STARS ON MARS S01E03 “Fire in the Hole”

Fifth day of the experiment. People are hallucinating. They are hearing
clinging in the dark, and Portia insists. There was a dog in the girls dorm
at 3 AM. Despite the fact that last week they failed to get water to
replace their lost supply, they’re standing at the sink, washing the dishes
with the faucet running. There are reports of cabin, fever, and space
madness and losing their minds.

On the morning of day five.

Too bad they aren’t allowed outside contact. Oh, wait, they’re Rhonda is,
on FaceTime with her husband and kid (I presume). Given the interactions,
it’s a live broadcast.

Suddenly the alarms begin to flash and the lights begin to Blair! Mission
control has sent them a robot dog! The women run and scream and jump up on
furniture like women do in cartoons from the 1940s when they see a mouse.

At no time does anyone think to wonder if this is the dog that Porsha
reported being in the girls dorm at three in the morning. If so, what the
hell was it doing there?

Lance (the only real astronaut of the group) and Tinashé are tasked with
walking the dog. Tinashe throws a ball for the dog to fetch. Now this
“dog” is a TV set with legs. I’m not really sure what she thinks it’s going
to do with a ball.

For some reason, people are campaigning for the stupidest person on Mars,
the girl from modern family, to be the new Base Commander. But she fails
the nomination process by freaking out. Which doesn’t stop her from
complaining that she’s not the new base commander.

The new bass commander is… Tinashe!

Marshawn has been refusing to give up the base commanders special suite.
Tinashé boots him out. Good on Tinashe.

They spend the day cleaning (using lots of drinking water they don’t have)
and exercising against the effects of low gravity, and harvesting some food
from the Biodôme. Ronda is good at that.

Night Falls on the red planet. Suddenly, inexplicably, surprisingly,
mysteriously, the biodome burst into flame or more accurately all the wet
green stuff burst into flame. This is not behavior, one ordinarily expects
from a green leafy plant.

The crew runs yelling in every possible direction. The chickens have their
heads fully off.

Following the computers instructions, they all suit up and run out onto the
surface of Mars, just as the biodome goes up in a huge fire ball as the
incredibly flammable leafy green plants combust in the oxygen rich Martian
atmosphere!

17 of the remaining nine contestants are kissed by the sweet flame of
death, and as their desiccated bodies burn so hot it fuses the Martian sand
beneath their corpses into glass, Crustfubbles the robot dog without a nose
(how does he smell? Terrible!) melts down into a slag of white hot molten
titanium.

Morning brings a call from the Shat Daddy (that’s actually what they are
calling him), who informs them that their food supply has been destroyed,
and they must repair the dome and replant the food. (what?) Or they will be
forced to eat each other (he really says that).

The next mission is to repair the Biodôme, which despite going up in a
gigantic fire ball just has a couple rips in the plastic covering. I
seriously suspect the thing we are seeing has nothing to do with the inside
set. The computer tells them that they only have 25 minutes before the
cosmic radiation (which is apparently stopped by cheap plastic sheeting.)
destroys the soil forever. You would think they might have mentioned this
when the thing blew up 12 hours ago. The computer also says they can’t go
inside the biodome until the rips in the plastic sheeting are fixed because
the cosmic radiation will kill them horribly. You would think the fact that
there’s no breathable air inside and that the temperature is.-81°F would be
problems as well.

The CGI damage and the real damage and the other real damage they mention
later are completely mismatched. But they managed to tape sheet plastic to
it, completely fixing it and making it airtight again, which seems
unlikely.

The next task is for the remaining survivors to remove all the plants which
have been burned to ash and then replenish the soil with liquid human waste
and cut potatoes in half and stick it in the stinky feces, which is
supposed to re-create their food supply. I would think that a) This is
going to smell, horrible forever and two) all they have now is potatoes.

Who will be in the bottom three? Well, Natasha was gagging so much. She
couldn’t really help spread the shit but she did cut the potatoes like a
trooper. The girls in charge decide that the two sports ball players didn’t
do much. But in fact, they were assigned the job of studying the ladders
for the other people And that’s what they did.

The girls gang up on the strongest player, Marshawn, and want to get rid of
him. But in an unexpected twist, his sports ball, sidekick, Richard, throws
himself on a Martian dagger and leaves the game complaining about how
grueling the six days they’ve been there is and how Something Happens every
day and how he misses his kids.

Richard suits up and walks out onto the Martian surface and we finally see
what happens to those expelled from the experiment!

A truck picks them up and they drive home.

Next week a desperate mission to the quarry involves flamethrowers, and the
horrible death of one of the crew!

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

On 2023-06-21 12:24:58 +0000, anim8rfsk said:

> STARS ON MARS S01E03 “Fire in the Hole”
>
> Fifth day of the experiment. People are hallucinating.

Wait - What?!

> They are hearing
> clinging in the dark, and Portia insists. There was a dog in the girls dorm
> at 3 AM. Despite the fact that last week they failed to get water to
> replace their lost supply, they’re standing at the sink, washing the dishes
> with the faucet running. There are reports of cabin, fever, and space
> madness and losing their minds.

Didn't they establish that they'd already lost their minds when they
agreed to do this show?!!

> On the morning of day five.
>
> Too bad they aren’t allowed outside contact. Oh, wait, they’re Rhonda is,
> on FaceTime with her husband and kid (I presume). Given the interactions,
> it’s a live broadcast.

I think the time lag between broadcasts to Mars is on the order of... a
minute? (I just checked - it's actually *3 minutes*.)

I guess the show was not realistic on this point...

> Suddenly the alarms begin to flash and the lights begin to Blair! Mission
> control has sent them a robot dog! The women run and scream and jump up on
> furniture like women do in cartoons from the 1940s when they see a mouse.
>
> At no time does anyone think to wonder if this is the dog that Porsha
> reported being in the girls dorm at three in the morning. If so, what the
> hell was it doing there?
>
> Lance (the only real astronaut of the group)

Wait - What?!

> and Tinashé are tasked with
> walking the dog. Tinashe throws a ball for the dog to fetch. Now this
> “dog” is a TV set with legs. I’m not really sure what she thinks it’s going
> to do with a ball.

No one ever said singers were "smart"!!

> For some reason, people are campaigning for the stupidest person on Mars,
> the girl from modern family, to be the new Base Commander. But she fails
> the nomination process by freaking out. Which doesn’t stop her from
> complaining that she’s not the new base commander.
>
> The new bass commander is… Tinashe!

Oh, boy...

> Marshawn has been refusing to give up the base commanders special suite.
> Tinashé boots him out. Good on Tinashe.
>
> They spend the day cleaning (using lots of drinking water they don’t have)
> and exercising against the effects of low gravity, and harvesting some food
> from the Biodôme. Ronda is good at that.
>
> Night Falls on the red planet.

But... They're *not actually on* the "Red planet"!!

> Suddenly, inexplicably, surprisingly,
> mysteriously, the biodome burst into flame or more accurately all the wet
> green stuff burst into flame. This is not behavior, one ordinarily expects
> from a green leafy plant.

Sh*t happens?...

> The crew runs yelling in every possible direction. The chickens have their
> heads fully off.
>
> Following the computers instructions, they all suit up and run out onto the
> surface of Mars, just as the biodome goes up in a huge fire ball as the
> incredibly flammable leafy green plants combust in the oxygen rich Martian
> atmosphere!

Heh - great point.

> 17 of the remaining nine contestants are kissed by the sweet flame of
> death, and as their desiccated bodies burn so hot it fuses the Martian sand
> beneath their corpses into glass, Crustfubbles the robot dog without a nose
> (how does he smell? Terrible!) melts down into a slag of white hot molten
> titanium.

I don't believe this happened...

> Morning brings a call from the Shat Daddy (that’s actually what they are
> calling him), who informs them that their food supply has been destroyed,
> and they must repair the dome and replant the food. (what?) Or they will be
> forced to eat each other (he really says that).

I'd watch *that* show!!

> The next mission is to repair the Biodôme, which despite going up in a
> gigantic fire ball just has a couple rips in the plastic covering. I
> seriously suspect the thing we are seeing has nothing to do with the inside
> set. The computer tells them that they only have 25 minutes before the
> cosmic radiation (which is apparently stopped by cheap plastic sheeting.)
> destroys the soil forever. You would think they might have mentioned this
> when the thing blew up 12 hours ago. The computer also says they can’t go
> inside the biodome until the rips in the plastic sheeting are fixed because
> the cosmic radiation will kill them horribly. You would think the fact that
> there’s no breathable air inside and that the temperature is.-81°F would be
> problems as well.
>
> The CGI damage and the real damage and the other real damage they mention
> later are completely mismatched. But they managed to tape sheet plastic to
> it, completely fixing it and making it airtight again, which seems
> unlikely.
>
> The next task is for the remaining survivors to remove all the plants which
> have been burned to ash and then replenish the soil with liquid human waste
> and cut potatoes in half and stick it in the stinky feces, which is
> supposed to re-create their food supply. I would think that a) This is
> going to smell, horrible forever and two) all they have now is potatoes.
>
> Who will be in the bottom three? Well, Natasha was gagging so much. She
> couldn’t really help spread the shit but she did cut the potatoes like a
> trooper. The girls in charge decide that the two sports ball players didn’t
> do much. But in fact, they were assigned the job of studying the ladders
> for the other people And that’s what they did.
>
> The girls gang up on the strongest player, Marshawn, and want to get rid of
> him. But in an unexpected twist, his sports ball, sidekick, Richard, throws
> himself on a Martian dagger and leaves the game complaining about how
> grueling the six days they’ve been there is and how Something Happens every
> day and how he misses his kids.
>
> Richard suits up and walks out onto the Martian surface and we finally see
> what happens to those expelled from the experiment!

Wait, so they just walk out into the surface of "Mars" to die alone?!!

> A truck picks them up and they drive home.

Wait! Where did the truck, on *Mars*, come from?!!

> Next week a desperate mission to the quarry involves flamethrowers, and the
> horrible death of one of the crew!

If it's real, lemme know!!

--
"Who would ever do this to him!?" - HottCiara on DOOL (04-27-2020), asking
who would stab Victor Kirakis... How about ANYONE WHO'S EVER MET HIM??!!

Ian J. Ball <IJBall@mac.invalid> wrote:
> On 2023-06-21 12:24:58 +0000, anim8rfsk said:
>
>> STARS ON MARS S01E03 “Fire in the Hole”
>>
>> Fifth day of the experiment. People are hallucinating.
>
> Wait - What?!

That’s what they said. Their word.

>
>> They are hearing
>> clinging in the dark, and Portia insists. There was a dog in the girls dorm
>> at 3 AM. Despite the fact that last week they failed to get water to
>> replace their lost supply, they’re standing at the sink, washing the dishes
>> with the faucet running. There are reports of cabin, fever, and space
>> madness and losing their minds.
>
> Didn't they establish that they'd already lost their minds when they
> agreed to do this show?!!

For most of them, I think we have to establish that they had a mind before
we can worry about establishing that they lost it.

>
>> On the morning of day five.
>>
>> Too bad they aren’t allowed outside contact. Oh, wait, they’re Rhonda is,
>> on FaceTime with her husband and kid (I presume). Given the interactions,
>> it’s a live broadcast.
>
> I think the time lag between broadcasts to Mars is on the order of... a
> minute? (I just checked - it's actually *3 minutes*.)

Three minutes minimum, 22 minutes maximum. In the first episode, Shatner
said (IIRC) they had a 15 minute lag which kept him from talking to them
live, and you know having to pay attention to what they said which I
thought was really clever.

>
> I guess the show was not realistic on this point...
>
>> Suddenly the alarms begin to flash and the lights begin to Blair! Mission
>> control has sent them a robot dog! The women run and scream and jump up on
>> furniture like women do in cartoons from the 1940s when they see a mouse.
>>
>> At no time does anyone think to wonder if this is the dog that Porsha
>> reported being in the girls dorm at three in the morning. If so, what the
>> hell was it doing there?
>>
>> Lance (the only real astronaut of the group)
>
> Wait - What?!

The dimwit from modern family thought he was Neil Armstrong.

>
>> and Tinashé are tasked with
>> walking the dog. Tinashe throws a ball for the dog to fetch. Now this
>> “dog” is a TV set with legs. I’m not really sure what she thinks it’s going
>> to do with a ball.
>
> No one ever said singers were "smart"!!

That might not have been Tanisha. Kind a hard to tell when they’re in the
space suits. Tanisha and Rhonda are the two smartest women in the cast.

>
>> For some reason, people are campaigning for the stupidest person on Mars,
>> the girl from modern family, to be the new Base Commander. But she fails
>> the nomination process by freaking out. Which doesn’t stop her from
>> complaining that she’s not the new base commander.
>>
>> The new bass commander is… Tinashe!
>
> Oh, boy...
>
>> Marshawn has been refusing to give up the base commanders special suite.
>> Tinashé boots him out. Good on Tinashe.
>>
>> They spend the day cleaning (using lots of drinking water they don’t have)
>> and exercising against the effects of low gravity, and harvesting some food
>> from the Biodôme. Ronda is good at that.
>>
>> Night Falls on the red planet.
>
> But... They're *not actually on* the "Red planet"!!
>
>> Suddenly, inexplicably, surprisingly,
>> mysteriously, the biodome burst into flame or more accurately all the wet
>> green stuff burst into flame. This is not behavior, one ordinarily expects
>> from a green leafy plant.
>
> Sh*t happens?...
>
>> The crew runs yelling in every possible direction. The chickens have their
>> heads fully off.
>>
>> Following the computers instructions, they all suit up and run out onto the
>> surface of Mars, just as the biodome goes up in a huge fire ball as the
>> incredibly flammable leafy green plants combust in the oxygen rich Martian
>> atmosphere!
>
> Heh - great point.
>
>> 17 of the remaining nine contestants are kissed by the sweet flame of
>> death, and as their desiccated bodies burn so hot it fuses the Martian sand
>> beneath their corpses into glass, Crustfubbles the robot dog without a nose
>> (how does he smell? Terrible!) melts down into a slag of white hot molten
>> titanium.
>
> I don't believe this happened...

You got me. That one paragraph was wishful thinking as I was falling
asleep. Everything else is as it actually happened.

>
>> Morning brings a call from the Shat Daddy (that’s actually what they are
>> calling him), who informs them that their food supply has been destroyed,
>> and they must repair the dome and replant the food. (what?) Or they will be
>> forced to eat each other (he really says that).
>
> I'd watch *that* show!!

If only Richard Donner was still alive to direct it.

>
>> The next mission is to repair the Biodôme, which despite going up in a
>> gigantic fire ball just has a couple rips in the plastic covering. I
>> seriously suspect the thing we are seeing has nothing to do with the inside
>> set. The computer tells them that they only have 25 minutes before the
>> cosmic radiation (which is apparently stopped by cheap plastic sheeting.)
>> destroys the soil forever. You would think they might have mentioned this
>> when the thing blew up 12 hours ago. The computer also says they can’t go
>> inside the biodome until the rips in the plastic sheeting are fixed because
>> the cosmic radiation will kill them horribly. You would think the fact that
>> there’s no breathable air inside and that the temperature is.-81°F would be
>> problems as well.
>>
>> The CGI damage and the real damage and the other real damage they mention
>> later are completely mismatched. But they managed to tape sheet plastic to
>> it, completely fixing it and making it airtight again, which seems
>> unlikely.
>>
>> The next task is for the remaining survivors to remove all the plants which
>> have been burned to ash and then replenish the soil with liquid human waste
>> and cut potatoes in half and stick it in the stinky feces, which is
>> supposed to re-create their food supply. I would think that a) This is
>> going to smell, horrible forever and two) all they have now is potatoes.
>>
>> Who will be in the bottom three? Well, Natasha was gagging so much. She
>> couldn’t really help spread the shit but she did cut the potatoes like a
>> trooper. The girls in charge decide that the two sports ball players didn’t
>> do much. But in fact, they were assigned the job of studying the ladders
>> for the other people And that’s what they did.
>>
>> The girls gang up on the strongest player, Marshawn, and want to get rid of
>> him. But in an unexpected twist, his sports ball, sidekick, Richard, throws
>> himself on a Martian dagger and leaves the game complaining about how
>> grueling the six days they’ve been there is and how Something Happens every
>> day and how he misses his kids.
>>
>> Richard suits up and walks out onto the Martian surface and we finally see
>> what happens to those expelled from the experiment!
>
> Wait, so they just walk out into the surface of "Mars" to die alone?!!
>

They suit up, and somehow get to a scenic high spot and light a flare, and
hold it over their heads. Up till now that’s all we’ve seen them do. It was
presumably a signal.

>> A truck picks them up and they drive home.
>
> Wait! Where did the truck, on *Mars*, come from?!!

We just saw it driving away. I am more concerned about where it’s going.

>
>> Next week a desperate mission to the quarry involves flamethrowers, and the
>> horrible death of one of the crew!
>
> If it's real, lemme know!!

I think we’d all like that. All we saw was a spacesuit laying on the ground
and heard the women screaming.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

Here is a recap for episode three of Stars on Mars, the celebrity
competition show that simulates life on Mars:

The episode begins with a surprise twist: four new celebronauts are
about to join the existing 10, but their supply craft has crashed in
the desert and they need to be rescued. The new arrivals are Dwayne
Johnson, Ellen DeGeneres, Taylor Swift, and Kevin Hart. The current
mission commander, Marshawn Lynch, assigns two teams to retrieve the
canisters and the newcomers. Team A consists of Tom Schwartz, Lizzo,
Kourtney Kardashian, and Neil Patrick Harris. Team B consists of
Chrissy Teigen, Jason Momoa, Emma Watson, and Trevor Noah. Marshawn
stays behind with Bill Nye to monitor the situation.

The teams face various challenges and dangers in the Martian terrain,
such as sandstorms, radiation, and low oxygen. Team A manages to find
Dwayne and Ellen, who are trapped under a pile of debris. They use
their strength and ingenuity to free them and secure one of the
canisters. Team B locates Taylor and Kevin, who are hiding in a cave.
They use their charm and humor to calm them down and persuade them to
come out. They also find the other canister, but it is leaking
radioactive material. They decide to leave it behind and return to the
hab.

Back at the hab, Marshawn welcomes the new celebronauts and introduces
them to Bill. He then announces that he has to choose one person from
each team to be at risk of extraction. He picks Tom from Team A,
because he thinks he is too weak and clumsy. He picks Emma from Team B,
because he thinks she is too smart and strategic. The rest of the
celebronauts are shocked and outraged by his choices. They argue that
Tom and Emma are valuable assets and that Marshawn is being unfair and
biased.

The episode ends with a cliffhanger: who will be extracted from Mars?
Will it be Tom or Emma? Or will there be another twist? Tune in next
week to find out! ??