Weird Science (TV series)



A 1990s television series based on the 1985 movie of the same name. Hollywood Nerds Gary and Wyatt, unable to hook up with real girls, use a computer to "create" the perfect woman: Magical Girl Lisa, whose powers initiate wacky adventures.

The series changed settings from Illinois (in the original film) to California. Probably for budgetary reasons, but they could have at least pretended it was still Illinois.

Tropes exhibited by this series include:

 * Be Careful What You Wish For: One episode revolves around the guys being given a brand new computer game by Lisa; they then blow her off completely to play the game but are disappointed that the game turns out to be too short. When they complain to Lisa -- well, she's so miffed at being ignored, she brings the video game villain to life. See also Turned Against Their Masters.
 * Come on, it's basically the description of EVERY! DAMN! EPISODE!
 * Or the entire series. Except for the Noir Episode. And maybe the stuff with aliens.
 * Break the Haughty: In season four, Chett ends up convincing Lisa to make him a successful male stripper. Everything goes great until his female fanbase begins to stalk him, his female boss forces him to have sex with her to keep his job, and finds his attempts to become a "legitimate" dancer squashed by sexist talent agents who see him as a glorified whore.
 * Butt Monkey: Both male leads but especially Gary. Wyatt usually at least managed to keep some dignity even when kicked by another wish gone wrong. Chett probably qualifies too, though he (mostly) deserves it.
 * Comically Missing the Point: When Gary and Wyatt sneak onto a talk show (see below) and reveal they have a genie, Chett, Principal Scampi and a Jerk Jock at school feel "that explains a lot." Gary's father, however, asks, "Where'd Gary get the money for a sex change operation?"
 * Continuity Nod: The boys sneak onto the the set of a talk show and appear as guests. The topic of the day? "Men who turned into women who turned into men again." See Gender Bender below.
 * "What Genie?" sees Wyatt and Gary going over the former's journal - referencing several past episodes.
 * Expy: The FBI characters in "Fly Boys" are patterened after Mulder, Scully and the Cigarette-Smoking Man.
 * Gender Bender: In one episode, Lisa (annoyed at the boys' sexism) gets her own back by turning the boys into girls. And nobody could forget the episode where an underage online thief steals Lisa's image, replacing it with Abe Vigoda. (Yes, TV's Fish.).
 * In Quantum Wyatt, Gary jumps into a phone-sex operator at the end. And in the Pilot, Gary (thinking that Lisa had left forever) told Wyatt that he wouldn't be happy unless Wyatt was a "killer babe." Cue Wyatt turning into a gorgeous blonde. And then cue credits before anything interesting happens.
 * In "Bee in There", Wyatt asks Lisa to not only send himself and Gary back in time to 1987 but to leap them into their fathers a la Quantum Leap so they can teach their younger selves show to throw a baseball. Gary, however, leaps into his mother. This leads his dad and Wyatt's mother to believe that their spouses are having an affair.
 * Grand Finale: "WS4." Aliens invade, Gary is killed by said aliens but then resurrected; Chet and Scampi have a Luke, I Am Your Father moment.
 * Halloween Episode: Wyatt and Gary throw a Halloween party, as Lisa is possessed by an Internet virus/demon.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: Gary and Wyatt are almost always together, yet are always after girls.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Tobias Beecher plays Chet!
 * Jackass Genie: Not Lisa (usually), but her powers seem to do this to her as well without her wanting it by making wishes come true with unnecessary caveats and in ways that cause all kinds of trouble/plot. As one of the guys once puts it, "Your magic sucks."
 * Gene the Genie, played by Bruce Campbell.
 * Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Chett. While generally a Jerkass to Wyatt and Gary and often brazenly hitting on Lisa, Chett would demonstrate genuine concern and affection for Lisa. He also showed genuine care for a pet dog he had for an episode.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: It was years before and years since a DVD release of Seasons 1 and 2 came out. The series also hasn't aired on American television in a decade. The series is, however, available on Hulu.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Lisa
 * Her Catwoman outfit in "A Tale of Two Lisas" is probably the best example of that. Oh, my.
 * The Other Darrin: Wyatt's Mom and Dad.
 * Parental Abandonment: Wyatt and Chett's parents are usually always away on business, leaving them the run of the house.
 * Parental Bonus: During the Whole-Plot Reference to The Twilight Zone, Gary has a moment that parodies the famous climax to the first Planet of the Apes movie. Seems like a simple unrelated-Shout-Out, but as the writers knew, TZ creator Rod Serling wrote a draft of the movie's script and originated said climax.
 * Planet of Steves: Quite literally, recurring characters from an alien race all named Steve who wanted Lisa as their new queen.
 * Plot-Driven Breakdown: Lisa's powers would sometimes fail her at key moments (like during the Grand Finale).
 * Real Life Relative: Gary's mother is played by Joyce Bulifant, John Mallory Asher's actual mother.
 * Recycled: The Series
 * Screwed By the Network: USA never aired the last six episodes. Instead, they aired a year later on special airings on the Sci-Fi Channel.
 * Secret Keeper: Chett (begrudgingly) becomes this after repeated memory wipes give him an immunity.
 * Shout-Out: The first episode acknowledges I Dreamof Jeannie and John Hughes.
 * "Bikini Camp Slasher" parodies the slasher/horror genres - throwing out references to The Exorcist, Evil Dead II, Halloween, Silent Night Deadly Night, Friday the 13 th, Poltergeist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead. (By the way, the episode premiered a good year before Scream came out. Eerie.)
 * The plots of both "Quantum Wyatt" and "Bee In There" are parodies of Quantum Leap and it is mentioned in the latter. For you trivia buffs, Michael Manasseri (Wyatt) appeared in the Quantum Leap episode "Return of the Evil Leaper".
 * Status Quo Is God: Taken to the extreme. In several episodes, one of the guys actually got a girlfriend. But since this would've left the writers without an objective to drive future plots, she would quietly disappear between episodes.
 * A more in-universe example: Lisa's magic eventually wears off, resetting things back to normal no matter how out of control the wishes make things.
 * Averted in "Master Chett," with the revelation that Chett had been mindwiped so many times by Lisa, that he had become immune to her ability to erase/alter memories. This leads to him becoming part of the group and participating in various adventures.
 * Turned Against Their Masters: After Lisa brings a video game villain to life, it promptly kidnaps her; Gary and Wyatt must fight for her release.
 * Lisa herself fits this at times. In several episodes (such as the above example), she purposefully misinterprets the boys' wishes to teach them a lesson.
 * Weird Science
 * What Happened to The Mouse?: Some episodes ended with Wyatt or Gary actually getting/impressing girls, only for them to be single the very next episode.
 * Who Writes This Crap?: In season three, episode nine, Lisa is genie-napped and the boys lose all memory of her. Wyatt, reviewing past entries of his journal, finds references to her. He lists the plots of a few past episode to Gary and exclaims: "Who could come up with this stuff?" Gary remarks: "Oh, please, a 4-year-old could come up with this stuff."
 * Whole-Plot Reference: Several episodes take the premise of existing shows. In "Sci-Fi Zoned," when the boys were fighting, Lisa zaps them into a world based on their favorite show, The Sci-Fi Zone. Another episode, "Quantum Wyatt," helps Wyatt figure out possible careers by spoofing Quantum Leap.
 * It's a Wonderful Life... Without You