List of Game On episodes
The following is a list of episodes for the British sitcom Game On that originally ran from 1995 to 1998 for three series.
Series 1 (1995)
| Chronological order | Title | Original airdate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | "Working Girls" | 27 February 1995 | |
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London girl Mandy is fed up of her life; working as a temp-basis secretary, money troubles, and an endless stream of men who just want to get into her knickers. She is offered a research job by Ron Grimshawe (Dave Hill), a Northern, Booker prize-nominated author of books such as Underdog and Blood Pudding - which included teenage bedwetting stories that resonated with Mandy - but the job "researching mines in Yorkshire" doesn't last long. Meanwhile, back at the flat, it is ginger virgin Martin's birthday, and laddish landlord Matthew hires a lady of the night for Martin's present, which doesn't go to plan due to Martin's nerves. | |||
| 5 | "Matthew, A Suitable Case for Treatment" | 6 March 1995 | |
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Matthew is getting increasingly bored and frustrated whilst the others are at work during the day, and the episode follows his daily exploits inside the flat. These include going through Mandy's knicker drawer, making homemade videos, and reenacting scenes from Reservoir Dogs as Michael Madsen and Taxi Driver as Robert De Niro, during which he passes out after cutting his leg. He begins flirting with a pizza delivery driver over the phone, but when she arrives, Matt's agoraphobia causes him to chicken out at the door. Mandy brings her new fella Sean home to Matt laid in her bed wearing her knickers, and Sean announces that he is gay and fancies Matt. | |||
| 4 | "Bad Timing" | 13 March 1995 | |
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Matt is worried about being left alone in the flat forever with Mandy in a semi-serious relationship with Graham, and with Martin leaving the flat and the area to pursue a career in teaching. Matt starts to interview young women for the vacancy, but ends up frightening them all off by offering them shags and "rating" them due to their sexual attractiveness. Martin eventually returns after his first day as a substitute teacher after having been beaten, stripped and sprayed with fire extinguishers by the children, and tells Matt that he is going back to work at the bank and isn't moving out. After Martin passes out, Matt pretends that he has been in a coma for years and that he has married Mandy, before still trying to rent his room out to attractive women. Meanwhile, Mandy has been in a relationship with Graham for a week, and already feels trapped and bored, leading her to cheating on a night out. She then discovers that the man she cheated on Graham with is actually his brother at a family meal. | |||
| 3 | "The Great Escape" | 20 March 1995 | |
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Monday morning and Matt fantasises of being a male model (featuring a cameo appearance by Michaela Strachan), Martin dreams of dating his German co-worker Renate, and Mandy dreams of being a high-flying executive dating Tom Cruise. Matthew entertains himself whilst the others are at work by skateboarding around the flat dressed up as The Man With No Name and disastrously making conversation out with the window with a Winona Ryder-lookalike in the garden next door. Mandy is six months behind on her rent, and Matt threatens to evict her unless she shags him. Mandy refuses and is not too concerned, since such threats are common with Matt, and also seeing as she has a date with a (alleged) Bermudan millionaire. The episode ends with Matt going to make a cup of tea for everyone for the first and only time, and putting his foot in his trilby hat which is filled with Mandy's sick. | |||
| 1 | "Big Wednesday" | 27 March 1995 | |
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Ginger virgin Martin is desperate for a girlfriend and meets hot American girl Nadine, who is actually interested in him for a change, but forgets where her flat is after going to buy condoms. Meanwhile Mandy gets a new boyfriend, Paul "The Rage" Johnson (David Harewood), a famous heavyweight boxer and rich fashion designer, who to Matthew's disgust is Northern. As Rage gears up for a big fight, Matthew must cope with the damage Rage and Mandy unwittingly inflict on his surfboard, Matt's most underused yet most prized and beloved possession. | |||
| 6 | "Fame" | 3 April 1995 | |
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A politically-charged rock band, Proactive, move into the flat above, and Matthew, alone for the weekend, leaves the flat for the first time to confront them about noise. Bumping into into their angry singer on the way out due to a bust-up, Matt falls unconscious outside their door brought on by his agoraphobia after leaving his own flat. After coming to, Matt becomes their new vocalist, envisioning himself as a rock star. The band drag him out wrapped up in sheets to their first gig at The Spotted Dog, attended by a record label scout and reporters, but Matt's agoraphobia causes him to merely scream and wail on stage. The performance is given a shining review in Dogs Bollox magazine, calling him a "new star", but the experience causes Matt to retire from wanting to be a rock star. | |||
Series 1 Continuity errors
The boxing-themed Big Wednesday was originally scheduled as the first episode on 27 February 1995, but two days beforehand the real-life the boxing match between Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan ended with the latter in a coma. In response, the BBC brought forward Working Girls, which had originally been scheduled as the second episode on 6 March. Subsequent episodes were screened as show, and were presumably the intended order, except that Big Wednesday was eventually shown fifth, after McClellan had emerged from the coma (he eventually made a partial recovery).
Big Wednesday being shown so late introduces a continuity error, in that it is during the episode that Mandy accidentally uses Matthew's surfboard as an ironing board, leaving it with the prominent burn visible "earlier" in Matthew, A Suitable Case for Treatment. However, the damage is not visible when the surfboard is seen in The Great Escape and Bad Timing, suggesting that those episodes should actually appear before both Big Wednesday and Matthew...
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When first repeated on BBCs in early 1996, the episodes were shown in the following order:
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In addition, on the VHS and DVD releases, the following order was used:
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Series 2 (1996)
| # | Title | Original airdate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | "Roundheads & Cavaliers" | 16 September 1996 | |
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Matthew (now portrayed by Neil Stuke after the departure of Ben Chaplin) begins wearing pale make-up, claiming he is "at death's door", and role-playing as a vampire after reading the books of Anne Rice. When Matt tries to "drink the blood of a fresh ginger virgin", Martin ends up in hospital with a head injury, where he dares to ask out Claire, the Irish trainee nurse who treats him. On the date, Claire says that she is looking to lose her virginity to somebody more experienced, which she mistakenly believes Martin is. They arrange to meet up again to do the deed, and Martin is terrified. Meanwhile, after her most recent relationship breakdown, Mandy has been successfully celibate for a fortnight. In an attempt to ease Martin's self-image issues, Mandy offers to look at his penis in a "consultative capacity", and Matt walks in on this very comprising situation. | |||
| 8 | "Slime Surfers & Jissom Monkeys" | 23 September 1996 | |
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Matthew admits his agoraphobia to Mandy who sets him up with psychologist Jason under the pretence he's Mandy's cousin. Meanwhile, Mandy tries to enforce her celibacy against her Italian teacher Marco who believes she is a virgin. | |||
| 9 | "Double Hard Bastards & Girly Shirt-lifting Tosspieces" | 30 September 1996 | |
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Martin lets paranoia over Claire get to him making a real fool of himself. Matthew dispels Marco's belief that Mandy is a virgin by showing him a home made video. Jason finally gets Matt out of the flat to the park and a male gym before he finally heads to the local shop on his own... | |||
| 10 | "Heavy Bondage & Custard Creams" | 7 October 1996 | |
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Mandy's ex-boyfriend and wanted criminal Stoat (an early appearance by Eddie Marsan) turns up at the flat and soon ties everybody up. Mandy has sex with him before tying him up and turning him over to the police. Claire dumps Martin and Jason admits to Matt he is gay and in love with him. | |||
| 11 | "Tangerine Candyfloss & Herne Bay Rock" | 14 October 1996 | |
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Matt starts a dramatic journal that Martin and Mandy just must uncover. Martin is depressed about his breakup with Claire and Mandy starts to fall for her old teacher. | |||
| 12 | "Bruce Willis & Robert De Niro Holding A Fish" | 21 October 1996 | |
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Martin takes up a job on a phone helpline for people suffering from depression and gives out his home number to a caller. She calls and tells Matt she is on the verge of suicide and he is forced to leave the flat to see if she is okay. He collapses once he gets there and gets rushed to hospital where Martin claims he has taken an overdose and Mandy's comedian boyfriend has been beaten up. | |||
Despite the official titles appearing onscreen at the start of each episode, advance artwork for the VHS releases showed alternative titles on the cover. Notably, the provisional artwork also showed the actual video release names the wrong way round, with the last three episodes titled "Second Match - Round 1" and the first three as "Second Match - Round 2".
Between the first and second series, Ben Chaplin left the show due to Hollywood offers and the part was given to Neil Stuke who had been the second choice for the part of Matthew at the first series auditions.[1] In the first episode of series two, the substitution of Neil Stuke for Ben Chaplin was acknowledged. The trio are watching Roseanne which had previously referenced the change in actresses playing Becky by having the cast watch TV and comment on actors changing and no one noticing, then looking at Becky. In Game On, Martin asks "I wonder who's playing Becky this week?!" to which Mandy remarks: "Don't you just hate that, when they keep the same character and change the actor?" Both Mandy and Martin then look subtly yet strangely accusingly at Matt, sitting between them on the sofa, who looks worried.
Series 3 (1998)
| # | Title | Original airdate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | "episode one" | 2 January 1998 | |
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Matt learns palm-reading in order to 'shag girls', although the only one he'll meet is the debt collector that's looking for Mandy. She catches Mandy at work and her new boss Archie lends her the £9,000 to pay them off. | |||
| 14 | "episode two" | 9 January 1998 | |
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Martin finds out Claire has a baby called Rosie and that he is the father, but she doesn't want him involved until she needs a babysitter. Mandy starts to date her boss Archie, although she might just be interested in his multi-million pound inheritance. | |||
| 15 | "episode three" | 16 January 1998 | |
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Matt decides he wants to join the Marines and decks the flat out. Archie brings round his old Marine pals to chat to Matt about it but Matt has had an accident with a vacuum cleaner that Claire is still trying to remove. | |||
| 16 | "episode four" | 23 January 1998 | |
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Claire decides Martin would make a terrible father and Mandy passes out while trying to cook for Archie's family. Martin and Matt put on their best behaviour and knock up a meal. However, Archie's sister mistakenly believes Rosie is Mandy's and that they are just after Archie's money. | |||
| 17 | "episode five" | 30 January 1998 | |
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Matt starts shagging the attractive woman from upstairs called Laura but he has cried wolf so many times Mandy and Martin just don't believe him. Even sharing her intimate sex secrets and producing her underwear fails to convince them. Martin has problems of his own as Claire decides to emigrate with her hunky new Australian boyfriend taking Martin's daughter Rosie with them, and so Martin goes to get legal advice from a misogynistic solicitor. | |||
| 18 | "episode six" | 6 February 1998 | |
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In the final episode, Martin gets a postcard from Claire in Australia informing him that she has married Shane. Martin meets a new girl, Rachel, at Mandy's hen night who is very similar to Claire (because she is also played by Tracy Keating) and immediately proceeds to buy her a nurse's outfit and wig and asks her to speak with an Irish accent. It is Mandy's wedding day to Archie, Mandy is getting cold feet but goes to church, and Matt is smuggled to the church in the boot of a car (the episode features the song The View From Here by Dubstar as Mandy walks down the stairs in her bride's dress). Archie dies whilst trying to get pulled over for speeding on the way to church to fulfill his final obligatory challenge set by his old Marine unit. The show ends with Mandy "going a funny color" as she realizes she is stuck in the flat forever, and Matt asks Mart to make her a cup of tea. | |||