Main cast: Nick Mancuso (Mitchell), Helen Hughes (String Lady), Angelo Rizacos (Freak), Brenda Bazinet (Mary), and Page Fletcher (The Hitchhiker)
Director: Jerry Ciccoritti
Yes, I’m back with The Hitchhiker, but that’s because there is only one more season to go, so let’s just get it out of my system. After the hideous last season, there is probably no way to go but up…
What? Jeremy Lipp, who was behind the worst episodes of the previous season, is the creative director of this season?
Okay, deep breaths, deep breaths… okay, I’m ready.
Fading Away is about this fellow Mitchell, who wanders around a series of set pieces, making crazy eyes at everyone and everything when he’s not screaming about how he was on some secret mission, only to be betrayed and abandoned by his peeps. Are you his enemy? Are you? ARE YOU? Look into his wide, insane eyes and feel the tragedy of being stuck in a super low budget, none of the money going into the procurement of a decent script, deep in your bones. Look, and despair.
The entire episode is just people moving aimlessly on screen in what seems like four available set pieces, while poor Nick Mancuso embarrasses himself for what I hope is a good pay check with his overacting. The whole thing is an incoherent, barely watchable mess filmed under garish bright lights, and I can’t think of any redeeming value that this thing may have.
Oh wait, Page Fletcher is back to being thin now and he has also cut his hair, so maybe that’s a good thing? Years have passed, though, with him waving his buns on the show, and those years really show on his face. The poor dear, he is here from the rise to the fall of this show, and I can only hope he gets to buy some nice things from his salary.
The final season of The Hitchhiker, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s already a turd fest in the very beginning.