Girls' Night In (Fireman Sam)

Girls' Night In is the seventeenth episode in the eighth season of Fireman Sam.

Plot
Helen hosts a Girls Night at her house, while Mandy has to look after the naughty Lily Chen. Meanwhile, Mike is at the Fire Station having a Boys Night with the other fireman.

Why It's a Nightmare

 * 1) Lily Chen is very unlikable, as she frames Mandy for things she technically did (scribbling on the wall and throwing a pillow). She even throws a strop solely so she can fake playing "Hide and Seek" with Mandy and lock the entire house by hiding away the keys!
 * 2) * So in a way, it could feel like a Mandy torture episode.
 * 3) * Her voice clips are also quite obnoxious, as they're just stock sound effects. Only two of her lines (her Raspberry blowing and saying "Sorry") are from her voice actor.
 * 4) * For some reason, Lily doesn't admit she took the keys when the fire starts and they get trapped.
 * 5) Mrs. Chen in fact is quite careless and unlikable in this episode as well:
 * 6) * She is quite selfish as well, as she makes everybody do activities she wants to do, and not ask them if they fancy doing them.
 * 7) * She doesn't seem concerned about watching an eye over Lily and falsely accuses Mandy of doing things Lily technically did (as noted above).
 * 8) * She also forgets to secure her curling tongs properly to let them cool and turn them off, which ends up with them slipping onto the floor and causing a fire when the cushion Lily throws lands on top of them.
 * 9) It's just a generic "girls' night" episode, with nothing special going on.
 * 10) It has the "three strikes and you're out" formula infamously seen in other HIT shows, except this time it involves Lily's antics.
 * 11) The whole "boys night in" subplot with Mike Flood, Sam and the team trying to enjoy themselves and eventually playing Tiddlywinks is quite uncanny and doesn't go anywhere.
 * 12) As usual, the rescue scene opening is still pretty bad and has that annoying siren noise playing.
 * 13) Although Lily does get scolded by Mrs. Chen at the end, she doesn't receive any comeuppance for what she did.
 * 14) Two plot holes:
 * 15) First, a while before the fire starts, a multitude of smoke produces. How did no one smell burning or see the smoke?
 * 16) Then, when Lily takes the keys, no one notices, despite the keys jingling. So how'd no one hear that?
 * 17) The animation is lazier than usual, as there are a multitude of errorsː
 * 18) *When the curling iron catches fire, little smoke produces, yet 1 second later the smoke all of a sudden increases, and before it even reaches the ceiling, the smoke alarm goes off. Along with that, before the fire even starts, no smoke is visible, despite being visible when Penny notices it.
 * 19) *It is shown that they are watching a movie in one scene, however, in another scene later, the TV is off, despite no one turning it off.
 * 20) *In the scene where Jupiter arrives at the Flood's house, Penny is visibly standing at the window, yet in the next scene, she is on the floor and not visible through the window at all.
 * 21) *Parts of the inside the Flood's house are not visible when everyone exits, yet they are in the next scene.
 * 22) *As soon as the fire is put out, all the smoke disappears, despite smoke not instantly disappearing as soon as a fire is out.
 * 23) The ending is very boring and is the typical cliched "I'll help clean up" ending seen in a majority of CGI era episodes.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Mandy is still tolerable and tries her best to try and look after Lily despite being tortured by her. The same goes for the others (except Mrs. Chen) throughout the episode.
 * 2) One particular likeable favourite moment is when Penny arrives at the Flood's house, Mrs. Chen unhappily tells her she's late. Penny secretly tells Mandy: "I'm glad she's not my teacher"
 * 3) Lily does get scolded by Mrs. Chen and she does apologize for taking the keys and locking up everyone inside, but as noted above, she doesn't get any other comeuppance for almost harming everyone else in the Flood's house.
 * 4) For once, Norman Price isn't the cause of the emergency in this episode; in fact, he doesn't even appear in this episode at all. Considering how obnoxious and annoying he became in the CGI series and also the fact he appears WAY too often in the show, that's really something!

Reception

 * It holds a mixed rating of 4.6/10 on IMDB.

Full Episode
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