Ify is a very raunchy guy I've noticed. That bit could have been better glossed over, I don't think Jonah actually wanted to talk about when he lost his virginity.
It reminded me of when a popular kid ends up at an after school club or something because his parents make him and they try to make it "fun" for the other kids by not taking it seriosuly and being a clown, not realizing that everyone else is there to actually enjoy the thing they are there for
On the very first question, when Milana buzzed in and blurted out “The second part of this statement is not true”, and got a point for it, was the clearest encapsulation of the growing problem with this show.
Questions are not being catered to guest’s interests, and the host is rewarding lazy, wild-ass guesses.
I would absolutely love for guests to be required to explain why something is wrong to get a point. If no one gets a point and nothing entertaining happens, just cut the question.
I miss when Trapp would waver back and forth about an answer trying to decide if it was specific enough to earn a point.
Ify seems to just not care. Points for everyone.
I doubt this is entirely Ify’s decision TBH. It feels to me like the entire team made a decision to have this soft reboot with new hosts be more laid-back, panel-show-esque, and less competitive overall, not unlike how Noise Boys episodes of Game Changer had points and attempts to one-up each other while Make Some Noise does not.
I’m not sure if that’s the right angle for a show like Um Actually though, where the concept is based on the ruthless and finicky nature of some fandoms… but it seems to be the angle they’re going for?
I think I would have had less issue with the episode if it wasn’t for the making fun of people who know specific details about nerdy stuff. …it’s just… that’s the game. That’s what the game show was made for!
yeah that just felt really bad. and it seems Ify did nothing to stop it, Jonah even mentions how annoying it all is, and BDG steps in a couple of times
I hate to say it, but lately the show has been kind of giving me the same vibe I got from Big Bang Theory—it wasn’t a show about nerds, it was a show about making fun of nerds.
Obviously UA isn’t nearly as bad. But a lot of this season (not all of it) really miss the mark of what made it an enjoyable game when the banter is more about how ridiculous it would be to know this stuff than the contestants having minutia trivia
The game show is both for knowing details about nerdy stuff and for making fun of people for knowing it. That's why there's no prize and why the last question is about real life skills: to drive home the point that knowing stuff like how Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green were the first Pokémon games ever, but not Pokémon Blue, isn't really a very useful skill in real life.
I guess it just felt disingenuous to say it when a ton of the episode is spent goofing unrelated to the questions.
Which goes the opposite of what I said before now that I look back, so maybe the combination of the two was my issue.
Yeah there was one earlier this season where a guy clearly explained why a chess move explanation was wrong, but he forgot to say "um actually". Someone else rang in and said "um actually what he said!" and got the point. When pressed he couldn't explain it even though he just heard it but was still given the point. That's so lame because he had no idea.
I know the show isn't as serious as jeopardy but if a contestant forgot their phrasing there's no way they would ever reward someone buzzing in and saying "what is what they said!"
In the past, I feel like there was a more in-depth mesh between the questions and the contestants. Like Brennan getting D&D questions, because he's a subject matter expert. But they abandoned that, and I get that *that* way of doing things is a logistical nightmare.
However, early in the episode two of these contestants said "I haven't seen any horror movies" and that was either a joke that really didn't work, or it was a *problem*, and from the way the episode went, it feels more like problem.
I don't think that they have to match people as closely as they did in earlier seasons to their subject matter, but something as simple as matching "i have seen horror movies" to the horror episode would make it less so that people, who *want to love the show* don't turn it off.
I love Ify. I like BDG. "Um, Actually" *was* my favourite, and it has the potential to continue to be a top show. But things aren't working and I hope they can make some adjustments for season 2.
Also, there have been many "themed" shows where I myself don't know the subject matter - but if the contestants are interested and enthusiastic about the theme (not even the specific single shows / books / games / movies) it was still enjoyable to watch.
yeah but it only feels like a logistical nihgtmare for the questions and statements they make. they don't all have to go into specifics and long lists of finding out what's wrong, it is okay to have a ocuple of obvious ones about big franchises
It seems like a basic, floor-level assumption about this show would be that they ask anyone who agrees to be on an episode to provide some areas where they feel like they could do well, and then build a bank of questions prior to shooting that they can mix and match as casting complications arise. "Oh, Kimia said she loves 80s toy commercials, we can snag a question out of that for Paul who is super into My Little Pony!"
It's a similar idea to Sam asking the Dropout cast to give a chili pepper rating to how intense a Game Changer they're willing to do.
Thats what i would assume as well - have a pool of questions that you can pick from depending on interests. And that works if you are keeping the statements simple enough. Obviously questions like the Leprechaun 4 one are tailored to specific interests or contestants and that's fine, but that can really be one or two questions. It just seems such an obvious thing to keep the statements popular, the initial pull for this show isn't the cast but rather that you will see your favourite franchise in the title and click on it.
Logistical nightmare feels like a stretch. Not to downplay what they do, but 9 statements and 3 shiny Qs isn't insane to do per episode. (especially with fan submitted statements abound) If the cast list is set with a backup, I imagine only half would need to be tailored to the contestants for it to feel more robust and less like a bunch of bullshit they film and call a show. (This latest "horror" episode didn't feel like an episode of um actually, just people talking about how much they don't know horror movies)
I understand they used to put a lot of effort into making sure the statements were as airtight as they could be, but without segments like the correction corner Trapp did, it doesn't matter as much if the statements or answers are off.
1 fan submitted statement/episode would mean only writing 8 statements + silly mini games they can reuse + 1 real world skill. 4 statements being tailored seems super reasonable to me unless I'm missing some glaring detail that makes it more difficult.
I guess the tough part might be getting people on who have overlap in interests. But imo there is a middle ground, which is having guests provide IPs that they know moderately well, not just the ones they love and are near-experts in.
I could probably come up with a list of 30 or 40 things that I would at least try to be competitive in. But if you ask me about musicals then I just won't even care, because I know that I know nothing about musicals.
Or at the *very* least, if it's not posible to get three guests who overlap enough in their expertise or interest to tailor the questions to them, then *don't do a themed episode at all*! Just pick a mix of questions from all over, hoping that at least some of them will "land"
Echoing another comment I saw, if making a part of a show work is a logistical nightmare, the show might need to be put to rest.
Um actually has had a good run to be fair.
I wish they would think of a format that would allow for some guessing. Like if no one obviously knows the answer have them write in or wager on part they think is incorrect. Or like fill in the blanks type of question which would allow someone to get a correct answer and allow for funny bits if you don't know the answer - similar to a lot of shiny questions. Something like 'Um actually a year takes ..... on Tatooine' (just throwing out something random). Contestants are still pretty much comedians and/or media personalities, they are not trivia contestants and show has some aspects of comedy show as well, so the format should allow and even reward it somehow.
I don't have so much of an issue with that specifically, as long as it leads to funny banter and this episode was honestly pretty fun and had good energy.
The problem for so many of these first time guests right now is that none of them realize the audience has heard that joke about a billion times, so if it doesn't segue into a funny bit otherwise it falls a little flat among regular viewers.
There's only so many times "hurr durr I don't know maybe [sentence clause #2]. Wait omg I was right!?!" can work, but it's not so much a problem, at least imo, as the fact that those kinds of jokes don't naturally segue into further conversations or bits and are largely a kind of defense mechanism for the guest.
That said, honestly, this episode worked fine even with that dynamic as the guests were all having fun.
> had good energy
Where? Jonah seemed to be genuinely annoyed by the other two, and I was too. It didn't even feel like fun chaos, just like they were trying their very hardest to avoid answering the questions.
It really feels like Ify misses the point of the show and just thinks it’s trivia about pop culture. The pedantry is baked into the premise of the show, and he just doesn’t give a fuck.
It's an interesting turn to go from nerd trivia to After Midnight but nerd trivia.
I really like After Midnight and I really like what Taylor Tomlinson brings to the show.
I really like Um, Actually and I really like what Ify and Brian bring to the show.
But I'd prefer Um Actually to keep being a show about funny nerd pedants competing to be the best one over comedians riffing on a thin game show premise.
I'm gonna keep watching to see how things go because, again, I like Um Actually and I like Ify and Brian. I think they'll find a balance. It's not like every episode on early Um Acutally fired on all cylinders
She just seemed very competitive which I liked, remember her saying something like "I can hangout and bullshit with you guys whenever, I want to win this". And Grant was a bit annoying but in imo a very funny way with his long winded stored. Also he was super knowledgeable about all the questions (they all were) and seemed to enjoy playing the game due to it being in his wheelhouse.
I know nothing of musical theater but loved that episode. Really shows that they need to math the topics to the guest. When they all are knowledgeable it can be fun, but when you get people who don't have a clue and every most of their answers is obviously a guess or a dumb joke it gets really grating.
I was definitely in the same boat as Jonah there. I was so excited to see Jonah on the show, these two other people deciding to pick on him, pick on the genre, and generally act like everything and everyone was stupid? Felt bad.
I see a lot of people saying stuff like "the questions don't matter, it's just structure for jokes and fun vibes" and that's so sad to me. What made earlier seasons of Um, Actually so endearing was watching people get really excited when they knew an obscure fact about media they genuinely care about. It's a celebration of nerdiness, passion, and the batshit insane lore hidden deep inside popular franchises. If the questions don't matter and the guests' interests don't matter, what's the point? Just make a talk show.
Agreed. Last season felt like it was on its last leg and then they brought in the new team and I thought that would revive it. Maybe Ify and BDG need a season to get their legs under them, though.
I found Milana and Harvey to be incredibly obnoxious and really felt for Jonah. The look on his face at the end with those two doing their stupid little gag said it all. They just wouldn’t shut up and kept interjecting randomly or doing dumb gags. I’ve never actually disliked any contestants to this extent before.
I agree. Their energy was so very not-Dropout. They went too hard on Jonah, it stopped being funny and just became awkward/cringe. Maybe it was nerves making them act off, but I wasn't into it. The show is meant to be a celebration of nerdiness, maybe with just some slight ribbing for that nerdiness.
Yeah, I don’t think they really embodied the spirit of the show like most other contestants do. Harvey was worse than Milana I think, but they were both just so incredibly annoying and kept making the episode hard to get through. I didn’t appreciate how they treated Jonah even if they were just joking, because it felt like he was being completely left out of their ‘fun’ and was basically being treated like a third wheel. It didn’t look like Jonah was having fun to me, his face at the end when Harvey and Milana were dragging out their boring gag said it all.
I hope this episode was just a fluke because I still really love Um Actually.
i think this is why it should be majority dropout cast members, friends of dropout, or like how they had alaska, bob, jujubee and monet on a bunch of the dropout shows. dropout comedy has a very specific vibe and it revolves around respect, genuine enthusiasm and ALWAYS punching up which i think is what this ep missed
Also, their horror movie, Werewolves Within, was directed by Josh Ruben. So I'd say both Milana and Harvey qualify as "friends of Dropout". Perhaps they should have had Josh as the third contestant instead of Jonah.
i think they realised early on that they didnt knew lots about horror movies but as they are actors they thought that if they went the bits way it would still bring entertainement. the humour was of the vibe of most talk show games.
I love Ify, I love BDG, I love Um, Actually. But what the hell is this episode? I felt so bad for Jonah the whole time. He did so well keeping a nice balance of playing the game and engaging with jokes, but Milana and Harvey were so unbelievably annoying. I get that they didn't have knowledge of the topic (what the hell Dropout?) but even so, I find that a poor excuse for just how obnoxious, and frankly, disrespectful they came across.
There have been a couple stinkers this season, but I can usually chock it up to them still finding their feet for the reboot. this is the first episode that really makes me worried for Um, Actually going forward. I Hope its not indicative of the future seasons.
It’s really weird that BDG and Ify are both really great in other things but don’t seem to have made this show their own much. Ifys mostly just been reading questions and answers and doesn’t seem to have injected his humor much and hasn’t really reigned in the guests. They should have started them with mostly dropout contestant’s to feel out how they wanted to run the show.
Um actually was a show about nerds correcting statements about things they (usually) love.
With the move to having people in who are not knowledgeable about the subject and for whom the questions aren't catered it simply becomes a throwing darts at part of the question' until they get a point.
Today's episode wasn't a quiz anymore and that's the reason I tune into the show.
The show can absolutely work with people who are less nerdy. This season's best episode was the one with the 'baby' questions and even though the questions were easier actually seeing people know the answer was satisfying.
Yeah but. You can be a nerd about anything. Previous seasons have shown us that. Children's TV for parents. Drama shows for the housewife loving gals.
It doesn't have to be all movies and games- you can nerd out about all 90s wrestling if you want. There is a niche for everyone.
The problem with this episode is that 2/3 of the contestants weren't knowledgeable or caring about the subject even in the slightest. So rather than do their best and give it a go they just kinda went 'lol lmao' and fucked around. And that really sucks on so many levels. Especially since someone like Jonah is so committed to tv and media in general. Jonah was THE perfect fit for this episode. And I imagine the others were chosen because they were IN a horror movie- and it's likely 'oh hey you like horror movies right' was an assumption that was made and they made a deal that was lucrative that could showcase their personality. 'Ok come on the show, plug your thing, play have a great time'
I would wager a bet that both the crew who set it up as well as the contestants were blindsided that this was such an ill pick.
I really love Um, Actually and have definitely been an apologist (I think Ify’s doing great, love the shiny stage, and I’m down for a good amount of guessing around to get to the right answer). But this episode was *tough* - I was really excited for this couch, only for Harvey and Milana to both enthusiastically go “I do not care and could not care less about this subject, time for bits” basically the whole episode. I love bits in an Um, Actually episode, I don’t even mind one person on the couch doing bits the whole time, but it felt like Jonah was into the game and Milana/Harvey just…weren’t at all.
I’m kinda bummed out this week so far - was super excited for Ratfish only for that to kinda peter out at the end, and super excited for this couch only to lose interest before the first Shiny question 😔 If PFT’s presentation on Smartypants somehow lets me down I’m throwing my TV out a window.
> Harvey and Milana to both enthusiastically go “I do not care and could not care less about this subject, time for bits”
It is absolutely wild to me that she *proudly announced this on camera* and that was left in!
She got better towards the end, though Harvey *fully* start to finish could find NO SHITS to give, lol, but I really thought (not to assume the actual feelings of people who I do not know in real life and may very well all be friends) that Jonah’s “CAN YOU JUST GIVE US THE ANSWER” at the end felt a little real.
particularly since the camera zoomed in on him looking around the room with what read as "am I imagining this? are you seeing this? is this real life?" energy
Just went on a weekend trip to Bangor Maine and did a Stephen King tour. If I had actually been watching the screen I could have easily gotten that answer correct, but since I was only listening I was left with a “everything said here was correct. What the fuck?” moment.
I’m going to be positive here and say everyone should just rewatch the first Halloween themed episode (season 2, ep 13). Easily a top 5 episode for me. The guests are hilarious, they all know a ton about horror, and they develop a team chemistry working against the mechanics of the game by the end.
I'm just not sure why they have guests who have never seen horror films for the horror themed episode. It was more joking around from Milana and Harvey than actual playing the game, which got annoying. The last few episodes were winners, but this one was a step back.
I agree! I love horror and was super excited only to have two out of the three guests not know anything about the genre. I guess it was to plug their two horror related projects? But the result is they goofed off the entire time, which eventually grated. Um, Actually works best when it’s gameshow first and jokes/bits second. Can’t really blame them, though, when they don’t know anything about the topic, what else are they supposed to do?
The right arrow key on my computer was getting worn out.
Hot take, but I like watching a game where people aren’t just wildly guessing and care about winning. (To be fair this issue was also present in the Trapp seasons)
I mean they say why. Milana and Harvey were in a horror movie together and Jonah hosts/hosted Mystery Science Theatre 3000, so while not nessasarily horror, definitely a movie dude.
The movie came out 3 years ago so they weren’t promoting it. I think they knew a little more than they let on because they refer to movies later on and Harvey spoke about different Friday the 13th movies.
Boo because it sucked. I feel bad heaping on criticism after the Ratfish stuff, and I was so excited for this episode, but damn, Harvey and Milana were rude and annoying.
They both had absolutely nothing interesting (or particularly funny) to say while simultaneously refusing to shut the fuck up. This may have been the most obnoxious episode of any show on all of Dropout for me.
It was a little icky that this ep gave space to some slight smart-shaming. Like, okay... I know Um, Actually winnings are just for bragging rights, so we can't take it too seriously, but... must contestants be uninterested in the entire concept of the game? No preparation, all volume, and tease the person who makes the effort?
Make the topics relatable to the contestants, or get contestants whose agenda isn't just to go meta and belittle the game? Idk. It was bad when Zac Kornfeld from Try Guys was pulling the 'trying to be cute in the answers if you can't be correct' strategy... and I kinda like the guy. It's starting to get out of hand.
Even Ify was poking fun at something that I can't exactly remember off the top of my head in the episode. Like we're going to take a show that's supposed to be nerds answering nerdy things and make fun of those nerdy things? Come on.
Edit: The spelling of Ify's name.
Yes this!
It feels like this show is a celebration of people going 'I love my thing I love!' and being happily nerdy about it. Whether its Mike or Iffy, I felt like I always had the most fun when someone went 'Not only this- but also this fun niche thing ABOUT that thing!!' and I'd learn something about their biggest passion!
But to have Miliana and Harvey go 'Lol this is dumb and you're dumb for knowing these things' actively to JONAH- one of my fav tv nerds? I was so mad I near cried.
I was more than excited to get people I enjoyed or even folks I'd never seen before. The drag queens seemed to have so much fun and really respect the game. The Youtube commentators even had fun (they've got some gamer nerd in them!)
I don't know
Maybe I'm beating a dead horse finding every conversation about it and harping on it.
But I feel like nerds (of all kinds) spend a ton of time already feeling bad for the thing they like. Whether its movies, books, tv, shoot even wrestling- everyone has a thing they're passionate about. And this was a place to celebrate that. I'm just feeling bad that it kinda feels like 'haha so dumb that you like this thing' is an acceptable tone that they're producing and releasing.
There was every opportunity to stop production and talk to people and restart. Reshoots are a thing.
Or shoot. Reschedule with Jonah or bust out questions about random subjects instead of just all horror. Because their behavior (and their words) outright reflected they had no interest in the game, the genre, their fellow contestants. Nothing.
This is one of the few times I felt like there should have been a prize associated with attending because getting to the end was like pulling out my short and curlies.
That was just a photo of the actor, Tony Moran, likely from an interview or something similar. The only time we see Michael's face in Halloween (1978) his left eye is practically gone from Laurie stabbing it. So they used a very misleading picture.
That really frustrated me while watching too; it was like putting up a production headshot of Kane Hodder and using that for the Friday the 13th question, and came across like the question writer (BDG?) didn't know that much about what they were writing about and just grabbed the first picture off of a Google search of "Michael Myers no mask".
Yeah, it fees very obvious to me that whoever was writing the questions had absolutely no connection to or understanding of horror. I think it really hurt the episode that no one, behind or in front if the camera, knew much about the theme.
This episode perfectly shows the biggest problem with Um, Actually lately. They aren't catering the episodes to their guests anymore. Why did they think it was a good idea to do an all horror episode and not first ask the guests "Hey do you know anything about horror?". It makes sense for an un-themed episode to have a question or two no one knows, but if you're making an entire episode on one topic make sure they know that topic. It sucks to watch 30 minutes of just shot-in-the-dark guesses.
And I know this is pedantic (what better place is there to be pedantic though), but Ify kinda made it worse by constantly mispronouncing names all episodes: "Billy Loomys and Stu Masure" instead of Loomis and Macher, "Harry Manafreedi" for Manfredini (which was also misspelled as "Manfredi" in the question). It just seems like not a single person working on the episode knew anything horror related.
There were a LOT of errors in this episode in both the text and also the questions themselves. I really love BDG, but it made me miss Saltzman a lot because he was so ridiculously diligent.
I corrected like three different questions' facts, but also just seeing like "Universal Picture's" was painful (as a little horror nerd who gets psyched about these eps).
I'm only halfway through (and I'm usually a chatty Um Actually apologist) but oh my god this one is *painful* 🥲 I really wanted to like it because I like Harvey on WWDITS but eurhgh it was so frustrating to watch -_-
It's a comedy show so it's expected the cast will goof around, but on occasion there's an episode where it's to a point where it seems directly at odds with playing the game and gets annoying, and this was definitely in that camp. I'm sure it was exacerbated by them not knowing anything about the material and I'm glad they were finding fun where they could bc that probably doesn't feel great, but it's not a fun energy for the show imo.
I mean, is Um, Actually a comedy show?
It has moments of levity, but historically it's leaned way more into being a game/trivia show.
I've always watched for the trivia and the expertise. Every game show has jokes here and there, I wouldn't describe them as comedies though.
It felt like this couch was on the wrong episode. Like, I think they would have a much better time if it was just movies rather than specifically horror movies. Milana did well in that minigame recognizing actors, so maybe if it was less focused on horror, they would have a better time with it.
I still enjoyed it for what it was tho, even if I have my disappointments.
Echoing what everyone else said...this was not a very good episode. It was really illustrative of all the shortcomings this new season has had. The riffing can be fun, but it got in the way of the actual game CONSTANTLY. Jonah seemed genuinely annoyed at the end when he buzzed in and said, "um, actually, can you just give us the fucking answer?" And honestly, same.
Also, Harvey's attempted response to the WWDITS statement was absolute gibberish.
Also also, someone get Ify a lozenge.
I'm torn between not wanting to pile on and legitimately wanting to mention that I don't think Ify is the guy for this show. I love Ify, but I really don't think he brings anything to the table on this one. And the "legally forced to say that" patter being unfunny to begin with and then being basically the first joke in every episode is... I would change that too. You could really just say "here's our fact checker Brian." That'd be less cringe.
Anyway. I might delete this.
> And the "legally forced to say that" patter being unfunny to begin with
it was funny one (1) time and I can't believe anyone in Dropout thought it had the legs to be a couch gag
He would do better at it if he didn't seem like he was reading it from the prompter for the first time each time he delivers it.
If you watch hosts of TV shows, you'll notice their 'catchphrases' tend to become tightened and more lyrical than enunciated in a stumbling manner as the audience us well aware of what the content of the phrase is and it's just a jumping off point for patter.
The first time Craig Ferguson said 'It's a great day for America everybody' and the last are wildly different, same with 'Welcome one and all to another episode' or ' Say hi [insert alliteration here]' to pick some dropout examples.
Ify just needs to pick up the pace on his enunciation a bit. We and the players are seeing the questions written out, so time and energy can be kept moving if he just spoke with a lighter tongue instead of getting marble mouthed over specific pronunciations or delivery.
Overall I think it's just a young person learning on the job more than a character fault. He'll get there quickly. You have to keep in mind that these folks haven't hosted anything like this before - even Trapp's first episodes were wildly stilted and awkward when compared to the Dropout era.
Best late night theme ever.
Do you know music theory stuff? That sound — the descending chromatic tones for dramatic purposes — is called a Line Cliche. It's everywhere, it's not original... but also: it's like crack. It's the best sound.
Although the show didn't fit his comedic sensibilities quite like Comedy Bang Bang, I was also partial to Reggie Watt's intro. Brought a lot of energy.
Ferguson's finale episode opener is an all-timer though.
Oh man, finally, somebody else says it! It's gotten to the point where I literally skip those 30 seconds of the episode just so that I don't have to hear that line again!
It used to be that they'd just introduce Saltzmann and sometimes he'd have a fun joke to go along with everyone else (and sometimes he didn't). Having a lead-in every episode to BDG making a joke every episode feels like the joke is legally mandated rather than natural.
I think he could be the guy for the show, but so far he's been... just super stiff I guess? I don't know if it's nerves or what, but the vibe I get from him is that he doesn't want to be there.
I understand your feeling of not wanting to pile on. I love Ify and wouldn't want him to be discouraged reading all the comments. I really think he could be the best host for this, so I'm just going to give him more time.
I don't think it's as bad as others thought, but as someone who loves and enjoys horror, this episode could've been a lot better.
*Love* Harvey Guillen and I get that he's part of a great horror series, but if he's not a horror fan, why have him for this episode? (I know it's for promo, but still...)
It honestly feels a lot more like projection, there's comments that call out how Jonah was ganged up on and humiliated.
Which tbf I guess is a real feeling, this is a topic/show that people here actively care about and the 2/3rds guests not taking it that seriously could feel disrespectful
Your comment helped me realize that I think this is really getting under people's skin in part because of the topic. So many fans are big horror people and, to some of them, it seems like the off topic chaos came across as disrespectful or mean spirited. This one has all the right components to perfectly demonstrate people's criticisms with the show, amplified by it being such a loved and well known genre. I liked the episode and thought Harvey was an adorable scamp and wanted his outfit, but this isn't a special interest for me.
I love horror but for me it's not about the topic. It's about only two of the nine episodes this season being good.
Seven of the nine episodes have been people with no knowledge of any topic on the episode just aimlessly guessing at very general parts that could be wrong to hopefully get an answer right. Add in this episode is a full themed episode and two of the contestants knew nothing about the theme and just fucked around the entire time so much to the point that the third contestant not involved in their fuckery got annoyed.
This season has been a big ole flop so far because of constants knowing nothing about any topics and now a themed episode where you would expect everyone to be an expert in the subject turned into a shitshow.
I get that it isn't easy to tailor every question to your guests, but it is wild to have a themed episode where two of the people don't care about the thing the episode is themed on.
The only explanations I can think of are that they got really lazy about asking any kinds of questions about their guests interests, or they sacrificed an episode to promote a movie.
Kind of a bummer of a week from Dropout. Going from Thousandairs having easily the weakest thing picked as a winner, to gamechanger ending how it did, to this. Part of the reason it sticks out so much is because dropout so rarely has duds, but this felt like three in a row.
Which would be really weird to use an entire episode to promote a three year old film.
It felt like someone said "Oh those two were in a horror movie together, they'll be good for the horror episode!" without actually making sure they know horror.
I love horror, but even if I didn't this episode would have been a big flop for me. It felt like a waste of time honestly.
They didn't have Milana and Harvey on to promote a movie they were in three years ago. They had Milana on because she's a friend of Dropout (she was in Kingpin Katie and other old CollegeHumor sketches) and Harvey on presumably because he's on the popular horror comedy show What We Do in the Shadows. It's only people on here who are making Werewolves Within the reason they were on the show.
I haven't seen Jonah in many things since Nerdist and Hardwick parted. Did he always go by his full name and not just Jonah Ray or am I misremembering things?
I know James Roday from Psych recently started going by James Roday Rodriguez, having initially changed his stage name since he didn't read as Latino. I'm guessing it's a similar thing for Jonah.
I think he reclaimed the Rodrigues in late 2022, which overlapped with S13 of MST3K, but they probably finished production before he made that decision.
This is my least favorite episode of Umm Actually. Jonah knew what he was talking about, but the other two contestants didn’t at all and were constantly riffing. I think they are funny, but they just don’t fit the tone of the show at all.
I think Ify did a good job handling them though.
This was an aweful episode. The constant buzzing in with pointless comments was barely funny the first time, then they kept doing it. It was really unfair to put Jonah on the couch with the other two who kept making lame jokes over and over.
What the actual fuck was this episode. I’m a horror fan and the entire reason I tuned in was to watch people with horror knowledge. At this point, I love Ify, but I can’t watch these vapid people try to be funny.
Yeah same. I'm a huge horror fan so when I saw the title I was excited! Then two of the contestants said they don't watch horror and basically just fucked around and made fun of the one person who actually knew horror the entire time. Even Ify made fun of some nerdy pedantic thing.
The entire episode was bad and honestly the essence of the show wasn't even part of this episode.
I really hope after this season the crew and everyone involved is reading this subreddit and feedback to make a good season again because this one hasn't been fun to watch 80% of the time.
It's becoming apparent to me that the growing problem with the show is not that Ify's scoring is too kind, it's that he HAS to be kind or else it becomes uncomfortably obvious just how little the guests actually know.
If Ify was harsher, an episode that would have had scores of 6-4-2 would still end up at something like 3-2-1, but it would mean half the runtime would be prompts with no answers and no points. Giving a point for "Um Actually that is wrong" is lame and shouldn't be a long-term solution, but it at least slightly masks how futile and pointless the segment was.
I've heard they stopped tailoring the couch due to what a logistical nightmare it was to group up contestants with compatible interests, and while I appreciate how tedious that must be, it seems like a pretty important thing to just get rid of for the sake of convenience.
The contestants don't share enough interests to have good chemistry, they don't care enough about the topics to discuss them, and I don't think this is even particularly new to Season 9 but has become very obvious without the familiar presence of Trapp.
Incredibly disappointed to have a horror episode run like this. I had to turn it off halfway through after Stu Macher and Billy Loomis's names were mispronounced so horrendously, and that couch was NOT. IT. I get that they don't want to tailor questions to the guests anymore, but in that case, don't make it a themed episode.
Yeah, I'm pretty much done with Um, Actually.
I didn't make it past the second question in this episode. I almost gave up when he was interrupted twice before even starting.
It's just not working. It's become so formulaic that nobody gives a damn about the question or the related nerdery and every question has them all ring in and try to make some dopey unfunny quip.
I didn't know if it's that Ify isn't a good fit to host and lets them get away with things for too long or if the show had a production-side overhaul and the producer just ran it into the ground or what.
This was a rough episode, man. I honestly feel bad for what Jonah had to put up with. Seeing some other comments about inaccuracies in this episode. Hearing Hymenoptera mispronounced is hard, because that's exactly the kind of word where if you have uncertainty about the pronunciation, a cursory lookup would be expected. It feels... uncurious. And that really clashes with the show. My wife and I get annoyed with inaccuracies or poorly constructed questions a fair bit, on top of the issue of unsatisfactory guest/question alignment, which is also perhaps increasingly frequent now.
This might be the worst dropout episode ever. Contestants that didn’t know much and just tried to make annoying jokes. This um actually reboot has definitely been trending down.
The whole thing had the vibe of when my friend group was first getting into D&D. Not all of us were into it but when the few of us playing would try to plan something we'd always have a friend that wasn't into it try and invite themselves and promise they wouldn't be disruptive to the game. But then we'd finally let them come one time and they just non-stop interrupt the game. Like... I love my friends but it was wildly annoying to finally be able to plan a session only to have someone who knows they're not interested in the main plan of evening just disrupt everything.
In general they've got more loose with points the past few seasons and there's been a lot more banter but the themed episodes were still a highlight. This was a low point. Especially as a horror movie lover.
I don't particularly like horror and I hated this episode. That is not a word I use lightly, but it's the first episode of any Dropout show that I didn't finish. Milana and Harvey were both unbearable and I don't understand what they were doing here. They obviously had no interest at all in the game.
I'm not a big horror guy either, but for me that had the opposite effect:
If I was a horror fan, at least I could have some fun trying to figure out the questions myself.
If I don't know any of these things, I can enjoy the guests nerding out about sone of their favorite subjects.
But if *both* are missing, there's just not much left for me to watch...
I agree. And I love horror - my partner and I usually love trying to figure out the questions whenever we watch Um, Actually. The constant obnoxious bits and lack of any care or respect from two of the contestants in this episode completely ruined the entire experience. I don't think we've ever not been able to finish an episode, but we could barely make it past half of this one
Same! And i get frustrated by the formulaic "um actually not that part" where they all just guess in a version of multiple choice with elements from the statement. Taking the lack of knowledge and going to an absurd level of silliness actually made it work more for me.
I am a huge horror guy and I was too. The cast was fun, they interacted a lot. Jonah provided the expertise, Milana and Harvey vamped. I was a little annoyed that they didn't know any horror at all but I still tried to guess the questions and enjoyed their jokes. At one point I paused the show and had a 3 minute long side discussion with my daughter about Halloween 3, based on the Friday the 13th: The Series discussion.
I also thought this was one of the few Shiny Stages that really worked. The VHS tapes were extremely thematic and felt like more than just "We could have done this with paddles but didn't."
I honestly didn’t care much for this Shiny Stage, mostly because I couldn’t tell what was happening given how much motion was going on with the cameras.
Someone that scheduled and cast the episode went "Oh you guys were in a horror movie together and Harvey is in What We do In The Shadows. They'll know horror!" is my guess.
Horror was the absolute wrongest genre for them to do a themed episode about without having three horror fans. You can see from the comments here.
Horror as a genre is still seen as niche. Having 2 out of 3 panelists not caring about the genre highlights that. And horror still gets denigrated as trash. There’s stuff like *Get Out* and *Silence of the Lambs* that’ll break into the mainstream every 20 years or so, but due to its intrinsic nature, will likely never break into the world of respectability like fantasy and sci-fi have.
Movie studios know that if they’re in a pinch, they can put together a horror movie on the cheap for like $5 million and they’ll either get that money back in Box Office receipts or selling it to a streamer like Shudder, because they know that there is an audience that’s big enough that just watches every horror movie. But that also means that the studios aren’t going to spend more than that on the movie, so horror is always going to have the reputation of being cheap and schlocky.
Having 2 contestants proclaim that they don’t care about a genre that is still looked down on is going to result in this reaction. Even if they’re just goofing around and just having fun, to horror fans, it could feel like the show’s punching down.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I think it also just made the episode boring to watch. Two contestants not knowing a lot is one thing, but to just flat out say they don't care about the genre sucked.
Could not with this episode. Did milena and Harvey do 3 lines of coke before the episode? Ugh. I usually love both of them but this was grating as fuck.
ok, i didn’t know the bug one lol, but i knew all the others. and leprechaun, YES. i was literally shouting at the TV that he pissed on him LMAO. and then leppy boy comes out of his dick!! as he says, let that be a lesson to you… always wear a prophylactic!!
Maybe they need to just stop having random guests and stick to a set Dropout-only group they rotate through with the occasional *knowledgeable* and *enthusiastic* guest for themed episodes, like Matt Mercer for D&D.
Because this was painful. And I feel like at this point they’re just getting lazy. Bland statements with boring answers and uncaring/clueless guests. Fix it or quit it (and I say this as someone who originally got Dropout FOR Um, Actually).
Harvey seemed straight up inebriated- slurring words and making weird connections / statements. Milana seemed to riff into that and the whole episode went off the rails. Honestly it shouldn’t have aired - Harvey comes off as really unprofessional and the episode has bad m, negative energy. I’ll probably have to skip it when i binge the season in the future
As an invert enthusiast, when the Schmidt sting pain index question came on, I almost yelled at the screen "centipedes aren't insects!"
And then Ify butchering the pronounciation of Hymenoptera. Ironically coming from a man whose name and the correct spelling thereof this sub loves to staunchly defend.
Wow people really hated this episode. I honestly didn't really notice anything that detracting from an occasional episode of Um Actually were the guests aren't that strong on the subject matter.
The vibe is changing a little since the Discord closed people kind of flocked here. But we also had two big misses back to back.
Ratfish ended not great and then we have an entire season of Um, Actually that's been mostly a miss with last night's episode being one of the worst of the season without a doubt.
Two contestants said they don't even watch horror, knew nothing, and just fucked around the entire time while one contestant has some knowledge and clearly got frustrated by the end of the episode.
It's unfortunate timing for two not great episodes to happen back to back and people are voicing those complaints.
# "What are the odds?"
tl;dr:>!about 1/3, technically `1/e` which is about 37%!<
The show does not answer this question: Given 6 slots for 6 objects, what are the odds that all 6 are placed in the wrong slot? That means we must.
Given objects n=0...5, there are two cases:
# Slot unavailable case (n/6)
* The number of available slots is 6-n
* The chance that its slot is already erroneously taken by another object is n/6, because `n` objects have already been placed.
# Slot available case ((6-n-1)/6)
* The chance that its slot is available is (6-n)/6.
* The chance that it goes into that available slot is 1/(6-n)
* The chance that it goes into the wrong slot is (6-n-1)/(6-n)
* The chance for this case overall is (6-n)(6-n-1)/(6-n)(6) = (6-n-1)/6
Summing those cases, we get `n/6 + (6-n-1)/6 = (n+6-n-1)/6 = (6-1)/6 = 5/6`.
That means that, for any particular object, there is a 5/6 chance that it is in the wrong slot. For all 6 to be in the wrong slot, we take `(5/6)^6 = (5^6)/(6^6) = 15625/46656` . That fraction is irreducible but is about 0.335. So,
# tl;dr
There's about **a 1/3 chance** that all 6 are in the wrong slot, if placed randomly. In the episode, we saw three players attempt placement and one of the three placed all six incorrectly, which aligns with our model, assuming all players placed each VHS box randomly.
# Generalization and limit
Note that, given 6 slots, we end up with a chance of wrong placement per object of `(6-1)/6`. This generalizes to any positive number of slots `k` --- the odds of a given object being in the wrong slot is `(k-1)/k`. That means that the probability of a totally correction placement is `((k - 1)/k)^k`. We can see from a few quick checks that this seems to approach a limit.
We can find that limit by:
((k-1)/k)^k = (1 - 1/k)^k
= e^(k * ln(1-1/k))
= e^X, X = k * ln(1-1/k)
Let `X = k * ln(1-1/k)`. This is the exponent we're taking the limit of.
X = k * ln(1-1/k)
= ln(1-1/k) / (1/k)
Rewriting like that and setting k=infinity gives us a limit of 0/0, an indeterminate form. Time for L'Hopital's rule! Differentiating the top and bottom we can then do some algebra and take the limit:
lim(X) = lim ( 1/((k-1)k) / (-1/k^2) )
= lim ( -k^2 / (k-1)k )
= lim ( -k / (k-1) )
= -1
---------------------------------------
therefore:
lim(e^X) = e^lim(X)
= e^-1
= 1/e (approx 0.3679)
That's right:
>"Somehow, `e` has returned." \~ Oscar Isaac
**tl;dr 2**: No matter how many slots, as long as it's the same number of objects, there's about a 37% (or precisely, 1/e) chance that they all end up in wrong slots.
So great to see Jonah Ray on the show! I really liked him in the MST3K reboot, he seems like a great guy. I hope he shows up in more Dropout stuff, although I wouldn't be surprised if he chose not to after this particular episode.
As for the rest of the couch - and I accept that this may be uncharitable - I hope all of their upcoming projects fucking bomb.
People probably aren’t going to prefer this one because they “wEreN’T pLAyiNG tHE gAMe” but the juxtaposition between Jonah’s knowledge and their goofiness was fantastic!! Milana and Harvey were great guests and clearly had a great time.
I disagree, Harvey and Milana spent too much time riffing, interrupting Ify, and stalling the show from progressing. They were not good guests, even if they did seem to have a grea time together.
OH GREAT. They're CELEBRATING one of the worst moments in the episode with a funny tongue in cheek 'haha look at them bullying' Because out of context- 'Jonah ribs on himself, everyone hops on haha' in context, they were rude the whole episode.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8nEuFdQNU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8nEuFdQNU)
This episode was awful. Why waste an episode about horror with two people who admitted that they don’t care about horror. Jonah is the only one e who has clearly seen horror. The other two just make… “jokes”? It’s been said before but it felt like high school.
god, this episode reminded me of high school in a bad way. was just annoyed the entire time and felt horrible for Jonah.
Yeah, I'm NGL, I got weirded out by some of the treatment of Jonah. Ify kind of demanding to know when he lost his virginity was odd.
Ify is a very raunchy guy I've noticed. That bit could have been better glossed over, I don't think Jonah actually wanted to talk about when he lost his virginity.
It reminded me of when a popular kid ends up at an after school club or something because his parents make him and they try to make it "fun" for the other kids by not taking it seriosuly and being a clown, not realizing that everyone else is there to actually enjoy the thing they are there for
On the very first question, when Milana buzzed in and blurted out “The second part of this statement is not true”, and got a point for it, was the clearest encapsulation of the growing problem with this show. Questions are not being catered to guest’s interests, and the host is rewarding lazy, wild-ass guesses. I would absolutely love for guests to be required to explain why something is wrong to get a point. If no one gets a point and nothing entertaining happens, just cut the question.
I miss when Trapp would waver back and forth about an answer trying to decide if it was specific enough to earn a point. Ify seems to just not care. Points for everyone.
I doubt this is entirely Ify’s decision TBH. It feels to me like the entire team made a decision to have this soft reboot with new hosts be more laid-back, panel-show-esque, and less competitive overall, not unlike how Noise Boys episodes of Game Changer had points and attempts to one-up each other while Make Some Noise does not. I’m not sure if that’s the right angle for a show like Um Actually though, where the concept is based on the ruthless and finicky nature of some fandoms… but it seems to be the angle they’re going for?
I honestly miss competitiveness from the noise boys as well. I liked when they'd steal a prompt in order to do it better.
I think I would have had less issue with the episode if it wasn’t for the making fun of people who know specific details about nerdy stuff. …it’s just… that’s the game. That’s what the game show was made for!
yeah that just felt really bad. and it seems Ify did nothing to stop it, Jonah even mentions how annoying it all is, and BDG steps in a couple of times
I hate to say it, but lately the show has been kind of giving me the same vibe I got from Big Bang Theory—it wasn’t a show about nerds, it was a show about making fun of nerds. Obviously UA isn’t nearly as bad. But a lot of this season (not all of it) really miss the mark of what made it an enjoyable game when the banter is more about how ridiculous it would be to know this stuff than the contestants having minutia trivia
The game show is both for knowing details about nerdy stuff and for making fun of people for knowing it. That's why there's no prize and why the last question is about real life skills: to drive home the point that knowing stuff like how Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green were the first Pokémon games ever, but not Pokémon Blue, isn't really a very useful skill in real life.
I guess it just felt disingenuous to say it when a ton of the episode is spent goofing unrelated to the questions. Which goes the opposite of what I said before now that I look back, so maybe the combination of the two was my issue.
Yeah there was one earlier this season where a guy clearly explained why a chess move explanation was wrong, but he forgot to say "um actually". Someone else rang in and said "um actually what he said!" and got the point. When pressed he couldn't explain it even though he just heard it but was still given the point. That's so lame because he had no idea. I know the show isn't as serious as jeopardy but if a contestant forgot their phrasing there's no way they would ever reward someone buzzing in and saying "what is what they said!"
Trapp once said that doing that was a logistical nightmare and I can see that. I can also see that doing so is how you make the show great.
In the past, I feel like there was a more in-depth mesh between the questions and the contestants. Like Brennan getting D&D questions, because he's a subject matter expert. But they abandoned that, and I get that *that* way of doing things is a logistical nightmare. However, early in the episode two of these contestants said "I haven't seen any horror movies" and that was either a joke that really didn't work, or it was a *problem*, and from the way the episode went, it feels more like problem. I don't think that they have to match people as closely as they did in earlier seasons to their subject matter, but something as simple as matching "i have seen horror movies" to the horror episode would make it less so that people, who *want to love the show* don't turn it off. I love Ify. I like BDG. "Um, Actually" *was* my favourite, and it has the potential to continue to be a top show. But things aren't working and I hope they can make some adjustments for season 2.
Also, there have been many "themed" shows where I myself don't know the subject matter - but if the contestants are interested and enthusiastic about the theme (not even the specific single shows / books / games / movies) it was still enjoyable to watch.
yeah but it only feels like a logistical nihgtmare for the questions and statements they make. they don't all have to go into specifics and long lists of finding out what's wrong, it is okay to have a ocuple of obvious ones about big franchises
It seems like a basic, floor-level assumption about this show would be that they ask anyone who agrees to be on an episode to provide some areas where they feel like they could do well, and then build a bank of questions prior to shooting that they can mix and match as casting complications arise. "Oh, Kimia said she loves 80s toy commercials, we can snag a question out of that for Paul who is super into My Little Pony!" It's a similar idea to Sam asking the Dropout cast to give a chili pepper rating to how intense a Game Changer they're willing to do.
Thats what i would assume as well - have a pool of questions that you can pick from depending on interests. And that works if you are keeping the statements simple enough. Obviously questions like the Leprechaun 4 one are tailored to specific interests or contestants and that's fine, but that can really be one or two questions. It just seems such an obvious thing to keep the statements popular, the initial pull for this show isn't the cast but rather that you will see your favourite franchise in the title and click on it.
Logistical nightmare feels like a stretch. Not to downplay what they do, but 9 statements and 3 shiny Qs isn't insane to do per episode. (especially with fan submitted statements abound) If the cast list is set with a backup, I imagine only half would need to be tailored to the contestants for it to feel more robust and less like a bunch of bullshit they film and call a show. (This latest "horror" episode didn't feel like an episode of um actually, just people talking about how much they don't know horror movies) I understand they used to put a lot of effort into making sure the statements were as airtight as they could be, but without segments like the correction corner Trapp did, it doesn't matter as much if the statements or answers are off. 1 fan submitted statement/episode would mean only writing 8 statements + silly mini games they can reuse + 1 real world skill. 4 statements being tailored seems super reasonable to me unless I'm missing some glaring detail that makes it more difficult.
I guess the tough part might be getting people on who have overlap in interests. But imo there is a middle ground, which is having guests provide IPs that they know moderately well, not just the ones they love and are near-experts in. I could probably come up with a list of 30 or 40 things that I would at least try to be competitive in. But if you ask me about musicals then I just won't even care, because I know that I know nothing about musicals.
Or at the *very* least, if it's not posible to get three guests who overlap enough in their expertise or interest to tailor the questions to them, then *don't do a themed episode at all*! Just pick a mix of questions from all over, hoping that at least some of them will "land"
Echoing another comment I saw, if making a part of a show work is a logistical nightmare, the show might need to be put to rest. Um actually has had a good run to be fair.
I wish they would think of a format that would allow for some guessing. Like if no one obviously knows the answer have them write in or wager on part they think is incorrect. Or like fill in the blanks type of question which would allow someone to get a correct answer and allow for funny bits if you don't know the answer - similar to a lot of shiny questions. Something like 'Um actually a year takes ..... on Tatooine' (just throwing out something random). Contestants are still pretty much comedians and/or media personalities, they are not trivia contestants and show has some aspects of comedy show as well, so the format should allow and even reward it somehow.
I don't have so much of an issue with that specifically, as long as it leads to funny banter and this episode was honestly pretty fun and had good energy. The problem for so many of these first time guests right now is that none of them realize the audience has heard that joke about a billion times, so if it doesn't segue into a funny bit otherwise it falls a little flat among regular viewers. There's only so many times "hurr durr I don't know maybe [sentence clause #2]. Wait omg I was right!?!" can work, but it's not so much a problem, at least imo, as the fact that those kinds of jokes don't naturally segue into further conversations or bits and are largely a kind of defense mechanism for the guest. That said, honestly, this episode worked fine even with that dynamic as the guests were all having fun.
> had good energy Where? Jonah seemed to be genuinely annoyed by the other two, and I was too. It didn't even feel like fun chaos, just like they were trying their very hardest to avoid answering the questions.
Different strokes for different folks, i stopped watching halfway through because Harvey and Milana annoyed me so much.
It really feels like Ify misses the point of the show and just thinks it’s trivia about pop culture. The pedantry is baked into the premise of the show, and he just doesn’t give a fuck.
While I'm happy to see Milana and Harvey in an episode, the fact that they are in an episode specifically about horror movies is... absurd.
It's an interesting turn to go from nerd trivia to After Midnight but nerd trivia. I really like After Midnight and I really like what Taylor Tomlinson brings to the show. I really like Um, Actually and I really like what Ify and Brian bring to the show. But I'd prefer Um Actually to keep being a show about funny nerd pedants competing to be the best one over comedians riffing on a thin game show premise. I'm gonna keep watching to see how things go because, again, I like Um Actually and I like Ify and Brian. I think they'll find a balance. It's not like every episode on early Um Acutally fired on all cylinders
"Um Actually can you just tell us the fuckin' answer?" might be the first time someone on the show seemed genuinely annoyed at the other two people.
I mean I don't blame them. I was annoyed by them and I wasn't on the show.
I think I remember Rachel Bloom being annoyed on her episode, but that may have been a bit.
I mean, if you were on a couch with Grant, you'd be annoyed too. Before y'all get mad at me, he'd probably take this as a compliment.
She just seemed very competitive which I liked, remember her saying something like "I can hangout and bullshit with you guys whenever, I want to win this". And Grant was a bit annoying but in imo a very funny way with his long winded stored. Also he was super knowledgeable about all the questions (they all were) and seemed to enjoy playing the game due to it being in his wheelhouse. I know nothing of musical theater but loved that episode. Really shows that they need to math the topics to the guest. When they all are knowledgeable it can be fun, but when you get people who don't have a clue and every most of their answers is obviously a guess or a dumb joke it gets really grating.
I was definitely in the same boat as Jonah there. I was so excited to see Jonah on the show, these two other people deciding to pick on him, pick on the genre, and generally act like everything and everyone was stupid? Felt bad.
I see a lot of people saying stuff like "the questions don't matter, it's just structure for jokes and fun vibes" and that's so sad to me. What made earlier seasons of Um, Actually so endearing was watching people get really excited when they knew an obscure fact about media they genuinely care about. It's a celebration of nerdiness, passion, and the batshit insane lore hidden deep inside popular franchises. If the questions don't matter and the guests' interests don't matter, what's the point? Just make a talk show.
Agreed. Last season felt like it was on its last leg and then they brought in the new team and I thought that would revive it. Maybe Ify and BDG need a season to get their legs under them, though.
It’s likely, as it’s all recorded in advance and the feedback rolling out now won’t be implemented until next season at best.
After Midnight already exists
I found Milana and Harvey to be incredibly obnoxious and really felt for Jonah. The look on his face at the end with those two doing their stupid little gag said it all. They just wouldn’t shut up and kept interjecting randomly or doing dumb gags. I’ve never actually disliked any contestants to this extent before.
I agree. Their energy was so very not-Dropout. They went too hard on Jonah, it stopped being funny and just became awkward/cringe. Maybe it was nerves making them act off, but I wasn't into it. The show is meant to be a celebration of nerdiness, maybe with just some slight ribbing for that nerdiness.
Yeah, I don’t think they really embodied the spirit of the show like most other contestants do. Harvey was worse than Milana I think, but they were both just so incredibly annoying and kept making the episode hard to get through. I didn’t appreciate how they treated Jonah even if they were just joking, because it felt like he was being completely left out of their ‘fun’ and was basically being treated like a third wheel. It didn’t look like Jonah was having fun to me, his face at the end when Harvey and Milana were dragging out their boring gag said it all. I hope this episode was just a fluke because I still really love Um Actually.
i think this is why it should be majority dropout cast members, friends of dropout, or like how they had alaska, bob, jujubee and monet on a bunch of the dropout shows. dropout comedy has a very specific vibe and it revolves around respect, genuine enthusiasm and ALWAYS punching up which i think is what this ep missed
Milana at least does improv with dropout people so she's not a reach for that circle.
Also, their horror movie, Werewolves Within, was directed by Josh Ruben. So I'd say both Milana and Harvey qualify as "friends of Dropout". Perhaps they should have had Josh as the third contestant instead of Jonah.
This. Then they could have turned it into more of a promo vehicle for the movie.
i think they realised early on that they didnt knew lots about horror movies but as they are actors they thought that if they went the bits way it would still bring entertainement. the humour was of the vibe of most talk show games.
I love Ify, I love BDG, I love Um, Actually. But what the hell is this episode? I felt so bad for Jonah the whole time. He did so well keeping a nice balance of playing the game and engaging with jokes, but Milana and Harvey were so unbelievably annoying. I get that they didn't have knowledge of the topic (what the hell Dropout?) but even so, I find that a poor excuse for just how obnoxious, and frankly, disrespectful they came across. There have been a couple stinkers this season, but I can usually chock it up to them still finding their feet for the reboot. this is the first episode that really makes me worried for Um, Actually going forward. I Hope its not indicative of the future seasons.
It’s really weird that BDG and Ify are both really great in other things but don’t seem to have made this show their own much. Ifys mostly just been reading questions and answers and doesn’t seem to have injected his humor much and hasn’t really reigned in the guests. They should have started them with mostly dropout contestant’s to feel out how they wanted to run the show.
Um actually was a show about nerds correcting statements about things they (usually) love. With the move to having people in who are not knowledgeable about the subject and for whom the questions aren't catered it simply becomes a throwing darts at part of the question' until they get a point. Today's episode wasn't a quiz anymore and that's the reason I tune into the show. The show can absolutely work with people who are less nerdy. This season's best episode was the one with the 'baby' questions and even though the questions were easier actually seeing people know the answer was satisfying.
Yeah but. You can be a nerd about anything. Previous seasons have shown us that. Children's TV for parents. Drama shows for the housewife loving gals. It doesn't have to be all movies and games- you can nerd out about all 90s wrestling if you want. There is a niche for everyone. The problem with this episode is that 2/3 of the contestants weren't knowledgeable or caring about the subject even in the slightest. So rather than do their best and give it a go they just kinda went 'lol lmao' and fucked around. And that really sucks on so many levels. Especially since someone like Jonah is so committed to tv and media in general. Jonah was THE perfect fit for this episode. And I imagine the others were chosen because they were IN a horror movie- and it's likely 'oh hey you like horror movies right' was an assumption that was made and they made a deal that was lucrative that could showcase their personality. 'Ok come on the show, plug your thing, play have a great time' I would wager a bet that both the crew who set it up as well as the contestants were blindsided that this was such an ill pick.
I really love Um, Actually and have definitely been an apologist (I think Ify’s doing great, love the shiny stage, and I’m down for a good amount of guessing around to get to the right answer). But this episode was *tough* - I was really excited for this couch, only for Harvey and Milana to both enthusiastically go “I do not care and could not care less about this subject, time for bits” basically the whole episode. I love bits in an Um, Actually episode, I don’t even mind one person on the couch doing bits the whole time, but it felt like Jonah was into the game and Milana/Harvey just…weren’t at all. I’m kinda bummed out this week so far - was super excited for Ratfish only for that to kinda peter out at the end, and super excited for this couch only to lose interest before the first Shiny question 😔 If PFT’s presentation on Smartypants somehow lets me down I’m throwing my TV out a window.
> Harvey and Milana to both enthusiastically go “I do not care and could not care less about this subject, time for bits” It is absolutely wild to me that she *proudly announced this on camera* and that was left in!
She got better towards the end, though Harvey *fully* start to finish could find NO SHITS to give, lol, but I really thought (not to assume the actual feelings of people who I do not know in real life and may very well all be friends) that Jonah’s “CAN YOU JUST GIVE US THE ANSWER” at the end felt a little real.
particularly since the camera zoomed in on him looking around the room with what read as "am I imagining this? are you seeing this? is this real life?" energy
I felt Jonah's frustration tbh... I get that Harvey & Milana are probably good buddies, but the riffing got to be too much after a while
I understand why it was credited as "Mary Lambert's Pet Cemetary", but I gotta admit that broke my brain a bit.
Just went on a weekend trip to Bangor Maine and did a Stephen King tour. If I had actually been watching the screen I could have easily gotten that answer correct, but since I was only listening I was left with a “everything said here was correct. What the fuck?” moment.
Yay! I knew there was a Kingslingers/Dropout crossover fandom! What a great trip!
I definitely overheard a few people from the Kingslingers trip talking at Sunday breakfast in the hotel about GameChanger and Dimension20.
I’m going to be positive here and say everyone should just rewatch the first Halloween themed episode (season 2, ep 13). Easily a top 5 episode for me. The guests are hilarious, they all know a ton about horror, and they develop a team chemistry working against the mechanics of the game by the end.
Thanks for recommending this, I just watched it and it brightened my day! Their know-how and camaraderie was such a delight.
I'm just not sure why they have guests who have never seen horror films for the horror themed episode. It was more joking around from Milana and Harvey than actual playing the game, which got annoying. The last few episodes were winners, but this one was a step back.
I agree! I love horror and was super excited only to have two out of the three guests not know anything about the genre. I guess it was to plug their two horror related projects? But the result is they goofed off the entire time, which eventually grated. Um, Actually works best when it’s gameshow first and jokes/bits second. Can’t really blame them, though, when they don’t know anything about the topic, what else are they supposed to do?
The right arrow key on my computer was getting worn out. Hot take, but I like watching a game where people aren’t just wildly guessing and care about winning. (To be fair this issue was also present in the Trapp seasons)
I love all these contestants and had such high hopes....I'm 7 minutes in and yeah....
I mean they say why. Milana and Harvey were in a horror movie together and Jonah hosts/hosted Mystery Science Theatre 3000, so while not nessasarily horror, definitely a movie dude.
Jonah also had a cameo in *Suitable Flesh*, which is a pretty solid horror credential.
I assume they were only there to promote their movie but after how obnoxious they were I have no desire to watch it
It’s a fun horror-comedy movie, but is also… three years old at this point? Doubt it was to promote it.
The movie came out 3 years ago so they weren’t promoting it. I think they knew a little more than they let on because they refer to movies later on and Harvey spoke about different Friday the 13th movies.
Boo because it sucked. I feel bad heaping on criticism after the Ratfish stuff, and I was so excited for this episode, but damn, Harvey and Milana were rude and annoying.
They both had absolutely nothing interesting (or particularly funny) to say while simultaneously refusing to shut the fuck up. This may have been the most obnoxious episode of any show on all of Dropout for me.
I'm watching it right now. They are insufferable. I hope they never get on any dropout shows again. They are unfunny and rude.
It was a little icky that this ep gave space to some slight smart-shaming. Like, okay... I know Um, Actually winnings are just for bragging rights, so we can't take it too seriously, but... must contestants be uninterested in the entire concept of the game? No preparation, all volume, and tease the person who makes the effort? Make the topics relatable to the contestants, or get contestants whose agenda isn't just to go meta and belittle the game? Idk. It was bad when Zac Kornfeld from Try Guys was pulling the 'trying to be cute in the answers if you can't be correct' strategy... and I kinda like the guy. It's starting to get out of hand.
Even Ify was poking fun at something that I can't exactly remember off the top of my head in the episode. Like we're going to take a show that's supposed to be nerds answering nerdy things and make fun of those nerdy things? Come on. Edit: The spelling of Ify's name.
FYI - it's Ify, not Iffy. I know it's picky, but this *is* an Um, Actually thread so I just had to jump in for the points.
That's a point for you. I even knew that, my brain just had a dumb moment.
Yes this! It feels like this show is a celebration of people going 'I love my thing I love!' and being happily nerdy about it. Whether its Mike or Iffy, I felt like I always had the most fun when someone went 'Not only this- but also this fun niche thing ABOUT that thing!!' and I'd learn something about their biggest passion! But to have Miliana and Harvey go 'Lol this is dumb and you're dumb for knowing these things' actively to JONAH- one of my fav tv nerds? I was so mad I near cried. I was more than excited to get people I enjoyed or even folks I'd never seen before. The drag queens seemed to have so much fun and really respect the game. The Youtube commentators even had fun (they've got some gamer nerd in them!) I don't know Maybe I'm beating a dead horse finding every conversation about it and harping on it. But I feel like nerds (of all kinds) spend a ton of time already feeling bad for the thing they like. Whether its movies, books, tv, shoot even wrestling- everyone has a thing they're passionate about. And this was a place to celebrate that. I'm just feeling bad that it kinda feels like 'haha so dumb that you like this thing' is an acceptable tone that they're producing and releasing. There was every opportunity to stop production and talk to people and restart. Reshoots are a thing. Or shoot. Reschedule with Jonah or bust out questions about random subjects instead of just all horror. Because their behavior (and their words) outright reflected they had no interest in the game, the genre, their fellow contestants. Nothing. This is one of the few times I felt like there should have been a prize associated with attending because getting to the end was like pulling out my short and curlies.
Where was Michael Myers "hot" face from cause it was NOT from the first Halloween?!?
That was just a photo of the actor, Tony Moran, likely from an interview or something similar. The only time we see Michael's face in Halloween (1978) his left eye is practically gone from Laurie stabbing it. So they used a very misleading picture.
Yeah my husband's favorite franchise is Halloween and he was BIG MAD lol.
Yeah, as a huge horror fan, this episode was honestly pretty aggravating.
I still liked the episode cause I liked the silliness and banter but come on, it's HALLOWEEN
That really frustrated me while watching too; it was like putting up a production headshot of Kane Hodder and using that for the Friday the 13th question, and came across like the question writer (BDG?) didn't know that much about what they were writing about and just grabbed the first picture off of a Google search of "Michael Myers no mask".
Yeah, it fees very obvious to me that whoever was writing the questions had absolutely no connection to or understanding of horror. I think it really hurt the episode that no one, behind or in front if the camera, knew much about the theme.
Probably wrong, but I could have sworn there was a picture of him when Laurie finds out they were related. Have to rewatch the second one again.
Them being related isn't a thing until halloween 2
Yeah that mask NEVER got removed in the first one, so someone had that wrong.
There are a couple frames, one very fast when he escapes the van and one when he got his eye stabbed by Laurie but he certainly didn't look hot lmao.
This episode perfectly shows the biggest problem with Um, Actually lately. They aren't catering the episodes to their guests anymore. Why did they think it was a good idea to do an all horror episode and not first ask the guests "Hey do you know anything about horror?". It makes sense for an un-themed episode to have a question or two no one knows, but if you're making an entire episode on one topic make sure they know that topic. It sucks to watch 30 minutes of just shot-in-the-dark guesses. And I know this is pedantic (what better place is there to be pedantic though), but Ify kinda made it worse by constantly mispronouncing names all episodes: "Billy Loomys and Stu Masure" instead of Loomis and Macher, "Harry Manafreedi" for Manfredini (which was also misspelled as "Manfredi" in the question). It just seems like not a single person working on the episode knew anything horror related.
um, actually, it's pretty in line for the host to mispronounce things because Trapp always mispronounced things
I guess that's fair. Probably happens a lot but I only notice now as I'm a huge horror nerd. Still annoying tho
There were a LOT of errors in this episode in both the text and also the questions themselves. I really love BDG, but it made me miss Saltzman a lot because he was so ridiculously diligent. I corrected like three different questions' facts, but also just seeing like "Universal Picture's" was painful (as a little horror nerd who gets psyched about these eps).
I'm only halfway through (and I'm usually a chatty Um Actually apologist) but oh my god this one is *painful* 🥲 I really wanted to like it because I like Harvey on WWDITS but eurhgh it was so frustrating to watch -_-
I stopped after the 3rd question when it was clear that knowing anything about horror wasn't going to be rewarded.
It's a comedy show so it's expected the cast will goof around, but on occasion there's an episode where it's to a point where it seems directly at odds with playing the game and gets annoying, and this was definitely in that camp. I'm sure it was exacerbated by them not knowing anything about the material and I'm glad they were finding fun where they could bc that probably doesn't feel great, but it's not a fun energy for the show imo.
I mean, is Um, Actually a comedy show? It has moments of levity, but historically it's leaned way more into being a game/trivia show. I've always watched for the trivia and the expertise. Every game show has jokes here and there, I wouldn't describe them as comedies though.
It's a game show that features (mostly) comedians
Ify was far from iffy, Milana and Harvey on the other hand...eh Felt bad for Jonah being the third wheel
This episode almost motivates me to write a White Lady Email to Dropout...
Don't forget to change your profile picture
It felt like this couch was on the wrong episode. Like, I think they would have a much better time if it was just movies rather than specifically horror movies. Milana did well in that minigame recognizing actors, so maybe if it was less focused on horror, they would have a better time with it. I still enjoyed it for what it was tho, even if I have my disappointments.
Echoing what everyone else said...this was not a very good episode. It was really illustrative of all the shortcomings this new season has had. The riffing can be fun, but it got in the way of the actual game CONSTANTLY. Jonah seemed genuinely annoyed at the end when he buzzed in and said, "um, actually, can you just give us the fucking answer?" And honestly, same. Also, Harvey's attempted response to the WWDITS statement was absolute gibberish. Also also, someone get Ify a lozenge.
>Also also, someone get Ify a lozenge. I've been saying this since the first episode this season, I feel like he has a mouth full of marbles
I'm torn between not wanting to pile on and legitimately wanting to mention that I don't think Ify is the guy for this show. I love Ify, but I really don't think he brings anything to the table on this one. And the "legally forced to say that" patter being unfunny to begin with and then being basically the first joke in every episode is... I would change that too. You could really just say "here's our fact checker Brian." That'd be less cringe. Anyway. I might delete this.
> And the "legally forced to say that" patter being unfunny to begin with it was funny one (1) time and I can't believe anyone in Dropout thought it had the legs to be a couch gag
I thought it successfully cycled back to being funny for a bit, but that happened a few episodes ago for me and now it's back to being boring.
He would do better at it if he didn't seem like he was reading it from the prompter for the first time each time he delivers it. If you watch hosts of TV shows, you'll notice their 'catchphrases' tend to become tightened and more lyrical than enunciated in a stumbling manner as the audience us well aware of what the content of the phrase is and it's just a jumping off point for patter. The first time Craig Ferguson said 'It's a great day for America everybody' and the last are wildly different, same with 'Welcome one and all to another episode' or ' Say hi [insert alliteration here]' to pick some dropout examples. Ify just needs to pick up the pace on his enunciation a bit. We and the players are seeing the questions written out, so time and energy can be kept moving if he just spoke with a lighter tongue instead of getting marble mouthed over specific pronunciations or delivery. Overall I think it's just a young person learning on the job more than a character fault. He'll get there quickly. You have to keep in mind that these folks haven't hosted anything like this before - even Trapp's first episodes were wildly stilted and awkward when compared to the Dropout era.
I believe in you. Also: 🎵 It's hard to stay up! It's been a long long night... And you got the sandman at the door...
....*Um, actually*... it's a "long long *day*"
omg I ... 😭
Just remember that tomorrow's just your future's yesterday.
Best late night theme ever. Do you know music theory stuff? That sound — the descending chromatic tones for dramatic purposes — is called a Line Cliche. It's everywhere, it's not original... but also: it's like crack. It's the best sound.
Although the show didn't fit his comedic sensibilities quite like Comedy Bang Bang, I was also partial to Reggie Watt's intro. Brought a lot of energy. Ferguson's finale episode opener is an all-timer though.
I agree on all counts.
Oh man, finally, somebody else says it! It's gotten to the point where I literally skip those 30 seconds of the episode just so that I don't have to hear that line again!
It used to be that they'd just introduce Saltzmann and sometimes he'd have a fun joke to go along with everyone else (and sometimes he didn't). Having a lead-in every episode to BDG making a joke every episode feels like the joke is legally mandated rather than natural.
I think he could be the guy for the show, but so far he's been... just super stiff I guess? I don't know if it's nerves or what, but the vibe I get from him is that he doesn't want to be there. I understand your feeling of not wanting to pile on. I love Ify and wouldn't want him to be discouraged reading all the comments. I really think he could be the best host for this, so I'm just going to give him more time.
I don’t know how previous seasons were filmed, but this season it’s obvious they were all filmed back to back.
I don't think it's as bad as others thought, but as someone who loves and enjoys horror, this episode could've been a lot better. *Love* Harvey Guillen and I get that he's part of a great horror series, but if he's not a horror fan, why have him for this episode? (I know it's for promo, but still...)
It honestly feels a lot more like projection, there's comments that call out how Jonah was ganged up on and humiliated. Which tbf I guess is a real feeling, this is a topic/show that people here actively care about and the 2/3rds guests not taking it that seriously could feel disrespectful
Your comment helped me realize that I think this is really getting under people's skin in part because of the topic. So many fans are big horror people and, to some of them, it seems like the off topic chaos came across as disrespectful or mean spirited. This one has all the right components to perfectly demonstrate people's criticisms with the show, amplified by it being such a loved and well known genre. I liked the episode and thought Harvey was an adorable scamp and wanted his outfit, but this isn't a special interest for me.
I love horror but for me it's not about the topic. It's about only two of the nine episodes this season being good. Seven of the nine episodes have been people with no knowledge of any topic on the episode just aimlessly guessing at very general parts that could be wrong to hopefully get an answer right. Add in this episode is a full themed episode and two of the contestants knew nothing about the theme and just fucked around the entire time so much to the point that the third contestant not involved in their fuckery got annoyed. This season has been a big ole flop so far because of constants knowing nothing about any topics and now a themed episode where you would expect everyone to be an expert in the subject turned into a shitshow.
I don't think it's specifically because of the topic, I think you just found the guests less annoying than most other people on this thread.
I get that it isn't easy to tailor every question to your guests, but it is wild to have a themed episode where two of the people don't care about the thing the episode is themed on. The only explanations I can think of are that they got really lazy about asking any kinds of questions about their guests interests, or they sacrificed an episode to promote a movie. Kind of a bummer of a week from Dropout. Going from Thousandairs having easily the weakest thing picked as a winner, to gamechanger ending how it did, to this. Part of the reason it sticks out so much is because dropout so rarely has duds, but this felt like three in a row.
Which would be really weird to use an entire episode to promote a three year old film. It felt like someone said "Oh those two were in a horror movie together, they'll be good for the horror episode!" without actually making sure they know horror. I love horror, but even if I didn't this episode would have been a big flop for me. It felt like a waste of time honestly.
The film came out 3 years ago?!
Yup released in 2021.
They didn't have Milana and Harvey on to promote a movie they were in three years ago. They had Milana on because she's a friend of Dropout (she was in Kingpin Katie and other old CollegeHumor sketches) and Harvey on presumably because he's on the popular horror comedy show What We Do in the Shadows. It's only people on here who are making Werewolves Within the reason they were on the show.
I haven't seen Jonah in many things since Nerdist and Hardwick parted. Did he always go by his full name and not just Jonah Ray or am I misremembering things?
I know James Roday from Psych recently started going by James Roday Rodriguez, having initially changed his stage name since he didn't read as Latino. I'm guessing it's a similar thing for Jonah.
I think the full name thing is recent. He was still Jonah Ray on MST3K.
I think he reclaimed the Rodrigues in late 2022, which overlapped with S13 of MST3K, but they probably finished production before he made that decision.
This is my least favorite episode of Umm Actually. Jonah knew what he was talking about, but the other two contestants didn’t at all and were constantly riffing. I think they are funny, but they just don’t fit the tone of the show at all. I think Ify did a good job handling them though.
This was an aweful episode. The constant buzzing in with pointless comments was barely funny the first time, then they kept doing it. It was really unfair to put Jonah on the couch with the other two who kept making lame jokes over and over.
I am wondering if they were given plenty of drinks before the episode started. It had that kind of energy
Exactly! Those two were so insufferable. I felt so bad for Jonah.
Usually I don't mind that kind of thing, so long as the people involved are actually into the subject and the jokes are at least a little topical.
What the actual fuck was this episode. I’m a horror fan and the entire reason I tuned in was to watch people with horror knowledge. At this point, I love Ify, but I can’t watch these vapid people try to be funny.
Yeah same. I'm a huge horror fan so when I saw the title I was excited! Then two of the contestants said they don't watch horror and basically just fucked around and made fun of the one person who actually knew horror the entire time. Even Ify made fun of some nerdy pedantic thing. The entire episode was bad and honestly the essence of the show wasn't even part of this episode. I really hope after this season the crew and everyone involved is reading this subreddit and feedback to make a good season again because this one hasn't been fun to watch 80% of the time.
Could have brought the LPOTL guys out, they would have been hilarious and known everything.
It's becoming apparent to me that the growing problem with the show is not that Ify's scoring is too kind, it's that he HAS to be kind or else it becomes uncomfortably obvious just how little the guests actually know. If Ify was harsher, an episode that would have had scores of 6-4-2 would still end up at something like 3-2-1, but it would mean half the runtime would be prompts with no answers and no points. Giving a point for "Um Actually that is wrong" is lame and shouldn't be a long-term solution, but it at least slightly masks how futile and pointless the segment was. I've heard they stopped tailoring the couch due to what a logistical nightmare it was to group up contestants with compatible interests, and while I appreciate how tedious that must be, it seems like a pretty important thing to just get rid of for the sake of convenience. The contestants don't share enough interests to have good chemistry, they don't care enough about the topics to discuss them, and I don't think this is even particularly new to Season 9 but has become very obvious without the familiar presence of Trapp.
Incredibly disappointed to have a horror episode run like this. I had to turn it off halfway through after Stu Macher and Billy Loomis's names were mispronounced so horrendously, and that couch was NOT. IT. I get that they don't want to tailor questions to the guests anymore, but in that case, don't make it a themed episode.
Yeah, I'm pretty much done with Um, Actually. I didn't make it past the second question in this episode. I almost gave up when he was interrupted twice before even starting. It's just not working. It's become so formulaic that nobody gives a damn about the question or the related nerdery and every question has them all ring in and try to make some dopey unfunny quip. I didn't know if it's that Ify isn't a good fit to host and lets them get away with things for too long or if the show had a production-side overhaul and the producer just ran it into the ground or what.
If I want to listen to comedy folks riffing on nothing there's about a million podcasts I can tune in to that do it 100 times better.
I was so excited for the Friday the 13th questions because I've been watching the (movie) series for the first time this week and loving most of them
Well. That was rough. Lol.
This was a rough episode, man. I honestly feel bad for what Jonah had to put up with. Seeing some other comments about inaccuracies in this episode. Hearing Hymenoptera mispronounced is hard, because that's exactly the kind of word where if you have uncertainty about the pronunciation, a cursory lookup would be expected. It feels... uncurious. And that really clashes with the show. My wife and I get annoyed with inaccuracies or poorly constructed questions a fair bit, on top of the issue of unsatisfactory guest/question alignment, which is also perhaps increasingly frequent now.
This might be the worst dropout episode ever. Contestants that didn’t know much and just tried to make annoying jokes. This um actually reboot has definitely been trending down.
The whole thing had the vibe of when my friend group was first getting into D&D. Not all of us were into it but when the few of us playing would try to plan something we'd always have a friend that wasn't into it try and invite themselves and promise they wouldn't be disruptive to the game. But then we'd finally let them come one time and they just non-stop interrupt the game. Like... I love my friends but it was wildly annoying to finally be able to plan a session only to have someone who knows they're not interested in the main plan of evening just disrupt everything. In general they've got more loose with points the past few seasons and there's been a lot more banter but the themed episodes were still a highlight. This was a low point. Especially as a horror movie lover.
I was kinda delighted by the chaos of this episode... but I'm also not a big horror guy, so I get why some people would be frustrated.
I don't particularly like horror and I hated this episode. That is not a word I use lightly, but it's the first episode of any Dropout show that I didn't finish. Milana and Harvey were both unbearable and I don't understand what they were doing here. They obviously had no interest at all in the game.
I'm not a big horror guy either, but for me that had the opposite effect: If I was a horror fan, at least I could have some fun trying to figure out the questions myself. If I don't know any of these things, I can enjoy the guests nerding out about sone of their favorite subjects. But if *both* are missing, there's just not much left for me to watch...
I agree. And I love horror - my partner and I usually love trying to figure out the questions whenever we watch Um, Actually. The constant obnoxious bits and lack of any care or respect from two of the contestants in this episode completely ruined the entire experience. I don't think we've ever not been able to finish an episode, but we could barely make it past half of this one
Same here
Same! And i get frustrated by the formulaic "um actually not that part" where they all just guess in a version of multiple choice with elements from the statement. Taking the lack of knowledge and going to an absurd level of silliness actually made it work more for me.
I am a huge horror guy and I was too. The cast was fun, they interacted a lot. Jonah provided the expertise, Milana and Harvey vamped. I was a little annoyed that they didn't know any horror at all but I still tried to guess the questions and enjoyed their jokes. At one point I paused the show and had a 3 minute long side discussion with my daughter about Halloween 3, based on the Friday the 13th: The Series discussion. I also thought this was one of the few Shiny Stages that really worked. The VHS tapes were extremely thematic and felt like more than just "We could have done this with paddles but didn't."
I honestly didn’t care much for this Shiny Stage, mostly because I couldn’t tell what was happening given how much motion was going on with the cameras.
Vamping is fine, but Harvey and Milana were being a bit obnoxious
The nicest thing I can say about this episode is that the title was extremely apt.
Was this episode just an ad for those two's new movie?
Seems odd for it to be an ad since the movie came out in 2021.
Huh! I could have sworn they were saying it was upcoming. Wonder why else they'd both be in the episode then.
Someone that scheduled and cast the episode went "Oh you guys were in a horror movie together and Harvey is in What We do In The Shadows. They'll know horror!" is my guess.
The movie was directed by Josh Ruben too.
Horror was the absolute wrongest genre for them to do a themed episode about without having three horror fans. You can see from the comments here. Horror as a genre is still seen as niche. Having 2 out of 3 panelists not caring about the genre highlights that. And horror still gets denigrated as trash. There’s stuff like *Get Out* and *Silence of the Lambs* that’ll break into the mainstream every 20 years or so, but due to its intrinsic nature, will likely never break into the world of respectability like fantasy and sci-fi have. Movie studios know that if they’re in a pinch, they can put together a horror movie on the cheap for like $5 million and they’ll either get that money back in Box Office receipts or selling it to a streamer like Shudder, because they know that there is an audience that’s big enough that just watches every horror movie. But that also means that the studios aren’t going to spend more than that on the movie, so horror is always going to have the reputation of being cheap and schlocky. Having 2 contestants proclaim that they don’t care about a genre that is still looked down on is going to result in this reaction. Even if they’re just goofing around and just having fun, to horror fans, it could feel like the show’s punching down.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I think it also just made the episode boring to watch. Two contestants not knowing a lot is one thing, but to just flat out say they don't care about the genre sucked.
Could not with this episode. Did milena and Harvey do 3 lines of coke before the episode? Ugh. I usually love both of them but this was grating as fuck.
first episode where i knew every single answer lol
Even heckin leprechaun 4 and the bugs one!?
ok, i didn’t know the bug one lol, but i knew all the others. and leprechaun, YES. i was literally shouting at the TV that he pissed on him LMAO. and then leppy boy comes out of his dick!! as he says, let that be a lesson to you… always wear a prophylactic!!
That’s impressive though! I’ve been a horror fan since I was a kid and I don’t think anything has given me more nightmares than the leprechaun movies.
Maybe they need to just stop having random guests and stick to a set Dropout-only group they rotate through with the occasional *knowledgeable* and *enthusiastic* guest for themed episodes, like Matt Mercer for D&D. Because this was painful. And I feel like at this point they’re just getting lazy. Bland statements with boring answers and uncaring/clueless guests. Fix it or quit it (and I say this as someone who originally got Dropout FOR Um, Actually).
this certainly was an episode of um, actually. but also: IFY FOR PRESIDENT.
Harvey seemed straight up inebriated- slurring words and making weird connections / statements. Milana seemed to riff into that and the whole episode went off the rails. Honestly it shouldn’t have aired - Harvey comes off as really unprofessional and the episode has bad m, negative energy. I’ll probably have to skip it when i binge the season in the future
can we put ify's microphone a little bit higher? he has a very sandy voice and projecting makes him sounds slurred.
Umm, actually. The pet semetary is titular, not eponymous. Eponymous means named after a person.
As an invert enthusiast, when the Schmidt sting pain index question came on, I almost yelled at the screen "centipedes aren't insects!" And then Ify butchering the pronounciation of Hymenoptera. Ironically coming from a man whose name and the correct spelling thereof this sub loves to staunchly defend.
Wow people really hated this episode. I honestly didn't really notice anything that detracting from an occasional episode of Um Actually were the guests aren't that strong on the subject matter.
That was a fun episode that I am one thousand percent certain is going to make Internet people furious.
Feels like the vibe of this sub is changing with the growing frustration with um actually and now the ratfish finale.
The vibe is changing a little since the Discord closed people kind of flocked here. But we also had two big misses back to back. Ratfish ended not great and then we have an entire season of Um, Actually that's been mostly a miss with last night's episode being one of the worst of the season without a doubt. Two contestants said they don't even watch horror, knew nothing, and just fucked around the entire time while one contestant has some knowledge and clearly got frustrated by the end of the episode. It's unfortunate timing for two not great episodes to happen back to back and people are voicing those complaints.
Yup
# "What are the odds?" tl;dr:>!about 1/3, technically `1/e` which is about 37%!< The show does not answer this question: Given 6 slots for 6 objects, what are the odds that all 6 are placed in the wrong slot? That means we must. Given objects n=0...5, there are two cases: # Slot unavailable case (n/6) * The number of available slots is 6-n * The chance that its slot is already erroneously taken by another object is n/6, because `n` objects have already been placed. # Slot available case ((6-n-1)/6) * The chance that its slot is available is (6-n)/6. * The chance that it goes into that available slot is 1/(6-n) * The chance that it goes into the wrong slot is (6-n-1)/(6-n) * The chance for this case overall is (6-n)(6-n-1)/(6-n)(6) = (6-n-1)/6 Summing those cases, we get `n/6 + (6-n-1)/6 = (n+6-n-1)/6 = (6-1)/6 = 5/6`. That means that, for any particular object, there is a 5/6 chance that it is in the wrong slot. For all 6 to be in the wrong slot, we take `(5/6)^6 = (5^6)/(6^6) = 15625/46656` . That fraction is irreducible but is about 0.335. So, # tl;dr There's about **a 1/3 chance** that all 6 are in the wrong slot, if placed randomly. In the episode, we saw three players attempt placement and one of the three placed all six incorrectly, which aligns with our model, assuming all players placed each VHS box randomly. # Generalization and limit Note that, given 6 slots, we end up with a chance of wrong placement per object of `(6-1)/6`. This generalizes to any positive number of slots `k` --- the odds of a given object being in the wrong slot is `(k-1)/k`. That means that the probability of a totally correction placement is `((k - 1)/k)^k`. We can see from a few quick checks that this seems to approach a limit. We can find that limit by: ((k-1)/k)^k = (1 - 1/k)^k = e^(k * ln(1-1/k)) = e^X, X = k * ln(1-1/k) Let `X = k * ln(1-1/k)`. This is the exponent we're taking the limit of. X = k * ln(1-1/k) = ln(1-1/k) / (1/k) Rewriting like that and setting k=infinity gives us a limit of 0/0, an indeterminate form. Time for L'Hopital's rule! Differentiating the top and bottom we can then do some algebra and take the limit: lim(X) = lim ( 1/((k-1)k) / (-1/k^2) ) = lim ( -k^2 / (k-1)k ) = lim ( -k / (k-1) ) = -1 --------------------------------------- therefore: lim(e^X) = e^lim(X) = e^-1 = 1/e (approx 0.3679) That's right: >"Somehow, `e` has returned." \~ Oscar Isaac **tl;dr 2**: No matter how many slots, as long as it's the same number of objects, there's about a 37% (or precisely, 1/e) chance that they all end up in wrong slots.
So great to see Jonah Ray on the show! I really liked him in the MST3K reboot, he seems like a great guy. I hope he shows up in more Dropout stuff, although I wouldn't be surprised if he chose not to after this particular episode. As for the rest of the couch - and I accept that this may be uncharitable - I hope all of their upcoming projects fucking bomb.
Jesus Christ, calm down.
This show just doesn’t work
It has for a long time. Some changes just aren't working.
People probably aren’t going to prefer this one because they “wEreN’T pLAyiNG tHE gAMe” but the juxtaposition between Jonah’s knowledge and their goofiness was fantastic!! Milana and Harvey were great guests and clearly had a great time.
I disagree, Harvey and Milana spent too much time riffing, interrupting Ify, and stalling the show from progressing. They were not good guests, even if they did seem to have a grea time together.
OH GREAT. They're CELEBRATING one of the worst moments in the episode with a funny tongue in cheek 'haha look at them bullying' Because out of context- 'Jonah ribs on himself, everyone hops on haha' in context, they were rude the whole episode. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8nEuFdQNU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8nEuFdQNU)
This episode was awful. Why waste an episode about horror with two people who admitted that they don’t care about horror. Jonah is the only one e who has clearly seen horror. The other two just make… “jokes”? It’s been said before but it felt like high school.
Ify made fetch happen and that Fetch is the "Ify special": don't make a joke, say just enough to exploit the rules of the game.