Good lord but there were a lot of TV shows produced this year. Somewhere 500 to 600 scripted shows hit broadcast TV and streaming, and while the initial reaction is exultation at so much choice, it’s quickly tempered by the factor that (a) a good deal of those shows are Continue Reading
TV
Not a protagonist was stirring, not even an anthropomorphic mouse … Merry Christmas to all and to all a good pop culture night!
It’s been a crazy, busy, pandemic-y year once again but even amongst all the stress and strain and plague, my hope, as it is every year, is that this Christmas … You will not find snowy monsters with big teeth pursuing you … but if you do, you’ll have good Continue Reading
On 12th day of Christmas … I watched The Claus Family 2
As the years progress, writers are becoming ever more creative about who Santa is, what he does and yes, importantly how he does it, and what happens when he decides that he’s had enough of the toy giving game and it’s time to hand over to someone younger, more agile Continue Reading
From the imagination of Tim Burton … Thoughts on Wednesday
The Addams Family has been around a long, long time. Created by American cartoonist Charles Addams as “a satirical inversion of the American family”, the single panel New Yorker cartoons featuring the creepy and the kooky horror-full delights have remained a mainstay of social commentary throughout their long fictitiously and Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I watched A Flintstone Christmas
Santa is in peril again! For someone who can go around the world distributing presents to all the girls and boys in a single magical night, with all of the logistical mastery, tenacity and physical endurance that implies, Santa Claus sure has a way of coming a cropper at the Continue Reading
On 8th day of Christmas … I nostalgically watched retro treasure Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
Have you ever wondered how it is that Santa, who is a tad on the portly side, manages to get down all those teeny-tiny chimneys? There’s a good chance, particularly in your younger years, that you have mused on the physics of present delivering on Christmas Eve, and if so, Continue Reading
Just not festively into it anymore … Thoughts on TV series Over Christmas (ÜberWeihnachten)
In theory, if you believe all the songs and movies and books and lore draped in fire-lit scenes and flickeringly colourful lights, Christmas is supposed to be nothing but idyllic fun, a warm glow of stepped-from-the-everyday contented happiness that follows you from eggnog-sipping to present opening, from carolling out in Continue Reading
On 3rd day of Christmas … I watched retro special It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown
Christmas isn’t Christmas without the gang from Charles M. Schulz’s much-loved comic strip, Peanuts, making a very welcome appearance. While most people will generally play the 1965 classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas – and for good reason; it’s a sublime piece of festive joy – it’s 1992 successor, It’s Christmastime Continue Reading
Breaking fourth walls with glee: Thoughts on She-Hulk – Attorney at Law review (ep. 5-9)
Aiming to be meta and actually delivering on it in a way that doesn’t feel twee or force is a magical balancing act that few TV series pull off convincingly well. Breaking fourth walls and addressing the audience or melding the fictional with the semi-factual doesn’t always work, with narrative Continue Reading
Small acts lead to a seismic change on Andor (S1, E10-12 review)
——————– SPOILERS AHEAD ——————– Rebellions, and the revolutions they often, though not always, give rise to, are often big disruptive things. Intrinsically a militantly passionate act of opposition to oppressive or authoritarian government, they often involve big epic moments such people deciding en masse that enough is enough, mass acts Continue Reading