Impossible Planet - Episode synopsis

13 September 2017

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Norton (27) and Andrews (42) are captains of the spaceship Dream Weaver. It may sound fancy; intergalactic travel normally does, but they are in fact what can only be described as Las Vegas style tour guides on a space excursion to ‘the pit end of nowhereville.’

Norton’s desperate for more and so too is his partner, Barbara.  She is way out of his league and deep down Norton knows this.  He promised her the world and at this point she’d settle for a nice apartment on Primo Central, but she knows Norton could never provide this because like Andrews, Norton’s on the road to loser-ville.

After being turned down again for that promotion he so desperately craves, Norton is resigned to his fate, but then fate has a funny way of creeping up on you… this time in the form of the super-naturally old, Irma.... 

Irma doesn’t have long for this world – at 342 years old it’s not surprising – and she has one last wish: to return to the place of her grandmother’s birth, a planet known as Earth…

Irma is deaf and so travels with a robot called RB29 who explains to Norton and Andrews that if they fulfil her wish, she will pay them two kilo positive, cash!  Andrews’ eyes light up: that’s two years’ salary!  Norton’s also intrigued, but there’s a problem: Earth has been extinct for hundreds of years….

Andrews’ moral fibre is on full display when he looks up Earth’s properties in the tour guide database and decides to take Irma to the closest matching planet, Emphor 3.  Norton’s not sure they should be duping such a sweet old lady, but for two kilo positive and the chance to finally give Barbara the life she wants, he can’t quite bring himself to object…

The journey to the Impossible Planet commences...  Norton and Irma form a bond that the age gap alone should stop, but as they grow closer they come to realise that in another life they could have been together… And when we see a picture of her grandmother and grandfather – a dead ringer for Norton – we realise that in a past life perhaps they were… 

As Norton begins to question the trick he is playing, he discovers a far deeper affinity with the 342 year old Irma than he would ever have thought possible… and which threatens to change everything.