New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 259384" data-attributes="member: 23">Fly Jaime /  The Jailing Of Jaime <img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYmYwYWMwYTQtMTczYy00YWQ2LWI5YzItMjQxOTkyZGZhMmIxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjA5MzIxNjQ@._V1_.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 534px" />After a couple of workaday episodes, these two feel a little more expansive and high stakes. They’re almost cinematic in scope - if not budget. Fly Jaime is apparently an almost shot-by-shot remake of an early SMDM episode, Survival Of The Fittest, with Jaime and Rudy standing in for Steve and Oscar respectively. Those similarities don’t leap out to the uninitiated (or those of us who haven’t watched the SMDM episode for many years). What’s more noticeable is the inspiration from another Universal property: the Airport films. And no doubt this episode made good use of Universal’s aeroplane interior sets from the films. Many of the stock characters are there on board the plane: the missionary; the alcoholic who has turned his back on his calling; the passenger with the secret; the anxious one…Here, as there, things start going wrong with bad weather, turbulence, lighting strikes and unconscious crew. Perhaps more than even Airport, these stereotypes and situations conjure up images of the Zucker brothers spoof Airplane!, which mocked these familiar tropes to the point that it’s impossible to take the original material as seriously as intended. Coming between Airport 1975 and Airport ’77, and some years before Airplane!, Fly Jaime mostly plays it closer to the source material’s earnestness (which serves to make scenes such as the passengers leaning left to right in their seats as the plane suddenly moves seem even funnier). However, it does contain perhaps the series’ broadest comic relief character yet in Vito Scotti as inept Latin lover Romero, who lusts after Jaime at every opportunity. There’s also an Airplane!-worthy scene in which turbulence knocks Jaime into Romero’s lap as she is serving packed lunches. He gropes her leg, asking if there’s something he can do for her. Smacking his hand she tells him he can “get your hands off my ham and cheese”. It’s a funny moment, nicely played and made me think that Avengers-type innuendo is quite a good fit in moderation. The second half of the episode switched hats to the “stranded on a desert island” scenario. I find there to be an inherent cosiness to this situation, with the campfire crackling and a sense of camaraderie as the well muck in to help the injured, retrieve firewood, and so on. There’s a welcome callback to the similarly “stranded in the wild” episode Angel Of Mercy where Jaime once again gave a snake the bionic heave-ho, even down to a reprisal of her “I hate snakes” mantra. It’s a nice bit of character continuity. continued...</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?