Dashing hope: the derek story

by Barry Murphy @BarryLadTweets

(note: this article was written after the second episode of the first series of Derek aired.)

I wanted to like this show, I really, really did. I thought the pilot was a fabulous effort, and was genuinely touching. But, as it turns out, that probably should have just been a stand-alone short film of sorts.

This was just bad. On a few levels.

Several of my main gripes have been mentioned in the Derek forum, but the show in general is just not as clever as it thinks it is. It's a mess of try-hard sentiment and mixed messages. In one episode it wants to play the "it doesn't matter if I'm autistic/different card" and in the next it goes to "why did you give him (this 50 YEAR OLD man) alcohol?!". This sequence effectively treated Derek like he was a 16 year old autistic, and Hannah was his mum. Similarly, it wants to preach about Derek: how "kindness is magic" and "it doesn't matter if I'm autistic", but much of this episode's humour was derived from mocking doddery old farts for being thick and senile. Then, to pile on the insults, the closing credit sequence was a weird montage of the residents in their youth; the latest "oh aren't we really deep" sentiment this show has tried to force on the audience with all the subtlety of a brick up the urethra. Leaving aside the hypocrisy of those credits - because you could argue that making fun of them earlier was just a way of contrasting what they are with what they were - why was this even in the show? It really wasn't a focal point of the episode at all, so more than anything else I found myself asking "wait... what? Why?"

The Victoria arc was cringeworthy and beyond cliché. The fact that they rushed it like they did was just perplexing. I hate to do this, but I'm going to: remember The Office? I do. Characters in that show like David Brent, Gareth, Tim and Dawn all developed over time. Their arcs spanned the length of the show's two series. The majority of the first series was spent setting Brent up as a bit of a prat before tearing him down and giving him something of a redemption later on. Here, we met the character, she had some woeful cliché 'modern teenager' verbiage about Twitter and the Kardashians, there was a tenuous "oh this isn't so bad" sequence, and then she got a metaphorical and literal 10/10 for her hard work, and broke down in tears. Cringe, cringe, cringe. All within one 22 minute episode.

This leads me to my next point...lose the piano. In fact, burn it. I am so sick of these montages of sad imagery with the world's most overbearing piano notes playing in the background. Again, not a whiff of subtlety to anything on this show.

If people think that Steve and Barry from Eastenders were Gervais' attempt at crowbarring 'broad' humour into Extras, they should see this show. Kev feels like the type of character who would have been ridiculed in Extras, or even on the XFM shows - a shoe-horned character created by some numbskull network executive to broaden the show's appeal. "Look, you can have your sentimental toss about kindness but we need something for the plebs to laugh at... I want an ugly, balding, sexual deviant to live in the nursing home and all he does is shit and piss himself throughout. That'll get them hyucking on the unemployment line!"

This show is not as bad as Life's Too Short, and I'd be lying if I said there were no redeeming qualities. The joke sequence with Kev and Derek got a laugh, and in general the performances are actually quite good. Karl is awesome and gets a laugh almost every time he tries. The concept is okay, and some of the characters have potential. But the whole package is put together in such a ham-fisted way that it makes me feel like I shouldn't even bother with the rest of the series. Because potential is nothing if it doesn't manifest itself in the actual show.

And, so far, it doesn't.