Main cast: Bruce Spence (Colin Condon), Barry Crocker (Sir Barry Doyle), Jonathan Hardy (Roger Mormon), and Bryan Brown (The Host)
Director: David Caesar

Prime real estate mogul Sir Barry Doyle chokes on a piece of chicken, to death, during a grand lunch thrown by his wealthy friends. The poor dear doesn’t even get to deliver the speech he has stood up for. This distresses the overwrought eccentric artist Colin Condon, who believes that he needs Barry to sit in for a portrait that he is certain will catapult him back to his former glory. Well, against his friend Roger’s advice to stick to bush landscapes, Colin decides to “borrow” Bazza. That’s right, he will break into the funeral parlor and pose the corpse, so that he can finally get that painting he wants.

Borrowing Bazza is an over the over the top comedy, with Bruce Spence acting like he’s paid by the hour with cocaine and he partakes his salary immediately after receiving payment, and I have to say, the whole thing is pretty amusing. There isn’t much to this episode, just a series of stupid antics and comical blunders, but it succeeds in doing what it set out to do. However, Bruce’s fate may be a little too dark and disproportionately cruel to some people, considering that this deranged fool’s biggest crime is his utter lack of respect for the dead.

Still, this series is at its best when it’s not trying too hard to preach or be too smart with the twists, so this episode is definitely one of the brighter sparks of the season.