Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

[Generic Eric]

http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c3921661a6b5011662a215d9000d

Fun new adult swim live action piece. Bad 80's horror show in the vien of goosebumps, Amazing Stories, Dark Shadows and Kingdom Hospital. Enjoy.:cool:

[Bodach]

I love this show. Fucking hilarious. Anybody else love the show?

[Superbeast]

You can get the entire series on import DVDs from the UK.

[Generic Eric]

You can get the entire series on import DVDs from the UK.

Wow really. I just thought it was a new pilot for Adult Swim. Neat.

[drwho]

I still wonder why Sci fi ditched this show so quickly.

[Popgun]

I still wonder why Sci fi ditched this show so quickly.

They didn't really have a choice - There were only 6 epsiodes made (For Channel 4 in the UK, back in 2004).

There was a sort of sequel series in 2006, Man To Man With Dean Learner, a spoof chat show in which Dean interviews various guests, all played by Matthew Holness. Garth is the guest for episode one, and introduces a clip from his new film 'War Of The Wasps':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VJCOgTQv4k

[Tobias March]

Own it, love it, keep giving it to people...

"Dag you're the most sensitive man I know, and I know God."

[Captain_Video]

I loved this show, still do, the D.V.D is worth the import if only for the "one track lover" song that features on it.

The only thing I think it didn't need is the little inserts of talking heads, which gave it a "the office" style post modern humour to it, for me the TV show parody was funny enough.

Either way it is great to hear that it is getting some form of U.S. distribution, hopefully that will lead to another series ?

The follow up "Man to Man with Dean Learner" is sadly not quite as good though, but it does have its moments.

[Jared]

Damn those Brits and their accursed six-episode series runs. Is everyone in the tv industry over there averse to having steady jobs?!

I happened to catch the "Scotch Mist" episode on Adult Swim a few weeks ago, and it was hilarious. I enjoy the inserts, Garth is such an self-important ass with no conception of how horrible his show is.

[twilight]

Damn those Brits and their accursed six-episode series runs. Is everyone in the tv industry over there averse to having steady jobs?!

Granted this might not actually be true but I heard that British shows like this only have small runs so the same people can work on every episode and keep it cohesive.

-Twi

[Captain_Video]

Granted this might not actually be true but I heard that British shows like this only have small runs so the same people can work on every episode and keep it cohesive.

-Twi

That and we are paranoid about having American style sitcoms that decline in quality and are kept alive basically to keep getting the ratings for the commercials.

I think its an unjustified paranoia a lot of the time, as shows like Seinfeld still maintained their skillfull comedy until the end and provided hundreds of hours of entertainment becoming almost part of life for the viewers.

We tend to have an arrogant approach to comedy ( to be fair we are the best in the world at it historically ) and really look down on the U.S comedy model, which is a bit unfair as it could be argued since the mid 80s the U.S has had consistently great stuff and often more innovative stuff ( See Larry Sanders ).

Yeah so moving back to the topic at hand, my favourite episode of Darkplace is probably the "one track lover" one closely followed by the episode with the ape like human beings, the show was really underapreciated here, so hopefully it will find its deserved audience in the U.S, I understand there where plans to do a lot more episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSfNfcIHuTk

Check this out also "War of the Wasps."

[Tobias March]

In some ways I feel Darkplace is like a sibling to the Mighty Boosh, much in the same way as Angel was to Buffy. Both shows have the same cast (all of the players in Dark Place have appeared in the Boosh - with the possible exception of 'Garth' himself - and vice versa)

Matt Berry rules the roost though. His Bainbridge character in the Boosh was originally intended for Richard Ayoade, although they both ended up on Darkplace as Sanchez & Thornton Reed.

[Jared]

There's lots of clips on Youtube.

Incidentally, I think I'm in love with Sanchez's voice.

[dogzilla]

I think the British tradition of having short six-episode runs of drama and comedy shows is more due to the industry here not having syndication, or seasonal scheduling. It's frustrating in some ways but at least it means the good stuff normally finishes while it's still good, instead of eventually jumping the shark

Garth Marenghi was genius, I had high hopes for Man To Man but as other people have said it sadly wasn't as good