{"id":6068,"date":"2015-07-06T14:31:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T13:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofah.net\/blog\/?p=6068"},"modified":"2015-07-06T14:31:23","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T13:31:23","slug":"best-episode-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ofah.net\/blog\/best-episode-of-all-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Best episode of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When it comes to deciding on your best episode of all time this may split opinion.
\nAs Only Fools and Horses fan Sophie May has chosen The Russians Are Coming from Series 1 and Episode 6.<\/p>\n

She tells us: ‘The Russians Are Coming’ (S1, E6) has to be the best Only Fools and Horses episode of all time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Comedies set in restrictive situations that the characters cannot remove themselves from always tend to be the strongest (think Father Ted, Bottom, Red Dwarf, etc.) and much of the humour derives from the tensions that arise as they try, and fail, to break free or at least improve their situations. OFAH uses this underlying theme in each episode as the Trotters try to better themselves, whether through earning more money or connecting with more respected members of society, in order to escape from their poverty and repressive environment. Even when they finally catch their break and become the millionaires they long to be, they struggle to move on and are still held in place due to their connections to the community, their history and the addiction to trying to improve.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This is doubled in ‘The Russians Are Coming’, where Del, Rodney and Grandad spend 48 hours in their self-built nuclear fallout shelter practicing their actions in the case of war, and are therefore both literally and figuratively enclosed. The increased tension allows for some brilliant gags, such as Del’s remark to Rodney, ‘It won’t make any difference to you anyway, you go out with mutants in peacetime. I mean, look at that thing you took out on Thursday. I was so embarrassed I had to tell my mates you were taking it to market.’ More than that, the tension also allows strong development of character, crucial at this early stage in the program’s history.<\/p>\n

With little else to do, each of the three men give monologues, telling the viewer a great deal about their character, history and outlook. Rodney starts these off by expressing his paranoia of war and distrust in the political system and it his idea to build the shelter in the first place. Del doesn’t take Rodney’s rant seriously and wants to sell the lead and use the \u00a31000 to ‘eat, drink and be merry’ to which Rodney replies ‘for tomorrow we die’. This is representative of Rodney’s socially-aware, pot-smoking, art school drop-out trope but is made more personal and reflective of his individual character when he reveals that his main concern after war is not the collapse of society but repopulating the earth with girls in uniform.<\/p>

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