If you recall, at the end of the last season, Neegan was about to give one of our intrepid heroes a vigorous baseball bat beating.
One can only assume we’ll find out who got struck out in the new season, though you never know, there might be an unexpected plot twist.
My theory:
It is unlikely that a female character will buy the farm in such a gruesome way on TV.
It is unlikely a main featured character will croak.
Thus, you can rule a lot of people out.
Keeping in mind they’ll want to maximize the impact by killing off someone the viewers have bonded with yet the show can continue without and I think that comes down to Eugene or Abraham.
I’m going to guess it is Eugene. He’s the underdog. The cowardly geek who did everyone wrong by lying about a cure yet ironically did them good by tricking them to seek safety.
We like to think we’d be awesome like Rick in the face of a zompoc but in reality, many of us would be a Eugene.
If they do go with a main character? Glenn. He’s shown tremendous growth over the series, going from young adult to man, but the show can go on whereas people would freak out if they los Rick, Michonne, or Daryl.
SNL noticed that Lucas’ parents where nowhere to be found in Season One (although come to think of it, I don’t think we saw that lispy kid’s parents either.)
Anyway, hi jinx ensue and this is funny if you’ve seen the show on Netflix:
So a reporter announces a sinkhole has swallowed up a bunch of cars at a shopping mall. He starts to interview the couple but then it quickly devolves into the reporter and the other reporters in the studio questioning an ugly nerd on how he ended up married to a hot chick played by Margot Robbie.
Its funny because none of us admit it but so many relationships are based on looks. Even as an ugly person if I see an ugly person with an attractive person I immediately think the ugly person must be rich or have something exciting going on in his/her life.
And even when the ugly person isn’t rich and/or doesn’t have an exciting life I immediately think the attractive person is a saint on par with Mother Theresa because inside I know if I were attractive I’d be chasing down hot babes all day long.
Or would I? Maybe if I were attractive I’d be happy in my own skin and wouldn’t feel the need to do that.
Should there be action movies, spy movies, cop movies, super hero movies etc with a female hero now that society is more open to this? Yes.
Should Thor, Iron Man, James Bond, Ocean’s 11 and God help me, now my beloved Magnum P.I. be turned into a woman? No. Make your own new strong, tough female characters because if you keep female-izing male characters, then you’re basically saying that all women should aspire to be men, that women have secretly always longed to be the male heroes and now those male heroes must be replaced with female versions of those heroes.
Fun fact – I loved Magnum P.I. as a kid. Loved the Selleck mustache. Loved the red sports car. Loved Hawaii. Loved Higgins. Loved the love/hate rivalry he had with Higgins where Higgins was stuck up and snooty while Magnum flew by the seat of his pants.
Magnum worked because men wanted to dream about being a private eye in Hawaii and bagging hot chicks while living on a wealthy novelist’s estate.
I don’t have a woman’s mind. If women do dream about being action stars or private eyes or whatever that’s fine, but to turn Magnum into a chick belies an underlying thought that women have long yearned to turn themselves into a 1980s man hunk with a hairy chest who was the reason why every 1980s dude had a mustache.
Anyway, that’s just me. Society is more open to female heroes, so seize the day and make these heroes but its lame to just reinvent a male hero and slap a vagina on him.
Am I wrong? I don’t know. Tell me in the comments.
“Little houses, little houses, and they’re all made of ticky tacky…”
What the hell is ticky tacky?
Oh well. Hot mom + marijuana = Showtime’s Weeds.
BQB here with another TV review.
This is another show I never watched when it was on for the first few years, then I got into it once streaming media came around in a big way.
Uber MILF Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise-Parker) has her life turned upside when her husband dies from a heart attack unexpectedly at age forty.
She’s been a suburban housewife forever, but with two kids to raise and bills to pay, she turns to a life of crime i.e. marijuana dealing. Her product comes to be known as “MILF weed” due to her Milfyness as well as a chance encounter with Snoop Dogg (playing himself)
The first few seasons are the best of the series. Here, the story isn’t so much about the marijuana as it is about hum drum suburban life, how Nancy is able to make tons of money selling to her neighbors who, on the surface, are stuck up yuppies but given the chance to spark a doob and party, they do – often in funny, sometimes in tragic ways.
Kevin Nealon as family friend Doug Wilson helps Nancy in her illegal endeavors. His role in this show as a degenerate scumbag is his best work since SNL.
Meanwhile, Nancy ruins her chances at being nominated mother of the year by bringing her young sons into the business. (Hunter Parrish as Silas and Alexander Gould aka the voice of Nemo in 2003’s Finding Nemo as Shane.)
What really makes the show early on is the love/hate relationship between Nancy and her frenemy Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins). Celia is that super perfect/judgmental mom who serves as Nancy’s foil, first by trying to ruin her and later as joining her in the drug game.
While the first few seasons in suburbia are the best, the show eventually moves on and the Botwins find themselves in crazy situations every season. Often, it seems like series creator Jenji Kohan (now the creator of Orange is the New Black) was trying to outdo herself in each season with the wacky, borderline but not quite shark jumping predicaments the Botwins get into (Nancy marrying a Mexican drug kingpin, the Botwins going on the run being two big examples that stand out in my mind.)
Overall it is funny, and there are some interesting cliffhangers and plot twists. Not to repeat myself, but IMO, the suburbia seasons were the best and then it gets a little goofy from thereon.
I credit this series with giving us more of Mary Louise Parker. Though she’d been an actress for years (she had a role in 2002’s Red Dragon that springs to mind) this was the show that really put her over the top and now I get to see her in more stuff.
“Dayman! Uh ahh ahh! Fighter of the Nightman! Uh ahh ahh! Champion of the Sun! You’re a master of karate and friendship for everyone…Dayman!”
I can’t believe this show has been on the air for ten going on eleven damn years.
BQB here with a review of FX’s long running comedy series, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
I can’t quite put my finger on the exact date but at some point in the early to mid 2000s, the traditional sitcom format died.
Don’t get me wrong. Surf the channels enough and you can still find that sappy “the dad is so dumb and the kids are so smart and mom’s the best” show somewhere, but by and large, people started gravitating towards non-traditional sitcoms.
Always Sunny does involve a situation – four friends and their elderly friend/step-father (depending on the character) own and operate a dive bar in Philadelphia.
In their spare time, which they have oodles of because they avoid hard work and contributing to society at all costs, they undertake a series of schemes, scams, and cons in a never ending quest to get rich overnight without having to do anything for it.
Situation? Check. Comedy? Check. Traditional? No.
Our characters are:
Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) – the bar’s janitor and rat killer, naive dummy, epically disgusting dumpster diver, eternally obsessed with a woman we are only introduced to as “the waitress.”
Ronald “Mac” McDonald (Rob McElhenney) – Obsessed with 1980s action films, physical fitness and martial arts. Always wears sleeveless shirts to show off his guns. He’s not really that cut but believes himself to be. Constantly checking out other men’s physiques, claiming purely as an appreciator of muscles but the running joke is he is clearly gay and overcompensates to avoid admitting it.
Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) – Narcissistic sociopath. Obsessed with himself, literally no lie he isn’t willing to tell or bad act he isn’t willing to carry out to get himself ahead or to get into a woman’s pants. Inventor of the D.E.N.N.I.S. system to pick up chicks.
Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds – Dennis’ twin sister. Good looking woman but suffers low self esteem due to constantly being called a “bird” but her brother and dumb friends. Dreams of becoming an actress. Has no talent and sadly, unable to recognize this fact.
Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito) – Dennis and Dee’s step-father. Has amassed great wealth due to a variety of illegal activity over the years. Could live in style but prefers to slum it as Charlie’s roommate. Big time scumbag who teaches the youngsters how to be scumbags.
I’ve watched this show since the beginning and wow has the time flew.
I’ll say this – there are times where I have laughed hysterically, times when I thought it was pretty creative and yes, even a few times where I thought, “well, they might being going a tad too far there.”
How they have remained friends so long, I don’t know. Its nothing but a sea of them calling each other names, backstabbing and trash talking one another and so on.
Every week, they try a new scheme or get themselves into a bind.
Here are some of the most memorable off the top of my head, in no particular order:
Dayman/Nightman Song aka “The Nightman Cometh” – Charlie writes a musical and is too stupid to realize that it is filled with sexually explicit innuendo.
Kitten Mittens – Just how it sounds. Charlie puts mittens on kittens.
“World Series Defense” – the gang explains to a judge a terrible ordeal they had while trying to attend the World Series. Charlie dawns his “green man costume” and a generation of drunk frat boys running around in face-less green suits is born.
“Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare” – and to convince the welfare office they’re destitute and hopeless, they acquire and smoke crack….and become hooked. You wouldn’t think crack is a funny subject but darned if they didn’t find a way.
“Who Pooped the Bed?” – a poop is found in a bad. The gang, in classic whodunnit mystery style, becomes determined to solve the crime.
“Storm of the Century” – a massive storm heads Philly’s way. Dennis becomes obsessed a well endowed TV weather girl, so much so much so that whenever he spots her ample bosom, he hears the lyrics to the 1980s hit song “Alone” by Heart. He spots the boobs, he hears and apparently thinks, “Till know…I always got by own my own…” Priceless.
I don’t know. I could go on forever with my favorite episodes. If I do, I’ll ruin them. You should just go on Netflix and watch them.
Above all else, what I love about this show is that it was created by a group of friends who were trying to make a go of it in Hollywood and after struggling for years, got together, made their show, sold it to FX and were even able to get a well-known star like Danny DeVito to not only sign on in the second season but to be willing to completely debase himself over and over again for a decade.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, 3.5 readers. If things aren’t working out, take a page from the Always Sunny crew and make things happen (but uh, try to not be so alcoholic…or gross…or engage in any of their 9 million bad habits.)
“All of this has happened before and will happen again.”
Umm…except no matter what, my site will only have 3.5 readers before and again.
Seriously, it’s like shouting into the deepest reaches of space here!
I just hope if a Cylon gets me its the Tricia Helfer model. Awooga!
BQB here with a review of Battlestar Galactica.
Just so that we’re all on the same page here, I’m talking about BSG that aired on the SyFy channel in the 2000s, not the 1970s original where the actors wore capes and the cylons looked like tin cans and shit.
This show was a real coup for sci-fi nerds. After all, it isn’t like anyone was really clamoring for a remake of the cheesy 70s version, but series rebooter Ronald Moore delivered and delivered big time.
Twelve colonies, all named after the astrological signs, are filled with humans who work together under one government.
Alas, the cylons (robots run amuck) blow shit up big time.
In a surprise turn of events, Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) becomes the president as every other head of state above her dies.
Thereafter, Admiral William Adama (Edward James Olmos), at the command of Battlestar Galactica, leads a convoy of ships filled with humans on an epic search for the mythical lost planet known as “Earth.”
You might have heard of it. You’re sitting on it, dummy.
Along the way, there’s political intrigue, backstabbing, sex, violence, and the constant fear that someone in the ranks might in secret, be a damn traitorous cylon as, what a twist, Cylons are able to take human form now.
Did I mention that the Cylons chase the humans all over space? Cy-douches if you ask me.
Over the years, SyFy has given us such wondrous films as Sharknado and Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf.
In other words, you sort of get the impression that they phone most of their shit in, but somehow, everyone involved with this show was firing on all cylinders. Why they haven’t been able to recreate this success before or after is beyond me.
Add to the mix the exploits of space fighter pilots Lee “Apollo” Adama aka the admiral’s son (Jamie Bamber) and super hot nerd fantasy girl Katee Sackhoff as Kara “Starbuck” Thrace and you’ve got a great show.
Honestly, the show could have introduce Katee Sackhoff to the world and stopped there. She’s built a career on starring in sci-fi nerd movies/shows ever since and I hope she never stops.
Oh, and there’s James Callis as the duplicitous scheming super weenie Dr. Gaius Baltar who, we learn early on, basically helped the Cylons destroy humanity through his douchebaggery and then somehow he must hide this info from his human compatriots throughout the series or be thrown out the airlock.
Yup. Somebody was always getting thrown out that airlock, often at the behest of grumpy Cylon hater Colonel Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan.)
I hate to say it, 3.5 readers, but this isn’t available on Netflix at present.
However, you can check it out on Hulu and if you’re a sci-fi space geek, it is worth the subscription fee, even if you just decide to subscribe until you’ve binge watched the whole thing.
And it is binge worthy. There are many cliff hangers and ongoing arcs, plot points you can’t help but want to see resolved.
And Moore and co. are creative in taking pieces of our earthly world and implanting them in the BSG world with the suggestion that the culture we experience now has its roots in this ancient space faring group of explorers.
“Being a spy means having to do things you don’t want to do…like sitting through another one of BQB’s television reviews…”
Burnt spy + hot Irish babe/demolitions expert + hard drinking, wise cracking buddy + spy’s mom = a funny action series you should have paid more attention to when it was on the air.
But that’s ok. You can still catch it on Netflix.
BQB here with a review of Burn Notice.
The show begins with government super spy Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) being “burned.”
As he explains during the show’s title sequence, his agency, without explaining why, disavows him, writes him off, leaves him without any money or references and seeing as how Mike doesn’t have any job experience he can publicly admit, little in the way of skills he can use to make a legit living.
Thus, Mike moves back home to Florida to be closer to his elderly mother, Madeline (Sharon Gless of Cagney and Lacey fame.)
Mike forms a crew with:
His girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar), a demolitions expert who, often to hilarious effect, wants to blow up everything first and ask questions later.
Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), a fast talking degenerate/con artist/former Navy seal.
I love this show because to me, it felt like a modern day A-Team. Just as the A-Team used their soldier skills to help people in need, Mike, Fiona and Sam form their own team and use their skills to help various residents of Florida save themselves from all manner of criminals and reprobates.
Now, keep in mind the show aired on USA, and not to cast aspersions, but USA is most likely your grandma’s favorite channel.
Ergo, USA shows tend to be simple (though I hear that might be changing with Mr. Robot as of late.)
Thus, the Burn Notice formula:
Beginning and end of the episode is about Mike’s ongoing quest to figure out who burned him and why he was burned.
In the middle, Mike, Sam or Fiona meet someone, often a nice civilian who has run afoul of some criminal.
Mike and the gang use their skills to help the person in need. Mike uses his spy skills. Fiona blows shit up. Sam uses his well worn alias “Chuck Finley” to sweet talk someone into giving up some information.
In fact, the trio often dust off their acting skills, using terrible accents and poorly crafted back stories to worm their way into the confidence of various criminal organizations before making their move. If you suspend disbelief, its fun.
On top of all that, the Florida scenery is beautiful.
Mike even recruits his mom to help from time to time and there are a number of series regulars who come in and out. Towards the end of the series, Coby Bell joins the group as Jesse Porter, a spy who, ironically, Michael burns.
I loved this show. I looked forward to it when it was on every week as an escape. And it was one of few shows I was able to start when it was already on the air for a couple of years and understand what was going on before I eventually went back and watched the episodes I missed.
Somehow, the writers were able to balance the need for USA viewers to be able to understand what is happening if they just happen to start watching an episode at random with the audience’s desire to have interesting, compelling story lines.
I ended up caring about all of these characters and moreover, from start to finish, the writers make it clear that they care about you, the viewer.
Michael narrates each episode and explains his gadgets, strategies, plans, etc., usually with “Being a spy means…”
As Michael explains what he is up to, sometimes it is fun to watch to see if he can actually pull it off.
And everyone needs a girlfriend like Fiona and a buddy like Sam.
IMO, Donovan and Anwar are both underutilized by Hollywood and deserve more movie roles.
Bruce Campbell is a laugh riot and this role breathed much deserved life into his career.
Check it out, 3.5 readers.
Don’t forget to grab a yogurt. Mike loves his yogurt.
I have no idea how this show was ever made or how it has lasted as long as it has.
Mind you, that’s not because it is bad, but because it defies any kind of usual TV show parameters, rules, guidelines or what have you and is therefore laugh out loud funny.
BQB here with a review of FX’s Archer, which has just wrapped up its seventh season with no end in sight.
In this adult cartoon (or should I say cartoon for adults?) H. Jon Benjamin voices Sterling Archer who is essentially a walking personification of the word “douche.” He is a world class spy so he has the skills and looks to back up his cocky demeanor, but he generally treats everyone like crap and gets away with it because his mother, Malory (Jessica Walter) owns the independent contractor spy agency (originally dubbed the International Secret Intelligence Service or I.S.I.S which obviously, due to current events, had to be changed a couple years ago.)
FYI Jessica Walter played Charlie Sheen’s snooty rich mother on Two and a Half Men as well as the snooty rich mother on Arrested Development and therefore she has a lock on all snooty rich mother roles in the comedy world. She deserves it as she knocks the snooty rich mother role out of the park.
Archer has an on again/off again romance with fellow agent Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler) who suffers the burden of being the only responsible adult in a crew full of dummies.
Those dummies include:
Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer) – the agency’s insane, oddball fetish having secretary.C
Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell) – Total nerd who serves as the agency’s comptroller/bean counter who also has the hots for Lana.
Pam Poovey (Amber Nash) – Chubby potty mouthed HR rep with impulse control problems, known for her pearls and occasional dolphin hand puppet.
Doctor Krieger (Lucky Yates) – Mad scientist. Clone of Adolf Hitler though looks nothing like Hitler. In love with an anime hologram.
Ray Gillette (Adam Reed, who is the creator of the series) – Openly gay pilot/agent. In fairness, Ray has it more together than the rest of the crew, though their incompetence regularly causes him to lose a limb or a body part as a running gag.
Speaking of running gags, the show is full of them. “Phrasing” is the best one that comes to mind. Say something that sounds remotely dirty and Archer will hit you with “phrasing” as in “you could have phrased that better.”
Archer loves 1970s action movies and is a devotee of Burt Reynolds. Burt and many other stars have made cameos as either themselves or other characters. Being cartoonized as an Archer character has sort of become a sign than an actor/actress has made it in Hollywood (or at the very least, they have a good sense of humor.)
Animation has definitely allowed the show runners to get away with things that would never fly in live action. Somehow drawings of butts make it to TV but real butts are a no no. Oh well. I’m not a prude or anything I’m just wondering how the censors make this distinction.
Six seasons are available on Netflix. They’re short, roughly twenty minutes long, so a good show to check out if you need a quick distraction.
Dun dun…dun dun…dun dun….dun dun…cartoon silhouette of a man falling out of a window combined with violin music.
Hard drinking, chain smoking 1960s advertising men and Christina Hendricks’s jumbotrons = a compelling historical drama.
BQB here with a review of Mad Men.
3.5 readers, I like to consider myself an educated person. I read books and shit after all.
But few shows brought to life for me the women’s rights struggles as this show did.
Ironically, that’s not what the show is about but it is what I’ll probably always remember it for.
The set-up – Don Draper (Jon Hamm) lives the life of a free wheeling, perpetually fornicating Madison Avenue advertising executive (aka he is a “Mad Man.”)
Because its the 1960s, he’s pretty much free to boink any babe he wants and just tell his wife he had to stay late at work if she asks any questions.
In fact, his comrades at the firm pretty much do the same thing. His boss, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and his underling Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) rival Don in their hard drinking, smoking, and extramarital affairs.
We often look to the past as simpler, more innocent times yet this show does put on display things that were commonplace in the past that would turn a head today, the most glaring example that everyone at the firm has their own fully stocked bar in their office and walking around the office with a cocktail in one hand and a smoke in the other happened all the time.
Good luck trying that today.
The formula is pretty standard:
Don cheats on his wife because he was once a poor bum who never thought he’d amount to anything and now that he is on top and the world is his oyster he feels this driving need to drink, smoke and boink as much as possible before his life is over.
Extramarital boinking is fun for five minutes but then he realizes family is the real deal, that one night stands will never bring him the long lasting happiness that being a family man will.
Don decides to straighten up only to start boinking again. In his defense, women just throw themselves at him so it is hard to avoid the boinking. It is easy for me to say that I’m not an evil boinker since no one is offering to boink me.
Don’s colleagues at the firm all experience the “be faithful to your spouse vs. boink while you can” conundrum.
Along the way, we learn a lot about the history of commercial advertising, how some of the advertising campaigns that fool us into buying crap we don’t need got started and continue today.
There are times when the show seems tedious, like it is going nowhere. I get the main premise, i.e. love the one that’s loyal to you because the side action will never be as loyal.
If I didn’t bear a striking resemblance to a gargoyle, I would take this to heart and tell the side action to take a hike. Alas, I am too hideous to attract side action.
But maybe I’m the lucky one. Maybe Don would have been better off if he weren’t so damn handsome and having so many women throwing themselves at him, demanding that he be unfaithful.
I mentioned the women’s rights movement earlier. So, what I noticed is that Betty (January Jones) who is super hot and frankly, would be enough for me (I’d be racing home from the office to get all up in that) basically has to put up with Don’s bullshit.
She’s a housewife. No money. No career. No job prospects. If you’re a 1960s housewife and your husband cheats on you, your choices are a) put up with it and lose your dignity or b) leave and be poor because the best job you’ll be able to find is waitressing if you’re lucky and also you’ll lose the kids because your husband has the money to hire a lawyer and you don’t.
So thanks a lot, Don, you big time douche. Dudes like you who had no idea how good you had it created a world where women had to take charge and alas, I don’t have January Jones waiting for me when I come home now.
Aside from the man drama, you also have Joan (Hendricks) and her enormous sweater cannons, which are basically characters in and of themselves and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) paving the way for women in business, showing what working women had to go through.
Throughout the series, we see Peggy go from mousey secretary to female Don Draper while Joan must navigate her way through a sea of perverts who want access to her sweater cannons on her quest to be taken seriously as a businesswoman.
All seven seasons available on Netflix. Set your TV to widescreen mode so you can take in Joan’s chest rockets in their entirety.
Seriously, its like watching a movie when you the theater is packed and you have to sit in that damn row that’s right up against the screen. You have to look to the left to see the left boob then crane your neck to the right just to see the right boob.
Bookshelf Battle 