sherlock

Direct Beam Comms #159

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVDecember 16, 2018December 15, 2018

TV

This time of year I always get into the Christmas spirit and put on some of my favorite holiday movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon as well as rewatch some very special Christmas episodes of my favorite TV shows.

Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

The very first episode of The Simpsons was in fact a Christmas special that aired on December 17, 1989. If you want to see just how good The Simpsons was when it was an animated show about people rather than a cartoon about broadly drawn characters as which it has become you should check out this very first one.

Sherlock — “The Abominable Bride”

While most of the modern Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock episodes were set present day, the special 2015 Christmas episode “The Abominable Bride” was set in a more appropriate Sherlocky year of Christmastime, 1895.

Space: Above and Beyond — “The River of Stars”

Not too many hard-edged sci-fi shows have a Christmas episode, yet “The River of Stars” from Space: Above and Beyond was the exception.

Community — “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”

Right at the height of the greatness that was Community came the fully animated Christmas episode “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” that had lots of laughs along with lots of tears and would go onto cement this series into the annals of history.

Batman: The Animated Series — “Christmas with the Joker”

In this episode that originally aired in 1992 Batman, in fact, did not smell nor does (spoiler alert) the Joker get away.

Black Mirror — “White Christmas”

It really isn’t the holidays without watching one of the most depressing episodes of Black Mirror ever in one entitled “White Christmas.” Divided into three chapters, each starring Jon Hamm and each more downbeat than the last, “White Christmas” begins with murder and ends with a man trapped in hellish loop of December 25th where the song “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day” is on a constant, never-ending loop.

Happy holidays!

True Detective season 3 commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZP6t1FmVO8

Star Trek: Discovery season 2 commercial

Movies

Glass trailer

Godzilla: King of the Monsters trailer

What To Watch This Week

Tuesday

Last fall’s thriller Bad Times and the El Royale is available on digital download today.

Wednesday

Mary Poppins Returns for a sequel more than 50 years after the original in theaters. Let’s put it this way, when the previous Mary Poppins movie was released The Beatles had only just arrived in the US.

Friday

The one movie I thought would never get made since the character was the butt of many a joke for years, DC’s Aquaman, hits theaters today.

The sixth film in the 11 year old Transformers franchise, this one taking place in the 1980s, Bumblebee is released to movie screens today.

The Netflix original movie Bird Box, about people who kill themselves after seeing some paranormal thing and the survivors having to wander the world blindfolded otherwise they’ll suffer the same fate, is available today.

The second season of the HULU series Marvel’s Runaways is available today.

Cool Sites

Lost Media Wikia — We explore and hunt for lost media and we use teams, and our fellow community members to contribute.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie Posters of the Week

Godzilla: King of the Monsters poster
Captain Marvel poster

Direct Beam Comms #57

Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVJanuary 8, 2017January 7, 2017

TV

Sherlock – Season 4 premier: Grade: B+

It’s a bit odd to think that the TV series Sherlock has been around seven years and yet has only ever aired a handful of episodes. Granted, these episodes, 12 as of today, are more like feature films than simple episodes of TV, but in an era when most TV series air in a season in what Sherlock has in four says something about the popularity and staying power of this show.

And so far Sherlock has remained one of the more popular of the BBC export series, turning Benedict Cumberbatch from an actor who appeared on mostly British TV to a legitimate superstar most recently starring in the latest Marvel hit Doctor Strange. And co-star Martin Freeman, who was the one known “face” when Sherlock originally premiered, has gone from “the guy who was in the British version of The Office” to a well-known actor recently starring in the first season of the Fargo TV series, the lead in the Hobbit trilogy of films and now, like Cumberbatch, a part of the Marvel movie universe appearing in several films.

I think the reason for all this popularity is that the tone of Sherlock is just right. It’s mostly light, but sometimes heavy. And comedy plays a large role in the show too, whether we’re laughing at things the characters say or the actions they take. However, this most recent season of Sherlock is reportedly going “darker” than previous seasons which makes me a little nervous in the direction of the show.

This time Sherlock Holmes (Cumberbatch), Dr. John Watson (Freeman), John’s wife Mary (Amanda Abbington) and their infant daughter are back on the case after the events of the third season finale seem to indicate that Holmes’ nemesis Moriarty (Adam Scott) might still have evil plans in the works even after his death. What starts as Holmes believing that the mystery he’s trying to solve is one Moriarty set into motion to harass Holmes post-death turns instead into something from Mary’s dark past that comes to haunt the trio.

And the first episode of the fourth season does go dark, much darker than before. While I thought the episode was still good, I’m not sure how this bodes on the longevity of the show. On the one hand I can’t see Sherlock lasting much longer, especially with Cumberbatch and Freeman being in such demand elsewhere making the gap between seasons of the series so long — other than last year’s Christmas special the last episode of the series aired nearly three years ago. So it would make sense for series creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat to shake things up a bit if they are really getting towards the end, to try out some new kinds of stories that weren’t possible before and take the show in a different direction. Still, even if the series has been on the air for those seven years there’s been so little story covered in that time that going dark now feels really odd. Like, even if Gatiss and Moffat had simply done another Sherlock series in tone with what’s come before I don’t think anyone would be complaining that they’re trudging on story ground covered in previous seasons of the show — they could spend years more exploring that version of Sherlock and never do the same story twice.

The Mick – First two episodes of season 1 – Grade: C

The first two episodes of the new Fox comedy The Mick premiered last week. The show, about Mackenzie Murphy (Kaitlin Olson) who’s forced to raise her spoiled niece and nephews after her sister and husband flees the country ahead of a federal indictment is all right, if I get the feeling this has all been done before. The Mick is equal parts Arrested Development — a family member is forced to swoop in help out their extremely wealthy family after the feds find that wealth was gotten by less than legal means — by way of the raunchy over the top humor of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It doesn’t help matters that the Mackenzie character here Olson plays is essentially the same character she plays on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Heck, The Mick might actually be interesting if it were a spin-off of that show since there doesn’t seem to be a lot of originality going on in here.

I think what hurts The Mick the most is that there’s absolutely no characters in it the audience can identify with. It’s okay if a few or even most of the characters in a show are unlikable, but there’s no one on The Mick from Makenzie who’s a self-centered drunk, to the sister who abandons her family or even the niece or nephews who are the stereotypical spoiled rich kids you hope will fail but realize will probably be running the world someday to root for, which makes watching The Mick one long drag.

Cool Sites

Neflix Infinite Runner

This week in pop-culture history

1976: The TV series The Bionic Woman premiers
1981: Scanners opens in theaters

Sherlock (2010) cast photo

TVFebruary 19, 2016February 7, 2016

sherlock

The best TV series of 2014

UncategorizedDecember 19, 2014December 19, 2014

The last several years, this one included, the new fall TV season has been underwhelming at best and just plain bad at worst. It’s not like there aren’t any interesting new shows on in the fall anymore, it’s just that there are so few of them. If the fall season is so blargh, then lately the winter, spring and summer TV seasons have been a true joy. In fact, you won’t find a single series here that started in the fall. Each and every one was a non-fall show.

The methods I use to determine my “best of” lists changes every year. Sometimes I try to rank the shows best to worst throughout the year and sometimes it’s simply based on my mood when compiling the list at the end of the year. That being said, this year I did things a bit differently. The list this year is mostly based on how much I wanted to watch a season of a show again after having finished it. And the show that kept coming to the top of my list when thinking about this was The Americans on FX.

The Americans

Phillip Jennings: “The KGB is everywhere.”

The "normal" Jennings family — The “normal” Jennings family

The Americans is the rare series that’s actually about something. The first season of the show was about what it’s like to be a married couple in the US in the guise of a 1980s period spy drama of USSR vs USA and this season was about what it takes to get someone to betray their ideals in pursuit of a greater cause.

Here, characters Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) are KGB agents posing as a normal married American couple in early 1980s Washington DC but they’re really Soviet sleeper agents out to bring down the red white and blue. In this most recent season, Philip and Elizabeth are trying to uncover the secrets of new stealth technology while at the same time hunting the killer of another KGB family that was a mirror of the Jennings’.

What was really interesting with The Americans this season were the places series creators were willing to go. Be it with the murder of an entire family, Elizabeth mentoring an young idealist agent who shares the same ideals whom Elizabeth must sacrifice for the greater good to Phillip and Elizabeth learning that while mother Russia might want Phillip and Elizabeth to make sacrifices for “the cause,” that’s nothing compared to what they have in store for their children.

Halt and Catch Fire

Joe MacMillan: “I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about legacy.”
Cameron Howe: “You’re not the future, you’re a footnote.

MV5BMTQxMTMzNzU5M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjM3MDk3MTE@._V1_SX640_SY720_ — Mackenzie Davis in Halt and Catch Fire

I’m not sure how or why, but I seem to be the only critic out there who liked Halt and Catch Fire, let alone loved it. Some have complained that Halt is too much like Mad Men with it taking place in the corporate world, having a young woman as an up and coming employee with a strong male with a self destructive streak in the lead. As if only Mad Men were allowed to do this or even that Mad Men is far from the first series to play out this way.

Regardless, I was enamored where Halt went with certain characters being plowed under by the stress of trying to create a new PC in the early 1980s and others rising to the challenge. And not to spoil the ending of the first season too much, but if every other show out there is about people building something great and successful, Halt was about building something that turned out to be, at best, average. I’m not sure any show has ever done that before.

Hannibal

Hannibal Lecter: “Occasionally I drop a teacup to shatter on the floor. On purpose. I’m not satisfied when it doesn’t gather itself up again. Someday, perhaps a cup will come together.”

If the first season of Hannibal was about FBI detective Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) trying to track down a serial killer who they don’t realize is Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), then the second season is about the FBI trying to catch Lecter in a trap and jail him for the murders. Except the one guy you don’t try and trap is the guy who’s going to be ahead of you every step of the way setting traps of his own.

True Detective

If Hannibal was head-trippy then True Detective was acid-trippy. It’s a show that seems to divide up my friends nicely. Some of whom loved it and character Rust Cohle’s (Matthew McConaughey) ramblings about the intricacies of good and evil in an uncaring universe while others hated the show and found the series to over the top and boring.

Community

In its fifth season Community returned with series creator Dan Harmon back at the helm after an absence of a year and returned a sheen of greatness to a series that had faltered in recent years.

Even if micro-series Sherlock is only three episodes long, they’re some of the best hours you’ll spend in front of the television. If there’s anything I’m worried about with Sherlock is that while there are two season’s of the show left, Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch is now on the verge of uber-stardom with recently being cast as Doctor Strange in a Marvel movie and I can’t see him wanting to stick with Sherlock any longer than he’s contractually obligated to do so.

Game of Thrones

I find it humorous when people binge-watch past seasons of something like Game of Thrones in a few days or weeks. They have absolutely no idea of the excruciating wait between new seasons that makes viewer’s wait nearly 10 months between the end of a season and the start of the next agonizing. I’m not complaining, though. When it’s on Game of Thrones is the best thing on TV. I do wonder if it had aired in the fall rather than spring if Game of Thrones wouldn’t have made an appearance much higher on this list?

Orange is the New Black

While Orange is the New Black did start off a bit slow this season and focused on more characters than Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) as in the first — the sure sign that someone is trying to stretch out a show into multiple seasons — I thought the back half of Orange was just as good as the first season of the show.

Veep

Another great year for a great comedy almost no one’s talking about. Here’s to President Meyer!

The Knick

Writer/Director Steven Soderbergh returned to TV with The Knick, a series about a hospital at the turn of the 20th century New York City. In The Knick, medicine is taking leaps and bounds forward like never before. Even if it means that most people who go into the hospital end up dying there or that having a doctor like John W. Thackery (Clive Owen) hooked on cocaine is not only legal, it’s normal.

Brian Stelfreeze draws Sherlock

UncategorizedFebruary 23, 2014