Netflix’s “Alley Cats” is an adult animated comedy created by and starring Ricky Gervais as Gus, an overweight orange tabby living in a derelict London house with fellow stray cats. The review finds its humour unusually subdued and conversational, but says the series is also marked by a surprising melancholy as it portrays the precarity and brutality of feral life.

Across six episodes of under 20 minutes, Gus and companions Puke, Fang and Olive spend their time idling, watching television and debating trivial subjects in deliberately mumbled exchanges. The comedy contrasts social classes through their friendship with a pampered, posh housecat, while bleak incidents — including sudden death and troubled family relationships — give the show a more bittersweet tone than Gervais’s usual acerbic work.