Not Worth a Thread: TV Edition

[nacho]

I like that season three of Continuum opens up with a Back to the Future 2 style time travel adventure, where the characters from a week after the events in the episode travel back to...save...themselves...and destroy a few timelines along the way and now...I don't know what. It's like classic sci-fi TV where, if you stop and analyze the logic behind the plotlines, you realize that the main characters have died and been replaced by themselves multiple times.

[nacho]

Wait...so...wait...the From Dusk Till Dawn TV series (created, written, and directed by Rodriguez to launch his own channel -- the El Ray Network) is actually very good. It's R-rated vampire shit that isn't True Blood and involves violence and action.

Weird.

[nacho]

A very even-handed (and unforgiving) review of Vikings season two (premiering tonight) from the A.V. Club:

http://www.avclub.com/review/vikings-looks-west-worldly-second-season-201561?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds

WARNING! Review spoils everything from last season...and this season!

It's clear that they really like Vikings, despite all the faults. I agree with them...

God...season two of Vikings is just amazing. Miles better than the first season in terms of handling the story and the characters...the love for history/love of the English countryside remains.

So, historically, our main guy is doomed and his kids, in revenge, eventually set up the Danelaw. As far as I can tell, they're angling for the long term story so we'll continue on with the next generation. 

And renewed for season three! Awesome.

[nacho]

So...Community did an entire episode as a GI Joe cartoon. Complete with post-credits PSA. I came back to this season because they sheepishly rehired the showrunner, but it's felt like too little too late. The show lost several cast members, and has become a moody, meta trip largely about how bringing back Harmon was....too little too late.

Strangely, and perhaps directly related to the network's guilt, the show's been given free license to be as crazy as possible. They had a D&D bottle episode, a Zardoz-themed episode, a Brave New World-themed episode... And now a cartoon episode. All lovingly and loyally aping the source material. Which, on one hand, is fascinating, and on the other is confusing given the bizarrely self-referential unfunniness, as seen below. Overall, the rise an fall...and rise...and fall...of Community is one of the great untold weird moments in TV history, all while fiercely saying it's going to do "six seasons and a movie" no matter what. The show has promised that since the beginning, and, regardless of ratings, firings, trouble on set, and outright revolution in the ranks...it's almost succeeded.

[nacho]

So... The PSA above did not impress me.

The opening credits, however...

[nacho]

The latest from the Abrams-verse (Lindelof) is a post-Rapture series from HBO:

[nacho]

Wow...what? Stephen Colbert is replacing Letterman? That's crazy.

[RottingCorpse]

Ballsy. All the reports say he's dropping the persona, but isn't his success based on the persona? I say this as a huge Colbert fan.

I'm not saying he can't do it, but Fallon stepped into The Tonight Show without having to rebrand himself and his schtick. It's a bold move by CBS.

[nacho]

Yeah...dropping the persona is going to be weird. And has failed before, when Groucho Marx tried to do it.

I think it'll go horribly wrong. He's become that persona in his professional life. Without it, he'll just be another smug Maddow/Stewart. And he won't be able to stand up against the youth-culture Fallon machine.

[nacho]

Leviathan Wakes has been on my wishlist forever! Guess I'd better pick it up...

Syfy has given a direct-to-series order to an exciting-sounding new project based on an acclaimed sci-fi book series. The cable network has ordered 10 episodes of The Expanse, from Academy Award-nominated screenwriting duo Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men, Iron Man) and Alcon Television Group. The project has been described by industry insiders as “Game of Thrones in space” — not so much because of the specifics of the plot, but because it tells a dramatic sprawling grown-up story within a popular fantasy genre that’s based on a respected series of novels.

The logline: “A thriller set two hundred years in the future, The Expanse follows the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.”

The Expanse is based on a series of books by James S.A. Corey. The most well-known title is probably the first in the series, Leviathan Wakes, which has been praised for reinventing and updating the old-school Star Wars/Firefly-style space opera. Syfy won a bidding war with another content producer to acquire the project.

[nacho]

Yeah...dropping the persona is going to be weird. And has failed before, when Groucho Marx tried to do it.

I think it'll go horribly wrong. He's become that persona in his professional life. Without it, he'll just be another smug Maddow/Stewart. And he won't be able to stand up against the youth-culture Fallon machine.

Speaking of cracks in the persona... Here's a hilarious early video from TDS where Colbert can't make it through the skit without cracking up Carol Burnett Show style:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/late-night-hosts-react-to-colberts-new-gig.html

[nacho]

So I'm loving Silicon Valley... It's the geek comedy for people with an IQ higher than 60, which is the current geek bar set by Big Bang Theory.

[Sirharles]

So I'm loving Silicon Valley... It's the geek comedy for people with an IQ higher than 60, which is the current geek bar set by Big Bang Theory.

Why do you hate everything that is popular?

[nacho]

So I'm loving Silicon Valley... It's the geek comedy for people with an IQ higher than 60, which is the current geek bar set by Big Bang Theory.

Why do you hate everything that is popular?

I don't. Most of what I watch is popular. Hell,  some of the highest rated shows on TV are in these forums and full of me geeking out about them. You know this.

Big Bang Theory is dumb, formulaic, and has played its one note joke about a million times over. I dare you to single out 10 episodes as unique, different from the rest, and instantly recognizable by others. Even BTVS can do that!

We're watching it just to see the girls in cocktail dresses at this point. And, if we're very lucky, we'll get a Bazinga, but that costs extra these days.

[Sirharles]

I should have put a "insert sarcasm" comment on the end of that.  Stupid internet....can't read my thoughts...yet.