the News of the past week
- Cooking MaMa: Breaking Badedition. Now this is a game that could get me behind the Cooking MaMa IP.
Lets all cook with Walter - Upcoming Green Arrow show, titled Arrow on CW will be “less superhero and more Jason Bourne/Ethan Hunt.”. You can also add my two least favorite pair of adjectives: darker and grittier to the description. Arrow premiers October 10
- The first trailer for The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 is out. WB Animation split the famous Frank Miller story into two parts, Part 1 comes out September 25th and Part 2 sometime in Spring 2013.
- M. Night Shyamalan has a pilot going to the Syfy channel....What a Twist
The TV
Dallas S1 Ep09 "Family Business"
George Lucas ended the start of his unremarkable prequel trilogy with a peace ceremony between the Naboo and Gungan. Peace is the opposite of what an ongoing soap opera needs. If it is, why does the prospects of peace seem to have far more interesting ways to develop conflict amongst the Ewing sons? “Family Business” lays foundation for a possible future with Ewing Energies but peace can not last. Dallas ends its penultimate episode in operatic fashion with bloodstained plush toys and Bobby on deaths door.
J. R. finally returns home and how he has been missed. Weeks of Hagman making a cameo appearance just talking to Mut was not the proper use of Hagman and his eyebrows. Having him mix with his family members made for some of the best episode moments. The women of the family slapping and threatening bodily harm. Maybe the old bastard has a heart, signing the deed back to Bobby but as he points out if Bobby dies he gets the deed back. He has a heart but within reason.
As soon as Bobby was diagnosed with cancer at the start of the series it was only a matter of time before he grabbed his stomach in pain. Well he grabbed his face this time suffering ““some kind of brain seizure,” but the point stands. Being Bobby he defies the doctors and goes home with all the safeguards. A lot of good that does him, ending the episode having another kind of a brain seizure.
Dallas should kill Bobby Ewing. This isn’t something I say lightly having read books 1 and 2 of A Song of Fire and Ice, Harry Potter, and watcher of TV. Taking a well known character out of the equation permanently is a big move. The show is slowly shifting focus to the younger cast and taking a key figure from the old show would be shocking and push it further down that path. You can’t kill J.R., he still is the biggest guiltiest pleasure of the show. The wives and mothers aren’t very interesting and just seems to be orbiting with their own un-interesting subplots. Bobby is the only old cast member whose death would be meaningful force of change. Besides this is a show that ended once with J.R. apparently killing himself after a It’s a Wonderful Life journey with the Devil. Having Bobby appear as a Force Ghost wouldn’t be that strange.
Look at how his predicament has brought John Ross and Christopher along with Elena in partnership. Peace among the Ewing cousins seems boring at first but it wouldn’t last. They have to eventually work together. That is where the conflict would come from. If they even get that far is up in the air, with a finale titled “Revelations” and previews of Christopher telling someone they will be going to jail it seems unlikely.
Change can be fickle in characters. One minute things seem to be turning the page and next week it’s as if the previous week never happened. Hopefully this doesn't happen to John Ross who seems to finally realize his father is the devil and wouldn’t save him, even if he did visit. Having Ross free of J.R. and on his own doing his own dastardly deeds would be interesting. Ross is the heart of the show
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The Newsroom S1 Ep07 “5/1”
Newsroom is still in the mode of reporting on past recent events. These events can be used as the backdrop for character development "The 112th Congress" and “Amen” or overwhelm the story and be seen simply as “Sorkin shows how event X should've gone” like in “Bullies”. The use of real events for better or worse makes this show unique. It can also make it feel odd when you are shown dramatizations of events that you have been a part of. The latter happened for me in ‘5/1”.
I remember waking up on 9/11/01 and seeing the Two Towers attacked, I had just turned 10. Honestly it didn’t have that much of an effect on me. I didn’t suddenly feel unsafe but then again why should I? I was 10. So having seen Osama Bin Laden once again assert himself on America and its effects my reaction to his death was so much less than what was written in “5/1”. Twitter was abuzz with speculation, one person said he was going to a bar to drink since it will either be good news or bad news but either way we would drink. All I said on Facebook was “Yay Bin laden is dead”. That was that and I promptly moved on with my life.
As odd as “5/1” felt, it is among the better episodes of The Newsroom. All the elements worked, never overstaying their welcome. Oddly 5/1/11 is the one year and a week-versary of News Night 2.0 so we begin with a party in Will's apartment. Charlie Skinner is outside though, on the phone with an anonymous man who is trying to earn his confidence. Meanwhile everyone else is busy partying, Will is getting baked, and Jim is working as usual.
The ensuing chaos around the mysterious White House announcement kept everything going at a brisk pace as everyone tried to get confirmation that it was indeed Bin Laden who was killed. The chaos also gave us the Sam Waterston moment of the week as he cautioned going live with the story since they don’t know everything. Telling of how he gladly reported where rockets landed in the first Gulf War not knowing that the enemies were watching. A well handled loose lips sink ships moment in a fast enviroment.
While the News Night team is trying to chase down the story Don,Elliot, and Sloan are stuck in an airplane just 10ft from the gateway. Jeff Daniels might have gotten to play with pot humor but the majority of the laughs came from the frustrated Don so close but so far from doing his job. The stuck trio slowly began to piece together what was going on, which is a small victory even if they don’t get to report the news. His frustration mixed with everyone being extremely well informed about him Maggie and Jim kept the same pace as the News Night plot. This all comes to a head though when he is out of his seat when he shouldn’t be and the realization that he really is being an asshole in one of the shows better albeit sappy moments.
“5/1” felt a lot like pilot episode “We Just Decided To” with the pace and overall sense of chaos as the story slowly broke. Newsroom hasn’t done a breaking story as their event of the week since the piolt. For that it sets itself apart from the passable episodes of Newsroom.
