The Pharmacy – As the opening episode of Still Up begins, Lisa (Antonia Thomas) speaks with a friend on the phone about being unable to sleep. She makes it to the Eastfield Pharmacy while Danny (Craig Roberts) continues talking about his sleeping problems. Danny reveals he is crawling around in the dark because his neighbor, Cat Man (Rich Fulcher), invited him to his cat’s birthday party. He told Cat Man he was going on a month-long sabbatical staying at every Disneyland in the world so he wouldn’t have to go to the party.

Lisa questions what he is going to do about food while hiding from his neighbor. He plans to live off what he has in his flat, but he only has a jar of mayonnaise and a variety pack of Frosties. Danny confesses he didn’t think this through properly. As he orders a pizza, he learns that Lisa is at the pharmacy because Poppy has chickenpox. Lisa confesses she sent Poppy on the school trip even though she had chickenpox and now the other kids have it. She didn’t want to let Zach’s mom get one over on her again. Lisa says she saw an ad about some new pills called Snoozers. Danny recommends not getting any of them.

He asks if Veggie would mind her spending the night with him. Lisa says no because he thinks Danny is one of the girls. Veggie (Blake Harrison) calls to tell Lisa that she is asleep and he is the best stepdad ever. He reveals he read The History of Bricks to her. After the call with Veggie, Lisa calls Danny back and talks to him about knee supports. When Zach’s mom, Kate (Alice Bailey Johnson), enters the pharmacy, Lisa tells Danny to shut up. Although Lisa tries to hide from her, Kate ends up finding her anyway. Kate tells her that Zach has chickenpox. She suspect Poppy had it first. Moments later, Kate says she should be getting back.

Kate shouts for the pharmacist, but no one comes out. She suggests they’ll have to wait it out together. Lisa offers to buy the lotion for her although Kate isn’t sure why she’d do that. Lisa wants to get out of there so she begins calling for the pharmacist. Danny recommends taking the lotion and leaving money, but Lisa only has a card. She decides to use the card machine. It ends up charging her way too much though. She messes with it and charges herself another 100 quid. Lisa blames Danny and says she’ll have to stay until she gets a refund. Lisa walks around the store and tells Danny about some of the prices.

They talk about their relationships with Lisa saying she thinks she was single for five and a half weeks. She wants to sign him up for a dating app, but Danny says that isn’t happening. Danny notices that the pizza has arrived. The pizza guy, Carl (David Alade), tells him he needs to come outside so he can take a picture. Cat Man comes over to tell Carl the guy in flat eight has gone to Disneyland. Once Cat Man walks away, Carl tries to intercom again. Adam (Luke Fetherston) tells him that he didn’t order a pizza. However, he believes anchovy and pineapple is a Danny special. Adam says Danny isn’t there and walks away. Carl gets back in touch with Danny to ask if he is in Disneyland. Danny says no before agreeing to come out to get his pizza.

Danny heads out but turns around and shuts the door behind him. Carl tells Cat Man that the guy from flat eight is inside. When Danny doesn’t respond to the intercom, Carl ends up giving the pizza to Cat Man. Then, Danny learns Lisa is signing him up for a dating site because she doesn’t want him to die alone. Lisa goes through the questions with him. Danny tells her that he was in a band. He says he ordered another pizza and noticed that Cat Man does a circle of the building every half hour or so. When Carl comes back, Danny tells her to go to a window nearby. However, he can’t get the window open enough to slide the pizza through.

Danny offers to give Carl a 20-quid tip if he slides it through piece by piece. They manage to get the pieces through and Carl snaps a picture before Cat Man returns. Cat Man tells Carl that the party is back the other way. Then, Danny gets back to Lisa who is still waiting at the pharmacy. They finish with the last questions for Danny’s dating app profile. Danny tells Lisa about a past event in which he was romantic. Lisa gets a message from Veggie because Poppy is awake and asking for her. She decides to leave the pharmacy but wants to confront the pharmacist first. Lisa tells Danny that she is going to get 200 quid’s worth if she can’t get a refund.

A woman comes in to ask for a prescription for Mrs. Anne Cooper. Lisa finds it for her and takes her money only to find out she got the wrong bag. She goes into the back to look for it and finds the pharmacist dead. Lisa talks to Danny about how sad it is to go like that. Before Danny can end the conversation, Lisa says she wants to finish the dating profile. He quickly receives a match with 91% compatibility. Lisa is shocked to see that the match is herself so she tells Danny it was only a glitch. Once the conversation finally ends, Lisa gets in touch with Veggie. Cat Man catches Danny throwing away the leftovers and asks how Disneyland was.

 

Still Up Review

For the pilot episode of Still Up, this was not a good way to start the season. While the plot finally started making sense near the end, the episode felt aimless without any real direction or meaning. Unfortunately, the story didn’t seem to be going anywhere and most of the humor attempts didn’t hit the target. Usually, there is something redeemable about each series right from the start, but it took until the end of the episode for this to strike.

The cast is pretty good though with Antonia Thomas and Craig Roberts doing the bulk of the work. Again, the episode picked up near the end so I wouldn’t write this off just yet. It just seemed like a pointless episode until the last three minutes or so. Considering there are eight episodes in total, there may be more filler episodes like this. If it can stay on track and focus more on Lisa and Danny’s relationship, it may be successful in the long run.

The opening episode wasn’t spectacular, but I’d stick with it for a few more to see whether it picks up. After all, it seemed to finally start putting things together in the last few minutes. The episode scores a 5 out of 10. Recaps of Still Up are available on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising on Reel Mockery here.