Each episode has at least one guest star: a television or film celebrity who plays what Gervais and Merchant have referred to as "twisted" versions of themselves—an exaggerated or inverted parody of their public persona.
He is incompetent, often taking no steps at all to find work for Andy, and even discouraging potential employers from hiring his client due to his flabby physique, age, and lack of acting experience.
Fed up with life as an extra who is always being cut out of scenes just as he manages to get his face on camera, Andy shamelessly kisses up to celebrities and producers in an effort to try to get screen time or a line of dialogue.
Reasons include celebrities confessing that they have no real power to help, or (more often) Andy inadvertently offending the star which results in his immediate dismissal from the set.
In the conclusion of season one, Andy delivers a sitcom script he has written to Patrick Stewart, who, in turn, passes it along to the BBC through his production company.
Series Two largely chronicles Andy's frustrations with his sitcom—When the Whistle Blows—which is heavily rewritten by BBC producers, resulting in it being a lowest-common-denominator comedy that relies on a multitude of catchphrases, offensive stereotypes and silly costumes for cheap laughs.
Andy periodically gets a chance to expand his repertoire in film and on stage but manages to ruin every opportunity that comes his way by either refusing to take direction, or by once again offending bigger stars than himself.
In the series' 90-minute finale, the sitcom has made Andy financially successful and recognisable to many but he is increasingly frustrated with the show's quality and with his career not moving forward.
His career falls into total stagnation and Andy is forced to take bit parts on various long-running British television series such as Doctor Who and Hotel Babylon.
When he crashes his agent's lunch meeting at a posh restaurant, he is bluntly told that he will never realise his dreams of having fame, fortune, prestige and respect.
Crushed, Andy reluctantly agrees to lower his expectations for the sake of remaining modestly famous and successful and is cast in Celebrity Big Brother.
He tearfully turns to the camera and apologises to Maggie, who is watching the broadcast from her flat, for ignoring her and not heeding her advice to be grateful for the things he has managed to achieve.
It appears that Millman originally set out to do a comedy similar to The Office, with true-to-life characters in a realistic work environment, without a studio audience or canned laughter.
After being forced to collaborate and compromise many of his ideas with BBC producers, the show is transformed into lowest-common-denominator fare, with each character having his/her own catchphrase, repeated ad nauseam to the delight of its 6 million viewers.
The presence of studio audiences, canned laughter, and the reliance on funny wigs, costumes and catchphrases for humour is a comment on British comedy hits such as Little Britain and The League of Gentlemen.
In recent years, the spoof has been compared to real-life sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys, in respect to its animated opening and that it was critically panned yet a ratings winner.
The song in the Christmas Special, highlighting Maggie's depression after she hits bottom and quits acting, is "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush.
According to a segment in the extras section of the Series 1 DVD, Jude Law was scheduled to appear in one of the episodes, after meeting Gervais backstage on the Late Show with David Letterman, but had to pull out due to film commitments.
A featurette on the first series DVD release, "Finding Leo", consists of late-night video camera footage (shot mostly by Merchant) chronicling Gervais' desperate but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to contact DiCaprio's representatives.