Tripping the Rift: S02E06: All For None

It can be inferred from the other episodes and pilot that Chode is a lying cheapskate who wouldn’t hesitate to burn his own crew to save money on heating, but we’ve never really seen how far his cheapness goes until this episode. Whip approaches Chode in the hall and asks him for his allowance. Chode gives him a few hundred Kronigs, but quickly takes away bills for various expenses, some legit and some made up. This leaves a fuming Whip with only 20 kronigs for a months “service”. Elsewhere Gus’ supply of WD-40 has been replaced with WD-37 because Chode had a coupon. As a result his joints can barely move. And because of the poor dental plan, T’Nuk’s dentist recommended a string attached to a closing door as the best method to alleviate her toothache.

On the bridge, all of the radiation alarms have gone off. Speaking form experience, rad alarms are usually much much louder and more obnoxious than what we hear in this episode! Six moves to the console to asses the problem. She asks Bob what’s the problem is, and after a cheap pickup line he tells her that the core has been leaking for a while. However Chode had Bob move the repairs down on his repair list because there was a far more serious problem facing the ship; Chode’s toilet handle jiggled!

Six confronts Chode about the problem and how it will kill them all, but Chode dismisses her. He claims it’s a superficial problem from behind his thick canary suit (radiation suit). I understand this is how the former Soviet Union regularly operated their reactors.

The crew members are fed up with his tyranny and group together in the lounge to discuss how to deal with Chode. But like any informal meeting they’ve gotta have some snacks. Whip tries his luck at the rigged Soda machine and loses, while T’Nuk chows down the Soylent Green (Soylent Green is people) chips that Chode provided for the lounge. After not-eating the crew discusses their options. T’Nuk would like to hook up Chode’s testicles to a car battery. However Six says it’s a bad idea since Chode really got off on that the night before (when she did just that to him). Six decides to do this mutiny in a more peaceful manner and the crew draft a list of grievances for Chode that they want rectified.
They were rectified alright, Chode used the list as toilet paper.

When Six reports back that her plan failed, the crew decides to jump ship. Despite being in the middle of nowhere outerspace, they beam down to some planet and visit the office of unemployment. Despite their padded resumes, none of the crew can find a job besides Six. And her job would be a whore. T’Nuk threatens the paper pushers with harm unless they find them all good jobs.

The next shot shows the crew back in their Love Boat spoof costumes. I can’t help but feel that they’ve all done this before. Because they have, in Love Conquers All… Almost. As it turns out the captain of the ship is a real mensche and lets the crew relax and enjoy the luxuries of the ship before they start working. It’s too good to be true, which usually means it isn’t true, but the crew are in such awe over the difference between Chode and their new captain that they ignore any obvious warning signs that something is wrong.

Meanwhile on the Jupiter 42, Chode is really enjoying his time alone. In a Ferris Bueller(?) spoof, he dances and lip synchs in his underwear on the bridge. That is until the cd starts to skip, at which point we see how badly he’s shitted up the ship. We can see that most the bridge is in ill-repair, and Bob chimes in to tell Chode that “The only warning lights not lit are the ones that need to be replaced”. Chode reluctantly agrees to hire a new crew.

He does, and like the cheap bastard he is, Chode hires a group of illegal alien aliens. They are all clearly Mexican migrant worker spoofs. Is it just me or will those illegal Mexican jokes never get old, never mind how many times they are repeated on every show ::roll eyes:: Chode sets the new crew to work cleaning and repairing the ship. They only speak two words of English “No Problem!” in a thick Mexican accent.

Back on the Love Ship, the crew are having glamour photos taken of them by Captain Gavin. My first thought is pervert, especially since he thinks T’Nuk looked good. But that all changes when he sits down to his computer with a sinister laugh.

On the Jupiter, Chode learns that his new crew are ineffective. They don’t speak very much English and only do their jobs half assed. None of the repair jobs were done properly. So Chode goes to a website for an “Off White Slave Auction”. on the site he sees his former crew on sale, with some very photoshopped pics (save Six). However Chode sees that their prices are too high for him and he leaves the computer very non-chalantly. Something about all this really bugged me. I can understand Six pulling in over 200k, but not the other crew members. Even T’Nuk surpasses 100k. I can’t understand who would pay that much for a slave, let alone a slave like her. Plus Gus is a robot, surely another cheaper, better and heterosexual robots can be bought for far under 150k! And Whip? Ha!

Before Chode walks away though, Bob convinces him to try to get his crew back. For some contrived reason Chode tries calling his crew on Whip’s cell phone. Anyone notice that Chode has a 976 number? The crew answer the call and feign believing Chode that they are about to be sold as slaves. When Chode asks for their coordinates so they can be beam aboard, T’Nuk moons Chode and disconnects. Immediatly after Six enters with two burly guards to tell her crewmates that she discovered that they are about to be sold as slaves. Too late…

Chode is nearly out of options, luckily though his new crew were formerly resistance fighter from their Banana Republic homeworld. They admit that they can speak English, and only faked it because Chode is such a bastard. They agree to help free the crew, because after working for Chode, they know how bad slavery can be.

In the docking bay of the love ship, the crew and other slaves await transfer to their new owners. It’s heavily guarded with big buff guards and the Captain himself. A knock comes at the airlock and we see the general illegal alien trying to sell oranges for a very cheap price. Gavin opens the airlock because its such a great deal. But it’s a trick. The oranges are really grenades. The revolutionaries charge into the room taking out all of the guards. Chode comes in as relief and also takes out a guard or two and he even subdues the captain. He frees all of his crew members except for T’Nuk. Whip, Gus, Six and Chode unemotionally start walking back into the Jupiter leaving T’Nuk to hobble behind in handcuffs.

The revolutionaries however take control of the ship and order the Captain to set course for their homeworld. His response, “No problem!”.

Back on the Ship the crew and Chode sit down to work out some agreement. The crew have narrowed their list of demands down to 15 items which they consider reasonable. Chode looks over the list, turns it back to the crew and says he can’t agree to items one through 15, but he will fix the soda machine. The crew hastily agree.
This was an okay episode. It appears that the series is back to it’s political storylines instead of scifi spoofs. I personally feel that this is a mistake, as the show’s strength is in its parodies, not Canadian/Faux-American political statements. They haven’t aired any previews for next weeks episode yet, and the upcoming episode has changed on the official page from what was expected. This scares me, and makes me think that next weeks episode isn’t ready yet, and that we might be stuck with another super poor, half assed episode like Cool Whip. We’ll know soon enough.

I’d rate this episode a done before 26,152 out of 10.

Discuss this episode in
the ‘Tripping the Rift Forum‘

Tripping the Rift reviews are © 2005 Ryan Bechtel.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

Tripping the Rift names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of CineGroup.