Category Archives: Stuart Fails to Save the Universe

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E10

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“Spoiler: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience”

I speculated last week that the big bad would be revealed this wee. I was wrong. The floating shit, as they called it, was not revealed in the season one finale.

Instead, we did a whole meta, She-Hulk-esque final with Stuart and the others realizing that they are inside a sitcom. They started off at the comic book shop and only Kripke could hear the canned laughter, but they all would hear it by the end.

Watching the characters watch themselves greeting the audience was wild and cute.

I’m not sure where this goes as they walked across the studio.

This season was up and down for me, but I am going to say that I would watch another season of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E9

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“Spoiler: We Couldn’t Get Green Lantern”

So Amy Farrah Fowler married the Flash.

Or… at least, Jay Garrick, the original Flash.

What a strange episode. It was fun seeing our crew in Gotham and Central City, with Stuart name dropping all kinds of DC lore.

At the end of last week, Stuart, Denise, Bert and Kripke were stuck on a comic cover, but they were able to figure out a way around it… by sliding off the cover and into the actual book. Stuart came up with an idea to find the Flash and have him run on the Cosmic Treadmill to get them back to their own universe.

I like how they used the Golden Age Flash in this episode to avoid all that other Flash nonsense around. Having Amy be married to Jay was a weird choice, but it was a way to get a Big Bang cameo into the episode.

Mr. Freeze was brought in as well, which led to some slipping on ice jokes that were not very funny. Stuart postulated about why Flash was fighting Mr. Freeze and not Captain Cold. This felt like an important line of dialogue, though nothing apparently came from it.

This is another episode that felt too short. It was over before it even began. It was fun with the references though.

It ended with the gang back in Stuart’s comic shop, but it was floating through what looked like space, and a laugh track that was noticed by Kripke. I assume that this is heading into a season finale next week. Maybe leading to the person behind the whole thing. I am guessing Sheldon Cooper.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E8

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“Spoiler: We’re as Confused as You Are”

Time travel.

It is always confusing. Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is no exception.

They do not stick around in the centaur universe long as Stuart, Denise, Bert, and Kripke went back in time to try and get the other machine from themselves. Only those army people turned out to be themselves after all.

Like I said, always confusing.

Penny was back again this episode as a military lawyer who was prosecuting Stuart, Denise, Bert, and Kripke for desertion after they tried to leave the army world again. Penny wound up getting transported back to the centaur world just before Stuart, Denise, Bert and Kripke left again. Penny seemed to like being a centaur.

We did some timeline jumping and it was fun. It did not feel that significant, but I liked it more than some of the other episodes.

The four of them wound up in a comic book at the end of the show. I am looking forward to that next week, although unless this was just another momentary pause like centaur would was.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E7

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“Spoiler: Dexy’s Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment”

I have not been much of a fan of the last couple of weeks of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. It had felt lacking of any real story beats and, despite the enjoyable cast, I was not pleased with what they had given us. The episodes felt too short to have any sort of a developed story.

Then episode seven was dropped on HBO Max and I was back in, full bear.

In this episode, the crew wind up in a universe where everyone has telepathy, which is a great hook for some funny comedy bits. It also has one of the best defenses to the power ever imagined… singing Come On Eileen in your head.

Also, one of the funniest lines came from Bert wondering why Kripke’s mind has a lisp.

But the episode had more than that. It had a sudden twist as Stuart and the group run into another Stuart and the group with their own machine. Then a military version of the group showed up. Suddenly, the mystery of the show was slapping us in the face.

I loved this idea that there may be countless Stuarts jumping around the multiverse, all trying to figure out what is happening.

Who started this whole thing going? Why did alternate Stuart come to see Big Bang Stuart only to do the same thing again?

I’m intrigued and excited. There are only three more episodes of the show, and I hope that means that we get some of the mysteries answered. However, since the show has been renewed for a season two, I’m worried that it will be spread out over the years.

Bernadette made a memorable appearance in the Telepathy universe as a tap dance instructor with a bunch of foul-minded little kids.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E6

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“Spoiler: Corn is Delicious”

Okay, I was not a fan of this one.

Cow universe? The whole cud thing got old really quickly. I kept waiting for there to be some kind of twist, but it never came. Kripke and Bert left the universe but they were stuck between universes.

This one just had no story at all. I suppose there was some progress on the relationship between Stuart and Denise as they seemed to enjoy the whole cud thing, and the licking of the salt lick was gross.

Raj showed up again. Here, he was someone ranting about the end of the universe.

We see the other Stuart again who arrives to convince our Stuart to leave the cow universe. Stuart and Denise head out too.

Just a poor episode that I was not a fan of.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E5

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“Spoiler: Bert Gets Married”

Following up my favorite episode of this show this week, we got a strange one with a tribe of people who share everything, all the time, and a completely peaceful.

With an injection of Kripke into the society, that does not last long.

Kripke immediately started warping things by showing the kind hearted people the idea of “mine.” It does not take long for the natural selfishness to come out, especially when Kripke made a Communist comment.

Meanwhile, Bert met a woman who asked him to share sex that night, but it turned out that they sleep with someone different every night. Bert introduced her to the concept of monogamy, and asked her to marry him, even though she does not understand the term.

Stuart realized that the machine was broken and he went in search of a message from the mysterious overlord that had been sending them messages. He found it at the bottom of a pile of bear poop.

Red quartz is what they needed to fix the machine, and there was only one bit around… on a necklace around the neck of the man who was jealous of Bert’s new relationship.

This episode continued what I think one of the biggest problems of this show is… it felt rushed. There is so much that can be discovered in these universes but are just brushed across most of the time. These episodes should be 45 minutes at least, but they are sticking with the half-hour focus, and there are just too many big ideas.

In the end, it all turned out to be just there and this episode did not blow my socks off. I am not a big fan of Kripke and I think they could have left that character off and still not have issues filling the time. There was no Big Bang Theory cameo this week and that was definitely missing.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E4

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“Spoiler: Stuart Makes a Wallet”

Okay. Episode four is easily my favorite episode of this show so far. It is the first time that I did feel a slight tinge of embarrassment watching it.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe has Stuart in a mental institution with Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler (reprised by Mayim Bialik) as his therapist. The whole time Stuart is in the institution, he was receiving subtle hints that everything was not real.

This is a trope that has been done many times, including, just off the top of my head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but this worked really well. Stuart “put in the work” to make himself sane after finding out that he was married to Denise and they had two kids. He seemed to be living the perfect life.

However, of course the truth was different as Stuart realized when he said that he never has perfect things happen to him.

The four of them turned up in a Matrix-like situation, pulling themselves out of the goo. Yet, it was not done yet, as Stuart opened a tear in the reality and the four of them found themselves in an all-white area with their travel machine.

They ended up in a forest surrounded by a mysterious group of people.

I did enjoy this episode considerably more than any of the other episodes. It did feel like it rushed through the story. I would have liked to see more from this Matrix world, and the ending turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic. Still I really enjoyed this episode and would have liked more of it.

Oh… and I LOVED the Weird Al Yankovic cameo!

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E3

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“Spoiler: Bert is Magic”

Okay, this week’s guest stars from The Big Bang Theory is Melissa Rauch as Bernadette and Wil Wheaton as Wil Wheaton. Again, this is one of the main features of this show.

There is really no story here. The group, Stuart, Bert, Denise and Barry have arrived in a universe where magic is real. However, their transport machine is not working, requiring magic. Luckily, somehow, Bert is now able to do magic.

Bernadette turned out to be a demon, who has had her magic powers taken from her, and she suckered Stuart into giving her his blood so she could break the spell.

Wil Wheaton arrived to punish Stuart and Bert had a magic fireball fight.

Oh, and Bert turned Barry into a penguin because Barry had left when a mob was preparing to burn Bert at the stake.

Strangely, I watched a podcast about the show afterward hosted by Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day that talked in depth about this TV program that does not have any depth whatsoever.

After the group escaped from the gigantic Bernadette at the last possible second, we see Stuart wind up in a new universe where Stuart is in an asylum.

This feels so rushed every episode as the show is just waiting to see what characters from The Big Band Theory show up and in what format. Stuart in an insane asylum could be the episode that changes the focus of this show.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe S1 E2

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“Spoiler: Zack’s in this One”

The second episode of The Big Bang Theory spin-off, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, is not very good. It just feels like it is a car wreck that I can’t stop glaring at.

The new universe that Stuart, Bert and Kripke jump into is an AI-Overlord run universe where everyone is forced into happy thoughts and any negativity would lead to an electric jolt into the person’s neck through an implant at the base of their skull. This joke was used what felt like a million times in the first fifteen minutes of the episode.

I have come to the conclusion that this show is designed to show us alternate versions of all of the cast of The Big Bang Theory in weird new ways. Here we get to see Zack, as the title stated, but also Penny. I’m not sure why Kaley Cuoco would agree to “reprise” her role as Penny in this, but it was nice to see her again.

It was strange to see Christine Baranski used in a cameo as herself when she had a Big Bang Theory character already.

The episode never got a chance to get any footing under it, because after the over excessive amount of the electric shock gags, they came across the rebellion, led by Zack and Penny, and then the episode was over.

While I did not love this… heck, I could probably not claim to even like it that much… Stuart Fails to Save the Universe is a short show that does not feel like anything that is aggressively bad… or at least, bad enough to make me stop watching it at this point. It was fun to see the Big Bang cameos (including the woman who was obsessed with Sheldon). I’ll watch at least one more episode, probably.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe s1 E1

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“Spoiler: Gary Dies”

I don’t know what I watched.

I loved The Big Bang Theory. I know that the show had its detractors, but I always enjoyed the characters and found it funny.

Then, I watched Stuart Fails to Save the Universe on HBO Max.

I am not sure how I feel.

Taking side character Stuart from the comic book shop and matching him with Bert in a sequel to a long running sitcom that is actually some kind of sci-fi adventure instead.

I did not laugh much at the show (it was nice to see long-bearded Raj), but it just felt like it had something. I do not know, that kept my mind connected.

I did not love this episode, but I think there was enough here to watch another episode or two for sure. If it does not get better, I may have to ditch the series as a whole. I guess this is a wait and see show.