I'm going to sound contrary with my previous review now, after last weeks episode, but I didn't enjoy this edition quite as much as that one - despite it leaning heavily into the sort of rural horror that they boys have visited quite a bit in their previous endeavours.
Mr Curtis (Reece Shearsmith) is the new primary school teacher at a provincial Welsh school. Though the headteacher Mr Edwards (Steve Pemberton) is friendly, the class are still enamoured with their former teacher, Mr King, who has moved to Australia. Mr Curtis is keen to encourage his class to take an interest in environmental matters, which backfires into an unsavoury incident with one of the pupils. It's not until the class assembly that Mr King discovers that the classes commitment to the environment is, in fact, much more steadfast than he knew.
I suppose, ultimately the problem with this episode was that it felt a little obvious to me. It didn't help that one or two previews referenced a certain movie that, if you talk about it in this context, rather gives the game away. But I think that there's enough in the episode that I'd have got there anyway. The clever aspect of that though is that two of the red herrings of the plot, Mr. Curtis' mental stability and Mr Edwards photography collection, do manage to pay back into the main storyline in the end.
The performances from the adults are good. Annette Badland is also in the episode as Winnie, the school's janitor and she does well with her moments of comedy and there were several funny lines in the episode.
Don't get me wrong, on an off day "Inside Number 9" is better written than most shows on their best and I don't think this was terrible, by any means - but if your hit rate is as good as theirs is then below Par can stand out.
