Catch more from Game Theory on YouTube
Every time I get sick I feel the urge to test things to see if I’m still sick. It never ends well.
You’re welcome, ladies.
Over at The Clutter Reports this week, I tried to burn through my RSS feed backlog some more. I was successful-ish.
This week here at the Spotlight, we’re winding down the Star Power reviews but the Chapter By Chapter review of Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders continues on. I may have a commentary planned, but I don’t know what else is coming. Hopefully it will be worth reading for y’all.
Have a great week, everyone!
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Turning movies into TV for kids isn’t always easy, especially when the source material wasn’t exactly made with kids in mind. For every Men In Black: The Series, Godzilla: The Series, and The Real GhostBusters you get the various RoboCop cartoons, James Bond Junior, and while I very much enjoy Rambo: The Force Of Freedom, it is a show that kind of misses the point of First Blood and the other various Rambo movies, created because movie studios can’t stop themselves from advertising R movies during sports and family time programming and had to placate the kids somehow…and selling toys to make money.
If you thought Cobra Kai was the only series set in the classic Karate Kid timeline (Daniel in Japan versus Will Smith’s kid in China), you haven’t of The Karate Kid, produced by DIC and airing for one season on NBC’s Saturday morning line-up. The show does a good job with the characters, but the plot is kind of off because it does the same thing all the Double Dragon adaptations do and shoves in magical elements where none originally existed because that’s what they think sells martial arts to kids.
The plot features Daniel and Mr. Miyagi (neither of whom are voiced by their live-action actors) joined by a girl from Okinawa named Taki. They’re seeking a magic shrine that can heal the sick but in other hands gives other abilities. Usually it falls into the hands of some mixed up kid, they show him that he doesn’t need it, and something happens so the shrine gets lost because the plot needs to continue to the next episode. Some of the ways they lose it is kind of embarrassing, really. Tonight we see the first episode, as our trio finds the shrine in South America and meet a teenager trying to save his village and prove himself in a manhood trial. Of course it ends up in the hands of bad guys because it’s not a Karate Kid story if Daniel doesn’t get to karate somebody. Enjoy.
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All those kids who didn’t get to travel with the Blue Beetle form a…”group”.
The Blue Beetle #47
Fox Features Syndicate (August, 1947)
Three stories and a text story. We’re getting closer to what we modern comic readers are used to, but you still don’t have a long enough credits list that I don’t need this, and it’s still an anthology. Also, it continues to lose steam with me. I’m used to “Otis” not being very good but nobody seems to care about any form of consistency, not only with the original run but even itself.
Remember, this was a story about a rookie patrolman who gained superstrength, the occasional gadget, and bulletproof chain mail armor thanks to a druggist at a time when they ran the pharmacy on their own. Dr. Franz has long since disappeared from this story and now Dan for some reason has all sorts of superpowers. Now he flies, seems to be transforming into the Blue Beetle, makes his symbol appear wherever he wants…I’m starting to see why the next owners of the character just invented a magic scarab.
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I wasn’t going to do two of THESE in one week, either.
Time’s just a bit limited this week, and having talked about the intro to The Six Million Dollar Man earlier this week, YouTube recommended Stam Fine‘s look at the TV series.
In case you missed the other article, The Six Million Dollar Man is loosely based on the novel Cyborg by Martin Caidin. It follows the adventures of Steve Austin, an astronaut injured in a test flight, and having parts replaced by bionics, an advance form of robotic prosthetic we’re still not at the level of over 40 years later. Maybe if we used nuclear power? The show lasted for five seasons, with a spinoff featuring a bionic woman, which had a couple of re-imagines, and a weekday syndicated superhero show using an advanced form of bionics called Bionic Six. There’s also a set of reunion movies for the original Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman. We’d also get a bunch of one-shot bionic people through all that.
I didn’t get to see the original show when it aired, waiting until syndicated reruns for the original adventures of Steve Austin and Jamie Sommers. In the following video these are the focus of Stam Fine’s retrospective on the original parts of the franchise. Sadly, while he mentions the Bionic Woman reimagine, no love for the super featured family. I need to fix that Saturday Night Showcase posting. He also doesn’t mention the comic book reimaging The Bionic Man, but we’re better off. I do recommend the Six Million Dollar Man comic from Dynamite, though.
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No, I still haven’t decided if I’m bringing back Friday Night Fights on this site.
Star Power #27
(September, 2019)
“The Life Smugglers” part 2
WRITER: Michael Terracciano
ARTIST: Garth Graham
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I hadn’t planned on two Doctor Who themed videos in one week. That’s just how it turned out.
Catch more from Harbo Wholmes on YouTube
My problem with some changes is not the canon question but whether or not it was a good thing or takes something away from somewhere else. The Timeless Child and Ruth take away from William Hartnell’s in-universe status as the First Doctor and he’s somehow less special. Ironic since the goal was to make the Doctor the most special being in the universe…again. As for the Family Of Blood and Meep stories, it took something made for a different Doctor and in both cases turned them into David Tennant stories, taking away from them and as the source material makes them less non-canon and just immaterial. That’s why I don’t like these things happening. On the other hand, making the Big Finish McGann stories “official” gives the Eighth Doctor an actual story within the main Whoniverse.
Also, blue Meep and Abslom Daak: I approve.
BW Media Spotlight 