Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Stephanie Cole.

When the joke is on the viewer, then anarchy is to be praised, the realm of the perpetual joker is considered greener, for if you can fool an audience into believing a certain path is being undertaken and then leaving them exasperated at the television station’s apparent lack of care for what was billed as the big Halloween spectacle, a piece of television that was to be delivered in the toughest arena of all, the live performance.

Inside No 9. is never anything short of a surprise, a program that clings with dedication to the ethos that was set out in armchair thrillers, of great American thrillers, of The Outer Limits or even the great Tales of The Unexpected. It is the kick of the elemental revelation, of the sudden turn in the appreciation of the story and one that Dead Line truly opens its arms to and leaves the viewer smacking their head with a sledgehammer like hand at not realising what was bound to come on a Halloween special.

The ghost story should never be dismissed as one that is old, considered beyond the pale of modern television, the naysayers will insist that it is only parlour tricks captured and screened. Yet in the hands of those who see television as more than a medium of entertainment, it can be wonderfully brutal, anarchy in a land of often staid opinion, the trick and treat of the disbelief which gets social media talking, even if at the time it grasps completely the wrong straw.

Dead Line may not ever be considered the greatest of situations in which Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have placed before the fans of Inside No 9. however, it will go down surely in television history as the most talked about episode in the show’s history. A brutally cool trick and treat to play on an audience. 

Ian D. Hall