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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
10
Mixed:
13
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews
Mar 4, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Throughout the six-episode season, we see Tony slowly cope with his pain. The process is done so organically that it feels authentic. But what makes this series truly memorable is how brilliantly Ricky Gervais injects humor into such complex subject matter. Touching, poignant and humorous, this is some of the comedian’s best work yet.
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TV Guide MagazineFeb 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Unexpectedly moving. [4-17 Mar 2019, p.11]
Aug 14, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Gervais mostly finds a balance between humor and deep darkness, though he sometimes falters (far too much time is spent on an obnoxious therapist). And, like many comic actors, he seamlessly transitions to drama; even better, he poignantly walks the tightrope between despair and laughter.
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TV Guide MagazineApr 27, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Achieves new depths of feelings - and hilarity - in its second season. [27 Apr - 10 May 2020, p. 11]
RogerEbert.comApr 20, 2020
Season 2 Review:
There’s more to appreciate here than before, if only because there’s no better time to recognize how difficult it can be to simply exist and be decent when the world feels inhospitable or cruel. And if nothing else, Gervais the actor has built on the work of that first season in a way that feels honest, fragile, and even surprising.
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Apr 23, 2020
Season 2 Review:
Ricky Gervais' After Life was a bittersweet little gem, but the first season basically told a reasonably complete story. As a consequence, the second six-episode run feels as if it's essentially retracing old territory -- moving in places, but with less urgency, and more prone to silly detours to flesh out the run.
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The GuardianDec 3, 2019
Mar 7, 2019
Season 1 Review:
After Life finds its own pulse mostly when Gervais is doing riffs that wouldn't be at all out of place in his standup, podcast or other performative routines. ... It's harder to feel much in the repetitive loops of Tony lamenting the squalor of his life, meandering around town criticizing people for mundane behavior or staring at the endless movies that his wife left him so that, in the afterlife, she could be remembered as a plot device and not a character of her own.
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Mar 6, 2019
Season 1 Review:
There’s something to the idea here of accepting how all consuming grief can be, but that message gets lost when the show indulges Tony’s aggressive unpleasantness as much as it does. The turning point comes when someone finally goes ahead and calls Tony out to his face. ... The show and Tony alike turn a welcome corner--but it’s still impossible to tell how self-aware this evolution is on Gervais’ part.
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The IndependentJan 14, 2022
Season 3 Review:
Ultimately, there are little things that endear you to After Life – among them a great soundtrack, a cast of characters who don’t all look like conventional TV stars, a standout performance from Morgan and a brilliant cameo from Tim Key. But then it’s all undone by a descent into clumsy sentimentalism.
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Mar 5, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Gervais’s sharply honed comedic timing and delivery are undeniable, even when he’s working with such tiresome or obvious material as this. ... Still, the cumulative effect of these interactions and the countless others in which Tony berates or belittles the people in his life is ultimately numbing.
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