Gervais and Merchant call Pilkington during each trip, to assign him tasks often not related to why he believed he was visiting the country.

The original concept, pitched by Gervais, was to show Pilkington and Warwick Davis travelling around England on a bike together.

The outcome featured the pair travelling to China from Venice via Eastern Europe and India, loosely based on the journey of Marco Polo.

It's only a three-part special but we've decided to make it a bit more global as opposed to 'around Kent for a few days', Pilkington is starting to regret it already."

The very first episode of An Idiot Abroad aired on 23 September 2010 at 9:30pm on Sky1 and achieved an official audience figure of 1,241,000 viewers based on BARB.

These audience figures were Sky1's best viewer numbers for a debuting show since Terry Pratchett's Going Postal four months earlier, making An Idiot Abroad the fourth-most popular non-terrestrial programme that day.

Pilkington is joined by actor Warwick Davis travelling to various locations along the route taken by Marco Polo to China.

[citation needed] Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter praised the show, saying: "At times, it's nearly impossible not to fall apart laughing.

An Idiot Abroad is ridiculously funny and even when it's clear that Gervais and Merchant—pulling the strings back home in England and communicating with Pilkington via cell phone (some of these exchanges are scripted and sound added post-production, since cell coverage is not available in remote areas)—are having a cruel laugh, it's nearly impossible not to fall apart laughing at poor Pilkington's fate.

"[12] TV Shows on DVD gave the first series a positive review, saying: "I've been to places featured in three of the episodes, and it was a blast watching Karl experience them.

"[13] James Draven from MSN gave the second series a positive review: "An Idiot Abroad 2 may dress up its premise as 'bucket list,' but it's really a fish-out-of-water presentation of Karl Pilkington's idiot-savant credentials.