Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace can be streamed in the UK for free on the Channel 4 website. It’s also available in the UK and Australia on iTunes. Sadly, there is currently no legal way to stream Darkplace in the U.S., though plenty of clips can be found on YouTube.
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What happens when the BBC runs out of programming? In 2004, Channel 4 desperately needed to fill several gaps in its schedule, and chose to finally air a series that, according to its creator, was “so radical, so risky, so dangerous, so goddamned crazy, that the so-called powers-that-be became too scared to show it.”
This is the premise of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, one of the best (and most criminally short-lived) comedies of the early 21st century. Darkplace is an absurd combination of genre-parody and mockumentary, presenting itself as the “long-delayed premiere” of a cancelled-before-it-aired TV show from the 1980s, wrapped in interviews with its creative team and cast. The fictional show in question, likewise titled ‘Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’, was a procedural-hospital-drama-slash-monster-of-the-week-paranormal-thriller (the hospital having been built above a portal to hell, obviously) that asked questions like “What if the world’s worst bargain-bin Stephen King knock-off wrote a TV show,” and, “What would that series look like if it was produced with absolutely no budget?”
The answers were, perhaps unsurprisingly, hilarious… and, at times, grotesque – but usually both in equal measure. Its plotlines are ridiculous (ranging from simple fits of demonic possession to an alien broccoli invasion) and its production quality is purposefully abysmal (tip for you Hollywood types out there: if you can’t afford dirtbikes for a chase sequence, just use bicycles with BBBRRRRRRRRR sound effects overlaid instead) – but it’s the interview segments highlighting the outlandishly myopic worldview of Marenghi and his production team which really make the series exceptional.
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Led by Matthew Holness as the titular “author, dreamweaver, and visionary… plus actor,” and Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd, The Mandalorian) as his publisher and very much not an actor co-star Dean Lerner, the talking heads that intercut each episode (assumedly because the originals weren’t long enough to fill a full half-hour programming block) turn what would have been an otherwise serviceable parody of cheap ’80s TV into a hilarious commentary on the creative process (or lack thereof) and the dichotomy of one’s ego vs actual talent. Marenghi is a parody in and of himself, a pitch-perfect sendup of every mediocre creator masking their insecurities in tropes of badassery from the ’80s and ’90s, and Darkplace is the half-rotten (yet, for us, absurdly delicious) fruits of those labors.
Okay, maybe that’s getting a little too analytical – after all, as Marenghi says, “I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards” – but whether you’re looking for high-brow conceptual satire or just a good old-fashioned monkey-man pissfest, Darkplace is a chapter of comedy history you won’t want to skip. Featuring a slew of other British comedians including Matt Berry (Toast of London, The IT Crowd) and Alice Lowe (Hot Fuzz), plus appearances from the likes of Noel Fielding, Lydia Fox, and Stephen Merchant, the six half-hour(ish) episodes of Darkplace are all well worth the couple of hours that it takes to binge the whole series.
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JR is a Senior Editor at IGN, and really hopes you give Darkplace a shot. Seriously, it’s great – like, it-was-his-ringtone-for-no-small-amount-of-time good – so if you do check it out, hit him up on Twitter
Source: IGN.com Binge It! Garth Marenghi's Darkplace Is the Medical Drama/Occult Thriller/Documentary You've Been Looking For