h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Talk about a hard act to follow

Couldn't you have got Timmy Mallet or Keith Harris?

Does anyone else remember a rubbish sitcom with Nicholas Lyndhurst called, I think 'The two of us'?

It was about two flatmates, who eventually get together, possibly

Oddly, my main memory is of very '80s style' opening credits and theme tune

What was the name of that sitcom circa 1985 'starring' William Gaunt and Martin Clunes. Family living together, four children etc, etc. Who else was in it? Was it "Home Sweet Home"?

Was "The Two of Us"?Janet Dibley and Nicholas Lyndhurst? In basement flat?

The Two of Us went on for some time. First series had Patrick Troughton as a grandfather type character, but then he died and they replaced him with Tenniel Evans (God I know some rubbish).

I think Lyndhurst then did 'The Piglet Files' - a spying sit-com, which I think only lasted the one series...

Very short series (four episodes) but never repeated (except on BBC drama at well past my bedtime)

The Crow Road - good job I saw it before reading the book as I would have been totally confused (it jumps around a LOT)

*No Place Like Home* unfortunately is on my list on another thread of Long Runners that *should* have been short lived.

That went on forever

NIcholas Lyndhurst is in my opinion very lucky to have done Only Fools and Horses. Otherwise his comedy career would not produce a very impressive CV.

Butterflies
The Two of Us
That world war 2/present day cack

etc.

> "TWO Up, Two Down", starred Paul Nicholas and Su Pollard

Well no wonder my memory is faulty. I'd been repressing it. Thanks, Hoovooloo, I feel violated all over again.

First time since the weekend Jim?

Reading that back that might have been a little ruder than intended .

Only a little though...

Orcus, Butterflies is considered by many to be a classic sitcom. But opinion, as always, is divided. I remember it as being funny, but I was younger then. And Carla Lane hadn't yet inflicted 'Bread' on the world.

In my defense, I did grow up on 'And Mother Makes Three/Five' so Wendy Craig had a certain iconic value.

And add 'The Piglet Files' to Lyndhurst's increasingly woeful CV.

There's probably a mathematical formula you can apply to all the sitcoms someone has appeared in, which would tell us the actor most likely to appear in a bad sitcom

I think we've already mentioned Su Pollard haven't we?

She's certainly a prime candidate.

I assume that would be someone who appeared in both Hi-De-Hi AND 'Allo 'Allo would be a serious contender. Was there such a person?

(Is there some irony that these are both greetings when all you really want to do is say "Bye-ze-Bye" )

In mention of "Hi-De-Hi" I saw an episode the other week on UK Gold and it was truly terrible. It was about 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. Fortunately I fell asleep about 5 minutes into it, and woke up about 2 minutes from the end. However I digress from the true irony of my story ...

When I woke up there was a scene where the camp's entertainment manager (played by Simon Cadell) was found in the Elves Grotto (a little plastic playhouse) with one of the female campers. Of course, one can imagine what they might have been getting up to. What however truly made it funny was that the camper was played by none other than a young(er) Gillian Taylforth (at least I believe it was her)! Now we CAN imagine what had been going on

BBS

So Jim Lynn where is your list of Long Runners that should have been canned? Or is it only hypothetical?

Did it include that tired old quiz show "Question of Sport"? If it is only hypothetical, I'd like to enter that as our first contender ...

I'd have to agree with Question of Sport.
Also, Last of the Summer Wine. Eastenders (most soaps, in fact). And I never understood the appeal of The Dukes of Hazard, which seemed to go on forever.

[Lightly skipping over the backlog]

So, who remembers the US series "Prey"? Starrind Larry Drake and Debra Messing, it was only worth watching for Ms. Messing's long, pouting close-ups. So, I hear you wondering, where have you heard her name...? She's now "Grace" in "Will and Grace", cute as ever, but she's traded her (rather wonderful) pout for a cheesy grin...

"Prey", for those who haven't seen it, was a one-series sci-fi following loosely the same theme as "The Tomorrow People", if the Tomorrow People had given up "Jaunting" in favour of killing off the rest of the unevolved human race.

Prey was only a year or so back - surely too recent for moist-eyed nostalgia. Or am I thinking of something else.

The Tomorrow People, on the other hand...

I got the DVD of 'The Medusa Strain'. It's awful, but I still love it so. Space: 1999 has the same effect on me. Pragmatically, I realise it's stilted and ponderous, but the eleven year old in me just goes 'oooh, shiny' all the time. Possibly the best production design of any SF TV programme ever. The Eagle Transporter remains my second favourite spaceship design* and I bitterly regret losing my die-cast one (even though the colours were wrong - green? Why?).

* In case you were wondering, the Millennium Falcon is the greatest spaceship ever.