As promised, here’s the place to sound off for the return of Anthony Freemont and the introduction of daughter Audrey on tonight’s “Twilight Zone.”
As you guys know, I thought it was really nicely done. I still wish they’d done the whole show in black and white and not had color turn up until the very end. But that’s probably just me. And hey…who now wants a Peaksville bowling shirt with “Anthony” stitched on the front. I sure know I do.
“Buffy” discussion tomorrow.
PAD
Tonight is “It’s Still A Good Life,” the Twilight Zone sequel starring Bill Mumy and his daughter, Liliana. That’s 9 PM (unless they’re running it in the second half hour) Eastern Standard time, check your local listings. Remember, Bill said he’d be swinging back here tomorrow to hear what you all thought. At exactly 1 AM EST tonight, I’ll start off a journal entry and you guys can sound off.
PAD
I’m back. Well, we’re back–Kathleen and the baby and I–from the Neverending convention that was Farpoint, down in Maryland.
The problem with having heard so many weather reports in the past warning of major snowstorms which turn out to be a half inch of dusting is that one becomes cynical. You figure, who’d dumber? The weathermen for not knowing what they’re talking about, or you for believing them? So on Saturday when meteorologists spoke with grave portents about snow, I didn’t think anything of it.
We woke up for Sunday morning’s programming to discover that snow was falling at a rate of 2 to 4 inches an hour, and had been falling since about 5 AM. We thought of trying to leave immediately, but the roads were already being shut down. By Sunday afternoon we knew we were stuck.
So was pretty much everyone else. The convention had been lightly attended as far wiser folks than us had stayed the heck away, preparing for a blizzard. Fortunately enough, everyone remained in good spirits, even as food supplies in the hotel began to dwindle. A good thing this year’s actor guests were good sports (as opposed to the occasional egomanics one gets). Fans hung out with (and I apologize for misspelled names) Erin Gray and Gil Gerard of “Buck Rodgers,” Gary Graham, Eric Pierpoint and Michelle Scarabelli of “Alien Nation,” and Armin Shimmerman of “DS9” and “Buffy” (and hey…wouldn’t it be a hoot if the First showed up as Snyder and spent a whole episode telling Principal Wood that he was going to wind up eaten, because all Sunnydale principals wind up eaten?)
And since Mike Friedman, Bob Greenberger and I were snowbound together Monday and had nothing else to do, we started work on the next “Mystery Trekkie Theater” for Shore Leave, after T. Alan Chafin managed to hotwire a VCR loaned us by dealer Herb McCullough.
The biggest challenge was shoveling out my car. With yeoman like help of several friends, including Deb Greenberger (Bob’s wife), I managed to find the car and start it up. I figured the smart thing was to try and back it out of the spot and find one with less snow (of which there were several). The problem was, although I knew enough to clear the snow away from the exhaust pipe, I didn’t realize snow had packed itself up INTO the exhaust pipe. Since I was gunning the engine to try and roll the car back over the icy spots, the interior of the car filled up with carbon monoxide and exhaust fumes. I spent the next couple of minutes wretching and coughing before I cleared it out of my lungs.
When we finally got home, we literally couldn’t get into the house. We were blocked by over two feet of snow.
Fun.
PAD
Wow. Gotta admit I’m somewhat rocked by the editorial shake-ups at DC currently being reported by Newsarama.com. I’ll tell you, if Mike Carlin is privately annoyed and/or angry (which I’ve no idea if he is) you sure can’t tell by his public face. Maybe he really, truly is more comfortable getting his hands more deeply back into editing. And Dan Didio has a lot on the ball. He’s one of the spearheads behind getting “Fallen Angel” up and running. Truth is, these days if you look at the major new titles with original characters that folks are talking about, they’re coming out of DC.
We’ll see how it all shakes out.
PAD
Not by leaps and bounds, certainly, but by bits and pieces, BTVS is getting up to speed and back to form.
Downsides: Certain tropes of the series are becoming so cliche that the characters have come to expect them. Willow’s trouble-making observation that Xander is a demon magnet back in season 4 continues to hold true. The problem is that making fun of a cliche doesn’t make it less of a cliche. Meantime we see Giles now touching everything in sight, after poor Tony Head had to spend weeks avoiding everything to the point where it was getting distracting. Now that he’s fondling every prop in the house, though, I wish he hadn’t chewed out the gang for making jokes. It was the first time they sounded like themselves in ages. After all the stuff about them growing up, *now* he addresses them as “children?” What the–?
Upsides: Plenty. So Principal Wood is essentially Blade the Vampire Hunter minus the vamp blood in him: Ultra cool vampire-fighting black guy seeking out the light-haired vampire who killed his mother. And yet for all that, I didn’t see it coming, and I don’t recall noticing anyone else coming up with that theory either. Be interesting if Wood actually dusts Spike, thereby earning Buffy’s enmity. Hope it doesn’t, but you just *know* it’s gonna end in tears. The subplot with the Asian potential slayer was beyond hilarious (“What are you, trying to poison me?!”) I wonder if Willow knows a language-bridging spell. If so, she better crank it out before the girl bolts the country. Anya’s jealousy was charming, Dawn wasn’t annoying, the running gag of both Willow and Wood laughing at the notion of Buffy being competent and then realizing their error was great. And Spike actually seems at peace with himself, which really couldn’t be worse for a character on this series than to find ANY degree of happiness. Because that’s when the boom is usually lowered.
Moving on:
Angel. Kicked ášš even more. Minor quibble over why no one questioned that Lorne totally misread the situation. Definite shock ending: Most folks, including myself, seemed to tag correctly who was going to be killed off, but the circumstances caught me off guard. My only real complaint: THREE WEEKS?!?
Hey, anyone want to see Faith team up with someone named Begorrah?
And hey, food for thought: Physical prowess aside, who could outhink the other: Angelus or Smallville’s Lex Luthor?
PAD
If Osama bin Laden is so hot on the idea of suicide bombings, I wonder why he doesn’t offer to lead the way. Y’know, show how it’s done. Otherwise it’s like being one of those people standing safely on the ground, shouting to the guy on the ledge ten stories up “Jump! Jump!”
PAD
Imagine my surprise, given the recent somewhat antagonistic atmosphere, to have received an invite to a preview screening of “Daredevil.” Now I gotta say, every pro I know came out of the advance screenings during the Creation Con with absolutely nothing positive to say about it. So I went in preparing to be underwhelmed.
Guys: It’s a good film. Darker, more disturbing than Spider-Man. Certainly edgier. Overall, I thought it was great. Action, a brooding Matt Murdock (only finding relief when sleeping in a sensory deprivation tank), cool radar sense effects, plus snappy performances from Farrell as Bullseye and Duncan as the Kingpin (who looked just like the Kingpin except black), and enough comic book in-jokes for me to say, “See! See! I’m not the only one who does it!”
Minuses are that Elektra is underutilized, existing mostly to be Matt Murdock’s girlfriend with not much identity beyond that. And I could have done without the voice over. General rule of thumb: Unless a VO narrative is done by Bogart, leave it out. The CGI has the same “weightless” feel as Spider-Man, and one wishes the producers hadn’t felt they needed to compete, since one can buy it more easily when dealing with the superhuman Spidey. Here it looks even more fake.
The big area of dispute, I can already tell you, is going to be that Daredevil kills/allows bad guys to die. At least to start. I fully understand why. They wanted him to have a character arc. Think about his arc in the Miller stories: He begins as a pure crusader who doesn’t kill, and ends up allowing Bullseye to fall…to his death, for all DD cares. Does that *really* sound like a character arc for a superhero movie? Writer Johnson chooses to go the other direction: DD starts out hard, cold, soulless. Will he find redemption? *That’s* a movie character arc. Anyone who goes in and can’t separate comic book requirements from movie necessities is going to have problems. Anyone who can judge a movie on its own will, overall, have a good time.
PAD
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