Exactly! That was what bugged me from the first time I saw it. All he had to do was jump from a different place and the whole "game" would have gone horribly wrong. It just makes no sense for a plan as painstakingly staged and executed to leave the final flourish to chance. I'll buy the argument that the more absurd…

Pretty sure the BBC and HBO would happily have paid for any comedy series that had guest spots from the likes of Neeson, Depp and Carell. With their track record, there's no reason why Gervais and Merchant couldn't have said "This is the show, we're not in it, take it or leave it".

That's a pretty thin difference though. It's the same basic character, taken in slightly different directions. You could still take any Brent line and give it to Millman, or vice versa, and I doubt anybody would notice.

The biggest disappointment of Life's Too Short is that it suggests that, following Extras, Gervais really does only have one voice, both as a performer and writer. Warwick Davies has the same tone, the same inflections, the same mannerisms as Andy Millman, which is to say he's the same as David Brent, which is to say…

He has a definite case of Kevin Smith Syndrome.

Combo
Stephen Graham, who plays Combo, is mixed race and Meadows made that part of the character's backstory. Google his name and you'll find an interview with the following quote: