Extras, the new show from Ricky Gervais, premiered on BBC2 last Thursday, and pirated versions of the first episode have already landed online. The series will eventually be broadcast on HBO, but you can watch the premiere right now by BitTorrenting the file. There are two different .torrents of the Extras premiere on this page. The one called “Extras.S01E01.PDTV.XviD-mVzTV.avi” played fine on my G5 iMac, but the other one, “Extras-S01-E01.avi,” appeared not to have an audio track. For whatever that’s worth.

If you’ve never BitTorrented something before, just do this: (1) Download a BitTorrent application. I use Azureus, which has versions for Mac OS X, Windows, and various other operating systems. (2) Go to the page linked above and download the .torrent. A .torrent is a tiny file that points your BitTorrent application to the much bigger file that you want to download. (3) Open the .torrent in Azureus or some other BitTorrent application. (4) Wait several hours while the 250-megabyte file pours itself onto your hard drive. More info about BitTorrent is here.

Anyway, onto the show itself. It’s pretty good—better than most shows—but so far it’s no Office. Not that I really expected Gervais to match the world-historical genius of that show. Gervais stars as the aspiring actor Andy Millman, a chunky middle-aged hanger-on who has never risen above the occasional gig playing an extra. He’s desperate to land a speaking part, even if it’s only a few lines. Millman has more than a little bit in common with David Brent—the questionable motives, the thwarted ambition, the tendency to say exactly the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time—but Millman is more self-aware and less solipsistic than Brent was. He’s also easier to like. Millman even has a friend and ally, a cute fellow extra played by Ashley Jensen, whom I like a lot so far. It’s weird to see a David Brent-ish Ricky Gervais interacting normally with another human being.

Extras is going to feature appearances by various major stars. In the premiere, Ben Stiller plays an exaggerated version of himself: a humorless, megalomaniacal comedy star who is directing a serious war picture. It’s the same old Stiller shtick: the self-absorbed asshole who can barely contain his rage. The shtick has gotten really old at this point. Does anyone still find it funny?

In 1983 and 1984, long before he became famous as the star and co-creator of the genius BBC comedy The Office, Ricky Gervais was the singer in an obscure synth-pop duo called Seona Dancing. I’ve seen some pictures of him from that period, but nothing as mind-blowing as this one, which Maura just alerted me to:

In other Office-related news, Gervais and his Office co-creator, Stephen Merchant, are developing a new sitcom called Extras for BBC Two:

Extras is the new sitcom he is writing with Merchant, in which Gervais plays a struggling film and TV comedy actor.

“My character is a moaner who bitches about the stars and laughs in the face of adversity,” Gervais said. “It’s not filmed as a documentary this time, but fans of The Office should like it.”

Movie stars Jude Law and Kate Winslet have signed up for cameo roles in Extras, which is being filmed in March and is due to be broadcast on BBC Two this summer.