Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
Before The Spoils of Babylon made miniseries parody look expensive, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace did it with a hospital, six episodes, and the confidence of a man who has never once watched television. Matthew Holbrook and Richard Ayoade built a fake 1980s horror show so committed to its own badness that it loops back around to genius: deliberately flubbed lines, day for night shots that are clearly just night, and a soundtrack that sounds like a Casio being frightened.
Ayoade’s deadpan as Dr. Laserblaster is the stuff of legend, and the framing device, an author so vain he interviews himself about his own genius, predicted about half of modern media. The jokes per minute rate is obscene; almost every line is quotable and about a third of them are about telekinesis.
Channel 4 cancelled it after one run and the world took years to catch up. Six episodes, all killer, the single most rewatchable parody ever made. Our score: 9/10. Watch it tonight, then quote it for the rest of your life.
