[3.8/10] When I saw the title for this one, I was hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be a return engagement from Bucky, the child who, I can only surmise, is meant to be an audience stand-in for annoying kids everywhere. I dearly hope this is his last appearance on the show, since he’s completed his “arc”, to the extent you can call it that, and the show has plainly gotten whatever mileage out of the little pest that it can.
But even without Bucky, who at least gets a taste of his own medicine here, this would still be a dumb episode. Rays that turn old people into toddlers? Others that turn them into cro-magnon enforcers in floral print loin cloths? A corrupt geriatric spa? It’s all just impossibly stupid. As in the prior episode, The Zeta Project really struggles to find a way to inject some action into a non-action-y story, and the best it can come up with is Bucky having to chase after and deal with the hijinks of his now child-ified parents.
There’s really nothing to enjoy here. The premise is dumb. The ticking clock for a local eruption comes out of nowhere. Dr. Tanner is still a dud of an antagonist. Bucky having to deal with even smaller, even more annoying kids isn’t the “hoisted by his own petard” bit that the show thinks it is. And for all his altruism, Zeta just leaves Dr. Tanner and all of the presumably well-intentioned folks who were turned into neanderthals to die. It’s a weird, mostly dumb outing all around, with a lot of broad gags.
Overall, this is the worst episode of The Zeta Project so far. The only silver lining is that hopefully it’s the send-off for Bucky, and we never have to be annoyed by him again.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-07-04T21:38:16Z
[3.8/10] When I saw the title for this one, I was hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be a return engagement from Bucky, the child who, I can only surmise, is meant to be an audience stand-in for annoying kids everywhere. I dearly hope this is his last appearance on the show, since he’s completed his “arc”, to the extent you can call it that, and the show has plainly gotten whatever mileage out of the little pest that it can.
But even without Bucky, who at least gets a taste of his own medicine here, this would still be a dumb episode. Rays that turn old people into toddlers? Others that turn them into cro-magnon enforcers in floral print loin cloths? A corrupt geriatric spa? It’s all just impossibly stupid. As in the prior episode, The Zeta Project really struggles to find a way to inject some action into a non-action-y story, and the best it can come up with is Bucky having to chase after and deal with the hijinks of his now child-ified parents.
There’s really nothing to enjoy here. The premise is dumb. The ticking clock for a local eruption comes out of nowhere. Dr. Tanner is still a dud of an antagonist. Bucky having to deal with even smaller, even more annoying kids isn’t the “hoisted by his own petard” bit that the show thinks it is. And for all his altruism, Zeta just leaves Dr. Tanner and all of the presumably well-intentioned folks who were turned into neanderthals to die. It’s a weird, mostly dumb outing all around, with a lot of broad gags.
Overall, this is the worst episode of The Zeta Project so far. The only silver lining is that hopefully it’s the send-off for Bucky, and we never have to be annoyed by him again.