ere we have the 13 episodes comprising the second season of Adult Swim's "detourning" of an old hokey animation series, along with a variety of extra features: All the baker's dozen of shows now feature commentary. The departed actor who voiced Captain Murphy, Harry Goz, receives a tribute. Four members of the cast, in animated form, undergo a 20-questions session. The production studios are toured. The first episode in this collection is re-enacted with bikini-clad women. And a "lost" episode titled "Ronnie" is screened.
Opening disc one we find "Der Dieb." A rash of thefts aboard the Sealab station leads Capt. Murphy to declare "Martian law." But Murphy's version of this misnamed tactic is sheer bullying, and soon Dr. Quinn, as lone voice of reason, is suffering worse than anyone. In "The Policy," Capt. Murphy's wild credit-card spending is matched by the lethal Machiavellian maneuvers of Sparks, who sends his comrades on a one-way mission. The episode cryptically titled "7211" is played purely straight-faced right to its unexpected climax, as if we were watching the original Sealab 2020. And "Legend of Baggy Pants" finds a golf-obsessed Capt. Murphy eternally frustrated in his quest for Sealab's pro shop. And we weep over the monstrous fate of Hesh.
Episode five, "Hail, Squishface," riffs on the famous tribbles of the original Star Trek series, as cutesy critters multiply to fill the station. Or could it be Al Capp's Schmoos that are being parodied? The venerable conceit of Bizarro duplicates gets a workout in the show titled—what else?—"Bizarro." Everyone's duplicate is rather flattering, except for that of Dr. Quinn. But he gets recompensed in the form of noisy sex with Bizarro Debbie. "Tinfins" is not so much a story as it is a barrage of advertisements, mostly concerning the hypothetical Sealab film "Tinfins" and a hellish eatery named Grizzlebees.
Poor Capt. Murphy, intent in episode eight on celebrating the "Feast of Alvis," a holiday given over to alcohol and revenge. But he's in a religious minority among the crew, and the protests against his celebration can be stopped only by an actual miracle. Dr. Quinn's insistence on enjoying his legitimate downtime ("Vacation") leads to something like an MTV video of famous mistakes. "Fusebox" finds the crew literally in the dark for the majority of the episode. And when the lights come back on, shameful behavior is exposed.
Episode 11, "Brainswitch," brings us Dr. Quinn brain-dead but with an enviable case of priapism. "Article 4" is the policy that allows for instant promotion, resulting in all chiefs, no Indians and subsequent chaos. And the final show, "Return to Oblivion," takes us behind the scenes once more as a network executive named Prescott—half man, half squid—seeks to cancel the show.
Madness and a hint of sedition
Having established the dynamics among the cast in season one, and set up an "anything goes" kind of surrealism, a crazy logic that allowed the plots to veer unexpectedly and entertainingly all over the narrative map, the creators of this farcical adventure show prove now that their inventiveness is not exhausted by coming up with some even wackier riffs and, yes, social relevance, this time around.
The main thing I observed in this set of shows was a certain air of fairly sharp-edged satire, the targets of which were actually weighty ones. This is not to say that the Marx-Brothers wordplay and general insanity are missing. There are still plenty of dumb-funny jokes, slapstick and verbal hijinks. In fact, carried away by this flood of surface gonzoness, the unwitting viewer might very well glide over the more "relevant" subtexts. But just consider the first episode, with its depiction of what can result when paranoia and fear create a dictatorship of martial law. Any parallels with the Patriot Act? If that's too much of a stretch for you, then surely you'll agree that the "Feast of Alvis" episode is a fine skewering of both religious intolerance and religious mania.
The "Tinfins" episode tears apart every cheesy "making of" show that the networks have ever aired. And even the extra features, with their eye-popping use of half-naked females, could be construed as a commentary on the T&A tactics of prime-time TV. In short, Reed and Thompson have enlarged their concerns beyond parodies of cartoons and entertainment to the real world. That's a healthy and necessary move.
Of course, there are still plenty of fart jokes and their ilk as well. The Gloops—the tribble analogues—are poised to doom the lab with methane exhaust. Classic animated character Wally Gator figures into one episode. And the amount of bodily damage in each outing rivals an Itchy and Scratchy episode. But that's the foundation that supports the superstructure of message, as it should be.
The voice actors continue to give their all, modulating from winsome to goofy, from pathetic to domineering, from scared to haughty. And formalistically speaking, such episodes as "Fusebox," with unvarying static imagery that fills most of the screen time, show the creators intent on pushing the boundaries of their art form.
