Main cast: Maurice LaMarche (The Narrator) and Alexia Dox (Protesting Hippie, Ohio Mom)
Directors: Victor Maldonaldo and Alfredo Torres
When the Yogurt Took Over is an episode that is meant to say deep things. Let’s see, this is a show on Netflix, it’s based off a story by John Scalzi… oh yes, it’s going to be all about communism socialism. Mind you, sci-fi has long been a platform for socialists and communists to write stories with their beliefs heavily ingrained in them. That I have no issue with at all.
I just find it to be an always cringe-causing exercise when Hollywood, the pinnacle of tumescent capitalism and self-serving hedonism, decides to lecture the common people about socialism and fixing the problems of the world with vague suggestions of how, somehow, if we would just do what they tell us to, things will magically fall into place.
So yes, in this one, some scientists perform an experiment on a strain of bacteria only to fail to get the desired results. For some brain-forsaken reason, one of them takes home a batch of the bacteria for consumption, only to learn the next day that the bacteria have become sentient and, even better, they have discovered the solution to all the ills in this world.
They want the POTUS to hand over Ohio to them, or they would take their secrets to China instead. The POTUS, who isn’t drawn to resemble a certain Orange Man, reluctantly agrees and the Great Lacto-marx-illus then hand over the solution in a brief (no idea who typed out the whole thing). Alas, politicians are dumb and don’t follow the instructions to a tee, so the rest of the world falls into ruin.
On the other hand, Ohio thrives under the totalitarian rule of the Great Lacto-marx-illus, and then one day they all fly off the space, leaving humanity lost and bereft without the guidance of benevolent authoritarianism.
The episode concludes that humanity will be absolutely lost without the guiding light of totalitarian socialists.
Sigh, I may take this episode more seriously if it would just poke fun at politicians or actually spell out some of the solutions laid out by the Great Lacto-marx-illus. No, it’s another “Do as we say, although we clearly have no idea what we are saying… oh, just tell us how smart we are, okay?” affair that doesn’t really do anything other than to give me a glimpse into the depths of the navels of everyone involved in this thing.
You know, switch out the bacteria with peanut butter, and this would be a Goosebumps thing… minus everything that usually makes a Goosebumps show entertaining.
