Dan Liebke’s Astonishing Tales

I think I see what’s happening now. The writers have decided that, given the shambles the show has become, the only thing to do is to tear it down to its core elements and rebuild it one block at a time, and hopefully with this technique they’ll have it all sensibly restructured just in time for the show to end forever.

So they started last episode with the two strongest elements of the show - Paceman and his affable oafishness and Ah Joey and her dimples. This week they add one further element - namely Dunstan and his… well.. Dunstan-ness.

So what do the three of them get up to?

Well, Paceman’s father has had some kind of heart attack-like thing. So Paceman rushes back to Capeside. There he storms in and takes over in his inimitable Paceman fashion. He moves his father to a better room, bribes the doctors to give his father some of the real medicine, flirts outrageously with the cutest nurses and generally makes his brother feel inadequate.

His father helps him out on this score. He calls both Paceman and his brother into his hospital room and says “Hey, Paceman. Remember how we all thought you were going to turn out like a criminal or mentally defective asylum inmate. Boy, were we wrong. You’re not the black sheep at all. You’re a shining beacon and it is, in fact, your brother who has turned out to be a scum-sucking loser who we should seriously consider ostracising forever. Hahahahhahahaaha.”

… it is kinda funny that his brother’s now the loser …

Paceman wants to laugh too, but can’t. He knows how much it hurts to be ridiculed by his father and brother. But then he thinks… still, it is kinda funny that his brother’s now the loser who is hated so much by the rest of the family. So he joins in the chortling.

But as the show draws to a conclusion, he has another thought about it. (Good ol’ Paceman. His mind never stops ticking over, does it?) He decides that, because he is now so infinitely wealthy and, hence, better than his brother, that he is in a great position to be, um, what’s the word? Generous with his overt superiority. So he lets his loser brother take the credit for getting his father into a private room. Paceman. Father of the noble lie.

While all this has been going on, Ah Joey has managed to somehow be conned into baby-sitting Litte Miss Hold-A-Grudge. Very, very unclear to me how Professor Hold-A-Grudge managed to procure Ah Joey’s services. But procure he did.

So Ah Joey baby-sits Little Miss Hold-A-Grudge who has smuggled (gasp!) a boy into the house. So Ah Joey baby-sits him too. This boy is supposed to be a junior version of Paceman, so naturally he’s hot for the older woman. He ‘flirts’ with Ah Joey - ie, he says “By god, you’re a hottie”. This annoys Little Miss Hold-A-Grudge.

So Ah Joey gives Paceman Junior some withering glares and stern advice. Then she gives Little Miss Hold-A-Grudge some stern glares and withering advice.

“Oh thank you, Ah Joey,” says Little Miss Hold-A-Grudge.

“How can we possibly thank you?” says Paceman Junior.

“No need to thank me,” says Ah Joey. “It’s just another day in the life of… Ah Joey, Dimple Queen of Boston!”

And she flashes her dimples twice and disappears in a cloud of (cute) smoke.

Finally, we have Dunstan. Dunstan has been summoned back to Capeside as well. His former film class teacher has somehow tricked him into speaking for a new generation of film geeks and nerds.

Dunstan … launches into a … needless (and graphic) retelling of his most recent sexual encounter …

Dunstan is honoured by this ludicrous subplot premise and launches into a Tarantinoesque monologue of life stories, Hollywood secrets and a needless (and graphic) retelling of his most recent sexual encounter with Tempestuous Actress.

“… and so, as the sweat from our bodies mingled and the screams of passion died down, I thought to myself ‘whew - nailed her again. Dunstan, you are the stud’. And then I fell asleep. The End.” He grins slyly. “All right, any questions?”

A geeky, bespectacled kid raises his hand. “Are we supposed to find any of this plausible? I mean, look at you…”

“No, look at you,” says Dunstan.

“No, look at you,” says Geek Kid.

“No, look at you,” says Dunstan.

And so on pretty much until the end of the subplot. They take a brief break while Geek Kid shows Dunstan his lame-ass movie. (Geek Kid has made a lame-ass movie.) Dunstan can’t think of a nice way to tell Geek Kid that he hates his movie, so pauses and says…

“No, look at you.”

And that’s pretty much it. Paceman and Dunstan meet up at one point near the end of the show and say ‘hey, aren’t we much older than we were six series ago’, which I would have thought was rather self-evident, but the pair of them treat it as extremely profound. Not the brightest pair of spark plugs in the carburettor those two. Then Paceman makes vague, tantalising offers about funding Dunstan’s next crap film. But we save that for a future episode.

So, a reasonable show, I suppose. Adding Dunstan to the mix rekindles the kind of funny triangles we all remember and love so much. But not enough was made of this - if only Paceman had laughed in Dunstan’s face and said ‘hee-hee! I’m bedding your wench again’. But he didn’t, much to the show’s detriment. Still, perhaps he’s waiting until Dunstan is his film bitch (’film bitch’ being what all movie producers call their directors) when it will no doubt much funnier.

Perhaps that note of delayed hilarty will be struck in tomorrow’s episode when, perhaps, oh, I dunno, let’s say… Bad Girl Abby will be added to the mix once more.

The One I Most Want To Die This Episode: Professor Hold-A-Grudge. Dude, just parent your child already.

Related Pages

If you hated this, you'll probably also hate:

1. 6.09 The Greatest Director Of Them All - We open with a new Star Actor showing up on set to rescue Dunstan's lame...
2. 6.22 The Penultimate Episode - So it's the penultimate episode and Dunstan's all whiney because Paceman lost all his money...
3. Who Do We Hope Dies? - FINAL TALLY Character Points Dunstan 22 Chipmunk Face 21 Crazy Audrey 20 Ah Joey 14...
4. 6.18 Where’s Gay Jack? - Now, where the hell has Gay Jack hidden himself? I miss his homosexual antics and...
5. 6.12 Crazy Audrey Hates Herself Some More - The gang is in the bar and the episode begins disappointingly - Crazy Audrey is...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.