Series 4 (2011)
The final series of Lead Balloon upholds the continuity throughout that Series 3 maintained. The first main story arc is Rick getting a job as a presenter of a bargain channel. After this arc ends (when Rick is forced to resign after accidentally insulting the viewers on air), another opens up about Rick being taken as a hostage while giving a stand-up comedy lesson in a prison, then getting famous for the story, leading to the climax.
| # | Title | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | "Pig" | 31 May 2011 (2011-05-31) |
| Mel is offered the chance to appear in The Sunday Times under an "At Home With..." headline. In the midst of writing his first novel, Rick jumps at the chance. To seem like an extraordinary couple, Rick buys a pig in a moment of impulse, and when Mel tells him to return it he finds the pet shop closed. It's up to Rick to hide the pig as the journalists visit his house for the article, not to mention thinking of ideas for his novel to talk about. | ||
| 23 | "Dead" | 7 June 2011 (2011-06-07) |
| Rick lands a job as a presenter on the Bargain Channel – it's Britain's premier shopping channel, as he points out to anyone who will listen. For once, his new job impresses surly East-European help Magda, who is a big fan of the show. His writing partner Marty and local café owner Michael are not so easily convinced, but Rick is determined that he's finally found something he's good at. | ||
| 24 | "Shoddy" | 14 June 2011 (2011-06-14) |
| Rick's going from strength to strength in his new job as a presenter on the Bargain Channel, but he's not best pleased when Marty takes a shine to his co-presenter, Donna. Rick's neighbour Clive is on the warpath, demanding a refund for an ornamental windmill that his mother bought from the Bargain Channel, but it's Rick's shocking behaviour at a funeral that gets him into real trouble – and threatens to kill off his career for good. | ||
| 25 | "Off" | 21 June 2011 (2011-06-21) |
| (Part 1 of 2). Magda is trying to claim compensation after tripping on a paving stone, although Rick suspects that she may have faked her injury. With no other work on offer, Rick decides to set up his own stand-up comedy workshop. The first two classes prove disastrous, but hope is on the horizon in the form of council executive Libby. She offers him a course teaching comedy in prison. Rick reluctantly agrees, but after the first class has finished a prisoner named Donald (Robbie Coltrane) gets Rick in a headlock and threatens him with a razor blade. | ||
| 26 | "Blade" | 28 June 2011 (2011-06-28) |
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(Part 2 of 2). Rick is taken hostage and trapped in the prison library by Donald, who is revealed to be taking him as a hostage in protest against the prison not letting him have a chess set in his cell. When he locks himself in the prison library with Rick, he makes friendly conversation with Rick and does not appear to be at all aggressive, until he figures out that Rick has been lying to him. This causes him to express his pathological hatred for liars and ask Rick why he lies, causing Rick to reflect on his compulsive lying habit that he has demonstrated constantly since he was a child, showing remorse for it and wanting to change. While Rick explains his history of lying, Donald falls asleep and Rick sneaks out of the room. He is later seen in a press interview lying about what happened, showing that he will never change. Due to this being a unique two-hander episode, it is the first one to not feature Mel, Marty, Magda, Michael, Sam or Ben. |
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| 27 | "End" | 5 July 2011 (2011-07-05) |
| Rick has at last found the fame and success he so desperately craved. Thanks to his ordeal as a hostage and subsequent lies about how he overpowered his captor Donald, he is now known as the "Prison Siege Comic" to the tabloids, and agrees to host the Brave Britain Awards in front of a live television audience of millions. Meanwhile, he objects to his neighbor Clive's planning permission to have a wheelchair ramp installed for his elderly mother, his petty revenge for Clive objecting to allow him to install an extra window. Rick receives a letter saying "Tell the truth Rick" shortly before the awards, and as he prepares to go onstage he is threatened by two of Donald's "friends," who tell him to tell the truth onstage. As he tells the audience the truth, they begin to laugh and applaud, assuming that he is joking. The show is an unprecedented success for Rick, however Clive shows up afterwards with his mother and threatens to tell the crowd about Rick's objection to the ramp. As he begins his story, Rick attempts to punch him, but Clive dodges and Rick instead accidentally strikes Clive's 85 year old wheelchair bound mother. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Lead Balloon Episodes
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“As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.”
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