One Foot in the Genome

You know the drill by now, it's an article culled entirely from old Radio Times listings back in the day where producers got the chance to write their own, as found on the BBC Genome. The show under discussion is One Foot in the Grave.

Series 1's listings take the form of quotes from the show, specifically from Victor:

"Alive and Buried": "Somebody stood up for me on the bus today. Looked at me as if I was some sort of living skeleton - dangling from the hand-rail..."
"The Big Sleep": "Pull yourself together man, there's nothing wrong with you. Hang on, my skin's coming loose! My arm looks like it's wrapped in cling-film."
"The Valley of Fear": "I devised a new theory about the nature of the Universe today: the world is actually God's litter bin. Everything in it is rubbish."
"I'll Retire to Bedlam": "Funnily enough, going mad's quite a relief. Now I can just stay here in the wardrobe and talk to my shirts..."
"The Eternal Quadrangle": "I've had a skinful of this, Margaret - having to put up with the gallery who make this house their own morning, noon and night...!"
"The Return of the Speckled Band": "I suppose when George Bush decides to invade Nicaragua the first thing he'll do is ring up Nobby Godfrey and the man from the Electricity Board..."

Most of these set the scene for the episode/show quite well, but episode 2's seems to require context to make sense. Series 2's are more straightforward, starting with "In Luton Airport No-One Can Hear You Scream" receiving the billing of "Victor and Margaret return to catastrophe," and the rest are in the same much-less-interesting vein. Interestingly, the first Christmas special is billed as One Foot in the Christmas Grave, which doesn't really make sense (and isn't repeated for any later Christmas specials) but is similar to other sitcom naming conventions. Series 3's listings are the same as Series 2's, and an Autumn 1992 rerun of Series 1 changes the listings to be similar (for example, the repeat listing for "Alive and Buried" is "Life hits rock bottom for Victor when he is faced with compulsory early retirement from his job as a security guard. As far as he is concerned the next stop is death."), although curiously the listing for "The Valley of Fear" still has the quote, only it's now prefaced with "Victor has a new theory about the nature of the universe..."

Series 4's listings are still straightforward descriptions, but usually have some humorous twist: "Descent into the Maelstrom" is billed as "When Margaret collapses from exhaustion, Victor patiently nurses her back into a gibbering nervous wreck." The listing for "The Trial", however, starts David Renwick's habit for submitting intentionally misleading descriptions: it's billed as "Victor is summoned for jury service and ends up as the man on trial." The episode actually concerns Victor spending a day at home waiting (and the trials therein) to see if he will be called up for jury service.

An oddity is that the original listing for "The Broken Reflection" says that Victor's brother is "on one of his regular 25-year visits," but the listing for the 1993 repeat changes it to "on one of his 25-year visits" - thereby removing the joke! Bizarre. (A 1995 repeat reinstates the joke, but then a 1997 repeat just says it's a "rare" visit, just to compound things.) Meanwhile, Series 5's listings are fairly straightforward, but "Rearranging the Dust" suggests Victor and Margaret are at the solicitor's to discuss "a separation", which turns out to be writing their wills. "The Exterminating Angel" is similarly misleading - the "unlikely love affair" Margaret is attempting to arrange whilst Victor is away isn't for her, but Mr Swainey.