Main cast: Nathaniel Siegler (Randall), Tom Dinner (Geoff), Jamie Haydon-Dexter (Poindexter), Marvin Ishmael (Mr Alvarez), James Kee (Edison), Julie Lemieux (Mom), JJ Stocker (Iggy), and John Kassir (The Crypt Keeper)
Director: Rick Marshall

Nathaniel Siegler’s voice acting in Unpopular Mechanics is one of the worst I’ve come across in a while, and that’s saying something in an episode already rife with some of the most lifeless voice acting I’ve had the misfortune to encounter. The lead character Randall has zero emotion because Mr Siegler is voicing his lines out loud like he’s reading them for the first time. 

That’s awesome, as the lifeless “I took this gig because I really need a job” lines set back an otherwise well-paced and not-annoying episode. 

Yes, it sure seems like this season may be getting better, but it is also determined to make sure that I don’t succumb to its charms.

The plot is pretty silly, as usual. Randall is a kiddie inventor that takes joy in his creations causing all kinds of damage to other things in the vicinity. Naturally, this can’t be tolerated, so the moral guardians of this show send spooky ghosts of the toys he’d cheerfully demolish to haunt and bully him into conforming into a more acceptable code of conduct.

Therefore, the moral of the story is you shouldn’t gently advise or guide wayward kids. No, you terrorize them witless into submitting to you… or else.

Anyway, this could have been one of the better made episodes — at least from a technical viewpoint — had they manage to cough up a bit more money to hire voice actors that can actually do their job halfway competently. One step forward, two steps back.