Starring: Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: January 8, 2013
Run Time: 344 minutes
Series: 4 out of 5 stars
Extras: 3.5 out of 5 stars
When I first heard of “An Idiot Abroad”, I wasn’t sure what to expect but this show is a freaking riot. The second series is called “The Bucket List” but of course it is not even Karl Pilkington’s list. Karl picks from a best-of list of 100 items in a generic bucket list and he pick some great choices. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant put this poor guy through hell but it couldn’t be any funnier. Some of the words that comes out of Karl’s mouth are just so hysterically funny, but probably not on purpose. I feel this series was much more personal and on a larger scale than the first series. I can’t wait to see the final season of the show “An Idiot Abroad 3: The Short Way Round” with the very funny Warwick Davis. Highly recommend this show for a great laugh.
Official Premise: In the second season of this hilarious series Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant co-creators of The Office and Extras help their friend Karl Pilkington (“The Ricky Gervais Show”) complete tasks from his bucket list…except the experience is never as easy or as fun as it seems. Gervais and Merchant find ways to arrange a few surprises along the way to keep things interesting. In the end Pilkington ends up visiting more places and suffering more detours than he did in the first season! Find out what happens when an idiot goes abroad…again!
Series 2 takes us to the following amazing locations: New Zealand, Vanuatu, Russia, Mongolia, China, Thailand, Australia, Alaska, Route 66, South Africa, Uganda and Japan. Some of the crazy shit that Stephen and Ricky get Karl to do including bungee jumping, Mongolian wrestling, swimming with sharks and even climbing Mount Fuji. I would have loved to seen more footage from the shark dive for sure. Some of the things they get Karl to do this series is just amazing and I really loved the first series. I thought it would get old after a while but it seriously does not. I wish it was double the length of episodes.
The special features are decent but lacking any commentary from Gervais or Merchant which would have made this release perfect. There are a bunch of great deleted scenes running just about 12 minutes. I have a feeling that a show like this packs tons of cut scenes and alternate takes. They are definitely worth checking out and are very funny. “Pilko’s Pump Pants” is a hysterical infomercial piece that can only be described by watching. I am honestly never get enough of Karl Pilkington and this is classic! Lastly, “Ain’t No Pleasing You” is a very funny focusing on Karl’s song recording with Chas & Dave and gives an overview of Karl’s craziness from this episodes.
