Tv diary summer and fall ‘20

Well, last go around I started the final season a bit too soon after the original run, so I thought I’d wait a bit and give it another go. Little did I know that a few months later I’d be dealing with The End of the Motherfucking World. So, now seems like a good ass time to get down to it.

It was the right decision. The cognitive dissonance was jarring jumping straight from season 4 to 5. It feels like a completely different show. And, it is. Season 5 was made more than 10 years after Cartoon Network cancelled the show. The animation, though still in the same style, has undergone a great leap forward in sophistication. But the tale feel far more grim than it ever did before. Before there was hope. Now hope is perilously hard to find. And Jack, though magically free from aging in the past 50 years of show time, has changed as well. He too has lost hope, and is resigned to keep fighting though there is no end in sight. And the evil of the world around him grows and grows. It is truly a show for our time.

But the show still has a warmth, a humor, and a wonderfully inventive imagination giving it life. And it manages to find a light in the darkness. More impressively, it’s able to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.

Shit’s dope. Love them vampires, yo, specially Nandor. Nandor’s my boy. Nandor is like your homey you get blazed with and he becomes as innocent as a little boy, but still stays savage AF. But really, I love all them bloodsuckers. Nadja is a cool chick. Laszlo, AKA by boy Matt motherfucking Berry AKA Dr Lucien Sanchez, is a suave cat. They make a rad couple, feisty and chill. My favorite dude might just be Colin Robinson, the energy vampire, who is in no way cool, but who totally rocks it. Didn’t care much for Guillermo last season, but he growin on me; this year he has a good arc.

The wife ain’t read them muffuckin graphic novels, so she’s feeling this a bit more than Yours Truly. Bit more fresh for her. To your main man here though, shit’s just a rehash. Not terrible, but I ain’t excited for it, neither.

A visit to the state capitol offers smirking cameos from useless shitheels Lt Gov Dan Patrick and Governor Greg Abbott. Fuck those motherfuckers and fuck this. Get cancelled.

Oh kumbaya, freeze peach and can’t we all get along, well fuck no. Patrick is a xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic narcissist, and fuck anyone willing to give this human canker sore a soap box to stick his ugly mug up on. Nice knowin’ ya, Chet.

Well sure, how were you to know that this sweaty fuck-stain would be among the first to loudly argue for as many of his countrymen to die as was necessary to keep our precious economy up and humming during the COVID 19 pandemic? Maybe you should have judged by the low esteem Mr Patrick holds for the lives of gays, immigrants, and women that he is a thug without a shred of moral fiber, hmm? And indeed, now it is plain that he and his ilk hold no one’s life in particular esteem. So it is with the Republican cult. Y’all eat shit and die now, bless your hearts.

Lulu Wang Laurence Kasdan Megan Amram Noah Hawley and Cary Fukunaga Robert Mark Kamen, frequent screenwriter for Besson Noah Hawley, again Screenwriters Michael Werwie and Guinevere Turner in adapting true crime stories Nicole Perlman and Angela Kang on adapting comics for the screen Jason Segel on “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, “The Muppets” Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely on writing for Marvel Catherine Reitman, actress and creator of “Workin’ Moms” Jason Reitman

This is how I’ve been watching most of my movies of late. I’m just about through the whole available catalog, at least on Shudder via Amazon, but hopefully they’ll do a holiday marathon later this year. Some small thing to give one hope for the future.

Not sure what I’ma do when I run out of episodes. Maybe give Elvira a go, or watch some more MST3K. Wonder if you can see Shock Theater anywhere? John Zacherle, the voice of Elmer on Brain Damage. Maybe there’s high quality episodes of Monstervision on the ‘tube.

Unfortunately, the old episodes seem to get yanked offline faster than they get put back up. Dead or Alive, now “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”. I thought that was a Shudder exclusive? Fuck.

So... circa 11/8 I need to see One Cut of the Dead, Maniac, Bloodsucking Freaks, Daughters of Darkness, and The Hills Have Eyes. Then I’mma quit AMC+ (which bizarrely has certain Shudder offerings not available on Shudder-on-Amazon, but not quite everything that is on Shudder-on-Amazon), and I’ll re-up Shudder so I can see A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. And I’ll just have to wait to see Basket Case, Legend of Boggy Creek, CHUD, Wolf Guy, Demon Wind, and The Stuff. Gotta have a plan.

Maybe season 2 is a bit better thus far, or maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. There’s a better sense of who the characters are, what they want, and that this is in fact going somewhere. Not great by any stretch, but passable so far. 4/10 for season 1. 6/10 for season 2. Against the odds, the show has made a case for its continued existence.

This ain’t my bag. It’s like mst3k, with the host intruding into the frame and making wisecracks, but not nearly so clever or well-written. And mst3k is designed in a way that complements rather than distracts; Elvira stands in front of the screen telling bad Borsht Belt jokes, or texts you little quips that pop up on the screen. To be fair, the movies showcased here are all or nearly all dire Full Moon Entertainment joints; distraction is probably the best recourse.

Might check out Movie Macabre sometime, that could be a bit more tolerable. But I’m done with this.

Might watch the Joe Bob segments on YouTube, but the whole episode rips are edited for content and predate hd television, so they’re pretty rough.

Swan interview with potus. The emperor continues to be naked; nice to see him get told that for once.

Looking for “Love Hurts” from season 2. Bezos, the Bezoar, the Bezonator, has season 1. Tubi has seasons 1 and 3. No sign of season 2 anywhere. I’ma keep my eyes peeled.

Seeing “Gremlins” at the drive-in has been one of my favorite moviegoing experiences of late, so I feel it’s time to dive a little deeper into Joe Dante’s oeuvre. This may be a bit too squeaky clean for my tastes, though. It’s silly and low stakes. Maybe it’ll click if I watch another episode or two.

The safety film up front is a riot, but “Radar Secret Service” itself put me to sleep. A promotional film about the wonders of radar, with characters talking time and again about all the amazing things radar can do, it is some pretty dull stuff. It has a plot, of course, about gangsters smuggling radioactives out of the country and the dedicated radar patrol that’s hot on their tails, but these characters are largely interchangeable, the comic relief is lousy, and the film piles on twists and turns which will surprise no one and which also no one will care about. Because what we care about, of course, is radar! We love radar! Radar, come back!

Pilot on Imdb tv. Low rent and silly. In “The Feverman” a doctor butts heads with a faith healer, who contends that diseases are actually big demonic fat guys who you must coax out of the patient with a magic crystal and beat into submission. Producer Richard Rubinstein is one of the brains behind similar horror anthology “Tales from the Darkside”, which had similar production value and a similar EC Comics ethos, if a less limited premise. I might revisit this, but I don’t care for the imdb tv interface, which puts its commercial breaks just a little before the freeze frames here.

I happen to know that a Dan Simmons story about monstrous invisible parasites being the actual cause of cancer was made into later episode, which makes ya wonder, how often did the show return to that particular well?

This is more like it. The great John Hurt plays a charismatic storyteller, who brings old folk tales to life with a little help from the creatures of the Jim Henson workshop.

The two part premiere drags in the first hour, as Roy Scheider, understandably reluctant to go back into the water, time and again resists the call to adventure. The story here hinges on him turning his back on the military, vowing never to return, and a crafty old admiral teaming with the SeaQuest XO to get him to change his mind. But by the time he was all in, so was I.

You could probably guess at a glance that this show is exactly like Star Trek, only it’s underwater. You would be correct. But though the pilot is formulaic, it has the best of Trek. Charismatic stars! Sassy child prodigies! A snazzy logo! An uplifting orchestral score! A earnest message about environmentalism! A ruthless ice queen captain relieved of command in dramatic fashion! Combat! Treachery! Sabotage! A sneering French supervillain played by Michael Parks! And a heroic dolphin with the voice of Frank Welker!

Clickbait listicle In televisual form, with a bunch of tedious “experts” heaping effusive, repetitive, inarticulate praise on a bunch of horror movies that are neither obscure nor, for the most part, terribly good.

Unfortunately, this show was part of the slate of original programming commissioned for Yahoo Screen. So, never had a chance. It’s amusing. And it has a good interpersonal dynamic: the crew of the Cruiser are a bunch of people who don’t particularly like each other who are forced to live and work together. Good crop of talent, promising newcomers and a welcome reunion of MST3K veterans. Cordero and Soni have moved on to new projects, but I hope to see all of these actors again... hell, for another season of “Other Space”, if the gods will it.

Watched the episode with Missy Doty. Much of the series is on the ‘tube (which tube? You know the tube. Your tube), apparently recorded on VHS. But that captures the frenetic editing and flatness of this sitcom just the same.

It’s a pretty stock sitcom structure, with an A plot and B plot that converge at the end (a C plot too, or maybe it’s just a runner, about their female roommate and her pie ad campaign). A gag where the gang kills a random old lady by triggering her garage door with the contraption that’s supposed to help them steal cable tv is ineptly staged, which diminishes the potential shock value.

You might be interested to know that the episode does not do well when subjected to the fearsome Bechdel test.

Back to the danger zone. I’m excited for this show again. The coma dream seasons were diverting at first, but by the end they had grown truly tedious. And with Archer in a weakened state, and the rest of the gang having grown and matured in the meantime, the dynamic is fresh and the formula is askew. It’s about time.

And indeed, looks like we’re in for a return to the status quo. Cheryl gets a good choke and that gleam of evil satiety is back in her eyes. Cyril, enjoying his reign as the agency’s golden boy, gets a bit of egg on his face again. Archer is the bad penny, the destabilizing influence that takes the well-honed machinery of Isis -or whatever they’re calling it these days- and tips it off its axis. So far, so predictable. But we’ll see what the future holds. Strange thing to say in the miserable goddamn year, but I’m looking forward to it.

The Algorithm has decreed that millennials will enjoy a thinly conceived sitcom about a Brooklyn man whose life revolves around his dog. The Algorithm mandates that it be mercifully short, at least, and have a number of kooky characters in supporting roles. The Algorithm requires there to be a lot of dog poop depicted in all its glory in the show. Do not question The Algorithm, for The Algorithm knows all. Verily, the show shall run for a thousand seasons. So saith The Algorithm.

A Dario Argento horror anthology series. Sounds enticing, mm? I’ll probably watch the other three, but “The Neighbor” from director Luigi Cozzi, is dreadfully slow. This is a script that would have felt padded if it had been whittled down to half an hour. At a full hour it is murder. Cozzi, who also made Alien rip-off “Contamination”, fails to generate much suspense, and the episode looks... well, like it was made for Italian tv in the 70’s, frankly. Which it was.

Ay. Caramba. Laziest of sitcom hack work with generous helping of horror nerd wankery. Wwwwhhhhyyyyy does this eeeexxxxiiiisssttt......

“Friends”. “Highway to Heaven” walked so that “Touched by an Angel” could fly. Is that something? Is that funny, even? Guess not.

Judy Carmen here’s pretty cute. Passed away at 52, looks like. Damn.

Preachy after school special melodrama. The show, near as I can tell from the one installment, is so episodic it’s practically an anthology, with star Landon, looking grouchy, playing a supporting role in the guest stars’ story each week.

Great pilot, wry humor and deft writing. There is a smart subversion of the hero’s journey at work here. “You don’t belong here. Come with us. You belong with the special ones.” So goes the recorded message Peter (Jason Siegel) hears when he stumbles into the office of the Jejune Institute, and he cries tears of joy, of unnamed pain, and of disbelief, because deep down Peter knows that he’s not special, he’s just an ordinary guy. But he wants so badly to be extraordinary that the lure of the message is undeniable.

Nothing quite like an exclusive series making its way to network tv. It’s catnip; I bite every time.

Got a few leftovers from the first season. Watched “Fire and Water”, about the protests in Hong Kong against the proposed law allowing extradition to mainland China: a serious blow to the eroding democracy of Hong Kong. Specifically focused on the brutal crackdown by Hong Kong police against protestors, shooting some at point blank, tear gassing crowds on the subway. Students adopted increasingly aggressive tactics in response to the overwhelming force from police, blocking off the city’s universities with bricks and makeshift barricades, arming themselves with Molotov cocktails and trebuchets, and shutting down Hong Kong’s major thoroughfares. It’s wrenching to watch these kids get bulldozed by a totalitarian government while trying to cling to their democratic way of life. Especially as here in America, liberty is dying in the darkness of willful ignorance.

Season 4. I am enjoying this season. It has a very, very big cast of characters, and so far it’s a bit puzzling that some characters rate as stars when they have yet to stand out from the rest of the ensemble. But the stories that connect do so really well, and the plotting really twists your emotions into knots. Divides your loyalties. Our spirit animal in this knotting is Rabbi Milligan, a foot soldier in the Italian mob. Milligan was the son of an Irish gang lord, twice traded to rival families as a gesture of peace, and kin to no one, or at least no one left alive in the Kansas City underworld. As such, he enjoys an especially precarious place way at the bottom of the pecking order.

Madagascar

Run the Jewels Cage the Elephant Tank and the Bangas- wild live show, with a talented oddball front woman the Raconteurs Black Pumas This is a pretty good bunch. Tank and the Bangas is the best of the lot easily, infectious energy and engaging live show. Not just another gig to them, or so you think when you’re watching them. Vampire Weekend