May 2012
2 posts
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...
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...
February 2012
6 posts
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,...
Learn from my mistakes: Why abusive TV...
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...
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...
3 tags
The Objects of Lady Edith Crawley's Affection
(A Comprehensive List)
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...
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…
“Television is a medium because it is neither rare nor well done.”
– Ernie Kovacs