How Long Did We Manage To Care About Derek?

New Show Attempted: Derek.

Premise: Derek (Ricky Gervais), an adult with an intellectual disability of some unspecified sort, works in a nursing home; pines after his boss, Hannah (Kerry Godliman); pesters his best mate, caretaker Dougie (Karl Pilkington); and gets mocked by rough girls at the rowdy local pub.

How Far I Expected To Get: Between Gervais's evolution, over the past decade or so, into an insufferable, obnoxious prick, and because he is playing a developmentally delayed character in a half-hour show, I assumed the jokes would all be at the expense of Derek, to prove just how "outrageous" and "edgy" and "fearless" a performer Gervais is -- which would add up to me making it through about five minutes.

How Much I Watched

24:00! The whole thing!

What Did It: Please don't be misled by the fact that I watched it all: that doesn't mean I liked it. The show begins in a faux-documentary style, with Derek taking us around the nursing home where he works and explaining his relationship to his co-workers and the residents and stuff, and the formal similarity to The Office had me primed for the "hilarious" (patronizing) jokes that were about to be wrung out of these humble characters and their tiny little lives. When it turned out not to be funny -- and I don't mean jokes weren't landing; I mean it wasn't funny at all, apparently intentionally so -- I hung in waiting for something to happen. Eventually, while Derek is out buying a scratch-off lottery ticket for a resident named Joan (Joan Linder), she passes away; when he returns and Hannah breaks the news, the camera cuts between Derek in Joan's room, saying goodbye, and a tearful interview in which he remembers that she'd told him it's less important to be smart or good-looking than it is to be kind, and that he is kind. Then, at Joan's memorial, Tom (Brett Goldstein), another resident's son, asks Hannah out for a drink. The end. (???)

Worth Taking A Run At It? The pilot, at least, is not as self-satisfied or offensive as I had expected, but it is fucking weird. That Gervais is the star of this surprisingly/off-puttingly earnest show makes it hard to see past him to what other elements of the show might be interesting under other circumstances. It's like: imagine Enlightened if Amy were played by Lisa Lampanelli. It would be just a little distracting. Maybe you would get over it in time -- and maybe if I kept watching, I would get over Gervais's casting himself as Derek. But I doubt it. And it's a moot point because I'm not going to.