Yesterday marked 20 years since the first episode of Batman: The Animated Series aired on Fox. It kicked off with The Cat and the Claw, introducing this version of Catwoman as an environmentalist and animal rights activist. It was an epic start to one of the greatest cartoons ever created, and set a tone that would help redefine the entire Gotham universe. Following Burton’s first Batman movie, this was the next step in the wide-spread re-branding of the Dark Knight. Despite a plethora of great comic book stories in the ’70s and ’80s, the general public still associated Batman with the Adam West show that saved the dynamic duo in the 1960s, but turned them into a joke at the same time. The 1989 movie helped put the Dark back in the Dark Knight, but it was the excellent animated series that cemented the revised character for the minds of a new generation, one which included me.
Category Archives: TV
The Walking Dead: Season 3 Updates
AMC’s The Walking Dead is probably the most anticipated Fall premiere coming this year. I think I can speak for everyone when I say the anticipation is overwhelming. The release of little teasers and trailers do help calm me down, but I still crave so much more! Season 3 is going to be amazing! We already know about Michonne, the Prison, and the Governor, so it would be pretty difficult for them to screw this up.
Here are some visuals for you:
The Walking Dead: Season 3 Official Poster
I want a print of this!!
The first two seasons broke records all over the place. I can only imagine how many millions of people are going to tune in to the season 3 premiere! Of course, you can count me in! I am literally wet with excitement for October 14th!
I have thought from the beginning of the series that these episodes seem like short movies. The special effects and storyline are absolutely phenomenal, and movie quality. It would be sweet to see a Walking Dead film! Sadly, there is nothing official in the works. However, according to Uproxx.com, it is a possibility for the future! Apparently, there have been subtle rumblings of a possible feature film to end the series’ running. We are only in season 3, so if it is going to happen, it will most likely be a little while.
There are a lot of different reasons why I can’t wait for season 3. I am curious if I will see the wee little baby this season. With Lori as skinny as she was at the end of last season, I seriously doubt it. If the baby is born, how the hell are they going to hide from walkers? Baby cries -> everyone gets eaten. Babies cry a lot… there’s no way to stop that unless you have a lot of duct tape and a cooperative mother. Unfortunately, I doubt that Lori has ever been cooperative. With anyone. Ever. Bitch.
Overall, season 2 was not the greatest, but I still have high hopes for season 3. They got complacent and knew the fans would follow no matter what. The drama took over. Season 3 promises epic storyline and more of the best zombies TV has to offer.
October 14th- I hungrily await you!
Dexter Season 7: Behind the Scenes With the Cast
There are about a million reasons that I am excited for the premiere of Showtime’s Dexter: Season 7. Everyone I know who is a fan of this show is sick of waiting. The way that season 6 ended left everyone with lots of questions and ideas about what is coming next. I present to you now, a behind-the-scenes video that will titillate you Dexter fans:
The first full trailer that was shown at CCI was absolutely amazing! Everything down to the music playing in the background was perfect. In the beginning of this behind-the-scenes featurette, Michael C. Hall explains that the show is always at its best when Dexter is in hot water. He then explains that season 7 is the hottest the water has ever been. Hall also goes on to mention that everyone else in the past seasons who has known Dexter’s secret has died. He’s not going to kill his sister, and she’s not just going to disappear, so how do they live with the tension?
You see Deb digging into the other parts of Dexter’s life… questioning Jamie, digging through his apartment, looking over old cases… and that is what I am most excited about. Deb is an extremely intelligent character. Her intuition, though, is not the greatest. She somehow has yet to notice any of the clues that piled up to point to Dexter’s guilt in the past. I am left to wonder if she will look back at all of the little inconsistencies in Dexter’s cover-stories, and realize that he has been hiding his true colors his whole life. Honestly, she cannot believe that this is an isolated incident. Jennifer Carpenter mentions that Deb is very powerful and could at any moment just throw cuffs on her brother and put him away. I do not believe that she will do that; Deb has broken the rules before. When Deb caught Lumen and Dexter after they killed Jordan Chase in season 5, she let “number 13 and her vigilante” go free. But this is quite a lot to try to ignore.
There’s also the Louis situation. What the hell is his angle? Why did he send the prosthetic to Dexter? Is that going to change the whole idea Deb has about Dexter? Maybe since Dex bound Travis to the Altar the same way Rudy did to Deb, owns blood slides that look exactly like the ones Doakes collected, and owns the prosthetic from the Ice Truck Killer, maybe Deb will just think that Dexter became obsessed with the killers over the years? Maybe it will help him in the long run.
I have said this a hundred time, but I feel I must say it again… I cannot wait for September 30th! Oh yeah! And we have her to look forward to!
Benedict Cumberbatch’s Reaction to CBS’s ‘Elementary’
As you may recall, back at the start of the year we reported that CBS announced that it was to make a modern-day telling of Sherlock Holmes (after the BBC refused them the right to make a version of their show, Sherlock) to be called Elementary. It is to star Johnny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Watson (!) and be set in New York – because the thing Sherlock Holmes stories always lacked was a female Watson and American accents…
Well now star of Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch, has had his say in an interview with Short List Magazine (via Uproxx):
What do you make of the new US modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation, Elementary?
Jonny [Lee Miller] asked me if I was all right with him doing it. I said, “What are the similarities?” And he went, “Well it’s modern…” I went, “Oh.” Then he said, “Lucy Liu’s going to play Joan Watson…” And I went, “Oh.” I got hold of the pilot script just to check it out. I don’t know, we’ll see. I think there’s room for us both to coexist. I don’t feel threatened by it and I wish him the best, which is as diplomatic as I can be.
It’s a strange position to be in…
It’s very odd. I did say, “Well, I’d prefer you didn’t do it but you’ve got a kid to feed, a nice house in LA and a wife to keep in good clothes.” When you get used to a certain standard of living and they waft a pay cheque at you, what are you going to do? I think Jonny was like, “Mate, I’ve got the f*cking mountain to climb here [to reach the acclaim of Sherlock], you’ve got nothing to fear.” I wish him the best of luck, but I’m a bit cynical about why they’ve chosen to do it and why they cast him.
And that is a polite way of saying that it’s a really bad idea and they’re all just doing it for the money.
This can only be a colossal bad idea. It’s just going to be another dumb TV detective show – which we need like we need syphilis. So, we can now only wait for this inevitable train wreck to happen and hope that it’s death is swift and painless.
Breaking Bad: 508 “Gliding Over All” Review
Well, folks, it’s all led up to this. For eight weeks, our heart rates have been unfairly raised and our expectations shockingly shattered. It’s been quite the ride, and it’s not even over yet, but this 6 month break will probably be the cause for a strange decrease in my blood pressure. Fresh from the murder of Mike, Walter and Todd are getting ready to burn his body and discard of all his things when Jesse, who is still not aware of the murder, walks in.
They quickly hide the body and him and Walter speak briefly about what to do regarding the nine men in prison who are now willing to rat them out. Walt says he’ll deal with it and that Jesse’s vote is no longer valid. Walt then meets with Lydia to get the names of the nine men in prison. After doing so AND making a deal with her regarding international distribution, Walt utilizes Todd’s uncle and his prison connections to take out the nine different men in three different prisons in only two minutes. In what is possibly the most hilarious murder montage ever showcased on Breaking Bad (yes, there is more than one), each man is brutally knifed down by multiple men to the tune of a classic jazz standard. It’s brilliant.
Meanwhile, Skyler and Marie talk about how the kids continue to stay with her and Hank. Skyler obviously wants her kids back, and to prove her point, she shows Walt the money they’ve made since they started their business up. A number is never specified, but it looks to be about $20 million dollars. Walt obviously does some serious thinking and makes some decisions he never thought he had to make. Giving Jesse the $5 million he was promised, Walt promises Skyler that he’s out of the business completely.
*SPOILERS*
But, of course, nothing is ever as it seems. In the final scene, which is almost dreamlike in its construction, the entire White/Schrader family is together, but after Hank decides to take a quick dump in the bathroom, he finds a book signed W.W. In a flashback, we see a scene from Season 3 that recounts him and Walter doing a search for Heisenberg. He finds something signed W.W. and says, “Walter White,” to which he replies, “You got me.” Well, now, he’s really got him.
This final episode of the half season is one of my favorites, if not my favorite, so far. While there isn’t a whole lot of Jesse or Saul and no Mike whatsoever, Walt’s attempt to keep everything under control makes for riveting television, and Jesse Plemons’ addition to the cast is one that I was skeptical about at first but now welcome with open arms. The directing, writing, lighting, and acting were all spot-on and top-notch. The final scene, though partially expected, was still a surprise and has me wishing I could fast forward my life to next Summer for the 2nd 1/2 premiere. Five seasons in and I’m as hooked as ever.
5/5 Bears
Doctor Who: 701 “Asylum of the Daleks” Review
The Doctor returns and straight away he is in a spot of bother. Following a distress call from Skaro he is set up and kidnapped by the Daleks as well as Rory and Amy who are now having severe relationship woes. In fact they were just about to get divorced! They are summoned to the parliament of the Daleks which they expect to be the end of their lives. Instead the Daleks say two words. Save us.
The Daleks have a problem. They have a planet; a planet that’s a prison full of insane and imperfect Daleks. The Daleks find it offensive to actually kill any form of hatred (which these Daleks have in spades) so they leave them on this planet. The planet however also has a problem (it’s not a good day to be a Dalek hey?); a ship has crashed landed there and there is now a small hole in the force field which means Daleks can now get out. The force field can only be turned off from the inside!
Another problem is that the Daleks are to bloody scared to send anyone to sort it! They have no trouble sending the doctor and co down there mind which they do by shooting them at the planet! So, their mission is two fold. They need to survive long enough to turn off the force field letting the Daleks blow up the planet and they need to rescue the trapped and quite brilliant Oswin who is stuck on the planet too (hers being one of the ships that crashed landed there). To make matters worse there is a nano bots in the air that turns anyone who encounters it into a Dalek hybrid, which sucks for Amy as she loses the wristband she was given to keep the nanobots out. Will Amy turn Dalek, will they rescue Oswin and will they manage to escape the planet of Daleks before the Daleks blow it up?!
Right from the start this episode grabs you and does not let go. The Doctor is made to look a dark and brooding character mostly seen in shadow on the walls. This Doctor is all business but bitter, a man who does not want to be the adventurer he once was. This adds an amazing amount of tension to this first opening scene. This follows through most of the episode with the Doctor near the end becoming more like the Doctor we know from series past. So a lot of this episode involves the Doctor finding the joy of actually been the Doctor again. It’s also about rekindling relationships with Rory and Amy needing a disaster like this to get them to open up about their feelings and actually tell one another they love each other. This first episode is also a historic one been the first episode shown in the UK, Canada and the U.S. at the same time!
The last series lost some of its magic near the end. The Doctor got very moody and the fun seemed to go from it. The series lost its way with a mix of topsy-turvy time travel stories, romantic sub plots and a general lack of fun! Writer Stephen Moffet is still finding his feet with the doctor I think. Some episodes were spot on, some not so much. For this episode he has streamlined it down to the basics. Daleks the old favorite are the bad guys, Doctor and co run about trying to stop a disaster. And it works. Basic approach really gets you gripped into the story again.
An episode called the Asylum of the Daleks is always going to conjure up scenes of grandeur. This is a more low key affair. Aside from the numerous Daleks at the start from all different time frames there are only a handful of Daleks at a time. In fact this episode plays a little like a zombie flick, enclosed spaces, Daleks popping out around corridors, etc. Again this thinned back approach works so much better than the special effects heavy last series.
There are some incredible scenes here to (SPOLIER ALERT). Rory getting trapped in a hall full of insane sleeping Daleks who wake up very slowly (very much like a scene from The Birds), the doctor and may finding a crew member who does not know he is a Dalek, zombie Daleks, an amazing scene in intensive care with Daleks surrounding the Doctor and a great end scene which is very much like Jacobs ladder. The shock to this episode is the reveal of Oswind been an actual Dalek with a human mind who still thinks she’s human and one of her final acts being to wipe the Daleks memories of any knowledge of the Doctor.
This reveal caught me off guard but the signs are all there if you look for them! It’s actually a touching scene which tugs at your heart strings quite a lot. Jenna-Louise Coleman is a very engaging character in this episode, very witty and funny as well as been very smart. This is her first appearance but she will return in the Christmas special. Her sacrifice leads to the final scene with the Daleks completely confused about who is on their ship shouting “Doctor Who” while they make there get away! It’s a great little ending to a nicely laid out episode.
Sure there are some ropy bits especially Rory and Amy talking about the nanobots sucking out love (don’t ask!); the big hole in the plot of why build a planet you can only get access to from the inside and then dump Daleks on it if you are going to blow it up in the end anyway! But overall these are minor problems. The main thing is it’s a lot of fun which the last series lacked. Overall a great start to the new series and I cannot wait for episode two. Here’s a sneak peek of it.
3.5/5
Grizzly Bomb 