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Sure, you may be part of The IT Crowd, but have you visited Garth Marenghi's Darkplace?

I first started seeing references to Darkplace when I was checking out reviews of The IT Crowd, which featured Darkplace co-writer Richard Ayoade. Some reviews said "it's a good show, but not as good as Darkplace," and so I decided to check it out for myself. And boy, was I glad I did.

Darkplace is supposedly the creation of British horror author Garth Marenghi (played by Matthew Holness, better known in the US as Simon, the computer guy with a Bruce Lee fixation who shows up in one episode of the BBC version of "The Office"). Garth is a writer with the output quantity of Stephen King, the ego of Harlan Ellison, and the self-awareness of David Brent. He wrote and starred in "Darkplace", a 1980s TV series about supernatural goings-on at Darkplace Hospital. Naturally, since Marenghi was the star, he usually ended up saving the day, in the most heroic manner possible and with the largest possible accolades. The show wasn't seen on British TV (Marenghi claims it had a brief run in Peru), and was only now being shown to/foisted upon the viewing public.

Assisting Marenghi in the show are: Todd Rivers as the stereotypical ladies' man (but the role isn't written in a way that would overshadow Marenghi's natural good looks, of course); an actress with the wonderfully bland, almost Dickensian name of Madeleine Wool; and Dean Lerner (played by Richard Ayoade), Marenghi's agent, who gets the role as the tough-talking, hard-nosed supervisor to the three doctors, a role for which Lerner is completely unsuited, as he demonstrates in his first (and every subsequent) scene.

Among the subjects parodied in the 6-episode series: bad horror writing ("What if," Marenghi asks in the explanation of his novel Black Fang, "a rat could drive a bus?"); bad TV shows (especially 1980s TV shows, a particular look which the program achieves fabulously); bad acting (Dean Lerner, in particular, is the master of missed cues); bad songs recorded by bad TV actors (unfortunately you have to wait till the last episode for that, but it's so worth it); bad makeup; bad special effects; and bad treatment of women (poor Madeleine, as Dr. Liz Asher, is the center of the first two episodes but only succeeds in making more work for the male leads, the REAL workers in the hospital). Oh, and there's one episode based on a completely gratuitous maligning of Scotland that has to be seen to be believed.

Darkplace isn't out on DVD yet, but it's starting to come back into the public eye since its debut on Channel 4 a couple years ago. According to the official Garth Marenghi site, Dean Lerner is supposedly working on a new series called "Man to Man", and the Sci Fi Channel premieres Darkplace here in the US next week (see the Sci Fi site for full details, and to watch the first episode for free!). Please check it out if you can, because it's an extremely funny show, and should be of great interest to all those horror & sci-fi fans out there (you know who you are).

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