WELCOME TO HELL ~ by Glenn Walker

RIP Jim Nabors

2017-11-30T15:46:00.000-05:00

Actor and singer Jim Nabors passed away, he was 87.

This time of year has always made me think of Jim Nabors. Yes, my very early years were filled with memories of Gomer Pyle, either on Andy Griffith or his own show, a highlight of those shows for me and my family was those occasions when Jim Nabors would sing, and sometimes in the Christmas holiday season he would sing on various variety shows and specials as well.

One particular Christmas season I remember helping my big brother put up the outside Christmas lights and decorations after he had bought our Mom Jim Nabors’ Christmas album. I can still remember his version of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” as we put up the lights. It’s a good memory, and one I miss very much here in Florida where we barely get a chill in December.

I have later memories of Jim Nabors, like his slapstick robot role with Ruth Buzzi on Sid and Marty Krofft’s “The Lost Saucer” and his coming out and finally marriage to his lover of many years. Jim Nabors will be missed.

Arrow S06 E07: Thanksgiving

2017-11-24T15:30:00.000-05:00

In the lull between the two-part Deathstroke backdoor pilot and the big crossover this year (Barry and Iris’ wedding/Crisis on Earth-X) we’re getting a quiet little holiday episode. And if you believe that, I bet you’ll also believe Oliver won’t be suiting up as the Green Arrow again. Villains are on the march this Thanksgiving, and only Team Arrow can stop them.

As we open on Oliver doing charity work and opening ground on the new police headquarters, and of course as always dodging claims that he is actually the Green Arrow. Before the real action starts, I am stunned that reporters are still pulling at the secret identity thread. Has no one noticed the juicier stories of the on again/off again girlfriend, the suddenly appearing son, and a sister in a coma? Seems to me there are other stories to report.

Regardless the ceremony is broken by the very public arrest by FBI agent Samanda Watson for his crimes as the Green Arrow. She seems to have it all worked out, including that John Diggle is now the Green Arrow and Roy Harper was The Hood, all under Oliver’s directives. From the previews and the opening sequences, it’s all too easy to see what will happen here. Multiple attacks by villains, principally Cayden James and the Black Siren, will convince Watson that the Green Arrow is needed.

With Oliver under heavy watch and Diggle’s drug problems blowing up in everyone’s face, this is not a good Thanksgiving. Felicity is feeling left out as it’s Curtis that put their company’s prototype in Diggle’s system. It would seem that Felicity only has leadership skills when the writers want her to. We do see an intriguing consistency with Oliver however, he’s a better leader out of costume than in costume. Does the Green Arrow costume itself lower the wearer’s IQ?

We get some interesting name drops and returns this episode. Jean Loring, who in the comics was Ray Palmer’s wife and later Eclipso, is Oliver’s lawyer once again. The Sunderland Corporation is one of the places raided by the Black Siren. Sunderland in the comics is a typical evil corporation with ties to Lex Luthor, Doctor Moon, and the Floronic Man that has run afoul of the Swamp Thing on several occasions, among others.

And then there’s Billy Joel, what the hell was that about? We also got a few moments with poor forgotten Thea who miraculously woke up in time for the ending of the episode. The whole plan of the villains was to get a one on one conversation between Cayden James and Oliver, to let him know this vendetta was for his son Owen, and to get video footage to sway the vigilante vote.

As always, like a tradition, the pre-crossover episode has represented a temporary tying of loose ends, a leveling of the field, and this year is no different. I just wish it was. This show is always better when it’s not predictable.

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode, anything else in the Arrowverse, or anything in the Marvel or DC television or cinematic universes, please join the Marvel DC Movies TV group on Facebook.

Next: Crisis on Earth-X!

RIP David Cassidy

2017-11-22T00:02:00.001-05:00

After a frightening few days, actor/musician/songwriter David Cassidy has passed away at the age of 67. We have lost more than a couple folks in the last few days, but this one has hit me the hardest, perhaps because he was such a part of my childhood.

Mel Tillis was more of someone I heard about than heard from, most as a joke on "The Tonight Show;" Della Reese was a great talent, but other than "Touched by an Angel," I was for the most part unfamiliar with her; Charles Manson haunted the recesses of my formative years, was legend if nothing else, and if I'm being honest, Steve Railsback's portrayal of him in the TV movie Helter Skelter was far more frightening than the real thing I saw cavorting in his cell on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow;" and Malcolm Young of AC/DC was a great loss, but let's be honest, the band's golden age was decades ago, and that's coming from a fan. But David Cassidy, this one resounded with me.

David Cassidy was Friday night after "The Brady Bunch." And although I preferred the Bradys over "The Partridge Family," the latter was much cooler, much hipper, and more real to me. Perhaps I remember hearing somewhere that they were real, or based on real people (I know now it was the Cowsills), but the Family, their bus, and especially David Cassidy's Keith Partridge, were all way cooler than the Bradys. When David's little brother came along later, I liked him, but still remember thinking David was cooler.

One of my favorite underrated and lost TV series featured David Cassidy as an undercover cop in high school and was a backdoor pilot and spin-off from "Police Story." The premise of cop in high school worked better the first few episodes then fizzled out, but I still remember the oddly titled "David Cassidy: Man Undercover" fondly. It was the godfather of "21 Jump Street," and to this day I think it was better.

Later I discovered his music, both solo and with what passed for the Partridge Family on vinyl, the nerd in me loved his role of Mirror Master in the original 1990 "The Flash" TV series, and I still enjoy his daughter Katie on "Arrow" as both the Black Canary, and now the Black Siren.

David Cassidy was a star of TV, stage, and music, and will be missed.

Torso, Justice League, and the Russian Avengers

2017-11-21T17:47:00.000-05:00

Confession time. I hadn’t thought about this in years, decades really, but it came up recently in a Twitter conversation with friend and fellow Biff Bam Popper Tim Murr. He’d just seen the 1973 pre-slasher era horror classic Torso and I’d mentioned I’d seen it in its initial run, when I was ten. I wasn’t a bad kid really I wasn’t, but let’s face it, I was that night.

On what might seem like a dare, but was more like a don’t be a body part Trump thinks he can grab without permission, three other boys in my class and I sneaked out after nine during the summer and watched Torso at the drive-in with no sound from the woods near the screen. My siblings are probably shocked right now, and my parents both passed would have kicked my butt majorly if they’d known, but yeah, I did it.

Arrow S06 E06: Promises Kept

2017-11-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

This episode continues the presumed Deathstroke back door pilot, a character whose sudden popularity can thank the Justice League movie. Of course one has to wonder if a pilot is really in the offing as the Suicide Squad movie also killed similar plans here on “Arrow” leading to the death of Deadshot and scrapping of more than a subtle cameo by Harley Quinn. All that said, I can’t imagine anyone but Manu Bennett in the role of Deathstroke the Terminator.

Previously we had seen Deathstroke recruit Oliver Queen to help him rescue his son Joe from terrorists in Kasnia called the Jackals. We were left with an intriguing cliffhanger when Joe turns out not to be the metahuman Jericho as in the comics but instead a chip off the treacherous block, one of, if not leading, the Jackals. Father and son make nice while Oliver hides in the shadows. Slade tries to send Oliver home, but we all know that ain't happening.

Meanwhile back in Star City, Team Arrow is up against a criminal known as the Dragon. There’s a bit of trickery and playing fast and loose with the source material here. Ricardo Diaz Sr., played by great heavy actor Kirk Acevedo, is not only the Dragon, but also the guy supplying John with his enhancement drugs. Not only that he’s stealing tech for a 3-D printer to make designer drugs. A good student of Oliver’s, John of course says nothing.

There is another comics connection here with another Ricardo Diaz AKA Richard Dragon. Co-created by Denny O’Neil in one of his long-lost novels, martial artist Richard Dragon was brought to DC Comics and utilized as first a super martial arts hero with his own comic, and then later, like Wildcat, as one of those heroes who trained other heroes. Among his students in the comics are The Question, Black Canary, the Huntress, Batman, Robin, and Green Arrow. In the New 52 however, the character has become a Green Arrow villain, son of the original Richard Dragon, and claiming to have killed that man after being trained by him.

Our flashbacks are to the ASIS, the Australian Secret Intelligence Agency, where Joe and his father are training after Deathstroke is found off the Philippine coast after his season ending clash with Oliver a few years back, seven in show time. We see Shado, or more accurately the mirakuru ghost of Shado, goading Slade into destroying Oliver Queen, in a nice connect-the-dots sequence filling in his backstory.

As with last time, I am unimpressed by Deathstroke’s story, and if he does get a series, if it’s anything like this, Manu Bennett or not, I’ll probably watch it as I hate-watched “Marvel’s The Inhumans,” with one eye open and a finger on the Fast Forward button.

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode, anything else in the Arrowverse, or anything in the Marvel or DC television or cinematic universes, please join the Marvel DC Movies TV group on Facebook.

Next: Thanksgiving!

Arrow S06 E05: Deathstroke Returns

2017-11-10T17:54:00.000-05:00

When Deathstroke returned last season I wondered aloud if a spin-off was in the wind. Certainly there’s been more effort to spotlight the character on “Arrow” than the other two spin-offs, one successful (“The Flash”) and one aborted (“Suicide Squad”) in favor of a movie. Here again in this episode, it seems they’re trying again.

Thematically this season with Oliver abandoning his Green Arrow identity to make more time for his son William, he has much in common with Slade Wilson who is searching for his lost son. In the comics, Slade’s son Joseph was the New Teen Titan known as Jericho, a deaf hero who not only had the ability to possess people by eye contact, but also frequently fought against his father with the Titans. With a Teen Titans TV series in production, one wonders how much, if any, of that will translate to “Arrow.”

Considering that Joe has changed his name to Kane Wolfman (Nice homage to his co-creator Marv Wolfman) and Slade has been tracking him around the world, I’m guessing it won’t. Kane has also gone into the ‘intelligence’ business and has wound up a prisoner in Kasnia, a fictional nation of tumultuous leadership that has turned up time and again in the DC Animated Universe, once even being ruled over by Vandal Savage. Slade needs Oliver’s help to save his son.

If this is a backdoor pilot for a Deathstroke, it’s a poor one. Despite the title of this episode I was bored. The B-plot back in Star City was far more interesting and compelling, if predictable, even with the dark matter twist. Anyway, we get some bad espionage that reminded me of some of the more boring Bratva episodes of last season, followed by Deathstroke going all Punisher on the generic bad guys before being confronted by his son, the new leader of the Jackals. Slade will get another chance to prove himself show worthy next episode.

We actually open however on the councilwoman, who is pushing for vigilante legislation, being targeted by a sniper. Based on the ‘previously on Arrow’ catch-up showing Vigilante, and realizing, hey, he’s still at large, it’s obviously him. Prometheus made us forget all about this weak subplot that by all intentions should have been Adrian Chase.

In a clash with Black Canary, where her sonic cry shattered Vigilante’s visor, he took off his mask and she got a good look at him. He’s Vincent Sobol, her old partner, whose face looks like he somehow survived that gunshot to the head. That of course is his metahuman ability, some sort of regeneration, possibly coupled with brain damage or derangement. Either way it looks like he’ll be hanging around a bit, forgotten subplot or not.

Samanda Watson continues to question and investigate. She is either playing dumb of she’s figured out exactly who everyone on Team Arrow is. If nothing else, shouldn’t have found that all these folks all hang out at the same abandoned warehouse at all hours of the day? And how is it the FBI can’t cooperate with say, the DEO or ARGUS on this investigation? She’d have all the answers, and a cease and desist as well by now.

Our ‘flashback island’ this episode is thirteen years ago, in New Zealand, as Slade tries to balance his secret life with a camping trip with son Joe. The analogy to Oliver and William painfully obvious and my back hurts from being hammered only moments in. I did find it intriguing that Slade calls his son ‘kid’ just like he does Oliver. Too bad he probably also traumatized his son for life, but we’ll see for sure next time.

I found it interesting that Felicity mentioned attending Iris West’s bachelorette party over on “The Flash,” but there’s no reason given why Oliver didn’t attend Barry’s bachelor party, nor is it even acknowledged. I know Oliver can be a real stick in the mud and funless at times, but could it be he wasn’t invited? Would Barry choose party crasher Ralph Dibny over Oliver?

Another nice bit was Nylander calling Slade the Terminator. Interesting sidenote, Deathstroke the Terminator was originally the villain’s full name until some James Cameron flick called The Terminator came out and DC Comics toned down its use of that term. We also get another piece of the puzzle of what happened on Lian Yu in last season’s cliffhanger. John says to Felicity that Slade left them in the island.

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode, anything else in the Arrowverse, or anything in the Marvel or DC television or cinematic universes, please join the Marvel DC Movies TV group on Facebook.

Next: Promises Kept!

Arrow S06 E04: Reversal

2017-11-03T14:48:00.000-04:00

With the help of performance enhancing drugs John Diggle is in the Green Arrow gear while Oliver spends time with his son and hides from the FBI investigating the possibility that he is Green Arrow. How long can this ruse be kept up as the Black Siren attacks again, and the looming threat of the return of Cayden James? We’ll see in this episode of “Arrow.”

I have to wonder what the endgame is with Black Siren. What did the showrunners really have in mind when they killed Katie Cassidy’s version of the Black Canary? Was it always planned she would come back as a villain? Did the actress herself want this? This is episode four of the sixth season and I think Black Siren has had as much screen time if not more than some of the regulars. Is she the new Malcolm Merlyn? The bad guy who’s always there in the background?

We open on a date night with Oliver and Felicity, the former really taking advantage of his free time to spend with his son. The date feels like at best foreplay and at worst to show the role reversal (like the episode title) between Oliver and Felicity when she gets called to Team Arrow and he doesn’t. One wonders how long Oliver can put up with this. Will it take John crashing and burning? I hope not.

Here’s the gist, the guy who’s ordering the Black Siren around is Cayden James, the super hacker I predicted would be this season’s big bad, and he’s now in the villain game. Enter Alena, the hacktivist from Helix who groomed Felicity last season. She of course shows up in Felicity’s apartment looking for help against James. Apparently his time in ARGUS’ custody turns him into a master villain and he’s planning on wiping out 4% of the world’s population. And in case you think that’s not a lot - it’s 300 million people. What else can Felicity do?

Reversal is indeed the name of the game. Oliver interferes with Felicity and Alena’s mission to find a tech dealer named Amnesiac, just like old times, but in this case Felicity is the hero and Oliver the one who needs to stay safe, of course on the other hand, if Felicity, playing very much the Oliver role, had shared resources and knowledge with Team Arrow, neither would be flying blind against their foes.

Arclight seems to be the name of Cayden James’ plan to take down the internet. The conceit is that there’s a vault that physically holds the internet. No, seriously. That’s where the final fight, physical and cyberspatial, takes place, with surprisingly Oliver in the Overwatch position. I wonder if the FBI is watching. With the internet saved, James’ plan, still vague, seems a bit clearer. He only wanted Felicity to take down the firewall so he could upload something sinister. Riiiight.

I love that Curtis is an Olicity shipper, and also the Corto Maltese name drop. I have to say that John looks very awkward carrying the crossbow weapon, but it’s a little better on his back. We saw neither William nor Samanda this episode despite their presence leaning heavily on events here. We also get a name a mission statement for Felicity and Curtis’ startup - Helix Dynamics. How long before they start creating metahumans?

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode, anything else in the Arrowverse, or anything in the Marvel or DC television or cinematic universes, please join the Marvel DC Movies TV group on Facebook.

Next: Deathstroke returns in the aptly titled “Deathstroke Returns!”

31 Days of Horror at Biff Bam Pop!

2017-10-31T08:00:00.000-04:00

If you've been to the Biff Bam Pop! website, you know that other than the regular pop culture features, we're all big horror fans there. As always, special for the month of October, and culminating today on Halloween is 31 Days of Horror.

31 Days of Horror takes a look at the past and present in horror movies, television, horror television, horror comics, and even horror animation.

This year we had guest blogger Monica S. Kuebler write about Midnight Son; Loretta Sisco gave us a peek at her Halloween playlist, as well as her regular column, True Crime Corner, and her reviews of the television series Outlander; and Robin Renee gave us a tour of Halloween Haunt at Kings Dominion.

Newcomer to the site from over at the late great Popshifter, but terrific writer and whirlwind of terror, Tim Murr gave us looks at Red Christmas, Halloween III, the brilliant Psycho documentary 78/52, Pumpkinhead, Mike Thorn's Darkest Hours, and the latest album by Werewolves in Siberia, as well as his music column Let Us Now Praise Noise. Also from Popshifter, and a terrific comics reviewer, E.A. Henson brought us Alien Toilet Monsters and the seven essential Halloween specials you MUST WATCH this year.

As well as her awesome column Creations of Chaos, about animation and anime films, Sarah Hawkins-Miduski gave us her thoughts on Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Edgar Allan Poe's Mystery Dinner Party, and four creepy animated shorts. JP Fallavollita took us on a tour of the Tomb of Dracula, and also featured horror in ever October edition of his comics column The Wednesday Run. Jim Knipp gave us a look at the deadly dollies of horror films, and Marie Gilbert served up some Soylent Green for the Halloween holiday dinner.

Co-editor-in-chief and founder of Popshifter, the amazing Less Lee Moore gave us reviews of Alone in the Dark, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and The Asphyx, as well as her regular columns, Pump Up the Jam and Now Streaming on Shudder.

Founder and publisher Andy Burns provided insights on Stephen King and Owen King's recent appearance in Toronto, the Creepshow graphic novel and The Dark Tower: The Art of the Film, the games Resident Evil: Biohazard and Outlast Trinity, as well as his popular weekly Box Office Predictions and awesomely on-topiv column The Week in Horror.

Besides my regular reviews of the television series The Flash, and infusing the 31 Days of Horror theme into my comics review column Heroes and Villains, I got my grubby little hands in there too, writing about the classic rat movies Willard and Ben, fellow Biff Bam Popper Lucas Mangum's Engines of Ruin, The Car, Beware the Slenderman, and Halloween in the Marvel Animated Universe.

Don't forget about the other regular columns at Biff Bam Pop! like The Ten Percent by K. Dale Koontz and Ensley F. Guffey, and By the Book by Jim Knipp, and our other great staff writers like Luke Sneyd, Richard Kirwin, Mat Langford, and David Ward.

Clicky-clicky, come on by Biff Bam Pop! and check out 31 Days of Horror. It's the best way to celebrate Halloween!

Arrow S06 E03: Next of Kin

2017-10-30T23:24:00.000-04:00

Back during the time of late high school and college when I wasn’t actively reading comics any more (I know, shocking), a lot of things happened. One of them was the first appearance of Onyx, a naive vigilante who Green Arrow crossed paths with in Star City. Sheltered in a monastery she learned martial arts, and in a move that would make Batman proud, Onyx went out into the world to do good, her parents having been murdered years before.

Later she was completely revamped as a Batman associate in the War Games story arc. Now she was trained by the League of Assassins, and no longer naive. Personally I liked the original teenaged Onyx with the cape better, but it’s the later version who has been brought to the small screen on “,a href="http://monsura.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html">Arrow.”

Continuing from this season’s first episode, Team Arrow is in pursuit of Alex Faust, with John Diggle taking over as the Green Arrow. He took on the mantle at the end of the last episode, in spite of the degenerative cell damage he suffered on Lian Yu. So far only Black Canary also knows, but neither has told Oliver. Seems like Oliver has definitely rubbed off on the team.

This pursuit has John pulling the insane stunt of jumping off a building and letting Black Canary’s scream propel him across to another building. It sounds nuts and comic booky, but the way it was executed I totally believed it. Bravo. Also notable the opening gauntlet of symbols lacked one for Spartan, giving more commitment to the idea that John is now the Green Arrow. Nice touch.

When Oliver shows up for work the next day Samanda is waiting for him. She’s not stupid, and despite Oliver’s airtight alibi, she knows someone else was playing Green Arrow, someone who’s not an archer. Samanda also brings up how the cops might feel slighted (at best) with the mayor leaning on a vigilante. It’s a thought I had as a little kid watching the original “Batman” TV show - why do the Gotham police even bother showing up to work? They’re either bored or disillusioned, right?

Meanwhile the slick Onyx, here a crooked ex-CIA operative named Onyx Adams, breaks into Kord Industries (will we ever see Blue Beetle?) and downloads some serious intel, including a deadly nerve gas (Kord makes nerve gas???). When Team Arrow protects the gas shipment, Onyx takes them out pretty easily. I did like Rene’s “Surprise, bitch.” though. We need more Rene in the show as he gets the best lines. Why not put him in the Green Arrow suit? Or Dinah or Felicity, they seem to be leading as well.

Rene asks Oliver to come back, but he gives John a pep talk instead. So, the team is splintered when it next goes into action against Onyx and her team - who having seen John in action are unimpressed and don’t see him or his team a threat. Not good. Things do turn around however, and the fight sequences of the last act are quite impressive, and a vast improvement over the first episode this season. And John proves himself.

Unfortunately, as the end stinger reveals, John is using performance enhancing drugs to stabilize his tremors. Well, that’s not going to come back to bite anyone in the ass. There’s more soap with William as Oliver finally allows Felicity into his life. There was a lot to like about this episode, but all things considered, I’d rather have Oliver as Green Arrow. This is like one of those tired cliche comic arcs where the hero is replaced. I’m just waiting for the real Green Arrow.

Something I talked about last time, but have since given further thought to is the existence of Batman in the Arrowverse. After a brief exchange with friend Tim Murr on Twitter I’ve reconsidered my position. There may well be a Batman in the Arrowverse. And while I’m thinking of it, check out Tim’s work at Biff Bam Pop! right here. He’s only been with us a couple of months, coming over from the late Popshifter, but he’s written some great stuff. And a book too. Check him out.

So maybe Batman does exist. After all, we’ve seen Harley Quinn, right? Felicity wouldn’t take the name Oracle (she does it again subtly in this very episode) when suggested because it was already in use. And then there’s Rip Hunter from “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” who remarked from a dark future that he’d seen dark knights and men of steel fall. That’s pretty conclusive. And there’s no reason why Green Arrow couldn’t have fought all those Bat-villains before Batman did, right?

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode, anything else in the Arrowverse, or anything in the Marvel or DC television or cinematic universes, please join the Marvel DC Movies TV group on Facebook.

Next: The Black Siren returns in “Reversal!”

Bionic Nostalgia - The Legacy

2017-10-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

Fairly quickly after the television debut of "The Six Million Dollar Man" the word 'bionic' entered the lexicon permanently, going from a science fiction term to a science fact in recent years. While no one has been granted super-strength, speed, or senses from their bionics (that we know of), cybernetic replacement of limbs, as well as things like cochlear implants are almost everyday things.

As we've seen, the television universe was too big to have just one bionic man. Soon Steve Austin was joined by the Seven Million Dollar Man, the Bionic Woman, and Maximilian the Bionic Dog. In 1976, during Lee Majors' bad mustache phase, Vincent Van Patten became the Bionic Boy in a backdoor pilot that failed to go to series. Both series, "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman," left the air in 1978, but would return in just under a decade.

Three TV movies would follow starting in 1987. The first, simply and awkwardly called The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, was similar to the Bionic Boy in two ways - it was a failed pilot and involved a young man getting bionics, in this case, Austin's illegitimate son. The last two, coming in 1989 and 1994, were Bionic Showdown and Bionic Ever After?.

The legacy of Martin Caidin's Cyborg novel, and the "Six Million Dollar Man" television series that was based on it continues to today. There are novels, comic books, jigsaw puzzles, the "Bionic Six" animated series (among dozens that feature bionics within them), a new, if short-lived, "Bionic Woman" show, and of course the always-threatened-but-never-announced theatrical film. Bionics remains a part of our lives and pop culture decades later.

Check out the rest of my posts in this series here.

RIP Robert Guillaume

2017-10-24T18:13:00.000-04:00

We lost award-winning actor, singer, and star of stage, television, and film Robert Guillaume today. He was 89.

The prime-time soap opera sitcom "Soap" is rather dated by today's standards, and doesn't hold up all that well on rewatch if I'm being honest, but one thing does stand up and shine through the years - the talent and comic timing of Robert Guillaume, who played the butler Benson on the first few seasons of the show. In hindsight, it is hard to see just how amazing and groundbreaking the show was, how it was water cooler television, and the show to watch back in the day. The character of Benson was and remains the highlight of the complex soap parody. He later broke out into a solo self-titled spin-off as advisor to a governor, but as it was a more conventional sitcom, it didn't really appeal to me.

Guillaume would later star in "Sports Night," and guest on many shows and films of the eighties and nineties. He was always a star of the stage, appearing in such productions as Guys and Dolls, Finian's Rainbow, and The Phantom of the Opera, and receiving at least one Tony nomination, and much acclaim. Guillaume would gain new notoriety as audiences as the voice of Rafiki in Disney's The Lion King. he continued doing this role in associated sequels, games, and shows, winning a Grammy for one such project.

We have lost one of the great entertainers, Robert Guillaume will be missed.

Arrow S06 E02: Tribute

2017-10-20T16:00:00.000-04:00

Like last episode, we seem to be bouncing off of the previous episode’s cliffhanger, in this case, the news media’s reveal of Oliver Queen as the Green Arrow, a story so big it was even noted in last week’s episode of “The Flash.” We open with Oliver confronting the press, and denying he is Green Arrow, saying that photos can be doctored, and anyone’s head could have been put on that body, even Bruce Wayne.

That’s an interesting name drop to make, especially for the Arrowverse. For five seasons now it has seemed that Green Arrow has been playing proxy for Bruce Wayne AKA Batman. He has faced so many Bat-foes, including Talia and Nyssa, the League of Assassins, Deadshot, the Dollmaker, Prometheus, Solomon Grundy, the Huntress, and most of all, R’as Al Ghul, that one might speculate that Batman doesn’t exist in the Arrowverse as Oliver has filled that role.

Of course, to be fair, Green Arrow has also faced a truckload of Teen Titans, Flash, and even (who would have thought?) Green Arrow villains over five seasons as well, so it might not mean anything. And while it is the first name drop of Bruce Wayne or Gotham, Bludhaven has been mentioned numerous times. All that said, I wouldn’t mind a Bat in the Arrowverse if only to see him interact with Oliver.

In his office, Oliver has a surprise waiting, FBI Agent Samanda Watson, there to investigate the allegation that Oliver is the Green Arrow. While Samanda seems to be a new character with no counterpart in the comics, she is played by Syndelle Noel, who does have a very cool comic book connection. She’ll be playing one of the Dora Milaje in the Black Panther movie. Folks might also know her as Cherry ‘Junk Chain’ Bang from “GLOW.” The show is really rocking its wrestling connections.

When we cut to the only-seconds-long title sequence we get a new treat. It’s not just an arrowhead symbol and the word ‘Arrow’ any more. We see new stylized symbols for Black Canary, Wild Dog, Mr. Terrific, Overwatch, Spartan, and Green Arrow. I guess it wasn’t unveiled until this episode so as not to spoil who survived Lian Yu. Nice, I like it, like the mention of the Human Target moments after it. It’s a big universe, why not a Batman too?

Team Arrow is obviously under pressure with Oliver’s identity possibly out in the open and the authorities having him under a microscope. Much like Batman and his own team, once Oliver’s identity is compromised, it’s a short jump and a straight line as to who the rest of Team Arrow actually is. I was pleased that at least the showrunners acknowledge this.

Another comics name drop in the episode is one that has appeared often, Markovia. Oliver is trying to bring their Vortex Industries to Star City to create jobs, but the press won’t let go of the Green Arrow thing. One has to wonder though, with all this talk of Markov and Vortex, will we see Geo-Force, Terra, or maybe Count Vertigo soon? The wondering does not last long as the entourage is attacked by the KGBeast and his men. However Anatoly and the Bratva are not after Oliver, they’re after the Markovians.

Like the Black Siren last episode, this is another villain seeking revenge. Team Arrow suspects its Anatoly who leaked the photo of the unmasked Oliver in costume to tie his hands in this current operation. He’s holding the Markovians hostage for $20 million, the exact amount the insurance paid out for the police station the Siren blew up. Coincidence? I think not.

In soap opera corner, Oliver continues to spar with William. I gotta say I love the kid’s Flash backpack, a callback to the first time the character appeared and he liked the Flash better. Further complications arise with the possibility that Watson may interrogate William regarding his father and mother. John’s subplot has been revealed as degenerative cell damage from shrapnel he caught on Lian Yu. And I dig that Dr. Schwartz is slowly becoming an honorary member of the team.

In the end, Oliver and Anatoly part honorable enemies, and Oliver promises to be a better dad to William. We know how his promises work out, Oliver never changes. He is going to try however, the first step is pass the mantle of the Green Arrow to John. But John is pulling an Oliver and not telling him about his handicap. Looks like we’re going to see a hero fall sooner or later...

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode, anything else in the Arrowverse, or anything in the Marvel or DC television or cinematic universes, please join the Marvel DC Movies TV group on Facebook.

Next: The live action debut of another Green Arrow villain from the comics - Onyx - in “Next of Kin!”

Arrow S06 E01: Fallout

2017-10-13T15:00:00.000-04:00

If I’m being honest, which I always am, it was hard to concentrate on anything happening in the first few minutes of this sixth season opening episode of “Arrow” because I was too busy taking attendance. After the way the island of Lian Yu, which I nicknamed Flashback Island after its use for that titular plot device, blew up with the entire cast, sans Oliver, on it, what else could I do? I hated that cliffhanger when it aired, and hate it just as much now.

Again, I was happy as I counted them off - Green Arrow, Spartan, Wild Dog (in a slick red and black outfit, counter to last season’s look and his costume in the comics), Mr. Terrific, and Overwatch - all taking down a criminal terrorist named Alex Faust (any relation to Felix? With John Constantine in the Arrowverse, so is sorcerer Felix Faust). It was a little disappointing that Felicity was only there as tentative romantic interest for Oliver, and to hand out Big Belly Burger to the men.

We are shown the caption tag ‘five months later,’ which in itself in interesting. Over on “The Flash,” Central City has been ill-protected since Barry Allen entered the Speed Force, and we’re uncertain what the status quo is in Star City only a few minutes into the episode. It would seem to me that the gaps between seasons on both shows might actually be more interesting than the pick-up almost a year later.

Nevertheless time has moved on. Oliver is struggling to raise his son William without a mother, indicating that she probably did not survive Lian Yu; Oliver and Felicity seem to still have a tenuous relationship, and she may or not still be a part of Team Arrow; and Rene is apparently rocking a suit and writing speeches for Oliver. We also meet a new(?) character, Raisa, who helped raise Oliver and is now doing the same for William.

If you listen close to Team Arrow’s conversation after they nab Faust, you’ll know that Dinah also survived, we finally see her a couple scenes later interrogating the psycho villain. We also find that Quentin is still with us (did anyone die in the island?) playing mind games with his own perceived guilt and alcoholism. When Dinah goes to help him through it, Faust helps break himself out with another Lian Yu survivor, and his boss, the Black Siren. She and her goons blow the hell out of the police station, all before we see the opening title card.

When Team Archer regroups, the reveal of Black Siren is a surprise as they all thought she died on Lian Yu. Quentin seems to think she went to the police station looking for him. We get a great little street fight between Team Arrow and the bad guys, with Canary against Siren. Wild Dog is injured when Spartan hesitates. And the whole fight has weird aerial cinematography as if shot from one of the T-Spheres. I did not like it.

Oliver was missing for five years, and with “Arrow” having run five seasons, the flashbacks have come full circle. So now it seems the flashbacks will work on the five months since the cliffhanger, letting us know what happened in that time frame. It’s not a matter of who didn’t make it, but how they did or didn’t. Every moment of this episode shows us someone else alive, either seeing them or mentioning them. Add Deathstroke and Nyssa to that list. Would Talia, Captain Boomerang, Merlyn, Speedy, and William’s mother be the only ones who didn’t make it? Or not. We’ll see.

The soap opera kicks in heavy with Quentin’s guilt coming from him trying to kill Black Siren on the island. And William knows his dad is the Green Arrow, and blames him for his mom’s death. Just like he was boyfriend of the year, it looks like he’ll be father of the year too. Throw in John’s problem as a subplot too, and that’s at least enough to start the season. At least William and Oliver get a little closer at the end, but the latest cliffhanger should undo that...

In the meantime, it turns out the Black Siren’s real target is the Bunker, or as I like to call it, the Arrowcave. The question is, was she trying to blow the place up, or something else maybe? Was she trying to steal something? In multiple epilogues we find Thea in a coma; Deathstroke and Wild Dog both benefiting from Oliver helping them be better fathers; and John not using his gun because of seemingly PTS from shrapnel received on the island. And then there’s the TV news stinger revealing that Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow...

This episode was good, but affected negatively by the last season end, its piecemeal vibe, and almost immediate dive into soap opera and subplot. It’s just too soon.

For my other reviews of the entire "Arrow" series, click here. And if you'd like to discuss this episode, anything else in the Arrowverse, or anything in the Marvel or DC television or cinematic universes, please join the Marvel DC Movies TV group on Facebook.

Next: “Tribute!”

The Live PD Phenomenon

2017-10-05T16:55:00.000-04:00

The Bride and I are hardcore "Cops" fans, for well over two decades. We have even had "Cops" parties watching best of tapes (yes, tapes). The show is one of the reality television genre that actually is reality as cameras follow law enforcement as they do their jobs. Certainly however there is an editing process to produce the half-hour program with its three segment formula.

Still we love it, The Bride to see the good guys doing their job, and myself with the darker sense of humor just for the schadenfreude, a German word meaning taking pleasure in the misery of others. I have no shame as I know I’m not alone. If I was alone, no form of reality TV would thrive at all in this country. We’re all sick voyeurs to one degree or another.

This past summer we discovered a new series on A&E that goes "Cops" one better. On Friday and Saturday nights, the busiest of the week for police officers, "Live PD" follows various law enforcement from across the country live as they do their jobs. This is not an edited down version of a week spent on camera, this is the police on the job, live.

Hosted in the New York studio by Dan Abrams, a legal consultant for ABC News, and veteran police officer Tom Morris, Jr., the show is pulled from precincts across the country as they happen. Dan and Tom are sometimes joined by Sean “Sticks” Larkin, an officer from the Tulsa Gang Unit and fan favorite, as well as officers featured on the show live, who offer color commentary and explanations during breaks. The hosts and the cops have become stars in their own right.

The show has become so popular that A&E not only repeats it constantly but has also spun off two or three shows from it, some postscripts to what happened in the real show. Ironically the show being live, sometimes it ends in the middle of it getting good. We have waited a whole week sometimes to find out what happened after the cameras go black.

The Twitter phenomenon of "Live PD" however is something else altogether. Imagine if "Cops" was not only live, but interactive. That's what is happening here. On Friday and Saturday nights, Twitter is on fire with this show as thousands of viewers Tweet as they watch, they have even helped the police, seeing things on television the cops on the scene missed, like a baggy of drugs thrown out a window in a police chase. Don't forget to use the hashtag #LivePD.

Various places on the show, like bars and hotels and stores in the precincts monitored have become famous, and a bizarre and fun bingo game has developed based on what happens typically on the show. Google LivePD Bingo for a variety of different versions and cards to play along.

"Live PD" returns Friday, so get ready, get your phone out to Tweet along, and your Bingo cards printed up to play along. It's a blast!

Rest in Peace, Tom Petty

2017-10-03T12:02:00.001-04:00

In the shadow of one of the worst shootings in American history, in between the news network full coverage, and the madness that follows such things, we have lost one of our great musical lights. Tom Petty was found unconscious yesterday morning, and finally, after much heartache and misinformation, pronounced dead of cardiac arrest at the age of 66, early last night.

The first time I saw or heard Tom Petty, or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, was in the movie FM, friends had referred to him as the new Mick Jagger. I don't know how accurate that is or was, but it was memorable. His music was the sound of my teens, my twenties, and so on, it truly mapped the 1970s, the 1980s, and 1990s for me. Hard Promises was one of three albums I bought with my very first paycheck. The great thing about Petty albums consistently is that you not only got the hits like "A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)" and "The Waiting," you also got AOR tunes and hidden gems like "A Thing About You," "Kings Road," and "The Criminal Kind." Yeah, I wore those grooves out.

I can remember having two, not just one, cassettes of Tom Petty's songs recorded from the radio when I first got a cassette recorder. He was an FM rock favorite and almost all of his music got airplay. Even before I graduated high school in 1982 (and Petty was white suburban FM rock and roll then) he had a catalog that included some of the best of the time, from "American Girl" and "Breakdown" to "Listen to Her Heart" and "I Need to Know." He was not a favorite, like Bowie or Prince, but man, he was always there, and always rocking. Yeah, he was a favorite, I just didn't know it.

Later favorite albums would include Long After Dark, which holds a special place in my heart for getting me my first date with a college girlfriend. She was a Petty fan, and my inside knowledge of when the album was coming out (easily found in Billboard magazine which I read obsessively when I worked at the college radio station) dazzled her enough to date me. This album also included Petty's move into the MTV era from that of FM AOR. I remember loving the post-apocalyptic music video for "You Got Lucky," the red vinyl single for "Change of Heart," and my favorite tune off the album, the B-side "Between Two Worlds."

My favorite Petty song comes from the next album Southern Accents, an album full of oddities mixed into the usual southern rock and roll highlights. This one had the hilarious country ditty "Spike" about a punk rocker, as well as the hit single with acid trip video, "Don't Come Around Here No More," coolly co-written by genius co-producer Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. But it was the weird dance vibe of "It Ain't Nothin' to Me," also with Stewart, that still blows me away. I don't know why, but I love this song even today and turn it up whenever I hear it.

Later Tom Petty, already a superstar in his own right, would officially go solo from the Heartbreakers, and also join with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Obrbison, and George Harrison to form the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Petty, with and without the Heartbreakers, would continue to release albums and singles through to 2014. He was always producing and always innovating. We have lost another legend, a man who filled my life with music, creating a soundtrack of memories. We will all miss Tom Petty. Rest in peace, man.

Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere

2017-09-29T15:18:00.000-04:00

Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere ~ I stumbled across this documentary the other night on one of the MTV channels, and it brought back some great memories. The doc tells the story of the band Kansas from its beginnings to their commercial success through individual interviews with the original six members.

I remember hearing Kansas on the FM AOR radio, mostly WMMR and WYSP in the mid-seventies, and thinking they were okay. I wouldn't change the station if they were on, basically, but I didn't really appreciate their music or their artistry until I heard them played in a neighbor's basement that had a killer stereo system. That brought Kansas to life for me.

I also remember a trip to the Ocean City boardwalk and a busker who refused to play "Dust in the Wind" because it was 'the hardest song ever to play properly,' and he 'didn't want his fingers to bleed.' He got booed by both those who requested it and wanted to hear it. True or not, it gave me added awe for the tune.

My favorite Kansas song was "People of the South Wind" from the album Monolith, a song and an album both considered failures, but its content pulled at me. Native Americans shoved aside by the white man, and wearing space helmets on the cover of the album drew me just like the fantastical elements of the cover of Point of Know Return. It's still one of my favorite songs from that time.

The doc is compelling, and tells stories of their early days, composition of songs, dealing with Don Kirshner, fighting with Steven Tyler, and the internal struggles of the band. This is one of the better rock docs I've seen, cool for Kansas fans old, new, or fans not at all. Check it out.

The Orville

2017-09-27T14:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I talked about how cool I thought "Star Trek: Discovery was, so today I'm going to talk about the other, unofficial, Trek show being talked about lately - "The Orville." There has been a very vocal group of Star Trek fans out there saying that "The Orville" is more Trek than "Discovery," and while that might possibly be true, you all know how I feel about Star Trek fandom.

The first hype that was out there about "The Orville," from creator Seth MacFarlane of "Family Guy" fame, was that it was a plagiarization of Star Trek, with fart jokes. But as reviews began to come in on "Discovery," with its wholesale changes to the Klingon mythos, weird ship designs, and shaky retcons of established Trek timelines… the Trek fans began to warm to "The Orville," almost as if in retaliation. Some may say it's about content, but I think it's about paying for it, because "Discovery" airs on the pay service CBS All Access. Apparently, Trek fans will take fart jokes as long as they’re free.

Personally, as I said yesterday, I think "Discovery" is brilliant, but, hold on to your drinks, so is "The Orville." I think with the involvement of Seth MacFarlane, most folks expected a big joke-filled parody of Star Trek, but the fact is, he is a huge Trek fan himself. He not only created a loving homage to Trek mythology, but did it so well, that when vulgar humor does show up, it feels out of place. Yes, it's true, MacFarlane has out-Trekked Trek. This show is damn good.

The humor has brought up situations that we know must happen in the Star Trek universe, but no one has tried to tackle before. Not only is it hilarious in those moments, it's thoughtful, refreshing, and in some cases, daring. In the space of three episodes, we have seen on "The Orville" both the best elements of the original series and TNG, with fart jokes. That is impressive. This is a show to watch, and you should watch it because it's good, not just because it's free. Two thumbs way up.

Star Trek: Discovery

2017-09-26T16:06:00.000-04:00

There have been reports before the fact about this series that are the stuff of nightmare, and there is of course the whole concept of having to pay for it as part of CBS' new All Access network, so even before it started, "Star Trek: Discovery" had a hard road ahead of it. First imagined as an anthology series, taking place at any time or place in the mainstream Trek universe (as opposed to in the Kelvin timeline of the last three cinematic films - here, here, and here), this series now might just be about one ship, one crew, and one time - time will tell.

I have been impressed with the previews myself, especially the acting and casting, but not so much with some of the designs, particularly the Klingon ones. Further while I was very happy with the casting of "The Walking Dead"'s Sonequa Martin-Green as First Officer Michael Burnham and one of my favorite actresses Michelle Yeoh as Captain Philippa Georgiou, I was disappointed that Green would take lead as the POV protagonist with Yeoh in a more background role. That said, as with all such things, I should have an opinion until I actually see it, right? It's what separates the Trekkers from the Trekkies, I suppose, pre-perception.

I loved the opening of the first episode, "The Vulcan Hello," as well as the new theme. The composition by Jeff Russo incorporates elements of the original theme, and while it's no country song like in "Enterprise," which I found original, refreshing, and catchy, it is adequate. The visuals are much less exciting, and disappointing. But as noted, the acting and lesson of the intro with Green and Yeoh showed much promise and dedication to the cause. It had my hopes up that I was able to get through the less-than-stellar credit sequence.

Ten minutes in, introduced to Doug Jones' paranoid science officer Saru, and others in the diverse crew of the USS Shenzhou, this was feeling very Trek, from the dialogue, to the uniforms, to the procedural, and I was digging it. This crew gets along, knows each other's quirks, and has a camaraderie similar to later seasons of "TNG." There is however an annoying Motion Picture conceit of showing off special effects and model building, almost like a child jumping up and down and yelling, "Look what I can do!" and it results in scenes dragging and taking much longer than they should.

And then there are the Klingons, some might say drastically different in appearance and conduct to what we have known before. They have been known to change their physical appearance in the past, but this is quite different, and quite possibly what drove fans up the wall when images surfaced. We have more gothic, more bestial, more feudal Klingons here, with a darker, larger, more sinister and menacing bird of prey. I am willing to accept this, after all, who knows how much and how fast Klingons might evolve physically or change culturally.

A more sophisticated explanation from the showrunners suggest that the Klingon Empire is huge, and not all Klingons come from Kronos. Their various cultures and styles and even physical manifestations vary from house to house, their system of power, similar to that of "Game of Thrones" in a way. Just like a New York businessman would look different from an Aborigine shaman for instance, these Klingons are just as different as say Kang and Worf are to each other. Seems like a lot of dancing to just make more fearsome alien monsters and not change the name. And once the thought that they were more like "Doctor Who" monsters than "Star Trek" villains entered my mind, it would not leave.

The setting is ten years before the original series, and the USS Shenzhou has discovered a Klingon ship. Burnham, who has a history with the Klingons who haven't but rarely been seen in generations, goes to investigate and ends up killing one of their Torchbearers. Burnham, we learn was the only survivor of a Vulcan-Human space station attacked by Klingons. Her parents killed, Sarek (yes, that Sarek) took her in, educated, and trained her. So this discovery is a hot issue for Burnham.

As the episode continues we see more of Burnham, as well as Saru and Geogiou, all doing fantastic jobs. The performances are on mark. Meanwhile we are also learning of Klingon culture and how one house is trying to unite all twenty-four houses against the Federation. The cliffhanger on the first episode is a tight one, and must have been very frustrating for those not subscribed to CBS All Access. My take on this however, based on the first episode, would be it's worth it.

Lucky folks outside the United States got to see it on Netflix, it should be noted. And in watching the second episode, "Battle at the Binary Stars," it's evident that the structure of the show fits Netflix to a tee. This is a binge series, and watched best as a binge. It's episodic, with a binge-worthy flow, interspersed with character-revealing flashbacks - this is a Netflix show, and CBS couldn't have found a better formula to copy. It's damn good. I dug this a lot, recommended.

The Cat in the Hat Ride at Universal

2017-09-20T14:00:00.000-04:00

The last time we went to Universal in Orlando, there were more than a few disappointments, not the least of which was the food, but on our way out of the parks, The Bride and I, both Dr. Seuss fans from waaay back (pre-school really), saw the Cat in the Hat Ride and thought we'd check it out. Sure, it's for kids, but we're just big kids.

The first time I saw the Cat in the Hat in this ride, I knew I would be having nightmares. Universal managed to take the more scary parts of the old Snow White and Mr. Toad rides and injected them with Dr. Seuss surrealism, and a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of crazy eyes. A rather pedestrian ride, but with psycho eyes, and just a touch of technicolor Cabinet of Dr. Caligari… is this for kids?

As much fun as the kids book "The Cat in the Hat" seemed when I was a wee one, I would not want to be in that book, and that's what this ride does. Sure, on that last trip to Universal, I was dying to get out of the sun, and this ride is air conditioned, but consider this - so are the retail stores and they don't have giant cats in hats with crazy eyes you'll be seeing in your nightmares for days to come…

F is for Family

2017-09-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

Like many of the television situation comedies of the 1980s and 1990s - like "Seinfeld," "Home Improvement," or "Roseanne" - "F is for Family" is built around the stand-up routines of a popular comedian, in this case, Bill Burr. What makes this one unique is that it's animated, and set squarely in 1973. And as a child of the 1970s suburbs, let me assure you, they got this right. This is no That 70's Show.

Now I have to admit that I was never really a big fan of Bill Burr. I always enjoyed when he was a guest on the late great Opie and Anthony radio show, and never turned the channel when his stand up was on, but I never sought it out either, and I've never heard his podcast although I know it's quite popular. Burr always seemed fun, and funny, but a little mean spirited and pessimistic. In this format however, I think it works.

Bill Burr voices the father, Frank Murphy, who in the opening credit sequence set to Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love," we see go from hopeful young man with dreams to the crushed spirit of a family man with responsibilities. The wordless bit actually reminds me if the beginning of Disney-Pixar's Up in that it conveys so many feelings in an economy of dialogue and time, brilliant.

Frank's wife Sue is voiced by Laura Dern, and burnout son Kevin by Justin Long. Sue fights for her rights as best she can as a housewife in 1973, and Kevin tries to better himself but it never seems to work out thanks to his other burnout friends. Frank struggles with his wife, his family, which also includes a younger son and daughter, and a job that is quickly headed toward disaster.

Besides Bill Burr, who voices, writes, and inspires, there are two other executive producers who may be of note, Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley. Vaughn you all know from his many acting roles, including Swingers and "True Detective," and Billingsley was Ralphie in Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story, who since then has does considerable work behind the camera.

As I said I grew up in the suburbs of South Jersey in the 1970s, with the show taking place in nearby Pennsylvania, and this is dead on. I not only know these people, in some cases I was them. The comedy is funny but the people and the situations are real, sometimes too real, and at times override the jokes. The ongoing subplot of a strike at the airline where Frank works is a serious concern.

My favorite episode of the first season is "Bill Murphy's Day Off" where the parents take Kevin to a rock concert so he and his friends can see the opening act, Shire of Frodo. Fans eager to see the headliner Lifted Riffs don't let them even start a song but Riffs is a hoot. While both bands are parodies of different aspects of Led Zeppelin, Riffs really takes it to town with a song called "Lick My Pickle," a clever and hilarious riff on "The Lemon Song." Loved it.

The second season became available, all ten episodes of it, just a couple months back. Frank adjusts to new jobs and old, Sue fights the glass ceiling, and Kevin tries to make a go if his own band. There are bigger parts for Frank's rich swinger neighbor played by Sam Rockwell, and his two younger kids as well, one a bullied boy standing up for himself, and the other a smart girl up against many of the same barriers as her mom.

"F is for Family" is coming of age, it's nostalgia, it's emotional, it's funny, and it's definitely worth checking out. If you grew up in the seventies, ever didn't want to turn into your parents, or tried to turn everything into a bong, this show is for you.

Fleabag

2017-09-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

I have to admit that until her name came up as a possibility for the role of the thirteenth incarnation of The Doctor on "Doctor Who," I had never heard of Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She's apparently an award-winning playwright as well as an actress, but I didn't know. Neither she nor the other favorite Kris Marshall of Love Actually, got the role, it going instead to Jodie Whittaker. We'll have to wait until at least Christmas to see how that goes.

Back on track I was surprised to see Phoebe's name again recently as I was browsing Amazon Prime. She is the star and writer of a show called "Fleabag." The ongoing saga of a young single woman in London as she tries to make her way through life after the death of her best friend might not sound like anything special, but Waller-Bridge makes it work wonderfully.

As the title character, Phoebe's dry sarcastic wit, self-deprecating humor, and breaking of the fourth wall bring this series to a level above most sitcom dramas. The characters, situations, and problems are all very real, her caustic wit severing them all with precision. It feels like the later meaner seasons of "Seinfeld" and the earlier more earnest seasons of "Girls," mixed with "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "I'm Sorry," with just a touch of Britcom sensibility and "Sex and the City." Yeah, all that.

I love this show, so funny, so clever, and so tragic. My mind reels to wonder what she would have been like as The Doctor. Perhaps someday we'll see, until then we have "Fleabag," definitely recommended.

Marvel's New Animated Spider-Man

2017-09-13T20:59:00.000-04:00

The worst part of superhero reboots is retelling of the origin story over and over and over again. Despite the official Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Spider-Man thankfully skipping over that detail in Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming, when the folks at Disney XD rebooted the animated version, based on the new movie Spidey, they felt the need to beat us over the head again with that same origin story that we all know now.

The animated shorts, how Disney XD leads into their Marvel shows these days, tell that story all over again, adding very little to the tale we all know. Even the terrible Amazing Spider-Man gave us something new in that area. Peter Parker in this new 'toon is less geeky and nerdy as much as he is annoying and obnoxious. He's almost arrogant. Unlike the Parker of the comics who we sympathize with and identify with, I really don't like this guy. I almost want him to fail. This is so not Spider-Man. Simply spouting science does not make a Peter Parker.

As we watch this annoying kid learn his new powers and video document them with complete arrogance in the "Origins" shorts, the showrunners carefully insert appearances of cast members like Harry, Liz, Smythe, and even a Stan Lee cameo, but key characters like Aunt May and Uncle Ben are rarely seen. Not seeing May or Ben until the last of six shorts completely diffuses the tragic lesson of "With great power comes great responsibility."

Whether it is network rules to protect children or misguided writing, but we never get to see the actual origin of Spider-Man with the burglar. It's diluted, and we feel nothing as we don't know Ben or May. Add this in to the fact that this version of Parker is already unlikable, this was not a great start, and perhaps, as in the MCU version, the origin should have been left untold, rather than told badly.

The actual show is better in both execution and presentation of Peter Parker. He still spouts science, but he's a little more humble. The depiction of the Vulture is less than stellar, especially after his terrific MCU revamp, this animated mash-up of the Beetle and Black Canary is a bit embarrassing. Much time is spent on school stuff, including introductions of Miles Morales and Anya Corrazon (Arana). Without those name drops, I might have been bored.

Other name drops include vibranium and Wakanda, placing the series solidly within the wider Marvel Universe. One supposes we will just have to imagine the "Ultimate Spider-Man" cartoon never happened, just like all those early animated appearances of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

In the second official episode, continued from the first, we are once again more concerned with the school than with the superheroics. We're introduced to Dr. Otto Octavius as a teacher, and Max Modell's Horizon is lifted from Dan Slott's comics run. Spider is still in his homemade costume and the Scorpion is considerably less interesting than his Homecoming counterpart.

Even after finally perfecting his costume and facing off against a pseudo-Spider-Slayer, the episode is more about the school soap than the superhero saga. Horizon seems more like a breeding ground for potential future Spider-villains and their tech. Still this is more origin stuff when I would rather have adventures of the fully formed hero. Later we see the Rhino and the Black Cat, revamped versions, and of course their episodes focus more on school than superheroics.

The new series is not bad, but it's not what I want, so until we get a seasoned Spider-Man doing the superhero thing with the cast in place and rogues gallery established, I may give this a pass.

Len Wein and the Golden Age of Comics

2017-09-12T21:33:00.000-04:00

There's a saying among comics fandom, a play on words really, that the real golden age of comics is ten. Traditionally the Golden Age is considered roughly from 1938 to 1951 when all the great characters were created and things were simpler and better in general. Also as implied, when most folks start reading comics they are a magical age when they believe all the wonders they read, and that nostalgia stays with them, forming the basis for their love of the genre. For me, that love came roughly between the ages of six and twelve, and most of the good comics that formed my magic time were by a guy named Len Wein.

The man passed away this past weekend, and many folks have memorialized him, in personal blogs, comics press, and even the mainstream media. Most mention his huge triumphs in the field. Len Wein created Wolverine, Swamp Thing, co-created the New X-Men, and edited Watchmen - all events that advanced, shaped, and transformed comics as an entertainment medium - and all true. However, that's not really what I remember him for. I remember him for the comics that shaped me and my thinking, and my love of comics.

As I was beginning to learn to read, more from comic books and Dr. Seuss than from any of the Dick and Jane readers at school, Len Wein wrote the comics that thrilled and amazed me. When comics were coming down off the social relevance trend of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wein sought to bring back the characters that made comics fun for him. He re-established the paradigm of superheroes and super-villains, and returned a fun Silver Age and even Golden Age vibe to the oncoming Bronze Age of comics.

In Justice League of America, a comic he was only on for a short time, he turned these characters from a group of heroes who sometimes worked together into a team of friends who were a finely tuned fighting unit, who knew each other, watched each other's backs, and even socialized together. Wein returned not only traditional Silver Age villains like Amazo, the Key, Felix Faust, T.O. Morrow, the Shaggy Man, Eclipso, (and indirectly the Queen Bee and the Lord of Time), but also revived Golden Age superheroes like Earth-Two's other super-team (a decade before the All-Star Squadron) the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and gathered the old Quality Comics heroes as the Freedom Fighters of Earth-X, a parallel world where Germany won World War II - soon to be featured in an animated series on CW Seed. In an age where young readers were being newly introduced to these characters in the reprints of the 100-Page Super-Spectaculars, Wein brought us new stories of these greats.

Wein also, in his all-too-brief fifteen issue run on JLoA, expanded the membership for the first time in years. He added the Elongated Man, a move that was a long time coming; moved the emotional android Red Tornado over from Earth-Two, after killing him in one of comics' earliest hero deaths; and inducted the mysterious and seemingly out-of-place Phantom Stranger into the team's ranks. He was able to make the Stranger work within the team better than any later writers, probably because Wein himself was writing the character in his own title at the same time. He always had a mastery of these new members, as well as guest-stars, the Justice Society, when under his pen. Speaking of the JSA, Wein had the honor of writing the hundredth issue team-up of the JLA/JSA, as well as introducing the concept of adding a third team to the annual mix, and even wrote the only one-issue teaming of them. Speaking of guest-stars, he also helped engineer the first unofficial DC/Marvel crossover at the Rutland Halloween Parade.

Speaking of the JSA, another story that resonates with me to this day is Flash #215, written by Wein during his short stint on that title, which I've briefly talked about before. With a dramatic Neal Adams cover and interiors by Irv Novick, in my opinion, the Flash artist, this story told the tale of Barry Allen waking up in bed with his Earth-Two counterpart's wife Joan, finding that he'd replaced Jay Garrick. After that weirdness, Barry goes on the find Jay in the limbo dimension and fighting the Vandal Savage, yet another Golden Age character that Wein breathed new life into. This remains one of my favorite Flash stories, and made me love Jay Garrick.

Also notable from this era were his Adventure Comics stories with Supergirl and Zatanna respectively, which I still love. I bet if he'd stayed on JLoA longer, he would have brought Zatanna on to the team much earlier than she ended up joining. While they were going on at roughly the same time, and I did not read them at the time, I did eventually read Wein's fantastic stories of the Swamp Thing, Phantom Stranger, and Korak, and dug them. And let's not forget that he also co-created the Human Target, a back-up feature I never understood as a kid, but loved as an adult.

This was the mid-1970s now, and Len Wein had moved across the street to Marvel Comics, where he would create Wolverine as a Hulk foe; assemble the New X-Men, reviving that title which had been in low-selling reprints for a while; and had longer (if not as memorable, to me at least) runs on titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, and Marvel Team-Up. What I do remember him on was Defenders, which he picked up on after Steve Englehart left the book. Wein would recruit Nighthawk to the team, one of my favorite Defenders, after an eerily familiar clash with Marvel's parallel universe evil Justice League, the Squadron Supreme (or was it Sinister? I always get confused).

Len Wein would return to DC Comics however as an editor. He was editing both Justice League of America and Flash ironically when I met him at a Creation convention around the time of those two titles' 200th and 300th landmark issues respectively. I told him how much I enjoyed his Justice League stories, but also expressed, perhaps too cockily, an opinion that the 200th issue shouldn't be so full of guest-stars as the 100th issue was. He took the left-handed compliment well, smiled, and said I would be pleased with Justice League of America #200. I was, the tale, which pitted the original members against all the later members of the team in a retelling and return to their origin, is not only one of my favorite stories, but also a lot of folks' too.

Later Wein would go on to edit Watchmen, write the new Blue Beetle series, and oversee the Who's Who project, all wonderful stuff. He continued to write and edit for years to come, including Batman, Wonder Woman, and After Watchmen. He won many awards, even wrote for television animation, the last work I saw from him was the adaptation of Harlan Ellison's script for Two-Face on the 1966 "Batman" television series. We have lost one of the greats in the comics field, and we are all poorer for it. Len Wein was and is a legend, and he'll be missed.

GAR! on Twitter

2017-08-22T19:12:00.001-04:00

Don't call it a comeback, we've been here for years...

After over one hundred and seventy episodes, five long years, and multiple nervous breakdowns, we have finally broken down and started our own Twitter account for The GAR! Podcast. Sure, Ray and I will continue to promote and discuss GAR! on our own separate Twitters, but now we have a dedicated stream for the podcast right here.

For those unaware, The GAR! Podcast is the Glenn Walker and Ray Cornwall weekly podcast where they talk unrehearsed about whatever happens to come to mind. It’s an audio-zine for your mind, a nerd exploration of a nerd world, coming to you from the suburbs of New Jersey and the sunny lakes of Florida via Skype.

GAR! is also available on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. We're also on Facebook here and here, and on Pinterest. Contact us directly here.

RIP Jerry Lewis

2017-08-20T16:12:00.000-04:00

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Jerry Lewis earlier today. Not just a Hollywood legend, but an award-winning actor, writer, director, producer, author, philanthropist, and film innovator. He was the whole package, and he will be missed.

My first memories of Jerry Lewis were of someone who was just there, a Hollywood legend as I said, who would sometimes pop up on talk shows and variety shows. I remember having him pointed out by my brother when he made his cameo in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but I never really got a good look at the man until I started watching his Labor Day telethons for muscular dystrophy(which he did for over four decades), there I saw what kind of man he was and how respected and gracious he was. The telethons were always big ratings blockbusters, so when a rival local channel started running Jerry Lewis movies opposite it one weekend, that's when I really saw what he was about.

My eyes were opened that weekend with Way… Way Out, Hook, Line, & Sinker, Who's Minding the Store?, The Ladies Man (a tour de force in which he not only starred, wrote, produced, and directed, but innovated new cinematography that still boggle the mind), and a film that remains a favorite, in my top ten of all time even, Boeing Boeing. I wonder if WCAU Channel 10 knows that in the name of money they introduced me and probably hundreds of others to the genius of Jerry Lewis that weekend.

As the years went by, I would appreciate his work more and more. While I never found him very funny in his original incarnation as half of Martin and Lewis with Dean Martin, I loved his other films as I discovered them on television, and later when I managed a video store. Other favorites include The Big Mouth, The Bellboy, Cinderfella, and The King of Comedy. Perhaps now, we might also finally see a complete version of the infamous The Day the Clown Cried, a film about a clown in the Nazi concentration camps, that while controversial, Lewis locked away because he felt it was not his best work.

Although he has proven himself difficult and a perfectionist in the field, Lewis' genius behind the camera remains, and his films are a legacy to that. There's an old joke that he was a genius in France, but let's face facts, in this, the French are not wrong. He changed, and improved how Hollywood makes films, and how we see them.

Jerry Lewis was one of the greats, and I was glad to have seen him one last time while he was alive on the most recent TCM Classic Cruise when he introduced and fielded questions about The Nutty Professor. He was a legend of stage, screen, and radio, and will be missed by all, whether they liked him or not.