Room 104

I watched Room 104 for the first time when there was a free screening of three episodes at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in the summer of 2017, shortly before the show debuted.

Now it is finished, and I caught up in time to watch the last couple of episodes as they aired. It’s a pleasure to give my thoughts on the whole series now.

It is a nice idea. Every episode set in the same motel room, and practically every genre is spanned. Comedy, drama, thriller, horror, musical, animation, fantasy, documentary, noir, etc. How well does it succeed in all those attempts though?

Disclosure: it’s a pretty middling show. Doesn’t mean there aren’t some standouts, like I alluded to in my video post.

Time for granular detail!

 

Season 1 –

Episode 1: “Ralphie” – Story about a babysitter and a strange kid. Very forgettable. 35/100

Episode 2: “Pizza Boy” – James Van Der Beek and the fat bespectacled guy from Hot Tub Time Machine and the later seasons of The Office guest star. A husband and wife want a pizza delivery boy to partake in some strange fetish play. Pretty worthless. 20/100

Episode 3: “The Knockandoo” – Typical Room 104. People act strange and the writer seems to have no idea where to go with any of it. 0/100

Episode 4: “I Knew You Weren’t Dead” – One of the Duplass brothers, the show’s creators, stars himself. A man having trouble in his marriage gets counseled by the ghost of a college friend who died tragically young. Terrific idea, and solid in its execution. 60/100

Episode 5: “The Internet” – Finally, we get a fantastic episode! The cab driver dude from Deadpool plays an aspiring writer in the late 90s. During that dial-up and AOL age, he must explain to his Indian immigrant mom how to email him an attachment of the manuscript he forgot. Not only is it consistently tense, and hilarious, but it goes places you’d never expect dramatically and becomes very powerful. Great work. 100/100

Episode 6: “Voyeurs” – A housekeeper meets her past self in the room. Interesting premise but instead of an actual story they did some lame wannabe music video/visual arts exhibit. 0/100

Episode 7: “The Missionaries” – Two Mormon missionaries explore their gay feelings for each other. Bland, with nothing going for it except a premise that WOULD have been bold in the 90s. 10/100

Episode 8: “Phoenix” – A plane crash’s sole survivor agonizes over what comes next for her. Great premise, and competently done…but completely forgettable. Except for Arrested Development’s Ann turning up! Scratch that. Her?  50/100

Episode 9: “Boris” – A veteran Eastern European tennis player bonds with the housekeeper over his pain. Okay idea, but so boring I didn’t even finish it. 5/100

Episode 10: “Red Tent” – An activist plans to disrupt the Republican National Convention the first time Trump becomes the nominee. A repairman in the room ends up throwing a (no pun intended) wrench of sorts into his plans. While the story doesn’t build up to any sort of a memorable conclusion, what we see up until that point is terrific. 85/100

Episode 11: “The Fight” – Two female MMA fighters can’t seem to decide if their real enemies are the suits ripping them off or each other. 95/100

Episode 12: “My Love” – A really old couple goes to the hotel room where they had their first night together. Would have been interesting if they went back and forth between the present day and flashbacks, but just watching the old people be intimate isn’t interesting. The woman then dies, which is unmoving enough that I didn’t even remember it until forwarding through the episode just now. That leaves 2/3 of the episode for the man to talk with a dead body, which is REALLY not interesting. 8/100

 

Season 2 –

Episode 1: “FOMO” – A young lady’s birthday celebration with her two best friends gets interrupted by her unhinged much older sister by adoption. Interesting enough but goes too over-the-top by the end. 35/100

Episode 2: “Mr. Mulvahill” – Basically one long joke but the setup and the punchline are both fun. Plus Dwight from The Office starring helps a lot! 64/100

Episode 3: “Swipe Right” – Very disappointing, considering Judy Greer and Michael Shannon star and the premise about a strange Russian having a date with a sweet American he found online has potential. Nothing worth watching though. 50/100

Episode 4: “Hungry” – All I want to say about this one is that you’ll like it if and only if you like black comedy AND gross-out comedy. It is certainly original though. 45/100

Episode 5: “Woman in the Wall” – An ill woman stays in the room alone and bonds with a strange female voice she hears. Add it to the list of episodes that kept me entertained but were utterly forgettable. 50/100

Episode 6: “Arnold” – Strange musical episode I just skipped. At least everyone seemed like they were having fun. 13/100

Episode 7: “The Man and the Baby and the Man” – A couple decides to video record themselves in the motel room where they’re trying to conceive their baby. I hated having to see the gray-haired out-of-shape man naked, and there was just a lot of unpleasant arguing. 2/100

Episode 8: “A Nightmare” – I LOVE horror, especially when it involves dreams, and I’m a Natalie Morales fan. The execution of this episode still isn’t that great, but I’ll give it a mild recommendation on principle. 52/100

Episode 9: “The Return” – Moving tale about a widow and her little girl…who summons magic to communicate with her late father in Room 104. Great episode. 74/100

Episode 10: “Artificial” – This is about AI. I remember liking the episode, but it’s the latest example of Room 104 having an idea better than the execution. 51/100

Episode 11: “Shark” – Now we’re talking! Two friends who grew up as brothers come to blows, as the dumber one feels he’s not being compensated fairly in the pool hustling racket the smarter one organizes for them. Mahershala Ali reminds us why he’s won two of the past four Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards. 100/100

Episode 12: “Josie & Me” – A thirtysomething playwright and her college-aged self communicate about the night she was raped. Strong in a lot of ways, although it could have used a more charismatic lead actress. 85/100.

 

Season 3 –

Episode 1: “The Plot” – We find out the origins of the motel. Engaging enough, and awesome Luke Wilson is in it, but it’s not great. 58/100

Episode 2: “Animal for Sale” – Drama between a wrangler and his simian. It managed to be moving despite its silly humor. 60/100

Episode 3: “Itchy” – Some guy has a hives-type condition and we must see him naked. 0/100

Episode 4: “Rogue” – A doomsday plot. Doesn’t land though, with the ending not making sense to me. 14/100

Episode 5: “Drywall Guys” – Another fat hairy guy naked. FTS. 0/100

Episode 6: “A New Song” – Another episode that’s mostly music, but it’s exploring the psyche of a talented singer who’s a tortured artist. Beautiful. 80/100

Episode 7: “Jimmy & Gianni” – We see a father and son designing art for the show in real life. Too bad it’s not interesting. 48/100

Episode 8: “No Hospital” – An age-old story: children in a contentious battle with each other and their estranged father over the contents of the will. I didn’t quite get or like the supernatural components though. 43/100

Episode 9: “Prank Call” – Terrific episode about a bored teenage girl who decides to mischievously turn on horny older men but finds it biting her in her gorgeous butt. No, I’m not a pervert; the actress was 23 in real life (although she also plays a teenager on the phenomenal show Cobra Kai – Daniel’s daughter). My only complaint – when she flashes her boobs in the story how come we don’t get to see them, LOL? 86/100

Episode 10: “Night Shift” – Certainly a unique premise about the falling out long ago between two horror podcasters. As a fan of horror and comedy I appreciated it a lot! 92/100

Episode 11: “Crossroads” – The old funny lady from Nebraska plays someone who made a pact with the devil and finds out it’s time to honor her end of the bargain. Very funny and witty! 96/100

Episode 12: “The Specimen Collector” – Cobie Smulders plays a scientist whom a personal nirvana grows around in the room. The sets are terrific, and I appreciated the environmental message. 77/100

 

Season 4 –

Episode 1: “The Murderer” – A Duplass stars again, this time as a reclusive musician with a cult following. Fans of his are excited to get a private show from him in the room but find out more than they anticipated. Brilliant dark comedy! 81/100

Episode 2: “Star Time” – An addict gets help from a large, talking hamster who serves as her sponsor/personal trainer. He’s cute enough, and the episode is entertaining enough. 66/100

Episode 3: “Avalanche” – Dave Bautista channels his old life (as the mononymous “Batista”) playing a old wrestler who has demons in his past from having once critically injured an opponent. Haunting, and as a big wrestling fan I must give it a top score. 100/100

Episode 4: “Bangs” – A woman debates whether to have bangs, and that serves as a metaphor for this thirtysomething adjusting to new life as a divorcee. Nothing too great, but a wonderful performance by the lead helps. 55/100

Episode 5: “Oh, Harry!” – A man living in the room with his wife and three kids suddenly becomes self-aware that he’s living in a 1980s-style family comedy show. Although the episode ends abruptly instead of having any sort of resolution, it’s still a hilarious sitcom parody/piece of sci-fi with a spot-on lead performance by Kevin Nealon. 99/100

Episode 6: “The Hikers” – Two best friends who just graduated college stay in the room together as they start a long girls’ trip. Stuff comes out. I normally love “chamber dramas*”, but I only liked this one. Strong rating even though it didn’t stick with me. 73/100

Episode 7: “Foam Party” – Kind of funny, and a teeny tiny bit scary, and definitely original. Still nothing too special. 59/100

Episode 8: “No Dice” – An old lady obsessed with a longtime gameshow gets to meet the host one-on-one and play the game in the room. Gary Cole is hilarious as the disgruntled host.** 100/100

Episode 9: “The Last Man” – Ah, they’d been doing so well! Some warrior dude time travels and…blah blah blah. They didn’t have the budget to make such a thing worth it. 9/100

Episode 10: “The Night Babby Died” – Decent episode about two childhood gamer buddies (one male, one female) who reconnect as adults. 63/100

Episode 11: “The Fur” – Entertaining, moving, surreal cartoon about two gal pals and a night of partying with some not-so-nice guys. 89/100

Episode 12: “Generations” – This erratic, often mediocre series ends on a low note. Despite all the great episodes, so much of the series is just a bunch of rambling and that’s what we have in this meditative entry. 15/100.

 

Average ratings:

Season 1 – 39, Season 2 – 52, Season 3 – 55, Season 1 – 67

Room 104 definitely tried many, many different things and for that it deserves props. Sci-fi/horror anthologies have been commonplace ever since the original Twilight Zone, but any sort of other anthologies have been rare since the end of the era of Playhouse 90, Studio One, and the other live stuff from “The Golden Age of Television”. That seems to finally be changing over the past year or so between series like Modern Love and Homemade, but at the time Room 104 began a few years ago there had been an over a half-century where the only anthologies on TV were science fiction shows, horror shows and… Love, American Style in the early 1970s? Perhaps Room 104 showed there was a market and helped get Modern Love and Homemade greenlit. Us lovers of short fiction should be grateful for Room 104’s goals!

Did it rise to its lofty ambitions though? Not often enough. Still, there are enough stellar entries in the series that I’m doubly glad Room 104 came to life. Thanks Duplasses(eseseses…)

 

Bottom Line: Definitely seek out the good episodes!

Up Next: Cult pop culture history!

 

*Dramas featuring a cast of no more than four in a single location. I learned that studying Ingmar Bergman at Berkeley.

**Also, I just realized how much he looks like Steven Weber these days!