Well, 2011 is just over one week old and already we've had several notable deaths; Anne Francis, Gerry Rafferty, Peter Yates, and Pete Postlethwaite. I watched 'Brassed Off' again the other night and Pete's final speech was incredibly moving, doing more to undermine the Tory Government than Labour managed in the whole of the '80's.
'A Profit Of Boom', the final episode of Season 3, takes Alan off to Russia as part of a trade programme called 'Soviet Relief'. Piers was meant to go instead until Alan pulled a few strings and had him posted to Northern Ireland with the Territorials. Alan sees the trip as an opportunity to promote British business interests, his own mainly. His interpreter, the lovely Ludmilla ( Joanna Kanska ), lures him to Lenin's Tomb ostensibly to have sex. Drunken M15 boss Freddy Ogilvy ( Mark Kingston ) and KGB Colonel Gromyko ( Kevin McNally ) want Alan's help in assassinating Premier Mikhail Gorbachev before he can put them out of work by ending the Cold War completely...
Gorbachev was indeed the man who single-handedly ended the Cold War ( not Ronald Reagan as some poor deluded fools insist ) by introducing 'glasnost' ( openness ). The '90's began with the joyous spectacle of the Berlin Wall being brought down by the very people it was intended to imprison. As a matter of fact there was an attempted coup in Russia about this time, but thankfully it was unsuccessful. The episode ends with Alan a prisoner in the Gulag, left to rot while Piers flies home with Sarah. The end credits roll in silence. It would have been a great place to end the series, but it would return two years later for a final run.
Funniest moment - Alan hits Piers on the head. "There. Now you'll have a birth mark to match Gorby's.".
'A Profit Of Boom', the final episode of Season 3, takes Alan off to Russia as part of a trade programme called 'Soviet Relief'. Piers was meant to go instead until Alan pulled a few strings and had him posted to Northern Ireland with the Territorials. Alan sees the trip as an opportunity to promote British business interests, his own mainly. His interpreter, the lovely Ludmilla ( Joanna Kanska ), lures him to Lenin's Tomb ostensibly to have sex. Drunken M15 boss Freddy Ogilvy ( Mark Kingston ) and KGB Colonel Gromyko ( Kevin McNally ) want Alan's help in assassinating Premier Mikhail Gorbachev before he can put them out of work by ending the Cold War completely...
Gorbachev was indeed the man who single-handedly ended the Cold War ( not Ronald Reagan as some poor deluded fools insist ) by introducing 'glasnost' ( openness ). The '90's began with the joyous spectacle of the Berlin Wall being brought down by the very people it was intended to imprison. As a matter of fact there was an attempted coup in Russia about this time, but thankfully it was unsuccessful. The episode ends with Alan a prisoner in the Gulag, left to rot while Piers flies home with Sarah. The end credits roll in silence. It would have been a great place to end the series, but it would return two years later for a final run.
Funniest moment - Alan hits Piers on the head. "There. Now you'll have a birth mark to match Gorby's.".
