Tripping the Rift: S01E02: Mutilation Ball

TTR has done something tonight it’s never done before: It aired a second episode. The original computer short never even got this far. Good going guys! Another newbie tonight was dry humour. …ehh not so good dudes.

The episode started off great! The credits featured a new line from Bob, which makes me think that this will be an ongoing thing, like the Simpsons and Futurama openings. Tonight, it was back to basics, and some recycled footage. Didn’t think anyone would notice that the first shot of the show (Jupiter 42 around some anonymous planet) was the same freakin’ way you started it last week? Did ya? But after sitting through the 3/10 sec cheap animation, we were rewarded with lots of sixually arousing moves, I mean sexually…. Chode and Six are doing some beautiful dirty dancing together. Of course that jerk Chode has to ruin it by taking out his recorder (I guess Gus fixed it after all) and states,

“Captain’s log, star date somethin’ or other… I decided to do some dirty dancing with Six. I’m just killing time till the big game starts. But she doesn’t know that.”Smooth move Chode, you’re getting serious play time with Six and you blow it with a comment like that right in front of her!

Needless to say, Six is pissed. Chode claims that he was just kidding, and they resume their dancing. Chode throws her up in the air, catches her and starts rubbing her body all over his tentacles. For those who remember the short, know that Chode’s reproductive system is in his tentacles. This lasts for about 5 seconds until an alarm goes off. It’s time for the game. Chode drops her like a dead weight and runs off for the game. This must be one helluva game, for him to forgo sex with Six!

BTW, did anyone else notice the Mile High Club scene was playing in the background in Chode’s quarters?

On his way he runs past Whip and reminds him that the game is about to come on. The two enter the bridge just as T’Nuk is trying to buy another doll (of her species) from the Home Shopping Network. She’s already bought 49 of the ugly things! Chode doesn’t care about her purchase, and changes the channel to the game. She’s so angry about it, that she is about to open a keg of whoopass on Chode and Gus. To save their hides and watch the game in peace, Whip throws the remote into the lift, which she chases after, only to be locked in the lift by Chode.

We get our first glance at the game, or rather its cheerleaders. There girls make Six look bad. Both the original and the new Six! But onto the sport at hand. It’s called Mutilation Ball. It’s like basketball; it features overpaid players who act like animals, lots of roughhousing, and plenty of traveling that the refs never see. The only difference is that this sport is played with Evil Dead style chainsaws. Even with the cheerleaders and chainsaws, its still not worth passing up Sex with Six.

Chode and Whip disagree with me though. The purple dude is all ready for the game, complete with 6-pack beer helmet! As a college/grad student, I gotta find me one of those! Whip’s go the goodies ready, nachos, chips and more booze. But all of their excitement is about to end, because the Confederation has showed up. Chode orders Bob to get the hell outta dodge, but its too late as the Confederates have already beamed aboard.

Commander Adam beams with some of his goons. The first words out of his mouth are “Hello, Chode! Much like another baddie who beamed aboard the ship in the computer pilot. He offers Chode a deal, or rather forces a deal upon him. It works like this, the next game is between the Confederacy and the Dark Clowns. Their little cold war makes this into a huge pissing contest. So they want Chode et al to kidnap Malak, a retired supa-star playa, and bring him to the big game to play. Chode naturally wants to know what’s in it for him. In exchange the confederation will lift all of his arrest warrants. Chode would rather have money instead. So the Confederacy offers a little more, they’ll 86 the warrants, and let him live. Chode accepts those terms. Only smart hign he did this episode. Before Adam beams away he lets Chode know that if he fails, he’ll him kill Chode, his crew and his ship.

With motivation like that, Bob takes off toward the last known coordinates of Malak at top speed. Unfortunately for the crew, this is too fast. The Jupiter 42 is so fast that it’ shakes itself apart. Sounds like my old car. Chode orders T’Nuk to slow Bob down. But she refuses to do so until he apologizes for changing the channel earlier. Chode apologizes alright, and in true original computer short form, with lots of excessive cursing. Here it is in all it’s uncensored glory (those wusses at Sci Fi Channel added bleeps)

“Whoa! All right, you win! I’m sorry about your fucking dolly! You already had 49 of the same fucking dollies but apparently that wasn’t enough. You needed the last fucking dolly to make you happy! I see now that I’m so fucking sorry. Now go fuck yourself!”

T’Nuk, fully satisfied accepts the apology and slows the ship. Moot point anyway, because the ship arrived at the planet at the same time. To refresh everyone’s memories, Six puts a picture up on the viewscreen of what Malak looks like. Its a huge nude shot of the man, err alien. T’Nuk is salivating, and Gus starts mindlessly playing with his systems. I thought they were only going to make him ambiguous, not openly gay! Now they’re just making cheap gay jokes.

Chode and Gus beam down to the planet, interrupting Malak’s exercise routine. To distract him, Chode drop a bar of soap and asks him,

“Uh, Mr. Malak, do you remember the old saying about how if you drop the soap in the shower in front of a gay robot, don’t pick it up?”

He replies “No”.

Chode tells Malak that he dropped his soap. Then Malak bends down to pick up the soap, with Gus standing behind him. Gus takes a dildo shaped device, and shoves it right up Malak’s bum. The dildo is actually a cattle prod, Gus must be into the really kinky stuff, or normal stuff for robots I guess, and he electrocutes the supa-star, knocking him out.

Back aboard the ship, Chode places a bet with his bookey. He places $10,000 on the Confederation with dds of 581 million to one against a Confederate victory. The Confederation themselves put up 8 billion! The bookey thinks that Chode knows something he doesn’t. Chode plays dumb. Which is easy for him!

Meanwhile T’Nuk is taking care of Malak in sick bay. “Taking care of him” in the mobster sense. She mounts the player, and starts riding him for all he’s worth. Which must not be much, because she kills him! And tears his equipment right off in the process. Classic TTR all the way! Gus and Whip enter medbay just as she kills him.

The entire crew is now screwed, no not just T’Nuk and Malak, because without a live Malak, the Confederation will kill all of them. The rest of the crew go down to medbay to assess the situation. Upon close examination of the severed member (which scifi did NOT edit) and the region of the body it detached from (also not edited, notice the testicle sack), Six determined that this was not Malak but in fact a robot. There’s still hope! The crew decides to track down the real Malak, kidnap and take him to the game.

They manage to find him on a planet called Snortaline. Six describes it as,”There’s an out-of-control party happening on planet. With hookers, underage groupies, illegitimate children, and hundreds of freeloading posse members. Neighboring planets have already called the cops 14 times.”

Six, Chode and Gus beam down to Malak’s estate during one great party. All sorts of uncensored sex and miscellaneous vice is going on. The only thing Sci Fi did censor was a painting of a naked Malak, complete with equipment. There’s lots of great background aliens, all doing all sorts of great stuff in classic TTR fashion. I guess the show couldn’t top itself off after this, because this is when the show got boring. It was all dry and subtle humour. Funny stuff, but not the laugh out loud humour I’m used to on this show.

The crew can’t find Malak anywhere. Chode decides to rest on a bean bag sofa and think of a plan. The sofa turns out to be a boozed up and overweight Malak. The guy looks like crap. And so does his trophy wife Kitty. Kitty isn’t too happy that the three of them are there, and orders her guards to beat the crap out of them. Six postpones the pain by saying that they are there to offer Malak a deal tp comeback to the sport. The whore Kitty likes that idea, until she finds out that Malak has to do it for free. She shvitzes out long enough for the crew and one fat ass player to beam back aboard the Jupiter 42.

The crew has only a few minutes to get the overweight player ready form the game. They squeeze him into a girdle, hook up an IV of black coffee into his arms, and inject adrenaline into his heart. He’s game ready in no time!
At the arena, the Dark Clown team is ready for action too. Their cheerleaders are out rooting for the team and despite better cheers and moves, I’d have to say that the Confederacy has better looking cheerleaders. But the clowns do have a cheerleader that looks like Harley Quinn of Batman, so I’ll give ’em that much. The Dark Clown team on the other hand, are a real bunch of bad asses. They look like the band Insane Clown Posse, and are thrice as aggressive. They play like the Harlem Globe Trotters too. They start with their shenanigans before the whistle even blows, by slicing up one of the players of the Confederacy. And they do it as if they were performing at a circus too. Total bad asses!

That is until Malak shows up, and schools them in the art of Mutilation Ball. Malak is one great player. He’s is tearing the court apart! Speaking of tear, just as he jumps up to slam the ball into the hoop, his chest explodes! The dude had some much adrenaline in his heart that it burst out of chest, spewing all his internal organs out onto the court. Despite his death he still scores though. If you count his dead heart flying through the hoop as scoring. Which I think does count in this game.

The crew knows its time to escape. But before they can leave, Adam stops them. Chode offers the lives of his crew up, to make up for the loss of the game. Luckily for them, they cancelled the game due to Malak’s death and all bets are off (so Adam won’t kill all of them). Unluckily for Chode, his crew isn’t happy that he almost got them killed. To make up for his selfish act Chode offers,
“How about I order a couple of pizzas with everything, get a keg of beer and rent a bunch of pornos?!”

Whadda great line. The crew isn’t impressed and they all storm away. Everyone but Whip who thinks its a good deal.

So that’s the seconds episode. Started off great, but got kinda boring at the end. I don’t have any problem with the dry humour, I’m just not used to it on this show. But hey, the show was censored 6 times! Its approaching LEXX’s record! Next weeks episode Miss Galaxy 5000 Pageant looks very promising. Can’t wait!

I’d rate this episode a bitter sweet 27,619 out of 10.

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Tripping the Rift reviews are © 2005 Ryan Bechtel.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

Tripping the Rift names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of Chris Moeller, Chuck Austen Film Roman, CineGroup, and the Sci Fi Channel.