Electric Shadow

ATX Festival

I've been completely absent today, swallowed whole by the first day of the ATX Television Festival here in Austin. Selected bits gleaned from the panels I attended today:

Writer/producer Michael Jacobs talked about the super-grim ending of ABC's Dinosaurs , corporate meddling with good ideas, and the reason behind the heart he puts into his shows.

Dan Harmon believes Socialism is the key to the future of TV, and that Heat Vision and Jack  should eventually become a movie.

Rob Schrab never gets asked about SCUD: The Disposable Assassin as much as he would like. 

I'm interviewing the team of Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab tomorrow, as well as (time-permitting) Scott Aukerman, Ben Blacker, and my buddy Kevin Biegel.

Daily Grab 114: It's Been a Long Road

I didn't watch Star Trek: Enterprise when it was on the air. I was in college, and there was no regular local Paramount/UPN/whatever affiliate. I caught an episode here and there, usually in really dingy SD. The new Blu-ray set is a great way to experience it for the first time, especially so thanks to the lengthy and candid discussion between Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

The theme song is still pretty wretched.

Review forthcoming.

Snoopy in the 70's Part 2

 

 

I'm a big, big Peanuts fan. The only dogs I've ever owned personally are Beagles (though never being so trite as to name one Snoopy). I am the target market for anything Snoopy & Peanuts-related. The only title in this set that's new to DVD is What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown. Completely new to me otherwise is It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown, which sounds hilarious. It includes featurette You're Groovy, Charlie Brown: A Look at Peanuts in the 70's and overall continues the nice series of reduced-price Peanuts special series. It hit the street last Tuesday and Amazon's got it for $21.49. Titles include the following:

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown
You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown
It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown
What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown
It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown
You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown

Viking vs. Samurai

SpikeTV has developed a series called Deadliest Warrior that's one part Mythbusters, one part History Channel. They've done this to determine the answer to the age-old question of "dude, who would win in a fight: a Taliban guy or an I.R.A. dude?". They engage fighting specialists (like a UFC fighter), ballistics, and physics "experts" to determine whether William Wallace could have taken Shaka Zulu, a Maori could take out a Shaolin Monk, or if, in fact, a Pirate could kill a Knight. The first season DVD includes a few extras (post-battle analyses, roundtables, and a wrap-up) in addition to the nine episodes across three discs. With all of the progress we've made as a species, thousands upon thousands of dollars are being spent on this.

WA: Strange New World


I'm tagging Warner Archive entries with that little "WA" you see from here on. This one is a 1975 TV movie based on ideas from Gene Roddenberry. Not only does the nature of the story make this obvious (scientists awaken from suspended animation to a post-apocalyptic Earth), but there's a 60's Star Trek sound effect in the opening 30 seconds of the movie. Strange New World plays like an episode of the Original Series that they simply deleted the Enterprise and crew from, specifically one of the ones where they go back in time. WA has it for $19.95.
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Brothers & Sisters: The Original Series

Before there was a paycheck job for Sally Field, Calista Flockhart, and Rob Lowe, Falcon Crest introduced the network TV audience to family winemaking business melodrama. The show starred Jane Wyman (the first Mrs. Ronald Reagan). Aside from her, the most notable member of the cast to readers of this column would be the one and only Lorenzo Lamas. The first season of Crest came out at the beginning of last month. Amazon's got it for $28.99.

Bullshit and BP

 

 

Among the various "did you know" docu-TV shows, the only one I really enjoy (much less tolerate) is Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, which exposes all sorts of interesting things on various subjects. The seventh season DVD got misplaced some weeks ago when we moved, but once I found it, it quickly went into the player. I would love to see these two guys tackle Offshore Drilling. The most recent season on disc covers everything from Lawns to Orgasms to Video Games. Since I ditched my cable, this is the kind of show that I selectively buy, partly due to enjoyment, and partly to vote with my money.

Dun-Dun-Dunham

I have a fierce, burning hatred for what Jeff Dunham's popularity represents. People vote their intolerance and prejudice with their dollars. The "dead terrorist" puppet promotes the idea that all Muslims are intent on murdering people and maintaining backward, perverse, and terrible traditions. Don't get me started on the encouragement of sexism. This came to mind in connection with the most recent disgusting thing to come out of Arizona. The first season of Comedy Central's The Jeff Dunham Show hit DVD the middle of last month, complete with deleted scenes, bloopers, and all that stuff.

 

 

Merlin Begins

NBC has recently started airing the BBC's Merlin, which tells the story of the mythic legend from the point he arrived in the kingdom of King-to-be Arthur's dad Uther Pendragon's kingdom. I'm not terribly fond of the semi-modern schoolyard bullies and nerds take, but it's better than US TV, which features barely any fantasy adventure content at all. The major standout among the cast is Anthony Head as Uther. The pace does pick up as the first season goes on, but it didn't pick up nearly as fast as the three-year-old Robin Hood show did, but such is the nature of what they're going for here.

The first season hit DVD in a five-disc set. The fifth disc contains all of the extras save the audio commentary, which is spread across the rest of the set. The two-part Behind the Magic (two half hours) is rather thorough. The video diaries and the 15-minute Black Knight episode featurette are nothing particularly special. Amazon's got it for $34.99.
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Reimprisoned

I was about as excited about the prospect of a miniseries remake of TV classic The Prisoner as I was about the currently-running V remake. That is to say, I was wholly uninterested. Then I realized AMC was behind it. They make better shows (Mad Men, for one) than they've programmed movies in ages. Then they announced the cast, including Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen, and I was intrigued.

I still managed to miss all of it until a copy of The Prisoner (2009) DVD arrived in the mail. It's rare that I put in the first disc of a TV set I've never watched and then proceed to plow through the whole thing, but I did here. There are Brits doing some rather dodgy American accents and some overly-theatrical acting, but overall, it works as its own thing and comes off as provocative and engaging as one could hope. The original is still definitey superior, but this iteration is like the trimmed-up, revised revival of a great play: it can't hope to live up to the original production, but it manages to do its own thing that's relevant to the here and now. It's not groundbreaking and life-changing as some have claimed its predecessor was, but it's a cut above the sea of crap that floods the digital subscriber box airwaves. Caviezel and McKellen are excellent, and the supporting cast is strong, especially Hayley Atwell as a mysterious woman who appears in Six's (Caviezel's) dreams. Just today, the news broke that Atwell will play Captain America's WWII-era love interest in the upcoming movie starring Chris Evans. Included along with the series on DVD are some extended and deleted sequences from each of the six episodes, the Comic-Con panel, an interview with Ian McKellan, and a pair of behind the scenes/making-of things. It's set to start airing on ITV in Britain, and the early reviews have been pretty terrible. The general thrust behind them, though, is that "compared to the classic, hallowed original, it pales" and so on. There's an utter lack of interest in evaluating it on its own terms, which is terribly lazy and unfair to all involved. We need more weird speculative fiction, and yes, remakes are not wholly without merit. Just look at John Carpenter's The Thing.
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Courtroom Shenanigans Revisited

As a kid, I loved few TV shows as much as Night Court. Maybe I liked The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents more overall, but Night Court was my sitcom of choice. Warner Bros. put the third season out a couple of weeks ago in a no-nonsense, 3-DVD set. There are no extras at all, but all I'm after are the episodes.

I already liked 30 Rock, but their Night Court subplot from last season makes me love the show more. I miss sitcoms that were this consistent.
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The Live-Action Alice

A stack of previous Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass adaptations hit DVD in advance of the Alice in Burtonland movie that's currently devouring money whole. Most notably absent from that flood was the Disney animated Alice (remastered and hitting DVD on 30 March). For me, the best of the bunch is the 1966 one the BBC did that costars Peter Sellers, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, and Peter Cook.

The main reason I like it is that it's more unapologetically weird and creepy than most filmed attempts at the story. You get the impression that Alice has gotten her hands on some LSD and had a really bad trip. Hell, the whole thing is probably more enjoyable while on acid. The Ravi Shankar score reinforces this theory. As odd as a recommendation this may seem at this point, it's worth watching for Cook as the Mad Hatter and Sellers as the King of Hearts.

A capture from the 1903 silent short adaptation.
The DVD includes a surprising amount of extras, from a director's commentary to Alice, a 70-minute 1965 biopic about the real person who inspired the character. The commentary track with Jonathan Miller hits on some really nice notes, like the fact that Hollywood thens to over-gloss the portrayal of dreams. He directly hates upon the Disney animated feature. A quick tangent to an anecdote about Lillian Hellman, and we're off to the races. Miller has four decades of ammo built up, and the track is just chock full of interesting nuggets. The acting style of the time is absolutely hilarious, and it's much more evident in Alice, the biopic, than the feature. The 9-minute or so 1903 silent film adaptation of the story is also included with commentary by a British Film Institute scholar. Rounding things out are a vintage featurette from 1966 about Ravi Shankar's scoring sessions and an on-set photo gallery.
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Interlocking Gears

I'm not a gearhead and never was, but there's a piece of me that wishes I'd had some time working on cars growing up. The most popular show about cars on the planet, Top Gear, makes this inclination grow exponentially when my wife and I flip channels and come across it.

The 11th and 12th Seasons of the show hit DVD a few weeks ago. Season 11 is just the episodes, but Season 12 includes some commentaries and longer cuts of select episodes. The commentary tracks aren't terribly illuminating, but if you're a slavish fan of the show, it's more of what you get in the show itself.
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Talent Untapped

The entire cast of Gary Unmarried is capable of more than they're given week in, week out on CBS. Watching it is no better than devouring fast food meals multiple times a day or week. If it only means that Jay Mohr and Ed Begley, Jr. get a solid paycheck and residuals, I'll occasionally order the double-processed, double-common, double cheese that is the show. I like Mohr as a comic

Jay Mohr and his little Yorkie
The best feature of the recently-released first season DVD is a featurette on Ed Begley's ultra-green house called Planet Begley. It plays like MTV Cribs: Green-ass Eco-friendly Edition. On top of that are a Blooper Reel, "day on the set" piece with Mohr, and a cast featurette. It's far from classic TV, but among the better of the deep-fried, same-old set of sitcoms.
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Married to the Service

While watching a documentary on Iraq War II widows, I didn't expect to find a friend from high school as one of the main characters. I've been as sympathetic as I think I can be to those I know who have friends or loved ones enlisted, but there's no way to honestly know how they feel. The Lifetime network show Army Wives has been on the air for three years now, and it comes off as a nighttime marriage soap that happens to include the backdrop of living in the armed services. The third season hit DVD a couple of weeks ago, and I asked for a copy to give it a test-run, but it just isn't for me. Give me the marital strife in The Hurt Locker and I'm good. The set includes bloopers, deleted scenes, webisodes, and a couple of featurettes.

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The Latest Remake of Emma

I'm waiting for The Last Remake of Emma to come along in the style of Gene Wilder's The Last Remake of Beau Geste. Maybe that could bring him out of retirement to play Emma's father. There's no chance in hell that would happen, but it's fun to imagine.

As far as I can tell, Jane Austen's Emma has been adapted to the screen six times including the most recent 2009 do-over that ran recently on PBS in the States. The progression goes something like this: 1948 BBC miniseries, BBC remake in 1960, another BBC remake in 1972, and then a 24-year gap until two more in 1996 (a fourth BBC mini w/ Kate Beckinsale and a movie w/ American carpetbagger Gwyneth Paltrow). One of my indulgences is BBC period miniseries, and I've seen more than anyone's fair share. There it is, I've outed myself. I enjoy watching people bristle at impropriety while wearing waistcoats and wigs. The 2009 BBC mini (available on DVD today, 9 Feb) works and delivers what one has come to expect from something in the "BBC wigs and frock coats" section of Barnes & Noble, but one thing did bother me. I'm sorry to say that my only real annoyance with this newest do-over is that Romola Garai plays Emma far too modern for my taste. She's supposed to be ahead of her time socially to some extent, but at some points while watching, I expected a score featuring Girls Aloud to kick in. No offense to Garai, but I'm glad Keira Knightley ended up getting Pride & Prejudice 2K5 (my title) instead of her. The image of Garai on the back cover illustrates my point.

I'm not alone in this critique, as plenty of friends on Twitter exclaimed a couple of weeks ago when eMMa2K9 (again, my title) premiered here. Like them, however, Garai didn't entirely put me off watching it. Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightly and Michael Gambon as Emma's father are interesting, excellent choices. The story is the story as it always has been. The 2-DVD set is in thick, sturdy "hardcover book"-style packaging also found on BBC/Warner's recent release of Cranford and Return to Cranford. Disc one houses the first two episodes of the four part series and the locations and costumes featurettes. Of the extras, my favorite is Emma's Mr. Woodhouse [13:19], a short retrospective of Gambon's career, in particular his projects with the BBC. Sitting in a chair from the set in full costume, he tells anecdotes from the last couple decades of his professional life. It's joined on disc two by a music featurette. Amazon is listing it for $21.99.
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Forgiving Glee

The soundtrack is saturated with the artificial echo of auto-tuning. The lead guy is obviously not a long-time, practiced singer. Jane Lynch hasn't yet sung a note in the first thirteen episodes. There are tons of instances of contrived reasons for a high school teacher to show off his singing and dancing. The same guy is unnaturally dense and gullible, as if he came to this planet from Pleasantville (pre-color). Despite it all, Glee charms even the most cynical of people.

The (first half of the) first season being on DVD is not, as has been alleged, a shameless grab at money by Fox. It's an extremely wise move to provide it in a form that doesn't involve watching it online, which does not suit the styles of all viewers (myself included). Generally the most rabid social media-engaged folks out there are the ones who cry for blood, assuming that anything other than their style of media ingestion must be some plot to bleed them dry. The extras include a pile of featurettes, most of which will primarily appeal to mega-fans of the show. My favorite got into the genesis of the show and the casting process for the unknowns. The show's hiatus is a great opportunity to power through these first episodes and jump on board, and I have a feeling that plenty of people will.
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