The BEST episodes directed by Richard Ayoade
#1 - Merriman Weir
Man to Man with Dean Learner - Season 1 - Episode 4
In this special musical edition of Man to Man Dean talks with one of the most revered folk guitarists of his generation, Merriman Weir. Merriman plays an acoustic set of his own brand of deeply melancholy folk, but thankfully holds back from playing some of his more depressing numbers. (He once played a song so sad he made a flock of geese die).
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#2 - Randolph Caer
Man to Man with Dean Learner - Season 1 - Episode 6
Dean's planned guest for the show was celebrated British character actor Randolph Caer, who starred in films as diverse as Bitch Killer and That Duck 3: Duck in the City. Tragically, however, Randolph died the morning before the show's transmission, and so Dean puts on a 'celebration of his life, through the eyes of those who knew him best. A kind of This is Your Death'. Dean does this by showing sections of archive footage and calls on previous guests including Garth Marenghi, Steve Pising, Glynn Nimron and Amir Chanan to pay their respects to the late actor.
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#3 - Once Upon a Beginning
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Season 1 - Episode 1
New doctor Liz Ascher arrives at Darkplace Hospital, where a mysterious cat portends disaster. Can Dr Rick Dagless M.D. act in time to prevent all sorts of unspeakable evilness leaking out from the standard-sized hellmouth under Darkplace Hospital itself? It's not going to be much of a series if he does.
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#4 - Steve Pising
Man to Man with Dean Learner - Season 1 - Episode 2
Dean chats with former four time Formula 5 Motor Racing World Champion Steve 'The Accelerator' Pising, who started out in motor racing in the '80s with Dean's own racing team 'The Dean Team'. He was the most famous driver The Dean Team ever had, but he may now be better known as the spokesman for a major hair-restoral company.
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#5 - Amir Chanan
Man to Man with Dean Learner - Season 1 - Episode 5
Amir Chanan is a self-proclaimed 'Master of the Psychic Arts' and has acted as Dean's 'personal spiritual guru' for the past twenty years. Blessed, since the age of six, with the extraordinary ability to 'bend keys by rubbing them lightly between thumb and forefinger', Amir has come to be one of the world's most renowned but controversial psychics. He talks about his alleged abduction by the government in 1979, his new self-help DVD Bath Buddies, and takes calls from the audience.
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#6 - Glynn Nimron
Man to Man with Dean Learner - Season 1 - Episode 3
Dean chats to another of his favourite clients, the 'towering figure in the world of Sci-Fi cinema for the home video market', Glynn Nimron. Glynn, star of countless movies, including Time Whackers, The Lactator and Frisk City Delta is best known for his gender-bending role as Bot 'the alien with a human heart' in television series Galacticops.
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#7 - The Creeping Moss from the Shores of Shuggoth
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Season 1 - Episode 6
Dr Sanchez's life is in danger from a patient with a fairly bad cosmic broccoli infection. It's down to Dr Rick Dagless, MD to save his buddy - and the world. Or if all else fails, come up with a delicious way of using excess broccoli. It won't come to that, though.
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#8 - Critical Film Studies
Community - Season 2 - Episode 19
Jeff incorporates Abed's love of cinema and pop culture, into a specially themed "Pulp Fiction" surprise birthday for him. But the tables are turned as Abed arranges another dinner with an unsuspecting Jeff at another eating establishment.
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#9 - Garth Marenghi
Man to Man with Dean Learner - Season 1 - Episode 1
Dean's first guest is his former Darkplace co-star Garth Marenghi, making his first public appearance since his 'terrible accident' which caused him to lose an ear. He talks of his latest book The Oeuvre, which includes all 436 of his existing novels 'in one easy to read volume'. Also he gives us a tour of his studio where he's been adding painting to his considerable list of talents, and we are shown an exclusive clip of his feature film War of the Wasps.
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#10 - Hell Hath Fury
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Season 1 - Episode 2
At Darkplace Hospital, lunch is delayed and objects begin flying about the place and generally moving quite a bit more than they would usually do. At first suspicion falls on the hospital's temporary clerical assistant, but Dr Rick Dagless M.D. is determined to find out the truth, even if it kills him - which it doesn't.
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#11 - Skipper the Eyechild
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Season 1 - Episode 3
Somewhere on the wards of Darkplace Hospital, a man gives birth to a giant eyeball which brings out paternalistic instincts in Dr Rick Dagless, still grieving for the loss of his half-human, half-grasshopper son. But could the eyeball be a potential killer? Well, what do you think? Duh!
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#12 - The Apes of Wrath
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Season 1 - Episode 4
A mysterious illness spreads like a particularly virulent disease through the wards of Darkplace, causing doctors and patients to revert to a primal state. It's up to Dr Rick Dagless, M.D. to stop it before he too turns into a chimpanzee or an orang-utan or something like that.
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#13 - Scotch Mist
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Season 1 - Episode 5
A mist descends on Darkplace - and it's Scottish and/or Scotch. Dr Rick Dagless, M.D. had better do something really good about it, or else all the hospital's resident sassenachs are in grave danger. Probably.
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