Chance in a Million

- Season 2

(1986)

A young Portuguese couple,the wife heavily pregnant,arrive at Tom's. They have come for hotel work but are in the wrong town. Fortunately Alison can speak their language and she and Tom agree they should stay with them. Tom is summoned by a tax inspector who,wondering why he has no income but appears well off,gives the option of paying the bill or marrying Barbara,his daughter - whom he wrongly believes to be Barbara's boyfriend. Alison gets Barbara to bring her real fiancé to the house,ahead of the Portuguese couple's uncle Mateo,who is so pleased with Tom for ...

As Alison and Tom get ready for Barbara's wedding to Terence another bride,Penny,rings the bell,asking to use the phone as the horse pulling her wedding carriage is feeling faint. However the vet that comes to cure the horse is Penny's old flame and she decides she cannot go through with the wedding,sending Tom to tell the groom,who ends up getting drunk in the hotel booked for Barbara and Terence's reception. When the horse pulling the carriage bolts it lands Terence in casualty so he too is late for his wedding but by this time it has transpired that Tom has told ...

Tom visits a garage,explaining truthfully that 'a buzzard has shattered my windscreen',unaware that this is the code for a courier to be given a consignment of heroin. Tom however believes the white powder is wallpaper paste and uses it to help Alison's father decorate,being mystified when a brick comes through the window from the angry drug dealer. Further misfortune follows at the golf club where Mr Little and Tom are mistaken for robbers out to steal the club's trophies - thanks to another brick - before a policeman friend with a sniffer dog works out what is ...

Due to yet another of the coincidences that Tom always attracts he ends up with the spoils from a supermarket robbery and a jewel heist due to an identical suitcase and an identical car to the robbers - not to mention a stash of live ammunition. Whilst he and Alison revel in their unaccountable good fortune Special Branch visit and the pair celebrate their engagement dinner in a police cell - though Tom does finally produce a ring for his betrothed. A further misunderstanding means that Alison's parents are also arrested.

Somehow Tom manages to win a supermarket trolley dash,every single prize in a charity raffle and a novelty prize from the policeman's charity ball. However a man digging for buried treasure in Tom's garden has cut through the electric cable so that when Tom and Alison host an American couple,Mr and Mrs Burrows,they have to improvise. With the Burrows gone Tom impresses Alison by buying every single ticket at the library's upcoming slave auction to spare her humiliation.

Tom searches the local paper for the announcement of his engagement but finds that by mistake he is on the obituary page and at the library he runs into Joanna,the married lover of the man who died,who thinks he has survived and kisses him. Alison takes evasive action with a yoghurt carton and Joanna comes to take a bath,at Tom's house,which she has mistaken for her aunt's. When the local journalists arrive to apologize to Tom they find him in the presence of a towel-clad Joanna and a soaking wet vicar who has come to ask Tom's advice on plumbing.