Tag: TV
[The End] Supernatural
Carry On My Waayyyywarrrd Sonnnn….
Well this week we are carrying on about a show that went wayward quite a few times and yet never went too too far awayward. Dean and Sam have triumphed in Star’s Hollow, they’ve defeated the Harlem Globetrotters, they’ve taken down Galactus, twice, and now it’s time for them to hang up their monster-hunting boots.
A show with a legacy of fandom, a legacy of marching on beyond the end of the parade, and continuing to go on even after the Energizer Bunny said ‘..look, I’m taking a nap’ – Supernatural is going to stand as a testament to a lot of wonderful things about television, but also… you know.. some other things.
So did the last hurrah for the two men that have fought Satan, God, Nethercreatures, Demons, Angels, Archangels, and LARPers leave the imprint the show deserves?
…my guess is you are aware of the answer to that. OH! Before you listen ~ go click the survey button above.
So let’s get going with, shall we? Ok, here we carry on…
[BLOG] A Little Something…. about Reality Shows Hatton misses.
Since the most recent episode is the Somethings revisiting EverRealm, I was thinking about some of the other reality shows (some gameshow types, some not) that I’ve enjoyed. When the big trend on television followed the Survivor trend of ‘put people in places and just record them’ – there was a lot out there, and because of that, some just didn’t make the cut longer than a season or two… others though, went on forever.
With an honorable mention to The Quest for being the inspiration for this, here are some of the reality shows I found myself glued to.
– The Real World – The grand-daddy of them all, MTV changed the game when they took a handful of twenty-somethings and threw them together in a loft in New York and told them to live with their differences. I know I’m not alone when I say that the Real World exposed me to people, cultures, sexualities, and types of people that I had never met before. As time went on, the show seemed to lose itself to a more party-oriented ‘who will hook-up’ type show, but the first half-dozen seasons or so is some of the most beautifully not-crafted television I have ever seen.
– The Joe Schmo Show – This one is almost a gimme, and was one of the big reasons we were so excited to interview Ralph Garman a few years back. The twist on the reality gimmick, one (or two) players, the rest are scripted actors. Can they run an on-the-fly narrative around these people while the craziness keeps amping up? Season One was one of the most must-see pieces of television around my house and over the years it may be one of the only DVD Boxsets I’ve cracked open to revisit.
– Whodunnit – This one is the silliest on the list, but I would most certainly watch another season if it existed. Framed as a Clue-esque murder mystery, each week another competitor was “murdered” off the show, and added to the narrative. At its best, it was a puzzle to unravel with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek, it wasn’t a great show by any stretch, but the premise was so out there, I was hooked to see how it finally ended.
– Scream Queens – Obviously, as a lover of horror movies, I’d love to see more reality shows that focused on doing creepy things. Sadly, it’s hard to make reality as scary as movies. Giggling twenty-somethings walking with GoPros strapped to their heads just isn’t scary… but Scream Queens was as close as its come. Part acting, part horror – it was a season long screentest to try and find a new Final Girl for an upcoming horror movie. It was a great premise, if only it dipped even deeper into its scary roots.
– Solitary – If there is one show on this list you probably aren’t aware of.. it’s this one, and it is such a shame. Framed around a Portal-like narrative where a computer has people in test pods and is running experiments on them, Solitary was an adventure in ‘being alone’. Whether the competitors had to build giant contraptions in their test chambers, or try and sleep with blaring lights and sound as punishment, their computer overlord, Val made this three season Fox show a brilliant experiment in minimalism.
– Hatton
[The Wheel] The Quest Predictions (w/ The Paladins)
It should be no surprise that the Somethings love the 2014 reality game – The Quest. We were only given one season, but it has kept a rabid cult fanbase begging for it to be revisited.
Over the years, we have had the honor to become friends with some of the Paladins, so with a new Quest series coming to Disney Plus, it only felt right to head back to Everealm again and make some predictions about what is to come.
We are thrilled to welcome back to the show, Paladins Jasmine, Jim, and Patrick – as we discuss what adventures they have gone on since their journey, and what they are looking forward to when it comes to what a new threat will have to be defeated by a new team of Paladins. So, sharpen your swords and load up your scorpions – we’re sending messages to the Fates themselves as we talk about The Quest Season 2.
And if you are interested in what the Paladins have been up to – you can find them here:
Paladin Jasmine – Twitter: TolkienBlkGirl – Chaste Treasure : ChasteTreasure.com
Paladin Jim – Twitter: JimTheLibrarian – Facebook: PaladinJimCurry
Paladin Patrick – Twitter: PQHiggins – DeviantArt: PaladinPatrick – War Dragons (IOS)
The Quest Army – Twitter: TheQuestArmy – Insta : thequestarmy_offical
But now – let’s get to the good stuff – Ok, here we go!
[Something In Review] Jupiter’s Legacy
We are in the next era of comic book entertainment. The Marvel mines have been pickaxed so deep that every other funnybook writer is now having their work taken and adapted to the binge-box.
This month, we’re talking about Netflix’s take on Mark Millar’s Jupiter’s Legacy – a world of heroes dealing with their interpersonal relationships over the span of generations, almost like some sort of… legacy..
What did the Somethings think? Well all you need to do is click on that link at the top of the page that says SURVEY and then listen to the episode to find out! The survey is there to help us find out who’s listening, what they’re listening to, and really.. why us? Help us out and give that link a click.
Great, and now that you’ve done that, why don’t you go find your Superdad and go on an adventure with us!
Ok, here we go!
[The End] The Falcon & Winter Soldier
You should have known it was coming. Of course we’re going to talk about the last episode of the most recent foray into the wild world of capes! But the Somethings are not alone.. you see, when you have to take down a bunch of politically gray terrorists and argue over a hunk of tin.. sometimes you need a friend – and that’s why we have brought in our long time friend . You may know him from Geek Stuff, or maybe from rollin’ dice and taking names with Role For It on Twitch – it is none other than OG Matt!
Was the end of the series a solid place to leave off? Admittedly, we dive into the whole of the series a bit more than usual as well as tackle the future of the MCU..
It’s time for The End: Falcon & Winter Soldier
Before we jump in though, don’t forget – starting Weds. – Livestream For the Cure begins! Listen to a marathon of amazing podcasts and we’ll be live on TGIF spot of Friday at 8!
Ok, here we go!
[BLOG] Podcast Rob’s Netflix sleepers!
Hey Somethings! This week I’m listing off some of my favorite Netflix shows that are probably under most people’s radar. A while ago, I went on a dive through some Netflix series and stumbled across a number of shows from Australia and here are three of my favorites.
Secret City – How far will a reporter go to uncover corrupt workings in Australia’s government? As more and more comes to light, reporter Harriet Dunkley (played by Anna Torv) must navigate through the possible fallout from a heating-up conflict between China, The US, and Australia fueled by rash actions from Minister of Defence Malcom Paxton (Daniel Wyllie) and Attorney General Catriona Bailey (Jackie Weaver) before the alliance, and her career go up in smoke.
The Code – A tragic accident is hushed up and overlooked until internet journalist Ned Banks (Dan Spielman) and his hacker brother Jesse (Ashley Zukerman) dig into the cause of not only the accident, but the cover up.
Feeling similar in tone to Secret City, The Code was more of a cyber-drama, and the inclusion of Lucy Lawless as Lindara school teacher Alex Wisham brought name recognition to a cast I was otherwise unfamiliar with. Like Secret City, this show has 2 seasons, 6 episodes per season.
Pine Gap – Pine Gap is a shared surveillance facility just outside of Alice Springs Australia, jointly run by The US and Australian governments. While handling a rogue missile attack in proximity to America’s President, the crew at Pine Gap discover malware on their system. The question of “Who put it there” gets muddy when everyone has something to hide.
This is the show that started me down the Aussie TV rabbit hole. While mostly given ‘meh’ reviews in Australia, I greatly enjoyed this show. It’s one of those shows where virtually no one is a bad guy, but no one’s a good guy and everyone can either get along well or rub each other the wrong way at any moment… but to me, none of it felt forced. Only 1 season, Pine Gap is 6 episodes long.
[The End] Wandavision
We’ve been with Wanda and the Vision for their whole journey, so it should be no surprise that we want to check up on them for the End.
Was this strange jump into a bubble worth the journey? Does the ending hold up? There’s only one way to know – and that’s by checking out The End – Wandavision
This episode was filmed before a live studio audience over on twitch.tv/somethingcast. Join us for our next party on May 4th, 8pm EST.
Ohhhhhkay, here we A-go-tha! …wow, that one was a reach…
[BLOG] A Little Something Extra… Hatton Talks Mythbusters
Before the post, let me please direct you to our [The Wheel] Vs: Robots episode, where you can help choose the fate of one team of robots as they try and crush the other. There is a poll, there is another segment in a future episode coming about it – it’s a good time and you should get in on it.
Now, to other things.
One of my go to ‘Hey, what am I putting on’ shows when I have no effort built within me to find something new to binge on or I’m not seeing anything screams out for me, is Mythbusters. I love Mythbusters. I did when it was on television and now, with it gone, I still keep track of what Adam Savage is doing on Youtube. They have molded me in ways I can’t even fathom, at the very least, in recognizing that engineering nerds (a subset I definitely put the Mythbusters in) are my kinds of people. So, while I was watching some random thing blow up – I decided to list a couple of my favorite Mythbusters episodes so you can see – if you missed this show somehow, you can jump to the good stuff to see if its your cup of explosion.
In no particular order:
ALCATRAZ ESCAPE
I’m putting this one here because it tends to be everyone else’s favorite. I mean, it’s a great episode and it is one of the best they put together. Season 2, Episode 8 – challenging the question of how the Anglin brothers got away from (sean connery voice)Thehhh Rrock!(/sean) using raincoats shaped into a boat. Did they survive? The Anglin Brothers I mean… not the Mythbusters… the Mythbusters obviously survived.
GOLFBALL CAR
Does a golfball fly because it has those weird pockmarks? It’s so weird, it turns out to be really enjoyable and ranks as one of my favorite stories that has an ending I didn’t expect. Taking the golfball, they attempt that same method on a car and the results are not only interesting, but hysterical looking.
THE DUCT TAPE EPISODES
A bit of a cheat here, but there are like 5 duct tape episodes, and each of them is better than the last. It seemed like every season after the first duct tape show, they thought ‘wait, can we go bigger’ — and they do. From surviving on an island to crossing a damn canyon, the old nerd adage that duct tape holds the world together is shockingly accurate.
LEAD BALLOON
Another episode that usually hits the ‘best of’ lists’ – Lead balloon is a great one for a lot of reasons. The biggest being that the deeper they get into the science of what’s going on, the harder they try. You can see the palpable excitement in the team as they solve this puzzle in front of your eyes. Is it possible to fly an actual lead balloon? How big does it need to be? How the hell do you make a lead balloon anyway? Some episodes are great because of the big bang, some because of the weird results – this one, and my final one, are classics because the methodology is so on display and shows how experimentation gets you to unexpectedly fantastic results.
THE SEE-SAW SAGA
By far, my favorite episode of the Mythbusters, and given it is one of the later season episodes, I wish they had gone back to this style of episode more. Both teams (Jamie & Adam / Tory & Kari & Grant) get together and do two parts of one huge myth, culminating in what can only be described as a Rube-Goldberg-esque puzzle of scale and impossibility. Did you enjoy the Mythbusters? What’s your go to comfort food for your brain? Sound off in all of the usual places and let us know!
Every week, the Somethings will be giving you a little something extra, so please check back every week for reviews, lists, cool finds, and more!
[BLOG] A Little Something Extra…PCR talks the MCU hits and misses
Hey all, PCR here.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of the MCU. Going all the way back to our Year 1 celebration we’ve talked about it, hypothesized about it, fawned over it and reviewed aspects of it. Today, I’m going to dive a bit deeper into the “why” I enjoy it so much, and some things they do that I’m not fond of.
First, the Infinity Gauntlet comic crossover is, by far, my favorite comic crossover. End of story. Was it perfect? No… most huge comic crossover events tend to start amazingly, then seem to have a hard time finding a way to finish, but it still struck a chord with me and has stuck with me since my comic-collecting days… so when Marvel teased at the end of Avengers that we were getting Thanos, I was in. I felt “there’s no WAY they would do Thanos and NOT do Infinity Gauntlet!” and I was pleased to be correct on that count.
One of the most amazing things in my opinion that the MCU gets right is casting. I have not found one instance of casting.. hero or villain.. that I’ve been against. Now, have I thought some were ‘meh’? Sure, but in those instances it’s more of a “I don’t hate it” and much less of a “They missed the boat..So and so would have been MUCH better!” (looking at Corey Stoll as Yellowjacket here and to a larger extent Anthony Mackie as Falcon). Those examples aside (I’ll get into the Mackie thing later), from hero to villain to supporting role, the casting in MCU movies and shows has been amazingly spot on.
Another thing I absolutely love about the MCU as a whole, is how they set precedent for future endeavors. “Ok, we got you to understand The Convergence and The Nine Realms? Good, here’s The Quantum realm and Dr. Strange” “You good with multiple suits of Iron Man armor flying around on their own? Awesome, here’s Ultron and his army” just to use two examples. It’s brilliant storytelling in my opinion, and makes it easier for those who *aren’t* huge comic fans to digest what they’ve been seeing on the screen.
I’ll call it “loyalty to the source material”. Civil War was a great comic series (not Infinity Gauntlet great, and fell off with a much weaker finish, but still a great concept). The movie we got, while entertaining and giving us some great fan service in scenes, was not the story told in the comics. Now, I get it. It couldn’t be. Civil War comic run was a huge crossover event in and of itself. There’s no way to effectively condense that down into one movie…and I also know the MCU shouldn’t be a slave to the source material in a way that doesn’t allow for moving the MCU plot along. That being said, to me, there’s something about a movie using source material so loosely that it almost retcons and makes the original source material irrelevant. This isn’t just an MCU flaw, this is a movie flaw in general, but it’s one the MCU and Marvel doesn’t do better on. Is there a way for them to? I’m not sure, but it stands out to me nonetheless.
And finally, let’s talk about the Netflix shows.
Overall, I enjoyed them. Daredevil was spot on. Jessica Jones wasn’t my kind of show, but I found value in watching it. Luke Cage season 2 was far better than season 1. Iron Fist …well… was necessary for The Defenders to work (which, to me, it did) and Punisher was amazing.
None of them (to date) have ever been ‘shouted up’ to the greater MCU movieverse, and there’s an easy way they could have been in Infinity War.
The Snap.
When Thanos snaps, there could have been a montage scene (much like they had in the comic) of scenes from around the world of people disappearing. Imagine, Thanos snaps, and we cut to Hell’s Kitchen and see Matt talking to Foggy and Foggy dusts… Jessica and Trish both dust mid conversation…Luke watching people in Harlem suddenly dust away… it could have taken them… 2-3 minutes of movie time to intersperse something like that, and it would have paid the TV shows respect for carrying on the MCU torch in other media.
That’s it for me for now, Hatton’s up next week!
– PCR
Something In Review: The Lost Pirate Kingdom
Yarr yo ho ho and a bottle of Something not so brutally alcoholic (see: The Booze Episode)
Wellllcome back everyone – and it is time for the Somethings to set sail on the seven seas as we go on a voyage to review Netflix’s The Lost Pirate Kingdom. Do the boys hoist the jolly roger and go pillaging across the Atlantic? Or are they scurvy lilly-livered scalliwags who don’t know their port from their starboard? Well, get yourself on board and join us as we take a look at this docuseries.
Was it good? Was it accurate? How much syphilis can one documentary feature? Find out here and now on Something In Review: Lost Pirate Kingdom
Ok, here we Yo Ho Ho!!