Have I mentioned how hard it is to write about the Netflix series GLOW?
The show about a women’s wrestling series in the mid–1980s has an
element that’s a show-within-a-show, where episodes of the
show-within-a-show GLOW are produced to “air” on LA cable TV. There’s also the fact that GLOW is based on the real-life Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling program that really did air all over the country in syndication in the mid to late 1980s.
So when writing about GLOW I’ve had to remember to differentiate the Netflix GLOW from the show-within-a-show GLOW while also keeping in mind that the modern GLOW was based on the 1980s Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
Things got even harder in this latest second season of GLOW on Netflix, which was brilliant by the way, when one of the episodes was
presented as a “real-life” episode of the show-within-a-show GLOW that “aired” with commercials and everything. While that episode entitled “The Good Twin” may have been my favorite single episode of anything that’s aired in 2018 so far, it certainly was the funnest, it would be easier to describe the plot of The Matrix to someone who knows nothing about the movie rather than describe “The Good Twin” and keep everything straight.
The cast of GLOW
On one level “The Good Twin” is based on real episodes of the show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
THEN “The Good Twin” is also an episode of a Netflix show starring
all sorts of great actors like Alison Bree, Kate Nash and Betty Gilpin.
BUT THEN these actors are playing characters in GLOW from Ruth Wilder, Rhonda Richardson and Debbie Eagan.
BUT THEN EVEN DEEPER these characters on GLOW are also playing characters in the show-with-a-show GLOW from “Zoya the Destroya,” “Britannica” and “Liberty Bell.”
BUT THEN NOT TO GET CRAZY the show-with-a-show that “airs” on LA cable TV in 1986 is also called GLOW just like the Netflix show.
BUT THEN TO BRING IT ALL BACK AROUND the characters of GLOW are also kind’a sort’a based on the real-life characters from Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling including “Colonel Ninotchka,” “Godiva” and “Americana.”
Except these “real life” Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling characters are no more real than the ones from the Netflix GLOW since in the end they’re all fiction.
AAAAGGH! Someone get Philip K. Dick on the line, I’m gonna need help rebuilding my psyche trying to keep this all straight!
Anyways, the second season of the Netflix GLOW was wonderful and is a lot easier to watch that it is to write about.
The fall movie season is a bit of an oddity these days. Ever since the movie studios found out they could make billions off of superheroes and Star Wars, first the spring movie season started filling up with movies that would feel more at home during the summer, then the winter season as well. But the fall season has been relatively untouched with these kinds of movies as that was always the time of year that films were released with higher expectations than making wheelbarrows full of money, these were Oscar hopeful movies. While there are still a lot of movies due out that have Academy Awards on their minds this fall, there’s quite a few as well that feel more like summer blockbusters than award winners.
The Predator – September, 14
The Predator
What was originally due out this summer before being pushed to the fall, the third film in the Predator franchise, unless you count those awful Aliens vs Predator movies of a few years ago and who wants to do that!? The Predator marks the return of Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) to the sci-fi genera. Black co-starred as Hawkins and did some on-set rewriting on the first film. The Predator looks to move the action from the jungles of Central America in Predator and Los Angeles in Predator 2 to a rain-soaked little town where the only thing standing between the population and total destruction are a rag-tag team of special forces soldiers being carted off to prison.
Venom – October, 5
Venom
There’s some confusion with this one. Starring Tom Hardy, technically Venom takes place in the same film universe as the fan-favorite Spider-Man: Homecoming movie, except if reports are to be believed out of the San Diego Comic-Con your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man won’t be making an appearance in this one. And it almost seems as if Sony is positioning Venom, who’s been the nemesis of Spider-Man in the comics for 30 years now and even appeared in Spider-Man 3, to be more an anti-hero than a villain. Think Punisher rather than Ultron and that sounds more in-line with this new movie version of the character.
Halloween – October, 19
Halloween (2018)
This latest version of Halloween will be the TENTH sequel to the original film and will bring back Jamie Lee Curtis in the Laurie Strode role she originated in the first film and has reprised on and off the last 40 years. This new Halloween reportedly ignores everything after Halloween II (1981) — though how can anyone ignore that ear-worm of a song “ten more days ’til Halloween” from Halloween III: Season of the Witch?
The Girl in the Spider’s Web – November, 9
The 2011 film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was supposed to be the first of a series of movies taken from the novels of Stieg Larsson directed by David Fincher and starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig. But for whatever reason it was decided to cast aside that creative team and start anew this time with director Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) and co-stars Claire Foy and Sverrir Gudnason in the Mara/Daniel roles respectively.
Maybe Fincher’s vision for the Dragon Tattoo sequels was too intense since the movie did decently enough at the box office for something not starring super-heroes?
Alita: Battle Angel trailer
TV
Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks
Recently, I caught a documentary about the TV series Freaks and Geeks and had some memories of my own to share of this gem of a show.
I remember when Freaks and Geeks premiered it was difficult to see new episodes. NBC seemed to either air a lot of repeats or they moved the show around a lot to different timeslots.
I remember that the episode “Kim Kelly is My Friend” was controversial for its time and didn’t run in my area during the series original run.
In fact, I didn’t see all of the episodes of Freaks and Geeks until Fox Family reran the series in 2000 as there were a few episodes including “Kim Kelly is My Friend” that never aired on NBC.
When Fox Family began rerunning Freaks and Geeks and premiering unaired episodes I started recording the show on my EyeTV which was a device that allowed you to record a cable signal to your computer and save shows as MPGs. While I’m pretty sure I recorded the entire run this way, I’m also pretty sure I never watched them other than maybe the one time since the files it produced them were small and SD cable grainy too.
In 2003 or 2004 Shout! Factory promoted a DVD set of the entire series, urging people to preorder the set since this might be their only chance to own this, then, forgotten series on home media. Of course I ponied up something like $120 for the set.
I didn’t realize the TV series In Search Of… which was hosted by Leonard Nimoy had such a long life. I only discovered the show which originally ran from 1977 to 1982 in syndication when History Channel began airing old episodes of it in the 1990s alongside things like Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. But while there were just 13 episodes of the Arthur C Clark series, there were more than 140 of In Search Of….
In Search Of… covered everything in the pseudoscience arena, from UFOs, to ghosts, the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis… and everything in between. Most of episodes asked a lot of questions but didn’t provide a lot of answers. Hence pseudoscience.
Ironically, where In Search Of… was an oddity on a channel in the 1990s that aired lots of documentaries and series about historical things, nowadays the simply titled History instead aires a lot of reality series like Forged in Fire and Mountain Men along with pseudoscience series of their own like Ancient Aliens. So I suppose it makes a lot of sense to reboot In Search Of… for a new generation.
Hosted by Zachary Quinto — who ironically like Nimoy also played Spock in Star Trek — this new 21st century version is essentially the old series all over again. The first episode covered UFOs and had the ubiquitous interview with three people who claim to have been abducted; one failed a polygraph test about his experiences, the other had an “implant” in a toe that turned out to be a rock while a third built a contraption so non-abductees can feel what it’s like to have that experience. There were also interviews with scientists too who were searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Spoiler alert, nothing found… yet.
There’s nothing new in this overly long and drawn-out at an hour 2018 version of *In Search Of…” that hadn’t already been done before 40 years ago in the old. Since we’re living in 2018 and not 1977 the questions I would’ve liked answered are — if we live in a world that’s increasingly being constantly recorded from security cameras outside businesses to cameras within people’s doors and if essentially everyone on the planet are carrying around cameras in their mobile phones 24/7, then why aren’t we recording evidence of UFOs and abductions on a regular basis rather than less than before? To me that would’ve made an interesting episode, not the same thing that’s been done over and over and over again for decades now.
So far the new In Search Of… is just that, a lot of looking but not a lot of finding.
Doctor Who “Shada” animated special
I don’t think people are ever going to uncover a “lost” episode of Star Trek. All of the episodes of that show that were ever shot have aired, are available in many home media formats and it’s not like there were any episodes that were aired once and never seen again. Sure, maybe they’ll find clips of episode or reels of henceforth unknown behind the scenes footage of DeForest Kelley eating a hamburger on the bridge of the Enterprise, but not a whole episode people haven’t seen in years. However, that’s not the case for classic Doctor Who series. That show has nearly 100 episodes that are considered lost that aired a few times but the original archival tapes either went missing, were destroyed or taped over.
Shada
But just because those episodes are lost today doesn’t mean that they won’t be found tomorrow. In fact just a few years ago a batch of episodes were uncovered in Africa. However, not all episodes like this can be found, case in point “Shada” which originally was set to air during the 1979–1980 season. That episode, written by Douglas Adams, yes, that Douglas Adams, was partially shot but never finished due to a work strike. So with “Shada” it’s the case of BBC having some completed footage but not enough for a whole episode. What they’ve done is to put together an episode that’s partially composed of these already filmed live-action elements as well as portions of the episode that were created via animation like “The Power of the Daleks from a few years ago to fill in these gaps.
“Shada” is interesting if a bit difficult to watch for a non-Doctor Who fan. In fact, I think even fans of the modern Doctor Who series probably wouldn’t dig “Shada” — Matt Smith obsessives probably need not apply here. “Shada” is difficult to watch partially because the classic stories were always a bit slow — there’s a part of the episode that features the Doctor and his companion taking a long, leisurely boat ride down a river — and also because the switch from live-action to animation can be quite jarring. Because TV shows aren’t filmed in order means that a character can be outside one second in a live-action scene and walk through door into an animated scene.
“Shada” is for die-hard Doctor Who fans only, and luckily since I’m a die-hard Doctor Who fan it means “Shada” is for me.
Killing Eve
Can I talk about Killing Eve for a moment? This series has won loads of critical acclaim and an Emmy nomination and was a show I was excited to see before it premiered. That was before BBC America advertised it into the ground for me. Before the first episode aired BBC America began promoting the show like most networks do for new and upcoming series. But they didn’t just promote it, they promoted it several times each commercial break. Which meant that every time I watched an episode of The X-Files or Star Trek I’d see ten commercials for Killing Eve every hour. Watch a few episodes of anything on BBC America and you can see why I quickly grew tired of Killing Eve before it ever aired. I can still hear that, “I have to kill you, I’m really sorry,” song echoing around in my head from hearing it so much on the commercials.
So I never watched an episode of Killing Eve. And again, it’s getting great reviews so it’s my loss, but I figured that once the first season ended in May BBC America would be done with it until next year. Except they weren’t/aren’t. They’re still airing promos for the show only this time telling views to “binge” Killing Eve this summer and ones congratulating Sandra Oh for her Emmy nomination.
I give up, BBC America, you win. If I publicly say that Killing Eve is the best show on the planet even though I’ve never seen an episode will you please stop airing commercials for this show?
