In part one of this special, Citation Needed are in front of a live Studio Audience for the first time and talk about Ruth Belville and the many ways of buying time from a lady.
Article of Conversation: Ruth Belville
Tropes:
- Accidental Pun: When Tom asked how long Ruth Belville had in retirement, Matt, following a massive bout of corpsing, finally got out, "Did she meet her untimely death at the third stroke?" The audience and the rest of the panel immediately began groaning and laughing after "untimely death", almost drowning out "at the third stroke." Matt said that he hadn't realized the "untimely death" pun and that it was better than what he intended to say.
- Audience Participation: In the bonus clip set before the start of the episode, Matt encourages the live audience to sing along to the Mystery Biscuits jingle. A heckler also does panto "Oh no it isn't" when Tom mentions the show is nothing like Pantomime theater.
- Call-Back: The "Goose on a train" bit from Series 2 returns, when Gary is asked by Chris to make weird noises.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Matt makes a pun on the word "Time" and mentions that Greenwich Observatory has an herb garden. It takes Gary, Tom and the audience a Beat to realise the bad pun; Thyme. Cue the facepalm by almost everyone.note
- Obligatory Joke: Tom asks where Ruth gets the accurate time from, and Matt answers with "Time Magazine"; something that earns him Mystery Biscuits.
- The Oldest Profession: The Standard Time Company attempted to call out Ruth from dissuading people from using her services because her source of time was gotten "by using her womanly wiles", which as Gary notes, makes it sound like this trope, and points out that he can't unsee Chris and Matt dressed up like this.note
- The Points Mean Nothing: Tom jokes about this when Chris earns the first point of the episode and asks the audience if they're keeping track.
- A Rare Sentence:
- "Sheep work like sundials, don't they?", Matt asks the room. Cue absolute bemusement by everyone.
- When asked by Tom what happens every day at the Greenwich observatory, Gary says "someone gets their fingers trapped in a door on the hour", which prompts Tom to respond with confusion of where the joke even came from.
- Reclusive Artist: Played for Laughs. Chris' intro has him briefly plug a Twitter profile beginning with Toast, then dismisses it as "bollocks".
- Spit Take: Gary manages to succeed in doing this when Chris grabs his water from under the desk when talking about a corgi's leavings dish.
- Studio Audience: The first episode to use one. Since this was an experimental video back when it was created, it set the template for future seasons of the show to use one.
- With Catlike Tread: Matt in the bonus material attempts to close the stage door, and it only draws more attention to him.
- Visual Gag: Matt namedrops the trope when doing his intro, which has him holding up a trio of signs with phrases on them:Matt (Holding placards): "Hello Youtube (but crossed out) Conway Hall""I was given a pen and paper""Is this still funny?"
