Xfm S1E20 (April 13, 2002)

The show ran between September 2001 and May 2002 before Gervais and Merchant went on hiatus to film the second series of ‘’The Office’’. Initially, Pilkington’s on-air presence was relatively minimal compared to what it would become. Gervais and Merchant only occasionally called for Karl to weigh in with his thoughts, while the two mostly talked to each other, with the “links” between songs comprising only about 30 minutes of the show’s 2-hour run time.

As Pilkington’s personality moved to the forefront, the talk portion of the show expanded to roughly an hour per 2-hour broadcast. While the show relied largely upon a stream-of-consciousness format, Pilkington made attempts to keep things more conventional by insisting on running contests and airing pre-recorded segments and regular “features”.