After Life

Name: After Life
Genre: Comedy
Released: March 8, 2019
Rating: 58

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Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Ratings

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7.8

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7.8	Your Score
7.8	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Ratings

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Series Details & Credits

Netflix | Release Date: March 8, 2019

Summary: Created, directed and starring Ricky Gervais as a widower, who decides to say and do anything he wants, no matter the consequences, to punish the world in this dark comedy.

Genre(s): Comedy

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Recent Episodes

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Terry Terrones

Mar 4, 2019

Season 1 Review: Throughout the six-episode season, we see Tony slowly cope with his pain. The process is done so organically that it feels authentic. But what makes this series truly memorable is how brilliantly Ricky Gervais injects humor into such complex subject matter. Touching, poignant and humorous, this is some of the comedian’s best work yet. Read full review

Matt Roush

Feb 28, 2019

Season 1 Review: Unexpectedly moving. [4-17 Mar 2019, p.11]

RogerEbert.com Allison Shoemaker

Apr 20, 2020

Season 2 Review: There’s more to appreciate here than before, if only because there’s no better time to recognize how difficult it can be to simply exist and be decent when the world feels inhospitable or cruel. And if nothing else, Gervais the actor has built on the work of that first season in a way that feels honest, fragile, and even surprising. Read full review

Dan Fienberg

Mar 7, 2019

Season 1 Review: After Life finds its own pulse mostly when Gervais is doing riffs that wouldn't be at all out of place in his standup, podcast or other performative routines. ... It's harder to feel much in the repetitive loops of Tony lamenting the squalor of his life, meandering around town criticizing people for mundane behavior or staring at the endless movies that his wife left him so that, in the afterlife, she could be remembered as a plot device and not a character of her own. Read full review

Mark A. Perigard

Mar 4, 2019

Season 1 Review: After Life plays like an odd vanity project. Read full review

The Independent Ed Cumming

Apr 22, 2020

Season 2 Review: The script has a habit of using swearing where a joke ought to be. Read full review

Josh Modell

Mar 6, 2019

Season 1 Review: As a meaningful meditation on grief, After Life is dead on arrival. As a comedy, it’s good only for a few passing chuckles. It wants so badly to be both comedy and drama--to be both funny and touching--that it fails pretty spectacularly at both. Read full review

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7.8

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User Reviews

Agonii

Apr 17, 2020

I absolutely love this show. It´s dark, hilarious and emotional. It´s in my eyes perfection. It is definitely worth a watch, but you really have to be a fan of Ricky´s because it oozes of him in it =D

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Mdm4684

May 6, 2019

I thought the storyline was weak, as well as being irresponsible & naive. Apparently, according to Ricky Gervais, grief & depression is wallowing if it goes on for more than a few weeks & the way to get over mental anguish is to simply stop being a selfish, whiny **** & start doing goodI thought the storyline was weak, as well as being irresponsible & naive. Apparently, according to Ricky Gervais, grief & depression is wallowing if it goes on for more than a few weeks & the way to get over mental anguish is to simply stop being a selfish, whiny **** & start doing good deeds for people. This is the answer! And all from someone who has said several times publicly that he doesn’t know what depression feels like.… Expand

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iseenthefuture

Jun 20, 2019

Tears at any cost.
After Life is ridiculously heavy handed. Walking around, head hanging low with over sad despondent poor me face is not a profound insight into grief. Drug dealers, prostitutes and fellow grievers shoehorned in to a middle class village whenever the character needs toTears at any cost.
After Life is ridiculously heavy handed. Walking around, head hanging low with over sad despondent poor me face is not a profound insight into grief. Drug dealers, prostitutes and fellow grievers shoehorned in to a middle class village whenever the character needs to evolve a smidge at a time is crass at best. Like Gervais says everybody has had someone to grieve for, no-one that has grieved does it with a wide spectrum of colourful overwritten strangers. There were signs from the start of Gervais leaning towards cheap tears over laughs. It was indulged hugely in Derek, a show an unknown could not have made with their own money, nor should it have been, to this contrived point scoring for tears melodrama. Gervais is a comedy actor that knows he can wring no further mileage from Brentisms, but should not delude himself into thinking that moving the line towards his broad-stroke emotional drama makes him a credible dramatic actor. Try something subtle Mr Gervais with no prostitutes hanging around a common in the middle of the day, no quirky endearing smack dealers that will conveniently die for main character development, no second tier cast members with late on reveals of comparable hidden tear-jerking life problems. Brent was at his zenith when we first saw him, unexplainable how he ever got there, but as time proved was self deluded enough to not cling to the windfall that landed in his lap. After life is the dramatic next chapter of When the whistle blows.… Expand

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Seasons & Episodes

58

Series Overview
Season 2

51
- Season 2 Overview
  Air Date: April 24, 2020
- No episode information is currently available for this season
Season 1

59
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: March 8, 2019