Remember how I recently praised Demetri Martin’s upcoming new Comedy Central series, “Important Things with Demetri Martin”? Well, now’s your chance to see that I wasn’t bluffing about its hilarity…
Author: Will Harris (Page 87 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.
With each subsequent “Super Friends” set that emerges from the Warner Brothers vaults, my childhood memories are tarnished a little bit more. I spent more Saturday mornings in front of the television that I’d care to count, held rapt by the adventures of Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins, but as I revisit those adventures now, I’m really, really disappointed with how poorly they’ve held up for me. Maybe it’s just because the world of superhero animation changed so dramatically with the premiere of “Batman: The Animated Series” in 1992 that it’s hard to take the Super Friends’ adventures seriously anymore. That’s not to say that you won’t find yourself experiencing plenty of fun flashbacks with the heroes’ various puzzles, magic tricks, and safety lessons, but the segments with actual storylines will result in little more than giddy laughter at their ridiculousness.
There’s only one special feature, but as ever for these “Super Friends” sets, it’s a good one: “The Wonder Twins Phenomenon,” which features talking-head contributions from Doug Goldstein and Tom Root (“Robot Chicken”), Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn (“Attack of the Show”), super-writer Paul Dini, original “Super Friends” writers Alan Burnett and Rich Fogel, and animation historians Jerry Beck and Andy Mangels. Everyone offers their usual blend of childhood reminiscences, first-hand experiences from the animation trenches, and complete and total snark…and, in truth, the combination is exactly what The Wonder Twins deserve. There’s even a brief discussion about Zan and Jayna’s predecessors, Wendy and Marvin, and how inappropriate it was for a couple of powerless teenagers to follow these superheroes around. Say, where did Gleek always manage to pull that bucket from? Never mind. I don’t really want to know.
Click to buy “The All New Super Friends Hour: Season One, Volume Two”
“Jericho” fans seemed bewildered when, after all the hype their show received upon its last-second reprieve from cancellation, its second season didn’t find a huge surge in viewership. They shouldn’t have been. There have been precious few occasions when series have been saved from oblivion and suddenly had the masses respond by saying, “Wow, you guys were right! This is awesome!” That’s just not how the mind of the average TV viewer works. They’re not thinking, “Say, if all these people like the show that much, there must be something to it.” Obsessive fans freak out the average TV viewers, and their actions generally only serve to convince Joe Average that this show, whatever it may be, can’t possibly live up to the hype that’s being heaped upon it, and since it can’t, then why bother tuning in?
But here’s a dirty little secret for you: the minds of critics have been known to work the exact same way.
“Moonlight” seemed like a perfectly viable concept when it was originally pitched by CBS. Certainly, “Angel” fans were immediately on edge when word got out about this new series about a vampire private detective…and so, for that matter, were the rabid “Forever Knight” aficionados… but, still, it was going to be produced by David Greenwalt, who had actually worked on “Angel,” so there was hope that the vampire mythos would at least be done right. But then things got a little dodgy on the creative end, with cast and creators being switched out left and right, including the aforementioned Mr. Greenwalt, and critics were left lingering in wait for a pilot episode that took forever to come to fruition. Once it did, we were grumpy and, frankly, we just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about…but, dear God, those Alex O’Loughlin fans sure as hell could. They attacked in droves, criticizing my opinion of the series while invariably finding a way to mention how incredibly hot O’Loughlin was in the role of Mick St. John (the aforementioned vampire), yet they rarely offered much in the way of reasons beyond his sex appeal for me to give the show a second chance.
So I didn’t…until now.
Man, I love “The Closer.”
This should be already be evident to anyone who’s read my reviews of the show’s previous DVD sets over on Bullz-Eye, but even as the show continues onward through its fourth season (tonight brings us the mid-season premiere), it continues to produce episodes which are just as strong now as when it originally premiered. Part of that comes from the fact that its structure feels a bit more free-flowing than your average drama, moving in and out of both the professional and the personal lives of Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson – played with a it-grows-on-you Southern drawl by the lovely Kyra Sedgwick – and her fiance, FBI Special Agent Fritz Howard (Jon Tenney). Mostly, though, it’s the combination of a diverse ensemble of actors and a writing team that makes sure to spread the storylines around the offices of the Priority Homicide Division of the LAPD.
As we return to “The Closer,” the wedding of Brenda and Fritz is coming ever closer, so Brenda’s parents – played in their usual fantastic form by Frances Sternhagen and Barry Corbin – have stopped off on their way to Hawaii to help their daughter get fitted for her dress…and find a venue for the ceremony…and pick out the cake. (If you’re surprised by Brenda’s procrastination, you clearly haven’t been watching the show enough.) As ever, however, Brenda finds herself caught up in a case, this time one with a suicide that possibly isn’t a suicide, and it takes up so much of her time that she ends up having to tell one of her patented well-intentioned lies to keep her mama and daddy in the dark. The episode features a horrifying moment that will chill longtime fans of the series to the bone, but it’s one which nonetheless manages to inspire Brenda to follow her intuition toward a break in the case that hadn’t occurred to her before.
Good stuff, as usual, which is no doubt why TNT so readily sent out an advance screener of the episode, but let me tell you in advance that you really, really don’t want to miss the February 9th episode, “Power of Attorney,” which offers an ending that will blow your freaking mind.
You have been warned.
And to think I originally only requested this DVD in order to make my daughter happy. Little did I know that it would result in a trip to Wikipedia that would completely blow my mind…but before we dive into that ridiculousness, how about a little background material first?
In case you’re not familiar with the trio known as the Chipettes, they are, as you might well have deduced, the female equivalent of the Chipmunks. Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor – for those are the girls’ names – came into existence for two very simple reasons: the Chipmunks’ creators, Ross Bagdasarian and Janice Karman, wanted a chance to do some girl-sung tunes, and because it came them the chance to deal with issues that girls were going through that boys wouldn’t necessarily be dealing with. (Don’t be disgusting: Bagdasarian clarified, “We had a baby girl at the time. We wanted to let her know she can be president, or a soccer champion, or whatever.”)
As Ally (my daughter) watched these six Chipette-centric episodes of “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” she seemed very annoyed by the fact that the opening credits in no way spotlighted the girls. “I thought you said this was the Chipettes,” she grumbled. I assured her that, although these were technically the adventures of the Chipmunks, the Chipettes would feature heavily in all of them; she seemed placated once they finally turned up, thankfully, and sat happily through the entire DVD.
Oh, if you’re wondering, the episodes that have been included are “May the Best Chipmunk Win” (Alvin and Brittany compete for the position of School President), “Operation Theodore” (the Chipettes work as candy-stripers and lose a patient), “Sisters” (Brittany wants to join a sorority but ends up changing her mind after a poignant performance of “Material Girl”), “The Greatest Show-Off on Earth” (the Chipettes join forces with the Chipmunks to save a circus), “My Fair Chipette” (Jeanette competes against Brittany in a beauty pageant), and “Tell It to the Judge” (Brittany and Alvin battle each other in a “People’s Court” parody). In short, if your kid likes the Chipmunks cartoons, then they’ll like this DVD…and if you’ve got a daughter, then she might be even more entertained than usual.
Now, about this Wikipedia entry…
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