410 - Hercules Against the Moon Men. The hatred most fans seem to have for Hamlet (from Season 10) is about equal to mine for this episode. There are hardly any laughs to be found here. Repetitive riffs (“Pizza, pizza”), astoundingly lazy writing, forced moments (I’m sorry, but the sandstorm is nowhere near as painful as they make it out to be*) make this an absolutely terrible episode. They really just come off like they weren’t even trying with this one. Perhaps the movie bored them so much that this was honestly the best they could do? There are a few laughs (pretty much every episode has at least one funny moment), but they are so far apart that they become completely unmemorable. Most people really seem to like this one, and I just don’t see it. Then again, I’m a fan of Castle of Fu Manchu, I ADORE Teenage Crime Wave (I think it has more fans than Fu Manchu, but I’ve seen a decent amount of people who can’t stand it), and even though they do indeed stink, The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy and The Mad Monster both have some sort of charm to them that I can’t describe.

I could have easily singled out just about any Season 1 episode instead of this one (The Corpse Vanishes in particular is my least favorite from it), but I can make an exception to all of them since they were still figuring things out. Moon Men came at a point where you figure they had everything down and would have been on a roll. Instead, it was a dud. I feel that at least half of Season 4 is pretty weak. I’m not all that fond of the four episodes leading up to it either.

*then again, I hate it when people describe these movies as painful. Pod People comes the closest for me (it’s just so negative and murky and the ending leaves me horribly depressed), but it’s really a term I just can’t see myself using. I guess I have a high tolerance for terrible movies.