Coming Attractions: Fall 2013 Television

New shows are in bold.  Each show is followed by when it starts and what channel, roughly what I know about it, and my expectations for it

• Sundays
• The Amazing Race
• Starts September 29th on CBS
• One of my two favorite reality competitions where teams race around the world trying to complete various challenges and reach their destination before the other teams
• Hopefully there won't be super annoying drama teams this year or if there are they get knocked out early (kind of a general hope for all reality competition shows)
• Once Upon A Time
• Starts September 29th on ABC
• Every fairy tale you've ever heard is true, just in another dimension and this is a story about those dimensions and characters colliding with our own
• I'm hoping there are more character reveals where the audience gets to try to figure them out during the episode
• Mondays
• Sleepy Hollow
• Starts September 16th on FOX
• Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman are in modern times
• I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but this will get the normal three episode judgement of a new show, looks like it could be entertaining
• How I Met Your Mother
• Starts September 23rd on CBS
• Final season where Ted will finally meet the mother
• There better not be any nonsense about Robin and Ted getting back together, that should've stopped after season 2 and yet it keeps reoccuring
• Tuesdays
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine
• Starts September 17th on FOX
• Not sure the premise is, looks like a funny show about cops
• The trailers for this were pretty funny, hopefully the trailers didn't show all the jokes
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Starts September 24th on ABC
• Joss Whedon.  Marvel.  Superheroes.
• Joss Whedon.  Marvel.  Superheroes.
• New Girl 
• Starts September 17th on FOX
• Zooey Deschanel being awkward and funny and a bunch of guys being funny
• Honestly, I was starting to lose interest in this show near the end of last season, so I hope it gets me hooked again somehow
• Wednesdays
• The Tomorrow People
• Starts October 9th on CW
• Superheroes.
• Superheroes.
• Survivor
• Starts September 18th on CBS
• My other favorite reality competition because the people design the actual game aspects (both the overall game and the challenges) are really good and I love to see what they add/change next
• Again, hoping there isn't a super drama contestant or if there is, they should at least be entertaining drama like Coach "The Dragon Slayer" Wade
• Arrow
• Starts October 9th on CW
• Modern day, mostly realistic Green Lantern TV show
• I was amazed by how much I like this show last year and hope they just continue being awesome!
• Thursdays
• The Crazy Ones
• Starts September 26th on CBS
• Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar in a comedy about something or other
• Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar are enough to sell me on just about anything
• Once Upon A Time in Wonderland
• Starts October 10th on ABC
• Once Upon A Time spin-off focused on the Wonderland dimension and Alice in the modern world
• I'm honestly not expecting to like this one as much as the original for a number of reasons, but I'm hoping to be wrong
• The Big Bang Theory
• Starts September 26th on CBS
• Seven characters getting more and more caricatured as their roles as nerds doing random stuff that is usually funny
• I'm constantly going back and forth about how I feel about this show.  Some weeks it's hilarious.  Other weeks they take something geeky and portray it as inaccurately as possible in order to get cheap laughs and I get mad.  Other weeks Leonard is just completely incompetent at even the most basic common sense thing when it comes to interacting with Penny and it makes no sense.

TV Shows I Grew Up On: Freakazoid

Super teen extraordinaire, Freakazoid, Freakazoid.  Runs around in underwear, Freakazoid, Freakazoid.  This was by far the most bizarre, but most hilarious superhero cartoon I watched while growing up.  Dexter Douglas was a mild-mannered (and stereotypical) computer nerd who had the (mis)fortune of buying a new model of computer that when a specific set of keys was pressed followed by Delete would send the user hurtling into cyberspace and give them the powers of the Internet.  His cat enters walks across the keyboard pressing all the right keys in order and naturally, Dexter tries to delete it and becomes the Freakazoid whenever he yells the words, "Aw, Freak Out!"  The Freakazoid is insane, slightly childish, and seems to have the powers of Looney Tunes cartoons (i.e. he can do whatever he feels like when the plot calls for it).

His villains include the likes of Arms Akimbo - a mafia thug whose arms got stuck akimbo, so he can't pick stuff up and he tends to flap his elbows a lot, Candle Jack - a kind of ghost-like villain who will kidnap anyone who says his name (which of course Freakazoid does even after knowing that because comedy demands it), The Lobe - a guy with a giant brain for a head, who at one point tried to turn everyone in the worlds to clowns, and many more equally ridiculous villains.  Sometimes they'll have short mini-adventures for other heroes like Lord Bravery (whose exploits involve fighting a bakery for the trademark to his name), The Huntsman (essentially a Charlton Heston Robin Hood), etc.  They also have hilarious songs every once in awhile like Bonjour Lobey (parody of Hello, Dolly!), educational bits like learning to say who cut the cheese in French, and Relax-o-Vision (basically just clips of fish swimming in an aquarium while relaxing music plays).  Freakazoid is a very silly and childish show that I still very much love.  It's basically the 90's version of Looney Tunes (even more so than Tiny Toons) and paired well with Animaniacs, which aired around the same time.

Cartoons I Grew Up On: Superman The Animated Series

I'm not sure if I've said this before, but I didn't read many comics growing up.  The vast majority of my comic book knowledge comes from the cartoons in the 90's that I watched.  Most of these seem to be accurate enough portrayals of what happened in the comics that I can keep up with my comic geek friends fairly well.  One of those cartoons in a series of excellent cartoons was Superman The Animated Series.

This series was made by the same people who created the absolutely amazing Batman The Animated Series.  Unfortunately, the art style changed to be even less realistic (women with no waist, men with giant shoulders, etc.) than the Batman series first three seasons.  But they still tried to make Superman and his abilities more realistic.  The show also made other characters important and capable besides Superman.  This show is why I have such a respect for Dr. Hamilton from S.T.A.R. Labs.  This show and the aforementioned Batman cartoon built the basis for a world where the Justice League made sense (which is another amazing show, by the way).  This show is also the first time I've seen the most creative and artistic Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner.

I think it's really due to these three series of cartoons that I even care a little about DC characters.  They managed to give the characters a lot more depth than they had (in my mind) before that and had some very interesting plot twists here and there (more so in the Justice League series than the other two).  But my absolutely favorite moment of the series is when Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent meet.  Not because of any fanboy gushing or anything, but solely because for some reason the artists always drew Bruce Wayne's eyes as irises with no pupils and Clark Kent's eyes as pupils with no irises.  I don't know why that cracks me up so much, but it does.

Review: Man of Steel

This movie has me all sorts of conflicted and confused about what I really want out of a movie.  Nearly every opinion I formed than got contradicted later on in the movie.  For example, the movie starts with a very long sequence on Krypton explaining its end of days.  I both loved this sequence for showing so much bizarre alien-Krypton stuff (some Kryptonian creatures, some tech, some weapons and armor, etc.) and hated it because it was so long and I've seen Superman's origin so many times.  However, a friend of mine who I went with isn't as into comics as I am and really appreciated the rehashing of the origin story.  So I can just suck that up and move on.  The two things that I find a hard time moving on with are the odd camera quick-zooms and Superman's supposed care for human life that doesn't really manifest until it's convenient to the plot.

I'm not sure which modern day film technique I hate the most: unnecessary slow-motion (i.e. bullet time), purposefully shaky camera work when the action isn't being filmed by a character in the film, or these really bizarre quick zooms to something in the distance.  It doesn't really matter, though, because they're all super distracting and don't add a thing to the film.  This movie was the first instance I can recall so far that has done a double zoom both in and out in succession.  So a spaceship is off in the distance.  Start from a super wide useless shot, zoom to a normal medium shot of the spaceship, zoom again to a random section of the spaceship that I guess is important, but I can't tell because you zoomed WAY too much, zoom back out to the good shot, now zoom back to the original shot.  This happened multiple times in the movie.  Overall it made all the action very hard to track.  It definitely had a Hunger Games feel to it where I know there's action going on the screen, but heck if I can tell who is what or where and who just got punched or shot or thrown through a building...is Superman winning?  We won't know until they stop punching each other so they can get up and look menacing at each other for a second or two.  (More on this later).

They did a really good job of actually making Superman's big conflict (am I a man or a Kryptonian?) a big deal, through the flashbacks of his childhood growing up in Kansas.  Despite humanity's shortcomings, Superman decides to side with us.  However, this decision doesn't seem to come out during any of the fight scenes.  Not once does he try to pull the fight AWAY from people.  Instead, he keeps throwing bad guys into populated areas he hasn't destroyed yet.  He can't even keep the fight into one contained area.  So does he really care about humanity at all?  The only time it seems to matter is when the plot dictates he needs to watch people in trouble.  So does he just not like seeing people getting hurt, but once it's out of sight, it's out of mind?

Other random thoughts:

• One of the other conflicts with my opinion I had was the first half of the movie I was wondering if there was going to be any action in the movie.  The second half of the movie, I wondered when the action sequence was going to end.  I guess that's what's called pacing?
• Superman started the movie with a full beard, then went to a scruffy face, then clean shaven.  I really wish he would have kept one of the first two.  I'd totally root for Super Beard way more than Super Man.
• I think secretly this movie is a live action Dragonball Z movie, but they couldn't call it that because they wanted people to see it.  You've got two aliens from another planet that ultimately they are meant to bring their species to.  One alien is a trained warrior who knows his destiny is to conquer, let's call him Vegeta.  The other alien grew up on this planet with no knowledge of where he came from and so only knows that he's different from everyone else, but he likes the planet and people he's with, I think we can call him Goku.  There's lots of fighting in the air, lots of quick dashes to fight from one spot to the next, and apparently these aliens can just will themselves to fly.  I'm pretty sure I saw Superman even go Kaioken x10 at least once...

Review: Batman: The Brave and the Bold

You know how last August I said I wanted superhero shows that were okay being campy?  Well, it may not be a live action show, but I definitely got my wish with Batman: The Brave and the Bold.  This show seems to not only celebrate all things Batman - from the list of villains, to superheroes, to references to previous Batman iterations - but have fun doing it.  It's definitely a campy cartoon more in the style of the Adam West Batman series than Batman The Animated Series.  It's not quite as campy as Adam West, which is made obvious when there's an entire episode made in that style with the vertical wall climbing, the Holy ___, Batman! lines, and the giant POW!, BIFF!, and BOP! bubbles appearing when people hit each other.

The general formula of the show seems to be this: start with Batman teaming up with one superhero against some villain near the end of a fight/crime, show them being awesome and quippy, then capture the villain and play the show's theme song.  Then start a whole new crime to solve with a completely different villain and superhero team up that has nothing to do with that first one.  I like this format because you get to see even more of the ridiculous villains and superheroes of the DC universe, like Crazy Quilt (a guy who REALLY likes colors I guess?), Ace the Bat-Hound (exactly what it sounds like), and Detective Chimp (essentially a Sherlock Holmes in Chimp form).  Since the show switches characters so frequently, you don't really get any back story on anyone, it kind of just assumes you'll know about them or can look stuff up on your own.  At least that's my impression.  I do believe every one of these characters comes from either Batman's roster or one of the other superhero's rosters based on some of Green Lantern and Iron Man's earliest villains, so it really makes me want to go back and see where these ridiculous ideas came from.

The cast of the show is pretty phenomenal.  Wil Wheaton makes an appearance, Michael Dorn, Kevin Conroy (in one of the most amazing reversal episodes ever), Adam West, Paul Reubens, Will Friedle, John DiMaggio, Neil Patrick Harris (of course starring in a musical episode), and a whole bunch of other people I'm sure I recognize, but don't know their names.  I don't know how good this show would be if you don't get any of the references to things, though.  Like if you don't recognize the Batman: The Animated Series intro, then when they spoof it in one episode, you're not going to understand how totally awesome and clever they are.  If you don't recognize that show's Batman, Lex Luthor, or Lois Lane, then Kevin Conroy's episode won't be nearly as entertaining.  But if you are someone who grew up on and adored that show and all DC cartoons in that era, then this show is an amazing homage to that, with plenty of entertainment on its own to offer.  It is definitely a kid's cartoon, though, so if you're looking for something serious or with any continuity past two episodes, this is not the show for you.

Review: The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

Never before had Netflix suggested I would give a show 5 stars before The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.  I had seen suggested 4 and a bit stars, but never a full 5 stars.  So I decided to test Netflix and see what the big deal was.  A few days later I finished both seasons of this cartoon.

From the sound of it, there isn't anything new about this cartoon.  It revolves around a union of some of Earth's mightiest superheroes - starting with Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Wasp, and Ant/Giant Man and eventually adding Captain America, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Vision, as well as having many heroes in reserve.  These heroes fight bigger and badder super villains as the show progresses.  I think one of the things that really hooked me, though, is that very rarely would one episode be separate from others.  There was a wonderful feeling of continuity here.  There is always some bigger evil plan being worked upon in the background of each episode until it comes to a head and the heroes need to deal with it.

One of the reasons I knew this show was really good is that normally I will be doing something else while watching TV (unless the show is subtitled like Naruto) and the TV will be the lower priority task.  However, I constantly found myself just closing the lid of my computer or putting down the game system to just sit and watch this show.  Granted, I am a huge superhero nerd, but still, there is definitely something magical about this show.  It's got plenty of action, plenty of intrigue, and plenty of interpersonal drama.  And just like the movie based on The Avengers, it managed to make me really like The Hulk, which I always find an impressive feat.  So Netflix, good call on the 5 stars!

Superhero TV shows

Since it seems like Hollywood has figured out how to make quality comic book movies, I think it's about time some TV exec gets on the trend and makes some quality television series.  Looking back over the last 50 years at superhero TV series, there is a surprisingly small amount of them.  The 60s gave us campy (but awesome) Batman, 70s gave us Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk, 90s gave us The Flash, Swamp Thing, and Lois & Clark, 2001 brought us The Tick, Mutant X, and Smallville, 2002 gave us Birds of Prey, and 2011 gave us an attempt at a new superhero, The Cape (which I would highly recommend and am sad it only saw one season).

I think part of the problem is that media seems to have decided people don't want over-the-top ridiculous and/or campy anymore.  Everything needs to be super real and gritty and to me, superheroes just don't work in that world.  Being over-the-top and embracing how ridiculous most superheroes are what make movies like The Phantom, Darkman, and dare I say it, Green Lantern incredibly entertaining (to me at least).  Superheroes are all about being more than human, being more fantastic than reality.  Although, I haven't seen Mutant X or Birds of Prey, every other series on that list did a great job of embracing the ridiculous and taking the audience on an adventure.

After making the list, it did seem strange to me that these shows seem to come in waves.  1966, 1975, 1977,  1990, 1990, 1993, 2001, 2001, 2001, 2002, and 2011.  This means if the trend continues, we will get another superhero show next year and then we won't get any until the early 2020's.  I'm not sure why there seems to be a roughly 10 year gap between these waves.  Maybe a new decade gives executives hopes in a clean slate on previous attempts at things?

Thanks to IHC's Ultimate Live-Action Comic Book Movie and TV Database for helping me verify my list.