Every episode of Inside No 9 is dramatically different – and every episode is also essentially the same. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton tend to begin each instalment of their magnificent comedy-horror anthology by summoning a scene of distinctively British mundanity: it’s small, it’s boring, it’s awkward, it’s wryly funny – the workaday greyness sparkles with fragments of laugh-out-loud hilarity. Yet from the start, that tableau of normality bristles with nauseating dread – ultimately, the show will excavate from it a blast or two of terror. We know it’s coming, but we don’t know how and we don’t know when. At this point, Shearsmith and Pemberton have used the formula almost 50 times. That it still produces such grimly fascinating, heart-stoppingly tense and peerlessly clever half-hours of TV is nothing short of miraculous.
Perhaps not wanting to push their luck, Shearsmith and Pemberton are finally nudging the door closed on No 9, as (fittingly) this ninth series airs. It’s a “pause” in production, Pemberton has said, rather than a decisive finale. That noncommittal approach will probably quash hopes for a twist to end all twists: Inside No 9 is notorious for its incredible endings – the sort of shock reveals that make the ground below your feet shift. It would have been fascinating to see how it pulled off its ultimate denouement.
