Season Review: Dream Corp LLC Season Two

This show’s one hell of a dream, but never a nightmare.

Spend enough time watching Adult Swim and you’re bound to come across all varieties of the weird, the extraordinary, and the extraordinarily weird. Anyone addicted to the Cartoon Network nightly block of twisted comedy has gone through the best cartoon freak show money can buy: a sitcom about living fast-food items, a brutally dark comedy about the world’s whiniest death metal band, it even brought to us the sci-fi adventures of a cynical alcoholic scientist and his developmentally challenged grandson. Yet nothing, nothing I’ve seen on this channel has prepared me for Dream Corp LLC. It is a show beholden entirely unto itself. It defies convention; it defies explanation; it defies reality. A psychedelic medical procedural unlike any other, it’s a show that plunges us deep into the messy, messy world of color vomit that is the unconscious mind. Oh, and its damn funny too.

To those uninitiated with Dream Corp, the show follows the trials and tribulations of a “Dream therapy” clinic, run by the eccentric hippie and possible doctor, Dr. Roberts. What is dream therapy, you ask? In short, it’s a novel medical procedure where the patient is sent off to sleep while plugged into a variety of scary-looking machines and induced into a dream. Once inside, the good doctor gets to work, appearing in the patient’s dream as a sort of spiritual guide to help a patient work through their problems. Of course, Roberts can’t do it alone, there’s Randy, his agoraphobic tech guy who operates the dream machinery, Patient 88, a former patient turned intern, Bea, Dr. Roberts’s assistant, Ahmed the drug man and T.E.R.R.Y., the loveable (ish) robot of the clinic. With their combined efforts, they seek to cure any patient of their mental ills and sell them plenty of candy coated popcorn once they’re done.

It’s like “Inception” meets “Scrubs”, but a whole lot weirder and a whole lot darker. Each episode plays out like an absurdist comedy of errors, where the Dream Corp team tries to get their shit together and help their patient while their egos and eccentricities get in the way. Given the nature of the show, you never really know quite what to expect. One episode, Patient 88 is put under to take a patient on a “Dream date” to cure her fear of touching others, the next episode Randy is really into his Mexican pointy boots. You never really know what to expect when you’re watching Dream Corp LLC, and that is very much a good thing.

But the shenanigans of the Dream Corp crew is only one half of the show. While those segments are low-budget, cheesy, live-action comedy routines, simultaneously Dr. Roberts is going deep into a patient’s brain to figure out their issues. These segments are entirely animated in one of the trippiest, most gorgeous animation styles you will ever see. It defies explanation through mere words and has to be seen to be believed. It’s a near-perfect styling of a person’s dream. Objects are fluid, settings are temporary, and things can become terrifying very, very quickly. These sequences are played much more straight, which works well as relief from the screwball comedy that comes from the live-action parts. There are moments of real intimacy with the characters going under, as we see their mental troubles resolved in spectacular fashion. When the team is actually able to help them, of course.

The setup is rock solid and establishes a unique format that works splendidly in the shortened runtime of an Adult Swim show. Each episode plays out like a series of smacks to the face, over and over again as you descend further and further into the strangeness of the world of Dream Corp. This means the show is anything but boring, but at times will make you laugh so hard you’ll get an ulcer. The comedic coordination of the supporting cast is top notch, and thus they serve as the comedic crux of the show. While Dr. Roberts gets to more of the straight man who slams dunks the therapy process, the “dream team” are the ones setting him up with crack after crack.

It’s not always amazing, but its a solid experimental show that sometimes flirts with true greatness. Like all Adult Swim shows, an uninitiated audience member might find issue with the rapid-fire strangeness of Dream Corp’s sense of humor. The show can certainly be an acquired taste. Yet, if you stick with it for a moment, give it its 12 minutes to do what it needs to do, there’s no doubt you’ll be captivated by this unique show. Dream Corp LLC season two was a real treat to enjoy, and should certainly earn it another season to binge on.