Antenna TV is a classic TV show channel available through cable/satellite, and secondary feeds by local channels. Check your local listings and see more videos (though they don’t really update often) on their YouTube channel.
Chapter By Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
PART TWO: The Last Mission chapter 8
We’re almost to the end of this flashback. So far everything has gone wrong, there’s circumstantial evidence that either incompetence or purposefully messing up has happened, and since we already know something went wrong it’s just a question of waiting for the shoe to drop. I’ve been finding that more distracting than a source of anticipation.
So do our heroes have a chance of pulling this off? It didn’t seem like it in the previous chapter, and we know they don’t in the end thanks to how the book started…even if you didn’t read the back of the book first. Therefore, let’s see how much frying pan is left before we hit the real hot spot.
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Lacking pictures connected to the FBI, here’s a giant police robot to distract you.
Whether they’re buying in to outdate stereotypes or someone else’s tropes and clichés, trying to take some license for the sake of the story, or just that ignorant (I’m not ruling out all three), writers have been known to get procedures and personalities of the people who work at the Federal Bureau Of Investigations wrong, and some of that can actually be detrimental to their cases. However, I’m tied of the “FBI takes over for the cops but are not as competent as the cops” cliché. (In The Heat Of The Night did this a few times.) Actually, the FBI does try to work with the local cops because they aren’t morons. Business Insider talks with three current and former FBI agents to discuss what writers get wrong about them and the agency itself.
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I don’t hate it, but what happened to superhero stories that don’t come off as cosplayers in a slice-of-life comedy?
Batman Family Adventures is actually quite good for what it is. The art is good, the stories are fine, and the jokes work. I just wish they actually showed us the superheroes doing superhero stuff. So many “young adult” works out of DC, and that’s what the Webtoon series comes off as for me, seem to treat the superhero aspect as an afterthought and it gives me Todd “my tastes are better so I’m going to turn your stuff into my stuff” Philips vibes from it all. That said, Batman Family Adventures is still better than most of the YA junk DC has put out because they at least acknowledge the superheroes and I don’t want to slap the protagonists. Faint praise, but that’s all I can offer beyond what Leon says. It would be nice the personal interactions more in the stories during character moments. It worked for the DCAU and they still did superhero stuff as the main focus.
Over at The Clutter Reports I actually took some time to write something, namely a review of Origin Bumblebee from the Target-exclusive Buzzworthy Bumblebee line. Yep, a whole toyline celebrating Bumblebee, with a few guest appearances for him to interact with. It’s about time Da Bee got the respect he deserves!
Here at BW this week we have the next Chapter By Chapter installment for Star Trek: Prime Directive. I didn’t get to do that third Finally Watched and I’m not sure I will this week, but at least I’m caught up on the Avengers movies. What I get out depends on what comes up during the week. I have nothing definite planned, and that means I won’t be disappointed when those plans fail to come out like they did all year. Unless I just don’t get to post at all, which is usually what’s happened. Yeah, I’ve got some complaining coming up for this year’s Art Soundoff but hopefully I have some fun ideas too. Have a good week, everyone!
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While tonight’s Showcase entry has been available streaming on other sites and through numerous home video releases, plus airing on Discovery Family on and off, I haven’t been able to show it until recently. So if for some reason you haven’t watched the original Transformers cartoon, you are so long overdue, and I can help with that.
The Transformers began as a three episode miniseries, later titled “More Than Meets The Eye”, before given a full series launch as a weekend show in syndication. The show would move to weekdays in season two and ended as it started, with a three episode miniseries entitled “The Rebirth”. Tonight we get to watch that first miniseries thanks to the Hasbro Pulse YouTube channel. (Use the homepage season playlists since for some reason they’re really out of order in the regular videos list, even splitting multiparters between other uploads.) Why it’s not on the official Transformers YouTube channel I really couldn’t tell you.
Four million years ago (give or take a week) war had broken out between two factions of robotic lifeforms on Cybertron. The peace-loving Autobots sought not to be the staging area for conquering the universe while the Decepticons refused to realize running an entire universe is a bit difficult. Long story about to be seen, the leaders of the two factions and their soldiers on the toy shelves with them end up on the planet Earth, waking up in 1984 to battle for the energy resources lost during the war. Led by Optimus Prime, the Autobots waged their battle to destroy the evil forces of Megatron and his Decepticons. (That sounds oddly familiar.) Enjoy!
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Before I start, turns out the Avengers movies were very long and my schedule has been a bit messed up. So I do plan to get to Godzilla Vs. Kong in the future, just not this week. To get back on schedule for me, here’s an article series I haven’t been able to do in a while.
There’s one trope in crime stories that just really bothers me, and this isn’t just in cop shows and crime movies. Superheroes have done it, sitcoms have done it, science fiction has done it…anything that can involve some kind of law enforcement and some kind of poor sucker in the wrong place at the wrong time will find a way to do that. TV Tropes calls it “The Corpse Stops Here“. It’s a classic scenario. Some guy comes across a dead body. The janitor or the cops show up just at that moment and this guy gets blamed. Then he has to either escape to prove his innocence, hire the best lawyer on the show (hopefully the title character), or hope there’s at least one cop who actually goes to investigate something instead of saying “we got him” and calling it a day, either for his own advancement or the district attorney’s.
We’re not even talking about a frame up here. The sucker doesn’t even have to know the guy. He was there, so they assume he did it. Therein lies the whole problem. Even if they don’t intend to make the cops look bad…they make the cops look bad.
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Considering this week’s Finally Watched reviews this seemed a fitting post.
Catch more Film Theory on the Theorists YouTube channel.
