Our take
If you’re familiar with Ricky Gervais’s wild, over-the-top sense of humor, you’ll be getting a lot of that in here, for better or for worse. But this show is much more than that. Derek( Ricky Gervais) is a seemingly mentally lacking helper in a nursing home where people spend their last days together. Derek and his colleagues Hannah (Kerry Godliman), Kev (David Earl) and Dougie (Karl Pilkington) help take care of the elderly residents in their everyday lives, while struggling with their own problems ranging from social ineptitude to alcoholism.
While the show is mostly lighthearted and very funny, its more emotional segments are surprisingly well-done. In its essence it’s an interesting reflection on the way the elderly and the social outcasts are treated in our society.
What it won
Berlin
1 nom
Sundance
1 nom
The story
Derek is a loyal nursing home caretaker who sees only the good in his quirky co-workers as they struggle against prejudice and shrinking budgets to care for their elderly residents.
Elsewhere
"Derek is engaging and sometimes very funny. Parts of it are ostentatiously sentimental, verging on gooey. That last aspect is the most intriguing."
— Matt Zoller Seitz
"Although it takes awhile to grow accustomed to Gervais' character - a seemingly autistic man working in a struggling convalescent home - the show is filled with a beguiling sense of melancholy."
— Brian Lowry
Streaming arrival
