Mr. Brittas: It's all right, my darling, he's not going to hurt you. All he's going to do is send you to sleep and put secret messages in your brain.
— Gordon Brittas trying to get his wife Helen to go under hypnosis.
- Date Aired: 31/01/1994
Brittas has been shortlisted for the role of British Representative on the European Leisure Industry Standards Committee (who make decisions such as the thickness of gym mats and the height of cubicle doors), with said role hinging on a successful dinner. Brittas is hoping to get the role but is worried about Helen, who apparently gets confused at restaurants.
Meanwhile, the staff has been exhibiting strange behavior. Colin keeps saying "I love You" whenever someone says "need" (and taking down his trousers), Linda can only speak in barks and growls, Carole keeps punctuating the ends of her sentences with a bullfrog-like croak and Patrick keeps needing to use the toilet every time he hears a bell. Some further prompting reveals that the majority of the staff were at a stage hypnotist show and got hypnotized as a result. Helen comes into the centre with a case of stress-induced lockjaw, which complicates Brittas' dinner plans. Brittas tries to fix this problem but it appears to be spreading.
Brittas gets annoyed by the hypnotized staff's antics, to the point of almost firing Colin over it, and gets the hypnotist, Mr. Silverman, back to fix them. Meanwhile, Helen doesn't seem to be getting better so Brittas considers taking Laura along with him instead and passing her off as his wife. After observing the hypnotist cure them, Brittas decides to have him try to get Helen cured of her lockjaw for the dinner. This ends up not working for Helen. Brittas however, becomes hypnotized. After some discussion between Silverman and Laura, they decide to get Brittas hypnotized into a better person. However, the effects will wear off in a couple of hours (although the hypnotist agrees to extend it to midnight). Although the changed Brittas decides to go alone, Laura goes with him. The dinner ends up being a success and Brittas is invited to Innsbrook for October, along with the role. Laura enjoys her dinner but the clock strikes midnight and Laura has to leave before the hypnotism wears off, giving him a kiss in the process.
Tropes in this episode:
- Accidental Pervert: Colin is hypnotized into saying "I love you" when he hears the word "need" and removing his trousers in response to a trigger. Doing this in front of Brittas leads him to consider Colin a pervert and try to fire him. However, it's also made clear that Colin is unaware of his actions under hypnosis.
- Artistic License – Biology: Lockjaw is caused by a bacterial infection, not stress as implied by the episode.
- Assurance Backfire: Brittas' attempt to reassure Helen, as seen in the page quote.
- Berate and Switch: When Brittas becomes hypnotized, he comes down to find Ben and his friend playing with a train set. He seems to be annoyed by this and asks Carole to get out the necessary rulebooks. Then, he uses them to complement the train tracks and begins playing with Ben and his friend, showing that his Heel–Face Brainwashing was successful.
- Bits of Me Keep Passing Out: Helen starts the episode suffering from lockjaw, which spreads through her body to the point that she can barely move. She's cured of it by the end... until Carole reminds her that she has to be teaching the menstrual cycle to boys from the Comprehensive.
- Bittersweet Ending: Brittas manages to get the role he wanted all episode and the staff are cured of their hypnotism, but his Heel–Face Brainwashing eventually wears off and he goes back to being a git, much to the disappointment of Laura.
- Bungled Hypnotism: Mr. Silverman tries to hypnotize Helen to get her relaxed for the dinner. Helen isn't affected, but Brittas is.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: After an entire plot focused on Brittas' attempts to sort out a partner for dinner, either through getting Helen relaxed or passing Laura off as his wife, he realizes under hypnosis that he could have simply just not taken anyone. Laura still comes with him however as she wants to have the experience of a date with a kinder Brittas for once.
- Diner Brawl: Helen tells Laura that Brittas' trips to restaurants usually end with him being covered in food, not because he is a messy eater per se, but because he keeps getting into fights with the waiters. We see the beginning of one of these fights at the end of the episode, when Brittas, having freshly snapped out of his hypnosis, discovers just exactly how much his dinner had cost.
- Double Take: Brittas has a delayed reaction to seeing Colin going Pants-Free, briefly turning back towards the window before whirling back in realization and shock.
- Enemy Eats Your Lunch: Downplayed, as Brittas is more of an oblivious Pointy-Haired Boss, but he casually and thoughtlessly takes a cup of hot beverage that Gavin was making for himself under the belief that it was actually for him.
- Fake Relationship: Brittas considers passing Laura off as his wife when his actual wife is too ill to come to dinner. Helen also puts forward the idea of passing Julie off as his wife (although Julie shoots her down). He does reveal the truth at the dinner, however.
- Fictional Document: Leisure Review, a monthly journal containing the advert for the job that Brittas is gunning for in this episode.
- First-Name Basis: Brittas asks Laura to call him by his first name of Gordon so that their pretense of being wife and husband would look more convincing.
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Under his hypnotism, Brittas becomes a genuinely nice person, and he and Laura have a lovely dinner together. However, for ethical reasons, the hypnotism was only ever intended to last until 12 midnight, and he's back to being a git by the end of the episode.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: Although Brittas is not necessarily an evil person, Laura is able to convince Silverman to temporarily hypnotize Brittas into someone who is less of a git and more of a genuinely friendly person.
- Here We Go Again!: After an episode spent trying to cure Helen's lockjaw, being released from the stress of an impending dinner manages to do the trick. Then, Carole tells Helen about how she's needed at a talk about the menstrual cycle for boys the next day, which leads to Helen being last seen with the lockjaw coming back.
- Hypno Fool: The episode opens on the outcome of a stage hypnotist who had been there that night, leading to the staff exhibiting strange behavior for 24 hours (Patrick gets a Potty Emergency when he hears a bell, Colin says “I love you” when someone mentions "need", etc). Later, Brittas sends in the hypnotist to try to cure Helen’s stress-related paralysis. It winds up temporarily hypnotizing him instead into a better person.
- Immune to Mind Control: Although Silverman's hypnotism works on the majority of the staff, his attempts to relax Helen with it completely fail for her.
- Incompatible Orientation: Julie pretends to be hypnotized so she can make out with Gavin, knowing that it'd be her only chance.
- Informed Flaw: According to Brittas, Helen gets confused and disoriented in restaurants (once blowing her nose on a bread roll). This is not a trait that she has ever shown before or since.
- Innocent Innuendo: At one point, Brittas asks Tim and Gavin about giving a massage. Although he means giving Helen a massage to ease her lockjaw, Tim's reaction shows that he thinks that Brittas means it as in a sexual manner.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: It's revealed that Colin owns cats when he mentions how his latest injury was caused by him dropping gastric medicine meant for one of them down behind the cooker.
- Last-Second Word Swap: At one point, Brittas notices that Gavin and Tim weren't at the hypnotist night. Gavin is about to respond that he and Tim belong to.. somewhere (presumably a gays night or a society for gay people), but one look at Brittas causes him to state that they went to a singles night instead.
- Literary Allusion Title: The episode title is a reference to the book Mr Norris Changes Trains.
- Manchild: Part of Brittas' Heel–Face Brainwashing is that he becomes more playful and childlike, assisting in constructing a set of toy train tracks for Ben and his friend.
- Noodle Incident: Mention is made of Carole stroking Tim's bottom whilst she was hypnotized, which we never see on-screen.
- Offscreen Crash: Our first indication that Brittas has been affected by the hypnotism is when we hear the chair he was sitting on crash to the ground off-screen.
- Omniglot: If what Brittas says is any indication, Laura is also capable of speaking French and German.
- One-Shot Character: Mr. Silverman.
- Pants-Free: Part of Colin's hypnotism and what gets him temporarily fired in the first place is him removing his trousers, although it isn't made clear what triggers this part of the hypnotism.
- Potty Emergency: Patrick is hypnotized into needing to use the toilet every time he hears a bell. It's noted that this made taking the bus a bit difficult for him.
- Pretend to Be Brainwashed: Julie fakes being hypnotized so that she can have the opportunity to snog Gavin.
- Sick Episode: Helen spends the episode having a dreadful case of stress-induced lockjaw.
- Shout-Out: An brief instrumental remix of the Nursery Rhyme "The Runaway Train" plays during the scene where Brittas is playing with Ben and his friend.
- Sixth Ranger: Patrick joins the staff on their trip to the hypnotist show.
- Toy-Based Characterization: Brittas deciding to join in with setting up a toy train track is used to show how he's gotten much less uptight and much more playful whilst hypnotized.
- Trigger Phrase: Colin's hypnotism has him say "I love you" anytime someone uses the word "need".
- Troll: Upon hearing that a bell triggers Patrick to have a Potty Emergency, Gavin deliberately rings the reception bell for his amusement.
- Ultimate Job Security: Colin is briefly fired when he removes his trousers in front of Brittas, but is reinstated once Brittas learns that his actions were under hypnotism.
- The Unintelligible: Linda is only able to speak in dog-like barks whilst she's hypnotized.
- The Unreveal:
- What exactly triggers Colin to go Pants-Free? Carole is about to tell Tim and Gavin, but she's interrupted by Brittas showing up before she can say.
- Where Gavin and Tim went instead of the hypnotist show is not made clear, since he performs a Last-Second Word Swap in response to Brittas. Considering their relationship and the fact that Brittas had previously shown some disregard for the idea of Tim being a homosexual, the heavy implication is that it was a gay night.
- Unseen No More: After being The Ghost since her birth two series ago, Emily finally makes a very brief physical appearance, being seen put into a drawer by Carole on-screen.
- Verbal Tic: Carole temporarily croaks like a bullfrog at the end of every sentence after she is hypnotized.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Brittas' hypnotism happens to wear off at twelve o'clock midnight.
