Gervais was insufferable right back to his days on The 11 O’Clock Show. I regard The Office as an anomaly.
I take it he’s always been that smarmy self obsessed athiest weirdo who thinks he’s above everyone else? Like the one true enlightened one.
The office really was an anomaly. The podcast with karl pilkington also but the humour entirely came from karl in that anyway and Gervais just served as a laugh track.
Anything I’ve seen where they involve Karl just comes across as playground bullying, but done by balding, middle-aged men.