Our 2011 Road Trip, Part 7: Not Necessarily the NBC News

Anchorman!

“America’s Most Trusted Newsman” are four words that appear nowhere in this chapter.

[The very special miniseries continues! See Part One for the official intro and context.]

Once we’d had our fill of the Today set, many of the remaining minutes before our 9:45 appointment were wasted on scrounging up a meal for my son, who hates breakfast food and had refused any solids at the Bouchon Bakery because his appetite never awakens till an hour or two after he does. Some tunneling through the underground Rockefeller Center shops brought us to an everyday Subway franchise, thankfully willing and equipped to serve lunch before 10 a.m. While we strode back to where we needed to be, he did his best to cram an entire five-five-dollar-five-dollar-footlong chicken teriyaki sub into his gullet as quickly as possible without choking.

He had only a few bites left of his special-needs meal when we arrived at the NBC Studios Store to kick off our official NBC Studios tour.

Right this way for the no-photos tour, a never-before-shared video, and then a few photos!

Top 10 Changes When “Supergirl” Moves to The CW

Supergirl!

One of our souvenirs from C2E2 last March. Follow the link for our even better Supergirl photo!

My wife and I were pleased to learn this evening one of our favorite shows now on the air, DC’s Supergirl, has been renewed for season 2 after a few rounds of negotiated compromises. Up front we’ve been told the show will be relocating from Los Angeles to Vancouver for cheaper filming, if they can find a few square feet not in use by the 300 other shows and movies already shooting there. Biggest change of all (for now): Supergirl will be moving from CBS to The CW, which is bad news for fans in numerous cities without their own CW affiliate. Here’s hoping your internet access is higher-quality than your local broadcasting industry is.

What else does this mean for the show? What other corners will be cut? What wrongheaded executive demands will ruin everything and turn us all against it? I shudder to contemplate what the future holds for our beloved stars and the only CBS show I’ve followed within the last four years.

Right this way for the countdown!

American Ninja War Zone: Indianapolis

American Ninja Warrior!

I assume this is called the Treacherous Tower of Tremendous Terror or something.

Fun event here in Indianapolis this week: the NBC reality series American Ninja Warrior is filming an episode on Monument Circle in the very heart of downtown. They’re filming the initial challenges in the wee hours of Wednesday night/Thursday morning from a crowd of thirty competitors, and it’s my understanding semifinalists will continue competing Thursday night/Friday morning. If you’re a local night owl who has no use for crowing roosters or morning-drive DJs, this event was made just for you.

I don’t watch the show. I was just trying to take my weekly walk to the comic shop at lunchtime and their sets were in my way. But I captured a few images for the fans out there.

Right this way for more photos, plus a bonus superfluous political rally pic!

MCC Live-Tweeting: The “Sleepy Hollow” Season 3 Finale

Sleepy Hollow!

In which Ichabbie bids us a clumsy, ill-conceived Ichabbye.

Okay, after a self-mandated 24-hour cooling-off period, I think I’m ready to tackle that Friday night fiasco.

Once upon a time, Midlife Crisis Crossover provided same-night recaps of every episode of Sleepy Hollow. I’m not a pro reviewer entitled to advance copies of any TV shows, so every recap was an intense, on-the-fly, two- to three-hour marathon writing session, thinking and typing as quickly as I could to combine plot summary with top-of-my-head commentary in 1500- to 2000-word bursts — partly to see if I could do it, partly because sometimes there’s an audience for such a thing. This formerly fun exercise became a thankless chore if I paid too much attention to the competition from actual pro websites given days to prepare their material so they can click “Publish” mere seconds after each episode ends. It’s a nice luxury if you can work your way into it and don’t have to worry about sleep deprivation disrupting your full-time day job.

When Fox moved Sleepy Hollow to Fridays for the back half of season 3, I figured it was the perfect time to pull the plug on that ongoing MCC feature, not only due to diminishing returns but also because we have a family commitment every other Friday that precluded same-night recaps. Past experiences have taught me that delayed recaps are a waste of time and bandwidth, so that wasn’t an option, and that’s why this entry is not a straight-up recap. My wife and I still followed the show as fans, and every other week I’ve been live-tweeting it, which turned out to be a much better format for me. All of the MST3K-style improv joke-writing, none of the boring golf-commentator filler.

The timing worked out so that I could live-tweet last night’s season finale, “Ragnarok”, an astoundingly disappointing episode that encapsulated all of this season’s flaws to date, then one-upped them with the most poorly orchestrated mistake in series history. And after it was all over, I was there to watch the internet burn. Not just once, but twice.

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C2E2 2016 Photos: Last Call for Costumes!

PuppyMonkeyBaby!

Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby! Puppymonkeybaby!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I spent two days at the seventh annual Chicago Comics and Entertainment Exposition, where Midwest comics fans in particular and geeks in general gather together in the name of imaginary worlds from print and screen to revel in fiction and touch bases on what’s hot or cool at this moment in pop culture.

This isn’t the final chapter in this very special week-long MCC miniseries, but it is all the costume photos we have left. Most of these would fit into a “Movie and TV Costumes!” chapter of their own, but that would leave a few stragglers out in the cold. As always, our goal here is to see No Cosplayer Left Behind if we have any say in their fates. So everyone unites in one last big potpourri hurrah for the sake of inclusion.

What we’ve presented in our five C2E2 2016 costume entries is a fraction of a fraction of all the hundreds of cosplayers we saw swirling around us all weekend. No two C2E2 attendees will have the same costume photo collections, so I’d strongly recommend seeking out others online if you want an even broader picture of the complete Chicago convention experience. C2E2 is large and it contains multitudes.

Right this way for costumes, costumes, COSTUMES!

C2E2 2016 Photos: We Are Here For Supergirl!

Jazz Hands Supergirl!

Finally, two guests who showed US how jazz hands are done.

Defying all expectations, Supergirl has become must-see TV in our house. I’ve yet to write about it here, but Twitter followers are (hopefully) used to me live-tweeting it on Mondays for fun and more fun. (I think most of the I’ll-follow-you-if-you-follow-me-and-also-please-buy-all-my-ebooks crowd already Muted me seconds after I followed them back anyway, so I may not be bothering as many people as I think.) The show has its occasional silly moments and head-scratching choices (many of them Maxwell Lord’s fault), but Kara, Alex, James, Hank/J’onn, MVP Cat Grant, and, yes, even Winn are a welcome sight to us.

Last year Anne and I discussed the notion of no longer considering any conventions an automatic buy-in until and unless the guest list gave us a solid reason to commit. C2E2’s early guest announcements for 2016 were okay, one of them pretty great. (We’ll get to him in a later entry.) Then they added special guests Melissa Benoist, the greatest Supergirl of all time, and former Grey’s Anatomy costar Chyler Leigh, who plays her adopted sister Alex. They sealed the deal for us.

Behold above the newest addition to our ongoing jazz-hands photo-op collection. Even after posing for pics with the hundreds of fans in front of us, their unstoppable enthusiasm bowled us over and won the con and the photo.

Right this way for a few pics from their Q&A!

Top 10 Most Shocking Surprises in Puppy Bowl XII

Puppy Bowl XII!It’s that time again! On Sunday 99% of America will be watching Super Bowl 50 and joking about how calling it “Super Bowl L” would’ve made the whole thing sound too Kryptonian. Meanwhile, we eclectic 1% have our own viewing plans: the twelfth annual Puppy Bowl! The geniuses at Animal Planet once again acknowledge that people like me exist and counterprogram for our tastes with a repeated two-hour pretend-competitive event in which a bunch of animals frolic and gambol with a bunch of other animals, and the announcer and referee each take turns making the worst puns of the year. Puppy Bowl is mostly a dog’s field, but other animals such as cats, hamsters, and even penguins have assumed roles at times in this increasingly diverse production.

As is our custom, we here at Midlife Crisis have dinner plans that night in an empty restaurant with no TV. Before our big date, rest assured we’ll be tuning in for Puppy Bowl XII even though we’ve convinced ourselves we already know what the showrunners are planning to unleash that’ll really shake up this year’s judgment-free dog show.

Right this way for the list!

“Sleepy Hollow” 11/19/2015: Sumerian Gothic

Etu'ilu!

“I got a rock.”

Previously on Sleepy Hollow: a Norse monster pack tore each other apart; Pandora summoned her evil husband into our plane of reality; Jenny got powers but was summoned to the Dark Side; Sophie Foster, relic hunter, stood revealed as Agent Foster, FBI; and “fan favorite” Joe Corbin got kissed, pretty much his career highlight.

On tonight’s fall finale, “Novus Ordo Seclorum”: Pandora stands by her man, who’s not Anubis! Ichabod Crane goes to college! Joe is tempted to get tough! And when the dust settles, one of our cast members is gone!

For those who missed out, my attempt to hash out the basic events follows after this courtesy spoiler alert for the sake of time-shifted viewers…

…

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“Sleepy Hollow” 11/12/2015: Berserk du Soleil

Norse Berserkers!

Meet your obscure monsters of the week: the Cult of Curly Joe.

Previously on Sleepy Hollow: Our Heroes fought a wild ‘n’ wispy wasp woman; Pandora escaped inside her creepy blue Hellmouth tree; and we learned all this season’s previous monsters just barely had a meaningless connection with each other, kind of like a bunch of James Bond villains supposedly belonging to the same criminal organization but never lending each other a hand, so their secret evil fraternity doesn’t mean much to them or to viewers.

On tonight’s new episode, “The Art of War”: an ancient threat emerges from Scandinavia; Jenny has superpowers; Crane quotes Sun Tzu and touts the virtues of horsehair fishing lines; Abbie shows her mad chess skillz; “fan favorite” Joe Corbin has his first kiss; the Great-Big Bad behind our two Big Bads makes his grand entrance; and Betsy Ross, Action Spy, is off this week, probably on special flashback assignment or something.

For those who missed out, my attempt to hash out the basic events follows after this courtesy spoiler alert for the sake of time-shifted viewers…

…

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Former Kickstarter Junkie VI: Reboot MST3K? You Do It, I’m Bitter

Bring Back MST3K!

If you’ve never seen an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I’m really sorry that you’ve been deprived of the pleasure. I missed the first several seasons of its basic-cable run, but the Rhino Home Video releases began in May 1996 at exactly the right moment in my life when, more than any other, I needed powerful reasons to laugh, to overlook emotional pain, and to appreciate sci-fi puppetry. Joel, Mike, Crow, Tom Servo, and the rest of their motley crew were like a shining, snarky beacon through so much real-world darkness. I snapped up every episode as it was released and filled up a few shelves. When I could afford basic cable again circa 1998, I caught up to speed with the Sci-Fi Channel reruns, and the rest is a great time in history for this latecomer MSTie.

Some of its funniest fans were among the first online citizens I met when I discovered the wild world of Internets. My wife and I met several of those odd-fellows in person and quite a few cast members over the past fifteen years — at a St. Louis convention on our 2000 road trip, at Indy Pop Con 2014, and at C2E2 2015. It’s been kind of a wild ride.

Today news broke out across my social circles that MST3K creator Joel Hodgson, with the assistance of the good Samaritans at Shout! Factory (the show’s home-video distributor for the last several years), has obtained the rights clearance to pursue a full-on revival with the same puppets but probably an all-new cast — a bit like the Sci-Fi years in a sense, so some of us are bound to fret and complain till we get used to Tom Servo’s new voice. Rather than rely on modern studio executives to come to their senses and right the wrongs committed by their soulless ancestors, Hodgson has launched an ambitious Kickstarter campaign that will allow fans, newcomers, and hopefully kindhearted deep-pocketed investors to determine whether or not the world’s greatest Cowtown puppet show deserves another chance to live and riff.

As a fan, I hope it succeeds and I wish I could help. I also wish there were a way to do it without Kickstarter.

Right this way for more MST3K info! And for an update on this regretful ongoing MCC series!