Anyone else care to try "Crime Scene Scenarios" for 500?

[sovay]

lesser_celery and I are still watching Millennium.

This latest episode is guest-starring Charles Nelson Reilly.

I feel like the two hemispheres of my brain just collided.

"He didn't just buy the magazines. He read the story. And he liked it."

I've got a bit of a headache, but it's very funny. How did the Scientologists not sue them into the next millennium?

Comments

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I kind of think they weren't paying attention. Also, everybody "knew" the show was cancelled by then; they probably didn't see much point.;)

[sovay]

I kind of think they weren't paying attention.

"We've never backed away from anything. We've even looked at evil incarnate."

"Evil incarnate can't sue."

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite episodes.

[sovay]

Okay, that was hilarious.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Glad you're liking it!

I don't remember that episode--I'm tempted to ask my friend E. about it, cos she used to love that show when we were both living in Chicago and it was on the air, but I'm not sure it's something she'd like to think about right now.

[sovay]

I don't remember that episode

It's possibly indescribable—it's at once a puncturingly snarky sendup of the whole pitch of the show, both the serial killers of Season One and the increasingly apocalyptic freakiness of Season Two, and a surprisingly humane questioning of what it really means to believe: in God, in self-help, in the millennium. Mostly narrated by Charles Nelson Reilly's Jose Chung, with additional voiceovers from Frank Black and a random Selfosophist who really, really can't write. Full of shrugging, overlapping retellings and thinly veiled ripoffs of reality. Also, electrocution. There are ways in which the plot doesn't make sense at all, but it doesn't really matter.

[sovay]

That ep was awesome, except the ending, which made me really really sad.

I think the ending is still awesome; it's just suddenly bittersweet and much more real than the rest of the episode. With a last-line zinger. I was very impressed.

[baggyeyes]

The 'Don't be dark' episode! I loved that one. Tiny dancing demons, grousing in a coffee shop about their lot in life; Frank smiling in the most unnatural way possible.

I miss that show.

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

Tiny dancing demons, grousing in a coffee shop about their lot in life

[full-on geek mode/]

You're thinking of "Somehow Satan Got Behind Me" -- not only scripted by Darin Morgan but directed by him as well (his first and only time in the director's chair. I think the episode suffers a bit as a result; clumsy staging and slow pacing. But still wonderfully funny. "I am Broadcast Standards and Practices! This is unacceptable!")

The episode sovay's talking about is "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense", a sequel to an episode of X-Files (see my comment below), in which Jose Chung (Reilly) and Frank Black encounter the dangerously litigious "Selfology Institute".

[/fogm]

[sovay]

the dangerously litigious "Selfology Institute"

Selfosophy!

[baggyeyes]

You're right! Completely got them mixed up.

[sovay]

The 'Don't be dark' episode!

Yes on "Don't be dark," no on the demons in the coffeeshop. I haven't seen that one yet.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

That one is my other favorite. Also "Somehow, Satan got behind me." was a catch phrase of mine for a little while.

[sovay]

Also "Somehow, Satan got behind me." was a catch phrase of mine for a little while.

It's a magnificent line. Is it from a song or does it just sound like it should be?

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I'm not aware of any songs with it, butt there should be.

[sovay]

I'm not aware of any songs with it, but there should be.

I have this probably burning-in-hell wrong idea it should be a cheerful country-and-western.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

No, it sounds like a pretty legitimate country song, that and it scans country when I sing it. Maybe Those Crooked Bastards country.

Cheerful country-and-western

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

With apologies to cucumberseed:

"Somehow Satan got behind me
Like he's done to me so many times before
And Lord above I thank You for Your mercy
'Cause he only pushed me through the whorehouse door."

I'm not sure if this is meant to be the first verse or the chorus. We'll see if I can write more of it, and if the tune I'm thinking of actually works or not.

[baggyeyes]

I stand corrected. For some reason, I smashed the two EPs together.

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

Another great script by Darin Morgan.

Have you seen his X-Files episodes? "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", featuring Peter Boyle, is one of the most brilliant TV scripts ever. I've watched it a dozen times and always discover new levels to it, and fresh ironies I hadn't noticed before. And of course "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", which was Charles Nelson Reilly's first appearance as José Chung; certainly the funniest episode of X-Files, and a gleeful attack on the show's entire central concept.

[sovay]

Have you seen his X-Files episodes? "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", featuring Peter Boyle, is one of the most brilliant TV scripts ever.

No, I've never seen any X-Files. I like Peter Boyle, though. I can never think of "Puttin' on the Ritz" the same way again.