The League of Gentlemen - C/D? (now with added Psychoville)

Hereford has a new link road opening tomorrow, the day of the first episode. It is called New Road.

Today ykwim

Ok so they doubled down on the Barbara stuff in a really unfortunate way

oh no

(not that I'm that surprised unfortunately but that really sucks)

Yeah that was a bit awkward.

Other than that fine - not embarrassing, not brilliant. Tubbs and Edward still the funniest.

Jeff and the whiteboard was the prime moment for me. Otherwise a bit up and down to be honest. Nothing dreadful but sight gags still maybe the best part.

It was more or less 100% greatest hits fan service, but about as enjoyable as it could be for being that.

Bingo caller tonight was superb.

Felt very much like it might have worked better as the first third of a feature length special - there was a lot of setup to not much payoff. Enjoyable enough though.

Really wasn't sure about where they're going with Pauline (the one transcendent character they've created) but they've got exceptionally good at twists with Inside No. 9 so I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Much better tonight than last night for sure.

Yeah I really enjoyed that one - bit sad it's only three episodes now. Ollie Plimsoles is an exceptionally well observed character.

Bingo caller tonight was superb.

The conceit - a mundane, very British activity stirring up weird repressed emotions - felt familiar for the team, but the execution was perfect. Maybe the best performance I can remember Gatiss giving.

Hated the "take back control" bit though, too on the nose and out of character at the same time.

Third was easily the weakest I thought - not helped by being the gfirst I watched with my girlfriend, who'd never seen it before and was pretty confused and vaguely repulsed by the whole thing.

Just watched and enjoyed the three episodes. "If you have to ask you can fuck off" made me laugh.

i thought the Papa L pun was terrible.

Kind of brilliantly terrible? Maybe?

My favourite cheap laugh was probably the mayor's "Don't teach your grandmother to suck cocks".

I watched all of this and realised I don't have the stomach for their kind of grotesquerie anymore. Some things were really repulsive.

yeah enjoyed approx 50% of it in a sort of mildly amused way (visual gags, Legz Akimbo, Pam Douvre on radio) but everything else either meh or just gross without being funny. thought the vet in ep1 might be going to subvert expectations but no...
Geoff plot obvious but still a bit lol

the media circus was cute

Come on this was terrible

Chap's post up thread kind of nails my feelings, if I'd have been watching with someone new to the show I'd have felt a bit embarrassed to have suggested it.

They're obv capable of the odd bit of magic still but only really the bingo scene hit home, most of this was broad, gross and unfunny fan service like the worst Inside no 9s

The dark, disturbing side of this show has always been the least interesting part of it, but they themselves seem to think it's the most interesting.

i’ve been running off this analogy too often recently, but this series felt like pretty good ‘league of gentlemen’ fanfic

and i appreciate that they did interesting things with characters like pauline, they didn’t merely do job seekers 2017

To be fair to them, the 'fans' seem to like the disturbing stuff too, and it's probably more fun to write and perform.

The tension between the disturbing and the prosaic is where their best humour lies. It's funnier when the horrors are suggested rather than made explicit. OTOH, I wouldn't want them to start making straightforward character comedy or whatever, where would be the fun in that.

Almost all of their best characters are fairly straightforward: Pauline & Micky, Les McQueen; Geoff; Ollie & Legz Akimbo, Charlie & Stella etc.

I think the show has quite a special combination that seems kind of refreshing. When I first seen clips of it in highschool I was completely horrified by it but I got used to it fairly quickly.

It's not that the new stuff was disturbing, just kind of off-putting and underwritten

What kind of offputting?

Would have liked to see the butcher. Cant think of many other absences but I'm sure there was.

I hope they return to this in some fashion, I'd be sad if there was no more Papa Lazarou.

Agree that this was fanficcy and very much all setup and no payback. Felt like some plotlines were just too slight or something - an extra episode would have allowed them to breathe. The whole Benjamin plot was just an excuse to reference a bunch of old horror movies but was tonally off and just didn't go anywhere

Didn't think the Hallowe'en Inside No 9 was the work of genius some quarters are making it out to be, mainly because I remember Ghostwatch. The one touch of genius was Reece directing everyone to his Twitter and the live content there.

Maybe it was more effective if you'd been following all the set-up but I don't habitually read The Sun, watch The One Show etc. To be fair, Reece was telling us all to.

If I hadn’t been trying to tweet a pic of the screen I’d have turned off because I r idiot

i wonder if OPS were warned about it in advance?

i hadn't seen that bobby davro clip before.

I still can't work out which bits were legit 'live' or if somehow ALL of it was. It was an insane feat of trickery and planning.

I'd like to say all of it, but I think the night vision stuff probably wasn't - too much potential for things to go wrong running about in the pitch black, particularly with respect to timings.

That was pretty bold, assuming people wouldn't switch off in frustration/go and make a cup of tea like I did at the start of the repeat.

The bits in the dressing room were certainly live as they flickd through what was actually on the other BBC channels at the time.

I liked that they portrated themselves as massively unsympathetic.

I watched recently this on iPlayer. The creepiest moment was when my laptop died during the final "Sorry we're having problems with the broadcast" message.

I've never seen this show before - any standout other episodes?

Best advice I can give us that all episodes have a twist which in I think 90% of instances is obvious to anyone who's watched anything much that would get referenced on the Creepy British TV etc thread. A couple are telegraphed really early on and you just have to go with it.

My picks (in no order):

Tom and Gerri
A Quiet Night In
The Understudy
Nana's Party
Seance Time
The Devil of Christmas
Riddle of the Sphinx
Diddle Diddle Dumpling
Zanzibar
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room

12 Days of Christine is the award winner and the canon pick but I don't actually think it's much cop.

the one they started showing as a replacement was quite effective. "A Quiet Night In" (S01E02)

the others that jump out at me from the episode lists are:

"The 12 Days of Christine" (S02E02)

"The Riddle of the Sphinx" (S03E03)

but it's generally quite watchable.

> but I don't actually think it's much cop.

xpost!

My issue with it is that the twist is so transparent from the start that I can't take it seriously. It's well acted and shot, I'll give you that, but to my mind Tom & Gerri and Bernie Clifton mine similar territory more effectively.

Oh yeah, I did watch that Christine episode but blanked it out. You're right, the ending was quite obvious. Also a bit of "we are comedians but this our SERIOUS ARTISTIC one" worthiness.

Nah there are loads of good ones, but the WE ARE BEING CREEPY NOW ones are typically the worst.

My ten would be:

Sardines
A Quiet Night In
Last Gasp
12 Days of Christine
Nana's Party
The Bill
The Riddle of the Sphinx
Zanzibar (probably my #1 overall)
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room
Once Removed

The most recent one isn't even in the top 20 best episodes.

The Harrowing, Private View and To Have And To Hold are all worse.

I have a soft spot for the Elizabeth Gadge one because it's the only one played as an overt comedy.

That's the worst of the lot I think, there's a real feeling of rejected LoG sketch about it.

Yeah, I'm aware I'm swimming against the tide there.

I enjoyed that one.

I commented on the UK Comedy thread, but I watched this Sunday night and found it a bit 'will this do?' It was almost worth it for the Bobby Davro clip.

I've only dabbled, but my favourites have been

A Quiet Night In
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room
Once Removed
The Riddle of the Sphinx

The rhyming one in the hotel was so far onto the whimsy scale I don't quite know how I made it through.