Alley Cats premiered August 7 on Netflix.
By Greg Wheeler
Ricky Gervais’ first television project since After Life trades human misanthropes for feline ones. Here, Gervais presents Alley Cats, a six-episode, 2D-animated Netflix comedy following a gang of feral British cats living rough in an alley.
The voice cast includes Tom Basden, Andrew Brooke, David Earl, Kerry Godliman, Jo Hartley, and Diane Morgan, all of whom have appeared regularly in Gervais’ productions in the past. Gervais writes, directs, and voices Gus, the group’s self-appointed leader, who also happens to be a foul-mouthed, opinionated cat convinced that he is braver and smarter than he actually is.
The plot follows the stray cats as they take in a lost kitten and try to help her find her way home. The kitten gives Gus an unexpected arc as he gradually grows attached to her. This becomes the show’s emotional throughline, as we see Gus’ gruff exterior crack just enough to let some real tenderness through.
The kitten’s journey home gives the second half of the season a sense of meaning and purpose that the earlier episodes lack.
The bulk of each short episode focuses on the cats bickering, swearing, and riffing on sex, violence, and the general pointlessness of alley-cat existence. It’s a style that is unmistakably Gervais, but now transplanted wholesale onto a new cast of characters.
Fang is the group’s perpetually spoiling-for-a-fight tough guy, Olive is a scatterbrained oversharer, and Puke earns his name through a steady stream of stories about the most disgusting things he has eaten or done. The dynamic between them will be familiar to anyone who has watched Gervais’ work before, right down to the insults and the mocking way they express affection.
The animation itself is clean and expressive, with strong character work that sells the cats’ physicality even in the show’s more contemplative moments. However, the season struggles when it comes to its story. Six episodes featuring roughly the same joke rhythm, heavy on crude riffing and light on plot momentum until the kitten storyline properly kicks in, make the season feel thinner than its premise deserves.
As a whole, the season is a mixed bag of crude humor and emotional moments that may land for some viewers and fall flat for others. Fans of Gervais’ particular blend of nihilism and unexpected sweetness will find familiar pleasures here.
I, however, did not find anything remotely funny about the show. I remember cringing at the predictable moments and wondering whether it went too far at times. If you like Gervais’ work, you might enjoy Alley Cats, but if you are tired of constant crude humor, you can probably skip this one.
I give Alley Cats a D.
