zwolanerd

Well, folks, that’s that. I didn’t quite take us a full year to get through 26 episodes, so that’s something!  It should also make you quite leery of me trying something more ambitious like Star Trek, Seinfeld, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

While I know the majority of you that followed along were fans of the show before we started, my hope is that these write-ups have encouraged a couple of people to give it a try. I’ve seen the show through several times now (I think at least five, but I’m not entirely sure), and it’s weird what happens when I’m done. I’ll think, “That was fun, I’m glad I did that, but that’s it, I’m done with the show for a long time.” Then in a couple of weeks, I’ll sit down to eat lunch and want something short to watch while I eat, and I’ll think, “Oh, I should watch an episode of Better Off Ted.” And then it starts all over again.  No regrets!

I thought about going through and breaking down the coworkers and commercials and giving a bunch of stats on things that showed up, but I decided to instead consolidate the full list of inventions and ideas that the show had.  Some of these were mentioned in passing, some were purely hypothetical, some were the focus of the whole episode, and some were actually seen in use.  In “The Long and Winding High Road” (S02E09), Linda says, “I’m starting to feel like a Bond villain,” and I can’t think of a better way to introduce the list:

 

S01E01	Metal as hard as steel but can bounce like rubber and is edible
S01E01	A mouse that can withstand temperatures of up to 195 degrees (computer mouse)
S01E01	Weaponized pumpkins
S01E01	Strong, dark (and itchy) fabric – used in office chairs – “The Focus Master”
S01E01	Suspended animation – “We wanna freeze Phil”
S01E02	Extra fun mac and cheese
S01E02	Cowless meat
S01E02	Retinal scan technology
S01E02	Next generation of pepper spray
S01E02	a Cyborg that can kill without remorse (but can’t tell the difference between soldiers and children)
S01E03	Deadly new weapons system
S01E03	Line of diet foods that involves a green putty
S01E04	Automated systems that see every skin tone except black
S01E05	Solar-powered oven
S01E05	Experimental energy patch that looks like a band-aid
S01E05	Pills that look like candy
S01E05	Hands that can shoot lightning
S01E05	A new generation of hurricane-proof dogs
S01E06	A million fish in Lake Michigan grew fur – listed as a mistake, but still a pretty interesting development, I think!
S01E06	Some sort of experiment in which the crash dummy needs to be hit by a train
S01E06	Personal jetpack, which Lem gets to try out and the plot even hinges on
S01E06	The octo-chicken, one of my favorite inventions ever, even if the very thought of it weaving webs and chasing people freaks me out as much as it does Linda
S01E07	Cleaner that kills everything, which is why Veridian isn’t allowed to sell it
S01E08	Taste-Altering Brain Implant – a nanodevice surgically implanted in the braing that makes everything a person eat taste sweet. “Elective brain surgery still tested higher than diet and exercise.”
S01E09	The Voice of God (hypersonic sound, H.S.S.)
S01E09	Dr. Bhamba’s biocomputer (“Johnny”)
S01E10	Fabric softener that will make all the Aborigines in Australia lose their sense of smell
S01E10	Soldier-tracking GPS underwear
S01E10	Wheelchair that climbs stairs that Linda’s cousin uses
S01E10	Turning an innocent panda into an assassin
S01E10	Zurplex, the number the accounting guys invented for tax purposes
S01E10	Perfume that makes 3/5,000 women attract hornets that want to mate with them
S01E10	Something Lem whipped up in the lab to calm himself which causes him to wear sunglasses in the building and say “This is nice. The air feels like Jell-O.”
S01E10	Some sort of pasta sauce that Bhamba takes the fall for
S01E11	7-year battery
S01E11	Hovershoes
S01E11	Weight-loss toothpaste
S01E11	Wrinkle cream that turns out to be hair growth formula that turns out to be technically a parasite
S01E11	Genetically engineered flying koala bear
S01E12	Unbreakable plate
S01E12	Teeth whitener (that would also kill all the world’s fish)
S01E12	Plove, a plate that is also a stove
S01E12	Bioluminescence (granted, they didn’t really invent this, they mixed firefly abilities with other things)
S01E12	Fire-squirrel
S01E13	Image-based search engine – I’m pretty sure Google stole this idea from Veridian
S01E13	Container full of eyes
S01E13	Carnivorous shoes (theoretical)
S02E01	Nutrition pellets
S02E01	Super fast-growing moss for astronauts
S02E02	Super lice
S02E02	Lem’s hearty fish chowder that Veridian sold to the FAA, who uses it to spray down the tarmac when a plane’s coming in for a hard landing
S02E02	Hush-a-boom technology, when your army wants to get in and out without waking the neighbors and one of my favorite Veridian inventions ever
S02E03	Super Long-lasting lightbulbs
S02E03	Scented lightbulbs
S02E03	Helmet that feeds people cheeseburgers (Stella Clifton Idea, but was an actual project that got pulled after it fed one of the test subjects to death)
S02E03	Remote control for underpants (Stella Clifton Idea)
S02E03	Toaster that can handle a pizza bagel
S02E03	Popcorn that pops from the heat in your mouth, which I think would kill more people than a helmet that feeds you?
S02E04	Cheese that never spoils
S02E04	Super-fast spy pigeon (also wireless)
S02E04	Dieoxolater defibulation splung manifold (Lem broke it)
S02E05	Beaker of bald eagle stem cells
S02E06	Veridian Sleep System – if you can stand the noise for three minutes, you’ll sleep like a baby
S02E06	Reindeer potpies
S02E06	Trap door in the lobby
S02E07	New PA system
S02E07	The smallest squirrel science can make
S02E08	Meals-Ready-To-Eat
S02E08	Genital X-ray Project
S02E08	14-foot Soldier (theoretical)
S02E09	Magnetic gear so kids can experience weightlessness: The Floater, The Astro-Nut, The Dream Glider
S02E09	Corpse-eating Battlefield Robot (make sure to wave your hands when you say this)
S02E09	Fat-free cinnamon rolls
S02E10	Multi-language translator device
S02E10	Long-range people-skinning laser
S02E10	Man-eating ficus
S02E10	Talking frying pan
S02E10	Perfectly balanced aerodynamic bagel
S02E11	none!
S02E12	Lie Detector
S02E12	The Galaxy Omega project, which will change the way we communicate with animals
S02E12	A pill that makes people shop
S02E13	Car that runs on saltwater (though Ted’s comments would make me file this one under D for “Dubious”

 

Thanks for watching along with me. I really hope you enjoyed the series and the write-ups.  I’ll have news soon about the next long-term project.

Tags: Better Off Ted, LWST

Well, here we are: the very last episode. While I can always be hopeful that NetFlix will resurrect the show for a third season, I know that is unlikely. I would think that my multiple watch-throughs of the available seasons would tip off their magical counting/decision-making genie, but I guess if it’s truly magical it can tell that all those viewings are just from me. And, really, it’s probably a bit much to ask for a third season when the second season hasn’t ever been released on DVD.

But enough dwelling on sadness! This episode has some great Phil and Lem business, some stupidness from Ted, and Veronica beats up an old man, so let’s get to it!

The “earn tickets to get lousy junk” program is another great deconstruction of standard business practices. Viewed positively, it can be read as the workplace saying, “Hey, we know working here sucks some times, so here’s some stuff to help it seem fun every so often.” But this is Veridian, so even without being told by Veronica that it was put in place to try to trick people into being happy, we would’ve figured it out. What I particularly love about the system is the weird assortment of prizes. Mugs and T-shirts I can understand, but belt buckles and marionettes? That’s just weird, even by Veridian’s standards.

The tickets system again prompts Lem and Phil’s attempts to figure out how to fit in. They start off with good intentions (“We’ll just print these out and pay for it with future points”), but they quickly (almost instantly!) turn into another case study in “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The scene with Ritchie bringing in a pie in an attempt to trade for tickets is great for two reasons: the reversal of fortunes for Ritchie, and the play on Mafia tactics and the “favors” system. While I get that Lem and Phil figuring out how to print fake tickets is supposed to reinforce that the guys are smart, to me it just made everyone else seem dumb.  Perhaps that doesn’t take into consideration that everyone else wouldn’t feel it was right to cheat like that, but they’re all pretty quick to hop on the offer of tickets from Phil and Lem. I guess, though, that they might think Phil and Lem came by all those tickets honestly?  They are pretty smart and invent a lot of neat things, and the ticket system seems a little arbitrary, so maybe it just didn’t seem that out of place to the others.

An interaction with Linda again makes Ted do stupid things.  Seriously, he’s a smart guy, right? So why wouldn’t he realize that saying “I can’t have people thinking we’re in a relationship!” to Linda would sound to her like “Linda is fiendishly ugly troll!” I know we’re supposed to go along with the “men don’t understand women” stereotype here, and Ted’s done a lot of underlining of that particular trope, but it doesn’t work for me. Ted’s smart and a problem solver, and I think he’d have figured some of these things out. I do love that his inability to figure these things out led him to petting Veronica and Lonnie, but that’s the best I’ve got here. And, yes, I know you can’t have a character who understands everything and never messes up because there’s no conflict, but this just seems to stick in my craw a little for some reason. It ends up okay, I guess, because Ted and Linda end their series-long storyline by kissing, so we can feel some hope for them. Some times the on-again/off-again storylines in sitcoms get old and/or frustrating (Sam and Diane, for instance!), but I always liked Ted and Linda together. Maybe I’d change my mind if it went on for six more seasons, but we’ll never know, I guess.

Veronica’s storyline isn’t as great as hers usually are, but she still has some great lines, of course. I particularly like the part where Arthur blocks her saw attack with a piece of wood, but then she starts sawing, and then they’re both tired of it, so she kicks him. It was a nice bit of physical comedy. I don’t have too much else to say about this storyline, although Arthur seems a little young to be being forced out.

Normally I’d include this last bit in the “Bits and Pieces” section, but it warrants its own spot. When Phil and Lem are strutting around wearing their new VD belt buckles, the song that briefly plays is Malcolm Barret’s own “Revenge of the Nerds.” I’m embedding the video here because Lem and Phil both show up, as do Veronica, Linda, and Ted (even though they may or may not be playing those characters, while Phil and Lem definitely are). There’s a bit of naughty talk in the following video, just so you know.

Bits and pieces:

• “Once again I regret not double majoring in Business and Carny Work.” – Ted
• “My mom always said ‘There’s nothing in the world pudding can’t cure,’ except for my dad’s obesity, which it’s made exponentially worse.” – Linda
• “It takes more than thirty tickets to ride this roller coaster.” – Linda, who I’m not sure understands the implications of that phrasing
• “Gee, Chet, I’m flattered you would come to me with this, but my plate is so full this week.” – Veronica
  “(laughs) Oh, I don’t care about that.” – Chet
• “Have you forgotten the lessons of ‘Mr. Magoo’?” – Arthur
• Phil and Lem’s talk about marionettes and Hal Holbrook and Mark Twain is so very odd but so very amusing
• “You can’t find hydrocarbons on a gas planet!” – Lem
• “Are you petting me?” – Veronica
• “My hair’s in a bun and can’t get in my eyes, unless you scalp me and throw the whole works back in my face.” – Veronica
• Veronica went to Stanford
• Hillbilly teeth!   And Phil and Lem put them in and carry on a conversation as if nothing is different!
• “Borrowing against the future is what built this country.” – Phil
• “Feliz Navidad, buttmunch!” – Veronica
• “Where’d you get these tickets? Your work sucks!” – Ted, to Sheila
• “Let me know when you’re open to some constructive criticism.” -Lem, to Phil about his marionette act
• Veridian has been around since at least 1962
• “I see a lot of older people mall walking. I don’t know what that pays.” – Veronica
• “Don’t joke about the stuff, Ted. It can tell and it doesn’t like it.” – Veronica
• “Why didn’t you tell us what ‘VD’ meant?” – Lem
• “Why?” – Phil
• “That part is very pleasant.” – Phil, speaking the very last words of the series

Commercial:

How cruel is this? Last episode ever and no commercial. Boooooooooo.

Ideas/Inventions mentioned in this episode:

• Car that runs on saltwater (though Ted’s comments would make me file this one under D for “Dubious”

Coworkers named/seen:

• Ritchie in Nanoscience
• Sheila
• Susan
• Arthur Wells, former C.E.O.
• Chet!
• Jimmy, who might be working on a car that runs on saltwater
• Lonnie
• Patricia gets mentioned

Next week: Better Off Ted wrap-up

Tags: Better Off Ted, LWST