The Season 2 premiere of Supergirl, “The Adventures of Supergirl,” has a lot of stories to tell. I don’t just mean the handful of plot threads it barrels through from last season and all the new ones introduced but also the three meta-stories it has to convey. Those stories are: Supergirl, having moved from CBS to […]
The Transfiguration of Fiddleford McGucket
There’s a fan theory about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that I’ve always appreciated, not so much due to the veracity of the idea itself but more for what it reveals to us about story and character. The pitch is that Ferris and his girlfriend Sloane (and I suppose by extension Ferris’ parents and sister) are […]
Westworld is Unsettling in its Lack of Self-Awareness
Have you ever noticed that the most advanced sexual pleasure technology is designed for women yet the bulk of sci-fi featuring any kind of “pleasure bot” centers around men’s pleasure? Taking that further, have you noticed that the best sex tech for women usually doesn’t look much like a penis (or any body part for […]
Get That Money: The Get Down, Atlanta and the Deconstruction of Music Biz Glamor
Basically since its inception, pop music has put as much effort into glamorizing what happens behind the scenes as what happens in front of it. The pop stars of the modern era replaced folk heroes not just in popular opinion but also in terms of mythbuilding, with their origin stories as important to their success […]
All You See: The Fall of Family Guy
In the third episode of Family Guy’s twelfth season, “Quagmire’s Quagmire,” eponymous character Glenn Quagmire meets Sonya, the woman of his dreams: someone as perverse and predatory as himself. For a while they enjoy a life of debauched sexual chemistry, but soon the depravity becomes too much even for Quagmire: After Sonya demands a grueling […]
“The Day Tennyson Died” Indicates That Season Three Might Be Penny Dreadful’s Best
Penny Dreadful Season 3 Episode 1 “The Day Tennyson Died” Let’s get it out of the way: Dracula has arrived. Penny Dreadful started out as a strange, Gothic adventure, throwing audiences right into the world of vampires, Egyptian magic and a collection of characters from Gothic and Victorian literature, or at least those that fit […]
RIGBY…Silicon Valley Needs to Update Its Gender Representation
For three years now I’ve been tuning in to Silicon Valley, enjoying its mix of clever writing and deft characterization. It’s not a perfect comedy by any means, but Silicon Valley is without a doubt one of Mike Judge’s better works and a welcome successor to the likes of King of the Hill. But for three years, I’ve also […]
Vinyl Might as Well Be Goodfellas: The Musical
Like a lot of my generation, I was hooked on Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous the instant I encountered it. I might have been a teenage punk but Almost Famous‘ romanticism was hard to resist as a kid who grew up with music obsessed parents, the film as much a testament to the little people whose love […]
Cannibals, Midwesterners, and Talking Horses: The Best TV of 2015
TV in 2015 was wonderfully weird and eclectic, with basic cable taking up more of the critical conversation and Netflix continuing its ascent as a major player. Our favorite shows this year ran the gamut, from pop superheroics on the CW to the finales of long running faves like Mad Men to new entries from emerging […]
Supergirl 1.05 and 1.06 Reviews
Supergirl 1.05 “How Does She Do It?” and 1.06 “Red Faced” So after being pushed back a week due to unfortunate similarities to real-life events, Supergirl’s fifth/actually-fourth episode, “How Does She Do It?” aired this week. Like I said last time, the shuffle actually rather worked in the show’s favor. The only real shuffled narrative […]