Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

ireactions wrote:

I know I'm supposed to get up to speed with STAR TREK, but I suddenly felt this urgent need to rewatch XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS which is a really fun show, basically Wonder Woman in a hilariously anachronistic-modernist mythological Greece.

Then it occurred to me that my XENA viewing experience would never truly be complete unless I also rewatched HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS which is basically Superman in a hilariously anachronistic-modernist mythological Greece. Then it occurred to me my XENA-HERCULES viewing experience would never be truly complete unless I watched YOUNG HERCULES as well which is basically SMALLVILLE in a hilariously anachronistic-modernist mythological Greece.

These 90s syndicated fantasy shows are fun and Hercules and Xena are such great characters: Hercules is a relentlessly good natured, affable, charismatic hero (too bad Kevin Sorbo's gone insane) and Xena is like a female version of Wolverine: cunning, assertive, ruthless, noble, tormented, sardonic and with a bit of a mean streak.

May not be getting to STAR TREK any time soon...

Was Hercules with Ryan Gosling? 

I think I saw  it streaming on the NBC app a couple of years ago, pretty wild that existed.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Ryan Gosling in YOUNG HERCULES is due to a peculiar situation.

During the fourth season of HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS, series-star Kevin Sorbo suffered a series of strokes. This led to partial vision loss and paralysis, anxiety attacks, trouble walking, fatigue, dizziness, and being unable to stand for more than 5 - 10 minutes.

While waiting for Sorbo to recover, Season 4 began episodes of HERCULES with minimal Hercules. There were episodes where Hercules went missing or had an offscreen mission and his friends Iolaus and Salmoneus and Autolycus had to take over. Writers pitched an episode where Hercules became a monkey, but due to the difficulty of securing trained monkeys, Hercules instead became a pig.

There were several episodes that focused on Hercules when he was a teenager and actor Ian Bohen took over the role.

For reasons I don't understand, the studio, Renaissance Pictures, decided to do a YOUNG HERCULES pilot with Ian Bohen and had Kevin Sorbo write Universal a letter saying that a YOUNG HERCULES spinoff series would be great for the franchise.

This is nonsensical to me. Teen and adult Hercules characters were the same character. What would be the point of having the same HERCULES show twice over?

Maybe the idea was that YOUNG HERCULES would have a 13 episode order to air between seasons of the adult HERCULES show.

The YOUNG HERCULES pilot was a successful TV movie, but Universal passed on doing a full YOUNG HERCULES hour-long syndicated show. Later, Renaissance and Universal pitched it to FOX Kids as a half-hour children's show.

FOX Kids picked it up for one season of 50 of 30 minute episodes at 50 million for the entire season... but then actor Ian Bohen declined to do the series, saying he didn't want to move from Los Angeles to New Zealand full time to do the show.

This is confusing: how could Renaissance Pictures have hired an actor to do a pilot but not secured him for the series?

I have to wonder if maybe, when Universal decided not to have two HERCULES shows with basically the same character, the cast contracts expired. Then came the opportunity to sell YOUNG HERCULES to the half-hour Saturday morning market, but all the actors needed new contracts and Ian Bohen decided not to sign a new agreement.

The YOUNG HERCULES TV movie aired in February 1998 and then in September 1999, I eagerly tuned into FOX Kids expecting to see Ian Bohen. But instead, it was Ryan Gosling in the costume.

It really threw me off. Gosling's presence alienated me from the show and I ended up not watching it. But I have become more relaxed about the recasting now.

I'm not familiar with Ryan Gosling's work, but watching HERCULES and XENA today: it's obvious that continuity is just whatever the writers can vaguely remember on a good day. Roles are frequently recast; guest-actors often play multiple characters across the shows (Lucy Lawless played two other roles in addition to Xena). The Bohen-Gosling change doesn't feel like a big deal anymore.

I don't think I saw more than 3 - 4 episodes, but looking at the Wikipedia entries: the show 'only' lasted one season of 50 episodes (!!) and is often described as a "failure" for this.

To me, 50 half hours strikes me as pretty solid and FOX Kids was, after all, a kids programming block that wouldn't have wanted to see the cast age into their 20s.

(Yes, POWER RANGERS had 145 episodes after three years, but POWER RANGERS was cannibalizing action and special effects footage from Japanese TV shows.)

YOUNG HERCULES was done very cheaply with one director shooting four episodes in one block using the same locations, guest-actors and sets across the four installments.

Due to the filming schedule, episodes were completed and aired out of order: characters would be part of the regular cast but then be introduced for the 'first' time, characters would leave the show in a departure story, but then be present for more episodes. Characters would be aware of certain secrets, but then learn them in a shocking reveal. Even on DVD with the episodes in production order, some misordering remains.

I wonder if it's any good. Some fans have provided a continuity-based episode order, so I'm looking forward to watching the series without those glitches.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

This reminds me of a double-take I did at Universal Hollywood in 2014.  As part of the VIP pass, we had reserved seating at the live Waterworld show, so we took it in.

At the end, they introduced the cast, and the star of the show was noted to be Little Hercules.  I thought it was the original actor for Young Hercules that you mentioned, but it was actually this guy:

https://www.sportbible.com/athletics/wo … 2.amp.html

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Well, this is interesting:

https://twitter.com/ItakGol/status/1645491031071236120

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Posting this one in the tradition of TemporalFlux, real world meets SLIDERS.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/britain- … ef83037367

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

I'm way behind the curve, but I watched Severance through a free trial of Apple+.

Really interesting show.  I'm glad there's a season two because there are TONS of unanswered questions after season one.  But it's probably one of the most intriguing shows I've seen.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

The great JRD learns a lesson from fans:


https://youtu.be/NOY-rFptKT8

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Network executive Barry Diller, whom I remember from the Sci-Fi Channel days, had a suggestion for resolving the writers and actors' strike. He said that all top-paid executives and actors should take a 25 percent paycut (so Tom Cruise would only get $75 million instead of $100 million for a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie) to pay more to lower-waged actors. I don't know enough about this to say if this sounds fair and reasonable or if this is a sound-byte that is only superficially suited.

https://deadline.com/2023/07/barry-dill … 235439384/

I've read that studios want to pay extras for one day's work in digitizing their bodies and likenesses for CG crowds which studios want to use indefinitely. I think that if a studio is going to get a lifetime of work out of that extra, that extra should get a lifetime of pay, but I suspect a reasonable rate would be a lifetime of full-time minimum wage pay that they could continue to earn passively while doing something else to bring in more income.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

This is an interesting article....  that  I don't yet understand

https://www.parrotanalytics.com/strateg … -pos-cons/

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

My intellect can't grasp that article nor can my attention span with dozens of graphs.

I found this interesting graph though this morning. It compares how Streaming vs TV use has changed since 2015.

Begins at 2:10
https://youtu.be/PRk5_ohCB70?t=130

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Twitter @slidersfanblog
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Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Jim_Hall wrote:

My intellect can't grasp that article nor can my attention span with dozens of graphs.

I found this interesting graph though this morning. It compares how Streaming vs TV use has changed since 2015.

Begins at 2:10
https://youtu.be/PRk5_ohCB70?t=130

wow that was an awesome presentation

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

this is incredible:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/28/world/wo … index.html

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

ireactions had a pretty great summary of all the weird continuity errors in Star Trek in the original series.  The show essentially couldn't agree on what the Enterprise was doing or who Kirk worked for or what year it was.  But it was the 60s, and that kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore, right?  Not on good shows?

So I started watching Friday Night Lights recently.  I'm a(n American) football fan and I'd never seen it.  Not only that, but it's highly spoken of by one of my favorite TV reviewers (Alan Sepinwall).  Sepinwall wrote a book called The Revolution Was Televised about how 12 shows changed television, and I've loved just about every show he covered.  Friday Night Lights, being on Netflix, was a natural next one.

For those that don't know, Friday Night Lights is primarily about a high school football coach in small town Texas (where football is king).  Coach Taylor's wife is a counselor at the school, and their daughter goes to the school and is friends with some of the players.  The show also deals with some of the players and their personal lives.  I'll try not to spoil anything here, but if it would upset you to know any minor spoilers from Friday Night Lights (over a decade old), I'd stop reading now.

So we're introduced in the first episode to the main cast of high schoolers.  Jason Street is the star quarterback who is nationally known and highly recruited.  Lyla is his devoted girlfriend.  Tim Riggins is his best friend.  Tyra is his on again/off again fling.  We are also introduced to Matt Saracen, the backup quarterback in Jason's shadow.  Matt's best friend is Landry, a musician who doesn't play football.  Matt has a crush on Julie, the coach's daughter.  The other main castmember is Brian "Smash" Williams, but he's not really connected to any of the main cast outside of also playing football.

When you look at the cast, there's a clear divider.  Jason, Tim, and Lyla all hang out together (Tyra is around as well but not as close).  Matt and Landry hang out and eventually Julie gets into the group.  And the way that both groups hang out, it's generally assumed that each group of kids is the same age.

So season one deals with the competition between Street and Saracen to be the starting quarterback (I won't say any more than that).  At the end of the season, Jason has graduated, but in season 2, Lyla and Tyra and Tim are still in school.  It's later confirmed that the three of them were sophomores in season one, and Jason was the lone senior of the group.

It's obvious why it was done.  Jason was clearly a senior in the show and his story moves on to other things.  And as the show finds out time and time again, once people graduate or leave the high school, the writers no longer know what to do with them.  The show is about a high school and doesn't handle juggling very well.

But it feels disingenuous.  It also doesn't feel right that Matt, who spends most of season one feeling like an outsider, is the same age as Tim and Lyla.  There was a clear divider in season one.

Now I'm not saying this isn't possible, especially in a smaller school in a smaller town.  Seniors can be best friends with people younger than them, and Tim Riggins is a larger than life guy.  But it's generally harder to be friends with people that aren't in the same grade as you.  Sure, football connected Tim and Jason, but they would've only been at the same school every couple of years.  They probably wouldn't have played on the same team that often.  Their friendship doesn't work as well.  Especially because Tim isn't in the same stratosphere as Jason in terms of football talent.  It just feels strange.

The show does it again in season three when it's time for all those guys to graduate.  It was established that Matt, Tyra, Lyla, and Tim were all going to graduate, but having already had to deal with Jason and Smash graduating (and not knowing what to do with them post-graduation), they make another move.  Now Julie and Landry are a year younger.  So they were freshmen in season one.

Again, it's possible that Matt and Landry were friends outside of just being in the same grade, but it just isn't ever mentioned.  Season one doesn't deal with Landry or Julie dealing with their first year of high school.  The older group all being seniors and the younger group all being sophomores makes sense.  But unlike some of the graduated football players, they couldn't write Julie off the show - she's the main character's daughter.  And I think they realized what they had with Jesse Plemons and wanted him to stick around in season 4.

It just felt weird to me.

The show is great though.  I've really enjoyed it (even the much-maligned season two which was mangled by the writers' strike).  The ages of the kids just feels really odd.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

I haven't seen FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, but it seems to me from your description that FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, in trying to keep its cast together and in the same scenes, had to muddy its timeline and the ages of its characters into something less defined so that the character ages wouldn't overtly contradict their ongoing presence in the show.

I'm not familiar enough with the show to say if it's a serious issue or if it's a minor concern. A writing mentor of mine once said that continuity is a tool to add a sense of myth, history and context to a story and often declared that issues like the THE X-FILES' incoherent mythos or Laurie Strode's fate or ages of characters are immaterial and irrelevant. I am personally a little more continuity aligned where I think it can be a lot of fun to look at where a fictional universe holds together and where there are gaps, and I think it's important to eventually get things consistent enough to avoid confusion. I'm not bothered that James T. Kirk seems to be working for Spacefleet / Space Central / Star Service etc. if they eventually settle on Starfleet and stick with it.

I think all shows have continuity errors, but modern shows put more effort into obscuring them. Older TV shows were often written by writers who had not necessarily seen very many of the previous episodes because watching them required special visits for a screening in an edit room. In addition, there was the expectation that episodes would be broadcast as opposed to viewed on demand where audiences might be reviewing and looking more closely. Modern shows are written with the understanding that the immediate story may be more important than avoiding contradictions, but they still try to smooth them over, sometimes with a quippy line, sometimes by having Starfleet classify two seasons of DISCOVERY.

FRINGE is a favourite show of ours that has some pretty enormous continuity discrepancies: the series premiere has John Scott trying to kill his girlfriend Olivia Dunham by running her off the road only to die in the resulting car accident; later in the season, John is revealed to have been a hero who was undercover and his attempt on Olivia's life is acknowledged (OLIVIA: "You tried to kill me!") and then gently ignored (JOHN: "No, Liv. I loved you") and never explained. We're supposed to vaguely think that John was just trying to escape in his car; we're encouraged not to remember the pilot episode too much.

We get a glimpse of an alternate universe in Season 1 and it's completely mismatched to our full view of the same alternate universe in Season 2. In Season 1, the Peter character is being hunted by a local Boston crime boss; this is forgotten. Season 2 introduces a new Fringe agent, Amy Jessup (Meghan Markle) who disappears after a cameo in her second episode.

FRINGE tried to deal with its errors with sentiment, misdirection and distance. John Scott was revisited after a long run of episodes without him and his redemption story validated Olivia. An late Season 1 episode had Peter urgently avoiding someone assumed to be the crime boss; it turned out to be somebody else and then Peter's situation was forgotten.

Nearly an entire season passed before we saw the alternate universe in detail again, letting the audience forget how it had first appeared.

Amy Jessup was glimpsed in a cameo role with the unspoken implication that she would come in and out as needed; she never came back in. In each case, the viewer was subtly encouraged to not think about something 'for now', and sometimes, 'for now' became forever, and the show tried to let the viewer forget that all this once mattered. It didn't matter anymore.

HEROES is one of those shows where its continuity failures unfortunately tore it apart. I can't get into all of HEROES' continuity issues, but the main one: characters with powers each had a strange DNA helix symbol appear on their bodies. This meant their powers came from a specific source that had branded metahumans. In addition, all metahumans' powers reflected their user's psychological makeup: Peter's empathy made him mimic other people's powers, Nathan's distance made him fly, Claire's resiliency made her invulnerable, Hiro feeling like life was passing him by made him a time traveller, etc.

The implication: everyone with powers had been genetically altered by whoever created the helix symbol and given them the genetic potential to express their innermost states via their specific superpower. The alteration may have taken place before they were born, perhaps some sort of wide population experiment.

HEROES in Season 2 features Takezo Kensei, a 17th century swordsman whose blade has the helix symbol and has the power of cellular regeneration. The indication: everyone's powers in the present day are part of an experiment to recreate Kensei's gift, likely by randomly applying his genetic factors to test subjects without their knowledge. I'm just speculating, but I suspect this was laid down by Season 1 producer Bryan Fuller who left the show before Season 2 but after seeding some arcs.

Unfortunately, HEROES lost the (implied) genetic engineering orgin story. There was never any explanation for the helix, no origin story for the powers. I suspect the issue was the writer's strike curtailing Season 2. When the show remounted for Season 3, Takezo Kensei's actor, David Anders, had limited availability. HEROES dismissed Kensei and his symbol and all the hints and clues that came with him. And so, it discarded all the origin story implied by those clues. This also meant that HEROES lost its hold on the core theme of the show: the characters' powers were an expression of the characters' internal state. Without that framework, the writers lost sight of the characters: Peter was no longer defined by empathy nor Claire by resilience, Mohinder became a mutated reptile villain for half a season, the everyman Ando got superpowers that didn't speak to who he was at all. This was a situation where continuity actually mattered and they lost it.

However, HEROES does feature one of my favourite continuity patches. Mohinder's accent was originally Indian but the creators decided, a few episodes into filming, that they wanted him to have an English accent, perhaps it would convey more authority and full command of the English language (and scientific English). Actor Sendhil Ramamurthy proceeded to have Mohinder's accent gradually shift from Indian to English over course of Episodes 2 - 4 so that the change wouldn't be too distracting. This didn't really matter, but it's funny.

One of my favourite continuity issues: the demon-killing Colt was an essential prop in SUPERNATURAL. In the fifth season, the Colt fails to kill the Devil. The Colt is not seen for the rest of the season and it's unclear: was it dropped at the battle scene and lost? In late Season 6, it's finally established that the heroes lost the Colt in Season 5 and don't know where it is. Where did it go? Why did the writers take over a season to finally follow up on its whereabouts? Why was the follow up just a halfhearted shrug as to where the Colt had gone? Why did the writers lose track of the Colt, a vital weapon? This continuity issue was confusing and distracting. This mattered.

For years, I would randomly say to my SUPERNATURAL-fan niece for no good reason whatsoever, "Say -- whatever happened to the Colt?" This refrain became so obnoxious that at one point, she and I were playing the SUPERNATURAL edition of the board game CLUE and she threw the Colt gamepiece at me in highly understandable rage.

Slider_Quinn21 actually explained this: Season 5 was intended as the final season. When the Colt failed to kill Lucifer, it became irrelevant to the series, so the showrunner didn't follow up on it. When SUPERNATURAL made it to a sixth season (and the original showrunner left), the Season 6 writers realized: they had no idea where the Colt was. It was not retrieved on camera; it was not seen for the rest of Season 5. This meant the writers could not credibly show it in the heroes possession, nor did they know how to follow up on its present location as the Season 5 episodes had left no clues. And it wasn't that important because once the Colt failed to kill the Devil, it didn't matter anymore.

However, in Season 12, the writers wanted to do a PULP FICTION-esque heist film that required an important artifact; they chose the Colt as the artifact and finally explained where it had been since Season 5. They had a reason to use it again. And then, a few episodes later, they destroyed it, after which my niece smugly phoned me and said, "I dare you to ask me what happened to the Colt from now on."

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE isn't a TV show anymore, but one thing I find hilarious is how the Impossible Missions Force never seems like the same organization in each movie. In M:I1, IMF teams are assembled by the US from civilian or espionage for individual missions and then disperse upon completion or failure, the IMF has no fixed headquarters or facilities, and outside of a mission, the IMF ceases to exist. In M:I2, the IMF is composed of individual field agents who are assinged support staff from different fields for each mission.

In MI:3, the IMF is become a secret federal agency with offices, dedicated support teams, IMF-specific training programs, a CIA-style arrangement of divisions and hierarchy, and is a full organization rather than a mission-by-mission recruitment practice. In M:I4, the IMF is a black ops agency so distant and outside federal government that the President can dissolve it in a single memo. In M:I5, the former IMF is described specifically as Ethan Hunt's team, and the IMF is reinstated at the end. In M:I6, the IMF is a covert team within the CIA consisting of Ethan Hunt and his associates.

In M:I7, the IMF is described this way: when the CIA or NSA have a mission too complex or difficult for themselves, they "leave word" with "a man" who decides whether or not he'll accept the mission, implying that the IMF is now just Ethan Hunt and his direct associates. Paradoxically, there's a scene where Ethan welcomes a new IMF agent who doesn't appear again, suggesting Ethan is just one agent among many, suggesting that the IMF is merely a conduit to reach Ethan as opposed to being Ethan's employer. Also strangely, Ethan describes the process of being recruited by the IMF: the prospective agent must approach the recruiter and that recruiter is the CIA Director.

Somehow, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE manages to make these discrepancies trivial and irrelevant. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies aren't about the Impossible Missions Force. It's about Ethan, and the IMF only exists to justify Ethan Hunt's missions. In five out of seven movies, Ethan has been branded a rogue agent and isn't even working for the IMF. The IMF morphs into whatever the plot needs it to be for Ethan to be a field agent supported by a small team; the IMF will also morph into an antagonist should the plot require that Ethan be a fugitive for the story. It just doesn't matter.

Do the character ages actually matter on FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS? I don't know. I've never seen it.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

ireactions wrote:

Do the character ages actually matter on FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS? I don't know. I've never seen it.

At the end of the day, I say no.  The show is good and there's no Star-Trek-like open continuity errors in dialogue.  The show never tells the characters' ages, and any continuity errors are simply based on assumptions or logic.  Jason Street and Tim Riggins are best friends.  They happen to be different ages and wouldn't have had any classes together or worked on projects together or been on the same football team.  They are two years apart (an enormous gap from my experience) but met at some point and became very close friends.  Same with Landry and Matt.

The differences in the girls' ages is less of a thing because high school girls' tend to work their way into the lives of older boys.

The show never said anything, and that's okay.

************

The other interesting thing about Friday Night Lights, which ties into your examples, is the Writer's Strike.  Season two of FNL is pretty reviled by the fanbase, mostly because of a hysterically stupid storyline where one of the characters kills someone (in self defense) and tries to cover it up.  The show occasionally tries to ingratiate itself into the world of crime, and it never really works out. 

Season two also follows up on a lot of season two storylines.  Superfan Buddy Garrity tries to bring street-smart Santiago onto the team to play defense, even allowing him to live in his home.  Smash Williams tries to toe the line between being socially conscious of being a black man with some name power in a somewhat-racist town in Texas.  He starts to lose some of his scholarship opportunities because of it.  Lyla becomes religious and rejects the advances of Tim by dating another boy from church.  Meanwhile the team is trying to repeat the successes from the previous season.

But after episode 15 of the season...the strike ends the season.

Now on most shows, they could pick up where the last season left off.  But Friday Night Lights moves one year at a time with each season being the full football season.  I guess we'll never know.

EXCEPT....

Friday Night Lights just moves on.  Not just as if nothing happened but moves on as if the remaining 7 episodes happened and aired.  There are references to things that happened (Smash got his scholarship situation figured out but then got hurt, Lyla and Tim ended up together, etc) and there are some "flashback" scenes that show some of the things that happened but it's no more than would've happened in a typical "reset the stage" scene.

It's both clever and bizarre.  They don't do enough to cause any problems, but it does give you a bit of whiplash as you try to distinguish between the stuff that actually happened and the stuff that you don't remember because it didn't air.  The show always does this in some sense because each season ends in November/December and starts back up in July/August.  So there's always a time jump and stuff always happens in the time jump.  But it's just a bit bizarre for the show to be like "we had a plan and we're sticking with it, whether those episodes aired or not"

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

............... is there some sort of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS media tie-in that fills in the continuity gap? A novel, comic book, audioplay, webisode, app, puppet show, picturebook or cereal box? Is the writers' strike the reason the character ages got muddy?

I've only ever seen a few examples of this. THE BLACKLIST had a spinoff, THE BLACKLIST: REDEMPTION that got cancelled after one season on a cliffhanger. THE BLACKLIST parent show continued to behave as though the spin-off REDEMPTION was still on the air and would refer to the offscreen characters and then had a vaguely described resolution to the cliffhanger.

However, it seems strangely common in comic books. One standout example: The BATMAN RIP storyline ended with Batman in a helicopter explosion, presumed dead... except that Batman was also appearing in FINAL CRISIS where was also thought to be killed off in a fight with Darkseid. It took two years before an issue of BATMAN called "The Missing Chapter" explained that Bruce survived the helicopter explosion, and then engaged in the events of FINAL CRISIS. Shortly after BATMAN RIP, we got BATMAN AND ROBIN REBORN (2008) where Dick Grayson was Batman and Damian Wayne was Robin. Naturally, one would expect a Superman story where Superman has to adjust to Dick being Batman instead of Robin. And we got one... in 2010. Two years after BATMAN AND ROBIN had started.

One weird event: SILVER SURFER Volume 1 #18 (1970) ends with the Surfer declaring war on all humanity. The comic was promptly cancelled with this issue. The Surfer showed up five months later in SUB MARINER, but instead of wanting to destroy humanity, the Surfer was merely avoiding people. A resolution only arrived in 1999, 29 years later, in WEBSPINNERS #4 - 6 where Spider-Man faces the savage Surfer and they learn that the Surfer was affected by a telepathic villain.

I've seen the opposite of this: HEROES had a bizarre continuity implant: the second half of Season 3 had Sylar joining the federal taskforce hunting down evolved humans. One episode, in the recap sequence for previous episodes, showed Sylar stealing the identity of a Homeland Security agent. This never happened in any previous episode; the scene was shot specifically for the recap sequence and presented amidst actual previous-episode footage. It was so jarring and offputting, everyone watching the show knew that the scene was not from a previous episode. I wonder what they thought the writers thought they were getting away with.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

ireactions wrote:

............... is there some sort of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS media tie-in that fills in the continuity gap? A novel, comic book, audioplay, webisode, app, puppet show, picturebook or cereal box? Is the writers' strike the reason the character ages got muddy?

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing that fills in the gap.  I think they liked the stories they came with and built on them.  Time had moved on, they needed to start a new year, and they do their best to catch up the audience.

(Spoilers for seasons 2-3 of Friday Night Lights if you're still reading this and care)

It is jarring though.  The previous season, like many strike-shortened seasons, just sorta ends at the end of a random episode.  But they're clearly building to some interesting things.  The team is trying to sneak into the playoffs after a rough start.  Smash has swallowed his pride and has committed to a historically black college that really wanted him.  Lyla is pulling away from her old friends and her old ways.  Buddy has essentially adopted this street-wise kid who is trying to improve his own life and get away from his dangerous friends.

But the season ends abruptly, and when you start up the season 3 premiere, things are just different.  Smash is hurt, his scholarship is gone, and he's trying to rehab.  Lyla and Tim are just together with no explanation.  They explain how the last season ended (Smash got hurt and the team couldn't rebound).  Santiago is just gone with no explanation of where he went or what happened to him (it's one of the threads they just abandoned).

It isn't bad.  It just feels bizarre.  But season 3 is better than season 2 so I was happy to move on.

*******

I don't think the strike had anything to do with the ages.  I think they wrote season one a certain way and probably considered Tim/Lyla/Tyra to all be seniors.  Maybe they originally meant for it to be an anthology series or focus on different groups of players?  But since Jason was the only one who was specifically mentioned to be graduating at any point, they ran with that idea.  And not only did it allow them to shave a year off them all, they were able to shave two full years off everyone.

There are no continuity breaks as far as I'm aware, and it works.  It just feels weird when you think too hard about it.  Jason, the big man on campus, is just friends with a bunch of sophomores, and we never meet anyone else he graduated with.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

What do you guys think?

https://www.cancelledscifi.com/2023/09/ … i-fi-fans/

I've always thought there was some arrogance there not to embrace their brand and air a show that was part of their history in SLIDERS.  It hasnt been in re-runs on the network since like 2008 or something.  If SyFy wants to have a niche, I am sorry, you've got to understand what people will tune into a linear channel for.  Nobody is looking for prestige tv on cable.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

hate to see this
https://www.mediaplaynews.com/some-targ … footprint/

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Back to the Future is back in theaters Oct. 21, one night only:

https://www.fathomevents.com/events/Bac … Future-Day

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

I wonder if it'll be the saturated, colour-popping version or the washed out, VHS looking version.

**

The Sci-Fi Channel, I feel, didn't really support SLIDERS. They wanted to cancel it almost as soon as they'd acquired it; they bought the license but didn't bother to mandate keeping Tracy Torme or John Rhys-Davies and Sabrina Lloyd. I don't know why they bought it only to dismiss it, and neither do they; apparently, the regime that had bought the license from FOX/Universal left and a totally different team was handling the actual Season 4 that aired. Sci-Fi didn't care about building SLIDERS as a franchise, they just wanted to sweep half of SLIDERS' viewers to FIRST WAVE and WELCOME TO PARADOX. (Thank you, TF.)

Syfy constantly chronically underinvested in their shows and was always keen to cancel them instead of growing an audience at first; they brought over existing shows for the audience, but they never put in the work to sustain and increase that audience. Even with their own shows: they underfunded DARK MATTER and KRYPTON and cancelled both; they sabotaged STARGATE when its producers sought a different network after Syfy cancelled the last STARGATE series. Syfy is known as a network that cancels its shows before its budgets increase, a network that isn't worth the audience's time and interest because Syfy doesn't give their shows much time or interest. Syfy is mostly in the business of airing other studios' productions in the United States as an uninvested broadcaster, airing what it doesn't own and not developing programming to keep viewership.

There could have been a great science fiction TV channel, but the Sci-Fi Channel really never put in the time or effort to be that channel and Syfy was pretty much the same. However, in 2021, Syfy did do something unusual: when WYNONNA EARP's studio, IDW, had funding issues, Syfy made up the difference with an increased licensing fee to fund the fourth and final season.

Looking at their current slate, Syfy seems to only have five shows right now and all of them premiered in 2021 or later. They have not sustained their programming. Their brand identity is cancellation.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

One of my favourite comic books is INSUFFERABLE by Mark Waid, which was released as a digital comic on the unfortunately now defunct web comic site Thrillbent. And, for some strange reason, I can't seem to buy the digital comics even when they're said to be for sale. And I wanted to read it again, so I grudgingly bought the hard copy, a trade paperback containing the entire series for $45 USD.

This 2012 comic is about two former superhero partners: the hard-edged, seasoned Nocturnus who trained his teen sidekick Galahad in the ways of crimefighting only for Galahad to become an ungrateful jerk who was also more successful and popular than Nocturnus who now has to struggle to hold back his resentment.

Anyway, the comic came in the mail yesterday. I haven't bought a hard copy book in over ten years. This trade paperback is so heavy and thick with its 440 heavy, glossy pages opening it makes me fear I will break the spine. There are two pages, Pages 139 and 140, that are printed in reverse order by mistake. I had to install new lightbulbs in my bedroom lamp to read it because I've been deliberately keeping the light dim for reading on my e-reader or my tablet and this is the first thing I've read in years that doesn't have a backlight of some sort. Reading INSUFFERABLE is inconvenient and a little annoying.

That said, the comic remains one of the funniest takes on superheroes ever and it is well worth the trouble and expense. I'm going to scan and print Pages 139 - 140 and use double-sided tape to put them back in the book in the correct order.

It's a great series. I wrote about it earlier:

ireactions wrote:

This is a post about the comic book INSUFFERABLE, by Mark Waid.

The Stars: In the late 90s and early 2000s, the top superhero comic book writers were (and arguably still are) Grant Morrison, Mark Millar and Mark Waid.

Grant Morrison is an eccentric visionary of crazy cosmic ideas who wrote JLA, NEW X-MEN and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN. Mark Millar is the hypersardonic and action-oriented writer of CIVIL WAR, ULTIMATE X-MEN and THE ULTIMATES and also creator of WANTED, KICK-ASS and KINGSMAN.

Mark Waid reformatted traditional superhero stories with modern wit and high adventure pacing and hyperdramatic turns of plot and comedy with science adventures in THE FLASH and FANTASTIC FOUR, hilarious comedy in DAREDEVIL, spy thrillers in CAPTAIN AMERICA and some brilliant creator owned material with detective stories in THE UNKNOWN and POTTER'S FIELD and dark superhero horror in IRREDEEMABLE and INCORRUPTIBLE.

The Partners: Grant Morrison and Mark Millar were friends in the 90s. Morrison was renowned for his fourth-wall breaking work on ANIMAL MAN in the 80s and his BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM oneshot. Millar approached Morrison for advice on breaking into the industry.

Morrison saw Millar's talent and collaborated with him in order to get Millar hired. Together, they co-wrote SWAMP THING and THE FLASH and worked together on project pitches that led to Millar becoming a comic book star on THE AUTHORITY, THE ULTIMATES and SUPERMAN: RED SON.

The Breakup: However, on the last three, Millar took sole credit and did not credit Morrison's contributions to Morrison -- which apparently upset Morrison, especially when he had consulted extensively, offered ideas and plot points and even ghost-written an issue of AUTHORITY for Millar. This ended their partnership.

Grant Morrison's writing is eccentric and bizarre with peculiar ideas Superman fighting an angelic invasion of Earth, an intelligent virus that transforms into an addictive drug to mind control mutants, Batman creating a backup personality for his brain in the event of a nervous breakdown -- matched with an upbeat, gleeful joy for all the wild ideas of superheroes and a grand, epic scale of action.

Mark Millar's style is very action-oriented with a dark sense of comedy (a homicidal 10 year old superheroine) and while his post-Morrison writing has lacked Morrison's mind-expanding ideas, Millar has shown a gift for crafting comics as visual concepts perfect for film pitches that led to WANTED, KICK-ASS and KINGSMAN becoming box office hits.

Insufferable: Grant Morrison often gives interviews describing the inner workings of his mind and how he believes he was visited by aliens to impart their concepts to humans via the medium of comic books and how this had nothing to do with the hallucinogens he'd ingested and how he finds that far too many comic book writers think only in terms of reiterating superhero tropes and old continuity. Mark Millar relentlessly hypes his brand with his film pitches in comic book form and makes constant reference to hobnobbing with celebrities and studios to present himself as a film producer first and a comic book writer second.

The Response: Their mutual friend, Mark Waid, remarked in an editorial that he found arrogance to be obnoxious and annoying and that it would enrage him, and his therapist would frequently remark to Waid, "Why be mad?"

Mark Waid wrote:

I was reading an interview with one of them and as he blathered relentlessly on about what a genius he was and how tiny the rest of us were, I remembered the phrase, "Why be mad?" and instead expressed my frustrations creatively through the language I know best: comics. I'd do an ongoing series about two former partners where the junior one grew up to be an ungrateful jerk and the senior one would have to labor hard to choke back his resentment.

It is very interesting to read INSUFFERABLE because despite these origins, the actual characters of John (the older insufferable) and Jarod (the younger insufferable) have shifted from their real-life counterparts.

John in INSUFFERABLE is not a Grant Morrison-like eccentric genius at all; he is a troubled, sad, withdrawn, driven, tactical and while he is clearly a better crimefighter, he has no false modesty and can back up any and all of his boasts. He does, however, relentlessly chastise his former partner for any shortcomings. He is not full of lunatic concepts; all of his ideas are tactical approaches to fighting crime.

Part of me wonders if Waid made this choice deliberately because, as Waid concedes in his editorial, "Ideas are not a series and jokes are not a character," perhaps thinking that a pastiche of Grant Morrison would be a limited character template. The rest of me wonders if Morrison is so bizarre that any attempt to pastiche him would be hopeless. In addition, Waid has declared, "Grant and I have always been the best of friends," so it's possible that Waid's stated vitriol is for Millar and Millar only.

Jarod is certainly more like Mark Millar than John is like Morrison. Jarod is primarily fixated on how his superhero exploits will create a splash in the news and on social media, a marked criticism of Millar concocting superhero comics largely in terms of how he can market them for notoriety and he is relentless in trying to assert his former mentor's irrelevance.

Having a fictional character mimic the showboating Mark Millar is significantly easier, but it's intriguing that Waid largely confines his (forgiving) contempt towards Jarod. Waid presents Jarod as a talented but self-destructive oaf who is crippled by his inability to act on anything other than his anger towards his former partner while John is the more stable and responsible half of the equation.

But regardless. Waid has really hit on something. INSUFFERABLE is a great superhero comic with two hilariously dysfunctional people who are forced by circumstance to work together long after they realized they could not stand to be around each other. Their broken partnership is a joy to watch in the face of rising supervillain threats. And throughout the entire series and right to its finale, Waid's therapist's philosophy rings true. Waid was upset by his friends. He was offended. He was hurt.

But: "Why be mad?" Be constructive. Be creative.

503 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-10-12 19:15:30)

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Best Buy wont be selling physical media

https://twitter.com/thedigitalbits/stat … 4381002903

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/wheres-the-love/

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

I saw Back to the Future last night via Fathom Events.  There is another date on Wed. Oct. 25.

It was my first time seeing it in theaters (part I that is).

It was spectacular.  I definitely felt like I was watching something that I hadn't *quite* seen before in a way.  It just altered the experience.

It was also really great to see a diverse audience age wise.  There were 8 year olds who were super into it and grey hair folks as well.   It really is a timeless piece of work and masterfully written, shot and acted.

If you can make it to an Oct. 25 screening and like the film, I suggest it.

Also the image looked great and whatever they did in the last blu-ray release on the picture, I dont think was used for this screening.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

This sounds fun! I don't think I have watched BACK TO THE FUTURE in ages. Did the theatrical screening use a cut with the TO BE CONTINUED wording at the end of the film? Or did it show as it did in theatres without the explicit promise of a sequel?

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

ireactions wrote:

This sounds fun! I don't think I have watched BACK TO THE FUTURE in ages. Did the theatrical screening use a cut with the TO BE CONTINUED wording at the end of the film? Or did it show as it did in theatres without the explicit promise of a sequel?

I didn't see the TO BE CONTINUED, and I looked for it..

was that a gag on the home video release?  Or was it originally in theaters for part i?

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

THE LOST ROOM is on vudu, streaming free.  Might be free elsewhere.  I havent seen it but know ireactions is a fan.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:
ireactions wrote:

This sounds fun! I don't think I have watched BACK TO THE FUTURE in ages. Did the theatrical screening use a cut with the TO BE CONTINUED wording at the end of the film? Or did it show as it did in theatres without the explicit promise of a sequel?

I didn't see the TO BE CONTINUED, and I looked for it..

was that a gag on the home video release?  Or was it originally in theaters for part i?

Actually, thinking about it, it was only ever on the VHS release.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

First episode of Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai is free on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm73ma6Ibcs

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

November 5, 1955!  That was the day Doc invented time travel.

"I remember it vividly. I was standing on the edge of my toilet hanging a clock, the porcelain was wet, I slipped, hit my head on the sink, and when I came to, I had a revelation!"

Happy November 5!

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

I had a free weekend for Starz, and I took advantage of that to watch John Wick 4.  But prior to that, I needed to rewatch the first three movies.  John Wick, for an original movie that is very straightforward and simple, has some of the most complex and fascinating world building that I'm aware of.  It's cartoonish and silly, but it's really interesting.

And what I like about it is that it's clearly a set of movies made by stunt guys that want to showcase some of the cool ideas they've had in the past.  The fights, while cartoonish, are choreographed in such a fun way.  And even though the movies start with John being a very vulnerable and human (and by the end, he's invincible), it still feels real (for the most part).  And because it was so stunt-focused, I think they could've gone the Fast and Furious route and just had John fight a brother out for revenge each movie, I think it's pretty cool that they decided to go with this outrageously complicated world.

And while I had to abandon everything else I was watching to watch these four movies over the holiday weekend, it was a lot of fun.  Keanu is great, the supporting characters are great, and the world is just a lot of fun to explore.

Anyone else like these movies?

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I had a free weekend for Starz, and I took advantage of that to watch John Wick 4.  But prior to that, I needed to rewatch the first three movies.  John Wick, for an original movie that is very straightforward and simple, has some of the most complex and fascinating world building that I'm aware of.  It's cartoonish and silly, but it's really interesting.

And what I like about it is that it's clearly a set of movies made by stunt guys that want to showcase some of the cool ideas they've had in the past.  The fights, while cartoonish, are choreographed in such a fun way.  And even though the movies start with John being a very vulnerable and human (and by the end, he's invincible), it still feels real (for the most part).  And because it was so stunt-focused, I think they could've gone the Fast and Furious route and just had John fight a brother out for revenge each movie, I think it's pretty cool that they decided to go with this outrageously complicated world.

And while I had to abandon everything else I was watching to watch these four movies over the holiday weekend, it was a lot of fun.  Keanu is great, the supporting characters are great, and the world is just a lot of fun to explore.

Anyone else like these movies?

I've been confused by their success frankly lol

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Wick movies are beyond violent to the point of being senseless.  Then again, my feed is inundated by stupid friends lathering Mortal Kombat movies.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Have I been desensitized to movies enough that I don't think they're all that violent?  A ton of people die, yes, but I don't think they're gory or bloody at all.  Most Wick action scenes are him rolling into a room and a million guys pouring in.  He fights with one guy, does a headshot and moves on.  Repeat a million times.  But I don't think there's much gratuitous violence - despite a million headshots, I don't think there's any shots of murdered people.  No skull fragments or missing limbs or anything like that.  People bleed when they're shot but I don't think we see that many wounds.

I wouldn't say it is as violent as the Walking Dead, and I don't think it's anywhere near what the Boys is.

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Has Grizzlor actually bothered to watch the JOHN WICK and MORTAL KOMBAT movies before spouting a dismissive opinion about them and calling his friends and anyone who watches them "stupid"? Or is this another off the cuff reaction of uninformed ignorance like Grizzlor writing off LOWER DECKS before he'd seen it and PRODIGY when he'd never seen it or claiming that Tom Holland would never do a VENOM movie when he's not only worked on them but would have to if Sony decreed it?

I ask merely for the information. (I take it these friends on Grizzlor's social media feeds aren't close friends.)

I haven't seen the JOHN WICK films myself, but there's certainly a market for Keanu Reeves engaged in combat as THE MATRIX would indicate. And of the WICK films are budgeted to earn revenue that exceeds the cost of making them, I imagine Slider_Quinn21 will have many splendid weekends to enjoy more of these films.

And as for MORTAL KOMBAT, the first MORTAL KOMBAT movie is a minor achievement of cinematic competence by the very shaky Paul WS Anderson who has produced many other incompetent movies. Because I like women fighting monsters (BUFFY style), I've struggled through most of the RESIDENT EVIL movies which are an experience in filmic torment. And the second MORTAL KOMBAT film is one of the most hilariously inept movies ever made that actually should be watched by film students as an example in what not to do. Have never seen the reboot.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

I think of the original Mortal Kombat as one of my guiltiest pleasures.  I still enjoy that movie quite a bit.  Annihilation is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

The newest remake is...fine?

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

Have I been desensitized to movies enough that I don't think they're all that violent?  A ton of people die, yes, but I don't think they're gory or bloody at all.  Most Wick action scenes are him rolling into a room and a million guys pouring in.  He fights with one guy, does a headshot and moves on.  Repeat a million times.  But I don't think there's much gratuitous violence - despite a million headshots, I don't think there's any shots of murdered people.  No skull fragments or missing limbs or anything like that.  People bleed when they're shot but I don't think we see that many wounds.

I wouldn't say it is as violent as the Walking Dead, and I don't think it's anywhere near what the Boys is.

I agree with you, Slider_Quinn21. I don't think John Wick is all that violent at all, either. They're one of my favorite movie series of all time, and I enjoy a rewatch every now and again. For me, I dislike gory, violent movies but I did not dislike John Wick at all. I also wouldn't count it among the worst I have seen in this area.

And yes, I've seen all 4. Bring on #5!!!

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Yes ireactions, I did BOTHER to watch the first and second John Wick, and IMO they featured Keanu killing a ton of people.  It's Neo-noir.  I'm not seeing 3 or 4 or whatever, no interest.  Granted Wick 4 is supposedly the least violent, it's runtime of nearly three hours is reason enough for me to pass. 

My point on MK was that the 90s movie were cheesy, as a video game movie should be.  The remake(s) though are nothing like those, and I saw it on HBO Max, and yes, it was very violent, and frankly, stunk.

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I think of the original Mortal Kombat as one of my guiltiest pleasures.  I still enjoy that movie quite a bit.  Annihilation is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

The newest remake is...fine?

I still maintain that everyone should watch ANNIHILATION if only to appreciate what happens when scripting, cinematography, performance and basic editing fall away from a project, all to better appreciate it when a movie does care about such things.

Also, it led to this delightful bad movie review-retrospective of the entire film:
https://jabootu.net/?p=610

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media

ireactions wrote:

I still maintain that everyone should watch ANNIHILATION if only to appreciate what happens when scripting, cinematography, performance and basic editing fall away from a project, all to better appreciate it when a movie does care about such things.

Annihilation came out at a time when I basically thought every movie that came out was awesome.  This was one of the first movies that came out that I walked out thinking, "wait, was that not awesome?"