Season 1, Episode 3: "On the Pull"

Mark, partying hard

In this one, Mark takes a teenage girl bowling and brings Jez and Toni along.

Thoughts:

- This episode opens with Mark and Jez shopping. This isn't the last time we see them in this grocery store.

- One of Jez' comments indicates he's gone the better part of the year without sex. I find this at-odds with later episodes, where Jez seems to do pretty well for himself with the ladies. Maybe this was a particularly bad 9 months for him.

- There's a very rare and very brief flashback in which Mark is hitting on Sophie in a supply closet. Not only that, the flashback is seen from a 3rd person perspective (with a blue filter over the lens, no less). This sort of thing only ever shows up in the first season.

- Mark mentions Das Boot. Not only is this more WW2 stuff from Mark, he also tries watching this film with her in a later episode.

- There's a quick establishing shot during the party that Mark and Jez go to, where the speed is cranked up as we go through the room. This seems to be another one of those weird first season quirks that never shows up again.

- One gets the sense that Valerie, the girl Mark picks up at the party, is one of the few females Mark could ever get along with.

- This show is absolutely perfect at capturing the feelings one has in the constant pursuit of women. Says Jez after some guy cuts in on him dancing with a girl, and begins to make out with her: "the dream is over. I am detritus."

- This episode is a nice reminder that even guys like Mark score now and again in the real world. I think a conventional sitcom would play up Mark's forced celibacy, but here he makes it sometimes, and sometimes he doesn't.

- Perfect Mark, after Jez proposes they do drugs: "What if I lose it? I'm not going to do a poo, am I?"

- Perfect Jez, as he tries to win it for Mark and himself: "I could say we've both got enormous cocks. Might be the clincher."

- Good Toni line: "I had a steward eat me out in the multi-faith area at Dubai airport. God, that was depressing."

- This episode is very strange, in the sense that Mark - a man at this point in his mid-late 20s - has sex with a teenager. It's very bizarre in retrospect that Mark ever had this opportunity, and, furthermore, that he went for it.

- Jeff is set up in this episode as a romantic foil for Mark. The actor is just a perfect pick. I really believe that he's a massive fucking douchebag in real life. I want to add, "... but he's probably not," but... no, I dunno, Jeff the character is such a total prick that I have a hard time believing the actor isn't, even a little bit. He's perfect for this role.

- Toni is so insecure. I love that she feels threatened even by Mark's teenage date.

- Lazer Bowl, where they eventually find themselves, is a real place in Piccadilly Circus. Someone really needs to arrange a Peep Show tour. Maybe see the sights of Kettering.

- Tony, Toni's ex, shows up here. I think this is one of two appearances for him, making him one of the rare minor characters to get more than one go. The previous episodes, Toni had been distraught over some ex-boyfriend who we can assume is Tony.

- Mark, on Jeff possibly having sex with Sophie: "Don't think about it. If you don't think about it, it won't happen."

- There's a bit of non-diegetic music between scenes (as we move from the bowling alley to Mark's bedroom) that I don't think ever shows up again. Like the little noises between other scenes, this one is derived from the theme song.

- Good UK slang: Toni says that Tony ran off with "a scrubber called Lyndsay!"

- Mark is pleased that Valerie hasn't said anything about his nuts.

- The Stalingrad book is underneath the box of kleenex Mark grabs at the end of the show.

This is a pretty good conventional episode. After establishing the characters in the first two, the show presents a typical sort of sit-commy situation and has Mark and Jez run through it. I hesitate to say that it's good since... well, they're all good. But it's good.