TV – Page 74 – Dangerous Universe

TV

Classic Doctor Who

My local PBS station began airing episode of classic Doctor Who a few weeks back starting with the very first Tom Baker episode entitled “Robot” and it looks like for the most part they’re airing them in order. I couldn’t be more happy. I’ve been dying to watch more episodes of the classic Doctor Who for years now, ever since the 50th anniversary a few years ago and when BBC America began airing a handful of Baker episodes last year.

American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson

The first season of American Crime Story on FX ended its run last week about the trial of O.J. Simpson. The sad thing is that I know a few people who didn’t watch the show because they “knew how it ended.” Except that American Crime Story was anything but just about the ending. It was about all the bits that were never broadcast on TV in the 1990s; what was going on behind the scenes with the lawyers, and jurors and family members we never got to see.

The neat thing about the story was that it wasn’t just one sided — for or against O.J. It’s mostly about the lawyers — the prosecution building a seemingly airtight case against Simpson and the defense finding ways to make their case a little a lot less airtight while at the same time trying to expose what they see as a corrupt system against African Americans in Los Angeles.

In a TV season with a lot of simply great dramas, American Crime Story was one of the best. A

Movies

Edge of Tomorrow: Live Die Repeat

Last week writer/director Christopher McQuarrie announced that there’s going to be a sequel to the wonderful movie Edge of Tomorrow with Doug Liman set to return as director and Tom Cruise as star. I didn’t think that Edge of Tomorrow did well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel, but luckily I was wrong. Edge of Tomorrow is one of the best sci-fi films of the modern age and along with movies like Mad Max: Fury Road is redefining the sci-fi genera.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie trailer

“What will you become?”

Officially titled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, this eighth movie in the franchise is the first one to be told outside of the main Star Wars storyline. Here, a resistance fighter, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is tasked with stealing the plans for the Death Star. Or, Rogue One would be what was going on immediately before Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope where those plans are hidden inside R2-D2. What I like about the trailer is the design aesthetic seems to be taken straight from those gorgeous Dave Dorman Star Wars paintings that seemed to be on everything Star Wars related in the 1990s. What I don’t like about it is that the vibe in the Rogue One trailer comes off a bit too Katniss in Hunger Games at times for my taste.

That being said, the trailer’s much more good than bad.

The Reading List

Chris Hardwick, King of the Nerds, Is Expanding His Empire

This week in pop-culture history

1979 The TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century premiers
1983 The Evil Dead premiers in theaters

TV

Star Wars Rebels

The second season of the wonderful Star Wars Rebels animated series wrapped up last week on Disney XD. I’ve enjoyed this show since the first season and really appreciate how the creators of Star Wars Rebels have been using design elements that were created, but never used, for the original Star Wars trilogy. While this is a series seemingly directed towards children, see “animated” and “Disney,” non-the-less at times the stories of Star Wars Rebels have had a depth not present in most other series being produced these days.

Taking place before Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, Star Wars Rebels follows the crew of the ship the “Ghost” who are smugglers by day and proto-rebels by night. It’s sort’a equal parts Firefly and Star Wars in that respect. But Star Wars Rebels also deals with all sorts of interesting ideas like if droids served in the rebellion, would they see themselves as veterans? And most importantly, how does Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze Jr.) train his apprentice Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) without Bridger being lured to the dark side?

Plus there’s a young Darth Vader (no joke, voiced by Darth Vader himself James Earl Jones) who’s not quite as in-charge as he is in later years, called in almost like a relief pitcher in baseball when the lower “Inquisitors” can’t get the job done against the rebels.

In fact, I catch myself from time to time wondering why some episodes of Star Wars Rebels are more action oriented than story and plot oriented as so many episodes are. Then I have to remind myself; obvstentively Star Wars Rebels is a cartoon for kids. All the extra stuff that I love about the show is just an added benefit that most other animated series don’t bother with. A-

Art

The artist Euclase does some amazing Photoshop paintings featuring pop-culture figures like Tron, Furiosa and Riddick to name a very few. Her art is simply amazing and drool-worthy. Euclase’s work is, IMHO, in the same realm of that of the great James Bama.