The Ricky Gervais Show - Season 1

The series...suffers from crude animation that only gets in the way of enjoying Pilkington's far-fetched thoughts and Gervais' bewildered reactions. In this case, it's better to be heard and not seen.

The star is not the pompous Gervais or Merchant, who object and giggle throughout each segment, but the one member who never laughs or even smiles, yet entertains the heck out of us.

Accompanied by such static imagery, Pilkington's unique idiocy loses its allure.

Pilkington's musings are sometimes amusing and always pointless, but the animation almost totally nullifies the first and intensifies the second.

The way "The Ricky Gervais Show" looks, Gervais comes across as someone attacking a poor, random fool who can't fight back.

Ricky Gervais' new animated HBO series is often funny. It's also self-indulgent.

For once, Gervais has proven not to be the towering comical genius he thinks he is.

I have no qualms recommending the series to the right person. But, to be honest, the show completely lacks the genius one expects from the creators of The Office. Gervais simply spends way too much time mocking someone he calls his friend.

Although most of the episodes are the pair laughing at and giving Pilkington a hard time while he goes on his own tangents; the result is comedy at its best!

The renderings of Ricky, Stephen, and Karl hit the mark, as they are appropriately put-upon, jaunty, and dour, respectively.

"The Ricky Gervais Show" is easily one of the funniest things on television.

Ignoring the odd concept of the show in general in that the material clearly works without the visuals, "The Ricky Gervais Show" is straight-up hysterical.