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While injured Jeff Randall (Bob Mortimer) spends his time bickering with his
deceasecd partner marty Hopkirk (Vic Reeves) - a spirit only he can see, as he
is Marty's chosen mortal -, Jeff's partner in their private investigatins
agency Jeannie (Emilia Fox) - incidently Marty's former fiancée - takes on the
case of one of Jeff's old friends, Stewart Boyle (John Michie), heir of the
long shut down Boyle's department store, who has just received an invitation to
a meeting from his father - even though dad has been dead the last 6 years.
Soon, Stewart & Jeannie, trying to meet dead dad, are trapped in the
supermarket, where shopwindow mannequins myteriously come to life & some
weird entity seems to be in control of everything - could it be dad's spirit.
Bickering Jeff & Marty soon come to rescue them, but then Marty
witnesses a physical barrier between him & Jeff ... & back in the
afterlife he learns from Wyfern (Tom Baker) his spiritual mentor, that he needs
to either come clean with his chosen one - or stay in the afterlife forever. To
have a good thought about that, Marty is sent to the travestie of a seaside
hotel run by Ms Applewaid (Eleanor Bron), having to enjoy the entertainment of
bad comedian Dickie Klein (Roy Judd), formerly one half of a popiular comedy
duo, now only half ... if you haven't guessed, the other half is his chosen
one back on earth. & soon, with the help of Klein & Ms Applewaid he
becomes so detached from reality that he seems - even against his own will - to
forget Jeff once & for all.
Back on earth meanwhile, Jeff, Jeannie & Stewart have to master more
& more wicked traps, & they start bickering more & more, &
furthermore it becomes evident that Stewart back in school was the least
popular kid (even less popular than Jeff, if only just), and ...
... & then it becomes totally predictable, of course Stewart now dies
but it turns out he only faked his own death as he wanted to get his revenge on
Jeff (as he did get his revenge on all the others above him on the popularity
ladder), & Jeff & Jeannie end up being tied to electric chairs, of
which only one will be activated - the one of the winner (duh !) in a
ping-pong computer game ...
To hammer the message home Jeff & Jeannie now realize what they mean to
each other & each one tries to win the game in order to save the other's
life ... but then Jeff calls Marty for help who can be released from his
afterlife stupor & finally save them from Stewart. & at that point
everyone realizes what a jolly good thing teamwork is.
The last - and quite possibly the worst - episode of Reeves & Mortimer's
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)-remake series. Normally, episodes of the
series would be irreverent, funny, parodistic & nonsensical, but this one
tries to hammer home a moralistic message with every bit as much force as your
average Hollywood-product ... & turns out to be just as abysmal. Waht's
even worse though is that all the characters are so out of character: While
Marty & Jeff had occasional discussions that were always far from
antagonistic bickering (as in this episode) Jeff & Jeannie always worked
together rather splendidly (& in almost every other episode hints to an
evantually blossoming love affair are made). Maybe it would have been better if
series 2 - like series one - had only 6 episodes ... well, not baybe,
certainly.
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