Techtite's TV Reviews!

"Imagine a series where Lara Croft, Sonic, and Crash Bandicoot can all guest star, and you can get an idea how much potential this inspired sitcom premise has.."

---from the review

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"Like a video game"...? It is one! Topping off the publicity stunt to end all publicity stunts, this show in conjunction with file planet has offered an actual *game* based on the series...and it's FREE! Just go to the file planet web site and search for the download titled "Game Over in Machinimation." It's 166+ MB of download goodness (and 256 Meg fully installed!), but for anyone who'd love to see Raquel Smashenburn in a video game "for real," this is a great freebie from the publicity department of this game. What's even better; rumor has it this game will be added to if the series progresses, with sights related to what you see Raquel play in the series. What a cool idea this was!

Oh, what this series could've been...very easily. I would've loved to see what this show could've been if given a full season run. Rumors said that a show that was on the drawing boards had Raquel talking shop with Lara Croft, but what about video games based on characters right up UPN's alley...? This show aired on the Paramount network.  It wouldn't have been too hard to pull a few strings so that characters from Star Trek (the video games!) could guest in an episode or two. Likewise for Indiana Jones; again, a Paramount film series, with a new video game every three years or so. Why not have an episode where a video game "Indiana Jones" chats it up with Lara Croft; a video gamer's delight akin to Donald and Daffy Duck's "dueling pianos" scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That would've been so cool! Sadly it wasn't to be.

Game Over!

A Review by Techtite

In the opening of this series, a typical video game screen rotates, to "behind" the screen. Asks the announcer, "Did you ever wonder what happens after a game ends? Welcome to the other side!" Suddenly, the video game heroine says, "I'm late for dinner!" and rushes home to her family. The premise is amusing; video game characters have actual lives like you and me. Lara Croft may even have kids! Who knew that...?

Such was the premise behind Game Over; one of the most unique sitcom ideas to come down the turnpike in years. Though it only lasted six episodes (the last of which, offered on this DVD set, never aired in the U.S.), it was a cute premise; a family of video game characters! Rip, the father, is a race car driver from those grand prix games. Raquel his wife, is an action game heroine. Their son, Billy has the makings of a BMX video game character someday, but now only wants to fit in with the latest high school trends. The "black sheep" of the family, Alice, actually protests video games(!), including her own mom's "Tomb Raiding" antics ("Those natives have a right to their cultural heritage!" cries Alice). How cool were these characters?

So, yeah; good premise, but...six episodes. What went wrong here? Well for one thing the series was too much "sitcom" and too little "video game." This show was funniest when these characters had to deal with family woe while within their video game "reality"...which (and this was half the problem) was rare. In one scene, mom must answer her cel in the middle of her Tomb Raiding; Sorry, I can't talk now, I'm dangling over a pit of ferocious monsters...call me later! In a similar scene, when "Dad" is punched by a total stranger, he replies, "What is this; Vice City?" It's moments like these that a sitcom finally identified with the video gaming public, which is rare.

Parents should be warned however, that had this been a video game, it would be a solid "T for Teen" title. In the series premiere, "Turbo"  tries to drill a hole into Raquel's shower to sneak a peek. Though nothing is shown aside from a foggy glimpse of Raquel's bare behind (and, please; these are cartoon characters!), it is still a scene worth mentioning to parents of littler tots. Sure, I thought the scene was a riot, especially when Raquel shoots the peeping Tom with a poison dart gun, which she keeps on hand for such occasions. Yet if I was a parent maybe I'd feel slightly different.

Not to sound like Harry Knowles from Ain't It Cool News, but I feel the best way to summarize this show's appeal --even at six episodes-- is with an anecdote. Have you ever seen Liquid Television? It was an MTV series in the early 1990's which showcased imaginative, new-age animated shorts. There's this one cartoon short, "Craisy Daisy Ed," where a flower says, "Okay...I'm bored," uproots himself, steals a moped, and goes for a joy ride. He gets pulled over by a cop only to say, hey, I'm a flower: give me a break, man! Sure, it sounds like the cartoon's animator needed drug testing; that's what made it so hilarious. It had imagination, and to be more frank, it was pretty inspired . This series, at its best, was like that.

Not that all daring ideas were golden. In the series premiere, the family goes to get a pet, leading to them coming across a caustic..."thing," named Turbo. Turbo was meant to be, we must presume, this series' "Bender from Futurama." Nope! Well, it was mildly amusing when Turbo tried to drill that hole into Raquel's shower, though...no, he wasn't funny. Mind you; I would've said the same thing about Lisa Simpson, back in the day, as the little know-it-all who was never funny. Let's just say I never warmed up to Lisa much, but it never kept me from loving The Simpsons. Even if Turbo never became deserved roadkill, I still liked this show's potential.

Yet "potential" is all it ever had in the end. If there is a "What Went Wrong" column in the making here, its mistakes would be very simple: no actual video game character cameos. This is supposed to be the world of video games; where is everybody?!? Turbo should've talked shop with Sonic the Hedgehog. Rip should've shared a barroom chat with Max Payne. Yes, there was talk of Raquel talking shop with Lara Croft, but it was a scene that was promised if the series was to be picked up. This should've been in the series premiere. If Lara replaced Turbo in that first episode, we'd be labeling this a "season one" DVD set by now, with a sneak peek at season two listed in the extras. That's too bad.

The DVD set itself is admirable, given the limited run of the series. This isn't even getting into the final episode ever completed, which as I said earlier, never actually aired in the U.S. In addition there are "production secrets," a trivia game, character bios, and a neat eight page booklet. That's pretty much anything fans would want really.

Well...not entirely. The most amusing promotional items for this series was a free (yes, free) one-level video game, called "Game Over in Machinimation." No, you don't get this free as an extra on the DVD: you still have to download it, which at 160 Megs for a one level game may be to big for those without broadband  (fans should really give it a look, though). Sure, it's available by searching for "Game Over" and "Machinimation" in your favorite search engine (To save you the search: it's still available at File Planet). It would've been nicer, still, to have this little game preserved on the DVD.

Regardless of that little omission, however, this is still a nice DVD set for a dream that was. Even long after no less than three attempts at a prime time computer-animated series, I still think that the concept here was a good one. There was so much potential! Unfortunately, this series potential is a moot point by now. Maybe someday we'll get the video game related television series all gamers want, but not yet.

                                                                    ---Techtite

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