Starring:
Jason Lee as Spaceman Bob
Jamie Kennedy as Spaceman John
Laraine Newman as Becky
Edie McClurg as The Farmer's Wife
Harvey Korman as The Farmer
Chris Sarandon as Carson Walls
Bryce Ingman as Bed Sheet Ghost
Tracy Middendorf as Cheerleader
Steve Monroe as Gorilla
Kira Reed Lorsch as Vampiress
Maureen Teefy as Chrome
Tracy Middendorf as Cheerleader
Steve Monroe as Gorilla
Kira Reed Lorsch as Vampiress
Maureen Teefy as Chrome
Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines
Directed by: Tobe Hooper
“Panic”, directed by Tobe Hooper, starts off as one of the better episodes in the series: for the first few minutes, I was completely enthralled. It even had me thinking, at least for a little while, that this one would be restrained enough to actually deliver on all that it had promised. But I forgot that it wouldn’t be an episode of “Perversions of Science” if we weren’t constantly blasted in the head with an ever-increasing barrage of ridiculous ideas. It has the feeling of writers who were planning on an hour-long show, then learned they had to truncate their idea down to just thirty minutes at the last minute; no twist has time to settle before we’re hit with another one, until what was actually a very solid idea ends up essentially committing suicide.
Carson Walls (a rather lame take-off on Orson Welles) is a radio broadcaster who is furiously working on his new dramatic masterpiece. Entitled “Invasion of the Martians”, he is certain that this radio play is really going to resonate with listeners, and history tells us that he is right. This, of course, is a take-off on Welles’ own real-life adaptation of “War of the Worlds”, which was based off of the 1898 novel by H.G. Wells. Reports of the time have mentioned that the radio broadcast, which was mostly made up of a series of simulated news bulletins, caused real-life panic the day it aired; since then, this notion has been largely refuted, simply because the show had such a small listenership.
We are now introduced to John (Jamie Kennedy…yes, THAT Jamie Kennedy), and Bob (Jason Lee…yes, THAT Jason Lee), two roommates who are throwing a Halloween party later that night. Bob is excited because he found the perfect costume for the both of them: they will be going as aliens. I’ll admit, I thought at this point that I had everything figured out: the newscast would convince everyone, including their fellow partygoers, that aliens were among them, and they’d freak out on John and Bob, thinking they were actually aliens. But you can put that idea to rest, because it's not even close to how it pans out.
Soon it’s nighttime, and all of the partiers have arrived; there are around ten of them total. As expected, the radio broadcast kicks in, and specifically mentions that a bizarre spacecraft has crash-landed in a field in Newark, New Jersey, which of course happens to be just a few short miles from John and Bob’s house. A few more interruptions take place, and the college kids get more and more frightened. These scenes were actually very well done, and while it’s almost impossible to imagine any form of media having the same effect on people today, it shows just how truly believable it could have been back then.
But then at the height of the tension, John disappears into the kitchen, and when he returns….the entire episode starts a baffling, quick descent downhill. Even if I told you what happened next, that John and Bob were actually aliens, and they off everyone at their own party, believing that their own race had landed on Earth and started their takeover, I wouldn’t even be revealing anything about the ending. I’ll admit, as dumb as this idea was to me at first, it slowly started to make sense to me, and I kind of grew to like it: we know what kind of effect this radio drama had on real-life people, so I figured this was just a twist, showing us how real aliens might have reacted to the same radio play.
Then we get yet another twist. This one I will not reveal, but it just once again proves why “Perversions of Science” was such a bad, undercooked show, and it‘s a reason I mentioned earlier: it never believed in words like “subtle”, or “restraint”. Many of the episodes were born of interesting ideas, and thus, actually had solid foundations on which to build fascinating, effective shows. But they seemed to be more interested in blowing an effects budget that wasn’t even there, instead of developing their ideas into something more practical and interesting. This is exactly the case here: it blows two legitimately fresh, solid ideas in favor of an in-your-face finish that insists on being as pointless and “out there” as possible. Trust me, I typically enjoy things that are way outside of the norm, but not when it feels so forced or contrived; here, like with a lot of previous episodes, it just feels like an aimless shitshow.
Another big problem I’m starting to have is that, although it seems like this series wants to push the envelope, every episode is almost unbearably tame. For example, there is a body count of somewhere around ten in this episode, which is by far the highest of any episode to date, yet none of the deaths are even remotely graphic; the only blood that I recall is mouth-blood from a corpse. Even the sex that has appeared in previous episodes is bland; aside from some rather strong language, there’s not much that would have prevented these from airing on network television, even back in 1997. That’s probably another big reason that this show failed to connect with audiences, who were paying a premium to see it.
Ultimately, this was one of the more promising installments of this series, but it’s almost completely squandered by a needlessly over-the-top finale that wallows in stupidity--I went from being completely enthralled to disengaged and depressed over the span of a mere ten minutes. It just feels like it’s trying to bite off way more than it can chew, and that is no doubt a big reason as to why it was canceled in such a short amount of time. That, and Chrome’s double-entendres get really old after a short amount of time to anyone that’s not twelve or sexually-repressed; in other words, she’s no Cryptkeeper, and this is coming from someone who hasn’t really seen any episodes of “Tales from the Crypt”.
EPISODE RATING: 4.5/10
“Panic”, directed by Tobe Hooper, starts off as one of the better episodes in the series: for the first few minutes, I was completely enthralled. It even had me thinking, at least for a little while, that this one would be restrained enough to actually deliver on all that it had promised. But I forgot that it wouldn’t be an episode of “Perversions of Science” if we weren’t constantly blasted in the head with an ever-increasing barrage of ridiculous ideas. It has the feeling of writers who were planning on an hour-long show, then learned they had to truncate their idea down to just thirty minutes at the last minute; no twist has time to settle before we’re hit with another one, until what was actually a very solid idea ends up essentially committing suicide.
Carson Walls (a rather lame take-off on Orson Welles) is a radio broadcaster who is furiously working on his new dramatic masterpiece. Entitled “Invasion of the Martians”, he is certain that this radio play is really going to resonate with listeners, and history tells us that he is right. This, of course, is a take-off on Welles’ own real-life adaptation of “War of the Worlds”, which was based off of the 1898 novel by H.G. Wells. Reports of the time have mentioned that the radio broadcast, which was mostly made up of a series of simulated news bulletins, caused real-life panic the day it aired; since then, this notion has been largely refuted, simply because the show had such a small listenership.
We are now introduced to John (Jamie Kennedy…yes, THAT Jamie Kennedy), and Bob (Jason Lee…yes, THAT Jason Lee), two roommates who are throwing a Halloween party later that night. Bob is excited because he found the perfect costume for the both of them: they will be going as aliens. I’ll admit, I thought at this point that I had everything figured out: the newscast would convince everyone, including their fellow partygoers, that aliens were among them, and they’d freak out on John and Bob, thinking they were actually aliens. But you can put that idea to rest, because it's not even close to how it pans out.
Soon it’s nighttime, and all of the partiers have arrived; there are around ten of them total. As expected, the radio broadcast kicks in, and specifically mentions that a bizarre spacecraft has crash-landed in a field in Newark, New Jersey, which of course happens to be just a few short miles from John and Bob’s house. A few more interruptions take place, and the college kids get more and more frightened. These scenes were actually very well done, and while it’s almost impossible to imagine any form of media having the same effect on people today, it shows just how truly believable it could have been back then.
But then at the height of the tension, John disappears into the kitchen, and when he returns….the entire episode starts a baffling, quick descent downhill. Even if I told you what happened next, that John and Bob were actually aliens, and they off everyone at their own party, believing that their own race had landed on Earth and started their takeover, I wouldn’t even be revealing anything about the ending. I’ll admit, as dumb as this idea was to me at first, it slowly started to make sense to me, and I kind of grew to like it: we know what kind of effect this radio drama had on real-life people, so I figured this was just a twist, showing us how real aliens might have reacted to the same radio play.
Then we get yet another twist. This one I will not reveal, but it just once again proves why “Perversions of Science” was such a bad, undercooked show, and it‘s a reason I mentioned earlier: it never believed in words like “subtle”, or “restraint”. Many of the episodes were born of interesting ideas, and thus, actually had solid foundations on which to build fascinating, effective shows. But they seemed to be more interested in blowing an effects budget that wasn’t even there, instead of developing their ideas into something more practical and interesting. This is exactly the case here: it blows two legitimately fresh, solid ideas in favor of an in-your-face finish that insists on being as pointless and “out there” as possible. Trust me, I typically enjoy things that are way outside of the norm, but not when it feels so forced or contrived; here, like with a lot of previous episodes, it just feels like an aimless shitshow.
Another big problem I’m starting to have is that, although it seems like this series wants to push the envelope, every episode is almost unbearably tame. For example, there is a body count of somewhere around ten in this episode, which is by far the highest of any episode to date, yet none of the deaths are even remotely graphic; the only blood that I recall is mouth-blood from a corpse. Even the sex that has appeared in previous episodes is bland; aside from some rather strong language, there’s not much that would have prevented these from airing on network television, even back in 1997. That’s probably another big reason that this show failed to connect with audiences, who were paying a premium to see it.
Ultimately, this was one of the more promising installments of this series, but it’s almost completely squandered by a needlessly over-the-top finale that wallows in stupidity--I went from being completely enthralled to disengaged and depressed over the span of a mere ten minutes. It just feels like it’s trying to bite off way more than it can chew, and that is no doubt a big reason as to why it was canceled in such a short amount of time. That, and Chrome’s double-entendres get really old after a short amount of time to anyone that’s not twelve or sexually-repressed; in other words, she’s no Cryptkeeper, and this is coming from someone who hasn’t really seen any episodes of “Tales from the Crypt”.
EPISODE RATING: 4.5/10
FULL EPISODE
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