Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

[Tuzenbach]

Thanks for the heads up - and for last weekend too!

Don't mention it!


Wow, episodes 4 & 5 were no where near as good as episodes 1-3. "Apes of Wrath" was fairly decent, though. Sanchez: (after noticing the drinking water is bright green) "That's peculiar".....and then he immediately drinks it and turns into an ape!

Still, I don't know what they were thinking with "Scotch Mist".

The season finale is episode 6 so, hopefully, it'll be as funny as episodes 1-3.

 

[trancejeremy]

It would be a lot funnier if they didn't cut back to the "present" with the actors reminescing about the show all the time. (IMHO).

 

[Tuzenbach]

It would be a lot funnier if they didn't cut back to the "present" with the actors reminescing about the show all the time. (IMHO).

See, this is what I'm talking about (courtesy of tvtome.com):

No. Episode Air Date Prod # Reviews Score
1 Once Upon A Beginning 1/29/2004 0 Reviews 8.5
2 Hell Hath Fury 2/5/2004 0 Reviews 8.7
3 Skipper the Eye Child 2/12/2004 0 Reviews 8.2
4 The Apes of Wrath 2/19/2004 0 Reviews 7.7
5 Scotch Mist 2/26/2004 0 Reviews 7.8
6 The Creeping Moss from the Shores of Shuggoth 3/4/2004 0 Reviews 9.3


You saw 10 minutes of the worst rated episode! But it looks like the best one is last.....and last is next week!

 

[Villano]

I had no idea this show even existed until I stumbled upon it Sunday. It's a shame there are only a handful of episodes, because I loved it.

I had a good laugh when Marenghi held up the book with the giant crab on the cover. Anyone else ever read Guy N. Smith's crab novels? The writing is about on the level of Merenghi's (no doubt the British Smith is an influence on the character). I mocked the books on this site a long time ago. The crabs are the size of cows, but the really big ones are the size of donkeys...even though donkeys are, you know, actually smaller than cows.

And seeing Merenghi during the intros gave me flashbacks to when Harlan Ellison would appear on Sci-Fi Buzz.

Anyway, it reminded me of Jack Black's Heat Vision & Jack failed TV pilot. HV&J played it a bit more straight. In fact, that's my only complaint about Darkplace; sometimes it gets too intentionally goofy. For example, chasing the monkeyman through an obstacle course in the middle of the woods.

Overall, I'd give Darkplace an "A and 1/2" rating (it's better than an "A", but not quite an "A+").

 

[Tuzenbach]

HOLY CRAP! Hey, call me slow, but do you know what I just figured out? The show wasn't actually made in the 80's, but sometime between 2002-2004. Yet they went out of their way to make it appear as if it was made 20 years ago on a shoe-string budget. Man, this thing's getting deeper and deeper all the time! Incredible!

 

[Vonlok The Bold]

I just caught the Apes of Wrath episode, and I am in love. It is funny on so many levels. I can't stop thinking about this show.

It is available on DVD from AmazonUK. I wonder what the shipping would be to the U.S.?

I will try and find it here first.

 

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

"Garth, your the most sensitive man I know. And I know God." Priceless

 

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

Crothian, the show is a parody of 80s and 90s horror serials, sort of a low budget proto-X-Files with really bad acting. The lead man is a bestselling horror author who plays the main character in "Darkplace", a serial about a hospital with a small hellmouth underneath it. It's packaged as a "remastered rerelease," because when originally made the show was too edgy for TV.

Find out more here.

It also feels like it's trying to rip off The Kingdom (not the awful US remake).

 

[Rackhir]

I've seen the last 3 episodes, the last of which supposedly (acording to the ratings from TVtome) was the funniest and it still left me pretty much cold. Not awful and it's nice to see the guy (the boss in Darkplace) from "The IT-Crowd" (Britcom about the tech guys at a company), but just didn't push my buttons.

 

[Tuzenbach]

I've seen the last 3 episodes, the last of which supposedly (acording to the ratings from TVtome) was the funniest and it still left me pretty much cold. Not awful and it's nice to see the guy (the boss in Darkplace) from "The IT-Crowd" (Britcom about the tech guys at a company), but just didn't push my buttons.

It's interesting. Episode 6 was way more dramatic than funny, yet still achieved a score higher than the other episodes. To me, 6 was a real departure from the others as it attempted to paint some depth for the two lead characters.


Also, it was strangely risky in it's use of broccolli transmogrification as a supposed metaphor for AIDS. I'm thinking the only other show that's made a joke of AIDS has been South Park ("Jarred Has Aids").


For the "funny factor", I rate the 6 episodes as follows:

Episode 1 = 10/10

Episode 2 = 9/10

Episode 3 = 10/10

Episode 4 = 7/10

Episode 5 = 6/10

Episode 6 = 5/10 (but I suppose the drama & controversial subject matter make up for it slightly)


FWIW, Sci-Fi is rerunning episodes 2 & 3 tomorrow evening. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they're failing to rerun episode 1 due to its violent content (a guy explodes, the room is covered in the man's blood & body parts, and Marenghi's character proceeds to have a conversation with the bloody head for the next minute or so before punting it with a shovel).

Hey Rackhir, give it one last chance!