Picture from Playbuzz
We are almost at the end of our trawling through VHS tapes of irregular Only Fools and Horses and last night watched the 1991 Christmas specials Miami Twice, originally broadcast over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I have not seen these episodes since the original broadcast but remembered the first part being a studio shot sitcom and the second being shot as a movie with no audience and on 35mm film. The two episodes followed each other as a story ark with Rodney Trotter reclaiming his pension money from his old job and Del using the money to book Rodney and Cassandra a holiday to Florida. He knew that Cassandra was unable to travel on the dates he booked and wangled himself the seat on the plane in order to leave the country due to his 'pre-blessed wine' scam going wrong.
Not one of the best Only Fools episodes (although one of David Jason's favourites), the second half of the story involved a Mafia boss who looked just like Del being under house arrest prior to a trial in which he looked like going to prison for and his henchmen attempting to kill him to make the media think that the Mafia boss had died thus escaping justice. This frankly far-fetched romp was one of David Jason's career low points in my opinion, not matched until his inexplicable decision to agree to Still Open All Hours. What made this worse the second time around was for the VHS release, some twat had edited the two episodes together and added canned laughter as if to prompt the viewer as to when it was time to laugh. This prompt is actually a much needed help when watching something like this because it is hard to know when something funny has happened.
There aren't many duff episodes of Only Fools and Horses but this is one of them, along with A Royal Flush, the 1986 Christmas Day special and the embarrassingly contrived comeback trilogy that was so bad that they spread it over three years (2001, 2002 and 2003) when it was supposed to have been broadcast over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2001. I can only assume that one of the main cast needed the money.
The Sunday Alternative Podcast #60 is available from here
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