Category Archives: TV

‘Agents of SHIELD’ improving, but what it could learn from ‘Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘The Blacklist’

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SHIELD girl in a flower dress

Okay, that was more like it.

Five weeks in. “Agents of SHIELD” feels a little more like it’s finding its way. And who knows, maybe the slow burn strategy of Joss Whedon and his showrunners has been planned this way all along.

But tonight’s episode, “The Girl in a Flower Dress,” took a couple of big steps toward making the show a must-see each week and, in the process, accomplished a couple of things: It (mostly) resolved the “is she or isn’t she a mole?” storyline about hacker Skye, and it furthered a series Big Bad in Centipede, the group that’s continuing the Extremis experiments – giving people superpowers, as in “Iron Man 3” and the “SHIELD” pilot, through dangerous chemicals.

It also established some other nifty ideas, including the fact that “SHIELD” has a list of superpowered people it’s keeping tabs on. This has been a matter-of-fact part of the Marvel movies and needed to be re-established here.

What still needs to be resolved right away: Coulson’s secret. If there’s one more reference to how the unwitting Coulson (the wonderfully deadpan Clark Gregg) has changed since Loki impaled him in “The Avengers,” I’ll cry.

Coulson thinks he died for a few seconds. Higher-ups including Maria Hill know something else is the truth … and think Coulson must never know.

I think everyone suspects that Coulson is a Life Model Decoy – as mentioned in “The Avengers” – or a clone or something. But please, please don’t save the explanation for the end of the season. Coulson needs to find out sooner rather than later, maybe in a November or February sweeps week episode. And then he needs to get pissed, taking it out on Nick Fury – Samuel Jackson’s already appeared in the series, so there’s no reason he can’t come back – and everyone else who deceived him. Knowing how buttoned-down Coulson is, that “taking it out” might consist of an icy glare and a brisk walking away. But do it soon.

That way, expectations will be defied and the next story arc – how Coulson comes back to lead the team – can begin.

Okay, now here’s what I intended to touch on before I saw tonight’s episode: A few things “Agents of SHIELD” could learn from its counterparts on other networks, “Sleepy Hollow” and “The Blacklist:”

Turn up the charisma. Yes, Clark Gregg is no James Spader, who’s chewing the scenery and loving it on “The Blacklist.” But “SHIELD” needs some flamboyance.

Turn up the crazy. “Sleepy Hollow” is getting points for the relish with which it embraces its storyline. “SHIELD” shouldn’t imitate it, but it needs more of the kind of moments that will make fans and casual viewers alike chuckle.

Show why these people are together. A seven-year-must-prevent-the-end-times-like-in-“Sleepy Hollow” plot device isn’t necessary. But there’s got to be more of a reason holding these people together than just the “we’re all in the SHIELD helicarrier break room at the same time” vibe that sometimes seems to be the case.

Give us more surprises. In the first episode of “The Blacklist,” the frustrated FBI agent stabs sneaky fugitive Red Reddington (James Spader) in the neck with a fountain pen. Yikes! It was quick and unexpected and totally justified. Give us more of that kind of “hey did you see that?” moment. (They even had Reddington make a joke about it in a later episode.)

Give us some Marvel comics names. Remember before the series began, people were speculating on which characters would be introduced? Luke Cage? Moon Knight? Who would have thought that “Arrow” would be introducing established DC Comics characters every week and Marvel, the king of synergy, would be running a series of wannabes past us every week?

Give us the goods, “Agents of SHIELD.”

Today in Halloween: Yvonne Craig

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batgirl yvonne craig trick or treat

This installment of Today in Halloween comes all the way from the fall of 1967.

Yvonne Craig has been added to the “Batman” series in its third season, playing Batgirl.

By most accounts, executives thought the addition of Batgirl would attract more young girls to the series, although I think it’s more likely that Craig brought more adolescent boys and men to the TV.

Anyway, something during that fall of 1967, this photo of Craig with a little pumpkin and trick-or-treat bag was released.

Why? We don’t know.

Why is it here now? Yvonne Craig, of course.

Today in Halloween: AMC has a little bit of Fear Fest left

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amc fear fest

You know, I’m a big fan of today’s AMC. What’s not to like? “The Walking Dead,” “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad.”

But this time of year I miss the old AMC, the all-movie network that couldn’t really compete with Turner Classic Movies … except for the last couple of weeks of October, when AMC programmed virtually non-stop horror movies.

From the old Universal Monsters classics to Hammer horrors, AMC made me want to sit in front of my TV 24-7.

Well, a lot of the classics have fled elsewhere – I’m guessing TCM – and there’s a preponderance of “Friday the 13th” and “Halloween” movies during the final two weeks of October on AMC now.

But that’s okay. Cause you can never see John Carpenter’s classic “Halloween” too many times. And none of us have seen the offbeat “Halloween 3” often enough.

And yes, I’ll stop and check out a “Friday the 13th” movie, if only long enough to determine if it’s the one with Kevin Bacon.

There are a few schedules online for AMC’s lineup this year. True, too many of the timeslots are filled with inferior stuff.

But beginning with a “Walking Dead” marathon over the weekend leading up to the new season premiere at 9 p.m Sunday and great movies like “Slither” on tap, AMC will still give us some Fear Fest this year.

TV Catch-up: ‘The Blacklist’ and ‘Sleepy Hollow’

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the-blacklist

With a little more than a week to go before “The Walking Dead” returns and fills up another 60 minutes of my TV viewing time, I’m trying to catch up on a few hour-longs.

“Agents of SHIELD” hasn’t set the world on fire – just a figure of speech there – yet, but I’ll be watching every week. That’s a given, as is “The Walking Dead” when it returns a week from tomorrow.

And so far I’m really intrigued with and enjoying “Sleepy Hollow” and “The Blacklist.”

“The Blacklist” has its greatest asset in James Spader, 1980s teen movie star turned TV stalwart and creepiness personified.

“The Blacklist” owes a lot to “Silence of the Lambs,” “24” and lots of police procedural shows.

Spader, who will play robotic villain Ultron in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” plays Raymond “Red” Reddington, a long-sought criminal mastermind who turns himself in to the FBI and offers to help the feds catch others on the “most wanted” list. But he insists on dealing only with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), a first-time profiler.

Reddington leads Keen and her fellow agents through their paces in the pilot as they chase a terrorist and associate of Reddington with mass casualties in mind.

Random observations about the pilot:

A couple of moments surprised me, including one in which Keen takes out her frustrations on Reddington’s carotid artery.

Spader spouts his lines with relish. He’s good fun.

He does looks odd in his rose-colored aviators and old-fashioned hat.

In the opening scene, when Reddington shows up at FBI HQ and surrenders, a guard confirms his ID and hits an alarm. So that means every guard in the place knows to pull his gun on Reddington, just because he’s kneeling with hands behind his head?

A kidnapping scene on a bridge is implausible as hell but pretty fun.

As for “Sleepy Hollow,” I’ve really enjoyed the couple of episodes I’ve seen so far. The show is fairly smart and has some nice creepy moments not only with its “monster of the week” to be fought by Ichabod Crane and company but with its only-barely-glimpsed “Big Bad.” Thanks to snippets of “Sympathy for the Devil,” we can guess who this horned fellow is.

I like the cast – thank goodness they’ve brought Clancy Brown back; I’ll take all the flashbacks and dream sequences I can get of this guy – and I like the style.

I just hope the show doesn’t pull a “Lost” or “X-Files” and lose its way along its multi-year, multi-monster, multi-secrets path.

Loving ‘Lost’

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lost cast banner

My name is Keith and I was a “Lost” fan.

I say “was” because I watched every episode of the series and – like many, many viewers – loved a lot of it at the time.

And – like many, many viewers – I was frustrated by the final episode that reassembled the Oceanic Airlines crash survivors years – in some cases – after their deaths for one final churchy hugfest.

By the wayside fell most of the mysteries, from the cryptic symbols to the puzzlers about life, time and space.

But while the show was on, it was a hell of a ride.

Rewatching the pilot lately, I was taken by how simply but effectively the show was set up. Airliner crashes on island. Survivors struggle to stay alive. Fantastic elements are introduced a few at a time.

The flashbacks to their earlier lives.

The smoke monster.

John Locke and his journey.

The Others.

“Not Penny’s boat.”

They’ve taken Walt!

Sawyer’s nicknames for the rest of the survivors.

The French woman.

Ben Linus!

The show was a victim, in equal parts, of viewers’ expectations and the producers’ failures, both magnified by intense online scrutiny that helped build excitement and anticipation.

Ultimately, “Lost” was a satisfying experience tempered by frustrating moments. The producers could never have solved all the puzzles they put in front of us. Never could have brought all those characters’ stories to satisfying conclusions.

Wish they had, though.

‘Gotham’ – Batman doesn’t live here … er, yet

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COMMISSIONER_GORDON_dc_animated_universe

The announcement that DC/Warner Bros. would produce a “Gotham” TV series, about the fabled comic book city pre-Batman that would focus on not-yet-Commissioner James Gordon, has prompted a lot of talk online.

There was some excitement and some concern. We’ve seen this kind of thing – a TV series that exists in the shadows of comic book superheroes – before. (Entertainment Weekly called it “superhero adjacent,” which was pretty nifty.)

As a matter of fact, we’re seeing it right now. Marvel’s “Agents of SHIELD” debuted to good ratings two nights ago and would appear to be on its way to being a hit if the Joss Whedon-created series can sustain interest in a show about the spies who corral and help out superhumans.

batman year one gordon batman

But “Gotham” – which might take a few cues from comic books like “Batman: Year One” and “Gotham Central” – looks likely to focus on Gordon and the cops in the grittiest Gotham City precincts  … and, as the producers said, the origins of Batman’s rogues gallery of super villains. So we might see early versions of the Riddler, Mr. Freeze … even the Joker?

A couple of thoughts come to mind:

And it was certainly interesting that the series is for Fox instead of the CW, where “Arrow” lives now and “The Flash” is coming.

Warners must have been under substantial pressure to get another DC-inspired TV series on the air. Especially one that looks like “SHIELD.”

It’s cheaper to do a series about the humans who must deal with superheroes than to do a series about superheroes. But – as online commentators pointed out in recent weeks – it might just frustrate viewers if you made a practice of saying, “Iron Man just flew off” or “Batman was just here.” So it’s good idea to set it in the days before Batman arrives.

But … by making a prequel, you eliminate all suspense that integral characters like Gordon will be killed off, ala “The Walking Dead.” The producers of “Gotham” can never realistically have Jim Gordon in personal mortal jeopardy. I blame George Lucas for this prequel stuff.

A decade ago, “Birds of Prey” gave us Batman-adjacent characters and a Bruce Wayne who was, at least once, on the other end of the phone line with Alfred. “Gotham” will have to tread a fine line between hinting at Batman and teasing us with Batman.

Don’t make “Smallville’s” mistakes. Having said, “No tights, no flights,” the producers of the Clark Kent series did a slightly better than average job depicting the run-up to Superman. But they should have paid off 10 seasons of viewers’ patience in the final episode with full-on Superman instead of a coy peek-a-boo.

There’s great potential for great Big Bads and great storylines. Even if “Gotham” runs multiple years, it could fill every season with psychopaths and sociopaths and stalwart defenders of Gotham and those who want to pillage it. Arkham Asylum stories alone could come into play every few weeks. Not to mention the satisfaction of watching Jim Gordon grow into the character we’ve seen in the comics, TV shows and Chris Nolan movies.

If “Gotham” can pull this off, we might not miss Batman in the series. We might even be happy if his arrival takes years and years.

Classic ‘X-Files’ – ‘Jose Chung’s From Outer Space’

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x-files jose chung's from outer space

It’s funny, as the 20th anniversary of the debut season of “The X-Files” rolls along, to see how sharp and canny many of the episodes are even when watched anew and not viewed through the filter of a couple decades of nostalgia.

“Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” was the 20th episode of the third season of the series, originally airing in April 1996, and written by Darin Morgan (who played the shape-shifting grifter from “Small Potatoes”) and directed by Rob Bowman.

The episode is told in flashback form, from more than one viewpoint, as Mulder and Scully unravel a reported alien abduction of two teenagers.

Jose Chung X-Files

Framing the story is Scully’s interview with author Jose Chung, played in a relaxed and funny performance by Charles Nelson Reilly, who had been best known to a generation of TV watchers for game show appearances, including “Match Game.”

While Scully is a fan of writer Chung, she plays her typical role of skeptic here, arguing that some kind of sexual trauma occurred, while Mulder believes the story of alien abduction.

Random observations:

Reilly returned as Chung in an episode of “Millennium,” the “X-Files” spin-off.

The “Men in Black” who show up to discourage one witness are played by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek.

The story as retold by a young D&D fan is maybe the best version, with Mulder giving out a little scream when they find an “alien” body and Scully – a man posing as a woman but not quite pulling it off, according to the witness – threatening to kill somebody.

“I didn’t spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage,” the young witness says.

Vintage commercials during the episode I have on videotape: New at the movies: “Scream 2” and “The Postman.”

‘Sleepy Hollow’ mixes fantasy, cop show

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One of the more unusual new shows of the fall is “Sleepy Hollow,” which turns Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” into a modern-day fantasy adventure mixed with a investigatory procedural.

The Fox pilot opens with Ichabod Crane, a Revolutionary War soldier, fighting the British on a gray battlefield. In short order, a British soldier wielding an ax rides up. Wearing a mask and coming across like Jason Vorhees, the warrior seems impervious to bullets but dies – or does he? – when Crane beheads him.

Cut to today and Crane, who had seemingly succumbed to battle wounds, wakes up in a grave, struggles his way above ground and is nearly run over by a truck when he stumbles upon a nearby road. The road happens to lead to the bustling modern-day village of Sleepy Hollow.

Meanwhile, the battlefield destroyer faced by Crane is now a Headless Horseman marauding through the area around Sleepy Hollow, killing and beheading people, including – dammit – the grizzled sheriff played by Clancy Brown.

Although he is initially considered a lunatic because he maintains he was personally selected by Gen. George Washington to find and kill a mercenary who just might be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Crane (played by Tom Mison) works with deputy Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) to uncover the intentions of the modern-day occultists who brought the Headless Horseman back from the dead.

It turns out there are two competing covens of witches – one good, one eeeevil – who to this day are using magic and murder to put the Horseman into play in the game leading up to the end of the world. The McGuffin? The Horseman’s skull, which he’s seriously seeking.

“Sleepy Hollow” was created by Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, a couple of the writers behind the recent “Star Trek” movies as well as the cult favorite “Fringe.” John Cho, who plays Sulu in the new “Trek” films, is even around, at least briefly, as Abbie’s confidant.

Mison has a nicely wry and humorous take on Crane, who is written as sarcastic as well as a fish out of water. Beharie is feisty and Orlando Jones is on hand, and dependable, as a police captain.

“Sleepy Hollow” – at least the pilot – was fun, if not overwhelming. There’s no moment where my “must watch this every week” response kicked in.

But … the climactic battle with the Horseman in a cemetery, a glimpse of their ultimate demonic foe – the series Big Bad – and a preview of a parade of demons in the episodes to come have me very nearly convinced that I’ll be checking out “Sleepy Hollow” each week.

Random observations:

Clancy Brown! But he has little more than a single scene, dammit.

The show has a nice ersatz Danny Elfman score. More reserved but still full of playful strings.

The skull in the glass jar made me think of “Futurama.”

The Headless Horseman is nicely done, with good effects and, smartly, no preference for old-timey weapons. Seeing a walking headless guy stalking our heroes with semi-automatic weapons was a pleasant surprise.

 

Extra creepy: Post-apocalyptic ‘Simpsons’

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mr burns a post electric play

Here’s a real “ay carumba!” moment.

Above is the cast – in costume – of “Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play,” Anne Washburn’s musical being staged in NYC.

The premise of the show: After the apocalypse and the end of the world, a group of survivors entertain themselves – and survive – by re-enacting old episodes of “The Simpsons.”

The group starts out by trying to remember lines, particularly from the classic “Cape Feare” episode featuring Bart and his family menaced by Sideshow Bob.

Eventually the effort turns into actual stage productions featuring those masks.

The same masks I’m afraid I’m going to be seeing in my nightmares tonight.

Yikes.

Thanks to Cartoon Brew for calling our attention to the production.

Classic SF on TV: ‘Outer Limits: Soldier’

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outer limits soldier

When “The Outer Limits,” an ABC TV anthology series, began airing, Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” had been on the air for four years and was making its mark with literate science fiction and fantasy stories by great writers like Richard Matheson.

“The Outer Limits,” which has always had less recognition than “The Twilight Zone,” nevertheless presented smart and ahead-of-their-time SF and fantasy tales, including the first episode of the second season, “Soldier.”

Written by established author Harlan Ellison, “Soldier” (1964) was the first of two episodes of “The Outer Limits” written by Ellison. In “Soldier” and “Demon with a Glass Hand,” Ellison explored somewhat different takes on the same kind of story: A soldier from the future comes back in time to our present day (well, 1964 in the case of “Soldier”). He’s pursued by a relentless killer who’s also from the future. The soldier ends up protecting modern-day humans before he meets his fate.

If the story sounds familiar … well, Ellison thought a movie that came out 20 years later took too many liberties with his basic idea. More on that in a minute.

In “Soldier,” Michael Ansara (who died just recently) plays Qarlo, a soldier from 1800 years in the future who materializes, in full battle gear, in a big-city alley after a battle in the future with his enemy. Qarlo quickly attracts the attention of the police, who arrest him after he melts their patrol car.

Once Qarlo, who struggles like a caged animal, is in the hands of the FBI, an agent (Tim O’Connor) calls in Kagan, a language expert (Lloyd Nolan), to try to figure out what language Qarlo is speaking. It’s English, Kagan says, and he quickly (probably too quickly, but hey, it’s an hour-long show) theorizes that Qarlo is a soldier from the future, in a time when men like Qarlo are bred to be soldiers, fighting machines with no knowledge of love and family and no master but the state.

Kagan, trying to introduce Qarlo to the modern-day world because they have no way of sending him  back to his own time, even takes him home to meet his family.

There’s that other soldier from the future to be considered, however, and a showdown in the Kagan family living room that feels kind of anti-climactic.

There are more than a few leaps in logic in “Soldier,” but most of them can be forgiven. A couple of head-scratchers – Qarlo’s lines-and-circles drawing of his – our – solar system is taken to a scientist who can tell, from the rudimentary sketch, that the Earth’s position around the Sun indicates Qarlo came from 1,800 years in the future – stand out.

But a lot about the episode is still effective, including Ansara’s performance as the bred-and-born soldier and Nolan’s intuitive expert. I also loved O’Connor, a character actor who is great in so many TV shows in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, as the snappy FBI agent.

harlan ellison

You’ve probably figured out that a lot of people – notably Ellison – have drawn comparisons between “Soldier” and “Demon with a Glass Hand” and “The Terminator,” director James Cameron’s 1984 SF adventure about two soldiers – one an android – who time-travel back from the future to the present day (well, the 80s), one to kill a woman who’s crucial to the future of mankind and one to protect her.

Ellison heard about the similarities before the movie came out and investigated. His attempts to see the movie before it premiered were stymied by Cameron and his studio. Cameron had apparently joked to a reporter that he had “ripped off” a couple of Ellison “Outer Limits” ideas. Eventually Ellison saw the movie and recognized enough of his plot to threaten to sue.

Ellison ended up with – according to a video interview with him that I saw – $65,000 to $75,000 and an acknowledgement, in the end credits of video releases of “The Terminator,” to his work.

“The Terminator” might have been made even without the inspiration of “Soldier” and it might not. But there’s no doubt that “Soldier” got there first and gave us a sci-fi story that still holds up.