A reprogrammed, debugged TRON.

Either Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz learned to write better at some point between their screenplay for TRON: LEGACY and now — an uncertain notion, given their cutesy-wutesy dwarves-hatching-from-eggs episode of Once Upon a Time — or it’s a lot easier to craft an entertaining story without studio executives breathing down your neck. Whatever the case, their pilot episode for Disney’s new animated spinoff, TRON: UPRISING, manages to pack a good 80% of the movie’s visual style, easily half again as much genuine excitement, and a far more intriguing and engaging cast of characters, into just over a half an hour. 

With an impressive cast including Elijah Wood, Emmanuelle Chiquri, dependable gravel-throated menace Lance Henriksen, and the original film’s Bruce Boxleitner, and an entertaining premise that sneaks superhero tropes into the movie’s digital world, UPRISING marks the first time I’ve been unreservedly entertained by anything TRON-related. Check out the nifty first episode yourself, free and legit on YouTube, and be prepared to go, “Oh, COOL!” a lot more than you ever did in the theater.

by associatevidiot

Hoosier Daddy

It’s Thursday night.  The 10 year old wants to stay up to see the season finale of one of his favorite shows.  He sings along with the theme.  ”Jabba the Hutt, Jabba the Hutt, Jabba the Hutt, Jabba the Hutt…”  The 7 year old dances along.  

Yes, yes, it’s a school night.  But the 10 year old is a fan of “Parks and Recreation.”  I can’t help that NBC put it on at 9:30 pm.  When I suggested watching over the weekend online, he said, “Dad, spoilers.”  So we watch it live.  He makes up the sleep elsewhere in the week, probably in math class.  (As long as his grades stay up, he can sleep at school all he wants.)  As for 7, he doesn’t really sleep, so he’s fine.

Tonight was a little bittersweet, not just because it was the season finale but because news of renewals and cancellations has been trickling out all afternoon.  No word about “Parks” as of yet.

It might seem odd to think that kids would enjoy “Parks.”  I grew up on “The Bob Newhart Show” & “Barney Miller,” so it’s probably both nature and nurture around here.  But it’s not even the comedy—a lot of it flies right over their heads.  (They get Ron Swanson, for the most part.)  It’s that it’s a show that hits us where we live.  Southern Indiana.

Our town is a bit smaller than Pawnee, but it’s pretty damn close.  And while we don’t have murals like the ones in their city hall, I know a summerstock theatre not too far from here with the real thing.  (I wouldn’t be surprised if someone on the staff had toiled there for a summer or two.)  Aside from that…

Sure, we watch “The Middle,” but the setting is almost incidental there.  After watching pretty regularly, 10 year only just realized it was also set in Indiana.  But the sense of place is a glorious thing on “Parks.”  And goodness knows, they nail it.  The boys recognize Pawnee.  

I bring all this up tonight because I want the show to continue.  Not only because it’s funny, even though it is.  Not because it’s as inspiring as “The West Wing” at its best, even though it is.  Not because I like it, even though I very much do.

I want it to continue because my boys get to see something approximating their town on a broadcast network.  That’s a rare thing nowadays.

by djloehr

The Name’s Afoot

Having failed to come to an agreement to do a straight-up American version of the BBC’s Sherlock, CBS has gone in a completely different direction.  They’ve greenlit ElemeNtarY, a pilot which updates Sherlock Holmes to the present day, but sets it in NY.  (You see what they did there, yes?)  They’ve cast Jonny Lee Miller, who just did a tremendous run on stage in Frankenstein, alternating as the monster and his maker with co-star Benedict Cumberbatch.  (Hm.  Name sounds familiar.)

And now, they’ve announced their Watson.  Lucy Liu.

In honor of this innovative, game-changing paradigm shift, I’ve come up with several alternate titles in case focus groups are confused by the capital E along with the NY.  (“Why isn’t it set in Elmyra?”)

How I Met Your Watson

The Good Watson

Two and a Half Watsons

A Gifted Watson

Murder, She Watson

Watson Jones (a Quinn Martin production)

The Watson Whisperer

Watson Five-O

Watson of Interest

Sherlock and Key (apologies to Joe Hill)

NCIS: Los Watson

You’re welcome, CBS.  You know where to send the check.

by djloehr

Learn from my mistakes: Why abusive TV relationships suck

Sometimes I wish I could forget that this pilot was kind of great.

My name is Serenity, and I have a problem.

I’m shackled to shows past their expiration date, even though I know they’ve gone sour and everything in my brain is screaming to stop the madness. Heck, even when I spend most of that 42 minutes of air time fiddling with my iOS device, playing Tetris or some other bit of mind-numbing visual entertainment, anything to keep myself from actually staring at that thing up on the screen.

Today, after work, I spent nearly an hour attempting to make an episode of Glee stream properly on my computer. My internet wasn’t cooperating, as it often doesn’t when I attempt to watch Flash-based media, and it was doing that early 2007 “stream three seconds, stall, stream three more seconds, stall” bit everyone hates but for some awful reason puts up with.

And after forty-five minutes of doing this, I sat back and wondered: Why am I trying so hard? I haven’t been interested in this show for at least a year. The songs have devolved from interesting musical adaptations to whatever happens to be popular at the time. And it frequently makes me want to set things on fire. But I kept on bashing my head against the desk trying to watch this stalled stream.

Part of it’s completionism. Because if I stop watching now, and the show gets cancelled this year, I’m not going to go back and watch those eight episodes I missed.

But what if there’s brilliance hiding in there somewhere? What if the show pulls out a beautiful moment you would have otherwise ignored, because you threw it all away? What if it makes a huge turn-around?

I had this problem with Grey’s Anatomy: It was a guilty pleasure show at the start, it hit a slump, I stopped watching for a few seasons, and then everyone started talking about how the sixth season was incredible—a return to form.

I had left—I had managed to make it out alive!—and then stupid Grey’s had to go and yank me back in for what admittedly ended up being one of my favorite season finales of any television show in years.

But to get to that damn payoff, I made myself go back and watch a season and a half of terrible television. Is a spectacular finale really worth that much brain-draining nonsense? Let me know if you figure that one out, because I still can’t decide.

Anyway. It’s these what-ifs that plague me and keep Glee in my queue (and make me secretly wish that the show gets cancelled so I don’t have to continually torture myself).

Abusive television relationships, guys! They’re evil. And I’ll bet everyone has at least one. Yes, even you. (One word: Heroes.)

Maybe this is the week I ditch Glee from my queue. I still haven’t finished my first watch-through of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for pete’s sake. I have so many better things I could be enjoying. I still haven’t seen this week’s Parks and Rec!

And yet…

by manyhats

Marketable Princesses, Assemble!

associatevidiot:

Last fall, ABC debuted Once Upon a Time, its umpteenth attempt to duplicate the success of Lost — this time, with fairy tales. Fans of Bill Willingham’s long-running comic book Fables quickly began grousing that the show was a cheap ripoff of a proposed, but scuttled, TV version of the comic. Willingham has since graciously doused those rumors, but I think his fans were half right.

Once actually is heavily inspired by a comic book — but not the one most people seem to think. And even more improbably, it may actually have a shot at being a structurally stronger show than Lost ever was.

Read More

by associatevidiot

The Objects of Lady Edith Crawley’s Affection

• Patrick Crawley, her first cousin, fated to wed her sister Mary. Drowned on the Titanic. (Or did he?)
• Matthew Crawley, her third cousin, utterly unmoved by the erotic power of local church architecture.
• Sir Anthony Strallan, kindly fiftysomething refugee from a Monty Python sketch about absent-minded vicars.
• That one farmer guy who was OK with her wearing pants and eating sandwiches with her hands, and who taught her to drive a tractor just like the little people do.
• P. Gordon, hideously disfigured burn victim prone to violent mood swings, and also potential lying con artist. Also, Canadian.
• The conductor of the Rippon-to-Swindings omnibus, whom Edith thought was smiling at her one time, but who was in fact gazing past her to admire a particularly lovely cloud.
• Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who declined to respond to any of a string of increasingly ardent and perfume-scented letters.
• An engraving of John Phillip Sousa reproduced in the newspaper, torn out and creased to unrecognizability by long nights beneath Edith’s pillow.
• The dog, dressed in a dinner jacket and taught to sit at a miniature table and listen to Edith talk about her day in exchange for bits of chicken.
• A particularly handsome elm on the grounds of Downton Abbey.
• An effigy made of sticks and straw, attired in a disused footman’s livery, and kept locked in an abandoned attic storage room for midnight sessions of practice kissing. Referred to privately, with dreamy reverence, as “Lord Edward Widdershins.” The wedding is scheduled for June, but will be called off when the dog, in a fit of jealous rage, makes off with Lord Edward’s left leg.

by associatevidiot

I’m amused by all the stories that borrow from the press release about Matthew Perry joining The Good Wife as “an attorney from Chicago,” as opposed to all the other characters in this show about…attorneys…in Chicago…

by djloehr

by jsnell