To my great surprise (I mean, it's on MTV for hell's sake), I really like this show. The first episode just aired on Tuesday but the first three episodes are available on demand. It's funny and heartbreaking and very clear in its message opposing sexual assault against women. And in the trying times that are now, it seems especially important. I do not condone violence perpetrated against people but there is something imminently satisfying about watching young, entitled rapists getting the shit kicked out of them.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
My favorite new show: Sweet/Vicious
To my great surprise (I mean, it's on MTV for hell's sake), I really like this show. The first episode just aired on Tuesday but the first three episodes are available on demand. It's funny and heartbreaking and very clear in its message opposing sexual assault against women. And in the trying times that are now, it seems especially important. I do not condone violence perpetrated against people but there is something imminently satisfying about watching young, entitled rapists getting the shit kicked out of them.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Season's greetings
American Horror Story - 9/14 and I have no idea what this season's theme is (ridiculous show)
Gotham - 9/19 and yes, I am going to give it another shot although it may have to go
The Good Place - 9/19 with Kristen Bell, a resurgent Ted Danson and pretty good initial reviews
New Girl - 9/20 although I may take this off the list and just catch up on-demand
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - 9/20 although I will be mourning Agent Carter for the duration
Last Man on Earth - 9/25 which Mr. Mouse watches with me (yay!)
Luke Cage - 9/30 (on Netflix) can't wait can't wait can't wait
The Flash - 10/4 and I hope they crossover a LOT with Supergirl
Arrow - 10/5 and I've forgotten where we left off story-wise but don't imagine it much matters
Supergirl - 10/10 and I will be paying close attention to the stunts because Jessie Graff kicks ass!
Legends of Tomorrow - 10/13 but this is another bubble show for me and is totally on probation
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - 10/21 and my new favorite, now that I binged S1 this summer
The Walking Dead - 10/23 and yes, we will be picking up the grim recapping right away
There are a couple other shows (on SyFy? Falling Water?) that I don't know much about other than marginally intriguing trailers, so we'll see how the season shapes up. Mr. Mouse will be complaining that Better Call Saul and Fargo aren't back yet ... we'll add those in when they get here. What will you be watching?
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Mini movie review: Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is definitely a movie for its fans. We got to see almost everyone from the show: Veronica, Keith, Logan, Wallace, Mac, Dick, Weevil, Gia, Sacks (poor Sacks), Cliff, Vinnie, Leo, Madison, Celeste Kane and Piz. There were definite shout-outs and call-backs: Leo said he thought he'd heard that Veronica was working for the FBI (which had been the idea for a possible S4, with a time jump); Dick asks if Veronica has had work done because her boobs look bigger (she retorts that his boobs are bigger - but Kristen Bell's really are because they filmed not long after she gave birth); Dax Shepard (Bell's real life husband) has a cameo as a sleezy guy trying to pick her up at a club; Veronica and Logan still have hawt chemistry (Team Logan, btw); they use the original theme song from S1 and S2. I'm sure there are more but you'll have to pick them out for yourself.
It's really an impressive little bit of a movie, blatant fan service aside, but there were a couple of things that distracted me (and should have been easy to catch/fix). The uniform that Logan wears when he meets Veronica at the airport is way too big for him and should have been tailored - he looks ridiculous. Keith gives Piz some grief for not sleeping on the couch when he comes to Neptune ... and yet Piz and Veronica are apparently living together (and have been for some time) in NYC when the movie starts so I find that objection unrealistic. Finally, Veronica has apparently just finished law school and is preparing to take the bar exam. But it's also ten years after her graduation from high school. This would make her 28 years old. Graduate from high school at 18, four years of college (22), three years of law school (25). Even if she takes a year to study for the bar, or if she took a year off after transferring from Hearst College to Stanford, I still find it highly unlikely that someone as driven as Veronica would just now be taking the bar exam and interviewing for jobs - the timeline doesn't sync up for me.
But that's not why you watch the Veronica Mars movie. You watch it because you loved the television show and want to spend more time with these clever, complicated characters. And when it's all over, when they've teased you with where they could go if they ever did another one, you sit there, crossing your fingers and hoping for more.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Two quick things
Also, via USA Today's Pop Candy blog, I learned about Mari-Kari, an animated web series on FEARnet.com starring Shannen Doherty as twins. Mari is a perky, pretty, not-too-bright elementary school girl and Kari is her dead twin who defends her dimmer sister in gruesome and hilarious ways. Two new episdoes every Thursday in June. I am totally hooked.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
This just proves I have fantastic taste
Of the twenty television series on this alphabetically listed list, I adore (and have gone on at some length about my adoration of same) numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 17 and 20. That's half of them. I have watched in some seriousness (but was never completely smitten with) numbers 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 18. And I have 5 and 15 sitting in my DVD queue. The only two shows on the list that I have no connection with whatsoever are the Larry Sanders Show (#9) and Murder One (#10) - apparently I should check these out.
I'm going to take this as yet another sign that I prefer to watch the good stuff ... and should keep writing about it.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Vindication is mine!
#2 (of all time, mind you) is my beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right behind The Simpsons
#5 is Lost
#9 is The X-Files
#13 is the fabulous new Battlestar Galactica (which I'll recap when I have a spare decade)
#14 is Firefly - "... it had Nathan Fillion, whose presence officially makes anything 27% better."
#15 is Heroes
#21 is Angel (it seems as though some Whedon-fans compiled this list, no?)
#31 is Deadwood - "The word fuck and its derivatives are used 2,980 times throughout the show's three seasons." That's an average of 82.7 times per episode. Hee.
#48 is Veronica Mars
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Next time, on Friend Mouse ... ?
This is what I've been able to glean as far as post-writers' strike new episodes with regard to the shows Mr. Mouse and I watch (there's a more comprehensive list here):
- How I Met Your Mother - returns March 17
- CSI: Las Vegas - April 3
- My Name Is Earl - April 3
- The Office - April 10
- Scrubs - April 10
As I mentioned above, Heroes is gone until Fall 2008, as are Pushing Daisies and Chuck. Friday Night Lights is seemingly done as well, but the bad news there is that NBC has not committed to renewing it for the fall season. Lost is switching back to its later time in late April: Thursdays at 10 p.m. Eastern time (boo! hiss! I already stay up too late to get those recaps posted!). Battlestar Galactica is due to come back soon but I haven't seen Season 3 yet and don't want to get ahead of myself.
In the meanwhile, all the television shows out there on DVD will be my salvation. I'll finish up Firefly because that's a quick and easy job; I have Veronica Mars S3 sitting in the cupboard - still wrapped in its cellophane! - and I'd like to finish what I started there, way back when it was actually airing.
Other than those, I'd be more than happy to listen to requests from folks - I only did Deadwood because my friend Glenn insisted that I would love it and should move it up my rental queue posthaste (thanks again, Glenn!). I've been hearing good things about The Wire but don't know anything about it. So tell me, what else will I love?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Baffled, I tell you
I haven't watched Smallville for years and years ... and all the reasons why came back to me in a rush. What an steaming pile of poo that show is. The acting is bad, the writing is bad and there's no suspense. The only things going for it are a bunch of pretty people and the continuing popularity Superman has as an American icon. I cannot believe this drivel is still on the air - who is watching it? When I think of all the intelligent, well-written, GOOD shows that have gotten the axe ... I'm just bewildered by it all.
Best part of my evening's television-viewing: seeing Ellsworth (actor's name: Jim Beaver) guest-starring on Supernatural. I love Ellsworth.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Veronica Mars: “The Bitch Is Back” – airdate 05/22/07
Veronica gathers Wallace up when he finally staggers out. Although he didn’t get her any pictures, he’s deduced the identity of another pledge, and she plans to follow this kid until he leads her to The Castle. In the food court, Veronica and Piz are heckled; Piz tells her to let it go and that karma will take care of those guys. Veronica: “Oh yeah – I’m going to run him over with my karma.” Hee. Dick congratulates
Veronica goes home. Keith has made gumbo and asks her no questions. They are both melancholy but it’s clear how much they love each other. In the morning, the front page of the paper says that charges have been filed against Keith for tampering with the evidence. Veronica cries, and goes to vote for her dad for sheriff.
Veronica Mars: “Weevils Wobble But They Don’t Go Down” – airdate 05/22/07
Weevil, who has been fired, uses his one phone call to call Veronica: “I need a bail bondsman and a PI, and you need a 21st century answering machine!” She goes to the jail and they work out that he is being framed. The only people who know he is an ex-con are the students in her Criminology class. [This double-episode does a really lovely job with continuity, wrapping up as many loose ends as possible and answering questions we might otherwise never know because the damn CW has CANCELED THIS SHOW.] At the bursar’s office Veronica gets to flash her shiny new PI license and learns about the mag-card machine used to code the ID cards. Wallace notices that he is being followed by some student and is slightly weirded out by this. Another mag-card machine is found in the empty locker next to Weevil’s and, after Veronica does some interviews, it turns out that he has no alibi.
Upon closer inspection of the photo, Veronica picks out the roommate, the grad student and the two students who identified Weevil.
The group of students tries to bribe her and she sneakily records them. If charges aren’t dropped against Weevil by the next day, she’ll take the recording to the sheriff. She calls Weevil with the good news. He thanks her, and the camera pans down to the third mag-card machine he has collected from the students’ lab. Looks like our boy will never, ever learn. In the meantime, Dick receives an email with a video file; he shows it to
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Veronica Mars: “I Know What You’ll Do Next Summer” – airdate 05/15/07
Chez Mars, Veronica is studying for her PI licensing exam, while Piz is reading Soldier of Misfortune, a book written by Hearst student, Apollo Bukenya, a former child soldier from
Next time: the two hour season, and series-as-we-know-it, finale. Oh! My favorite line? When Vinnie refers to himself as “a walking big tent party.”
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Veronica Mars - "Un-American Graffiti" airdate 05/01/07
We start off in the student center where Logan, at the front of the line, sees Veronica at the back of the line and buys her a coffee. They banter good-naturedly and he invites her to the birthday party he's throwing for Parker. Veronica looks as though she'd rather have a colonoscopy but doesn't rule it out. They're being grown-ups about the break-up, after all. Cut to an underage kid we don't know drinking at a bar, stumbling outside and getting hit by a car - this'll be the B story. Veronica, doing homework at the P.I. office, gets hired by an Arabic couple whose restaurant is getting vandalized - this is the A story. Veronica stakes out the restaurant and gets nailed by drive-by paintballers for her pains. Back home, Keith asks her about the college area bars and she confirms that it is tres simple to get served as an underage drinker. [By the way: the "Arabic" woman, Carole Davis, played an Italian lawyer on a Season 5 episode of Angel, and just recently played a mom who bought her daughter boob implants on Scrubs.]
Keith sends all the deputies on routine sweeps of the bars to check IDs; they come back having found nothing suspicious. Keith is, of course, suspicious. Veronica tracks down the paintballers and they are kids who paintball all passersby - no hate crime here - they're not the vandals. She does make them scrub off the paint splatters; she also rigs surveillance cameras over the front of the restaurant which record a guy wearing a team sweatshirt lurking about. Back on campus, Veronica and Mac are supercute together dishing about Mac's boyfriend (who does not have a whole lot in common with Mac - he makes her go hiking! in the morning!). Logan and Parker show up; Logan and Mac banter (displaying more sparkage together than Logan and Parker ever do); and Veronica, superuncomfortable, bails. But not before Parker elicits a promise to come to the birthday party. Fun! Since Mac has plans just prior to the party, Veronica tracks down Wallace and Piz and enlists them as her wingmen. And since another guy wearing that aforementioned team sweatshirt strolls by, she quickly gets a name for her lurker.
Her lurker is a student living in a Jewish frat on campus. As Veronica watches the house, someone else is taking pictures through the window. The peeping tom (peeping Nasir, actually) makes his getaway and Veronica discovers Amira, the Arabic couple's daughter, is dating the Jewish lurker. So, clearly, not a lurker, just waiting for his girlfriend. Amira says the peeper works at the restaurant, was supposed to be her arranged marriage, and will take the photos to her dad. Veronica finds Nasir at a 1-hour photomat and cons the photos away from the clerk. When she takes these to Amira, they are interrupted by Amira's father holding a photo that Veronica missed: a Jew? This is the reason we are being vandalized! In the meantime, Wallace and Piz go drinking, using the fake IDs Veronica gave them in the last episode eight million years ago. They're feeling no pain until Keith, having just been unsuccessfully bribed by the bar owner, busts them.
The restaurant has been vandalized AGAIN (what good is Veronica doing, really?) but Veronica tracks the vandal to his lower-middle class home. The guy's brother is a vet from the current war - not involved in the vandalism; Nasir was handing out anti-U.S./pro-Iraqi flyers and the vandal got one and followed him to the restaurant. When Veronica reports back to her clients, the husband wants to speak to the vandal but ends up not pressing charges. He does, however, report Nasir to the INS, and decides to meet the Jewish boy his daughter is seeing.
To keep from getting into trouble, Wallace and Piz assist Keith in a sting to uncover the crooked deputies who are not carding underage drinkers. Keith puts his don't-mess-with-me pants on and fires four deputies: "temporary sheriff," my ass.
The birthday party is at the hotel, of course. Max ("I sell college tests for money") meets Mac ("I sold high school sex poll results for money") and they hit it off very nicely, demonstrating much more chemistry than Logan and Parker have. Wallace tells Veronica that Piz has a crush on her and she should let him down gently. When she tries to do so, however, Piz finally makes his move and gives her a very sweet kiss. Veronica is floored and follows after him as he makes his "dramatic exit." They mack again in front of the elevator ... and the doors open to reveal Logan, who tries to make the best of it. But we all know that Logan wounded is much more interesting than Logan happy, so get on for the ride. Veronica is unsure of herself as he brushes past her - and that little moment there has more chemistry than Logan and Parker do - but she gets on the elevator with Piz. Apparently Piz is a really good kisser.

