New Whose Line! Episode 9: Wanna See Her Box?

Starring Wayne Brady, Jeff Davis, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Special Guest Laila Ali, known for felling such legitimate competitors as John Ratzenberger and Billy Ray Cyrus in season four of Dancing with the Stars!
(Watch it here!)

Unsavory Un-Scenes from un Chapeau: Wayne and Jeff stand on one side of the stage and Colin and Ryan stand on the other, because how else could they act out: “Unlikely cartoon characters to cameo in an adult movie”, “Weird things to happen… at a doctor’s exam”, and “Things you might regret saying on a first date”.

TAILSCONJECTURE: I’m starting to think they should just call this game Scenes That’ll Either Disgust You, Creep You Out, or Just Not Be Funny, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue so well. This used to be my favorite Whose Line game but now it’s really lost its allure. Hopefully World’s Worst won’t go the same way if they decide to bring that back. It’s no surprise that the cartoon characters one went on the longest, since if there’s anything these guys know how to do best, it’s overused impersonations from decades-old characters used in an uncomfortable sexual context that will make you question your childhood! And while Aisha’s “weird thing to happen” joke was done with the intention of being charming, it gave me the reaction of “ugh, just say it already so we can get through this game.” And that’s a sure sign that this game will probably never shine in the new series.

JESSPLANATIONS: Oh, hey, as it turns out, the vast majority of cartoon characters are fundamentally unlikely to cameo in an adult movie, due to the rampant public controversy that would ensue, as well as the fact that adult films rarely feature cameos anyway, nor would they usually have the budget necessary for lavish hand-drawn animation! Ha ha! But ignoring the odd suggestion wording, tonight’s hat-scenes are about as we’ve come to expect hat-scenes to be. There’s a hat-scene about sex-having, a scene about gross-out-making, and a scene about gender-politicking that is mostly about sex-having as well. Wayne, for some reason, has devised a scheme to smuggle drugs into Mexico, and Ryan made a joke about using projectile poop as clay pigeons, indoors no less. Just another day at the office. Yaaaawwwwn.

Cock-a-Doodle-Dubbing: Flirtatious fashion photographer Colin is taking picture of supermodel Laila, when her jealous model boyfriend, Ryan, angrily kicks down the door to confront them. Wayne provides Laila’s lovely lady voice.

TAILSCONJECTURE: Colin shows off his wide range of dialects in this game by somehow doing a French AND Italian accent all at the same time! All this game pretty much did was remind me of how much I want a scene with just Colin and Ryan in it, since they played off each other really well in it! It was almost like they didn’t need the guest star there at all! Almost like it would’ve been BETTER without the guest star! The only parts of this that made me laugh were the parts where Colin and Ryan were bantering with each other, and there was a lady in red standing there too, I suppose. Cue Wayne trying to prove that Colin can do something physical and being right, and you’ve got a pretty mediocre game!

JESSPLANATIONS: I’m aware that I’m a real negative Nancy most of the time, so I’d like to make it clear that I actually really liked Ryan knocking politely with his foot and greeting Colin and Laila with a cordial “hi”. But then he has to go and make things awkward for himself with an unintentionally (?) racist joke about hypnotism! Wayne notices but takes it in good humor; Colin and Laila kind of just ignore the whole exchange. Hearing impaired people watching at home saw no ambiguity in the situation whatsoever, because they correctly put quotes around “chicken”. All in all, I think Ryan actually seems the most upset by the situation, once he realizes the implications anyhow. Meanwhile, Colin gets enthusiastic applause for performing the Herculean feat of lifting a female model!

Prop Wars Episode I: The Stanchion Menace: Ryan and Jeff (ironic hot dog neck pillows, for travelling hipsters) politely take turns with Colin and Wayne (the almighty Blue Stanchion Twins, otherworldly horrors of the Sideways Scene room).

TAILSCONJECTURE: I have to give credit where it’s due, this was actually a somewhat decent game of props. They didn’t use the red thingies as nipple rings like I feared would happen, they didn’t make the penis reference right out of the gate, the Geordi LaForge reference was clever, and they managed to cram two Star Wars references in! Though I will give a pro-tip: if your breasts joke is so bad it has to be explained, just pretend they’re chess pieces. Props is still one of the weakest games on the show, if not THE weakest, but I will say that this was the first somewhat enjoyable one since the series premiered. Hopefully if they insist on keeping it in, it’ll continue down this path.

JESSPLANATIONS: Poor poor Elton John, always eating alone. Even though he has a husband. His name is David Furnish; despite the name, he is not an interior designer. He produced Gnomeo and Juliet, so he’s kinda the opposite, really. This round also contains two Star Wars references, two stereotypical pirate impressions, and a joke about a dead person being buried with a naughty body part still sticking out of the dirt (which, of course, implies that some poor asshole had to make the necessary coffin adjustments as well). And a Little Mermaid reference that might’ve been somewhat amusing, had Ryan been willing to do a Jamaican accent for it. Fortunately, the Stanchions’ natural habitat indicates that their sense of humor is, ahem, what some might call “lousy”, so they enjoyed this. “Colin and Wayne can live,” they say. “FOR NOW.”

Greatest Zits: Colin and Ryan sell “Songs of Acne”, as performed by Wayne and Jeff in the styles of mariachi and Les Misérables.

TAILSCONJECTURE: I was actually looking forward to this game appearing again, but this seemed to be a rather disappointing comeback! Not only is it about a subject that made me cringe quite a bit and made listening to the songs quite uncomfortable, but the discomfort was compounded by the fact that Jeff really isn’t all that great a singer. He has his moments on some songs, like if it’s a Rat Pack member, or…yeah, if it’s a Rat Pack member. The Les Miserables song seemed to have no real melody to it, but maybe I’ve just been listening to the soundtracks on repeat a bit too much. I would much prefer to see Gary play this with Wayne, or get Brad or Chip to come back on the show, since they do have decent voices that have durability in different styles, which is…kind of the point.

JESSPLANATIONS: “We’ll be right back to the CW remake of Grumpy Old Men with Justin Timberlake and a fetus in just a second.” Ha ha, because the CW exclusively uses young actors in its programs! What a funny joke from the 55-year-old Colin Mochrie! No, but seriously, can I take this to mean he too is disgruntled with the cavalcade of young nobodies as special guests? Not that his opinion would really matter either way, because he’s still not an executive producer. Oh, and I like how he starts the game by talking about old people getting acne, surely planning to lead into a style, only for Ryan to shut him down with crazy person talk of nuptials and 70s sitcoms. Usually I’d blame something like this on inept, Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza-style editing, but not this time. It’s all filmed in a single shot. So, yeah, Ryan really is a crazy person! But I’ve talked enough about the first 30 seconds of this game. It was nice seeing Greatest Hits back, overall! Not enough Colin this time, though, and too much Jeff. He’s good at doing silly voices to music, but apparently not so much at straight singing. His atonal caterwauling in the “Les Mis Rables” song sadly undermines Wayne, who was really singing his booty off there!

Assisting Fists: Grizzled boxing trainer Ryan is helping Laila prepare for her first big fight, by bombarding her with food and drink. Colin does and and all fisting on Ryan’s behalf.

TAILSCONJECTURE: Laila Ali was basically saying what everybody else was thinking throughout this game – what does this have to do with boxing? This makes no sense! Is pasta honestly something people eat in order to train? Why were the bananas there? Why did Ryan insist on trying to shove it all into his mouth for some reason? For all the times he hates eating/drinking the things in this game, he certainly seems eager to do a lot of it! Laila was actually pretty invested in this game and didn’t just stand there, which was refreshing, and it looks like even her light punch was enough to get Colin’s hand hurting. Speaking of pain, it pains me to say that I’m sort of getting sick of yet another one of my favorite games! It’s like food, you can eat something you absolutely love every day and you might get sick of it if you don’t vary it up enough!

JESSPLANATIONS: Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve finally grown tired of Helping Hands. Something about the way Ryan practically demanded to deepthroat a banana pushed me over the edge. What fun is the game when it’s clear that Ryan himself is electing to do gross things of his own free will just for attention? It wasn’t funny when I saw my classmates do it in fourth grade, and it ain’t funny now! And then there’s Laila. “ERROR. THIS SCENE DOES NOT PERTAIN CLOSELY ENOUGH TO MY FORMER PROFESSION. DOES NOT COMPUTE.” I suppose their decision to throw a robe on her before she even came out just hyped her up for actual boxing THAT MUCH. In the absence of anything truly compelling to grasp onto in this scene, I’m left to ponder what Ryan’s obsession with the number 34 is. He says he’s been in the business for 34 years, and Laila’s record is 34-0 (despite this being her first big fight). Maybe he’s like the dude Jim Carrey played in The Number 23. I never saw that movie, but I assume it turned out bad for him, too.

Credits Rea-Ding-Ding: Wayne, Jeff, Colin, and Ryan are taking boxing lessons from “our gorgeous guest star” Laila.

TAILSCONJECTURE: I love how Wayne gives Laila a really weird look when she actually tries to stop him from what he’s doing! It’s like she’s actually trying to get into her character and be their boxing coach! Jeff decides he wants to get away from Leila’s bossy boxing and goes to the background to do sit-ups. Don’t you know that trying to hide behind everyone during the credits is Ryan’s thing?

JESSPLANATIONS: “You’re delightful to a man!” Oh boy, here we go again! What does this mean, Aisha? Tell us! I seriously think you’re the only person in the history of the omniverse who has used this phrase!! Are you trying to invent a catchphrase here? It’s not working, because people generally prefer catchphrases that make some amount of sense! Perhaps I’m being too harsh here, though. I think we can all agree that Aisha is definitely delightful to a person who says confusing things.

CONCLUDING TAILSCONJECTURE: I wasn’t really sure how to judge this episode until I decided to take a good look at the games used and how they went over, and when one of the better games you have in the episode is Props, you know there’s something wrong here. This episode isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just sort of bland, and the jokes are all either trying to be sexy or disgusting instead of earning humor by their own merit. The guest star did more than just stand there (when she was allowed to do more than just stand there) but she didn’t do anything to actually make herself stand out even then. I like seeing Whose Line back on TV, but I’m coming to grips with the fact that it will never be the same.

FINALICIOUS JESSPLANATIONS: Well, the thing is, this ain’t Whose Line after all. It’s yet another dumbed down version of the Whose Line shtick, just like Trust Us with Your Life or Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza or Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show. I still watch because I guess I still enjoy hanging out with these guys when the opportunity presents itself, no matter the context, but there’s no denying that the producers and the CW have, together, reduced the Whose Line formula to its basest form. Remember that thing I said about shitty message board improv last week? Yeah, that applies to the whole season, actually!

NEXT WEEK ON NEW WHOSE LINE: “Nikita’s Maggie Q takes a bite out of Whose Line!” Get it? Because Nikita is a series about vampires who-- wait, it’s not? Oh. Then what was the “bite” thing about? Oh, I see! It’s because there’s yet another round of Helping Hands wherein Ryan will be made to/will make himself eat something disgusting! Ironically, Maggie Q will probably decline to take a bite. (Oh, and we finally meet the mysterious Nyima Funk.)

New Whose Line! Episode 8: No Special Guest for the Wicked

Starring Wayne Brady, Keegan-Michael-Key, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus... no, wait. That's it. Cool!

(Watch it here!)

Questionable Wigpressions: It’s Wayne and Colin “vs.” Keegan and Ryan at a family wedding.

TAILSPOSTULATES: What does it say about the show’s budget that they can’t afford boxes of hats for Dating Profiles, but they can afford boxes of wigs to bring back a game that was played all of twice on the old series? I honestly would’ve preferred good old Questions Only! But still, this game did successfully manage to prove that Keegan CAN make Ronald McDonald look twice as creepy, and Colin looks like he’s wearing either a yarmulke or a bald wig in reverse. Wayne is obviously seeking new employment by trying to make the first newscast in the US that comes on at 8 o’clock (seriously, commenters, does the news come on at 8 in your town, ever?) and poor Ryan just doesn’t really seem to care anymore, seeing as how he can be completely entranced by simply seeing an aesthetically pleasing wig! Better call the betting office and give good odds, looks like Ryan really is gonna be the first to go senile!

JESSICAPINIONS: I can’t say I was expecting to see this again! Mostly because, y’know, it rarely has appreciably more personality than regular Questions Only would. Keegan is especially odd at this because he “plays” famous people without even trying to do an impression of them, when everyone knows that only Colin can get away with this. And yes, I thought his Friar Tuck was cute. Wayne was alright too, but Tails already covered the only interesting thing he said. As for Ryan, his British punk rock dartboard mohawk guy starts out with a good old-fashioned silly Ryan accent, but loses around one-tenth of it with each line he says until eventually he’s just regular old bored Ryan Stiles, with a dumb dartboard mohawk. Oh, by the way, was Colin’s “creepy hug” joke in Dating Profiles from the other Keegan taping episode supposed to be a reference to this post-game banter? Or vice-versa? Either way, GREAT JOB, people responsible for editing these episodes!

Scene Seen Sideways: Colin and Keegan are two prisoners working out in their cell while planning a breakout, and Wayne is a tough prison guard who bursts in, suspecting trouble. The styles used include horror and Bollywood.

TAILSPOSTULATES: I honestly wasn’t sure at first glance what Colin was trying to bench press off of, and after watching the game again, I still don’t know. Wow! It almost looks like Keegan is actually doing pull-ups off of that thing on the floor! His arms must be so tired and sore! And Colin must be in remarkably good shape for his age! Can you tell I really hate this game? Whatever happened to the good old days where Wayne did mid-air push-ups off Drew’s desk? Back then you really had to earn those physical gags.

JESSICAPINIONS: It feels like almost every Sideways Scene is about Colin and Fourthy McSeater as criminals of some sort whose plans are mildly foiled by Wayne as a man of the law, doesn’t it? Is it just me? I’ve accepted that Sideways Scene will always feel the same anyway, but they could at least make the token effort to come up with scenarios that feel different, before they dissolve completely! Ah well. Not much to say. The Creepy Blue Stanchion Twins will surely punish Wayne for scuffing up their beloved Magic Mat, as well they should!

What’s in the Womb?: Ryan and Colin are two doctors who have arrived in a remote town where farmer’s wife Wayne is giving birth. The items in the purses include the usual things like bottled water, coin purses, headphones, gum, a tube of mystery cream, and emery boards which have possibly not been urinated on.

TAILSPOSTULATES: I’m warming up a little more to this game now that it’s been played a few more times and they sort of have a handle (get it?) on what they’re doing. However, all three of the scenarios have been medical-related and that’s getting sort of old. If it’s always gonna be that way, why not rename it “Medical Bags” or “Malpractice”? Wayne also seemed to be rather nervous about Ryan’s tiny forceps, and I was too, because back when my mom used to make me wear those they’d constantly pop out of my hands and hit something. I kept waiting for that to happen!

JESSICAPINIONS: Tails is right, every playing of this game revolves around Wayne being in excruciating pain and Ryan and Colin being spectacularly useless. This one is, of course, particularly absurd because farmers birth babies all the time and they don’t need no big-city doctorin’, consarnit! As for the actual content of the scene, well, this game still amuses me but probably won’t for much longer. It’s apparent by this point that there’s rarely more to it than Colin declaring “Look, I’ve got a [object]” and poking Wayne with it, and then Ryan declaring “Look, I’ve got a [different object]” and poking Wayne with it too. I get the feeling that they only included this for the wacky banter about Wayne and the stick o’ pee. Also, there was another “creepy hug” reference. I’m gonna have to pay close attention during the credits so I can thank everyone involved with editing this show BY NAME for their EXTREME COMPETENCY at their jobs.

Scenes from a Pink Hat that Totally Clashes with Aisha's Green Jacket: Wayne and Keegan “square off against” Colin and Ryan, as they act out: “People you don’t want to sit next to on a plane”, “Inappropriate things to say at a funeral”, and “Flavors rejected by ice cream chains”.

TAILSPOSTULATES: This was always my favorite game to see on the old series, since I’m a big fan of rapid-fire improv, but it’s clear that these guys are sort of losing their touch, or still need to find it in Keegan’s case. The network also definitely made a good call by spoiling some of the better responses in the preview because nobody would’ve watched this game otherwise! There were a few jokes that I think only Aisha laughed at (since it’s probably in her contract to laugh like a loon at everything) and the audience was quiet on the ones I actually thought were pretty funny. Better luck next time, guys!

JESSICAPINIONS: Ryan sure seems fascinated with Mitt Romney, doesn’t he? Just think of how funny that might’ve been if this was last year! Ryan does have a point, though - I’d definitely be annoyed if I sat next to someone who spoke to me as if I was Mitt Romney, as would most people who aren’t Mitt Romney. Well, if Mitt Romney isn’t distasteful enough for you, this round also contains jokes about vomit, flatulence, disrespecting and desecrating the recently deceased, primate anuses, and the previous game’s piss sticks. I’d expect this from message board SFAH, but shouldn’t we demand better from our televised hat scenes, people? (Admittedly, I am charmed by the way baboon ass ice cream is served in two big, presumably brightly colored scoops.)

¡MANOS QUE AYUDAN!: Ryan is a Mexican chef who is teaching his oldest son, Keegan, how to prepare food at the family restaurant. Colin provides Ryan’s authentic Mexican hands.

TAILSPOSTULATES: I can assure you that this game had nothing but the utmost respect and cultural sensitivity that it called for! Really! Also, according to Ryan you shake “mariachis”, which I don’t think they like very much. Those taco balls look like they can help you make a John Wayne face in no time at all, though! I share Ryan’s hatred of sour cream, and I’m pretty sure I’d make that face if I ate that much at once too!

JESSICAPINIONS: Helping Hands is one of my favorite games, which is good because, if it wasn’t, I’d probably be getting pretty sick of it by now. Are you getting sick of it? This one’s strictly formula for New Whose Line, after all. Ryan eats some gross shit, pretends to be surprised when he discovers that they put out real alcohol, and doesn’t have a silly accent even though the other guy does. It’s a crime! Also, I’m dubious of any restaurant that makes its taco balls out of burritos! As for Keegan, his inability to even play the straight man without being over-the-top wacky is DULY, DULY, DULY noted.

Almost Dead-its: Wayne and Keegan are two grandfathers bitching about their no-good families, which contain a surprising number of white folks from England.

TAILSPOSTULATES: That sounded more like forty-something flamboyant guys bitching about their roommates and not old men bitching about their families, but I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody else noticed that since you’ve already changed the channel and started watching something else, since you know as well as I do that the episode’s already over!

JESSICAPINIONS: Mykola Pawluk is credited as the editor, but of course it took the incompetence and/or ignorance of MANY others to let this creepy hug fiasco happen, such as executive producers Dan Patterson, Mark Leveson, Jimmy Mulville, Wayne Brady, and Ryan Stiles; director Geraldine Dowd; supervising producers George NeJame and Sarah McHarry; producers Ewan Phillips, Ruth Wallace, Danny Breen, Carrie Havel, and Susan R. Nessanbaum-Goldberg (best name ever?); consulting producer Deena Katz; line producer Jimmy Sprague; post-production consultant Ray Miller; associate director Steven Blum; and associate producers Judith Hay, Juliet Morrish, and Chris Young. To all of you, a hearty fuck you! Better luck next week. (Colin and Aisha, who have no real power, are spared my ire.)

CROWNING TAILSPOSTULATES: I was extremely pleased when I heard that this would be a guest-star free episode...and then I was disappointed again when I found out that the fourth-seater was Keegan. I wouldn’t call him bad, but he hasn’t really found his niche and a lot of his jokes just plain don’t work. We finally got an episode without a forced-in guest star from the network, but it’s also one of the weaker episodes of the new series. And while we got one new game, it wasn’t exactly a game I would’ve preferred to see come back compared to other things I’ve been waiting not-so-patiently for.

CLIMACTIC JESSICAPINIONS: Look, I’m as bothered by the constant presence of celebrity guests as the next guy, girl, etc. But… can you honestly tell me that this felt any different in quality or type of content than the seven special guesty episodes that preceded it? No. No, you can’t, because it’s not true. Keegan is just a 1950s sound effects robot adrift without any sound effects to do, Ryan still sleepwalks through the whole affair until Helping Hands gets him hammered, and so Colin and Wayne alone bear the burden of competency. I don’t mean to sound so negative on this show because I really am enjoying having it back, but I really hope they do something next season to re-energize the proceedings. Like a game involving car batteries and jumper cables. Or maybe something less literal.

NEXT WEEK ON NEW WHOSE LINE: The CW would like you to be aware that this episode contains the most amazing improv game of all time, PROPS! Also, Leila Ali stops by for the typical celebrity guest antics and will possibly be somewhat uncomfortable with the presence of Confederate President Jefferson Davis as a fourth-seater!

New Whose Line! Episode 7: Lisa Leslie's Improvketball: A Laughebration!

Starring Wayne Brady, Heather Anne Campbell, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Special Famous-Type Guest Lisa Leslie, from Backyard Basketball!
(Watch it here!)

Stupid and/or Slutty Newscasters: Colin anchors. Co-anchor Heather is a ditzy beautician taking the opportunity to promote her waxing salon. Sportscaster Wayne is appearing on Girls Gone Wild and becoming increasingly outrageous (or “going wild”, one could say). Weatherman Ryan is moonlighting as a phone sex operator and keeps taking calls during his report.

TAILSMUSINGS: This is swiftly becoming the go-to quirk game and I hope they start introducing more of them soon! The repetition of it all is making Colin desperate enough to trust a ditzy woman like Heather with the application of hot wax and ripping follicles out by the roots! If anything, she’s more outrageous than Wayne pretending he’s being modest about showing us his tracts of land. But perhaps he just doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s wearing a wire to investigate Heather’s obviously under-the-table beautician dealings. Ryan must be a damn good phone sex operator if he can put the same person on hold when he’s charging $4.95 a minute! Maybe said person has a fetish for muzak and bad puns. And I’m sure Ryan’s “Small Craft Warning” will be the perfect thing they need to signal a Flash Flood Warning all over the tri-state area. Oh yeah, baby.

JESSTHOUGHTS: Yeah, was that one round of Let’s Make a Date a fluke? Maybe that was supposed to be Weird Newscasters too, but there were too many stools and nobody could bear to confront the emotionally fragile props department. This was...about standard, I’d say. Heather’s bit gets cut short, but she manages to show off one of her most useful assets: when she actually has a character to play, she commits to it HARD. Here, as per her character, she commits hard to staring off into space for three minutes straight. Meanwhile, they gave Wayne a slutty girl quirk in the fruitless hope that he might take the hint and realize that his shirt is really tight and kinda thin and you can totally see his nipples, fully erect from the studio air conditioning. And it’s appropriate that Ryan gets a quirk about moonlighting at a second job, because he listlessly sleepwalks through this game yet again. He’s so out of it that he thinks TV weatherman talk about sunrises days ahead of time! By extension, he must also be talking about sex acts he won’t perform until several days from now. (Other severe weather terminology Ryan could’ve sexualized: Inland Hurricane Warning, Heavy Freezing Spray Watch, Urban and Small Stream Flood Advisory, and of course, Evacuation Immediate.)

Leslie Shut Up and Jam: Wayne sings to Lisa Leslie, who is a “WNBA legend”, in the style of Justin Timberlake, who is somehow a multiple Grammy-winning recording artist.

TAILSMUSINGS: Obviously the greatest fashion choice one can choose when they’re already abnormally tall is boots with heels! Because what’s the point of being tall if you can’t make puny non-athletic mortals tremble in fear? Even Wayne decided he needed her to stay benched! I will say that Lisa was more talkative and interactive than the other athletes. No matter what Wayne bounced her way, she kept on dribbling! And we all know Wayne obviously wanted to get into her free shot zone, but Lisa knew that she’d only be a rebound.

JESSTHOUGHTS: Haha, terrible basketball puns. Someone had to do them, because Wayne really didn’t! Most of the song was just about how goddamn tall she is, which means that Wayne could’ve also serenaded Ryan with the this song, with only minimal alterations. And this song sounds lovely, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t really make me laugh, or really feel anything other than “this song songs lovely”. Plus, I can’t really say I approve of the way Wayne goes out of his way to specify that he “want[s] to climb up a stepladder” to her. You need to stop judging things based on closed-minded cultural assumptions, Wayne!

Chewsflash: Heather and Ryan are in the studio, as Colin reports on some surprisingly graphic footage of assorted dental procedures, with blood.

TAILSMUSINGS: Gross-outs have never really been out of the norm for this game, what with the maggots, the Fear Factor montage, and the infamous “stupid human tricks” montage. However, instead of merely showing the grossness of an extreme close-up of someone’s mouth, they decided to make sure that everyone aside from Colin was cringing in pain. I could forgive the examining, the scraping, the drilling and the extracting. But did we really need Orin Scrivello’s money shot at the end? Seeing genuine blood on the TV is very unsettling!

JESSTHOUGHTS: I actually didn’t find this all that disgusting. Maybe it helps that I’ve actually had dental surgery of my own - my wisdom teeth were removed, as my body already contained excessive wisdom levels - as I understood even at the time more or less what they’d be doing in my mouth. This didn’t really surprise me, is what I’m saying. And if you’re one of the few people who weren’t outright horrified by this, then you’ve surely realized that it’s SO BORING OH MY GOD IS IT BORING. Colin doesn’t even give a funny explanation for how this madness started! However, for the first three to four seconds of the game, before the appearance of the telltale dental mirror, I actually thought this might be footage of food being chewed and swallowed, from inside the mouth. In retrospect, I don’t even know how that would work. But would that have been more or less disgusting? Share your thoughts in the comments! (Also, if you watched this on TV, would you mind telling me if this got a content descriptor for “violence”, on account of the bloody sockets?)

The Hangbags of the Christ: Wayne is biking through a forest when he crashes painfully, and paramedics Colin and Ryan rush to his aid. The items in the bags included such exciting things as clothes, makeup, headphones, implied condoms, and a notebook belonging to JESUS HIMSELF.

TAILSMUSINGS: It’s nice to see that Aisha is preparing for her guest role on the cult hit show “Hannibal”! She’s so excited about sinking her teeth into a meatier role on a bigger network! This at least went a little better in the second try, in that they didn’t just haphazardly toss everything out on the floor. I figured that they at least made sure to inspect the bags before choosing them, anyway. Colin, however, is less excited about the fact that he can’t open up the newfangled contraptions in those purses. Not to mention the fact that he found a perfectly good tin of breath mints but couldn’t reveal them because of the brand name. Alas!

JESSTHOUGHTS: Aisha calls this game What Is in the Bag tonight, which sounds a bit stilted in a Mark Trail sort of way, but ultimately it’s not too objectionable. However, if she ever introduces an exciting round of Let Us Make a Date, I’d have to write a strongly worded letter to the CW calling for her immediate dismissal. Do not make it come to that, Aisha. Do. Not.

...anyway, I’ve commented previously about how Wayne plays the antagonist (or “rival”) in most scenes this season. Well, on the rare occasions that he doesn’t, it seems the only other option open to him is to play a man who crashes into a tree and is badly injured. This is probably a more amusing accident than the skiboarding one in Forward/Rewind, if only because it involves Wayne with squirrels in his pants. The fact that Colin and Ryan nearly slice the fucker in two solely using reflected sunlight, like Bond villains, was just icing on the cake.

Crash-Landing Scenery: Ryan and Colin are a honeymooning couple making the most of their first-class flight when their plane hits a big storm and is forced to make an emergency landing in the ocean. Heather and Lisa get to be things.

TAILSMUSINGS: Now that we don’t have the robot Mormon guest stars, Colin can finally go straight for the dials on the radio! Putting Heather in there as well removed some of the tediousness of Colin and Ryan’s ‘don’t touch the guest stars suggestively’ rule. I would’ve preferred to see Helping Hands or another such game, since we’ve been seeing this one so much there’s really not a lot to talk about! But it was somewhat amusing to watch Lisa give her best approximation of a coconut tree – which are fashion models, apparently. Ryan seemed thrilled to have someone as freakishly tall as he is, and he certainly doesn’t make short of this opportunity!

JESSTHOUGHTS: This game features one of my favorite Aisha Reaction Shots of the season! She initially seems to be fairly amused by Ryan’s ‘Virgin’ joke and then in an instant her expression COMPLETELY changes, as she clearly realizes it doesn’t make sense. “If anything, wouldn’t Virgin be the name of an especially chaste airline that wouldn’t involve any seductive rubbing at all?” she ponders, correctly. If you ask me, though, the weirdest thing Ryan says is the joke singling out Heather for being flat-chested, as though Lisa is somehow not. I’m assuming he was just fooled by all the excess fabric hanging off her chest in a way that evokes....a certain sagginess, shall we say. Well, either way, Ryan is a dick and THEY’RE FINE THE WAY THEY ARE. Lisa, having been spared Ryan’s dickishness there, seems to love this game. She especially seems to love being a tree. Judging by the shifting poses she assumes in the guise of a tree, I think she may actually be a Sudowoodo. The giant green pea rocks fell off her fingers at some point, but she’s totally Sudowoodo.

Team Roster: Lisa is a basketball coach giving a pre-game pep talk to her team, which rather unwisely seems to consist of Wayne, Heather, Colin, and Ryan.

TAILSMUSINGS: Lisa surprisingly seems to be the most talkative in this game. Also, while there could’ve been a delay on what was on their monitor and what was displayed on the screen, she seemed to know Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson’s names right off the bat. Do we have another guest star here who has actually seen the show before? She did seem very into things and like she was trying, at least. See, swimmers? Congeniality goes a long way toward winning medals!

JESSTHOUGHTS: “You’re sensational to a person”? Is that really something that people say? You’ve gone a long way towards proving yourself to be Whose Line’s most insane host yet, Aisha. As for the actual “game”, um... I dunno. Ryan’s joke about Mark Leveson being “injured” and “not in the game”. Intentional reference to the fact that he’s not as involved as Dan Patterson? Maybe? Probably not. Credits suck.

HINDMOST TAILSMUSINGS: I had a feeling that it would be difficult to live up to Wilson Bethel, and I was correct. While there were various parts in this episode that did give me laughs, it was dimmed by the repetition of some stale games. My main complaints are that Heather wasn’t given an opportunity to do much of anything, and the showing of the blood in Newsflash still squicks me out. Be careful what you wish for with less censorship, I suppose!

ULTIMATE JESSTHOUGHTS: Yeah, we’re back to pretty middling territory. Serenades have gotten old, Living Scenery was old the second time it was played, there’s two news-themed games for some reason... I could go on and on complaining. You know I could! But I’d also like to say that tonight’s What’s in the Bag has really grown on me - Ryan and Colin seem really awkward with it, but maybe Whose Line needs a few more games that actually force these guys out of their comfort zone. With any luck, in season two they’ll stop adhering so closely to the late-period Drew’s Line aesthetic and try a lot more new stuff. (oh and less special guests please)

NEXT WEEK ON NEW WHOSE LINE: It’s the first episode of the season without a special celebrity guest! Really! The absence of a fifth person hogging the stage will, of course, give fourth-seater Keegan Michael Key even more leeway to be wacky wacky WACKY! All this, plus offensive Mexican stereotypes!

New Whose Line! Episode 6: The Exciting Wilson Bethel

Hi, all! Jess here. Due to various circumstances, Taylor’s sitting this one out, and I’m flying solo this week. I’m not necessarily claiming that the extremely boring synchronized swimmers temporarily broke him, but I’m also not necessarily claiming that they didn’t at least contribute. Don’t worry, he’s fine, and he’ll be back as normal next week! In the meantime, I’ll do my best to regurgitate the general thoughts he’s shared with me as competently as possible.

Starring Wayne Brady, Gary Anthony Williams, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Celebrity Guest Wilson Bethel, from 78 episodes of The Young and The Restless!

(Watch it here!)

Weird Chestbursters: Colin anchors. Gary is an upbeat old Cajun musician who is hard to understand. Wayne is an entire episode of Oprah’s Favorite Things. Ryan is a grotesque hostile alien posing as a weatherman, whose disguise is wearing off.

Gary did a good enough job - Taylor would like to congratulate him on creating convincing gibberish that doesn’t sound like “someone decided to throw Esperanto and a Scottish accent in a blender” - but nonetheless I’d like to draw your attention to GARY’S PRIORITIES: His Cajun musician does only two extremely easy-to-miss musical things, namely throwing the word “zydeco” into one of his Cajun rambles, and mime-holding a banjo for, like, one second. On the other hand, he makes a point of interrupting the game to lick Colin’s hand, and he also makes far more obvious references to his love of devouring chickens and alligator tails!

Wayne, meanwhile, does a great job of making his lame quirk funny. Let me rephrase: Wayne does a suspiciously great job of making his lame quirk funny, as though he has a long-standing beef with Oprah and/or her Favorite Things, and has been awaiting the day when he would finally be given an organic opportunity to knock her down a peg or two on national television! Still, it works really well, with the minor caveat that having a megalomaniac literally just scream “MEEEEEEEEEEEE!” is what passes, and has passed, for satire on Family Guy, and therefore it’s kind of sad. But the audience reactions are great, aren’t they? I don’t know what’s funnier - the fact that Wayne eventually manages to wear down almost every single person in the audience until they gave in and checked their seats, or the three or four people still adamantly refuse to join in regardless. “You won’t make ME cooperate with a very simple and reasonable request, nosiree!”

And Ryan seemed to be sleepwalking through this, pretty much. He hasn’t really been justifying his position as the all-important weatherman in the new series, has he? Or maybe he was deliberately portraying an alien from a society that lacks the concept of enthusiasm. Yeah, that’s it.....

Oh, and after taking some time to think about it, maybe I was too hard on Gary. As Colin has proven over the years, not all improvisers can be singers, and this game proves quite handily that he isn’t one either. You’re absolved of your sins, Gary!

Wilson Duett: Wayne and Gary sing to Wilson, who plays “bad boy Wade Kinsella” on the CW’s critically panned Hart of Dixie, in the style of motown.

Waitasecond. Gary IS a singer? And a fairly competent one at that?? YOU LYING SON OF A LYING BITCH! You’re un-absolved of your sins, Gary!

In all seriousness, this was not a talent I expected Gary to have, so I’m pleasantly surprised. I appreciated how well he nailed the vocal style, even as I was too ignorant to get most of his references! Judging by their stony silence, I think most of the people in the audience didn’t know who Wilson Pickett was, and neither did I. (But Taylor did, and presumably the reference successfully took him back to a time before he was born.) And then there’s the “turn your head and cough” thing, which just seemed random as fuck to me when I first watched this, because I’ve never seen Hart of Dixie and wasn’t even aware that it’s a “medical” “drama”. Judging by Wayne’s little breakdown, he’s never seen it either! But he hasn’t seen any of the shows that the celebrity guests have been from, so what’s new?

By the way, fans of Gary Anthony Williams yaoi will appreciate that this game involves the implication that he was COMPLETELY SHIRTLESS in an unaired game, combined with the visual of him seductively rubbing another man’s chest. (Wilson gets bonus points right out of the gate for not freaking out about this, by the way.) Myself, I’m just pondering why “Dixieland” is used as a euphemism for sexy washboard abs, and not.....you know where I’m going with this, right? Weenies.

I know I didn’t really have anything to say about Wayne, but Tails would like compliment him on the Mason-Dixon Line line. I’m mostly passing this along as an excuse to say “Mason-Dixon Line line”.

These Guys Weigh an Obscene Amount: Gary and Colin are two bickering buddy cops who have been suspended from duty for being out of shape, joined by Wayne as the showoff police fitness coach forcing them to exercise. The styles included a Paranormal Activity movie, a penguin documentary, and America’s Best Dance Crew.

Okay, I know Ryan can’t play this because of the toll his freakish gigantism has taken on his spine, but making Gary do this seems about as mean-spirited. Especially since it’s a scene about how he needs to get back in shape. Do you have no tact? He’s not very good at the game’s physical component - a bit like a turtle stuck on its back, trying in vain to flip itself back over, I’d say if I was also mean-spirited - but nonetheless he appears to focus so much on the physical component that his dialogue consists almost exclusively of just narrating what he’s going to do right before he does it. Also, he sounds a bit like a post-pubescent Meatwad here, for some reason.

Because none of the five props the show bought for this game are things you’d find in any gym anywhere, tonight’s Sideways Scenery consists entirely of things the props department could throw together at the last minute with black construction paper and electrical tape. The weight-lifting bench is especially, um, nice.

I still don’t understand how they choose when to be specific with their styles, and when to be vague. Like the penguin documentary thing. Gee, I wonder which of the many famous and financially successful penguin documentaries they’ll do! Followed immediately by America’s Best Dance Crew, which someone like Colin would obviously watch religiously and thus be able to differentiate it from the many other reality dance competitions out there!

CBS UPDATE: Creepy Blue Stanchion is back this week! And, to make up for missing last week’s episode, he (yes of course it’s a dude, just look how phallic it is) manages to simultaneously exist in two different physical locations here! We shouldn’t be surprised, though. After all...

Rub-a-Dub-Dub, Three-Headed Man in a Tub: Wayne, Ryan, and Wilson sing “I Can’t Live Without Your Rubber Duckie”.

Holy shit, they finally played a game that involves an audience suggestion! Aaaaaaand I’m starting to understand why they don’t do them more often: Aisha seems to have a hard time making anything out when multiple people are talking at once. (She must hate most of the credit readings she’s seen so far, too.) Wilson, meanwhile, seems to adore being bombarded by a thick wall of indistinguishable audience shouting, given that he is grinning widely the entire time he’s doing it. Because he’s high, on drugs.

Come to think of it, though, this game came from the same taping as What’s in the Bag, the only other game we’ve seen that relied on audience input in any way. Was this the only taping they used audience contributions at? Because that would be really really dumb!

In theory, now that this game has a genre-neutral title, they could actually do songs in styles other than Broadway musicals. But, nope, I guess they’re not going to anyway. Oh well. Remember the fabled taping where they supposedly tried Three-Headed Country Star? Did that ever actually air? I couldn’t bring myself to watch most of season eight, I confess. (In all fairness, ABC Family couldn’t bring itself to air the back half of the season either.)

Anyway, it was nice to see this back, even though this was far from being the most interesting playing we’ve seen. The word choices are a bit on the safe side. Wilson does a creditable job, in that he only says two words in one go on a single occasion on his first playing whereas Drew did it, like, half a dozen times, every single time.

Helping Harts: Ryan is a knowledgeable and sophisticated senior citizen doctor in a small Alabama town, teaching medical student Wilson about “medical stuff”. Through a miracle of modern medical science, Colin’s arms have been grafted onto Ryan’s body.

Ryan’s nametag is a bit hard to make out, so I’m not positive about this, but his character’s name appears to be Franklin Hill. Huh. That’s really boring. Maybe it’s supposed to be an in-joke for the crew, though. Perhaps someone who works on the show grew up in Franklin Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles. Or perhaps someone is a fan of the fermented beveragery of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Hill Vineyards. Or perhaps someone is a fan of the educational futurism stylings of Franklin Hill & Associates, LLC. The possibilities are endless, really - and that was just the first page of Google results!

Despite including such nasty props as “cough syrup”, “petroleum jelly”, and “urine”, this playing is actually one of the tastiest Helping Hands they could’ve hoped for! The pee is obviously just frothy apple juice, the generic Vaseline appears to be a hearty banana custard, and if what Ryan says about the cough syrup tasting alcoholic is accurate, it’s probably wine due to the similar color. (There’s also an unused bottle of rubbing alcohol on the table, which is probably water or something lame like that.) Isn’t it amazing and shocking and outrageous how Ryan made the totally spontaneous decision to consume these substances that were replaced with obviously edible things? I don’t know how they do it!

In all fairness, though, this was at least more fun than the last playing, with Kyle Richards’ blank stare. Wilson actually cracks jokes! They’re not always funny, but he does! He responds to the things Ryan says quickly and without hesitation! He even takes the bullet for Ryan and volunteers to drink the gross room-temperature apple juice! But the most important thing, I think, is that he seems to genuinely be having a great time. Do you suppose he’s actually a fan of the show? It would make sense. Whose Line is probably VERY fun to watch when you’re high on a combination of weed, alcoholic cough syrup, and nitrous oxide!

SHAMEFUL CONFESSION: I have as much trouble putting on latex gloves as Colin does here, and I can’t even use standing behind a tall dude as an excuse. :(

Alcoholicredits: Wayne, Gary, Colin, and Ryan are bartenders showing Wilson their best cocktails.

It’s good to see that everyone on the show still finds Dan Patterson to be completely loathsome! It just wouldn’t feel right if they liked him, even a tiny bit! However, I wonder what Ryan’s issue is with Associate Producer Juliet Morrish, whose name Wilson gets wrong by the way. Either that, or “Julienne Morrish” was supposed to be a mildly carrot-themed pun on her name. (Probably not.)

This is the most fun I’ve had with an episode since the first week of the new series! I’m not gonna lie, I’m irritated that we still haven’t had a single episode sans celebrity guests, but at least Wilson fit in pretty well. Much like audience members participating in games like Sound Effects, it seems like younger male celebrity guests seem to do the best, simply because they’re more willing to humiliate themselves in front of a bunch of people. In fact, guys seem to ENJOY humiliating themselves in front of a bunch of people!

Also, as this was his second and final episode of the season, it’s time to hand down my VERDICT ON GARY ANTHONY WILLIAMS: Despite how negative my comments might’ve seemed tonight, I do like him! I guess I was just hyper-focusing on him because he’s new blood. Well, he wasn’t the funniest performer, but I think his ability to get so many words in edgewise around these guys was remarkable. Doesn’t that alone merit bringing him back sometime and seeing how he does once he’s actually acclimated to the environment? I’d say YES. (Only time will tell if his debut is as successful as this season’s other upcoming fourth-seater debut, Nyima Funk, whose episodes the CW is clearly so proud of that they’re putting off airing them for as long as possible!)

FINAL THOUGHT: Before this episode aired, I had a dream about watching it with Tails. However, since I’ve never seen Wilson Bethel in anything and really know nothing about him, my brain used Jack McBrayer as a stand-in for him. Everyone kept calling him Wilson Bethel, of course, but he was clearly Jack McBrayer. Dreams are weird. (Sorry, I guess these aren’t funny every week. Oh well.)

NEXT WEEK ON NEW WHOSE LINE: Popular condensed soup heiress Heather Anne Campbell spends her second and final chance for glory this season sitting on the sidelines and watching Wayne Brady sing to lovely Lisa Leslie!

New Whose Line! Episode 5: Colin & Ryan at the London 2012 Olympic Games

Featuring Wayne Brady, Jeff Davis, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Special Star Guests Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva, from the “Participant” ribbon-winning U.S. Olympic synchronized swimming team!

a review/wall of snark by Jess (in green) and Tails (in red)

Chihuahuallywood Director: Jeff and Ryan are criminals cutting through an electrified barbed-wire fence to break into a warehouse, when security guard Wayne arrives in a jeep full of guard dogs to stop them. Colin directs, instructing them to redo the scene as fratboys, and “sexy”.

• Well, this was alright I guess. It’s always fun to see Wayne’s mic pack straps that look kind of like a thong peeking up above his pants, because he’s a sexy bald tramp. I’m not so sure that I needed to see him reprimand Ryan for comparing his genitalia to the wrong dog breed though. There wasn’t time for the third style, but apparently there are still penis reference quotas that simply MUST be met.
• I love how Ryan actually tries to take the scene in an emotional direction, like a REAL actor, but then Jeff goes “fuck that, look at the warehouse!” This also brings up the question of why prisoners would want to go to this warehouse in the first place. Wouldn’t you think that they’d try somewhere that, y’know, doesn’t have cops right behind you? What is this, Florida? (Florida would definitely be the state that would keep a warehouse somewhere like on a prison compound...)
• When Aisha read out the scene, I was under the impression that the “electrified barbed-wire fence” and security dog-jeep were implied to be protecting a warehouse, and Jeff and Ryan’s characters were just ordinary ne’er-do-wells. She never mentions or even implies anything prison-related, and yet there Ryan and Jeff are, fabricating a prison out of abso-fucking-lutely NOWHERE. I guess they believe that all the criminals have already been locked up, thanks to our stellar criminal justice system!
• Does Jeff really believe that there’s anyone in college who doesn’t know how to get high? He sounds more like a twelve-year-old who’s trying to seem “adult” by snorting Pixy Stix. None of the high, all of the damaged nasal cavity! (Cavity. Eh? Eh?)
• Notice that Jeff throws away his first can of beer, only to pull that second can out of his pocket, already opened ahead of time. I know these things shouldn’t bother me, because these guys don’t do the kind of detail-oriented world-building improv that actually cares about precise mime skillz. BUT IT STILL DOES SOMETIMES. What the fuck, Jeff? It’s gonna get all warm and flat and stale and super-gross, and that’s assuming it doesn’t just spill all over your pocket! C’mon!!

Women’s Duet: Wayne and Jeff sing to Bafflingly Special Star Guests Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva, who got to go on vacation to London last year, in the style of a boy band.

• I’m a little disappointed that Aisha made so many references to Wayne and Jeff being unable to control themselves at the sight of women in bathing suits, since we thought she was going to help Whose Line become less of a boys club. The others were actually trying to make things as non-creepy as possible! Plus it’s somewhat bizarre that Aisha brought so much attention to the swimsuits, since they’re actually pretty modest, all things considering.
• Not only do Jeff and Wayne make it through this game with almost no sex jokes (not even Jeff’s now-traditional filthy rhyming couplet), they make it though with almost no jokes at all, because they’re too busy being totally weirded out. And, um, so was I. Mary and Mariya just dance and laugh and count to themselves, completely oblivious to everything that’s going on around them. Like GIGGLING SWIMSUIT ZOMBIES.
• I’m wondering if the girls worked out that “dancing” routine ahead of time, or if they realized, “Oh crap, we can’t just stand here, we gotta start doing something. Uh... just do whatever arm things we do while in water! Smile and nod, smile and nod!”
• Just look at those smooth moves, though! That’s Olympic 11th-place caliber dancing right there!
• I think Ryan and Colin’s laughing contains a teensy bit of schadenfreude, considering that both of them have suffered eye injuries over the show’s tenure. Wayne’s had this coming for a long time!

Four Word Rewind: Colin and Wayne are snowboarders who are performing crazy stunts when Wayne wipes out disastrously. Ryan is the fearless paramedic who arrives on his snowmobile, and Jeff is Wayne’s distraught girlfriend who skis to his aid.

• Oh, so this is a Whose Line thing too now? As part of this season’s ongoing quest to turn Whose Line into Trust Us With Your Life Version 2.0, this even uses the same pre-recorded disembodied voice as Trust Us! Is it Wayne? It sounds almost but not quite like Wayne, and if it is, I wonder how weird it is to take orders from one’s disembodied self! Whose Line’s probably an interesting show to do high...
• Isn’t it just hilarious when the performers play this game so completely safe that they don’t screw up once? Isn’t it just so funny that we’re getting a bunch of repetitions of one long syllable? Isn’t it funny? Isn’t it?? LAUGH, DAMN YOU!
• This game appears to be controlled by some sort of rudimentary comedy robot that is programmed to respond to every somewhat amusing action the improvisers take with a hearty REEEEWIND and then another FORWARD, so they effectively have to do it three times in a row. And there’s probably an egg timer attached that triggers the final BACK TO THE TOP. Fun fact: as a result of this behavior, most words in this scene actually are said exactly four times!
• When someone is giving mouth-to-mouth, it’s important to pump them like a fireplace bellow, as Colin so cleverly demonstrated. Especially if that person doesn’t even technically require mouth-to-mouth.
• Wayne and Colin are such incredible snowboarders that they can snowboard with one snowboard on each foot! Snowboard!

Living Sequinery: Ryan and Colin are two adventurers and they are hacking their way through a snake-infested jungle, and when night falls, they make “sparkly, pretty” camp. Not Very Special Star Guests Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva provide the props that you probably shouldn’t actually interact with.

• This has what it, in theory, an unusual dynamic for Living Scenery: Ryan and Colin seem to go out of their way to avoid even minimal physical contact with the ladies. Except, that doesn’t actually take the scene in a different direction at all. They still crack all the usual filthy jokes, but they only follow through with them after much hesitation, if at all, so it’s just more awkward than anything. Maybe this is NOT an improv game that should be played with people you’re worried about offending!
• I think I can only recall one time in my memory that Ryan and Colin DIDN’T have to use the props in an outdoorsy activity. This game was already getting very stale, but now it’s starting to rot. There’s only so many times you can laugh at the exact same jokes. Ryan and Colin have two girls half their age in bathing suits and they’re trying not to grab onto any part of them that might get them arrested. Comedy!
• When you’ve got a terrible game, Colin’s reactions are usually the best part. I particularly like his brief “SHIT, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS” gesture when their fire curls up into a ball for no reason!
• Apparently being firewood means doing your best Thriller hands! Man, these girls really are zombies!
• I think every single round of Living Scenery ever has involved backpacks that are put on to much fanfare, worn for about five seconds, and then discarded, never to be seen again. They don’t ever seem to keep anything in them, but they sure are insistent on taking them! Because how else will Ryan keep his back so terribly out-of-shape?
• Remember kids, next time you’re in the wild, just play London Bridge if you ever encounter snakes! They love nursery rhyme games and will get too distracted to feast on you!
• After seeing Mary and Mariya attached in an attempt to convey length, let me just say that I’m glad this was a snake-infested jungle, and not a centipede-infested jungle. (I’m sorry.)

Horizontal Scene: Seductive housewife Jeff has invited hunky electrician Colin over to fix the light on her ceiling (IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN), when her husband, Wayne, comes home unexpectedly in the middle of a storm. The styles used include Twilight, kung-fu film, and disaster film.

• This was, well, Sideways Scene, but they actually managed to remember the scene all the way through the end this time! That must be a new record! Granted, by the time we’re in kung-fu, the scene has deteriorated to the point where everyone’s just blandly restating the original scenario Aisha gave them. “I am an electrician!”
• And the final style was obviously used to make sure the performers remembered that they were supposed to be in some sort of storm. What were they even going to do with that style anyway? Have a supposed “blackout” so they could find an excuse to do more not-cheating?
• Whose Line’s budget for this game only covered five props, which we’ll be seeing in varying combinations for years to come. This arrangement is conspicuously similar to the apartment in the previous episode; the only difference is the removal of the sawhorse fan. So, in the absence of a gag about dangling from said fan, we get a joke about dangling from the light instead.
• Apparently being in the same room as the electrician when your husband comes home counts as cheating now? Why isn’t country music all over THAT one?
• I’m sad to report the temporary disappearance of Creepy Blue Stanchion, but I’ll keep you posted in the coming weeks! Perhaps it felt that Mary and Mariya fulfilled the Creepiness Quota more than adequately on their own, so it decided to just stay home this week.
• While Jeff is soulless and conceited enough to be a good Bella, we’re totally missing out on his Keanu!Edward impression! Also, apparently now Bella can fly. Or make snow angels, whatever.

Women’s Duet-its: Wayne, Jeff, Colin, Ryan, and Pointlessly Special Star Guests Mary Killman and Mariya Koroleva are Olympic synchronized swimmers practicing their routine.

• I realize they wanted to milk the guests for all they were worth, but didn’t we already see a practice session in the first game they were in? It’s pretty much just an excuse to make Colin and Ryan do it, and for Wayne to try to sneak off only to get dragged back in. And I didn’t realize that synchronized swimming practice consisted mainly of jazz hands!
• Don’t you just love it when the style for the credit reading is a situation in which people wouldn’t ordinarily talk much?

GOD YOU GUYS JUST TELL US WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF THE EPISODE ALREADY ALRIGHT??

• This episode earns a resounding ‘meh’ for it’s bland games and equally bland guest stars!
• It’s not a great episode of Whose Line, but it’s a pretty damn okay episode of Trust Us With Your Life!

FINAL THOUGHTS

• If it’s possible for synchronized swimming to be funny, I think it might have already completed it’s quota in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. That’s pretty much all I could think about when I was watching that Duet in this episode, anyway! Because the swimmers looked to be about as good as Austin was.
• Did you know that professional synchronized swimmers apply Knox-brand gelatin to their hair, to hold it in place while they’re in the water? Isn’t that weird? Anyway, I seriously think this would’ve been funnier if it consisted of a bunch of unflavored gelatin jokes. Missed opportunity! Hopefully an episode in season two will feature the reanimated skeleton of Rose Knox as a special guest, giving the show a shot at unflavored gelatin redemption.

NEXT WEEK ON NEW WHOSE LINE: It's a gravy-soaked night of dry, flaky comedy with a side of grits, as special guest Wilson Bethel stops by to remind you that he stars in the CW's critically panned Hart of Dixie, and fourth-seater Gary Anthony Williams probably hopes you don't remember that he starred in the WB's critically panned Blue Collar TV!

New Whose Line! Episode 4: Kyle XX

Featuring Wayne Brady, Jonathan Mangum, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Special Star Guest Kyle Richards, from The Million-Dollar Dixie Deliverance!

a review/wall of snark by Jess and Tails, who had more or less the same thoughts on this episode

Weird Newscarriers: Colin anchors, reciting a pun he thought of ahead of time. Co-anchor Jonathan is an excited game show host announcing the grand prize, Colin. Sportscaster Wayne is in the video game Grand Theft Auto. Ryan is a day in the life of a female supermodel.

• Can you believe this is only the second quirk game so far on New Whose Line? We’ve been interested in seeing if this game would return, and it has, to moderate success! The best thing about it was, without a doubt, Jonathan trying to carry Colin over to Aisha, and doing so about as competently as a three-year-old trying to carry a cat for the first time. (Be sure to pay attention to Colin’s “I’m not gonna complain because I’m a good scene partner but SERIOUSLY DUDE WHAT THE FUCK” face!) The worst thing about it was, without a doubt, Wayne also doing a bit with Aisha immediately afterwards, as if it would be novel a second time within the same minute. And Ryan also did some stuff too.
• Oh hai new news music! We’re not sure how we feel about you yet, but we’re definitely acknowledging that you are here, and you certainly sound very newsy if nothing else!
• The closed captioning misquotes Colin’s tiny pianist joke as “penis”, thus helpfully demonstrating that VITAC understands what it was a pun on. You’re welcome, hearing impaired people! (And 5’10” is average we’ll have you know!)
• Jonathan wins a prize for the first bald joke of the new show that was actually made at Colin’s expense! And it’s the shiniest prize we’ve given away all year!
• In case anyone wonders why they don’t make Aisha do the winner game thang, just watch her interaction with Wayne! “Oh jeez, I was really hoping you wouldn’t talk to me. Money? What do I have that I could use as money? Ummmm. Shit. It’s so hard to find any good money props on my desk, with all this paper in the way- oh my god YES! I have cards! Good thinking, Aisha! Hey, Wayne- oh. You’ve moved onto a different bit already. Well, that’s okay, I don’t actually have your money that I was just holding in my hand a second ago! So, forget you ever saw that, okay?”
• Ryan pulls an almond from one of his shirt pockets, but then just five seconds later declares that he forgot to put on any clothes, so we have to conclude that this chick’s just walking around with almonds glued to her boobs. Now you know what separates the regular models from the truly super models: it’s the chestnuts!

P.E.T.A. (Props with the Excessive Talking about Animals): It’s Wayne and Colin (the old Nickelodeon logo, recolored light pink and sliced in half) “vs.” Jonathan and Ryan (a pair of silicone buttshovels).

• In case you didn’t keep count, because you’re not obsessive-compulsive for some reason, there was a whopping SEVEN animal impressions in this short round: a seal, a pair of baboons, a turkey, a pair of flies, a relatively lame Colin dinosaur, a beloved cartoon mouse hideously mutated as the result of a tragic nuclear disaster, and a seven-wanged bull. (That’s two milking-a-male-animal jokes already this season! Already more than enough for us, but at this rate, odds are they’ll squeeze out at least one more before the season’s over...)
• Wayne, having basically played a pimp in the last game, starts this game out by also playing a (polydactyly) pimp. That’ll get people to stop shouting quotes from that one Chappelle’s Show sketch at him for sure!
• As soon as we saw Jonathan and Ryan’s prop, we knew it would inevitably be used as a butt. To their credit, they had the self-restraint to wait and do one other joke before resorting to it, but still. Are we all twelve years old here?

The Dubbing Down of America: Ryan, the owner of a Beverly Hills fashion boutique, is tending to a demanding customer played by Questionably Special Star Guest Kyle Richards, when “rival housewife” Wayne enters wearing - gasp - an outfit that Kyle wanted for herself! Colin provides Kyle’s voice for this compelling human drama.

• This was bland, but to be fair, it’s not really Kyle’s fault. She does everything expected of her in relatively competent fashion, from flapping her gums and waving her arms hysterically to doing the splits without hesitation as though that bit was worked out before the show or something! On the other hand, she's still not without blame, in the sense that Special Star Guest Dubbing’s tolerability depends on how much comedic mileage Colin can get out of their profession, and it turns out that being one of many interchangeable materialists doesn’t do much for him. Oh well.
• Like Hollywood Director, Dubbing almost invariably involves Wayne as the obvious antagonist, and we’ve accepted that this shall always be so. However, we still don’t understand why it specifically revolves around some sort of impromptu competition more often than not, even when it doesn’t make sense. “I’ll prove I can wear that dress better than you by besting you at a physical challenge of my choosing!” (And then the dress gets destroyed and NOBODY gets to have it!)
• Despite the shallow nature of this scene, it was nonetheless deep enough to make Jonathan stroke his chin contemplatively in the background.
• POP POLL: What’s more baffling, Kyle’s haircut that appears to be designed specifically to cover her breasts for a tasteful Nude Scene, or her ill-fitted outfit that makes it look like someone just threw a tarp over her seconds before she went onstage?

Spyin’ Wayne’s Seen: Wayne and Jonathan are undercover cops bugging the apartment of notorious gangster Colin when he bursts in, fleeing from a shootout, and catches them in the act. The styles included The Exorcist, “martial arts film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, and superhero movie.

• Once you’ve seen one Sideways Scene, you’ve sideways seen them all! Wayne tries to liven things up by electing to combat a mighty ceiling fan WITH HIS BARE HANDS, but it doesn’t really work, because Jonathan already did a bit with said ceiling fan. First Aisha in Weird Newscasters, and now this. He’s really slow tonight!
• Weird selection of styles here - one a broad genre, one a specific film, and one a somewhat odd pairing of specific film and the broad genre it falls into. If they’re gonna be lame and use styles that are obviously pre-selected to make people levitate and crawl on the ceiling and shit, they should at least be professional and consistent about it!
• But why use those gravity-defying styles in the first place? The most successful bit in this game (insomuch as Sideways Scene bits can be successful) consists of Wayne and Jonathan precariously balancing on wobbly furniture, giving this game a taste of realistic physics! Shouldn’t that alone tell them that the styles are focusing on entirely the wrong thing?
• What kind of apartment has a ceiling fan (strapped to a sawhorse!) and a separate dangling light fixture less than three feet apart? A really bad apartment, that’s what! And that’s not even the weirdest thing about the secret Sideways Scene room. You can briefly glimpse a lone blue plastic stanchion sitting just off the red mat, with no apparent purpose, and it’s kinda creeping us out!

I Just Flew In From Beverly Hills and Boy Are My Helping Hands Tired: Sassy female flight attendant Ryan is showing a first-class passenger, Fabric-Swimmingly Special Star Guest Kyle Richards, all of the amenities on his cart. Colin provides Ryan’s forearms.

• We’ve seen Ryan get hammered in Helping Hands before, but we haven’t seen him get hammered in Helping Hands as a masochistic Liberace/Disney-style Mad Hatter, so why not? Just imagining the backstories that would’ve lead to either of those people becoming stewardesses is FASCINATING.
• Since contributions from non-seated guests rarely match up to those from the seated performers, we have to give Kyle credit - she is every bit as good at Helping Hands as Kathy Greenwood! She even occasionally utters a word or two, as when she helpfully notes that “delish” is short for “delicious”. The one guy in the audience who actually appreciated the martial arts film clarification was probably glad to have this one, too.
• Tails, who has flown before, would like you to know that most flights don’t have proper meals anymore. But if they did, yeah, it’d almost certainly be cold and you’d have to mash it up in order to eat it, so this is accurate in spirit if nothing else! And Ryan seems to enjoy it anyway - at least more than whatever was in the GOD-IS-THAT-SMOOTH bottle. Taylor’s money is on cheap bourbon; Jess thinks it looks a lot like vanilla extract. (It’s still alcoholic!)
• Other amenities on Whose Airline is it Anyway flights include complimentary neck pillows (which may be used as absorption devices in case of pasta), complimentary leis (which Kyle feels the need to smell even though they’re obviously fake flowers), and a tiny model airplane for everyone on the larger, more impressive airplane to stare at (which is just STUPID).

Golden Statuette-its: Wayne and Colin are two bitter actors accepting an award, in some alternate universe where pairs of actors regularly accept awards together.

• Of the five episodes that have aired so far, this is the only one that doesn’t shoehorn the “special star guest” into the credits. Maybe Kyle stormed out after Helping Hands and refused to participate further, for she was outraged at almost being forced to consume the coffeepasta of the common man. Whatever the case, Dan Patterson gets Jessica’s cookie even earlier into the series than we expected. It’s not even stale yet!
• I wonder how Jonathan feels about his name being used as a slang term for testicles. For that matter, how would you, the reader, feel about your name being testicle slang? We’re genuinely curious!

GOD YOU GUYS JUST TELL US WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF THE EPISODE ALREADY ALRIGHT??

• It was a step up from last week, at least! Kyle was largely useless, but that pretty much goes without saying for special guests. They can’t all be as willing to embarrass themselves in front of a live studio audience as Kevin McHale, after all! (SO WHY ARE THEY EVEN THERE?) And Jonathan doesn’t get to do a lot, but he did alright in his Whose Line debut so we’d love to see him come back. It’s still possible, since Colin is the only regular who isn’t an Executive Producer, and Wayne and Ryan are monstrous sadists who don’t care one iota about Colin’s feelings!

FINAL THOUGHTS

• The points-don’t-matter jokes, always the height of satirical hilarity, include a potshot at the Kardashians tonight. Haha, it’s funny because the Kardashians are shallow and none too smart! Completely unlike the classy and thoughtful Real Housewives of Beverly Hills! Only on Bravo! Check your local listings!