Ricky Gervais' new animated series Alley Cats has been branded the worst thing on television this year by a critic who went in expecting to mock it but ended up just bored.
The show, which launched on Netflix on August 7, follows a gang of foul-mouthed feral cats who cause havoc while musing on the meaning of life and fighting for survival in a brutal human world. Gervais voices Gus, a curmudgeonly cat, alongside Tom Basden, Andrew Brooke, David Earl, Kerry Godliman, Jo Hartley, and Diane Morgan.
A total failure on every level
The review, published by Tom Percival, deputy TV editor, pulls no punches: 'Alley Cats isn’t poor, it isn’t rubbish, it’s not s**t (or even a s**tcom to quote Andy Millman); it’s the worst thing I’ve watched on television this year.'
Percival admits he was 'quite excited' to review the show, expecting to give it a kicking, but found it so bad that even mocking it was no fun. 'Alley Cats is the absence of joy,' he writes. 'It is the televisual equivalent of a black hole of bad ideas that sucks happiness out of a room.'
The critic argues the show fails on every level: 'It’s ugly, mawkish, and poorly written. Worst of all, it’s so incredibly unfunny that it makes Derek look like a work of comedy genius.'
Jokes that are just noise
Even After Life, which Percival found 'as funny as a trip to the dentist,' managed to get a snigger or two out of him over three series. But with Alley Cats, he says the jokes have no set-up or pay-off, consisting of 'screaming and swearing' and rambling about anal.
He describes one scene where a cat says 'he was f******* by some boys,' prompting the others to ramble about anal until Gervais' character says 'dirty boy.' Percival asks: 'How is that a joke? It’s not even a non sequitor or a random cutaway like you see in Family Guy; it’s just noise.'
He speculates that Gervais and his mates improvised the episodes in a studio, but says none of the comedians can make it work, comparing it to 'listening to a rather tedious and aimless podcast made by the dullest people at your work.'
Pathos fails too
The show's attempts at emotional depth are equally derided. Almost every episode tries to inject pathos, usually featuring the kitten character, accompanied by a moody Coldplay track. But with no character development, these scenes are 'abrupt and bizarre breaks' where the cats stop swearing to ramble about the absurdity of life.
Percival singles out Gus's 'profound' point that 'people don’t care about anything except themselves' and the other cats discussing how nothing happens after you die, which he attributes to Gervais being 'contractually obligated to remind everyone he’s an atheist for the 84,892,305th time.'
Not offensive, just boring
The critic anticipates Gervais will defend the show by claiming people were offended or shocked by his sweary cats, but Percival clarifies: 'I wasn’t offended or challenged by Alley Cats. I was just bored by it.' He notes that cartoons that swear haven't been transgressive since South Park.
He concludes: 'Alley Cats stinks worse than a dirty litter box… I was shocked that a man I used to think was a comedy genius, a man who worked on two of the best comedies of all time and produced arguably the greatest comedy character of the 2000s, David Brent, could produce such lazy claptrap.'
The review ends with a plea: 'What happened to Ricky? Was he kicked in the head by a mule? Has he been letting a ghostwriter with suspiciously hairy hands write his scripts the last few years? I’m genuinely lost for words that anyone thought this was worth releasing. It’s an embarrassment.'
