The Eight Shoes reunited once again in 2002 for a series of short radio comedy sketches airing weekly on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered from Independence Day through New Year’s Eve. Phil Proctor, David Ossman, Phil Austin and Peter Bergman revive such cracked classic characters as private detective Nick Danger and the now-retired General Curtis Goatheart to probe the post-9/11 national psyche through every available orifice.
Review: I’m not your typical Firesign Theatre fan; my friend (and occasional theLogBook.com contributor) Shane Vaughn introduced me to them via 1972’s Dear Friends well over a decade ago, and I was instantly hooked – and then had a slightly hard time realizing that most of the rest of their output simply isn’t in the same vein. Not that it isn’t good, and not that I haven’t learned to love their utterly strange longform projects such as Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, but to me, the Firesigns were always about Dear Friends. When I saw – long after the fact – that the group was releasing their NPR sketches, I was enthusiastic. This was a return to the short-sketch-comedy style that I had fallen in love with.
Having heard it now, it must be said that All Things Firesign is uneven. The war on terrorism is ripe for their unique style of comedy – political but not partisan, reveling in the absurdity coming from both ends of the political spectrum without just relentlessly slamming certain public figures – but they seem to miss the mark as often as they hit it, sort of the comedy equivalent of blowing up a cave three weeks after Osama Bin Laden vacated it. There is good stuff here, though: “It’s Saddam Shame!” pokes fun at the fact that terrorist organizations suddenly have media savvy, “TIPs Hotline” gives us a look at America’s Most Wanted as hosted by John Ashcroft instead of John Walsh, “Bob Heeblehauser’s Tacomasaur!” finds an inventive solution to the energy crisis, and perhaps best of all, “No Jokes About America!” aims squarely at that feeling that was still in effect circa 2002 that we had somehow lost the right in this country to crack a smile about anything. (more…)
In the Time Lord Academy, unrest grows as more non-Gallifreyan students are expelled following an attempt by a student with Free Time ties to poison the Time Lords’ water supply. The situation is made worse by Braxiatel’s disappearance from Gallifrey, and many of the students feel they’re being singled out because of their race without any regard to academic performance or actual evidence that they have terrorist ties. In the Academy archives, Romana uses K-9 to consult with what’s left of the entity known as Pandora; with its past and present aspects having found a host in the exiled Braxiatel, what remains of Pandora can only advise Romana vaguely on future matters. Pandora continues to predict that Romana will institute a totalitarian government on Gallifrey, installing herself as the Time Lords’ Imperiatrix during a bloody civil war. And when Inquisitor Darkel, with the cooperation of CIA Coordinator Narvin, makes a brazen grab for the presidency, it begins to look like Pandora’s predictions are inevitable.
The body of the mutilated Time Lord from Davidia is returned to Gallifrey in stasis – and in complete secrecy – for further study. Romana and Braxiatel discover that the experiment of opening Gallifrey’s doors to other temporal superpowers may have unintended consequences; one of Braxiatel’s alien students is caught trying to poison Gallifrey’s water supply in the name of the Free Time movement. Complicating matters even more is the fact that he’s caught by Andred, who is still on the run after having broken out of his imprisonment. The question of whether or not Romana will appoint Braxiatel to be the new Chancellor of the High Council is at the heart of Inquisitor Darkel’s latest political power grab, as she plays all sides against the middle and finds her most willing (if unwitting) ally in the naive Castellan Wynter. By preying on his fear that his inexperience will cut his reign short, Darkel convinces him to unleash the Pandora creature, which K-9 had managed to corner in a data partition in the Matrix. But in so doing, Wynter discovers in the most horrible way that the mutilated body from Davidia is himself – but even his attempts to deny Pandora a body and mind to inhabit will prove unsuccessful, as she seeks a victim who now sits in an even higher office.
Tired of the constant political backstabbing that seems to be evolving into the more literal variety, Leela tells Romana she wants to leave Gallifrey. Romana agrees, taking her to a secure retreat on the planet Davidia so they can talk over what’s bothering Leela. While they make some headway in understanding each other, the peace on Davidia is shattered by the unexpected arrival of a TARDIS. Its sole occupant is burned beyond recognition, his hands are broken, and he is missing his tongue, and worse yet, when Romana calls Braxiatel on Gallifrey to check on the ID of the TARDIS, the Cardinal learns that the vehicle is still on Gallifrey – this TARDIS comes from the Time Lords’ future. When Romana talks about forcing the man to regenerate, Leela can only see it as more evidence that she’ll never be able to understand the Time Lords. Romana also wants to try to access the man’s thoughts via the Matrix, but given the threat of Pandora, the disembodied voice which promised that Romana would become the Imperiatrix of Gallifrey, Romana is barred from using the Matrix lest Pandora spread throughout Gallifrey’s systems. The retreat may offer an alternative way of viewing the TARDIS pilot’s thoughts, though after seeing those thoughts, Romana and Leela may wish they had let him die.