Review: Mr. Birchum “127 Hours or So”

Here’s hoping Dailywire+ continues to premiere new episodes of Mr. Birchum earlier in the day as opposed to waiting until 9pm ET moving forward because I’m loving this move of posting the episode earlier.

In any event, this week’s episode of Mr. Birchum features rather fun premises with strong plots though the naivete and lack of sophistication of the writers of the series continues to hold the series back a bit. For starters, this week’s episode has the show’s record for cutaway gags and not only does this do ONE cutaway gag per setup, but sometimes we get TWO for the price of one. If the dialogue was tighter perhaps I’d probably wouldn’t mind as much, but the dialogue needs a lot of help. In fact, one thing I’ve noticed, Wendi(voiced by Megyn Kelly who continues to excel in this role) refers to Mr. Birchum as “Birchum” through the entire episode which doesn’t make any sense because what wife constantly refers to their husband by his last name? I can understand when Gage(Alonzo Bodden) and other people do it, but Wendi should be calling her husband Richard or “Dick”.

Family Guy’s Patrick Warburton makes his long-awaited guest appearance as “Burly Man”, all part of a number of flashback sequences that accompany the aforementioned cutaways. Moreover, we get a bit of a drugged sequence coupled with a rather entertaining musical number featuring singing tools which I actually found quite entertaining. As for Wendi and Eddie’s bit, I actually would have preferred fewer cutaways and flashbacks and focused a bit more on these two working together because they make for an entertaining duo. Moreover, Jeanie’s(Brett Cooper) take on a popular Pulp Fiction character was strong, if not somewhat held back in its execution. If I were directing the series I think I would’ve had Brett try a more compelling impersonation of some of the other characters that may or may not have influenced the character eventually chosen for her, and deploy that for the climax of the “B”-plot.

As for our titular character’s ongoing struggle with power tools, I was a bit taken back by some of the plot points. For starters, Dick gets his jacket stuck in the machine that quite possibly could have been solved by just removing the jacket instead of spending five days with no food or water. One scene I did find hilarious was the janitor dancing in the halls with a floor buffer while Dick is screaming for help.

Mr. Birchum is a series with some strong points and this week’s episode “127 Hours or So” is a perfect encapsulation of the things working and not working with the series thus far. Some more experienced writers on the staff could really set this one off. Also, stop with the censorship of crass language!