User:Matthewedwards/Sandbox/List of 2point4 Children episodes

Series 1

Episode #	Series #	Title	Director	Writer	Airdate
1	1	"Leader of the Pack"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	3 September 1991
Struggling to keep up with the dual-role of a working mother and housewife, Bill life is chaotic. She receives no help from her lazy and childish husband, She is called into her daughter's school to see the headmaster who explains Jenny has been skipping classes. Bill discovers Jenny has been secretly dating a boy with a motorbike, but as Bill has been meeting up with a mysterious biker herself, doesn't have much to say. Bill considers eloping with her biker friend when he offers to take her away from her current life.
2	2	"Saturday Night and Sunday Morning"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	10 September 1991
Jenny is unhappy with her new trainers, and Bill is struggling to keep the house in order which is made a lot harder by the fact that the rest of her family seem unwilling to help. Her relationship with Ben is also strained as is too tired to have sex with her, instead falling asleep watching snooker. Forced to do the laundry at her neighbour's house, she is confronted by Rona's latest boyfriend Sven, who can't speak a word of English. Although he cannot understand her, she tells him the idea of a relationship with Angelo, the biker, is growing more and more tempting. Ben arranges for the family to have Sunday dinner at his sister Tina's house but when they get there, everything turns into a disaster. Tina's misogynistic husband Brian, takes Ben to the pub, leaving the women home to cook, and Tina tells Bill she is a bad mother because she works instead of staying home to be with her children. When Tina yells at David for bringing his pet rat into her house, he and Bill storm out and drive away in Ben's van, but panic sets in when they realise that in their anger, they forgot that Bill does not know how to drive.
3	3	"When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	17 September 1991
Ben receives a letter from the Inland Revenue, which tells him he has an appointment with a tax inspector. Bill goes food shopping at the supermarket for Ben's barbecue, but becomes exasperated with the one of the girls at the meat counter, who rather than serving Bill, is moaning to a co-worker that she would rather be on cakes than meat. When she witnesses a theft and gives chase, Bill herself is mistaken for a thief and is taken for questioning by the store detective, an over-bearing woman who refuses to believe that Bill is innocent. Bill spots Angelo in the supermarket on one of the security cameras, which gives her the inner strength to stand up to the store detective. Ben's barbecue is a disaster, and only results in Jenny becoming a vegetarian. Bill and Rona call the telephone number that was left on a piece of paper on Ben's van, which Bill thinks is from Angelo, only to discover it was left by a potential customer. Ben's meeting with the tax inspector goes well when he finds out he is owed a rebate.
4	4	"Love and Marriage"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	24 September 1991
Panic sets in as the Porters prepare for a not so welcomed visit from Bill's nightmare mother Bette, who comes bearing unwanted gifts for Jenny and David in the form of a taffeta dress and a video nasty. Bette is intolerable as she kicks Bill and Ben out of their bedroom, and at dinnertime while Bill prepares some chicken, Bette decides she cannot eat it as chicken repeats on her. Ben offers to pick up fish and chips, but she does not want that either; fried food passes straight through her. The next day, Bill returns home from work and discovers her mother in bed with an old flame, which is the reason she commandeered the master bedroom. Appalled and upset at first, they later have a heart-to-heart conversation, and Bill realises she is becoming more like her mum with age. The temptation of an affair with Angelo rears its head again, while Ben has to visit an ex-girlfriend to do some plumbing work.
5	5	"Dirty Bowling"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	1 October 1991
Bill is trying to teach David and Jenny that being honest is a mature and adult trait, while Ben's secretive trips to his workshop are becoming more frequent. Under pressure from doing the housework, coping with a new manager at the bakery, and learning to drive, Bill is tested to the limit, and overlooks Jenny, who has broken up with her first boyfriend. Ben decides to take Bill out for a night of bowling. Rona babysits David and Jenny, and comforts Jenny by reminiscing over her old flames. Bill is eager to see the work Ben has been doing on the family car, and to show him her new driving skills, but is shocked to discover their Austin Montego is now a 1960s Chevrolet.
6	6	"Young at Heart"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	8 October 1991
Money is short in the Porter household, as Ben spent all the tax refund money on the car, and the bakery manager refuses to pay on time. Bill makes a trip to the bank to ask for a loan, but struggles with the Chevy, until Angelo appears, who could be a guardian angel. After Rona writes her telephone number on a carrier bag for a customer at the bakery, which the manager takes by accident, he begins calling and pestering her for sex, implying life at work would be easier if she did. Rona contemplates it, but Bill is appalled. They instead decide to lead him on, and walk out on the job instead. Bill visits David's best friend, Sammy, who lives on a poverty-stricken council estate and realises their life isn't so bad compared to others'. Ben talks to David about the birds and the bees, but David is more intelligent and mature on the subject than Ben was expecting. Lacking the second income from Bill's job, Ben knows he has to sell the car, but knowing how much pleasure he gets from it, Bill allows him to keep it.

Series 2

Episode #	Series #	Title	Director	Writer	Airdate
7	1	"I'm Going Slightly Mad"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	15 September 1992
Bill wakes up with Angelo in bed next to her, but when she goes downstairs to find Rona has become a nun, David is playing with a rifle, and Jenny has a punker boyfriend and a tattoo, the shock of it all wakes her up again; she was dreaming. Bored by being unemployed her only relief is the telephone calls from her mother, but when she loses track of he time, she becomes late for signing on. The car breaks down as she makes her way to her appointment, but she finds a mechanic is in the area, who starts to fix it. Things turn disastrous for her though when Anneka Rice of Challenge Anneka arrives and takes the mechanic for an episode of her show, and a policeman pulls Bill over as she is pushing the car through a red light. Ben has a new assistant, Chris, but is alarmed to find out that Chris is actually Christine, the obnoxious meat counter girl from the supermarket. Bill finally gets to her DHSS appointment, but her advisor is a rather unstable woman who starts acting more like the client than Bill. Bill decides to take a job with Rona in an airline meals factory. That night, exhausted from the day's events, Bill falls asleep on the couch, while on the television, the local news is reporting a motorcycle accident, and a photograph of the victim reveals it to be Angelo.
8	2	"Bedtime for Bonzo"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	22 September 1992
Bill tell Jenny that she hates her new job at the factory, and the hours are causing a strain on her well-being. Meanwhile, Ben catches the flu and Bill also has to watch the next-door neighbours' dog, who suffers from flatulence. When the dog becomes sick with digestive problems, the Porters must decide whether to put him down or let him live in pain. Fed up with Ben, Bill gives him some of the dog's asprins, but in the night Ben starts feeling worse and begins to vomit. David has become fascinated by death, especially after a fire down the street has killed some people and he wants to watch their bodies are being brought out. Bill becomes worried when she finds his Action Man tied up in a freezer bag, and then asks for ketchup to use for "playing accidents". Ben is upset that Bill put the dog to sleep, and asks if she would do the same to him, given his current situation. In the middle of the night, David buries his teddy bear, in a shoe-box coffin, in the back garden.
9	3	"One Night in Bangkok"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	29 September 1992
Ben gets in trouble at work for sticking a rescue note to one of the in-flight food trays, claiming she is being held against her will. Rona tries to persuade her to go on a girls' night out and see a group of male strippers, but Bill refuses. Tina and Brian arrive to tell Ben that his father Frank is returning to the country, and invite him and Bill to their house for a reunion. At the reunion, Tina cannot accept her father has married Darrani a Thai woman, but Brian gets on with Frank as they have similar misogynistic views, which disgust Bill and Ben. Rona and Bill decide to take Tina and Darrani to the strip show, where Rona discovers one of the strippers is her ex-fiancé, and Frank makes a trip to the Porter house to make amends with Ben for being absent all his life. Meanwhile, David brings home a Saint Christopher medal he found when playing in a graveyard.
10	4	"Hormones"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	6 October 1992
Imagining himself to be the Terminator, Ben drives aggressively on the way to Parents' Evening at David's school, and cuts up a Ford Escort. Bill begins to wonder if Ben is influencing David's growing obsession with violence and death, though Ben denies it. Everyone thinks Jenny is malingering to avoid taking part in P.E. until Rona confronts her about her behaviour. Ben spots the driver of the Escort and issues a challenges to the driver, but when he finds out the driver is disabled, he feels ashamed. Bill fears she is pregnant, and buys a home pregnancy test. When she discovers one of the testers is missing, she thinks Jenny is pregnant, and Rona has to convince Jenny to confide in Bill that she is suffering from bulimia. Bill decides Ben should race the Escort driver in a wheelchair, which he does, but loses, and he reveals that he took the pregnancy test, and it says he is pregnant.
11	5	"The Skeletons in the Cupboard"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	13 October 1992
Bill finds out about Angelo's death, and Ben begins to film everyone on his camcorder, hoping to send the footage into You've Been Framed, a candid-camera television show. Feeling unfulfilled and strained by the hours she has to work at the airline meals factory, Bill decides to find another job. At home, the family are still unwilling to help with the chores, so Bill tells Jenny and David they can be in charge of the household for the night. When Bill and Ben refuse to do what they are told, they are sent to their bedroom without being given their tea. Ben tells Bill a letter came in the post with an invitation to a job interview. The next day, wearing the Saint Christopher that David found in the graveyard, Bill sets off to the interview. Meanwhile, Rona agrees to go on a date with Gordon, her ex-fiancé and stripper. Gordon takes Rona to a singles bar, where he discovers that since their break-up, Rona has been bed-hopping with many men. Bill's job interview does not go well; she finds her interviewer is naked and thinks he is a dog after suffering a nervous breakdown since being made redundant, and discovers that the job she came to interview for does not actually exist. Back at home, Ben is still filming Bill, hoping she will do something silly so he can send it to the television show. Under the stress and feelings of failure, Bill breaks down until Rona arrives and reveals she is marrying Gordon, and wants Bill to do the catering for the wedding.
12	6	"Bird on a Wire" PART ONE	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	20 October 1992
Rona gets ready for her shotgun wedding to Gordon, and the Porters' house is in chaos as Bill prepares the food. David keeps complaining that he feels sick and wants to stay at home, and Ben decides to escape the house and hide out in the car as he is constantly getting in the way. David joins him, and asks his father about sex and love, but Ben does not have an answer. Bill finds David's dead badger in the kitchen and realises she has decorated the mini trifles with David's fake eyes. As she shouts at him, she notices a cut on his finger and sends him to the bathroom for a plaster. Bill goes over to Rona's house and through the kitchen window sees her hanging from the light fitting in her wedding dress. Bill puts her head through the cat flap to find out what has happened, and discovers that Rona is alive. Rona explains she was changing a light bulb, when the ladder fell, and she is now trapped. Relieved, Bill tries to crawl back through the cat flap, but is stopped from doing so as her head is stuck. Eventually managing to free themselves with the help of a passing door-to-door salesman. Back at the house, Jenny discovers David is unconscious, so Rona tells Bill and Ben to take David to the hospital in her wedding car. As Rona unsuccessfully tries to hail a taxi, a doctor tells Bill and Ben that David is suffering from tetanus, and is in a serious condition.
13	7	"Thank Your Lucky Stars" PART TWO	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	27 October 1992
While Bill, Ben and Jenny await news of David from the doctor, Rona is waiting at a bus stop to get to her wedding. At the church, Rona's side of the seating is filled with her ex-boyfriends. At the hospital, Bill blames herself for not listening to David when he complained of being ill, and compares herself to an incompetent and ignorant mother who wears a shell suit and appears on the local news when their child has died after playing on train tracks. Jenny professes her guilt for not checking up on him when she was more concerned with a spot. Ben, however, feels David's situation is not his fault. On the bus, Rona is sat next to a talkative old lady whose conversation is convincing Rona to back out of the wedding. In David's dream, Angelo the biker appears to him, and tells him that he has to make the decision to live or die. David tells Angelo that he feels unwanted and unloved by his family, and is not sure whether to continue living. Rona arrives at the church, but at the last minute runs out on her groom. In David's hospital room, Ben begins talking to the unconscious David, explaining that he loves him and the family want him back. David suddenly awakes, and throws up over Ben.

Series 3

Episode #	Series #	Title	Director	Writer	Airdate
14	1	"The Secret Diary of David Porter"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	7 September 1993
15	3	"When the Children are Asleep"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	14 September 1993
16	3	"Badger's Bend"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	21 September 1993
17	4	"Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	28 September 1993
18	5	"Beam Me Up, Scotty"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	5 October 1993
19	6	"Whoopee, We're All Going to Die"	Richard Boden	Andrew Marshall	12 October 1993