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Greetings, fellow traveller. For our Sci-Fi Channel series finale we bring you Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, a short-lived but brilliant British parody show that never really got its due.

(Sorry we were a little late on this episode, but Jake and I both had some pretty serious life stuff happen. Trying to get back on track.)

We break down what makes the mockumentary format work so well, from the talking-head commentary to the show-within-a-show mechanics that let the creators land jokes at multiple levels at once. Along the way, we talk about the people who make it sing: Matthew Holness building an entire career-long bit as Garth, Richard Ayoade’s razor control as Dean Lerner, Matt Berry’s instantly recognizable voice work, and Alice Lowe’s deliberately sidelined role that sharpens the satire. We also trace the project’s stage roots, the specific TV influences that shaped it, and why the “lost VHS” framing turns cheap production into a feature rather than a flaw.

Max Headroom - a glitchy cyberpunk face that seemed like a novelty in the 1980s - somehow became a pop culture anchor through commercials, parodies, and wall-to-wall brand exposure. If you mostly remember New Coke or a weird talking head you saw on TV, you’re not alone and that’s part of the story.

We step away from our sci-fi channel mini-series for Pride Month to give slash fiction the spotlight it deserves, because it is not just “spicy fanfic.” It is a long-running tradition of readers and viewers naming queer subtext, building community around it, and creating stories where mainstream media stays silent.