USA’s Mr. Robot is known to be wacky with it’s main character, Elliot, dealing with his alter ego, Mr. Robot, who resembles his dead father, but now the show has hit a whole new level of wacky. The latest episode took the audience back to the 90’s, by displaying a complete reenactment of their dramatic show as a 90’s sitcom.
Mr. Robot tells a dramatic tale of a hacker, who becomes a part of a hacker group who wanted to destroy the biggest conglomerates in the world by hacking into their system. In the midst of saving the world and people around him, he assumes everyone is out to get him and finds out that his own alter ego “Mr. Robot” is the real leader of the hacker group.
Usually, the show is full of low key lighting, giving it a dark and sultry look to the film stock. The show is also known to film their subjects in an awkward position near the edge of the camera’s frame, making the audience feel uneasy and possibly as paranoid as the main character.
In this episode, everything changes, with the majority of the cast being placed behind a green screen to give a 90’s backdrop with its low film quality and high key lighting. Not only did the show have a mock sing along intro credits, like in Full House, but they had a special 90’s guest: ALF
With the 90’s laugh track in the background of the episode, Alf added to the humor when one of the scenes of the episode involved him running over a character in the show.
The show kept its dark, satire theme throughout most of the episode, even during the scheduled commercial breaks. Instead of seeing the usual paid advertisements on cable networks, they were instead commercials that resembled 90’s old grade looking film stock.
The 90’s mad hatter dreamscape only lasted for about 20-25 minutes of the show and resumed back to it’s usual dramatic filled content, losing the satirical feel from the beginning of the episode. Although this episode, full of nostalgic laughs and jokes, was one of the best TV skits I think audiences have ever seen or heard of in cable TV history.
