-
Frasier (1993) s04e20 – Daphne Hates Sherry
There’s some truly great stuff this episode—Kelsey Grammer directs and continues his extremely gentle look at the potential chemistry between David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves (he directed the previous Moon Dance episode, which was the first time the show really acknowledged the potential)—but there’s also some very messy stuff. The messy stuff starts, with… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e19 – Three Dates and a Breakup
I don’t know if Rob Greenberg is actually on my list of “Frasier” writers to worry about or if I just think he’s on my list of “Frasier” writers to worry about and I’m mistaking the standard nineties misogyny with it being a repeating problem for Greenberg. Either way, there’s a lot to unpack, as… 📖
-
Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson)
Knives Out is very successful, very neat riff on the Agatha Christie-esque genre of mystery stories, specifically the limited cast, the intricate death, the “gentleman detective.” Out’s gentleman detective is Daniel Craig, who plays his French-named character as a Southern Gentleman with aplomb. He’s always delightful, even though he’s—intentionally—not particularly good at the investigating, rather… 📖
-
Justice League (2017, Zack Snyder), the Snyder cut
The absolute saddest part of Justice League: The Encore Edition is the new stuff’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. You almost want to see the movie, which is basically Ben Affleck Batman teaming up the not even A-list for 2021 of DC Comics movies stars and roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland. But… 📖
-
Ultramega (2021) #1
Ultramega is an “Ultraman” riff, with creator James Harren bringing in a bunch of non-standard elements to give a very different feel. Starting with the kaiju being a lot more Lovecraftian, with tentacles and sharp-toothed mouths and sharp-toothed mouths on the end of tentacles. And the Ultramega—the Earth’s defenders who look like Ultraman and get… 📖
-
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) s01e01 – New World Order
So, when this episode started, I thought the thing to discuss would be the very obvious Pentagon underwriting of the script. Falcon (Anthony Mackie) is now working for the Air Force… he’s going into sovereign nations and killing people. Yes, it’s a rescue mission but he’s there as an unregulated super-weapon for the U.S. military.… 📖
-
Resident Alien (2021) s01e08 – End of the World as We Know It
Since last week’s big cliffhanger and series low episode (way low), “Resident Alien” has gotten its second season renewal. Apparently it wasn’t in danger of not getting a second season; it’s Syfy’s highest rated original in years or some such. This episode does nothing to assuage about the overall quality of the show. It’s an… 📖
-
All Rise (2019) s02e10 – Georgia
I can’t remember the last time “All Rise” was as good as this episode, which is a problem since it’s not really “All Rise.” It’s “All Rise 2.0,” with Marg Helgenberger in the lead. Simone Missick doesn’t make any appearances—again, given she’s just given birth during a pandemic, you hope it’s for an okay reason… 📖
-
Orphan and the Five Beasts (2021) #1
The first thing I noticed in Orphan and the Five Beasts was the empty space. Creator James Stokoe is still all about the detail, but now he lets dust in the air just be dust in the air. Stokoe’s detail isn’t static; it takes a while for Orphan to get to some action (I was… 📖
-
Michael Hayes (1997) s01e08 – Death and Taxes
It’s the first episode without either show “developer” Paul Haggis or show co-creator John Romano getting at least a co-writing credit so I thought “Michael Hayes” must be on solider ground. If they’re going to trust credited writers Richard Kletter and Gardner Stern, it must be because it’s safe. Or Haggis and Romano just didn’t… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e18 – Ham Radio
Ham Radio relies heavily on the situation in situation comedy; it gets some good laughs, but because of who’s in the episode—and how it’s written for those particular guest stars (specifically Edward Hibbert). But the David Lloyd-credited script only advances by one-upping itself, trying to appear chaotic but always coming through linearly and predictably. Not… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e17 – Roz’s Turn
I’m still waiting for the great Roz episode for Peri Gilpin. It’s actually her second one in the last handful of episodes but, just like before, she gets upstaged by a guest star. This time it’s going to be it’s going to be Harriet Sansom Harris as agent-from-Hell Bebe Glazer and not the voice of… 📖
-
Fixed Bayonets! (1951, Samuel Fuller)
About two minutes after I had the thought, “Oh, no, what if the morale of Fixed Bayonets! is ‘it isn’t the generals who are the heroes but the men,’” the film reveals the morale to be it isn’t the generals who are the heroes but the men. The film opens with a title card establishing… 📖
-
East of Eden (1955, Elia Kazan)
As intentional as Kazan gets with his direction of James Dean, he’s orders of magnitude more intentional on Julie Harris. Harris is top-billed and the natural protagonist, but Dean’s a supernova. He’s the lead, he’s the star, he’s dynamite, a press agent’s dream. Only he’s got a really quiet part for most of the movie;… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e16 – The Unnatural
It’s a fathers and sons episode, both for Kelsey Grammer and guest star Trevor Einhorn and then Grammer and John Mahoney. There’s also some nice stuff for Dan Butler—implying the possibility of character development, which hasn’t really been present before—and then David Hyde Pierce gets a hilarious subplot. Both Peri Gilpin and Jane Leeves get… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e15 – Roz’s Krantz & Gouldenstein Are Dead
It’s producer William Lucas Walker’s first writing credit on the show. I wish it weren’t so obvious—it even sounds like the laugh track is louder and more persistent in the first half of the episode (which ends up being significant entirely for its guest stars)—but every line gets a laugh and they’re not very good… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e14 – To Kill a Talking Bird
“Frasier” has gotten to the point where—unless I miss the writer credit—I eagerly anticipate it. So after listing all the producers and executive producers (who’ve had writing credits on excellent episodes this season), the writing credit on Talking Bird is Jeffrey Richman, whose name wasn’t familiar (and it’s his first credited script on the show),… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e13 – Four for the Seesaw
It’s such a good episode. Clearly season four is where “Frasier” hits its stride, but even so, Four for the Seesaw is a really good episode. It starts with Kelsey Grammer getting his flu shot on air and it not going well to the point he faints—giving Peri Gilpin time to flirt with shot administering… 📖
-
Resident Alien (2021) s01e07 – The Green Glow
Something seems off this episode. I tried to ignore it through the opening, which resolves the previous episode’s cliffhanger while also introducing another alien species to the show. The alien species introduction is solid, the cliffhanger resolution is not. In fact, by the time Elias Benavidez’s name shows up as the writer credit… well, it’s… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e12 – Death and the Dog
Death and the Dog does a couple things I think are new to “Frasier” and immediately seem like series standards. The first is using the radio show as an episode-long bookend device. The episode opens with Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin bored on a sunny Seattle day and getting a single caller—Patty Duke (not playing… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e11 – Three Days of the Condo
I just realized we never get to see the undoubtedly hideous antique Kelsey Grammer is supposed to get from Marsha Mason. Mason’s John Mahoney’s new girlfriend (who the show’s established sons Grammer and David Hyde Pierce do not like because she’s too… earthy) . Grammer and Hyde Pierce get back from antiquing and Mason promises… 📖
-
Michael Hayes (1997) s01e06 – Heroes
Paul Haggis has a co-writer credit on the script, which seems to mean—among other things—Hillary Danner is going to get some things to do and Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s going to be good because the writing for him is better. Santiago-Hudson has less to do than last episode, when the writing wasn’t Haggis and was bad, but… 📖
-
Michael Hayes (1997) s01e05 – Act of Contrition
There are some really big obvious things to talk about with this episode of “Michael Hayes,” like the Catholic Church and the romanticization of terrorism, specifically the IRA, and how popular American entertainment portrayed both right up until mid-September 2001 for the terrorism and, I don’t know, the late 2010s for the Catholic Church. They… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e10 – Liar! Liar!
It’s a Seabees episode, but only sort of and only at the beginning (the Seabees are the annual radio awards on “Frasier” and there’s always an episode). Always with conditions, however, as the episode opens in the apartment at Kelsey Grammer’s Seabees after party, where the regular cast is doing their best to get the… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e09 – Dad Loves Sherry, the Boys Just Whine
It’s a pretty good episode, even if most of the laughs are cheap and mean. The cheap starts right away, with Peri Gilpin getting her one scene in the episode opposite David Hyde Pierce. She’s celebrating and the punchline’s gross funny. And Hyde Pierce’s reactions to it are great. But then the episode’s done with… 📖
-
Ginseng Roots (2019) #7
There are some things only comics can do. There are some things only comics memoirs can do. This issue of Ginseng Roots mixes the two into something even more singular and rare; it’s a truly exceptional reading experience, far and away the best issue of the series so far; it’s going to be very hard… 📖
-
Ginseng Roots (2019) #6
It’s such a dark issue. How is it such a dark issue. I mean, it’s clear why it’s a dark issue—creator Craig Thompson juxtaposes the seed process of ginseng with he and his siblings going into high school, getting baptized, and suffering serious abuse, so there’s simultaneous this literal expansive life thing for the seed… 📖
-
Masters of Horror (2005) s02e05 – Pro-Life
I’m not sure John Carpenter’s The Thing was a pinnacle of realistic practical special effects—I think it must’ve been one, but I’m not sure; I am confident, however, he and Dean Cundey pioneered SteadiCam (at least according to them) with Escape from New York. So watching his second (and, thankfully, final) “Masters of Horror” entry,… 📖
-
Masters of Horror (2005) s01e08 – Cigarette Burns
Did anyone read the script for Cigarette Burns before they started shooting? Udo Kier’s got a line about Norman Reedus following him, then Kier follows Reedus. Not to mention Reedus’s inability to open doors convincingly, much less regurgitate Drew McWeeny and Rebecca Swan’s startlingly insipid dialogue. It’s terrible when it’s Kier and Reedus delivering the… 📖
-
WandaVision (2021) s01e09 – The Series Finale
Not even halfway through “WandaVision,” it became clear the show’s pass or fail was going to be how well it treated lead Elizabeth Olsen by the end of it. Despite top-billing, she was secondary to Paul Bettany for a while because he was the viewer’s angle of entry. Once it did get to centering on… 📖
-
Resident Alien (2021) s01e06 – Sexy Beast
Lots happens this episode, lots of good stuff. There’s maybe the funniest scene so far in the series—based on measuring breath lost to laughing—there’s a montage of great Corey Reynolds acting, there’s deputy Elizabeth Bowen not just getting some character development but a lot of it, there’s the new doctor in town (Michael Cassidy, who’s… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e08 – Our Father Whose Art Ain’t Heaven
This episode is credited writer Michael B. Kaplan’s first; I may not be keeping good track of the writers on the show, but I’m at least staying familiar with the names and his wasn’t familiar. He does a fine job with it, getting to some good character work in both comedy and drama. Kaplan’s also… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e07 – A Lilith Thanksgiving
The title of this episode, A Lilith Thanksgiving, is simultaneously accurate and not. While the episode does indeed guest star Bebe Neuwirth and does indeed take place at Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is tangential to the plot and doesn’t involve Neuwirth at all. The episode does one of those “Frasier” forecast and switches, where the opening introduces… 📖
-
Michael Hayes (1997) s01e04 – The Doctor’s Tale
I’d forgotten how once upon a time the evils of liberal Hollywood meant trying to warn how for-profit healthcare in the United States was a terrible thing and now we’re twenty years on and it’s even worse. It’s such a lovely combination of distressing and depressing. This episode opens with governor’s goon Gregg Henry (who’s… 📖
-
Michael Hayes (1997) s01e03 – True Blue
So, given the episode uses footage from the pilot—the pilot, not the “Prequel” episode they made after they brought on Paul Haggis to save the show, but the original, Haggis-less pilot—to kill off Dina Meyer, who was in stable condition after being shot last episode… it makes sense she’d be less than interested in coming… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e06 – Mixed Doubles
It’s another great episode for David Hyde Pierce. He shares the spotlight, but with Jane Leeves and the guest stars, with Kelsey Grammer and John Mahoney supporting the A plot. Their B plot involves staring contests with Eddie the dog. The A plot’s where it’s at. Christopher Lloyd’s the credited writer and outside his easy… 📖
-
Frasier (1993) s04e05 – Head Game
The last time David Hyde Pierce got to run an episode, he shared it with Jane Leeves; this time, after Kelsey Grammer heads off to a conference leaving Hyde Pierce guest-hosting the radio show for a week, it’s all Hyde Pierce. I missed the director credit—but did happily catch the Rob Greenberg writing one, so… 📖
-
The Equalizer (2021) s01e04 – It Takes a Village
Did they save up their Chris Noth for this episode? He actually does something with the plot. Nothing with the non-Queen Latifah cast, but they get him in a lengthy action set piece involving the episode villain (Scott Cohen). Noth and Latifah crashing actually evil philanthropist Cohen’s formal ball isn’t as good as it could… 📖
-
Michael Hayes (1997) s01e02
It makes sense they did another episode to run as the first episode instead of this pilot. What doesn’t make sense is CBS green-lighting the series based on this pilot episode. It’s also interesting to see who they got to come back for the previous episode after they clearly didn’t work out in the pilot;… 📖
-
Michael Hayes (1997) s01e01 – Prequel
This episode of “Michael Hayes” isn’t on IMDb. It’s been a while since I’ve watched something not on IMDb. Something made in the 1990s and airing on one of the Big Three networks? I don’t even know. What’s amusing is the New York Times review of the episode is a top Google result. So this… 📖