Beer of the Week: (not a paid advertisement)
Watching TV:
Written by: Simon Nye
Directed by: Martin Dennis
Original airdate: November 27, 1997
Synopsis:
Gary, Dorothy, and Tony watch an episode of Star Trek, with Tony, happy and excited to be dating Deborah, asking random questions, annoying Dorothy to no end. Deborah finally comes down to join them but she too gets tired of Tony's constant chattering. The three decide to temporarily get rid of Tony by pretending they’re having a costume contest which sends him off to his room to search for a costume, while the three get to watch the episode in peace.
As they watch, the girls annoy Gary, who just wants to watch, by talking about the show, discussing various aspects of it and making fun of each other. As they talk, even Deborah can’t come up with why she really likes Tony, aside from his smile, which Gary helped Tony perfect. Tony finally returns dressed up as Braveheart and realizes he was the butt of the joke. Gary then hands him a shaken up beer that causes him further embarrassment, with Gary and Dorothy saying they don’t like that he’s so happy because it makes them uncomfortable.
Tony returns to asking questions which cause them to try another joke, a game of hide and seek with only Tony actually hiding while the other three return to their show. Talk turns to how much TV Gary actually watches, and how Gary has set a timer to hopefully get free pizzas when the delivery driver arrives late. They talk about watching TV as children and what they heard when actors got naked on a show back then, when Tony finally returns, covered in water from his attic water tank hiding place, realizing he was made fun of again. He gets angry and tries to get back at Gary by shaking his beer up but Gary manages to switch them and Tony is drenched again. He retires to his room, angry and saddened.
The pizza delivery driver shows up in time, but Gary tries to hide and turn off the lights so they can get the free pizza but Tony ends up coming out and turning on the lights, meaning the pizza guy can see them and he has to pay him. As they eat, Deborah says they’re going to talk instead of watching tv but as they sit in silence, she finally acquiesces and they start watching tv again.
Chat on the sofa:
Star Trek: The City On the Edge Of Forever by Harlan Ellison
Martina Navratilova is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world's No. 1 in women's singles for 332 weeks, the second-most of all time.
Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.
Bianca Jackson from EastEnders was played by Patsy Palmer.
Carol Smillie is a British former television presenter, actress and model from Glasgow, Scotland. Smillie became famous as a television presenter during the 1990s and early 2000s. She was best known for assisting Nicky Campbell on the UK version of the game show Wheel of Fortune between 1989 and 1994. Between 1996 and 2003, she was the main presenter on the BBC One home makeover show Changing Rooms.
The Starsky & Hutch theme is quite tricky to remember.
The Good Life theme isn’t quite as memorable either. The show opened with the midlife crisis of Tom Good, a 40-year-old plastics designer, it relates the joys and setbacks he and his wife Barbara experience when they attempt to escape a modern "rat race" lifestyle by "becoming totally self-sufficient" in their suburban house in West London. Felicity Kendal played Barbara Good on the show.
All Around My Hat is a 1975 album by Steeleye Span, their eighth and highest-charting; it reached number 7 on the UK Albums Chart, and stayed on the chart for six months. The title track was edited to just over three minutes long for single release (omitting the final verse) and became their highest-charting single, reaching No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart.
The Magic Roundabout is an English-language children's programme that ran on BBC Television from 1965 to 1977. It used the footage of the French stop motion animation show Le Manège enchanté but with completely different scripts and characters.
The Borgias is a British television drama serial produced by the BBC in 1981, in association with the Second Network of the Italian broadcaster RAI. The series was set in Italy during the late 15th and early 16th centuries and told the story of Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI, and his family.
Ten:
Written by: Simon Nye
Directed by: Martin Dennis
Original airdate: December 4, 1997
Synopsis:
As the group watches tv, Dorothy and Gary take jabs at each other while Tony and Deborah bask in the glow of their love. Gary warns them that they were once happy like them at the start of their relationship too, prompting Gary and Dorothy to recount some of the more wild places they had sex in.
Later, Dorothy asks Gary to see a counselor about their relationship but he is not keen on the idea but gives in. Tony asks Deborah about having sex in some strange places but she distracts him easily by initiating sex with him.
Dorothy drops off her nephew Jonathan with Gary and Tony while she heads to work. Later that day, Gary and Tony try unsuccessfully to talk with Johnathan until Tony realizes he can ask him to do stuff and he’s happy to oblige. They ask him to get them some beers and do the dusting, but then Tony asks for some advice about meeting someone’s mother for the first time.
At the counselor’s office, Gary is combative while Dorothy tries coming on to the doctor. He gives them a compatibility questionnaire to fill out and return.
A very nervous Tony finally meets Deborah’s mother and immediately hugs her, and then awkwardly starts up a conversation, putting his foot into his mouth several times.
Back at the flat, Gary talks about relationships while playing a game with Jonathan. Dorothy arrives home to see that Gary has definitely impressed some of his habits on her nephew.
Back at Deborah’s the next morning, she wishes Tony had talked normally at dinner and asks him not to say anything when her mom comes, but he mistakenly goes in for a kiss greeting from her mum, and she asks him about what’s in the paper. Remembering to not talk he merely shows her pages of the paper. When she complains about Tony’s hair, he begins to panic, looking at his hair in the spoon’s reflection.
At the counselor’s office, Ben goes over the questionnaires which showcase their incompatibility and flirty natures, leading him to suggest they should probably split up.
Meanwhile, Tony has given himself a very curly perm, and when Deb’s mom insults his style, he yells at her.
Dorothy brings Gary some flowers and a ceiling mirror and they introduce themselves to each other, as if it was a first date, showcasing what they know about each other and renewing their relationship. As she goes to retrieve Jonathan to take home, she sees Tony’s influence on him as he crushes a beer can, burps, and tosses the can just like the guys do. As they escort Jonathan out, they both insult Deb’s mom but try to cover it up as she walks out in a huff.
As the two talk about girlfriends and their mothers, Gary gives Tony a gift, a pair of thick novelty glasses with a light up nose to help take the attention off his curly hair.
Chat on the sofa:
Jonathan was played by Zak Maguire. Aside from an appearance in Goodnight Sweetheart, he has only a dozen roles, all minor.
Wanda Ventham played Deborah’s mother. She was in 12 of the 13 episodes of Oscar Charlie (a boy discovers his grandfather is a secret agent), 11 of the 12 episode series Fallen Hero (the story of Gareth Hopkins who declined fame as a Welsh Rugby Union international, in favour of a big money switch to Rugby League in Yorkshire), and The Lotus Eaters (a war veteran and his wife, unknowingly a secret agent, run a Greek island bar. When she's activated on a mission and suspicions about him surface after a murder, their loyalty faces a test). She’s also a Doctor Who veteran, she was in The Faceless Ones with Patrick Toughton, and Image of the Fendahl with Tom Baker, and then again in a Sylvester McCoy episode, Time and the Rani.
Richard Dillane played Ben, the counselor. He was previously in Wolf Hall as a lead (after the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, his secretary, Thomas Cromwell, finds himself amongst the treachery and intrigue of King Henry VIII's court and soon becomes a close advisor to the King, a role fraught with danger). He played Carter in two episodes of Matt Smith’s Doctor Who run, Let’s Kill Hitler, and The Wedding of River Song, and Patrick Wayne in the series Pennyworth. Most recently he was in The Diplomat (a Netflix original), and played Davo Sculden in Andor.
The Goosebumps book Jonathan is reading is Monster Blood III. Published in 1995, it is the 29th book in the original series.
The game Jonathan and Gary play is Crocodile Dentist, first produced my Milton Bradley in 1990.
Selfridges is a British department store chain, the first store was opened on Oxford Street in London.
Dorothy says her political allegiance is to the Labour Party, which sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. Gary says he is a Liberal Democrat (Lib Dem) which is also centre-left but closer to centrist.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP) is a political party established in the United Kingdom in 1982 by the musician David Sutch, also known as Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow, or simply Lord Sutch. It is notable for its deliberately bizarre policies and it effectively exists to satirise British politics, and by fielding novelty candidates to offer itself as an alternative for protest voters, especially in constituencies where the party holding a safe seat is unlikely to lose it.
Charlies (Johnathan reference): A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words is a 19th-century lexicon compiled by John Camden Hotten, first published in 1859 or 1860. It documents the slang, cant, and vulgar language used in London and other parts of England, including criminal, theatrical, and sporting slang, as well as secret languages like back slang. The book provides historical and linguistic insights into the language of the time and is considered a culturally important work.
Kevin Keegan:
Sofa:
Written by: Simon Nye
Directed by: Martin Dennis
Original airdate: December 11, 1997
Synopsis:
As the girls and Gary sit on the sofa, they soon discover that there are fleas on the sofa, prompting Dorothy to tell Gary to get rid of it, pointing out also the various stains of unknown nature on it. Tony arrives home very drunk after having a night out at the pub and later passes out in his bed. He wakes up the next morning with a terrible hangover and the realization that he bought a snake from someone at the pub last night. He goes out to see Gary reminiscing on the sofa about the good times he’s had with it.
Gary, finding things hidden within the sofa from years ago, reminisces about when he first got the sofa when he was a young boy, while Tony reminisces about his dangerous rebel days. Gary remembers bringing girls back to his sofa, times that all resulted in him either getting rejected or rejecting women himself and even back to when he just met a young Anthea and George, who accidentally gave him gifts and office supplies emblazoned with the name Barry Strange.
Tony meanwhile manages to capture the snake, but before he can get rid of it, Gary wants to reminisce some more, thinking back to when he first met Dorothy.
Tony tries to flush the snake down the toilet to no avail. He leaves Gary alone with his sofa, with Gary sobbing uncontrollably about having to get rid of it.
Meanwhile, the girls sit on the newly arrived sofa from Dorothy’s parents and while cracking a beer open like the guys, talk about their relationships, before turning on Baywatch, and engaging in a typical Gary and Tony conversation. Meanwhile, Gary and Tony sit on his old sofa in the middle of nowhere, drinking some beer and letting the snake go free.
Chat on the sofa:
Laurence Sackman: British photographer, started his career at the early sixties in the sulfurous world of Fashion and advertising. His photographs were published in every great magazine of that time, Vogue, Stern, Sunday Times, Elle, Marie-Claire. His photographs are powerful, explosive, and sometimes erotic, they witness the passion and craziness that inhabited him for decades. He owned a great knowledge of black and white and colors. Only a hundred prints are left from his career, most of them disappeared during his life. Nude prints start at 125 on eBay.
Tiverton is a town and civil parish in Devon, England, and the commercial and administrative centre of the Mid Devon district.
A bedsit is a one-roomed unit of accommodation typically consisting of a combined bedroom and sitting room with cooking facilities.
The Cerne Abbas Giant is a hill figure near the village of Cerne Abbas, in Dorset, England (125 miles or 201km from London). It is currently owned by the National Trust, and listed as a scheduled monument of England. Measuring 55 metres (180 ft) in length, the hill figure depicts a bald, nude male with a prominent erection, holding his left hand out to the side and wielding a large club in his right hand. Like many other hill figures, the Cerne Giant is formed by shallow trenches cut into the turf and backfilled with chalk rubble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerne_Abbas_Giant
