Hits 21 - 2003 (Bonus): Miami 7

Episode Date: June 10, 2023

Jonny's funeral: https://www.gofundme.com/f/covering-jonnys-funeral-costs?fbclid=IwAR17dG8k_AJ1NDmYRH2PXvTwNvpytbeyrRJbTzzuydiSC77O5BD40ZN8Xvg Hello again, everyone, and welcome back to Hits 21, the show that's taking a look back at every UK #1 hit single of the 21st century - from January 2000, right through to the present day. Twitter: @Hits21UK Email: [e-mail]

We'll see you next time. Try to be your individuality When the world is on your shoulders Just smile and let it go If people try to put you down Just walk on by, don't turn around You only have to answer to yourself Don't you know it's true what they say That life, it ain't easy But your time's coming around So don't you stop trying

Don't stop, never give up Hold your head high and reach the top Let the world see what you have got Bring it all back to you Dream of falling in love Anything you've been thinking of When the world seems to get too tough Bring it all back to you

Yeah, yeah Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na 21, where me, Rob, me, Andy, and me, Livvy, would usually be looking back at every single UK number one of the 21st century from January 2000 right through to the present day but it's a special bonus episode as if you couldn't tell from the title which you've already read so I'll stop doing the X Factor on you. We are going to be discussing as we have hinted at and let you know in the previous episode we're going to be discussing as we have hinted at and let you know in the previous episode we're going to be discussing miami 7 which was the first tv series that s club 7 ever did as part of their little media empire in the late 90s and early 2000s before we get to the good stuff we're just

going to run through the general housekeeping though which is that if you want to get in touch with us you can find us over on twitter we are at hits 21 uk that is at hits 21 uk and we are also reachable by email which is hits 21 podcast at gmail.com thank you so much for joining us for this special episode. Before we get going, apologies for bringing the mood down ever so slightly. At the moment, on Facebook and a couple of other places, I have a GoFundMe thing kind of running. I've never done a GoFundMe thing before. And so I don't really know how to ask people to read the story and share it and stuff, but there's a link in the show notes. Um, basically, um, it's a long time ago now, but I went to college, um, with a guy called Johnny, who was a friend of ours. Um, when I say ours, I mean my friendship group at, um, college. Um,

um when i say ours i mean my friendship group at um college um he was at several house parties with us and he went to college with us and even after college and we all went to uni we all kept in touch um up until obviously like with the pandemic and everything it was a lot harder to do that um johnny really sadly uh died about two months ago ago as of the date of recording. It was at the end of March, beginning of April 2023. Since then, we've got in touch with Johnny's family, who we've never spoken to before. And speaking to Johnny's sister just about funeral plans and getting together to celebrate Johnny's life and stuff like that we've actually found out that um Johnny still hasn't had a funeral and he's been dead two months and it's basically because Johnny's family are they're waiting for the department of work and

pensions saviors of the universe to um release money so that they could pay for the funeral which was already prohibitively expensive if you ask me um they are forcing johnny's family to jump through hoops and wait for bank statements and provide proof of all sorts of things um and it just means that the the grieving process and the lack of closure is becoming uh quite stressful for johnny's family we found just through talking to them and so a bunch of us who all went to college together we have decided to set up a a gofundme either to cover hopefully the uh the money that the dwp uh withholding currently so that Johnny's family can go ahead and have the funeral. Or if the DWP release the money before the GoFundMe is finished, then we'll at least be covering Johnny's family's side of the costs for the funeral.

So there's going to be a link in the description you don't have to donate you can just read the story um you can share it if you want because obviously times are really difficult and everybody's situation is very different um so even if say i couldn't donate something if i was to share this at least maybe i could share it with someone who can help and they could see it and maybe they could help um the target is almost met anyway uh we'd like to go through that target just for the sake of um johnny's family and like the future and stuff but like i say if you can spare something that would be great it doesn't matter how small whatever the lowest amount is that you can donate on a gofundme every little helps um but if you can't like i say if you can't on a GoFundMe, every little helps. But if you can't, like I say,

if you can't donate anything, then read the story, share it, maybe somebody will read it who can. So yeah, no pressure either way, but it's there if you want to. Okay, so back to the main episode. Thank you everybody for listening to my story there um so when s club had their first number one on our show which was was it never had a dream come true the first it was never had a dream come true yeah november 2000 when we were discussing never had a dream come true and don't stop moving and uh all the classics that s Club had that got to number one in the 2000s, we have briefly entered discussions about the TV series that S Club had on the BBC

as part of, like you say, their little media empire that was run by Simon Fuller around the late 90s and early 2000s. And Lizzie and Andy, your memories of the show were much clearer than mine, probably because you were, you know, like a couple of years older at the time. I remembered bits and pieces. And so as a special bonus episode, we decided to go back and watch Miami 7

so that we could discuss it all here, because it seems a few people on our Twitter feed were also excited for us to do this. So before we get into discussing the actual main series, Andy, your memories of Miami 7, watching it as a kid, could you tell us anything about your experiences just to kind of get the ball rolling on this? Yeah, I remember just sort of happening across it um on a thursday at five o'clock because that was when it was on um around the same time as blue peter which i also loved and it was just this fun tv show about this group of to me grown-ups but

obviously they're only like 18 19 some of them younger than that who go to miami to make it big i didn't know that they were a real pop group. And I watched the first few episodes like, this is so cool. I like this. And then I saw Bring It All Back and S Club Party, like the music videos on the telly and I was like, oh, they're actually like real. And I became briefly kind of really into S Club, but it was always focused around miami seven like i did like the music um but i was a particularly huge fan of miami seven and i don't know what it is about it i mean there's something about this kind of show or this kind of humor or

this kind of writing that i just love because i am a huge fan of Spice World and this show is Spice World the series. Like, it's exactly that. It's got the same writer, Kim Fuller, and it's the same sort of surreal, blur the lines between fiction and reality, play an exaggerated version of yourself with wild fantasy elements and odd humour

thrown in for no reason at all it's got that same vibe to it um and it just sort of clicked with me i think it's perfect for kids in that sort of nonsense sense but it's also really fun to watch as an adult because there's a lot of genuinely funny moments um and a lot of just odd bits and little quirks to it that you don't see very often from this kind of mass media product, because make no mistake, that's what this is. This is the pinnacle of S Club being treated as a media product. But it has so much more charm than it has any need to have.

Like, it's got so much more to it than it has any need to. If you look at other tie-ins, like the Beatles animated series from the 60s, or the Monkees TV series from the 60s, they're just an advert. Nothing else. They're just a sort of throwaway thing. Whereas this actually has effort put into it, to some extent.

It's got some really good guest characters, and the main cast, S-Club, are really strong. They all have like you really get to know them they all have good characters they're all quite well rounded apart from maybe one which I'll get into so I've just always been really fond of it I've always really loved it um whenever I think of S Club I think of Miami 7 and um yeah I'm really looking forward to talking about it more because you don't get many opportunities to but I feel like everyone who did watch it looks back on it as a very fond thing and those who watch it for the

first time are always like this is so good this is so strange so yeah I love it and Lizzie did you watch it as a kid or is this something that you just kind of came to it in later years through curiosity I kind of came to it in later years I curiosity? I kind of came to it in later years I may have seen it in passing you know back in the day but I was more of like a Cartoon Network Nickelodeon sort of kid so I don't think I would have sat down and watched the whole thing but it was when we like you say when we covered Never Had a Dream Come True I thought right I'll I'll go away and do my research on S Club and I kind of came across this series I was like oh yeah they had a series on CBBC before they'd even released a song and I was just going to raise it on the podcast in passing like yeah

isn't that fun and then I actually watched the first episode and it was a bit like oh my god we have to talk about this I have to I have to watch the whole thing just because it's so bizarre like you say andy it is very much like if you stretched spice world out to series length but did it on about a tenth of the budget and throw in some chuckle vision for good measure it's like it's got that kind of vibe about it, and there is something just really kind of odd, but charming and likeable about it, and just, yeah, just a lot of fun to watch. I will say that I don't feel that way about some of the later series, because I think, I sort of theorise that

you sense their schedule starting to get to them a bit and at this point in their careers when it's quite early and they're not having to do tours and having to jet back and forth between America and the UK that it's all quite fresh and exciting and new and then as the years go on the kind of grind sets in and it's just not as it's never as fun as this and i think it also helps that the side characters are what makes this so great you know howard and marvin just amazing characters and yeah i'm i'm rambling a bit but i i do genuinely love this series despite its many many flaws and it does have many flaws. Oh, it does.

I don't think either of us are in any illusions about that. It's kind of got a so bad, it's good quality to it. But again, so does Spice World. And I do think there is genuine good in this. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of odd choices that are memorable because they're bad rather than that they're good so yeah

I think like I remember dipping in and out of this as a kid because I remembered the episode where they get lost in the Bermuda Triangle and I thought I remembered an episode from this series of Paul leaving the group

but that was in a later series and then I realised that they're all kind of like connected but also spin-offs but also part of a would you class Miami 7 LA 7 or Hollywood 7

or whatever it is and Viva S Club as like all one thing like as part of the 7 or something it is and Viva S Club is like all one thing like as part of the 7 or something like that. Not really I mean I've never really watched the others but what I've seen of them like there's just no connection point. I feel like the characters are the same but there's

nothing to stop them like being in another continuity to each other like the characters are the same but there's nothing actually in common with each other from year to year. Seeing Double, I think, is theoretically supposed to be in the same universe, but that has a fantasy island with celebrity clones. That's like a full-on fantasy movie.

But I think that is theoretically in the same universe as Miami 7, which just doesn't track for me. There's just no way. I don't know. Things are a little bit like franchises that get rebooted every so often. It's like you can believe, like James Bond, you can believe it's the same continuity if you want,

but probably not. Yeah, especially with the rather emphatic full stop on the Daniel Craig films, which seems to isolate them from the rest of the of the uh the whole franchise whether it's eon or not um as for me watching it a bit around this time um it is obviously shit um but in a way that is so addictive and so yeah like i have been totally happy just going through i have basically had this show hooked to my veins for a week, like I had 12 episodes or 13 episodes to get through

in a week and I did it all without really blinking they're so easy to just kind of watch on repeat and let them do their thing in front of your eyes and even my partner who was born in 97 and obviously has like zero recollection of this

tv show and about half of s club's output even she was like getting involved with it and sort of laughing about the fact that you hear bring it all back about six times you know like in basically every episode and she was like did it was were the songs out was or out? Or did they just have one song at this stage? And little things like that that she kept saying that just sort of made me think like, oh yeah, I wonder. And then I found out watching this that this wasn't after they'd made it as a pop group. This was their launch.

It was like they were being set up as like a fictional pop group almost. And I mean, as the show show actually does it blurs lines between fiction and reality quite a lot often in ways that aren't always intentional um but i i do think i'll go back through this one day without the you know the stress of needing it to get done in a week and enjoy it a lot more because i actually think there are elements to this that feel quite kind of you know for a kid's show that is clearly just like a money-making machine with a bunch of kids kind of just forced to do a thing for however long it took them to film there's

something that feels quite natural about it and i don't know whether that's just because it's all a bit gcse drama or if it's because like this is the thing it's like one of those things where like if you look at it on the surface it's total pop as they might say but I feel like it's the bees bum mate

it just but there are little things where like if you scratch beneath the surface the long takes and the sort of enthusiasm for the project itself, it feels like there's such a strange balance between all of that which makes it so great and all of that which makes it so terrible. makes it so great and all of that which makes it so terrible in the same way that i actually think like you know it feels kind of similar although i think that it's perhaps less egregious than it feels kind of similar to the room in the sense that like you know the room is like 100 effort zero percent technique and so these people like that you're kind of i mean with the room it's all kind of emotionally fraught and there's lots of hideous backstage stuff and it's this guy with like delusions of

grandeur who thinks he's making a masterpiece when he doesn't quite realize that the joke is being had on him whereas with this obviously the same level of passion is not going into the project but there is this kind of belief in something that's so naff that it just it can't help but have this lovely kind of like affection at value um say i think it's very harsh to compare it to the room like it's nowhere near that shoddy like no well this is me saying like this is me kind of not bigging up the room necessarily but sort of like i think that in all the jokes about the room i think what's often forgotten and overlooked is that everybody involved with that or at least at the head of the project they poured their souls into it and so it isn't very good but you can see them all basically sweating blood to make sure that it's finished and i don't get it has

heart yeah it's so much after it quits halfway through and gets recast but yeah yes yeah but like i say this is the s club and stuff the miami stuff it isn't as emotionally fraught as the room and so you don't necessarily see them sweating blood but you do see and this is what i think actually nowadays makes it quite sad to watch is that it is a bunch of kids not really knowing what the future holds for them but knowing that like this is their chance of like escaping the rat race and so they kind of have to put everything into it even though they don't actually know how talented they are as a group yet. You know, they've only just really met each other. They've recorded a few songs, but, like, it just...

I think it's kind of nice, but also kind of sad that this is basically just a bunch of kids, like, trying their best with something that, you know, they have to make it very believable that they are a group who all very much get on and have known each other for a long time and have been a band for a long time and have been a band for a long time and stuff and like i think there's also like there is also a level of sadness where like this feels like

nowadays maybe it's because of the crappy vhs rip that's on youtube it's got that kind of quality to it but it just feel a bit like home movie-ish like looking back at an era that doesn't exist anymore because i think that, like you were saying, Andy, you were comparing this to the monkeys, could you imagine, like, BTS doing something like this now? No. It feels like there's a sincere novelty to this that I don't, that pop groups nowadays are just too cool for, you know're like, Little Mix wouldn't do this. It would damage their image too much. I think you're right that this is an artifact of the 90s

because that is one of the things about pop culture in the 90s that very few mass media things took themselves seriously in the 90s. Like, everything was about having a laugh and having a party. When you think of the late 90s in particular, you have this image of sort of constant summer because like everybody's just sort of having a laugh all the time. Like there's not really much sort of serious stuff out there. And I think that is like sort of captured very well

in both Miami 7 and in Spice World that, you know, you could make this great masterwork that really kind of elevates them and do it as a sort of semi-biopic about them but also you could have them share psychic powers with each other and play volleyball. Isn't that

more fun? Yeah. Way more. I just think it's better as an idea and it's all should be said as well that both this and Spice World are really heavily inspired by A Hard Day's Night as well, which is sort of the 60s equivalent of this kind of humour.

So there is that as well, but yeah. I think as well, what you've just said there, Andy, reminds me a lot of why I feel the way I do about the three high school musical films where I think that in the first two which were TV movies there is a lot of silliness and I also think there's a lot of angst in there as well but it's kind of counter is counterbalanced with something that's kind of light and breezy and fun and doesn't take itself too seriously in certain

musical numbers it it acknowledges and happily just hand waves the fact that there is a guy in two places at once where ryan is playing the piano in the pool and also on the deck at the same time unlike the decking around the swimming pool and they're just they're totally fine with that they just they don't even try and cut it out in the edit they're not even trying to pretend it's just totally non-serious whereas i think the third one because it was released in cinemas they felt like they needed to go bigger and more serious and more angsty and it weighs the whole film down and all of the silliness and all of the fun gets removed from it and so i haven't seen seeing double but like do they make the attempt to make that more serious and more legitimate because it's it's cinema or is it not really like that

it's definitely got more of that sheen to it like it's definitely more yeah film yeah i mean i was just i was just gonna say for i can't remember if it's for LA7 or Hollywood7, but they get Linda Blair in, in like a main role. In like the Howard role. Yeah. So you can tell it's going bigger budget, but it's also like, yeah, we've got to tone down the fun. Yeah, and that, if, you know, despite all of its issues, the not so great acting the really really rubbish one-liners

that like stick out from like the first episode onwards just little things like joe saying we've got a bone to pick with you and then tina chiming in a whole skeleton actually a whole skellington i would like if possible I would like to quote a few lines that me and my sister always used to quote back and forth at each other

random lines mostly from the first few episodes because they were always like the first on the VHS that we watched back Bradley

on the computer going genius genius yes I am a genius is one it's Bradley he keeps fidgeting

from Paul. There's always some muffin who's late, also Paul. And you're a bad man from Tina. Those are the highlights. But like, despite all of this, I was never

bored. I never dreaded the first episode. Like, I don't really care about where the story or the plot is going. I never dreaded the first episode. Like, I don't really care about where the story or the plot is going. I'm just kind of always curious to see what the next scenario will get out of the cast, because they're giving it so much, but none

of them can act. And so it's really beautiful to watch. I think I don't think any of them are really bad actors. I don't think any of them are really good actors, but I don't think any of them are really bad actors. I don't think any of them are really good actors, but I don't think any of them are really bad either. They're alright. It's CBBC. You could probably rank them.

I mean, I think the best actor is probably Jo. She kind of has to carry the series. I would say Jo. I think she's like She goes a bit too hard on the aggro Sometimes

Oh definitely She's not got much range in the character No no Because I would have said Paul Yeah Paul would have been second for me He's got the best sort of comic Vibe He kind of gets how to deliver comedy the best

I think Bradley is surprisingly pretty good because he doesn't get much he's the comic relief but he kind of always nails it when he does Tina, she's a bit serious, that's her character she's kind of like the kind of sensible one isn't she

yeah she's the straight man I think which was unusual the character who i felt least attached to and i felt a bit sorry for her actually um because i don't think she's given much to do and i think the character that she is feels really outdated now which is rachel where it's like it's all just appearance based all of her jokes all of her motivations it's all about appearance and love and nothing else it feels like you know strong female character it hasn't happened to rachel in the show it just feels a bit like all of her concerns are just a bit like oh frivolous makeup

stuff and like oh rachel you know just into her appearance talking about diets and shoes all the time and i don't know and the way that the characters kind of like roll their eyes whenever she's talking about makeup or diets or you know spots or anything like that or even like when she has that extra bit of bacon at breakfast or she's going to and then paul has to say something like oh if you eat that bacon you'll get spots and so he takes the bacon and she doesn't eat it and she believes it and she's also a bit

ditzy as well which I felt a bit bad for her with that I don't know if there's something the name is just a coincidence but I don't know if there's some inspiration from Rachel from Friends I feel like she has some common

character aspects with her the scene where she's scared of spiders when she has to fish them out of the pool but then John gives her a speech about how it just wants to get home to its daddy spider and she starts crying and wants to rescue it I feel like you could give that scene to Rachel from Friends

that's the kind of character she is in the first season, yeah. And to be totally truthful, when I was a kid, and, like, eight, nine years old, Rachel Green and Rachel Stevens used to blur together in my head sometimes because they look so similar as well. Like, you know, if you're, like, a kid like me who needed prescription glasses but didn't realise

until he was in, like, year five. And so, like, they always kind of blurred together in my head when I was a kid. Well, yeah. I mean, at the start when I said, like, they're all well-defined except one, Rachel is the one who I think has not got as much of a character as the others.

Because I was going to say, I feel like it varies with certain writers on the show like depending on who's written the episode it's kind of more amplified or toned down the whole like oh she's just stupid Rachel I think also I hate to keep talking about Spice World but

some of the basic character aspects are copied from Spice World to Miami 7 where like Jerry in Spice World to Miami 7 where like Jerry in Spice World is Tina in this like the sort of smart head screwed on serious one Hannah is Baby Spice

the sort of sickly sweet little childish one and Joe is Mel B the kind of loud and leery one so like you can sort of see that there is a three or four word character description list that they just sort of pick and choose from

and apply to the best people there is a classification system in the show from Howard who's like tall kid long haired kid smart kid I think one of them was just called kid Bradley gets called Other Kid.

Other Kid. Should we talk about Howard and... Howard and, yeah, they're great. They're my favourite part of the show. Yeah. I think one of the funniest moments in the whole show is Howard's introductory speech when he meets S Club, where he says the,

Corp lie me! Smack me on the pot with a kipper and have a cup of tea with the Queen. Just hilarious. And then just the way he just goes completely serious and goes, Marvin, get me out of this ridiculous outfit. Just brilliant. Really, really good. And it's good to have some actual

actors, you know, anchoring the thing because Howard and Marvin are always convincing, even if S-Club 7 aren't. Howard and Marvin, you know, anchoring the thing because Howard and Marvin are always convincing, even if S Club 7 aren't. Howard and Marvin, you really get their dynamic and you get what they're about as characters and they are the heart of it really, not S Club. Yeah, my one real complaint

about the series is that the episodes where they're less of a central focus tend to be a bit weaker, I think. Yeah, definitely. There's a couple of episodes where it's like, okay, so you have to go to this other hotel for some reason, and

you find yourself missing them. I don't know what my favourite episode actually was. I think that the alligator one is probably up there. Oh, I do love alligator. I love the new Chevy, the old Chevy, whatever it's called. Oh yeah, the blue Chevy one.

The blue Chevy, yeah. I have this really fond memory of them sitting on the back of the car with C-L-U-B, place you want to be. And then even Marvin at the end is singing it, but it's got five words and he can't remember them. He's going C-L-U-B, doobie doobie

dee. I thought that was a classic kind of set up of Howard as that kind of perpetual villain like the Joker or the Master who's just like always gets us come up and said the end but he'll be back next week to get them in some other way, it's just a proper sitcom like

uncomplicated set up in that episode and it made me happy that one it's really good when we pay tribute to Paul I said my favourite was Wind Resistance just because of like how quickly he turned into this passive aggressive micromanager and also because of

that one line from Tina you know the one go on yeah what am I? A choreographer or a combine harvester? And there's the other line shared by the three girls of, is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it's an Essex girl. Just the canned scream as she just sort of gently leaves the screen. Yeah, they didn't have the budget for a hurricane, did they? Ken screams as she just sort of gently leaves the screen. Yeah, they didn't have the budget for a hurricane, did they? They have that dramatic shot of Hannah, like, slowly falling into the pool. I think we can run through some quotes if we want. Did you want to run through, like, episode by episode? Yeah. I don't know, how you want to run through episode by episode?

I don't know, how you want to do this? Yeah, okay The first one is like it's very different because they're not in Miami yet and it's just like got this sort of dreary backstreet London set up but there is some real charm to that first episode because we've got a lot of that

oddball humour because the premise isn't set up yet. We're just waiting for them to go to Miami at the end, so there's quite a lot of filler, which I think in shows like this is where you get the gold in the filler because it's where they have to really kind of right by the seat of their pants. And probably the most random scene is probably the best scene of the episode, one of the best scenes of the whole series, I think is the whack whack oops see you like oops which is genuinely

hilarious like the actor who plays that office manager is so good in that scene it's just so so funny i love it i can't believe he's a one-time character and he's like the one scene character yeah yeah just amazing i think that's where lizzie you were sort of mentioning it before that like that feels like it's where

the chuckle vision element comes in a little bit because it does feel like that's someone who they would end up working for for the whole episode but with this thing

he's just in one scene and he just leaves such an impression and you even see that get cracking Gromit like you would see that and you'd think oh they must have taken

inspiration from The Office but like this was two years before it yeah Lizzie I saw the tweet that you put on the Hits 21 thing of the S Club 7 walk so that the office could run or whatever it was

another scene from that first episode that really stood out to me was when they were all yelling at Danny Pearson, Parsons Danny Parsons and they're shouting at him and it's intercut with all that footage of like mills being demolished

obvious stock footage that is crazy stuff i just and then he comes out of the office and they've all been yelling at him and he's covered in dust um that's something that feels a bit like it's something that gets forgotten well like in the first episode it feels like they're playing with fantasy elements like where the fact that they're all in each other's visions and all in each other's fantasies and the slightly

strange sequence where they're yelling at the guy so much that like the office is smoking afterwards and then they just kind of abandon it after like two or three episodes and then they go into the bermuda triangle and stuff and it's established that that really happened but apart from that and like in the

final episode where they do the hands-in thing and they get the lightning strike it just feels a bit like they sort of forgot about it i also feel like the show forgets about the hotel as well like they arrive to fix up the hotel and then after five episodes it's just like okay yeah we'll just go and play volleyball now or we'll go back to the 70s or whatever sod the hotel who needs that yeah

the first episode has a real cheapness about it it's like I remember like there's just so many bits from the first episode like obviously in the beginning where they're dancing in like the church hall you can almost smell the orange squash coming off it then there's that really weird joke from hannah about if you were stuck in a burning building the fuck's that about and also who are that old couple we never see them again yeah no and then they're in they're in an internet cafe

John walks in in like a 1970s suit he looks like something from Monty Python he says oh you're looking very Tony Blair

and he's he's talking about this job he's like well if I get this job I've got to move to London it's like well where are you now

like Rochdale like what wow and then he says he's got the job and considering they're all supposed to be best friends who've made this band together, like they're not a manufactured band, he says he's got the job

and they all just say goodbye to him right there and then, like goodbye forever. Just in that internet cafe right there and then. When they get on the plane, there's a seat there for him. Yeah, and he knows about the flight and yeah yeah and because he's

late it implies that he's come like straight from the office. He's still in his suit isn't he? Like he's had to sprint through the airport yeah. And I like how he says oh if I had one more whack whack oops then I would have gone mad and they all laugh at it like they know what that is. We were there too.

And then Bradley goes right right oops and then you get the um the song and dance routine on the plane and the first shot of the song is someone bringing over an in-flight meal it's a really depressing looking thing and it's obviously it's only like a tiny plane so they've got to do dance moves in like an aisle it's about four feet wide they've got to do dance moves in like an aisle it's about four feet wide they've got to stand side by side oh god yeah it's a great it's a really great first episode just because of how weird it is and the second one is like the proper first episode of the show um howard's hotel the second episode and um i think the highlight of that is when they have to do that initial performance

for the guests at the end and Howard forces them to do tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree It's a good performance It is a good performance but that's a really good example of what you said Rob, that if they made this nowadays with BTS or whoever, you would never dare

let them do a scene like that where they play some old fogey stuff like that. They send up S Club and humiliate them and have them do embarrassing stuff that you just would not get in the modern day. And I think the fact that they are so deliberately

uncool in that scene. I know that they then come out and do S Club Party and it's all hip and trendy, but yeah, I love that yellow ribbon scene yeah you've just given me a horrifying thought andy because uh when this was made in 1999 that song would have been about 25 years old yeah so if bts were to do a show they would come out singing like bring it all back oh no My favourite line of that whole second episode is the bit where Howard is introducing

them and he does the without further ado what the heck is an ado? If it is, what is it? Is it a furry little animal? And then he's like if it is a furry little animal it's extinct because there are no further ados. And he also says

have you ever heard of a band called The Bee Gees? Because this band have heard of them too. I also love the crowd. They're just like, they're not into Thai Yellow Ribbon at all. But as soon as they hear like S Club, they're just like, oh my God.

It's them. They don't know. The band have heard of The Bee Gees. Yeah, I couldn't have heard of them. And watching that second episode as well and the performance of Escobar in it, I've never realised before how kind of mean that song is to Rachel

when they do the bridge at the end because it's like, Tina has a dance, John's looking for romance, Paul gets down on the floor, Hannah screams out for more, wanna see bradley swing and joe has the flow but rachel just does her thing and it kind of reminded me i was telling you guys over messages like of that scene in family guy where they all get superpowers and

like stewie has telekinesis and whatever lois has like super strength and then Meg's superpower is just to grow her fingernails slightly she just sits there at the kitchen table and just goes and then her fingernails are like an inch longer than they used to be don't they just feel a bit like that like chhh

oh god, so funny so the third episode was what, the blue chevy? yeah, the blue chevy, even though it's about a red Chevy. That is my favourite episode, yeah, because we've got this whole thing about them getting the car and it's like a proper old 50s sitcom plot of like, oh, old man Howard, you know, won't give us the car,

so we're going to like hotwire the car and go joyriding and, you know, he'll never find out and we'll all have a sing and dancewire the car and go joyriding and you know you'll never find out and we'll all have a sing and dance at the end and have parties in the sun like it's just uncomplicated fun that episode um and i like that howard's on their side and edna howard that marvin's on their side in that one um which you don't often see yeah really like that episode but i think that yeah like i said said, to me it's that scene where they're all sitting on the back on the Miami Strip, singing

CLUB, Place You Wanna Be. It's just nice. Just a nice vibe. That's also where we're introduced to Clint, the alligator, who becomes a central point of the series. He's almost the main character. Whoever's uploaded this to YouTube as well,

for some reason they've put like a content-aware scale on it. Oh, in that third episode where it feels like it's fidgeting a lot. Yeah, it feels like things are trying to leave the scene. It's like, it's just that one episode. It's that stupid episode, it keeps fidgeting. I thought, I was a little bit worried watching that thinking is the rest of the series going to be like this and then it did it and then thankfully um to segue into episode four wind resistance um that wasn't the case um the wind resistance one um i saw a clip of that recently Because is it Georgia Pritchett

Who wrote that episode She did the Man from EMI And she did I know she did Man from EMI She did Bermuda Triangle I think she did a couple of others But I don't think that was one of them

I just remember seeing somebody Sort of mention this clip recently In relation to like a couple of others but i don't think that was one of them right i just remember seeing somebody sort of mentioned this clip recently in relation to like georgia pritchett i think it was after a good episode of succession and then they were like and also thank you to georgia pritchett who gave us this scene and it was the hurricane scene by the swimming pool i don't know if the person on twitter was wrong but that scene by the pool in wind resistance with the like you were saying andy the um is it a bird is it a plane no it's an essex girl is just i mean there are moments in it where i'm just like this is totally aware of what it is

but it doesn't lose any sincerity because of it if you know what i mean it's like a lot i feel like something like this with lots of knowing winks at the audience would kind of spoil the fun like it was adults playing a kid's game if you know what i mean but with this kind of scene where is it a bird is it a plane no it's an essex girl like it's it would have been so easy to go is it a bird is it a plane no it's joe but the fact that they went for it's an essex girl is adds like 10 layers of comedy onto a scene that is already quite funny with all the horrendous line deliveries and shouting the um blustery winds that they managed to get together

with the hurricane Hurricane Hannah Hurricane Hannah yes that's the episode as well where Paul is in charge of the hotel yeah and it's the episode where Joe's being really aggressive about it like whenever he mentions the luau she's like the luau

yes the luau rush she's like, the luau-wa? Yes. Oh, is it the Luvrush party? It's like, there was a thing about the coconut bras, and Jo's like, great, whenever Rachel's dancing, it's going to sound like a stampede. God, they get that past the radar, don't they? I was going to say.

Yeah. I felt like there were a few moments in this that were a bit, not risque exactly, but for a kids' TV show, it'd be a bit like, okay, that's a bit 16 plus, if you know what I mean. There's a bit of innuendo and a bit of all right, all right, sort of little elbow nudges and winks and things like that, little things, and that was one of them. They are at rachel's expense as well aren't they but um there's that bit i can't remember what the actual line is that um after the guy's given rachel his number in the

blue chevy turns out bradley was behind it and he makes some joke about how like oh i just said that like she'll go out with anyone or something but it's a bit mean to Rachel really yeah he says like oh he gave us a lift for free because I said he could sit next to Rachel I was like don't do that yeah moving swiftly on yeah it's a bit 90s that

isn't it I guess the other thing that's also a bit 90s but in a more kind of like you know, 101 progressive, you know, progressive politics 101 kind of way, is the man from EMI turning out to be a woman executive. What?

I think the Joe and her boyfriend plot is like, again, a proper classic sitcom plot of like needing to tell someone something and then you've waited too long and it's got to the point where it's turned into farce and I like how the two plots dovetail as well, that her boyfriend starts going out with the woman from EMI, from Elevator Music

Incorporated but yeah that's a fun one I like that one, I also thought it's the only one that really kind of bothered to include a song as like part of the narrative like in the way that you would in a musical that two in a million like was kind of used as a breakup song um which like sort of the only time that ever happens where it's like yeah actually you would maybe pick this song at this moment every other

time it's just like well we're in court this obviously calls for bring it all back or we're on the beach this calls for you're my number one it's like why but that actually it felt like there was a proper choice made there about that song which was good yeah that's that song comes up so much in this series by the way anytime there's a vaguely romantic moment i think rob you um did you shazam this and it's like specifically the boyfriends and birthdays version so yeah they must use it again in the special um yeah but they keep using it like anytime there's something vaguely like oh will they you just hear those strings coming it's like oh for god's sake not again yeah the um the the library of music that they have available

to them isn't very big in this I guess like or you know it gets to the point where it does feel a bit like stock music but I would say that performance of Two in a Million I love the harmonies and the chorus on that I like that song

I think it's quite sweet Was that the B-side to What was it the B-side to? Double A-side Double A-side with You're My Number One Yes Which got beat to number one by Westlife Yeah the very first number one

Of the noughties was Westlife with I Have A Dream Seasons In The Sun And it beat You're My Number One and Two In A Million so we very nearly had this discussion at the very start of our show but yeah the other thing just while we're on repeated music

I'll tell you what does my head hit that constant jingle of whenever they change the scene just that little refrain of S Club soaked in reverb at least five or six times an episode think of other transitions

have five or six different ones my favourite episode of the show I think is this next one, Alligator I think that this was the episode where it kind of struck me that this was where they were really trying and like trying to because i don't know i feel like the alligator episode i really remember it i don't know why i don't know if it's just because like you know this is the

episode where i think howard and marvin are really involved in a plot with Rachel and Tina and Joe. And they all go shopping and they give him the makeover. And as soon as they said they were going to give him a makeover, I was waiting for one of them to say, I think he's got it. And then I didn't realise that it was that scene where Rachel's like, I think he's got it. And then Joe goes yeah the shop they go to as well is like the most run down backstreet

mall tatty shop ever like it's so old looking I really expected that guy from in betweeners to come out and say too jazzy when they were trying stuff on it looks just like that shop it is a bit Debenhams isn't it Debenhams Stockport yeah

and then Howard's like it looks expensive here they've got to do this like dance routine in like the shirt aisle and also the guy they've got working there is like it's like they've told him right you've got to really ham it up it's that kind of told him, right, you've got to really ham it up.

It's that kind of show, right? And so he's just done, like, the most flaming kind of performance you could possibly do. Yeah. Yeah. It was a bit of that. As soon as the shop assistant turned up, I was like, oh, yeah, we're still in that era of TV, aren't we?

Where, like, any men who know anything about fashion or design are very effeminate like you say with the flaming kind of yeah kind of trope. As is so often the case with like aggressively gay characters used in a show like as is often the case there's alternate characters

who like are quietly queer coded that you could easily make gay if you wanted to Marvin I think is like very quietly queer coded asoded that you could easily make gay if you wanted to. Marvin, I think, is very quietly queer-coded as gay. You could very, very easily see that. And it's like, well, why not do something with that rather than just not do anything with it and then have these huge flaming gays turn up? More on that in the next episode, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. Big fan of alligator the what's that line where John where he's looking at it and he says something like usually I can or is that from the third episode where he's like

usually I can relate to alligators but then they find out that oh how convenient after they set him free he's a homing alligator because we've all heard of those haven't we yeah yeah it's very funny though i think there's two very memorable plots there silly as they both are but yeah and i like like you i really like when howard and marvin are just interacting and hanging out with the rest of the group because they have a really good dynamic.

So next up is, I'm actually looking back, I kind of said before that I maybe wasn't sure about how I felt or maybe that wasn't keen on Volleyball and Alien Hunter, but now we've kind of come to them together. Alligator, Volleyball and Alien Hunter are three episodes that I actually still really really they click in my head and I remember them quite clearly as you know like three good episodes I think on the run um so Volleyball how Lizzie where were you on Volleyball I quite like the episode it's like a

kind of it is like a summertime special it doesn't I don't know if it really has much to do with the hotel I'd rather we be back there but I think it's good I think it's just the whole John and that woman thing doesn't really work for me because she looks about twice his age which would make her about 32

but still As a kid this was one of my favourites volleyball probably just because it's a sort of easy narrative for a kid where it's like the sports team's got to beat the other sports team and there's a romance involved in it as well

it's quite an easy straightforward one this it's not the best one this to be honest it's kind of a bit of a filler episode. But it does still have some of that weirdness in it. Like, at the very end, where they make Howard literally eat his shorts with ketchup.

Yeah, love that. But yeah, I think, as much as you say those three episodes, Rob, for me, it's, like like Wind Resistance, Man From EMI and Alligator which all like I think are sort of centrepiece Miami 7 Yes, the peak as it were

of the series, I think with Volleyball that was when I started to get kind of like pangs of sadness a little bit because this was the episode where it felt a bit like they were kind of just kids hanging out trying to make the best of their situation you know like because obviously i don't know if it's just because it comes through in the theme of like you know team games and sticking together and stuff that's in that episode but you know looking

back it's like you know i guess if you were like in your 30s in the 90s you'd probably look at s club 7 as like either frivolous or like all that's wrong with pop music at the moment and oh it was better in my day sort of thing but now you sort of look back at it and it turns out that s club 7 didn't bring about the end of the universe and they were just kind of like another pop group on a conveyor belt of lots of other pop groups that happened to just be significant to a generation who were in the right place at the right time which i think is the truth with basically every pop act ever that has been worried about as you know harbingers of doom or the canary in the coal

mine for the destruction of society and entertainment and art as we know it um that you know the seven of them they were put together via a kind of slapshod audition process and then given this role and then told to just kind of act like you've been friends for years. And you can tell that like, as hard, it does feel a little bit Lizzie, like you were saying that where the, the kind of seriousness and stress of their schedule kind of creeps into

episodes past and series after this one with this one it still feels a little bit like they're a bunch of kids kind of having the time of their lives but also yeah kind of having the time of their lives because they don't know if this is gonna work like they may i mean to be fair they sort of did anyway but they could have finished this venture totally penniless and that's true yeah they sort of did anyway but you know what if this tv show would bond exactly pop music would look completely different and i think this episode really brings it home like having the more kind of in roughly the same plot um and even just little things like where john sprains his ankle and they all kind of rush over to help him and stuff like that and as much as it's kind

of like it reminds me a little bit of friends in the the first season of friends in terms of the material that the actors have got to work with is not as sharp as the rest of the show up to a point anyway i always think that friends is really good between seasons two and seven. And then there's like a slow downward, like, you know, it sounds like a downward trajectory towards the end. But season one, you can tell that like the chemistry of the cast is what's making the material stick in that first season. And why, as the show and the writers kind of find their feet the actors settle into their roles very very quickly and they settle into being around each other very very quickly and it feels a little bit like on a you know a lesser sophisticated less sharp level that the s club guys they do try to put every now and again you'll just get little glimpses of them like as as people rather than the characters they're playing you can just kind of see little things happening little flickers

in their eyes whenever they look at each other or like you know little friendships that are forming off screen and stuff like that there are moments in that episode where paul and hannah are around each other and you can kind of see them you know because like they eventually they get together not long after this and you can sort of see their friendship coming together even though they're playing characters you occasionally through no fault of their own really they kind of dip out of character sometimes because like i say the lines between reality and fiction in the show are kind of blurred and so looking at them you can see seven teenagers early 20 year olds trying to just make the best of the situation knowing that they have to rely on each other in order to have a career in pop and have a career in tv and volleyball is an

episode that i think kind of really really brings that home um there will be people who've never seen this will be thinking like what is this show like i know that um friend of the podcast edward thomas has never seen any of this show but we'll probably listen to this episode and we'll be thinking i need to watch this this is you know like because i feel like but we'll probably listen to this episode and we'll be thinking i need to watch this this is that you know that like because i feel like maybe we're probably giving it maybe more credit than it's due but i always say that like if you can get something out of a piece of art that like well then the people who made it have done their job yeah that's true sort of thing um is there anything more to say about volleyball?

Just on this kind of point about reflecting on the fact that they're having so much fun in the sun and it's all innocent at that time, it's kind of, I really sort of especially reflect on that Instagram video that the other six members of S Club put out a few weeks ago where they're clearly so sad about Paul, so grief-stricken, and they can barely get past tears. And you really kind of get that context here, where it's like they all went to Miami and filmed a TV series together

and spent all this time, and those seven people shared it together. That even if you weren't especially like best friends can you imagine sharing something like that where you all went off on this big adventure together as kids basically as very young people and like filmed like a massive tv series in miami and like got to just like have fun and live your life in the sun and they've always had that for years and years along with all their other memories and you think that bond that they must have with each other is just like so special it's like the bond that the cast of the first star wars film must have because they didn't expect it to blow up in that way and like that the beatles have with each other and stuff like that that you can't

really do justice to how much of a connection they must all feel with each other because they went through it all together. So it really kind of put that in perspective that they really must have felt like a family and really have lost one of their family with this. Because I agree that the cast really do feel close. They feel like they have such great chemistry with each other. And that shines through, which kind of makes it all the sadder

to have lost one of them. Yeah, sorry to be a bit of a downer there but it does put it in context of how sad it is when you lose someone it's totally true I think like to kind of relate it back to what I was talking about before the start of the you know the proper start of the episode is that Paul and my friend Johnny from college

they both died in the same week and I remember like you know Paul going midweek and being a bit like shit i didn't expect it to hit me this hard because i hadn't thought about s club in ages and it was only doing hits 21 that had kind of brought us back together with s club and you know had them you know remember and like when they initially announced the reunion tour i didn't feel like it would have been a nice night but i always think that like you know nostalgia tours are they're always kind of

tinged with a bit of like it's kind of melancholy because it's a bit like you know oh it turns out when we saw you last time 20 years ago and we were all young it turns out you couldn't freeze time you know it just kind of you know these experiences eventually just kind of get taken when we saw you last time 20 years ago and we were all young it turns out you couldn't freeze time you know it just kind of you know these experiences eventually just kind of get taken away from you like i went and saw um paramore quite recently as well for the first time in 14 years i last saw them in 2009 when they'd released brand new eyes and i've recently seen them now and it's like you know hayley williams like when i saw her in 2009 she was like 20 years old and she was like one of the most famous like you know rock stars in the world and now paramore kind of come in as a legacy act and like and having that experience and then like thinking about going to

the ns club when they announced the reunion i was like it's all gonna feel a bit like sad because of everything that's happened to the group in between anyway and then paul died and it was just and now hannah's not going because it's too much. And it all just feels, and you see that video where it's like, you feel like they're carrying on because they have to, but do they really want to? And so, and I know that like, you know, in the next few weeks with my friend Johnny, like we're all going to get together in a month to try and, you know,

get, you know, trying to celebrate his life and stuff but some of us haven't seen each other for like you know five years maybe six years some of us have children you know someone can't come because they're going to be 36 weeks pregnant and like so she's going to miss out and there are going to be people that we all have our own histories with and then it's like this sense i always get this feeling whenever me and my old friends kind of meet up from like school and college and stuff and it's like it's not the same is it like it's still really nice to see you but like there's this whole you know life thing that's kind of in the way of allowing you to immerse yourself in your old friendships again and it's kind of like you know in a way s club are kind of lucky that you know

their relationship at the beginning is preserved in this show and so yeah it's kind of like a bit of relief that this was preserved on youtube and stuff but also a bit of like oh but everything is different now isn't it and yeah i so i totally agree andy that like i think it's totally fair to like bring up the kind of melancholy that hangs over this um over this series um just to maybe raise raise the mood a little, is Alien Hunter. When I thought Maxine Peake had walked onto the set and it turned out to be Kathy Dennis. Yeah, hits 21 legend, Kathy Dennis.

Sticks out that accent, doesn't it? It's very Daphne Moon. If you've seen Frasier, you know what I mean. I haven't. So she's like the English housekeeper character very Daphne Moon. If you've seen Frasier, you know what I mean. I haven't. So she's like the English housekeeper character and she's like, oh, I'm from Manchester. Oh, it's something me

Grammy Moon used to say. Yeah, alright. I'm just filming a movie. Filming a movie with the S Club 7. Yeah, it's a bit much, but I like poor Tina as well having to lug around that big suit in Miami

it must have been about 30 degrees yeah it's a fun one that episode I've not got much to say about that one because it's really silly that one but it's alright yeah I think there's a line at the beginning of that that sort of made me laugh out loud for no real reason which is when Miss Hunter breaks in through the door and that alien says,

Miss Hunter, didn't we kill you when we blew up the Statue of Liberty? Oh, God. Totally, totally ridiculous. And what's even funnier is that in 2003, there was a whole American-Bulgarian science fiction thriller film called Alien Hunter, and James Spader was in it, before he ended up in the office and other things.

But, yeah. It's kind of funny that there was an actual Alien Hunter film that got made a few years later. Missing. Yeah. This is years later missing yeah this is fine I think

I always forget about this one this is the one that's like the most beige that's most skippable this one yeah you could cut this one out you really could I don't get the whole idea that it's like they've got to go to a hotel that's like up the road and you know

when is it Hannah that gets set up with the lifeguard guy it's like oh will I ever see you again? It's like you're just up the road. Yeah. It's only a five minute walk. Proper romance of the week that one. The characters are aware that it's a romance

of the week which is really strange so yeah. There's it's a romance of the week, which is really strange. So, yeah. There's only one other thing that stood out to me. I actually paused it. You know when Tina does a card trick? No. Oh, yes. She does the little card, I don't know what you'd call it, where you flick all the cards from one hand

to another. Oh, yeah. It kind of zooms in on her arm and it's very clearly not her arm like nice the bit about like howard and marvin saying that like the prophets are down and they actually miss the gang i kind of wish they'd focused on that a bit more because it seems to not come up again until the last episode by which point it's like you could have made a story out of this. It's like how they've turned the hotel's fortunes around.

And now you don't want them to go. But instead, it just comes out of nowhere at the end. Yeah. Yeah, it's a shame they don't make more of that. But they've got to keep that antagonist thing going with Howard, haven't they? So, yeah. I guess. But you could still be like a foil. Because he is a bit of a miser. more of that but they've got to keep that antagonist thing going with Howard haven't they so yeah I guess but you could still be like a foil like because he is a bit of a miser

yeah yeah well that comes up like more in the I don't know if it's the very next episode but in the courtroom that oh yeah yeah still got to do that so they can't go too far down the road of Howard being friendly with them at this point so yeah I suppose

yeah the court episode the sculpture is hilarious. It is. And it was in this episode where I sort of started to notice as well that, like, I was saying before that a lot of the scenes feel quite... they feel quite stage place, actually. Oh yeah, feels very cheap this one with the but with the sort of like the longer takes and just sort of letting the actors actors bounce off each other and sort of trying to you know i'm not saying that like this episode had a particularly standout sequence it was just in this episode it just it does amazingly with this show it does allow you to

kind of it does have a rhythm of its own which is really hard to do anyway and it does have a nice kind of comfortable there is something comfort tv about this i think um yeah definitely really really definitely um i think if it was on an actual streaming service, it would get... I'm surprised it isn't. I'm surprised with the reunion tour that someone hasn't taken a chance on this, like BritBox or something.

Well, John has said apparently it will be. Apparently it is coming to a streaming service. It will probably be BritBox, I would imagine. Yeah, it's like there's not even been a DVD release, so we don't even have that to go off. The best we have is those awful VHS rips. Where's my 4K Blu-ray? Exactly.

There is one highlight from this episode, actually. You know when John's doing his really impassioned speech, like, are artists not citizens of the world? And then I think it's Bradley just turns to Joe and says like as long as you've got to put him on decaf now the episode that I actually remembered from being a kid

which is Bermuda Triangle where they go back to the 70s which has perhaps my probably my favourite funny moment, or unintentionally funny moment, from the beginning of the episode, where they set off and they go, they get warned about the mist,

and they immediately set off in the boat, and then immediately, oh look, what's that? Oh, it's some kind of mist. And they're not even like two metres from the shore. I love that it's not just the 70s, it's like the 70s. Like all these massive artists who were just there for no clear, they never really, it's like They never really... I know the hotel is supposed to be in its heyday, but to the point where Cher is there? And Madonna? I know Madonna's sort of pre-fame there, but come on. It's just stupid.

It's like if you randomly go back to the 1800s and bump into Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln in the same bar. It's just stupid. This one is so, so silly that it kind of loses me a bit because it's just absolutely ridiculous this one. But

it's still fun. I'm still along for the ride with it. But it's... Yeah, you'd think this would be the very best episode, but I think it's just so silly this one. Yeah. I feel like it loses a bit of the plot in amongst the gags. Yeah.

Yeah, and, like, crediting John with Madonna's, like, 80s to 90s output and little things like that, they could work a little bit better if, like you say, they weren't stretching the the sort of like the the credibility like i think they went they had their cake and ate it a bit too much with this one uh with like the concept and the amount of people there it kind of reminded me a little bit of you know like andy like in solo the the star wars kind of spin-off film where because there are so many things in Solo, a Star Wars story, that happen in the same two or three months and then all get referenced in Star Wars, like the Kessel Run and meeting Chewie and the dice and all this,

it makes Han Solo in Star Wars, in the original 1970s one, it makes him look like a guy who just only remembers three months of his life because these are the only things that he references like the kessel run and the dice and meeting chewbacca and all of these things and it's just a bit like well no he's remembered these things clearly over the course of his life not some random mission involving woody harrelson and amelia clark yeah like it just yeah a really more positive way of doing that, I've always liked what they do in a Doctor Who episode called The Unicorn and the Wasp,

where the Doctor and Donna meet Agatha Christie, and it's before she's written all of her books, and they naturally build into the dialogue that they keep dropping titles of Agatha Christie novels, like, just in the middle of sentences. Like, there's an alien who's, like, doing stuff with mirrors, and they go, oh, they do it with mirrors, dropping titles of Agatha Christie novels just in the middle of sentences. There's an alien who's doing stuff with mirrors, and they go, oh, they do it with mirrors, which is a title

of an Agatha Christie novel, and there's stuff like, and then there were none, and like, Death on the Nile and stuff, which is just naturally brought into the plot, and the idea is that, oh, she used those quotes to think up novel ideas. You could have done something like that with John, where I'm just

thinking now, I'm trying to think of one he could do, and he lives at the hotel, so when he turns up at the hotel in the 70s he could say, and I feel like I just got home. And you could just sort of use that sort of thing, of like, have him drop Madonna lyrics in front of Madonna. But also

like, on that theme, I was kind of expecting a Back to the Future reference at the end. Yeah. You know, like, when they... Because they do Dancing Queen. I was expecting, like, Hey, Benny, is your cousin Johnny? Johnny Anderson?

You know that new sound you've been looking for? It's like, listen to this. I actually quite like the version of Dancing Queen they do. But, yeah, the rest of the episode is full of like really weird jokes you know that one Cher joke where I think Paul goes up to the Cher

in like big heavy air quotes looks nothing like her and you're like oh you see that guy over there he really fancies you and he points at John and Cher just goes he's too old. It's like, what's that a reference to? Oh god, yeah, that's

strange. I didn't think about that. Yeah, because he's 16 in this. Yeah, how old is he meant to be? Probably 18. Probably 18. I don't know. Even still, it's like, hmm. There's also the one with Elvis going past

I think Tina says like oh you probably shouldn't eat that which kind of implies that he continued eating out of spite and well yeah instead of being drugged up to his eyeballs I don't like that trope in time travel films where they bump into a celebrity

who's about to die and they're like oh don't do that, like you wouldn't do that, like you'd be more serious you wouldn't make light of it like that generally they do really well with the time travel aspect in Life on Mars but there's this stupid bit where he bumps into Mark Bolan and is like

oh be careful, you know, because it's like a year before he dies, don't get in the car don't get in any cars. Don't let David Bowie perform Heroes on your show. You too, Bing Grosby. Yeah, I don't like that trope. It's a good episode overall

and I like the Howard story, but it needs more meat on the bones because other than that, it's just a fancy dress party. Yeah, it's very Smithies. They've got Joe, who's just a fancy dress party. Yeah, it's very Smithies. They've got... Is it Joe who's got the Agnesa fringe? Yeah. Paul looks like the lead singer from Shawoddy Woddy.

For some reason, it looks like John's got Jerry curl on. That's the 80s. Yeah. Yeah, they all wake up with perms, don't they? Yeah, and John goes, we're gonna die in these clothes. Oh,

God. Again, I feel like the charm of the kids is what kind of gets you through the weaker episodes at the end, because I think, I don't know if you want to talk about them together or separately, but I feel like the last two episodes are a strange place to end things.

Yeah, talk about them together. Yeah, because the reprise episode, it just, I don't know, it just, I was so disappointed that it was a clip episode. Well, yeah, I only recently found out from watching a few sitcoms in the 80s,

because this is the kind of exciting life we lead, me and my husband watch The Golden Girls, and they always used to finish their series with a clip show. Set in Miami, funnily enough, The Golden Girls. They always used to finish with a clip show, and apparently that was kind of the norm, but not so much in the 90s. But yeah, I thought if you're going to with a clip show and apparently that was kind of the norm but not so much in the 90s

I thought if you're going to do a clip show why not do it in the courtroom when they have to explain to the judge what's happened between him and Howard that seems like the natural place to do a clip show like always Sonny does a kind of framing device with that in an episode not for a clip show

but for a kind of flashback yeah the office does as well the US office is it the tax returns or the audit or something yeah it's rubbish in general this last episode because of the clip show aspect but I do

really like the last scenes with Howard and Marvin not wanting them to go and getting sad it's a nice send off for the show yeah I just wish we had more of that, of, like, how they've turned the hotel around and, like, well, now we don't want them to go and we're going to make them an offer they can't refuse, but they turn it down because they want to go on to new things.

Yeah, the last episode was a bit of a letdown for me, but then until the end, where they kind of also remember the hands-in lightning strike kind of thing and howard and marvin kind of get the send-off i feel like they deserve those two are my favorite characters those two together yes uh they you know and i mean i couldn't get it out of my head that like um marvin really looks like the one of the butlers from Joseph and the Technical Dreamcoat when Joseph's in prison.

But I felt like I always knew him from somewhere else, even though I didn't. He's got one of those faces. Yeah, I think his performance is just kind of, it feels kind of familiar and lived in. Yeah, I was a fan of Howard and Marvin, even in like a non-ironic kind of way. Like, you know, for kids TV characters, like, I'm surprised I didn't remember them more. Because like I say, I dipped in and out of these shows and maybe I just missed them and only caught little bits. But, you know, like my, like I say, my memory of being like younger than 10 is pretty

poor like it's kind of foggy and i remember bits and pieces but not much um and so yeah it was nice to kind of get to know them as an adult and see what they've been doing since which doesn't seem like much but i mean that the actors howard and mar Marvin they don't even have Wikipedia pages which I was really surprised about yeah quite obscure yeah but they're better than that they deserve to get all the work

they're very good at this both of them yeah and they do still I think they still see each other occasionally like they sent a message to Jo when she was in hospital which I thought was quite sweet Oh, that's really touched me that, that's so sweet, I never would have thought they'd be in touch but oh, that's lovely

Yeah, and the actor who played Marvin sent his tributes to Paul as well which was again like, tell he's really upset Oh, bless I know, and I mean, I'm just, I'm really glad I've watched this now and done the special about it and the fact that

I've watched it in a week because I feel like it's one of those kinds of shows where it's like you can go through like four episodes without even really noticing and like you know like and my partner's just been like sat on the sofa doing like cross stitch stuff

at the same time and crocheting while watching it because she's doing something like a wall design. But yeah, she's really and obviously like she had no real relationship with S Club 7 beyond like knowing what Don't Stop Moving was because they, you know, that's not really her, you know, her gender. Even though there's only three years between us, it's a big difference when you were a kid like being six or being nine really makes a difference at that age as to whether you're into something because you know like when s club seven were breaking out she was two and i was five and it just makes that little bit of a difference you're just that more aware that able that little bit more able to engage and it just means that my memories are much more solid whereas like i'm trying to think of what she would have been really into as a kid but like she had disney

channel and i didn't which means that a lot of her childhood heroes are just totally different to mine and like shows i have zero memory of like she grew up watching wizards of waverly place and that's a raven and sweet life as i can cody and drake and josh and i yeah yeah grew up kind of just watching cbbc and then hopefully watching what's new scooby-doo on a friday afternoon when i went to my grandma's after school and that's you know so like i think at that age like and especially without the kind of the big level playing field of smartphones where everybody kind of has the same access to everything you know like you know sky was prohibitive and it meant that you didn't just you just did not get to watch certain things and so in and so in the same you know the same

respect me being five years old meant that i could get s club seven in the way that her being two and three years old meant that it went way over her head because she's still not totally you know you're barely aware of yourself as a human being until you're like 10 so yeah no it's it's been such a good little thing to share with her as well because she has enjoyed it and laughed along ironically and not so ironically. So yeah, thank you for... I can't remember who suggested this. It was one of you two.

Yeah, I'm really glad we've done it. It's been a pleasure revisiting it and talking about it. If anyone listening hasn't watched it but has still pleasure revisiting it and talking about it if anyone listening hasn't watched it but has still somehow followed the discussion please seek it out, it's so good yeah it's great it is and if anyone's listening from a streaming service

of any kind please pick this up, put it on, it's great yeah if you plug it a lot people will be like yeah I could go back for that. Because the videos on YouTube, they've got like 50,000 views. Exactly. And so, you know, it's popular. Give it a go.

They've got to sell out gigs on the tour. Like, you know, someone's got to buy this, right? Stick the DVD on the merch stand. It'll sell like hotcakes. Yeah. And then if they say on the tour it'll sell like hotcakes and then if they say on the tour oh by the way Miami 7's back on Disney

plus then you'll get more people watching it so you know well thank you very much for listening to this bonus episode when we come back we will be beginning the year 2004 which was obviously the year 2004 um which was obviously

the year after s club set up split up because we decided to do it at the end of 2003 to kind of mark the end of an era in the charts because can you believe that four years after this show got made they'd already done three more four more tv shows they'd already done a film three more albums they were machines they made a lot of stuff and they were worked to the bone and they performed admirably throughout yeah yeah so we'll see you next time and we'll see you then bye see ya bye bye