This SOLAR OPPOSITES review contains spoilers.
Solar Opposites Episode 5
Something that’s always nice is when separate sitcom plots are still tied together thematically. “The Lavatic Reactor” is one such episode, centered around education, as Terry and Korvo enroll in a junior college and Jesse and Yumyulack attend what they believe to be summer school. There’s a third, smaller plot about Tim and the other shrunken humans trapped in Yumyulack’s wall and their attempt to steal food from the Duke, the self-appointed leader of said wall, but this plot is not about education, which makes it lame.
No, that’s not really why the wall subplot is weak, though I suppose it’s part of the problem in that it’s a bit slight and seems to have been inserted into the episode mostly to remind us the Mad Max wall stuff is still ongoing. Unlike the first big exploration of the wall in the third episode, this look inside doesn’t add much in the way of interesting character moments or development of the dystopic wall society. It’s also not where the best jokes are. There’s a decent gag about Elliott Gould, but the longest joke sequence concerns a guy’s dick getting blown off in an explosion. Some of it is funny, but it drags. Essentially, this storyline serves to push along the rivalry of Tim vs. the Duke some.
It’s not that the stuff going on in the wall is bad; it’s just that the aliens are a lot more entertaining in this episode. Terry and Korvo’s junior college adventure is teed up by Terry as though it’s going to be like Van Wilder, PCU, or one of the other crazy college party movies he name-drops (the pop culture referencing in this one is off the charts). However, as is so often the case with Solar Opposites, it deviates drastically from the formula and instead goes all crazy sci-fi and a whole lot of people die.