Author: Will Harris (Page 100 of 261)

Will is a member of the Television Critics Association and has written for Decider.com, the Onion A.V. Club, The Dissolve, Indiewire, Rhino.com, TV Week Magazine, The Virginian-Pilot, Popdose.com, and EW.com along with writing for Bullz-Eye.com and Premium Hollywood.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force 6

I don’t know what it is about “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” that causes me to be forever surprised at how funny it is, but I think perhaps it’s because the concept is so downright surreal. Nonetheless, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force 6” (which actually contains the whole of Season 5 of the series) contains just as many laughs as the previous collections. The first few episodes, however, feature little or no appearances from Frylock, Master Shake, and Meatwad, due to their being cocooned in the desert by their vampire-esque landlord Marcula; ever the caring neighbor, Carl immediately tries to rent out their place to a bunch of robots, but his greatest spotlight comes in the third episode, “Sirens,” when he meets another set of new neighbors, voiced by Kelly Hogan, Neko Case, and John Kruk. (Kruk plays himself; the other two do not.) Other guest voices during the season include David Cross, T-Pain, Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Scott Adsit (“30 Rock”), Jon Benjamin (a.k.a. Coach McGuirk on “Home Movies”), and Kristen Schaal (“Flight of the Conchords”).

There are four previously-unaired episodes, the best of which is “Shake Like Me,” where Master Shake is bitten by a radioactive black man and becomes black himself. Scientifically implausible, you say? Surely no more so than an anthropomorphic Happy Meal. Of the special features, sports fans will particularly enjoy the “Carl’s Pissed” shorts, where the hairy undershirt-wearing gentleman moans and groans about various events in the world of sports, but there are also other oddities that fans of the show’s bizarre comedic sensibilities will enjoy. Those who do not belong to the Adult Swim cult, however, will almost certainly not…and that goes not just for the bonus material but also for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” as a whole.

Click to buy “Aqua Teen Hunger Force 6”

The CW gets body-slammed by MyNetworkTV

Okay, maybe “body-slammed” is overstating things, but recent ratings numbers have found that MyNetwork has been beating The CW in the ratings for the last three weeks…and it’s at least partially because of the former’s broadcast of World Wrestling Entertainment matches. (It’s really kind of embarrassing, since they only picked up the WWE after The CW relinquished the rights because it didn’t mesh with their intended programming direction.) While I’m excited in principle that a young upstart like MyNetworkTV is managing such success so quickly, the fact that they’re doing so with sports and reality programming is just going to kill scripted series that much more quickly…and, boy, does that smart.

Kids Today: “Drake & Josh: Best of Seasons 1 – 2”

I admit it: I’m a Drake Bell fan. It doesn’t have anything to do with his Nickelodeon sitcom, though; it’s all because of his music career. Have you heard his stuff? The guy’s so much of a Jellyfish fan that he covers “Joining a Fan Club” in concert…and does it pretty damned well, too. That’s why I requested this set to review back in August…and, yet, when it arrived, I was unable to bring myself to put it in the DVD player. When it came right down to it, I found myself asking a question that, to be fair, I probably should’ve asked before making the DVD request: is appreciating a guy’s musical output really enough of a reason to endure watching a sitcom aimed at an audience that’s about 20 years younger than I am? The answer: not really. After seeing Bell’s co-star, Josh Peck, appear in the Michael Rapaport flick, “Special,” however, I decided that the time had come to get off my old arse and get it over with.

As it happened, watching “Drake & Josh: Best of Seasons 1 – 2” wasn’t nearly as excruciating an experience as I’d feared it would be, which was certainly a nice surprise, but the most surprising thing about the experience was the fact that Peck’s photo on the cover of the DVD bears absolutely no resemblance to the actor as he appeared in the first few seasons of the series. He spent the third and fourth seasons of the show divesting himself of a fair amount of weight, as it turns out, but I guess the folks responsible for packaging this best-of set decided that offering an accurate presentation of Peck’s weight during Seasons 1 and 2 wouldn’t do as well to inspire the show’s predominant audience – teen-aged girls – to buy the set. (To be fair, they did manage to find room for a cast photo from the era on the back cover.)

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An A to Z of Last-Minute Gifts for the TV Geek in Your Life

Got a TV geek on your Christmas list but don’t know what to get them because you’re petrified that they might already have all the obvious picks? As someone who falls into that demographic (and therefore has to make a very explicit list for my family every year), I understand where you’re coming from, so please allow me to do my part to help but you and the poor bastard you’re waiting ’til the last second to shop for. Sure, the list is a little all-over-the-place, but all of these items have landed in stores since last Christmas, and…hey, at least it’s in alphabetical order!

1. Adam 12: Season Two – Rescued from Universal’s indifference by the good folks at Shout! Factory, it holds up about as well as any show produced by Jack Webb (which is to say that the acting is more than a little stilted), but it’s been tricked out with commentaries from actual Los Angeles police officers, which make for entertaining and interesting listening.

2. Beauty and the Beast: The Complete Series – Ron Perlman may be best known these days for his work in FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” and the “Hellboy” franchise, just as Linda Hamilton is probably destined to be remembered as the definitive Sarah Connor, but once upon a time, they were the stars of a rather unlikely romance on CBS. This complete-series set offers little new for those who’ve already purchased the individual season sets except an interactive trivia game, some “newly reconstructed love letters” from Vincent which don’t sound like they’re being read by Perlman, and a nice looking box, but it’s a strange, fanciful, and romantic show that your mom, wife, sister, or…oh, hell, even you might like it.

3. Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse – Given that it takes the style of a kids show from the early ’70s and blends it with dark, surreal, and sometimes downright filthy humor, it’s only halfway surprising that this series didn’t find a following, but it will undoubtedly come to be remembered as one of the great lost comedy classics of the decade. Robert Smigel obsessives will notice that a few things are missing from the show’s original airing, but there’s still plenty here to make you laugh and groan for hours.

4. Drak Pak: The Complete Series – Sometimes, you include an item for personal reasons, but the idea of the kids of Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein’s Monster teaming up to form a crime-fighting team that battles against a guy who looks suspiciously like Vincent Price is one that had me watching every Saturday morning. Sadly, it only lasted a single season, and watching it now, I can kind of see why, but it’s still a fun flashback for those who remember the show from its original run.

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Greetings to the New Show: “Momma’s Boys”

“Who is really the most important woman in any man’s life?” That’s ostensibly the question being posed by NBC’s latest reality show, “Momma’s Boys.” In the end, however, it appears that what’s really being asked is, “How awful and overbearing can a mother be to her son on national television?” Brought to you by the one and only Ryan Seacrest, you will find this to be an absolute car-wreck of trashy reality TV that will almost certainly find its way onto “The Soup” on a weekly basis.

So…let’s meet the gentlemen of the series, shall we?

Mamma's Boys

Michael is a firefighter, and his mother, Lorraine, does his laundry, makes his bed, and even handles his accounting needs, but she comes off as pretty cool and, at the very least, she’s a lot of fun. Rob’s mother, Esther, is…oh, let’s just say it: she’s a Jewish stereotype. Don’t mistake this for an anti-Semitic comment. I’m just saying that you won’t be able to see or hear her without thinking of Linda Richman and “Coffee Talk.” I mean, she calls her son a mensch at one point! Jojo’s mom is downright creepy with her appreciation of his looks and physique, but even worse, however, is her declaration of the kinds of girls she doesn’t approve of for her son: no Jewish girls and no Muslim girls, no black girls or Asian girls (she eventually says outright that any woman who’s going to marry her son has gotta be white), no-one from a divorced family, no-one who wears a lot of make-up, no-one who’s outspoken, no-one who’s after Jojo for his dough…oh, it goes on and on.

Cara is a complete idiot, Donna is proud to admit that she’s done time in prison but wants to underline that she’s a non-violent offender, and Natalie doesn’t even seem to know what the hell show she’s on, since she’s underlining how important it is for a guy to have a big ol’ set of balls. I’m partial to Brittany, not just because she’s from Virginia but because she’s just so darned cute; I’m also a fan of the voluptuous Jamie as well as Rochelle, who has an exotic look about her.

Predictably, though, I’m most drawn to Megan Albertus, a 26-year-old animal caretaker who has a bit of a bookworm / librarian look about her. Of course, a seasoned television veteran such as myself knows that you should always be prepared for these types to take off their glasses, let down their hair, and become the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen. As of the first episode, however, she appears to be sweet and legitimately geeky (she refers to her glasses as her “nerd goggles”), so maybe she’ll be the exception to that rule…but probably not.

NBC is ridiculously hopeful about this series, it would seem, given that they’ve made a point of including a mention in the show that they’re already casting for Season 2 of the show. As far as I’m concerned, however, the only real reason to watch is to see just how ignorant Jojo’s mom can possibly sound…and since I cringe every time she opens her mouth, I can’t really recommend the show on that basis. I can merely hope that Joel McHale embraces the series, so I can see the lowlights every week without actually watching.

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