SNL UK parodies Hollywood disaster flicks, but on the Tube

With the meticulous framing and design the British iteration has adopted from its American forebear, the convincing-looking film trailer starts with a conductor poisoned by his boba, only for Meredith’s buttoned-down, Snake-playing passenger to answer the call of gruff Tube controller (and Saturday’s host) Danny Dyer. After all, tubes and tube-shaped video game avatars look pretty similar, so why not give it a bash?

From there, the film hits all the right buttons, even as Meredith emphatically cannot choose which of the only two actual control buttons (forward or reverse) to hit in order to save his fellow riders from fiery destruction. Tough guy Dyer can only grimace patiently as his unlikely new driver keeps hitting the door open button, reversing to pick up a trainload of additional confused passengers, and eventually screw up long enough for a pregnant rider to give birth. 

Along the way, there’s a genuinely hilarious bit of absurdity concerning the number of kids Meredith actually has waiting at home, and a payoff inspirational speech slightly hampered by the fact that no one, on any continent, has ever been able to understand the garbled nonsense emanating from a subway speaker.