Extremely funny, very sad, depressing and uplifting #AfterLife is not only one of the best Netflix Originals but flat out one of the best shows on Netflix full stop. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Brilliant show! Just a pity it's only 3 hours total runtime...
"I'm fascinated with the anus..always have been always will be. A man who is tired of the anus..is tired of life" - Brian
Tears, smiles and laughter. I binged the three seasons in four days and absolutely loved it. "If you want to be an angel you've got to do it while you're alive. Be good and do good things."
Wow! What a wonderful finale episode. I am always amazed how this show makes me cry everytime.
This has to be one of the most underrated show ever!
“After Life” deals with loss in a rather unsubtle manner, but it does offer some heartwarming moments and funny gags along the way.
Despite an interesting premise and first season, the show gets repetitive very quickly, spending too much time with the “quirky” but not so funny characters instead of focusing on the ones that could have offered some proper development and realistic emotions. It was also a pity to lose characters like Sandy and Roxy in the last season before closing their story arcs. Tony’s character development is not as eventful as you would expect, but it felt quite realistic in the end.
Lovely use of music and songs, it almost felt like a Christmas Carol without Christmas.
The most honest work of Ricky gervais. A show that can’t not make you want to be a better person and you will not have a dry eye at any point. Got me laughing then crying hysterically. Captivating from start to finish.
[Netflix] Ricky Gervais describes the stages of mourning death in three seasons of his most melancholic series. And although it seems somewhat repetitive in the third season, it is full of secondary characters that complete the personality of the protagonist. It is a thoughtful proposal about the value of life that ends with a masterful scene about the futility of our existence.
brilliant, masterpiece. great ending too, no need for further seasons
Great series. Funny, poignant and a great cast of characters.
Ricky has proven that he's definitely not just a jerk about everything. After Life is a great show that manages to experience several emotions at once. You're constantly getting tears of sadness in your eyes when you laugh. There's probably nothing else like it. Even though almost all the episodes are about the same thing, it's always the last ones of each series that get me the most.
Great show, love Ricky Gervais. Some classic comments and jokes.
Am I allowed to say, I was pretty sick of the wife flash-backs by the end of it
Me after the series finale: “I’m not crying! You’re crying! ”
Such an amazing show; heartfelt, emotional and funny. Another Gervais masterpiece!
I admit I’m not far into the series (Season 1 Episode 4) but I don’t see this as funny.
The guy lost the love of his life and can’t get over it. What’s funny about that?
If the show is funny when does it start?
It is hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time. I loved the way it tackled the topic of grief
Really good show! watched it in two days. cried and laughed!
(Comments made as of their only being 2 seasons)
I loved this way more than I was expecting to, it's a great mix of comedy and sentimental moments. I think even the latter two episodes had me tearing u. This was well done and the comedy was over the top and felt very subtle, not forced at all.
Absolutely marvellous show! I wish it hasn’t ended :”)
Damn I need an Anne in my life
some Quotes from the show:
- "I have never net someone as sad as him yet he makes me laugh"
- "Good people do things for other people"
- "Nothing is as good if you don't have someone to share it with"
- "Women are better than men and they never stop trying to bring us up to their standard"
- "I feel panicked all the time like I am gonna do the wrong thing so I don't do anything"
- "I know just enough of the words to realise how little I understand"
- "A man who doesn't love too easily loves too much"
- "I am not well, but I do remember what it's like to be normal, so I do an impression of that"
It can be a bit slow going at the begining but after ep 3 the show really gets it's momentum.
The first season was ok, but the second one is recycled, following the same pattern and it's mostly filled with garbage dialogue and profanity that they tried to pass as humour. I was really disgusted watching s2 and don't how I made it to the season finale, but I know that I am now done with this show. The idea Ricky had was good, but the amount of idiotic characters and vulgarity is higher than it should be. Just look at the third most liked comment here, if that's something that's funny and should be quoted, I really don't know what to say. And the S2 is filled with "jokes" like that and worse.
2 episodes in and brilliant, heart-wrenching and funny...Just finished watching...what a wonderful story
2nd season doesn't exist
I was browsing Netflix when I stumbled upon this and I was like: "Oh, this got Ricky Gervais in it. Should be fun." Fast-forward to me crying during each episode without fail. Don't get me wrong, this is also hilarious, but I didn't expect to cry this much. It's clever, philosophical, incredibly moving, and such a surprising show. It's an instant favorite.
Tony is not a likeable guy. It is partly because of the untimely passing of the love of his life Lisa, and partly because he is just too self-righteous. It is the plot armour in a sense for him that the rest of the supporting cast tries to give him space and goes out of their way to accommodate his ailing spirit and general meanness that he dishes out towards them. If you manage to step around it, After life is a heartfelt and earnest take on subjects, which are not often talked about as widely as they should.
Lisa, Tony's wife, succumbs to cancer and that breaks Tony to the point of suicide. If not for their dog Brandy, Tony would have carried on with the plan to meet his wife in the afterlife. His father is in an old age home and suffering from dementia. After the passing of Lisa, there is essentially no one left for him to continue, and you can almost rationalize his thoughts of moving on.
There is a stigma associated with suicide. Every character in the ensemble keeps deterring Tony from taking the step probably due to social conditioning. They don't have anything for him when he says, if not that then what? Interestingly, the way Tony reacts to Ray's passing, in a sense of fatalist way, I wonder if all the other supporting characters would have a similar reaction if Tony would have taken that step. This again takes me back to the first paragraph, apart from the plot armour there is not a lot of benefit to the society if Tony stays or leaves the stage.
Yet, if you ignore Tony, and many times you can because after the first season you see him stuck in a cycle of grief, look beyond him and you have some really good characters with their troubles too. Often the protagonist takes centre stage in a way that the side characters get ignored. I for one felt deeply about Julian from season 1. That guy has truly lost everything, has completely given up, and I felt the gut punch seeing Roxy outside the parking lot when the inevitable finally happens with Julian.
Then there is Kath. There is so much upheaval in her arc. When you search Afterlife and Yoga, YouTube throws back an entirely unrealistic green tea slurping meditation trainer which is so far removed from reality that it kind of highlights the sad state of comedy these days, whereas this same series has another Yoga scene with Kath towards the very end which is knocks the wind out of you with its shattering realism. I know that feeling. Probably many of us do. Yet as a society we brush these under the carpet.
It's not like I did not feel for Tony. I think particularly S01E05 (one of the best of the entire series). The scene where Matt is confronting Ricky is pure gold. The expressions are so genuine, almost had me in tears. He didn't mean it, but I get his mental state. I truly do. It is heart-wrenching, to say the least. It is hard to carry on when the last bastions that still rooting for you start crumbling.
After life has many such moments. I did not much care about Tony beyond a point, and towards the end, they could not conclude his arc in any meaningful way says a lot too. But still, the show is worth your time. Watch it for Ricky switching between Tony and himself (this gives you short and sweet sharable laughter shots like charity scene, restaurant and kids menu etc.), or watch it for the lonely fight of Kath, the contentment and longing of Anne, the vulnerability of Matt, and the realist pragmatism of June, watch it for all of them.
P.S.: In almost all the videos Tony is filming, he is more often than not pranking Lisa. No wonder you'd be devastated when the one who has such enormous patience with you leaves you. Such people are hard to come by.
I don't believe in any God either, but Ricky sometimes mistakes the series with a stand-up. In order make a statement, he creates an obviously artificial situation which makes us realize that it's all a show and feels fake.
First two seasons: delightfully triggering, unsettling, tremendously funny. Although I would not recommend watching them directly after watching any Gervais' stand up shows. He does use his favourite pieces in the show. The main character Tony basically is Gervais, if he'd been end up in a dead end job as a small town journalist, with his wife taken from him from an illness. But nevertheless, I did enjoy the first seasons a lot.
The third one is mainly just... depressing. And the end game? The show does not say it too directly, but what is that? He kills himself? Why else would he just disappear, not actually connecting with other, living, characters, in the end? Follows his wife, is that it? Takes comfort with the autumn of his life and does not get together with anyone else than his wife, ever?
This is ... a gold mine. Such an under rated show. Anyone who's lost a love can identify with everything in this. Especially if you're a bitter griever.
I just started and I'm almost done. So many moments in this show I heard the main character saying things I've said to explain my own grief . For instance . . as soon as you laugh a little people think you're getting better.
Maybe you just forgot for a moment or ... you know what it's like to be normal so you're just pretending. It never really gets better. That pain is always looking inside you... after a loss.
I really, really love this and recommend it.
that's just an another sadness porn
(A review more for myself so I remember later, + its not my first language)
Damn I missed that show, its been a long time since a movie/show hurt that bad.
And I loved every second of it.
Sometimes I wasn’t even finished crying and I was already laughing again, this show balances tragedy and comedy in such an understanding, real way, showing how ugly and mean grief / mental illnesses can get, not romanticizing it and taking it seriously but still throwing shades of hope and comedy in it, brilliant writing.
„cheers!“
So it's a drawn out, funny version of Love Liza. That's cool, I like it.
Very cute, dry but warm-hearted show
This is a sad, but very funny show. It just shows how talented Ricky Gervais is when he's directing and acting in this. The swearing is a bit over the top - especially the 'C' word, but I guess that's acceptable in the U.K. now (wasn't when lived there). Great show however
Interesting show, worth a watch. More drama than comedy. There are some moments that will make you smile but not sure you will actually burst out laughing. Overall first season was good, but it felt like he wasn't sure he will get a second season so he kind of tried to wrap things up with some window open to continue the story. Then, season two feel like he now found out that he has a season three as well to do so some things feel kind of like a small "reset". The main tagline "he decides instead to live long enough to punish the world by saying and doing whatever he likes from now on" doesn't apply since by the end of season one he becomes good person again. And if feels like a drag to get to season three where I guess he will want to wrap to story up.
It could've been way better if he would've known from the start how many seasons/episodes he has to work with so he cold distribute the story better.
Highly recommended. Just a thing to make sure is that not to watch if you yourself are in a bad place. The story is funny and dead depressing at times.
So I did not think I would like this but as soon as I started to watch it I fell in love with every season and episode. So funny and typical English humour and the sadness actually made me cry. I told all my friend to watch it and they love it as much, will binge watch the whole lot again very soon as this made me emotional watching it, Bring on season 3 please....#AfterLife
A decent show, but not great.
I love The Office (UK) and Extras, After Life is less funny / more serious, and the humour quite a bit darker that way.
The main thing that irked me was that every episode follows pretty much the same pattern. Ricky watches video of his dead wife, goes on like the depressed bloke he is, then goes to his office, his psychiatrist, the cemetery, etc. It gets old.
It's still good enough for me to stay around for season 2. I'm definitely curious about how it continues.
I really like Ricky Gervais and find him very funny. Great TV show with lots of funny moments but being sad at the same time. Great dark Humor!
Combining the comedy and drama genres is always a tricky thing to do. Make it too funny and the sad moments don’t resonate. Make it too sad and the comedy feels out of place. Ricky Gervais tried to find that balance and did a decent job.
Most of the time, the viewer is immersed in Tony’s view and his activities. When he meets a sex worker and ends up having a heart to heart moment with her, it actually feels real and wholesome. Likewise, the interactions Tony has with Julian are good. The activities they undertake are very questionable, especially their final meeting, but their tragic experiences in life brought them together and it all makes sense.
Some moments in the show do feel shoehorned in however. The diary of Tony’s wife Lisa on her deathbed is one of them. The moments we see of Tony watching those clips feel very forced. It makes sense that he watched the last memories that he has of her, but he completely ignores her advice. In the final episode, Tony has a cathartic moment of sorts, and this is another one of those moments that feel forced. We get it, Gervais is trying to give the viewer a message, a life lesson to be learned. It is very lazy storytelling however. One of the first rules of film and television is: don’t tell us, show us.
Altogether, After Life is a decent watch. It leaves the viewer with a good feeling afterwards and has its comedic moments. We do care for Tony despite his dark and pessimistic outlook on life, but wish he wasn’t such a knob sometimes.
6/10
https://alldayreviews.com/2019/05/06/after-life-season-1/
Shout by MortilnisBlockedParent2023-04-22T12:48:07Z
Refreshing. British humour at its finest.