The BEST episodes directed by Richard Boden

#1 - Episode 1

The Sketch Show - Season 2 - Episode 1

#2 - The Parent Trap

2 Point 4 Children - Season 4 - Episode 1

Bill promises Jenny that she won't do anything embarrassing when meeting her latest boyfriend's parents; but some frozen cockroaches and an inflatable Pope intervene.

#3 - Beam Me Up, Scotty

2 Point 4 Children - Season 3 - Episode 5

Jake the Klingon, Ben's archenemy in plumbing, dies after their latest argument and has made Ben the executor of his estate. Ben is forced to organise a Star Trek funeral. Bill and Rona suffer a visit from the health inspector who tells them the kitchen will have to be expensively refitted. After another disappointing meeting with Dawn at the bank, they return home downcast. Meanwhile, after the humiliations of the funeral, Jake is revealed to be alive, having planned the whole scam to get even with Ben. Ben muses upon this and decides to put up the Chevy as collateral. They all set off for a holiday in Florida. The destination code for Miami Airport is revealed to be MIA.

#4 - Whoopee, We're All Going to Die

2 Point 4 Children - Season 3 - Episode 6

The Porters find themselves alone in the U.S. and in the path of Hurricane Bill. Rona is forced to trickery to persuade Tony to help her become pregnant.

#5 - Thank Your Lucky Stars (2)

2 Point 4 Children - Season 2 - Episode 7

David is rushed into hospital, and immediately lost in the system by the young houseman Phil Brooke (later to reappear in Health & Efficiency) While Bill, Ben and Jenny wait for news concerning the tetanus he has developed, and where he is, Rona gets a bus to church. On the bus she meets a strange lady who reminisces about an old song called ""The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish"" concerning a promiscuous woman who cheated on her faithful boyfriend. At the church, the ceremony is transformed, in Rona's eyes, to a mass rendition of the number, signifying her inner feeling of unsuitability for this marriage. She bolts a second time. At the hospital, with David near to death, the biker appears to him, on his final mission. He persuades David to return to his parents, who clearly love him dearly. Rona feels sad but relieved, and they all go out in a monster truck on David's release from hospital.

#6 - Goodbyeee

Blackadder - Season 4 - Episode 6

Blackadder tries everything he can think of to get sent back to England when orders come in to go over the top in the first charge against the Germans since 1914.

#7 - The Skeleton in the Cupboard

2 Point 4 Children - Season 2 - Episode 5

The St Christopher causes an argument between Jenny and David, resulting in it being left behind in the house with Bill. Shortly afterward she senses a strange presence in the house, watching her every movement. At work, Rona confides that she has rekindled her relationship with her ex-husband to be, Gordon. There's just one problem: he has erroneously gotten the impression that she is a virgin. At home again, Bill rashly suggests that she and Ben change places with the kids so that they can see what its like running the house. They are both banished to the bedroom with no dinner. Out in a bar with Gordon, Rona is forced into revealing the truth about her past. In the bedroom, Ben gives Bill a letter he picked up earlier; an interview for a job she applied for. Next day, arriving at the interview after a string of disasters, Bill discovers a naked man interviewing her, later learning that he has had a nervous breakdown and there is no job to apply for. She returns home, depressed, when

#8 - Episode 4

The Sketch Show - Season 1 - Episode 4

#9 - Bird on a Wire (1)

2 Point 4 Children - Season 2 - Episode 6

On the day of Rona's wedding, with Auntie Pearl in command, Bill gets her head stuck in the catflap, while Rona is simultaneously hooked up in her wedding dress on the light fitting. Eventually they escape in the nick of time, but discover David, who has been complaining of feeling ill earlier has become seriously ill. They rush him to hospital, leaving Rona to get to the church under her own steam.

#10 - Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

2 Point 4 Children - Season 3 - Episode 4

Rona has decided to have a baby and is looking for the ideal father. Jenny has argued with her latest boyfriend, and Christine is just her usual self when Bill attempts to cater for a wedding. A further shock is the appearance of Tina, who has suspicions that Brian is cheating on her. During the course of the chaotic events in the kitchen, Rona spots a likely candidate, Tony the DJ, Jenny makes up with Jason and Tina's suspicions are proved to be founded. Ben, meantime has difficulty breaking into the house having forgotten his key.

#11 - General Hospital

Blackadder - Season 4 - Episode 5

Blackadder is assigned to find the spy working out of the hospital.

#12 - Episode 8

The Sketch Show - Season 1 - Episode 8

#13 - You Only Live Twice (2)

2 Point 4 Children - Season 4 - Episode 6

The house is on fire. After the fire brigade leave, Bill realizes that she has a second chance to sort out her life. Meanwhile, Rona has suggested to Tony that he stays whether or not they have a baby. But starting afresh is not as easy at it sounds.

#14 - Young at Heart

2 Point 4 Children - Season 1 - Episode 6

Bill, having trouble driving a car the size of the Chevy meets the biker one more time. As she leaves we see the word ""Angel"" on the back of his jacket. After a run in with the obsequious Dawn, the bank teller, Bill returns to work for further confrontations with Rory, her boss, who implies that if Rona sleeps with him, he could make their lives easier. Rona wonders what to do. Meanwhile, Bill visits the home of Sammy, David's best friend, on a poverty-stricken Council estate and counts her blessings, while Ben has a heart to heart with his son about the facts of life. Later, when matters at the bakery come to a head, Bill and Rona resign in an unusual way. Back at the house, Ben bemoans the loss of Bill's income to the family and considers selling the car again. Bill realizes how much she loves him for all his faults and persuades him to keep it. The whole family goes to Battersea Park to take part in the Chelsea Car Cruise.

#15 - The Secret Diary of David Porter

2 Point 4 Children - Season 3 - Episode 1

Bill is faced with the problem of luring her cantankerous Aunt Belle from her locked flat, due to an ongoing feud the old lady has with Bette. At the same time, Adam, Rona's brother is left alone with Ben, the fact that he has a weakness for larger man unknown to him. Belle and Bette are persuaded to make up, and Rona decides in the light of this to build bridges with Adam, who stole her boyfriend many years earlier.

#16 - Bedtime for Bonzo

2 Point 4 Children - Season 2 - Episode 2

With disruption in the house from Bill's new job it is the worst time possible for Ben to take to his bed ill. Things are further complicated by Bill's having to look after Farty while the Grimeses are on holiday. Having both to cope with, Bill gives Ben a doggy aspirin when she runs out of regular ones, resulting in him being ever sicker. Worrying about this, spending the night on the sofa, Bill is further frightened by a massive thunderstorm that nobody subsequently appeared to hear. Part of this portent is clarified when Farty falls ill and Bill and Ben reluctantly decide to have him destroyed. Another aspect is the triggering in David of an increasingly morbid obsession with death.

#17 - All in Disgeese

'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 26

British Intelligence sends experts, disguised as policemen, to examine the Enigma machine. General von Klinkerhoffen announces that René will be shot if the machine isn't handed back to the Germans. Herr Flick arrests Edith, Yvette, and Mimi and uses a truth serum on them. This makes Mimi act rather strangely.

#18 - Corporal Punishment

Blackadder - Season 4 - Episode 2

Edmund is sentenced to death by firing squad for shooting and eating the General's favorite messenger pigeon.

#19 - When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Go Shopping

2 Point 4 Children - Season 1 - Episode 3

Forced by Ben's whim to unearth the garden barbecue, Bill accidentally pulls down the entire climbing rose display on Mrs. Grimes's house. During the hideous barbecue Ben reveals he has been summoned to the income tax inspectors, and Jenny turns vegetarian. While musing whether to ring the number she believes is that of the biker, now part of a huge papier-mâché dinosaur David has made, Bill is accidentally arrested in the supermarket for shoplifting. After returning home in triumph, she discovers the number is in fact that of a plumbing customer. Ben, meanwhile returns to reveal he has had a tax rebate.

#20 - Love and Marriage

2 Point 4 Children - Season 1 - Episode 4

Ben returns home with the first of his fads: a karaoke tape. His fun is short lived however when Bill's mother Bette arrives to attend the funeral of an old girlfriend from her youth, disrupting the household. Ben, out on a plumbing job, runs into an old girlfriend himself who seems to be very interested in him. When Bill discovers school has closed early she runs home from the bakery worried that Jenny and her boyfriend are alone in the house together. She is delayed by another meeting with the biker who chats with her about relationships, and then, remembering her worries rushes home and up to the bedroom to find Bette in bed with the widower. Mother and daughter talk about the difficulties of fidelity and Bill seems happier with her life with Ben. Ben, however is acting as if he has a secret to keep.

#21 - Private Plane

Blackadder - Season 4 - Episode 4

Blackadder and the boys join the Royal Air Corps, where they are promptly shot down behind enemy lines.

#22 - I'm Going Slightly Mad

2 Point 4 Children - Season 2 - Episode 1

Bill wakes up in bed with the biker. But this is only a dream. Coming downstairs Bill reminds herself she is still unemployed. Jenny is embarrassed in front of her friend by the appearance in the Porter garden of Mrs. Grimes's elderly dog Farty, an old Labrador with flatulence problems. After the house empties for the day, Bill is left alone with only interminable phone calls from Bette for company. Eventually, one of these causes her to be late for signing on. On the way her car breaks down, and the fortuitous vicinity of a mechanic is ruined by a sudden appearance of Anneka Rice and film crew who whisk him away for a challenge before he can help Bill. She is forced to seek help from the public. Arriving late, she is humiliated by an interview with a member of the social security staff. On the way out, she encounters Jenny in a school party, who ignores her in front of her friend. Later, Jenny is guilty when she finds out Bill has taken a job with Rona making Airline Meals in a factor

#23 - An Enigma Variation

'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 23

General von Klinkerhoffen has recovered most of his gold from Gruber's tank. René still has four bars, which he melts down and makes into a new weight for the cuckoo clock in the café. Colonel von Strohm and Lieutenant Gruber offer Rene a deal - they won't look for the missing gold if René recovers their statue from the General's chateau. The Excelsior Quartet, a group of musicians hired to play at the chateau, are detained so that René and company can take their place. They manage to recover the contents of the statue.

#24 - Flight to Geneva

'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 21

The latest escape plan for the British airmen involves them sitting astride a midget submarine wearing diving helmets. René plans to elope with Yvette and the paintings. Before he can leave, Helga arrives and forces him to go with her to the château. Colonel von Strohm insists on taking the paintings from René. Herr Flick discovers that General von Klinkerhoffen has sold the paintings for a fortune in gold bars. The gold is stored in the safe at the police station. René steals it. He leaves notes for Edith and Yvette with Monsieur LeClerc, who mixes them up.

#25 - Down the Drain

'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 25

The Enigma machine is to be smuggled to England in the midget submarine. René is told to put the machine into a wine barrel and drop it into the sewer. At a certain time, everyone in Nouvion will flush their toilet and the resulting surge of water will send the wine barrel along the sewer to the submarine. The British lay on an air raid as a diversion, but they manage to bomb the pumping station by mistake, so there's no water to flush the toilets with. It's discovered that Monsieur LeClerc has put the wrong box in the wine barrel. The Enigma machine is still hidden in the café.

#26 - Land Mines for London

'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 20

Herr Flick and von Smallhausen are hiding inside the landmines. The Germans recover the mines and take them back to the airbase. Later they're loaded into a plane and dropped over England, with Herr Flick and von Smallhausen still inside.

#27 - Episode 3

The Sketch Show - Season 1 - Episode 3

#28 - Major Star

Blackadder - Season 4 - Episode 3

Blackadder grabs yet another opportunity to return to England by organizing a morale-raising music hall show, including Baldrick's Charlie Chaplin impersonation and George's appearance as a lady songstress who captures the General's heart.

#29 - Dirty Bowling

2 Point 4 Children - Season 1 - Episode 5

Ben is lying to Bill about strange assignations in a shady-looking lockup. Bill meanwhile is taking her driving test at last. A new sexist bottom-line-conscious manager at the bakery where she and Rona work complicates this. He forces Bill to take her test immediately after a dental appointment, when her mouth is still numb from the injection. Despite this, she passes, thanks in part to a fleeting appearance of the biker. In celebration Ben takes her bowling where they make a pact to force Ben to do all his own washing if Bill wins. Meanwhile, at home, Jenny reveals to Rona that her boyfriend has left her. Rona tells the story of her own teenage wedding which ended with her bolting from the church. Back at the lanes, Bill wins, and Ben takes her to the lockup to reveal his secret: a pale blue classic Chevy he has bought with his rebate money. Bill is not pleased.

#30 - Fortuosity

2 Point 4 Children - Season 4 - Episode 3

Bill receives a chain letter threatening dire bad luck if not continued. Against Ben's wishes she tears it up, and unlikely events begin occurring. When another four copies of the letter arrive, suspicion falls upon Rona causing an argument. Meanwhile, Ben is about to jump out of an aeroplane on his very first parachute jump.

#31 - Badger's Bend

2 Point 4 Children - Season 3 - Episode 3

Ben is addicted to the video game Ninja Badger and resolves to go cold turkey. Meanwhile, Rona visits her old school to drum up catering business. A prissy schoolmate forces her to lie to get a job, but this seems to set off a strange sequence of circumstances. Bill meets a sinister figure in a subway that whispers ""Don't Go, Mia."" Back at the house Ben has discovered that watching a goldfish recently brought home by David calms his nerves and enables him to cope with his addiction. Unfortunately, he has placed it in the liquidizer.

#32 - (She's Got) Kegs

Grounded for Life - Season 4 - Episode 12

Sean wants to go to a Sex Pistols concert, but Claudia has to study for a college test and Lily has a science project due, which leaves no one to watch the boys. But Lily leaves Brad holding the bag by skipping off to a frat party... where she runs into Claudia. Meanwhile, Eddie hires a bodyguard.

#33 - Wedding Bloss

'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 24

Edith announces that she'll marry Monsieur Alphonse unless René agrees to remarry her. Afraid of losing the café, René reluctantly agrees. Monsieur Alphonse, as Deputy Mayor, will have to perform the ceremony. René returns the paintings to Colonel von Strohm and Lieutenant Gruber. The wedding ceremony is held, but Monsieur Alphonse has problems officiating. Captain Bertorelli brings along a surprise to the ceremony - Christmas puddings.

#34 - Train of Events

'Allo 'Allo! - Season 5 - Episode 22

The Résistance blows up the train using some of the exploding Christmas puddings. Everyone makes their way back to Nouvion. René still has General von Klinkerhoffen's gold. The General doesn't know it's missing because Officer Crabtree has gummed up the lock on the safe. Lieutenant Gruber is ordered to collect the safe in his 'little tank' and take it to the General's château. The General has also taken the statue containing the real paintings from the Colonel von Strohm's office. René tries to blow open the safe using one of the exploding Christmas Puddings. He manages to blow up Gruber's 'little tank', along with Captain Bertorelli.

#35 - Captain Cook

Blackadder - Season 4 - Episode 1

Blackadder tries painting and cooking as ploys to avoid the scheduled big push out of the trenches.

#36 - Episode 5

The Sketch Show - Season 1 - Episode 5

#37 - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

2 Point 4 Children - Season 1 - Episode 2

Bill and Ben seem continually too exhausted from life to have sex. Ben insists on having Sunday lunch with his frilly-curtain-loving sister Tina and her boring husband Brian. After discovering David has sneaked a rat into her house a hysterical Tina slaps him, prompting an argument. Bill storms out of the house and drives David off in Ben's van. David reminds her, once they are speeding along that in her haste she has forgotten that she does not in fact drive. At that moment the biker appears beside her and talks her to a safe standstill. He disappears but not before Bill finds a note, apparently from him, giving a telephone number.

#38 - Hormones

2 Point 4 Children - Season 2 - Episode 3

Jenny is malingering to get off games. Or is she. Bill is worrying about Ben and David's seeming obsession with violence. And that's not all-- she is concerned she might be pregnant and has bought a tester. A drive to David's parents' evening brings out the aggressive tendencies in Ben who imagines himself as the Terminator, cutting up an unidentified driver in a white Escort. At the school, Bill blames David's strange activities on Ben, who denies it. Meanwhile Rona confronts Jenny about the real reason for her sickness. Next day, Bill discovers the other tester is missing and jumps to the conclusion that Jenny is pregnant. But she isn't, and Rona persuades her to tell her Mother about her bulimia and ask her to go with her for treatment. Ben, having issued a challenge to the Escort driver is shamed when he turns out to be disabled. Bill arranges a fair race for them to settle the score and Ben is obliged to race round a track in an old wheelchair, losing the race. He reveals that he

#39 - Sugar Momma

Just Shoot Me! - Season 5 - Episode 20

Finch finds himself a kept man after romance novelist Allison Spencer begins to offer him gifts for sex. Meanwhile, while serving as fashion consultant for the American Film Awards pre-show on E!, Nina criticizes a handicapped actor's shoes, causing a national uproar.

#40 - Frenzy (1)

2 Point 4 Children - Season 4 - Episode 5

Bill's new kitchen is finished at last. But she is too busy working in it to deal with Jenny's problems with a well-developed rival at the school show. Rona's baby making attempts have now become so strange that Tony is planning to leave. The discovery by Bill and Rona of two escaped cobras trapping them in the living room gives them time to consider their lives. The Bill spots something out of the window that will alter everything.

#41 - Episode 2

The Sketch Show - Season 1 - Episode 2

#42 - Episode 7

The Sketch Show - Season 1 - Episode 7

#43 - One Night in Bangkok

2 Point 4 Children - Season 2 - Episode 4

Ben is repainting the house. David brings a St Christopher back from one of his trips playing in the graveyard, Rona wants Bill to go and see some male strippers and Tina arrives to tell Ben that their father Frank is returning from a brief visit from Thailand, where he now lives. Ben confides that he has always resented Frank's distant personality. At the airport, everyone is stunned and in Tina's case, horrified to discover that Frank now has a young Thai bride. After another argument, this time concerning Frank's attitude to his wife, Bill chats with Rona about her own aborted wedding many years earlier. When Tina's prejudice drives the new addition to the family to Bill in distress, Bill and Rona decide to take her with them to the strip show. Back at home, Ben makes some attempt at building bridges with his long estranged parent. At the show, Rona recognizes one of the unclothed bodies as her almost-husband all that time ago. They meet again, and turn the tables on Tina.

#44 - Leader of the Pack

2 Point 4 Children - Season 1 - Episode 1

Bill visits Jenny's school and discovers she is missing class to go out with a boy with an interest in motorbikes. Bill's anger is tempered by the fact that she herself has accidentally met a mysterious young biker, who she finds impossible to dismiss from her mind.

#45 - Episode 2

The Sketch Show - Season 2 - Episode 2

#46 - Episode 8

The Sketch Show - Season 2 - Episode 8

#47 - Episode 6

The Sketch Show - Season 1 - Episode 6

#48 - Episode 3

The Sketch Show - Season 2 - Episode 3

#49 - Episode 7

The Sketch Show - Season 2 - Episode 7

#50 - Curiosity Killed the Cat

2 Point 4 Children - Season 4 - Episode 4

Bill is sick in bed and worried sick about what's going on outside her bedroom. Ben is looking after the Grimes's cat during their latest holiday, and its imperative nothing happens to it. Then it wanders out of the house. And just what is Rona up to as viewed through Bill's telescope?