Wednesday 29 June 2016

Television: 'Press Gang: A Night In' (1989) (Episode 1x05)

I wrote about the series 'Press Gang' a long time ago, and it all still stands. It's a witty and intelligent show, even when shown twenty five years later and to a far different audience. Great writing from Steven Moffat (look up his stellar list of credits), and performances from the cast and crew combined to produce a show that transcended its original place in the scheme of things for two brilliant seasons, and three further slightly strained ones.

'A Night Out' is notable for the ever deceptive Colin and his pink rabbit suit, the star-crossed Lynda and Spike beginning to understand each other, the complete absence of a news-related story or guest actors, and the fact that the usually format is completely dispensed with in favour of an evening in the office, chatting. If this were a spinoff 'Star Trek' series, this would definitely be a 'bottle episode', but can a show only on its fifth episode actually have a low-budget episode? Even if it's nominally a kids' show?

There's something about bottle episodes that I love, wherever they appear. They're usually as close as you ever get to theatre on screen, and fizz in a totally different way. Here, we get a restricted cast of five characters for the majority of the episode: Lynda Day, editor of the junior newspaper, in denial at being freshly dumped; Spike Thompson, wisecracking reporter, the universal foil, vulnerable in displaying his cooking talent; Kenny Phillips, the all round good guy, clueless as to recent events; Tiddler, the junior feature editor and pusher of the Spike/Lynda combination; and Colin Matthews, hideous entrepreneurial wannabe trapped in a pink rabbit suit on the edge of a nervous breakdown. It's really just a normal evening at the Junior Gazette, complete with Chinese food.

Bottle episodes are episodes that take place in one location, usually with few to none guest stars, and centre almost entirely on a singular character or relationship arc. In this case, we get a retooling of the two perhaps lead characters, Spike and Lynda, and a fleshing out of their natures beyond their primitive functions as established so far. Why exactly do they act the way they do, and why so much more with each other? We also get more of the psychology of Colin, the aspiring corporate bandit, but he will be expanded further later on...

Yes, a bottle episode, and a fantastic one at that. It's still a kids' show, but it pushes the margins like no other show ever did, and with great wittiness. There has only ever been one Steven Moffat, and this is where he began.

O.

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