Original Run: July 27th, 1997 – March 13th, 2007 Created by: Brad Wright, Jonathan Glassner Directed by: various Written by: various Based on:Stargate by Roland Emmerich, Dean Devlin Music by: Joel Goldsmith Cast: Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Don S. Davis, Corin Nemec, Ben Browder, Beau Bridges, Claudia Black, Ronny Cox, Lexa Doig, Robert Picardo, Morena Baccarin, John de Lancie, Louis Gossett Jr.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, I finally gave Stargate SG-1 a shot after a friend of mine was recently talking to me about it and over the years, others have tried to sell me on its greatness. However, 214 hour long episodes plus two movies and three spinoff series is a lot of stuff to watch if I happened to actually be into this.
Due to my schedule and the immensity of this franchise, I looked up an episode guide that pointed out which episodes were the key ones and those are what I watched with the intention of going back and watching the ones I missed, if I ended up liking this show. It’s a method I’ve used for other long-running shows and I like doing it that way.
I also liked the original 1994 Stargate movie, which this show is a direct sequel to. The two main male characters on this show are the same characters played by Kurt Russell and James Spader in that film. However, Kurt Russell is recast with Richard Dean Anderson, MacGyver himself, and James Spader is recast with Michael Shanks, who would go on to do a ton of sci-fi television work.
The cast is then rounded out by three new characters played by Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge and Don S. Davis. These five core characters are all pretty damn great and their chemistry is on the same level as the casts of the first three Star Trek shows, especially as they grow in these roles over ten seasons and beyond.
The two-part story that kicked off this show was a worthy successor to the 1994 film and from there, this show branched out in ways I couldn’t have expected. As it rolls on, we see new threats, new alien species, many of whom are allies, and the show itself evolves and changes every couple of seasons. However, it never gets too far away from what it started out as. Basically, it stays really grounded and it’s pretty consistent throughout in spite of major shifts to the formula. With that, it doesn’t become formulaic and redundant and reinvents itself just enough to stay interesting over its 214 episodes.
My only really issue, at first, was that some of the special effects look bad or cheesy. This is due to the limitations on television sci-fi in the ’90s but your mind does adjust to it within a few episodes and you don’t really notice it too much.
Besides, these characters and these stories are so good that the special effects are really secondary and not that important.
In the end, I’m glad that I gave this a shot. I haven’t seen every episode but I plan to work my way through them all, as I have time. Additionally, I’d like to watch the key episodes of the other series that were born out of this one.
Also known as: DP2 (promotional abbreviation), Daisy, Love Machine (both fake working titles) Release Date: May 10th, 2018 (US limited) Directed by: David Leitch Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Ryan Reynolds Based on: the character of Deadpool created by Fabian Nicieza, Rob Liefeld Music by: Tyler Bates Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Brianna Hildebrand, Jack Kesy, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Terry Crews, Lewis Tan, Bill Skarsgård, Rob Delaney, Brad Pitt (cameo), James McAvoy (cameo), Evan Peters (cameo), Tye Sheridan (cameo), Nicholas Hoult (cameo), Hugh Jackman (archive footage), Alan Tudyk
Marvel Entertainment, Kinberg Genre, The Donners’ Company, 20th Century Fox, 119 Minutes
Review:
“I was born into war, bred into it. People think they understand pain, but they have no concept of it. What’s the most pain you’ve ever felt? Maybe the kind that leaves you more machine than man. ” – Cable
*There be spoilers here!
After what felt like too long of a wait but was actually only 27 months, Deadpool 2 has arrived. I guess if I were to sum up the experience in one word, that word would be “consistent”.
The film is very consistent to the first movie but it had a few things that were better and a few things that weren’t, which makes it break even, as to whether or not it was better or worse.
The positives were the addition of new cast members and the genesis of what is going to become the X-Force team.
Josh Brolin’s Cable is everything you would want a Josh Brolin Cable to be. I think the casting of Brolin was perfect and one hell of a great move and lucky break for this pocket of the X-Men film franchise.
Zazie Beetz’s Domino was really fun to watch and while I love the old school X-Force comics, which Domino was a big part of, this version of the character eclipses the comic book version. Plus, most of the Domino stories I remember were actually just Copycat posing as Domino because I stopped reading X-Force about a year after Rob Liefeld left and the X-Cutioner’s Song crossover ended.
The negatives or really just the one big one for me was that the plot seemed all over the place and kind of aimless at times. Lots of things happened that seemed way too convenient despite the film actually making note of that once or twice, especially with Deadpool’s “lazy writing” jab at his own film. Joke aside, poking fun at it doesn’t necessarily excuse the parts where it happens.
It’s just that the first film felt more refined and more fluid. This one propelled forward at a good pace but it seemed like it was all over the place. There also wasn’t a clearly defined villain, which isn’t a necessary component but I felt like Deadpool and Cable’s first meeting and eventual team-up should have come with a real threat other than just trying to save a kid from his anger. I was kind of hoping that Stryfe would at least appear, even if only to setup the X-Force film.
Juggernaut shows up and his bits are great but he’s really just there to setup a cool fight with Colossus. Also, you get Black Tom Cassidy but he was totally wasted and just sort of a prison thug that ends up getting killed in the lamest way possible. We didn’t get to see the BFF pairing of Black Tom and Juggernaut like we got to see in the earliest Deadpool solo stories and in the original X-Force run. I really hoped we were going to get to see Cassidy and Juggernaut form their villain tag team that was a thorn in Deadpool’s side back in the early ’90s.
My favorite part of the film was the mid-credits sequence, actually. This is packed full of some really cool stuff and more great moments of Ryan Reynolds poking fun at himself.
Deadpool 2 was good but it was a wee bit of a disappointment. With the mythos getting richer with new characters people have wanted to see for years, this should have taken the franchise to the next level. They had a solid foundation, new tools to work with and a world to branch out into. I’m hoping that X-Force, whenever that arrives, takes things to that next level.
Rating: 8/10 Pairs well with: Obviously the first Deadpool film and Logan for being the only other R rated X-Men related film. I’d also pair this up with Legion, which is TV’s more mature take on the X-Men universe, although it’s nowhere near as hilarious as Deadpool.
Original Run: September 22nd, 2014 – current Created by: Bruno Heller, Danny Cannon Directed by: various Written by: various Music by: Graeme Revell Cast: Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, David Mazouz, Zabryna Guevara, Sean Pertwee, Robin Lord Taylor, Erin Richards, Camren Bicondova, Cory Michael Smith, Victoria Cartagena, Andrew Stewart-Jones, Anthony Carrigan, John Doman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Morena Baccarin, BD Wong, James Frain, Jessica Lucas, Chris Chalk, Drew Powell, Nicholas D’Agosto, Michael Chiklis, Maggie Geha, Benedict Samuel, David Zayas, Cameron Monaghan, Richard Kind, Natalie Alyn Lind, Peyton List, Crystal Reed, Alexander Siddig
Primrose Hill Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, 66 Episodes (thus far), 42 Minutes (per episode)
Review:
*originally written in 2015, near the end of season 1, plus additional updates written later.
I was going to wait until the end of the first season before reviewing this show, as I do with most new shows. I just can’t get that far and don’t think that waiting till the season ends will change my assessment. I’ve tried desperately to get this to work for me. I’ve tried a hell of a lot harder than most of my friends and Batman fans, who all gave up on this a long time ago. I saw some promise here and there but this show fails in just about every way. In short: it is pretty goddamned awful (*note: I no longer feel this way as revealed in the final update).
There are actually only a few things that this show has going for it but I’ll get to those shortly.
If you barely know anything about the Batman mythos and you find pleasure in watching mediocre cookie cutter detective shows, I can see where you might find this watchable. However, if you are a Batman fan and love and respect the franchise, this is a very painful experience.
On one hand, the producers are trying to spoon feed the audience with fan service in every episode but it is forced, poorly executed and unnecessary. In fact, it feels as if the producers read a couple Wikipedia articles about Batman and thought they had an intimate grasp. And the way they handle certain characters, goes to show that they don’t understand them at all. At times it just feels like a cruel joke and it is Fox trolling the shit out of their audience.
For instance, Edward Nygma doesn’t need to speak in riddles every scene, Harvey Dent doesn’t need to display a split personality every other appearance, you don’t need to have constant Joker teases across multiple unrelated scenarios, you don’t need to show a little ginger girl playing with plants every time she’s on screen and Selina Kyle doesn’t need to parkour off of every object whenever she makes an entrance. I also don’t need to be reminded every five minutes about how Jim Gordon is a good cop and every other cop on the force is tainted by something. It is fucking overkill.
The acting is questionable, the writing is more often than not atrocious and despite the over abundance of horribly executed fan service, the show is just plain stupid on its own. It is an obvious attempt at being a cash cow and a ratings grabber and somehow it has worked in that regard, as it is coming back for a second season.
The whole premise of the show makes it a failure from the get-go.
To start, the worst part about most live-action superhero adaptations is the origin. The audience usually finds themselves roughing it through the early bits in an effort to get to the comic book action. Also, how many times has Batman’s origin been told? Now we are given a show that is an overly extended version of the lamest part of Batman’s tale. Who knows how long this could stretch: ten seasons, maybe? Hell, one has been enough.
The other main part of the show, is Jim Gordon trying to “save the city” and destroy corruption. Well, he’s doomed to fail because if he were to succeed, why would Gotham City need the Batman?
As far as characters, Bruce Wayne is okay and I like him being a little shit challenging authority and taking on the evil adults of his world but it isn’t enough to anchor a need for him on this show. Selina Kyle is awful and pretty much a caricature that just happens to look like a young Michelle Pfeiffer. The Poison Ivy character is unimportant and so far useless. All the villains who show up are poorly done and easily defeated. Barbara Kean is the worst character on television. Where did Renee Montoya go? Fish Mooney is sometimes great but mostly terrible. However, I don’t blame these actors, I blame the atrocious writing.
When it comes to positives, Robin Lord Taylor is amazing as the Penguin. In fact, at first, I hated that he was way too skinny to be the Penguin but he’s so good in the role that I don’t care. He is by far, the most interesting part of the show. Almost as good as Taylor is Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock. Then again, when isn’t Logue anything short of great? Ben McKenzie does a solid job as Jim Gordon and I do like Cory Michael Smith as Nygma, the man who will become the Riddler – even though the writers force riddles into every situation he finds himself in. Lastly, Sean Pertwee makes a fine Alfred Pennyworth and is my favorite live action incarnation of the character. Pertwee also looks a lot like his father in his older age and seeing him in action reminds me of the Third Doctor from the classic Doctor Who series.
The show is often times too distracted by its own mess and diverts away from characters with potential to focus on too many small parts in a machine that is too large for its own good. When the show is at its strongest is when the Penguin is on screen, Alfred is kicking ass or when it focuses more heavily on the crime families of Gotham City. The episodes pitting Sal Maroni against Carmine Falcone with a little Fish Mooney and the Penguin mixed in are the best that this series has offered up so far.
I still watch this show because I want to buy into it, I just can’t. The good parts keep me engaged but they are too far and few between. I don’t believe that the show will get better but there is enough good stuff to expand on and save it from being the generally uninteresting mess it is currently. But I probably won’t watch the second season on a weekly basis, as I do now. I’ll wait a year for it to be over with and then binge watch it over a weekend. If it picks up steam and corrects itself, consider me reinvested. If not, I’ll find better ways to spend my time.
Update:
Season 2 of Gotham has been infinitely better than the first. The shows is finding its footing and it now knows what it is trying to be. I like that it is creating its own world and veering away from being trapped by the expectations from an already established Batman mythos. The show is doing its own thing and honestly, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce Wayne is killed off before even becoming Batman.
Update 2:
At the end of Season 3, the show has corrected a lot of its early mistakes.
Cameron Monaghan, who plays Jerome Valeska, who may or may not be the Joker but is probably the Joker, is the best version of Batman’s greatest villain I have ever seen in a live-action story. The kid is magnificent and really captures the magic of the comic book version of the legendary character better than anyone I have ever seen. Yes, he’s better than Heath Ledger and he has the same spirit as Mark Hamill who has voiced the character for decades.
Additionally, the show just becomes more interesting as it rolls on, even though it has some dumb plot threads. But when you don’t take this show seriously and just embrace its insanity, it works.
Most of the villains have evolved solidly, especially the Penguin and the Riddler. I also really liked the Mad Hatter story, as well as the plots that focus on Hugo Strange.
Gotham is far from a perfect show but it bounced back, in my opinion. It also works if you just take it for what it is and don’t try to force it into the box that is the already established comic book mythos. I see it now as an Elseworlds Tale, which is a title DC Comics gives to their stories that take place in different realities.
I’m glad I stuck with it as long as I did. For others who have, their dedication has paid off.
Release Date: February 8th, 2016 (Le Grande Rex premiere) Directed by: Tim Miller Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick Based on: the character of Deadpool created by Fabian Nicieza, Rob Liefeld Music by: Tom Holkenborg Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano, Leslie Uggams, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapičić
Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Kinberg Genre, The Donners’ Company, 20th Century Fox, 108 Minutes
Review:
*originally written in 2016.
Well, I can’t say that I haven’t waited for a Deadpool movie since 1991 when he first appeared at the end of The New Mutants run and was there to help kick off the original X-Force comic. And I still haven’t seen the universally panned X-Men Origins: Wolverine film because I couldn’t bear to see the character butchered beyond recognition.
But the film has finally arrived. It took a lot for Ryan Reynolds to get this thing to screen, after he already played the character in that shitty film I just mentioned. Reynolds knew he had to make it up to the fans and this time, he nailed it. Not that it was his fault the previous outing.
Deadpool is fantastic. It isn’t a perfect movie but I can seriously get behind the more mature comic book films. This along with the Marvel stuff being put out by Netflix is refreshing when I am losing faith in the genre after duds like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Man of Steel.
This movie was a welcome change. It was balls-to-the-wall and never stopped. Well, it had a few slow moments while bouncing around too much from flashbacks but all-in-all, this shit’s friggin’ solid.
Ryan Reynolds was perfect as Wade Wilson/Deadpool but we already knew that before going into this, thanks to the test footage from a few years back. Plus, the marketing for the movie really solidified how in-touch Reynolds was with the character.
X-Men characters Colossus and Teenage Negasonic Warhead show up and it is nice seeing smaller characters also get the chance to shine. Other X-Men are not in the film but the movie makes fun of that within the movie itself.
Also, this film features the best Stan Lee cameo ever.
Deadpool, like in the comics, often times breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience as well as cracks a lot of inside jokes between himself and the people watching. I had worried about how that would play out but the execution was good. Everything felt natural.
The villains were throwaway minor characters and the threat didn’t seem all that threatening but this is a smaller film than Fox’s regular X-Men pictures and certainly smaller than Disney’s Avengers franchise.
Deadpool did a lot more with much less in comparison to its genre mates.
A fun ride from beginning to end with not much criticism from me, really.
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Talking Pulp 
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