I knew Ricky Gervais’ Alley Cats was going to be terrible, but Christ

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I thought Ricky Gervais’ new show Alley Cats looked shocking.

From watching the countless clips and trailers Ricky has released before the animated series’ launch, I could just tell it was going to be more After Life and less The Office. 

I expected, then, plenty of swearing and philosophical arguments that would sound deep if you were 14, all while people told Ricky’s character how great and misunderstood he was. 

So I don’t mind saying, I was quite excited to review Alley Cats – which stars Ricky as a curmudgeonly cat called Gus as he and his mates try and help a kitten get home – and give it a bit of a kicking. 

You know I could be a bit cheeky, sprinkle in some XFM quotes about ‘lil monkey fellas’ and end it on ‘albino watching that’ then enjoy the buzz I get from making the saucer drinkers on Reddit laugh. 

But I was wrong. 

Alley Cats isn’t poor, it isn’t rubbish, it’s not s**t (or even a s**tcom to quote Andy Millman); it’s the worst thing I’ve watched on television this year. 

As such, I had absolutely no fun watching this – even to mock it.

Alley Cats is the absence of joy. 

It is the televisual equivalent of a black hole of bad ideas that sucks happiness out of a room, leaving only the howling void of boredom and misery in the space that enjoyment once occupied. 

Even thinking about the show to review it is making me angry. 

So what makes this TV series so lamentable?

Well, the easy answer is that it just fails on every single level. It’s ugly, mawkish, and poorly written.

Worst of all, it’s so incredibly unfunny that it makes Derek look like a work of comedy genius.

And it’s that last point that really annoys me because Ricky knows how to write jokes. 

Even After Life, a show as funny as a trip to the dentist, got a snigger or two out of me over three series, but something’s gone very wrong here. 

The jokes (and I use that word loosely) have no set-up or pay-off; it’s just screaming and swearing while whatever David Earl’s character is called brags about rimming a wood louse. 

There was one scene in particular that left me lost for words where one of the cats tells the others ‘he was f******* by some boys’; this prompts the cats to start rambling on about anal, until it abruptly ends with Ricky saying ‘dirty boy’. 

How is that a joke?

It’s not even a non sequitor or a random cutaway like you see in Family Guy; it’s just noise. The type of thing that might raise a smirk after seven pints in the pub. 

I’m guessing, based on what Ricky’s said about the production process, that he and his mates just piled into a studio with a rough idea of where the story was going and had fun improvising a rough episode. 

Sadly, none of Ricky’s clowder of comedians can make this work. As a result, this is like listening to a rather tedious and aimless podcast made by the dullest people at your work.

In fact, that’s exactly what Alley Cats is: it’s the type of thing Gareth and the Oggmonster from The Office would think is funny. 

A programme that fans of When the Whistle Blows would find too low-brow. 

Oh, but don’t worry, if you enjoyed the cod-wisdom of After Life but found it a little subtle, Alley Cats has got you covered.

Almost every episode has some attempt to inject pathos into it, usually featuring the kitten character, accompanied by a moody Coldplay track just in case Ricky’s musings were a bit too subtle for you. 

The problem is that there’s little to no character development for anyone, so you get these abrupt and bizarre breaks where the cats stop swearing for a scene or two to ramble about the absurdity of life before they go back to shouting c*** and b******* at each other.

My favourite was when Gus makes the incredibly profound point that ‘people don’t care about anything except themselves’ (so brave) or when the other cats discuss how nothing happens after you die because Ricky is contractually obligated to remind everyone he’s an atheist for the 84,892,305th time.

So I suppose it’s a good thing we know Ricky doesn’t believe in God (so so ruddy, bloody brave) because if he did, he’d be struck down for sins against television. 

Ricky will undoubtedly hide from the bad press by saying that people were offended or shocked by his sweary cats.

After all, that’s his go-to defence these days; it’s not that he’s as funny as a trip to the dentist, it’s that his material is simply ‘too challenging for you’ even though it’s got all the edge and bite of a boiled egg.

So I feel the need to clarify I wasn’t offended or challenged by Alley Cats. I was just bored by it.

This might come as a surprise to Ricky, considering how groundbreaking he seems to think this is (did you know he compared it to Pixar?), but cartoons that swear haven’t been transgressive since South Park.

But with that said, I’ll admit he did shock me.

I was shocked that a man I used to think was a comedy genius, a man who worked on two of the best comedies of all time and produced arguably the greatest comedy character of the 2000s, David Brent, could produce such lazy claptrap. 

What happened to Ricky? Was he kicked in the head by a mule? Has he been letting a ghostwriter with suspiciously hairy hands write his scripts the last few years? 

I’m genuinely lost for words that anyone thought this was worth releasing. It’s an embarrassment, and Ricky should be thankful Bafta can’t retroactively take away his awards.

Right… did that just go out? 

Alley Cats is available to watch now on Netflix