Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.7

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.7
Channel Four
8 September 1995
Improv Game Show
VHS
C

The other formerly missing episode features Eddie Izzard and never seems to get going.  This doesn't really affect the C+ the average for Series Seven though.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: 1995 Compilation

Caroline Quentin and Paul Merton

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: 1995 Compilation
Channel Four
26 December 1995*
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

Like the rest of the episodes this year, this one stays at that not-bad level, with probably Questions Only the top game.  But with Northover as director and the cast definitely settled in, there just aren't any real highs or lows anymore.  By this point, I certainly wasn't eagerly awaiting new episodes, and my ex-husband stopped taping them, or much else, for me soon after this. The programme would go on, into the present, but in various forms.  I'd catch up with it again later in the decade, when it had changed continents and hosts, so the story doesn't quite end here, although it does for most of the contestants.  (I'm omitting Caroline from the overcrowded tags.)

*This is the date on Wikipedia, where it's the second of two compilations for the seventh series.  IMDB has them as airing in the first half of October, but I don't know that it matters all that much.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.10

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.10
Channel Four
29 September 1995
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

This very obviously is not only the same line-up as on 7.8, with the contestants wearing the same outfits, but even Clive's introductions are exactly the same!  The best thing about the episode is Ryan's struggle through accents in FATS with Josie.  As for shipping, not only do they do "German Porn" there, but their credits-reading has them about to make out until they're caught on a security camera.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.8

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.8
Channel Four
15 September 1995
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

I don't think, at this point anyway, that adding props to World's Worst particularly helps.  And having Stephen Frost host Party Quirks may not be the best idea, when he's such a quick guesser.  (I mean, if Josie Finds Bald Heads Irresistible, shouldn't we see her flirt with Colin, too?)  Still, it's not a bad line-up and apparently had enough material to fill another episode (7.10).  Psychiatrist is probably the best of the lot here, if only to hear Richard and the contestants try to do Austrian and Greek music, and I like New Job Old Job, with Ryan & Josie checking into a hotel as a very unmarried couple and Stephen as a bellhop who used to work in airport security.  Note that I'm missing Episode 7.7, as far as I know, but my guess is that it (and 7.4) would've earned C+s, too.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.3 [fragment]

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.3 [fragment]
Channel Four
11 August 1995
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

Yes, this line-up again, but it's not bad.  My favorite game is Press Conference, which is similar to Party Quirks, except Tony has to guess why he's holding a presser, in this case because he's the First Man to Make Love in Outer Space.  (I'm not sure what I'm missing of the Comedy Central edit beyond the opening credits and introductions.)

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Series Six Compilation

Working out the balance

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Series Six Compilation
Channel Four
2 September 1994
Improv Game Show
VHS
C

I feel like none of the games in this really get going, like Remote Control, where Josie's Coronation Street isn't bad but of course keeps getting interrupted.  (And poor Mike gets only one turn to do The Muppet Show.)  According to IMDB and Wikipedia, there was a Part Two for the Compilation, which aired either on 9 September or the following January.  In any case, I don't appear to own it, although of course it might pop up later as I continue through my videotapes.  This is as good a place as any to say that Series Six of WLIIA is a bit of a let-down, if not a shark-jump.  It ranges from C to B-, averaging out to a C+ like Series Five, but a low C+.  I do have at least some of Series Seven on tape, and I think it was again more of the same, but with new additions like Caroline Quentin.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.6

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.6
Channel Four
5 August 1994
Improv Game Show
VHS
C

I watched this episode this morning and have already forgotten most of it.  I guess Moving People was the best game, although that's as much to the credit of the audience members as to Ryan and Colin.  The episode isn't bad but not particularly distinguishable.  I can only assume that the producers felt that this half-British/half-Canadian line-up was the best representative of Series Six.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.5

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.5
Channel Four
29 July 1994
Improv Game Show
VHS
B-

This is sort of a C+ and a half.  That is, it's mostly a C+, except for the last two games and the credit-reading, but compared to its peers, it's the best episode of the series so far and needs to be rewarded for that.  Frost is OK, but this episode is mostly about watching Tony, Josie, and Ryan interact, whether in the Bartender, where Ryan and Josie turn Ryan's love for his teddy bear really dirty, and Josie and Tony himself make fun of Tony's names, real and imaginary; and Party Quirks, where Josie is a penis, Ryan is a baby learning to walk, and Tony is utterly baffled and amused.  The third-best game is Helping Hands, with Josie and Ryan as two women in the ladies' room and Tony providing the hands for Josie, not for the last time.  Josie regrettably makes a Bobbitt joke, but it's Ryan's reactions to things like Josie pretending to mistake a tampon for a cigarette that make the game work.  And the credits are Ryan and Josie as a couple arguing over his little black book.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.3

Tony tries in Party Quirks.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.3
Channel Four
15 July 1994
Improv Game Show
VHS
C

I might've gone with a C+, but I'm already tired of this line-up, and the Vasectomy Hoedown and Ryan & Colin's funhouse mirrors credit-reading sealed the C.  And if they're already repeating themselves in Song Title ("Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" "Oklahoma"), then it's a sign that either the games and/or the contestants need to be varied more.  The highlight is of course Tony, after Clive tells him how terrible his Party Quirks hosting was, saying a [bleeped out by Comedy Central] F-word.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.1

Trying hard, but without much of a result

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 6.1
Channel Four
1 July 1994
Improv Game Show
VHS
C

A new series and new credits, now red & white, very simple cartoon figures.  Some of the games are new, too, but the line-up is stale (and would be repeated twice more that year), as are some of the jokes, like in the Nativity Play in FATS.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Series 5 Compilation

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Series 5 Compilation
Channel Four
30 April 1993
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

My favorite games here are Tony & Mike's Alphabet and Ryan & Josie's Film Dubbing, but there are some other nice moments.  Pity they couldn't find a scene from Paul Merton.

Over half of Series Five of Whose Line Is It Anyway? gets a C+, and the C and B-s don't have much effect on the average.  The show is still watchable and there aren't some of the painful lows of even '92, but there aren't really any amazing highs.  I don't know if this is due to the new director, or if the show was just on an even keel.  I recall Series Six as more of the same, but we'll see....