Ricky Gervais: Armageddon

I'm somewhat of a fan. I've genuinely enjoyed some of Ricky Gervais' past specials. This one? Not so much.

I honestly don't care whether the material is appropriate or not or whether it crosses a line or not. In humor, I think it's all fair game. They're just jokes and it's all good. So I have zero issues with any of that. My issue is simply that the show was just not very inspired and ultimately not particularly funny. It wasn't bad, but there wasn't much of a coherent narrative for the show, there were many one-liners that fell quite flat, stories that weren't particularly interesting, jokes that didn't elicit anything (at least in me) and quite frankly, Ricky just seemed to be going through the motions in this show. It felt a little phoned in.

There are much better stand up shows out there than this one.

I love Ricky, his other stand ups, presenting, series etc. Have all been some of my favourite comedy to watch. This felt a little repetitive though. His view on 'anything goes' when telling jokes, is something I fully believe in, but to convince the audience of his beliefs on this, he really pushed things to the limit. Many parts were truly cringeworthy! In addition, I feel that he knows many are critical of him, and this whole stand up was in response to them and their issue with him. What happened to silly Ricky? I miss those jokes! Next time, keep it light, let us laugh at something intelligent and not just constant controversy.

Love love love Ricky. But this special was lacking his usual creative genius. Seems like he just tried to be offensive for the sake of being offensive.

Same themes hashed over and over. The old - anything can be jokes about. Comedians are artists. Just don't listen if you don't like it.

No need to constantly explain you are just joking. You've got your audience, just tell stuff to us that's funny. No need to talk about those that don't watch your stuff.

Took me three sittings to finish it.

Hoping he just gets back to funny stuff and not explaining being offended at a joke is stupid.

Just move on and go back to being funny.

I believe most comedians make specials when a tour is ending, and according to what RG says it's also the case with Armageddon. So it's a special talent for a comedian to keep it fresh. Especially when they are reacting to their own jokes. Some of them, like Louis CK, are masterful in this respect.

So, when RG bursts into giggling in a special, he has probably done it dozens of times, but most of the time you feel like "Oh he just thought of something funny, said it out loud and is now laughing like me". Don't know exactly why this time I just didn't buy it. Especially when RG underlines it saying something like "I just tought a new joke..."... No, didn't really believe it.

Also, repetition is killer. RG says the word "woke" about as much as your average edgy teenager who is writing a TLDR rant in Youtube comment section. I don't disagree with the message, just found myself detaching from the comical and humorous aspects of it.

Comedians have been complaining about audience getting butthurt too easily for over ten years now, not just the woke ones, but pretty much everyone. The subject it's not fresh, you should take a new angle or something. And even so, currently comedians probably are free'er to say whatever than ever before. RG was born 1961, that year Lenny Bruce was arrested all the time just for saying f. Can't write the full word here... it's not because of woke people.

But yeah, it doesn't totally suck, so if you generally like Ricky Gervais specials, it still delivers some laughs.

In many ways Armageddon is a classic Ricky Gervais special; huge laughs, beautiful construction, well-articulated points and all that great jazz that has become his signature ...

BUT ...

.... There is nothing new!

The subject-matter has been exhausted at this point, yet he is still trampling that same old ground and making the same old points.

There are also references to bits by other comedians, as there have been in his last three specials. This is by no means an accusation of stealing material or any such nonsense, however, it should be noted that less popular comedians have received a lot of flack for a lot less.

My last criticism would be that a lot of his material seems be aimed at twitter. Twitter and the real world are very different places, so when he talks about 'people', it comes across as almost hollow because his characters are based in that world.

This might sound like a bad review, but it isn't. Armageddon hits the same high standards we're used to seeing from Ricky Gervais. Unfortunately, 'same' might be the most important word in that sentence.