... And with that "joke" I've already reached the 50% of the comedy factor found in the pilot episode of Hyperdrive.
Yes, it's sad to say, but in the episode's 30 minute runtime, I laughed twice. The rest of the time, I sat, stoney-faced wondering if I was missing something. From the other comments here, I evidently wasn't...
The big problem is the format. Hyperdrive could as easily be set in a regional development agency office in Dudley for all the sci-fi content. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it had been originally conceived as exactly that and "rebranded" in an attempt to ride the wave of sci-fi interest generated by the recently relaunched Doctor Who. Yes, I know it's a comedy, but SITUATION comedies are named so for a reason.
Look at Red Dwarf (the series Hyperdrive will immediately be compared to) - where the writers used the full potential of the sci-fi setting to deliver some great comedy and genuinely well-written science fiction, seamlessly mixing genre parodies, big sci-fi ideas and fart jokes to great effect.
Yet Hyperdrive has none of this. Instead, here we get a few gags about how the British are still a bit useless in the 22nd Century, a gag about call centers, some poor slapstick and some frankly embarrassing "jokes" that fall flat.
A terrible disappointment.
Yes, it's sad to say, but in the episode's 30 minute runtime, I laughed twice. The rest of the time, I sat, stoney-faced wondering if I was missing something. From the other comments here, I evidently wasn't...
The big problem is the format. Hyperdrive could as easily be set in a regional development agency office in Dudley for all the sci-fi content. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it had been originally conceived as exactly that and "rebranded" in an attempt to ride the wave of sci-fi interest generated by the recently relaunched Doctor Who. Yes, I know it's a comedy, but SITUATION comedies are named so for a reason.
Look at Red Dwarf (the series Hyperdrive will immediately be compared to) - where the writers used the full potential of the sci-fi setting to deliver some great comedy and genuinely well-written science fiction, seamlessly mixing genre parodies, big sci-fi ideas and fart jokes to great effect.
Yet Hyperdrive has none of this. Instead, here we get a few gags about how the British are still a bit useless in the 22nd Century, a gag about call centers, some poor slapstick and some frankly embarrassing "jokes" that fall flat.
A terrible disappointment.
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