So I did my best to sleep at home, but that didn't work out so well. I got some sleep, but I missed my wife and son. So the next morning it was back to the hospital nice and early.
When I got there, Natasha was up but still in bed. We were both kind of groggy but I was ready for a day of getting to know my son better.
Having been through an abdominal surgery similar to a C-section's (according to my doctor when I had my aneurysm), I was worried about Tash pushing herself too hard during the day...but she got up and showered and dressed and readied herself for visitors and a day with Malcolm. She looked great for someone who had just been cut open, but she was happy (and while I knew she was pushing herself and it would catch up with her, I kept a bit quiet).
The nurses brought in Malcolm and we spent some quality family time together. I did notice that he looked a bit yellow, but Tash felt it was just the lighting. We had many visitors over the course of the day and it wore all of us out. By night time, the nurse even noticed he looked a bit yellow and mentioned it to the doctors. Yes, it turned out he was a bit jaundiced, but we both knew that this was a common and easily fixable problem (we had seen other family members and friends deal with the issue). So the next few days, he stayed in the nursery except for feeding times (and we now had to supplement his feeding with a bit of formula administered by syringe).
All this time, all I wanted was to bring my wife and son home so we could get started on our new life together. When that day finally came on Friday, we couldn't get discharged fast enough.
The first weekend at home was just plain bizarre. It was great having Natasha's family with us because they were really helpful. Particularly when it came to breast feeding. While Malcolm had no real issues latching on while in the hospital, once we got him home it was a different story. My wife's breasts became engorged and for the little guy it was like trying to latch onto a bowling ball. The farce that ensued to alleviate the problem was just too funny for words (my wife sitting in bed with my sister-in-law standing over her changing out hot compresses on her breasts every minute for twenty minutes, while my niece is slung on my sister-in-law's back, with myself holding Malcolm with my pinky in his mouth to suck on, all the while my mother-in-law is watching and my brother-in-law and nephew are just outside the door trying to avoid years of therapy even thinking about what's going on inside...you had to be there).
Monday brought a bris and about 70 people to fill our house. Thankfully, the majority of the renovation work that would be used by our guests was done and ready to be used by people. The bris itself was crazy and uneventful according to most people and that Malcolm was very calm during the procedure/ceremony. Of course, most people weren't present in Malcolm's room prior to the start of the ceremony to hear his screaming while the mohel did all the "prep" work...what he did downstairs in front of everyone was mostly for show...I'm surprised Tash & I got through that part in one piece...by the time everything was over, Malcolm had no problem's latching on regardless of engorgement (I guess trauma will do that to you).
By Tuesday, it was just Tash, myself and Malcolm left to deal with each other, a house that still isn't quite finished and an ever growing pile of "Thank You" notes to find the energy to deal with.
Be seeing you.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Malcolm's Birth: A Daddy's Thoughts
So the big day had finally arrived...and nothing actually happened.
We had scheduled an inducement four days earlier than Natasha's due date (June 19) for a variety of reasons (her Doctor was going on vacation, back pain, family arrivals) and we assumed that we'd be coming home with a baby...but no one told us that the inducement may not work. It didn't. Tash had a stubborn cervix...or maybe Malcolm just wasn't ready to come out...so we decided we'd just leave it all be and go home (our other options were a second attempt which probably wouldn't have done anything either or a C-section) and wait it out...
So nothing happened while Tash's doctor was away on vacation. We were scheduled for a second inducement for when the doctor returned which would be a week past the due date...so since nothing happened, we went in on Sunday June 26 to try again...and we were told that we would not be going home pregnant.
Tash was made comfortable (the labor rooms at Stamford Hospital are almost like hotel rooms) and given a dose of Cervadil to get her cervix to dilate and efface. By morning she was 1 cm and 50% effaced. Then they started her on Pitosin to get her contractions going. From 9 am until about 1 pm I watched my wife go from being relatively normal to being in excruciating pain.
All I was able to do was be with her and talk to her and make sure she was "distracted" (whatever that means) and not sound like a cliche or a Bill Cosby comedy routine waiting to be slapped silly. The last two hours were the worst, but Tash pulled through. Once she was 100% effaced and 3cm they gave her an epidural.
With all the advances in medicine, I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to ease the pain if possible...and I certainly don't understand why they don't start this sooner than they did...it was amazing watching the montior register her contractions and have my wife smiling as if nothing was happening.
And then we discovered that Malcolm was just not moving down the canal. He couldn't fit or wouldn't move...so the doctor decided her needed to be taken out via C-Section. While Tash was fine with this and I had come to grips with the possibility during the extra week of waiting, all of my nightmares from the last nine months were starting to boil in my head.
You see, aside from a minor cold and ear infection that Tash had problems getting rid of, this was a pretty boring pregnancy...of course, that's a good thing, but as someone who's been dealt a few tragedies in life and survived, I'm always on the lookout for the other shoe to drop...life doesn't grant you that much ease without something coming round the bend to knock you off your feet...and now that I'm extremely happy, there's that part of me that thinks something bad's gonna happen at some point to rebalance the scales...so my nightmares since the start of the pregnancy have all centered around me being alone at the end of it (of course these were all alternated with odd dreams of Malcolm coming out talking full sentances and my having to prevent the government from taking him for experiments...yes I've seen too many movies)...
So when we made the decision to have the C-Section I was extremely worried...sure...it's a relatively "routine" procedure and there was no emergency situation to make the doctor have to rush through it...but it's still major surgery...and as someone who's had their abdomen cut open, I knew what Tash was in for by way of recovery...
Being in the opreating room was weird for me. I sat on a stool near Tash's head...and that was all I saw as everything else was screened off from the two of us. I had my digital still camera to capture the family once we were given Malcolm but had second thoughts about taking a picture of my wife in such an odd condition. I'd be holding the baby while she's on display from the arm pits up??? That's not a fun sight, but we decided to do it anyway (it's not a bad picture...just an odd one...I don't wuite understand the reasons some people videotape births...I can't imagine watching one on DVD at a later date...especially after Tash, who agreed with me about not taping it, had forced me to watch nine months of episodes of "A Baby Story" on TLC.
We got something of a play by play from the doctor and the anasthesiologist as to what was happening and we were told that it may be a minute or two after the baby was out before we heard him...but soon enough (about 20 minutes in) we heard him and a few minutes later I was holding my son for the first time.
I've always been afraid of handling small things. I'm a big guy and I'm clumsy and here I am now holding this tiny little thing who seems just as unsure of his surroundings as I am. I held him close for Natasha to see. We took a few pictures and then the nurse took him and me from the OR and we went upstairs. On the way we picked up both grandmothers and one grandfather who had been patiently waiting in the labor room and we all went up to the maternity ward while Natasha was being put back together.
As we stood outside the nursery window watching the nurses take Malcolm out of the incubator they had put him in to transport, he grabbed on to lip of the opening and wouldn't let go. And he started crying. The nurse had to pry his fingers away...it was a very surreal, funny and sad sight. We watched them clean him up more and give him a battery of tests. I left my mother-in-law (henceforth known as Ba Ba) to keep an eye on him while my parents and I went to get all our stuff we had left in the labor room (plus I desperately wanted to change out of the scrubs I was wearing...they were a size too small for me and breathing through the mask kept fogging up my glasses).
By the time everything was moved upstairs, Natasha had been moved to recovery...so I checked on her. She was sleepy, but doing just fine. I spent an hour or two checking on my wife and son (separated by a few floors). Once they finally moved her into a room, they brought Malcolm into us and she fed him...apparently he's a breast man just like his dad. We spent about an hour with a few family visitors and then I left my wife and son for the night to get a good night's sleep at home (at least we all thought I'd get a better night's sleep at home than I would have at the hospital)...
Tomorrow...Malcolm's first full day in the world.
Be seeing you.
We had scheduled an inducement four days earlier than Natasha's due date (June 19) for a variety of reasons (her Doctor was going on vacation, back pain, family arrivals) and we assumed that we'd be coming home with a baby...but no one told us that the inducement may not work. It didn't. Tash had a stubborn cervix...or maybe Malcolm just wasn't ready to come out...so we decided we'd just leave it all be and go home (our other options were a second attempt which probably wouldn't have done anything either or a C-section) and wait it out...
So nothing happened while Tash's doctor was away on vacation. We were scheduled for a second inducement for when the doctor returned which would be a week past the due date...so since nothing happened, we went in on Sunday June 26 to try again...and we were told that we would not be going home pregnant.
Tash was made comfortable (the labor rooms at Stamford Hospital are almost like hotel rooms) and given a dose of Cervadil to get her cervix to dilate and efface. By morning she was 1 cm and 50% effaced. Then they started her on Pitosin to get her contractions going. From 9 am until about 1 pm I watched my wife go from being relatively normal to being in excruciating pain.
All I was able to do was be with her and talk to her and make sure she was "distracted" (whatever that means) and not sound like a cliche or a Bill Cosby comedy routine waiting to be slapped silly. The last two hours were the worst, but Tash pulled through. Once she was 100% effaced and 3cm they gave her an epidural.
With all the advances in medicine, I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to ease the pain if possible...and I certainly don't understand why they don't start this sooner than they did...it was amazing watching the montior register her contractions and have my wife smiling as if nothing was happening.
And then we discovered that Malcolm was just not moving down the canal. He couldn't fit or wouldn't move...so the doctor decided her needed to be taken out via C-Section. While Tash was fine with this and I had come to grips with the possibility during the extra week of waiting, all of my nightmares from the last nine months were starting to boil in my head.
You see, aside from a minor cold and ear infection that Tash had problems getting rid of, this was a pretty boring pregnancy...of course, that's a good thing, but as someone who's been dealt a few tragedies in life and survived, I'm always on the lookout for the other shoe to drop...life doesn't grant you that much ease without something coming round the bend to knock you off your feet...and now that I'm extremely happy, there's that part of me that thinks something bad's gonna happen at some point to rebalance the scales...so my nightmares since the start of the pregnancy have all centered around me being alone at the end of it (of course these were all alternated with odd dreams of Malcolm coming out talking full sentances and my having to prevent the government from taking him for experiments...yes I've seen too many movies)...
So when we made the decision to have the C-Section I was extremely worried...sure...it's a relatively "routine" procedure and there was no emergency situation to make the doctor have to rush through it...but it's still major surgery...and as someone who's had their abdomen cut open, I knew what Tash was in for by way of recovery...
Being in the opreating room was weird for me. I sat on a stool near Tash's head...and that was all I saw as everything else was screened off from the two of us. I had my digital still camera to capture the family once we were given Malcolm but had second thoughts about taking a picture of my wife in such an odd condition. I'd be holding the baby while she's on display from the arm pits up??? That's not a fun sight, but we decided to do it anyway (it's not a bad picture...just an odd one...I don't wuite understand the reasons some people videotape births...I can't imagine watching one on DVD at a later date...especially after Tash, who agreed with me about not taping it, had forced me to watch nine months of episodes of "A Baby Story" on TLC.
We got something of a play by play from the doctor and the anasthesiologist as to what was happening and we were told that it may be a minute or two after the baby was out before we heard him...but soon enough (about 20 minutes in) we heard him and a few minutes later I was holding my son for the first time.
I've always been afraid of handling small things. I'm a big guy and I'm clumsy and here I am now holding this tiny little thing who seems just as unsure of his surroundings as I am. I held him close for Natasha to see. We took a few pictures and then the nurse took him and me from the OR and we went upstairs. On the way we picked up both grandmothers and one grandfather who had been patiently waiting in the labor room and we all went up to the maternity ward while Natasha was being put back together.
As we stood outside the nursery window watching the nurses take Malcolm out of the incubator they had put him in to transport, he grabbed on to lip of the opening and wouldn't let go. And he started crying. The nurse had to pry his fingers away...it was a very surreal, funny and sad sight. We watched them clean him up more and give him a battery of tests. I left my mother-in-law (henceforth known as Ba Ba) to keep an eye on him while my parents and I went to get all our stuff we had left in the labor room (plus I desperately wanted to change out of the scrubs I was wearing...they were a size too small for me and breathing through the mask kept fogging up my glasses).
By the time everything was moved upstairs, Natasha had been moved to recovery...so I checked on her. She was sleepy, but doing just fine. I spent an hour or two checking on my wife and son (separated by a few floors). Once they finally moved her into a room, they brought Malcolm into us and she fed him...apparently he's a breast man just like his dad. We spent about an hour with a few family visitors and then I left my wife and son for the night to get a good night's sleep at home (at least we all thought I'd get a better night's sleep at home than I would have at the hospital)...
Tomorrow...Malcolm's first full day in the world.
Be seeing you.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Begins Again
I was originally hoping to write a big long piece about Batman Begins by incorporating my thoughts on various incarnations of the character in various media outlets...
But with everything being as crazy as it is, I'm lucky I actually got to see the film at all...so you'll get a somewhat truncated piece.
DC Comics has been having a tough time for almost a decade in bringing (or bringing back) their characters to the silver screen. After director Joel Schmacher and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman put a nail in Batman's coffin with 1997's ridiculous campfest Batman & Robin, we've gotten pretty much nothing on the big screen from the company (aside from Catwoman and Constantine...but I'll get to those in a moment). Even a slew of potential directors and writers such as Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, J.J. Abrams and Brett Ratner couldn't get the man of steel to fly again.
While the comic books kept churning out decent stories and TV kept things moving nicely (with various animated shows like Teen Titans or Justice League and the small screen hit Smallville), we got a decent adaptation of a cult book (Hellblazer became Constantine) and a feeble attempt at connecting something to the Batman mythos that smelled mostly of warmed over kitty litter and a quick grab for cash (yes...Catwoman was very wrong-headed...yet in an interesting, car crash kind of way).
But finally we get what is not only the best Batman to hit the big screen, but what could easily replace the first Superman as the best comic book based movie ever. It's also the best movie so far this year (which isn't saying much) and could even be one of the best films of the decade so far which is saying a lot).
I never thought that showing what I consider to be "the boring years" of Bruce Wayne's life (the period between the death of his parents and his first appearance as Batman) where he trains to become the hero he is would be exciting...but director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer have constructed a well thought out and highly exciting story that really gets under the masks of both Bruce Wayne and Batman...and they manage the right balance of hero to villain (or villains) that the previous films (which had their ups and downs) couldn't find.
You all know the basic story of bruce Wayne watching his parents murdered and yadda yadda yadda he eventually dons a bat suit and fights crime...but here we get a much deeper examination of the hows and whys he comes to be. And it all involves a well blended melange of comic book based characters, events and situations from the past 60+ years of Batman comic stories. Everyone has a moment and with maybe two exceptions has a basis in the lore that's been built up on the printed page.
We get a plethora of villains each with different agendas and amounts of screentime, but none feels under used or over exposed. From mob boss Carmine Falcone, to Ra's Al Ghul, to the Scarecrow, to corrupt cop Flass, to crooked businessman William Earl everyone serves a purpose and no one misses a beat.
One the side of good, we get everyone we expect...Batman, Bruce Wayne, Alfred, Jim Gordon, Lucious Fox and newcomer D.A. Rachel Dawes (who could be the film's one weak link...but she's nowhere near the weak link of Vicki Vale in Tim Burton's 1989 film and any "annoyances" of her characters will be quickly forgotten and forgiven).
Everything about this film is top notch. The acting, the writing, the camera work (well...most of it...some early fight scenes are a bit too tight and hard to follow because of the camera and editing). Even the msuic is great as I was afarid I'd really miss Danny Elfman's operatically dark score, but this one works well (there were times I expected the score to segue into it). Any CGI that was used is not at all distracting. Unlike the planetscapes in Star Wars which look cool, but fake, Gotham City looks alive and real in every shot (even the ones that are obviously models...which was nice to see again in addition to some CGI).
The film effortlessly moves through its two hour and twenty one minute running time and will keep you on the edge of your seat. By the end, which leaves a good number of unknown Arkham Asylum escapees running loose, you'll be wanting more. Let's hope they get to it sooner rather than later.
And let's hope that next summer's new Superman movie continues the trend of putting DC Comics back on the good side of the silver screen where it belongs (but this one's gonna be hard to top).
That's all for now.
Be seeing you.
But with everything being as crazy as it is, I'm lucky I actually got to see the film at all...so you'll get a somewhat truncated piece.
DC Comics has been having a tough time for almost a decade in bringing (or bringing back) their characters to the silver screen. After director Joel Schmacher and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman put a nail in Batman's coffin with 1997's ridiculous campfest Batman & Robin, we've gotten pretty much nothing on the big screen from the company (aside from Catwoman and Constantine...but I'll get to those in a moment). Even a slew of potential directors and writers such as Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, J.J. Abrams and Brett Ratner couldn't get the man of steel to fly again.
While the comic books kept churning out decent stories and TV kept things moving nicely (with various animated shows like Teen Titans or Justice League and the small screen hit Smallville), we got a decent adaptation of a cult book (Hellblazer became Constantine) and a feeble attempt at connecting something to the Batman mythos that smelled mostly of warmed over kitty litter and a quick grab for cash (yes...Catwoman was very wrong-headed...yet in an interesting, car crash kind of way).
But finally we get what is not only the best Batman to hit the big screen, but what could easily replace the first Superman as the best comic book based movie ever. It's also the best movie so far this year (which isn't saying much) and could even be one of the best films of the decade so far which is saying a lot).
I never thought that showing what I consider to be "the boring years" of Bruce Wayne's life (the period between the death of his parents and his first appearance as Batman) where he trains to become the hero he is would be exciting...but director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer have constructed a well thought out and highly exciting story that really gets under the masks of both Bruce Wayne and Batman...and they manage the right balance of hero to villain (or villains) that the previous films (which had their ups and downs) couldn't find.
You all know the basic story of bruce Wayne watching his parents murdered and yadda yadda yadda he eventually dons a bat suit and fights crime...but here we get a much deeper examination of the hows and whys he comes to be. And it all involves a well blended melange of comic book based characters, events and situations from the past 60+ years of Batman comic stories. Everyone has a moment and with maybe two exceptions has a basis in the lore that's been built up on the printed page.
We get a plethora of villains each with different agendas and amounts of screentime, but none feels under used or over exposed. From mob boss Carmine Falcone, to Ra's Al Ghul, to the Scarecrow, to corrupt cop Flass, to crooked businessman William Earl everyone serves a purpose and no one misses a beat.
One the side of good, we get everyone we expect...Batman, Bruce Wayne, Alfred, Jim Gordon, Lucious Fox and newcomer D.A. Rachel Dawes (who could be the film's one weak link...but she's nowhere near the weak link of Vicki Vale in Tim Burton's 1989 film and any "annoyances" of her characters will be quickly forgotten and forgiven).
Everything about this film is top notch. The acting, the writing, the camera work (well...most of it...some early fight scenes are a bit too tight and hard to follow because of the camera and editing). Even the msuic is great as I was afarid I'd really miss Danny Elfman's operatically dark score, but this one works well (there were times I expected the score to segue into it). Any CGI that was used is not at all distracting. Unlike the planetscapes in Star Wars which look cool, but fake, Gotham City looks alive and real in every shot (even the ones that are obviously models...which was nice to see again in addition to some CGI).
The film effortlessly moves through its two hour and twenty one minute running time and will keep you on the edge of your seat. By the end, which leaves a good number of unknown Arkham Asylum escapees running loose, you'll be wanting more. Let's hope they get to it sooner rather than later.
And let's hope that next summer's new Superman movie continues the trend of putting DC Comics back on the good side of the silver screen where it belongs (but this one's gonna be hard to top).
That's all for now.
Be seeing you.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Some Light Reading While We Wait...
With my in-laws scheduled to arrive sometime tomorrow and my brother-in-law and his family due a week from today and the baby due...well...whenever he damn well feels like it (though we are thinking potential inducement two days early to solve a number of problems...Tash's doctor will still be here, her whole family will have arrived and we'll have seen Batman Begins...so everyone'll be happy), I figured today I'd catch up on a few things I've been holding back for a while...mostly about comic books (so those of you with no interest -- which means most of you -- can skip around and come back another day).
When I was in my comic book reading hey day (and I know some of you out there are going "wasn't that yesetrday") back in high school...I was mostly a DC Comics fan. Sure there were a few heroes I loved over at Marvel (Captain America & Doctor Strange) and I was reading a lot of Marvel Comics (almost everything except for the X-Men books and the Spider-Man books), I read EVERYTHING that DC published and I do mean EVERYTHING (except Legion of Super-Heroes).
In the mid80s, comics were fun and nowhere was that sense of fun more prevalent than DC. In the middle of their gigantic company changing crossover known as Crisis On Infinite Earths we still had time to smile and relax with goofy heroes like Blue Devil, Blue Beetle and Ambush Bug. Heck, even Batman had a sense of humor and a goofy side-kick to boot.
After the Crisis was over and the entire DC Universe restarted from the beginning of time things got a bit darker...for some characters...but stayed relatively cheery for others. And it's pretty much been that way up until August of 2004. Last summer, DC published a new crisis story...one called Identity Crisis and the DC Universe hasn't been the same since...it's gotten much much darker...and there's another crisis on the horizon...and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Normally I wait for the trade paperbacks to colect stories like Identity Crisis but I was watching each issue get reprinted 4 or 5 times over an eight month period and finally on a day when I needed instant gratification broke down and bought the 7 issue series (well...some of it...the last round of reprints were done at a rate of 2 issues per week...so it did take a month to read). Since then I've learned there will be a collection in October...but Dan Didio, the VP over at DC, recently went on record as saying that if people are wiating for the trades they're not doing their job right...which is creating exciting, well told stories that get people back to reading the individual issues.
When it comes to reading a story, it's not necessarily about instant gratfication...it's about a fun journey. The premise that DC was hyping dealt with someone trying to harm the loved ones of the various super-heroes...in the end it wound up being about much more than that.
The story starts off with the brutal murder of Sue Dibney. She is the wife of Ralph Dibney who is better known as Elongated Man (he's a guy who can stretch body parts...the geek in me would like to explain how his powers differ from those of Plastic Man or Mister Fantastic, but I won't). The thing about this B string (some would say D string) super-hero is that his stretching power isn't what makes him interesting...he's a detective as well...on par with Sherlock Holmes (when he's written well) and his wife is part of that equation. Ralph and Sue are the Nick and Nora Charles of the super-hero set and while many said that the pointless death of a minor supporting character related to a low level hero is no cause for hyping a book, I'd disagree. DC killed off half of a team that was all about fun and set in motion a chain of events that still haven't ended.
Sue's death brought a secret to the surface that the Justice League had been hiding for years. You see, one night when Sue was up in the JLA Watchtower, the goofball villain (weren't they all goofball villains in the Silver Age) known as Doctor Light snuck on board and tried to rape her. He was stopped when the League walked in on the attempted rape. But by the time he had been subdued, he had discovered the one weakness every hero has...loved ones...it would just be a matter of time and energy to deduce the real identities of everyone in the JLA and get at them through their families. So, to put a stop to it right then and there...the seven members present (Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, Atom, Flash and Zatanna) made a decision by majority vote to have Zatanna use her magic to essentially give Doctor Light a lobotomy turning him from a deadly psychopath into the goofball we all loved.
And they didn't stop at Doctor Light...but Ralph is pretty well convinced that Light is behind the death of his wife...so as the secret of the mind wipes come to light and the villains regroup to protect each other, we get slowly led away from the "real" story of who killed Sue to something much more darker. By the end when we discover who did it, it no longer matters. The proverbial "cat" is out of the bag and you're left wondering "where do these guys go next".
Well..."next" turned out to be a one shot called Countdown to Infinite Crisis where we find Blue Beetle investigating a number of odd circumstances that lead him to discover one big bad secret that is currently rattling the entire DC Universe. Unfortunately, Ted Kord doesn't survive the issue once he confronts the man who used to be his friend. It's a very brutal and sad death for someone who was a fun read for many years. Hopefully, someone will take up the mantle of Blue Beetle (I'd like to say that no one stays dead in comics and for the most part it's true...but he was shot in the head at point blank range and his body was then cremated...theoretically characters don't get much deader than that).
Once the Countdown started, DC opened the flood-gates. Four mini-series are currently running in the lead-up to whatever this Infinite Crisis is going to be.
The OMAC Project picks up the trail where Blue Beetle's investigation left off as Booster Gold, Wonder Woman and Batman try to find Ted and discover that one of Bruce Wayne's inventions has fallen into the wrong hands and what this thing was invented for is a bit of a doozy that will put Batman at odds with all his other super friends (but when is he not at odds with them).
Day of Vengeance finds the Spectre, no longer tied to a human host, and Eclipso, with a new human host in Jean Loring, (ex-wife of The Atom and killer of Sue Dibney) teaming up to obliterate all magic from the world. trying to stop them is an odd team of Ragman, Enchantress, Blue Devil, Nightshade and Detective Chimp (don't ask). Captain Marvel and the wizard Shazam seem to fit into this somehow as well.
Villains United follows a group known as The Secret Six (made up of some C list villains) trying to stop the rest of the villains from uniting as The Society where Lex Luthor is running the show with help from Doctor Psycho, Talia al Ghul, Black Adam and a few others. Why are the villains all joining up? For protection in case the heroes decide to perform more magical lobotomies.
The Rann-Thanagar War tracks all of DC's alien species in the middle of a battle that a few of the "off world" heroes get involved in (Hawkman, Adam Strange, a few of the Green Lanterns).
How will all of this tie into what's coming? I have no idea...but apparently once the Infinite Crisis starts all of the monthly books will be jumping ahead by one year so you will see the ramifications of the event before you actually know how it ends.
With all of this stuff going on and the excitement of this summer's Batman Begins, next summer's Superman Returns and the current seasons of Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited (which has an over arcing plot that seems somehwat similar to some of the stuff going on in the comics) it's an exciting time to be a DC fan.
Now...over in the Marvel Universe, things aren't as exciting. With Marvel, there's almost no need to breakdown and not wait for a trade collection as they tend to run late on issues and wind up publishing the collection the same week the final issue comes out. They've got a major company wide crossover happening called House of M which I'll get into another time. Today I want to talk about my disappointment with what they've allowed to be done to one of my favorite characters...Doctor Strange.
I've been a big fan of the writing of J. Michael Straczynski for a while now and have tried to get to everything he's written. Babylon 5 and all of its off-shoots are amazing works of science fiction. His original comic book works Midnight Nation and Rising Stars were also amazing reads. His run on The Amazing Spider-Man actually made he a fan of the character after so many years (I even had no problem with his recent controversial storyline in which it was revealed that Gwen Stacy had a brief affair with Norman Osbourne and sired two children before she died at his hands). So I was excited beyond belief that my favorite writer would be tackling my favorite character with an updated retelling of his origin.
The six issue mini-series entitled Strange starts off okay. The first issue is actually a really good set-up for who Stephen Strange is before his accident. The problems start in the second issue where JMS changes the circumstances of the accident. You see, one of the things I've loved about Strange is that before his accident he was this pompous jerk and it was his own ego that caused his downfall when a drunk driving accident takes away the use of this brilliant surgeon's hands. JMS has Strange hit a tree while skiing. Ummm...okay...not a good sign...but I figured maybe he'd recover...
By the time issue three rolls around and we start to see that JMS has essentially stolen the plot of The Matrix to reinvent Doctor Strange I gave up all hope. This is not the Stephen Strange I know and love...it's a bad clone of the Neo I know and HATE.
Luckily, in recent interviews JMS has stated that the fate and future of Doctor Strange rests in someone else's hands as he's too busy with other things. This is a good thing in my opinion.
Well...I've talked enough about comic books for one day. I'll be back soon with a look at Batman (and some friends) before he Begins...unless of course, Malcolm arrives sooner than we expect...
We'll keep you posted
Be seeing you
When I was in my comic book reading hey day (and I know some of you out there are going "wasn't that yesetrday") back in high school...I was mostly a DC Comics fan. Sure there were a few heroes I loved over at Marvel (Captain America & Doctor Strange) and I was reading a lot of Marvel Comics (almost everything except for the X-Men books and the Spider-Man books), I read EVERYTHING that DC published and I do mean EVERYTHING (except Legion of Super-Heroes).
In the mid80s, comics were fun and nowhere was that sense of fun more prevalent than DC. In the middle of their gigantic company changing crossover known as Crisis On Infinite Earths we still had time to smile and relax with goofy heroes like Blue Devil, Blue Beetle and Ambush Bug. Heck, even Batman had a sense of humor and a goofy side-kick to boot.
After the Crisis was over and the entire DC Universe restarted from the beginning of time things got a bit darker...for some characters...but stayed relatively cheery for others. And it's pretty much been that way up until August of 2004. Last summer, DC published a new crisis story...one called Identity Crisis and the DC Universe hasn't been the same since...it's gotten much much darker...and there's another crisis on the horizon...and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Normally I wait for the trade paperbacks to colect stories like Identity Crisis but I was watching each issue get reprinted 4 or 5 times over an eight month period and finally on a day when I needed instant gratification broke down and bought the 7 issue series (well...some of it...the last round of reprints were done at a rate of 2 issues per week...so it did take a month to read). Since then I've learned there will be a collection in October...but Dan Didio, the VP over at DC, recently went on record as saying that if people are wiating for the trades they're not doing their job right...which is creating exciting, well told stories that get people back to reading the individual issues.
When it comes to reading a story, it's not necessarily about instant gratfication...it's about a fun journey. The premise that DC was hyping dealt with someone trying to harm the loved ones of the various super-heroes...in the end it wound up being about much more than that.
The story starts off with the brutal murder of Sue Dibney. She is the wife of Ralph Dibney who is better known as Elongated Man (he's a guy who can stretch body parts...the geek in me would like to explain how his powers differ from those of Plastic Man or Mister Fantastic, but I won't). The thing about this B string (some would say D string) super-hero is that his stretching power isn't what makes him interesting...he's a detective as well...on par with Sherlock Holmes (when he's written well) and his wife is part of that equation. Ralph and Sue are the Nick and Nora Charles of the super-hero set and while many said that the pointless death of a minor supporting character related to a low level hero is no cause for hyping a book, I'd disagree. DC killed off half of a team that was all about fun and set in motion a chain of events that still haven't ended.
Sue's death brought a secret to the surface that the Justice League had been hiding for years. You see, one night when Sue was up in the JLA Watchtower, the goofball villain (weren't they all goofball villains in the Silver Age) known as Doctor Light snuck on board and tried to rape her. He was stopped when the League walked in on the attempted rape. But by the time he had been subdued, he had discovered the one weakness every hero has...loved ones...it would just be a matter of time and energy to deduce the real identities of everyone in the JLA and get at them through their families. So, to put a stop to it right then and there...the seven members present (Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, Atom, Flash and Zatanna) made a decision by majority vote to have Zatanna use her magic to essentially give Doctor Light a lobotomy turning him from a deadly psychopath into the goofball we all loved.
And they didn't stop at Doctor Light...but Ralph is pretty well convinced that Light is behind the death of his wife...so as the secret of the mind wipes come to light and the villains regroup to protect each other, we get slowly led away from the "real" story of who killed Sue to something much more darker. By the end when we discover who did it, it no longer matters. The proverbial "cat" is out of the bag and you're left wondering "where do these guys go next".
Well..."next" turned out to be a one shot called Countdown to Infinite Crisis where we find Blue Beetle investigating a number of odd circumstances that lead him to discover one big bad secret that is currently rattling the entire DC Universe. Unfortunately, Ted Kord doesn't survive the issue once he confronts the man who used to be his friend. It's a very brutal and sad death for someone who was a fun read for many years. Hopefully, someone will take up the mantle of Blue Beetle (I'd like to say that no one stays dead in comics and for the most part it's true...but he was shot in the head at point blank range and his body was then cremated...theoretically characters don't get much deader than that).
Once the Countdown started, DC opened the flood-gates. Four mini-series are currently running in the lead-up to whatever this Infinite Crisis is going to be.
The OMAC Project picks up the trail where Blue Beetle's investigation left off as Booster Gold, Wonder Woman and Batman try to find Ted and discover that one of Bruce Wayne's inventions has fallen into the wrong hands and what this thing was invented for is a bit of a doozy that will put Batman at odds with all his other super friends (but when is he not at odds with them).
Day of Vengeance finds the Spectre, no longer tied to a human host, and Eclipso, with a new human host in Jean Loring, (ex-wife of The Atom and killer of Sue Dibney) teaming up to obliterate all magic from the world. trying to stop them is an odd team of Ragman, Enchantress, Blue Devil, Nightshade and Detective Chimp (don't ask). Captain Marvel and the wizard Shazam seem to fit into this somehow as well.
Villains United follows a group known as The Secret Six (made up of some C list villains) trying to stop the rest of the villains from uniting as The Society where Lex Luthor is running the show with help from Doctor Psycho, Talia al Ghul, Black Adam and a few others. Why are the villains all joining up? For protection in case the heroes decide to perform more magical lobotomies.
The Rann-Thanagar War tracks all of DC's alien species in the middle of a battle that a few of the "off world" heroes get involved in (Hawkman, Adam Strange, a few of the Green Lanterns).
How will all of this tie into what's coming? I have no idea...but apparently once the Infinite Crisis starts all of the monthly books will be jumping ahead by one year so you will see the ramifications of the event before you actually know how it ends.
With all of this stuff going on and the excitement of this summer's Batman Begins, next summer's Superman Returns and the current seasons of Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited (which has an over arcing plot that seems somehwat similar to some of the stuff going on in the comics) it's an exciting time to be a DC fan.
Now...over in the Marvel Universe, things aren't as exciting. With Marvel, there's almost no need to breakdown and not wait for a trade collection as they tend to run late on issues and wind up publishing the collection the same week the final issue comes out. They've got a major company wide crossover happening called House of M which I'll get into another time. Today I want to talk about my disappointment with what they've allowed to be done to one of my favorite characters...Doctor Strange.
I've been a big fan of the writing of J. Michael Straczynski for a while now and have tried to get to everything he's written. Babylon 5 and all of its off-shoots are amazing works of science fiction. His original comic book works Midnight Nation and Rising Stars were also amazing reads. His run on The Amazing Spider-Man actually made he a fan of the character after so many years (I even had no problem with his recent controversial storyline in which it was revealed that Gwen Stacy had a brief affair with Norman Osbourne and sired two children before she died at his hands). So I was excited beyond belief that my favorite writer would be tackling my favorite character with an updated retelling of his origin.
The six issue mini-series entitled Strange starts off okay. The first issue is actually a really good set-up for who Stephen Strange is before his accident. The problems start in the second issue where JMS changes the circumstances of the accident. You see, one of the things I've loved about Strange is that before his accident he was this pompous jerk and it was his own ego that caused his downfall when a drunk driving accident takes away the use of this brilliant surgeon's hands. JMS has Strange hit a tree while skiing. Ummm...okay...not a good sign...but I figured maybe he'd recover...
By the time issue three rolls around and we start to see that JMS has essentially stolen the plot of The Matrix to reinvent Doctor Strange I gave up all hope. This is not the Stephen Strange I know and love...it's a bad clone of the Neo I know and HATE.
Luckily, in recent interviews JMS has stated that the fate and future of Doctor Strange rests in someone else's hands as he's too busy with other things. This is a good thing in my opinion.
Well...I've talked enough about comic books for one day. I'll be back soon with a look at Batman (and some friends) before he Begins...unless of course, Malcolm arrives sooner than we expect...
We'll keep you posted
Be seeing you
Monday, June 06, 2005
June's Busting Out All Over...
So...a bunch of random thoughts and such today...
The show I was directing in Darien, Book Of Days, ended as a rousing success...sure, we didn't get the crowds I was hoping for...but the show has apparently put The Darien Players back on the map. People are still talking about it three weeks later. I'm still getting reports from people connected to the show or people connected to people connected to the show that say its the best thing they ever saw The Players do or have heard it was the best thing they ever saw The Players do and wished they had seen it. Oh well. It was a great experience and hopefully the bar that we've raised we'll rise to meet all season long next season.
And then the TV season ended...
There were two season finales I was most looking forward to Lost and Smallville. The former was somewhat of a let down. Sure, we get the appropriate "cliffhanger"...but it was no different than the ones we get every other episode. Questions tend to get "answered" in a one step forward three steps back fashion and while that's fine for a regular episode where you know you've got more coming next week or the week after, it's not okay for a season finale...we need a bit more...but I'll let it go for now because it's such an amazing show.
As for Smallville, the season finale more than made up for the crappy stories we had to sit through all season. If I had known this is what they were leading up to all season I wouldn't have complained. Easily the best season finale of the season. Can't wait to see what happens next.
The Best Musical Tony Award going to Monty Python's Spamalot was just plain wrong. Having seen this as well as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and watching the other two musicals nominated get most of the other awards (The Light in the Piazza and The Putnam County 25th Annual Spelling Bee) it was just wrong. But it'll bring people to shows and isn't that what award shows are really all about?
Now that we're seeing a cast fall into place for the big screen remake of The Poseidon Adventure is it as exciting as the small screen remake mini-series cast? Well...you be the judge...the big screen version won't hit until sometime late 2006, is directed by Wolfgang Peterson and stars (currently) Kurt Russel, Emmy Rossum, Richard Dreyfuss and Andre Braugher. The small screen version will air this fall and stars Adam Baldwin, Steve Guttenberg, Bryan Brown, Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell and Peter Weller. While we don't know how the plot of the big screen version will be updated (but it is being written by Akiva Goldsman...one of the people responsible in my book for killing the Batman franchise), the small screen version sees the great ship Poseidon overturning due to a terrorist attack. Personally, I'd like to see both of these sink. The original is a GREAT fun movie and the only thing that actually comes close to capturing the fun of it is the musical version we saw in the summer of 2003 at the New York City Fringe Festival. But...being the masochist I am...I'll see 'em both anyway...it's one of my favorite movies.
So with the new version of Doctor Who burning up the ratings over in the U.K. when are we going to get to see it here in the colonies?? There's gotta be some network willing to pick it up? Or at least get it to us on DVD soon.
The house is slowly getting into shape before Malcolm's arrival. We've started putting things in order and reorganizing our possessions back to where they need to be (or getting rid of them in some fashion if they don't need to be). Our original contractor still has a few minor things to take care of (we still don't have a toilet in the master bathroom) and the new contractor is proceeding as best he can with the late start he got on the projects he was hired for. Malcolm's room will be finished by the end of the week. The main floor powder room is waiting to be tiled (a delay I take partial responsibility for and place the rest squarely on our original contractor and his taking so long). But the new contractor has agreed to set the toilet anyway if the tile's not in before family arrives.
Beyond that apparently this month is just one long waiting game. We're waiting for Tash's parents to arrive and we're waiting for Malcolm to decide he's ready to come out. According to the doctor, he's healthy and happy and he could be induced safely now...but we've all decided to wait until he's ready. Tash's doctor is going on vacation as of her due date and she stated that if Malcolm hasn't come out on his own by the time she gets back one week later, she's gonna induce Tash.
We've decided that if Tash is still pregnant on June 15 we're gonna hit an early matinee of Batman Begins just to get it out of the way.
The waiting (for Malcolm, not Batman) is driving me a bit batty.
One last note on the subject of names...what is it with celebrities giving their kids weird names? Apple? Crimefighter? Rocket? Are these people on drugs? Oh wait...yes...they are...it's called fame...We had the short disucssion of doing something like this and decided that if you want to prevent a lifetime of cruelty on the playground find something normal (not that the other kids won't come up with their own clever slants on a name anyway)...
That's all for today.
Be seeing you.
The show I was directing in Darien, Book Of Days, ended as a rousing success...sure, we didn't get the crowds I was hoping for...but the show has apparently put The Darien Players back on the map. People are still talking about it three weeks later. I'm still getting reports from people connected to the show or people connected to people connected to the show that say its the best thing they ever saw The Players do or have heard it was the best thing they ever saw The Players do and wished they had seen it. Oh well. It was a great experience and hopefully the bar that we've raised we'll rise to meet all season long next season.
And then the TV season ended...
There were two season finales I was most looking forward to Lost and Smallville. The former was somewhat of a let down. Sure, we get the appropriate "cliffhanger"...but it was no different than the ones we get every other episode. Questions tend to get "answered" in a one step forward three steps back fashion and while that's fine for a regular episode where you know you've got more coming next week or the week after, it's not okay for a season finale...we need a bit more...but I'll let it go for now because it's such an amazing show.
As for Smallville, the season finale more than made up for the crappy stories we had to sit through all season. If I had known this is what they were leading up to all season I wouldn't have complained. Easily the best season finale of the season. Can't wait to see what happens next.
The Best Musical Tony Award going to Monty Python's Spamalot was just plain wrong. Having seen this as well as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and watching the other two musicals nominated get most of the other awards (The Light in the Piazza and The Putnam County 25th Annual Spelling Bee) it was just wrong. But it'll bring people to shows and isn't that what award shows are really all about?
Now that we're seeing a cast fall into place for the big screen remake of The Poseidon Adventure is it as exciting as the small screen remake mini-series cast? Well...you be the judge...the big screen version won't hit until sometime late 2006, is directed by Wolfgang Peterson and stars (currently) Kurt Russel, Emmy Rossum, Richard Dreyfuss and Andre Braugher. The small screen version will air this fall and stars Adam Baldwin, Steve Guttenberg, Bryan Brown, Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell and Peter Weller. While we don't know how the plot of the big screen version will be updated (but it is being written by Akiva Goldsman...one of the people responsible in my book for killing the Batman franchise), the small screen version sees the great ship Poseidon overturning due to a terrorist attack. Personally, I'd like to see both of these sink. The original is a GREAT fun movie and the only thing that actually comes close to capturing the fun of it is the musical version we saw in the summer of 2003 at the New York City Fringe Festival. But...being the masochist I am...I'll see 'em both anyway...it's one of my favorite movies.
So with the new version of Doctor Who burning up the ratings over in the U.K. when are we going to get to see it here in the colonies?? There's gotta be some network willing to pick it up? Or at least get it to us on DVD soon.
The house is slowly getting into shape before Malcolm's arrival. We've started putting things in order and reorganizing our possessions back to where they need to be (or getting rid of them in some fashion if they don't need to be). Our original contractor still has a few minor things to take care of (we still don't have a toilet in the master bathroom) and the new contractor is proceeding as best he can with the late start he got on the projects he was hired for. Malcolm's room will be finished by the end of the week. The main floor powder room is waiting to be tiled (a delay I take partial responsibility for and place the rest squarely on our original contractor and his taking so long). But the new contractor has agreed to set the toilet anyway if the tile's not in before family arrives.
Beyond that apparently this month is just one long waiting game. We're waiting for Tash's parents to arrive and we're waiting for Malcolm to decide he's ready to come out. According to the doctor, he's healthy and happy and he could be induced safely now...but we've all decided to wait until he's ready. Tash's doctor is going on vacation as of her due date and she stated that if Malcolm hasn't come out on his own by the time she gets back one week later, she's gonna induce Tash.
We've decided that if Tash is still pregnant on June 15 we're gonna hit an early matinee of Batman Begins just to get it out of the way.
The waiting (for Malcolm, not Batman) is driving me a bit batty.
One last note on the subject of names...what is it with celebrities giving their kids weird names? Apple? Crimefighter? Rocket? Are these people on drugs? Oh wait...yes...they are...it's called fame...We had the short disucssion of doing something like this and decided that if you want to prevent a lifetime of cruelty on the playground find something normal (not that the other kids won't come up with their own clever slants on a name anyway)...
That's all for today.
Be seeing you.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Talk Of Revenge
Every six months or so, I have an appointment with my dentist for a cleaning. I always go because I know I should, even though it will be painful to an extent.
That's pretty much how I felt about seeing "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" when the opportunity presented itself.
So avast ye maties...thar be spoilers ahead (that's for all you pirates watching the film on DVD from the copy floating around online).
First, this is not the worst of the prequel trilogy...but I'm not sure it's the best either. I had many problems with this movie and quite honestly don't understand some of the gushing that's going on about how great it is (and the reaction I've gotten from some people to my reaction reads like a political discussion between Republicrats and Demicans where they're "right" and I'm "wrong"...so I'm going to say my peace and be done with it for a while).
This is easily the busiest film ever made...and that's just the start of a myriad of problems it contains. Lucas has filled each and every frame with so much background minutia that it's hard to pay attention to certain things. Now, maybe he did it on purpose so you'd be watching all the ships zip by the window as Anakin and Padme have yet another boring, stilted, cliched conversation about how much they love each other and how confused they are about their current situations. Maybe it was Lucas' way of endorsing the powerful aspect of filmmaking in that it should be a visual medium (except he forgot that it should visually be telling a story as well). Maybe he's just a lazy and easily distracted filmmaker. I vote for the latter.
The film is boring for a good chunk and then it gets silly for a while before actually coming up with one of the most brilliant and poignant scenes in the prequel trilogy (the killing of all the Jedi...who as powerful as they seem to be are too stupid to really notice what's going to happen) before descneding back to boring and ending with some of the funniest shit ever put in a "Star Wars" film. Between the "excuse" for Padme's death and the "creation" of what I'm going to call Short Vader.
As far as our young lovers are concerned...together they've had three movies to really develop a relationship and have yet to do so by the time they're ready to make their exits. What's barely there is strung together by weak dialog and exposition at best. This should have been the centerpiece of this trilogy and it got such short shrift as to make me long for the whole Trinity/Neo love story of "The Matrix". Lucas should have gone back and watched the original trilogy to get a sense of how to develop a relationship (but of course, since he didn't actually write the scripts for "Empire" and "Jedi" he really would have no idea how to write for Han & Leia...can you imagine what that would have been like if he had...ugh...Han would have had a whole speech as he descends into the carbonite freezing chamber instead of the perfectly simple "I know" in response to leia's "I love you.").
When Padme finally expires, we have plenty of possible reasons for her death...but the one we are given is so stupid it's laughable. She could have died from asphyxiation or childbirth (or ebola...anything...just give us a real reason)...but apparently she was medically fine and just lost the will to live (I'd suggest she must have lost it around the same time as Lucas lost his ability to write...but I'm beginning to think he never had one).
As for Anakin...well...we know where Luke gets his whiney side from that was so distinct in Episode IV (but thankfully he grew out of it...see...he had "real" writers who knew how to develop character over the course of the original trilogy...I'm beginning to think someone else actually wrote Episode IV at this point). We're expected to believe that this whiney, easily manipulated and impulsive punk is going to become the greatest screen villain of all time? I don't think so. On top of that, he's much shorter looking than he will appear in the next three films (or the first three films...depending on which way you count). If they're rebuilding him, couldn't they have given him leg extensions?
Christopher Lee should be happy that Lucas, unlike Peter Jackson, gave him an onscreen death...of course he should be pissed that it happens about 10 minutes in (after like 2 minutes of screen time). Leave it to Lucas to take his more interesting and well written characters and get rid of them much too soon. This film needed more Count Dooku...especially once Palpatine's finally revealed to be manipulating everything from behind the scenes. Dooku could have been a great addition to a three-way battle once he realzied he was being manipulated just like everyone else.
Speaking of Palpatine...what was easily the best part of all three films quickly becomes the silliest once the revelation is made (and anyone who's surprised by this should just stop watching movies...you're too stupid to deserve to watch movies). His behind the scenes manipulation of both sides was a bit too hidden at times (exactly what he's doing and the reasons for it need too much discussion and explanation), but it was easily the best part...until his change. Once that happens, he's cackling more than Jack Nicholson's Joker and wheezing more than Vader himself. A plausible and better explanation for the difference between Palpatine's look in this trilogy and his look in the previous one would have been the ravages of time and use of the Dark Side of the Force. To have it all happen at once because of the latter is just silly (was he not using the Force elsewhere before that moment).
The action scenes are workman-like as far as I'm concerned. Nothing is really too exciting because Lucas has developed a case of ADD. He cuts into things very quickly and from bad angles. It's annoying. He couldn't let the fights play out as they did in Episode I? The Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Darth Maul fight remains the highlight of the prequel trilogy. The rest of the fights in this new film are either too much like previous fights (the Anakin/Dooku fight was too much like the Luke/Vader fight in "Jedi" and the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight felt like the one from "Empire"). The battles with Palpatine were just bad and videogame-like (and did he not have any money to teach Ian McDiarmid how to hold a sword and not look silly...I mean...I can forgive the silly looking effect that is obviously one actor's head on another guy's body because an old man can't really flip around like that, but make it look convincing when you go in for a closeup).
The more I think about it, even with more Jar Jar (he makes a few silent background appearances in the new film), I think I like "The Phantom Menace" better. It at least has the excuse of being "the first". It has a lot to set the stage for and showed that there may be some surprises down the road (of course, there weren't). There are a few good action scenes that don't play as much like video game stages (I'm thinking the above mentioned sabre duel and the pod race)...and we weren't "burdened" with the "actor" known as Hayden Christensen...or is it Christian Haydensen...or something else entirely...I don't care...I'm too lazy to look up the correct way on the IMDB and he sucks anyway.
So...now we have a complete series and the question become how to watch it. There's the obvious order of:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
but quite honestly I think watching the prequels will ruin the surprises and foundations of the original trilogy. Watched in order anyone getting to "Empire" will now exactly what Yoda means when he tells Obi-Wan "No, there is another" (and did Ben coveniently forget Luke has a sister), you'll be instantly creeped out by the possibility of a Luke/Leia romance because you know their siblings from the start and you'll marvel at how the Empire was able to build a second Death Star in four years when the first one took them 18.
Then there's this interesting theory I came across somewhere on the internet...perhaps the best way to watch the entire saga is in the following order:
4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6
By setting the earlier chapters as flashbacks just as the rebellion enters its darkest days (at the end of The Empire Strikes Back) we can temper the awfulness of the ending of the whole story (Return of the Jedi) by enduring the awfulness of The Phantom Menace, and Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
I will applaud Lucas for trying to make this the story of someone we like who turns into someone we hate (or love to hate)...but he pretty much botched it at every turn. He should have taken a look at his good friend Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather Trilogy"...even with a weak third part, he knew how to handle exactly what Lucas was trying to and did it so much better.
As for me...and my son...when he's old enough to watch "Star Wars" he will see them how I saw them...and then we'll talk about the possibility of him seeing the prequels AFTER the original trilogy.
I think I'm gonna go watch the "Clone Wars" cartoon on DVD again. It's everything the prequels should have been.
Be seeing you.
That's pretty much how I felt about seeing "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" when the opportunity presented itself.
So avast ye maties...thar be spoilers ahead (that's for all you pirates watching the film on DVD from the copy floating around online).
First, this is not the worst of the prequel trilogy...but I'm not sure it's the best either. I had many problems with this movie and quite honestly don't understand some of the gushing that's going on about how great it is (and the reaction I've gotten from some people to my reaction reads like a political discussion between Republicrats and Demicans where they're "right" and I'm "wrong"...so I'm going to say my peace and be done with it for a while).
This is easily the busiest film ever made...and that's just the start of a myriad of problems it contains. Lucas has filled each and every frame with so much background minutia that it's hard to pay attention to certain things. Now, maybe he did it on purpose so you'd be watching all the ships zip by the window as Anakin and Padme have yet another boring, stilted, cliched conversation about how much they love each other and how confused they are about their current situations. Maybe it was Lucas' way of endorsing the powerful aspect of filmmaking in that it should be a visual medium (except he forgot that it should visually be telling a story as well). Maybe he's just a lazy and easily distracted filmmaker. I vote for the latter.
The film is boring for a good chunk and then it gets silly for a while before actually coming up with one of the most brilliant and poignant scenes in the prequel trilogy (the killing of all the Jedi...who as powerful as they seem to be are too stupid to really notice what's going to happen) before descneding back to boring and ending with some of the funniest shit ever put in a "Star Wars" film. Between the "excuse" for Padme's death and the "creation" of what I'm going to call Short Vader.
As far as our young lovers are concerned...together they've had three movies to really develop a relationship and have yet to do so by the time they're ready to make their exits. What's barely there is strung together by weak dialog and exposition at best. This should have been the centerpiece of this trilogy and it got such short shrift as to make me long for the whole Trinity/Neo love story of "The Matrix". Lucas should have gone back and watched the original trilogy to get a sense of how to develop a relationship (but of course, since he didn't actually write the scripts for "Empire" and "Jedi" he really would have no idea how to write for Han & Leia...can you imagine what that would have been like if he had...ugh...Han would have had a whole speech as he descends into the carbonite freezing chamber instead of the perfectly simple "I know" in response to leia's "I love you.").
When Padme finally expires, we have plenty of possible reasons for her death...but the one we are given is so stupid it's laughable. She could have died from asphyxiation or childbirth (or ebola...anything...just give us a real reason)...but apparently she was medically fine and just lost the will to live (I'd suggest she must have lost it around the same time as Lucas lost his ability to write...but I'm beginning to think he never had one).
As for Anakin...well...we know where Luke gets his whiney side from that was so distinct in Episode IV (but thankfully he grew out of it...see...he had "real" writers who knew how to develop character over the course of the original trilogy...I'm beginning to think someone else actually wrote Episode IV at this point). We're expected to believe that this whiney, easily manipulated and impulsive punk is going to become the greatest screen villain of all time? I don't think so. On top of that, he's much shorter looking than he will appear in the next three films (or the first three films...depending on which way you count). If they're rebuilding him, couldn't they have given him leg extensions?
Christopher Lee should be happy that Lucas, unlike Peter Jackson, gave him an onscreen death...of course he should be pissed that it happens about 10 minutes in (after like 2 minutes of screen time). Leave it to Lucas to take his more interesting and well written characters and get rid of them much too soon. This film needed more Count Dooku...especially once Palpatine's finally revealed to be manipulating everything from behind the scenes. Dooku could have been a great addition to a three-way battle once he realzied he was being manipulated just like everyone else.
Speaking of Palpatine...what was easily the best part of all three films quickly becomes the silliest once the revelation is made (and anyone who's surprised by this should just stop watching movies...you're too stupid to deserve to watch movies). His behind the scenes manipulation of both sides was a bit too hidden at times (exactly what he's doing and the reasons for it need too much discussion and explanation), but it was easily the best part...until his change. Once that happens, he's cackling more than Jack Nicholson's Joker and wheezing more than Vader himself. A plausible and better explanation for the difference between Palpatine's look in this trilogy and his look in the previous one would have been the ravages of time and use of the Dark Side of the Force. To have it all happen at once because of the latter is just silly (was he not using the Force elsewhere before that moment).
The action scenes are workman-like as far as I'm concerned. Nothing is really too exciting because Lucas has developed a case of ADD. He cuts into things very quickly and from bad angles. It's annoying. He couldn't let the fights play out as they did in Episode I? The Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Darth Maul fight remains the highlight of the prequel trilogy. The rest of the fights in this new film are either too much like previous fights (the Anakin/Dooku fight was too much like the Luke/Vader fight in "Jedi" and the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight felt like the one from "Empire"). The battles with Palpatine were just bad and videogame-like (and did he not have any money to teach Ian McDiarmid how to hold a sword and not look silly...I mean...I can forgive the silly looking effect that is obviously one actor's head on another guy's body because an old man can't really flip around like that, but make it look convincing when you go in for a closeup).
The more I think about it, even with more Jar Jar (he makes a few silent background appearances in the new film), I think I like "The Phantom Menace" better. It at least has the excuse of being "the first". It has a lot to set the stage for and showed that there may be some surprises down the road (of course, there weren't). There are a few good action scenes that don't play as much like video game stages (I'm thinking the above mentioned sabre duel and the pod race)...and we weren't "burdened" with the "actor" known as Hayden Christensen...or is it Christian Haydensen...or something else entirely...I don't care...I'm too lazy to look up the correct way on the IMDB and he sucks anyway.
So...now we have a complete series and the question become how to watch it. There's the obvious order of:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
but quite honestly I think watching the prequels will ruin the surprises and foundations of the original trilogy. Watched in order anyone getting to "Empire" will now exactly what Yoda means when he tells Obi-Wan "No, there is another" (and did Ben coveniently forget Luke has a sister), you'll be instantly creeped out by the possibility of a Luke/Leia romance because you know their siblings from the start and you'll marvel at how the Empire was able to build a second Death Star in four years when the first one took them 18.
Then there's this interesting theory I came across somewhere on the internet...perhaps the best way to watch the entire saga is in the following order:
4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6
By setting the earlier chapters as flashbacks just as the rebellion enters its darkest days (at the end of The Empire Strikes Back) we can temper the awfulness of the ending of the whole story (Return of the Jedi) by enduring the awfulness of The Phantom Menace, and Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
I will applaud Lucas for trying to make this the story of someone we like who turns into someone we hate (or love to hate)...but he pretty much botched it at every turn. He should have taken a look at his good friend Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather Trilogy"...even with a weak third part, he knew how to handle exactly what Lucas was trying to and did it so much better.
As for me...and my son...when he's old enough to watch "Star Wars" he will see them how I saw them...and then we'll talk about the possibility of him seeing the prequels AFTER the original trilogy.
I think I'm gonna go watch the "Clone Wars" cartoon on DVD again. It's everything the prequels should have been.
Be seeing you.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
FOX: Forwards and Backwards 2005
Before we get into FOX's new lineup, I'd like to mention two things...
First...Who's portrayal took a 3rd string comic villain that hadn't been seen in years and turned him into an A list fictional character??? I'd like to mention the passing of Frank Gorshin...while best known as The Riddler on "Batman", he was actually a very versatile impressionist and a very talented actor. His last appearance is apparently on the season finale of "CSI"(may have to break my boycott early just to check him out one last time). He will be missed.
Second...UPN's schedule is not really something I care much about. They're moving "Veronica Mars" to Wednesdays at 9pm which puts it up against "Criminal Minds" on CBS, "Head Cases" on FOX, "Lost" on ABC and "E-Ring" on NBC...meaning this is the time slot where every DVR and VCR in the house will be active trying to catch it all (well...I'm sure "E-Ring" and "Head Cases" won't last on my watch too long).
The rest of UPN's lineup is the same with the addition of a few new comedies (including one made by Chris Rock) and the moving of wrestling to Fridays where it'll be less embarassing.
Now...on to FOX's lineups...
Last May, FOX announced a three-pronged schedule for the 2004-2005 Season. It essentially started in June and ran through May with shows being jockeyed in and out over the course of the season. This year, we got a two-pronged schedule with the same concept. Although there are a few new shows starting this June that aren't part of this schedule, I'll be discussing them anyway...
On to cancelled shows:
There were three shows announced by FOX last year that never actually made it to the small screen...Athens, The Partner and Related by Family...lucky for us...I won't bother reminding you what they were about (you can find last year's post now on the website).
North Shore -- 1 Season/20 Episodes -- Didn't see it. Oh well. Too late now.
The Complex: Malibu -- 1 Season/8 Episodes -- Remember this? Me neither.
The Rebel Billionaire -- 1 Season/11 Episodes -- Sir Richard Branson tries to trump Trump and fails miserably.
Quintuplets -- 1 Season/22 Episodes -- Of all the shows, I'll miss this one the most. Andy Richter will someday have a successful show of his own that lasts for a while.
Method & Red -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/5 Unaired -- Caught one episode...didn't find it funny...apparently neither did anyone else.
The Next Great Champ -- 1 Season/10 Episodes -- Cause you can't see enough amateur boxing on TV.
The Jury -- 1 Season/10 Episodes -- It was what "Law & Order: Trial By Jury" should have been...but they're both gone and we miss out on something (not sure what).
Tru Calling -- 2 Seasons/26 Episodes/1 Unaired -- That's what Eliza Dushku gets for not giving fans a "Faith the Vampire Slayer" series...tossed around the schedule and cancelled before your final episode can air (add in a full second season order that was scaled back twice to become 6).
Life On A Stick -- 1 Season/Anywhere between 8 and 11 episodes/3 to 6 Unaired -- I'm not sure how many episodes were made of this quirky and bizarre show, but I hope FOX at least burns off the unaired ones.
Jonny Zero -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/5 Unaired -- The title reminded me too much of "Johnny Bago" from several years ago, so I didn't bother watching. Is that why no one else did either?
Point Pleasant -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/5 Unaired -- Oooohhhh....spooky...there's still 5 episodes of this crap laying around somewhere.
The Casino -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- It's odd that FOX couldn't do more episodes of something that seems to have taken on a life of its own on Discovery & Travel.
Kelsey Grammar Presents: The Sketch Show -- 1 Season/6 Episodes/2 Unaired -- Apparently this may still be airing as someone's said something about the former Frasier star playing Beast in the next "X-Men" movie...that's a sketch for the show and not a real piece of news, right?
Oliver Beene -- 2 Seasons/24 Episodes/2 Unaired -- Remember this one? I had to really reach back to remember I think I may have actually seen most of the episodes that aired. I must get a life.
The Swan -- 2 Seasons/19 Episodes -- Apparently, there is a G-d...it just took him a while (19 episodes) to notice what we were doing before decreeing this disgusting waste of humanity get cancelled.
My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss -- 1 Season/10 Episodes/5 Unaired -- If it had been about Rupert Murdoch instead of a chimp it may have done better...or maybe it was about Murdoch anyway.
Who's Your Daddy -- 1 Season/?? Episodes/?? Unaired -- Only 1 episode of this reality series that had many adoption advocates joinging the NRA and attempting to gun down FOX executives ever aired. We should all be thankful that it didn't get any further...that's what soap operas are for.
Returning Shows:
Arrested Development -- 3rd Season -- FOX was smart to bring this GREAT show back for a third season...if you're not watching this...well...I've already used that threat about people not watching "Lost"...you should be watching this...let's hope Fox Home Video gets season 2 on DVD before season 3 starts to catch everyone up to speed. And now that its on Monday nights, you have no excuse...there's nothing else on.
House -- 2nd Season -- I just started watching this show...it was in a tough slot for us, but the one or two episodes I did catch I liked...so we'll catch up this summer (when we have nothing to do but change diapers).
That 70s Show -- 8th Season -- It looked like Bret Harrison of "Grounded For Life" was going to replace the departing Topher Grace...but Harrison's got his own new show starting mid-season (see "The Loop" below)...so I guess this aging comedy will just come back with whoever's left. Once upon a time it was fresh and smart and original...now it's just stale and boring...kind of like the 1970s.
Stacked -- 2nd Season -- While it's funny, I'd have prefered to see "Life On A Stick" or "Quintuplets" come back.
The OC -- 3rd Season -- Don't watch it, but it's nice to know George Lucas isn't beyond pimping his products on network TV shows that his kids like.
The Bernie Mac Show -- 5th Season -- Wow...a short 4th season that was barely funny actually led to a 5th season...I hope it improves.
Malcolm In The Middle -- 7th Season -- After "Arrested Development" this is the funniest show on TV. Hands down. It has been consistently funny since the first episode of the first season...something that hasn't been done since the first nine seasons of "Frasier". I hope they can keep it up (although the move to Fridays may spell the end for the show).
Cops -- 18th Season -- Come on everyone...sing a long...Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
America's Most Wanted -- 19th Season -- Wow...and yet we still have crime.
King Of The Hill -- 10th Season -- This show, which I still love dearly, easily gets the first prize for "Coach" award (as in..."this is still on TV???")
The Simpsons -- 17th Season -- Okay...this is still my favorite show of all time, but even I can be critical of it when it's bad...the 15th season was bad...all over the place, silly, pointless bad...this last season was an improvement...but after this many years the writers are bound to run out of steam for a string of episodes. Even when it's bad, there's still plenty to quote though.
Family Guy -- 4th or 5th Season -- With FOX's new year round scheduling, the concept of seasons kind of goes out the window. New episodes of what is obviously the 4th Season just started...but we don't know when they'll end (same with "American Dad")...so that's why I've got my odd listing...more importantly...this show is still hysterically funny and very repeatable when it comes to watching episodes.
American Dad -- 1st or 2nd Season -- Unfortunately, this show isn't as funny as the other animated shows on FOX...but it's not "Fish Police" either...and it is growing on me...it's hit or miss at best...but I'm sure they'll find their stride here. It took "Family Guy" a while to find its sride.
American Idol -- 5th Season -- Come talk to me when the show starts trotting out good musicians and isn't destroying the concept of music as an art form.
New Shows:
Kitchen Confidential -- this sitcom based on the real life book by chef Anthony Bourdain is set in a restaurant and stars Bradley Cooper, Nicholas Brendon and John F. Daley. Could be good. I'll watch for a bit to see if it hooks me.
Prison Break This has the most intriguing premise, as like "Lost", I don't see how from the description it will sustain more than a season...but good luck trying...I'll watch. A man purposely robs a bank to get thrown in jail so he can help break his brother, who's on death row, out of prison with the use of the prison blueprints he has hold of. Dominic Purcell (of "John Doe"), Peter Stormare and Stacy Keach star.
Bones -- Emily Deschannel and David Boreanaz star in this procedural drama about a forensic anthropologist who assits law enforcement in solving crimes. The cast gets me to watch what's become a rather boring premise.
Head Cases -- Chris O'Donnell, Adam Goldberg and Rachel Leigh Cook star in this "dramady" about a lawyer who tries to rebuild his life after a nervous breakdown. Again, the cast gets a shot in spite of the premise.
Reunion -- This unique show follows the lives of a group of friends from high school graduation to their 20th Reunion. The timeline is apparently all over the prlace but mostly moves forward after starting at the funeral of one of them. Sounds very intriguing. It gets a few episodes from me.
The Gate/Deviant Behavior -- Depending on what you read they're not sure of the title...but it's a procedural drama. Yawn...but it does have Chi McBride in it.
The War At Home -- Look a sitcom about a disfunctional family. We haven't seen that in a while. Michael Rapaport and Anita Barone star.
The Loop -- Bret Harrison stars as the youngest executive of a company trying to set his priorities in life. Eric Christian Olsen, Mimi Rogers and Philip Baker Hall also star. Meh.
The Inside -- Rachel Nichols stars in this procedural drama about FBI agents who track serial killers. That would be a yawn if it weren't from the minds behind "Wonderfalls" and "Angel". I'm ready. Premieres June 8.
Hell's Kitchen -- didn't anyone at FOX watch "The Restaurant" on NBC? Premieres May 30.
The Princes Of Malibu -- Bruce Jenner's sons try and replicate what Paris & Nicole have done...they may as well try invading a country as well...it'd be just as entertaining with less casualties...what's left of American dignity should go up in flames with this one. Premieres July 10
So You Think You Can Dance -- It starts July 20 and is basically "American Idol" with dancers. Blah.
"Mid-Season" Replacements:
Nanny 911 -- 2nd Season -- If "Supernanny" is like Batman, then this must be the Commissioner Gordon of Nannies...sorry...I got nothing to say about this show. It just takes up space.
Trading Spouses -- 2nd Season -- Again...it'd be better if it was the porn the title suggests. It also just takes up space.
Freebirds -- It's about young people trying to figure out life after college. There's a novel idea for a sitcom.
The Simple Life -- 4th Season -- Okay folks...you want to know why every country on the planet HATES the U.S.? It's not our foreign policy...it's not our arrogant ways...it's not even jealousy of our freedoms...it's the fact that we have elevated the vapid bitch known as Paris Hilton into an uber-celebrity and worship at her alter. Until we rectify this issue we'll continue to be the scorn of everyone everywhere...and deservedly so.
Renovate My Family -- 2nd Season -- It's a step above "The Swan"...maybe they should just work on getting the Hilton sisters real lives?
Well...that's next fall...I'll be back in a few days with a breakdown of what I'm hoping to do about it (Malcolm...my son, not the TV series...may prevent it from becoming a reality since our lives our going to CHANGE FOREVER -- sorry...everytime someone tells me that I tend to equate it to an arm falling off...it's gotten a bit meaningless to us...but more on that as well in a few days).
I'll also give you a run down of summer shows and cable shows premiering and returning.
Be seeing you.
First...Who's portrayal took a 3rd string comic villain that hadn't been seen in years and turned him into an A list fictional character??? I'd like to mention the passing of Frank Gorshin...while best known as The Riddler on "Batman", he was actually a very versatile impressionist and a very talented actor. His last appearance is apparently on the season finale of "CSI"(may have to break my boycott early just to check him out one last time). He will be missed.
Second...UPN's schedule is not really something I care much about. They're moving "Veronica Mars" to Wednesdays at 9pm which puts it up against "Criminal Minds" on CBS, "Head Cases" on FOX, "Lost" on ABC and "E-Ring" on NBC...meaning this is the time slot where every DVR and VCR in the house will be active trying to catch it all (well...I'm sure "E-Ring" and "Head Cases" won't last on my watch too long).
The rest of UPN's lineup is the same with the addition of a few new comedies (including one made by Chris Rock) and the moving of wrestling to Fridays where it'll be less embarassing.
Now...on to FOX's lineups...
Last May, FOX announced a three-pronged schedule for the 2004-2005 Season. It essentially started in June and ran through May with shows being jockeyed in and out over the course of the season. This year, we got a two-pronged schedule with the same concept. Although there are a few new shows starting this June that aren't part of this schedule, I'll be discussing them anyway...
On to cancelled shows:
There were three shows announced by FOX last year that never actually made it to the small screen...Athens, The Partner and Related by Family...lucky for us...I won't bother reminding you what they were about (you can find last year's post now on the website).
North Shore -- 1 Season/20 Episodes -- Didn't see it. Oh well. Too late now.
The Complex: Malibu -- 1 Season/8 Episodes -- Remember this? Me neither.
The Rebel Billionaire -- 1 Season/11 Episodes -- Sir Richard Branson tries to trump Trump and fails miserably.
Quintuplets -- 1 Season/22 Episodes -- Of all the shows, I'll miss this one the most. Andy Richter will someday have a successful show of his own that lasts for a while.
Method & Red -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/5 Unaired -- Caught one episode...didn't find it funny...apparently neither did anyone else.
The Next Great Champ -- 1 Season/10 Episodes -- Cause you can't see enough amateur boxing on TV.
The Jury -- 1 Season/10 Episodes -- It was what "Law & Order: Trial By Jury" should have been...but they're both gone and we miss out on something (not sure what).
Tru Calling -- 2 Seasons/26 Episodes/1 Unaired -- That's what Eliza Dushku gets for not giving fans a "Faith the Vampire Slayer" series...tossed around the schedule and cancelled before your final episode can air (add in a full second season order that was scaled back twice to become 6).
Life On A Stick -- 1 Season/Anywhere between 8 and 11 episodes/3 to 6 Unaired -- I'm not sure how many episodes were made of this quirky and bizarre show, but I hope FOX at least burns off the unaired ones.
Jonny Zero -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/5 Unaired -- The title reminded me too much of "Johnny Bago" from several years ago, so I didn't bother watching. Is that why no one else did either?
Point Pleasant -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/5 Unaired -- Oooohhhh....spooky...there's still 5 episodes of this crap laying around somewhere.
The Casino -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- It's odd that FOX couldn't do more episodes of something that seems to have taken on a life of its own on Discovery & Travel.
Kelsey Grammar Presents: The Sketch Show -- 1 Season/6 Episodes/2 Unaired -- Apparently this may still be airing as someone's said something about the former Frasier star playing Beast in the next "X-Men" movie...that's a sketch for the show and not a real piece of news, right?
Oliver Beene -- 2 Seasons/24 Episodes/2 Unaired -- Remember this one? I had to really reach back to remember I think I may have actually seen most of the episodes that aired. I must get a life.
The Swan -- 2 Seasons/19 Episodes -- Apparently, there is a G-d...it just took him a while (19 episodes) to notice what we were doing before decreeing this disgusting waste of humanity get cancelled.
My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss -- 1 Season/10 Episodes/5 Unaired -- If it had been about Rupert Murdoch instead of a chimp it may have done better...or maybe it was about Murdoch anyway.
Who's Your Daddy -- 1 Season/?? Episodes/?? Unaired -- Only 1 episode of this reality series that had many adoption advocates joinging the NRA and attempting to gun down FOX executives ever aired. We should all be thankful that it didn't get any further...that's what soap operas are for.
Returning Shows:
Arrested Development -- 3rd Season -- FOX was smart to bring this GREAT show back for a third season...if you're not watching this...well...I've already used that threat about people not watching "Lost"...you should be watching this...let's hope Fox Home Video gets season 2 on DVD before season 3 starts to catch everyone up to speed. And now that its on Monday nights, you have no excuse...there's nothing else on.
House -- 2nd Season -- I just started watching this show...it was in a tough slot for us, but the one or two episodes I did catch I liked...so we'll catch up this summer (when we have nothing to do but change diapers).
That 70s Show -- 8th Season -- It looked like Bret Harrison of "Grounded For Life" was going to replace the departing Topher Grace...but Harrison's got his own new show starting mid-season (see "The Loop" below)...so I guess this aging comedy will just come back with whoever's left. Once upon a time it was fresh and smart and original...now it's just stale and boring...kind of like the 1970s.
Stacked -- 2nd Season -- While it's funny, I'd have prefered to see "Life On A Stick" or "Quintuplets" come back.
The OC -- 3rd Season -- Don't watch it, but it's nice to know George Lucas isn't beyond pimping his products on network TV shows that his kids like.
The Bernie Mac Show -- 5th Season -- Wow...a short 4th season that was barely funny actually led to a 5th season...I hope it improves.
Malcolm In The Middle -- 7th Season -- After "Arrested Development" this is the funniest show on TV. Hands down. It has been consistently funny since the first episode of the first season...something that hasn't been done since the first nine seasons of "Frasier". I hope they can keep it up (although the move to Fridays may spell the end for the show).
Cops -- 18th Season -- Come on everyone...sing a long...Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
America's Most Wanted -- 19th Season -- Wow...and yet we still have crime.
King Of The Hill -- 10th Season -- This show, which I still love dearly, easily gets the first prize for "Coach" award (as in..."this is still on TV???")
The Simpsons -- 17th Season -- Okay...this is still my favorite show of all time, but even I can be critical of it when it's bad...the 15th season was bad...all over the place, silly, pointless bad...this last season was an improvement...but after this many years the writers are bound to run out of steam for a string of episodes. Even when it's bad, there's still plenty to quote though.
Family Guy -- 4th or 5th Season -- With FOX's new year round scheduling, the concept of seasons kind of goes out the window. New episodes of what is obviously the 4th Season just started...but we don't know when they'll end (same with "American Dad")...so that's why I've got my odd listing...more importantly...this show is still hysterically funny and very repeatable when it comes to watching episodes.
American Dad -- 1st or 2nd Season -- Unfortunately, this show isn't as funny as the other animated shows on FOX...but it's not "Fish Police" either...and it is growing on me...it's hit or miss at best...but I'm sure they'll find their stride here. It took "Family Guy" a while to find its sride.
American Idol -- 5th Season -- Come talk to me when the show starts trotting out good musicians and isn't destroying the concept of music as an art form.
New Shows:
Kitchen Confidential -- this sitcom based on the real life book by chef Anthony Bourdain is set in a restaurant and stars Bradley Cooper, Nicholas Brendon and John F. Daley. Could be good. I'll watch for a bit to see if it hooks me.
Prison Break This has the most intriguing premise, as like "Lost", I don't see how from the description it will sustain more than a season...but good luck trying...I'll watch. A man purposely robs a bank to get thrown in jail so he can help break his brother, who's on death row, out of prison with the use of the prison blueprints he has hold of. Dominic Purcell (of "John Doe"), Peter Stormare and Stacy Keach star.
Bones -- Emily Deschannel and David Boreanaz star in this procedural drama about a forensic anthropologist who assits law enforcement in solving crimes. The cast gets me to watch what's become a rather boring premise.
Head Cases -- Chris O'Donnell, Adam Goldberg and Rachel Leigh Cook star in this "dramady" about a lawyer who tries to rebuild his life after a nervous breakdown. Again, the cast gets a shot in spite of the premise.
Reunion -- This unique show follows the lives of a group of friends from high school graduation to their 20th Reunion. The timeline is apparently all over the prlace but mostly moves forward after starting at the funeral of one of them. Sounds very intriguing. It gets a few episodes from me.
The Gate/Deviant Behavior -- Depending on what you read they're not sure of the title...but it's a procedural drama. Yawn...but it does have Chi McBride in it.
The War At Home -- Look a sitcom about a disfunctional family. We haven't seen that in a while. Michael Rapaport and Anita Barone star.
The Loop -- Bret Harrison stars as the youngest executive of a company trying to set his priorities in life. Eric Christian Olsen, Mimi Rogers and Philip Baker Hall also star. Meh.
The Inside -- Rachel Nichols stars in this procedural drama about FBI agents who track serial killers. That would be a yawn if it weren't from the minds behind "Wonderfalls" and "Angel". I'm ready. Premieres June 8.
Hell's Kitchen -- didn't anyone at FOX watch "The Restaurant" on NBC? Premieres May 30.
The Princes Of Malibu -- Bruce Jenner's sons try and replicate what Paris & Nicole have done...they may as well try invading a country as well...it'd be just as entertaining with less casualties...what's left of American dignity should go up in flames with this one. Premieres July 10
So You Think You Can Dance -- It starts July 20 and is basically "American Idol" with dancers. Blah.
"Mid-Season" Replacements:
Nanny 911 -- 2nd Season -- If "Supernanny" is like Batman, then this must be the Commissioner Gordon of Nannies...sorry...I got nothing to say about this show. It just takes up space.
Trading Spouses -- 2nd Season -- Again...it'd be better if it was the porn the title suggests. It also just takes up space.
Freebirds -- It's about young people trying to figure out life after college. There's a novel idea for a sitcom.
The Simple Life -- 4th Season -- Okay folks...you want to know why every country on the planet HATES the U.S.? It's not our foreign policy...it's not our arrogant ways...it's not even jealousy of our freedoms...it's the fact that we have elevated the vapid bitch known as Paris Hilton into an uber-celebrity and worship at her alter. Until we rectify this issue we'll continue to be the scorn of everyone everywhere...and deservedly so.
Renovate My Family -- 2nd Season -- It's a step above "The Swan"...maybe they should just work on getting the Hilton sisters real lives?
Well...that's next fall...I'll be back in a few days with a breakdown of what I'm hoping to do about it (Malcolm...my son, not the TV series...may prevent it from becoming a reality since our lives our going to CHANGE FOREVER -- sorry...everytime someone tells me that I tend to equate it to an arm falling off...it's gotten a bit meaningless to us...but more on that as well in a few days).
I'll also give you a run down of summer shows and cable shows premiering and returning.
Be seeing you.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
CBS: Forwards...
Okay...now I don't think I've even bothered dealing with CBS' new fall schedule for the last few years because I've pretty much had a boycott in place (I'm not going to rehash why here).
This year I'm actually going to comment on a few of the new shows as I may decide to finally and officially break the boycott...but I still have a few months to make that decision. I know it'll make my wife happy (she's tired of my "freaking out" every time the cable box has to be turned back on and we need to quickly flip from channel 2).
It has been five years since I've watched a CBS show...so I can't comment on shows that are not returning this upcoming season.
I also feel I can't really comment on shows that are returning this upcoming season...beyond the "CSI" franchise which I have been watching on DVD as they come out...though I haven't seen the New York version yet.
With all that in mind...here's a look at their new shows:
How I Met Your Mother -- This sitcom stars Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, Josh Radnor and Jason Segel with Bob Saget doing a voice over from the future (the whole show is a flashback...like "Jack & Bobby" I suppose). It's young people in love...but the cast may make it worthwhile.
Out of Practice -- From the creators of "Frasier" comes this comedy about a family of doctors starring Henry Winkler, Stockard Channing, Paula Marshall, Christopher Gorham and Ty Burell. Could also be worthwhile.
Close To Home -- Jerry Bruckheimer brings us another legal drama. Yawn.
Criminal Minds -- Here's the reason I'd break the boycott. Mandy Patinkin's back on TV in this show about an elite FBI team that tracks serial killers. It also stars Thomas Gibson (he was Greg of "Dharma & Greg" fame).
Ghost Whisperer -- Whenever one network has a success with a show, the others will eventually try and copy it. So here's CBS' version of "Medium" starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. This would not be a reason to end my boycott (and is a good reason to keep it in place).
Threshold -- This sci-fi show is from the combined minds of people involved in "Star Trek" (the good ones), "Blade" and "Harry Potter". It boasts a cast that includes Carla Gugino, Charles S. Dutton and Brent Spiner. It's about a team that discovers a UFO in the ocean and tries to unlock its secrets. Sounds interesting...If I do break the boycott, this is on my list of things to try out.
And the mid-season replacements are:
The Unit -- The last show I watched on CBS also starred Dennis Haysbert. This one not only has him, but it also includes Robert Patrick, Soctt Foley and Amy Acker and has David Mamet as an executive producer. The description's a bit lacking (a special ops force that travels the world doing covert work), but the cast and creative team makes this a must see (or at least an "I'll give it a shot if I break the boycott").
Everything I Know About Men -- Jenna Elfman stars in a sitcom. Yawn.
And the full CBS schedule is:
Mondays 8pm King of Queens
8:30 How I Met Your Mother
9pm Two and a Half Men
9:30 Out of Practice
10pm CSI: Miami
Tuesdays
8pm NCIS
9pm The Amazing Race
10pm Close To Home
Wednesdays
8pm Still Standing
8:30 Yes Dear
9pm Criminal Minds
10pm CSI: New York
Thursdays
8pm Survivor
9pm CSI
10pm Without A Trace
Fridays
8pm Ghost Whisperer
9pm Threshold
10pm Numbers
Saturdays
8pm Saturday Crime Time
10pm 48 Hours Mystery
Sundays
7pm 60 MInutes
8pm Cold Case
9pm Movie
Tomorrow we're back with FOX and a bit about UPN (assuming they have anything worthwhile beyond "Veronica Mars" and that top secret "Star Trek" project).
Be seeing you.
This year I'm actually going to comment on a few of the new shows as I may decide to finally and officially break the boycott...but I still have a few months to make that decision. I know it'll make my wife happy (she's tired of my "freaking out" every time the cable box has to be turned back on and we need to quickly flip from channel 2).
It has been five years since I've watched a CBS show...so I can't comment on shows that are not returning this upcoming season.
I also feel I can't really comment on shows that are returning this upcoming season...beyond the "CSI" franchise which I have been watching on DVD as they come out...though I haven't seen the New York version yet.
With all that in mind...here's a look at their new shows:
How I Met Your Mother -- This sitcom stars Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, Josh Radnor and Jason Segel with Bob Saget doing a voice over from the future (the whole show is a flashback...like "Jack & Bobby" I suppose). It's young people in love...but the cast may make it worthwhile.
Out of Practice -- From the creators of "Frasier" comes this comedy about a family of doctors starring Henry Winkler, Stockard Channing, Paula Marshall, Christopher Gorham and Ty Burell. Could also be worthwhile.
Close To Home -- Jerry Bruckheimer brings us another legal drama. Yawn.
Criminal Minds -- Here's the reason I'd break the boycott. Mandy Patinkin's back on TV in this show about an elite FBI team that tracks serial killers. It also stars Thomas Gibson (he was Greg of "Dharma & Greg" fame).
Ghost Whisperer -- Whenever one network has a success with a show, the others will eventually try and copy it. So here's CBS' version of "Medium" starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. This would not be a reason to end my boycott (and is a good reason to keep it in place).
Threshold -- This sci-fi show is from the combined minds of people involved in "Star Trek" (the good ones), "Blade" and "Harry Potter". It boasts a cast that includes Carla Gugino, Charles S. Dutton and Brent Spiner. It's about a team that discovers a UFO in the ocean and tries to unlock its secrets. Sounds interesting...If I do break the boycott, this is on my list of things to try out.
And the mid-season replacements are:
The Unit -- The last show I watched on CBS also starred Dennis Haysbert. This one not only has him, but it also includes Robert Patrick, Soctt Foley and Amy Acker and has David Mamet as an executive producer. The description's a bit lacking (a special ops force that travels the world doing covert work), but the cast and creative team makes this a must see (or at least an "I'll give it a shot if I break the boycott").
Everything I Know About Men -- Jenna Elfman stars in a sitcom. Yawn.
And the full CBS schedule is:
Mondays 8pm King of Queens
8:30 How I Met Your Mother
9pm Two and a Half Men
9:30 Out of Practice
10pm CSI: Miami
Tuesdays
8pm NCIS
9pm The Amazing Race
10pm Close To Home
Wednesdays
8pm Still Standing
8:30 Yes Dear
9pm Criminal Minds
10pm CSI: New York
Thursdays
8pm Survivor
9pm CSI
10pm Without A Trace
Fridays
8pm Ghost Whisperer
9pm Threshold
10pm Numbers
Saturdays
8pm Saturday Crime Time
10pm 48 Hours Mystery
Sundays
7pm 60 MInutes
8pm Cold Case
9pm Movie
Tomorrow we're back with FOX and a bit about UPN (assuming they have anything worthwhile beyond "Veronica Mars" and that top secret "Star Trek" project).
Be seeing you.
The WB: Forwards and Backwards 2005
Today's topic covers The WB and all of its shows from this past season with a look ahead to next season.
Cancelled shows:
Drew Carey's Green Screen -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/8 Unaired -- Drew Carey's last gasp at TV stardom died a quick and painless death (maybe it was painless...I didn't see any episodes).
Grounded For Life -- 5 Seasons/91 Episodes/2 Unaired -- I really liked this show and in spite of some odd handling of bizarre casting situations (2 characters disappeared from the screen at various points but were mentioned as if they were still around on a regular basis) it always brought a smile to my face and gave me something to while away the time with on Friday nights.
High School Reunion -- 3 Seasons/21 Episodes -- Ha...the show didn't even make it past junior year before flunking out.
Jack & Bobby -- 1 Season/22 Episodes -- This was a really good show. Luckily, we did get some sort of closure to this story of two brothers who would eventually go on to successful political careers. It will be missed.
The Mountain -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- Didn't see it. Must have been a very small mountain.
Summerland -- 2 Seasons/26 Episodes/4 Unaired -- Don't watch this either, so can't comment.
Steve Harvey's Big Time Challenge -- 2 Seasons/43 Episodes -- Wow...a year with no Steve Harvey? What will The WB do?
Returning Shows:
7th Heaven -- 10th Season -- This is still on the air?
Gilmore Girls -- 6th Season -- I saw a bit of this its first year, it wasn't bad, but I haven't watched it since. Six years huh? Wow!
One Tree Hill -- 3rd Season -- Don't know. Don't care.
Smallville -- 5th Season -- Okay...coming off of an amazing 3rd Season, this show started strong and then spent most of the year spinning its wheels. Some plots were great (Lionel's supposed reformation, Chloe finding out Clark's secret, the intro of Lois Lane) while others were just abysmal (Lionel's evil side returning too quickly, the intro of Lois, Lana being possesed and the entire storyline involving Jason Teague and his mother). Add in a few "freak of the week" episodes too many and season 4 becomes the weakest of all. Luckily, some of this stuff corrected itself in the season's penultimate hour. But I have yet to see the season finale...so maybe that'll change things for the better even more.
Everwood -- 4th Season -- One of the things I liked about this show, the narration, was removed for this season. While I do miss it, it wasn't that important...it just added to the "homey" feel the show has. This season was just as wonderful as last and I'm glad its coming back. Treat Williams is one of the most underrated actors on TV today.
What I Like About You -- 4th Season -- I don't think I've ever even seen an episode.
Reba -- 5th Season -- It's cute, but it doesn't draw me on a weekly basis.
Living With Fran -- 2nd Season -- I have yet to see this. I watched all 6 years of "The Nanny" do I have to see this as well?
Charmed -- 8th Season -- This "Buffy"-ish show has now lasted longer than the show that inspired it. I haven't seen an episode in about 5 years, but I do remember enjoying it...so there must be a reason or three its still on.
Blue Collar TV -- 2nd Season -- If you watch this show, you just might be a redneck. Okay...it's BLUE collar TV and yet it's more popular in RED states...or is that correct...I can never remember which state is what color anymore. Eh...we're all living in the dark anyway does it matter?
New Shows:
Just Legal -- Jerry Bruckheimer brings us a new law show starring Don Johnson that mixes "L.A. Law" and "Doogie Howser" as we follow a 19 year old legal whiz and the law firm he's connected to.Do we really need another legal drama?
Supernatural -- Two brothers search for their missing father and encounter lots of evil supernatural forces along the way. Sounds like a weird clone of "Freakylinks" without "The Blair Witch" aspect. I'll give it a shot or three.
Related -- I think NBC did this show a number of years ago and called it "Sisters"...which would have been much more interesting had it been more like the Brian DePalma film of the same title...this sounds missable.
Twins -- Okay...this sitcom actually sounds interesting if only because it could be a train wreck of massive size. Sara Gilbert and Molly Stanton plays twins (hence the title) and their parents are Mark Linn-Baker (of "Perfect Strangers" fame) and...wait for it...Melanie Griffith???!!! Hmmm...I'll give it a shot just to see how bad this could be.
Mid Season:
Pepper Dennis -- Rebecca Romijn stars as a reporter. That's believable, no?
The Bedford Diaries -- Here's an odd show from the producers of "Oz" and "Homicide". Matthew Modine stars as a college professor teaching a class on Human Sexuality at a New York City college. We get to meet his students as we explore their lives outside of his class. How much sex can one network cram into an hour?
Misconceptions -- Jane Leeves stars as a single mother whose daughter finally decides to find out who her biological father was. It also stars French Stewart (who is just Leeves best friend and not the biological father). Hilarity ensues when the father turns out to be very opposite from the mother and the daughter really likes him. Meh.
Modern Men -- the renewal of "Jake In Progress" has already forced this show to recast the female lead (played by Wendy Malick)...so these three life-long friends will have to find a new life-coach to guide them through the different stages each one is at. At least they still have George Wendt.
So the full schedule reads as follows:
Mondays
8pm 7th Heaven
9pm Just Legal
Tuesdays
8pm Gilmore Girls
9pm Supernatural
Wednesdays
8pm One Tree Hill
9pm Related
Thursdays
8pm Smallville
9pm Everwood
Fridays
8pm Twins
8:30 What I Like About You
9pm Reba
9:30 Living With Fran
Sundays
5pm Easy View: What I Like About You
5:30 Easy View: What I Like About You
6pm Easy View: One Tree Hill
7pm Easy View: Reba
7:30 Easy View: Reba
8pm Charmed
9pm Blue Collar TV
Next up...yes...he's actually going to report on CBS even though he's still boycotting the network. Could the boycott be at an end? Will he really look at CBS' new fall lineup? Stay tuned and find out...
Be seeing you.
Cancelled shows:
Drew Carey's Green Screen -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/8 Unaired -- Drew Carey's last gasp at TV stardom died a quick and painless death (maybe it was painless...I didn't see any episodes).
Grounded For Life -- 5 Seasons/91 Episodes/2 Unaired -- I really liked this show and in spite of some odd handling of bizarre casting situations (2 characters disappeared from the screen at various points but were mentioned as if they were still around on a regular basis) it always brought a smile to my face and gave me something to while away the time with on Friday nights.
High School Reunion -- 3 Seasons/21 Episodes -- Ha...the show didn't even make it past junior year before flunking out.
Jack & Bobby -- 1 Season/22 Episodes -- This was a really good show. Luckily, we did get some sort of closure to this story of two brothers who would eventually go on to successful political careers. It will be missed.
The Mountain -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- Didn't see it. Must have been a very small mountain.
Summerland -- 2 Seasons/26 Episodes/4 Unaired -- Don't watch this either, so can't comment.
Steve Harvey's Big Time Challenge -- 2 Seasons/43 Episodes -- Wow...a year with no Steve Harvey? What will The WB do?
Returning Shows:
7th Heaven -- 10th Season -- This is still on the air?
Gilmore Girls -- 6th Season -- I saw a bit of this its first year, it wasn't bad, but I haven't watched it since. Six years huh? Wow!
One Tree Hill -- 3rd Season -- Don't know. Don't care.
Smallville -- 5th Season -- Okay...coming off of an amazing 3rd Season, this show started strong and then spent most of the year spinning its wheels. Some plots were great (Lionel's supposed reformation, Chloe finding out Clark's secret, the intro of Lois Lane) while others were just abysmal (Lionel's evil side returning too quickly, the intro of Lois, Lana being possesed and the entire storyline involving Jason Teague and his mother). Add in a few "freak of the week" episodes too many and season 4 becomes the weakest of all. Luckily, some of this stuff corrected itself in the season's penultimate hour. But I have yet to see the season finale...so maybe that'll change things for the better even more.
Everwood -- 4th Season -- One of the things I liked about this show, the narration, was removed for this season. While I do miss it, it wasn't that important...it just added to the "homey" feel the show has. This season was just as wonderful as last and I'm glad its coming back. Treat Williams is one of the most underrated actors on TV today.
What I Like About You -- 4th Season -- I don't think I've ever even seen an episode.
Reba -- 5th Season -- It's cute, but it doesn't draw me on a weekly basis.
Living With Fran -- 2nd Season -- I have yet to see this. I watched all 6 years of "The Nanny" do I have to see this as well?
Charmed -- 8th Season -- This "Buffy"-ish show has now lasted longer than the show that inspired it. I haven't seen an episode in about 5 years, but I do remember enjoying it...so there must be a reason or three its still on.
Blue Collar TV -- 2nd Season -- If you watch this show, you just might be a redneck. Okay...it's BLUE collar TV and yet it's more popular in RED states...or is that correct...I can never remember which state is what color anymore. Eh...we're all living in the dark anyway does it matter?
New Shows:
Just Legal -- Jerry Bruckheimer brings us a new law show starring Don Johnson that mixes "L.A. Law" and "Doogie Howser" as we follow a 19 year old legal whiz and the law firm he's connected to.Do we really need another legal drama?
Supernatural -- Two brothers search for their missing father and encounter lots of evil supernatural forces along the way. Sounds like a weird clone of "Freakylinks" without "The Blair Witch" aspect. I'll give it a shot or three.
Related -- I think NBC did this show a number of years ago and called it "Sisters"...which would have been much more interesting had it been more like the Brian DePalma film of the same title...this sounds missable.
Twins -- Okay...this sitcom actually sounds interesting if only because it could be a train wreck of massive size. Sara Gilbert and Molly Stanton plays twins (hence the title) and their parents are Mark Linn-Baker (of "Perfect Strangers" fame) and...wait for it...Melanie Griffith???!!! Hmmm...I'll give it a shot just to see how bad this could be.
Mid Season:
Pepper Dennis -- Rebecca Romijn stars as a reporter. That's believable, no?
The Bedford Diaries -- Here's an odd show from the producers of "Oz" and "Homicide". Matthew Modine stars as a college professor teaching a class on Human Sexuality at a New York City college. We get to meet his students as we explore their lives outside of his class. How much sex can one network cram into an hour?
Misconceptions -- Jane Leeves stars as a single mother whose daughter finally decides to find out who her biological father was. It also stars French Stewart (who is just Leeves best friend and not the biological father). Hilarity ensues when the father turns out to be very opposite from the mother and the daughter really likes him. Meh.
Modern Men -- the renewal of "Jake In Progress" has already forced this show to recast the female lead (played by Wendy Malick)...so these three life-long friends will have to find a new life-coach to guide them through the different stages each one is at. At least they still have George Wendt.
So the full schedule reads as follows:
Mondays
8pm 7th Heaven
9pm Just Legal
Tuesdays
8pm Gilmore Girls
9pm Supernatural
Wednesdays
8pm One Tree Hill
9pm Related
Thursdays
8pm Smallville
9pm Everwood
Fridays
8pm Twins
8:30 What I Like About You
9pm Reba
9:30 Living With Fran
Sundays
5pm Easy View: What I Like About You
5:30 Easy View: What I Like About You
6pm Easy View: One Tree Hill
7pm Easy View: Reba
7:30 Easy View: Reba
8pm Charmed
9pm Blue Collar TV
Next up...yes...he's actually going to report on CBS even though he's still boycotting the network. Could the boycott be at an end? Will he really look at CBS' new fall lineup? Stay tuned and find out...
Be seeing you.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
ABC: Forwards and Backwards 2005
In Part Two we look at ABC...
Here's what ABC's getting rid of:
The Benefactor -- 1 Season/6 Episodes -- A reality show no one remembers.
Blind Justice -- 1 Season/ 13 Episodes -- I think this would have worked better if it was about a blind super hero named Daredevil.
Complete Savages -- 1 Season/19 Episodes/4 Unaired -- So Mel Gibson follows up The Passion of the Christ with this?
8 Simple Rules -- 3 Seasons/76 Episodes -- This warm and fuzzy show tried to carry on after the tragic passing of star John Ritter. Admirably they made it almost two whole seasons before running out of steam and audience.
Life As We Know It -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/2 Unaired/DVD Release -- I kinda liked this show. Don't know that I'll want to own it, but maybe rent it to see what I missed.
My Wife And Kids -- 5 Seasons/123 Episodes -- Gets the "Coach" award for being on the air for so long with so few caring.
NYPD Blue -- 12 Seasons/261 Episodes -- I don't remember the last time I even bothered watching this show. I think Jimmy Smits was still on...come to think of it, I think I stopped watching around the same episodes the DVD releases have stopped coming.
Eyes -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/8 Unaired -- Of all the shows to get cancelled this year, I'll miss this one the most. Tim Daly is a very charismatic actor I'll give a chance in anything (like Scott Bakula...the only reason I even gave "Star Trek: Enterprise" three episodes to begin with). This show was what TV should be. Fun and engaging.
Here's what's coming back:
Wife Swap -- 2nd Season -- Ugh! Maybe if it was actually the porn the title suggests it'd be more interesting.
Monday Night Football -- 37th Season -- This is the last season for this institution on ABC. Nothing lasts forever.
According To Jim -- 5th Season -- Hey look...it's going for "Coach"'s record.
Rodney -- 2nd Season -- Huh?
Boston Legal -- 2nd Season -- Thankfully back for more even with the truncated 1st season. Easily one of the funniest shows on TV.
George Lopez -- 5th Season -- Uh oh...looks like "According To Jim" has some competition.
Lost -- 2nd Season -- Easily the best show on TV. If you're not watching it, you should just take your TV back to wherever you bought it. You don't deserve to have it.
Alias -- 5th Season -- Still interesting, but starting to feel like a slowly collapsing flan. I think Garner's pregnancy will only hasten the flatness.
Primetime Live -- 17th Season -- It's "news". Does anyone care?
Supernanny -- 2nd Season -- Her super powers include super cleaning and speedy diaper changes. Her weaknesses are low ratings and poop streaks on walls.
Hope & Faith -- 3rd Season -- It's cute...but a third season? Come on.
20/20 --28th Season -- Look ma, more "news".
America's Funniest Home Videos -- 16th Season -- Wow. Who knew there was that much footage of guys getting slammed in the nuts and cats falling off of TVs? Where's PETA when you need them?
Exterme Makeover -- 3rd Season -- I think this show should be required to make over EVERY house in the US. And to do it with "real" contractors. That'd get me watching.
Desperate Housewives -- 2nd Season -- Okay...if you're not watching "Lost" you had better be watching this...
Gray's Anatomy -- 2nd Season -- I don't get it. Don't care to. Yawn.
Here are the new shows:
Commander In Chief --Geena Davis stars as the first female President of the United States. The show also stars Donald Sutherand and Kyle Secor (I guess Jake Kane won't be back for the second season of "Veronica Mars"). I'll give it a shot depending on my mood this fall.
Freddie -- Freddie Prinze + half hour sitcom = does anyone care?
Invasion -- Producer Shaun Cassidy (yes...the Hardy Boy) brings us this sci-fi show about a small town that may already be inhabited by aliens. If this is anything akin to "American Gothic" it's gonna be a good show. It gets the 3 episode trial from me.
The Night Stalker -- This updated rem,ake of the 1970s cult TV show that was the inspiration for "The X-Files" (and two of that shows writers are the producers of this one) stars Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak, a crime reporter who is also the FBI's number one suspect in a string of serial killings that started with his wife. That's ABC's description in a nut shell...will this be a running thread as Kolchak also investigates vampires, werewolves & witches or is this just one episode? Doesn't matter...I'll give it a shot. Hopefully it'll be as good as the original.
Hot Properties -- A sitcom about real estate agents. I'm assuming we'll have no choice but to at least give this a try (especially since we'll be stuck at home most Friday nights come the fall).
And for mid-season we get:
Jake In Progress -- 2nd Season -- Natasha & I really liked this very quirky comedy with a very likable cast (Rick Hoffman deserves an Emmy for his role as Patrick the weird David Blaine wannabe). Wasn't expecting a second season, but with the cliffhanger ending that sprung up AFTER the last episode's end credits I'm glad ABC is bringing it back.
Less Than Perfect -- 4th Season -- Every now and then I catch this show because I keep forgetting that I don't think Andy Dick's funny anymore (not since "Newsradio" ended) and I'm not sure Eric Roberts ever was. Doesn't Will Sasso have more talent than this?
Emily's Reasons Why Not -- Heather Graham gets a sitcom because she was so funny on "Scrubs". Meh...it'll get a one episode shot from me.
What About Brian -- It's the one hour dramatic version of "Jake In Progress". The single guy schtick probably isn't interesting without the guffaws. Pass.
Crumbs -- Fred Savage, Jane Curtain and William Devane star in this sitcom about a disfunctional family. That's an original idea, no? We'll see...the cast gets it a trial run from me.
The Evidence -- Because we just don't have enough cop shows on TV (the new term "Police Procedural" makes it sound like something else...it's a cop show). Stars Orlando Jones, Nicky Katt and Martin Landau...hmmm...this just got a bit interesting.
Sons & Daughters -- Hey look...another sitcom about a disfunctional family...this one's produced by Lorne Michaels and has Dee Wallace?? Is she funny? I'll never know...
The Miracle Workers -- A new reality show about doctors who heal sick people. We need more sugery on TV like I need another aneurysm. Nothing to see here...keep going...
In Justice -- Kyle MacLachlan stars in this courtroom drama about lawyers who try and get those "falsely convicted" freed from jail. Could be interesting...I'd prefer this one also had Martin Landau in it...but I'll give it a shot anyway...at least one episode.
And the full schedule:
Mondays (2005)
8pm Wife Swap
9pm Monday Night Football
Mondays (2006)
8pm The Bachelor
9pm Emily's ReasonsWhy Not
9:30 Jake In Progress
10pm What About Brian
Tuesdays
8pm According To Jim
8:30 Rodney
9pm Commander In Chief
10pm Boston Legal
Wednesdays
8pm George Lopez
8:30 Freddie
9pm Lost
10pm Invasion
Thursdays
8pm Alias
9pm The Night Stalker
10pm Primetime Live
Fridays
8pm Supernanny
9pm Hope & faith
9:30 Hot Properties
10pm 20/20
Saturdays
8pm Movies
Sundays
7pm America's Funniest Home Videos
8pm Extreme Makeover
9pm Desperate Housewives
10pm Gray's Anatomy
Next up, The WB.
Be seeing you.
Here's what ABC's getting rid of:
The Benefactor -- 1 Season/6 Episodes -- A reality show no one remembers.
Blind Justice -- 1 Season/ 13 Episodes -- I think this would have worked better if it was about a blind super hero named Daredevil.
Complete Savages -- 1 Season/19 Episodes/4 Unaired -- So Mel Gibson follows up The Passion of the Christ with this?
8 Simple Rules -- 3 Seasons/76 Episodes -- This warm and fuzzy show tried to carry on after the tragic passing of star John Ritter. Admirably they made it almost two whole seasons before running out of steam and audience.
Life As We Know It -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/2 Unaired/DVD Release -- I kinda liked this show. Don't know that I'll want to own it, but maybe rent it to see what I missed.
My Wife And Kids -- 5 Seasons/123 Episodes -- Gets the "Coach" award for being on the air for so long with so few caring.
NYPD Blue -- 12 Seasons/261 Episodes -- I don't remember the last time I even bothered watching this show. I think Jimmy Smits was still on...come to think of it, I think I stopped watching around the same episodes the DVD releases have stopped coming.
Eyes -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/8 Unaired -- Of all the shows to get cancelled this year, I'll miss this one the most. Tim Daly is a very charismatic actor I'll give a chance in anything (like Scott Bakula...the only reason I even gave "Star Trek: Enterprise" three episodes to begin with). This show was what TV should be. Fun and engaging.
Here's what's coming back:
Wife Swap -- 2nd Season -- Ugh! Maybe if it was actually the porn the title suggests it'd be more interesting.
Monday Night Football -- 37th Season -- This is the last season for this institution on ABC. Nothing lasts forever.
According To Jim -- 5th Season -- Hey look...it's going for "Coach"'s record.
Rodney -- 2nd Season -- Huh?
Boston Legal -- 2nd Season -- Thankfully back for more even with the truncated 1st season. Easily one of the funniest shows on TV.
George Lopez -- 5th Season -- Uh oh...looks like "According To Jim" has some competition.
Lost -- 2nd Season -- Easily the best show on TV. If you're not watching it, you should just take your TV back to wherever you bought it. You don't deserve to have it.
Alias -- 5th Season -- Still interesting, but starting to feel like a slowly collapsing flan. I think Garner's pregnancy will only hasten the flatness.
Primetime Live -- 17th Season -- It's "news". Does anyone care?
Supernanny -- 2nd Season -- Her super powers include super cleaning and speedy diaper changes. Her weaknesses are low ratings and poop streaks on walls.
Hope & Faith -- 3rd Season -- It's cute...but a third season? Come on.
20/20 --28th Season -- Look ma, more "news".
America's Funniest Home Videos -- 16th Season -- Wow. Who knew there was that much footage of guys getting slammed in the nuts and cats falling off of TVs? Where's PETA when you need them?
Exterme Makeover -- 3rd Season -- I think this show should be required to make over EVERY house in the US. And to do it with "real" contractors. That'd get me watching.
Desperate Housewives -- 2nd Season -- Okay...if you're not watching "Lost" you had better be watching this...
Gray's Anatomy -- 2nd Season -- I don't get it. Don't care to. Yawn.
Here are the new shows:
Commander In Chief --Geena Davis stars as the first female President of the United States. The show also stars Donald Sutherand and Kyle Secor (I guess Jake Kane won't be back for the second season of "Veronica Mars"). I'll give it a shot depending on my mood this fall.
Freddie -- Freddie Prinze + half hour sitcom = does anyone care?
Invasion -- Producer Shaun Cassidy (yes...the Hardy Boy) brings us this sci-fi show about a small town that may already be inhabited by aliens. If this is anything akin to "American Gothic" it's gonna be a good show. It gets the 3 episode trial from me.
The Night Stalker -- This updated rem,ake of the 1970s cult TV show that was the inspiration for "The X-Files" (and two of that shows writers are the producers of this one) stars Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak, a crime reporter who is also the FBI's number one suspect in a string of serial killings that started with his wife. That's ABC's description in a nut shell...will this be a running thread as Kolchak also investigates vampires, werewolves & witches or is this just one episode? Doesn't matter...I'll give it a shot. Hopefully it'll be as good as the original.
Hot Properties -- A sitcom about real estate agents. I'm assuming we'll have no choice but to at least give this a try (especially since we'll be stuck at home most Friday nights come the fall).
And for mid-season we get:
Jake In Progress -- 2nd Season -- Natasha & I really liked this very quirky comedy with a very likable cast (Rick Hoffman deserves an Emmy for his role as Patrick the weird David Blaine wannabe). Wasn't expecting a second season, but with the cliffhanger ending that sprung up AFTER the last episode's end credits I'm glad ABC is bringing it back.
Less Than Perfect -- 4th Season -- Every now and then I catch this show because I keep forgetting that I don't think Andy Dick's funny anymore (not since "Newsradio" ended) and I'm not sure Eric Roberts ever was. Doesn't Will Sasso have more talent than this?
Emily's Reasons Why Not -- Heather Graham gets a sitcom because she was so funny on "Scrubs". Meh...it'll get a one episode shot from me.
What About Brian -- It's the one hour dramatic version of "Jake In Progress". The single guy schtick probably isn't interesting without the guffaws. Pass.
Crumbs -- Fred Savage, Jane Curtain and William Devane star in this sitcom about a disfunctional family. That's an original idea, no? We'll see...the cast gets it a trial run from me.
The Evidence -- Because we just don't have enough cop shows on TV (the new term "Police Procedural" makes it sound like something else...it's a cop show). Stars Orlando Jones, Nicky Katt and Martin Landau...hmmm...this just got a bit interesting.
Sons & Daughters -- Hey look...another sitcom about a disfunctional family...this one's produced by Lorne Michaels and has Dee Wallace?? Is she funny? I'll never know...
The Miracle Workers -- A new reality show about doctors who heal sick people. We need more sugery on TV like I need another aneurysm. Nothing to see here...keep going...
In Justice -- Kyle MacLachlan stars in this courtroom drama about lawyers who try and get those "falsely convicted" freed from jail. Could be interesting...I'd prefer this one also had Martin Landau in it...but I'll give it a shot anyway...at least one episode.
And the full schedule:
Mondays (2005)
8pm Wife Swap
9pm Monday Night Football
Mondays (2006)
8pm The Bachelor
9pm Emily's ReasonsWhy Not
9:30 Jake In Progress
10pm What About Brian
Tuesdays
8pm According To Jim
8:30 Rodney
9pm Commander In Chief
10pm Boston Legal
Wednesdays
8pm George Lopez
8:30 Freddie
9pm Lost
10pm Invasion
Thursdays
8pm Alias
9pm The Night Stalker
10pm Primetime Live
Fridays
8pm Supernanny
9pm Hope & faith
9:30 Hot Properties
10pm 20/20
Saturdays
8pm Movies
Sundays
7pm America's Funniest Home Videos
8pm Extreme Makeover
9pm Desperate Housewives
10pm Gray's Anatomy
Next up, The WB.
Be seeing you.
Monday, May 16, 2005
NBC: Forwards and Backwards 2005
This week we start the annual look at the various networks as they announce their new fall schedules. We look at the season just ending as well as what's coming up next season. First up...
So NBC's new fall lineup has some strange suprises...but first a look at what's not returning at all.
American Dreams -- 3 Seasons/61 Episodes -- Surprised it lasted as long as it did.
Committed -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- The nice part was this kooky comedy had some closure in case it didn't come back. Maybe they knew something.
Father of the Pride -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/2 Unaired/DVD release -- Ugh...this crappy, bizarre and tasteless piece of animated tripe gets a DVD release??
Hawaii -- 1 Season/8 Episodes/1 Unaired -- Didn't watch. Can't comment (well...could comment, but won't).
Last Comic Standing -- 3 Seasons/34 Episodes -- These stand ups weren't funny and most of them weren't exactly "fresh" either.
Law & Order: Trial By Jury -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/1 Unaired -- It's too bad this one didn't last. Bebe Newirth will find other work, I'm sure.
LAX -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- See my comments on Hawaii.
Medical Investigation -- 1 Season/20 Episodes -- This got the three episode tryout. Yawn. I don't even remember why I didn't like it.
Revelations -- 1 Season/6 Episodes -- Missed this (only in the "didn't get to view it" mode), but regardless of NBC calling it a "mini-series" had it done well, it would be back. It will be getting a DVD release.
Third Watch -- 6 Seasons/132 Episodes -- This was on for that long? It's like "Wings" or "Coach" for the hour long dramas.
Here are the old shows that are returning:
The West Wing -- Starts 7th Season by moving to Sundays at 8pm. I still won't watch. It's not as funny as the real life version (does anyone else miss "That's My Bush").
Law & Order: Criminal Intent -- 5th Season sees Chris Noth return as he alternates with Vincent D'Onofrio. The best of the series should get some re-energizing with this new format.
Crossing Jordan -- 5th Season -- I vaguely remember watching a few episodes of this in its first season. I think its well on its way to becoming another "Third Watch"
Las Vegas -- 3rd Season -- Have yet to see an episode. My parents like it and its got James Caan...take that for what it's worth.
Medium -- 2nd Season -- TV always feels a bit brighter when there's a Glenn Gordon Carron show on the air. It's been too long.
The Biggest Loser -- 2nd Season -- a reality show to both humiliate and inspire. Wait...aren't they all like that?
The Office -- 2nd Season -- Ugh...why did this get a second season? By the time the last episode of season 1 ended I was praying it wouldn't be back. With "Scrubs" now returning mid-season, I won't be compelled to keep the TV on and wind up watching this misfire.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit -- 7th Season -- Isn't it time for the leads to leave this show?
Law & Order -- 16th Season -- With that many years and three spin-offs under its belt, is there really any new stories they can tell?
Joey -- 2nd Season -- It's still funnier than the last few seasons of "Friends"...but that isn't saying much. We need to see more of his agent.
Will & Grace -- 8th Season -- The show is still dominated by guest stars and the secondary characters. They may appear in every episode, but Will & Grace became boring oh so long ago. Someone put them out of our misery.
The Apprentice -- 4th Run -- The only reality show I enjoy watching. Not sure why as it lost its novelty after the first run.
ER -- 12th Season -- I still stand by my pick of "Chicago Hope" as the doctor drama to watch 12 years ago. Is there anyone left from the start now?
Dateline -- 14th Season -- It's only on two days a week now (Sunday and Friday) so be thankful for small favors. Yawn. More news...like we don't get enough?
The new shows are:
Fathom -- This sci-fi show (at least that's what I'm gathering) stars Lake Bell (formerly of "Boston Legal") and is about a group of scientists who encounter some new sea creatures. Boy is that vague. It'll get the 3 episode trial from me.
My Name Is Earl -- Jason Lee stars in this sitcom about a man who has a life changing experience after winning the lottery. It's the star that gets this the 3 episode trial from me.
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart -- If you can't tell what it is by the title...isn't it great that we live in a country that treats its convicted criminals the way we do...well...the rich ones at least...I expect by mid-season we'll have a third version "The Apprentice: Enron" all set to go. I'll be passing.
E-Ring -- Dennis Hopper and Benjamin Bratt star in this Jerry Bruckheimer & Taylor Hackford produced show about the goings on inside The Pentagon. It'll be loud and flashy...haven't figured out what I plan on doing yet. It may or may not get the three episode test from me.
Three Wishes -- Because we don't have enough "Reality TV" or Amy Grant, someone decided to put the two together as the musician travels to small towns to grant people wishes. If I ask nicely and wish for crap like this to go away will she come to Stamford?
Inconceivable -- With "ER", "House" and "Gray's Anatomy" doing well it was only a matter of time before we got yet another Medical Drama. This one's set in a fertility clinic. I'll pass.
The Mid Season Replacements are:
Scrubs -- 5th Season -- Why this show got relegated to mid-season is beyond me. Luckily, we're now getting DVD releases of the early seasons to keep us warm and fuzzy.
Fear Factor -- 6th Season -- So that's how many insects and testicles one nation of TV viewers can stomach?
Four Kings -- Seth Green stars in this sitcom from the creators of "Will & Grace" about four lifelong friends who wind up moving in together. That sounds original, doesn't it? The star is what gets it a trial run from me whenever this airs (I'll guess soon after "The Office" finally tanks).
Thick and Thin -- Jessica Capshaw stars in this sitcom about a former fat woman trying to adapt to life as a skinny girl...while she's got a powerhouse supporting cast (Martin MUll, Sharon Gless), this just sounds like a bad idea all over.
The Final Schedule:
Mondays
8pm Fathom
9pm Las Vegas
10pm Medium
Tuesdays
8pm The Biggest Loser
9pm My Name Is Earl
9:30 The Office
10pm Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Wednesdays
8pm The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
9pm E-Ring
10pm Law & Order
Thursdays
8pm Joey
8:30 Will & Grace
9pm The Apprentice
10pm ER
Fridays
8pm Three Wishes
9pm Dateline
10pm Inconceivable
Saturdays
8pm Movie
Sundays
7pm Dateline
8pm The West Wing
9pm Law & Order: Criminal Intent
10pm Crossing Jordan
Next up ABC.
Be seeing you.
So NBC's new fall lineup has some strange suprises...but first a look at what's not returning at all.
American Dreams -- 3 Seasons/61 Episodes -- Surprised it lasted as long as it did.
Committed -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- The nice part was this kooky comedy had some closure in case it didn't come back. Maybe they knew something.
Father of the Pride -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/2 Unaired/DVD release -- Ugh...this crappy, bizarre and tasteless piece of animated tripe gets a DVD release??
Hawaii -- 1 Season/8 Episodes/1 Unaired -- Didn't watch. Can't comment (well...could comment, but won't).
Last Comic Standing -- 3 Seasons/34 Episodes -- These stand ups weren't funny and most of them weren't exactly "fresh" either.
Law & Order: Trial By Jury -- 1 Season/13 Episodes/1 Unaired -- It's too bad this one didn't last. Bebe Newirth will find other work, I'm sure.
LAX -- 1 Season/13 Episodes -- See my comments on Hawaii.
Medical Investigation -- 1 Season/20 Episodes -- This got the three episode tryout. Yawn. I don't even remember why I didn't like it.
Revelations -- 1 Season/6 Episodes -- Missed this (only in the "didn't get to view it" mode), but regardless of NBC calling it a "mini-series" had it done well, it would be back. It will be getting a DVD release.
Third Watch -- 6 Seasons/132 Episodes -- This was on for that long? It's like "Wings" or "Coach" for the hour long dramas.
Here are the old shows that are returning:
The West Wing -- Starts 7th Season by moving to Sundays at 8pm. I still won't watch. It's not as funny as the real life version (does anyone else miss "That's My Bush").
Law & Order: Criminal Intent -- 5th Season sees Chris Noth return as he alternates with Vincent D'Onofrio. The best of the series should get some re-energizing with this new format.
Crossing Jordan -- 5th Season -- I vaguely remember watching a few episodes of this in its first season. I think its well on its way to becoming another "Third Watch"
Las Vegas -- 3rd Season -- Have yet to see an episode. My parents like it and its got James Caan...take that for what it's worth.
Medium -- 2nd Season -- TV always feels a bit brighter when there's a Glenn Gordon Carron show on the air. It's been too long.
The Biggest Loser -- 2nd Season -- a reality show to both humiliate and inspire. Wait...aren't they all like that?
The Office -- 2nd Season -- Ugh...why did this get a second season? By the time the last episode of season 1 ended I was praying it wouldn't be back. With "Scrubs" now returning mid-season, I won't be compelled to keep the TV on and wind up watching this misfire.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit -- 7th Season -- Isn't it time for the leads to leave this show?
Law & Order -- 16th Season -- With that many years and three spin-offs under its belt, is there really any new stories they can tell?
Joey -- 2nd Season -- It's still funnier than the last few seasons of "Friends"...but that isn't saying much. We need to see more of his agent.
Will & Grace -- 8th Season -- The show is still dominated by guest stars and the secondary characters. They may appear in every episode, but Will & Grace became boring oh so long ago. Someone put them out of our misery.
The Apprentice -- 4th Run -- The only reality show I enjoy watching. Not sure why as it lost its novelty after the first run.
ER -- 12th Season -- I still stand by my pick of "Chicago Hope" as the doctor drama to watch 12 years ago. Is there anyone left from the start now?
Dateline -- 14th Season -- It's only on two days a week now (Sunday and Friday) so be thankful for small favors. Yawn. More news...like we don't get enough?
The new shows are:
Fathom -- This sci-fi show (at least that's what I'm gathering) stars Lake Bell (formerly of "Boston Legal") and is about a group of scientists who encounter some new sea creatures. Boy is that vague. It'll get the 3 episode trial from me.
My Name Is Earl -- Jason Lee stars in this sitcom about a man who has a life changing experience after winning the lottery. It's the star that gets this the 3 episode trial from me.
The Apprentice: Martha Stewart -- If you can't tell what it is by the title...isn't it great that we live in a country that treats its convicted criminals the way we do...well...the rich ones at least...I expect by mid-season we'll have a third version "The Apprentice: Enron" all set to go. I'll be passing.
E-Ring -- Dennis Hopper and Benjamin Bratt star in this Jerry Bruckheimer & Taylor Hackford produced show about the goings on inside The Pentagon. It'll be loud and flashy...haven't figured out what I plan on doing yet. It may or may not get the three episode test from me.
Three Wishes -- Because we don't have enough "Reality TV" or Amy Grant, someone decided to put the two together as the musician travels to small towns to grant people wishes. If I ask nicely and wish for crap like this to go away will she come to Stamford?
Inconceivable -- With "ER", "House" and "Gray's Anatomy" doing well it was only a matter of time before we got yet another Medical Drama. This one's set in a fertility clinic. I'll pass.
The Mid Season Replacements are:
Scrubs -- 5th Season -- Why this show got relegated to mid-season is beyond me. Luckily, we're now getting DVD releases of the early seasons to keep us warm and fuzzy.
Fear Factor -- 6th Season -- So that's how many insects and testicles one nation of TV viewers can stomach?
Four Kings -- Seth Green stars in this sitcom from the creators of "Will & Grace" about four lifelong friends who wind up moving in together. That sounds original, doesn't it? The star is what gets it a trial run from me whenever this airs (I'll guess soon after "The Office" finally tanks).
Thick and Thin -- Jessica Capshaw stars in this sitcom about a former fat woman trying to adapt to life as a skinny girl...while she's got a powerhouse supporting cast (Martin MUll, Sharon Gless), this just sounds like a bad idea all over.
The Final Schedule:
Mondays
8pm Fathom
9pm Las Vegas
10pm Medium
Tuesdays
8pm The Biggest Loser
9pm My Name Is Earl
9:30 The Office
10pm Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Wednesdays
8pm The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
9pm E-Ring
10pm Law & Order
Thursdays
8pm Joey
8:30 Will & Grace
9pm The Apprentice
10pm ER
Fridays
8pm Three Wishes
9pm Dateline
10pm Inconceivable
Saturdays
8pm Movie
Sundays
7pm Dateline
8pm The West Wing
9pm Law & Order: Criminal Intent
10pm Crossing Jordan
Next up ABC.
Be seeing you.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Back With A Vengeance
So...the show I'm directing in Darien opened this weekend. We had about 100 people in the audience over the three shows...but they LOVED it. I have an AMAZING cast that has done an incredible job with this very complex piece. If you're in the area between now and May 21, I highly recommend coming to see Book of Days by Lanford Wilson. Call 655-5414 for tickets.
Okay...with the shameless self-plug out of the way...
Phase One of the house reconstruction project is almost complete. In fact, the granite guys are here as I type putting in the master bathroom countertops. Monday the plumber returns to finish up stuff. Tuesday the tile guys do their final work. Then we just need to paint the room and get the shower door installed.
Meanwhile, Phase Two begins this week...with a new contractor who will be getting his stuff done before anyone arrives in June. At the same time we're repaving and leveling our driveway cause...well...it needs it...that too will be done before anyone arrives.
Have I mentioned that I now cry whenever I watch the Tom Hanks comedy The Money Pit. It's just not funny anymore after having lived through it.
But...there are things that still make me laugh...
Family Guy has returned from the graveyard of cancelled shows because of the successful reruns on Cartoon Network and the DVD sales of the first 3 seasons. Season 4 pretty much picked up where the show had left off over 3 years ago with Peter explaining that the show's been cancelled by FOX to make room for better shows. He then goes on to list these better shows and rattles off the names of every show that FOX has aired and cancelled since Family Guy left the air in February 2002. A great way to usher in new episodes. The show hasn't lost its sense of humor either. The season premiere featured Lois & Peter going on a second honeymoon and leaving "the kids" in the capable hands of Brian and Stewie. Pop culture references abound from Hitchcock films to The Passion of the Christ and all of them are funny. Can't wait to see this week's episode.
But wait...Family Guy isn't just a TV series anymore. They've got their own line of action figures (Death comes with his dog...the next series features Mayor Adam West and The Pope), a book (Stewie's Guide To World Domination) and a CD...Family Guy Live In Las Vegas. While I'd have preferred a CD containing some of the songs from the TV series, this is an amazingly funny substitute. Imagine a Rat Pack show full of fart jokes and F bombs and you'll get a pretty good idea of the material. Unchained from the shackles of Network TV Standards and Practices it's certainly not for kids. There is a clean version available...but why bother...
Done entirely in front of a "live" audience, after a funny intro by TV reporters Tom Tucker & Diane Simmons we get the whole Griffin family singing an extended version of the show's theme song. There's then a duet between Stewie and his babysitter Haylie Duff (Hillary's sister) entitled "Babysitting Is A Bum Deal". Brian then serenades us with "Dear Booze" before Patti LuPone joins Glen Quagmire for "The Q Man Loves Nobody" (yes...it's really Patti LuPone). And then we get the "showstopper" of the album. This song has not only been rattling around my head for over a week because it's so catchy, but it's been rattling around Natasha's head as well...and she's scared it may somehow become the first song Malcolm ever sings (we'll do our best to make sure that doesn't happen). "All Cartoons Are F----- D----" gives each of the family members (except Meg) and guest star Jason Alexander a chance to tell a story about a run in they had with other famous cartoon stars that paints them in a different light (we won't repeat what McGruff the Crime Dog does after 5pm when he's off duty). Brian then gives us "The Last Time I Saw Paris" before Peter & Lois sing a rather romantic yet raunchy duet called "But Then I Met You". Stewie & Brian then treat us to a medley of TV show theme songs (mostly from the 1980s). Chris explains how "Puberty's Gonna Get Me" and then Peter & Lois return for another romantic yet raunchy duet called "But I'm Yours". Brian returns again for a solo called "Slightly Out Of Tune" and then Herbert, the weird old man, sings "One Boy" (giving it the most perverted twist ever). The entire family plus Cleveland, Quagmire and Mayor Adam West finish off with "Quahog Holiday" (another catchy number).
The album's a hoot for the most part (Brian's solos are a bit blah...and Herbert's number is just creepy). There's plenty of "banter" between songs to keep things entertaining. Maybe the next album will be a collection of songs from the show.
Well...that's all for today. We'll be back sooner rather than later as things continue to calm down and settle...before everything changes again on June 19 (give or take a week or two).
Be seeing you.
Okay...with the shameless self-plug out of the way...
Phase One of the house reconstruction project is almost complete. In fact, the granite guys are here as I type putting in the master bathroom countertops. Monday the plumber returns to finish up stuff. Tuesday the tile guys do their final work. Then we just need to paint the room and get the shower door installed.
Meanwhile, Phase Two begins this week...with a new contractor who will be getting his stuff done before anyone arrives in June. At the same time we're repaving and leveling our driveway cause...well...it needs it...that too will be done before anyone arrives.
Have I mentioned that I now cry whenever I watch the Tom Hanks comedy The Money Pit. It's just not funny anymore after having lived through it.
But...there are things that still make me laugh...
Family Guy has returned from the graveyard of cancelled shows because of the successful reruns on Cartoon Network and the DVD sales of the first 3 seasons. Season 4 pretty much picked up where the show had left off over 3 years ago with Peter explaining that the show's been cancelled by FOX to make room for better shows. He then goes on to list these better shows and rattles off the names of every show that FOX has aired and cancelled since Family Guy left the air in February 2002. A great way to usher in new episodes. The show hasn't lost its sense of humor either. The season premiere featured Lois & Peter going on a second honeymoon and leaving "the kids" in the capable hands of Brian and Stewie. Pop culture references abound from Hitchcock films to The Passion of the Christ and all of them are funny. Can't wait to see this week's episode.
But wait...Family Guy isn't just a TV series anymore. They've got their own line of action figures (Death comes with his dog...the next series features Mayor Adam West and The Pope), a book (Stewie's Guide To World Domination) and a CD...Family Guy Live In Las Vegas. While I'd have preferred a CD containing some of the songs from the TV series, this is an amazingly funny substitute. Imagine a Rat Pack show full of fart jokes and F bombs and you'll get a pretty good idea of the material. Unchained from the shackles of Network TV Standards and Practices it's certainly not for kids. There is a clean version available...but why bother...
Done entirely in front of a "live" audience, after a funny intro by TV reporters Tom Tucker & Diane Simmons we get the whole Griffin family singing an extended version of the show's theme song. There's then a duet between Stewie and his babysitter Haylie Duff (Hillary's sister) entitled "Babysitting Is A Bum Deal". Brian then serenades us with "Dear Booze" before Patti LuPone joins Glen Quagmire for "The Q Man Loves Nobody" (yes...it's really Patti LuPone). And then we get the "showstopper" of the album. This song has not only been rattling around my head for over a week because it's so catchy, but it's been rattling around Natasha's head as well...and she's scared it may somehow become the first song Malcolm ever sings (we'll do our best to make sure that doesn't happen). "All Cartoons Are F----- D----" gives each of the family members (except Meg) and guest star Jason Alexander a chance to tell a story about a run in they had with other famous cartoon stars that paints them in a different light (we won't repeat what McGruff the Crime Dog does after 5pm when he's off duty). Brian then gives us "The Last Time I Saw Paris" before Peter & Lois sing a rather romantic yet raunchy duet called "But Then I Met You". Stewie & Brian then treat us to a medley of TV show theme songs (mostly from the 1980s). Chris explains how "Puberty's Gonna Get Me" and then Peter & Lois return for another romantic yet raunchy duet called "But I'm Yours". Brian returns again for a solo called "Slightly Out Of Tune" and then Herbert, the weird old man, sings "One Boy" (giving it the most perverted twist ever). The entire family plus Cleveland, Quagmire and Mayor Adam West finish off with "Quahog Holiday" (another catchy number).
The album's a hoot for the most part (Brian's solos are a bit blah...and Herbert's number is just creepy). There's plenty of "banter" between songs to keep things entertaining. Maybe the next album will be a collection of songs from the show.
Well...that's all for today. We'll be back sooner rather than later as things continue to calm down and settle...before everything changes again on June 19 (give or take a week or two).
Be seeing you.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Mid-Season Round Up
For those waiting desperately for my Mid Season TV reviews, here they are.
Battlestar Galactica -- While the time between the end of the mini-series and the start of the first run of 13 episodes was interminable due to "cliffhanger" aspects (of which there weren't many), the time between the end of season one and season two's gonna be worse for similar reasons (thankfully new episodes start this summer). This show is everything an adult could want from well written sci-fi. While the 10 year old in me still has a fondness for the cheese of the original series, this reimagining blows that out of the water. There's some real tension this time out as the remains of the human race are actually on a desperate run for survival (where in the original they just kind of lazily wandered from strange planet to strange planet asking "Is this Earth?")
Life on a Stick -- This odd sitcom is pretty funny, but the premise is weird. A slacker lives at home with his remarried parents, his step-sister (mother's daughter), step-brother (the one child of both parents) and works at the mall at a hot dog stand with his dim-witted best friend and hot girlfriend. Plots revolve around odd situations like the episode where the step-sister winds up with the same Nazi-like German teacher her brother did. It's actually pretty funny. Or maybe the level of what makes me laugh has dropped several notches.
Eyes -- I've always liked Tim Daly's work as an actor. This show is no exception. Here he plays Harlan Judd of Judd Risk Management. These are the people you call when your CEO embezzels $100 million. A nice mix of witty repartee and dark espionage this series easily matches the quality of ABC's other new powerhouse dramas (Lost & Desperate Housewives). Can't wait for more episodes.
The Office -- I haven't really seen the BBC original, so I can't comment. This series started off funny, but after having seen 5 episodes it gets less funny and more repetative (we get the point) with each one.
Stacked -- Wow. Pamela Anderson can actually do comedy. This sitcom harkens back to what now seems a bit antiquated -- the one setting "situational" comedy. Set in a bookstore run by a high-minded failed writer (Elon Gold...late of another antiquated sitcom "The In-Laws"), Anderson stars as the new dimwitted employee who tries to give change when a customer uses a credit card. Not classic comedy, but it produces a few laughs. Worth wathing just for Christopher Lloyd's oddball Professor who seems to spend his time in the bookstore like Norm did at Cheers.
Carnival -- This wonderfully weird apocalyptic drama returned for a second season which is mostly sitting on my Tivo with the entire run of Karen Sisco waiting to be watched. Saw the first few episodes and couldn't bring myself to care anymore about the show. What was once interesting now seems boring. They should have gotten to the point sooner. A third season has yet to be ordered, but I'm guess HBO will figure out a way to wrap up any loose ends to appease fans.
Deadwood -- Unlike the above HBO show, this one is one cocksucking, motherfucking piece of shit Western (meaning all of that in the good sense...just trying to describe it the way it's lead characters would) that also has lost a bit of lustre in its second season. But, unlike Carnivale, it still seems to be headed somewhere.
Law & Order: Trial by Jury -- I like Bebe Newirth and I miss Jerry Orbach, but this show is just pushing this franchise ever so closer into "Law & Order: Meter Maids" direction. With four entries here and three "CSI" I don't think there's enough "news" to fake for these shows anymore and it shows on this one. Third time's the charm...fourth time...well...it's just a bit much.
South Park -- Returning for its ninth season and it's starting to also run out of steam. Every other episode is over the top funny (like the season opener "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina") or poking fun at very timely topics in the usual way ("Best Friends Forever" saw kenny dying again, but being kept on life support as Cartman lobbied congress to remove his feeding tube so he could inherit Kenny's new PSP). But the episodes in between are just wheel spinning (a baseball themed episode was like watching molasses fuck). I expect better from this show every time out.
Jake in Progress -- Having completed its 13 episode run, I feel a bit cheated because the show had the chance to end with some closure (playboy publicist Jake winds up in serious relationship with boss' new secretary) but instead opted for a last second (literally...after end credits rolled) cliffhanger (his ex-wife we've heard so much about returns just before she's supposed to remarry). The rest of the series was actually rather witty with a well crafted cast. Rick Hoffman's Patrick (a David Blaine clone/rival) was the highlight and is Emmy worthy. I'm gonna miss this show as I'm pretty sure it won't be back.
Doctor Who -- This show has returned to the BBC after a very long hiatus (it's been off since 1987 I think) and has become a stellar hit over in the U.K. Unfortunately, who knows when those of us in the colonies will get to see it as it has no place to air yet (supposedly Sci-Fi Channel passed on it). The reviews are good and I can't wait...with any luck it'll at least get a Region 1 DVD release sometime around Christmas. Meanwhile, the day after the show premiered, it was announced that star Christopher Eccleston would no longer be playing the Doctor's Ninth incarnation. For the second season he will be replaced by David Tennant (now playing the 10th Doctor...at this rate, the new series will run out of regenerations for the Doctor faster than the old show got to number 7).
That's all for today. Hope to be back soon.
Battlestar Galactica -- While the time between the end of the mini-series and the start of the first run of 13 episodes was interminable due to "cliffhanger" aspects (of which there weren't many), the time between the end of season one and season two's gonna be worse for similar reasons (thankfully new episodes start this summer). This show is everything an adult could want from well written sci-fi. While the 10 year old in me still has a fondness for the cheese of the original series, this reimagining blows that out of the water. There's some real tension this time out as the remains of the human race are actually on a desperate run for survival (where in the original they just kind of lazily wandered from strange planet to strange planet asking "Is this Earth?")
Life on a Stick -- This odd sitcom is pretty funny, but the premise is weird. A slacker lives at home with his remarried parents, his step-sister (mother's daughter), step-brother (the one child of both parents) and works at the mall at a hot dog stand with his dim-witted best friend and hot girlfriend. Plots revolve around odd situations like the episode where the step-sister winds up with the same Nazi-like German teacher her brother did. It's actually pretty funny. Or maybe the level of what makes me laugh has dropped several notches.
Eyes -- I've always liked Tim Daly's work as an actor. This show is no exception. Here he plays Harlan Judd of Judd Risk Management. These are the people you call when your CEO embezzels $100 million. A nice mix of witty repartee and dark espionage this series easily matches the quality of ABC's other new powerhouse dramas (Lost & Desperate Housewives). Can't wait for more episodes.
The Office -- I haven't really seen the BBC original, so I can't comment. This series started off funny, but after having seen 5 episodes it gets less funny and more repetative (we get the point) with each one.
Stacked -- Wow. Pamela Anderson can actually do comedy. This sitcom harkens back to what now seems a bit antiquated -- the one setting "situational" comedy. Set in a bookstore run by a high-minded failed writer (Elon Gold...late of another antiquated sitcom "The In-Laws"), Anderson stars as the new dimwitted employee who tries to give change when a customer uses a credit card. Not classic comedy, but it produces a few laughs. Worth wathing just for Christopher Lloyd's oddball Professor who seems to spend his time in the bookstore like Norm did at Cheers.
Carnival -- This wonderfully weird apocalyptic drama returned for a second season which is mostly sitting on my Tivo with the entire run of Karen Sisco waiting to be watched. Saw the first few episodes and couldn't bring myself to care anymore about the show. What was once interesting now seems boring. They should have gotten to the point sooner. A third season has yet to be ordered, but I'm guess HBO will figure out a way to wrap up any loose ends to appease fans.
Deadwood -- Unlike the above HBO show, this one is one cocksucking, motherfucking piece of shit Western (meaning all of that in the good sense...just trying to describe it the way it's lead characters would) that also has lost a bit of lustre in its second season. But, unlike Carnivale, it still seems to be headed somewhere.
Law & Order: Trial by Jury -- I like Bebe Newirth and I miss Jerry Orbach, but this show is just pushing this franchise ever so closer into "Law & Order: Meter Maids" direction. With four entries here and three "CSI" I don't think there's enough "news" to fake for these shows anymore and it shows on this one. Third time's the charm...fourth time...well...it's just a bit much.
South Park -- Returning for its ninth season and it's starting to also run out of steam. Every other episode is over the top funny (like the season opener "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina") or poking fun at very timely topics in the usual way ("Best Friends Forever" saw kenny dying again, but being kept on life support as Cartman lobbied congress to remove his feeding tube so he could inherit Kenny's new PSP). But the episodes in between are just wheel spinning (a baseball themed episode was like watching molasses fuck). I expect better from this show every time out.
Jake in Progress -- Having completed its 13 episode run, I feel a bit cheated because the show had the chance to end with some closure (playboy publicist Jake winds up in serious relationship with boss' new secretary) but instead opted for a last second (literally...after end credits rolled) cliffhanger (his ex-wife we've heard so much about returns just before she's supposed to remarry). The rest of the series was actually rather witty with a well crafted cast. Rick Hoffman's Patrick (a David Blaine clone/rival) was the highlight and is Emmy worthy. I'm gonna miss this show as I'm pretty sure it won't be back.
Doctor Who -- This show has returned to the BBC after a very long hiatus (it's been off since 1987 I think) and has become a stellar hit over in the U.K. Unfortunately, who knows when those of us in the colonies will get to see it as it has no place to air yet (supposedly Sci-Fi Channel passed on it). The reviews are good and I can't wait...with any luck it'll at least get a Region 1 DVD release sometime around Christmas. Meanwhile, the day after the show premiered, it was announced that star Christopher Eccleston would no longer be playing the Doctor's Ninth incarnation. For the second season he will be replaced by David Tennant (now playing the 10th Doctor...at this rate, the new series will run out of regenerations for the Doctor faster than the old show got to number 7).
That's all for today. Hope to be back soon.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
The Broken Rule & Other Stuff
Just a brief bit for today (he says knowing he may get a bit long winded)...
So...up until March 17th, 2005 I had a rule that has essentially never been broken before. If I start wathcing a movie, I must finish it. And with the exception of The Cat in the Hat where the DVD refused to play past a certain part (and I do thank G-d every day for that miraculously defective DVD from Netflix), I have always finished the movie...no matter how bad, boring, crappy or miserable it may be.
I have now officially ditched that rule. And we can all thank The Whole Ten Yards for being the straw that broke this camel's back.
I'm not gonna bother reviewing the 30 minutes I bothered to watch beyond saying this is easily one of the ten most useless things ever put on film (and I'm guessing the recently released Miss Congeniality 2 easily falls on that chart as well). It had no story, no humor and no purpose. So because of that (and perhaps I'm getting pickier as I get older and don't want to waste my time with things I'm not going to care much about), I have tossed this rule out the window. If I start watching a film and can't get through the first 30 minutes without wanting to gouge my eyes out with a knife, I will turn it off (or erase it from the TiVo or send it back to Netflix or use my new invention that will collectively erase the offending images from the memory of the human race).
I was going to write something on some recent events in the news, but quite frankly this week's episode of South Park did better justice to my opinion on the topic than I ever could here. That's kind of a sad statement in a number of ways, but I'll live with it. May Terri Schiavo finally rest in peace.
Also wanted to give you folks a quick update on a few things...
Update on the house:
Our Kitchen is now about 97% complete. It needs some paint, a backsplash and a few minor electrical tweaks and cosmetic bumps smoothed out...but it should be done by week's end. I hope to have at least a few photos up on our website within the next week (it's been crazy as usual).
Our master bathroom is a nice room we're currently using for storage. The room's sheetrocked, but the tub needs to be stabilized, we need countertops and the whole place needs to be tiled where we're putting tile (all the tile is here at least). The tile guys have been coming tomorrow for about two weeks now, but I've been assured once they do arrive it'll take about a week to finish everything up.
Our contractor was nice enough to send a cleaning crew on a Saturday to dust the whole house after four days of sanding and staining hardwood floors though. So he gets a few good points (though they don't make up for all the bad points which I'll detail at some later date).
Info on various shows:
Tash is part of the chorus in a wonderful production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Sorcerer. It opened last night at New Canaan High School and was a lot of fun (except for the 25 minute "second intermission" due to a fire alarm). It has four more performances on April 2, 3, 8 & 9. Check out http://trouperslightopera.org for more info.
I'm also going to plug three shows featuring people we know either on stage or back stage...
The Pound Ridge Theater Company has Tale of the Allergist's Wife running now. Check out their website for more info.
Curtain Call in Stamford has The Wizard of Oz running through April. Here's their website for more info.
And lastly, Westport Community Theater has The Foreigner running for the next few weekends. Check out their website for more info.
And lastly lastly...don't forget I'm directing Book of Days which opens at the Darien Arts Center on May 6. More info will follow as we get closer.
Finally, lastly for today...sometime in the next week or two I will be reviewing the comic book adaptation of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Why am I doing this you may ask? Well...with everything that's going on (mostly due to Malcolm's arrival), I have no clue when I'll actually see the finished film...and quite frankly, I stopped caring a good long while ago. I have no faith in George Lucas' story telling abilities anymore and I'm convinced that the "prequels" have pretty much drained the energy from the "sequels" at this point (so one of the most complex villains to ever grace a story had his origins as a whiny spoiled brat?? at least we know where his son gets it from in Episode IV). So I'd rather read a comic book which is adapted by writers & artists other than Lucas, than see his version right now (which will probably change in a few years when he redoes them all in 3D and decides that it's really Jar Jar who should become Darth Vader).
Anyway...there'll be plenty of spoiler warnings as I go along...but it will most likely be the last I ever have to say on the subject of Star Wars until I start auctioning off my childhood on eBay this summer as I get rid of a lot of old toys that I don't want my son to even know about. They've been tainted for me...I'm not sure I want him playing with them. He can have all my old DC Heroes when he's older (assuming that by the end of this year DC hasn't raped and murdered every B list character they have...but that's a whole other ball of wax for another time).
Be seeing you.
So...up until March 17th, 2005 I had a rule that has essentially never been broken before. If I start wathcing a movie, I must finish it. And with the exception of The Cat in the Hat where the DVD refused to play past a certain part (and I do thank G-d every day for that miraculously defective DVD from Netflix), I have always finished the movie...no matter how bad, boring, crappy or miserable it may be.
I have now officially ditched that rule. And we can all thank The Whole Ten Yards for being the straw that broke this camel's back.
I'm not gonna bother reviewing the 30 minutes I bothered to watch beyond saying this is easily one of the ten most useless things ever put on film (and I'm guessing the recently released Miss Congeniality 2 easily falls on that chart as well). It had no story, no humor and no purpose. So because of that (and perhaps I'm getting pickier as I get older and don't want to waste my time with things I'm not going to care much about), I have tossed this rule out the window. If I start watching a film and can't get through the first 30 minutes without wanting to gouge my eyes out with a knife, I will turn it off (or erase it from the TiVo or send it back to Netflix or use my new invention that will collectively erase the offending images from the memory of the human race).
I was going to write something on some recent events in the news, but quite frankly this week's episode of South Park did better justice to my opinion on the topic than I ever could here. That's kind of a sad statement in a number of ways, but I'll live with it. May Terri Schiavo finally rest in peace.
Also wanted to give you folks a quick update on a few things...
Update on the house:
Our Kitchen is now about 97% complete. It needs some paint, a backsplash and a few minor electrical tweaks and cosmetic bumps smoothed out...but it should be done by week's end. I hope to have at least a few photos up on our website within the next week (it's been crazy as usual).
Our master bathroom is a nice room we're currently using for storage. The room's sheetrocked, but the tub needs to be stabilized, we need countertops and the whole place needs to be tiled where we're putting tile (all the tile is here at least). The tile guys have been coming tomorrow for about two weeks now, but I've been assured once they do arrive it'll take about a week to finish everything up.
Our contractor was nice enough to send a cleaning crew on a Saturday to dust the whole house after four days of sanding and staining hardwood floors though. So he gets a few good points (though they don't make up for all the bad points which I'll detail at some later date).
Info on various shows:
Tash is part of the chorus in a wonderful production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Sorcerer. It opened last night at New Canaan High School and was a lot of fun (except for the 25 minute "second intermission" due to a fire alarm). It has four more performances on April 2, 3, 8 & 9. Check out http://trouperslightopera.org for more info.
I'm also going to plug three shows featuring people we know either on stage or back stage...
The Pound Ridge Theater Company has Tale of the Allergist's Wife running now. Check out their website for more info.
Curtain Call in Stamford has The Wizard of Oz running through April. Here's their website for more info.
And lastly, Westport Community Theater has The Foreigner running for the next few weekends. Check out their website for more info.
And lastly lastly...don't forget I'm directing Book of Days which opens at the Darien Arts Center on May 6. More info will follow as we get closer.
Finally, lastly for today...sometime in the next week or two I will be reviewing the comic book adaptation of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Why am I doing this you may ask? Well...with everything that's going on (mostly due to Malcolm's arrival), I have no clue when I'll actually see the finished film...and quite frankly, I stopped caring a good long while ago. I have no faith in George Lucas' story telling abilities anymore and I'm convinced that the "prequels" have pretty much drained the energy from the "sequels" at this point (so one of the most complex villains to ever grace a story had his origins as a whiny spoiled brat?? at least we know where his son gets it from in Episode IV). So I'd rather read a comic book which is adapted by writers & artists other than Lucas, than see his version right now (which will probably change in a few years when he redoes them all in 3D and decides that it's really Jar Jar who should become Darth Vader).
Anyway...there'll be plenty of spoiler warnings as I go along...but it will most likely be the last I ever have to say on the subject of Star Wars until I start auctioning off my childhood on eBay this summer as I get rid of a lot of old toys that I don't want my son to even know about. They've been tainted for me...I'm not sure I want him playing with them. He can have all my old DC Heroes when he's older (assuming that by the end of this year DC hasn't raped and murdered every B list character they have...but that's a whole other ball of wax for another time).
Be seeing you.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Let's Not Go There, It's A Silly Place
While things get off to an expected silly start in Monty Python's Spamalot, I was still waiting to pee my pants by the end of Act One. This new Broadway musical (based on the very funny film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) which has just opened and is supposedly sold out through October is landing like a big giant Trojan Rabbit...it's all big and showy, but there isn't much on the inside except some stale air. Between trying to ignore audience members speaking along with the show as if it were Rocky Horror and trying to stretch your legs in the extremely cramped seats, it was hard to enjoy a show that I was admittedly expecting too much from.
Things do get off to a rollicking start (and I'm warning you now, there are plenty of spoilers below) as the voice of Eric Idle tells us to let our cell phones and pagers ring all we like, but to remember there are knights on stage carrying deadly weapons. An historian then comes on stage to set the scene in England's Middle Ages. The first number arrives right after this as some cast members have obviously confused England with Finland and they present us with "Fisch Schlapping Song". And anyone who knows Python will know this bit. Once the historian corrects matters, we get to meet King Arthur (Tim Curry) and his servant Patsy (Michael McGrath) as they come clopping across the stage with their requisite coconuts in place of live horses. At the Mud Castle we get "King Arthur's Song" (which is pompous in it's announcement of "I'm Arthur! King of the Britons!", yet I'm still humming it) and we get the whole discussion of the air speed velocity of swallows before we change locations.
At the Plague Village, we meet the man in the film known as The Dead Collector, but here, even though he's dressed the same, he's actually Sir Robin (David Hyde Pierce). And we not only get the requisite "Bring Out Your Dead" bit from the film, but we also meet Sir Lancelot (Hank Azaria) who is bringing out his dead friend known as Not Dead Fred to join in with all the plague victims in "I Am Not Yet Dead", a funny...but unmemorable song. Both Robin and Lancelot then run off to join Arthur's Merry Men.
Arthur continues his quest for men to join him as he comes across Dennis Galahad (Christopher Seiber) and his mother. Once the scene from the film is out of the way, we meet the first true new character for the stage in The Lady of the Lake (Sara Ramirez). She rises from the stage with her "Laker Girls" for the unmemorable number entitled "Come With Me" in which she tries to convince Galahad that she's not just some "watery tart"...but luckily this is quickly followed up by what is not only the funniest song in the show, but what could be the funniest song in any show EVER!
"The Song That Goes Like This" is the typical romantic ballad that tends to drop smack in the middle of any Broadway musical...except this one knows what it is. Ramirez and Seiber poke fun at every lyrical convention that has propped up every mediocre musical of the last three decades. From odd key changes to the song going on forever, these lyrics (as well as the fog enshrouded boat and dangling chandelier that come with it) are worth the price of admission. Of course, the song doesn't actually add anything to what little plot there is.
Sir Bedevere (Steve Rosen) gets short shrift and barely an intro before the five knights launch into "All For One" which just seems to be nonsensical repetition in addition to being the motto of "The Three Musketeers". Luckily, we then arrive at Camelot and get a big budget, over blown version of the song from the film (which is where the show's title comes from as the knights of Camelot "eat ham and jam and spamalot"). Luckily, this bit is as funny as it's ever been and keeps the show's energy up.
Then we get to see the feet of G-d as he (John Cleese's voice) tells them to seek the Holy Grail. The Lady of the Lake then inspires the group with "Find Your Grail" which may be as close to a message as this show may ever get (we apparently each have our own that we seek...metaphorically speaking). Act One ends with the Knights running away from the French Castle after that whole scene (including catapulted cow) gets re-enacted onstage.
Act Two opens in a very expensive forest (we're told this both in the program and by the historian) and the knights are all separated on their own quests for the Grail. After meeting the Knights of Ni, Patsy cheers Arthur up with "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"...stolen from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Luckily, it's well done.
"Brave Sir Robin" (yes, we get that song from the original film as well...and it's still funny) gets scared off by the Black Knight and then Arthur meets up with said knight and dispatches him in the same way as he does in the film (I won't spoil how they cut off all his limbs, but it is rather clever and uses a great, but cheap joke as misdirection). After wanting a shrubbery, the Knights of Ni want Arthur to put on a Broadway musical, but Robin has to explain why "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" which is easily the second best song of the show. Apparently you absolutely must have a Jew...and then they re-enact the bottle dance from Fiddler on the Roof using Grails instead of bottles.
Immediately after this, the Lady of the Lake storms on stage for "The Diva's Lament" in which she complains of having nothing to do so far in Act Two and its almost over. The show then moves right into the whole Swamp Castle set piece from the film in which Lancelot rescues Prince Herbert from his father. Prince Herbert is still more interested in singing than marrying a princess and he gets two songs "Where Are You" in which he pines to be rescued and "Here Are You" after Lancelot rescues him. We're then subjected to the answer of Lancelot's sexuality (which I didn't realize was a question) in "His Name is Lancelot"...a number that looks like it was written to parody The Boy From Oz but since that show's gone it just wasn't as timely.
The scene returns to Arthur who sings "I'm All Alone" with his faithful servant Patsy at his side (it's a one note joke that goes on a bit long for a song...we get it, he's not really alone). Then the Lady of the Lake appears for a reprise of "The Song That Goes Like This" with Arthur so they can kiss. The knights then regroup and encounter Tim the Enchanter and the Killer Rabbit before actually finding the Grail (BIG SPOILER....if you can purchase your tickets to include seat A101). And then, since this IS a musical-comedy, the show ends with a wedding (or two if you count Lancelot and Herbert) and a medley of most of the previous songs before curtain calls and an audience sing-a-long version of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".
Monty Python's Spamalot is a fun show, don't get me wrong, but it's also a very fluffy show. It's all style, no substance. What was cutting edge comedy in the mid 70s seems quaint and stale. Almost the entire film is represented on stage in odd ways and the stuff that is missing will leave you asking why its missing. The cast is having fun doing the show and the audience is enjoying watching it...and yet there should have been more.
If you're looking for hysterically funny musical comedy current running on Broadway I'd say check out Avenue Q and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels before trying to hunt down tickets for this.
That's all for today. Sorry to disappoint.
Be seeing you.
Things do get off to a rollicking start (and I'm warning you now, there are plenty of spoilers below) as the voice of Eric Idle tells us to let our cell phones and pagers ring all we like, but to remember there are knights on stage carrying deadly weapons. An historian then comes on stage to set the scene in England's Middle Ages. The first number arrives right after this as some cast members have obviously confused England with Finland and they present us with "Fisch Schlapping Song". And anyone who knows Python will know this bit. Once the historian corrects matters, we get to meet King Arthur (Tim Curry) and his servant Patsy (Michael McGrath) as they come clopping across the stage with their requisite coconuts in place of live horses. At the Mud Castle we get "King Arthur's Song" (which is pompous in it's announcement of "I'm Arthur! King of the Britons!", yet I'm still humming it) and we get the whole discussion of the air speed velocity of swallows before we change locations.
At the Plague Village, we meet the man in the film known as The Dead Collector, but here, even though he's dressed the same, he's actually Sir Robin (David Hyde Pierce). And we not only get the requisite "Bring Out Your Dead" bit from the film, but we also meet Sir Lancelot (Hank Azaria) who is bringing out his dead friend known as Not Dead Fred to join in with all the plague victims in "I Am Not Yet Dead", a funny...but unmemorable song. Both Robin and Lancelot then run off to join Arthur's Merry Men.
Arthur continues his quest for men to join him as he comes across Dennis Galahad (Christopher Seiber) and his mother. Once the scene from the film is out of the way, we meet the first true new character for the stage in The Lady of the Lake (Sara Ramirez). She rises from the stage with her "Laker Girls" for the unmemorable number entitled "Come With Me" in which she tries to convince Galahad that she's not just some "watery tart"...but luckily this is quickly followed up by what is not only the funniest song in the show, but what could be the funniest song in any show EVER!
"The Song That Goes Like This" is the typical romantic ballad that tends to drop smack in the middle of any Broadway musical...except this one knows what it is. Ramirez and Seiber poke fun at every lyrical convention that has propped up every mediocre musical of the last three decades. From odd key changes to the song going on forever, these lyrics (as well as the fog enshrouded boat and dangling chandelier that come with it) are worth the price of admission. Of course, the song doesn't actually add anything to what little plot there is.
Sir Bedevere (Steve Rosen) gets short shrift and barely an intro before the five knights launch into "All For One" which just seems to be nonsensical repetition in addition to being the motto of "The Three Musketeers". Luckily, we then arrive at Camelot and get a big budget, over blown version of the song from the film (which is where the show's title comes from as the knights of Camelot "eat ham and jam and spamalot"). Luckily, this bit is as funny as it's ever been and keeps the show's energy up.
Then we get to see the feet of G-d as he (John Cleese's voice) tells them to seek the Holy Grail. The Lady of the Lake then inspires the group with "Find Your Grail" which may be as close to a message as this show may ever get (we apparently each have our own that we seek...metaphorically speaking). Act One ends with the Knights running away from the French Castle after that whole scene (including catapulted cow) gets re-enacted onstage.
Act Two opens in a very expensive forest (we're told this both in the program and by the historian) and the knights are all separated on their own quests for the Grail. After meeting the Knights of Ni, Patsy cheers Arthur up with "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"...stolen from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Luckily, it's well done.
"Brave Sir Robin" (yes, we get that song from the original film as well...and it's still funny) gets scared off by the Black Knight and then Arthur meets up with said knight and dispatches him in the same way as he does in the film (I won't spoil how they cut off all his limbs, but it is rather clever and uses a great, but cheap joke as misdirection). After wanting a shrubbery, the Knights of Ni want Arthur to put on a Broadway musical, but Robin has to explain why "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" which is easily the second best song of the show. Apparently you absolutely must have a Jew...and then they re-enact the bottle dance from Fiddler on the Roof using Grails instead of bottles.
Immediately after this, the Lady of the Lake storms on stage for "The Diva's Lament" in which she complains of having nothing to do so far in Act Two and its almost over. The show then moves right into the whole Swamp Castle set piece from the film in which Lancelot rescues Prince Herbert from his father. Prince Herbert is still more interested in singing than marrying a princess and he gets two songs "Where Are You" in which he pines to be rescued and "Here Are You" after Lancelot rescues him. We're then subjected to the answer of Lancelot's sexuality (which I didn't realize was a question) in "His Name is Lancelot"...a number that looks like it was written to parody The Boy From Oz but since that show's gone it just wasn't as timely.
The scene returns to Arthur who sings "I'm All Alone" with his faithful servant Patsy at his side (it's a one note joke that goes on a bit long for a song...we get it, he's not really alone). Then the Lady of the Lake appears for a reprise of "The Song That Goes Like This" with Arthur so they can kiss. The knights then regroup and encounter Tim the Enchanter and the Killer Rabbit before actually finding the Grail (BIG SPOILER....if you can purchase your tickets to include seat A101). And then, since this IS a musical-comedy, the show ends with a wedding (or two if you count Lancelot and Herbert) and a medley of most of the previous songs before curtain calls and an audience sing-a-long version of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".
Monty Python's Spamalot is a fun show, don't get me wrong, but it's also a very fluffy show. It's all style, no substance. What was cutting edge comedy in the mid 70s seems quaint and stale. Almost the entire film is represented on stage in odd ways and the stuff that is missing will leave you asking why its missing. The cast is having fun doing the show and the audience is enjoying watching it...and yet there should have been more.
If you're looking for hysterically funny musical comedy current running on Broadway I'd say check out Avenue Q and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels before trying to hunt down tickets for this.
That's all for today. Sorry to disappoint.
Be seeing you.
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