Review: Universal Basic Guys “Medieval Knights”

Ye Olde Basic Chaps
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Mark and Darren attend a Medieval Times show, but after Darren gets the attention of one of the performers, Mark attempts to get his step son back.

OUR TAKE

Hey, I’m covering Universal Basic Guys this week! I’ve been following this show since it premiered and I am sure flummoxed that this got chosen to continue over The Great North, but that’s neither here nor there. This week, it’s a Mark and Darren episode about Mark trying to get Darren into a thing he likes, only for Darren to go farther in that thing than Mark wanted to and gaining Mark’s ire because of it. It’s a pretty stock standard plot in these animated sitcoms, and also the second episode of the season that involves Mark and Darren, though in that first episode, it was more about Mark going overboard and taking control of a hockey team while Darren just couldn’t do anything. Here, it’s Darren constantly being shut down by Mark and then given even the slightest bit of approval and validation by another adult, in this case the “king” of Medieval Times knock off Medieval Knights, who sees Darren, and several kids like him, as a chance for cheap or free labor. And honestly, Darren should count himself pretty dang lucky that this guy ONLY wanted free labor from him, but then this would probably be an Adult Swim show instead of a Fox animated comedy.

Despite the fact that I’ve been watching this show since it first aired last year, I really can not stand Mark, and that feeling has not changed since the pilot. He’s basically all the worst parts of Peter Griffin turned up to eleven with none of the sympathy that made that tolerable in the early Family Guy seasons or the darkly cynical tone that made it tolerable in the current seasons. Mark basically only does things because of his own self interest and does not change course until they inconvenience him and not a second before, even when his supposed loved ones put their foot down about it. So, it’s no surprise that he only starts to try and get Darren away from this weird king when he’s kept out of the things that Darren was invited to do, meaning he barely cares at all if any of this harms Darren and more that he was left out. Though thankfully he does turn that around slightly at the end by acknowledging Darren’s interest in some way before getting the whole restaurant shut down. Oh yeah, and Tammy and Andrea take a ride in what I think is supposed to be a reference to the Cybertruck and is actually Andrea using Tammy as a test case in how to the car’s ever expanding artificial intelligence. Honestly, it’s the better part of the episode.