey was totally brilliant. I loved it. I loved all the characters and laughed and cried with them.

I think they're both shit so they have that in common.

Not sure where bullying comes into it? I can’t be the only one who worked for and with, plenty of Brent types across the years. Brent wouldn’t make it through the first LinkedIn email round these days🤣

I think the similarities lie in that the viewer becomes very invested in the characters, flaws and all.

That was my thought as well.

I love both of them. Really thought last nights Gavin and Stacey was perfect Christmas Day feel good tv.

I absolutely love Ricky Gervais. Afterlife is one of my favourite tv shows ever.

I know it might be controversial but the one really popular show I’ve never really got the love of us Only Fools and Horses. It had its moments but I never really found it anything special

I love Gavin and Stacey but never really "got" the office, I just didn't find it funny.
And Royle family was brilliant, I can't listen to Pie Jesu without thinking of Jim and Denise in the bathroom

This really needs unpacking. Who’s it cruel to?

It’s hard to watch at times precisely because it’s so accurate. Gervais is so clever. We recoil in horror and cringe at David Brent (and others) precisely because they are all too realistic.

In fact, Gervais was too kind to David Brent in that Christmas special, technically. He didn’t really deserve Carol being so nice to him at the party. But it was a bit of Christmassy, heart-warming licence.

But who’s it bullying? It’s a piece of drama.

I've tried to watch G&S, it is so popular I thought it must have something but nope just badly overacted rubbish. Even Larry Lamb's indoor golf scene with his wife fannying on with the buffet table was just so overly acted and cringeworthy.
I had to turn over. The Office however was actually funny.

G&S goes way over my head, I can't see you appeal. I wish I could, I miss national TV moments we all enjoyed.

I loved the Office, but I think the sense of it being bullying was that it was too barbed to have the feel good comedy effect. Some of the characters like Finchie had a nasty streak that was funny sometimes but uncomfortable at other times. It just seemed to have an undercurrent of dog eat dog hopelessness. I absolutely loved it, but I wouldn’t watch it if I was already feeling depressed about something if you see what I’m saying.

How is The Office mean- spirited and bullying? Tim and Dawn's romance has got to be one of the best in tv history and when David Brent gets to say "fuck off Finchy," it's immensely satisfying too. If anything Gervais is perhaps rather too forgiving, veering towards sentimentality in his TV work, though I think he stays the right side of it in The Office.

I could never get into G&S - it just seems too smug and comfortable for me.

I get what you’re saying - there is definitely a hopelessness about it at times, but that is frequently offset. I’m just not sure why some posters keep saying it’s bullying - there’s no victim so it’s clearly not bullying!

I couldn't watch The Office - it was so true to life with the remorselessness that I couldn't cope with the cringe. I love The Office US as the humour was a little gentler.

Just watched the G&S finale - felt like a good ending even if it was a tiny bit predictable. But the appeal isn't big dramatic moments - it's the charm of the characters and this really affectionate feel to it.

In the late 70s I worked in an office not far from Slough and it didn't seem very far fetched at all to me. A lot of the male humour was creepy (Finchy) and cringey (Brent). I found it almost believable although, to be fair, no one ever put someone's stapler in jelly.

I love, love, love G and S though.

I bet they all went to the local Berni Inn on Fridays after work though !

@Jumell the Berni Inn was almost across the road. 🤣

Let's portray working class people as naive and impulsive. Yes the BBC loves that kind of thing....😡

Not sure why the BBC is always so keen to reprise welle established stars / shows…

Maybe the record viewing figures have something to do with it.

Exactly! Watch Alison Steadman in Abigail's party (1977) if you want 10x more laughs. It's a sad end-phase in her career in comparison.

No, the office is good, written and acted by decent actors.

Gavin and Stacey is utter shite.

Popularity has never been the yardstick of quality.
BBC might as well go to advertising mode if it's abandoning quality in favour of popularity.

I don’t think it has abandoned quality. 12.3 million households on Christmas night can’t be wrong. I loved it.