Category: TV Reviews

Reviews of tv shows by our amazing critics

Short Sequel to Justified on FX This Year

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Justified was one of my favorite television series of all time.  The show provided a combination of drama and comedy that worked very well.  The writers were able to adapt Elmore Leonard’s stories and characters skillfully.  Olyphant and the rest of the ensemble cast (with an especial shoutout for Nick Searcy as Raylan’s boss Art Mullen) were fascinating to watch.

So now the powers that be are going to do an eight episode series with Raylan Givens in his iconic cowboy hat bringing law and order to Detroit.  It’s on FX late this year.  Can the producers catch lightning again?  Well I guess I’ll have to watch to see.  Hey, do I have FX on my crappy cable package.

The Great Nick Searcy in One of My Favorite Scenes from Justified

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Hardly a day goes by that Camera Girl and I don’t quote from this scene.

Frank Reasoner:  You got a family, Chief?
Art Mullen:  Yep. Waiting on our third grandchild.
Frank Reasoner:  You love your wife?
Art Mullen:  Most of the time!

 

The Means of Production – Part 1

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So, what to write about tonight?  Tucker?  Elon?  The Biden Crime Family’s Congressional investigation?  Trump and his various legal problems.  The Republican presidential contenders?  Dementia Joe’s sinking ratings?  The crime-drenched cities?  The invasion at the southern border?  The collapsing banks?  Stagflation?  The Ukraine War?  Bud Light’s ongoing sales freefall?

Meh.  Just not in the mood.  Maybe it’s the crazy local things I’m involved in.  Maybe it’s too much same old, same old.

Well for whatever reason, let’s talk about something different.

I was reading recently about a studio that has been producing family friendly movies.  Mostly Christian movies but not exclusively.  Let’s call them Christian friendly.  They recently had a hit with a movie called the Jesus Revolution, “a feel-good movie about hippies who returned to Christ during the 1970s, starring former “Cheers” and “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer – has grossed more than $52 million since its debut just a few weeks ago, making it the most successful film released by studio heavyweight Lionsgate since 2019.”

Many years ago, I remember watching a few of the movies produced by Christian churches and other organizations.  And although it was refreshing to see entertainment that stressed religious values and themes, they were notable for very simplistic plots and amateurish acting.  I guess the cast was more living the moments of the plot rather than acting them.

““The biggest critique on Christian art of the last thirty plus years, is that it’s not good, or it hasn’t been good,” said Terence Berry, COO of Wedgwood Circle, a nonprofit that connects investors and creators to develop projects that are informed by their Christian faith. “And I do think there have been huge strides made in people creating content for the faith market.””

Move forward twenty years and the producers now out there like Wedgwood and Angel Studios are producing movies that can be viewed by mainstream audiences without eye-rolling.  Berry calls it “a third way.”

““Can you offer stuff that is not perceived as faith market, and that is really well done, and it’s good, true, and beautiful, and it’s speaking to larger questions and it is aligned with your faith,” he asked, “but it is done so in a way that allows other people from outside the faith to engage and like that content?””

In the article the writer mentions that these producers are producing movies and arranging theater distribution using both investor and crowd-funded capital.  And the products include movies, music, books, television, and radio shows.  In fact, there are even animated movies in the works.

So why is this interesting?

I think because Hollywood is melting down.  Other than super hero movies Hollywood has only had a very few actual blockbuster hits in the last ten years.  Tom Cruise in Top Gun is that exception that proves the rule.  And it’s especially relevant because it’s one of the few movies that bucks all the stupid trends that have cost Hollywood its audience.  It’s patriotic.  It doesn’t pound away at woke tropes.  It doesn’t replace entertainment with an agenda.  It doesn’t denigrate its audience.

So, with Hollywood marching into the ocean and at the same time starving audiences for wholesome content.  And with streaming and the lower price of computer-generated imaging making fantasy and other genera movies orders of magnitude cheaper than just a few years ago, this is the perfect time for small production companies to provide people with entertainment choices they sorely lack.

And I think it’s finally, finally beginning to happen.  I’ve watched some short sci-fi movies on YouTube that come close to Hollywood level special effects.  And because of how Hollywood is using “diversity, inclusion and equity” there are many unemployed straight, white, male actors, writers, directors and other creatives that could use work.  In such an environment I think we’ll start seeing more and more breakout productions that owe their success to giving people the entertainment that Hollywood refuses to produce.

But here’s the point.  All of these people trying to produce this content didn’t get into it because they always wanted to build their own movie studios.  They’re doing it because the movie studios told them that the content they wanted was wrong and shouldn’t exist.  So, they had to become movie makers.  Same thing with book authors.  The books we like are so evil that the publishers are retroactively changing the text of old classics like Roald Dahl’s children’s books.  Same for music, same for art.  Same for education.  If we want what we think is right we’re going to have to make it ourselves.  Internalize that and employ it as needed in your life and you’ll start changing things for the better.

If you don’t like the crap on display in woke world then search out something better at the fringes.  And if that doesn’t exist, then do it yourself.  That’s the lesson.

I intend to start looking for some of these movie projects and try them out.  I’ll report back on what I find.

The Terminal List (2022) – A TV Review

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“The Terminal List is Amazon Prime’s action thriller tv series based on Jack Carr’s 2018 novel of the same name.  It stars Chris Pratt as Navy Seal Lieutenant Commander James Reece and centers around Reece’s revenge mission to avenge the deaths of his family and comrades in arms.

I won’t put in my usual spoiler alert because I’d rather not go through the whole plot piece by piece.  I’ll just give you my reaction to the series and recommendations.

So, first off, the author Jack Carr was a Navy Seal so I guess that lends some credibility to the technical details of the show.  As far as the plot, it’s a highly charged story of wrongdoing by the rich and powerful that a few years ago I would have said was too outlandish to be true.  But now that real life government malfeasance (FBI targeting of political opponents, COVID related tyrannical actions) is standard operating procedure who is to say what’s outlandish.

The acting for the most part is very good.  There were maybe one or two scenes that didn’t seem to correspond to how I thought the characters emotional states would make them act.  But since the author probably corresponds more closely than I do to the psychological profile of the characters in the story maybe it’s my ignorance of their mindsets.

One of the plot elements involves the brain trauma that Reece is suffering from.  This leads him sometimes to slip back into old scenes in his life, sometimes at very inconvenient points in the plot.  Occasionally during the story, I thought the memory problems were a little distracting but by the end of the series I was satisfied that the plot device was justified.  It also gives us a chance to see his personal life with his murdered wife and daughter.  Now this is a difficult layer to add to a story like this.  I would say they pulled it off mostly well.  By the end of the story the character seems to have come to closure with his loss.

As far as action, there is plenty of it.  Reece and his allies do an amazing amount of damage to the people on his “terminal list.”  And there is quite a bit of brutality to his campaign.  Some of it is up close and personal.  But I would say the violence isn’t merely gratuitous but follows the plot of avenging the terrible crimes that have been committed against Reece.

I watched the show with Camera Girl.  Now she’s an action novel junkie.  She’s a big fan of Reacher and Bosch so a little violence isn’t a big deal to her.  There was one scene that she thought was a little too vicious but by the end of the series she was a big fan of the story.  So, I would recommend this series to anyone who likes the action thriller genre.  It also lacked any woke nonsense of any kind.  In that sense it was very refreshing.  I give this series a highly recommended rating.

Valentine’s Day 2022

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February 14th is Valentine’s Day and being incredibly romantic I reminded Camera Girl of this important holiday.  I asked if she would make a heart out of red construction paper  for me to signify her undying love.  She made rude noises.  Luckily I can decode that as good natured fun.

Now being of the generation of which I am, my ideas about love and Valentine’s Day are inextricably intertwined with what I learned watching the Little Rascals.  Alfalfa, that star-crossed Lothario was endlessly frustrated in the pursuit of Darla, that femme fatale of the pre-adolescent set.  In the Valentine’s Day episode his pursuit of Darla is foiled by the machinations of Spanky.  Apparently Alfalfa was an officer of the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club (a noble fellowship if there ever was one) and because of his oath breaking over Darla Spanky punished Alfalfa by replacing the swiss cheese with soap in the Valentine’s Day sandwich that Darla had made for Alfalfa.

And that lesson has been with me for almost sixty years, trust but verify.  I always check cheese in a sandwich before eating.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 24 – Turnabout Intruder

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Great Caesar’s ghost!

If there had been no other reason to cancel the Star Trek series, this episode, in and of itself, would provide that rationale.  But it is the last episode so here we go.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the holy trinity of landing parties, arrive at planet blah, blah, blah where Dr. Janice Lester, an old flame of Kirk’s from his Starfleet Academy days, is sick with radiation poisoning.  Dr. Coleman, her private physician,  informs McCoy that she needs space medicine or something.  But when they leave Kirk alone with Janice to tend to a patient who’s already dead, Janice shoots Kirk with a petite phaser that she had hidden in her purse.  Then she drags him to a wall full of lights and standing next to him pushes a button that exchanges their personalities.  Now Janice in Kirk’s body (JIKB) carries Kirk in Janice’s body (KIJB) over to the bed and starts strangling KIJB with a stylish pastel scarf.  But the others return before JIKB can get the job done.  Coleman is in cahoots with JIKB and is given medical authority over KIJB by JIKB, much to the chagrin of McCoy who feels his authority has been trampled on as ship’s physician.

Coleman keeps KIJB sedated to keep up the charade but KIJB fools dim-witted Nurse Chapel into leaving the room and smashes a drinking glass that the sedative was in, to provide a tool to cut through her restraints.  But JIKB happens to see KIJB running by and punches her out, which raises eyebrows on both McCoy and Spock.  And as you know both characters love raising their eyebrows.  At this point everyone in the crew has noted the highly emotional, annoying and sometimes hysterical actions of JIKB.  Spock is so suspicious that he interviews KIJB in the holding cell.  And he uses the Vulcan mind meld and learns the truth of the personality transfer.  When Spock acts on this knowledge he is accused by JIKB of mutiny and is court-martialed.  JIKB’s bearing and words during the trail soon raise doubts in the minds of all the officers.  When Scotty and McCoy discuss in the corridor outside the trial the outcome if Spock is acquitted Scotty states clearly that they will have to commit mutiny.  But they were recorded secretly by JIKB.  Now Spock, McCoy and Scotty are declared mutineers by JIKB and he declares that they will be executed.  Sulu shouts out that the death penalty is forbidden and JIKB flips out and has a hissy fit.  Now Sulu and Chekov as the most senior remaining officers decide to defy JIKB and when this occurs on the Bridge JIKB spazzes out and we see the personalities reverse for a brief moment before reversing again.

Now JIKB freaks out and runs down to Coleman and says he’s afraid he’ll lose the Kirk body.  Coleman tells JIKB that he must kill KIJB right away to prevent permanent reversion.  But when they go down to do this KIJB attacks Coleman and suddenly the reversion happens spontaneously.  Now we have Kirk and Janice back in their own bodies and she wails and moans about losing the Enterprise and being just a poor weak woman being discriminated against by strong cruel men.  Kirk says some incoherent things about coulda, woulda, shoulda and the thing mercifully ends.

Just to put it right out there this episode broke the Shatner Mockery Index Meter so it gets an 11 for that.  JIKB snapping at everyone in the crew and behaving like a refugee from the tenth-grade mean-girl’s lunch-table is something to behold.  It makes me wonder if Shatner was given a course of estrogen injections before the filming began.  But my favorite scene is where Spock informs JIKB on the bridge that the same star course he had ordered could be made in less time by going faster.  She flounces off the bridge with her nose in the air.  In other words, he was attacking her driving skills.  Well, what can I say?  It’s finally over.  Free at last.  Free at last.

Score:  4   //   11

Note:  this is the last episode.  When I have recovered sufficiently from the strain, I intend to do some follow-up posts on the whole series, but not right now.  Oh, the pain, the pain.

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 23 – All Our Yesterdays

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Kirk, Spock and McCoy visit planet blah, blah, blah that is about to be destroyed by its sun going nova.  The whole population has used a time machine to escape into the past.  But one librarian is sticking around to handle any late arrivals.  He tries to convince the Enterprise crew to use the time machine to escape.  Kirk accidentally goes through the portal and ends up in an analog of 17th century England.  And McCoy and Spock follow him and end up in an Ice Age hellhole.

Kirk is accused of witchcraft when he is heard talking to Spock and McCoy when they are in a different time through the portal.  He finds a fellow time traveler and convinces him to help him escape back to the future.  When he gets back, he has to violently convince the librarian to help him find Spock and McCoy.

Meanwhile Spock and McCoy are found by another time traveler.  It is a woman named Zarabeth who has been sentenced to the Ice Age prison by an evil dictator.  But because they are now 5,000 years in the past, Spock reverts to the emotional condition his ancestors existed in at that time.  He becomes quite belligerent when McCoy calls him a pointy eared Vulcan.  And, of course, he falls in love with the pretty woman (played by very pretty and very young Mariette Hartley) in the skimpy cavegirl outfit.  When McCoy accuses Zarabeth of lying about whether McCoy and Spock can get back to the future Spock becomes enraged and starts choking McCoy.  McCoy brings this to Spock’s attention and he realizes that he is acting like a primitive.  Zarabeth clarifies that she knows she can never return to the future alive but she doesn’t know whether Spock and McCoy can.

The two men decide to try to find the way back and with just minutes to go before nova Kirk has the librarian open the path to the Ice Age time portal.  After Spock paws at Zarabeth for a few moments Kirk successfully urges the two men to return.  McCoy talks to Spock about how he feels about leaving Zarabeth in the past and Spock says some Vulcan jazz about her being dead and buried but it sounds more like bitterness than lack of emotion.  The librarian quickly makes his escape to his own time destination and the Enterprise beams the landing party back just in time to escape the nova.

This is a pretty good episode.  Sure, it’s silly and set up as a thriller with the clock running out on the nova.  But the story moves along and watching Leonard Nimoy act almost like a human being is amusing.  I especially liked when he had McCoy by the windpipe.  Even Kirk avoided his usual histrionics.  And the funny little bald librarian provides some humor to the proceedings with his bureaucratic fussiness.  And Mariette Hartley is a charming looking woman and did the best she could do with the lines she was given.

With the series all but over and faced with the reality of transgender Kirk in the final episode I feel extremely generous.  I’m going to award this episode with a 8 // 2.

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 22 – The Savage Curtain

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Ah, the last three episodes.  The light at the end of the tunnel.  Must stay strong.

The Enterprise is investigating signs of life on a planet whose surface is covered with molten lava.  Suddenly the viewscreen on the Bridge is filled with an image of Abraham Lincoln sitting in a leather chair in his usual coat and stovepipe hat.  He explains that he is on the planet’s surface and would like to come aboard the Enterprise.  Suddenly an area of earthlike environmental conditions appears on the planet’s surface.  Kirk orders full presidential honors to be extended to this inexplicable appearance of an historical personage.  This occasions Scotty to assume the kilt.  Lincoln displays a charming personality and obvious ignorance of the modern sociological conditions when he describes Uhura as “a charming negress.”

Despite strong opposition by McCoy and Scotty Kirk and Spock decide to transport down to the planet’s surface with Lincoln.  There they meet up with another historical personage, Surak.  He was the founder of modern Vulcan culture and revered by all Vulcans including of course Spock.

Next, they meet up with a native of the planet.  He looks much like a giant steaming cow-dropping with eyes.  He informs us that the Enterprise crew have been selected to instruct the natives with a demonstration of the relative strengths of good and evil.  Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and Surak will represent good and Genghis Khan, Kahless the Klingon, Zora and Col. Philip Greene will represent evil.  If you don’t recognize any of the names other than Genghis Khan the reason is because they’re made-up conquerors from pseudo future history.

The Cow-Pat declares that the winning side gets to live and the losing side will already be dead.  But to make the deal more persuasive to Kirk it is revealed that the Enterprise is being held captive in orbit and will also be destroyed if Kirk’s side loses.  The bad guys fake a parlay then attack.  They are driven off by our heroes in whom the force is strong.  While Kirk attempts to convince everyone to build spears for a battle to the death.  Surak declares that he will attempt to negotiate a peace with the enemy.  Spock declares that this is an honorable position.  But he continues to build weapons with Kirk and Lincoln.

Shortly after he leaves for his peace mission Kirk, Spock and Lincoln hear a scream followed by a voice that supposedly sounds like Surak repeating over and over, “Help me Spock!”  It is in reaction to this that Spock declares, “A Vulcan would not cry out so.”  But Kirk and Lincoln want to attempt a rescue.  The plan is for Kirk and Spock to perform a frontal attack on the enemy base while Lincoln circles behind their position and frees Surak.  But when he reaches Surak, he finds him already dead and his entry discovered.  Then we find out that Kahless was mimicking Surak’s voice and now shows how he will mimic Lincoln’s cry for help.

But suddenly Lincoln staggers toward Kirk and Spock to warn them of the trap.  After warning them he falls forward and we can see he has a spear planted in his back.  He dies there and the battle is joined between Kirk and Spock and the four evil warriors.  When Kirk manages to kill Col. Greene the other three evil fighters run away.

At this point Road Apple declares Kirk and Spock winners and sends them home.

This episode is the source of a quote that has echoed down the decades with my brothers and me.  At any random time since its inception in 1969 any one of us might exclaim in “Spockian” tones the seemingly meaningless sentence, “A Vulcan would not cry out so.”  The question of why we would say this is open to psychological or maybe neurological debate.  But suffice it to say that mocking Star Trek could be boiled down to mocking that one line.

I assumed this episode would be as aggravating as many of the season three installments.  But I actually enjoyed it.  Sure, it was absurd but the extra characters added some much-needed novelty to the overdone interactions between Kirk and Spock.  Once again, the guest stars were much better actors than the crew of the Enterprise.  Even the oversized cow chip had more panache than Kirk and Spock.  Although I did enjoy one comment by Scotty where he mentioned something about haggis in the lunch room.

I’ll be magnanimous and give this a  7  //  4.

A Vulcan would not cry out so.

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 21 – The Cloud Minders

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For the second episode in a row, the Enterprise needs to get a mineral to cure a plague.  Go figure.  The planet with the mineral has an elite that lives in a city floating in the sky called Stratos.  The common people are called troglytes because they work in the mineral mines.  Kirk and Spock beam down to the mine entrance to pick up the mineral but the troglytes are in revolt and they try to capture Kirk and Spock for hostages but Plasus the leader of Stratos saves them and brings them to the city.  Plasus’ daughter is this incredibly skinny blonde model-looking girl who has the hots for Spock.  Anyway, we find out that the trogs are angry and stupid because the mineral they dig gives off stupid gas.  The rest of the episode is about Kirk trying to convince the cloud people and the trogs to wear masks in the mines.  Finally, Kirk traps Plasus and the head of the trogs in a mine and when they all start becoming homicidally angry, they finally realize the truth about the stupid gas.  Kirk gets the mineral.  The trogs and cloud people continue to hate each other but with a little more clarity and Spock and the emaciated blonde agree that she should go down to see the mines for some reason.

This is a social justice episode.  The poor oppressed masses are being held down by the fat cats living in Stratos.  How original.  But it wasn’t as bad as some other episodes I’ve just watched.  Kirk is kind of amusing when the gas made him irritable.  I think he yelled at Scotty at one point so that was good.

Point of interest.  Plasus is played by Jeff Corey who was the outlaw that Rooster Cogburn is hunting in the original version of True Grit.

I’ll call this a 5  //  5.

I apologize for the brevity of this review.  But I’m really running out of patience with this series as it runs out of merit.  The least they could have done was blow up a planet or something to keep my interest.  But all we get are whiny aliens and social justice.