Boris' Kitchen ended its semester this Saturday in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater with "Boris' Kitchen in the Basement of Some Guy's Van," a collection of the group's sketch comedy routines for the semester. While the show started off slow, it picked up in the second act with more energy and better skits.

Act I started with a moderate amount of energy with the sketch "Chilly," written by Jason Kasman '16. The strong points of this sketch were not involved with the actual plot, but the use of physical comedy. Boris' Kitchen members popped out of nowhere and yelled "murder" at the family in the sketch, which was wrongly accused, or just screamed for the sake of random interruption. This opening solicited a decent amount of laughter from the audience and was followed by the opening credits video, featuring each cast member dressed in silly costumes, like Christopher Knight '14, who came onto the screen on a scooter as "Braveheart," complete with a kilt and wig.

After this amusing opening, the rest of the sketches in the first act were more disappointing. They all started off with a lot of potential that wasn't fully utilized. "Industrial Complex," written by Ben Setel '13, featured workers trapped in an "emotions factory," which only had a certain amount of emotions available for use. The workers were in quarantine, and could only use emotions like anger, embarrassment and intense sexual desire, or else they would die. I feel a lot more could have been done with this concept than the darker direction in which it went.

Other sketches like "Impressions" also fell flat. In this sketch, two guys try to impress two girls in a bar, with one obnoxious guy encouraging his friend to do impressions that are obviously bad. His friend, played by Knight, is in hysterics over these bad impressions, and he is the only one in the room laughing. The funnier moments of this sketch came more so from the stereotypical party-girl persona the girls in the bar portrayed at the beginning than in the actual impressions aspect itself, so again, this sketch seemed like it had a lot more potential at the start and failed to meet those expectations.

The more notable sketches came toward the end of the act, with the best one closing it. "Pretzels," written by Peter Charland '14, was about two boys who are learning how to catch pretzels in their mouths from a master of this "art." As "Sensei Snyder" yells at them instructions on how to do this, he constantly pelts the boys with pretzels. Throughout the skit, he throws an entire bag of pretzels onto the stage, mounting laughter from the audience.

The second act continues in this livelier, funnier vein, beginning with a newscast done by Yoni Bronstein '13 and Setel. The Saturday Night Live "Weekend Update" style news segment brought a lot of laughs as they poked fun at recent events in the world. The projector screen remained down for the next three segments following this sketch, playing some short videos that were some of the best sketches of the show. "Food," written by Charland, poked fun at unreasonably picky eaters. It ends with three friends at lunch that can no longer talk because of their different preferences and is highly relatable to anyone who's met anyone complaining about food at Brandeis.

The other standout video was "Stan Van," a mockumentary-style short about a student named Stan who made his own van service because of his dissatisfaction with the BranVan. The video succeeded because it included the character of Stan, who, like Michael Scott in The Office, is oblivious to his comedic value, coupled with jabs at the BranVan. The three funnier videos would have been better served staggered throughout the show instead of being shown all at once, but the slowness of the projector being raised even once showed why this couldn't be done.

The first sketch back after the videos continued in the high-energy spirit of the second act. A man selling Milk Duds in the audience interrupted the fake sketch and resulted in members of Boris' Kitchen and the Milk Dud seller walking through the seats, grasping at the candy and throwing it to members of the audience. However, this, and the rest of the opening of Act II, would have been better served placed at the beginning of the show to set the mood for the entire night.

The rest of the actual sketches of the night each contain funny moments, but my favorite had to be "Bad Kids," written by Bronstein. Bronstein himself wore a ridiculous wig as part of his costume, and the rest also dressed up like "bad kids." The catch with these bad kids, though, was that they were "bad kids-who do well in school." This stereotype reversal played out well in the sketch because it was a successful combination of social commentary and a good idea carried to fruition.

Boris' Kitchen started off slow in its semester show and the group fell flat in some sketches but was able to pick up momentum in the second act to make up for it. Overall, I think some of the sketches could have been cut or rearranged, but the show was not without laughs.