goblin cartoons

This isn’t a review of the most recent Doctor Who Christmas Special (although I will say that I quite liked it and thought David Morrissey was very good) but my thoughts on the announcement of the actor to play the Eleventh Doctor.

I was not familiar with Matt Smith before today. Personally, I was sort of hoping they’d go with an actor older than David Tennant, and I think Paterson Joseph would be smashing in the part. But I think Steven Moffat is all kinds of smart, so if he feels Matt Smith is right for the role, that’s good enough for me. After watching an interview with him about getting the part of the Doctor, I will say that I like his enthusiasm and reverence for the part. The changing of the Doctor is always an interesting part of the program, so as much as I love David Tennant as the Doctor, I’m really excited to see the show change.

In 1997, CBS produced a pilot for a Justice League of America TV show. It was apparently never aired in the US, which is probably one of the main reasons I only just recently even learned about it. I managed to get a copy of it and watched it last night.

Boy, am I glad it was never picked up as show!

To be fair, it’s not nearly as bad as I worried it would be. There are some nice bits to it, and all of the actors do a good enough job with what they’re given. But overall, it’s really, really bad, showing very little understanding of the Justice League, the original comics characters, or even superhero stories at all.

The Good:

• John Kassir is great as Ray Palmer. You could say I think that just because he wears glasses and bow ties, but no, Kassir plays Palmer as a sweet, earnest nerd and does a great job of it.
• David Ogden Stiers is good as J’onn J’onzz. No, his physique isn’t really, um, superheroic, especially around the middle. And the make-up he has to wear is…not good. But Stiers is one of those actors who could read the phonebook and make it sound incredibly compelling.
• Michelle Hurd and Matthew Settle are pretty good as Fire and Green Lantern, and I liked their interplay as once-involved-now-just-friends. OK, so the Guy Gardner in here is nothing like Guy in the comics (more like Kyle Rayner), so it’s beyond me why they called him Guy Gardner, but Settle makes him likeable.
• The overall plot isn’t all that bad, and the “Super Friends” take kind of works. It’s interesting, at least. It would’ve worked better if it weren’t the Justice League, though.

The Bad:

• The costumes suck hard, especially the Atom’s and the Flash’s. The Atom looks like a football quarterback in an outfit designed by Playskool. The Flash just looks like an idiot.
• Barry Allen as a jobless Joey Tribbiani really doesn’t work, and the actor (Kenny Johnston) doesn’t help by doing a lackluster job.
• It seems like the heroes mostly just save people from natural disasters (when not fighting Miguel Ferrer), which is really lame. They’re the Justice League! Why not show them actually fighting crime? Why not give them actual costumed supervillains to fight? As a villain, the “Weatherman” is lamer than lame. He’s no real threat to superheroes, except that the script keeps him away from the heroes until the very end (and then only Green Lantern goes up against him, in an exceptionally lame bit of “confronting the bad guy”).
• While the plot isn’t bad (except for a few massive holes), the show as a whole doesn’t even begin to live up to the history and potential of the Justice League. The old Batman show was camp, but at least it had style and vision. This is just a watered down version of what Hollywood imagines superhero comics are like.

Really, this pilot is tragic. It could’ve been quite good, but was utterly ruined by some incredibly boneheaded decisions. I took a bullet for you all by watching it. You can thank me with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

David Tennant is leaving Doctor Who at the end of 2009? What? What?

I have mixed feelings about this. Tennant is my favorite Doctor. His portrayal of the Doctor is exactly how I want the character to be portrayed. Plus, David Tennant is around my age, grew up loving the show, still loves the show (listen to any commentary he does on an episode and marvel at his geeky knowledge of Doctor Who trivia), and his favorite Doctor is Peter Davison, who is also my favorite of the classic series. I would love to see him stay in the role for a long time, beating out Tom Baker as the longest-running Doctor.

Except I think Tom Baker went on too long, and I wouldn’t want Tennant to do the same. The show has always been about change, and it’s about time things were shaken up a bit more. I think he’s right to leave the show now, rather than stick around until we’re all sick to death of him.

So, thanks for playing such a smashing Doctor, David! I’m sorry to see you go, but that’s the way it should be. Good luck with the future. Allons-y!

When Heroes premiered two years ago, I was excited but cautious. Too many shows that appeared promising either failed to live up to their potential, or they were as good (or better) than I’d expected, only to be cancelled just as I got attached to them. Heroes didn’t disappoint me and it did surprisingly well in the ratings. Could it be? Could I get a visually stunning, well-acted, well-written, epic TV show about people with amazing powers?

Well…yes and no.

It seemed that the general consensus on the second season of Heroes was that the show had lost its way. The creators acknowledged this and promised the third season would get back on track. I watched the first two episodes of this season (shown back to back) with the same caution I’d watched the premiere, and I was again pleasantly surprised at how good it was. But now that we’re a few more episodes in, I’m feeling disappointed again.

Warning: Here There Be Spoilers!

I’m getting tired and frustrated with the constant shocking revelations that unrelated characters are, in fact, related. Sylar is a lost Petrelli, Nikki was really one of triplets, Claire is Nathan’s daughter. The time travel and alternate futures was fun in the first season, but having a new alternate future where the Earth is destroyed for each season is laughably bad. Characters have sacrificed themselves dramatically, only to be brought back from the dead (nullifying their heroic sacrifice), something that’s been done to death (pardon the pun) in superhero comics and is no less played out on TV. The plot from episode to episode and season to season is convoluted in a way that makes it seem obvious the writers are making it up as the go along. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, but it’s gotten really messy in Heroes. The show has turned into the TV version of the worst years of the X-Men comics: too many characters, too many twisting plotlines and too much melodrama.

I’m going to keep watching the show for now. My daughter still loves it, and it’s something we watch together. I hope the show gets good again, but I’m losing hope.