The Search For The Zero Theorem Results In . . . Well, Nothing, Really.

The Good: Excellent direction, Good concept, Decent performances
The Bad: Convoluted (lack of) plot, Protagonist never becomes likable or interesting enough to care about, Minutia
The Basics: Terry Gilliam’s film The Zero Theorem is complicated and cluttered and fails to create a film with essential Gilliam characters.


For the past year, since I learned of the film’s existence, the movie I have wanted most to see is The Zero Theorem. Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem was completed late last year and its release has been peppered around the world and in the U.S. in film festivals. It is not getting a wide release in the U.S. and now that it is in limited release, I’ve managed to see it as part of my wife’s early birthday celebration to me. Fortunately, The Zero Theorem is better than the last film I greatly anticipated and was able to see as a birthday gift from her, The Master (reviewed here!). Even so, The Zero Theorem is not the masterwork I hoped it would be from Terry Gilliam who has created my two favorite films of all time Brazil (reviewed here!) and The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus (reviewed here!).

While The Zero Theorem has been compared to Brazil by a number of reviewers, but I am not going to be one of them. Having watched The Zero Theorem twice now, I think the essential difference between the two films is in the level of character the two films portray. While both movies feature dystopian, Orwellian-style oppressive futures where people are worked to death, Brazil has interesting, likable, quirky characters who have a base of realism to them. Brazil is led by a protagonist who could be anyone living in an oppressively capitalist country, coming alive enough to reclaim his own sense of soul and self. The Zero Theorem is far more esoteric and the protagonist fails to have a connectable quality.

Qohen Leth works for Mancom, a giant company that seems to be involved with programming everything in the world of the near-future. Leth lives in an abandoned church and is petitioning Mancom to get put on disability so he can work from home, instead of being forced to go into Mancom’s offices each day and work on his own next to others working alone. Qohen has been waiting his entire life for a specific telephone call, so working from home is ideal for him and he is disappointed when the company’s doctors will not approve his request. Leth’s supervisor, Joby, invites him to a party where Qohen is able to meet with the mysterious head of Mancom, Management. Management makes an exception to the company’s doctors’ recommendation and sends Qohen home the next day, with the intent that he will work on their Zero Theorem project. In his house, Qohen starts working on plugging random figures into an insanely complex creation with the intent of getting zero in the equation to reach 100%.

Monitored by Management, Leth’s efforts to get zero to 100% show almost no progress. To try to shake things up, Management hires Bainsley, a virtual-reality prostitute (she strips online and only allows “clients” to have contact with her through virtual-reality bodysuits so she does not actually have sex with them) to try to make a connection with Leth. After Leth’s frustration with the project reaches a new high and he crushes his equipment, Management’s son, Bob, comes to Leth’s house to repair the equipment. Bob’s presence aids Leth in both the work on the Zero Theorem and in his personal life. Exposing Management’s plan as a form of control over Leth and revealing everyone under the influence of Management to be tools of Management’s machinations, Bob draws Leth away from his virtual world and back into the real world.

Much of The Zero Theorem is devoted to creating mood and embellishing the setting of Terry Gilliam’s near-future. Unfortunately for viewers, the hyperbolic setting of The Zero Theorem is chaotic to the point of being entirely overbearing. Qohen Leth’s world is not supposed to be an inviting vision of the future, but we get that almost immediately in The Zero Theorem. After leaving his burnt-out, graffiti-covered church home, Qohen Leth steps out into a world where everyone is self-absorbed and plugged into personal electronic devices. To combat that, the city is packed with advertisements that chase down citizens as they try to move around. The setting is big, obvious, oppressive . . . and Gilliam beats the viewer to death with it. Unfortunately, Gilliam seems to be under the impression that his viewers are not particularly attentive: the first time Leth is out in the city, one of the news crawls on the wall has a story of a six inch gap in the train tracks being filled with ice cream; after months of working from home, Leth goes back out and the news feed has the same story!

The attention to setting and creating a visually-impressive film preoccupies Gilliam past the point of reason or sensibility in The Zero Theorem. I “get” what Qohen Leth is working on and how he is going his work. Unlike Pi (reviewed here!) where the film is so esoteric that only a mathematician is able to understand even a fraction of what is going on with the work being pursued, Gilliam does not get obsessed with the minutiae in The Zero Theorem. But in not presenting the actual work on the Zero Theorem in a rational way on Management’s work, Gilliam creates a concept that only works as a cinematic visual effect. Qohen Leth uses an interface that is very much like a video game; his work on the Zero Theorem is presented much like a three-dimensional game of Tetris. Leth shoots blocks that represent mathematical elements to create factor cubes and then he plugs those cubes into the immense equation that represents the larger Zero Theorem. Sometimes, that moves the equation forward, other times it causes the collapse of previously-established structures in the equation. This is an intriguing visual representation of pursuing a mathematical proof; the new information disproves a previously-assumed component of the equation. We get it.

The problem with The Zero Theorem is that Qohen Leth does not seem to have any form of intellectual or creative drive to actually work on the equation. Leth seems to randomly create the blocks and plugs them into the equation with equal randomness. To understand the problem, look at this review. Seriously, the form mirrors the evaluation; trying to describe the setting takes up so much space, but finding space to discuss how Qohen Leth interacts with it is pretty much a non-starter. Qohen Leth is like a random element in The Zero Theorem; he is a product of the setting, but does not actually do much of anything in that setting. Leth’s work is random and nonsensical in a world where technology is overbearing. Given the randomness of the interface for the work that Leth is working on, it seems like a computer program would actually be able to make sense of the work faster and better than any person (i.e. the only way the computer program could work, rationally, is by being programmed with elements and any possible combination of those elements that would be combined to form the factors for the larger equation and then plugged into the equation could be formed faster and in infinite combinations by the computer once the smallest building blocks were entered into the interface).

So, complex and pointless, but visually impressive; that’s the bulk of The Zero Theorem. What saves The Zero Theorem, even if it took me multiple viewings of the film to get there, is the acting and the (eventual) character development. Qohen Leth is pushed into the world, out of his simple, focused, world in front of the computer monitor. He interacts virtually and in the real world with Bainsley and Bob and that does make Leth evolve. He stops using the first person plural and he actually becomes invested in trying to solve the Zero Theorem. Leth accepts that he has been a tool, but he seems to genuinely want to get zero closer to 100% (even if the methods used are somewhat nonsensical).

Outside his role in The Green Hornet (reviewed here!), I had never seen Christoph Waltz in anything. In The Zero Theorem, he plays an uptight, reclusive, and entirely off-putting computer programmer and he does it exceptionally well. Waltz is difficult to watch as Qohen Leth, but part of that is because Waltz is able to so completely and realistically bury his humanity to make the character come alive. As Leth develops, Waltz plays off Lucas Hedges’s Bob brilliantly. Hedges brings youth and exuberance to the role of Bob and the more he and Waltz interact, the more Waltz infuses Leth with subtle eye movements and facial expressions that make Leth more relatable and human. Waltz slowly infuses Leth with soul and that makes for a memorable and complex performance.

Similarly, Melanie Thierry plays Bainsley as a seemingly generic sex object, but is able to completely sell the moment Bainsley develops more. Thierry and Lucas Hedges have great on-screen chemistry with Waltz. Tilda Swinton and Matt Damon have wonderful supporting roles in The Zero Theorem as the computer-generated therapist and Management, respectively. Swinton’s part is reminiscent of Ricardo Montalban’s portrayal of Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (reviewed here!); the way Swinton interacts with Waltz is so convincing one never thinks about how Swinton and Waltz are never in the same room together.

The Zero Theorem asks viewers to invest a lot to get to a point that is not as satisfying as a lobotomized rebel, but the journey is clever-enough to be watchable. Terry Gilliam created a mess with The Zero Theorem, but he populated it with exceptional performers playing at the top of their game and a visual sensibility that is incredible, if overwhelming and it’s still better than Tideland (reviewed here!)!

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
10,000 Days
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
Interstellar
Hit By Lightning
Horns
John Wick
Listen Up Philip
The Best Of Me
The Judge
Dracula Untold
The Equalizer
The Maze Runner
This Is Where I Leave You
The Giver
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Life Of Crime

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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R.I.P. Robin Williams: The Fisher King Is Part Of An Incredible Legacy

The Good: Characters, Performances, Direction, General plot
The Bad: Editing
The Basics: One of the most powerful, diverse performances by Robin Williams came in The Fisher King, one of Terry Gilliam’s most profound explorations of human suffering.


Yesterday, the world lost an immense talent with the suicide of Robin Williams. For the past day, my wife and I have been strangely in shock; for her, this is the first celebrity death she has experienced that has genuinely shaken her. For me, I’ve been trying to find a way to commemorate the actor that does not lead me to a rant about how Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film can never be realized (and fuck you, American financers for not seeing the potential of that a decade ago!). One of my fondest memories of all stand-up comedy was Robin Williams doing Shakespeare: “Look! The moon, like a testicle, hangs low in the sky!” But amid his life of comedy films, what shocked me the most about the life of Robin Williams was how masterful a dramatic actor he was. In some ways, with his range and ability to portray dramatic depth and blistering emotions, the suicide of Robin Williams is unsurprising; such greatness, intelligence and emotional realization seldom comes without a price. So, to commemorate the life of Robin Williams, today I thought to take in one of his films that I had – surprisingly – not yet reviewed: The Fisher King.

Before today, I had only seen The Fisher King once, back when I was in college. I had not been prepared for Robin Williams in a serious, not-funny, role, but his portrayal of Parry caused me to entirely rethink who Williams was as an actor. Rewatching the film now, as an adult, The Fisher King is a powerful film that illustrates the talent Terry Gilliam has for direction, storytelling and getting great performances out of his actors. While Gilliam’s style is evident in almost every single shot of The Fisher King, the story he and writer Richard LaGravenese tell is much more universal than some of Gilliam’s more fantastic works. The Fisher King is intense and quirky and it is unsurprising it was nominated for many awards; perhaps the only real surprise for me was how many of those nominations did not materialize with wins. Given that The Fisher King was up against Silence Of The Lambs (reviewed here!) and that Robin Williams lost his Best Actor Oscar to Anthony Hopkins that year, there was no shame in Williams’ loss and it is all the more surprising that a genre film walked away with the uncommon Best Picture win that year. The Fisher King is a film that does not fit into any easy boxes for defining, though the dramatic elements certainly overwhelm the comedic and romantic aspects, so those expecting a Robin Williams comedy will be surprised.

Jack Lucas is a radio shock jock in New York City who is callous and hates yuppies. On the eve of his breakout from radio to television, Jack makes an offhanded comment to a caller that pushes the caller to go into a yuppie bar where he shoots several patrons and then himself. Three years later, Lucas is stuck working at a video store for his girlfriend, Anne. Drunk, despondent and only marginally functional, Jack pushes Anne away and goes out into the night where he prepares to kill himself. At the edge of the Hudson River, Jack is about to jump when two yuppie thugs come out of nowhere and begin beating him up. Before they can set him on fire, Jack is rescued by Parry, a bum who rallies other homeless people to save man getting mugged. Waking up in Parry’s home – the boiler room of an apartment building - Jack learns from the landlord that Parry’s wife was one of the victims in the shooting and his sense of guilt overwhelms him.

Parry is convinced that billionaire Langdon Carmichael’s house has the Holy Grail and he tries to enlist Jack to help him break in. But when Jack tries to pull Parry into the real world, Parry has a hallucination of the Red Knight, who makes him flee. When Parry calms down, he reveals to Jack that he is smitten with a woman he follows daily. To alleviate his guilt, Jack (with the reluctant aid of Anne) helps Parry woo the woman, Lydia. But after their successful first date, Parry’s feelings for Lydia cause him to remember the incident and he runs off into the night, where hoodlums beat him nearly to death. With Jack’s career restored, he begins to cut his ties to Anne and the comatose Parry . . . until his sense of guilt moves him to take up Parry’s quest!

The Fisher King is a character-driven story and unlike so many of Terry Gilliam’s works where Society is the villain, most of the conflict in this film comes from internal sources. Parry is an obviously tortured character from the beginning, but what makes Jeff Bridges’s Jack such an interesting character is that his humanity is evident from almost the first scene. While on his radio show, Jack is abrasive and dislikable, but the moment the news breaks about the shooting, he is shocked and culpable. The consequences of his indifference to Edwin (the shooter) breaks Jack much the way the shooting destroys Parry’s life. So, despite seeming at times like an asshole, Jack is a character who is surprisingly easy to empathize with and the viewer wants to see him grow through his interactions with Parry.

Parry is appropriately shellshocked by the night at the bar where his wife was killed. The Fisher King smartly rounds out Parry’s story with a smart backstory and a solid basis for the character to be both lost and found through his interactions with Jack. The process is not simple, nor is it easy to watch, but the film is rewarding if for no other reason than it captures both the resilience of the human spirit and a revival of the fantastic. While mythological imagery acts as a plague to Parry, the desire to take up a quest and do a good thing becomes an inspiration for Jack and plays well for the viewer.

Jeff Bridges plays both the wounded and reborn versions of Jack very well. Robin Williams gives one of the best performances of his life as Parry, credibly playing the dignified professor in flashbacks and loopy, heartbroken man for the bulk of the film. Williams plays the erratic nature of Parry well and he was obviously cast, in part, for his mastery of comic timing. But more than just being comedic relief in The Fisher King, Williams is able to capture strong emotions and Terry Gilliam captures an exceptional performance from Williams where the actor uses only one side of his face in one of Parry’s first breakdowns in the film. Williams and Amanda Plummer play off one another well-enough for Parry and Lydia to be a credible romantic couple.

What surprised me was the range actress Mercedes Ruehl brought to the supporting role of Anne. Ruehl was only familiar to me from her role of Kate Costas in the third season of Frasier (reviewed here!) and in The Fisher King she plays virtually every emotion possible as Anne. The role could be an erratic one if delivered by a less-gifted actress, but Ruehl nails every beat, easily earning her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role. While Williams is an actor I’ve come to expect some range from, Ruehl ruled every scene she was in in The Fisher King.

Depressing without being overbearing, The Fisher King holds up remarkably well (despite some troublingly skippy cuts in the film) and is a masterwork for Terry Gilliam, Mercedes Ruehl, and Robin Williams. Now, it stands as one of the crown jewels in the legacy of Robin Williams.

For other works with Robin Williams, please visit my reviews of:
The Big Wedding
Old Dogs
World’s Greatest Dad
Night At The Museum
Happy Feet
Man Of The Year
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Bicentennial Man
What Dreams May Come
Jumanji
Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest
Awakenings
The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen

8/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Collapsing Into An Unmemorable End: Monty Python’s Flying Circus Volume 22 On VHS.

The Good: It ends?
The Bad: Not funny, at all, Medium, Short.
The Basics: Ending, poorly, Monty Python's Flying Circus's final two episodes are presented on VHS, which does nothing to improve their lousy content.


Whatwith the advent of DVD and now Blu-Ray, video tapes are outdated and a real reason not to buy when the material is available on better mediums. But sometimes, I encounter a VHS where "medium" is not as much of a detraction because the material on it is just plain bad.

This is where I find the final volume of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The classic British sketch comedy series that began in the late 1960s and made it to the early 1970s goes out with the two episodes found on "Volume 22" and they are tragically unfunny. Here, Monty Python’s Flying Circus goes out, not with a riotous laugh but with a whimper and a pained wince from the viewers.

These final two episodes, "Mr. Neutron" and "Party Political Broadcast" are generally more cohesive than earlier episodes, with "Mr. Neutron" essentially being a thirty minute science fiction spoof. The final episode is more like the early days when there was no theme running through the episode. Instead, it has little sketches that have no connection to one another, save a pantomime salesman who pops up in the background of several sketches, waves and leaves frame.

This video, which represents the final hurrah for the five Pythons who made it this far - Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - is largely lacking in the satire which made earlier episodes funny. The timing of the gang is off and Chapman, especially, comes across as stiff. Idle and Palin only seem to hit their chemistry for a brief sketch in the final episode and Gilliam and Jones seem particularly lost throughout. The absence of John Cleese is felt as the final sketches run and it is only then that it is likely to occur to most viewers that they have not laughed a single time the entire program.

For a better idea what these two unfunny episodes are about, here are the sketches:

In the aptly titled "Mr. Neutron," the gang does a spoof of melodramatic serialized science fiction works. After a neighborhood completes its complete nuclear disarmament, a new postal box is put up on the corner to replace an old postal box. This sets the stage for the introduction of Mr. Neutron, who is living with Mr. and Mrs. Entrail. Billed as the most powerful being in the galaxy, Mr. Neutron has tea with the Entrails before leaving the house. This puts F.E.A.R. on high alert as Mr. Neutron had been under close watch by the international organization. The U.S. sends an agent to recover Teddy Salad, the ex-CIA operative who knows where in the world Mr. Neutron is at any given moment. The specialist, though, is bewildered to discover that Teddy Salad is hiding in a dog's body now.

Without the information on where Mr. Neutron is hiding, the Prime Minister of the U.K. begins bombing the entire world in an attempt to flush Mr. Neutron out. Mr. Neutron, though, has fallen in love with Mrs. Scum and he wants to be married to her. Teddy Salad is killed before he can divulge the location of Mr. Neutron and the Earth appears to be on the verge of an absolute holocaust. The episode is capped off then with "Conjuring Today" where the big gag seems to be everyone is wearing giant eyeballs as if able to mesmerize with just their stare.

The series finale, "Party Political Broadcast" begins with the "Most Awful Family In Britain" contest. This vile family has everyone shrieking at one another, the mother ironing everything in sight, including the family cat. As one kid yells for more beans, the teenage girl prepares for a date. This sketch is succeeded by Icelandic Honey Week wherein a person from that country, which has no native honey, tries to sell honey door-to-door. This is followed by a hospital sketch and a lewd exchange between an officer and a bishop who lament how they cannot kiss (or do more) on television.

After an appeal for viewers to send money to rich people, there is a bit involving a man who finishes other people's sentences. This is followed by a mockumentary on the walking tree of Dahomy. After an extensive search through the jungle for the walking tree, the documentary crew discovers wild batsmen playing cricket, with very bloody consequences. The series ends on a BBC news bit about the economy which satirizes the fickle nature of the markets.

Because this is VHS, there are no bonus features or additional programming. The two episodes take up an hour of tape and there are no previews, clips or other incentives associated with this tape.

[For a much better value, check out the final season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 4 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

.5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Nearing The End, Poorly, Monty Python’s Flying Circus Volume 21 Is Low On Laughs.

The Good: A few good ideas.
The Bad: Not terribly funny, Medium.
The Basics: Life is too short to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus after those involved in it seem to have lost the passion for it, as they have on Volume 21.


I think, as I approach the end of reviewing each and every episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the ideal in my mind for the reviews is that someone will read the reviews, smile as they remember favorite sketches and hunt down the VHS or DVD I have reviewed. As I approach the end of the series, when it became something far less funny than it was at the beginning, I wonder if my readers will simply scratch their head, say "I don't remember that one" and quietly admit to themselves that the premise does not sound nearly as funny as the classic sketches more people know. With volume 21 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, people who did that would not be wrong; the show by this point has lost its edge and is not funny at all. In fact, all that saves this video from a one-star rating is the sheer creativity.

Monty Python, at the point these episodes were produced, was a quintet of Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. They wrote and starred in all of the sketches with Gilliam providing animations. This VHS is a pretty lousy deal as it includes two laughless episodes that do call backs to their own jokes and generally have a repetitive feel to them. "Volume 21" features the half-hour episodes "The Light Entertainment War" and "Hamlet" and both have threads which carry through the entire episode, like the appearance of multiple Hamlets in the second episode.

"The Light Entertainment War" begins with an annoying sequence of segues that starts with a mock-television program "Up Your Pavement." The protagonists of that show are almost immediately killed off and the program claims to be about various other people loosely related to one another until the show settles on Royal Air Force members who are not understanding the banter of one of their own when he comes in to warn them about something. The show leaps from that to a sketch where a man is put through a court-martial for trivializing the war. As the case proceeds, the judge becomes more ridiculous and orders everyone in the court to sing.

From there, there is a mock movie trailer followed by a board meeting of television programmers who are bored and struggling to come up with ways to keep the BBC going without producing new programs. They figure they can get away with renaming old programs when they rerun them and then the episode goes to a sitting room. In that room, three people talk about the quality of words as they speak them, the main speaker looking for woody-sounding words and the girl loathing tinny words. A man is given electric shocks then to compel him to change the television channels and the show ends on a musical number, "When Does A Dream Begin?"

"Hamlet" opens with the Prince Of Denmark going to see a psychiatrist, only the psychiatrist just wants to hear about his sexual inadequacies. Hamlet goes through a series of bogus psychiatrists until it is interrupted by the news program "Nationwide," which avoids presenting news about the third world war to talk about wet things instead. This segues to an interview from a man in the street whose prop chair is taken away by the police. The officer, trying to convince the interviewer he is authentic because of his police helmet, begins taking things from passers-by himself. Meanwhile, across the street, a man and woman make love on the sidewalk as the woman gets the guy to agree to take in her aged father. This is illustrated in the next scene as the three of them share a bed and the old man tries to build a model in the dark.

This is followed by the opening credits which ends with a large group of people watching "Hamlet" on television, only to have Ophelia begin psychoanalyzing Hamlet herself. An animated bit takes it to a sketch involving a boxer who has lost his head in his latest match and talk of a comeback by his manager. The fight is then heard by a wing full of doctors who are neglecting their patients to listen to it (the real joke is the amount the announcer keeps saying people paid to see the fight!) and then an old sketch begins with Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Non-Robinson talking about a piston engine one bought and the other wants for no particular reason than it was on sale. A talk show from Polonius's house begins before going into an advertisement on dentistry and an interview with some jockeys who barely appear on camera.

These episodes contain no sketches considered "classic" by those who love sketch comedy and while sometimes that simply means that greatness has been overlooked, that is not the case here. Eric Idle and Michael Palin seem more like parodies of themselves, Graham Chapman seems lost without John Cleese to act off of and Terry Gilliam delivers each of his lines with a simple glee that screams "finally, I'm on screen!" Terry Jones has a few moments that remind viewers of his comic brilliance, but largely, even he mumbles through his performances as if he feels he is missing part of himself.

In other words, this video is only necessary for the completists. Everyone who loves great comedy can give it a pass.

[For a much better value, check out the final season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 4 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

3/10

For other television and movie reviews, please check out my Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Monty Python’s Flying Circus Continues Without John Cleese (With Poor Results)! (Volume 20)

The Good: One good laugh, Conceptually interesting.
The Bad: Largely not funny, Not clever, Medium
The Basic: Long past their prime, the men of "Monty Python" start the fourth season with "Volume 20," which lacks John Cleese...and humor!


Sometimes, when a concept is done, it is done. In the case of sketch comedy, those of us who hold Monty Python’s Flying Circus up as the gold standard of comedy often do so neglecting the final season. In the final six episodes of the series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus saw increased on-screen presence of Terry Gilliam following the departure of John Cleese, who went on to bigger and better things. Sick of fighting with the censors and eager for a new challenge, Cleese left the troupe and his departure forced the remaining five men of Monty Python to adapt.

Unfortunately, as Volume 20 on VHS illustrates, the remaining men of the troupe lost something significant with Cleese's departure. The two episodes on this tape, "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" and "Michael Ellis" yield few laughs and actually sound funnier than they were actually executed. Indeed, "Michael Ellis" yielded a single laugh for me on my third viewing and I recall it being even less funny on prior perusals. The first episode of the fourth season is almost entirely a dud and the men of the troupe seem to be struggling to find their sense of comic timing amid circumstances that sound far more zany than they are presented as.

This tape features Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam struggling to be funny. Instead, most of the two episodes have the men simple wearing lavish costumes and speaking in accents and hoping that the audience will not notice that what they are saying is not particularly humorous.

In "The Golden Age Of Ballooning," the show attempted another of their theme shows where everything ties into a single premise. Here is the "BBC" production "The Golden Age Of Ballooning," which starts with a man working on a toilet, talking about the Mongolfier brothers who are in France working on the first hot air balloon. On the eve of their history-making balloon flight, the Mongolfier brothers are visited by a man who they do not let in and they confess to one another that they have not been washing for quite some time. After that, there is a bit about the merchandising of "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" before the second part of the series begin. In "The Mongolfier Brothers In Love," the engineering brother is complained to by his suspended girlfriend who laments how everything he does has to be tied to ballooning. They are visited that night by Louis XIV, who is after the plans for the hot air balloon. As he is washing, the engineer realizes it cannot be Louis XIV (he's actually a Scotsman) and Louis XVI, as he decides he is, flees with the plans.

The third part of the series begins with Louis XVI arriving in England where he tries to sell the plans to the crazy Charles III. When that caper goes awry - from the Mongolfier brother arriving to stop the transaction - the other Mongolfier brother tries to kiss the woman who remained in France. The servant who works for the Mongolfier brothers (and has been trying to find the decanter on the sideboard) makes his exit and he is given many awards. This is followed by a bit on Zeppelin, who begins throwing German government members out of the airship when they call it a balloon. The members of the German state land in the sitting (or drawing) room of two German peasants and they begin to sort them out by status.

Like "The Golden Age Of Ballooning," "Michael Ellis" is a concept episode of "Monty Python," which follows a man who is constantly mistaken for Michael Ellis going through his day. He visits a department store where he is pranked by the clerks, who think he is Michael Ellis. After demanding to see a manager, he is sold an ant as his pet. He leaves the store, generally dissatisfied and arrives home where his mother berates him for buying an ant after neglecting the tiger and sperm whale he bought previously as pets. He then sits down to watch a program on ants and realizes that he has been sold something that is not an ant.

Returning to the department store, he begins to search for the store's general manager. In one corner of the store is a poetry reading where famous poets (Shelly, Wordsworth, Tennyson) read their poems with significant changes made to accommodate lore of ants. He is sent to the general manager's office in the toupee department where the workers there try to sell him a toupee. Dissatisfied, he and a television interviewer try to figure out how to end the episode (a problem because the episode actually began with both the opening animation followed immediately by the closing credits).

As this is VHS, there are no bonus features and the hour of entertainment - I am liberally using the word "entertainment" - is a tough sell to anyone who likes comedy, especially on this outdated medium. Fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus are more likely to cringe than laugh and that is disappointing considering how fresh the show once was.

[For a much better value, check out the final season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 4 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

3/10

For other television reviews, be sure to visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Little Redemption For A Once-Great Comedy: Monty Python's Flying Circus Falls In Season Four!

The Good: One or two good jokes, Conceptually ambitious, DVD bonus features
The Bad: Largely unfunny, No great performances, Only six episodes
The Basics: This two-disc set charts the ultimate demise of Monty Python’s Flying Circus as Cleese-less, the sketch comedy show becomes terribly humorless.


John Cleese may well be one of the smartest comic artists of all time (he and Steve Martin are ridiculously intelligent, actually) and there might be no greater proof of than than the fact that he got out while the getting was good from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. More casual fans of the series might not realize, but in the fourth season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, John Cleese was notably absent, though he received writing credit for some of the sketches those weeks. I write "those weeks" because "that year" or even "that season" hardly seems appropriate as the fourth season of Monty Python's Flying Circus was only six episodes long.

On DVD as the seventh set of DVD pairs, comprised of Volumes 13 and 14, Season Four of Monty Python’s Flying Circus stands tall as a testament to comedy that has jumped the shark. With only six episodes and five Python's left, the show takes a turn for the worst as it whimpers its way out. In these six episodes, performed by Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam (who gets more on-air time than in prior seasons), Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, the sketch comedy series attempts more ambitious shows with longer arcs, but falls flatter.

A big reason for this is that the entire season is plagued by repetition. Episodes like "Mr. Neutron" repeat the premise over and over again. The savvy viewer recognizes that the constant reminders one is given from voice-overs as to Mr. Neutron's powers is a parody of hammy science fiction and how it repeats the premise. Unfortunately, in this case, the Pythons imitate too closely and they become the thing they are mocking. The premise is that Mr. Neutron is the smartest, most powerful being in the universe, yet he walks around as an idiot. Okay, we get it. . . we get it in the first few frames of the sketch; how is the episode enhanced by that premise being repeated ad nauseam? The answer, of course, is that it isn't.

Similarly, the remaining members of the troupe become obsessed with the long segue. At least two of the episodes have jokes about relationships where the monologue begins on one character, leaps to another only mildly related before leaping further and further and further away until the show is about someone else entirely. It is a funny joke . . . the first few leaps. It soon becomes tiresome. Moreover, this is only a mildly different joke than the one used in an episode from an earlier season where extraterrestrial blancmanges come to Earth and turn people into Scotsmen, only to be thwarted by two people who were panned off in the first moment of the sketch.

What the season does well enough to keep it from getting only a single star is that the episodes tend to create a single zany premise and stick with them almost well enough to sustain interest (if not laughter) for a full half hour. So, for example, "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" is a parody of a BBC documentary on ballooning that is over-merchandised. There are jokes within it, like how the Mongolfier brothers have not washed of late, but largely, the episode is a series of jokes peripheral to a pythonized view of the history of ballooning. Similarly, "Michael Ellis" largely follows around an ant-owner who is mistaken for Michael Ellis and the jokes either involve him or are about ants in one form or another. "Mr. Neutron" is, as one might suspect, about a science fiction villain named Mr. Neutron and is mostly a parody of hammy, serialized science fiction melodramas. "Hamlet" has recurring jokes about Hamlet and psychoanalysis.

The problem with this season is that the show is no longer funny. Before, the series was surprising and unpredictable with delicious satire and quirky greatness. In this season, the episodes are less funny and the jokes fall flatter. The timing of greats like Terry Jones seems to be off in episodes like "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" and Graham Chapman did not earn a single laugh from me this entire season. Even the pairing of Eric Idle and Michael Palin is a bit off. The only time they have a glimpse of their previous greatness in terms of comic timing is when they are doing a sketch in the final episode where they seem to be working up to kissing. They mock the television standards and practices as they flirt toward doing what they are not allowed to do on television and that allows them to play off one another well.

Outside that, the season is lacking in the spark which made it great. One of the final sketches, involving a walking tree falls memorably flat and is disturbing for the way it is predictable. It is a shame to see how poor the series became without all six minds working on it.

On DVD, the two-disc set features the usual trivia about the episodes as well as definitions of "pythonisms" (phrases unique to the series). There are clips from prior episodes and filmographies of the Pythons as well as animation galleries using the pieces Terry Gilliam cut out for his animated bits. There is a pretty basic trivia game for fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but it is very easy for anyone who watches the DVDs. These are not the most earthshattering DVD extras and they aren't enough to redeem the poor programming of the season at this point.

In fact, the only way one ought to end up with this is by purchasing the complete series set (reviewed here!) and assuming that the savings one gets there is roughly equivalent to buying the other seasons of the show and getting this one free. It is still, most likely, the one that will get the greatest amount of dust on your video library shelf.

For a better idea of what this season comprises, please check out my reviews of the episodes in it at:
"The Golden Age Of Ballooning" and "Michael Ellis"
"The Light Entertainment War" and "Hamlet"
"Mr. Neutron" and "Party Political Broadcast"

3/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Monty Python’s Flying Circus Takes A Turn For The Tragically Unfunny With "Vols. 11/12"

| | | The Good: One or two moments of humor, DVD bonus features are standard for the series
The Bad: Largely not funny.
The Basics: As Monty Python’s Flying Circus wound down, it took a turn for the less funny and on DVD, the two-volume set that closes the third season flops.


Sometimes, when something jumps the shark, it jumps so far over that where it lands is almost impossible to find from the vantage of those looking at it from where it was. That confused metaphor works perfectly on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which had a rough third season and the second DVD set from the third season, containing Volumes 11 and 12, is a great example. As the season progressed, the episodes simply lost their spark.

To wit, by the end of these episodes - one of which was actually filmed over thirteen months before it aired - John Cleese left the troupe and the remaining five men had to struggle to keep the show together for a fourth season. They failed. But here are the seven episodes found in this set.

"Salad Days" opens with the naked organist sitting down and his clothes coming off and the credits, which is followed by what is supposed to be an action-adventure show about Biggles. Biggles, however, in this episode, dictates a letter. After calling his secretary a harlot and killing his long-time friend for being gay, there is an animated bit involving things getting knocked over before the show presents a ridiculous sketch wherein some men climb a sidewalk. This segues into a sketch where men walk off a lifeboat into a woman's kitchen. The woman, who is stuffing a turkey with ridiculous items (like a cat and beer bottle) leaves her house to get dessert for the various sailors only to buy her pastries aboard a lifeboat. This is followed by the television show "Storage Jars" where world events are reported in relation to their effect on storage jars.

An animated feature links to a man who recaps the show so far, before a man walks into a cheese shop to try to buy some cheese. Unfortunately for Rogue Cheddar, the cheese shop has no cheese available, which he learns only by going through an entire inventory of cheeses. After shooting the owner of the cheese shop, this is revealed to be a Cheese Western and a film commentator talks about a director's merging of romance and violence in his new film "Salad Days," wherein a group of funloving people all tear one another apart in a bloody series of accidents. The closing credits come up then with an apology for how tasteless the sketch was, news being reported for storage jars and John Cleese admitting the show ran short, so everyone can just watch the tide for a few minutes.

"The Cycling Tour" is one of the few concept episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and while it is easy to admire the ambition of it, it is hard to appreciate the execution. Mr. Pither, on a cycling tour of Cornwall, continues to fall off his bicycle when his trousers get caught in the spokes. Soon after replacing his pants, he replaces his bicycle pump and as he continues to fall off his bike elsewhere, he damages food he has packed and tries to talk with disinterested people about the plight of his food.

This is until he meets up with a driver named Gulliver, who has a keen interest in food, like a tomato that ejects from a car or body at the first sign of danger, an event that happens moments before Pither and Gulliver end up in an accident. Gulliver now believes himself to be the singer Clodah Rogers, then Trotsky, then Ertha Kitt. As Gulliver changes personalities, Pither is captured by the Soviet executioners for bringing back a fake Trotsky and he awaits execution while the army gets shooting people down pat.

In "The Nude Organist," opens with an incompetent plane hijacker, who attempts to hold a plane cockpit hostage for money, but ends up telling the pilots where the bomb is and giving them a pound. After the sketch is ruined, the would-be bomber pops up and attempts to bribe others in other sketches for money on the condition that he will not ruin their sketch. After the opening credits comes a sketch involving housing projects being built by fictional characters, from Dickens and Paradise Lost. It then turns into a sketch wherein a hypnotist and his assistant create housing that endures so long as the residents there believe in it.

The episode progresses with a radio program for mortuary assistants. Then there is a sketch on the Olympic Hide and Seek finals, which take a total of twenty-two years to determine the outcome of. Then a couple has their neighbors, the Cheap-Laughs, over for dinner and their flat is destroyed by their neighbor's slapstick antics. Then comes a lecture on how to do bullfighting right and a report on a space probe to the planet Algon and the costs of shopping there. The episode closes with the would-be hijacker reading the closing credits.

In "Henry Thripshaw's Disease," a Tudor job-finding agency admits to a customer that they have not been able to find work in Tudor jobs for centuries and the client admits he is actually looking for porn. The purveyor of the business opens a wall, through which the customer goes to find a porn shop. When a raid is done by a costumed investigator, the shop clears out and the investigator leaves to find himself back in Tudor England!

Following the opening credits, then, the episode continues with a couple who have a chance encounter with a loony and then adopt his ways. Following an animation, the show has a short "Is There?" which is a talk show posing the question "is there life after death?" by having dead people on. With that question more or less resolved, a man enters into a doctor's office with a word-jumbling condition and the doctor, E. Henry Thripshaw, attempts to exploit it for movie and merchandising rights. The episode concludes with a bit involving a vicar who is ordering and drinking exceptional amounts of sherry, which is broken up by a pack of musicians who play a Spanish melody.

"Dennis Moore" opens with a boxing match between a heavyweight and a professor and a first-round knock-out makes the heavyweight the new professor of Fine Arts. After the opening credits, there is a highwayman named Dennis Moore steals lupins from the rich and brings them to the poor. After a sketch on doctors removing money from their patients, there is "The Great Debate," which is "Should there be a TV4 or not?" and all of the answers given are simple yes and no answers. Dennis Moore is revisited then when he delivers his lupins to the poor, who are sick to death of lupins, so he goes out to steal something more valuable.

Then there is the Ideal Loon Exhibition with a special contest for judges. This is followed by a sketch with a salesman selling liquor and Dennis Moore returns. Having stolen all of the truly fine things from the nobles, he has essentially made the poor rich, though he keeps stealing from the nobles, who now have nothing left. This is followed by the gameshow "Prejudice" wherein players try to come up with derrogatory names for different ethnic groups. The episode concludes with Dennis Moore returning and trying to redistribute the wealth between a carriage full of people.

"A Book At Bedtime" is - oddly enough - an older episode that begins as a storytelling hour where a man tries to read a book, but is strangely illiterate. As he is replaced by a succession of readers who also have difficulty, the story unfolds. The story of "Ivanhoe" segues into a skit on kamikaze highlanders, suicidal Scotsmen who in their training kill off almost their entire regiment. When one final Scotsman is saved for a secret mission, the program is interrupted for an explanation of the phrase "No time to lose." As the Scotsman goes on his mission, the brain size of a penguin is explored . . . by scientists at a country club. The program gets into an animated bit where penguins are taking over British jobs at an alarming rate.

The Kamikaze Highlander arrives at a secret Soviet meeting where he launches, but fails to detonate among two people talking with mixed up subtitles. As the Unexploded Scotsman Brigade works to disarm the Scotsman, the show continues with the gameshow "Spot The Looney." The episode concludes with two documentaries attempting to film using the same film crew and microphones (and the brawls that break out between them) and the storytime hour concluding.

The final episode on the last disc is "Grandstand," which is notable as John Cleese's final regular performance on Monty Python's Flying Circus. The episode is an award's ceremony featuring a presenter who is entirely schmaltzy and self-congratulatory of the entire film industry. He gives out awards and panders to the audience, including a pantomime Princess Margaret. The ashes of a notable are brought out to give an award and Oscar Wilde begins a party where his wit is dwindling. In the attempt to curry favor with a royal, Wilde begins making terrible analogies about the royal and passing off who said the horrible things to other guests at the party. The awards return with the refrigerator of a writer presenting an award and a viewing of the sketch that came in sixth, the new film by Pasolini. The Italian director mixes a cricket match with sexual and religious imagery and the cricket team complains afterwards.

The episode continues with woman getting a new brain from Curry's door-to-door salespeople. Then a blood donor who wants to donate urine gets his chance by stealing a doctor's blood and trading the doctor for the right to donate urine. This leads to the International Wife-Swapping competition, which plays over the closing credits. That returns the viewer to the award's ceremony and a final sketch involving a dirty vicar who moves in on the ladies when he gets a new parish.

These discs come with the standard filmographies of the "Pythons," a clipshow of various John Cleese in which he starred and definitions of Pythonisms. There is also a trivia game and Monty Python karaoke. But even fans of the franchise will have a tough time getting excited about these episodes.

[For a much better value, check out the penultimate season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 3 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

4/10

For other television reviews, be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"Volume 10" Of Monty Python’s Flying Circus Has A Few Good Hooks!

The Good: One good episode
The Bad: One bad episode
The Basics: The next set of Monty Python’s Flying Circus reviews puts forth a real mixed bag with "Volume 10," half of the Set 5 two-pack!


"Volume 10" of Monty Python's Flying Circus includes the episodes "Blood, Devastation, Death, War, And Horror," "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition," and "The War Against Pornography" and continues a fairly mediocre season of sketch comedy by the once-brilliant "Monty Python" troupe. However, where some of the other Volumes have been homogeneously bad, this disc succeeds with "The War Against Pornography," underwhelms with the first episode and is a little better than neutral for the second. The result is a disc worth watching and because of the strength of such things as the Gumby brain surgeons, "Politicians: An Apology" and the mollusc (the apparent British spelling) documentary sketch, it is actually worth picking up.

Still, the men of Monty Python - Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - seem to be fading some in the creativity department. While Cleese pulls off the sheer idiocy of yelling "Nurse!" as a Gumby when one is right before him, his is one of the few decent performances on this disc (though his deadpan through the mollusc documentary is pretty hilarious as well). Michael Palin and Eric Idle give up trying to keep straight faces during some of the sketches and there is an overall more sloppy feel to these episodes.

For those with an interest in exactly what is on "Volume 10" in this set, this disc includes:

"Blood, Devastation, Death, War, And Horror" opens with a talk show by the same name. On it, an interviewer interviews a man who speaks only in anagrams. When he uses a spoonerism, the interviewer calls him on it and he promptly leaves, which opens to the credits. Then there is a gameshow where a woman unscrambles a word and is bopped on the head by a giant hammer. A banker then approves a loan with extraordinary conditions attached to it. After approving the loan, the merchant banker allows a man collecting donations for orphans in and is astounded by the idea of simply asking people in the street for money and getting it! He then brings in the bank's two pantomime horses and has them fight to the death for their jobs.

What follows, then, are life and death struggles between seals, an ant and a wolf and businessmen. This culminates in a sketch involving ravenous man-eating houses that have to be hunted down and condemned. A sketch then begins at the Mary, er Army, Recruitment Center where the recruiter gets all the best punchlines and the extra begins walking off. To try to appease him, the recruiter switches the settings to a bus and circus, but keeps stealing the best lines. In between two of the segments, a man is laughed at for nothing more than saying ordinary lines and the show moves into a sketch with a talk show host who gestures to indicate his punctuation. Announcers interrupt him to provide themselves with work and the news is read also using body language for punctuation. The show ends on a self-referential note with a late-night film involving a spy pantomime horse.

After the remarkably simple opening - the Naked Organist, John Cleese saying "And now," and the disheveled man saying "it's . . ." - with the credits, "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition" begins with a sketch by that title. When three contestants fail completely to summarize a Proust work, the award for the contest is given to the woman who showed up with the biggest breasts. The closing credits run then, followed by a sketch on hairdressers who set up salons on Mount Everest. That is followed by a ridiculous sketch wherein classic movie hero and heroine moan to one another about making a fool of themselves, surrounded by loony bits. Then follows a fireman's brigade that refuses to answer its telephone and as a result, a woman and her husband lose a hamster. Their son returns from Dublin decked out like an African warrior and eventually the fire brigade pays them a social call.

This is followed by a documentary on enjoying parties by Veronica Small, which quickly gets sidetracked with avoiding Communist takeover of one's parties. This is followed by an animation on Communist Revolutions which is little more than a bad pun and then a voice-over seminar that degenerates into a musical number. The musical number reboots to the Mount Everest voice-overs, which is one of the many places that a certain travel agent does not book adventures to. When a client comes in and begins to ramble about India, the secretary walks the cameraman to another sketch. On the talk show "Thrust," Anne Elk postulates about the shape of a brontosaurus after much delay and the host walks out to the travel agency to close the episode with the fire brigade choir.

"The War Against Pornography" opens with a special on how British housewives are fighting the culture wars against indecency and smut. This is presented literally with the British housewives beating alleged pornographers and covering up art they find distasteful. This leads into the opening credits, which opens into a Gumby whose brain hurts and has to have his brain removed. An overlong animation follows with the whole purpose seeming to be to bridge to an empty television screen which a man bashes apart. The doorbell rings and the Mrs. lets in a live documentary on molluscs, which the pair becomes bored with until the host starts talking about the sex life of molluscs. This is followed by a news report wherein the Ministers are given silly cabinet titles.

The episode progresses with a segue of news broadcasts that continually change from children's storytime to sports to other programming that is a non-sequitor. The match of the day degenerates into players kissing or falling into lovemaking positions before the program becomes an apology on the activities of politicians. This then turns into an expedition to Lake Paho, a lake in England confined to a single downstairs flat. The episode closes with an interview of a silly man who is declared the silliest person an interviewer has ever interviewed and the sketch - and program - are scrapped.

On DVD, these episodes are enhanced with filmographies of each of the six Pythons, a featurette on Terry Gilliam's animations and a trivia quest one plays with their DVD remote. As well, the travel agent sketch from "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition" is presented live and there is a clipshow featuring various wacky inventions or daredevils from the series.

Overall, this is a funny enough set to enthusiastically recommend.

[For a much better value, check out the penultimate season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 3 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

7.5/10

For other television show reviews, be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing of all I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Third Season Of Monty Python’s Flying Circus Begins With A Rocky Volume 9.

The Good: Generally funny, Decent DVD bonus features
The Bad: Generally more average than prior seasons
The Basics: Monty Python’s Flying Circus hits a bump with the opening to season six on "Volume 9" of the DVDs.


Monty Python’s Flying Circus is often regarded as one of the greatest sketch comedy shows of all time. The series made household names out of John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam. The show was considered timeless largely because the comedy focused on universal human foibles as opposed to dated political sketches, which distinguished it from many other sketch comedy shows both of the late 1960s and since.

But when a series is considered legendary in one form or another, it is often hard for fans of it to look at the series objectively and admit that not every episode is gold. In fact, sketch comedy - where characters are not developed, nor are plots or themes or anything else, for that matter, over the course of episodes or seasons - is largely hit or miss and Monty Python’s Flying Circus had a huge number of hits right up front with its audacious concepts and wacky animations.

"Volume 9" on DVD ends the streak. Opening the third season of the sketch comedy program, this DVD for the first time has a greater balance of duds than classics. Indeed, it is arguable that this set lacks any real hits and considering it "average" is being generous to it. With the three episodes, "Whicker's World," "Mr. & Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular," and "The Money Programme," "Volume 9" is less funny than any of the prior DVD collections and gets the third season of the show off to a rocky start. Still, for those interested, here are the sketches found on this DVD.

"Whicker's World" opens with a sketch involving a court case involving a multiple murderer. When the party who has been accused and convicted of over fifteen counts of murder, he says he is sorry and the judge lets him off with basically a wrist-slap. A film, Njorl's Saga then begins but is continually interrupted by advertisements for a little town in England. The Eric Njorl, the subject of Njorl's Saga is put on trial then. There is a sketch involving a stock market report after that.

After that, Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion get into an argument on Jean-Paul Sartre. These two screechy housewives are talking about existentialism and row their boat to France to see Sartre. After a conversation with Sartre's wife, they abandon the sketch. Following this, the episode closes with an island of interviewers, "Whicker's World" where cliche television interviewers congregate and interview one another.

"Mr. & Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular" opens with that title sketch which has the couple as part of a mock-documentary wherein Mr. and Mrs. Brian Norris trace the emigration of people within Britain from Surbiton to Hounslow. The joke here being that the emigration is between two places rather close within England. The show continues with a sketch on schoolboy life assurance, then a parody of '70's talk shows where the hosts postulate how to rid the world of all known diseases simply by becoming a famous doctor and telling others to get rid of them. Then there is an exploding wife (literally) and a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman who is disguised as a vicar.

After that there is a pretty hilarious parody of "Farm Report" wherein the works of Tschiakovski are discussed. Then, a pianist/escape artist performs his routine and the show has to come up with additional funds to continue. As a result, a children's show that begins spins out of control when extras on the set inadvertently speak or do stunts, which causes the BBC to charge them more money. There is the classic fish-slapping dance which is exactly what it sounds like and the episode concludes with an appearance by Ringo Starr (the real one!) and Lulu who show up for the opening credits to role as "The Man Show!"

The final episode on this disc, "The Money Programme" opens with the titled musical number, wherein a seemingly legitimate business program degenerates into a song about loving various forms of currency. The show takes a downward spiral when a movie featuring Elizabeth I's court all on bicycles is interrupted by the film police. This ridiculous sketch is separated from another film fraud sketch by the church police. The show attempts an ambitious but overlong sketch involving a restaurant in the jungle where the diners are being picked off by gorillas.

The show then continues with another mock-documentary that puts the cast in the Lost World. The final sketch involves a client who visits a service that offers abuse, lessons on how to take a blow to the head and abuse. This sketch, like many of the others, is interrupted by the fraud prosecution squad and ends the episode and disc well.

On DVD, these three episodes are accompanied by a filmography of each of the six men of "Monty Python" as well as one focusing on the animations of Terry Gilliam. There are clip shows from other episodes as a bonus feature and each episode has a useless trivia function as well.

All in all, the sketches are more up and down than other Monty Python’s Flying Circus discs and while others might have a few duds, usually they have classic sketches mixed in. "Volume 9" does not. As a result, it is virtually impossible to recommend, even for lovers of sketch comedy.

[For a much better value, check out the penultimate season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 3 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Monty Python’s Flying Circus Season 3 Is More Average Than Extraordinary.

The Good: Funny, Interesting-enough DVD bonus features
The Bad: Fewer truly classic sketches, Dull toward the end.
The Basics: Funny, but not truly outrageous or enduring, the third season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus arrives on DVD with little to get truly excited about.


When Monty Python’s Flying Circus began its third season, it seemed to have a more extensive budget and the sketches seemed to have greater scope and sense of unity to the episodes. Still, the episodes seemed less funny and by the end of the third season, John Cleese was so disenchanted with the troupe that he left. The thing is, by the time the final episode of the third season, "Grandstand," comes along, the objective viewer can see where Cleese is coming from.

"Season Three" of Monty Python’s Flying Circus has few truly timeless and memorable - "classic" - sketches that are more widely known in society. For sure, true Monty Python geeks will be able to sing the "Dennis Moore" theme, but outside that, there are few truly memorable sketches in this boxed set, which is comprised of four discs and all thirteen episodes of the season. The comedy troupe of Monty Python was made up of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin and this was the final season the entire sextet was together, before they went to work on the movies.

The third season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a collection of thirteen episodes with over a hundred sketches. The comedy vignettes include a man whose sole ambition is to have a disease named after him so there might be a foundation and merchandising for it, various religious figures like pervert vicars and drunk priests. There is a sketch on the role of cheese in Western films and the vigilante Dennis Moore, who only steals lupins for the poor. The Gumbys return to perform surgery and a ridiculous sketch wherein a pantomime horse is a spy.

There are mockeries of documentaries, like "Njorl's Saga," and running gags on how the BBC is low on cash so extras cannot speak. There are animations by Terry Gilliam that bridge the various sketches and ridiculous pseudo-science sketches that make fun of archaeologists. There are jibes at politicians and religion and sports. There are also amusing moments where the whole cast mimics reporters, capturing perfectly the schmaltz of in-your-face reporters with "Whicker's World."

The problem with Season Three is there are far more smiles than laughs. Watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, one tends to get the strengths of each member of the troupe. Cleese does more physical comedy and deadpans while wearing elaborate costumes or speaking in funny accents, Chapman treads toward absurdist humor with exaggerated body movements, Idle and Palin play off one another like an old married couple, Terry Gilliam rules with animations and Terry Jones seems to do a little bit of everything with as much mastery as any of the others working the same field. The thing is, by this third season, the members of the troupe seem happy to play to their strengths and not get out of their comfortable niches. Instead, they even seem bored in their roles.

So, for example, it is hard to imagine John Cleese in the role of Dennis Moore playing the role the same way if it had been the first or even second season. He plays the role without any sense of absurdity, no asides where his facial expression breaks the fourth wall. Instead, it is a very standard premise wherein Cleese as Moore robs the rich of their lupins, which were a symbol of wealth, until the poor scream at him for something useful. When the sketch breaks into the redistribution of wealth, even Cleese seems bored with it and that lack of spark in the performance is disappointing and will likely leave the lifelong Monty Python viewer bored with this season.

The lack of spark seems to permeate the entire season; as difficult to describe as it might be, the energy of the season is not the same. Terry Gilliam's animations, for example, start using more dated references, people from the late 1960s and early 1970s who might not be as recognizable now. This robs the show of one of the things that it had going for it from the outset; a sense of universal humor that was not dated. Between the humor of some of the animations and some of the sketches that focus on things like how ridiculous the counterculture movement could be, there is a more dated feel to some of the material in this season.

Still, in this third season, Monty Python’s Flying Circus manages to attack several institutions that have not changed even since the sketches were aired. Attacks on the clergy and the overall state of British politics remain humorous and enduring even today. Similarly, assaults on the pretensions of the moviemakers and institutions of popular culture are relevant and funny even now. In other words, when the show strives for timeless, they achieve it, but this season the major divergence in the program is that it does not try as hard to be timeless.

On DVD, the discs have pretty standard "Monty Python" bonus features (by this time in the series). The discs include biographies - mostly filmographies - of each of the members of the troupe (these are now a decade out of date). There are featurettes on Terry Gilliam's animations and a few live versions of sketches from earlier seasons. As well, there are mini-clipshows featuring themes that were explored at various points in the series. There is also a karaoke featurette and a trivia game on one of the discs.

Fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus are likely to ignore my advice anyway, but those looking for great comedy might want to get this only if the Complete Series boxed set (reviewed here!) is on sale somewhere. Unlike the final season of the show, the lack of timelessness and the lack of spark is not enough to totally sink this, but still, it is a pretty weak recommend for this one.

For a better idea of what this boxed set includes, please check out my reviews of the individual episodes at:
"Whicker's World," "Mr. And Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular," "The Money Programme"
"Blood, Devastation, Death, War, And Horror," "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition," "The War Against Pornography"
"Salad Days," "The Cycling Tour," "The Nude Organist," "E. Henry Thripshaw's Disease," "Dennis Moore," "A Book At Bedtime," and "Grandstand"

5.5/10

For other television and movie reviews, please visit my Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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