An Idiot Abroad 2: Series Review

     The first season of An Idiot Abroad was a huge success. Karl Pilkington, the round headed buffoon as referred to as by Ricky Gervais, was sent around the world to see the seven wonders of the world. These included the Pyramids in Egypt, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil and India’s Taj Mahal. These things have been seen on the telly so many times they have actually become pretty boring. That’s where Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant came in. They cooked up all manner of things for Karl to do while en route to the wonders. Whether it was a camel ride across the desert or a starring role in Brazils famous mardi gras festival, Karl was coerced into doing many wacky things for our entertainment. It was quite surprising when he ended up doing a second season, although as Karl himself said, after doing a show with the title of ‘An Idiot Abroad’, the job offers didn’t exactly come rolling in.
  
     The second season involved a bucket list. For those who don’t know, a bucket list is a list of things to do before you ‘kick the bucket’. A list was made of things that people wanted to do before you die. Things on it were things like seeing whales in the wild, doing route 66 and swimming with dolphins. Each episode involved Karl picking something from the list and going off to do it. As with the first season though, Ricky and Steve didn’t let him off that easily and had him doing all manner of horrible things. An example is that in episode 1 he picked ‘living on a desert island.’ Karl had images of a bounty advert, what he got was a wind and rain swept rock in the South Pacific.

     My main problem with the series was that it was all really familiar. I had been really looking forward to it as I loved the first series and maybe I built it up in my mind to much. There is only so much of Karl moaning that I could take though. There were times when it felt like he was moaning for the sake of it, moaning because that’s what we all wanted. Don’t get me wrong, the genius of the first series was Karl moaning. I just think that in hindsight, one series was maybe enough with the odd special every now and again. It’s not Karl's fault that this second series fell a bit flat. I think that a second series was pretty much demanded but I’m sure that a third won’t be. In fact my sources inform me that they are just going to leave it at the two seasons and I for one am pleased by that.

6/10