Category Archives: Television
Review: Constantine: “Non Est Asylum”
Constantine had the best premiere of all the new and old comic book shows this season. The main character easily carries the show, the plot is very engaging and the overall premise looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. Maybe it helps that I’ve never seen an episode of Supernatural, or any of the TV shows that owe their origins to the original Hellblazer comic, but I really enjoyed ‘Non Est Asylum’ and will definitely be tuning in to more Constantine. Of course, maybe it also counts against me that I’ve never read a Hellblazer or Constantine comic, and actually enjoyed the 2005 Keanu Reeves movie, but that should just be water under the bridge at this point, right? Pretty please?
TV Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.
This new show on NBC has some real spooky legs. There’s a certain wicked energy at play here that I like. This pilot episode is half-horror movie, half-supernatural adventure, with a hero who fits into both. That sounds like a solid premise for a TV show to me. Throw in a dash of superhero – even if lead character John Constantine doesn’t exactly fit that definition – and you’ve got the makings of a pretty good show. If Supernatural can last for 10 seasons, surely Constantine can find a way to show them how it’s done. Granted, it doesn’t have a Sam and Dean, but who needs pretty boys when you’ve got a hardass like John Constantine? He’s just about the No. 1 thing this pilot got right!
Join me after the jump for the full review!
Bad Lip Reading of The Walking Dead
I loves me some Walking Dead. I know a bunch of people don’t like the show, but I’m not one of them! It’s a fun show, with pretty awesome characters. There have been some slow moments, but I loves me some good TV. And Bad Lip Reading is always good for a laugh.
Gravity Falls: The Anime!
Anybody else watching the excellent Gravity Falls? It’s a delightful cartoon in its own right, but the writers have also packed it with so much mythology that there are whole websites dedicated to unraveling the mysteries. I like that in a show. I loved it in Lost, and Gravity Falls definitely has a good head on its shoulders. This is a video made by Mike Inel, taking a scene from a recent Season 3 episode and redoing it as an anime. I think the animation looks pretty slick!
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.
Henchman-4-Hire 