Tag: santa clarita diet

Direct Beam Comms #120

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Krypton

Superman on TV is nothing new. The on of the first live-action superhero TV series based on a comic book was The Adventures of Superman in the 1950s, there was a popular series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in the 1990s and a very successful teen-oriented show Smallville in the 2000s. And Supergirl on The CW on now is one of the more popular shows airing on that network too. So the new Krypton series on SyFy is really just the latest in a long line of shows based on the man of steel.

KryptonWell, kind’a sort’a as Krypton doesn’t actually feature the strange visitor from another planet, its focus is on Superman’s granddad Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe) and doesn’t take place on Earth. It tales place on that “another planet” Krypton 200 years in the past.

In that time on Krypton the house of “El,” of which Superman, aka Kal-El will one day be a part of, is no more after Seg’s granddad Val (Ian McElhinney) was executed for insisting that there’s life on other planets which also meant the house of “El” was striped of their rank and name. Seg’s a bit of a wild-card, I think he got into more fistfights in the first episode of Krypton than is usual for a whole season of a similar regular series. When he’s not beating people up he’s running off to be with his girlfriend Lyta Zod (Georgina Campbell). But when mysterious Earthling Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos) appears and tells Seg that the future of Earth, if not the universe is is at stake, Seg must get his life back tougher and finish Val’s work to stop to stop a massive interstellar threat so that his genes can continue on.

Krypton is interesting if it’s a bit all over the place. On the one hand some of the characters and characterizations are as over-the-top as those in the 1940s Superman movie serials, yet in other times Krypton tries to be a modern series with sex and violence and a season-long story. I don’t mind either over-the-top or modern, I just wish the producers of the show had settled on one.

The visuals of Krypton are right in line with the current ethos of the DC movie franchises — dark and dreary like in the Man of Steel movie. I’m not opposed to this, it’s just a different view of Krypton that we’ve thus-far seen on TV. Always before Krypton was this bright, shining beacon of hope, even if the scientists of Krypton couldn’t see that their own demise was coming. The Krypton of Krypton is a worn-down nub of a civilization where people hide from the weather under domes, corruption is rife and most of the populous is under the sway of a religious leader who’s taken over the government of the planet.

I’m kind’a sort’a interested in seeing where Krypton goes from here, but my guess is that after a few more episodes I’ll probably be done with Krypton for good.

Santa Clarita Diet

Santa Clarita DietAll episodes for the second season of the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet dropped last Friday. This series about a realtor/mom Shelia (Drew Barrymore) who one day unexpectedly becomes an undead flesh-eating ghoul, but not turning totally zombie as long as she eats enough human meat was funny enough last season. This new season starts right where the first one left off, with Shelia’s husband (Timothy Olyphant) and daughter (Liv Hewson) along with neighbor (Skyler Gisondo) trying to find a cure for Shelia’s undead-ness before she either totally zombies-out or rots and falls apart.

I liked the first season of Santa Clarita and was looking forward to the second, if I can’t quite all remember what went on in that the first? And I’m usually pretty good at remembering those things. I don’t think that Santa Clarita Diet is a bad series, it’s just there are so many shows on now and they’re all coming so fast and we consume them so quickly, that even if a show is good, if it doesn’t really stand out it can be as quickly forgotten as it is watched.

Nightflyers teaser

Movies

SICARIO, Day of the Soldado trailer

Deadpool 2 trailer

The Titan trailer

Cool TV Posters of the Week

Posters of the Week

Direct Beam Comms #61

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

The Expanse – Episode 1, season 2 Grade: A-

I won’t talk much about The Expanse on SyFy since I just published a feature-length article on the series a few weeks ago except to say that the second season, which premiered as two episodes back-to-back, kicks off with a bang right where the first ended. That season of The Expanse generally followed the first half of the book Leviathan Wakes with, I’m assuming, the second season covering the back-half of the book. Which should mean for some seriously good TV with ships zooming around the solar system, Mars and Earth at the brink of war along with an out of control city-sized asteroid with its sights set on the Earth.

Powerless – Episode 1 Grade B

Have we reached peak superhero yet? The creators of the new Powerless TV series sure hope we haven’t as they launch their new series on NBC that is “the first comedy series set in the DC universe.” Starring Vanessa Hudgens, Alan Tudyk and Danny Pudi, Powerless follows the staff of Wayne Security, yes it’s owned by Bruce Wayne, who try to invent products that will help the common person might someday be caught in the middle of a superhero battle with no place to go. Things like a device that alerts the wearer whenever villains are near or a suit that acts like an airbag when they’re about to be hit.

In many ways, Powerless seems like a cross between the series Better off Ted (2009–2010) that too was about the employees of a corporation trying to invent wild and wacky things along with the beginning of the comic series Kingdom Come (1996) that takes place in a world so overrun with superheroes and the battles that people aren’t even pawns in these “good guy” vs “bad guy” little wars, they’re completely ignored and expendable.

But whereas Kingdom Come was deep and brooding and Better off Ted wild and zany, Powerless is more of a mainstream comedy.

In Powerless, Emily Locke (Hudgens) arrives at her job at Wayne Security in Charm City from having grown up in a “flyover state” — or a place so insignificant the heroes literally flyover and ignore it. She’s got to lead her team of scientists and inventors to come up with something before Bruce Wayne shuts the company down. Which is pretty much a foregone conclusion since if they don’t succeed there wouldn’t be a Powerless series.

The first episode was a little light on comedy — I think I chuckled once or twice. But I think Powerless did have enough going for it and enough subtle insider DC humor, from “Shazam” to an interesting twist ending, that I can see myself sticking around with the series to see where it goes.

Santa Clarita Diet – Episode 1 Grade B

And speaking of Better off Ted — the new Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet, of which all episode are currently available to stream, was created by Victor Fresco who is also the creator of Better off Ted. Santa Clarita Diet follows married realtor couple Shelia and Joel, Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant, who’s life take a turn for the weird when one day Shelia literally pukes her guts out during the showing of a home and apparently dies. Except that even without a heartbeat she still seems quite alive and mostly normal except for a few changes. For one thing Shelia’s gone from being slightly timid to more open and adventurous. Oh, and she has this need to eat raw meat and whenever she doesn’t feed that need bad things happen.

This isn’t The Walking Dead, there are no hoards of zombies threatening civilization as Shelia seems to be the only affected by this. In many ways, Santa Clarita Diet feels like a sitcom version of the serial-killer TV series Dexter. In that show, Dexter would only murder people who deserved it, a lot of times other serial killers. And In Santa Clarita Diet Shelia only wants to eat people who’ve done bad things.

Well, mostly bad things.

In the first episode the person she eats isn’t someone who’s killed or harmed anyone. He’s a dork who tries to have his way with Shelia and ends up, well, “feeding her need.”

Santa Clarita Diet joins a few other horror-comedy series like the successful Ash vs Evil Dead and the less-successful Stan Against Evil and on the whole Santa Clarita Diet is mostly successful. The first episode does wax and wane between feeling mostly real one minute to wild and wacky the next, which I’m not quite sure works just yet. I do give the series creators a lot of credit, though, for going for gore and gross-out humor in Santa Clarita Diet. They don’t shy away from thing like disgusting green vomit or showing the dismembered, twitching corpse of Shelia’a meal in the first episode.

And, much like with Powerless, I’m interested in seeing where Santa Clarita Diet goes and will be sticking with this one for at least a season or two.

Training Day – Episode 1 Grade D

The new CBS show Training Day is the latest movie turned series to turn up on TV this season joining the likes of Lethal Weapon, Frequency and the upcoming Time After Time. This Training Day is based on the 2001 Denzel Washington movie with Bill Paxton filling in as the corrupt cop Det. Frank Rourke with new officer Kyle Craig (Justin Cornwell) taking on the Ethan Hawke role from the film.

Essentially, the 2001 version follows relatively new officer, Hawke, being evaluated by a tough, grizzled street veteran cop played by Washington. Except that the grizzled cop is very dirty and when the new officer decides to expose the corruption he puts his life in danger. Early episodes of the series The Shield would borrow from the corrupt street cop Training Day plot before taking its own path for six seasons. Which makes me wonder about this new Training Day TV series, is there any new ground this show can cover? Especially being a CBS drama?

After the first episode at least it doesn’t seem that way. Training Day is basically a high octane version of The Shield with Craig leaping out of the window of an exploding apartment within the first sixty seconds of the show with a shootout on the streets of LA that’s reminiscent of the big shootout in the movie Heat (1995) abet smaller all within the first half. There’s also a few kidnappings and a house burned down that all happens in episode one.

I was really looking for something in Training Day to latch onto but, honestly, there just wasn’t much here. Paxton is interesting in his role but they make him a bit too Robin Hood in the first episode. Sure, he’s a corrupt cop who’ll shoot the bad guys and steal their money one minute, but it’s only because he’s trying to get them to stop targeting a kid who’ll end up getting the money in a trust fund when he turns 18. It’s like the creators of Training Day want there to be an edge to the Rourke character but do their best to make sure any edges are neatly sanded down.

It seems like the first season of Training Day will focus on the murder of Craig’s father when he was a boy and how Rourke, his father’s ex-partner, ties into it. But for me Training Day is a one and done show, so whatever happens in future episodes I won’t be there to see it.

Cool Sites

Made for TV Mayhem: A site that reviews 1970s and 1980s made for TV movies.

The Reading & Watch List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1940: George A. Romero, creator of the modern zombie movie is born
  • 1960: Jenette Goldstein of Aliens, Near Dark and Terminator 2 is born
  • 1965: Michelle Forbes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Admiral Cain of Battlestar Galactica is born
  • 1974: Elizabeth Banks, Effie of The Hunger Games is born
  • 1983: Videodrome permiers
  • 2000: The last episode of the TV series Sliders airs
  • 2000: The TV series The Others premiers

Direct Beam Comms #59

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

Six – Grade: B-

The History Channel, which stopped being a spot on the dial to mostly air historical series/documentaries years ago, is a cable channel without a strong identity. On the one hand it’s a bit like the Discovery Channel that airs these niche reality series like American Pickers and Pawn Stars. On the other it’s a channel that also airs the scripted series Vikings which feels like a FX show. And because of this The History Channel is this weird amalgam channel that really hasn’t felt like a true destination in, quite frankly, forever. Into this jumbled identity was launched the new dramatic series Six last week, which feels like it would fit on a channel like TNT more than The History Channel. While I don’t think Six hurts the identity of The History Channel, it doesn’t help it either.

The cast of Six

In a scene right out of the last act of the film Zero Dark Thirty, Six begins in Afghanistan in 2014 where members of SEAL Team Six are raiding a compound looking for a Taliban leader. When I say “right out of” I mean “right out of,” right down to the way the soldiers stalk through the compound, the intercutting of the grainy night vision footage and even some of the ways the firefights play out. Six does differ in that they don’t catch their man and squad leader Richard ‘RIP’ Taggart (Walton Goggins) executes one of the prisoners who just so happens to be an American collaborator in frustration. Cut to present day. RIP has left the armed forces for a security job in Nigeria and is a wreck of a man. His old squad, now led by Joe ‘Bear’ Graves (Barry Sloane) are having problems of their own with team members wanting to leave for the private sector and more money and animosity over how RIP ended up quitting the service. But when RIP is guarding a visit to a school by a dignitary and is kidnapped along with all the schoolgirls there by terrorists, his SEAL Team Six buddies are all first in the line to go off and rescue him.

Six isn’t a bad show, it’s just so heavy handed that it lacks all subtly. Which isn’t necessarily a negative thing but it makes Six a bit of a slog to watch. In between scenes of the SEAL Team Six members, not so much talking to one and other but grunting and slamming each other into lockers because they’re mad about this or that, there wasn’t a lot of room other than just the guys with muscles and guns part of the story which I can see getting really old really fast.

A series that set the mold Six is following was the CBS series The Unit which ran 2006–2009. I thought that show did a good job of mixing up the story between the adventures the characters in the show went on, here Delta Force Operators, with their home life and even their wives and kids at home. I can see how Six is trying to do this with character’s wives and families playing a part in the show, but most of the secondary characters of Six felt more like TV characters than real people which made me wonder how many more episodes of Six I’d be able to keep up with before bailing to watch something with a little more substance.

The Good Place first season – Grade: A-

The first season of the NBC comedy The Good Place ended last week. This series about a woman named Eleanor (Kristen Bell) who dies and is supposed to go to “the bad place” but accidentally ends up in “the good place” was quite enjoyable. Most of the series dealt with Eleanor trying to become a better person so she could stay in the good place with help from neighbor Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and soul-mate Chidi (William Jackson Harper) with otherworldly good place director Michael (Ted Danson) alternately trying to figure out what’s making the good place that should be perfect out of wack, then trying to figure out what to do with Eleanor after she reveals that she doesn’t belong there.

I liked The Good Place enough but it was one of those series that I could take or leave. I watched it every week, but if it was cancelled and disappeared from NBC’s lineup I wouldn’t have been too upset. That was until I watched the brilliant finale that showed the entire first season of episodes in a new light. The ending was so brilliant/mind-bending/twisting that it makes me want to watch the first season of The Good Place all over again just to see what I had all missed.

Santa Clarita Diet TV spot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjRnbOgoAUQ

Movies

Logan movie trailer

“We’ve got ourselves an X-Men fan. Maybe a quarter of it happened, and not like this.”

The Reading & Watch List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1994: The TV series Babylon 5 debuts
  • 2002: The Mothman Prophecies opens in theaters