When around-the-clock building commences next door, Bernard, Manny and Fran decide to go on holiday. Manny wants adventure, Fran wants relaxation, and Bernard just wants somewhere exactly like the bookshop. They’re quickly packed and ready to go–except for a lapse in Manny’s memory, which forces them to buy cheap tickets that entitle them to see a lot of international airports. Original air date 5 April 2002
Fran takes up Yoga with Eva (Jessica Hynes) and piously lectures everyone about how much better she feels, but she isn’t as good at controlling her own urges. Meanwhile, Bernard discovers a copy of the complete works of Freud and begins tormenting Manny by diagnosing his various neuroses–but this leads to Manny gaining the confidence to finally stand up to him. Original air date: 29 March 2002
Fran delves into genealogy to uncover her Eastern European roots, but upon meeting her newly-discovered family, she soon wants to get rid of them. Meanwhile Manny and Bernard try to re-invent the shop, firstly as a trendy upmarket café-bookshop (with sofas that swallow you) and then, apocalyptically, as an upscale restaurant. However, the shop is overrun by a horde of unseen creatures that Manny and Bernard must make an effort to destroy. Guest starring Mark Donovan as Cousin Gregor. Original [...]
While Fran is in desperate need of a job, Manny gets a call from old friend Gus, a diminutive underworld figure. Gus agrees to get Fran a job working for a guy named Nugent in exchange for the bookstore hosting a reading of his nephew Danny’s new book. Alas, Fran hasn’t a clue what her new job involves, and Danny is a hulking great illiterate whose ghostwritten autobiography describes the pain he’s inflicted on many others in great detail and [...]
A heat wave sweeps London, causing Bernard to obsess about beautiful girls and to seek a “Summer Girlfriend”, Fran to suffer from insomnia, and Manny to panic about his ‘Dave’s Syndrome’, a curious condition that purportedly triggers at 88°F (31°C). Naturally, Bernard refuses to believe a word of Manny’s “attention seeking nonsense” and tries to get Manny as hot as possible. Fran discovers the walls of her flat are literally closing in as her unscrupulous landlord creates another flat from [...]
Fran decides to learn the piano and enlists the services of an elderly blind Russian tutor. His harsh methods and her inability to master it in 5 minutes inclines her to quit. Manny discovers he can play the piano purely on instinct. Meanwhile, against all odds, Bernard gets a date with an attractive woman. As a result, Fran and Bernard bribe Manny to hide inside the piano, armed with only spoons, in an attempt to make themselves look good. Guest [...]
Bernard finally breaks the last straw with his constant bullying, and Manny leaves home, but doesn’t even manage to let Bernard know about this without being attacked by a bee in a telephone box and finding himself on the streets. He is soon picked up by a photographer with a beard fetish and is treated to a glamorous life of expensive clothes, satin sheets and crinkle-cut chips in silver bowls, but such high living comes at a high price. Guest [...]
After being burgled, Black Books gets a new alarm and security door fitted, but Manny fails to listen to the unlock code, distracted by a little Subbuteo player in the installer’s hair (“there was a little man … in his hair”). This quickly results in Manny being trapped alone inside with only a quickly-emptied bottle of Absinthe and dead bees for company and Bernard locked outside with just enough money for popcorn and a cinema ticket. Meanwhile, Fran has taken [...]
Manny stays up watching ‘The Sweeney’ and is mistaken for a policeman after chasing a handbag snatcher. Fran and Bernard exchange stories about their previous day, Bernard recalling a disastrous dinner party with old friends who blanked him and Fran telling him about blanking her boyfriend after catching him with another woman. Original air date: 20 October 2000
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