Category Archives: Television
Our First Look at the New Daredevil!
The biggest panel at New York Comic-Con this weekend was the debut of the Daredevil TV show coming to Netflix. Most of the cast was in attendance, and were I in New York right now, I would have been too. Suffice to say, it was apparently a pretty neat panel. You can check out Newsarama’s coverage of the panel here. It sounds like they’ve got a neat show planned.
The panel also debuted the first picture of actor Charlie Cox in ‘costume’!
It’s clearly an homage to the first live action Daredevil
Of course, that looks nothing like the real Daredevil costume. So I think it’s safe to say this is perhaps his prototype? Maybe when Matt Murdock first starts fighting crime, he’s goes for a simple black number, and then later he dons the full, badass-looking red costume. And yes, I said ‘badass’. You’re looking at a guy who enjoyed the first Daredevil movie. I really don’t get why people hated it. The Director’s Cut is even better!
Also during the panel, we found out that reporter Ben Urich and supervillain/mob boss The Owl will both be in the show! They will be played by Vondie Curtis-Hall and Bob Gunton respectively! Could this mean an appearance by Phil Urich?
Someone tell me if Marvel has the rights to Phil Urich!!!
I’m really looking forward to this show and the whole slate of Defenders shows on Netflix. I may even have to finally subscribe to Netflix to make sure I can see them all!
As if I needed more monthly bills…
And for anyone interested, check out my List of Six of the 6 Things I Want to See in the Netflix Defenders!
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Review: The Flash: “City of Heroes”
I first saw the pilot episode of The Flash over the summer, when it was leaked early on the Internet. At the time, I thought the episode was incredibly hokey. It was stuffed with forced exposition and more ‘running’ and ‘fast’ comments than my simple mind could handle. I was prepared to continue to dislike the show when the episode finally aired on TV this week…but I’m kind of happy to say that something definitely improved on a rewatch! I don’t know if anything was changed, or if perhaps I had inflated the level of hokiness in my mind, but the first episode of the new live action Flash show is actually a solid start. I’m definitely more excited for the series after watching it on TV.
This first episode of The Flash isn’t perfect, and it’s still kind of hokey. But now that it’s finally here, for real, I’m ready to become a fan.
TV Rating: 7/10 – Good.
When I first saw this episode, I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes. From the very first scene, they start hitting you over the head with their lack of subtlety. A young Barry Allen is telling his mother how he wants to be a hero, because he tried to intervene and stop some bullies, only to get beaten up himself. His mother replies that sometimes it’s “better to have a good heart than fast legs”. Come on! That’s Gotham levels of obvious. And it doesn’t stop there. Barry Allen has a reputation of being late at his job for no good reason, and everybody is commenting on things being ‘fast’ or that Barry should ‘run’. It’s stifling.
But when I rewatched the pilot, I didn’t notice it as much. I don’t know if it’s due to editing or what, but the show is smoother this time around. Maybe watching Gotham has blown my subtlety circuits. But I still don’t think Barry needs to have a reputation of being late to things just to reinforce his super speed. That’s just dumb.
Fortunately, the pilot as a whole isn’t as dumb as I’d feared. Hokey sensibilities out of the way, the episode actually works quite well, with a solid cast and spectacular special effects. They set up all of the major characters and plots, though that isn’t without a few stumbling blocks too. In the span of a single episode, Barry gets his powers, learns about his powers, becomes the Flash and defeats his first super-villain. It’s a bit rushed. And using shortcut exposition doesn’t help matters. Every time Barry encounters a new character, whether it’s his painfully obvious love interest Iris West or his painfully obvious rival Eddie Thawne, someone somewhere delivers a few paragraphs of exposition. It’s wince-inducing.
But weaknesses aside, this is a strong start to the new show. I’m glad I rewatched the first episode because it definitely got better the second time around. I’m really excited to see The Flash take off running.
Join me after the jump for the full review.
Apparently There’s Talk in the World About an X-Factor TV Show
Like everyone else who reads the nerd blogsophere, I saw the rumors this week about a potential live action X-Men TV show. Great, I thought to myself, sounds like fun. But then it was brought to my attention that this show might be based on X-Factor, one of my all-time favorite comic books, starring my all-time favorite comic book character, Multiple Man. And all of a sudden, this becomes possibly the greatest news in the history of television.
These guys are definitely a show!
The news comes from Shawn Madden of EatGeekPlay, who I’ve never heard of before, and who could have about as much influence or knowledge about these issues as I do (which is none). This is why I don’t normally write about these sorts of reports. They’re too early in the process and too much speculation. Imagine if I’d tried to keep up with everything Robert Downey Jr. has been saying about Iron Man 4 this week!
But something like this is too much for me to ignore. A television show starring Multiple Man? That’s the universe itself reaching out to me and telling me it has my back! Multiple Man running a detective agency in the heart of Mutant Town was a brilliant series! And it helps bolster X-Factor to more than 100 issues! That number is insane in this day and age of comics! The current series, All-New X-Factor, is being cancelled at issue #20. Clearly there is success in Multiple Man.
Leading man material!
I want to see this show. I want to sit down every week and watch Multiple Man on my TV!
Though given all the rumors floating about Marvel cutting off the X-Men and Fantastic Four to spit Fox, this sort of show probably wouldn’t lead to very good things for Multiple Man in the comics. Maybe that’s the real reason why he retired to a farm in Kansas more than a year ago…
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My Initial Thoughts on The Flash TV Show
The first episode of the new live action Flash TV show debuts tonight, but like any good Interneteer, I watched the pilot over the summer when it got leaked online. But I’m going to watch the episode on TV tonight and get up a full review before the week is out. I’m hoping they’ve improved upon the show somehow…because I just don’t care for the first episode.
Here’s the last trailer for your viewing pleasure.
I’m going to save most of my thoughts and concerns for my full review, but for right now, I figured I could drop a few comments.
First of all, the show is so hokey. I don’t know what I was expecting, probably something along the lines of Arrow, but The Flash is just one hokey show. I don’t remember all the details from the pilot, but everybody always complains about Barry being late to things. And then there’s that whole “Lightning gave me abs” thing that I just don’t like. Lightning didn’t give you abs, TV executives demanding a hot bodied star gave you abs. There’s no conceivable reason for lightning to give him abs.
On top of that…I dunno. I can’t really remember everything. I just know that the pilot felt so forced and hokey. Even Green Arrow’s cameo was really awkward. But reading reviews on the web, I seem to be in the minority. And if I’m going to keep watching Gotham and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., you better believe I’m going to keep watching The Flash!
There Will Be So Many ‘Two-Faced’ Jokes, So Many
Gotham has gone ahead and cast actor Nicholas D’Agosto to play Harvey Dent, and the obvious joke is that everybody on screen is going to be making ‘two-face’ jokes all the time. Normally I wouldn’t cotton to such an obvious gag in an article, but there’s no other way to handle this announcement. Gotham will make ‘two-face jokes’. All. The. Time. This is a show that has Selina Kyle insist on several occasions in one episode that everybody call her ‘Cat’. There is no subtlety here.
Also coin jokes
Every single time Harvey Bullock sees Dent, he’s going to say something like, “Man, that Harvey Dent sure is one two-faced guy.” There’s no getting around it. We just have to accept it. And expect some kind of ‘acid’ joke in Dent’s very first scene.
For a moment, I was going to tell you henchies that I’d never heard of D’Agosto and therefore didn’t have an opinion on him…but then I took a closer look at his picture and knew I recognized him from somewhere. So I checked out his IMDB page, and sure enough, it’s West from Heroes! Don’t remember West? That makes perfect sense. He was the flying kid in Season 2, the one who was almost Claire’s boyfriend! Still don’t remember him? I barely remember him either. Season 2 was when Heroes started to go downhill fast. Remember when Peter left his new girlfriend stranded in a post-apocalyptic future? Yeaaaahhh…
I assume D’Agosto has grown up since then, so maybe he can pull off Harvey Dent. Though it’s interesting to note how much older he’s going to be than Bruce Wayne. In the comics, they were roughly the same age, and friends. Looks instead like Dent is going to be Gordon’s age. That’s fine. The obvious jokes will land just as thuddingly.
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