It might seem like Ricky Gervais spends the majority of his time arguing with strangers on Twitter about free speech and religion, but he does actually work.

Thank goodness for that, too, because the tweets are tedious and the work he produces often brilliant.

The Office, Extras, and Derek are all solid efforts (The Office is actually a masterpiece and far superior to the US version – fight me), so there’s good reason to believe that After Life, his latest effort, is going to be worth watching.

Vulture with the backstory and synopsis:

Back in 2011, Gervais was working on an initial version of the series in which he played an atheist who dies and goes to heaven, but the project evolved into a slightly different take, with Gervais instead playing a man who has a seemingly perfect life until his wife dies, after which “he decides instead to live long enough to punish the world by saying and doing whatever he likes from now on.

He thinks it’s like a Super Power — not caring about himself or anyone else — but it turns out to be tricky when everyone is trying to save the nice guy they used to know.”

We shouldn’t really need to warn you, because this is what Ricky does, but you’ll be hearing some uncouth language in this trailer:

Early reviews of the show are positive, with many saying that it’s not an outright comedy, mixing in plenty of despair in a “laconic, scorched-earth portrait of grief”.

The show airs on March 8, which is the same day as the Formula One series Drive to Survive.

Plenty of binging ahead.

[source:vulture]