It was reported in late July that British comedy performer/writer/producer Ricky Gervais (The Office UK) and his writing partner Stephen Merchant were quitting sitcoms, maybe for dramas. I included this in my post Cleese, Gervais quit comedy; Williams returns. The article I linked to then had a direct quote from Gervais: “This [Extras] will probably be the last sitcom we do. It’s comfortable to churn out the same stuff – but we want to move on a little bit.”
But last week Gervais said: “We’re not leaving comedy behind but we’d like to have a go at something more dramatic.”
The “probably” in the first quote is the operative word. At the time I read several other versions that were more definite (even that article has the title “I’m quitting sitcoms” and the lead “Ricky Gervais plans to quit writing comedy”), and I think I got sucked into the media hype.
Sorry about that. I’ll be more careful next time.