Edwood Mahogany was an ordinary DFS production line worker (no one ever mentions the shop name but the initials are plastered everywhere) production line worker in Croydon, until one day he lost his legs in a freak accident. Desperate to regain his previous mobility, he travels to the world-renowned limb-replacment hospital in Chernobyl where he is accidently fitted with radioactive chair legs. Edwood Mahogany is no more, now there is only Captain Chair!

Um, did I put the right video in? I know its been 20-odd years since I last saw this but I'm fairly sure that this episode was about something other than the Captain Chair we all know and love. I mean there's making a few alterations (like switching to 'organic' webshooters), then there's making up an entirely new origin (like...um, stuck for an example here). Edwood Mahogany? Who comes up with this stuff? And Croydon? Nothing interesting happends in Croydon. Where is this show set anyway? The accents are all weird and I can't tell properly. It seems like everyone is putting on a fake accent... Oh, wait there's a phone box and a red double decker bus. This show must be American then.

Moving on (or back, because it's more ranting...)

DFS! How much money did they cough up to have their name plastered everywhere? According to their website they've been making sofa's for 30 years, which puts them at the 5-year old stage when this was made. It makes me sad that Captain Chair was the Linda Barker of the late 70s. Ok, so getting over the radical changes to Captain Chair they made, was this an entertaining hour of TV?

I've seen worse (and will continue to do so as my Amazing Captain Chair marathon continues), but we're not off to the greatest of starts. There's one or two reasonable ideas there, but they seem to have gotten lost amongst the running about, throwing chairs at people, and scantily-clad ladies (so its not all bad). If it continues at this quality for the rest of the evening then I'll probably get through it alive. Here's hoping for the best...

Captain Chair and the Beaver

Captain Chair has a new enemy, Bad Beaver and his army of beavers, who have been spending thier time breaking apart chairs and turning them into dams. It's up to Captain Chair to stop them before there are no chairs left!

Bad Beaver, eh? What the hell were the writers on when they thought up this guy? You have to give credit to the costume department. Finding some kind of giant beaver outfit at short notice is something I would regard as a minor miracle, but then finding 5 more in kids sizes to kit out the rest of the 'army' is amazing. In fact I spent so long staring at the costumes while watching this one that I didn't really follow what the story was. This is probably a good thing.

Season 2

(1980-81)

A Cautionary Tale of When Weasels Attack

Captain Chair is battling Dr. Stool when he becomes cold and enclosed in a blue egg. Then there's some rubbish about weasels and blue egg powers and...please can I stop watching these things now?

This must be the worst hour of television ever created. I've sat through some rubbish in my time (a couple of Big Brothers, the 'Move Along Home' DS9, the past few years of ER) but this beats them all. Why did I ever agree to sit through these thing? No good can come of it. I'd prefer to have my fingernails pulled at one at a time than sit through...how many more? You must be joking!

The Breaking of the Axe

A fight between Captain Chair and the Hat Master results in the breaking of Captain Chair's beloved axe. Cue Captain Chair going on a rampage and destroying lots of things for 30 minutes, then realising that this is not The Right Thing To Do so comes to his senses and forges a new axe.

Could have been good. The series always manages to do its fight scenes reasonable well, so Captain Chair smashing things to bits for a long time should have been pulled off by the production team fairly easily. Unfortunately this is season 2, so this episode sucks. I was actually this close to tears after watching this one. Enough with season 2, roll on 3! (To see a far better axe-breaking story, watch the cartoon episode - it rules!)

Season 3

(1981-82)

Captain Chair Returns Again

Captain Chair and Bridge Boy fly around the city attempting to seek out the evil sofas who are holding Chez Lounge and Bridget hostage. After much fighting Captain Chair defeats the evil sofas, frees Chez Lounge and Bridget and they all run off together into the sunset.

The 1981 season opener, and how things have changed. Bridge Boy has turned up from out of no where, and Captain Chair has suddenly gained two more friends called 'Chez Lounge' and 'Bridget' (who, for no particular reason is a midget). Someone was obviously watching a lot of 60s Batman over the summer as now all the fights have developed 'Kerpow', 'Shhmack', and 'Kerdoink' sound effects. How the show escaped being sued, I don't know. So, how terrible is it? Um, not quite as bad as the previous ones and the opening sequence of CC and BB standing on the top of a clock tower was quite impressive (before you spotted that someone hadn't finished painting the tower and some of the cardboard was showing through).

Season 4

(1982-83)

Captain Chair and the Invasion of the Flat-Pack Furniture

Captain Chair has been extremely concerned by the unoriginal flat-pack chairs being purchased by the public due to the number of deaths they cause through brain meltdowns as people tried to assemble them. He gathers an army of carpenters and attempt to battle the evil monster...

What year was it that Ikea left Sweden and moved to take over the world? Was it in 1982, by any chance? Or were the writers just really good at predicting the future? (My research reveals a US conquering in 1985 and UK in 1987, so maybe the entire ACC team been on holiday in Continental Europe that year) So yet another silly story from Captain Chair, but at least this one was one that everyone can relate to: the evils of flat-pack. Unfortunately as the viewer, I was on the side of Ikea for this one. Where did they get the carpenters from? Were they actual carpenters? They surely couldn't have been actors. No actor could ever be that bad. And whose idea was it to give them all fake beards? If you're going to do things like that you have to make sure you also supply decent glue to make sure they stay stuck on.

The Despatch of Captain El Grolscho

We join Captain Chair in the middle of the purchase of a potted plant in the Delta quadrant of the Milky Way. Suddenly the planet is invaded by flat-pack chairs(!). The evil boss, El Grolscho, orders the destruction of all chairs on the planet of non-linear design. Captain Chair assembles the fire-breathing concrete population of the planet to eradicate the wooden-clad flat-pack chair militants.

Right, so Ikea has arrived then. Was another flat-pack story really necessary? Did the writers check to see what other stories were in production before putting pen to paper? And since when did Captain Chair get the ability to travel to other planets? I really ought to have given up searching for the plot holes in these episodes by now. They're so numerous that it takes more effort to find a plot point that isn't a hole. I actually liked the villain in this one - he had a cool hat. He looked ridiculous, but what else did you expect from this show?

The Death of Captain Chair

Captain Chair dies.

Maybe I should have put a spoiler warning on that synopsis, but a) this bloody programme has stolen far more hours of my life than I'd like to calculate and I'm saving you a lot of pain by telling you the twist ending now so you don't have to suffer too, and b) the episode title is a bit of a give away.

At this point in the evening I would be quite happy to end my life, and nothing is going to make me happy. So its unfortunate for the show that this turns out to be quite a good episode. During its original run this was shown out of order, which meant that everyone watched CC die and then two months later he was happily running around again when they showed the 'lost' episode with no explanation whatsoever. Cue lots of confused kids.

Anyway, all stops seem to be have pulled out for the last episode and it shows. The acting leaps up a notch, which makes you wonder whether they got an entirely new cast in for this one - the same thing could be said of the writers too.

In summary, if you have fond memories of watching this show when you were small, it's probably best to keep those memories and not destroy them by re-watching it now. A DVD release is rumoured for the Autumn, which I will be passing on and you should too. If they ever release the last episode separately and you have a spare few quid in your pocket then it may be worth getting that one, but mostly the lesson here is to AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

- Damian

Many thanks to the Hub Quiz teams