This blog remains pretty well abandoned, but some TV Squad commenter wanted screengrabs of the people who pop up in the cantina scene of the Family Guy Star Wars special, and I'm happy to oblige. Bender (Futurama), Coach McGuirk (Home Movies), FG's Evil Monkey, and Roger (American Dad) below:
Edit: And one of the binocular shot for another TV Squad commenter. It has a bald head and round Simpsons eyes, but I don't think it's Homer:
Monday, September 24, 2007
Family Guy Star Wars
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Thursday Night TV
Season finales aplenty tonight. I've been putting some thought into what I really want to do here, and I think I'm going to abandon the nightly commentary on everything. It feels like a chore, and I can't imagine all that many people are enjoying reading them anyway. But past the jump, some random thoughts on Smallville, The Office, and Scrubs.
The Office: Freeze frame fun:www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts
Lines of the night:
Creed Thoughts!
Hey-o, everyone out there in Syberworld. It's old Creed Bratton coming at you again here from my perch as a Quality Assurance Manager at Dunder-Mifflin paper. Just a few observations on the world around me.
What do you guys think is the best kind of car? To me, you can't beat motorcycles. They're small and dangerous.
Scrubs: I'm kind of disappointed that they're going back to the Elliot and J.D. well. Despite a plot-heavy episode, they still worked in some good lines:
Smallville: I suspect some fakery, but if they killed off Lana there's no reason to watch the show anymore, except for a cool Clark/Bizarro fight.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Season finales are exciting, but the summer cable shows don't really get going til about the 10th of June, so it'll be a slow couple weeks in between. But tonight, Bones' season finale along with the last Lost before the big season ending episode next week. My commentary on both after the jump.
Lost: When counting down his top 5 moments in life, I was kinda hoping #1 would be killing Ethan. Would've given a nice incredibly dark edge to Charlie. And I can definitely see him finding that moment extremely satisfying in a slightly crazy way.
Charlie's impending death finally comes to the big payoff. It's amazing how quickly Charlie's good moods can be ruined by a concerned glance from Desmond. But this time Desmond sees Charlie's death leading directly to Claire leaving the island (suspiciously absent are any references to anyone else leaving, or whether Claire's leaving with rescuers or if somehow the Others get hold of her and take her away). Charlie decides that he's willing to sacrifice himself, and accepts the assignment to dive into the looking glass station underwater, where he'll flip a switch and drown. Instead of finding an abandoned hatch with a switch, he finds a manned (or womanned) station, with two young ladies running up to him with guns. 
Rose, to Bernard: "If you're going to be hiding in the bushes, let's get you into something dark." Does it make me a perv and/or racist that I found that hilarious? Anyway the plan is for Bernard, Sayid, and a few others to hide out and when the Others come, to shoot at the tents to set the dynamite off. While Charlie takes out the jamming station, everyone else heads to the radio tower so they can try to call Naomi's ship as soon as communications are un-jammed. Nothing actually gets resolved (including the question of why Jack is being such a dick), leaving the potential for a super exciting final episode. 
Bones: More weddings should feature ZZ Top music. And pie instead of cake (a campaign I've been running for years, long before Turk on Scrubs made that joke). Also, it'd be fun at least once to go to a wedding that ended up like a TV one, in which inevitably something goes horribly wrong, and often no one ends up married.
Such was the case on tonight's Bones (I love a good misleading screencap), which had an ok mystery, a couple of father cameos (Ryan O'Neal getting himself caught on purpose, and Billy Gibbons giving away his daughter, who was wearing some kind of ridiculous looking hood instead of a veil). Pretty fun episode, and they set up plenty of fun little questions for next year. I'm hoping, though, that they play it cool and don't have a big season premiere full of resolutions. But either way, this is how procedurals should work. The case of the week gets wrapped up every week, but the characters are strong and capable of change and growth and they work in plot threads that run over multiple episodes. Also, Sea Chimps!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Tuesday Night TV
The Shield and some catching up from Monday will come a little later. But first, the series finale of Gilmore Girls and what, sadly, is the second to last Veronica Mars ever after the jump. But first, a really awesome new Bruce Campbell Old Spice ad.
Gilmore Girls: Early in the season finale, it becomes apparent, due to Rory's awesome new job, that the graduation reenactment as planned won't go off, and the town is pissed. So Rory and Lorelai try to calm them with an impromptu version in the diner, using a menu as a prop. Babbette's reaction, "it's not how I imagined it," nicely captured most Gilmore Girls fans' reactions to the final season without creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.
But for a series finale, this wasn't a fine episode. This isn't a show based on plot twists or anything, so just ending with a bunch of nice moments between characters seemed appropriate.
Veronica Mars: Veronica and Piz are all luvy-duvy, which kinda makes me want to puke. Similarly, Logan and Parker are doing the happy couple thing. Sweet was fine on Gilmore Girls, but that's not the Veronica Mars I love.
Piz lands a big interview with a Hearst student named Apollo Bukenya who wrote a book about his experiences as a boy soldier, obviously based on Ishmael Beah. They mention early on that he'd be appearing on Oprah, and I instantly thought he was a fraud. But they took us on the whole "long lost father" detour, long enough to convince me I was wrong, then blindside me with the fact that I was right, then blindside me again. There's the Veronica Mars I was looking for..
Elsewhere:
- Veronica's taking her PI exam, I guess so that she has some protection if she gets sued while working a case. She gets a 95, and is ready to gloat about beating the old man's score, but Keith got himself a 97 back in the day.
- Keith is dealing with a series of home burglaries in the 09er neighborhoods. Pressure's on from the rich folks to get it resolved before the elections. Signs point to the Fitzpatricks, a particular security company, and possibly Vinnie Van Lowe's collusion. Vinnie also has a hilarious campaign ad.
- Mac and Max are seriously into each other, but his commitment to his cheating business at the expense of his classes has Mac worried.
- Logan and Dick are planning a surf vacation to South America. The first snag comes in the form of Parker not wanting to be apart from him all summer, but Logan ends up inviting her (a decision he immediately regrets). Snag #2 comes when Big Dick shows back up and wants to spend the summer with Dick before he heads off to jail.
- Inspired by the Apollo story, Wallace signs up to spend his summer in Africa.
- Piz passes on a summer internship with Pitchfork media so he can be with Veronica, who then ends up getting her FBI internship in Virginia. Ouch.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Monday Night TV
A random new Criminal Intent and The Riches will wait until later, I only had time for Heroes and Everybody Hates Chris tonight, which are both after the jump.
Heroes: Hiro and Ando find a Deus Ex Machina ad in the yellow pages for a swordsmith, where Hiro's father is waiting for him. Mr. Nakamura is among the older generation of heroes who do not agree with Linderman, and he trains Hiro to be able to fight Sylar. We get no insight into his powers specifically, but the impression we get is that in a day, Hiro has learned to be a total badass with a samurai sword, so maybe Mr. Nakamura's power is to teach people things with a single training montage.
Peter learns to handle Ted's powers in time (though Claire was ready to pop him in the head if she had to), and they decide to split the group up, with Peter, Claire, and Ted headed to the country to keep everyone with explosive powers out of the city until the threat is past. That didn't work out too well, though, since Sylar was hot on their tail the whole time. He sicks the feds on them, and waits until Ted is in custody to break in, crack open his skull and steal his powers. Bennett and Parkman, meanwhile, are off to kill the tracking device. Bennett knew it was a person, but didn't know it was cute little Molly. Mohinder busts in with a gun just in time, and he and Bennett engage in the world's longest Mexican standoff (they literally appear to be standing with guns pointed at each other and Molly for about 45 minutes).
Thanks to Linderman, Nathan's election is fixed (as expected), and so is his wife (as expected). Micah rigs the vote count (apparently all the city's voting machines are networked across precincts, which is a terrible idea) to be a landslide in Nathan's favor, which seems pretty dumb. 52-48 gets Nathan in Congress just the same, and given that the exit polls put Nathan 5 points behind, it wouldn't seem as fishy. But whatever. Nathan's wife gets a lengthy handshake from Linderman that heals her paralysis, but she has to stay in the wheelchair in public, I think because if she stood up now, people would think it was all a fraud to get sympathy from the voters.
Jessica and D.L. raid Linderman's office to get Micah back. Linderman tells them where Micah is, but says D.L. will never see him again, then empties a bag full of cash as payment to Jessica for D.L.'s murder. He gives a long dramatic speech about how Jessica just wants stability, which the money would provide. I figured Jessica would say yes, take the money, and kill Linderman. But instead she hands control of the body over to Nikki, who refuses the money and Linderman pulls out a gun and shoots her -- except D.L. jumps in the way. He then hops up, sticks his hand inside Linderman's head and rematerializes it, apparently yanking out some of Linderman's brain in the process. Linderman looks pretty dead, though we're not entirely clear how his power to heal people applies, if at all, to himself. And D.L. looks well on his way to death, but I guess you never know for sure.
The episode leaves off with Sylar testing out his fancy new nuclear powers while looking at the skyline and saying "boom." Basically a second consecutive episode of exposition, which I hope is all leading to a kickass season finale.
Everybody Hates Chris: Drew is graduating from elementary school. Did they do that in 1985? I had never heard of such a thing until the mid 90's, and it still seems really silly to me. Finishing high school and finishing college are major milestones in life, finishing elementary school means you'll go to a different school with mostly the same people.
Chris is determined to finally have his revenge on Caruso, which gets an impressive buildup but the cats and summer detention payoff was a letdown, as was the obvious twist that Chris would have to go to summer school as well. There's a third plot with Julius trying to fix Mr. Omar's sink with some really awful joke product names (Drainado, Custodian in a Conga). How it didn't get cut completely, I have no idea.
Considering how disappointed I've been with the entire second season, it was a fitting season finale. The only laughs were provided by Greg in his Magnum and Banacek costumes. They tried really hard to be funny and/or touching, but pretty much missed the mark entirely.
100 Bullets
An older man in a black suit, a total stranger, approaches you on the street. He calls you by name and hands you a briefcase. Inside, you find irrefutable evidence that one person is responsible for everything wrong with your life, along with a gun and 100 rounds of ammunition. The man, who identifies himself only as "Agent Graves," tells you that the rounds are completely untraceable, and that the police won't investigate any crime in which those bullets are used. That's the premise of 100 Bullets, a Vertigo Comics series from Brian Azzarello with art by Eduardo Risso. 
At first merely a series of revenge tales, it develops into a head-spinningly confusing tale of conspiracy theories that makes the whole thing feel like The X-Files but with guns instead of aliens. 100 Bullets is plotted for 100 issues, and they're up to number 83. Only now is the picture starting to become clear as far as what is actually going on.
While you might find yourself lost (I know I did, on many occasions), the art is always top notch, the standalone stories are consistently compelling, and the cover artwork (pictured, top and left) is among the best in the business. Dave Johnson does most of them, and they're usually top notch.
As with many Vertigo titles, 100 Bullets features adult language, some occasional nudity, and a huge body count. So remember kids: don't buy this book without your parents' permission (or be prepared to hide it from them).
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Sunday Night TV
May sweeps is starting to wrap up, which means fewer TV posts on the horizon. This also means more comic books and movies. Sadly, I'm screencapless for a couple days due to computer problems, but it should be worked out by mid-week. Until then, another full slate of Sunday Night shows, with Fox's animation block and HBO's lineup. King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, The Sopranos, and Entourage after the jump.
King of the Hill: The long dormant Nancy/John Redcorn relationship comes back this week when Nancy's assigned to interview him. She's drawn to him because of their history, because she's losing her hair due to the stress of having to be without him, and because Dale's misunderstanding of equinoxes and tricked out cars have him thinking he's traveled back in time by one day.
An ok episode, but really they've been through this plot before. Dale's crazy but deep down he's sweet, and Nancy'd rather put up with his insanity than deal with the guilt of cheating on him.
The Simpsons: Homer getting everyone lost in an electrified corn maze (no relation to Gilmore Girls' hay bale maze) inexplicably leads Santa's Little Helper to becoming a police dog. But a cop's life changes a man... or dog... and he can't live with the Simpsons anymore. But in the end all it takes is a toxic cloud caused by a replacement pet snake and a frisbee to bring Santa's Little Helper back, and everyone's all back to normal.
Not a great episode by any stretch. Other than the police animal training montage, there were only a few good parts:
Family Guy: An encounter with toxic waste in the country drive Lois to get all political, taking on Adam West for mayor of Quahog. She trails in the polls until Brian tells her that undecided voters are too stupid to hear complicated rhetoric, and are best wooed with the stupidly obvious, and her controversial anti-terrorism stance propels her to victory. But after a few small victories, she starts taking advantage of the perks, and becomes as corrupt as Mayor West.
Not a terrible story, and quite a few good jokes tonight:
American Dad: Stan wants to teach Steve and his friends to be real men, so he has them run their own cattle ranch. They don't want to eat the meat from the cows though, so only Stan is driven mad by the meat that turns out to be full of mad cow. 
Roger has a crush on the clerk at the liquor store, so he gets Hayley to pretend to be his girlfriend to make her jealous, but Roger ends up falling for Hayley in the process. But his declaration that she's the "prettiest girl in the house" suddenly starts a competition between Hayley and Francine. In the end, it was all a setup by Roger to submit a video for mother-daughter-catfight.com.
The Sopranos: Chris and Tony get in a wreck, and Tony uses it as an excuse to off him. It's been a long time coming, with all the grief he's been causing him. The movie, the drugs, the wet blanket 12 step program attitude... it's been frustrating and has put Tony in jeopardy. The funny thing is, Tony doesn't feel a bit of remorse or sadness, only relief. To get away from all the mourners dragging him down, he heads to Vegas, meets a friend of Chris's (the gorgeous Sarah Shahi). They share some sex, some pot, then in a peyote-induce haze, wander the casino floor (I think the Venetian, but I'm not sure). Tony lays some bets and starts hitting. He realizes the curse of Christopher has been lifted.
A.J.'s a different story. He had been feeling great after the acid to the toes guy, but the second one leaves a sour taste in his mouth. My only guess is that he felt the first guy deserved it, the second guy's only crime was being Somalian.
The only other thing going on is Tony's asbestos disposal operation. The dumping goes to Leotardo's turf, and he wants 25%. Tony's not going to pay that, so he's holding out. The guy's removing the asbestos are caught in the middle and end up dumping it in a pond. I'm sure that'll come up later.
I'm sure the people hoping for a bloodbath were a little excited with this episode, with at least one major character getting offed, but I really think the show's going to end more subtly.
Entourage: Turtle meets the girl of his dreams ("Me with tits."), Drama's show gets ripped to shreds by the critics but is a hit with the people, and Vince is pushing all-in on Medellin. Vince and E are putting up everything they have (including the house) to buy the script, since the big wig they were trying to get to bankroll it was threatening to buy it just to keep it from them after he felt slighted.
Yet another episode that didn't seem entirely funny. Drama's scenes at the "massage" parlor were kinda funny, and Ari occasionally gets a good line in, but mostly it played like a light drama.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Saturday Night Live, Molly Shannon/Linkin Park
I think we can all agree what the Superstar movie proved that we could always use a little more of that Mary Katherine Gallagher sketch. Or, wait... I didn't see it, and neither did anyone else. So naturally they open the show with it. Yikes. But that's what you get when you bring back, to me, one of the least missed cast members of the last, oh, decade and a half. But Molly Shannon's got a movie (Year of the Dog) to plug, and I guess they want to help out friends of the show.
What worked: The return of Kristen Wiig's hair twisting desperate to be liked character, fringe candidate debate, MacGruber! (which rather cleverly evolved into a David Hasselhoff joke).
What didn't: Superstar Idol, Sally O'Malley at the Bing, Linkin Park (I've never cared for them at all), Weekend Update (it wasn't bad, for the most part, but the Molly Shannon "bad stand-up" segment derailed it and went on way too long), whatever Amy Poehler is calling that character that used to be Andy Richter's little sister on Conan, Tales from the Greatest Generation, Charli Coffee.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Thursday Night TV, Plus Leftovers
A full night of Thursday television (NBC comedies plus Smallville for me), plus catching up on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Jericho's season finale, all after the jump...
My Name is Earl: Being on the lam in Mexico didn't work out as well for Joy as they made it seem on the Dukes of Hazzard, so she's in jail and needs character witnesses. After a very unsuccessful attempt to find some, Ruby (Marlee Matlin reprising her role as Joy's lawyer) suggests Earl.
Part three of Earl's plan to grow up is to get a real place to live, so he moves out of the hotel, but feels unsatisfied. He decides that the problem is that he's ready for a relationship, and after meeting Ruby, he's pretty sure he knows who it'll be with. Everything goes great, until she starts reading the list and discovers that Randy and Earl once robbed her.
Earl's turn as a character witness was going perfectly until the prosecutor played a series of 911 calls Earl had made when he was married, cataloging the horrible things Joy'd done. When he saw the jury making up their minds, he decided to confess, figuring that she has kids and a husband, while he doesn't have three strikes. Earl gets sentenced to 2 years in the state pen, where he'll share a cell with Ralph (Giovanni Ribisi).
Really funny episode and a great story. Between this and last week's great episode, Earl's really ended the season on a high note. Best parts:
The Office: Beach day! Do offices really have beach days? Michael is interviewing for a job at corporate, and has to show up with a recommendation for who'll replace him. So beach day turns into a series of ridiculous competitions to win the position of future manager. It naturally doesn't prove anything, but a walk over hot coals finally inspires Pam to stand up for herself, wondering why no one showed at her art show, telling Jim how she feels. Funniest parts:
Scrubs: Elliot wants to have her wedding in two months, despite the fact that Keith doesn't want to rush things that much. Dr. Cox doesn't want to go, and while she tries to convince him, he points out that Keith and J.D. were basically the only single straight men at the hospital who were the least bit desirable, so she might just be settling.
J.D., Turk, and Kelso are at a conference. Kelso's looking forward to hookers and booze, so he leaves the actual work for Vanilla Bear and Chocolate Bear. J.D.'s mostly along to forget about Elliot, and nothing seems to help until Kim (Elizabeth Banks) shows up as a lecturer at a conference. Last we saw her, she was lying to J.D. about miscarrying their baby, and her giant belly makes it difficult to keep that particular lie going. J.D. freaks out and can't really decide what to do.
At this point, there was an amber alert in my area, so I have absolutely no idea what happened for what seemed like the two most important minutes of plot, but J.D. apparently ran away, and Kim followed him back to ask what happened just as Elliot asks him if she's making a mistake by marrying Keith. They're really bringing the season's plotlines to a climax nicely, but (at least the parts I saw) weren't all that funny. The best parts:
Smallville: Helo from Battlestar Galactica guest stars in a terrible, terrible role. A guy who's been brainwashed but tries to fight it off when he meets a close friend? Olivier couldn't save that role from being ridiculous. All you can really do is act like you're having a seizure and speak in sentence fragments.
Some interesting developments came out of the episode, though. Martha is going to be a U.S. Senator, Lois is determined to ruin Lex, and Lois is closer than ever to betraying Lex and driving him to supervillainy (or at least I hope so). 
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Fun cameos this week. Peter Bogdanovich plays a Hugh Hefner-type character for the second time, Kristy Swanson plays a fake Anna Nicole Smith, and in one of the best casting jobs ever, David Cross as the Howard K. Stern guy. It was pretty dull, though I really enjoyed all of David Cross's scenes.
Jericho: They finally put the tank to good use, which is good. Johnston dies, which is very bad. Johnston, Jake, Heather, and Hawkins are really the only characters I care about, and they just killed one off after kinda killing one off earlier. It was great to see Heather back, but she's listed as a special guest star.
The season ends on a rather annoying cliffhanger, with the military on the way, some kinda crazy 35-ish star flag, a train and a bunch of troops heading Jericho's way, but no word on the season's most gripping plot: Dale's acquisition of assets in an effort to become a 16 year old post-apocalyptic real estate tycoon!
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
ABC is seriously pushing the Traveler series, huh? Seems like they ran the promo during every commercial break on Lost, which, along with Bones, I'll cover after the jump...
Lost: So Ben's a big fat liar and he wasn't born on the island at all. Kinda funny that he was born outside Portland (but "Not In Portland" either). His mother died giving birth, and his father joined the Dharma Initiative when Ben was a young boy. Ben's dad, like everyone else on Lost's dad, was a huge jerk, and blamed Ben (out loud) for killing his mother. One day he sees his mother in the woods, just like Jack had seen his father when he first arrived. He goes wandering into the woods looking for her and sees Richard Alpert, one of the "hostiles," and looking the exact same age he looks today. Ben wants to join run off with them, but it seems to take about 20 years for their plan to pay off, as Ben gasses his father while the rest of the hostiles gas the rest of the Dharma Initiative. So it seems that killing your father is a rite of passage for joining their little clique. 
Locke shows back up with the others carrying the corpse of dear old dad, and demands to see Jacob. There's some resistance, but after Locke beats the snot out of Mikhail, Ben agrees. He takes Locke to a ratty looking cabin and starts talking to an empty chair. Locke starts thinking Ben has lost his mind, but just as he's about to leave he hears "help me" in a decidedly non-Ben voice. Locke shines his flashlight on Ben and all hell breaks loose. Jacob is a Luddite so he invisibly starts throwing stuff around and breaking things, and shoves Ben against the wall. He becomes visible for just a second (above, though I'm sure Lost Easter Eggs will have a much clearer shot, if they don't already) before Locke leaves. Locke thinks it was all a trick, but Ben just wants to know what Jacob said to Locke, so he leads Locke to the mass grave of the gassed Dharma folks and shoots Locke and leaves him for dead.
Back on the beach, Sawyer plays Juliet's tape for Sayid and Kate. They decide to fill everyone in on the tape and Naomi. Just as they play the tape for everyone, Jack and Juliet show up. It seems that Juliet told Jack everything as soon as she returned from the hatch with Sun (so that was probably the subject of the "should we tell her?" conversation last week). Jack's developed an enormous ego, apparently, and figures there isn't any point to telling anyone until he's decided what to do about it. Since, you know, none of those other people could have helpful advice. He says "we have some catching up to do," and that storyline is ignored for the rest of the episode.
Some crazy questions... how is Alpert not aging? Ben still ages, so it's not just the island. Do the other others not age, and if so how long have they been there? Are they the Black Rock pirates? That'd be cool. Who's Jacob and why is he (mostly) invisible? And what's up with Jack's personality change?
Bones: A glow in the dark skeleton seems like a radioactive thing at first, but it turns out to be a sushi thing. The victim looks like a sort of Rachel Ray (but she looks like Saffron from the band Republica with the red streaks in her hair). They dance around a bunch of theories before arriving at the fact that the victim was sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend. 
Mostly a typical episode, except they were much heavier with the sexual tension between Booth and Brennan, some quality mac and cheese banter, and Hodgins and Angela finally getting engaged thanks to a heartfelt non-proposal.
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