Fatal Extraction

Infobox Only Fools and Horses
episode_name = Fatal Extraction


Series = Christmas Special
writer = John Sullivan
director = Tony Dow
producer = Gareth Gwenlan
Duration = 85 minutes
Airdate = 25 December 1993
Audience = 19.6 million
Cast =

"Fatal Extraction" is the twelfth Christmas special episode of the BBC sit-com, "Only Fools and Horses", first screened on 25 December 1993.

ynopsis

Christmas is coming, Peckham is in the midst of rioting, and Del Boy has been drinking and spending late nights at the One-Eleven Club gambling, as well as pick up a sore tooth. Raquel is not pleased about it, since she hardly sees him now. Meanwhile, Rodney and Cassandra's marriage has been going so well that they have decided to try to have a baby. At Sid's cafe, Del talks about the time he first met Marlene at a betting shop in Lewisham Grove.

Rodney catches Del gambling at the One-Eleven Club one night, and Del explains that he is striking a deal with Ronnie Nelson to get hold of some Russian Army camcorders to make ends meet over Christmas. Boycie also shows up to say that he too first met Marlene in the betting shop. The Trotter brothers gamble all the way through the night until 8:00am in the morning.

At the market, Del and Rodney are flogging ski gear, until Cassandra calls Rodney back to their flat. Rodney is surprised when he finds Raquel and Damien at his flat. Raquel explains that she's finally had enough of Del ignoring her, so Raquel and Damien are staying at Rodney's place until Del apologizes. That afternoon, Rodney forces Del to go to the dentist and sort that bad tooth out. The dentist is able to remove the bad tooth from Del's mouth. Without thinking at all, Del foolishly arranges a date with an attractive receptionist named Beverly.

That night at Nelson Mandela House, the Russian camcorders have arrived, but Rodney points out two problems; they're too heavy, and they take videotapes that don't fit in UK VCRs. Del, dressed in his Gordon Gekko outfit, tells Rodney about his date with Beverly. Rodney and Albert believe that Del is making a big mistake, and successfully talk him out of his date. Del cancels the date by leaving a message on Beverly's answering machine.

Later, back at his flat, Rodney tells Cassandra about the time Del had a violent fight with his father father over Del flogging Tom Jones LP's instead of attending his O-level school exams, which got Del eight grade A's (which stood for Absent).

The next day at the "Nag's Head", Del enters, and Rodney berates him for not phoning Raquel and apologizing to her. Del finally phones Raquel, apologizes to her, and promises that he'll stop drinking and gambling from now on, though Raquel will still allow Del to the Nag's Head on weekends, and Del will also bring Raquel with him just to socialize. And Del and Raquel make up when he promises to pick up both her and Damien tomorrow night, and everything is set.

Del walks home drunk, and decides to sing "One Voice, Singing in the Darkness", which wakes up the whole neighborhood! Rodney comes on over to Trotter Towers, and Del goes down to the restarted riot to sell some of the ski gear. The next morning at the market, while getting the Russian VCRs, Del spots Beverly, and becomes completely frightened.

That night, Del picks up Raquel and Damien in the Capri Ghia, and they return home to see the riot. Del honks his horn, and the rioters and the police clear the way for him. He passes through, stopping to inform the occasional person about something they are buying off him, and when out of the way promptly sounds his horn, to which the riot resumes.

The following day, Del comes home from work, only to see Beverly in his flat, because she wants Damien's high chair for her grandson, who is also named Damien. Now starting to lose it, Del rushes over to the Nag's Head to tell Rodney that Beverly is stalking him, because she's an ex-psychiatric hospital patient. Rodney does not believe him, but Del tells him to deliver the high chair to Beverly. At the dentist, Del finally decides to confront Beverly and tell her to leave him and his family alone! Beverly explains that she thought Del was stalking "her", as well as say that she works at the psychiatric hospital... as a receptionist. No longer frightened, Del promises to leave Beverly alone.

Christmas Day at Nelson Mandela House, and the entire Trotter family are having fun...at least until Raquel plugs in Del's new answering machine (which Raquel accquired from Beverly in return for the high chair) only to hear Del's message about his cancelled date to Beverly. Del Boy returns to the lounge, only to get hit by ornaments thrown by Raquel. Meanwhile outside by the new Christmas tree, a group of carol singers sing "Silent Night", and Beverly looks up at the Trotters' flat with a smile.

Episode cast

Notes

*It is widely reported that Aled Jones, who was training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School at the time, was an extra in the riot scenes. [http://www.ofah.net/immediacy-373]
*After this episode, the cast of "Only Fools and Horses" took a three-year break before returning in the 1996 Christmas trilogy.
*The building that BBC used for the One-Eleven Club is the same building they used in "Yuppy Love" for the wine bar. It is known as the Old Granary in Welsh Back, Bristol. [http://www.ofah.net/immediacy-375]
*Producer Gareth Gwenlan appeared in this episode during the riot scenes, as a mounted policeman, and is the one who stops the riot to allow Del to drive through it.

Errors

*Denzil tells Del, Mike, Boycie, and Trigger about how he has been split up from his wife Corrine for seven years (which would've placed the divorce in 1986 since this episode took place in 1993), yet in "Danger UXD" (which took place in 1989), Denzil was still together with his wife. Between those two episodes, the gap is less than seven years.
*After Del sings to restart the riot and Rodney arrives at Nelson Mandela House, when Albert says he's not going to the window because a brick might come through, Rodney tells him that they're on the 12th floor. But at the end of "A Royal Flush" when Rodney was yelling at Del, the floor number on top of the lift said 13th floor.
*When the riot restarts (due to Del's drunken singing), the outside scene shows the block of flats used for Nelson Mandela House clearly is built in a way that the door is on the side of the kitchen and not from the lounge, unlike in "The Sky's the Limit", where the studio scene on the balcony when you see the satellite dish for the first time showed a small window in the kitchen wall.
*When Del goes into the kitchen to find Albert's boiling pants, the steam is falling and not rising, clearly a case of dry ice and not steam.
*Rodney has difficulty carrying one Russian camcorder since they're very heavy, but in "Time On Our Hands", Rodney was able to lift two camcorders at the same time with relative ease.

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onlyfools/christmas/1993.shtml "Fatal Extraction" at bbc.co.uk]