'Office' team avoid sophomore slump

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, several years removed from creating one of the few funniest shows ever to grace television screens, return with "Extras," a much subtler triumph. The team's original U.K. incarnation of "The Office," so vastly superior to the current U.S. knockoff it cannot be overstated, featured Gervais as much-maligned office manager David Brent, a character not very dissimilar from "Extras"' downtrodden quasi-actor Andy Millman. Gervais portrays both men as hollow jokesters screaming for pity and finding none. \nMuch of the humor in "Extras" is deeply rooted in British social norms and spiked with quick barbs of witty dialogue. Each episode focuses on Millman's "background artist" work on a particular film or television show, and co-stars celebrities like Patrick Stewart, Kate Winslet, Ben Stiller and Samuel L. Jackson as themselves in self-deprecating fashion. \nMaking the most out of their supporting roles are the Scottish-accented Ashley Jensen as Maggie, a kind-hearted, unlucky-in-love extra who is Andy's only friend, and Merchant himself as Andy's hapless agent who is largely reminiscent of "The Office's" Gareth Keenan. \nA possible pitfall of "Extras"' appeal to stateside audiences is that a fair amount of the cultural references herein are so obscurely British that they can elicit confusion, but the majority of Gervais and Merchant's writing is still spot-on. With season one consisting of only six 30-minute episodes on two discs, common among British series, there is an obvious focus on quality over quantity, a lesson most television comedies could learn from. \nSupplements on this set include giddy deleted scenes and outtakes, as well as a featurette called "Finding Leo" chronicling the search for an elusive guest star. Lastly, the amusingly titled behind-the-scenes doc "The Difficult Second Album" is a peek into Gervais and Merchant's initial apprehensions with trying to match the critical reception and accolades afforded "The Office." \nI'm sorry to say that Gervais and Merchant didn't succeed, but what a tough order. Instead, "Extras" is more like the What's the Story (Morning Glory)? to "The Office"'s Definitely Maybe, and, all things considered, that's far from faint praise.