1310 - The Shape of Things to Come
Premiere Date: Friday, September 30, 2022, 5:00 PM PST
Host: Emily Connor
Special Guests: None
Writers: Jonah Ray, Nate Begle, Harold Buchholz, Gabe Castro, Erik Draden, Rebecca Hanson, Conor McGiffin, Beez McKeever, Matt Oswalt, Baron Vaughn -contributing riffer, Todd Nauck
About a year ago I was watching Faith's Takes on YouTube, the ones where she filmed her reactions to season 11 episodes - with some eps she's laughing often, with others (like fan fave Cry Wilderness), not as much. I thought of that after entering the vaults the day after this experiment's debut, to catch Ring of Terror. Now, Ring isn't a huge fan favorite, it didn't make the backer's top 100 poll, and yet, if you'd filmed my reactions, it was Ring that got belly laughs out of me, not The Shape of Things to Come, and that about says it all.
That's not to call this a comedy fail - Emily's biting Netflix quip, then noticing commercial sign within the film shortly after that, were both a hoot and a half, but most of my reactions were of the chuckle and snort variety, rather than big hearty guffaws.
They do engage with the film nicely, and at times successfully build character traits, which was interesting as this came up during the Q&A, where they were asked about their preferences between riffing a star actor or having a no-name that you can create a character around (Jonah likes the latter). They do this well with the robot Sparks and its interactions with other characters. I also got a smile out of the narrative they created around the lead couple... by switching their romance to a friend zone.
"I was the Governor, you know" - Emily
Unfortunately -aside from Jack Palance- they don't seem to know what to do with the other side of that question (riffing on known actors) the careers of Gunslinger's John Ireland and Sledge Hammer's Anne-Marie Martin is never acknowledged, even in small, subtle ways. And it broke my heart that with Carol Lynley (Niki) it's mostly about her hair and shoes - they drop the ball on creating a funny character for her, and they do nothing in regard to her career. When she was looking around, sneaking through the bowels of the Citadel, they could have done an "Oh poo, I've mislaid Bunny Lake again!" or sang 𝅘𝅥𝅯 "There's got to be a morning after"𝅘𝅥𝅯. Okay, yeah, I'm old, but I grew up watching her in movies like The Night Stalker, etc, and hoped they would have done right by her, even if was noting that this wasn't her best acting (my last hope is that somehow Trace and Frank get ahold of this, I know film buff Frank wouldn't let me down, in fact I could hear he and Trace turning that riff above into a running bit about days when she did do good acting in good films... "I worked with Preminger, you know", "I worked with Olivier...")
Back to the positives, I like how they pulled out the old standby "Jim Henson's (fill in the blank) babies", and I got a kick out of Big Teresa, and all the other names Conor gave to the crew in one scene - I had no idea what Teresa was referencing (I had to look it up) the sound of it just tickled me. I even enjoyed the silly stuff... Spark's farts, the mishearing of words (bed for red, lunch for launch), or the reveal that master computer Lomax, is just a glorified Magic 8 Ball ("But you can shake me and ask again later" - Emily)
Livestream? Servo reads a letter ("It's raining on my face!" lol) Synthia, Growler, and Crow thank backers. The Q&A is a little glitchy, but otherwise, I enjoyed the conversation as Emily, Kelsey, and Jonah discuss the darkness of the ending for the roast sketch (which Joel came up with) and the sweetness of the love segment. Other topics include favorite puppets, goofy sci-fi, what kind of actor do you like to riff on, and what derails a writer's room?
Favorite Riffs: "Meanwhile at Netflix" - Emily after spotting a cancel button | "Whoa, this guy's space suit is very lung-forward" - Crow | "Do not take Lomax if you are allergic to Lomax" - Crow | "I got to talk to the big lollypop" - Servo | "Robot knees apparently are not in the budget - Emily | "I'm picking up a high radiation level in this area" - "Well that explains my new toe" - Sparks/Servo as Jason | "They're children" - "And they're covered in dank, high-grade medical marijuana" - Kim/Servo | "I would like to help" - "I know close up magic" - Sparks/Crow | "Niki with the Irish goodbye" - Emily | "Boot to the head, boot to the head, boot to the head" - Crow | "Oh no, the crown roast of doom is making me do the pee-pee dance" - Servo as Dr. Caball
Favorite Host Segment: The Shape of Crimes to Come Podcast - I liked the look and sound of the bit (the background art and music), and Emily was in top form, with her calming host voice
Amazing Colossal Grade: 3 - There are funny quips, but my Faith's Take style reactions were more of the smiles and chuckle variety.
"I have many impressive things to show you" - "Like this Sit 'n Spin" - Omus/Servo
* Footnotes
Curious that there were no quips or host segs addressing Caball and Kabahl? Nor was there a "hey, they have a Kingadome too" or something along those lines when a similar dome shows up as background in a scene.
With Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin), they could have just referred to her by that character's name, as was done with the Paper Chase Guy in Warrior of the Lost World, or Lovejoy in Diamond Head, and that would have been fun, that would have sufficed.
I'll give them a pass on Palance's "Turn it off" scene (not doing any George C. Scott in Hardcore quips), since Rifftrax covered that angle fully.
