Eh, trying to cut down posts and edits while still keeping the quality to my obviously exacting standards, so I'm doing posts, but keeping them open until I think they are fully baked.

So Gun Guy shows the Monk his fancy locked door from Ep1 and they discuss betraying the team for money, whatever.  

Serious Roleplayer uses the Android's fancy biometric scanner to determine if anyone is lying... I note that Two (the GM's GF) refuses to use her old name from the files, the exception to the rule.

Hey! Its Gun Guy actually doing real maintenance on his guns in his cabin!  He couldn't possibly be a real Kanedan! Kidding, I know Kanedans hunt.  Just to make sure my buzz doesn't go I'll drink just for that.

Its 18 minutes in and the characters have pulled guns on eachother twice. First Gun Guy and Monk testing eachother's inititive rolls in front of the big locked door, now Gun Guy being forced to take the lie detector test as Serious Roleplayer holds him under the gun. Seriously... that's a drink.  

If my spelling is getting worse... I know. But correcting my spelling is harder than noticing its getting worse, so suck it up, buttercup.

"If you shoot him, you may skew the results."



lol...

So right after Gun Guy says he doesn't remember tampering with the ship the Android says something is wrong. Oops, misdirection! Shocking!  It seems they are being bombarded with a high concentration of Gamma Radiation.

I expect someone to hulk out now.  This will be a tease, just like the Cenobites, I just know it.

"You got an answer for everything, don't you?"

"Yes, I am an excellent information source."

Fuck it, I'll drink to that too, because this damn episode isn't promising enough RPG silliness, so I'll make do with amusing dialog.  I am enjoying the Android a bit too much.



Sweet Fucking Holy Moses!

So... we are confronted with a typical space delimma.  Get out of the Gamma Radiation before you cook to death and risk blowing up the ship (73% chance of explody death. C'mon, players take those odds!), or perhaps no chance because its only diagnostic sabotage.

OR: SOmeone goes out into the gamma Radiation to replace a part, cooking to death.

Yup, seen it before.

Hey! THe Android will go!

Nobody ever does that!  Send the motherfucking Android into the deadly Gamma Radiation. Hell, she even volunteered!   Yeah... buddy. that's a drink, I think.

And.... Post

So, for the most part the special effects are pretty excellent.  I mean, clearly the ship in space is CGI, when a model would probably look better, but that's modern cinema for ya, and clearly they outspent Firefly and Farscape (together? Dunno...) on sets for the interior, though just as with Farscape (not Firefly), placing anything inside the ship in relation to anything else is a damn waste of time. Too bad, Whedon did a damn fine job setting a standard no one even fucking noticed (except me, sadly... I actually drew up my own cutaway map of the Serenity one time...)

But it fails when the Android is looking out the airlock at the hull. I mean, this is Tron levels of bullshit.  On the other hand, I'm thinking somewhere a physics major was wiping his shorts clean after she explained how gamma radiation bombarding the hull resulted in electrostatic discharges, etc.   Maybe the writers were friends with a gaffer?




BOOO!!!!
 Fire teh set dresser!!!

Okay, so the part that needs changing is on the hull, requiring an EVA. Fine and dandy, so why the fuck does it look like she's in a goddamn hallway?  Fuck you, show, fuck you.

This is a boring ass episode from an RPG standpoint.  Its all fake drama and 'we got amnesia so we don't trust eachother' bullshit, coupled with a fakeout technical problem that is SUPPOSED to be on the hull of the ship, but instead is in some damn hallway that, for no reason other than idiotball, is apparently exposed to vaccum. Also: Static discharge is probably not as much of a problem deep inside a metal hallway versus 'on the surface', so way to do good science technobabble and ruin it by idiot set design.  How fucking hard is it to do a black starry background anyway?  Fuck, man, Black Hole was done in... um... 1960?  Jesus, man, that's like a hundred years ago!

I'm going to guess that in the twenty minutes that remain I won't find anything worth posting about, or drinking about, so y'all got time before my next post.  

Sigh. What a waste.

Anyway: Recap from the end of Ep3:

They only carry three space suits for a crew of five?  Dafuq? Also: static discharge looks lame and weak, but drama yo.   Also: They are trying to time static discharges? What happened? Did the gaffer go on lunch or something?

Also: GUn Guy and Monk do guns drawn vs the rest of the party over FTL jumping now or rescuing android, so... drink. Yeah, that's a drink. Bad gaming group disfunction. Also: Hotwiring a door. Because the Kid needs to be relevant when not River Tam'ing up this bitch.

Sigh.

THe Kid stole Gun Guy's bullets without him noticing?  That's...  just bad writing. Really, really bad writing. I'm not wasting good scotch for that horseshit.

Yanno.. some of the props look pretty good. Bubba, for example, while a little blocky actually looks kinda like a real gun, absurdly big and all that. But... dose handguns, yo.  Fuck, I've seen Warhammer Ork Shootas that looked more gunlike.  Well, some of dose handguns. None of 'em look cool.  We need a good old fashioned winona up in here.

Also Leather Daddy is the designated 'gunna die this episode character' again, because... reasons.  And electricity don't work that way, mang!   Also: Android is an AED?* Sweet.  I'll drink to that just for the lulz. Barely, because I need to fill my glass again.  This is hard work, yo.

Wait? Android had an orgasm doing AED to Leather Daddy?  Oh, ok. THAT deserves a straight up full on drink, not a dregs of the glass drink.  

Also: Serious Roleplayer did NOT take many points in first aid, because his CPR is weak shit... and he missed his chance at an onscreen kiss! Boo!

Yanno? This stuff... its got like a minty feel on my tongue. I don't notice it when I just have a drink regular, but now that my taste buds are dead its the ONLY thing I can taste when I take a drink. Whatever, back to the recap.

Anyway: the entire episode is a nothingburger. No sabotage, no revalations about the party's past, even teh dead kid is long forgotten.  The GMs GF asks Serious Roleplayer to hold her feet (for situps) and the look on his face is soooooooo precious. Seriously, honey, you're barking up the wrong tree here.  Anyway, thanks to the screenwriters SR finally takes the bait and goes in for the kiss... hilariously he then apologizes and makes his excuse that 'Six wants me to...'. Six. As in Leather Daddy.  Fuck me, that's a drink for my own damn cleverness.  No... seriously: He kisses her, breaks the kiss himself, stands up and mutters something about six (that's a direct quote earlier, btw), and walks away from teh girl.  I'm giggling here.

Anyway, since the episode is a big waste of time, they toss in a couple of bones at the end. First we have The Kid going to where she found the body and convienently finding a box full of plot nearby. Hmm... you'd think they'd look for that earlier, but whatever.  One 'plot' is a pistol, which... and mind you this is Kaneda we're talking about... looks like a very real, modern day firearm and not a sci-fi prop. Curious.

The second is a shitty scene at the bar at the space station they've been going to since the end of the last episode where One (Jay Corso) is asking for information about The Raza, because he has unfinished business with one of the crew. Well, plot twist and evil twins.


Which brings us to teh Setup of Episode Four:

So everyone is talking about what to buy with their money at the Station. Gun Guy, of course, wants hookers.   Only... GMs GF drops plot hammer on everyone and reveals that they're broke, because they need to find the wizard in the local tavern and get a quest, duh! Or, evil twin, whatever.**

Eh... so they plan to sell the half the weapons (all?) that they didn't give the miners in Ep1, but... weapons aren't allowed on the station. Somehow I doubt this will be a problem. Also, utterly an aside, but the costume department is one of the weaker elements of the show, just sayin'.  I mean: When they all woke from cryosleep they were sort of wearing some sort of standard yoga dansk onesies, except that they didn't quite match, and the miners didn't really look very... minery, just sorta lame stock sci-fi peasants or something, and GMGF walked aroudn for two episodes with her belly button showing, now all the guys are in grey t-shirts and dark jeans/slacks? The only one that doesn't fit (aside from Android with her blue jumper) is The Kid, but aside from a wicked earring thing she doesn't really look that... sci-fi?  Meh.

Anyway: GMGF pairs Serious Roleplayer with Gun Guy to sell their cargo for extra cash (for hookers, natch!). I'd let it pass, but she tells Serious Roleplayer that she paired them because she doesn't trust Gun Guy, and then she tells Gun Guy that... she doesn't Trust Serious Roleplayer. Hilarious, so Drink!

Heh... Okay, so I may need to stiffen my standards here...

Gun Guy and Serious Roleplayer go to find a buyer. Gun Guy goes to play all serious, using some sort of Theives Cant to suggest he's selling and Serious Roleplayer just subverts the shit out of him by playing against type and saying 'we're selling guns', straight up. He literally walks all over Gun Guy's attempt at Roleplaying to speed along the merchant trip.   That's a drink, but I'm swimming a bit here, so... well, I'll drink this time, but I'm gonna hold back for a good one for the next m'kay?

Anyway: They toy with the Intuitive shit again, with The Kid own-caking a 'Shell Game', as if those guys don't cheat like dogs at a cotton candy stand.  I mean... that's like a plot point (he cheats, she catches him because... River Tam, right?)

God damn! Moe ass android, feeling lonely and left out and shit!  So very very Moe.  too much booze, I'm gonna cry over a Moe Android?  Also: Damn right, use the internet to find out more about who you are, you stupid Monk!   No? Well, fuck you, you broke poor Moe Android's heart, you bastard!  She just wants to help, but no... you have to do some RP Legwork like some sort of wanna be Boss.   No Drink for You!

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree."

"Screw that! I don't agree to anything!"

Which... really... should be a drink, but I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes in the same direction as my face, so... I'll wait for something better.  I mean, it is followed by 'party splits up so naturally, captured', by who I presume to be Other Corso, but...  well, I got a bunch more episodes. I mean... I do have a LOT of scotch here, but I'm only a little superhuman when it comes to drinking, yanno?

I mean, this episode does seem to be the inverse of the previous episode. It's all RPG up in this bitch.

Ooooh... so, I think this episode is fully set up by this point, so I really need to post now. So... Post!***

* I KNOW that's the right acronym, but I'll be damned if I can recall the usual term for 'shock the shit out of a patient to start their heart', so if you don't know AED, well... AED don't know you, bub! No, this is NOT an invitation for details. I'm drinking goddamnit, and I'm sure I'll remember it later just fine.

** this show is transparent enough that my drunk prediction is that the memory wiped Jace Corso (Serious Roleplayer) is, in fact, the GOOD twin of the real Jace Corso, which would mean, of course, that he's probably responsible for the memory wipe etc.  Calling it now. Place yer bets!

*** Yes, I am, in fact, shouting commands via text to my alter-ego editor-slash-production assistant.  Don't you?

So, following our setup, where are we at?

Well: Leather Daddy/Utility Player/Six: is sidelined getting heals from a medical clinic

Two and Five (GMGF And The Kid) are... in a casino?

Android is totally Moe on the ship.

Four... Monk? (er.. yeah, numbers are a bitch to remember right here...) is... well, he left hte ship to apparently RP/Gather INformation about his signet ring, but we haven't seen anything after he broke Moe Android's Moe Heart, teh fucker.

And One(Serious RP) and Three (Gun Guy) are captured... and... SCENE!

So.... Serious Roleplayer's plan to escape being captured in Totally Trope fashion (seriously, Two chairs back to back, tied together?) is to... shift ot the door, headbutt the door control, get into the hall and call for help.  That's... that's so fucking Serious Roleplayer RPG that I can't even.  I mean... maybe I've been GMing too damn long, but I can just hear myself sighing heavily and calling for some absurd die roll that I just know, no matter how long the odds I give, that fucker is going to either pass with a crit, or god damn fail with a crit, and I'll be dealing with the fallout. Against my better judgement I have to drink. Rules, man. Rules.   I may die tonight.

Fail with a crit, they fall over helplessly.  for the record.

quick cut to casino. Kids not old enough to play (and that is in fact in scene!), but apparently its cool if GM's GF is supervising. Also they may never SAY Intuitive, but they ARE talking about feelz. Also... I'm fucking up my typing quite abit on this side now... so it only took too many drinks, but my usperhuman metabolism is finally admitting that I've been drinking, go me? I may take a quick coffee break, not that you, the audience, will notice.... er... I... hope?

and then to our heartbreaking bastard, Monk.  His 'search' for information... his Gather Information check leads him to a pawn shop, where the shop owner manages to make several dozen unsupported leaps of logic in order to exposit all over the place.  Fuck the pawn shop guy, but I still like him better than Monk right now. So Moe... so much Moe...

Anyway: Pawnshop guy doesn't want anthing to do with the Yashida Clan signet ring, cause, badass? Whatever.

Sudden penis is sudden!  That is all.  No, not all. Dear god, I hope Penis Comercial (which is, I think, delivering plot info) is being deliberately badly acted. I mean.. its Kaneda, so who fucking knows, but OMG that acting.  Oh, right, you're not watching. So... dude in... orange boxer-briefs (which I used to wear. Not in orange though...) with too much penis showing, gets into a 'transfer pod', which allows a clone of him (OOH! EVIL TWIN!!! I GET IT!!! sorry about all caps, sudden... just a sec, downloading sobriety linguistic database... umm.... Eureka... moment) to experience his vacation without having to travel there.  

Aaaaannddd... back to the Casino. Damnit!  So... now we're going to let GMs GF GNPC this fucking show? We've discarded the Intuitive 'wins at shit' girl for GMGF to win at... hell, its not even space Blackjack, its just blackjack, and I'd be ashamed at how long it took me to add the cards to 21, but it still took less time than they spent showing the cards, so fuck you, show! My Math skills are Leet enough to win even when crosseyeD!!!!

I'm goiing to post early (half baked, yo) because my laptop notoriously likes to touchpad erase my work, and I'm too blitzed to recreate shit now... take it and like it!

Y'know what? I think the writers have been to a few casinos. I mean, they don't know jack or shit about planets and scale and shit, but gambling? That they've got down!  

Back to SR and GG, these micro-scenes are annoying when doing a... um... sorta-live?... recap/drinking game.   Oh, shit, I forgot my coffee break! (also, three tries to spell coffee right. No red line, so I'm sure I got it right now... take that, Monkey Shoulder!)

Ooooh... I forgot I had Reeces Peanut Butter Cups in the fridge! Also, I can, in fact, still walk straight adn my pupils are the same size, so we're good to go for at least another episode, now... where was I? Aside from Candy?

Oh, right... captured party members.

So, its sort of precious watching the actor playing One/Jace Corso trying to play hard.  The split effects to put both versions on him on screen at the same time is... amatureishly bad. I mean.. I'm drunk (legit, yo!) and I could see it. Not hte line, but the lighting. How fucking hard is it to get the lighting the same? I mean? Fuck, dude, just light the scene and shoot both takes with the same lighting! Its not like you're doing a fight, one version is tied to a god damn chair!  Sigh.  Then, after wasting time with the Penis Commercial showing us that Cloning exists, we have exposition revealing that... cloning exists.  

[sigh, you lost a funny drunk joke due to touch-pad shenannigans. I swear one day I will stab the everliving fuck out of that touchpad. Right in the face. Over and over like some sort of psychotic ex-girlfriend who doesn't know what 'its over' means....]


Anyway: back at the casino we see a seriously unbelievable run of cards.  I'm.... not going to describe it in detail because... reasons (booze), but it involves something like five 20/21's in a row (facecards, gambling rules, alcohol... make up some shit...), followed by the Casino accosting a winning player and saying 'don't make a scene'?  Do you even Vegas Film, bro?

And Monk space-Googles 'Ishida', not Yashida... well, aparently HE got the subtitled version of the show. Seriously, like he couldn't do that Before going to the pawn shop? I mean, its not like Moe-droid didn't tell him she was fully Google-Images Compatible or nothing.  Poor Moe-droid.

"... Their Rep matched their Strut." ? Oh dear.  Also: the Legendary Raza, the ones so well known people think they might be a race of space lizards? Also: Space Google the fucking Raza motherfuckers, and half the show's mysteries would be known to you.  Seriously. Space Google. Its a thing.

Electric shock stick? You mean... I dunno... a cattle prod?  I mean... it sure looks like a cattle prod. A bit on the small side and all that, but... well... I mean, we've had those for decades man. Fucking Kaneda.

LIke I said earlier: Clearly the writers have done some gambling. I mean: Science? They get it right about half the time, and they think Cattle Prods are High Tech, but when it comes to a philosophical digression on the legitimacy of counting cards? They are right fucking there, mang.   Don't get me wrong, they aren't pulling out Aristotle's Rhetorica any time soon for this, but shit is on.point.

Also: Lots of dramatic music to fake tension. Why can't they just stick with the Evil Twin thing or the Moe-droid?  Oh, right. GM's Girlfriend gotta be front and center to the plot even when it is literally the least interesting thing going on (and I count Leather Daddy sitting in the clinic waiting room on that list. Shit, at least he has Penis Commercials to watch.)

Right on cue we are given a glimpse of Moe-droid briefly interacting with Evil Twin, and yet utterly not noticing he's lying to her? Sigh.

Then, right back to... counting cards discussion.  Christ on toast. I feel like I should take a drink just to numb the pain, but that would be cheating.

So. Kaneda. Fuck. Kaneda. With.a.spoon... sideways.

Right. So Casino Boss slaps The Kid when she won't shut up about not-cheating, which spurs GMGF to waif-fu him and everyone else in the room, because, well, she's fuckign the GM on the side so naturally she gets bonuses to fighting mooks to show off, even in the most pointless of digressions from the plot of the episode.  Can we get another Penis Commercial or something? Anything?  Well, anything but another heartbreaking scene of Moe-droid having her moe-heart broken again by that bastard, Monk.

No. Straight up, she kills like two or three goons AND the casino boss for slapping The Kid, and I really start to wonder at the moral decency of Kanedans.  Do they not understand the basic concept of 'Death'?  Do they think 'Oh, its just a knife to the heart. He'll be FINE. Its just what he deserves... really I'm being too soft hearted here... for SLAPPING A KID!. The Monster! He is basically Hitler, you know. I heard Hitler was a bad man, he must have slapped Kids a few times, right? Well, when he's recovered from his knife to the throat, maybe we'll sue him... just for good measure."

Sigh.

So, as an aside, they are going to use the... sigh... shock stick (Cattle prod, motherfucker. Do you even cattle, bro?)... to soften the wires holding them to the chair.

Now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure that the Nurse (possibly android nurse?) at the clinic isn't the female/les-yay noble from Killjoys?  I mean... I'm sobering up a bit from a good lack of RPGness here, but not enough to do research for you lazy bastards.  I sorta WANT her to be the same actress, just for the (kill)joy of it. Anyway... for a shady space station/casino/gun dealing Evil Twin sort of place, teh Doctor is awfully eager to aprehend a criminal. Also this happened less than 10 hours ago, but Six say's 'a couple of days'. Fuck continuity, yo.

Back to the Cattle-Prod twins, who manage to drop the Cattle Prod they have been so diligently trying to reach. Hah. I'm gonna call that a drink for fumbling a simple dex check, bastards!

I'm pretty sure if you were tied up with metal wire you wouldn't/couldn't use a shock stick to melt teh wire off you... and I'm absolutely sure if you could it would be not merely painful but the worst idea you ever had... worse even than Ash cutting off his own hand (and trapping it under A Fairwell To Arms...) with a chainsaw.  But, whatever, I already drank.

Now: Back in Ep1 I noted that Six more or less threatened, in a creepy/sexy way to roofie the heck out of Serious Roleplayer, earning the Moniker of Leather Daddy in the process.  Continueing my trend as Pika-Damus... he now roofies the heck out of the doctor.  Well.  I mean... just... well.  I think I'm liking my version of this show more than the writer's intended.

Nurse droid ain't wearing no bra! No jiggle like that with underwire, bro! Lucas's rule about underwear in space strikes again!  


Anyway: Episode Recap: one more time the crew winds up at the end of the episode more or less exactly where they started, broke and on a damaged ship with no new information. Gambling? Nope, no money there. Selling guns? Nope, Evil Twin got that money. Info? Too busy playing bad-ass gambler or what have you.

Aside from Evil-Twin subplots, the only forward momentum on the crew is that Moe breaking bastard, Monk, who watches, I shit you not, GNN to find out that he murdered his own father, Emperor Ishida, and at least a hundred other people along the way, etc.  We do learn that the galaxy of Dark Matter has several competing governments, almost incidentally (and bonus points for that, though I suspect its accidental rather than deliberate), and also that the Mega-Corporations have fleets they can send it to protect their assets when star-empires fight... a lot of world building for GNN to deliver in 73 seconds (tilde for approximate... hah, fooled ya into thinking I timed that shit, didn't I? No? Well... I can dream.)

And I am entirely too damn sober for this game, which... given how deep I was going down the rabbit hole at the beginning of the episode, actually pisses me off.

Aight.  So Ep5.

Setup: First Gun Guy is totally gonna blackmail Serious Roleplayer about keepign Evil Twin a secret, and he's willing to blow that blackmail by stupid overuse of it, because Hollowwood, lets just get that out of the water first. He recommends they rob Farris Corp (since, you know, they are already hated by Farris), which... given that they are wanted criminals with a bad rep with Farris isn't, actually, a bad idea.  And totally a Player Character sort of idea, which calls for a drink, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Then The Kid tries to shovel Plot Railroad at us by revealing the Vault (the Big Locked Door of previous episodes) to everyone (not just Gun Guy, who has been mucking about with it since Ep1...), and...

[I had something written here, but Touch-Pad deleted it and I don't remember what it was... so if there is a plot-thread gap later, you know why now.  I swear to god... one of these days.] ** Aha! Right, so: Absolutely Nothing Happens iwth the big door. Again. Five fucking episodes of Big Locked Door doing... nothing but being big. And locked.   Yer welcome.

Then they get a call from a Quest Giver (Ima say Robert Cross from Stargate and stargate atlantis, but don't quote me on the actor's name. Its the autism dude, you know him...), who apparently set them up for the Ep1 job and now needs them to do a half price job for him involving salvaging a wreck because the GM needs to get this Plot Railroad back on teh tracks, god damn it.   And THAT calls for the drink...

Then we've got a traditional UST misunderstanding set up. Maybe. If Killjoys is any indicator, they may be doing the 'she can fuck like a man, even if the men can't'... schtick*, when our totally Not-ghey-you-guys Serious Roleplayer goes to set up a date or something with GMGF, only to find the shirtless Gun Guy in her room and he stammeringly redirects to setting up a 'plan the mission moment' while staring longingly at the half naked Gun Guy.  Whatever would Leather Daddy think?


Anyway, we cut to the actual start of the mission.  Gun Guy manages to use proper gun safety and doesn't flag GMGF, so I KNOW he's not really a Kanedan. Then we've actually got GMGF going on the mission with them, while Moe-Droid stays on the Raza... but Moe-droid is a bad-ass, functionally indestructable (seriously: Nanites. How do they work?) android... you'd think she'd be better served on the mission than playing radio operator, but whatever. Lastly, we learn that the wreck has six hours of life support for... drama. Never mind its stupid as hell, we need a fake shot clock to ratchet up the tension!  

Meanwhile The Kid shows Moe-Droid the Plot Device she took from where she found the dead kid, leading to this bit of techno-babble:

"... part of a larger device designed to access pockets of extra-dimensional space."

Which implies one hell of a lot about the setting.  The exchange that follows is, well, Moe. And funny.  Maybe more funny than Moe, but still Moe.  Moe-droid has what remains of my shrivelled and tar-black heart, so Moe.

Also: The Kid is now the third member of the crew to finish an exchange with Moe-Droid with an injunction against telling any of the others. This is getting absurd. Assuming proper droid like literalism, she will likely go insane with the inability to tell anyone anything from conflicting 'keep it secret' orders, entirely without prior planning from the writers... which means that won't happen. I'm... ambivilent... regarding that.

So... special effects.  I've noticed but nt remarked that the cargo chests in this setting seem to be about 75% dead mass, mostly in the lid.  Its silly and stupid.  Anyway: GMGF, keeping the plot train running, opens up some 'reactor' control panel or something, and its all super-massive lid too, then she sets her diagnostic case on a nearby surface and the SFX crew gives it an amazing amount of mass/inertia when she sets it down (sound FX mostly)... I guess everything in the future is super-inertic? Except she later slides it a little to adjust its position and its revealed to be an empty aluminum computer case (or something like that, only with SFX panels and wires for Techno-babble use).  

I dunno... seems unnecessary to use SFX to make everything super-massive(inertic, whatever), and damn sloppy to miss it a second later in teh same scene.  

Anyway: We're setting up a space zombie senario here, and again the SFX was drunker than I ever got (on this review/drinking game), because while that bastard Monk says that the four bodies they foudn were killed with bare hands adn teeth, the makeup crew makes it look like cut (sliced, though I hate that formulation) throats. Nice clean blood lines, nothing at all like 'teeth', and the GMGF gets all whiny bitch about getting everyone back to protect her.. except that One and Three (SR and GG) are incommunicado due to plot-convinent radiation.  This will be my last episode of the 'night', I think, so I won't make up excuses to refresh my glass. The Show won, the Drinking Game is over, but seeing as it won by cheating, don't think there won't be a rematch for later episodes.

Anyway: right on cue, space zombie attacks GMGF and more Kanedan "violence" ensues, and she gets bit... oooohhhhh....

I could comment on the bro-talk about banging Two, but frankly I'm too distracted by the almost near total lack of expression Serious Roleplayer manages to convey... like... all the time.  He may be pretty (I... I need an opinion on this one, actually. Like... usually I can at least guess if a dude is pretty or not, but I'm drawing a blank here. Actually... I think he's a bit weird looking...) but damn he can't emote (with his face) to save his life.  And he's got those downturned eyes that just... they just sort of scream 'I have too many cousins that married in my family tree' for me.**

I suppose I should comment on the fact that they are always splitting the party, but... well... they are always splitting the party. I think the party spends more time being split than together, so what do you want from me?***

Oh... sweet fucking jeebus! So... GMGF was bit by Space Zombie, and the 'crew' get a damaged fragment of the log from the freighter revealing the usual space zombie shit, and Leather Daddy wants to send Two back to the Raza for medical care (presumably by Moe-Droid, who probably wants some attention about now...).  So far so good. A bit cliched.

Oh, noes... we CAN"T send Two back to teh Raza or the Space Zombie Plague will spread to The Raza!!!

Um.

Right. Because almost everyone from the Raza is... aboard the frieghter.  Right now only one person (and one Moe-droid) are at any risk if Two gets medical help, compared to the FOUR FUCKING PEOPLE on the same damn ship wiht her right now.  Talk about a pointless effort to quaranteen. I mean, Sci-Fi is usually utter rubbish at space-quaranteen (I blame Ridley Scott for this...), but this is like a complete fucking inverse of the usual shit. Instead of breaking quaranteen every damn chance they get like its a pointless beaurocratic exercise, now they're gonna risk lives (or... life) for an empty ship (The Kid does not count. She's River motherfukking Tam and will Intuitively avoid any Zombie Plague because Plot Armor... and in her case, poor fashion sense armor).

I love you, Moe-Droid. I'd marry you, but frankly you're so very Moe that even I would find it creepy.  

Moe-Droid points out that, like all sensible Space People, the Raza's Infirmary has a proper Quaranteen facility where they can safely store Two/GMGF until they know she's a space zombie or not. Its not perfect (perfect is pointing out that pretty much everyone is already potentially exposed because THEY ARE ALREADY ON THE SAME DAMN SHIP!!!!!), but still, the sweet, slightly childlike, voice of reason.  

So... I'm torn. They keep putting GG and SR together, and they bitch and moan and snark on each other constantly, and frankly if not for the Ghey Bromance with Leather Daddy, I would utterly hate the sucking void of talent that is SR, but I am vaguely reminded of inter-party bickering.  We get some more Kanedan 'Violence' as several of the Space Zombies appear... again with no grasp of space or numbers its hard to actually have tension and GG pretty much does what you'd expect the party Gun Guy to do, he pragmatically shots every Space Zombie he sees, no questions asked, while the Serious Roleplayer reveals that he dabbled in multiclassing as a Thief/The Kid as he tries to hack an airlock door.  We finally get a bit of promised decompression and SR bitches that Gun Guy shot zombies while he played with wires because, well, decompression... and like any good disfunctional party with a sloppy/mean GM... you have to wonder what GG should have done instead?

If I were still playing the drinking game, that would be a drink fo' sho'.



*no, seriously. In Killjoys one of the two main characters spent season one as the utterly sexless bestie, and the other was straight out of romance novel 'one woman at a time casting' while the female lead has two or three episodes a season where she literally bangs an anonymous progression of mooks in montage fashion, which is a hilarious inversion of sexist stereotyping.  So far Dark Matter is... officially... sexless but not romanceless, but that can change at any moment. Kanedans, man. They don't get violence nor sex, swearsies.

** Actually, I have no idea what they scream, but I did notice them, and they do seem to interfefe with face-acting. Its... not a good look, but what do I know/ I'm faaking yellow for god's sake!


*** I swear to god if you play me that damn adam lambert song I will hobo-murder you. I have never in my life heard a more vapid and shallow song, and my ex used to watch teh disney channel like her life depended on it.  I will start buying up Gold just to pay people to hobo-murder you. I'll grow a beard, grab a long stick and spend the rest of my life in a bar looking for people to hobo-murder you. You have been warned.

So.  I've never commented on the variations on teh 'you better take a look at this' cliche that pops up... but right after, while Moe-Droid is expositing about Space Zombie virii, I couldn't help but notice teh Space Gun that bastard Monk was carrying was, in fact, just a P90 with a redonkulous muzzle break attached to it.  I mean: Most of the Space Guns (not the silly looking handguns, mostly) appear to be real guns with a teeny bit of flash, but this is the first really good look at one I got, and yup.

Bubba, however, is still ballin', yo.

Not that I've seen Bubba in two episodes, but still. He'll be back, he's too strong to be held back for long.

God damn Moe-Droid, man.  With almost no facial expressions and not much more vocal range she still manages to be more gut-wrenching than the supposedly human characters. Fucking Pathos, man. She brings the pathos. Well, that makes TWO of the manly virtues of ancient rome to appear in this series. First Gravitas, now Pathos.  Two down, two to go... no, don't wait for it. Let it creep up on ya and surprise you. I mean, everything else is utterly predictable, even teh Space Zombies didn't really try for a cheap jump scare, so you gotta make your own, right?

Anyway: I was going to comment that The Kid is supposed to be bringing the ready made pathos, but she pretty much always looks... pensive. I was thinking of saying constipated, but that might be too mean, so we'll stick with pensive.  Not much range, Kid. Pensive or more Pensive?  Two might become a Space Zombie? Pensive. Two knife murdered a bunch of dudes for slapping you? Pensive. You might have shot a kid in the kidneys and left him to bleed out in an empty hold? Pensive.   River Tam some shit about carving out eyeballs? relaxed and casual.  

Also, remember that six hour life support shot-clock?  Oh, well, now we have a new, and unrelated Ten Minute shot clock, just for GG and SR. God, I love watching hacks work.  Anyway, SR makes a Lore: SPace Zombie check, because of course he does, and realizes that due to teh ten minute shot clock the space zombies are no longer a threat. Just... just roll with it, m'kay?  

Hilariously, Moe-droid is on my side with wanting SR to just die already, and she turns on the oxygen remotely just as SR adn GG start walking past incapacitated space zombies, simulaniously ending the ten minute clock (sigh) and undoing the effects of his successful Lore check.  

I love you, Moe Droid.  In a completely non-sexual way, unless that would make you moe sad.

Of course it doesnt' work because Gun Guy actually can kick ass, despite Serious Roleplayer doing his best to cripple him with negative modifiers for being flanked.  Gun Guy deals, once more, with the space zombies while Serious Roleplayer whibbles in the corner, complaining about GG doing the real work of keeping both them alive. So very, very Serious Roleplayer of him.

The Kid, upon hearing that SR adn GG are safe adn coming back to the Raza?  Mildly Less Pensive.

Naturally the Cru (Aha! with semi-sobriety comes the remeberance of that umlaut free joke name...) can't possibly complete their mission and get paid! THink of all the tropes that would violate! So they blow up the ship, once again ending the episode more or less exactly where they started, broke and hated by everyone. Which is... well.. I dunno, a real thing for this show, apparently.

Anyway: The GM's GF winds up magically cured of the Space Zombie virus, because of course she is. No, seriously: nothing happens, she just magically stops having the virus, which no one has ever survived before, and somehow they artificially create this weird tension between her and everyone else because, of course they do, then they reveal that yes, they ARE going the Killjoys 'She Fucks like a Man, but the Men Don't' routine, AND they reveal she now heals like Wolverine because of Space Zombie plague, because she is the GMs' GF after all, just like I said from the beginning.

And that was episode five, and the end of tonight's run of drinking game theater.  I'm off to sleep off this scotch induced headache and hit up the rest of the show later-ish. Mebbee when I wake up, while I still remember my running jokes.

Quote from: Spike;976414So.  I've never commented on the variations on teh 'you better take a look at this' cliche that pops up... but right after, while Moe-Droid is expositing about Space Zombie virii, I couldn't help but notice teh Space Gun that bastard Monk was carrying was, in fact, just a P90 with a redonkulous muzzle break attached to it.  I mean: Most of the Space Guns (not the silly looking handguns, mostly) appear to be real guns with a teeny bit of flaosh, but this is the first really good look at one I got, and yup.

Bubba, however, is still ballin', yo.

Not that I've seen Bubba in two episodes, but still. He'll be back, he's too strong to be held back for long.

God damn Moe-Droid, man.  With almost no facial expressions and not much more vocal range she still manages to be more gut-wrenching than the supposedly human characters. Fucking Pathos, man. She brings the pathos. Well, that makes TWO of the manly virtues of ancient rome to appear in this series. First Gravitas, now Pathos.  Two down, two to go... no, don't wait for it. Let it creep up on ya and surprise you. I mean, everything else is utterly predictable, even teh Space Zombies didn't really try for a cheap jump scare, so you gotta make your own, right?

Anyway: I was going to comment that The Kid is supposed to be bringing the ready made pathos, but she pretty much always looks... pensive. I was thinking of saying constipated, but that might be too mean, so we'll stick with pensive.  Not much range, Kid. Pensive or more Pensive?  Two might become a Space Zombie? Pensive. Two knife murdered a bunch of dudes for slapping you? Pensive. You might have shot a kid in the kidneys and left him to bleed out in an empty hold? Pensive.   River Tam some shit about carving out eyeballs? relaxed and casual.  

Also, remember that six hour life support shot-clock?  Oh, well, now we have a new, and unrelated Ten Minute shot clock, just for GG and SR. God, I love watching hacks work.  Anyway, SR makes a Lore: SPace Zombie check, because of course he does, and realizes that due to teh ten minute shot clock the space zombies are no longer a threat. Just... just roll with it, m'kay?  

Hilariously, Moe-droid is on my side with wanting SR to just die already, and she turns on the oxygen remotely just as SR adn GG start walking past incapacitated space zombies, simulaniously ending the ten minute clock (sigh) and undoing the effects of his successful Lore check.  

I love you, Moe Droid.  In a completely non-sexual way, unless that would make you moe sad.

Of course it doesnt' work because Gun Guy actually can kick ass, despite Serious Roleplayer doing his best to cripple him with negative modifiers for being flanked.  Gun Guy deals, once more, with the space zombies while Serious Roleplayer whibbles in the corner, complaining about GG doing the real work of keeping both them alive. So very, very Serious Roleplayer of him.

The Kid, upon hearing that SR adn GG are safe adn coming back to the Raza?  Mildly Less Pensive.

Naturally the Cru (Aha! with semi-sobriety comes the remeberance of that umlaut free joke name...) can't possibly complete their mission and get paid! THink of all the tropes that would violate! So they blow up the ship, once again ending the episode more or less exactly where they started, broke and hated by everyone. Which is... well.. I dunno, a real thing for this show, apparently.

Anyway: The GM's GF winds up magically cured of the Space Zombie virus, because of course she is. No, seriously: nothing happens, she just magically stops having the virus, which no one has ever survived before, and somehow they artificially create this weird tension between her and everyone else because, of course they do, then they reveal that yes, they ARE going the Killjoys 'She Fucks like a Man, but the Men Don't' routine, AND they reveal she now heals like Wolverine because of Space Zombie plague, because she is the GMs' GF after all, just like I said from the beginning.

And that was episode five, and the end of tonight's run of drinking game theater.  I'm off to sleep off this scotch induced headache and hit up the rest of the show later-ish. Mebbee when I wake up, while I still remember my running jokes.

I love this show it's pure cheese sci-if but your commentary is pure gold and spot on

Never even heard of this show. What channel is it on?

Quote from: Dumarest;976461Never even heard of this show. What channel is it on?

S I-Fi here in the uk or iTunes

Quote from: HorusArisen;976428I love this show it's pure cheese sci-if but your commentary is pure gold and spot on

:hattip:


Anyway, now that I've been up for an hour or so, gotten some food and coffee... not enough coffee but some... in me, its time for a Mid-season Recap before we start this bitch up again.

So lets review our cast, and how their roles have held up in the first five episodes.

We have :

One/Jace Corso: The Serious Roleplayer and... ahem... Good Twin of himself.  Supposedly the Male Lead but appears to prefer the gentle caresses of Leather Daddy. Not a good actor by any stretch.
      Well: He has pretty much hit every beat thus far for Serious Roleplayer. He runs into the middle of Initiative Checks to shout Parlay, he comes up with stupid plans, and when another player tries to get some Serious Roleplaying in for themselves, he shits all over it by... not-Roleplaying.  Dude's batting a thousand.

Two/Does Not Acknowledge former Name: The GM's Girlfriend.  She prefers to kick fellow party members in the face rather than simply ask them to step aside, she was magically cured of Space Zombie Plague for No-Reason-Whatsoever, and appears to have gotten super-powers out of it. She squashes The Kid's 'Intuitive Good Gambler' Schtick by hitting Blackjack five fucking times in a row at the Space Casino, and she knife murders dudes for slapping The Kid.  Also: She appears to Fuck Like A Man Even When The Men Don't... so she's pretty much batting a thousand here too.

Three/Don't remember name: Gun Guy. He likes his guns. Pretty much Chaotic Stupid most of the time, but is actually a pretty good fighter when the GM isn't fucking with him. Occasionally tries to Roleplay, but that's secondary to having awesome guns.  I not only KNOW this player, I've BEEN this player.  Still batting a Thousand for RPG stereotypes.

Four/Ryo something or other but really Ishida: The Monk. He prefers swords to guns, doesn't talk much but when he does it is for calculated maximum badass quotient.  Never really tries to roleplay much beyond Loner-Badass.  He's batting a thousand too, but I have to take half off for breaking Moe-droid's heart when she just wanted to use Google-Images Search for him.  Then I have to give him that half back because, well, he actually used Google-Search and... ahem... GNN!  So, he's the player that will totally ninja-loner-badass on the roof of the tavern while everyone else is roleplaying buying a beer inside, but actually gets shit done.  

Five/No Name revealed: THe Kid, mostly there to hang out and scam doritos? Check. Occasionally given inexplicable Plot Devices by the GM which she promptly hands to the rest of the party to play with? Check and OMG fucking check.  Weird psychic/not psychic powers?  Triple check. River Tam without kung fu? Well... we're waiting for her secret Kung Fu, but yeah.  Nailed it again, another Thousand!

Six/Griffen (I shit you not) Jones: The Utility Player and secret Leather Daddy. Like most utility players he tries to get shit done, but he's not a hard core RP'r, and his character is more balanced competence then Gun Guy, so sometimes his awesome/semi-sensible plans go awry because the GM knows he'll be back week after week even if he doesn't get to be awesome.  I DID NOT expect him to have a fetish for drugging men into unconsciousness, however, so.. .890.  That's right, I'm giving myself a non-round number batting average that is still disgustingly high but not perfect for this one.


Then we have Moe-Droid, who was the GM's character, but is now being played by his over-eager baby sister. She's got an awesome character sheet, godlike levels of power, but her player doesn't really understand power gaming at all, and just wants to be useful and 'part of the group', but since she's just a tag-along baby sister they tend to ignore her, which breaks her little Moe heart.  I totally did not call that, so no points, but she's just so Goddamn Moe I have to give them all back.  

And then we have the GM. He's got a god damn Plot Train that he is bound and determined to keep on track, despite his players. He thinks he's really good, but nobody respects his Great Kanedan Novel, and his GF keeps flirting with the other players, but since she says she's just being 'in character' he lets her do it.  I bet the player (the GF player, not the GM player... though...) wears a corset and shows a lot of cleavage, but they may not be having sex for real. Maybe a handy.


And... the party is pretty much where they ended Episode One. They have a cool ship with no guns (damaged?), no money and no friends. They know their names and that they are wanted criminals, (except for The Kid, of course), but in five motherfucking episodes they haven't done much more than that.  We know One is some sort of Imposter and Four is Imperial Nobility From The Other Side of The Galaxy.


I've got a liter of Monkey Shoulder, now down a good fifth, and a good sized Tumbler glass (square cut bottom so it won't roll away on me.... forgot where I got that from, killjoys maybe?) so let's review Teh Rulez:

Every time the show pulls an RPG session, particularly a BAD RPG session, trope out of its hat, I take a drink, a sip for half-assing it. THis includes for the GM/Writers.  Anytime the writing is hilariously bad for any reason, I take a drink.  Only one drink necessary per scene, so I don't run out of booze and/or liver.  If something is offensively bad I can cancel the drink.  

I post 'as I watch', so comments are more or less in order to events on the show, but to keep things moving along I'll try to get through an entire scene before I comment, and I post at random intervals when I start to fear my Touch Pad planning yet another betrayal.

With that, I'm off to Episode Six.  To preserve my health I will NOT be pre-loading the scotch.

So... Episode Six starts off with one of those 24 hours Earlier bits. I should drink for shit tropes, but won't.

Anway: Before that we get to see that bastard Monk doing his patricidal bit back on the homeplanet, but when he pulls his hood down its The Kid. Nice. Of course it turns out they're trying to get their memories out of her head (Like, with a spoon?), and its not going well.  For a moment when the hood came down I thought it was Two, which would have been Twist City, but thats only because women, they all look alike to me, yo.  

Anyway, back on the ship The GMGF makes an intimidation check to their Fixer/Quest Giver so they don't get bogged down dealing with the fallout of deliberately destroying the Zombie Plague Ship last Ep.  Its... ok, I guess. Then they talk about how desperate they are while The Kid listens from around a corner. Why around a corner? I mean: EVERYONE is part of teh conversation except Moe Droid, so its not like this is secret stuff. I guess it's traditional that you 'surrepticiously' listen when planning to do something stupid and desperate to 'save everyone' or something.

I'm... y'know? I don't really want to talk about Serious Roleplayer's hilarious attempts to Not-Be-Ghey, so until I get drunker or bored I'm just gonna pretend those scenes don't happen. Cool? Cool.

I mean: I SHOULD, because "She Fucks Like a Man..." and all, but... meh.  Unless it's in spanish, I don't watch soap operas.   Also, they really want to make that UST work, don't they?  I'm telling you, the player has a corset. Which player? At this point I'd say... Both of Them.

At least Killjoys has the excuse of being written by a woman, which may be why I never saw 'disfunctional RPG group' in that show.

Ok, so I think its safe to say that the GM is running Traveller, or at least the GMGF is a hard core traveller fan. She's always crunching fuel cost and consumption rates and telling everyone how far they can get before they run out of money.

And you know we're getting another River Tam moment when the Kid stops looking Pensive and looks like maybe she's on the verge of her first ever orgasm.  First it was eyeball gouging, now its the prospect of frying her brain to drag memories out of it, and I really wish I had another way to describe it, because she's right at that weird age of 'old enough to be sort of hot, young enough that you'd rather pretend she's not'.  Of course, the actress is 19 if I'm reading the internet correctly, so... perv away you bastards, don't let me hold you back.

And Gun Guy continues to be my favorite player!  He's all for the Kid frying her brain to get their memories back, fair enough. But when called on about treating her like an adult, he totally goes:

"Hey, I'm not the one who gave her a vote. You can't have it both ways."

The only thing missing is Bubba.  


Ok, so: We see Monk as a teenager beating up another kid during Kendo practice when Emperor Daddy (who at first struck me as a cheap Mako replacement) comes in to beat HIM up for not being ruthless enough, and they pull The Kid out of the dream because of course they do.  Nothing much to report, but the very next scene is that bastard Monk in his quarters doing... what else... practicing his Fightan Moves. So, we have our first Drink!  I'm guessing the Kid will come in and have some of his moves, but mebbee not.

Eh. Half right. The Kid shows up and he does the Wise Mentor routine on her, with maximally calculated amounts of badass.   I guess that drives teh plot better than her pulling his kendo moves on him.

So... way back in Ep1 they all put in these really big bluetooth headset 'comms', and  for most of four episodes they wore them pretty much everywhere, no matter how inappropriate but almost NEVER used them.  Still not using them.  Just sayin'.

Also: I'm going on record now to say at least five minutes of this episode will be The Kid laying down on the medical table (the verb form, not the... um.. damn, I just failed high school english. Adjectival?), and ten... no, fifteen minutes... of her lying there, on said table.

And.... ALL the memories will be from that bastard Monk? I mean, it fits the show so far, where he is almost literally the only one with any back story, but damn! Anyway, playing that bastard Monk in the flashbacks is, at least, giving The Kid something to do other than look Pensive or... well... in her bunk...  for once.  Now she gets to try and play ninja-loner-badass-noble.  Its a strange combination, but who knew that bastard Monk was the frustrated novelist of the group? His backstory must have taken the GM HOURS to read through.  Palace intruige, exiled brothers, alcoholism, abusive murdered fathers and sensei-san, who naturally gets a PC held sword to his neck, because that's just how player roll, yo.  That calls for a sip at least.

.... AND we have the long emotionally cathartic diatribe delivered unto the abusive Emperor Daddy... who turns out to be dead the whole time!  Because  OF COURSE!  Damn, I'm going to upgrade that sip to a full on drink, just for that!

.... AND we literally get a replay of the opening scene. Way to reuse footage you cheap Kanedan bastards!

And that concludes our Setup, I guess, so... POST!

So, we get Technobabble Moe, which is good Moe-droid, and OF COURSE! The Kid is trapped in the dream state despite them taking the 'mind probes' off of her.   Normally I'd expect someone to have to "go in after her", but we got that Wise Sensei version of that bastard Monk earlier telling her the secret truth she just needed to hear all along to save herself, so we already know where this is going.

I may be wrong about how often she's going to lie down in this episode, but I'm still crossing fingers for how much time she spends lain down.

So... If I have the rules right about this Quantum Leap thing they're doing, the current flashback is her own memory (because mirrors show the character, not The Kid, and this time its The Kid...), too bad. that means we're going to get fifty shades of pensive.  Did I mention she is a pickpocket? Well, we knew she was a street kid because INTUITIVE shell game ownage.  Also, we know its her because her fashion sense is a terrible as always.

like OMG, you guys! Guess what she's doing now?

Did you say 'Crawling through ventilation shafts'?  You SHOULD have said 'Crawling through ventilation shafts', because that's what she always does.

Anyway... so she seems to be part of a commune of street kid hobos living in the vent shafts? Only eveyone is missing, because OF COURSE they are!  (seriously now I need that bit of M.Bison to link during those Of COURSE moments), and the dead kid wanders in, very calm about having a bloody hole in his kidney.  No, seriously, that shit hurts, y'all. Once again revealing that Kanedans don't seem to get violence or death very good.  Oh, and Five's name is... um... Daz? Dath?  I'm gunna go with Daz, fewer letters and she sorta reminds me of their 3d models a little bit anyway.  Don't worry, she'll always be The Kid to me.

Sweet Jeebus, this kid (not The Kid, the other one) is, like Super chill about having a bloody hole in his kidney, what with drinking water and dropping exposition like a fucking Terminator.  Are we sure he was really dead? I mean, he may have just been napping.   Oh, and we get that Daz's personal bad guy is a guy with a beard, and her Plot Device extradimensional doodad is a key. Damn this kid sure knows a lot. Maybe the angels are giving him everything?

No, seriously: Seeing 'The Key' appears to hurt this TJ fellow more than being shot did.  Also: Guess what emotion The Kid is displaying as her bestest friend evah is dying in front of her eyes?  Did you guess 'Pensive'? OMG, you guys!

To be fair, given how well TJ is taking it, I guess we shouldn't expect her to be too worried about it.  I mean, they're Kanedan and all, so its not like he's actually gonna die or anything. He's not a real person, you know.

Ok, so I was going to post how he looks a bit like... I dunno Justin Beiber crossed with a sweaty Selena Gomez (is that her name? Fucking disney princesses all start to blend together after a while), but then we find out that everyone else is dead. And, in true Kanedan fashion that seems to bother TJ about as much as the fact he's got a bleeding fucking hole in his kidney.  Death, mang, its just such a nuisance, you know?

And... The Kid manages to get so much pensive that it actually cracks into something vaguely like real emotion!  I'm sure she'll recover in a second, though.  Weird how the director let her break character and didn't even call Cut or anything!

And.... TJ looks a bit more bothered by her breaking character than he does about being shot.  I... I just can't get over that. I may... no, I WILL, drink to that.  Here's to you, random NPC who just won't fucking notice he's dying until after he's delivered the GM's plot exposition all up in this bitch, no matter how much time the players waste Roleplaying all over his mook ass.

Surprising absolutely no one at this point, it turns out she stowed away aboard the Raza. Shockingly, not by means of the ventilation shafts but by hiding in the food crates.  And equally surprising, TJ continues to terminator the fuck out of his gut shot.  THEN they go into the ventilation shafts, continuing their perfect average of surprising people.    I'm convinced this kid didn't bleed to death, he died of old age while everyone else was in stasis.

I had to check. It is NOT in fact Justin Bieber playing TJ. I'm... well, I'm pretty Moe about that myself, if I'm honest.  Also he seems more put out that The Kid is going to try and medic his ass than he is about his injury.  No, seriously, the GM is going 'This is just a Plot NPC, guys. Stop trying to save his ass! Let him exposit this bitch and die tragically.'  But The Kid is determined to use her full range of Pensive Looks, probably to make up for breaking character and showing 'real emotion(TM)'.

oh... oh god.

So we get the usual babymamadrama about how The Kid is dying in her dream state because... hypothalamouse, y'all.  So... somebody has to go in after her.  I mean... wow. I... I dont think I've ever seen that plot point before!   But... but... who do you think SAID THAT?   Who is it going to be?

You will never, not in a million years, guess who delivered the 'someone has to go in after her' dialog! *

I mean. I'm gonna drink because OF COURSE.


And, Of COURSE, the guy doing the dirty is Leather Daddy, our designated Suicide Seeker, which means this will be dangerous on an unprecendented level or something...  the writing here is so awesomely bad that if I wasn't already taking a drink, I'd take a drink.  There is no reason for him to volunteer here, no reason to squash the misguided squishy heroics of the Serious Roleplayer, or the You Go Girl team vagina of the GMGF, but there will be no argument, the Utility Player is going in, y'all!

I am vaguely sad that we are only getting Technobabble Moe this episode.  I mean, Moe-droid has been doing her best to Moe, but really she's just playing doctor this ep, so...  

Ah, too soon! Moe-droid drops some slo-mo technobabble and tags it with Moe-ment. Moe-droid is best droid.

Naturally the first Memory Leather Daddy has is one of his, and Memory-Leather-Daddy is hanging with a couple of strapping dudes. Because Of COURSE!  Wait: Leather-Daddy stole The Raza from the Galactic Authority?  Woah!  World Building Alert!  (also: The Raza is a Destroyer... still pissed about that Phantom Class Marauder bit, but whatever, I'll take it.)

Anyway: Leather-Daddy, still hanging with nothin' but dudes, is part of some sort of 'Insurrection', freedom fighters against the Galactic Authority. Only!!!  The Insurrection set him up the bomb, yo. LIterally, the shuttle they left on the station where they stole The Raza was a bomb that killed 10,000 people and this poor dumb sucker is the only guy not in on The Plan.  Because, OF COURSE.

Hilarious. In what I can only assume is a shout out to Toxic Masculinity, when Leather Daddy is told to Man Up, he immediately shoots everyone in the face.   Bro! The Ghey's don't care 'bout no Toxic Masculinity!  Also: I can guess his personal nemesis (since we're collecting them in this episode) will be some guy called The General.

ok, ok... so the next scene is... well, its fucking badass.  I mean, its exactly opposite of the rules, but damn, it deserves a fucking toast for badass. I'ma lay it out for ya.

Goddamnit!!! Touch Pad HOBO-MURDER!!!!!

Sigh.

So.  you get the crappy rewrite of the recap instead.  Five is willfully living One's memories of life on a farm and doesn't want to go back. Six and Five do a wonderful job acting up this bitch. Everythign about the scene is perfectly handled, with subtlety and a delicate touch entirely out of sync with the rest of the show.   I should drink to that, but won't because rulez.


Anyway: The Kid closes teh episode with a couple of short scenes to set up that bastard Monk on his revenge path with maximally calculated badass reached, and so we can see Leather Daddy preparing his own revenge Path with This is GNN!

And Scene!... er... POST!





* It was that bastard Monk.  I know!

Ep Seven.

GAH! Upsidedown Camera is Upsidedown!


So? Locked Door Episode?  They are definitely setting up a Big Locked Door episode.

Also: GMGF is just hanging around in her room in a towel so we can get more forced UST?  Corsets and Cleavage, I tells ya! Also, sudden, but tasteful TV, nudity is sudden, and hilarious. Poor Serious Roleplayer has no idea what to do with sudden ladyparts.  More non-spanish Soap Opera. Some good lines and more awkward fake-hetero action...

Also: Gun Guy stopped banging GMGF because she was bit by a Space Zombie, not because she called him One during sex. Boo!!!!

Oh! My! GOD! Who interrupts our hilariously 'so-not-ghey' attempt at a kiss from Serious Roleplayer?

Leather Daddy, that's who!   Oh... fuck me, that is a god damn drink!

STILL waiting for this show to prove my fan theory wrong, still not disappointed.

oh, and the look he gives Serious Roleplayer as they run by him to the Big Locked Door? Priceless.  And he was definitely checking dat ass (SR's ass, not GMGFs ass) as they went by!  

oh hell, this is going to be painful. I just saw 'guest starring Ruby Rose' on screen.  I am not drunk enough to put up with her preciousness.  Who the hell is she fucking to get on everything?  I know its not because she's got talent or charisma.  

Anyway: Inside the Big Locked Door is... a cargo hold with boxes of cargo. So... way to build up nothing? Anyway, we have a new drink moment coming, so...  Leather Daddy opens a box and finds... a lot of guns. He's way to excited by this (seeing that they started the show with many many boxes of guns...), and then Gun Guy comes over and picks up a random rifle.

"I'm going to call you Raquel."

And with that, I drink!

Anyway: They find a box full of space money, so what are teh odds they'll lose it all by the end of the episode? Also: Another droid, probably? And probably Ruby Rose, so that didn't take long.

I already drank this scene so no second drink for

Gun Guy: "We should thaw her and find out."

GMGF: "We should thaw her and find out."

Gun Guy: "I just said that, like five seconds ago."

Serious Roleplayer: "Yeah, but from her is sounds reasonable."

And... MOE!!!!!  also, Scene.

So, Pod Girl is not a droid, and I don't think she's Ruby Rose (Thank goD!), it turns out she's got an incurable disease with days to live and god DAMN if Gun Guy doesn't play to type and suddenly reveal a soft spot!  But, Micro-scene, so back to the Big Locked Door.

Lol for space packing peanuts, boo for Ruby Rose.  But she is packed up like a commodity, wrapped in cellphane and packing peanuts (sci fi edition), and may be in parts, so... kudos for that. Sigh. I'm so conflicted.

Also: Androids wear lacy black panties?  I mean: We've [fuck me running ANOTEHR TOUCH PAD sabotage!!!!] already had one violation of the George Lucas No Underwear in Space rule, from the GMGF, but watching Serious Roleplayer lift teh unused panties from teh cargo box like an alien facehugger is just sooooooooo precious!

RR is playing a sex bot, apparently, but Kaneda, so we get their usual lack of understanding about human sexuality, as her list of qualifications is Magic Tricks and Twirling.  Sigh.  

Then. (and this is where the Touch Pad betrayed me!) Then we get a VERY VERY forced misunderstanding 'joke' when teh 'so not ghey you guys' Serious Roleplayer tells the 'not yet old enough for sex' The Kid to 'Turn On' the android.  No, I'm cereal you guys.  Ugh. No drink for very bad jokes.

And... RR isn't doing a damn thing to hide her very australian accent, so we're getting her very best work this episode.  

More importantly, however, Leather Daddy takes his place, literally shoulder to shoulder, as SR talks about having 'read teh manual' when refusing a demonstration of her sex-botting skills. Oh MY.  Sooooo very, very ghey.

And I'm gonna POST this setup.

So... they actually lampshade the Aussie thing. No, seriously.  And watching LD and SR look lovingly into eachother's eyes while she... ahem... acts her way through this scene with all the subtlety of a drunk rhinosaurus (I know a thing or two about that...), is... sweet.  Trying to spice it up in the bedroom, boys?  

But, you know, watching all this bad actressing from RR as a sex-droid makes me appreciate and lub Moe-Droid all the more.   Heh! I'm looking for silver linings, okay?

So, on to teh dying woman... and please, please PLEASE be a Gun Guy episode! Oh, please!

IT IS!!!  SWEET HALLELUJAH!!!!  DRINK!!!! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!!


and... droid off. Moe-Droid, of course, now and forever.   This is the Episode that gives and gives until it hurts, then makes you watch the current Hollowwood precious darling Ruby Rose try to act her way out of that latex dress.  

SOoooooo much Moe.   Good thing you're supposed to water scotch, and the salt of my Moe-break tears just adds character. I kid, of course. My taste buds are already numb, and I would never insult good scotch by watering it, even with Moe-tears.  Those I catch and preserve in amber so that future generations can know that the ancients of the distant past knew wonders undreampt of in their glorious, but empty, lives.

Gah! Sudden Sepia Flashback is Sudden!

Also: Fuck you show. This should be Gun Guy talking to dead-girl, not GMGF. I mean, I know the GM got a handy under the table, but still!

Anyway, cut to that bastard Monk, who is... once again, loner-ninja-badassing it up in his room practicing his Fightan Skills, so... eh, this is a sip at best, he's ALWAYS doing that.

And Maximal Badass Line?  "I don't eat for pleasure."

Jeeze, if I hadn't already taken teh sip, that would be afull on drink upgrade!

So we have a showdown, folks: Maximal Ninja-loner Badass vs Bad Actress sexbot! Who will win?  Will the Maximal Badass be able to avoid the temptations of the poorly delivered line?  HE WILL NOT! He's going to RP the shit out of letting her join the crew, with as much calculated maximal badass grunting and mock profundity as he can muster!!!!

We have a winnah!!  But sadly, as it is Ruby Rose, we all lose!


Only, we don't really, because we get Moe in the background!  So MOE!!!!!

It only took two full minutes of awkward Kanedan sexbotting before we start hearing about the exotic erotic techniques RR brings to the table, including Quasaring and Dunking the Cosmic Doughnut. Too bad LD isn't in the scene, because of the pair he's clearly the AC/DC. SR is just lost.

Oh!!! OHH!!!!

"On the other hand, if you prefer male anatomy I come with interchangable parts."

That.

That is.

Perfect.

Drink perfect, in fact.   Apparently I'm not the only one who caught on!

so.  oh, fuck it, before I go on, when I woke up I remembered that AED is Automatic Electric Defibrilator, so there. Also, where was I? Oh, yes: In todays very special episode all the women will show the ghey guy their tits. That is all.  And scene.  at last.

Eh, more not-telenovela. Bored now.  For the record, RR has a perfectly lovely face, and I have seen much worse actressing in my life.  She is just bad enough, and meh lovely enough that it gets annoying to see her constantly hyped as the next big thing. She.isn't.good.enough.

Then we get Moe-droid trying to win back the cru (or SR anyway) with a display of accents. So Moe, but... I gotta pass here.  On the other hand, when SR leaves the scene and she stops doing her many accents and quietly zips back up her jumpsuit....  I'm crying, mang. Crying. Soooooo muuucchhhh Moe.

No words. Just Moe.  


BUBBA!!!

So, I've been quietly convinced that the actor playing Gun Guy has been slumming it in this show.  Now that they've got a serious actress for him to act against, I have my proof.   Gun Guy is totally slumming it in this show.   The actress reminds me a little bit of Famke, which is very much a compliment.  They get a full minute of Sepia Toned Flashback with no dialog (the flashback is longer, I'm talking about the no-dialog part) that tells us about as much about Gun Guy as the entire last episode told us about that bastard, Monk.  

I imagine his backstory was a single paragraph, and as deep as the novel that bastard Monk delivered.   Hell, I'll write it up right now.

"I was a heartless merc, a real bastard. I met a girl, fell in love for the first time, found meaning in my life. I knew I'd only bring her pain, so I resolved to leave her, to save her from the bastard I really knew I had to be, but... she believed in me. Then she got sick and I lost her. She... she never saw the man I was, only the man she knew I could be."

Bam!   and POST, while I dry my eyes. Between Moe-droid and Gun Guy I'm a wreck. A drunken, slobbery rhinosaurus wreck.   I'm drinking to that backstory, and you should too.