Woops!

This show drove me nuts for one reason-they SPELLED THE NAME OF THE SHOW WRONG. 'Whoops' has an 'H' in it. This tells us a lot about the people who were behind it. Not one person caught this simple error. The show itself was pretty dumb, as I recall.

OK, so it was not the best attempt and perhaps the subject matter did not leave much room for development. But I kind of liked this little fill in show. It started with a parade and some clumsy kids then showed a guy in a VW bug at at a gas pump surrounded by desert. I have just finished converting the 5 and a half episodes I could find on some old tapes to DVD and the one episode that I really loved came through...the guilt ridden Santa show. This was one of the most hilarious Christmas shows I have ever seen. It seems when the bombs dropped, Santa panicked and locked Mrs. Claus out of the bunker. Now he is torn by guilt and becomes a pain in the butt for the hapless survivors in the farm house. Great stuff. OK, so it was may have been a poorly done rip off of Gilligan's Island. You had the liberal, the spoiled rich Republican, the stupid hot chick, the frustrated mid aged gal, the urbane black guy (Rembrandt Brown from Sliders) and the homeless guy. Comparisons can be made to the island bound folks. While they did make a good will attempt to entertain I think it was doomed from the start due to built in limitations. But it was diverting, as these quickie Fox shows go,and I would like to see it on DVD someday. After all, look at how popular the 6 episodes of Police Squad are.

Where to start with Woops? I know, the immensely stupid plot! Y a y

So, basically, a man named Mark is a primary school teacher. When the kiddies are playing, he has his usual teacher lunch break. However, while at the drive-thru, a nuclear bomb panda on his city. But he's perfectly fine, because he was in a Volvo. Wait, what?!?! I know Volvos are safe cars, but really? They can't protect you from mass bombing!

Marcus: "The Volvo proved even safer then advertised!" You don't say, Marker!

So, after that disaster, Market is driving through the desert, where he sees a square of land and house completely fine... somehow. Markmallow, shocked by this, fittingly faints. He is then met by a family who saved him and survived the bombing.

Ah dear. Let's get the worst part of the show: It's acting. Marketing's acting is about as stimulating as a plank of wood, and everyone else is trying, but also feel like wood.

The music is so so so overly happy. Why, this man just witnessed mass genocide, so why did the composers create this sappy of a soundtrack?!?!

This show isn't mean, or overly cruel. The plot was good at it's time, but I can't enjoy it much, because it is monumentally stupid.

The Fox Network, when it was making a name for itself, loved taking chances on such goofy fare as "Get a Life" and "The Edge." However, before many of their stations got their own news anchors, Fox tried to turn the 10pm-11pm Sunday Night slot into another hour of comedy. One of these is "Flying Blind" which had it's moments. This is the other half of that experiment, and it was far less luckier.

The only real thing I'll remember about "Woops" is the moment the world ends. The hero (his name is unimportant) is in his volvo making a bank deposit when suddenly the bomb hits and everything is desert. After a long walk, he ends up at this valley where this farmhouse and surrounding yard is saved and where five other people have found. Thus, the setup for the comedy is set, right?

Wrong.

"Woops" is a black comedy without the comedy. The episode about how they will repopulate the human race and four of the men decide wheither they'll take the hot young blonde or aging 40-year-old is just sickening. A valiant effort at comedy, but more than not it was a odd and strange retread of a "Different Strokes" sitcom. Not that funny. Of course, only 10 of the 13 episodes were ever aired, so that really proves my point.

I doubt this show will ever see the light of broadcasting ever again. Shame? Maybe not.

I had been shopping for a Christmas present and saw the television "20 Q" and knew I could stump the game with this show.

It was referred to as the "thinking mans Gilligan's Island" but couldn't be really referred to as that because it wasn't a thinking show but rather a funny take on a very unfunny subject, nuclear annihilation and how people who are forced into living together to survive learn to live with each other.

It was a funny little show that had a BAD time slot (Sunday morning 12:30am here) and therefore was doomed from the start.

The final episode that aired was the Christmas episode and the other episodes of the short-lived show never aired.

Our loss, it was a half hour show to just get away from your problems and think about nothing.