So, two weeks after their official Halloween episode, Paul Simms and his silly friends did another spooky thing, and it's just one layer of one of the best Newsradios ever.
The office A/C is out of order (Joe's working on it!) and it's leading everyone to have some strange daydreams. Bill, of course, is having fantasy makeout sessions with all the ladies, and Lisa is trying desperately to craft a proper verbal comeback to Dave.
Sidebar: Of course Lisa won't match Dave's quickness -- she enjoys fast-talking verbal barbs, My Girl Friday-style, but after one quick exchange she's usually spent. Why oh why isn't Maura Tierney still working in comedy? I haven't seen her current show (though I made the mistake of trying both of Dave's last shows), but I don't imagine it gives her much opportunity to make with the yuk-yuks.
Dave just wants people to do something (work would be nice). Catherine is imagining more people of color in the office (including her future Treme husband), but only ends up with poor Joe Furey, fresh off his triumph as the mime who wouldn't shut up in our last episode.
Beth is more out of it than most, since she and Matthew stayed up all night watching horror movies, so she keeps seeing Matthew as every scary movie. (He's Chucky! He's Jason! He's Dracula! He's Alien!) We spend a large portion of this episode as Beth relives the most iconic horrors of recent times.
Meanwhile, the A/C's still out, and Joe's still working on it! And he can only dream of the day he's converted everyone else into robots to do his bidding.
This won't be the first time I've mentioned my love for audio commentaries, and the one recorded for this episode is a doozy. It's got creator Paul Simms, along with Dave and Vicki Lewis and Andy Dick. And Andy Dick, predictably, doesn't remember much about the episode. (My friend went to the recent stage reunion of the cast and tells me this is still the dynamic among the cast: We love Andy, and he's special, but...)
This is the first "weird" Newsradio episode, and the first they filmed without a live audience. The writing is incredibly tight, but still has room for things like the daydream of Howie, the little old man who runs the snack cart and is never heard from again. The nesting daydream of Matthew with red "Thriller" eyes perfectly mirrors the inescapable dreamlike horror of the ending of that video.
And speaking of iconic endings of things, let's spend a second on St. Elsewhere, shall we? I've only ever seen one episode, but I know the ending is a direct lift from that, theme music and all. It's weird, but I still get a little emotional at this episode's end. He doesn't say it much, but we know (or at least desperately need to believe) that Jimmy truly loves all the nutballs at his radio station, and the sweet chiming music (no matter where it's from) can make me mist up a little. I'm really grateful for the joy this show has brought me (and I believe most of the cast and crew truly felt like a family during the production), and the ten seconds of elegy for the show, midway through its run, is both ridiculous and touching. When this show's actual end came, it was messy and disheartening, not at all what I hoped it would or could be. So, I'll take what I can get.
As an episode of Newsradio, I rate this 10/10. I'm tempted to go higher -- this is a paradigm-setting part of this show, and led to even higher flights of fancy later, but remains grounded and in-universe.
As a Halloween episode, I rate this 4/10. We don't spend a large percentage of our time on scary things (though I count Joe's cyborg fantasy in that), but it is solid and fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment