Friday, January 27, 2017
Farewell Bear Facts Rotterdam
Farewell Bear Facts Rotterdam
Rotterdam is nice straight-forward, old-fashioned sitcom episode. It even starts with the classic workplace sitcom inciting incident: Mr Alyakhin has decreed from his dacha… Or in other words Theres a new directive from head office… Its also an episode thats very big on set-pieces: everybodys various attempts at welcome and / or safety announcements; the filming scene, and of course Herc and Douglas syrup-off.
But at heart, its the story of Martin and his magic mirror, Paramount Martin, in which at first he sees everything that he wishes he was; and then eventually realises is a more exact reflection of him than he thought. One of my favourite lines from this episode (along with So you keep saying, but the tape-measure tells a different tale and Not so fast, man cub) is when Douglas enters to see a tall, handsome man in a captains uniform introduce himself as Martin, and asks What happened? Did you find a magic lamp? Thats really what the episode is about. Gus Brown does a lovely job as Paramount Martin, fielding Little Martins increasingly weird and frantic questions with a sort of desperate good humour. And I love his bad acting acting. Its very good bad acting acting. If you follow me.
People have been asking why Douglas dislikes Herc so much, when they seem so friendly at the beginning of Newcastle. I think Martin more or less gets it spot on in the first scene of Rotterdam - Herc is nicking Douglas act. The last thing Douglas wants around the place is someone who shares many of his qualities… but is also still a captain, at a proper airline. Sometimes I even wonder if Douglas is a little jealous of Hercs relationship with Carolyn. Not that he wants to go out with her himself, exactly, but that doesnt mean anyone ELSE should think theyre allowed to… And remember when he meets Herc in Newcastle he a) doesnt expect him to be in his life for more than about an hour, and b) is planning to trade on their friendship to ask him for help getting a job. (Help which Herc, in the end, refuses to give.) All of which is, of course, a large part of why I decided to introduce Herc as a recurring character - a love interest for Carolyn, certainly; but also the most irritating imaginable fly in Douglas ointment. Sitcom writers are cruel Gods…
Available link for download
