The hang-gliding episode. First broadcast 21 September 1986.
It's Talent Night at The Nag's Head. Trigger tells Del and Rodney that his niece Lisa will be joining them. They both remember her as a somewhat scruffy little girl, but when she arrives they are taken aback to find that at 25, she is now a pretty young woman. Besotted, they both invite her over to Nelson Mandela House for dinner the following day.
The next day, Albert is trying out the new solarium to cure his hangover. Del and Rodney start to argue over Lisa, to Albert's distress as he says that arguing over a woman was what caused the rift between him and Grandad. Later, Rodney tries the solarium but falls asleep; looking to thwart his chances with Lisa, Del turns up the timer.
Later that night, Del and Lisa are enjoying dinner while Rodney is in pain due to his sunburnt face. Lisa tells the Trotters that she has some friends who run a hang-gliding club. Del claims (falsely) that he is an ex-paratrooper and enjoys hang-gliding. This gives Rodney an idea for revenge, and he privately tells Lisa that they should book Del in for a hang-gliding session as a surprise for his "46th" birthday.
The following day, they go to the hang-gliding club and meet Andy, the owner. Del realises what Rodney's done, but the latter claims to have had a "change of heart" and agrees to help him out — after Del has put all the gear on, Rodney will claim that he has just received an urgent call on the car-phone in the van, and Del's needed back in London. But at the last minute, Rodney backs out of the plan, and Del takes off.
Twelve hours later, Del is still missing. Back at the flat, a regretful Rodney is studying a map when Trigger and Mike show up with Del in a wheelchair. Rodney, who picks up on Trigger's inadvertent admission that they've all come home on the bus, calls Del out for faking his injuries, prompting Del to leap out of the wheelchair and attack him. Del then tells the story of the damage his flight caused (to a television transmitter and a Ford Sierra). Trigger then tells everyone that they're all invited to Lisa's wedding — she and Andy have been engaged for a year.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Uncle Albert spends most of the episode worrying that Del and Rodney are going to have a massive falling out due to their mutual attraction to Lisa. His points are valid, as by the end of the episode Rodney has a badly sunburnt face and Del was severely injured in a hang-gliding accident (albeit not as badly as he had made out). After learning that Del and Rodney stood no chance with Lisa at all, he laughs at them.Albert: What a couple of wallies!
- All for Nothing: Lisa's already engaged, so neither of the Trotter brothers had a chance with her.
- Tragically, this is what came of Grandad and Albert's falling out, as it was over the latter's future wife Ada. The marriage didn't last (actually deteriorating to the point where Ada threatened to kill Albert if she ever saw him again), leaving Albert estranged from both his wife and his brother, as he and Grandad never reconciled.
- And Another Thing...: Trigger only mentions that Lisa has invited the Trotters to her wedding after Del reveals that the couple he crash-landed upon has now had to postpone their wedding by six months due to the injuries they sustained.
- Betty and Veronica: Gender-flipped and subverted; Del is the Veronica and Rodney the Betty for Lisa's Archie ... or so they think. Actually, Lisa's not interested in either of them as she's already engaged to someone else.
- Big "WHAT?!": Although Del and Rodney do not say it, they both do a visible double-take when they learn that Lisa is, in fact, already engaged.
- Freudian Excuse: Albert learns that his estranged wife Ada is in the hospital and by the sounds of it, she's dying. He decides not to visit her, because she threatened to kill him if she ever saw him again and he doesn't want to run the risk that she might not be as ill as everyone says she is.
- Living Crashpad: Del Boy mentions he inadvertently landed on top of a young couple after colliding with a TV transmitter and plummeting to the ground while hang-gliding.Del Boy: It was only by the grace of God that I landed on something soft!Del Boy: No, it was not my head! I landed on a very unfortunate and very unsuspecting courting couple!Rodney: You're kidding!Del Boy: I wish I was! Due to your vicious mind and general ... wallyness, they have had to put their wedding back six months! And I've had to pay for a new sun roof on their Sierra!
- Love Makes You Dumb: Or, to be more accurate, love makes you incredibly conniving and vindictive. Del and Rodney sabotage and torture each other over Lisa's affections, although it's safe to say they end up feeling like total wallies when they find she's been engaged all along and thus they never had any chance with her.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Rodney seems sincerely horrified when his prank on Del causes him to have a serious accident. When Del returns and more than shrewdly exagerrates his injuries however, it's clear that Rodney's stopped buying it.
- My Greatest Failure: This is the episode where we finally learn why Grandad and Albert were estranged. They fell out after getting into a fight over Ada, the woman Albert married. Ted, in Albert's own words, never forgave him and they never spoke to each other again.
- Not-So-Small Role: Andy at the hang-gliding club. We later learn that he is in fact Lisa's fiance.
- Obfuscating Disability: Attempted by Del to gain sympathy after his hang-gliding trip. Rodney sees right through it, and is proved right when Del jumps out of the wheelchair to attack him. Trigger isn't happy, as he'd been taken in to the point where Del had made him carry him up to the top deck of the bus on the way home.Rodney: What it is you're after, Del? Sympathy from Lisa? Or a disabled sticker for the van?
- Oh, Crap!: Del has an epic one when he realises that Rodney has set him up in front of the hand-gliders.
- Also when he realises he's given the game away by leaping out of his wheelchair to throttle Rodney.
Del Boy: You listen to me, you vicious little git! I may never walk again for the rest of my... [realises he's standing up in front of everyone] Though I must admit, I'm getting some feeling back.- Del and Rodney both suffer from this at the end of the episode. After learning that Lisa was engaged all along, they both quietly sit down to nurse their respective injuries, now knowing that it was all for nothing.
- Only Sane Man: Albert, who worries that Del and Rodney's rivalry over Lisa will cause a rift between the two brothers. Towards the end, he calls Rodney out for mocking Del when the latter comes home in a wheelchair. When it's revealed that Del was faking the extent of his injuries, Albert calls him out for pretending to be disabled.
- Phony Veteran: As well as claiming to be an experienced hang-glider, Del tells Lisa that he served in the Parachute Regiment.
- She Is All Grown Up: Both Del and Rodney have this reaction when they see Lisa, who they knew when she was a little girl. She's now a pretty 25 year-old woman.
- Sibling Triangle: Del and Rodney feud over Trigger's niece, despite Uncle Albert warning them that this is exactly what caused the rift between him and Grandad.
- Trapped In a Tanning Bed: Rodney falls asleep in the Trotter's home solarium, and Del turns up the time to get Rodney sunburned in order to try and temporarily render Rodney unattractive in an an attempt to make himself look like the more appealing brother to Lisa.
- Zany Scheme: Del and Rodney's attempts to cock-block each other lead to Rodney getting sunburnt and Del being set up to go hang-gliding ... although the injuries he sustains as a result of this are somewhat exaggerated.
