|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 26, 2024 10:34:03 GMT -5
Now... What did everyone think of the final episode of The Prisoner? I thought it weird, but it didn't bother me ... I could appreciate why they felt a non-standard conclusion was impossible. Actually, my biggest source of irritation in the episode was the casting of the 'young man' using an actor who'd appeared in an earlier episode but didn't seem to be the same person at all! I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this, but could The Prisoner have been ... Double-O Six? So when he's labeled Number Six at the Village he's being told, "You don't get to just retire."
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 24, 2024 11:28:57 GMT -5
I'm a little surprised The Greatest American Hero didn't get a comic until 2008. That is a good question! Here's one that doesn't quite qualify, but has always irked me: When DC released Wednesday Comics as a tabloid, I enjoyed it but found (as I usually do from Marvel and DC anthology titles) that the near-exclusive focus on superhero titles made the overall package too homogenous in tone. I'd have loved to have seen a page devoted to single-tier humor strips (Binky, Super-Turtle, Sugar & Spike, etc), and ... Wednesday Comics came out the same time as the Jonah Hex film! Now, that crashed and burned pretty much, but of course that wasn't known in advance, so why was there no cross-promotion at all? A single Jonah Hex page would have both added more variety to the series and also hyped the film a bit and maybe attracted some attention from the half-dozen people who actually watched the movie.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 24, 2024 11:21:11 GMT -5
I was todays year old when I discovered that the “King of Queens “ show ended with them getting divorced. That’s a terrible ending. Are there Any shows where you didn’t like the ending ? The Battlestar Galactica reboot. Excellent series for most of its run, but it turns out the showrunners didn't actually have an idea of what the Cylons' plan might be or how to explain the mysteries they set up over the years. So having to conclude the show, they went "oh, we'll say it was all part of God's secret plan, and all the inconsistencies are due to His mysterious ways." Game of Thrones, of course. After five brilliant and complex seasons, the show turned into a confused one-dimensional mess. Plot holes you can ride a dragon through, plot-mandated stupidity galore, characters who might as well be different people and a downer of a conclusion. Most of the BSG revival stands as one of my favorite science fiction tv series ever made, but the conceptually poor final season is a black mark against it. Regarding GoT, I stand with those who don't mind the downer ending ... but object to how we got there (pun unintended). Frankly after the series departed from the novels, I was so bored I was willing to stop watching it entirely, and only continued because my wife wanted to finish the series off. Star Trek Enterprise. Overall, I loved this show. The cast was terrific, Scott Bakula was a great captain. I even liked the opening theme song. The storylines were good from the temporal cold war to the Xindi conflict but the show was really clicking on the last season with story arcs focusing more on early Trek history like the Augments (with Khan), Vulcan history (Surak and logic were not that eagerly embraced) and a wonderful two-part Mirror Universe story with a surprising fun ending, all leading towards the Earth/Romulan war and the founding of the Federation, it was all good!! Until the series finale.....with THOSE two prominent Trek guest stars....which totally undermined the series. So much rubbish and such a waste. I consider the couple seasons hopelessly mediocre, but once they handed it over to Many Coto it became one of the best Trek series out there. However, the finale was taken from him and handed back to the team who made the early episodes, and the mediocrity aggressively reasserted itself. I just read Coto's plans for the aborted fifth season, and it is to weep: At the time of the cancellation, Coto had hoped for renewal and already started to make plans for the fifth season. These included the expectation that the show would begin to cover the buildup to the Romulan War, as well as continue to link to The Original Series with references to things such as the cloud city of Stratos, as seen in "The Cloud Minders".[120] Another feature Coto planned was to have a "miniseries within a series", with four or five episodes devoted to following up on events from the Mirror Universe episode "In a Mirror, Darkly". The producers also intended to bring Jeffrey Combs onto the series as a regular by placing his recurring Andorian character Shran on the bridge of the Enterprise in an advisory capacity.[16] Work had already begun on an episode referred to by Coto as "Kilkenny Cats", which would have seen the return of Larry Niven's Kzinti, usually seen in his Known Space novels, and who had previously appeared in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Slaver Weapon".[121] At the same time Enterprise was broadcast, writer Jimmy Diggs was pursuing the idea of a CGI animated film, Star Trek: Lions of the Night, with Captain Hikaru Sulu leading the Starship Enterprise and attempting to prevent a Kzinti invasion of the Federation.[122] Coto's episode was based on a similar premise, with Diggs brought onto the Enterprise team to work on the episode.[123] Production had begun on the new Kzinti ships for "Kilkenny Cats", with Josh Finney commissioned.[124]
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 18, 2024 10:45:22 GMT -5
That was the beauty of the Astro City story, "Show 'Em," featuring the gimmick thief The Junkman. He was an engineer, who was pushed out at 65 and turned to crime to show he was still vital and creative, turning old discarded items into his weapons and devices. He pulls off the perfect crime and gets away with it; but, it eats at him that nobody knows it. So he pulls it again, with a built-in flaw, so that he is captured by Jack-in-the-Box and put on trial, where the details will be revealed to the world. The twist at the end is a device, you see hooked up in the overhead lighting fixture, that will allow him to escape the courtroom. I am reminded of Lex Luthor, who built a time time machine out of an orange, a light bulb, a coil spring and a flashlight
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 5, 2024 11:14:23 GMT -5
Back in the 1970's, I'd have loved to see Mayer's Superfolks adapted as a comic, preferably by Ralph Reese. However, by the mid-80s the influence had already permeated the comic field, and it would be redundant.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 5, 2024 11:10:12 GMT -5
I'm certain I'll be in a minority here ... but I thought every casting change the series made improved the show. I preferred Potter to Blake, BJ to Trapper John, and Winchester to Frank by a wide margin. I was also glad they got rid of Radar. If you are in a minority, at least it's not a minority of one. I also preferred Potter, BJ, and Charles over Henry, Trapper, and Frank. I liked Radar, though, and was sorry to see him go, but at least his departure made it possible for Klinger to become more than a one-joke character. One reason for the above was that Blake and Trapper John, as Cody says, were really just extensions of Hawkeye. Potter and BJ were more distinct characters. Likewise, Winchester was a worthy opponent, which Frank never was. In terms of Radar, I did like him, but I have a pet peeve about 'eternal ingenue' characters, and if they weren't going to move him out of that role, he needed to move on. I also was fine with Klinger in a dress, but after a while the joke got old, and it was a relief to see him doing something else.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 4, 2024 10:46:56 GMT -5
I can & will watch M*A*S*H up till Henry Blake's death. I never liked Potter, BJ was a poor sub for Trapper John while Winchester was the best replacement for Frank. However, for me, Henry made the show, his comedic reactions and facial expressions in regards to whatever the gang at the Swamp were doing was priceless. His death still hits me hard every time I watch the episode especially given how it happens. I'm certain I'll be in a minority here ... but I thought every casting change the series made improved the show. I preferred Potter to Blake, BJ to Trapper John, and Winchester to Frank by a wide margin. I was also glad they got rid of Radar.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 3, 2024 10:05:38 GMT -5
It's a funny phenomenon (well, at least for me) that sometimes something I didn't really get into back in the day suddenly seems cool when it gets referenced into something more modern. Like learning Ellis did a New Universe revival of sorts, I never knew that and feel compelled to check it out now. It will frustrate you for being unfinished, but it's a fantastic comic, one of the best things Ellis has ever done.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 3, 2024 10:03:38 GMT -5
Superfolks by Robert Mayer was a groundbreaking if flawed novel when it came out in 1977 ... now, so many better writers have learned from its use of tropes, that all that's left to it are dated references, bad prose, and unfunny attempts at humor.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Apr 2, 2024 9:59:44 GMT -5
What I’d like to specifically discuss (although thread drift is fine!) is whether launching eight titles was too ambitious. Would launching fewer titles have worked, or not made any difference? At the risk of self promotion, Icctrombone and I did a whole podcast episode on how Valiant was Shooter's New Universe 2.0 in everything but name. In that instance, the company only allowed him to start with two titles featuring established heroes (Magnus and Solar) to test the waters for the first nine months, after which Shooter launched pretty close to one new title each month over the course of seven months and then imediately jumped into the first company-wide event. October 1991: Harbinger November 1991: X-O Manowar December 1991: Rai February 1991: Shadowman April 1991: Eternal Warrior, Archer & Armstrong, and The Unity crossover event I think opening with fewer titles may have helped in the short term, but made not much difference in the long term. The funding was the main issue: Shooter wanted to launch the NU with big-name fan-favorite creators, but wound up only using staffers ... with the consequence that none of the books looked or felt any different from mainstream MU books. Someone ought to mention newuniversal, which revived the NU characters into a single title, and which ended when he lost the files he was working on for the second arc. No fan of the original NU, this was one of my favorite Warren Ellis comics, and I still feel bereft. (I was disappointed that Valiant revived all these Gold Key superheroes but not the Owl / Owlman ... I can appreciate how they might not have wanted to step on DC's toes, but even as a supporting character in Solar it would have been good to see him.)
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Mar 29, 2024 11:02:47 GMT -5
You'd think Jermaal would be like, "okay, cute for a simian I guess, but still four fewer boobs than it takes to get me going."
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Mar 26, 2024 11:31:17 GMT -5
No, the best Bronze Age Superman story is this one: I don't know about that story specifically, but certainly Starlin's work on this series (most though not all of which included Mongul), is one of the peaks for the character in the era. I wish Starlin had done more, as Bronze Age Superman would have been well-suited to his sort of cosmic nonsense.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Mar 26, 2024 11:28:36 GMT -5
Moreover, there were predecessors but they all were clearly dressed as monsters or circus performers. Lee Falk in the Phantom essentially created the superhero-style costume. Welllllll......that would be down to Ray Moore; but, he was adapting a medieval executioner's costume. Similar ones were also used for jailers in Flash Gordon. Flash did a lot to define superhero couture, too. I grant Alex Raymond's influence on the couture; however, his characters weren't strictly speaking superheroes.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Mar 25, 2024 10:55:44 GMT -5
The Phantom's superhero-stye costume has always felt incongruous to the jungle adventure setting to me. I find the super-heroes who copied The Phantom's original suit to be incongruous in an urban setting. I'm kind of taking the piss. But the Phantom had the look a year before Superman. Moreover, there were predecessors but they all were clearly dressed as monsters or circus performers. Lee Falk in the Phantom essentially created the superhero-style costume.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Mar 25, 2024 10:52:52 GMT -5
Moore doesn't invoke The Silver Age to mock it or point out what he regards as its stupidity as some writers like to do (with Whatever Happened To)- he does seem to have a genuine reverence for the era, but at the same time, I can't say that he's not tearing the period down either. I guess its the fact that he's running The Silver Age through a meat grinder but doing so with love which tends to throw me. That is how he made his name, for better or worse. This story wasn't a SA pastiche, but Supreme, 1963, and some of his ABC stories were.
|
|