Review: Dream Corp LLC “Dust Bunnies”

Hoarding: the oldest profession in the book.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Patient 76 comes into the doctor’s office to fix his hoarding problem and earn the love of his children once again. The doctor is eager to help, but behind the scenes, there is a new player in the Dream Corp team. T.E.R.R.Y. has created a roomba-life friend named Leonard, a robot who basically does everything Patient 88 does around the office.

Doctor Roberts tries to guide Patient 75 to picking through his many items to find ones worth keeping, but the patient quickly gets lost in his hoarding desires and is submerged in psychonaut chaos. Dr. Roberts decides to go in and try to liberate his patient from the storm of his collecting obsession. Meanwhile, the tension between Patient 88 and Leonard grows when Leonard bites 88’s finger, sending a splurt of blood everywhere.

Back in Patient 75’s mind, our troubled patient makes contact with a hoarding giant, who 75 enters and controls from the inside. This puts him at odds with Dr. Roberts, who summons his dream powers to form a junk titan of his own making and go toe-to-toe with Patient 75. The two are just about to fight when Leonard’s interference accidentally short circuits Doctor Robert’s dream chair, rendering him helpless. Thankfully,  Randy is able to pull the good doctor out of his chair before Roberts gets his brain fried.

Back in the dream world, Patient 75 comes to terms with his childhood instability and makes a positive step towards his healing. Out back, meanwhile, T.E.R.R.Y. shoots Leonard in his robot head, a la “Old Yeller”, and Randy parties in his Mexican pointy boots with his friends over the internet. All’s well that ends well!

Our Take:

Now, this was a pretty slick episode to enjoy. The Dream Corp team has once again shown why they’re the only game in town when it comes to over-the-top psycho-absurdist dream comedy. This episode boils to a much more linear story than the experimental stuff that we’ve seen last week, but that’s not a bad thing. It delivers a solid comedic experience with a fun, heartwarming narrative that’s a refreshing break from the darker stuff we’ve been dealing with in the doctor’s office.

The “Leonard” subplot is just pure chuckles, from the way the little demon is characterized by ruining the whole office (And poor Randy’s Mexican pointy boots) to the way it only repeats the phrase “Dust bunnies” over and over again. Who would’ve thought a makeshift roomba could have so much character. It’s also an excellent B story that gets intertwined into the main one, which Dream Corp doesn’t always do. It’s a more traditional format, the kind of thing you might expect to see on “The Simpsons”, but that’s not at all a bad thing. The biggest weakness of Dream Corp is that sometimes its eccentricity gets the better of it and alienates the viewer, so bringing us back down to earth every now and again is a good move.

I also enjoyed the twist on Dr. Robert’s treatment of Patient 75, which nearly culminates in a giant dream robot battle. We’ve never seen Dr. Roberts attack one of his patients before, but its such a fun idea I’m surprised this is the first time its come about. Being a natural eccentric, Dr. Roberts is ripe for conflict with his hapless patients. Unfortunately, Patient 75 doesn’t have a lot of character to him, he feels somewhat shallow compared to the more deep-seated troubles of the other patients, but he works for this particular episode. He’s not the main focus of things since the episode is divided between him and Leonard, which works for the plot they’ve constructed.

Overall, its a really fun episode. Not one that’s particularly challenging, but enjoyable and funny enough in its own right. Randy dancing around is his Mexican pointy boots just sticks a smile right onto my face, and there’s something brutally funny about Patient 88 getting his ass kicked by a cleaning robot. Its a good time all around, but not an episode that tries to push itself to somewhere new and interesting. I think you’ll have a good time here, but if not, there’s always the second episode released this week as well.