Review: Dream Corp LLC “Can’t Touch This”

Dream Corp is not a good place for a first date.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Patient 66 has a curious disorder. Any skin to skin contact feels like fire to the poor girl, which has made human relationships rather difficult to uphold. Dr. Roberts has an interesting idea to solve the problem, a dream date in her mind to build up her comfort with other people. To this end, Dr. Roberts drafts Patient 88 to be her dream date. 88 isn’t at all on board, being rather terrible at dating, but the two go on their dream date nonetheless.

Patient 66 begins her lovely date in a dream ice skating rink, but Patient 66 has a tough time keeping up with her. Even worse, once he tries to take her hand, the ice rink melts into a volcano and the two fall to their doom in its fiery depths. Once they hit the bottom, which is 66’s old house, Patient 88 is soon assaulted by her dad, who is a literal hothead. It becomes clear to the doctor that this is where Patient 88’s defense mechanisms come from.

Still, the date continues, and things continue quite well, but 66 is having trouble locking the date down with a good smooch. The team briefly considers ecstasy but Dr. Roberts opts for an aphrodisiac serum instead to get them to touch tongues. The two share an impassioned kiss, and a fantasy of their life together plays out in their collective dream space. The two get married, have kids, buy a house and all that good stuff until Patient 88 dies in a surreal Vietnam dream and the two eventually pass away. The two begin to convulse from too much love, but Randy pulls them both out just in time.

It turns out the operation was a complete success, as Patient 66 can touch 88 without feeling pain. Patient 88 is hopelessly in love with her, but 66 is quick to tell them “They need to talk”, and dumps the poor boy on the spot. Guess you can’t trust dream love.

Our Take:

Oh, poor Patient 88, you just can’t catch a break, can you? Even when it seems like things are going right they’re really just setting up to fall apart in the worst way possible. In case it wasn’t obvious, Patient 88 is really the star of the show this time around, put into a situation that both tells a lovely tale of romance and sets up for a wonderful episode-long gag that goes about exactly how you’d expect it would.

This is the first “Love story” that Dream Corp has tried to pull off, and I’d say I was pretty satisfied with how it all went. Things start slow and proceed as they usually do, with the patient discovering things about themselves that they didn’t even know they were dealing with. I’m happy, though, that the story didn’t go down the route of having her dad’s over-protectiveness be the focus of the dream sequencing. Its mentioned, but not explored too deep so we can bring the focus back to Patient 88’s fledgling romantic abilities. And let’s be real, 88 is no Casanova.

And that’s really where the episode doesn’t just glimmer but shines brilliantly. It plays itself like a wonderful love story between two unlikely souls and does a good job of pulling you, the viewer, into the beautiful imagined relationship that they have. But then, just when you think you’re watching a true romance, Patient 88 goes off to fight in Vietnam, of all things, and their story comes to a quick and dramatic conclusion. This is followed by the harshest break up of all time, where Patient 88 is madly in love, and 66 makes it explicitly clear that she wants nothing to do with him. There’s a nice little inverse of the usual line, “Let’s be friends”, when 66 says she doesn’t want to be friends with him at all, smiling all the way, of course.

I really loved this episode, and I think you will too. It’s fun, hilarious, and delivers the style of dream-tastic comedy that you’ve come to expect from the show. It pulls the rug out from under you just when you think you’ve got it figured out, wrenching out laughter for you to enjoy. If there’s anything to be learned from this episode, its that dream love is just that, and you shouldn’t try to date your patients if you happen to be a doctor.