Inside No 9 - Dead Line Page 2

Yes. Twitter, I want to look on there next to see what they are saying.

My god though, what an experience that was. So clever, and also WTF did I just watch.

One of the greatest truths for anyone involved in the creative arts is that it matters not one jot how many people don't like what you do: all that matters is how many people do like it.

Clearly, last night's episode of Number 9 was a hit with a lot of viewers.

I've just gone 'underground' to see what some of the dodgier sites are saying about this ep, and quite a few people abandoned the episode believing their (insert any illegal activity here) was corrupt.

I love how many people they pissed off because they turned over as the 'problems began. In this day and age, that ability to reach so many people and engage them in an event that only works once. I also can't believe that people didn't stick with it because of course it wasn't going to be an ordinary episode!

Quote: Aaron @ 29th October 2018, 10:29 PM

I genuinely thought it was Reece doing a voice when she first spoke.

Well I'm glad that wasn't just me :D

Quote: Sitcomfan64 @ 30th October 2018, 9:05 AM

people didn't stick with it

Before watching the episode, I had already logged into BCG and seen Miss Reason' s first post about it. My first glance at her post made me stop reading it because it clearly contained spoilers but I did see enough to know that it was an unusual (and apparently utterly sensational) episode.

I stuck with it throughout the apparently genuine faults but, had I not been told by Miss Reason that it was to be a sensational episode, I would have abandoned it the very moment they started showing the repeat from series one. I have no doubt that other viewers did, in fact, abandon it at that very moment.

Before the fault developed, the episode had started as well as any other and was developing in such a way that I was expecting an episode every bit as good as Miss Reason had promised.

What I fail totally to understand is how what followed the fake faults was anything but a bit of fun that the writers could have scripted on a beer mat over a pub lunch and which the BBC had allowed them to go ahead with simply because of who they are and because Halloween is, after all, a time of year when many people do like a bit of fun.

There are a number of TV performers and a number of TV shows that I don't like simply because they fail utterly to entertain me in any way shape or form. Having said that, however, I can see why those people and shows might provide tremendous pleasure to vast numbers of other entirely reasonable people whose tastes are different from mine.

What I do not understand is how any reasonable person could have found the recent episode of Number 9 to be anything other than a bit of fun for Halloween that was broadcast as a joke but which was, by normal standards, very much inferior to the sort of thing we've come to expect from the show.

Why are people are saying that the episode was particularly good ?

Is there something I'm missing?

Much as I love Inside No. 9, I, too, am a little flummoxed at the praise being heaped on this episode.
I also think it's a pretty poor reflection on the current generation's lack of nous that anyone was fooled for even a second.
If it was live (which it didn't need to be - anyone can fake up a time clock) I'm not sure what it added.
An amusing enough Halloween prank - a bit like those 'special' Red Nose Day sketches people knock-out - but not a patch on their usual well-crafted stuff.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 30th October 2018, 12:19 PM

had I not been told by Miss Reason that it was to be a sensational episode, I would have abandoned it the very moment they started showing the repeat from series one.

Well I'm flattered that my opinion was taken as fact if nothing else

People didn't turn over because they thought it was broken or gone wrong.
It was shit.

I am surprised to find such negativity toward the episode here. If you've liked the other episodes, surely you have to admit this was cleverly written, even if you don't like the plot.

In fairness, I would have liked the first part with the found mobile to have carried on and been the episode, knowing they could have done some great twist with it. But they gave us something very different but frustratingly disjointed.

Quote: TonyT @ 30th October 2018, 7:01 PM

If you've liked the other episodes, surely you have to admit this was cleverly written, even if you don't like the plot.

As I've said in a previous post, I'm a fan of Number 9 and so I'm not speaking from a position of essential negativity towards the series.

The opening segment (before the fake sound fault) was indeed cleverly written and well up to the previous high standards set by the writers.

However, with the resumption of service, those previous high standards were abandoned and the show gave every impression of having been written (as I've said before) on the back of a beer mat during a pub lunch with the sole intention of putting out a very much inferior non-canonical episode intended simply to be a bit of fun for Halloween.

With the best will in the world, I can't think of anything good about it from the moment transmission was resumed.

It's the fact that it was live and I fell for the first supposed breakdown but I stayed with it. If it wasn't live they could never have got away with it. It was very twisted in their usual way and I think that - as previously mentioned - you had to watch it at the time.

Quote: Shandonbelle @ 29th October 2018, 10:33 PM

I'm writing this slowly as I know Chappers can't read very fast....

I enjoyed it, though didn't find it scary, more enjoyed the references to Twitter and the flashes of old programmes, very well put together as usual, I will have another watch as there was so much in it to saviour.

As in Jesus?

Quote: Chappers @ 30th October 2018, 11:58 PM

It's the fact that it was live and I fell for the first supposed breakdown but I stayed with it. If it wasn't live they could never have got away with it. It was very twisted in their usual way and I think that - as previously mentioned - you had to watch it at the time.

The point being made was that there was nothing that actually necessitated it being live. Indeed, for all we know it wasn't. They could've just told us it was. Only showing BBC One on the TV was a real use of it being live - and even that, those of us watching wouldn't have known for sure as we obviously weren't watching BBC One!

Quote: Rood Eye @ 30th October 2018, 12:19 PM

Why are people are saying that the episode was particularly good?

It was different. It played with expectations and what is "allowed" of television. And it does seem to have genuinely creeped many people out.

A good article about the making of the episode, from producer Adam Tandy: https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/inside-no-9-live-staging-a-halloween-prank/5134149.article