State of the Blog

(Or, as Blam likes to call it, the Slog).

With the summer movie season behind us and the fall TV season about to begin, I figured it was a good time to touch base on what to expect in terms of TV coverage moving forward. I've never felt terribly compelled to do one of these "state of the blog" posts before, usually sneaking them into the first TV post of the fall, but there's a bunch of stuff happening or about to happen that make a quick overall check-in worthwhile.

That is, I can't sneak this into this season's first TV post, because there won't be a regular TV post this year. I'm giving up the episodic TV review game, at least for the time being, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, for those of you haven't heard the news on Facebook or Twitter, my wife and I are expecting our first child (a boy!) at the end of the year (on either 12/29 or 1/3, depending on which medical professional you choose to believe). While I have every intention of continuing to write regularly while doing my best to prevent my son from becoming infected by a techno-organic virus and taken into the future for his own well being, I recognize that, realistically, the amount of time and mental energy I will have to write will be diminished come 2015.

Last Week in Pop Culture #31

With the official 2013-2014 TV season drawing to a close last week, and with me (mostly) caught up on the show I comment on regularly, as well as another looming work trip threatening to throw off my regular schedule once again, this will be the last regularly scheduled "Last Week in Pop Culture" post. I reserve the right to drop one in periodically, if there's something of note I'd like to talk about, but I won't have one up (nearly) every Saturday going forward.

However, I am hoping to resurrect my Retro Reviews of The Simpsons sometime soon (once I get back into the groove after my trip and give myself a little break). So look for those again shortly! 

And, of course, I've still got three X-aminations posts a week to do, plus all my stuff at Sound on Sight and Capeless Crusader, and Dr. Bitz has three more Game of Thrones reviews to do, so you won't be lacking for content from us this summer, regardless!  

Around the Web
Just one additional post this week, my weekly Market Maven column from Monday. 

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Not bad. It wasn't the greatest X-Men film, but it was entertaining, well-constructed, well-acted. The Sentinels were handled well, most of the action scenes were top notch, and kudos for wiping out most of The Last Stand. In the middle of the pack, but near the top (I'd still put X2 and First Class above it, for sure).

Saturday Night Live: Andy Samberg & St. Vincent

This wasn't the best episode of the season by any means, but at least the show ended on a relatively strong note. Granted, the regular cast was barely on hand for much of it (I wouldn't be surprised if we've seen the last of some them; so long Noel Wells and Brooks Whelan!), as Andy Samberg returned and brought along a ton of his former cast member friends. While the highs weren't all that high, at least the baseline landed somewhere closer to "amusing" than "indifferent", which has been the case more often than not this season.

Last Week in Pop Culture #30

Around the Web
I have a bunch of new and old X-Men stuff up in honor of Days of Future Past; check it all out here.

Also, this week's Market Maven column, as well as a column looking at April's sales numbers, can be found here and here. 

Once Upon a Time: Kansas

Knowing full well going in that a two-hour finale remained, I was fully expecting the other shoe to drop as soon as things started to go well in the fight against Zelena (not unlike how Pan's seeming defeat two episodes before the mid-winter break presaged the reveal that he switched places with Henry). The only problem was whatever it is that happened was way too unclear to be much of a cliffhanger. Was that Zelena? Her magic, operating on its own? Was her death part of the spell, something that wouldn't be triggered until she was "killed"? Bottom line: you want your cliffhangers to make the audience go "whoa!", not "huh?"

Last Week in Pop Culture...

...is once again missing this week, as I was once again traveling for work the first part of the week, then busy with SpringCon setup, so I didn't really watch or read anything of note.

But, you can read a slightly revised "To Better Know a Hero" about Professor X on Sound on Sight, as well as my latest Market Maven column for Capeless Crusader.

Next week, we should be back to regular coverage, as we begin wrapping up the official 2013-2014 network TV season!

Last Week in Pop Culture #29

Around the Web
My first Market Maven column for Capeless Crusader went up this week, a new weekly column I'll be writing that looks at each week's batch of comic releases. Look for it every Monday, and eventually I'll  have some other columns up on Capeless Crusader as well. And if you like what you read, be sure to like the site's Facebook page as well.

As for Sound on Sight, this week I reviewed the first issue of my boy Cyclops' first solo series, a fun little space pirate-y story starring the time-lost version of the character (not the present day cranky Magneto-esque version). 

And hey, just because it's been awhile since I'm mentioned it, don't forget about Saved by the Bell Reviewed, the podcast co-hosted by me and Dr. Bitz. New episodes come out every week, and this week's is a doozy!

Last Week In Pop Culture

No Last Week in Pop Culture this week, since I was out of town and didn't have much time to read or watch anything of note (and I still haven't seen Amazing Spider-Man 2).

But hey, you can always read my "To Better Know" Spider-Man related posts, and if you haven't already, hit up your local comic book store - it's Free Comic Book Day, and in addition to all the free stuff, most shops also run some kind of sale, so pick up some back issues or a trade or two, and help support your local retailer.

Last Week in Pop Culture #28

Around the Web
This week, I review 24 Underground #1, the first issue of a new series intended to bridge the gap between the previous final season of 24 and the new "limited event series" debuting in early May. Unfortunately, it's all very routine.

Later this week, I'll also have a couple Spider-Man posts on Sound on Sight to tie-in with the release of Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Once Upon a Time: Bleeding Through

I'm not sure how the reveal of this backstory gels with the events of Cora's big backstory episode "The Miller's Daughter", from last season, but I'm finding it hard to care.

I'm also not sure how Zelena could have learned all this from the Wizard, either. Like, the broad strokes, sure, but not some of these details.

So who created the tornado that carried Zelena to Oz? Are are supposed to infer that she did it herself, unintentionally, as a baby?

It's kinda gross that Cora, having lost out on the opportunity to marry Prince Leopold, never gave up and later threw her daughter at the now-king Leopold.

I should have realized that Gold would be the brains in Zelena's Oz-inspired spell. He's the only one on the show using one regularly.

Emma's glee at getting better at magic was genuinely amusing, as was Hook calling it bad form to mess with a man's hook.

Last Week in Pop Culture #27

The Simpsons: Days of Future Future

Future-set episodes (which have now occurred often enough to be their own thing) on this show are usually pretty good, because they allow the writers to put the character into new and different situations they can't use when everyone is perpetually stuck at the same age. That said, this was one of the weaker future episodes, mainly because the "it was all in your head" twist undercuts the arcs made by the characters within that dream. Bart still comes out the other end having gotten over Genda, but what about everyone else?

Also, the whole "cloning Homer" gag seemed pointless. It wasn't that funny to begin with, then it ultimately amounted to nothing when the end result was Homer getting uploaded into a computer. They could have skipped the clones and just started there and the episode would have been all the better. The repeated funerals for Homer's clones seemed ridiculous. Why wouldn't you stop having funerals after a while, and why would anyone keep going even if you did? 

Saturday Night Live: Anna Kendrick & Pharrell William

Though by no means a standout episode of the season I probably enjoyed this a bit more than last week's. But we're still firmly in the "nothing great, nothing awful" territory, so I certainly wouldn't quibble with anyone who said otherwise. That's the thing about these episodes: how well they work depends a lot more than usual on personal tastes and how you're feeling when you watch it. As for Anna Kendrick, she did fine. She was given plenty to do, and played a variety of roles (from carrying whole sketches to slotting in a secondary role), though many of them leaned on her musical background.

Last Week in Pop Culture #25

Around the Web 
This week, I contributed another article to Sound on Sight's "Greatest TV Pilots", this time for The Wonder Years. You can read it here. Also, I did a new "To Better Know A Hero" post on Falcon, which you can read here.

Bob's Burgers: The Kids Rob a Train
Anytime Regular Size Rudy shows up, you know a good time will be had by all.

Once Upon a Time: Quiet Minds

Full disclosure: I watched this episode immediately after the HIMYM finale, so I may have missed some important details as a result of the loud, rage-induced ringing in my ears at the time.

I'm a little unclear as to why Neal had to die. I get that he and Rumpelstiltskin were one now, so that only one or the other could be dominate at any given time, but I'm not sure why Neal had to die to let Rumpel out to tell Emma about Zelena. Couldn't they have just let Rumpel reassert himself briefly?

Last Week in Pop Culture #23

Around the Web

This week, I've got a slightly revised and updated version of my To Better Know a Hero post on Black Widow up on Sound on Sight. Check it out before you see Captain America: Winter Solider.

The Simpsons: The Winter of His Discontent

This felt like the warmed up leftovers of two plots (Homer embraces the lifestyle of the elderly, Bart is befriend by Nelson after helping him out) from two previous episodes ("The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons" and "The Haw-Hawed Couple"), with an extended parody of The Warriors tagged onto the end.

Last Week in Pop Culture #22

Around the Web
Two more reviews from me at Sound on Sight: the penultimate chapter of the "X-Files Conspiracy" crossover, and the penultimate chapter of "Trial of Jean Grey". It was a penultimate week, apparently.

Also, as some of you may have seen on twitter, this week Dr. Bitz and I began recording the Saved By the Bell Reviewed podcast, along with Billy Superstar of the Full House Reviewed blog and Portland artist Carolyn Main.

We're still a few weeks away from going live (we want to get a few under our belt and work out the kinks before we start posting), but you can be sure I'll pimp the hell out of it here once it goes up. In the meantime, you can follow the show on twitter @sbtb_reviewed, and check out our under-construction tumblr here.  

The Simpsons: The Man Who Grew Too Much

Always nice to see a Sideshow Bob episode centered around something other than Bob trying to kill Bart. But let's not pretend the act one reveal of Sideshow Bob is at all shocking when Fox has been pimping his appearance in commercials all week.

Last Week in Pop Culture #21

Around the Web
Couple reviews from me up at Sound on Sight: Guardians of the Galaxy #12, and the Transformers portion of IDW's X-Files crossover.

The Oscars

Putting aside my bitterness over losing my Oscar pool by one point, this wasn't a terrible show, though it wasn't a terribly good one either. Ellen turned in a perfectly cromulent monologue, then became far too obsessed with going out into the crowd (which, I know, is her schtick). Some of that material worked, some of it didn't. The pizza thing mostly did, largely because, as fabricated as it may have been, the reactions to it felt genuine. There's something undeniably entertaining about seeing people like Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt fishing around for change or Harrison Ford's excitement at the prospect of pizza, just like regular people!

And The Oscar Goes To...

No "Last Week in Pop Culture" this week. Instead, here are my picks for the "big six" Oscar categories. The winners will be announced Sunday at the 86th Annual Academy Awards ceremony.

Best Supporting Actress

Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)
Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)
June Squibb (Nebraska)

In the first really tight race of the night, it's a dead heat between pop culture darling Jennifer Lawrence and newcomer Lupita Nyong'o. The pair have shared the pre-Oscar hardware (including a Globe and BAFTA win for Lawrence). History tends to favor Nyong'o: she's in the more traditionally-Academy-friendly film, while back-to-back Oscar wins are rare indeed for actors (Lawrence, who won Best Actress last year for Silver Linings Playbook, would in fact be the first actor to run the lead/supporting table in consecutive years).

That said, recent Oscar history suggests we shouldn't put too much stock in Oscar history, and while 12 Years a Slave is in the thick of the Best Picture race, it doesn't seem to have the same widespread support as, say, Gravity or American Hustle. I...I just don't know, guys. I'm going to go with Nyong'o for now (if you believe 12 Years a Slave has a shot at Best Picture, and I do, then it's going to need to pickup some additional wins), but I'll be going back and forth right up to the ceremony, and it may come down to a coin flip.

Last Week in Pop Culture #20

Around the Web
One review from me up on Sound on Sight this week, covering the still-not-as-fun-as-it-should-be next chapter in IDW's X-Files Conspiracy crossover, this time featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The first trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy hit the internet this week, and if you haven't checked it out, do so. As I said on Twitter, I'm an easy mark when it comes to trailers, but this got me even more excited for the movie, especially for Chris Pratt's take on Starlord. This movie will be a tough sell, even to the millions who have embraced stuff like Iron Man and the Avengers, but the trailer seems to suggest the filmmakers are aware of this, and doing their best to make sure everyone knows what to expect from the movie. 

Also, in perhaps the most WTF news of late, NBC announced that it is rebooting Heroes as a 13-episode "event series" in 2015. Alan Sepinwall does a good job laying out just why this seems like such a bad idea here, though he overlooks one key component: in addition to all its other problems, Heroes under Tim Kring was pathologically incapable of showing any exciting action sequences, at one point literally confining a fight that was the climax of a season to a locked room and showing the audience a character watching the fight through a keyhole rather than the fight itself.

All of which is to say that while a Heroes reboot in and of itself may not be a terrible idea (in terms of doing something with the concept of "ordinary people with extraordinary abilities" while trying to get some juice from the brand name), putting Kring back in charge seems especially stupid. That said, I'll probably still watch it, just to see how awful it is (what the kids these days call "hate watching").

Last Week in Pop Culture #19

Around the Web
This week, I've got one review up for Sound on Sight, looking at All New X-Men #23, the third part of the "Trial of Jean Grey" crossover, as well as a feature on Cyclops and Jean Grey, part of February's "Best Comic Book Romances" theme. 

Once Upon a Time: The New Neverland

One of the benefits to moving the action back to Storybrooke, even though the whole Pan storyline hasn't completed, is that it gives us a chance to see the characters decompress while they think the threat is over, something that rarely happens.

It was genuinely kind of sad that nobody cared Regina came back, and I'm glad Snow wasn't a bitch about it and stuck up for her. 

I'm also glad Emma knew fairly early that something was wrong with Henry - obviously, with only two episodes left, they couldn't drag this out very long, but that works to the show's advantage.

I'm still confused about the Hipster Darlings...like, they were once younger than Wendy, right? So now they're older than her (since she's been in timeless Neverland), but they're not *that* much older. Why not? Whatever. That's probably the last we'll see of them. 

How awesome would it be if Henry had gotten stuck in Pan's body so that Jared Gilmore was done playing Henry? 

I've seen better animated figures than Medusa in video games. From 1995.

Last Week in Pop Culture #18

Around the Web
Two reviews from me this week, one for Ms. Marvel #1 (which was mostly excellent) and Wolverine #1 (which was mostly not).

Super Bowl XLVIII
Boy, that game sure did suck, didn't it? 

New Girl: Prince

I'm not the world's biggest Prince fan (despite being Minnesotan, I basically have no strong opinions on him), but I love the idea of casting him as some kind of impish relationship guru with magic powers and butterfly familiars, and in general appreciate that, as much as this was still Prince, the show made a character out of him, rather than just dropping him into their big post-Super Bowl episode for the sake of having an attention-getting guest star.

Last Week in Pop Culture #17

Around the Web 
Just one piece for Sound on Sight from me this week, a review of Guardians of the Galaxy #11, the second first part of the "Trial of Jean Grey" crossover, which you can find here.

It was announced this week that Jeremy Irons has been cast as Alfred and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in the still-untitled sequel to Man of Steel (the one that will feature Ben Affleck as Batman). I like the casting, particularly Eisenberg. His Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network was already pretty Luthor-esque, and his casting suggests they're setting up Luthor as a tech-savvy media mogul type, which is a sensible modern interpretation of the character that still fits his roots, one which Eisenberg should nail.

That said, this is still a movie that is going to feature Batman and Wonder Woman (along with Alfred and Luthor and lord knows who else) as well as a Superman who did nothing to help the thousands (if not millions) of innocent people who died in the last movie and expressed zero remorse over that fact, so it's tough to get too excited about this casting, because even if Eisenberg kills it, he's still probably going to be in a mess of a movie. 

Far more importantly than all that, this week my good friend, fellow blogger and frequent commenter Sarah announced on her blog that she's signed with a literary agent. Cue the fanfare! As any fellow aspiring novelists knows, landing an agent is A BIG DEAL, the key step in getting your book published and becoming rich and famous and never having to do anything but write ever again, and I couldn't be happier for her. Rest assured, once her first book (which I've read, and is pretty effing fantastic) is available for purchase, I'll be pimping the hell out of it here, so no one'll miss out on a chance to buy it.

How I Met Your Mother 9x16: How Your Mother Met Me

Honestly, I think the biggest issue with this episode was that there wasn't more of it. The concept (to show what the Mother was up to during the years we've been following Ted, showing the moments their lives almost intersected from her perspective) is a clever one and, frankly, a necessary one, but I want more, not necessarily from this episode, but from the series as a whole. The episode did a decent job of giving the Mother a character arc, one that carried through the eight years it spanned, grounding things so it wasn't just twenty-odd minutes of clip show paced "then this happened, then this happened, then this happened". That said, it did feel like that at times, simply because there's only so much room to work with in one episode, and that's where giving the Mother more screen time to cover this ground in other episodes could have alleviated the problem.