After an opening montage of moments from the first nineteen episodes set to the tune of “Can’t Find My Way Home”, at long last begins the Revolution season-one finale, “The Dark Tower” (not the first time they’ve referenced Stephen King). When last we left, Monroe Republic President Sebastian “Bass” Monroe and former best friend Miles Matheson were facing off inside the tower with coilguns at twenty paces. Will this be the duel to end all duels? Here in the first minute of the episode?
Category Archives: TV/DVD
“Revolution” 5/27/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Emissaries of Explodo
There’s this place. It’s called…The TOWER.
Thus does tonight’s new episode of Revolution, “Children of Men”, begin with a promise of explosions. We ended last week’s episode with Rachel Matheson triggering the grenade she carried with her into President Monroe’s field tent in hopes of avenging the death of her son Danny. Instead of opening this week with Rachel and Monroe both dead — which, let’s face it, would be a true game-changer — the grenade gets kicked out of the tent, exploding outside and destroying some tanks full of movie combustion fluid or whatever. Everyone in the tent is safe, and Rachel is easily captured and embarrassed.
“Revolution” 5/20/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Murderous Mole
Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) and Jason (JD Pardo) share a moment of true love while a disenchanted Atlanta evacuates in panic.
“The Office”: And They All Lived Happily Ever After
“There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn’t that the point?”
— Pamela Beesly Halpert, May 16, 2013.
Our family spent this evening bidding farewell to the quotidian saga of The Office after seven solidly engaging seasons, one apocryphal season we endured out of customer loyalty, and one mostly improved bonus season to make up for that one. Of all our ongoing TV series, it was the only one we watched unanimously. Whenever the Dunder Mifflin staff spent another work day together, we spent quality time together, like the families of days past that gathered around the old-time radio, the puppet stage, the family plow, or whatever other objects past generations thought were worth gathering around. (Well, at least we did this after my son was old enough to appreciate it and binge-watched the early seasons over one summer vacation.)
“Revolution” 5/13/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Drones of Devastation
Former Google executive Aaron Pittman (Zak Orth), possibly the only sci-fi character in history that I can convincingly cosplay at conventions.
Every Episode Ever: Thoughts About TV Completism
My son and I liked NBC’s short-lived, suspenseful Persons Unknown so much, we had to watch the last two episodes online after NBC had given up on it, even when we hadn’t. The cast included Chadwick Boseman (42), Daisy Betts (Last Resort), and Alan Ruck (Bunheads!). Not pictured: Reggie Lee from Grimm.
In this present age of DVD boxed sets, TV series completism is easier than it’s ever been in world history. Buy a complete-series set (or collect seasons one by one as funding permits); set aside multiple weekends for binge-viewing; repeat until you’ve become an authority on the series long after it departed the airwaves. Cable networks provide reruns of many series for your catch-up pleasure, if you’re patient enough to wait until the ones you missed take their turn. Even easier to complete are those fledgling upstarts that grab your attention, air two or three episodes, and find themselves axed by ill-tempered TV execs who’d rather be flooding the airwaves with cost-effective reality stunts instead.
“Revolution” 5/6/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Sinister Dr. Anthrax
Meet Miles Matheson’s new partner! Can these two dangerous men share a post-apocalypse without driving each other crazy?
“Revolution” 4/29/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Love Triangle Trap
If something compels General Monroe to stop sulking in Independence Hall and walk around in open daylight, you know things just got real.
“Revolution” 4/22/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Nuclear Terror
As of tonight, now we know for certain why NBC tastefully postponed the new Revolution episode “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” from last week. At first I wondered if the reason would be more scenes of Nora carrying out heroic bombing on behalf of the Rebel Alliance, but no. Even more unnerving, given the events of last week in real life: this week, Sebastian “Bass” Monroe, President of the Monroe Republic, mad with electrical power and incensed paranoia, sends a few henchmen to Atlanta, the capital of the neighboring Georgia Federation, to threaten it with an old-fashioned suitcase nuke. Presumably Monroe and his loyal scientists have been sitting on this portable, stylish WMD through all fifteen years of the blackout, waiting for the opportunity to fire it up and stop postponing WWIII. Luckily for them, most fissile materials have a half-life with a distant expiration date.
“Revolution” 4/15/2013: Pre-Empted on Account of Evil
Please accept this placid aerial shot of Boston in lieu of ripped-from-the-headlines shock and horror. (photo credit: walknboston via photopin cc)
At the tail end of a day-long email volley, in which my wife and I had been taking turns trying to one-down each other and see which of us was having the worse work day, that’s how I learned about Monday’s horrifying bombing tragedy at the Boston Marathon. “Wait. What?” I thought in boldface as I realized she’d just buried the lede.
I had no idea what she was talking about. I’d been so wrapped up in my own pedestrian issues that I was oblivious to anything happening outside my immediate environs. I commenced ignoring what I had been doing, checked CNN.com, felt my heart sink, and closed that browser tab after one jarring image too many. Once again some inscrutable lost soul or an entire defective collective has created a moment to weep for humanity as a whole.
“Community”: Subjective Observation of Carcharodon Hurdling Symptoms
I’ve tried to watch the fourth season of Community with an open mind. I promise I have. I wanted the privilege of cheering it on as it defied the cliché of the TV series that falters after the departure of its creator. I wanted to witness a strong group collaboration surviving the loss of a single participant, no matter how integral he was. I wanted to see a show continue defying convention and seeking eccentric storytelling methods within the corporate IP context. I wanted more of the same Community whose first three seasons had repeatedly surprised and outsmarted me.
Perhaps I wanted too much. Perhaps I wanted all the wrong things. All I know for sure is that I didn’t want an ordinary sitcom. With each passing week the evidence keeps pointing in that disappointing direction, no matter how hard I wish for the opposite.
“Revolution” 4/8/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. Neville vs. Neville
“No one’s a good guy.”
Thus does our hero Miles Matheson (Billy Burke) sum up the current state of mankind in the final minutes of tonight’s new Revolution episode, “The Song Remains the Same” (another Led Zeppelin song title, for annotation fans). If the power is restored for one and all, to oppressors and oppressed alike, who’s to say the warring factions of the country formerly known as America would set aside their differences and reunite for the good of mankind? If adversity wasn’t enough to inspire peaceful cooperation, why should we expect the restoration of power access to be any less divisive?
It’s a question worth asking, in light of the surprise revelation about the true nature of Ben and Rachel Matheson’s secret invention responsible for the worldwide blackout. Bets were won and high-fives were exchanged for any viewers who guessed that the correct answer is…
…insert drumroll here….
…redundant pause for tension effect…
…one last pause for no good reason…
“Revolution” 4/1/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Humvees of Hate
Tonight’s new episode of Revolution, “Ghosts”, divides its time between two primary threads, each about former partnerships torn asunder but looking for common ground to reunite, and finding it in the form of evil armed henchmen. Nothing mends fences like common foes.
Of the episode’s two halves, more interesting and personal is the tension between Charlie and Rachel, as mother and daughter grieve the loss of son/brother Danny in last week’s mismatched showdown between a pair of working helicopters and one thermal-guided surface-to-air missile launcher. As the Rebel Alliance relocates its Annapolis base from its now-missile-ridden digs to a nearby former hospital, Rachel wallows in guilt and blame (when she’s not busy drawing electrical diagrams of the mysterious blue-light device she retrieved from her dead son’s innards last week), while Charlie rebuffs her and instead looks for opportunities for action, doing whatever she can for the resistance so that Danny’s death won’t be as much in vain as his hard-fought rescue from Independence Hall ultimately was. She storms off without Mom’s permission to assist in an overnight militia raid and returns the next day with an ugly shoulder wound, rebuking any attempts at assistance and talking back in hardcore Wolverine tough-guy whispers. Their argument ends with Rachel slapping Charlie. That doesn’t help, and seems unnecessary now that Tracy Spiridakos’ performance is showing signs of improvement.
“Revolution” 3/25/2013 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Whirlybirds of War
Tonight on Revolution: EXPLOSIONS! GUNFIRE! MAJOR DEATH! BAZOOKAS! PUNCHING! Behold the end results of a three-month retooling hiatus.
We rejoin Our Heroes for the new episode, “The Stand” (I don’t have to explain the reference, right?), quickly resolving last winter’s cliffhanger that saw them facing the world’s first working helicopter in fifteen years, its cannons fully loaded, its pendant-powered generator in working order, its pilot ordered to kill. Fortunately everyone outruns the flying death machine, scampers into the abandoned (fictional) restaurant pictured above, and escapes death by hiding in the freezer until the chopper stops firing missiles into the joint. If a refrigerator can save Indiana Jones from atomic warfare, it stands to reason than an entire walk-in freezer would be just as impervious a bunker.
“Star Wars: the Clone Wars”: a Few Kind Words at the Funeral
What do you call a Clonetrooper with a Gatling laser? The winner.
Fans are hoping the completed season-six material is allowed to see the light of day in some fashion (as DVD extras? as exclusive online content? as a Disney XD miniseries? as convention bootlegs alongside The Star Wars Holiday Special?), but no promises have been made. The final episode, “The Wrong Jedi”, gave cold comfort and depressing closure to the Jedi training of the series’ central figure, young Ahsoka Tano, providing one last twist of fate that would allow her a gateway into potential further adventures, either in season six or in other media. Now that Episode VII has become Lucasfilm Job One, Ahsoka fans probably shouldn’t get their hopes up.
“Veronica Mars: the Motion Picture”: My List of Demands
File Photos Guaranteed Not to be Used on Anyone Else’s Veronica Mars Article #49: the time she went undercover as a gamer.
I later caught up with the DVDs and stuck with the show to the bitter end, by which I mean I was bitter. Eventually I moved on, but I’m not opposed to revisiting Veronica’s world if the occasion warrants.
The March 22nd issue of Entertainment Weekly summarizes creator Rob Thomas’ planned premise:
Set a decade after the show’s third and final season, the plot has Veronica returning to her hometown of Neptune, Calif., after much schooling (a bachelor’s from Stanford; a Columbia Law School degree) when she gets a distress call from ex-boyfriend Logan: His pop-star girlfriend has been murdered, and he’s the prime suspect.
“Veronica Mars” Kickstarter Success Raises Unreasonable Hopes in Fans of Every Canceled Series Ever
Just as Star Wars fans spent weeks celebrating in the streets at the news that their beloved childhood franchise will return to theaters, so is another fan base breaking out the party hats this week…and, more importantly, their wallets.
In a first for a major-studio intellectual property, Warner Bros. has allowed producer/creator Rob Thomas to use the power of crowdfunding to extract Veronica Mars from mothballs and feature her in a major motion picture. Thomas launched a Kickstarter campaign less than 48 hours ago with a lofty goal of $2,000,000.00. As Thomas describes the conditional deal with Warner Bros.:
Of course, Warner Bros. still owns Veronica Mars and we would need their blessing and cooperation to pull this off. Kristen and I met with the Warner Bros. brass, and they agreed to allow us to take this shot. They were extremely cool about it, as a matter of fact. Their reaction was, if you can show there’s enough fan interest to warrant a movie, we’re on board. So this is it. This is our shot. I believe it’s the only one we’ve got. It’s nerve-wracking. I suppose we could fail in spectacular fashion, but there’s also the chance that we completely revolutionize how projects like ours can get made. No Kickstarter project ever has set a goal this high. It’s up to you, the fans, now. If the project is successful, our plan is to go into production this summer and the movie will be released in early 2014.
Thomas worried for naught. Pledges from tens of thousands of fans reached that formidable goal in a record-setting, jaw-dropping twelve hours, leaving 29½ days for slower fans and curious bandwagon-jumpers to keep adding to the budget in hopes of upgrading the film from niche project to wide-release underdog, maybe even with action scenes and trained stuntmen. At the rate the pledges are accumulating, they’ll have enough money to set it in 2030 and equip Veronica and her dad with robot sidekicks.
“Revolution” Relaunch Refresher: Main Character Guide and Episode Recaps
If this doesn’t work, Miles is gonna look really silly.
If you’re like me and not too fond of extended hiatuses and the effect they have on TV recall, you’ve probably forgotten everything about the show except the few reminders that the “Revolution Returns” preview may have jump-started. You may also have forgotten that the first ten episodes were recapped right here on MCC, as quickly as I could cobble them together after each airing. Rest assured I plan to continue with the show, not only because I insist it has potential (despite the frequent shortcomings), but also because I want to see what sort of changes will be wrought by the “retooling” rumored to have been ordered by NBC execs. A recent TV Guide cover article confirmed that a major character won’t survive the show’s return, so you’ll need to be fully up to speed in order to place your bets.
Cartoon Network to Showrunners: Sell Toys or Perish
TV animation fans are still coming to terms with recent announcements that Cartoon Network had canceled two Saturday morning series, both part of the DC Nation programming block — Young Justice after two seasons, and Green Lantern after a single season. Cancellation isn’t unusual for the basic-cable channel — their programming history is a long shopping list of short-term productions. In fact, if you set aside the frequent Ben 10 reboots (the Scooby-Doo of a new generation in its own way), their longest-running series outside the Adult Swim block (i.e., still producing new episodes and not existing solely as reruns) is Adventure Time, which will celebrate its third birthday next month. The minds behind Young Justice should probably count their blessings that they were allowed two entire seasons instead of being truncated after six episodes.
Typical Cartoon Network cancellations tend to come and go without a public post-mortem or much of a protest. However, the curious circumstances surrounding these shows’ unforeseen terminations was addressed last weekend at the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, where longtime Warner Brothers Animation producer Bruce Timm was asked about the cancellations at a Q&A. In the wake of a January article about Young Justice ending due not to low ratings but to anemic toy sales, multimedia news/rumor site Bleeding Cool followed up with Timm’s response regarding Green Lantern, referencing weak merchandise sales as the primary cause of death:
Since the Ryan Reynolds’ film, retailers were stuck with film merchandise that just wasn’t selling. This led to those retailers being very reluctant, if not downright refusing, to any carry merchandise from the Animated Series. Therefore, a lack of sales on that front lead to a lack revenue for an admittedly expensive CG series.
In reading the paraphrasing of Timm’s comments, I couldn’t help feeling a little naïve and a whole lot disappointed. Though the shows weren’t quite for me, I can respect the efforts that went into them and the fan bases they garnered. The part that struck me in the worst way was that, if those two articles linked above are to be believed — and I’ve seen no evidence that anyone in authority disagrees with them — then the crews of both shows essentially lost their gigs regardless of the quality of their own work. If the stories were engaging and the animation was suitably competent, it didn’t matter. Even though Nielsen commoners didn’t exactly boycott the show, ratings were seemingly a secondary consideration. The bottom line, as I understand it: they failed as toy commercials.
Geek/Nerd Clichés I Thought Were Over by Now
I had been looking forward to last week’s new episode of Community, “Conventions of Space and Time”, which invited us into the inner workings of an official Inspector Spacetime convention, a place where Troy and Abed could meet other fans of the obscure British TV series, indulge in a few hobby-related purchases, and generally be themselves. As someone who’s been to C2E2 twice, Wizard World Chicago four times, three GenCons so far, two Star Wars Celebrations, and several local Trek conventions, I was curious to see how the generally geek-approved series would approach such a setting. I tried to keep my expectations modest — without creator Dan Harmon around anymore, this season’s first two episodes were a little shaky. I’ve stuck with the show and keep hoping for the best.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 