Catagory 7: End of the World - Part II

The second half of Catagory 7: End of the World aired Sunday night. (You can read my review of Part 1 here.) Sadly, it abandoned being Truly Bad for simple, unadorned, lazy bad. It's like all their ambition toward Truly Bad excellence died with James Brolin's character in the first half.

The end of the first half left Shannen Dougherty and Randy Quaid stranded on the ledge of a building in Manhattan with a storm surge flooding the streets below them and the entire arm of the Statue of Liberty sailing down out of the sky to smash them flat. But when the second segment opened, Shannen and Randy were driving the SUV that New York floodwaters should have carried out to the cod spawning grounds. And they're suddenly in D.C. Phah! I spit upon the writers who care so little for their story.

To make matters worse, there was very little weather porn in the second half. Instead we got the denouments of a lot of subplots involving the children of D.C. bureaucrats who I never even bothered to mention in my review of Part I because they were explosively dull. So, I'll recap the few entertaining moments of Part II briefly:

Rogue weatherboy Ross had a plan to prevent testy chunks of mesosphere from falling on the irrepressible heat columns which, everybody knows, triggers a catagory seven hurricane right over D.C. every time. Ross decided that if all of the power in the city was shut off, this would eliminate the heat column and - somehow - less heat would completely dry up the hurricane that was already headed their way. Wow - next time New Orleans will have to try that one! Ross said, "This is not high school science!"

How true.

While Botoxia's pushup bra threatened to strangle her with her own breasts, she kicked over a table. She was MAD! She wrinkled her nose extra hard, to let you know she was mad. She couldn't frown because her forehead was Gorrilla glued to her skull.

Then the story really let down the Truly Bad crowd. If you're going with a plot line as ass-stupid as, "Cool down the city and the hurricane that's already passing over will evaporate like Bourbon at a faculty party," then you need a monumentally stupid way to make that happen. Two people sitting at a computer watching a digital thermostat reading drop ain't cutting it. But that's what they did. The writers had the Power Plant shut down and instantly the air temps above Capital City began to drop like CGI tornadoes from animated clouds of recycled newsprint. But the only way to illustrate this tense plot point was to make the numbers go . . . uh, like . . . lower on the screen. Is there a way to get any duller?

Pep and I did way better than that . . . We would have had the President go on TV to entreat the residents of D.C. this way:

"Quickly everyone - time is critical - Turn your AC units the OTHER way!!! Blow the cold air OUT! Open your refrigerator doors - open your freezer doors and FAN!!! Empty your freezers and shingle the roofs of your homes in Byrd's Eye!!! If you have single-use first aid cool paks - POP THEM NOW!!!"

Then we could have had lots of great scenes where busy citizens, shirt sleeves rolled up and noble proletariat muscles bulging, manfully turn their AC units backwards and blast the chill outside. Mothers and daughters throw open the freezer and the frig and then windows and doors. They fan, fan, fan! The children untearfully sacrifice their comic books to the effort and moms fan away the dire heat with Spiegel catalogs. Little Brother climbs to the roof with his newspaper satchel full of Healthy Choice meal boxes which he carefully lines up in martial order. Grandma would pop her cool pak and swing it in the open air like she waved her flag on VE Day. Local business people would hand-truck freezer cases of Klondike Bars and Popsicles out to dump them on the hot streets. Everybody would PULL TOGETHER and PREVAIL over ugly, ugly heat!

Oh, that would have been so much more fun . . . and about even-steven on "ludicrous."

The only other thing you need to know is that Randy Quaid's tongue foraged for tonsils in Shannen Dougherty's throat at the end. Yes, I am ending on that mental image. You're welcome!