Tag Archives: TV

Favorite Show – Galavant

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If you haven’t been watching Galavant, well you’re too late now. Its season, and probably series, finale aired this past Sunday, and I’m sad to see it go. A half-hour medieval musical comedy series was never going to have mass appeal, but it was just the sort of thing I was looking for, and it rapidly became one of my favorite shows on TV. The idea of legendary songwriter Alan Menken doing a musical TV show was enough to pique my interest, but I quickly discovered last season that Galavant was more than just great songs from the Disney vet. It stylistically combined Disney musicals with Monty Python (specifically Spamalot), The Princess Bride, and Mel Brooks movies to create one of the funniest shows out there, but as the presumed series finale approached I wasn’t prepared for just how emotional the show could be, without losing its humor, nor how attached I’d become to these characters. Add in the fact that Galavant was perhaps the most self-aware and self-depreciating show in history and you’ve got a recipe for something unique. If this really is the end, and I hope it isn’t, I’m at least happy that Galavant existed and even got unexpected second season, and I hope more people will discover it as the years go by.

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On the end of Glee

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My Life Would Suck Without You

Being with you is so dysfunctional

I really shouldn’t miss you

But I can’t let you go

The series finale of Glee airs tonight, and it has me thinking about my experiences with the show and what its legacy might be.  In many ways, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, the lines above from one of the many songs performed onGlee over six seasons could sum up my feelings on the show.  It’s certainly been a roller coaster ride for the fans who have stuck with it, with some of the highest highs I’ve ever experienced from television, as well as some of the lowest lows.  And here at the end I find myself with two equally strong opinions that are battling for supremacy in my mind: I’m glad that the show is finally ending, and I’m going to miss it when it’s gone.

From the very beginning my relationship with Glee was unlike any show I’d ever experienced.  Continue reading →

Quote of the Day

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Giles:  This is madness! What can you have been thinking? You are the Slayer! Lives depend upon you! I make allowances for your youth, but I expect a certain amount of responsibility, and instead of which you enslave yourself to this, this… Cult?

Buffy:  You don’t like the color?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 1: Episode 3 – “The Witch”

Thoughts on the end of Once Upon a Time’s 3rd Season

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Last night’s season 3 finale of Once Upon a Time hit me harder than anything on the show since its first season.  Despite religiously watching the show, I’ve never written about it, but after last night I felt that I had to, as I had a much stronger emotional reaction than I could have expected, particularly in its last minute reveal that sets the stage for season 4.  I want to use this moment to take a look back at the series thus far, and perhaps discover why this new development hit me so hard.  Needless to say, there will be spoilers for the show thus far, although I’ll give another, specific spoiler warning for last night’s episode when I get to that point.

Once Upon a Time was clearly a show designed to appeal to me.  Continue reading →

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. renewed! Plus, Agent Carter set to premiere this fall!

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That’s right, fellow Level 7 Agents, Agents of SHIELD has officially been renewed!  (Update: It’s moving to a new time in the fall!)  I thought we might have to wait until next week for the ABC’s upfront presentation, but the good news came tonight!  After much speculation, Coulson and his team (whoever survives next week’s season finale) will be back in the fall to continue to fight HYDRA and rebuild SHIELD.  After debuting to huge numbers last year, Agents of SHIELD steadily dropped in the ratings, though in the past couple of months viewership steadied and even rallied a bit.  The dramatic tie-in with Captain America: The Winter Soldier really helped, both in drawing attention to the show and in giving the show a creative boost.  The latest string of episodes has been edge-of-your-seat exciting, and I can’t wait to see where they take the show next season.

The other big news on the Marvel front was that the much-rumored Agent Carter series has been picked up for the fall.   Continue reading →

Trailer Tuesday: Star Wars Rebels

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

After saying last week that I rarely do TV trailers, here I am again with another one, although this one is much more exciting.  After Disney bought Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars, many people wondered what would happen to the wildly successful animated series, The Clone Wars, which aired on Cartoon Network.  The somewhat disappointing but unsurprising answer is that The Clone Wars was brought to a conclusion, and a new animated series was announced, Star Wars Rebels, which will air on Disney XD in the fall.  The trailer premiered this weekend on “Star Wars Day,” although it’s probably been a little eclipsed by other recent Star Wars news.  Take a look and read on for my thoughts below:

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Do women prefer “tortured” villains to “boring” heroes?

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Recently I received a message from my fellow blogger/friend, Teanna (find her online here or here), and she had this to say:

You, honored Pirate Blogger, need to write a blog about why women swoon over Dark Heroes (Wolverine, Batman, Hawkeye, Sherlock, Thorin) and Tortured Villains (Loki, Loki, Loki, Bucky, Loki) and find Nice Golden Hero types (Cap, Coulson, Superman… OK, that’s a weird set right there, but…) boring.

As a guy, I don’t feel like I have the right to speculate over what women find attractive or the characters they’re interested in, and the last thing I want to do is say something that comes off as judgmental or sexist, so I thought I’d open this question up to you.  If I get enough feedback, I’ll post some of the most interesting things I heard.  If not, I might write my own article from the perspective of whether these types of characters are more popular in society on a more general level.

You can of course leave me a comment right here on my blog, or if you don’t want to post something publicly you can send me a message via my feedback page.  You can tweet me @lovepirate77 or find me on tumblr or send me a message there.

So I’ll leave you with some possible questions, not intending to make any judgments about the question, but just to get the conversation flowing.  Do women really prefer tortured heroes to boring villains?  If not, why is there a perception that they do?  If true, why is that?  Is it simply a reflection of the popularity of these characters generally, regardless of the fan’s gender?  Is it because of they types of actors who generally play tortured villains?  Are those characters simply better written?  Is the mere question offensive?  Is there any danger in being attracted to villainous characters when it translates into real life relationships?  Is it a reflection of living in a more forgiving or less black-and-white time period?

I look forward to hearing from you, as I’m sure there are a wide range of opinions about this topic.

Trailer Tuesday: Crossbones

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

I don’t normally do TV trailers on here, mostly because despite watching lots (too much) of TV, I’m just not into it the way I am with movies.  There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking movies are where my heart lies.  Having said that, I can’t ignore a new show about pirates, given my obsession with all things pirate-related.  So here’s the trailer for NBC’s upcoming summer TV series, Crossbones, and read on for my thoughts:

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Series Review: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

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Once Upon a Time In Wonderland was an intriguing concept.  Where most TV spinoffs usually feel forced, like an attempt to simply cash in on the success of the parent show, Wonderland at least had potential.  The world of Once Upon a Time is so vast, and we’ve only scratched the surface of the many worlds and realms that have been seen and mentioned on the show, that it seemed like the perfect setup for a spinoff.  We’d gotten a few glimpses at Wonderland, either dealing with Jefferson/the Mad Hatter or Cora/the Queen of Hearts, but the potential was there just waiting to be tapped.  Unfortunately, the end result didn’t exactly live up to that potential, but it was still an experiment worth trying and provided us with some memorable characters.

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t need fixing, just patience

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Entertainment Weekly ran an article today about “How to fix ‘Agents of SHIELD’”, which brought up many of the common complaints about Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. along with a variety of suggestions for how the show to improve.  I’ve spent some time perusing forums and comment sections and have seen most of these complaints before, and I thought I’d take some time to answer some of them.  I should preface this by saying that I’m hardly an unbiased observer.  I’m already attached to SHIELD, and I’m obviously enjoying it.  I want to see it succeed, but even more than that I want the writers and creators to tell the story they want to tell without trying to bow to internet grumblings.  (This would obviously be different if the show had a problem of a social variety, such as racism, misogyny or a negative attitude towards LGBT issues.  I would say that the show is pretty darn white, though of the 6 leads one actor is Chinese and another is half Chinese, so that’s something at least.  As for LGBT characters, I have faith in Joss and company if not in ABC, considering it took huge ensemble show Once Upon a Time three seasons before we got an LGBT character.)  Suffice to say I’m invested in SHIELD and I think it’s doing a lot of things right, and while I’m not a big fan of audience blaming I think some of the criticism is unfair and shortsighted.

Before I get to addressing Darren Franich’s specific complaints/suggestions, I should say that I think SHIELD’s creators have a different approach to “genre” television than what is commonly seen on TV in the 2010’s and what audiences expect from “genre” television in general these days.

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