KEY POINTS:
It's not often we thank our telly channels for sitting on British shows until they're near their use-by date, but it was considerate of Prime to save the depressive Extras Christmas Special for the middle of a recessionary winter when were really feeling down.
In this grand finale, Ricky Gervais' desperate-to-be-famous character Andy Millman was now the dissatisfied star of a low-brow sit-com, spouting his catchphrase: "Are you having a laugh?"
But the laughs were in short supply as Gervais turned his brand of black comedy of deep discomfort into a long-winded finale that was almost unbearably bleak.
Yes, it did still have its moments of hilarity, bubbling out like small sulphurous geysers in desperate-for-stardom hell. Andy's corset-popping during his audition to play a dashing swashbuckler in a serious film was a scene to cherish.
Anything involving his bumbling agent (Stephen Merchant) went down well. And Andy's true talent for digging himself into fantastically deep holes still sparkled, particularly in an interview with a Guardian newspaper journalist in which she grilled him on his imaginary charity work (his cause of choice? "Africa") and his connection with director Ridley Scott.
But Andy's dimwitted friend Maggie's (Ashley Jensen) downward slide from film extra to cleaner was purely depressing. At times, such as her hero Clive Owens' reaction on set to the choice of Maggie to play a prostitute - "I wouldn't pay for that!" - it was too nasty to be funny. However, Jensen's portrayal of Maggie's silent and wincingly painful despair stole the show.
As with The Office, the Extras finale went for a note of redemption. But Andy's tirade on the shallowness of celebrity culture in the Big Brother house couldn't escape sounding preachy.
Even less convincing was his absconding at his moment of greatest triumph and turning his back on it all.
It's hard to swallow Gervais giving us a lecture on our obsession with fame, when he himself has made it so big. And it's a slippery target. The reality shows will go on and celeb mags keep flying off the shelves. You just can't shame the shameless.
Still on the subject of British funnymen, a highlight among all that build-up to Beijing was comedian Paul Merton's jaunt round China on the Documentary Channel.
Merton managed to ditch a trip to the Great Wall to seek out the subject of a newspaper article he'd just read: a farmer who makes robots.
The sight of Merton being pulled along through rice paddies by the farmer's huge, faceless humanoid, accompanied by a mini version pulling along a delighted child, was far more memorable than any of that spouting about China's "eternal mystique" in those Air NZ plugs on TV One.
A couple of thousand rickshaw robots pulling the athletes into the stadium could have livened up the most routine part of the Opening Ceremony.
As for the rest, there was no denying the show was "the best ever" and "the most spectacular", as the breathless commentators kept telling us - at least until the next Games.
The razzle-dazzle was there on a vast scale, as the Chinese celebrated their headline inventions: gunpowder, paper-making, printing, the compass and, with that little cutie in the red dress, the one-child policy, perhaps.
However, let's not be churlish, because as enjoyable as all the fireworks are, there are the random starbursts from the awestruck commentators and other pleasures of the Games: the fondness of former Soviet states for wearing acid colours, the sexist beach volleyball dress code and all those synchronised sports that never otherwise see the light of day.
Yes I know, not quite the main events. But some of us can't help being distracted by the extras.
