Laugh Tracks and Lab Coats: A Sitcom Worth Revisiting

 When I mention the TV show Lab Rats, you probably picture one of three things:

1. Absolutely nothing. You've never heard of that show in your life.

2. The Disney Channel show about the billionaire inventor who created three robot child superheroes that ran from 2012-2016

3. The BBC show about a group of hapless scientists who work at the Arnolfini in St. Dunstan's University which ran from 2008-2008

This post is talking about the third one. First, I'll address the relatively inconspicuous elephant in the room. While I haven't directly mentioned the show before, it's been referenced in over 50 of my posts. But how haven't you noticed? 

Because I didn't use the name. All of the Lab Employees in Tangents: The Play About Something Else: The Game are named after the actors who portrayed the character they are loosely based on a badly-remembered version of, with the following exceptions:

Ben, who is named after a real person I knew a long time ago

Colin, who is named after the backronym Cognitive Organism Living In Neurosuspension

But why badly-remembered? Because although I started writing the game in 2020, I started writing the play it was based on in 2015 (and developed the concept from 2011), at which point I hadn't seen the show in over 8 years. Since then I've seen it again, because DVDs exist. I would put a link to buy the DVD here, but I can't in good conscience suggest it:

Instead, you can treat yourself to clips from YouTube (Warning: Contains a joke that has NOT aged well, although this is in no way the fault of the series (0:11-0:18)):

For more clips, click here

I can't tell you how much joy I have had over the years confusing people by quoting this clip. I'll come back to that in a bit.

Now, when it was released, Lab Rats was part of a dying breed - the multi-camera sitcom, AKA the studio audience sitcom. You may have noticed that nowadays virtually no new sitcoms have a laugh track, but Lab Rats was one of the last to try.

This is one of the reasons it was bashed by critics, and voted "Worst New British TV Sitcom" by British Comedy Guide, a title which I feel was wholly unearned, and I shall explain why.

I've mentioned before how silly concepts work best when they lean into their silliness, citations The A Minecraft Movie; The Super Mario Movie, Clue (second half only). The examples I just mentioned are ridiculous because they are based on existing properties, but Lab Rats is ridiculous because it functions like a live action cartoon. 

The science lab where they work is tasked only with jobs that are implausible in real life, such as cloning (You have seeeeeeeeeeventeen hours), weather control (Metal Vicky) and cryogenic freezing (the subject of the shortest ever missing persons enquiry).

I included three funny quotes in the above paragraph, but in all likelihood, you only laughed at a maximum of one of them. They don't work because of the lack of context. 

One episode leans into the cartoon theme so earnestly that they make continuous references to classic cartoons, including a scene with a giant magnet I won't ruin here and this clever interaction (for context, the Dean has just acquired a new intercom and loves the sound it makes, much to the frustration of her secretary): 

This brings me back to confusing people.

Whenever I quote the lemon calculator clip, it's usually because someone has just brought up solar power, so even though the context is technically incorrect (in the original, they are considering using solar power to save money), it still makes sense. I don't know about you but I can't relate to having glitter all over my body. When it comes to using solar power though, I can relate.

And my point is that even though no one gets the reference, everyone laughs. If you're coming to Lab Rats looking for high art, you'll be thoroughly disappointed. If you go in looking for a good laugh though, you'll leave thoroughly entertained.

No? Erm... Yes? Erm... Can I Phone a Friend?

But we're not done! Even though I said Lab Rats was silly (and it is), it actually uses that silliness in a very clever way. Every episode builds towards a single visual joke at the very end, made funnier by the thirty minutes of setup. My personal favourite of these is in A Seven-Nighter, which is set over three 10-minute periods just before three night shifts at a secret government lab. The episode straightaway introduces all the character's quirks for the episode:

• Cara wants to work the Spartacus machine (push the left peg in, pull the right peg out), despite obviously being way too short to do so
• Alex keeps getting static shocks from the furniture
• Brian is exhausted from walking down 15 flights of stairs
• The Professor has done seven-nighters before and is comparing the experience to a book he wrote (Chapter Four: Everyone Goes Mental)
• The Dean has come on a horse to make sure everything is not turning into a circus

All of these escalate more and more to combine in one climactic comic image.

Other standout moments include:

(Alex tosses a coin to settle a dispute. The coin doesn't come down)

Alex: Newton'll be rolling in his grave.

Dean: I have to go, I've left my horse on a double yellow line.

Alex: They're not going to clamp a horse.

Dean: He doesn't know that; he's a horse!