- Date First Aired: 05/12/1994
We open on Brittas apparently restraining a member of staff named Suzie. He apparently wants to meet Carole next, so he gets Gavin to fetch her. Carole gets Gavin to take over the reception, who then leads to a progressive switcheroo of the reception over the course of the episode.
As it turns out, the results have come in on a compulsory staff urine test (for drugs) and it has been revealed that Carole is pregnant again, much to her horror. Brittas tells her that she must have gotten pregnant over the Easter period. Carole then tells Brittas that she was staying with a friend over that time and that she was unconscious for three days over that time, which Brittas deduces to be when she got pregnant. Meanwhile, Julie is acting very strangely, acting like a polite secretary for once, to the point that Brittas asks if everything is alright.
Helen comes into the centre asking for Suzie. As it turns out, the reason she was being restrained was because Brittas thought she was pregnant. Helen reveals to Laura that it wasn't her sample, it was Helen's, having done the test so that Suzie's use of bodybuilder drugs don't show up. Helen is of course worried about this, since the dates of the urine tests go back to when Brittas was in Brussels and that was when she had the affair with John Rawlinson. However, Rawlinson was rendered infertile following a school trip to Windscale, leaving Helen confused over who the potential father could be. Meanwhile, it tuns out that the mystery man that Carole may have slept with is Colin. As such, Brittas decides that Colin must marry her.
Julie heads off to be with a man in a range rover, but returns upset. Apparently, at the Young Conservative Springboard, she had a sexual tryst with a man named Alexander, who now wants to see her again. However, thanks to a miscommunication, he doesn't think that the relationship can progress any further. Laura is able to give advice to Julie and the two reconcile, with plans for marriage.
Meanwhile, Brittas calls Tim up. As it turns out, the urine test was positive for him as well, and Brittas accuses Tim of being a woman pretending to be a man to get around the staff gender quotas, leading to his trying to take off his clothes to prove it. Luckily for Tim, Gavin is able to hear the whole confrontation and save him by punching Brittas across the face. Laura finds out that the staff test results are a bit odd, since apparently three women in their 70s and a woman who has had a hysterectomy are also pregnant. As it turns out, Julie took the samples, accidentally dropped the female samples (as well as one of the male samples), and filled them up with her own urine samples, meaning that she's now pregnant. This of course means that Carole and Colin don't have to get married, although Carole seems slightly upset at the result.
Brittas, despite having been punched in the face by Gavin, takes the attack rather well and decides to let him take on the full job. With that, everything's back to normal, including the return of Julie's sassiness.
Tropes in this episode:
- Asleep for Days: Colin's hallucinogens apparently end up sending him and Carole into unconsciousness for three days.
- Appliance Defenestration: Suzie is implied to have thrown something out of the window in Brittas' office, as the intercom is hanging out of a giant hole in it when Brittas asks Gavin to retrieve it for him.
- Bait-and-Switch: Brittas' interrogation with Tim is framed as if he had finally figured out that Tim was gay, using the fact that Tim is never seen with girlfriends, always hanging around with Gavin, and the fact that he made pelmets for the staff restroom as evidence of something which he was keeping a secret. His actual conclusion however is that Tim is secretly a woman.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Gavin may be one of the nicest members of the staff, but it doesn't stop him from punching Brittas across the face in a bid to save Tim.
- Big Damn Heroes: Just as Tim was about to get his clothes removed by Brittas, Gavin comes charging in and punches Brittas across the face.
- But I Can't Be Pregnant!:
- Carole is surprised at the idea that she could be pregnant since she's pretty sure that she didn't have any sex recently (at least until she recalls a possible incident involving Colin).
- Brittas believed Tim was pregnant, despite his argument that he physically can't get pregnant.
- Call-Back:
- Brittas mentions being away at Brussels during the time of the drug tests. Helen also fears that she may have become pregnant by John Rawlinson, whom she had an affair with at the end of the same episode.
- The toxic waste under Colin's house continues to cause havoc, this time sending him and Carole into unconsciousness for several days.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Carole is first called up, she brings a baby monitor with her, which becomes important when Gavin hears the confrontation between Brittas and Tim through it.
- Chickenpox Episode: Carole's daughter Jessica spends the episode getting over a recent bout of chickenpox. This becomes relevant to the episode when Carole takes up a baby monitor to Brittas' office to try to calm her through her pain, which is left behind after she leaves and allows Gavin, Helen, and Laura to overhear Brittas trying to strip Tim of his clothing.
- Commended for Pushback: When Brittas demands Tim to take off his clothes to prove that he was a woman, Gavin leaps to the defense of his boyfriend by punching his boss in the face. However, as it turns out, Brittas approved of that — apparently, he thought Gavin was "a bit girly", and to him, Gavin leaping to Tim's defense disproved this in his eyes. As such, he decides to officially make Gavin, who had been training for a career in Management at that point, his new Deputy Manager.
- Continuity Nod: The drawers behind reception are still not functioning right, necessitating the expertise of Colin to fix it.
- Crappy Homemade Gift: Colin makes Carole a rocking crib that sends the test baby flying into a wall.
- Culture Clash: The fact that Julie is a Northerner and Alex is a Southerner causes some issues regarding their use of language, such as Julie thinking that "Whiz" was not meant to be a compliment, almost sinking their relationship before it gets started.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Brittas has to jolt Carole to get her out of the state she gets into when she is told she is pregnant again.
- The Ghost: Carole tells Julie that Ben is playing with someone named Jack in his cupboard, but we never see Jack in the flesh.
- It's Not About the Request: Tim refuses to man the reception desk for Gavin, as he believes that Gavin only wants him to do it to help him look good for Brittas. In comparison, he's willing to do it for Laura when she asks, something which Gavin calls him out on.
- It Runs in the Family: Colin’s great-great-grandmother apparently had the same luck with illnesses as her descendant, being the last woman to die of the plague.
- Kissing Under the Influence: Colin and Carole fear that they may have had sex whilst under the influence of heavy hallucinogens, even though they remember none of the experience.
- Man Bites Man: Suzie eventually starts biting Brittas whilst he's holding her down.Mr. Brittas: Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. We exchange ideas in this centre. We do not bite.
- Mistaken for Pregnant: Brittas spends the episode accusing 17 staff members of being pregnant, thanks to a mix-up in samples. Amusingly, this also includes Tim. The pregnancy is eventually revealed to be Julie's.
- Mr. Seahorse: Thanks to a mix-up in samples, Tim's urine test comes up positive for pregnancy. Ultimately Subverted when it is revealed that the pregnancy is Julie's.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Thanks to a mix-up in urine tests, Brittas ends up believing that every female member of staff is pregnant. When Tim in particular comes up, Brittas accuses him of hiding his pregnancy to continue the pretense of him being a man when he was actually a woman, although it is later revealed that he was never pregnant at all and that Tim was a man all along.
- Nasal Trauma: Brittas gets punched across the face hard enough that blood starts coming out across his nose.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Julie hadn't dropped the drug test samples and decided to fill them with her own urine, Brittas would have never gotten to the conclusion that everyone was pregnant.
- Noodle Incident:
- Suzie's violent reaction to being told that she was seemingly pregnant is according to Laura not the first time she has gotten into a fight with Brittas, although no further elaboration is given.
- John Rawlinson was apparently rendered infertile following a school trip to Windscale (a nuclear reactor known for a disastrous fire in 1957).
- Not Herself: Julie is actually acting quite nice this episode, a far cry from her usual role as the Sassy Secretary. It gets to the point that she calls Brittas "Mr. Brittas", which is something that she usually doesn't do. It's because Alex, a man who she had a fling with, wants to see her again. This continues even when Alex seemingly rejects her, as she tries to actually do work before Laura resolves the issue.
- Oh, Crap!: Carole freezes up when she's told that she's pregnant again. It takes Brittas having to jolt her out of it a couple of times before it properly gets through to her.
- One-Shot Character: Suzie.
- One-Word Title: "Pregnant!".
- Pinned to the Ground: Suzie reacts so poorly to her apparent pregnancy that Brittas ends up pinning her down using his hands on her back until her brother from the dog-handling unit can show up to take her away.
- The Pollyanna: Colin's conservation with Carole reveals that he thinks of her as the sort of woman who puts on a smile even when life puts her down (and being that Carole is The Chewtoy, this occurs regularly).Colin: You have that capacity when bad things happen to you, and they do happen to you rather frequently, don't they?Carole: They do a bit.Colin: But you always bounce straight back, do you? Next morning, there you are with a cheerful smile and your "How can I help you?".
- Preppy Name: Alex Cholmondeley-Hume, which as the name would suggest is a rather rich man who even managed to become a Baronet.
- Road Apples: When we first see Colin, he's carrying a big box of dog poop. He later accidentally puts his elbow in it when he's told that he is the father of Carole's potential child, with Brittas ending up touching the resultant stain.
- Ship Tease: Colin and Carole are forced to marry by Brittas, since Carole is apparently pregnant thanks to Colin. When it turns out that there is a urine mix-up and that Carole isn't pregnant after all, both return to their normal roles. However, Carole is clearly disappointed that the marriage is off and the two get an Almost Kiss moment before Colin heads off.
- Shotgun Wedding: Brittas' reaction to finding out that Colin may be the potential father of Carole's apparent new child is to try to get him to marry her.
- Shout-Out: Tim is reading the book Princess In Love by Anna Pasternak (a book about an affair between Princess Diana and Captain James Hewitt) when Gavin attempts to make him man reception.
- Status Quo Is God: Colin almost marries Carole, but cancels the proposal when it turns out that Carole wasn't pregnant at all.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Subverted. When a urine test reveals that Tim has apparently gotten pregnant, Brittas accuses him of disguising himself as a boy to get around the filled quota of women in the leisure centre, going so far as to try to remove his clothes. It turns out that a mix-up had occurred and that the actual owner of the urine was Julie.
- Take Off Your Clothes: Brittas demands that Tim take off his clothes so that he can show that he is actually a girl. Thankfully for Tim, Gavin comes in and punches Brittas.
- Textilework Is Feminine: Brittas uses the fact that Tim once made pelmets for the staff restroom as evidence that he is secretly a woman.
- Unexpected Positive: How did Julie find out she was pregnant? A urine sample for a drug test.
- The Voiceless: Even in his one scene on-screen, Alex never audibly utters a word, with the audience seeing him simply motioning to Julie asking if he was serious about their relationship.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: For some reason, when Carole tells Julie how to maintain her desk and children, she neglects to mention Emily, leaving her whereabouts unknown. It's possible that Jack, the child that Ben is mentioned to be playing with, is intended to be Emily in a brief instance of Series Continuity Error however.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Laura figures out that there's something up with Julie based on the fact that she called Brittas "Mr. Brittas", who she never usually refers to him as.Julie: Now, I would have asked Mr. Brittas for permission, but I don't like to interrupt him. Not when he's busy.Laura: Oh? What's wrong with her?Helen: What?Laura: Julie. She never called him Mr. Brittas before.
