“Spoiler: Dexy’s Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment” presents itself as a perfect opportunity for Stuart Fails to Save the Universe to distill itself down to its best and most meaningful elements, a brief, 14-minute episode (slash webisode) that works backwards – sometimes literally – through the timeline of the first six episodes, in order to set its course for the first season’s third act. With larger narrative elements coming into play, “Spoiler: Dexy’s Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment” looked poised to chart a path through some of the show’s more reductive qualities; unfortunately, it not only leans into those lesser elements, it does so without really being a coherent, complete story, turning a golden opportunity into a bit of a momentum killer, at the worst possible time.
That’s not to say “Spoiler: Dexy’s Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment” doesn’t serve any purpose; we learn that our merry band of universe hoppers have been moving laterally through the space-time continuum – which at the very least, explains the Gary of it all, and breaks the show’s meandering formula into something more focused. But balancing its serialized and procedural elements has been a challenge for Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, and this episode unfortunately bears the brunt of those efforts, 14 minutes that do just about nothing with its universal premise (you thought the cud chewing joke was repetitive, wait until the string of telepathy jokes in this episode’s first half)… and then also does almost nothing with its overarching narrative, which sees our quartet chase another version of themselves through the multiverse.
In terms of plot development, “Spoiler: Dexy’s Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment” is a table-setter of a table-setter, teasing out the thinnest advancements of story (there’s another militant quartet running around stealing Leonard/Sheldon Thingys) and coasting mostly on a mix of underwhelming bits about its setting-of-the-week (they really do nothing but one joke with the whole telepathy thing) and another subpar Bernadette cameo, this time in the form of a burnt out former child pageant star turned dance teacher.
(the lack of practical sets outside of the comic book shop is also becoming a bit noticeable at this point; I almost wish the show would lean into it further, exposing more of the low-budget heart the show tries to express through its still-strange opening titles).
I also think it’s probably time we talk about Denise, whose presence in this series has been equally flat and confusing, a woman whose attachment to Stuart feels more like a dial being turned up in the writer’s room, rather than something that’s organically grown in the few moments this season they’ve been able to interact in scenes alone. It’s a halfhearted romance – which is fine, but the prominence with which scenes about them deciding to have children are given betrays that, and combined with the utter lack of development or agency Denise has had at any point this season, leaves her as the most glaringly thin and unnecessary element of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.
At least we still have Kripke’s sexual awakening, the Berts convening with each other, and Stuart’s consistently malleable presence at the show’s center; those elements are the saving grace of “Spoiler: Dexy’s Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment” – which, at its core, is a filler episode in a ten-episode season (of episodes that range from 15-25 minutes each), which still feels incredibly strange, even in The Age of Reduced Episode Counts we currently live in.
Other thoughts/observations:
- We see Neil deGrasse Tyson burning on a cross when the group passes back through the magical universe. Fitting.
- No Gary this episode?
- Such a missed opportunity to introduce a number of random universes we’ll never see again here. Also… a world where everyone is a centaur? What’s interesting about that?
- Ramona appears as a CalTech admin again; “I married a drummer, and this is the only way we have health insurance!”
- Credit where it is due: the Bernadette voice is much better this episode.
- I thought we’d get Leonard and Sheldon in the finale – I’m more convinced now they’ll be in season two, and Howard will be the missing link in the season finale.