Another
episode, another “Drunk in Time” adventure.
In this sketch, the smashed twosome – I’m seeing how many synonyms I can
use for the word “drunk” over the course of these reviews – land in Britain
during its Roman occupation. They offer
themselves as highly unreliable builders for the construction of Hadrian’s
Wall.
It may be possible that I harp on Fry and
Laurie’s comedic superiority, but it’s really true, and after my fourth “Drunk
in Time” sketch (along with a number of other recurring gags throughout the
series,) the difference couldn’t be more obvious. Those two understood that, while recurring
sketches can riff on the same idea multiple times, they have to do it in
different ways, and first and foremost, they have to funny throughout. Take the John
and Peter sketches from A Bit of Fry and
Laurie. It’s easy to write them off
as “intense businessmen saying ‘Damn!’ all the time,” but the sketches stretch
over the course of the series. John and
Peter are put in increasingly outrageous situations, first running the health
club and later branching out into the men’s lavatory and the archdiocese. Beyond that, every single one is packed with jokes. After having seen each of these sketches
numerous times, it still makes me chuckle to think about “Damnit, Peter, he’ll
be in Australia by now!” or “Yep – it’s from God, all right” (and I realize
that these lines mean nothing to the uninitiated; I weep for you.)
The
lesson, of course, is “no one does it like the masters,” but we already knew
that.
Looking
ahead to what is sure to be a far, far better time-traveler role, PC is
officially filming series 8 of Who
right now. This means it’s only a matter
of time before the BBC releases photos of the Twelfth Doctor in costume, to get
the jump on the diligent Whovians trolling Cardiff with smart phones.
Accent Watch
PC has
a couple of longer lines in this sketch, and I think he is doing a Scouse accent.
Seems like he’s going for that Scouse cadence, anyway.
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