A tale of two popular comedy routines.
Episode 7, “Lagos Doctor”, begins with an already seated passenger, a well-dressed doctor who also plays a motivational role for FJ. During the trip, FJ complains about his financial challenges and how he wants more from his life. Dr. Charles/Silas (Morgan Nwamba), right from the way he speaks, sounds so suspicious which makes it hard to believe anything coming from the doctor’s mouth. In just a few years that he has lived in Lagos, he claims to have achieved a lot such as boasting hospital branches and personal housing properties in multiple Lagos locations. He tells FJ that a person only needs to be “smart and focused”.
Right from the moment the doctor goes deeper into the self-promotion and the sinister sound effects, I concluded that he was a herbalist or a person not up to any good. His self-promotion sounded like a recurring and well known comedy bit about modern herbalists calling themselves ‘doctors’, which has been performed by a number of IG comedians. For people familiar with such skits, it would be obvious that the man isn’t who he claims to be.
Luckily for the doctor, he leaves a bag (Ghana-must-go) behind in FJ’s car. After Dr. Charles/Silas promises to pay for the extra trip, FJ gets it back to him through thick and thin of Lagos traffic. In return, the doctor offers FJ a thousand naira, which leaves him disappointed. Asking for seven thousand naira, the doctor only adds 500 naira, which further annoys FJ and he decides to keep the large bag as collateral. Smart? I don’t think so, cos would he expect the man to pay for an additional to-and-fro once again? Plus the man doesn’t even fight much for his belonging like it’s something highly valuable. It should have told FJ something, but not until FJ wonders why the man hasn’t called back for his bag.
While in his car, FJ decides, “ohhh, I need to check the bag now” as a way to even know the content and evaluate the worth of the property in his care. He opens the bag only to find shrubs and plants which are the typical herbs ingredients for a native doctor and not a medical doctor, Oopsie!
FJ has lost once again.
FJ is good-hearted which sometimes makes him overexcited and overzealous with passengers because he wants more from his life which is quite clear. Once again, someone has to take care of Cynthia. But, FJ should be calming down sometimes na.
The reveal of the bag’s content ends the first comedy routine that most people should be familiar with and begins the second popular comedy routine.
Due to this disappointing revelation, he calls the doctor and as you guessed it, he is ready to accept the 1500 naira, and as you guessed it again, the native doctor is only ready to give him the original offer of 1000 naira.
Here, ends the second shorter comedy bit that is often injected with another joke to make a longer routine.
Together with the first routine, the brains behind the scenes expected it to be an elaborate and original hilarious idea. Yes, it’s elaborate and hilarious to some extent thanks to MC Lively’s performance and the close-ups doing justice to capture his facial mannerisms which I’ve praised before, but it lacks originality.
Overall, this makes it the shortest episode with just 6mins and 10secs.
Damn, we’ve just watched an elaborate Instagram skit!
These two routines have been overused and can never get any original. I don’t think anyone can reinvent it again. And for these two to be used again here, it shows serious problems of lack of ideas or fatigue. Whichever one is it, the future doesn’t look good for this web series in my books.
See you next episode!
Episode 7 was directed by Adekunle Bryan Oyetunde and written by Jacinta Amune.
Ratings: C
Side Musings
- At least this episode did not start with, “Hello ma” which happened for about three episodes.
- Is it a goof or a ‘doctor’ joke that FJ calls the passenger Dr. Charles during the episode, but he is actually credited as Dr. Silas at the end of the episode?
- For those that couldn’t figure out what the routines are: (1) a character overselling themselves as a doctor, only for viewers to find out that the person is a native doctor. (2) A character going back to plead for money that they rejected cos they thought they stood a bigger chance when they rejected the money, only for them to end up with something smaller than what was originally offered to them or nothing at all, depending on their luck. Now, it should be clear. So, we could say FJ was lucky lol.
- They could’ve just posted these episodes on their IG TV honestly. Why make it big by bringing it to YouTube only to serve IG-worthy stories. IG TV is still a thing, right?
- Again, our FJ hasn’t met Nigerian police yet and it makes me wonder. It even makes me miss Oga Titus once again. I want to believe that they’re in the same universe. Even if they have to recast Oga Titus, we’ll take it. At least, they won’t be able to use Officer Woos since he’s played a dispatch rider in the first episode. Or could officer Woos also be a multi-hyphenated gentleman (like our FJ), who’s a police and only a ride dispatcher when off-duty.
A new episode drops every Friday at 3pm on Ndani’s Youtube Channel. We publish a recap every Saturday.
