Deep Trouble for Sam

Release Details

Series

3 (WEL)
4 (ENG)

Series no.

3.04 (WEL)
4.04 (ENG)

Released

1 October 1994 (WEL, UK)
3 November 1994 (ENG, UK)^[1]^[2]
30 October 1995 (AUS)

Episode Guide
← Previous	Next →
Quarry Rescue	Trevor's Boot Sale

Deep Trouble for Sam is the fourth episode of Series 4.

Plot[]

Firefighter Penny Morris has just moved into a new cottage, but her garden is like a jungle. Fireman Sam is having a week off work, so Penny is going to be filling in for him at the fire station.

At the cafe, Dilys is talking to Bella about a television documentary where houses sink into the old mining tunnels underneath. Dilys states that the ground is not as solid and safe as people think and they at any minute, it could swallow you up without warning.

Fireman Sam is in the park with Sarah and James. It turns out that he is not used to holidays and is already bored. Sarah and James try to get him to play some games with them, but he is just not into the mood and wanders off to phone the fire station to ask how things are going.

At the fire station, Penny is cooking breakfast for the team, which Station Officer Steele finds much better than Elvis' cooking. Then Sam rings up from the phone box outside Dilys' shop and asks if there is anything he can do for her. Penny suggests that Sam could weed her garden for her and he instantly agrees and puts the phone down on her, before she has a chance to say anything else.

Later whilst weeding Penny's garden, a strange loud rumbling sound can be suddenly heard. The garden begins to shake and rumble and Sam falls through a sinkhole into a mine shaft.

Meanwhile Trevor, Sarah and James are bringing loads of lovely flowers in the bus to put in Penny's garden. When they arrive they see Sam's head re-emerge from the ground that he just fell into. Sam tells Sarah and James to keep well away from the danger zone and gets Trevor to call the Fire Brigade.

The team soon arrive and Penny starts sucking up some of the soil from the sinkhole with the extension pipe. Suddenly another tremor starts and part of the garden fence cracks up. It nearly falls on Sam, but he is pulled out of the hole with a rope just in time.

A week later when Penny comes home to her cottage, she tells Trevor that the council has made the cottage safe because the hole has been filled in, but the garden is probably still wrecked from all the trouble caused by the tremors. However when they enter the garden through the side gate, she finds that the weeds have been dug up, the grass is now neat and there is now a goldfish pond in the middle of it. Sam, Sarah and James are also there to toast Penny's home coming.

Characters[]

Vehicles[]

Locations[]

Trivia[]

This is one of the only two episodes the classic series where Sam needs rescuing. The other was Sam's Day Off.
This is the first episode where Penny drives Jupiter.
Penny's House has already been used before as the cottage of Daphne Peacock, the vet from Fireman Sam's short-lived sister show "Joshua Jones".
This is the first episode where a natural disaster is featured, a sinkhole.
This is the only episode of the original series where Norman isn't seen or mentioned (Norman also doesn't appear in Quarry Rescue, but is mentioned).
Recording date: February 21, 1994.
When this episode first aired in English on BBC One London on 3 November 1994, it aired at 15:40.^[1]
When Trevor drives with Sarah and James to deliver the flowers to Penny’s cottage, he can be heard singing to the tune of Country Gardens in parody form - the lyrics sung are “How many flowers can Penny Morris grow in a Ponty country garden?”

Goofs[]

Arriving at the scene of the disaster, Station Officer Steele says "Get to work men!" even though the only man is Elvis with Penny.
Sam asks where he is when he regains consciousness. There was no need for him to ask this as he was only unconscious for a few seconds. What is more, Sam had no reason to go unconscious when he was pulled out of danger anyway.