Inside No9 series 7

[Kankurette]

Not the first time they've done an episode lampshading (as they say on TV Tropes)

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crime cliches. When Reece's character was called Barnabas, I wondered if he was going to be a vampire again!

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[RHX]

Made me want to see an episode where they try and subvert Knox's Commandments, though how possible that would be in a 30 minute episode without feeling too rushed is up for debate.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I know it was basically just half an hour of Pemberton and Shearsmith moaning about...

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... hoary old crime fiction cliches, but I enjoyed their annoyance. The fact that they've both starred in shit, generic ITV crime dramas could be regarded as massively hypocritical, but I think they're self-aware enough to realise that.

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Just listened to the podcast, and they bring up the fact that Reece once played a Hackneyed ITV Crime Drama character similar to his character in this episode. They're having their cake and eating it, I suppose. We've appeared in some crap, but we know it's crap.

[selectivememory]

I could see why some people might hate that episode, and I did see the final twist coming, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Very silly, but a lot of fun.

[jobotic]

To me it wasn't fun though. That's fine, they don't have to be fun, particularly the creepier ones, but it wasn't really anything else either.

Not really moaning though, their hit rate is phenomenal and I bet I enjoy the next one.

I really enjoyed the Comeddia Dell Arte one - that was fun.

[MigraineBoy]

Am I right in thinking 

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Pemberton was never actually introduced as police - the audience just assumes he was another weary cop by the way he questioned everything & jotted stuff down. 
But when the real author shows up she's introduced as a Family Liaison Officer immediately. I think that's why the reveal jarred for me. 

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[Tony Tony Tony]

Am I right in thinking 

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Pemberton was never actually introduced as police - the audience just assumes he was another weary cop by the way he questioned everything & jotted stuff down. 
But when the real author shows up she's introduced as a Family Liaison Officer immediately. I think that's why the reveal jarred for me. 

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Reckon you're spot on about the misdirected over Pembertons role but

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my reading is that the family liaison officer isn't the real author. She was 'killed' along with Shearsmith though both came back from the dead. I took it that all the characters apart from Steve were figments of his fevered imagination and it was his work as an author that drove him mad and characters he created but didn't bring fully to life took revenge on him

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Now important matters... anyone spot the hare?

[MigraineBoy]

27:02 on iPlayer

[Stigdu]

Reckon you're spot on about the misdirected over Pembertons role but

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my reading is that the family liaison officer isn't the real author. She was 'killed' along with Shearsmith though both came back from the dead. I took it that all the characters apart from Steve were figments of his fevered imagination and it was his work as an author that drove him mad and characters he created but didn't bring fully to life took revenge on him

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My interpretation was that Steve's author character had imagined the characters of Kat and Bull, but then when he put the Kat character to rest (for good), she 'came back' from obscurity, as it were, and organised the kidnap of his little boy, hence the female officer coming in to try to solve the case.

The twist was that the female 'office' was actually the real author, and Steve himself was a character construct who had also outlived his welcome and was consigned to the bottom drawer...

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[Bigfella]

Could everyone knock this 'spoiler' crap on the head?  If you haven't seen it or want to work it out on your own, simply avoid this thread.  It just makes it look like every cunt wants to highlight their brag of how they immediately recognised esoteric references and shrewdly anticipated every plot twist.  No offence to individuals, but that's how it comes across.

[Kankurette]

I put stuff in spoiler tags because I don't want to get moaned at for spoiling the episode. It's not about being smug.

[Bigfella]

I put stuff in spoiler tags because I don't want to get moaned at for spoiling the episode. It's not about being smug.

Okay, fair enough.  It just seems daft after it's been on BBC2 and the thread is called 'Inside No9 series 7'.

[JamesTC]

The first half felt reminiscent of the ridiculously underrated TNG episode The Royale. I didn't think it was as good after that first twist was done with. But I did enjoy it.

[Poobum]

Really didn't like it. Didn't really skewer detective tropes in a way that was funny. The constantly waking up, disjointed narrative cliché just annoys me. The twist was very hard to care about, so I didn't.

[Angst in my Pants]

Ohhh I think I must have misunderstood the twist...

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I thought it was that Ezra was fictional from the offset, and that Matilda had always been the real author. But was it actually that Matilda was one of Ezra's fictional characters who took over, with the help of Katrina?

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I'd had a bit to drink so I can't have been giving this my full attention!

I did laugh at:
"Am I dead now, then?"
"Am I a lesbian now, then?"

[Indomitable Spirit]

Ohhh I think I must have misunderstood the twist...

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I thought it was that Ezra was fictional from the offset, and that Matilda had always been the real author. But was it actually that Matilda was one of Ezra's fictional characters who took over, with the help of Katrina?

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I'd had a bit to drink so I can't have been giving this my full attention!

To be fair, the way you initially read it is the way that I did too, so if the twist was

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Matilda was still a fictional and had psychologically overpowered Ezra

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I don't think they did a great job in making that apparent in the writing. I feel like this one definitely could have benefitted from an extra 15 minutes - specifically when the plot moved from

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Kat to Ezra's "reality"

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I imagine they had a laugh writing this, but these meta type things feel like the sort of stuff writers come up with to entertain themselves once they've ran out of proper ideas, which after three DUDs in a row I'm starting to think might be the case.

[Glebe]

Slightly muddled that, but it was alright.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Good to see Siobham Redmund from Between The Lines in this.

[Rev+]

This was the first episode of the whole lot that felt a bit compromised, like it wasn't quite the original idea.  The final layer felt like a quick fix rather than something that was intended in the first draft.  The story seemed like it should have been about a writer who has an equally slippery grip on fiction and reality, and was figuring out a way to get out of an awful thing he'd done.  I'd be willing to put as much as 10p on that being the original idea.

[gib]

It was like they were pitching ideas then shooting them down. I would much prefer to see them do a series on Bull and just have the courage to go with the idea, instead of this weird meta stuff.

[zomgmouse]

To be fair, the way you initially read it is the way that I did too, so if the twist was

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Matilda was still a fictional and had psychologically overpowered Ezra

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I don't think they did a great job in making that apparent in the writing. I feel like this one definitely could have benefitted from an extra 15 minutes - specifically when the plot moved from

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Kat to Ezra's "reality"

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I imagine they had a laugh writing this, but these meta type things feel like the sort of stuff writers come up with to entertain themselves once they've ran out of proper ideas, which after three DUDs in a row I'm starting to think might be the case.

yeah I read it as

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Steve being a character at the end as well - the characters taking revenge interpretation does make kind of sense though

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[Virgo76]

Could everyone knock this 'spoiler' crap on the head?  If you haven't seen it or want to work it out on your own, simply avoid this thread.  It just makes it look like every cunt wants to highlight their brag of how they immediately recognised esoteric references and shrewdly anticipated every plot twist.  No offence to individuals, but that's how it comes across.

It really doesn't come across like that! I think most people would recognise you were just being cautious about revealing unwelcome spoilers.
It's probably unnecessary now though.

[Bigfella]

It really doesn't come across like that! I think most people would recognise you were just being cautious about revealing unwelcome spoilers.
It's probably unnecessary now though.

Not a major problem, it was just bugging me a little.  Maybe I'm just a big, cynical bastard!

[Thosworth]

According to the after show podcast the twist in this one comes half way through. So

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the twist is that the characters Pemberton is writing have become self aware and become alive

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so one of them

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takes revenge on the author by bottom drawing him

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Pemberton and Shearsmith say this one was inspired by imagining that a LoG character comes alive for real.

Given this a swift rewatch should pay dividends.

Is that genuinely the actual story? I really need to check the podcast because at the end nothing pointed to Ezra being real, and the characters were putting him in the drawer.

The final scene hammers it home repeatedly that he's fictional. She literally says 'You are a figment of my imagination' before binning him, and his books are empty. Plus surely all the weirdness happening to him was her playing with ideas for her novel about an author writing crime stories about his loss?

Everywhere I look online trying to find the proof that he was real is saying 'ahh - turned out he was a character after all, too'. (Either way though, it was still a fun ep.)

[This isnt witty sorry]

I'd have to relisten to the podcast but I'm pretty sure they do say Ezra is supposed to be fictional as well.

I think when they're talking about having the twist in the middle it's in the same way that To Have and To Hold has one in the middle and then another one at the end. The "is the fictional character coming to life?" is the misdirect.

I'm sure a rewatch would reveal more but there's a few hints like he wakes up the same way as Kat does post child kidnap, his bookshelves are filled with copies of his own books and I'm pretty sure the family support officer is first shown on screen the same way he was in the Kat bits.

[robhug]

i think id have to put that one as my least favourite (so far) of the entire anthology

the synopsis for next weeks episode looks promising

[Glebe]

Wasn't aware that the cleaning lady in 'Mr King' (Annette Badland, apparently) played the big girl in Jabberwocky.

[Virgo76]

Wasn't aware that the cleaning lady in 'Mr King' (Annette Badland, apparently) played the big girl in Jabberwocky.

A long and distinguished career e.g. Mrs Wobble the waitress.

[Rev+]

I'd have to relisten to the podcast but I'm pretty sure they do say Ezra is supposed to be fictional as well.

He's definitely fictional, the ending is pretty unambiguous.  I think what might have thrown people is the same thing that threw me:  it's not so much a twist ending, more of a 'break glass in case of emergency' ending that wraps it up without being a natural fit.  It's just weirdly unsatisfying as a story, which is very rare for this series.  Even the ones that fall a bit flat tend to revolve around a fully-realised idea.

[SteveDave]

A long and distinguished career e.g. Mrs Wobble the waitress.

And the cleaner who Greg Davies fucks in "Man Down"