Tonight on the Outer Rim With Yozveza is a late-night talk show set within the Star Wars universe, I believe just before Return of the Jedi. Our host, Yozveza (Anya Rzhevitskaya), is a mouthpiece for the Empire, and uses her talk show to promote the Empire’s latest products – Palpatine’s Coffee shows up more than once – talk to heroes and villains of the universe, and entertain us all.

Look, there’s going to be a lot of Star Wars detailing within this review. It’s unavoidable, much like it was in the show. I pity anyone who has wandered in for a late night Fringe fix and found themselves embraced by fandom, but fortunately, the majority of the audience seems to have a grasp on the Star Wars universe and the laughter flows freely.

A conspiratorial stormtrooper (Keegan Thomas), another stormtrooper venturing into standup (Sanjay Parbhu), a masochistic Jedi (Keegan Thomas), a suspicious chef with many arms and also books to plug (Jules Daniel and Sanjay Parbhu) and a Disney Executive desperate to tell the truth (Emma Wollum) all appear as guests on this often delirious, very frenetic show.

Despite our universes’ differences, some things are clearly still the same on talk shows, as Tonight on the Outer Rim is littered with cooking segments, advertisements and warnings for us to clap or we’ll be in trouble (it is an Empire talk show, after all) with Yozveza running the whole absurd thing with a firm hand.

The last fifteen or so minutes of the show devolve rather swiftly into some of the bluest comedy that I’ve seen this Fringe, which is a mean feat in itself, but not entirely to its benefit. You’re bringing out the guy, Darth Vader (Daniel John Smith), the guy of the franchise (and of this show’s Empire-ical canon) and all you’ve got is fifteen minutes of the lowest hanging fruit? It’s disappointing considering the rest of the show, which is a lot less self-indulgent and a lot more interesting to watch.

Tonight on the Outer Rim is, in the end, at its strongest when the characters have something to do. Stormtroopers plugging their books, a cooking section and the breaking of the fourth wall are all fabulous fun and it would be welcome if that same streamlining of form maintained itself for the entire show.  

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer