Westworld

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

Long before helping a whole generation of kids fall in love with dinosaurs with Jurassic Park or reassuring a whole generation of climate change deniers with State of Fear, Michael Crichton directed a little movie called Westworld. The film revolved around a futuristic theme park where guests could act out historical fantasies (including the Wild West, medieval Europe, and the Roman empire) with a cast of robots built to be their compulsory sex slaves/murder victims. The action centers around two friends played by Peter Benjamin (who looks like a young Uncle Jack from It's Always Sunny) and James Brolin (who looks like a pudgy Christian Bale) who visit the park looking for a good time, but then get caught in the chaos when the park robots begin to develop minds of their own. They even stunt-cast Yul Brynner as a robot version of his Magnificent Seven character. This has the makings of a cult classic written all over it, but what did the nanobots think?

• For yielding a pretty cool Pop. 1280 song. = +3pts (Not, like, one of their best, but still...) 
• The Delos theme parks ad boiled down to one sentence: "Hey, rich people, now's your chance to hunt humans, guilt free." = +13pts 
• Returning visitor to Medievalworld tells interviewer that he "married" a beautiful princess. (Wink.) = -4pts 
• So is visiting Westworld the kind of vacation that you talk about with your coworkers after you come back?
  "Hey, Doug, how was your vacation?"
  "Oh, it was great. I got to kill a bunch of robots that looked like people and then have sex with some other ones. Afterwards, I got a free t-shirt to take home." = -10pts 
• Young Uncle Jack asks more questions than my mom five minutes into a movie that neither one of us has ever seen. = -5pts 
• The Delos logo is the perfect blend of tacky '70s graphic design and sinister. = +11pts 

https://bkivey.wordpress.com/

It's like they bred a biohazard sign with a ladder spider.

• The automated message reassuring the characters that "Nothing can go wrong" as they are shuttled to their vacation destinations is the opposite of reassuring. = -6pts 
• Westworld: A place to sleep on uncomfortable 1800's furniture and get publicly emasculated by Yul Brynner. = +12pts 
• Young Uncle Jack gets his first taste of blood. = +5pts 
• The guns won't fire at other guests because they have a built-in heat sensor. But...in order for the robots to feel like humans, wouldn't they also have to give off the same amount of body heat? Or is sleeping with one of the sex models like screwing a refrigerator? = -8pts 
• The engineers positively nailed the dead-eyed, thousand-yard stare of the hooker-bots. = +7pts 
• "When a man and woman really love each other, they share a very special...well, it's kind of like a hug. See, first they take off all their clothes and get into bed, then the man rolls on top of the woman. Then the woman rolls on top of the man. Then the man rolls back on top of the woman, and back and forth again, and that's where babies come from." = -13pts 
• Do all of the guests at Delos theme parks go to bed and wake up at the same time? = -2pts 
• Delos's lead technician describes a series of robot malfunctions as symptoms of a "machine disease" and is promptly scorned by all his peers. Michael Crichton, predicting the computer virus. = +20pts 
• Young Uncle Jack shoots Yul Brynner again, but this time gets sent to jail. You know what they say, "Shoot Yul Brynner once, shame on him. Shoot Yul Brynner twice, shame on you." = +4pts 
• Pudgy Christian Bale breaks Young Uncle Jack out of prison by smuggling him dynamite with which to blast out of his cell, which is... come on. Heat sensors on the guns, maybe, but there's no way a corporation would take on the liability of just handing some dude a stick of dynamite and trusting him not to blow himself to kingdom come. = -6pts 
• Pudgy Christian Bale shoots the sheriff down as he and Young Uncle Jack ride off into the sunset. This is a super fucked-up vacation. = -7pts 
• The rattle snake attack. = +16pts

• A Wild West-style barroom brawl sounds fun and all, but seriously, how do you stop the guests from hurting each other? Where was Delos's legal team when they were conceptualizing this? = -5pts 
• Portly guest over at Medievalworld duels the black knight with a sword that looks like someone used it as a makeshift lever. = +3pts 
• Yul Brynner as cowboy terminator way scarier than you'd expect. = +32pts 

http://diaboliquemagazine.com

And way dreamier, too.

• Ah, Pudgy Christian Bale, we'll miss your wisdom and gamely role-playing. = +6pts
• Love how robot vision in sci-fi movies is always way, way worse than regular human vision. = +9pts

http://www.gamesradar.com

It's like a bad Pictionary drawing dragged mewling and hissing into the real world.

• Young Uncle Jack establishes himself as the hero of the picture by getting driven away from his own ambush, sans his weapon. = -8pts 
• Young Uncle Jack, fleeing his failed ambush, encounters a desperate technician trying to repair a flat tire on his park cart. The technician tells Young Uncle Jack that he's never going to escape from Yul Brynner. "No matter whatcha do, he'll always be a jump ahead of ya. You haven't got a chance!" To which Young Uncle Jack replies, "Yes I do," and rides away. = +10pts 
• Right about now, the park staff is probably second-guessing their decision to equip their robots with infra-red heat-seeking vision, live ammunition, and an impeccable killing instinct. = -18pts 
• Young Uncle Jack escapes into the subterranean tunnel network beneath the park through a manhole in Romanworld. Which makes sense, given that escaping into manholes is probably one of the major selling points in Romanworld's brochure. = +14pts 
• So, earlier in the film, the scientists who run the park found themselves trapped in their control room with a dwindling air supply. Instead of MacGyvering their way out and finding a way to restore order in the park, when Young Uncle Jack happens upon the command center, they're all dead of asphyxiation. That's some cold-blooded shit, Westworld. = +20pts 
• Good thing the technicians who worked at the robot repair center had access to a full-service acid bar. = +5pts
• The scene in Medievalworld where Young Uncle Jack hides himself from Yul Brynner's infrared vision by ducking under a torch was essentially self-plagiarized for the initial T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park. = +9pts 
• ...And just plain plagiarized for the climax of Predator. = +9pts 
• Charbroiled Yul Brynner-bot. = +14pts 
• The scene where Young Uncle Jack frees a woman from a Medievalworld dungeon and gives her water, only to discover that she's a machine when she erupts into sparks and smoke is way unsettling...buuut, doesn't that really mean that all he had to do to stop Yul Brynner the entire time was splash some water on him? = 0pts (Kind of a wash.) 

Total Score = +100pts
Available on: DVD, bits and pieces of plagiarized ideas from sci-fi movies throughout the past half century (more or less)

While somewhat shaky in its execution, Westworld brings a hell of a lot to the table. It's pretty obvious that the seeds for what would eventually become Jurassic Park were planted right here, and Yul Brynner's implacable, affectless robot killing machine seems like a pretty clear precursor to the Terminator franchise. Most of the weaknesses in storytelling are offset by some surprisingly chilling set pieces. Probably the biggest weakness, though, is the movie's unwillingness to explore the most compelling aspects of its own premise. The Delos parks are basically playgrounds where "civilized people" can go to live out their own atavistic fantasies, with the thin veneer of fake historicism to make it seem less barbaric. Does it make it okay to kill somebody, just because that somebody is an extremely detailed robot? How is having sex with a Medievalworld chambermaid that much different than engaging a prostitute for the night? What does partaking in these kinds of activities do to your sense of empathy for REAL humans? Apparently HBO has been cooking up a television adaptation for the film for some time. While we're struggling to see how this premise could sustain itself as a series, we would love to see more attention given to these less savory themes and implications. Too bad ol' Yul isn't around to don the chaps again. That dude was terrifying.

Three Men and a Baby

Score Technicians: Amanda Hemmerling and Joe Hemmerling

In honor of the passing of the late great Leonard Nimoy and because of the tiny human Amanda is incubating in her abdomen, this technician duo decided to score Three Men and a Baby. For those who don't remember, the film centered around three totally straight grown men--actor Jack (Ted Danson), architect Peter (Tom Selleck), and cartoonist Michael (Steve "The Gute" Guttenberg)-- whose completely heterosexual lives are turned upside-down when an old flame of Jack's leaves their lovechild on the trio's doorstep. It entertained the hell out of us when we were nine, but to the nanobots, nostalgia weighs less than air. Let's see how it holds up under their merciless prodding.

• Directed by Leonard Nimoy (yes, really). = +16pts 
• Opening your movie with a sex montage that's completely devoid of sex. = -7pts 
• Ambiguous sexuality alert: It's totally normal for three guys who live together to decorate their apartment by painting pictures on the wall of each other, right? = +6pts 
• Attractive people with cool jobs living in New York City (see also: Friends, Sex and the City) in 1987 = +10pts, in 2015 = - 15pts. Net score = -5pts 
• If you meet a jogger on the street who is immediately willing to go home with you, don’t do it. The likelihood of an adorable '80s movie unfolding in the aftermath is slim. = -8pts (Seriously, herpes is your best-case scenario.) 
• Ambiguous sexuality alert: Two out of the three main characters go by their full first names. = +2pts 
• You know the saying “does he ever age?” The opposite, “did he ever look young?” applies to Tom Selleck in this film. = -4pts 
• Ted Danson, after quantum leaping into the future to steal Jerry Seinfeld’s pirate shirt, heads to Turkey to film a movie because plot device. = +11pts 

Not even the women who want to jump his bones can restrain their laughter at Ted Danson's Pirate Heff costume.

• Tom Selleck follows Ted Danson’s lead and steals Alec Baldwin’s checkered Beetlejuice shirt. = +5pts

Saying his name three times will summon his mustache.

• The Gute is the brains behind Johnny Cool, who's basically just Chester the Cheetah, but way more racially problematic. = -26pts

Hmmm...we just don't see it.

• '80s movie staple: the musical stylings of Gloria Estefan. = +3pts 
• When does Tom Selleck find time to design buildings with all the exercise that he does? = -2pts 
• The classic someone left a baby at the door double take. = +9pts 
• The Gute's ability to entertain a baby is about on par with his ability to entertain the rest of us. = -12pts 
• A grocery clerk rattles off a list of items that babies might be allergic to, how to tell an infant’s exact age, and the best foods for newborns. Deleted scene: her decision to drop out of obstetrician school to work directly in the trenches of the diaper aisle. = +7pts 
• Montage of Tom Selleck hand washing every clothing item the baby has pooped on. So they could afford a sprawling penthouse on the park but decided to scrimp on the washing machine? = -4pts 
• Rebecca and Tom Selleck, who have been dating for five years, date other people with each other’s blessing. Pretty progressive for a man with a non-ironic moustache. = +6pts 
• In addition to being a scumbag toward women, Ted Danson seems to have involved his roommates in trafficking drugs. That loveable scamp! = +12pts 
• Why is the baby constantly wearing a bonnet? Is it Easter Sunday, 1955? = -3pts 
• Hiding thousands of dollars worth of drugs in a baby's diaper. = +7pts 
• Ambiguous sexuality alert: The three guys have a precious joint answering machine message... And an antique rotary phone. = +18pts 
• Director Leonard Nimoy puts his sci-fi stamp on the film with the inclusion of “Ghost Boy,” the ghost of a boy who was killed when he mixed Pop Rocks and Coke, had his organs harvested by a prostitute, said Bloody Mary three times in a mirror, and realized the calls were coming from inside the house (spoiler: it’s just a cardboard cutout). = +23pts 

• A realization: Between the scene of Tom Selleck reading inappropriate material to a baby in a soothing voice, the scene where Ted Danson tries to offload his daughter on his mom, and quite frankly the entire premise of the movie, a lot of plot points from Season 3 of Eastbound and Down were copped directly from this movie. = +28pts 
• Ambiguous sexuality alert: Ted Danson decides the best way to evade the criminals is to dress as a woman and go for a night on the town. = +11pts 

getoffmyinternets.net

Pictured: What Ted Danson's character thinks a woman looks like.

• '80s movie plot staple: Meeting criminals in an abandoned construction site. = +3pts 
• The guys decide to record Tom Selleck verbally exonerating them while handing the drugs off to the criminals, and then trap them in a freight elevator for the police to pick up. With a plan that flimsy, it's a miracle this movie wasn't titled Three Men and a Corresponding Number of Unmarked Graves in Upstate New York. = -28pts 
• Detective Melkowitz (also known as the corrupt cop from The Dream Team) really wants to hold the god damn baby. = +4pts 
• Tom Selleck's pleated shorts = +10pts 
• Adorable hardhat or no, pretty sure a worksite is no place for a baby. = -18pts 
• Ambiguous sexuality alert: Three guys taking their baby swimming in a public pool. = +3pts 
• Selleck, Danson, and The Gute singing in close harmony. = +6pts 
• Life advice from the PCS: If a woman conceals the existence of your child from you for a year-and-a-half, only to abandon her outside your doorstep for a month, maaaaaaybe think twice about letting her take the baby back whenever she wants. = -18pts 
• Ambiguous sexuality alert: Ted Danson deals with his feelings by playing some '50s doo-wop and imagining in the mirror what having a baby bump is like. = +9pts 
• '80s movie plot staple: Mad dash to the airport culminating post security line. = +5pts 
• The happy Hollywood ending arrives when the guys agree to let a mentally unstable, infant-abandoning mother move into their apartment with her baby. It's a miracle the sequel didn't revolve around Sylvia spending days at a time in her bedroom and end with Ted Danson getting acid thrown in his face. = -34pts

Total Score = +37pts
Available on: DVD, basic cable somewhere probably?

It's apparent that the reason this movie appealed to us as children was because Three Men and a Baby share's a nine-year-old's conception of what adulthood is like. "Yeah, I can't wait until I'm a grown-up so I can move in with my best friends in an apartment that we'll decorate with murals that will forever commemorate our friendship! And we'll have girls over all the time, and they'll probably show us their boobs, but we won't let them stay with us, because girls are still kind of gross and scary."

Most of the laughs are the unintended kind, and they stem from how undeniably gay the protagonists are and how desperate the movie is to convince us otherwise. But while it's no comedic masterpiece, there is an undeniable charm to the film that feels a little lost from today's PG-13 comedies. One could easily imagine Three Men remade by Adam Sandler as a series of poop jokes interrupted only by perplexing celebrity cameos, and somehow involving Drew Barrymore. It's a relic of a simpler time, when a comedy could be broad without grating on every last nerve in your body.

The Neighbors

Score Technician: TJ Geise

Not content to continue riding the coattails of his own disasterpiece, The Room, enigmatic madman Tommy Wiseau revealed to the world that he was working on a television show called The Neighbors.

After years of talking about it and showing the pilot during screenings of The Room, The Neighbors finally arrived on, of all places, Hulu, as of March 14th, 2015. The four-episode series (which may be 10 or 20 episodes, according to Wiseau) features more characters to keep track of than Game of Thrones, including Tommy Wiseau in a double role: Charlie, the owner of the apartment building wherein all shenanigans take place, and Ricky Rick, a drug dealer or something.

When the nanobots heard that they were going to have to score another of Tommy Wiseau's productions, only morbid curiosity prevented them from self-destructing. The Progressive Cinema Scorecard just had to flay open The Neighbors in the name of science to ponder the imponderable and answer the unanswerable.

Can lightning strike life into the cold corpse of Tommy Wiseau twice? Read on to find out!

All Episodes

• The Wiseau Films Logo appearing only once. = +1pt 
• The intro screen featuring the characters yelling to the cannonfire part of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. = +3 for the music, -6 for the graphics, total = -3pts

huffpost.com

Yes, it really is that blurry on the show.

• The bloopy keyboard blasts during every scene transition or dance sequence. = -50pts 
• Tommy Wiseau saying “What a day!”, sometimes repeatedly in the same sentence, in a sloshing attempt to score a catchphrase. = -10pts 
• Number of times one character greeted another character with “Oh hai!” = +8pts

Episode 1

• Charlie the landlord's mullet wig has been the elephant in the room for so long that none of the other characters bother to get distracted by it anymore. = -7pts 
• Less than a minute in and already we're reminded of how hilarious Tommy Wiseau's accent is. “Thank yaaaaaou,” he says. = +4pts 
• A guy noisily bouncing a basketball and speaking with what he thinks a Latino accent should sound like asks Charlie for $20 to pay Charlie's girlfriend Bebe, who is sitting less than five feet away. Oh, we get it – this is the first joke set up. How fun! = -8pts 
• When you receive an eviction notice printed in all-caps with 96-sized font, it stands to reason that you would address your landlord in the verbal equivalent of just that. = -5pts 
• In an effort to motivate himself to find a job, a man in a bowtie shouts self-deprecating things to his reflection in the mirror before wrapping a fully-knotted noose around his neck. Later on in the show it's revealed that this didn't motivate him to find a job, but it certainly did make us laugh (because this show is a comedy, remember!). = -4pts 
• A bikini bimbo named Philadelphia borrows pepper from the bowtie guy's big jar (and by big jar, we mean coffee cup) so that she can make chicken. Bowtie guy's curiosity as to why she's wearing a bikini is quashed by the fact that she's wearing a bikini. = -8pts 
• An Asian guy busts into Charlie and Bebe's office to accuse the black guy in room 666 of cutting off the Internet. The black guy then busts in and accuses the Asian guy of having sex with men, women, and chickens. Rather than settle their differences like adults, they begin brawling like daytime talk show guests. = -15pts 
• Times the black guy said, “It’s not the ‘90s” when Charlie asked why they can't all just get along. = -3pts 
• A lady stops doing laundry to have attempted sex with a fix-it guy before basketball guy comes in holding a chicken. = -7pts 
• The fix-it guy has “Wiseau” written on his waistband of his boxers. = -10pts 
• Ricky Rick (AKA Tommy Wiseau in a blonde wig and a varsity jacket) makes his first appearance by getting sprayed in the face with whipped cream while three people shriek in amusement. = -5pts 
• Casting another black actor as a man struggling with his sexuality... who happens to click his tongue with a loud pop at the end of every sentence. = +5pts for almost having a progressive character, -15pts for making him unbearable to listen to = -10pts 
• Questionably sexual tenant's pregnant wife says to him, “I’m your wife. I’m pregnant.” = -5pts 
• Charlie congratulates the extremely pregnant woman, whom he likely sees on a daily basis given how often people come into his office, on her pregnancy as though he's never met her before in his life. Bebe follows suit. = -4pts 
• Again with the “Can I borrow $20” gag. = -16pts 
• The angriest stoner of all time and the woman who barged into his apartment looking for her chicken have a shouting match that escalates to physical violence and then peters out with death threats. Comedy! = -12pts 
• Chicken lady angrily strongarms her way into the bikini bimbo’s apartment but isn't shooed away until after getting to honk a boob. = -3pts 
• The pizza guy’s half-hearted joke about wanting to use a totally different bikini bimbo’s safety deposit box after she pays for the delivery with cash pulled from both halves of her bikini. = -7pts 
• Pizza guy takes his shirt off (revealing that he too has Wiseau underwears) and then asks the original bikini bimbo if he can use her name to get a discount in the apartment he suddenly wants to lease. = -9pts 
• “I have a job and everything,” says the pizza boy who is skipping work to spontaneously apply for an apartment. = -7pts 
• Bebe approves the pizza kid’s apartment application without checking his credit because the phones were inexplicably shut off and she can’t wait an hour (or use her cell phone) to make a phone call. = -15pts 
• Chicken lady lying on the floor screaming while Charlie asks her to have a nice day. = -8pts 
• Not shooting a second take when the pizza guy accidentally unplugs the printer as he leaves the office. = +4pts 
• When Ricky Rick's girlfriend Lula wants to buy a shotgun from the angry stoner, Ricky Rick stands up, grabs his crotch, and shouts, “You have a gun right here in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening!” = -16pts 
• Lula casts a magic spell (accentuated by the tinkling of bells) on the angry stoner to get his gun for free. After they leave, the angry stoner reacts like you’d expect: “I’m an idiot! Aaaaah! AAAAAAAAH! AGH! ...I’m okay.” = -6pts 
• After finding her chicken with the basketball guy, the chicken lady accuses him of having carnal relations with it and then threatens him with violence from beyond the grave. = -5pts 

Episode 2

• Charlie cares as much about Princess Penelope, who is supposedly part of the actual British royal family, coming to stay in his apartment as we do (which is to say not at fucking all). = +5pts 
• Charlie takes off his fancy blue shirt to put on an equally fancy purple shirt while Bebe mumbles awkward jokes about his sexual prowess. = -6pts 
• While he didn't give a fig about the princess moments before, Charlie is suddenly inviting all of the tenants to his office to have a welcoming party to Her Royal Highness. = -8pts 
• Charlie shouting incomprehensibly at his computer. = +8pts 
• Philadelphia is so depressed that she can’t tell Charlie about it (even after a gratuitous hug) unless she has ice cream. He's never shown to give her the ice cream, but we determine that she's sad because the apartment lesbian kissed her. = -7pts 
• In the middle of ordering the fix-it guy to pick up the princess, Charlie throws his arms in the air and shouts, “Santa Claus!” = +7pts 
• Basketball guy introduces himself to Princess Penelope by vigorously grabbing her ass. = -8pts 
• Princess Penelope hires the suicidal bowtie guy to be her butler on the grounds that he picked up her dropped pen (and, we assume, because he's wearing a bowtie). Charlie is adamantly against this decision. = +5pts 
• The tenants clap and begin shouting over each other with how excited they are to meet the princess. Her grimace tells the whole story. = -4pts 
• Angry stoner shouts at the top of his lungs to the bikini bimbo and the lesbian that he loves it when girls kiss and then politely excuses himself to answer the door. = -7pts 
• The bimbos argue about who they want to have sex with until the Asian guy buying drugs from the angry stoner creeps them both out. We can’t stop laughing at the comedy in this sitcom! = -10pts 
• The bimbos settles their sex argument when the lesbian suggests they have a ménage à trois with the angry stoner. The scene ends with them all walking presumably to the bedroom. = -8pts 
• As Princess Penelope is introduced to the chicken lady’s chicken, a guy with a blanket over his head and a black bar censoring his junk runs screaming down the hallway. The chicken lady isn’t sure if he was a ghost or not. = +6pts 
• When the suicidal bowtie butler accuses Tommy Wiseau of not doing anything but sitting, Tommy stands up and angrily shouts, “I am very busy! What do you think! What do you expect me to do? Just baby sitting here like ten years ago?” = +7pts 
• The above scene is immediately interrupted with a red-filtered flashback of the bowtie guy with a noose around his neck as a synthesized siren blares. = -13pts 
• When the angry stoner mistakes the chicken for a tiger, he screams that he wants to eat it and then politely asks the chicken lady if she wants to come inside. She declines and instead asks him for salt and pepper so that she can make soup. = -10pts 

tinypic.com

Actual scene from the show.

• Charlie and Bebe belt out, “God bless America!” for no reason. = -6pts 
• The argument between Charlie and Bebe regarding his trip to Hawaii possibly stemming from a desire to fuck a hula mistress is interrupted when the basketball guy spills ice cream all over the floor. = -3pts 

Episode 3

• Before they spitefully flirt with one another, the angry stoner and the laundry room slut reveal that the princess is haunted by the ghost of her uncle. = +3pts 
• The fix-it guy gratuitously showing off his Tommy Wiseau underwear in front of Tommy Wiseau. = -10pts 
• Chicken lady accosts the apartment lesbian on her sexuality, tells her to go to church, and then engages her in a fistfight. = -15pts 
• Bebe, on Lula's ability to charm people into doing her bidding: “I heard you got a gun for free and didn’t pay anything!” = +5pts 
• Facts about laundry room slut: she’s allergic to chickens and buys a gram of weed once a month to help her with cramps. = 0pts (just observing the bizarrely specific character development) 
• Actual dialogue exchange between two characters in what is being passed off as a sitcom:
  “Would you like some weed?”
  “No, it’s okay.”
  “OKAY, SO GET OUT! I SELL WEED, I DON’T FUCKING TAKE CARE OF CHICKENS!”
  “TAKE CARE OF THE CHICKEN!”
  “LEAVE!”
  “I hate you.”
  = -20pts 
• Tommy Wiseau alternating between pronouncing the word birthday as “brithday” and “birfday.” = +4pts 
• Basketball guy and fix-it guy gather up every tenant in the building so quickly that it’s almost as if they were all waiting just off-screen. Oh, wait... = -6pts 
• Everyone screams so loudly during Bebe’s surprise party that the sound recording equipment cut in and out. = -8pts 
• The group sings just enough of The Birthday Song so as not to get sued. = +1pts 
• Aside from the sudden and fleeting appearance of Ricky Rick, the last three minutes of the show are of the cast drinking from red Solo cups, throwing cake at each other, and, of course, shouting incomprehensibly. = -16pts 

Episode 4

• When Charlie and Ricky Rick appear in the same scene together, the camera cuts back and forth between the two Tommy Wiseaus faster than DJ Jazzy Jeff  can scratch a record. = -6pts 
• Not sure if Ricky Rick is blurting, “Chkaw!” while flashing gang signs or having an actual stroke. = -5pts 
• Before Charlie leaves for Hawaii, the chicken lady brings the tenants into Charlie’s office to loudly shout over one another two verses of Frère Jacques as a surprise goodbye send-off. It's beyond horrible. = -20pts 
• Given that Ricky Rick isn’t familiar with a stapler, is bored easily with learning how to use a computer, asks Bebe if he can strangle her a little bit, shows her his underwear, asks her if she’s a “commonist or a democrat,” (she's a socialist... no, wait, she's independent) and threatens to cut his own fingers off, it's safe to say that he was a poor choice to fill in for Charlie. = -12pts 
• A white man with a beard and a stogie barges into the angry stoner’s apartment, announces he’s from Cuba, and then leaves. Ricky Rick thought he was Santa Claus while angry stoner guessed him to be Fidel Castro. Who he was and why he was there is never revealed. = -9pts 
• “Let’s do violence!” shouts the angry stoner after pouring vodka everywhere. = -4pts 
• For the first (and presumably last) time, everyone in the scene looks like they're legitimately enjoying themselves. = +5pts 
• Ricky Rick, Lula, and the angry stoner sit around getting high in what is the most awkward and uncomfortable scene in the series (and that says a fucking lot). = -23pts 
• Bebe’s sister is either adopted or Bebe’s cousin… no one (including Bebe’s sister/cousin) is sure. = -8pts 
• Ricky Rick walks in and out of the office and spills water on Bebe’s office electronics, such as her fax machine and Brother P-Touch Printer label maker. = -6pts
• When Ricky Rick refuses the fix-it guy’s request for a paycheck advance, he instead makes the guy his drug runner. This show is hysterical! = -9pts 
• “If you want to have sex with a random person, you go to the laundry room,” says the fix-it guy. Trust him, he knows. = -4pts 
• Ricky Rick and the fix-it guy bond over the fact that they’re both wearing Tommy Wiseau underwear, which Ricky Rick is quick to point out are available on tommywiseau.com. = -9pts (and, yes, they are actually available for purchase on his website as of this scorecard's publication). 
• When the fix-it guy asks Ricky Rick if he’d like more coffee, he responds with, “Hey motherfucker, don’t ask me stupid questions.” This could have just been an actual exchange between the two actors that somehow made it into the episode. = +10pts 
• The angry stoner inexplicably forgets who the fix-it guy and is reminded by the fix-it guy that he sees him every day. This is either be a joke on substance abuse's affect on your brain or poor writing fixed by the fix-it guy's ad-lib. = +4pts (either way) 
• The preview for the fifth episode reminding you that this wasn't the final episode. = -5pts 

Total Score: -433pts
Available on: Hulu

There's no sugar-coating science: The Neighbors is charmless, incoherent, and barely watchable even with a scorecard. Character interactions consistently devolve into wince-inducing scream-a-thons, characters are introduced and never seen again, and people go from having a paroxysm to being totally chill at the drop of a chicken feather. Since all of the actual entertainment is gleaned from Tommy Wiseau's mushy quasi-European Christopher Walken accent and gonzo mannerisms, either watch The Room or find any interview with him on YouTube for the same effect without all of the shrieking.

Tommy Wiseau did with one film what Ed Wood did with several – he reminded us that the sincerity of an unintentionally terrible movie hits us on a level that can't be duplicated elsewhere. It's why cult movies have such devoted followings and why the French have their own word for an unintentionally bad film: nadar. On the flipside, trying to fabricate this sincerity comes off looking like a dollar store G. I. Joe: you know what it's trying to be, but it's trying too hard and comes off as undesirable.

Should The Neighbors continue, it's doubtful that its quality and cohesion will improve. Until that day, let your ol' pal science do the heavy lifting and keep this scorecard on hand for when your friend thinks it'll be funny to put this show on while you're over. What a day!

Community, Season 5

Score Technician: Michael DeLaney

Community tiptoed on the edge of cancellation for its first (marvelous) three seasons about/not about a group of with loveable misfits attending a community college. Hallmarks included deep pop culture references, meta-commentary, and a fearlessness in the face of being weird. Series creator Dan Harmon realized that he tested the NBC gods one time to many and he was fired. After an abysmal fourth season NBC hired Harmon back because NBC is a fickle teenager who wants his girlfriend back once he realizes that there really isn’t much else out there for him. Thus season 5 of Community shows Harmon and co. trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was the first three seasons. A year after graduating from Greendale, Jeff Winger has realized that being a good person and lawyer might not exactly pay off, so he and his study group return to Greendale to find new purpose and direction in the form of the “Save Greendale Committee.” Let’s see just how well Harmon did after being brought back from the dead.

BEST EPISODE: Episode 501 “Repilot”
HONORABLE MENTION: Episode 504 “Cooperative Polygraphy”
WORST EPISODE: Episode 510 “Advanced Advanced Dungeons and Dragons”
(DIS)HONORABLE MENTION: Episode 507 “Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality”

• The heavy-handed imagery of Jeff Winger/Dan Harmon doing what he believes is good but still getting crushed by the machine. = +14pts 
• Effective use of subdued grays and blacks to articulate the Dark Night of the Soul of Greendale, the study group and Jeff: dark, miserable and wonderful. = +10pts 
• Jeff/Harmon addressing how characters and ideas have escaped from him, making a mission statement to return to character-based stories. = +13pts 
• Not really fulfilling that promise – Shirley being mostly absent from two entire episodes. For shame! = -9pts 
• Attributing anything that happened in Season 4 to the effects of a gas leak. = +5pts 
• The return of Chevy Chase as Pierce Hawthorne via Obi-Wan Kenobi ghost hologram. = +14tpts 
• Burning the old study table, blazing a new trail for our heroes. = +3pts 
• The unfortunate truth that Jeff Winger cannot be the same ol’ Jeff Winger. Winger speech fails left and right. = +4pts 
• Jonathan Banks’ Buzz Hickey is basically a more eccentric version of his Breaking Bad character Mike Ehrmantraut. And we’re ok with that. = +2pts 
• Danny Pudi’s descent into madness as Abed tries to answer the unanswerable question of Nicolas Cage. = +8pts 
• Donald Glover teases us with five episodes, then peaces out. = -7pts 
• Hickey’s “Jim the Duck” cartoon is stupid bad. = -4pts. 
• Troy and Abed disguised as furniture: one last amazing tag. = +7pts 
• John Oliver returns as Professor Ian Duncan. = +2pts 
• Professor Duncan unnecessarily creeping on Britta comes out of nowhere and it feels…just no. = -15pts 
• Professor Duncan later realizing that he should not creep on Britta. = +1pt 
• Gratuitous amount of stunt casting IE. Ben Folds, Walton Goggins, Nathan Fillion, Robert Patrick, Mitch Hurwitz, Vince Gilligan, David Cross. = -17pts 
• Benjamin Chang is still insane, and Changnesia was complete bullshit. = +6pts 
• Chang making an episode about putting coins in people’s butt cracks even creepier by wearing a backwards disguise of himself. = -4pts 
• Star-Burns returns, with a donkey “hee-hawing” Dave Matthews impression to boot. = +3pts 
• Out-Finchering David Fincher with “Ass Crack Bandit.” = +4pts 
• Harmon still giving hope to Jeff/Annie shippers. = +8pts 
• The intentionally maddening ambiguity of the identity of the so-called Ass Crack Bandit. = +2pts 
• Achieving the unachievable in having a Pierce episode without Pierce. = +12pts 
• “Cooperative Polygraphy” feels like classic Community at its best. = +3pts 
• Fulfilling unintentional promises from prior seasons such as Britta getting an iPod Nano and Troy eating a ghost. = +4pts 
• Scripting powerful lines of dialogue such as Troy having “the heart of a hero.” = +8pts 
• Hot Lava proving that a “Paintball episode” can be done without actually playing paintball. = +7pts 
• Britta acting as the villainous voice of reason. = +3pts 
• Everyone fully committing to Abed’s Hot Lava delusion (Britta for the WIN!) = +7pts 
• Dan Harmon “Joseph Campbell-ing” all over this show. = +5pts 
• Delivering a touching (and epic) farewell to one of the true hearts of Community. = +10pts 
• Levar Burton returning. = +10pts 
• Britta calling out Abed: “Are you gonna have another intense burst of compatibility with a girl we never see again?” = +11pts 
• Britta being inconceivably inconsiderate to Abed’s feelings on the loss of Troy, despite the fact that in the previous episode she was trying to get him to come to terms with said feelings. = -14pts
• The return of Tracy the coat check girl from Season 4. “It was the year of the gas leak, but I won’t use that as an excuse.” = +5pts 
• Jeff becoming re-interested in Britta because the plot demands it and he is shallow or something. = -5pts 
• Without Troy, Abed runs the risk of becoming Urkel. He ruins Hickey’s comic strip and pretty much responds by saying “Did I do that??” = -9pts 
• Chang talking to ghosts who say not to trust the other ghosts. = +6pts 
• The MeowMeowBeenz app allowing Community to once again become a high-concept relationship machine that teaches us all what it means to be human. = +13pts 
• People only listen to Britta when she has mustard on her face, turning her into Che Guevara. = +7pts 
• Mitch Hurwitz as the douchey Professor Koogler = +4pts 
• Allowing what is essentially a Yelp rating to determine your place in society. = +8pts 
• Jeff’s standup act of inside jokes about the new caste system. 2’s love apples. = +16pts 
• Alex “Star-Burns” Osbourne dons a Zardoz costume, reaffirming that the only thing we know about Zardoz is that ridiculous Sean Connery outfit. = +3pts (Well, maybe not the only thing.) 
• Dean Pelton performing the dopest anti-establishment rap that anyone has ever rapped in a PayDay candy bar costume. = +16pts 
• The one-note joke that is VCR interactive gaming lasts the ENTIRE episode. = -6pts 
• The B story of grifting Chemistry books on the black market aims to recreate old school Community fun, but doesn’t quite hit that mark. = +3pts 
• Abed making an adorable “third act apology,” complete with dramatic statements in the rain and the return of Abed’s forgotten sidekick, Pavel. = +6pts 
• Making another Dungeons and Dragons episode = -12pts 
• Abed noting the high probability that this episode will disappoint: “A satisfying sequel is difficult to pull off…” = +2pts 
• David Cross coming in and shitting on everyone and everything in the episode. = -11pts 
• The ill-advised strategy of focusing the entire episode on the relationship between new character Buzz Hickey and his guest star son. = -8pts 
• Season 5 spends way too much time making “gimmick episodes.” The latest entry: “G.I. Jeff.” = -4pts 

• Whenever Shirley’s AKA “Three Kids” takes the time to mention “I have three kids.” = +6pts 
• Harmon and co. investigating the moral implications of introducing homicide into a cartoon world where no one ever dies. = +5pts 
• Calling out/paying homage to classic ‘80s cartoon tropes: “From an animated perspective? Very cheap.” = +4pts 
• Crafting a basic cartoon episode plot while establishing a system that contains three separate planes of reality. Joseph Campbell FTW. = +9pts 
• Jeff realizing that he must leave the G.I. Joe realm, because he likes drinking, having sex and peeing. Ya know, the important stuff. = +2pts 
• Jeff has a cartoon dream because…he’s afraid of getting old? = -7pts 
• Commercial narrator: “Everyone dies eventually; nobody gets out alive.” Preach, brother. = +1pt
• Abed and Britta providing a classic G.I. Joe PSA. = +3pts 
• By the end of Season 5, it seems that Harmon has run out of steam and ideas. The second-to-last episode is a story about the fact that there is no story. Argh. = -9pts 
• Despite 5 seasons saying otherwise, Jeff Winger still insists that he is a non-sentimental man who just likes scotch. = -4pts 
• “This inspection is going to be the most boring thing to happen here since Britta dated Troy.” Nailed it. = +10pts 
• Abed breaking the fourth wall by running from the camera. = -7pts 
• Star Burns playing Dave Matthews. = +1pts 
• Greendale is going to get sold because the property now has value. The Save Greendale Committee did their job so well that saving Greendale is actually killing Greendale, proving that The Buddha was right when he said that life is suffering. Or something. = +2pts 
• Subway returns to Community. Fun fact from Abed: Subway doesn’t actually have a word for their units of bread. = +6pts 
• Harmon/Jeff once again come to the realization that their time at Greendale might be over, expressing relief that the show might be done. = +1pt 
• In a pointless act of character regression, Britta and Jeff decide that they should…get married? = -8pts 
• In a story without a story, the deus ex machina is the prospect of buried treasure. = +3pts 
• Everyone in the finale thinks that the Jeff/Britta engagement is absurd. “What does this look like? An hour long episode of The Office?” = +9pts 
• Annie questions if Greendale is worth saving? With so much that has changed (and has still yet to change) “which Greendale will we be saving?” Like Jeff, Annie is asking if the struggle is worth it. Should we all just let Greendale/Community go? = +4pts 
• In perfect Abed fashion, he assures Annie that the “Jeff/Britta spinoff” won’t work, and that this is their show too. = +3pts 
• Alcoholic Schoolboard member Richie (“That’s right, we got names”) has the ability to rob brains, because of course he does. = +5pts 
• Dan Harmon once again laments that idiots have taken over the world, as evidenced by the popularity of cat videos. = +4pts 
• Jeff finally admits for the 44th time that he cares about his friends and Greendale, thus saving the day via a computer system that responds to emotions. = +6pts 
• Harmon preparing for the possibility that Community will be cancelled; having Abed predict an asteroid might destroy Earth. = +4pts 
• The fake NBC promo tag at the end of the finale serves as a final middle finger from Dan Harmon to NBC. = +8pts 
• Kind of an underwhelming finale. = -4pts 

Total Score = +197pts
Available on DVD and Hulu Plus

While Community’s first three seasons can be seen as three chapters of an ongoing story, the following two lack cohesion due to constant cast and crew departures, leaving each to be judged by its own merits. Overall, Community Season 5 had a 50% success rate. It was most certainly an improvement from the Harmon-less Season 4, but it lost the focus that it had established in the season premiere. The show seemed to do ok without Chevy Chase, but it was apparent that Donald Glover’s departure left the series slightly frazzled. Despite getting a little lost in the parade of famous guest stars and wacky episode premises, it is great to have Dan Harmon back behind the wheel. The characters feel like themselves again, and the dialogue is rife with importance and meaning. So here’s to you Community, the show that just can’t die.

Saturday Night Live, Season 1

123tagged.com

Score Technician: Arrison Kirby

The iconic Saturday Night Live is now in it’s 40th year. As a full grown adult, this technician has come to the magical realization that he has never lived in a world in which Saturday Night Live did not exist. Chevy Chase was falling off stages just slightly before my father’s balls ever made the sperm version of me. So Saturday Night Live is, for me, a catalog of the zeitgeist for each year of my life. A lot of your lives, too, readers.

So long story short: we decided to dive in and watch every episode of Saturday Night Live ever made, from beginning to end. We are going to be scoring each season, in order, as we go.

We know at the PCS we try to inject humor into the scorings, but we have kind of run into an issue here. How do you make funny on something that is already meant to be funny? You can’t. It's just like trying to explain something funny you saw on television to another person (actually, it is precisely this). They may find it interesting, but there is no way they are going to get the same emotional reaction that you did when watching the original. Timing and aesthetic are both lost in the transfer. So our approach here is to basically pick through each and every episode, pulling out the good, the bad and the interesting. Did it work well or did it not work at all? If it went off, but did not significantly change the tone of the moment, then it probably will not be mentioned here.

All the big factoids that you can read on Wikipedia or wherever will be here, of course. Here also will be a closer look at the larger artistry of Saturday Night Live, as well as it’s relationship to the times. Take note on the scoring that just because a seemingly “negative” thing occurs (such a fight between cast members, for example), it does not necessarily mean that the event would lose points. Some of the best and most revealing content is when things don’t quite work as planned.

Let’s get started. Season one is rough around the edges. It looks old and wobbly, despite being a completely new take on an old concept, at the time. The humor falls flat in places but everyone is trying really hard to do a good job. They really want you to like what you see and, as their audience, you really want to like them – and ultimately you do. Look at this cast: John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtain, Garret Morris and Lorraine Newman. These people are practically saints to us now, and here is this glimpse into their essential beginnings.

BEST HOST: Elliot Gould
WORST HOST: Louise Lasser

BEST MUSICAL GUEST: Desi Arnaz
WORST MUSICAL GUEST: Neil Sedaka

• Chevy Chase’s pratfalls beginning each and every episode. = +20pts 
• The bald guy with the hot dog in the opening credits seeming a bit on the creepy side and that girl next to him looking uncomfortable. = -5pts 
• Jim Henson Muppet sketches with adult material on every episode. = +10pts 

Muppet.wikia.com

• The writers hating The Muppets. = -5pts 
• Albert Brooks short films. = +10pts 
• The fuckin’ Bees. = +8pts 
• Lots of jokes about Patty Hearst. = +3pts 
• Disparaging jokes about Ronald Reagan considering a run for president. = +10pts 
• Watergate jokes. = +5pts 
• Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford. = +10pts
• The schtick where Al Franken and that other guy have a discussion over a game of pong. = -3pts 
• Young Paul Shaffer. = +3pts 
• Lots of filler. = -10pts 
• Everyone is smoking cigarettes…inside a television studio…all the time. = +5pts 
• George Carlin standup. [E01] = +8pts 
• New Dad commercial just seeming like it was confusing to the audience. [E01] = -2pts 
• Andy Kaufman’s Mighty Mouse bit. [E01] = +10pts 
• Albert Brooks short film piece about the age of consent being lowered to seven is way disturbing. [E01] & [E05] = +2pts 
• Valerie Brownfield doing “comedy” about being a teacher [E01] = -5pts
• "Show Us Your Guns” short film seeming like today. [E01] = +2pts 
• A “funny” commercial for a fictional razor that has (get this) three blades. The announcer saying: “because you’ll believe anything!” [E01] & [E10] = +10pts 
• Paul Simon playing basketball. [E02] = +5pts 
• Simon and Garfunkle reunion equating to Art Garfunkle singing along with Paul Simon. [E02] = +1pts 
• Rob Reiner’s “real me” monologue. [E03] = +8pts 
• Andy Kaufman’s “Pop Goes the Weasel” bit. [E03] = +10pts 
• The Lockers dance routine being off the chain. [E03] = +8pts 
• Belushi’s first Joe Cocker bit…the one that hurt Joe Cocker’s feelings. [E03] = +20pts 
• Andy Kaufman’s cannon joke. [E04] = +10pts 
• Screen graphics apologizing that ABBA is lip-synching their performance because “the tracks didn’t arrive from Sweden.” [E05] = +6pts 
• Louden Wainwright III doing what he does. [E05] = +6pts 
• Belushi as Beethoven. [E06] = +8pts 
• Landshark beginning as a “JAWS 2” parody. [E06] = +10pts 
• Lily Tomlin’s “I Got You Babe” duet with Skred, the Muppet, touching something soft. [E06] = +5pts 
• Richard Pryor owning an episode. [E07] = +15pts 
• Samurai Futaba debuts with Samurai Hotel. [E07] = +10pts 
• The Richard Pryor / Chevy Chase job interview skit. [E07] = +15pts 
• Shelley Pryor’s storytelling bit. [E07] = -8pts 
• A completely nonverbal sketch with Belushi and Radner falling in love while doing laundry. [E08] = +5pts 
• A live interview with an old lady about why we should be nice to old people. [E08] = -2pts 
• Filler video of people greeting each other in transport terminals, set to Paul Simon’s “Homeward Bound.” [E08] & [E13] = -4pts 
• The Dead String Quartet. [E09] & [E17] = +5pts 
• Elliot Gould owning the show from the moment he takes the stage…smoking a cigarette, of course. [E09] = +15pts 
• Anne Murray: horrible hair, horrible dress and nipples present. [E09] = -8pts 
• Bee sketch breaking the fourth wall as Lorne Michaels fires the director for drinking on the job. [E09] = +10pts 
• Muppets using sex toys. [E10] = +5pts 
• The opening sketch not going as planned. Chevy Chase is supposed to be hit with a pie but it misses his face. [E11] = -3pts 
• Dudley Moore accusing American humor of being unsophisticated. True or not, do you really want to alienate your audience 30 seconds into your monologue? [E11] = -10pts 
• Neil Sedaka just will not stop smiling. [E11] = -2pts 
• Al Alan Peterson’s gender swapping musical number. [E12] = +8pts 
• Little girls lip synching “This Will Be.” Creepy. Not cute. [E13] = -5pts 
• Floundering the logistics of Garrett Morris’s segment on Weekend Update when they can’t get the blue screen to display his fictional location background. [E13] = +3pts 
• Richard Nixon in a monkey mask also coming across rather creepy...but in a better way than those little girls. [E13] = +3pts 
• Belushi and Peter Boyle as Dueling Brandos. [E13] = +8pts 
• Al Jarreau really feeling it on his second song. [E13] = +8pts 
• Peter Boyle’s introduction to the “traveling people” filler video (see E08]) is short, simple, sincere and sweet. [E13] = +5pts 
• Desi Arnaz being a decent host. [E14] = +8pts 
• Desi Arnaz being an excellent musical guest...thanks in no small part to his band. [E14] = +12 
• Additional points for Desi Arnaz Jr. coming along. [E14] = +5pts 
• Ohhhh shit. What is up with Desi Arnaz’s teeth? [E14] = -3pts 
• Gary Weiss’s film about Taylor Mead and his cat is endearing and irreverent. [E14] = +3pts 
• Okay. One more Arnaz thing that must be set apart from the other four. Desi Arnaz absolutely bringing down the house at the end of the episode. Pure joy on film. [E14] +10pts 
• Young and precise Leon Redbone making magic. [E15] [E22] = +10pts 
• Four words: White Guilt Relief Fund. [E15] = +5pts 
• A Coast Guard academy choir singing a somber song with an insult to celebrities scrolling over them. [E15] = -5pts 
• Chevy Chase taking on the Muppet’s usual duties. [E15] = +3pts 
• Andy Kaufman doing an “Old McDonald” bit using volunteers from the audience. [E15] = +12pts 
• The debut of Mr. Bill, originally submitted by an audience member. [E15] = +5pts 
• Ending and episode with a lesbian wedding. [E15] = +5pts 
• ...but not the kiss. [E15] = -3pts 
• Chevy Chase addressing an audience letter about the abundance of filler used on the show. [E16] = +3pts 
• The “Butt County Highway Patrol TV Dance Party” sketch being something like an early version of the “One Party at a Time” sketch on Portlandia. [E16] = +8pts 
• Gerald Ford delivering the “Live from New York” line. [E17] = +5pts 
• It’s pre-recorded. [E17] = -2pts 
• Press secretary Ron Nesson hosting the same episode in which Patti Smith is the musical guest. [E17] = +10pts 
• Dan Akroyd’s Bass-O-Matic sketch being completely revolutionary and unique humor for the time. [E17] = +15pts 

• Gilda Radner advertises Autumn Fizz, a carbonated douche. [E17] = +8pts 
• The Supreme Court (all males at the time) watching Jane Curtain and Chevy Chase have sex to determine if they are breaking any laws. More creepy foreshadowing. [E17] = +5pts 
• Young Billy Crystal doing an impersonation of a jazzman. At least he isn’t in blackface. [E17] = -2pts 
• John Belushi as Joe Cocker, singing the Carpenters in a duet with Raquel Welch. [E18] = +8pts 
• John Sebastian totally flubbing the Welcome Back Kotter theme song, right out of the gate. [E18] = +5pts 
• Lorne Michaels offering The Beatles $3000 to reunite on the show. [E18] = +5pts 
• Raquel Welch immediately following musical guest, Phoebe Snow, with a song of her own. [E18] = -8pts 
• Akroyd as Nixon, talking to his paintings. [E19] = +8pts 
• Leon and Mary Russell. [E20] = +7pts 
• Chevy Chase on a white horse. [E20] = +5pts 
• Young Gordon Lightfoot looking exactly like Chris Pratt. [E21] = +8pts 
• Garrett Morris sings Shubert. [E21] = +5pts 
• Closing the show with Michael O’Donohue and two women writhing around on the floor and screaming. [E21] = +5pts 
• Closing the show with Elliot Gould and the cast, all in women’s western wear and singing “Happy Trails.” [E22] = +5pts 
• Louise Lasser proclaiming during her monologue that she is tired. [E23] = -5pts 
• Louise Lasser proclaiming during the closing that she is exhausted. [E23] = -3pts 
• Louise Lasser’s stupid haircut. [E23] = -2pts 
• Kris Kristofferson, in general, because We don’t want to end with Louise Lasser. [E24] = +8pts

Total Score = +424pts
Available in full on DVD and the torrent sites, also in bits and pieces all over the internet.

Saturday Night Live Season 1 is a rare and wonderful thing. Everyone still a fledgling. Everything uncertain and in flux. The kinks still working out. It’s a wonder that NBC even let something like this happen at all. “Here are the keys to the studio, Lorne. Do whatever you want to do. Just clean up when you leave.”

Being the first season, We have no basis of comparison for the scoring, but there were not too many negatives (until the end, Louise Lasser). Only the stuffiest of tea party card carrying, hating haters could dismiss these images of such iconic people finding their sea legs in the very foundation of a major American institution that has launched so many careers since. There is a unique vibration in Saturday Night Live and this was it’s big bang.

Left Behind (2014)

Score Technicians: Joe Hemmerling and Amanda Hemmerling

Patron Saint of the PCS Nicolas Cage turned some heads last year when he agreed to star in a big slightly more robust budget remake of Left Behind. Based on the popular series of novels and originally brought to the big screen straight-to-video bin by none other than Kirk Cameron, Left Behind tells the story of the Rapture, the mysterious event by which fundamentalists believe God will call His faithful back to Him and usher in the end times. The story focuses on the struggles of those who are--get this--"left behind" by the Rapture and forced to fend for themselves in a world suddenly devoid of fundamentalist Christians. The original films were reviled even by the series' creators Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins; can Nic Cage's star power take this faith-based thriller to a higher plane? Let the nanobots decide.

• Time until first Bible quote: 00:01:30. = +5pts 
• The fact that Nicolas Cage had to be Photoshopped into this picture with his "family" does not bode well for his level of commitment to this project. = -4pts 

• JFK Airport, an international transit hub connecting millions to destinations near and far, apparently only has white people in it today. = -12pts 
• The uncertainty as to whether the filmmakers were self-aware enough to realize that the Bible-believing woman who accosts Ace Reporter Buck Williams in the airport comes across as totally insane. = -10pts 
• Digging the soft-porn soundtrack, though. = +11pts 
• The cringe-inducing banter between Ace Reporter Buck Williams and Chloe Steele. = -8pts (Check those character names; are we sure this isn't supposed to be a porno?) 
• Skipping out on your daughter's surprise visit so you can spend the weekend balling your she-devil stewardess. = -6pts (Michael J. Fox’s mom from Back to the Future deserves better than this.) 
• Just being in this movie seems to have aged Nicolas Cage 30 years. = -9pts 

• The good news is that all the guys in U2 are Catholic, so Nic Cage and She-Devil Stewardess will still be able to make that show once they touch down in London, Rapture or not. = +16pts 
• Rapture likelihood of the following cast (scale 1 – 10):
  
  Single mom: 1
  Saucy blonde: 1
  Man of non Christian faith: -10 = -30pts
• Please say that the little person doesn't get Raptured. = +/- 40pts (depending on answer.) 
• That triumphant take-off music. = +9pts 
• Chloe's younger brother, upon opening the gift she brought for him: "The brand new baseball glove that I've been asking for!" = -7pts 
• After taking a passive-aggressive dig at her mom's newfound faith apropos of nothing, Chloe informs her that she's "not ready for a heavy conversation" about religion. = -4pts 
• Looks like the little person has a gambling problem, so we're good. = +40pts 
• Chloe takes her brother to a magical mall full of drones and breakdancers, rather than one full of vacant storefronts and stray dogs, like the malls in most American towns. = +9pts 
• Thirty-two minutes in and we finally get our Rapture. If this were a Roland Emerich movie, we'd have already witnessed the destruction of five internationally recognizable landmarks by now. = -18pts 
• Question: Do you think anyone on a college campus during the Rapture even noticed a difference? = +13pts 
• Whatever was left over in the budget after Cage's salary probably went into this scene. = +25pts

• Seems like kids get a free pass onto the Rapture bus. Anyone know what the age cut-off is for that? = +3pts 
• Five minutes into the Rapture and society has already devolved into riots and looting. = +19pts (That escalated quickly.) 
• Scratch that earlier comment about the car. Here's where the rest of the money went. = +35pts

• Ace Reporter Buck Williams bravely ventures into coach to record footage of the event. = +6pts 
• Who thought it was a good idea to make a movie that takes its characters nearly its entire runtime to figure out what the audience knew before they even bought their ticket? = -50pts 
• Nicolas Cage basically gets to spend the entire film sitting behind the controls of a fake airplane. This is probably the easiest paycheck he's ever drawn. = +4pts 
• Ace Reporter Buck Williams tries to talk Jordan Sparks out of shooting herself in the chest. Which is a good move, because if she wants to be sure to get the job done she should really put it under her chin or in her mouth. = +3pts 
• Question: How many Christians do we think there are in the world that meet the EXACT specifications of Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins to qualify for Rapture? Factor out the Catholics (The Good Lord don't cotton to kneelers). Factor out the small but significant minority of fringe crazies following Jim Jones-esque cult-of-personality figures. Factor out the great swath of lukewarm believers who say they've accepted Christ as their personal savior but probably don't give him much thought in their day-to-day. How many people are we really talking about? Do we really think the streets would look THIS empty in New York City? = -14pts 

• Cage is hardcore bogarting Buck Williams' satellite phone. Ever think that maybe HE has some people he wants to talk to during what may be his last remaining moments on earth? = -9pts 
• Ugh. The plane is running low on fuel, Chloe is trying to clear a runway for her dad to land, and the only thing we want in the world is to be doing anything other than still watching this movie. = -17pts 
• Running in slow motion past an explosion. = +6pts (Neither the first nor last time this will appear in a scorecard.)
• Final words spoken in the film: "I'm afraid this is just the beginning." So are we, movie. So are we. = -32pts 
• It gets worse when you imagine all the terrible things Nicolas Cage is going to purchase with his paycheck. Hey Nic, save some shrunken heads for the rest of us. = -22pts 

Total Score = -48pts
Available on: DVD, the in-flight movie to Hell

It was less offensive than we thought going in, which probably says more about how low set the bar than about any objective quality of the film. Atheists and people of non-Christian faiths are depicted as sympathetic characters, even if their essential goodness isn't enough to grant them arbitrary access to heaven. Questions about theodicy and the existence of evil and suffering in the world are raised, although never really addressed, even half-heartedly. While the very premise of the film will be hard to swallow for anyone who doesn't subscribe to an extremely narrow interpretation of a few Biblical passages (specifically, Luke 17: 34 - 37), its biggest failing is literally every other aspect of the movie. The dialogue is bad. The acting is worse. The pacing is aaaaaagonizing. The whole thing devolves into the kind of movie that Airplane! was parodying well before its midway point. If Cage had worked some of his Vampire's Kiss/Deadfall magic, we might have been able to wring some camp enjoyment out of it, but alas, he sleepwalks through his lines. Not that any of that really matters. It looks like sequels based on the subsequent novels are already underway. Whether the nanobots will be up for sitting through another two hours of Nic Cage staring despondently at a green-screen is anyone's guess, though.

Teen Witch

Score Technician: Erika Grotto

In 1985, the Michael J. Fox vehicle Teen Wolf took the country by storm, debuting at no. 2 and grossing more than $80 million worldwide. Later came a cartoon and a sequel starring Jason Bateman, but perhaps the most impressive Wolf-inspired project was a female version that was developed into Teen Witch. Though it grossed less than $30,000 its entire run, Teen Witch has become a cult classic and this month became available to stream on Netflix. Will this box office bomb prove a classic ahead of its time, or have we all just been under a spell all these years?

• The movie opens with one of the songs that made it famous. The tone is set. = +2pts
• In the title role of Louise Miller is Robyn Lively, sister of Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively, and onetime star of the short-lived Aaron Spelling soap Savannah. Which we just realized has a whole bunch of episodes on YouTube, so excuse us for a moment while we re-watch the entire series. = +3pts
• Dick Sargent plays the witch’s father. We see what you did there. +1pts
• This film has been touted for its '80s fashions, but Polly’s Paddington hat has to go. = -2pts
• There’s a group of boys who rap in the hallways. Repeat: a group of boys who rap in the hallways. = +7pts
• “Hey, cheerleaders, I’ve got the new cheer. So fab.” A locker-room dance to a song called “I Like Boys” seems like something that should happen in every '80s movie. = +5pts
• The most popular girl in school can’t dance. = -2pts for making her, but +3pts for giving hope to the rhythm-impaired. Net score = +1pt
• Louise hides in a dark corner and watches her crush, Brad, do shirtless pushups. Creepy, Louise. Creepy. = -2pts
• “I have ways of removing armor.” The school play appears to be a staged version of a 1970s Harlequin novel. = -2pts
• The psychic is the creepy lady from Poltergeist. There’s no one better to lead a 16-year-old girl into the world of witchcraft. = +1pt
• No one comes to Louise’s birthday party, including her loser best friend. Come on, Polly. = -1 pt
• Rhet’s impromptu rap about penis euphemisms is solid. Why wasn’t this developed into a full-on musical number? = -3pts
• Louise and Polly’s reaction to attention from Randa and Kiki is exactly why they are not popular. Get a grip, girls. They’re cheerleaders, not something super cool like PCS Score Technicians. = -3pts
• Brad’s bolo tie makes it obvious he’s perfect for the fashion-impaired Louise. = -1pt
• Musical makeover montage at the school dance! Musical makeover montage at the school dance! = +3pts
• “OK, guys, grab your wallets, ‘cause here comes a slow song.” We’re not sure what that means, but we’re pretty sure it’s offensive to women. = -1pt
• “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Whatever you call me sticks back on you.” It’s a good first spell, and a perfect way to turn your little brother into a dog. = +1pt
• Brad needs Louise’s help with his English paper so he can play football. He says it’s hard to concentrate on schoolwork because it’s the end of the year. He’s playing football at the end of the year. Where is this school? Australia? = -2pts
• Louise is creative enough to cast spells for her teacher to win the lottery and meet the man of her dreams, but she can’t do any better than naming that man Armando Legando. = -2pts
• Polly has a Paddington hat for summer too. Seriously, Polly. This is why you don’t have a boyfriend. = -3pts
• Here we are: the signature song of the movie. From Polly’s solid reasoning about why Rhet will never go for her (“Look at how funky he is. I will never be hip.”) to her spell-induced in-your-face rap battle challenge, this moment right here is what made Teen Witch the cult classic it is. +50pts

• John Bonham is on the list to get backstage to see Louise’s favorite pop star. Yeah, the drummer of Led Zeppelin is going to come back from the dead to get close to the tutu-clad singer of “I Wanna Be the Most Popular Girl.” = -2pts
• Louise blows off her best friend to ride to school with her crush and his girlfriend. Ten seconds in, and popularity has made her a real bitch. = -4pts
• Wait. Is this another musical montage? WITH RAPPING IN THE MIDDLE? Screw you, Polly. Louise can do what she wants if it inspires this. = +37pts
• Brad picks up Louise after school, drives her into an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, flashes her some muscle in his ripped sleeveless t-shirt, and kisses her. Guess what he said before was true and that the only reason he’d want to date anyone is because she’s the most popular girl in school. Did he even break up with Randa first? Either way, Brad, you’re kind of a dick. = -5pts
• “Geez Louise.” Polly is such a cunning linguist. = +1pts
• Acid wash jeans with a matching jacket. When will this come back? = +2pts
• It took almost an hour and a half, but we’ve finally got a girl wearing a banana clip. = +1pt
• Aww, Polly and Rhet finally got together. This is the real love story of this movie. = +5pts
• Brad dips Louise, and her hair hardly moves. That’s Rave at work, friends. = +3pts
• So, Brad and Louise are together, and Randa, who got thrown aside in the span of about two seconds, is now single and, because of Louise’s spell and has a bicycle instead of a car. The beautiful blond girls can never catch a break. = -2pts

Total = +88pts
Available on: Netflix streaming

Because it did so badly at the box office, Teen Witch never saw a soundtrack release. That’s a shame, since the music is the best part of the movie. Without it, the film is just the story of a girl who used magical powers to do something that she could have accomplished with a trip to the Deb shop.

For awhile, there were talks of a Teen Witch Broadway musical. The project appears to be dead in the water, but if it comes to pass, you’d better believe we’ll be in the front row on opening night. We’re sure no other show could ever top that.