The streaming channel Peacock arrived in a free, ad-supported edition this summer, and it’s pretty much like having a full cable TV line-up for only the one-time price of an Amazon Fire Stick. The Fire Stick is typically available here at Amazon for between $30 and $50, depending on the options you want, and it’s a great portal to a variety of streaming platforms, from Netflix to YouTube and Disney Plus to HBO Max, as well as all the series and movies on Amazon Prime and the streaming platforms already available via that service, like BritBox. Named for NBC’s classic trademark logo, the Peacock channel is bigger than it sounds, incorporating the giant NBC network of historic programming, content from channels like Bravo, USA, Syfy, History, Nickelodeon, Fox, The CW, MSNBC, lots of XXXII Olympiad 2020 sports coverage, and more. On Peacock you get a variety of movies and series, much more than is supported on other TV network-based streaming providers. Like 46 seasons of Saturday Night Live, plus great fan-favorites like Psych, Monk, Parks and Recreation, six seasons of Vikings, Heroes, Eureka, Charmed, Sliders, and Battlestar Galactica, several seasons of the different flavors of Law and Order, classics like The Carol Burnett Show and Good Times, Cheers, and Columbo. But what should you watch first?
We suggest bingeing the first season of Stephen J. Cannell’s 1970s detective series, The Rockford Files.
Three hundred channels and nothing on television to watch this weekend? Before John Wesley Shipp played Barry Allen on the original series The Flash, Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno starred in the best superhero television series since The Six Million Dollar Man in The Incredible Hulk. For five seasons, from 1977 to 1982, The Incredible Hulk broke new ground on television, an early step in the history of superheroes coming to life on the screen. This weekend Robert Rodriguez’s El Rey Network is hosting a marathon of the entire series run.
Originally airing Friday nights on CBS 40 years ago, The Incredible Hulk would be nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, winning one for Mariette Hartley’s performance as Dr. David Bruce Banner’s wife. Years before Scott Bakula’s Sam Beckett would wander the map attempting to help people in need on Quantum Leap, David Banner was doing similar good deeds, hitchhiking across the country, a lone scientist trying to find a way “to control the raging spirit that dwells within him,” caused by exposure to gamma radiation thanks to the mind of writer Stan Lee and pen of Jack Kirby.
Look for plenty of early performances by actors that would later appear in well-known genre roles, like Simon & Simon’s Gerald McRaney, Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Diana Muldaur and Mark Lenard, Deep Space Nine’s Marc Alaimo, Robert O’Reilly, Andrew Robinson, and Rosalind Chao, Lassie and Battlestar Galactica’s Anne Lockhart, Ghostbusters’ Ernie Hudson, Creature from the Black Lagoon’s Julie Adams, Castle’s Susan Sullivan, and WKRP in Cincinnati’s Loni Anderson and Gordon Jump.
More than fifty years ago Newton Minow, the first FCC commissioner, called television a vast wasteland. The prospect of 500 channels available and nothing to watch was forecast back in the 1970s and today it sometimes seems like it’s a truism more often than not. But if you get tired of new programming–and make no mistake plenty of great television shows are airing this year–a few recently added channels to your local line-up may remind fans of classic TV why they jumped onboard in the first place.
Three channels: MeTV, COZI TV and LAFF, are a destination for those who just want to pop in now and then for a dose of the past. Even pay channel Starz has begun broadcasting classic television series. No doubt much of the programming may not hold up to current audiences. Clothes, hairstyles, and stale, formulaic half-hour and hour plots may not keep your 21st century attention. Yet many shows seem to hold up quite well. As time goes on two of my favorites, Simon & Simon and Magnum, P.I., seem to drift farther and farther away, yet the comedy of Night Court and Cybill remains laugh-out-loud funny.
Classic TV gold, like The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, may be a bit much in big doses. Only a diehard fan would stream these beginning to end. Yet, try popping in once in a while and it’s like visiting an old friend. M*A*S*H and The A-Team hold up quite well. In particular, the formula established by The A-Team, no doubt based on decades of series that came before it, can be found continuing on to this day in series like Leverage and Burn Notice. Even series like Wonder Woman and Charlie’s Angels can be fun, if you don’t take their 1970s approach to TV too seriously. And you may find yourself engrossed in Quantum Leap all over again.
Gotham is now two episodes past its pilot, with the premiere for Season Three of Arrow this week along with the pilot for The Flash. There’s one more DCU series–Constantine–coming later this month. We’ve seen the first entries of the DC Comics universe on TV for the Fall 2014 season, so how did the first of the season openers fare?
We had low expectations for Gotham. A series in Gotham with all the Bat-villains and Jim Gordon, but no Batman? Whose idea was that? Yet, tight writing and a story that proceeds at a fast pace coupled with a superb supporting cast of characters and actors behind the roles really make this a series we’re looking forward to each week. That “boy scout” lead role for cop Jim Gordon, played by Ben McKenzie, must be a thankless job, and far less fun to play than all those villains, including the best reason to watch Gotham in Gordon’s partner Harvey Bullock played by Donal Logue. We reviewed the pilot earlier here at borg.com and we’re still happy with the direction of the series.
If the season opener is any indication of the course of Season Three of CW’s Arrow, then consistency is the theme for this series. We know these characters well now, and the actors all solidly fit in the shoes of our heroes, from Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen to David Ramsey as John Diggle, to Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak and Paul Blackthorne as Captain Lance, Arrow is a proven commodity.
Mix up Diggle’s role in Oliver’s team? Taunt us with a relationship between Oliver and Felicity? Kill off a major series hero? The writers are sure going to keep us on our toes this year.
The highlight of all the DCU series so far is the introduction of Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer–the man who would be The Atom. It’s not lost on anyone watching that we are seeing the former big screen Superman face off with the Green Arrow right before our eyes. As we saw with the NBC series Chuck, Routh is one of the best actors to pop in for guest starring roles. Let’s just not take too much time before we see him transform into The Atom. Please?
If someone gave you the brass ring, let you write and draw your own comic book series, including combining your favorite characters and places, and heck, even an image of yourself and your college roommate, what would you do? If you were that lucky you might put something together like Savage Wolverine. So many components of Issue #1-5 of this year’s new series screamed “win” that it’s no wonder Marvel kept charging ahead with the monthly series after Frank Cho’s initial story arc.
Frank Cho is of course the biggest reason to check out the new hardcover and trade paperback edition now on newsstands. Cho is simply the best at rendering women and dinosaurs and guns and bringing them all together. And while we’re all still anxiously awaiting the long-delayed Guns & Dinos series that was supposed to land in 2011 (where the heck is that anyway?), Cho is forgiven as this is the next best thing.
Like all characters in comic books, dead doesn’t really mean dead. And we couldn’t be happier that Marvel Studios is bringing back Agent Phil Coulson, who, played by Clark Gregg, was the unlikely lynchpin of every one of the recent interconnected movies based on Marvel Comics’ characters.
In the marathon opening night for The Avengers, Agent Coulson served as our guide, speaking directly to viewers as he introduced Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man 2, and Captain America: The First Avenger. In The Avengers, we saw what was unquestionably the most emotional scene of the franchise as Coulson was killed by Loki. Or so we thought.
Check out the preview for the ABC Network’s new TV series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
You can spend your weekend at Comic-Con wandering the exhibit floor looking for mass market collectibles, talking with dealers of original art, talking with writers and artists of current and classic comic books, attend panels and see comic and other creators, TV and movie stars and get the low-down on coming projects, go offsite for parties and studio and publisher events–the biggest problem is doing all you want when there is nowhere close to enough time to do it in. If you’re in for only a few days, you really have to pick up your pace and narrow down what you want to see. Since I spent a whole day in panels and did not stay for the entire weekend, any encounters I had with creators and studio celebrities were pretty much based on happenstance this year. Many creators are now friends, others I gawk at like everyone else from afar. So who did I see?
First of all, in panels I saw the cast of Community, Firefly, and the new series Arrow, including guys I’d love to talk in person someday–Alan Tudyk and Adam Baldwin, David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel from Bones,and the guy you may know as Bud from Married with Children, David Faustino, who is doing voice work now for Nickelodeon, and he voiced the character Mako as part of the Legends of Korra panel. As I mentioned earlier in the week, waiting in line allowed me to meet and get a photo with Joss Whedon.
The Soup host Joel McHale, Firefly star Nathan Fillion, former Angel star David Boreanaz and Korra’s David Faustino really stood out as funny guys in these panels–surprisingly quick-witted people who got the crowd cheering with everything they said.
I saw the main cast of the Syfy Channel series Haven during their signing session. They really looked like they were having a good time–like they really get along with each other. Also signing in the Sails Pavilion were Richard Anderson, who was the classic character Oscar Goldman from one of borg.com’s favorite borg shows: The Six Million Dollar Man, and Cindy Morgan from the original Tron and Caddyshack. I hoped to run into Bruce Boxleitner, JK Woodward and Scott and David Tipton but my panel schedule caused me to miss meeting them.
On the exhibit floor I watched Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) and Kevin Sorbo (Hercules) talk with fans and sign autographs.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was coming into the hall and I staked out a photo op location but his handlers moved him out of the hall so I missed seeing him.
As a Star Trek fan, I was very happy to finally meet and have a nice conversation with Brent Spiner. He was a great guy who was as nice in person as you’d hope him to be from years of watching his lovable character Data. I also had a brief chat at day’s end with Levar Burton, also a friendly guy, signing photos of Geordi LaForge for fans. I’d met Marina Sirtis before so I didn’t chat with her this round, but she was also signing Counselor Deanna Troi photos in the hall.
Earlier this year I reviewed Table Top, a new, fun Web series hosted by Wil Wheaton with the Geek and Sundry creators. I met him near a Starbucks and shared my feedback with him on his show. We talked about some of the games and he graciously introduced me to his wife and friends.
Wheaton is truly “one of us” and a really personable guy. Of everyone at the Con, he is probably my first pick of someone you’d like to wander the Con halls and chat with. Another show host, Blair Butler was attending the Con from the popular genre cable channel G4.
Of the comic book realm, I met Cat Skaggs, a well-known comic book artist who was signing cover prints to Smallville Season 11 #1 and she sketched a great Green Arrow bust for me.
I also met Neal Adams–a comic book legend who created the look of the Silver Age Green Arrow and I finally was able to add one of his sketches to my folio. Neal was sketching non-stop for fans just like the newer, younger artists in Artist Alley–a real “working artist” even after all these years.
I ran into my friend Freddie Williams II also, and he also was busy sketching for fans throughout the Con and selling original art from his various DC Comics series.
David Petersen, known best for his Mouse Guard work, was working on commissions for attendees and selling shirts and art at his booth in Artist Alley. I also lucked into getting a sketch from him and enjoyed talking with his wife, who manned the booth when he was doing signings elsewhere.
I ran into Frank Cho again this year and he said he is still expecting to get Guns & Dinos out soon. He was selling a great pin-up calendar featuring Brandy and the Liberty Meadows gang. More on that in future posts. A nominee for the Eisner in two categories this year, Rachel Rising creator Terry Moore was busy talking with fans.
As with last year, Jim Lee could be found at several panels and signing throughout Comic-Con.
As with Freddie Williams, I met up with several folks from back in the Midwest. I ran into artist Ande Parks and met his wife, while hanging with Sean and William from Elite Comics and Chris Jackson who runs Planet Comicon. Parks was chatting with his frequent cover artist Francesco Francavilla, this year’s Eisner cover artist of the year winner, and someone we have talked about here at borg.com all year long for his great cover art. I ran into Star Trek author Kevin Dilmore twice on the exhibit floor–my third year seeing Kevin at the Con. It’s crazy how you can be in your hometown and never run into anyone, and then fly to San Diego and see so many people from back home.
You have several choices for getting psyched up for Thursday’s U.S. premiere of The Avengers. You can either stay at home and watch any number of the marathons running on cable, like Superhero Sunday on FX, you can grab your DVDs or Blu-Rays and invite over a few friends with your mega-sized HD or 3D TV, or if you’re up for it, you can take Thursday, May 3rd off work or school and run to your nearest AMC Theater for The Ultimate Marvel Marathon.
Starting at 11:30 a.m. local time on May 3, the day before the May 4 premiere, get set for 12 hours of the Marvel films that set the stage for the new film, and watch the premiere at midnight. For $40 you get a ticket to all the showings and, on a first come, first served basis, get one of four character themed 3D glasses to watch Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers and take home with you.
At least one staff writer for borg.com plans to take the 14+ hour plunge and hopefully he’ll share some thoughts on the experience one he comes up for air.
It all kicks off at 11:30 a.m. and the films will show in this order: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, then The Avengers premiere at midnight.
The movie marathon will be held in the following metro areas: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, NYC/New Jersey, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Rockford (IL), Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Spokane, Springfield (IL), St. Louis, Tallahassee, Tampa, Toronto, Tucson, Tulsa, and Washington, DC.
No sign of any new Iron Man suit yet for Robert Downey, Jr., but Marvel Comics revealed some new photos in the past several hours for The Avengers–the megahit where all the key Marvel Comics superheroes finally come together in 2012. And cooler yet, the Internet Movie Database revealed that Lou Ferrigno will return again as the voice of The Incredible Hulk. If you have been lucky enough to meet Ferrigno in person, you’ll know this kind of an opportunity couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Here are some of the photos released for the new film, to be directed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon:
Raise your hand if you are looking forward to seeing anyone in this film more than Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. No hands? I didn’t think so.
Chris Evans as Captain America and Chris Hemsworth as Thor, reprising their roles from two 2011 blockbuster movies:
Scarlett Johansson reprises her role from Iron Man 2 as Black Widow. Hey, why didn’t we get a Black Widow movie?
Tom Hiddleston stars as villain Loki:
And here is a look at Johansson and new character Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner:
Everyone I know who beat me to Captain America: The First Avenger, recommended this movie. Of all the summer releases, the trailer seemed a bit ho-hum, so I wasn’t in a hurry to see it. As for the character, I read back issues of Marvel Comics’ Captain America as a kid and liked it. His nemesis, Red Skull, was always a great villain. But since the 1960s for some reason Hollywood has trouble making good World War II movies. Captain America is not only a good comic book movie, it’s a good World War II movie. Its basic, good story, solidly bridges the real-world comic book hero character from the 1940s with a modern Marvel mythology and the result is a character we’d all be proud to know, successfully played by Chris Evans.
Just like the lack of a good modern Western movie, we haven’t had a lot of modern World War II movies that give us a real sense of time and place. One interesting recent film that comes to mind is Quentin Tarentino’s over-the-top Inglourious Basterds, a quirky, dark, humorous, revisionist bit about an elite unit trying to take out Hitler. Next to that, Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie, based on a true story, made for good movie watching, but both of these didn’t re-create the feel you get from tried and true contemporary war films like Captain America does, such as Back to Bataan, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Great Escape, or Stalag 17. Even giant, modern epic war films like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List–mainly because they cover the darkest periods of the war but also because they seem to have tried too hard—fail to reflect the unswerving patriotism of the “greatest generation.” As of today, you really have to go back to the often overlooked but brilliant Memphis Belle from 1990 to see a movie that reflects the American spirit that won the war. Captain America isn’t better than any of those films. But it is worthy of comparison, and for a film about a comic book superhero to deserve such comparison is a great achievement.
Chris Evans plays Steve Rogers, a skinny everyman, with health issues that result in his “4F” status, meaning he is ineligible for military service. Subtle state of the art special effects, which would go unnoticed by viewers unfamiliar with Evans more “built” status, show Evans as a puny fellow at first. (He looks like the star of Superbad and Scott Pilgrim). He tries five times to make it past the military entrance tests and only on the fifth try does he meet up with an expatriated German scientist played superbly by Stanley Tucci, looking for a few good men as candidates for a “superman” project that only Stan Lee could create. Here the director lays out a fictional character that borrows from the real lives of soldier heroes Audie Murphy (To Hell and Back) and Gary Cooper in Sergeant York–good, peaceful guys that don’t want to kill anyone, but just want to defend their families from bullies, and end up tougher than the rest. Captain America, more than anything else, has heart. For its adapted story to harken back to Frank Capra films but with a more subtle delivery as to his propaganda themes, the writers deserve serious accolades.
Several movies come to mind that Captain America borrows from, in ways you want a movie to borrow from great movies of the past. A siege on a train by Steve Rogers and friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan) has the feel of Von Ryan’s Express, a motley but tough multicultural band of tough fighters is reminiscent of The Dirty Dozen. And the overall mission to take out evil German organization HYDRA, led by a psychotic Nazi turned into the Red Skull, played perfectly by Hugo Weaving, feels like Guns of Navarone.
As superhero movies go its treatment is up there with Watchmen. As to comic characters coming to life, Captain America is right up there with Chris Evans’ other superhero performance for Marvel as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four. This Captain America will easily hold his own in next year’s The Avengers among Robert Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, or anyone’s rendition of the Hulk. Evans showed again, as he did as the star of Cellular, that he is up to the task for leading roles.
Other supporting actors of note include Tommy Lee Jones as a crotchety general cut from the same cloth as Patton. Neal McDonough (Walking Tall, Minority Report, Star Trek: First Contact, Timeline) comes right off the comic page, maybe more than anyone, as the Scottish, larger than life, handle bar moustached Dum-Dum Dugan. J.J. Feild plays a British member of the team straight out of Bridge on the River Kwai. Kenneth Choi and Derek Luke are refreshing additions, showing a Japanese- and African-American taking the fight to the Nazis. The film does its best to avoid a standard romantic subplot, but for those that need it, Hayley Atwell fills the part well (but why again we have another superhero story needing a European-accented leading woman makes no sense to me; she’s an American officer after all).
With all the new composers on the scene this summer, it is also welcome to have a tried and true master like Alan Silvestri (Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Predator, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Abyss, Forrest Gump, Eraser, The Mummy Returns, Van Helsing, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra) with a lively musical score. Along with the music, the costume design was dead on, and the art and set design was great–including creating futuristic machines of the day that seemed to be derived from World War II airplane engines and parts.
As for the villains, Weaving’s Red Skull and Peter Lorre-inspired Doctor Zola, played by Toby Jones, are the perfect villains we love to hate, straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. For taking a tough sell and turning it into a good story–a 1940s era comic book character with a loud supersuit and trash can-shaped shield, putting him in a modern comic book universe, staying true to the mythos, appealing to a modern audience’s scrutiny, for filling a theater a month after its release, and making us care about the character’s plight–Captain America: The First Avenger gets 4.5 of 5 stars.
Captain America: The First Avenger is in theaters.
. So many components of Issue #1-5 of this year’s new series screamed “win” that it’s no wonder Marvel kept charging ahead with the monthly series after Frank Cho’s initial story arc.
