In last night’s Agents of SHIELD on E4, poor lab tech Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) got zapped light years away to a barely habitable planet with nothing but a smartphone. She stayed put, expecting SHIELD to beam in and save her. But the episode’s title – 4722 Hours – hinted it might take a little longer than she hoped.
A lone science whizz stranded in an alien world, surviving through their own ingenuity? It was clearly a Stars in their Eyes version of Matt Damon’s The Martian. And it is by no means the first TV show to take inspiration from a movie. Here are the most blatant ripoffs:
Community do Goodfellas
In Dan Harmon’s cult meta-sitcom there is an avalanche of nods: from Apollo 13 and RoboCop to Apocalypse Now and even the arthouse classic, My Dinner With Andre. But its best movie allusion comes in the episode Contemporary American Poultry. “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be in a Mafia movie,” declares geeky Abed in Ray Liotta-style voiceover, as his study group muscles in on the campus cafeteria’s chicken finger racket. Soon they’re living the high life, but when the cracks start to show, there’s an ominous burst of Layla.
The X-Files do The Thing
Long before the X-Files became a movie in its own right, Mulder and Scully relived a horror classic. Dispatched to a snowed-in research station to investigate a mass-murder suicide, they discover a non-human parasite capable of taking over its host, creating a lethal atmosphere of paranoia. That creepy episode was called Ice, but could more accurately have been called That Thing You Do. In fact, it was so in thrall to John Carpenter’s tense 1982 horror, it even used the same production designer to create its claustrophobic facility.
The Goldbergs do Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Based on his experiences growing up in the 80s, Adam F Goldberg’s snappy sitcom is saturated with period-appropriate movies from The Goonies to Short Circuit. The third season, which started recently on E4, kicked off with the young cast headed to a Risky Business-themed party. But the most blatant rip-off was when eldest brother Barry Goldberg (Troy Gentile) announces his intention to relive Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And with the help of a leopardskin waistcoat and a ghoulish Charlie Sheen cameo, he does just that.
Psych do Friday The 13th
Even cultier than Community, this procedural send-up centred around Shawn Spencer, a fake psychic whose uncanny observational gifts made him a surprisingly effective detective. His insistence on seeing the world through the prism of pop culture spawned a series of goofy spoofs, but in the episode Tuesday the 17th the show managed to combine a winking parody of Friday the 13th’s sleepaway camp complete with some genuinely scary moments.
Spaced do One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Edgar Wright’s hyper-caffeinated style allows him to cram every scene with energy,, and he managed to squeeze two entire movie parodies into one episode of Spaced. Season two’s Mettle initially seems like a flashy mash-up of Fight Club and Robot Wars starring Tim, Mike and their rusty champion TFU. But at the same time, Daisy’s new minimum-wage job in Tex-Mex purgatory Neo-Nachos is playing out as an unsettling simulacrum of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Joanna Scanlan guest-stars as the Nurse Ratched-like manager Tina, presiding over a regime of sedated despair. The queasy muzak is spot on, and there’s even a silent cameo from Tim Sampson, the son of Will Sampson who played wily Chief Bromden in the original movie.
What’s your favourite movie tribute in TV? Let us know in the comments below.
