The musical doorbells episode, in which Raquel is revealed to be pregnant. First broadcast 6 January 1991.
Raquel has been offered the chance to really get her acting career off the ground by auditioning for the part of Rosalind in As You Like It. Meanwhile, Del, knowing that Rodney has not spoken to Cassandra since she got back from her holiday, goes round to see her. He tells her that Rodney wants to meet up with her for dinner that night at a restaurant in Wapping. He later gets Rodney to agree to this by telling him that it's Cassandra's idea.
Back at Nelson Mandela House, Del promises to help Raquel rehearse — although he's more keen on showing off the "Anthachime", a doorbell that plays 36 different national anthems. He later fails to sell one to Mike, but has better luck with Trigger. Boycie complains about how many toys Marlene is spoiling Tyler with. Marlene asks Del if he misses Rodney since he married Cassandra and went to work for Alan's printing firm, and Del admits that he does.
At the restaurant in Wapping, Rodney and Cassandra both show up, and their chat gets off to a rocky start but they both make up after realising that Del was the one who really set all this up. They decide to go back to their flat.
Back at the Nag's Head, a drunk woman who wants a taxi to Battersea throws herself all over Del, who remembers her as Trudy, a former fiancée of his. Rodney drops by to tell Del the good news about his date with Cassandra, as well as mention that he saw Raquel and Albert getting off a bus. This worries Del, so he asks Rodney to take Trudy to her taxi. Outside, Rodney tries to keep Trudy from falling down, but Cassandra drives past, misinterprets what's going on, and speeds off into the night in a huff. Rodney races back to his flat but Cassandra refuses to let him in, leaving him to walk back Nelson Mandela House.
Back there, a dejected Rodney returns as Del and Raquel rehearse. When Raquel goes to the bedroom, Del admits that he had no idea that Cassandra would see Rodney with Trudy. Just then, Alan phones, asking for Rodney. Del takes the message — that Alan wants to see him at work tomorrow, first thing in the morning. Rodney worries that Alan is going to fire him. Albert then tells yet another war story about an officer on one of his ships, Tubby Fox, who was threatened with a court-martial but got out of it by resigning his commission; as he was the only communication-trained officer, that captain could not accept this and had to drop the charges. What Albert's trying to say is that Rodney should realise his own importance. Rodney thanks his uncle and goes off to bed.
However, Rodney has misunderstood Albert's story, and assumes Albert is suggesting that Rodney ought to hand in his resignation, as Alan can't afford to lose him and thus will not accept it. The next day, Rodney enters Alan's office and leaves his resignation letter on the desk. Alan enters all happy and excited, because he has got a three-year contract from a mail-order company, which will earn his company a fortune. In his excitement, Rodney forgets about the letter, and is later shocked when Alan accepts his resignation.
Later, Raquel tells Del that the Shakespeare play is actually a tour around schools, and that she has turned it down because she's pregnant. Del is delighted to hear the news and also tells Albert and Rodney, albeit in such a way as to make them unsure whether she's pregnant, or he's drunk.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Geography: Del names Borneo as one of the countries whose national anthems the door chime plays. Borneo is not a country - it lies partly in Brunei Darussalam, partly in Indonesia and partly in Malaysia.
- Call-Back: Del's trying to flog doorbells that can play 36 different national anthems. In "To Hull and Back", he was trying to flog watches that could play 36 different national anthems.
- During the War: Tubby Fox was the ship's communications officer. Knowing that he was the only officer thus trained, his threat to resign his commission meant that the ship wouldn't be able to sail because it couldn't do so without a communications officer on board — leaving the captain with no choice but to refuse his resignation even though that also meant that he'd have to drop the charges that had been brought against him. The point of the story is that Rodney should realise his importance to Alan's firm, but Rodney takes the whole thing literally and offers his resignation, which Alan accepts.
- Foreshadowing: Raquel mentions that her estranged husband used to be a police officer. His identity will be revealed in "The Class of '62".
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: When Marlene tells Tyler to "wave goodbye to your daddy", Del, Mike and Trigger all wave at him, much to Boycie's annoyance.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Avoided by Del when he gets Rodney to help Trudy into a taxi in order to avoid getting seen with her by Raquel. Unfortunately for Rodney, he gets caught out by this trope as a result, as Cassandra sees him in a classic Not What It Looks Like moment, and throws him out. Again.
- Never My Fault: Rodney, twice — once when Cassandra kicks him out after seeing him with Trudy (for which he blames Del, as the whole thing only happened because the latter didn't want Raquel to see him with Trudy), and then after Alan accepts his resignation (for which he blames Albert, this being the lesson he got from the Tubby Fox story). He actually has a point in the case of the first example.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- Rodney's chance to get back together with Cassandra is ruined when she catches him with his arm around Trudy, who is actually one of Del's exes, and Rodney is only trying to keep her propped up, as she has been drinking.
- Del ends up sitting opposite a set designer named Jules, who very expressively begins gushing about Elizabeth Taylor. Del then sees Rodney watching the two of them from outside, and realizes that, from Rodney's perspective, it looks like he and Jules are on a date, and that Jules is declaring his love for Del.
- Shipper on Deck: By setting up Rodney and Cassandra's date, Del's doing his best to get them back together ... although this is later undermined when he gets Rodney to take Trudy out to the taxi, and Cassandra sees them.
- Status Quo Is God: As a result of his botched power gambit, Rodney is no longer working for Alan and so has to go back to being Del's sidekick.
