I’ve been thinking about the people who work in Hollywood who are not Nicole Kidman or Ted Danson or Bryan Cranston. The writers’ and actors’ strike will do that, as the unions fight for the pay and the rights of the lesser-known people involved in making entertainment. And that has me thinking about “Extras,” the two-season Ricky Gervais series built around friends and hapless movie extras Andy (Gervais) and Maggie (Ashley Jensen). Together they face demoralizing — and cringily funny — moments on movie sets, many of them featuring the likes of Ben Stiller, Clive Owen, and Kate Winslet playing exaggerated versions of themselves.
In the first season of six episodes, the pair struggle to get their careers going, and in the second season, of six episodes and a special, Andy gets a break on a sitcom that is simply awful. In one of the second season’s finest moments, set in a nightclub, Andy and Maggie mingle with an elegant David Bowie, who makes up a song on the spot ridiculing Andy. It starts “Little fat man who sold his soul” and only gets better as the whole bar joins in. The scene is definitely worth YouTubing.
“Extras” tends to get lost in the shadow of Gervais’s influential and brilliant “The Office,” as well as his Netflix hit about a grieving husband, “After Life,” but it’s a little treat. Like “The Office,” it features narcissistic characters doing foolish things, but it’s also got enough heart to evoke pity and even empathy. Like “The Comeback” and “The Larry Sanders Show,” it’s a sharp take on the hunger for fame and what fame can do to people once they find it. “Extras,” which originally ran on HBO, is available on Brit Box and Fubo.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at matthew.gilbert@globe.com. Follow him @MatthewGilbert.