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Enter the Fat Dragon (2020, Tanigaki Kenji)
Enter the Fat Dragon is about Hong Kong super-cop Donnie Yen (already in a pound of makeup before he puts on the fat suit, presumably to look more age appropriate for love interest Niki Chow) who goes too far one too many times and finds himself busted down to the evidence room. After Chow dumps… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s03e05 – Evolution of the Daleks
Last episode I went in pretty hard on the British actors playing Americans but I think I may have emphasized accents too much. Hugh Quarshie’s accent isn’t bad. His performance is bad, his accent is fine. Whereas Andrew Garfield’s accent is bad and his performance is bad. Though even Garfield seems like a strong supporting… 📖
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Upload (2020) s01e09 – Update Eve
Turns out “Upload” is able to surprise me. This episode reveals the Horizon app where all the dead people live is getting an upgrade. Including having more than two seasonings, which is a heck of a long time into the show to reveal none of the digital dead people eating are tasting anything the viewer… 📖
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The Old Guard (2020, Gina Prince-Bythewood)
The Old Guard is better than any of the Highlander movies (to date, I suppose) but sadly not a success. It gets relatively close to passing at least, but then the epilogue is forced, predictable (screenwriter Greg Rucka’s really obvious, he’s really episodic and he’s really obvious–Old Guard is based on Rucka and Leandro Fernandez’s… 📖
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Backcountry (2014, Adam MacDonald)
Backcountry is all about this young couple who need a weekend in the woods to realize why they’re wrong for each other. She’s a lawyer who’s interested in playing on her smartphone with her friends. The movie’s from 2014; maybe it’s supposed to be Candy Crush? Is 2014 too early for Instagram? Missy Peregrym plays… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s03e04 – Daleks in Manhattan
So… Nicholas Briggs does do the Dalek voices in this episode. He’s been doing all of them, which is weird because the Dalek voices this episode are terrible and so… I figured it was other actors. But no. It’s Briggs. And he’s terrible. I was waiting for the Daleks to show up—they’re trying to take… 📖
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The Books of Magic (1993-2019)
Books of Magic Original series and recent “Moveable Type” trade paperback Back in 1991, DC decided to let one of their successful new writers, Neil Gaiman, fresh from his success with The Sandman, an opportunity to play in the sandbox with a bevy of their silver age B list characters, weaving them into the origin… 📖
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Upload (2020) s01e08 – Shopping Other Digital After-Lives
The episode opens with Robbie Amell getting Andy Allo in trouble for their relationship. Except she can’t let him know she’s in trouble so when she gets sent home… he assumes she’s still at work. Only it’s her boss, Andrea Rosen, who shuts him down. See, he’s ready to commit to their romance. He gets… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s03e03 – Gridlock
Really nice direction from Richard Clark this episode; really nice. It’s a strong episode overall, because it’s set out in space in the future, which are usually the best “Who” episodes (so far), but this episode manages to do it with a bunch of regular humans. Well, not regular humans. 5 billion years removed new… 📖
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Mr. Boop – Volume 1: My Wife is Betty Boop (2020)
Mr. Boop is about being married to Betty Boop. The protagonist is Boop creator Alec Robbins, who is presumably not actually married to Betty Boop in real life because otherwise it’d be a series of photos not comics. Robbins, the comic protagonist, is very happy to be married to Betty Boop, who’s the hottest woman… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s03e02 – The Shakespeare Code
I was expecting more from The Shakespeare Code. Dean Lennox Kelly’s Shakespeare is rather wanting. The characterization of it all seems more Knight’s Tale than anything historical or original. There are numerous quotations throughout, usually David Tennant making a quip and Kelly saying he’s going to keep it and Tennant (or Freema Agyeman) worrying they… 📖
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Upload (2020) s01e07 – Bring Your Dad to Work Day
As a streaming sitcom, filler doesn’t feel the same way in “Upload” as it does in a regular sitcom. “Upload” is not chasing that syndication deal, which in theory wouldn’t affect the A plot—dead guy Robbie Amell falling in love with his living virtual—actual—assistant Andy Allo—much but the B plot involving Amell being murdered and… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s03e01 – Smith and Jones
New only-other-billed actor (but technically not the new companion yet) Freema Agyeman guest starred at the end of last season but is playing a different character here. Thank goodness. Agyeman is a medical resident, so it’s going to be the Doctor and a doctor going forward, which is a lot better than a vague IT… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s03e00 – The Runaway Bride
How does the Doctor (this time David Tennant) usually respond to his companion leaving the show for, presumably, their own projects? Does it matter if you inherent your companion from the last Doctor? Have English school teachers been reading themes on this subject for decades now? I’m vaguely curious about “Who” canon stuff. Not enough… 📖
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Upload (2020) s01e05 – The Grey Market
Does “Upload” have a show bible the writers ignore—in this case Mike Lawrence, who at least writes a funny enough episode even if it completely breaks with the show’s established future logics-or does the show not have a show bible. Because it doesn’t lean heavy enough into the sitcom to not have its utterly broken… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e13 – Doomsday
The BBC does market research, don’t they? I’d love to see what their “Doctor Who” market research says as far as target audience. For instance, this episode—the momentous, earth-shattering (literally?) season finale, which will change the Doctor (David Tennant) forever–has the many experienced heroes, including ostensible eccentric space and time genius Tennant, completely flummoxed over… 📖
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The Cabin in the Woods (2011, Drew Goddard)
I didn’t have much hope for Cabin in the Woods; though, I mean, director and co-writer Drew Goddard… he’s gone on to stuff. Good stuff. Right? But if I’d known it was written in three days—it shows—and cost $30 million—it actually looks pretty darn good for $30 million, saving the money shots until the final… 📖
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Upload (2020) s01e04 – The Sex Suit
Watching “Upload” do sexy is… uncomfortable. And not just because Allegra Edwards is loathsome and the episode frequently promises she’ll not be around then keeps bringing her back around. She and lead Robbie Amell are in therapy now. They still haven’t had sex because Edwards thinks the suit is gross. So at some point between… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e12 – Army of Ghosts
One Earth episode without Camille Coduri was clearly too much so she doesn’t just appear in this one, she also pretends to be daughter Rose (Billie Piper) and play companion to David Tennant. Coduri and Tennant don’t grate as sharply as one might’ve feared (hard to imagine her and Christopher Eccleston stuck together so much… 📖
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Cool Hand Luke (1967, Stuart Rosenberg)
Maybe a third of the way into Cool Hand Luke, the film all of a sudden starts getting really good. It’s when Jo Van Fleet makes her appearance, which provides the film both its single best acting—Newman and Van Fleet are exquisite in the scene—and also director Rosenberg showing he’s actually got a handle on… 📖
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Upload (2020) s01e03 – The Funeral
This episode opens with a Rupert “Tilford” (cough, cough, Murdoch)—played by Creed from “The Office”—paying to get his Upload mind put into a clone body. And he dies. More than any episode so far, this episode of “Upload” felt a little like they were trying for Robocop humor. It’s better than Robocop 3 at least.… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e11 – Fear Her
For an Earth episode, especially one with a strangely disjointed narrative with dueling MacGuffins, Fear Her is okay. There’s not a very high bar for the Earth episodes so getting to see David Tennant and Billie Piper doing an ad for the 2012 Olympics in London. They show up—six years into Piper’s future—to watch the… 📖
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Upload (2020) s01e02 – Five Stars
The best part about “Upload” this episode is Cigarette Smoking Man William B. Davis as one of the “Choak” brothers, who has died and is now living his reward after ruining American society for decades. Because Davis is good. No qualifications, no asterisks, he’s just good. Everything else in “Upload” comes with a caveat. Even,… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s02e13 – Retirement is Murder
New writing team (Elias Davis and David Pollock)—albeit one working together since the 1960s—and a new director (Alan Myerson) but it’s a close to quintessential “Frasier.” Though more in the “good jackass Kelsey Grammer” column than the “good exemplar episode” one, even though it’s not exactly Grammer’s episode. Or at least it shouldn’t be. It… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e10 – Love & Monsters
It’s a not bad concept episode (written by Russell T. Davies, which seems weird but whatever) about a regular bloke (Marc Warren) who records a video diary on his digital camcorder to upload at 160×120 to his FTP server to share his story about the Doctor. I mean, it’s a YouTube doc before anyone knew… 📖
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Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006) s01e02 – The Cold Open
The Cold Open is about Matthew Perry trying to write the cold open (the pre-credits sketch) for the first episode of ‘Studio 60’ he and pal Bradley Whitford are producing. The episode’s cold open is Amanda Peet giving a press conference about Perry and Whitford taking over the show. It’s a quick recap of the… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e09 – The Satan Pit
So, the title sort of gives away the big reveal. The Satan Pit refers to the giant hole in the middle of the planet, where they’ve already dug twelve miles down and sent David Tennant and Claire Rushbrook to investigate. She wants to go in the existing pit, as opposed to the tunnel they dug.… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e08 – The Impossible Planet
The Impossible Planet has just what “Who” needs… right now anyway. There’s a new director to the series (James Strong) and a new writer (Matt Jones), and they give the series a push in a better (arguably best so far) direction. Is there going to be any momentum… probably not. “Who,” even the two-parters, is… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s02e12 – Roz in the Doghouse
It’s writers Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano’s second episode this season. They sort of established the show in the first season, so it’s nice to see them back. Even if this episode doesn’t age well. Some of the jokes are great and the performances are fantastic, but the situations associated with said jokes and performances… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e07 – The Idiot’s Lantern
I had high hopes for this episode. Higher hopes. Between writer Mark Gatiss, who wrote something last season and I didn’t hate it because I don’t remember his name, and director Euros Lyn, I figured it would be fine. I just didn’t predict it’d be such a middling fine. Once again the Doctor (David Tennant)… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e06 – The Age of Steel
I had low expectations for this episode, given the first installment was so unimpressed; writer Tom MacRae and director Graeme Harper do not improve at all this episode. The perfunctory cliffhanger resolution does nothing to ratchet up any enthusiasm. The stakes are simple—the Cybermen are taking over this alternate universe and Billie Piper won’t let… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s02e11 – Seat of Power
Steven Levitan wrote this episode. Levitan’s one of the few sitcom people whose names I recognize. I didn’t realize he’d done “Frasier.” Turns out this is his first of four episodes. Recognizing the writer (though not remembering he hadn’t contributed a script to credit level before Seat), I paid the writing a lot of attention.… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e05 – Rise of the Cybermen
The cold open of this episode looks pretty bad and the direction on the actors is terrible so I was just waiting to see it was Keith Boak. Then the opening titles rolled and I got a little hopeful upon seeing the writing credit—Tom MacRae, new guy (all the “Who” writers are guys so far),… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e04 – The Girl in the Fireplace
The Girl in the Fireplace is an exceptionally affecting star-crossed lovers story, with the Doctor (David Tennant) happening across a portal to 18th century Versailles and—initially reluctantly—becoming involved Madame de Pompadour (Sophia Myles) as he tries to save her from time-traveling automatons. See, they want Myles to repair their spaceship, only no one can really… 📖
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Becker (1998) s01e22 – Regarding Reggie
I’ve been dreading the “Becker” season finale. I was initially enthusiastic about this rewatch but the first season’s been a slog. I’m not sure why exactly I was dreading this episode—other than the Regarding Reggie title being a little ominous—but it was the appropriate expectation. If this episode, which is about Ted Danson daydreaming about… 📖
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Hitman: A Rage in Arkham (1993-96)
A Rage in Arkham is the first Hitman collection, but it’s not all the first Hitman stories. There’s his first appearance, during the Bloodlines crossover—which I can’t forget to address, in a Garth Ennis and John McCrea Demon annual, then a Contagion tie-in with Hitman and Batman, then the first three issues of the ongoing,… 📖
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Frasier (1993) s02e09 – Adventures in Paradise (2)
I wonder how this episode would play in one sitting. Even just marathoning it (as opposed to cutting out the recap at the beginning of this second part, which Kelsey Grammer performs quite well). Because writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs still have an odd structure. They had an odd structure last episode, as they… 📖
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Doctor Who (2005) s02e03 – School Reunion
They did a CGI werewolf episode, so why not a CGI vampire episode—except the vampires are aliens who can’t really turn into humans except Anthony Head (get it, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” non-vampire, playing a vampire, get it—also, he plays the headmaster of a school; headmaster; get it). They kind of look like the flying… 📖