Season 2, Episode 4: "University Challenge"

The El Dude Brothers, on the road!

Mark and Jez take a trip back to their alma mater, Dartmouth University.

- The actress who plays April is another Peep Show person who shows up in the film “Magicians.” She has a small role as a person on a plane, if I remember.

- April’s one of the more memorable characters to appear on the show. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I really, really wish Mark had been able to work something with her.

- In the commentary for the fourth season’s wedding episode, the writers say that the woman Mark desperately proposes to in the coffee shop was originally intended to be either April, or Sally (Mark’s highschool friend he nearly hooks up with after the class reunion). They dropped the idea because they felt it would be too coincidental.

- Jez and Super Hans’ band is now called “Coming up for Blair,” a play on “Coming up for Air,” a George Orwell novel.

- Dartmouth University is first mentioned and seen here. This would be, of course, Jez and Mark’s fictional university. They evidently met for the first time at the school’s student union in the mid-90s.

- Dartie pops up numerous times after this; my favourite is Mark’s “Dartmouth University Lacrosse Team” t-shirt in a later episode. That would be a nice item to get one’s hands on, along with one of the posters in this episode.

- We discover that Jez never got his degree, whatever it was, while Mark got his 3-year Business Studies. I wonder, is the 3-year degree in the UK common? I would say most people here have at least a four year undergrad, on top of whatever else they picked up.

- Super Hans hanging up on Jez while Jez watches from the bus is one of the show’s funnier moments.

- Jez and Mark have an extended scene on the bus. So that it’s not just a series of shots of one looking at the other’s face, the director sets up a kid in the seat in front looking back at both of them. Very clever.

- The guy memorably playing Prof. MacLeish is also in “Magicians.” Everyone is in Magicians. Maybe you are too.

- Mr. Rashid, the owner of the convenience store from Mark and Jez’ university days, shows up. Maybe I am getting him mixed up with Mr. Patel where they live in London, but I think Mr. Rashid gets mentioned again sometime. Maybe.

- Speaking of Mr. Rashid, just how exactly did he lock the two of them up in the back of the store? Did he physically force them into the room?

- Mark mentions his “scrotal scar,” implying that he did end up getting the procedure at the end of the first season.

- The actress who plays April isn't quite the right age to be a first-year university student, but I guess she has the right look and can pull it off. On that note, she would be another teenage character Mark pursues. For a straight-laced, anal guy like him, it’s interesting how many teenagers he goes for.

She was almost definitely The One.

Good lines:

- Mark: “Shoes, the boringest purchase.”

- Mark, picking out a wine to bring to the party: “How cheap dare I go?”

- Mark, drinking the cheap wine he purchased: “Ooh, that’s rough.” (works best in action)

- Jez, amazed by the changes wrought by the passage of time: “Our bloody bus stop’s been moved!”

- Mark, on April (one of the show’s better lines, period): “She’s got the magical combo of beauty and low self-esteem.”

UK Stuff:

- Spiv: Slick guy who sells black-market goods.

- There’s a saying about Dartmouth, “There’s no quim likes to party like the quim down in Darty!”. Quim seems to be a UK term for a vagina.

- “Moment of madness”/Clapham Common: In the late-90s, a Labour politician named Ron Davies got beat up while cruising for gay sex in south London’s Clapham Common. In referring to the incident (without providing too many details), he called it his “moment of madness.” Alastair Campbell (see last episode) told him to use the term, incidentally.

- Hindly: Myra Hindly was a young woman who, along with Ian Brady, committed the “Moors Murders” in the early-60s. The argument in her unsuccessful defense was that she had been taken in by his sexual charisma and such.

- Simon Schama: A British popular historian, noted, in part, for hosting “A History of Britain.” Mark is a fan.

- Bravo Two Zero: A supposedly-true tale of the first Gulf War of questionable veracity.

- Thunderbird: Cheap fortified wine. One imagines Mark enjoyed this in his youth, along with Hofmeister.

- University Challenge: A quiz show for university students.

War references:

- Mark says that he had just been visiting “Coventry. Very lovely. Totally destroyed in the War, obviously.”

I must say, this is, again, one of the show’s better outings. The change of locale really helps give this one a unique feeling, along with a memorable love interest for Mark. Plus, very little Nancy.