Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
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| Just in time for Halloween! |
In the afternoon, before Episode 2 of the new CW show Superman and Lois even aired (on 03/02/2021), the CW renewed the program for a second season. Those numbers on the pilot must have been really something, because that show cannot be cheap to make, and they didn't even bother to see how the show did Tuesday night when viewers would vote with their feet based on what they'd seen. My guess is that streaming numbers were very good, indeed - and, I think it was shown on WB owned TV channels TNT and TBS to catch any cable-bound stragglers.
The notion of *why* the show was working for me kind of kicked in during episode 2. And it's both totally obvious based on the premise, but for me - as someone who has thousands of Superman comics, has seen countless hours of TV and movies, read multiple histories of Superman... it somehow didn't quite resonate til it did.
Superman got to move on.
I'd originally started this post at the end of last year in order to relay what all we'd been watching. At this point, it's kind of hard to remember through the haze that was 2020 and the endless hours in my spot on the sofa what I put my eyeballs on. As you may know, I mostly watched movies, and baseball came back in July. I even gave a go of becoming a fan of Korean baseball, but kinda failed at that.
In general, I don't binge TV shows (and quietly judge people on twitter complaining when shows come out once per week), but this year has been a year unlike others. And I did plow right through some shows that I might otherwise have ignored.
For example - I watched all of something called The Great Flower Fight, which I can't say I even liked, but at the start of the pandemic, it was the right show at the right time. As was Love is Blind.
Frankly - I do not get how TV is funded in this era of a million channels and streaming services. What constitutes a win versus a cancel. It's all just a big mystery to me. There's so much stuff out there, and while the same percentage of it is watchable, with the sheer volume, there's a lot of decent TV in existence at this point. But, yikes, there's a lot of stuff on, and somebody is watching it.
None of these shows are recommendations, but the list is what I've watched over the past 12 months or so between baseball and movies. Some of it's pretty bad - but I somehow stuck it out.
I'm also not looking for recommendations - and I know you all have them. Good! Say them very quietly inside your head and give a knowing smile to yourself. Ahhh.... there's that familiar glow of a recommendation.
Anyway - here's my best possible stab at a list
Today is the 100th birthday of the late Noel Neill, the original live-action Lois Lane.
Neill mostly famously played Lois Lane for five seasons of The Adventures of Superman alongside actor George Reeves.
While I was a Wheel Watcher and had an odd affinity for "Sale of the Century", Jeopardy! was clearly the thinking-person's gameshow - because it was one of the last surviving quiz shows on TV. And, it was hosted by the thinking-person's gameshow host. Trebek ran a tight ship - foolishness was not creeping into the world of Jeopardy!. Demographic-pleasing plebes were not going to find their way onto the contestant's stand - he needed people who could answer a medley of trivia questions, and not lose their cool.
Trebek grounded the show with a cool, dry, breeziness that was polite, maybe a tad formal, and was unimpressed with credentials even when touting those of his guests. He was far more impressed if you made a run on the board. And, his giddiness (which amounted to a small smile at the best of times) shown through during returning champions weeks where he could count on a battle royale instead of watching middle school librarians fall by the wayside early in the game.
Most game show hosts you kind of just shrug at - goofy entertainers with a gift for hucksterism. But Trebek outsurvived almost all of them (Sajak is still doing his thing, along with Vanna). And he did it with a certain poise and sincerity about the show that gave gravitas to 30 minutes daily of people being asked random-ass questions for money. That could have been dumb, y'all.
Jeopardy! existed before Trebek, and it will exist after Trebek. But it will not be the same without him. Nor will the television landscape as I've known it my entire life. And, yes, I will be quietly very judgey of whomever tries to fill Trebek's podium.
Here's to a well deserved rest and may he never have to hear a response in the form of a question ever again.
Rigg was a cult favorite in the U.S. and a bonafide star in the U.K., and would have been well remembered just from her work on the UK whack-a-doodle adventure show The Avengers as Emma Peel - which laid the foundation for about 10,000 imitators and arguably indirectly to the most popular iterations of Black Widow in the Marvel Universe. She also has the most solid of Bond-girl credits as Traci, the woman who Bond would marry in On her Majesty's Secret Service (and a favorite of the PodCast). Most recently she'd been on Game of Thrones (which I didn't watch, but I know she's a fan favorite).
She, of course, did so much more and was just one of those actors it seems everyone could agree upon.
