Tuesday, August 6, 2013

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!

2 comments:

  1. I have to say, I liked your format for the previous episode review better, so I hope you return to that for future reviews since it's easier to read and follow along with. Your comments are still very amusing to read, but I just prefer things in chronological order.

    Sadly, I do agree that while this episode started out promisingly with Hollywood Director, a game I always love, it did take a downward spiral with the swimsuit women. Ugh. I don't know why they insist on playing Living Scenery over and over again when the jokes are always the same and now the guys are too awkward to really touch their freaking scenery. I was a little amused by Ryan's awkwardness and Colin's reactions, as you pointed out, but it's just so tedious and the game is really dragging the show down, in my opinion.

    Though I disagree with you about Sideways Scene, since that's one that always amuses me for some reason. I don't know why, but something about it just makes me start laughing, and I'm even more amused when they actually remember the original scene, which, granted, has only happened once, but I'm positive it will happen again.

    Anyway, Hollywood Director was my favorite game of this ep and I was also surprised when Jeff and Ryan brought the prison element into it and actually tried to make the scene somewhat emotional. I really love scene games for that reason, since I like seeing what touches the performers bring to it before 'Cut' gets called, and I think this was a very amusing playing.

    Hopefully future episodes will focus more on the scene games and less on the cheap ploys like Living Scenery. I know that seems like a pipe dream now, but I'm going to stay optimistic about it. :)

    Anyway, thanks again for writing such an amusing review, though I hope you reconsider about the format. Also hey, Tails, I saw you making a dig about Florida up there! I think you may have forgotten a little something that goes 'Miami: The land that time remembered'! XD

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    1. I agree with you about last week's format being better! Tails and I actually discussed this last night, and we agreed to wait and see what people thought. So, thanks for helping with that!

      I think I'd like Sideways Scene if they didn't do it in, like, every episode of Trust Us too. I'm just burnt out. Since they are gonna keep playing it forever, though, I at least hope future playings are more like this one! Also, I hope that they buy some new furniture sometime. Maybe a rocking chair. That might be amusing for five seconds or so!

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