Another episode of the Charlie Jade podcast has been posted at Charlie Jade Verse.
This one covers the weakest of the four “acts” of the show, though it includes the marvelous “Betrayal”, seen above. Take some time and take a listen, because the next act is a fun one.
Can y’all tell I’m excited about the new season?
Very short, very quick note to all the people who were looking for the song that opened the episode “The 12 Step Job” of Leverage, it’s been posted for your pleasure, along with a little more background on it, at iFMagazine.com.
Leverage returns to TNT this summer; we’ll be reviewing it as always.
“Why are you a cop?”
“Because I like it, and I’m good at it, and that kid is a killer.”
Returning for its eighth ((!)) season this Sunday, April 19 at 9/8c, Law & Order: Criminal Intent doesn’t have the cachet of its sister or the mothership, but it keeps trudging along at a high level of competency. Originally built around the mesmerizing performance of Vincent D’Onofrio, the workload on him proved to be too great, so an ingenius solution was devised. L&O vet Chris Noth was brought in to take lead on alternate episodes, halving D’Onofrio’s burden.
That worked successfully for three seasons, swapping cases back and forth between brainy and intuitive Det. Goren and mesomorphic Det. Logan. But Mr. Big was ready to move on (again) and Dick Wolf and his EPs Walon Green, Ed Zuckerman, and John David Coles decided to go another way with Jeff Goldblum.
In a real “fish out of lake of fire” story, Pam Brady (South Park) and Mireille Soria (Madagascar) are bringing Neighbors From Hell to TBS with an initial 10-episode order.
The setup has potential, but execution is key. I can’t make any guesses about the animation style because we’re looking at two EPs with very different backgrounds, but I’m going to guess this will be structured more like South Park or The Simpsons with a clear narrative throughline in each episode. I’m a bit concerned that too many production companies have a hand in this and we’ll end up with a watered down soup at the end. Click through for the full press release.
Y’all have had a really nice relationship and you don’t know what’s going to happen after that. If you and Matt are meant to be together you’ll be together. And if you’re not, there’s going to be someone else special for you.
And so the long ride comes to a close. We diehards hold out hope that the weird admixture of DirecTV ratings plus the upcoming NBC run of these 13 episodes will earn another season, but if it doesn’t this was an okay way to say goodbye. If we’re meant to be together, we’ll be together.
Jumping five months from last week’s title game, it’s time for the seniors to say goodbye to Dillon High and put away their childish things. Soon. Anytime now. But first, Matt’s got to fight with Grandma about how many dresses she needs to bring to the assisted living facility. And Tim’s got to convince Billy he needs a steer. And Joe McCoy – never anything but a childish bully – has to push Eric out of his job.
I really wanted to like TNT’s Trust Me, thinking that a lighter, modern take on the advertising business would be a nice counterpoint to Mad Men‘s meditation on mid-century America. With a cast mostly populated by actors I’ve liked before and the cushion of working for a cable network willing to give shows room to breathe and find their own way, Trust Me looked like a shoo-in on paper.
But no matter how many checkboxes get filled in, it’s the execution that matters.
Living in Dillon is certainly handicap enough to make anyone an underdog. Almost as much a handicap as a show airing exclusively on DirecTV before returning to the broadcast airwaves. All underdogs can do is push, strive, and keep trying against overwhelming odds and insurmountable forces.
Would the Panthers find the hearts of champions within to beat the South Texas Titans? Would Tyra find the essay within to beat down the doors of college? Would Landry find the field before game time?
Sigh.
No, that wasn’t a happy sigh. It wasn’t a sigh of contentment. It was disappointment and disillusionment and disgust. It was lamentation of the fact that Rob Thomas has trodden on his own creation with the same ham-handed, tin-eared lack of grace George Lucas demonstrated with Phantom Menace. It was just a sigh.
Cupid, for the many who don’t remember it, was a short-lived ABC romcom from the ’98-’99 season. It starred Jeremy Piven as the titular god of love (maybe) and Paula Marshall as the cynical, down to Earth psychiatrist assigned to cure his insanity (or was it?) It ran for only 15 episodes with a few mediocre, a few pretty bad, and one or two absolute gems. I challenge anyone to watch the episode “Heart of the Matter” and not find the room getting dusty.
So a couple of years back, Rob Thomas was talking with ABC trying to come up with a new show that incorporated some of the same themes and motifs and eventually both sides decided he should just redo Cupid. After all, this isn’t the ABC of the late ’90s; today’s ABC could easily find a place to slot in a romcom. So remake and redo they did.
In Mo Ryan’s recap/preview of FNL’s third season she pointed out how much this season has replayed the greatest hits of season one. ((And fortunately did NOT put any dead bodies in the trunks of cars.)) That’s certainly true, but is to be expected to a certain extent in a show about teenagers. After all, while it feels horribly unique and unprecedented when you’re living through it, age and perspective show us that the teenage experience is common across the generations.
Fathers and sons fight. Daughters grow into women. Our parents and grandparents grow smaller and feebler before our eyes.
But while I’m all for some repetition of themes and motifs, tonight actually irritated me. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar to you: