SO farewell, then, Extras.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s award-winning series came to an end last night in a self-congratulatory flurry of celeb-baiting and pleb-mocking, but plenty of amusement all the same.

When Extras is funny (which it is, a lot of the time) it touches on comedy genius. But it is hard to love, precisely because main character Andy Milman is so awful and in the final, feature-length episode I wanted to put my foot through the television to make him stop.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Ricky Gervais turned into such a colossal annoyance, just as it is difficult to work out where his flesh-creepingly awful characters – and often his public persona – end and the man behind them begins.

At first I thought we might see something a tad different from him, even feeling something like sympathy for the worn-out unhappiness of Andy’s resigned body language, as his dreams of a serious career slowly disappeared down the toilet – before you remember Gervais tends to look like that all the time now, and that suspension of disbelief that he’s playing a fictional character just isn’t there.

And so, the comic relief of Stephen Merchant and Shaun Williamson came as more of a blessing than ever. The pairing of useless agent Darren and Barry from Eastenders was used sparingly throughout Extras so it never got old, and even throwing in Dean Gaffney didn’t ruin the formula.

Maggie (Ashley Jensen) remained her good old self, and even though you can generally see her plot devices coming a mile off, still kept things funny with it – of course she was going to mess up pretending to be Andy’s PA, but the ensuing discomfort in the presence of a Guardian journalist recalled the The Office at its hand-chewingly unbearable best.

The celebrity cameos were in turns scene-stealing (Clive Owen), cringeworthy (Hale & Pace) and mightily confusing in the ‘willing participant or attention-seeking nutcase?’ sense (George Michael, although the flytipping joke was gold). I could never buy this “laughing with not at” redemption Extras brought to the careers of the likes of Les Dennis and Keith Chegwin – and Gervais’s two fingers up to basically anyone who isn’t him (“I’ve got the fame and the money and the Hollywood cred and didn’t have to take it up the bum like Milman does”, seemed to be his kiss-off) made me glad to see the back of this series, as worthy as it has been.

Extras had some brilliant moments – the Patrick Stewart episode, the David Bowie song:

....Enthusiastic turns from the likes of Kate Winslet and Ben Stiller – and its finale was no exception. But now he’s made his point about the nonsense of celebrity, wouldn’t it be great if its ending put paid to the smug Ricky Gervais character once and for all?

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