SERIES 4 - First broadcast 1993

1. The Pit and The Pendulum

Victor and Patrick both have new pets: Victor has some new small fish which he's failing desperately at keeping (and which Patrick thinks he's eating on Ritz crackers!), and Patrick has a miniature dog. Victor has hired a gardener to cut the roots off from Patick's cherry tree next door because he thinks it's taking all of the moisture from his garden. However, the gardener resembles the "Missing Link" and spends most of his time being flirtatious with Pippa and the local schoolgirls rather than getting any form of useful work done.

Meanwhile, Victor is given a present of a collection of seaweed from some local children, and dumps it in the back yard. Patrick's dog scampers round to Victor's garden and extracts a hermit crab from it, which he delivers to a sunbathing Patrick in his own garden. It crawls up his leg and grabs hold of his testicles with great vigour! Victor offends the gardener and ends up being buried in his own garden! Unfortunately, Patrick pops by to complain about the fact that a crab had crawled from the seaweed to his scrotum (with the help of his dog Denzil) and sees Victor in his unfortunate position!

"A hermit crab surgically removed from my testicles ... it wasn't demonstrating much in the way of hermitude when it popped into my shorts earlier on for lunch and fastened itself to my scrotum like a bulldog clip. I ... completely forgot to smear my groin with crab repellent." (Patrick explains the little accident he had in his back yard)

First broadcast: 31st January 1993

2. Descent Into The Maelstrom

Out of nowhere, Margaret suffers a blackout and the doctor diagnoses nervous exhaustion which, in his opinion, he says, has been building up for the past thirty-five years - which, coincidentally, perhaps, (or perhaps not!) is how long she and Victor have been married for. Victor's nursing of Margaret doesn't help her much at all; on the contrary, when he tries to be nice and quiet and keep the place in a good condition for her, he ends up making an almighty racket and disturbing her. His domesticity leaves a lot to be desired also, for he accidentally leaves the iron on which burns straight through one of Margaret's dresses, causing her to become really angry yet again: ingeniously, she returns to work to get a bit of rest!

In the meantime, Nick drops by to fix the waste disposal unit that can't keep its food down but ends up putting his back out in the process, and Victor accidentally gives away his video and car to homeless people who drop by when he mistakes them for the video hire person and the osteopath. After all of the calamity that they've suffered, Margaret sees the good in him in the end.

"‘Why don't you take it easy for a couple of weeks; let me look after you for a change.' Take it easy? I'd get more peace of mind being nursed by the evil dead!" (Margaret is having a stressful convalescence!)

First broadcast: 7th February 1993

3. Hearts Of Darkness

Victor, Margaret, Nick and Jean go for a day out in the countryside. However, things go quickly wrong on the trip when Victor enters into arguments with two other sets of people out on holiday, leading to two nosebleeds. And Margaret is annoyed with Jean for wearing the same brand new dress as her. Anyway, they arrive, and row far further than they should have, and end up getting very lost.

They play Trivial Pursuit where Jean monopolises the game because she knows every question off by heart. Eventually they paddle out of the shallow lake they thought was metres deep, and find a van to shelter in. When they wake up, Victor and Jean discover that their feet are set in concrete and they walk around for a few hours before arriving back at the van again. Victor explores for shelter, and comes across a retirement home where the residents are being treated badly; he calls the Police to attend after having set the staff in the concrete found in the van to make them into scarecrows.

"It's quite nice out here now: I've just been watching two frogs having sex!" (Nick is typically excited)

First broadcast: 14th February 1993

4. Warm Champagne

Victor and Margaret return from holiday which leaves Margaret missing the nice man she met there who also lives in London: they arrange to meet up as soon as possible. Patrick, in a highly vindictive mood as per usual, tells Victor that his dog has swallowed the key to Victor's garden shed, so he has to sift through many bags of faeces to find it, whereas he's actually just hidden it to make Victor suffer.

The Council have fitted new streetlamps, but a milk tanker drives into the one outside Victor and Margaret's house, causing it to crash through their bedroom window and illuminate it in fluorescent colours all night! Margaret receives a phone call from her friend and goes to see him, while Victor goes out to watch a football match. An elderly lady is mis-returned to the house and the paramedics put her to bed. Victor doesn't notice the woman as he prepares to sleep, and Margaret and Victor are both equally horrified when they realise she's sleeping in their bed; the woman awakes startled and begins to scream hysterically before she climbs out of the window whilst Victor tires to coax her back in with a biscuit.

"Oh my God; this is absolutely Macabre ... there appears to be some sort of wild creature crawling out of the front window ... Meldrew's ... trying to coax it in with a biscuit!" (Patrick is worried by the blood-curdling screaming of the mis-delivered elderly lady!)

First broadcast: 21st February 1993

5. The Trial

Victor is serving Jury service, and spends the day moping about the house philosophising (moaning?) about the various misfortunes of life. He argues with God for causing it to rain when he wants to keep himself occupied in the garden; he also self-diagnoses himself with a wide range of various medical ailments whilst being horrified by coming across a page about zip-fastener injuries (and ailments with no symptoms whatsoever, just like what he's suffering!). Victor also worries about the crack in the wall which he interprets as mass-subsidence; he removes some legs from a daddy-longlegs before finally tossing it out of the window; he then has a fierce argument with the plumber who caused a bonsai tree to be planted literally in the downstairs toilet.

Victor continues to ignore a phone call from Jean by hiding the phone in the sofa whilst she talks for a seemingly endless amount of time about her most recent holiday; is annoyed with Margaret for putting his flannel in the wrong place; and finds a toupee in a loaf of bread! At least he's able to treat himself to the least healthy meals and snacks possible: so, it's chocolate and chips on the men!

"The riddle of the Bermuda Triangle was finally solved today when it was revealed that Mrs. Margaret Meldrew of 19 Riverbank had, for the past fifty years, been putting all the ships and planes away, ‘so we knew where they were'! Madness!" (Victor is annoyed that he can't find the flannel he's looking for and over-reacts)

First broadcast: 28th February 1993

6. Secret Of The Seven Sorcerers

Margaret has invited Patrick and Pippa round for dinner in order to try and clear the air a little, but Patrick is scared to go round for fear of what might happen. Pippa is reassuring Patrick that he's being unreasonable in terms of being scared of going round, until, that is, they hear the screams of the window-cleaner who's accidentally drank the spicy base for Victor's chilli con carne dinner that evening, thinking that it's coffee.

Meanwhile, Victor is being plagued by someone who keeps on calling the Fire Service to deal with fake incidents involving him, which is causing him much annoyance. The Fire Service aren't too pleased, either! He's also organising another gathering of his magicians' group, but one of the members has a heart attack and, because Nick accidentally takes the wrong person to hospital, the man is accidentally locked in a box for five hours. Patrick and Pippa (wearing crucifixes after seeing the window-cleaner suffer the antagonising screaming heat of the chilli mixture) hear the screams of the man in the box and the groans of the window cleaner who's still vomiting up the curry mixture in Victor's toilet, and are left absolutely petrified and confused.

"My horoscope for the day: ‘Do not under any circumstances go round for a meal tonight at Victor Meldrew's unless accompanied by a trained exorcist.'" (Patrick isn't looking forward to going round to Victor's for dinner)

First broadcast: 7th March 1993

Christmas Special 1993: One Foot In The Algarve

The Meldrews and Jean are all going on holiday so Jean can have a date with her long-term pen-date. But the episode focuses on the plight of a reporter who's taken some exciting pictures of a celebrity in a compromising position. Then he runs into the Meldrew holiday party, and he thinks his camera film has become mixed up with theirs. He follows them to the Algarve where Margaret drives the rickety car to the apartment (helpfully with a bottle of hair conditioning included!).

The Meldrews hope to stop overnight at a hotel but Victor accidentally prostitutes Jean so they dash off. The police catch them for speeding and guide them to their holiday apartment, which they assume is prison. So they stay stuck inside for days. Their neighbours are a Jamaican family, the son of whom is a boxer who punches Victor when he accidentally leads a donkey to urinate in his bath. Jean discovers that her boyfriend's ex-wife faked her own death to escape him, so they break up. Amongst all this the reporter succumbs to all manner of scrapes trying to follow them to get his film back, including getting stuck in a landfill. The story never appears!

"He wanted me to... something beginning with H" (Jean's polite description of her sexual harassment!)

First broadcast: 26th December 1993