Vasco da Gama, episode #6 (or, “The Maltese Vasco”)

     This, folks, is the episode where Vasco da Gama becomes Vasco da Gama.

     Maybe I should say “the episode where Vasco da Gama becomes VASCO DA GAMA”, just to emphasize it. After five episodes, we were starting to get comfortable enough with doing a half-hour comedy show to throw out all the rules we’d set up for it. From here on in, the series is all about identifying our own rules, breaking them, and stomping on the broken pieces just to make sure everybody saw what we did, so they could tell on us.

     It’s been twenty years, so there’s no sense waiting around for anyone to tell on us—I’ll do it myself. First of all, the show doesn’t open with the familiar Vasco theme song…although it does open with a better explanation of Vasco’s basic premise than any we’d come up with so far. That figures. It also figures that the episode of the “Vasco da Gama” sitcom that we wedged into the middle of this story is tighter and better paced than any of its predecessors.

     It really also figures that this episode full of rule-breaking is the one that introduces one of Vasco’s character-defining obsessions: his professional rivalry with (read, “hatred of”) Christopher Columbus. No, I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me sooner, but you can bet I used the idea every chance I got after that. It is a sitcom, after all…well, the bit with Vasco in it is, anyway…what I mean to say is that the part of Vasco da Gama where Vasco da Gama plays Vasco da Gama is a sitcom, as opposed to the part where Vasco da Gama plays himself, which is to say Vasco da Gama, but doesn’t play Vasco da Gama, in the sense of Vasco da Gama playing Vasco da Gama…oh, the heck with this; I’ve painted myself into a corner and I know it. You figure it out.

     There’s a lot more that I could say about this episode, but since the whole thing is about stuff you didn’t see coming, that’d spoil the surprise, now wouldn’t it? Go ahead—click on the link. You can always ask me about anything that piques your curiosity by writing in the lonely empty “comments” section at the bottom of this post.

Vasco da Gama, episode #6

    Okay, I’ll tell you ONE thing. Around the 7:30 mark, you’ll hear a rather peculiar proposal for funeral arrangements. It’s not really meant to be a joke—this is more or less how I want to go.

     Hm…maybe you won’t be so eager to ask me anything more when you find out what I’m talking about there. Sorry about that.