St. Gervais?

Willa Paskin reviews Ricky Gervais’s new show Derek, in which he plays a man who works at an old-age home and “seems a little off”:

Derek is neither cringey nor particularly comedic: It’s the first show Gervais has done about characters for whom he feels nothing but admiration and sympathy. Tearing up after the death of a resident at the home, Derek says that the deceased told him, “It’s more important to be kind than clever or good-looking. I’m not clever or good-looking, but I am kind. ” This is Derek’s mission statement: It is better to be kind. Derek is loving and sweet guy who helps everyone he can, never complains, and never feels bad about his lot in life. … Gervais has created a selfless, innocent, all-forgiving savant who always turns the other cheek and whose simple, pure life is a demonstration to the neglected around him of humanity’s capacity for good. Gervais may be an ardent atheist, but Derek’s not a character, he’s a saint.

Phil Dyess-Nugent suggests Gervais may have shifted “too far in the extreme opposite direction” from his usual comic ruthlessness:

[I]t’s pretty amazing—like, “Music Of The Heart, a film by Wes Craven” amazing—that the man who gave us that scene in Extras in which Kate Winslet talked (cynically, hilariously) about wanting to make a Holocaust film (because it was a sure shot at an Oscar nomination) now wants to give us this, with his tongue nowhere near his cheek. His own performance is never convincing—you look at him and want to shout, “Jesus, man, I don’t vote for the Emmys, but if I could, I’d give you one if you’d just close your mouth!”—and it’s just one piece of a big gooey pile of treacle.