Cast: Niall Ashdown, Steve Frost, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and Clive Anderson

Questions Only: in a Scout camp; all four
The game starts off.......... We interrupt your regularly scheduled review to bring you this ringside coverage of tonight's main Questions Only bout set in a Boy Scout camp. Niall and Steve start the face off. Oh!! Niall attacks early with a savage blow... "Is that your woggle????" Steve is wavering; he's unable to return....... And referee Clive buzzes Steve out with a TKO..... In steps star fighter, Ryan.... Niall is looking strong and attacks early. But Ryan comes right back at him with a non-sequitor. Niall responds but a looking a little weaker. Another Ryan non-sequitor. Niall's in trouble fight fans but hanging on and delivers his third question. Ryan strikes back....... "Are you Johnny Miller???" Niall's staggering, looks confused, and drops out of the game unconscious. Ryan is looking hot tonight. In steps Ryan's next competitor. Colin looks confident, but Ryan's not buying his show. Ryan attacks first. A hard blow. But Colin doesn't even flinch!! Colin hits back with a hard right. But Ryan can take it. Now the questions are coming fast and furious.... back and forth..... each fighter giving his best. WAIT! Colin just delivered a staggering blow........ "What do you mean????" Ryan's stunned. No response. And Ryan is out! Back in with Steve now. Colin's a little softer now; he knows Steve isn't as strong. A little mercy from Colin maybe?? NO!!!! Colin's tripped up Steve who answered a question with a statement. And Steve is out. Back in comes Ryan.... ready to redeem himself from before. Colin throws the first punch. A mild one. But Ryan comes back hitting hard..... "Do you know you're on fire???" But Colin isn't even staggered!!! "Can't you put me out????" Ryan ripostes well. Colin attacks. "Did you want something???" But Ryan is ready for him. And starts a new plan of attack with accusing questions. Colin handles them well. Ryan hits back hard. "Don't you look guilty???" Ryan is sure that he's gotten Colin now. BUT WAIT!!!! Colin comes back with "Isn't my face the picture of innocence???" Oh my God! Ryan has been knocked clear out of the ring!!!! Ryan is stunned beyond belief!!!! He's dropping character!!! Looks back around at Steve with an expression of utter amazement and admiration!!! Turns back to Colin, smile growing wider. Appreciation for the fighter that is Colin, growing on his face!!!! Referee Clive finally buzzes in. What a game, fight fans! One for the record books. Two champs at the top of their form. Neither giving an inch. Each admiring the other's competition. Oh, to watch this game on replay is to know the joy of Questions Only!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, fight fans, that concludes our coverage of tonight's main bout. We now return you to our regularly scheduled review.

Film and Theater Styles: Colin discovers his goldfish are missing and suspects neighbor Ryan [styles: American sitcom, Addams family, X files, and runaway train]
A weird scene topic leading to an even weirder game. As soon as Clive finished, Ryan immediately went into action. While Colin was miming going to feed the fish and discovers they're missing, Ryan is standing slightly behind him with the goldfish IN HIS MOUTH!!! It was a fantastic mime; one of Ryan's most original I think. He sucked in his cheeks pulling them taught. Then he started pushing his tongue against his cheeks, darting it around in different spots so that it looked like the fish were flopping around inside his mouth and were hitting the sides of his mouth. It was very effective! Of course, Colin discovered the fish in Ryan's mouth. Along with Colin's cat (Ryan wasn't expecting that!). Along with something else.... but whatever it was, it wasn't Colin's (Ryan wasn't expecting that either). By the way, this all happened before we even got to the first style! The second style was my favorite. The Addams Family. Ryan immediately went into Lurch and started moaning. Colin: "See what happens when you eat goldfish?" Then Ryan did this trick with his hand. I'm not sure I can describe it. He reached underneath his coat hem and brought his arm up from inside his coat making it look like his hand was some separate creature. It was very effective. Finally, the scene ended on a runaway train. (Don't ask me how we got on the train. I dunno. I told you it was a weird game.) It was obvious that Ryan and Colin had run out of runaway train ideas, but Clive still hadn't buzzed in. So Ryan buzzed them out himself with one of his Sound Effects buzz sounds. Very funny.

Number of Words: Ryan = surgeon (1 word); Niall = assistant (3 words); Steve = nurse (5 words); Colin = patient (2 words)
For some strange reason, Ryan started the surgery before the patient Colin arrived. Which kinda indicates how out of synch this game got. I've liked the other Number of Words I've seen. But this one, wasn't. Wasn't what? Wasn't anything. Niall didn't do much. Steve kept having to stop and count his words. Ryan probably did best mostly because with only one word to speak, he mimed everything and didn't speak much. Did you know that Colin has four hearts??? I didn't, until Ryan kept pulling them out of Colin's chest. (Complete with Ryan-provided heartbeat sounds.) Perhaps the funniest bit was when after the surgery, Steve told Colin "That will be five hundred pounds." Which if you count the words is actually more than Steve's allotted five. Which is what all the players were doing while walking back to their chairs. Actually, they were kinda cute. Four adult men. Walking back and counting on their fingers. Awwww.........

Song Styles: Niall sings a love song
The cut game. While I would have liked to hear Niall sing again, since I don't normally rewatch Song Styles, I didn't mind Comedy Central cutting this game. For once, they got the editing right.

Props: Steve and Niall = fisherman's net; Ryan and Colin = big foam hourglass shape
Nothing bad; nothing spectacular that I can recall. Amusing, but not hysterical.

Film Dub: Ryan = chief of police dressing down members of the force; Steve = various members of the force
The real film was set in some sort of WWI Prussia war command headquarters. Why is it that Steve's accent always gets thicker during Film Dub? I can barely understand what he says. The sketch was just okay, I thought. But I've never been a fan of film dub anyway.

Mission Improbable: washing; Colin = voice on tape; Ryan, Steve, and Niall = spies
Mission Improbable is a game that doesn't work too well if the players aren't in synch. And the guys were NOT together on this one. Niall just stood there until the very end where he had a good response to Steve throwing soap in the air. (The soap attacked Niall and melted his face.) But Ryan and Steve were working at cross-purposes. Steve would go on and on about how to do something. Meanwhile Ryan was already doing it directly. This game works better when Ryan and Colin play. (And, no, that's not my Ryan and Colin bias showing. I really think this is a game that requires the players to be in synch. That's all.) Colin doesn't do as well on tape as either Greg or Steve. I don't think that long scene exposition is Colin's strong point. He tends to trip over his words too much. Oh, by the way, did anyone else feel that there was some bad edit cut in the middle of the scene???? There seemed to be a jump mid-way to me.

Party Quirks: Steve = host; Niall = on the dambusters raid; Colin = has 15 seconds to live; Ryan = having an orgasm
No, I don't know what the dambusters raid is either. But Steve did. So that's what counts, I guess. Colin came in and started counting off the seconds: 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3....... At 15, he collapsed on the floor; dead. Steve didn't have a clue. Then Clive buzzes in Ryan. Ryan comes in doing his best Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally" imitation. Ummmmmm....... in my office, we have an expression. TMI which means Too Much Information. Watching Ryan have that moment of personal pleasure, shall we say, was DEFINITELY TMI for me. Especially, since it was late at night and my husband was already asleep and I needed to get to sleep right after the show myself. I had some nice dreams, though. Steve managed to guess Ryan. Surprise, surprise. Of course, Colin is lying on the floor, dead, through all this. What do you do after you've died and your quirk hasn't been guessed???? Well, you pop up. Ask the host if he believes in reincarnation. And then die again. Steve never got it and Clive gave the answer. As Steve and Colin walk back to their chairs. You can hear Steve saying that it was the Mississippi that threw him. I guess the English don't use Mississippi to space out the seconds like us Colonists do.

Hoe-down: women; all four
Steve's Hoe-down was probably the best one he's ever given. He went to the zoo and was afraid of the spiders and the snakes. But what scared him most of all were those long-legged things called women. Niall did a strange one about a woman from Asia Minor. (I told you it was weird.) Colin's kinda trailed off at the end. I was a little disappointed because he's gotten so good at Hoe-downs. But it WAS funny. He went on about how he hated women because their leathery wings got tangled in his hair. And then he realized that he wasn't afraid of women; it was vampire bats that scared him. Ryan didn't mention anything about being scared of his woman. But since she was made of rubber; I guess she didn't frighten him too much.

Credits: Steve, Colin, and Ryan = men in a urinal
Given the topic, the guys weren't as crude as they could have been. But they weren't funny either. Except for Ryan who rather disgustingly started chewing the gum he found on the wall.

Best Game:
Questions Only. Had you guessed that would be my choice? I can't imagine Questions Only ever disappointing me since I love the game so much. But this playing is one of my top favorites. Great stuff.

Overall comment:
The show itself started off really well, but with every game, it slipped more and more. If it were possible, I'd recommend watching it backwards so that you end with Film and Theater Styles and Questions Only rather than begin with them.

© LKK 09/18/00