I've said previously that 'Press Gang' can be considered non-canonical after season two, mainly due to Lynda and Colin being pushed pretty far out into caricature land, Spike and Lynda becoming an unnatural focus, and the whole conceit of the show becoming ridiculous once the Junior Gazette laughably goes commercial. So far in my rewatch, this is the only episode to mock that judgement. This is another episode where Bad Things Happen and Silly Things Happen, but we also briefly get a nicer version of Lynda Day back. How long will she stay? It's hard to say, but it's nice to get her back briefly, even at the cost of a great trauma for Spike. You see, the Bad Thing is finally revealed to be the death of his father, back in the States.
It's not an episode that entirely works. Plainly, there's something seriously wrong with Spike that we're not being told, which is clearly evident within the episode itself, and as a result the Colin subplot of Silly Things falls very badly apart. Not even Colin is so deluded that he can be oblivious to just how distraught and upset Spike is in his grieving, is he? Really? When exactly did he become a subpar moron, anyway? It's not even a dangerous job that he foists onto Spike, once we see it. This iteration of Colin is a very long way removed from the one who saved the young girl in 'Something Terrible'. So, it's non-canonical still, but a step closer than usual to the original timeline.
Dexter Fletcher seems to be one of those actors who fell into the Cataclysmic Temporal Abyss of the 1990s. He was incredibly charming and witty, even with a fake American accent (or maybe because of it) in 'Press Gang', and then vanished. He's a director now, last responsible for the 'Eddie The Eagle' film of last year. This episode gives him the opportunity for a small masterclass in angst, while Julia Sawalha gets to look concerned for at least ten minutes. Yes, that's at least ten minutes of Lynda Day not being a manipulative obsessive tyrant! She's even nice! It's probably because Dexter's giving it everything for the first time since the second year of the show...
It's ultimately all an exercise in the narrative withholding of information, and a standard Moffat puzzle box, but it manages to be a very good episode. That Moffat is such a writer, adept at both linear and non-linear storytelling, that you sometimes forget that he's really just a regular human being, like the rest of us. He is, though, or at least we assume he is. This is more of an actor's episode though, due to the Colin flaw, and it being a 'bottle episode'. It's also an episode that holds out some hope for the last eight episodes of the show that remain. Maybe, just maybe, these remaining characters are coming home from the land of caricature? Just a little? Perhaps? We will have to wait and see.
I miss Kenny.
O.
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