TV Series On The Television

[Thad]

Next year's Arrowverse crossover looks like it'll be a humdinger; it's bringing Black Lightning in, Brandon Routh is going to be reprising his role as Superman, Burt Ward will be there, and Kevin Conroy will be playing Old Bruce. Dare we hope that means we'll be seeing Terry McGinnis? He does share a logo with Batwoman.

(And I'd love to see Michael Rosenbaum pull double-duty as Flash and Lex, if he's available.)

ETA: Supergirl's already had a raft of DC alums -- Helen Slater, Dean Cain, Teri Hatcher, Lynda Carter, Carl Lumbly, and Erica Durance, off the top of my head -- and Flash has John Wesley Shipp and Mark Hamill as recurring guests. So given that Routh is pulling double-duty, I wouldn't be surprised to see any of those actors show up in their old roles.

And Harley once had a silhouette-and-voice-only cameo on Arrow (I believe played by Tara Strong).

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see them work in old footage of Reeves, Reeve, Kidder, West, Romero, et al. About the only DC alums I think we can safely rule out at this point are Lori Loughlin and Allison Mack.

[Mongrel]

[beatbandito]

but gay

[beatbandito]

Watched the series finale to O.K K.O: Let's Be Heroes last night and it was basically Pushing Daisies ending x10000. Clearly they had notice at the beginning of the season it was going to be their last. Episodes 18-19 are concluding the series plot threads that got rushed into place earlier in the season. Episode 20 is an in-universe acceptance of the end of the series and inability to tell all the stories the world had to offer. As you can guess it's pretty incredibly depressing even just in theme, I haven't had the courage to go back and freeze frame on what is essentially every single frame of the episode showing character growth from background shots to quickly scrolling title frames.

[Thad]

Next year's Arrowverse crossover looks like it'll be a humdinger; it's bringing Black Lightning in, Brandon Routh is going to be reprising his role as Superman, Burt Ward will be there, and Kevin Conroy will be playing Old Bruce. Dare we hope that means we'll be seeing Terry McGinnis? He does share a logo with Batwoman.

(And I'd love to see Michael Rosenbaum pull double-duty as Flash and Lex, if he's available.)

Welling's in.

[Mothra]

Been watching a lot of The Righteous Gemstones on HBO, which is essentially a direct spiritual (;]) sequel to Eastbound and Down.

It's created and directed by Danny McBride, who I love, and it is very very much the same exact kind of show as Eastbound. To a flaw. Danny McBride plays the exact same character, Adam Devine plays his go-to Workaholics character, John Goodman plays is stock southern gentleman character, and so on. You're essentially just getting the usual improv-heavy style with a flimsy framework of a megachurch dynasty family.

I like it sometimes. These are all awesome comedians, and when they banter, it's good.

Other times, characters are so fucking flat and predictable and one-note I'm stunned something like this is on HBO. Like, this is some daytime sitcom-level comedy that they're running with in some of these episodes, and when they do drama, it's all built around some character acting cartoonishly evil or selfish, in a completely unbelievable way.

This last ep kinda made me want to drop the whole thing? But part of me loves these actors enough to want to stick with it.

[Mothra]

I finished season 1 of The Terror. I fucking loved it, but also, holy christ is it dismal. It is very much a horror show in that things get worse forever.

Jarred Harris is, as usual, excellent. The story is cool and weird, and I am an absolute sucker for late 1800's naval stuff, so the icebreaker ships were a really cool setting to me.

I hear season 2 isn't as good. Waiting and watching the reviews on that one.

I also checked out season 2 of Disenchanted, which, much like season 1, sucks ass. The level of comedy is exactly the same as season 1 - you'll get one chuckle per two episodes, on a good stretch. They made a goddamn bacon joke involving the Bender character, at which point I tapped out.

Better luck next season maybe?

[mharr]

Far too late to save the world, but it seems Spitting Image is going to make an attempt to return to our screens.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... zuckerberg

Their Zuckerberg sculpt is On Point.

[Mongrel]

Their Putin's great too:

[Büge]

[pacobird]

We just finished rewatching Weeds and watched El Camino this weekend, and seeing the two side by side got me thinking that here we have two basically identical stories (referring to Breaking Bad) that end up being totally different tonally because in one case we're outside observers of the antihero's moral collapse and in the other we're seeing it through the lens of the antihero's just inexhaustible self-regard. Seriously, Nancy's the fucking worst!

[Joxam]

I don't know if this is the right topic or if this applies to anyone but if you have an unlimited Verizon plan you already have a year free of Disney+.

[Friday]

We just finished rewatching Weeds and watched El Camino this weekend, and seeing the two side by side got me thinking that here we have two basically identical stories (referring to Breaking Bad) that end up being totally different tonally because in one case we're outside observers of the antihero's moral collapse and in the other we're seeing it through the lens of the antihero's just inexhaustible self-regard. Seriously, Nancy's the fucking worst!

paco seriously are you me

[Büge]

This looks... pretty darn good, actually.

[beatbandito]

Kevin Conroy as live action batman brings a certain meta-narrative tear to my eye.

[Thad]

I quit watching the CW DC shows awhile back, except for Legends of Tomorrow, which is the only one that's any goddamn fun anymore.

But I want to check out the COIE crossover, so last night I watched the first 2/3 of last year's Elseworlds crossover to start getting up to speed.

It's delightful. If these shows were like this all the time, I'd still be watching every week.

But there's this bit -- OK, Ollie and Barry have switched bodies, and they have this conversation where each one has to learn to think like the other in order to tap into his skills. They play up the darkness-and-light contrast between the two characters.

That's a good device; I think it worked great when Teen Titans did it with Raven and Starfire.

The problem is that it doesn't work so well when you've spent three years turning Barry into a mopey sad-sack. You can't effectively contrast darkness and light when both your fucking leads are dark. (It might have still worked if they'd used Supergirl as the upbeat one.)

And this is DC's problem writ large: it's spent the past thirty years turning every hero into Batman.

It's OK for Green Arrow to be like Batman. Green Arrow has been a ripoff of Batman since 1941. But Flash doesn't need to be Batman. He doesn't need a tragic origin story. He doesn't need to be brooding and intense.

Elseworlds posits Barry as the upbeat counterpoint to Oliver's brooding vigilante. A Flash TV show where that's actually how Flash behaves is the *real* Elseworld.

[zaratustra]

Remember Justice League when they spend the first half of the movie talking about how superman is a symbol for hope

then the moment he shows up, he beats all of them and immediately goes sulk in a cornfield

[Thad]

Remember Justice League when they spend the first half of the movie talking about how superman is a symbol for hope

That was the one after the movie about how everyone is terrified of him because he leveled a major city, right?

[Thad]

Well, that looks very PG-13.

So either the Netflix adaptation significantly tones down the violence and disturbing content of the comic, or they've made a big mistake and are marketing the show to the wrong audience.

Given that Netflix generally seems pretty competent at marketing things to the appropriate audience, I'm inclined to think the former (though maybe at least read the reviews and make sure before showing it to any kids; if it is a faithful adaptation of the comic, then there's going to be a rape scene within the first half hour or so).

While I think the disturbing stuff serves an important purpose in the comic -- the darkness makes the light at the end feel that much more precious and hard-won -- I think the story can work without it. The central themes, of grief and loss and family and being there for each other and growing up, can work without the graphic violence and psychological horror in the original.

Either way, I think it looks good, and I look forward to seeing it. The comic is goddamned wonderful.

[Thad]

Watched the bits of Crisis on Infinite Earths that have aired so far (parts 4 and 5 are coming up this Tuesday).

It's a hell of a lot of fun; as expected, Kevin Conroy as Kingdom Come Batman is a highlight.

And I'm loving the deep cuts. Hard to decide which is the deepest -- Alexander Knox from Batman '89? The Birds of Prey TV series? The guy who played Arthur on the 2001 Tick series, which isn't even DC? I wonder if we'll get any more by the end.

But that part where Sarah tells Oliver "You're a good man on any Earth, Oliver Queen" really should have been followed up with "Well, not that one where you were a nazi."