NASAW: Yes they will! The scientific community is going to rake us over the coals—more than they already have! It’s illogical! The science is impossible!
Chazz: Do it anyway. I’ll email the specifics within the hour.
NASAW: [exhaling heavily] This is—
Chazz: What?
NASAW: This is not what we signed on for.
Chazz: Listen, Baking Soda Volcano, you do what I tell you to do, okay? So long as I get what I want, I’ll happily look the other way while you do whatever it is that you’re doing out there.
[pause]
NASAW: Pardon me?
Chazz: I get it. Funding is hard to come by. No one cares about science anymore, wah wah wah. And here comes this television network, giving you a truckload of money, and you see an opportunity to skim a little off the top and use it to do some research on the side. No one blames you.
NASAW: I don’t . . . we’re not—
Chazz: It’s fine. I’m cool with it. Just don’t let it interfere with the show. And follow my instructions without complaint next time. Got it?
NASAW: Yes. [swallows] Got it.
Chazz: Stellar. Later hater!
[end of call]
Episode #4
Item: Transcript of video broadcast
Source: Waste of Space, Episode #4
Date aired: February 18, 2016
[START OF ACT ONE]
Source: Camera #8—Bedroom
[It is morning. The lights have snapped on; the cast members in the frame are squinting or rubbing their eyes. Most have shed their blankets, their hair plastered to their foreheads with sweat. More bunk beds have been freed up due to the exits of Jamarkus and Hibiscus, but Bacardi and Louise are still forced to share the California King bed. Bacardi is draped over Louise.]
Louise: Hey, get off me!
Bacardi: Teddybear.
Louise: For the last time, I’m not your teddy bear! I’m a human girl!
Clayton: Debatable.
Matt: [stretching] At least each week it gets less cramped in here.
Snout: Soon there’ll be enough space for Colonel Bacon to get his own bunk!
Clayton: I’d rather we got him his own spit.
[Snout stares.]
Clayton: For a roast.
[Snout stares.]
Clayton: To eat him.
Snout: Hey! That’s not nice!
Clayton: Constricted living quarters, no room to run around—bet there’s plenty of juicy, delicious fat on those bones by now—
Snout: Stop it! [consoling Colonel Bacon] Don’t listen to him, little buddy. You’re safe with me.
Titania: [snorting] No one is safe. Haven’t you learned that yet?
Matt: What do you mean? After Jamarkus sent that signal flare, no one shot back at us.
Louise: That doesn’t mean they’re not still out there. I bet they’re just biding their time. The dark and sinister enemy could be upon us at any moment.
Titania: [to herself] I’m more concerned with the enemy onboard this ship.
That last line is edited out of the broadcast; Titania’s mouth isn’t in view from the camera angle, so the audio is simply removed. But the others hear her say it, judging by the uncomfortable hush that follows and the way the visible cast members all look away or begin to fidget.
The loaded, concealed elephant in the room is tangible. Everyone wants to broach the topic because everyone wants the gun to be surrendered—but at the same time, no one wants to bring it up, because no one wants the thief to fly off the handle and start shooting.
Snout: [doing his best to hurriedly change the subject] And there’s the next elimination to fret over too. Another fine kettle of fish!
Kaoru: [sadly, in English] No fish.
Bacardi: Who’s on the chopping block this week?
Clayton: Well, none of you are very likable, so—
Louise: Oh, come on! You were already officially eliminated!
Clayton: [with a chuckle] I’ll never be eliminated, darling.
Louise: But you’re the least likable of all of us.
Clayton: What can I say? Go big or go home.
Louise: Then why don’t you go home?
Clayton: Hey, now. That’s the kind of hurtful talk that gets someone voted out. Without ever being reunited with Lord Balway Gal—
Louise: Don’t you say his name! You are not worthy!
Clayton: Ooh! [grinning and rubbing his hands together] Why is everyone so cranky today?
Snout: I reckon it’s the heat—I’m sweating like Colonel Bacon after a run round the slopfield! Why’s it so darn hot in here?
Bacardi: I’m MELTING.
Matt: It does seem warmer than usual. Is there a thermostat on the control panel? Maybe we could adjust the temperature.
Clayton: Or we could take all our clothes off.
[MUSIC CUE: “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke]
[END OF ACT ONE; CUT TO COMMERCIAL]
* * *
The episode cuts to commercial, but, as always, there’s more to the scene than what the audience sees.
Item: Transcript of video recording—RAW, UNAIRED FOOTAGE
Source: Camera #8—Bedroom
Date: February 15, 2016
Titania: I’d say climate control is the least of our problems.
Clayton: Hey everyone, pay attention to our fearless leader! She’s making passive-aggressive comments under her breath, so this must be important!
Titania: No one else wants to bring this up? Fine.
[She gets up from her bunk and faces Clayton.]
Titania: I will ask you again: Did you take the gun?
Clayton: [smiling ear to ear] Nope.
Titania: [to Snout] Did you take the gun?
Snout: No, ma’am.
Titania: [looking around the room] Who has the gun?
Clayton: [under his breath] My money’s on you.
Titania: Is it.
Clayton: You like to be in control. Don’t deny it—we all see it in your eyes, that fiery desire to get that hot little pistol in your hands—
Nico: Hey, leave her alone—
Titania: [rounding on him] Don’t fight my battles for me, Nico.
Nico: I . . . wasn’t.
Clayton: [getting fired up] Yeah, Nico. You’re the one who just sits back and observes. Always observing, never doing. Why start now?
Nico: I—
Clayton: If anyone deserves to be eliminated this week, it’s you. You’re using up valuable oxygen. So shut your mouth and go back to being a wallflower. It’s what you’re good at. [to Titania] Wouldn’t you agree, Not-Captain?
[Titania gives him the finger, then storms out of the bedroom.]
Clayton: What crawled up her ass?
* * *
Source: Camera #7—Confessional Closet
[Titania sits down in front of the camera, agitated.]
Titania: This is bullshit, DV8. Why aren’t you stopping this? Why aren’t you doing anything about it? I didn’t come all the way out here, lie to my family, and leave my entire life behind just to get gunned down by one of the many delusional sociopaths you’ve invited to your televised death match of insanity.
You need to let us out of here.
[She waits.]
Hello?
[She smacks the camera.]
IS ANYONE EVEN LISTENING?
[There is a knock at the door.]
Nico: [muffled, from outside] Titania, are you okay? Can I come in?
[She hesitates, then unlocks the door. Nico peeks his head through the door.]
Nico: Hey. What’s going on?
Titania: I am so unbelievably pissed off, I can’t even—[She hisses air through her teeth.] Last night, after our talk—I was lying awake in bed, feeling all these cathartic feelings from having finally said all that stuff out loud, but then . . . then my mind wandered to the gun, and I just started to get so mad. I came on this show to restart my life, not end it. This isn’t fair.
Nico: I know.
Titania: Why aren’t they stopping this? Where are the responsible adults? How is anyone letting this happen?
Nico: I don’t know. But I do know one thing: they’re not going to win. We won’t let them.
[Titania’s face softens, her grimace fading as she allows herself to believe him.]
Titania: Okay. You’re right. We won’t.
Nico: I’m sorry about back there. I didn’t mean to—
Titania: No, I’m sorry. You were just trying to help. And don’t listen to anything Clayton says about you. He’s full of shit.
Nico: He wasn’t wrong, though. I am pretty useless up here.
Titania: Not to me.
* * *
Item: Transcript of video broadcast
[continued]
[START OF ACT TWO]
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
[Clayton, Snout, Bacardi, and Louise are playing Clue. The rest are lounging in the lounge, joylessly eating bowls of Meteor Chowder.]
Snout: I’ve got it! It was Toothless Sal in the auto garage with the tire iron!
Clayton: See, this is what I keep trying to tell you. None of those things are part of this game. You can’t pull murderers and locations and weapons out of thin air.
Snout: Oh, I’m not making them up. Toothless Sal is Iowa’s best-known criminal. Currently serving twenty-five to life!
Clayton: [turns to Bacardi] What about you?
Bacardi: Letssee . . . I think it was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick.
Clayton: And you’re not just saying that because they all start with C, right? Because you didn’t get confused again about what game we were playing and thought we were playing the Sesame Street Match the Letter Game?
Bacardi: Um—which answer will make you not flip the table?
[Clayton flips the table.]
Clayton: You people are impossible! How are you permitted to leave the house without wearing helmets?
Snout: Maybe it’s time for something less controversial. Y’all want to play some Chutes and Ladders?
Matt: Why bother?
Snout: We gotta do something! I’m bored out of my mind here!
Clayton: How can you be bored out of something you don’t have?
Snout: Hey, now—
Nico: Guys, don’t. Fighting isn’t going to get us anywhere.
Clayton: Oh, are we supposed to be “getting” somewhere? Far as I can tell, all we’re supposed to be doing is waiting patiently for the next elimination.
Louise: We could take some readings from the atmospheric spectrometer. When the Flubsuvian Capsule—
Clayton: Zip it, sweetie. The grownups are talking.
Louise: But—
Clayton: We don’t want to hear it. Your stardust-clogged brain may be festooned with the trappings of your fictional wonderland, but the rest of us are planted far more firmly in the realms of reality—
[Suddenly a fireball erupts from the ceiling, blooms, and disappears—but not before catching the arm of the sofa on fire. Soup bowls plummet, splashing Meteor Chowder everywhere. Kaoru tries to dive to safety, hitting her head on the coffee table and landing on the floor in a heap. Snout grabs her under the armpits and drags her away from the blaze while Bacardi runs around the room collecting furnishings to save. Nico hugs the wall, frozen. Titania pulls the pin on the fire extinguisher and sprays it straight at the couch, but as soon as the last flame dies out, another fireball appears, this time aimed at the pool table. Seconds later, another consumes the Älvsbyn chandelier]
Bacardi: Nooo! Our only accent lamp!
Snout: [struggling under Kaoru’s limp weight] Someone hit the sprinklers!
[Louise lunges for the control panel, but yet another column of flame blocks her path. At this point it is clear to anyone watching at home that the fire effects are carefully choreographed pyrotechnics that are unlikely to hurt any of the cast members or the structure of the ship, but this is not immediately obvious to those in the thick of it.]
Titania: Matt! The sprinklers!
[Now the only one with a clear route to the control panel, Matt dives for the console, the sprinkler button squarely in his sight—and slips on a rogue Hungry Hungry Hippos marble. On his way to the floor, he heroically reaches out his hand and slams it down to push the button. Or rather, he could have pushed the button . . . if only he’d had a full finger.]
Clayton: Goddammit, Stumpy! You’ve killed us all!
Titania: No, he hasn’t. Everyone calm down.
[She deftly weaves through the inferno, kicks Matt aside, and presses the button. Then presses it again.]
Titania: [panic rising in her voice] It’s not working.
Nico: [picking up the fire extinguisher and trying to use it] And this is empty.
Matt: What do we do?
[There is a beat of pure panic.]
Snout: I know!
[Leaving Kaoru on the floor, he darts over to the hot-tub window and rips the tape from the bullet hole. Water shoots out.]
Snout: Grab some pails!
[The Spacetronauts retrieve ice containers from the bar and form a bucket brigade, filling them with water, passing them down the line, and pouring them onto the flames about the room. Before long, the fires are out. When all is said and done, a foot of water remains in the hot tub, while the rest of it has settled into an inch-deep flood throughout the Lünar Lounge and mixed with the spilled Meteor Chowder, creating a funky sludge in which Colonel Bacon begins to wallow.]
Bacardi: [holding up broken pieces of the shattered coffee table] Svalsta! Noooo!
Snout: [panting] What . . . in tarnation . . . was that all about?
Kaoru: [waking up] {Do I smell barbeque?} [She looks around, disappointed.] {Oh.}
[A reaction montage follows]
Source: Camera #7—Confessional Closet
Clayton: So you’re setting us on fire now, huh? Classy move.
Titania: You have got to be kidding me.
Bacardi: Allthat furniture, ruined. Ruined!
Nico: I, uh—[presses hands to eyes, hard] I don’t like fire.
Kaoru: {I missed most of what happened. I woke up to a floor full of soup.}
Snout: Colonel Bacon sure does love that Meteor Chowder. He slurped up every last drop!
Kaoru: {Lucky for us, because this ship is not airtight, the soupwater seeped out through the cracks in the floor.}
Matt: I really screwed up back there. I . . . I deserve to go this week.
Nico: This is so crazy.
Titania: This is so dangerous.
Louise: This is so much fun!
[MUSIC CUE: “Set Fire to the Rain” by Adele]
[END OF ACT TWO; CUT TO COMMERCIAL]
* * *
During the commercial break, NASAW places a highly irregular call to Chazz. The following is not a flashback—it occurs in real time, right after the airing of Act Two.
Item: Transcript of audio recording
Source: Chazz’s cell phone
Date: February 18, 2016
NASAW: Hello, Chazz.
Chazz: Hey, Potato Battery! Real strong work with the fireballs. We barely had to edit the footage! The way you manipulated the timing for maximum drama was exquisite. You sure you nerds have never worked on a reality show before?
NASAW: No. And we did not feel good about setting fire to those poor kids.
Chazz: Oh, lighten up. It was brilliant television. Do you know how many Emmys we’re gonna get for this? They’ll have to invent a new category!
NASAW: You are the most delusional person I have ever encountered.
Chazz: Thanks!
NASAW: Good thing we no longer have to put up with you.
Chazz: Excuse me? Sorry, there was someone talking in my headset. So we are a go for tonight’s elimination. You ready with the Enormous Robotic Arm?
NASAW: Yes, we’re ready.
Chazz: Stellar.
NASAW: And we’re sorry.
Chazz: For what?
NASAW: For what we’re about to do.
Chazz: What are you talking about?
NASAW: Well, my empty-headed colleague, we’ve made a breakthrough. The one we’ve been waiting for. Now we don’t need all this extra DV8 weight, so we’ve decided to get rid of it. Like liposuction, but with human beings instead of fat!
Chazz: What the—we’re going back on live television in five seconds! What are you going to do?
NASAW: Later hater!
[end of call]
* * *
After the commercial, the desperation is plain on Chazz’s face; it clashes so fiercely with his Botox that his eyeballs appear to be melting, or at least leaking a toxic substance. But he soldiers on anyway, flashing his teeth in a frantic approximation of a smile.
Item: Transcript of video broadcast
[continued]
[START OF ACT THREE]
Chazz: [inthe studio] Welcome back, space fans! This week, we’re upping the ante yet again.
[CUT TO: Footage from 1969 moon landing]
Chazz: [voiceover] Not only will our broadcast be LIVE, but this week we’ll be holding . . . a DOUBLE ELIMINATION!
[CUT TO: Clip of a speeding asteroid from the 1998 Bruce Willis thriller Armageddon]
Chazz: [voiceover] Are those enough surprises for you? No? Then how about one more? Hold on to your fedoras, because the best part is . . . the cast doesn’t even know it yet!
[CUT TO: Video of a cat falling off a couch]
Chazz: [voiceover] Intrepit explorers, how’s it going up there? Exciting week, huh?
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
Titania: Exciting? Is that what you’d call it?
Snout: Chazz, I gotta be honest with you. We’re not doing so great.
Matt: This week has been awful!
Kaoru: {We caught on fire, and I hit my head.}
Bacardi: And the Svalsta coffee table is ruined!
Chazz: [voiceover] Are you sure things aren’t . . . stellar?
[A graphic accompanied by the words “Brought to you by Stellar Acne Cream!” flashes across the bottom of the screen.]