Unbiased Reviews by Real People
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Unbiased Reviews by Real People
Captain Disaster Episode 9 - "Lighter Than Fast"Mar 8, 2004 (Updated Jan 6, 2005) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Just what gender is Flossy supposed to be anyway? And why? And why was The Phantom Menace such a bad film??!?
Here we enter a brave new world as far as the Captain Disaster series is concerned. No longer do I have to spend half an hour re-formatting a rather dodgy RTF file salvaged from my fondly-remembered Atari ST with it’s Double Density Disk Drive that ports only relatively well to a modern PC’s High Density Disk Drive… Word files… to savour, to relish, and above all, to enjoy… (End of faintly disturbing soliloquy.) Captain Disaster. Mission 9. "Lighter Than Fast." Flossy was standing innocently at the bar in the space- station they'd docked at when the awkward question was popped by the man who, should you put the last vowel in between his initials, would be repeatedly chewed by a cow. "It's because the couple who invented me couldn't decide on a gender, so they made me both. Then they couldn't think of a name, so they decided to name my after their cat, who they'd named after their tooth-care preference." The disarming frankness of the answer frankly disarmed CD. He thought at length over the significance of this new discovery, realised that there wasn't one, and decided to take up the austere life of a Venutian Monk, and not understand Martians, because of course Venutians and Martians are so unlike each other as to be like men and women. He then realised what a load of complete tosh it all was and demanded his money back. This was given to him wrapped in a frozen mackerel, because of course, as we all know, women are the superior sex. Which is why all the most famous writers, composers, poets and acne-researchers (every zit zapped a work of art) in history have all been women. Or have they? Was Shakespeare in fact a woman in disguise, thus signing her name with an "X" as a symbol of freedom and liberation from the oppressive rule of men, and wearing tights because it made her look good which of course was because she wanted to look good for herself and not for the hated MEN? The argument continues. And to this day, nobody cares but for the small group associated with the "WSWRFBBFBWRAWA" society. (Stands for "William Shakespeare Was Really Francis Bacon, But Francis Bacon Was Really A Woman Anyway". This, of course, is complete tosh as well, for, as everyone knows, Francis Bacon was a pig, albeit a hugely intelligent one.) The bartender came and asked them if they'd like another drink. That wouldn't have been unusual except the bartender was a biped with one leg. Hat wouldn't be unusual but for the fact that he should have been called a uniped. That wouldn't have been a problem but for the fact that, when he was walking, it looked for all the world that he had two legs. It was most weird. There was also the fact that he would quite happily shoot, or attack in one way or another, anyone who called him a uniped. "Ooh look, there's a uniped!" shouted the man who, should you ask him what the time was, would simply look puzzled and reply "I'm sorry, I don't believe in that sort of thing." As he peeled CD from the wall, Flossy reflected on the beauty of Saturn's rings. It occurred to him that he would rather be there than here, that there was greater charm in inanimate creation, and that Captain D was rather in need of a bath. And so the famous expression "Kiss me, Hardy!" was born. (And you all thought it was something to do with Nelson and his pet goldfish, didn't you? Just goes to show, you can't believe everything you read in these science textbooks. Or anything at all that the teacher tells you.) At the precise moment that CD's ears gave up their attachment to the wall, a lawyer came up. (For American readers, read "Attorney" for "Lawyer">) "Hynal Ludd, attorney-at-law" he stated. (He was obviously American.) "Wod?" asked the decapitated captain. "I take it you want to sue the uniped?" asked the lawyer who should have gone with the right to stay silent. "Pick him up" said CD to Flossy. Then, looking him full in the face with all his teeth showing (not a pretty sight as most of them were on the floor), he said "Yes, I'll take him for every penny he's got." "Oh, don't do that!" said Hynal, "I need him to have some left so he can pay me for suing you!" It was then that a policeman walked up and arrested them both. (Oh sorry, should that have been police-person? Apologies to any stupid, pathetic feminists out there who haven't yet been locked away. Can you perhaps see a kind of theme running through this?) (NB - Any bras burnt in protest of this shambolic charade should be eco-friendly, and not contain any CFC's) "What have we been arrested for then? I'm an attorney-at- law, I'll have you know!" shouted Ludd, snorting a sausage. "You've been sued." "What?! What for?" "For limbual discrimination." "But I only called him a uniped. After all, he is a uniped!" "I know that, but it's limbuist to say it out loud." "But he thumped my client and myself!" -------------------- Later, In Court... -------------------- "So I think it's easy to see who the innocent victim is here" said the judge. "Yes, I should think it is. I.." exclaimed Hynal Ludd. (Attorney-at-law.) "Quiet! You've caused quite enough trouble as it is. The bar-person you've evilly insulted has suffered considerable stress and trauma. So I'm going to award twelve million galactic credits damages, send him to counselling, and sentence you both to twenty hours community service. You will star in a video about how not to call people unipeds." As he sailed across the courtroom, the judge contemplated how much he would fine himself, and avowed himself to serving community service by appearing in a video about how not to fly across courtrooms. While serving his community service, Captain Calamity met a man with an unusual invention. "Excuse me, what is that unusual invention you're carrying?" he asked, moments after smiling at the camera. Previous to smiling at the camera he had looked a uniped full in the face and declared, "Excuse me, you nice alternatively-supported person, can I buy you a drink?" The alternatively supported person was not only a uniped, but also hideously ugly. So I suppose there's a lesson in that. Somewhere. The man, who was not a uniped, and who happened to be from Mars, said "It's an LTF drive." Captain D, calling on his vast knowledge of all things scientific, whacked and wrecked his brains for hours, and rolled around naked in the mud for a year. Then he said: "Wod?" The Martian patiently explained. "Look, you no-good loser, you pathetic weasel of a man, you scummy dross, you fiend, you wastrel, it stands for Lighter-Than-Fast." "Dum, shouldn't that be Faster-Than-Light?" questioned the only man in living history to have more brain cells in the furry dice hanging from his dashboard than in his head. "It would by FTL then, dummy. This is LTF. It scrambles your molecules, converts them into light particles, scatters them across the whole known universe, then reconstitutes them into those little Tammagotchy things for kids everywhere to waste lives that their parents had high hopes of, thus bringing down whole civilisations over the centuries as peoples' minds deteriorate to a level so low that not even American Football fans can understand them." CD took this all in with a look on his face that said "I'm forever blowing bubbles, while dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight and ripping off lines from films". Then the profound repercussions of what had just been said to him hit home. He looked at the man, a sage look on his face and an onion smell on his breath. He spoke his words carefully and deliberately, mindful to give each word exactly the right nuance and shade of meaning. Timing was crucial. The whole future of the universe lay in the balance. He could not afford to make a single mistake, however tiny. His words, spoken with authority and conviction, would remain forever etched in the minds of future generations of every race both under the sun and above it. "Does it hurt?" On the whole, his community service proved to be tedious but painless, apart from lunch, during which he was fed his own arm. Fortunately he was able to get another one second-hand and at a perfectly reasonable price, albeit one with only two fingers. Where the other ones were was not a pleasant subject, but I won't go into that right now. The LTF drive had been sold to him by the man (who turned out to be the devil, ever such a nice chap CD thought), for the paltry price of his soul. He would never know the terrible price he would have had to pay, had not someone mistaken Lucifer for a fire-hazard and extinguished him once and for all with a fire hydrant. Back in the ship, CD asked ZB what the LTF drive could be used for, while watching ET on TV. ZB replied that a PC PC PC was needed. (If you are ever so slightly confused, it stands for Politically Correct Police Constable's Personal Computer.) CD asked if they were expensive and UFO (Flossy's full name was Uzbert Flossy Osmand, but for obvious reasons he chose to be called only by his second name) stated that HP was the order of the day. Then everyone got rather tired of this silly game of using abbreviations all the time and decided to go to sleep. When they awoke there was an e-mail on the microwave. It was slightly overdone. "Die, earthling scum!", it said. "Well that's not very nice, I must say!", cried CD, like a true English gent, and prepared to die gallantly and nobly (or perhaps knobbly), for the English always like brave losers. (And, according to cabinet ministers, they can't stand anyone who actually does win things. So this author's in no danger of ever being unpopular with the British public, then.) Fortunately, Zero-Bit wasn't British or European or even human, so he blew up the offending ship with his trusty Ship-Blower-UpTM, and everyone was happy. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, came a knock on the door. "Erm, ZB, we did actually take off, didn't we?" asked Seedy. Zeeby looked annoyed. (Well, his circuits glowed a reddish colour, anyway.) "Of course I did! What do you think I am?" "Ummm...." Captain Disaster made this sound while trying to break the news to ZB that he thought he was a rather sad excuse for a Skiffy character's sidekick/computer/whatsit, but didn't have time to reply in full, which was a shame really because Zero-Bit had been getting rather complacent over the past couple of episodes and not really working for his/its money. "Excuse me, I want to come in", said the handsome stranger, ignoring all the rules of space, such as that which said if you didn't wear a helmet in deep space you'd die. Ignoring all the rules of space-flight, especially the one which said you shouldn't open a door in deep space on a Monday evening, they opened the door and let the handsome stranger in. "Sorry about that, but I'm late, you see. I've got to save the planet Galgatron." He sounded like Alec Guinness with constipation. "But I've already done that! And I didn't get a big hairy thing called a Koowy! What's your problem?" "Oh, hold on, that's the other episode, isn't it?" came the startled reply from a man who was startled. "What, you mean the first episode?" "Yes, the forth episode." "The fourth episode?" "That's the first episode." "So you're in the first episode?" "Yes. The fourth one." "Wod?" "Actually, that means I don't exist yet. Oh, hang on a minute. Yes I do. I'm just a lot older than I am now." With that he aged before their eyes. "Then I'm going to die, and then I'll be young again and start getting older. But if you kill me I will only grow stronger. I think." "Ah", said everybody, nodding their heads sagely, as they did from thyme to thyme. Ubi-Two took out his Light-SaberTM. "You see this? I can skewer kebabs with this really quickly, so that Daft Mull can't kill me, you see" said he, resting both earlobes on his left knee. There was a woosh and awash, and there, standing before them, was Daft Mull. "How did you get here?" asked Flossy. "Scotty beamed me up. I mean down. I mean... oh, never mind. These transporters always scramble my brain." Daft Mull had a black face, which was also red. He began to fight Ubi-Two. As the Light-Sabers swished and swung, it became clear that Daft was winning. Captain Cold Cod thought he'd worked out the reason why by carefully observing the social patterns of Rigel-4. "Look, the dark one's got a bigger stick than Ubi!" Abruptly John Williams changed the musical score and Ubi-Two started winning. "Oh look, it's all gone different now! Wow! Let's put the Spice Girls on and see what happens!" Once the Spice Girls were on, Ubi-Two became one with Daft Mull and what they wanted, what they really, really wanted, was to put zigga-zigs in Captain Disaster, and make him go "ow". Quickly ZB put "Oasis" on, and they turned round, didn't look back in anger, and when M People started playing both developed implausibly large lips and started hoovering the floor. The music stopped and they looked at each other, deadly serious. Then a little kid started playing with a spoon in front of them, and bending it with the power of his mind. "All you have to do to bend the spoon", said the kid, who had appeared out of nowhere only to never be seen again after he's vanished once more, "is remember that the spoon doesn't really exist." Daft Mull and Ubi-Two looked at each other. As they couldn't argue with the child, they decided to dice him instead. After that they got on with the serious business of trying to kill each other. "Hang on, isn't this a bit premature? You don't exist yet." Daft thought about this for a moment. "I suppose you're right actually. But am I the master, or the pupil?" "There are always two, a master and a pupil", chimed in Yoda, slightly too late. But then he was over 800, even in episode 1(4). Anyway, no-one ever really liked him in the first place. CD shouted in exasperation. "Oh, do shut up and get on with it! We haven't got all day, you know! We've got more important things to do than rip off other, more successful Science Fiction series and films, we have!" "Oh? Such as what?", demanded Daft, disdainfully dispatching delectably docile devious dead daffodils. "Such as... Such as needless alliteration, for a start!" At this point Dr. Huh? materialised in his phone box. "I don't like the design of that! Go away!" And then Captain Disaster woke up. It had all been a dream. CD woke up, sweating. Had it really been a dream? Was he trapped inside a simulated world while his body was in fact powering the robots that now ruled the earth? And what would the producers do when Dr. Huh? reached his 13th and supposedly final generation? All this and more will be answered in the next exciting episode of "Fly-Swatting Monthly - Bikini Edition." -------------------
Episode 1 - "The Planet-Eater of Acturus"
Episode 2 - "A Beta Burger"
Episode 3 - "Wormhole"
Episode 4 - "Mecenaries"
Episode 5 - "A Newish Hope"
Episode 6 - "Timedrive"
Episode 7 - "Correctness, Politically Speaking"
Episode 8 - "Virgin on the Ridiculous"
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