As I sit here, Wonder Woman is wowing ‘em about a mile away to the north, at the Palisades 21-Plex where you can see a movie (or 21 movies?) and then visit the
lots and lots of stores nearby in the five-floor mall and shop until your brain congeals. I guess that if I were a real comics geek I’d be there too because here we are, five days after the flick opened and I have not as yet seen it. Haven’t even seen a preview.
Shame?
Well, shame is too strong, especially since we plan to see it, and soon, especially if the guy who’s coming to fix the microwave arrives early enough for us to catch a showing. (“Our service provider will call at your home sometime between noon and infinity.”) We won’t have to grit our teeth and force ourselves into the theater, either. We want to see the movie.
A few reasons: We thought the WW sections of Superman vs Batman were much the best things about it (and if you want to say that I’m damning with faint praise I can’t stop you). Then there’s this: WW and I go way back. I can’t say that I was an avid WW fan when I was taking my first timid steps into comics at about age six, give or take. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that I saw one or two or a few because if it was a comic book, I wanted to read it. But WW didn’t have the staying power in my psyche of… oh, say Batman and Robin. She came and she went.
And I didn’t really meet her again until I was an editor at DC Comics and she was part of my work package. By then I knew that I didn’t much care for her, though I might not have been able to say why. And I fancied myself a feminist. So, weren’t the planets aligning? Wasn’t our girl due for a makeover? Off with the costume and the lasso and the bracelets and especially, ye gods, the invisible plane. Give her a chic jumpsuit. Have her learn martial arts. Make her hip and contemporary.
Ugh. What I didn’t realize, what I didn’t understand, in my male-who-thinks-he’s-a-feminist myopia, was that WW was a symbol of feminine empowerment, the only female character in comics who was the equal, in strength and prowess, of the numerous male heroes. To her female readers, she was unique and, arguably, important and I had dumped qualities that had shaped her identity and, while I was at it, a costume that served as an instantly recognizable icon. Mea culpa.
But my changes didn’t last long. WW reverted to her old self, survived and, if what I read is true, stars in the superhero movie we’ve all been waiting for.
With Warner’s Wonder Woman movie garnering excellent reviews, earning big box office, and resetting expectations for female-led features, everyone wants to be an Amazon princess. In celebration of the most empowered and unstoppable heroine of the DC Universe, Warner has opened up an online store, packed with a treasure trove of Wonder Woman gear, stocked with collectibles, clothing and accessories for every hero in your life. The store includes iPhone covers, blankets, drinkware, jackets, and handbags.
The best part of Baywatch was that everyone on screen seemed completely invested in making it a good movie. It isn’t a good movie— it isn’t even particularly close to being a good movie— but the cast is willing to push as hard as they can to make it better. Baywatch is elevated from the train wreck I’m sure it is on the page in to a simply bland, kind of mediocre, film. Baywatch is a reasonably charming medley of punchless comedy, unintelligible story, and a generous amount of scantily clad pretty people. It’s the kind of movie to see on an exceptionally hot day, or if your first choice movie is sold out and you’ve already put in so much effort to park at the mall.
I paid careful attention to the story in Baywatch and I’m still not entirely sure what was going on. There’s Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra), a new-in-town rich person who has some kind of scheme to buy up a bunch of property and create some sort of massive private beach club. She’s also a drug kingpin, but no one for the entire movie seems to care about the drugs at all so they end up being white crystalline breadcrumbs that just serve to tie things together. Because of civic corruption/incompetence, the only people who can stop this nefarious scheme are the local lifeguards led by Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson) and joined by pretty boy newcomer Matt Brody (Zac Efron), attractive newbie Summer Quinn (Alexandra D’addario), attractive veteran CJ Parker (Kelly Rohrbach), attractive veteran with fewer lines Stephanie Holden (Ilfenesh Hadera), and not-so-attractive local wannabe Ronnie (Jon Bass). They are an elite cadre of small town lifeguards who also excel in detective work and infiltration techniques. They do an awful lot of meta-commentary on how insane it is that they all wear so many hats but it is never quite a substitute for having actual narrative justification.
I could forgive the flimsy plot if Baywatch was outrageously funny, but it just isn’t. Most of the humor is Johnson dunking on Efron in some capacity or another and you’ve seen that relationship a million times, probably half a dozen times where the dunker was The Rock, and most of those times it was being done better. There’s a fantastic sequence about someone getting their penis stuck in a wooden chair but you can probably get to most of that joke just from reading this sentence. It’s not that I never laughed or that the charm of the cast was never strong enough to deliver some average material— but the stakes are higher now. 21 Jump Street was a legitimately hilarious movie adapted from a reasonably irrelevant old TV show and it came out five years ago. You can’t do this much worse this much later and expect to get a pass.
One of the more fun moments in the 21 Jump Street movie is when Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise make cameos as their characters from the original series. It’s a cute nod and a bit surprising, especially considering Depp’s latter-day star power, and then they move on to finishing up their movie. They try to recreate this in Baywatch with David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson and fail on just about every level. To start with, both characters have identically named analogues in the movie and they bring this up so the Mitch Buchannon has a mentor who is also named Mitch Buchannon, and our Mitch works with a CJ Parker and then at the end we’re introduced to former employee Casey Jean Parker. I know we’re not supposed to be thinking too much about this movie but that’s bizarre enough to leap off the screen and smack you in the face. They also take all of the surprise out of the cameos (including one that’s the closing joke of the movie) by giving both Hasselhoff and Anderson prominent billing in the opening credits. Instead of being a cute surprise, it’s something you’re waiting for and trying to figure out during the slower moments. If Johnny Depp can set aside his ego to do something cute, you would think Hasselhoff and Anderson could too.
Baywatch the movie ends up feeling an awful lot like Baywatch the TV show. It’s a movie that doesn’t feel the need to hold itself to the same standard of production and narrative nuance because they have a bit of tawdry sex appeal and the charisma of The Rock. There’s enough charm here to pull through the stuff that doesn’t work, but not quite enough to feel like a movie worth the price of a ticket. Much like the original show, Baywatch is the perfect movie for a gap in a TV schedule or to randomly catch on a plane… but it isn’t quite ready for prime time.
Jane Goodall with Motambo, an orphan at the JGI Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center.
In honor of the upcoming release of War for the Planet of the Apes, 20th Century Fox has partnered with the Jane Goodall Institute to provide care for rescued chimpanzees, many of whom are victims of the illegal commercial bushmeat and pet trades. Housed and cared for on three forested island sanctuary sites and a mainland sanctuary site at the Institute’s Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center in Republic of Congo, nearly 150 chimpanzees will benefit from this partnership.
“I think that the Planet of the Apes series makes people think about the apes and perhaps our relationship to them,” says Dr. Jane Goodall. “And anything that makes us think about our own humanity in relation to the rest of the animal kingdom is important. So I think the series has helped”.
“It is an honor and a privilege to partner with the Jane Goodall Institute in providing needed care for our closest living animal relatives,” said the film’s director Matt Reeves. “Over the course of filming Caesar’s cinematic journey, it’s fascinated me to learn so much about apes and chimpanzees, these amazing sentient animals who organize, strategize and even socialize in much the same way as humans. Our hope is this reimagined Apes franchise will spark a fresh awareness, compassion and respect for these majestic species for generations to come.”
The island sites where many of these chimpanzees now live, not only provide a partial return to the kind of habitat from which they were stolen, but also the opportunity to build strong, dynamic social communities together in the wild – a true second chance. Just as the apes in the film franchise work together to establish their own community, the chimpanzees who live at Tchimpounga are building their own communities. Many of them are not family members, and so through observation and rigorous personality research the Institute’s staff pairs chimpanzees they believe will thrive together in their new communities within the sanctuary.
“One of the main threats to great apes is hunting and wildlife trafficking. Many of the chimpanzees rescued by JGI were orphaned to be taken as pets or for “roadside attractions,” said Dr. Carlos Drews, the Institute’s executive director. “While use of great apes in entertainment may be diminishing in some regions, it is increasing in others. Not only is there no need to use chimpanzees and other great apes in entertainment, but it is a moral imperative to find alternatives. With films like War for the Planet of the Apes using effective and magnificent human actor performance capture and computer generated imagery, it demonstrates to the world a better way forward for chimps and all animals.”
As a token of gratitude for this partnership, the Institute has named the housing on Tchindzoulou island, the largest of the three island sanctuary sites, after War for the Planet of the Apes’ hero chimpanzee, Caesar.
Our planet is being strangled to death by morons, at least one-quarter of all Americans think Vlad Putin’s interference with our elections and our economy is absolutely swell, comedians are being persecuted for making errors in judgment, people can’t afford even basic health care, an increasing percentage of our citizens depend upon neighborhood gas stations and “convenience” stores for their food supplies… and what is Fox News screaming about?
Last Friday, the official opening date of a movie called Wonder Woman, Fox News puppet Neil Cavuto got into a serious hissy-fit about the eponymous character’s wardrobe. Evidently, he thinks moving past the vague red, white and blue of her original comic book costume, designed back when this nation was just about to append the word “World” onto World War II, has been abandoned for colors he considered to be somehow unpatriotic.
Right. In other words, Fox News is pissed because a Greek goddess, the princess of Themyscira, an Amazon warrior trained to defend her homeland and not Cavuto’s, declined to envelope herself in colors that he could run up a flagpole in his own American front yard.
Please, do not tell Neil that our American warriors do not wear red, white and blue costumes in combat either. If they did, that would be a mistake. The last thing a soldier without superpowers would do is wrap himself up in an outfit of bright colors. That really doesn’t go along with the whole trench warfare thing.
NEIL CAVUTO: Wonder Woman is out in theaters right now. Some are calling it less American, Dion, because her outfit isn’t red, white, and blue, and, in order to appeal for foreign audiences, very little reference to America at all.
DION BAIA (guest): I think, nowadays, sadly, money trumps patriotism. Especially, recently, I personally feel like we’re not really very patriotic, the country, in a certain sense.
MIKE GUNZELMAN (guest): I think the Hollywood aspect, we see this time and time again, it’s cool to hit America these days.
It’s a shame neither Baia nor Gunzelman were aware that, by definition, the United States was not the only nation fighting the bad guys in World War I. You know, the war to end all wars that didn’t end all wars. Or any. Perhaps they didn’t notice that (very minor spoiler alert) the villain of the piece was a lot more British than Princess Diana was American.
Cavuto and company ascribe the motivation for the costume change to the desire for greater international sales. In a free market economy, one might think your basic rabid capitalist would consider that to be admirable. But, according to that same “logic”, the bad guys would not have been German. There are a lot of movie theaters in Germany. I suspect Wonder Woman will do as well there as just about anyplace else.
Come to think of it, Princess Diana hadn’t been to America before or during World War I. Prior to leaving Themyscira to risk her life in order to aid American Steve Trevor in his battle to save us all, it wasn’t established that she had even heard of the United States of America. Or Great Britain, for that matter. Hell, she had just heard about Germany. I guess they don’t get Fox News in Themyscira.
Or, more likely, Amazons are too heavily vested in that “truth” thing.
It seems like incredibly faint praise but I should get it out at the beginning: Wonder Woman is the best film of the DC Extended Universe era. That only means that it’s a coherent film with proper pacing and character work that doesn’t feel completely at odds with 80 years of published material. It’s honestly hard to believe that the same studio was working on this gem at the same time they were shoveling Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman out the door. Wonder Woman is a triumph for DC and the kind of shining beacon for the future that I’m sure they will ignore for a grey and smokey Justice League later in the year.
The action beats in Wonder Woman are stellar. The sequence where she ditches her outerwear and uses her sword and shield to come over the top of a bunker and traverse the no man’s land is maybe the best action beat I’ve seen all year. I’ll even give them bonus points for not underlining the potential word play. The training montages on Themyscira are crowded without being cluttered. They gesture to a frenetic martial lifestyle that I would love to see more of in a sequel. The mass action sequences are done so well that it’s a little disappointing to have the final battle be a kind of inscrutable one-on-one fight but that’s how these movies end. I would be in to the superhero movie where things are solved in an institutional manner or with one hero fighting an entire army, but it’s seemingly never been done and this was probably not the time to start.
Gal Gadot is perfect in the role of Diana Prince. She’s so good that it’s easy to forget all the times another actress seemed perfect for the part and DC squandered the opportunity by not making a movie out of this property in the last 25 years. Her facial expressions are on point and she deftly handles the switch from a steely warriors gaze to befuddlement at the world outside her island. I think “oh, I don’t understand this modern thing” might be a little overused here but it’s one of their only avenues for comedy and you wouldn’t want it to be just a movie about how terrible World War One is, we’ve had those movies and I personally don’t find them very interesting. The rest of the cast is fine, I suppose. Chris Pine is punching a little above his weight here, or he’s criminally underused in the Star Trek movies. Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen are great as Antiope and Hippolyta respectively, but with such vanishingly small amounts of screen time.
I struggled a bit with World War I as a setting. In the comics Wonder Woman has all the Hitler-punching bonafides as Captain America does, and moving to a war with a less certain, less reviled, adversary takes some of that oomph out of things. It’s easy for Diana to hate Nazis and slightly harder for her to hate too many convoluted political alliances. It serves the story (the suspicion of Ares’ involvement might seem too overt in WWII) but I spent a lot of time wondering when things might get turned up a little. I’m here to see Diana smash tanks and fight against unstoppable odds (present in this film for sure) and less here for her infiltrating a ball or shopping in a very standard version of London (also unfortunately present).
I enjoyed Wonder Woman a great deal, but that’s not really what’s most important here. I have watched my Facebook feed fill up all weekend with raves from women I know thrilled to see a superhero movie that speaks to them. I have to believe them that this movie is something special above and beyond my appreciation of it on a surface level. That people feel heard and represented by a movie is more important than any quibbles I might have over the depth of the supporting cast or how uninteresting I find World War I as a setting. I thought Wonder Woman was good, all these people thought it was real, and given the circumstances I’m going to go with them on this one.
BURBANK, CA (June 06, 2017) – Just in time for Arrow’s sixth season on The CW, viewers can catch up with the thrilling series as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment releases Arrow: The Complete Fifth Season on Blu-rayTM and DVD on September 19, 2017. Averaging 3 million viewers weekly for each original episode, Arrow is the #2 series on The CW season to-date amongst Adults 18-34, behind only The Flash.* The release contains all 23 exhilarating episodes from the fifth season, the show’s 2016 Comic-Con Panel, never-before-seen featurettes, and much more. Arrow: The Complete Fifth Season is priced to own at $49.99 SRP for the DVD and $54.97 SRP for the Blu-ray which includes a Digital Copy. Arrow: The Complete Fifth Season is also available to own on Digital HD via purchase from digital retailers.
*Source: Nielsen National TV View Live + 7 Day Ratings, excluding repeats, specials, and <5 telecasts; 16-17 Season To-Date = 9/19/16-1/22/17
In Season Five, newly appointed Mayor Oliver Queen finds himself challenged as he fights on two fronts for the future of Star City. With his right hand, John Diggle, back in the military and his sister Thea adamant about hanging up her vigilante hood as Speedy, Team Green Arrow is down to just Oliver and Felicity – but they’re no longer the only vigilantes in town. Green Arrow’s public defeat of Damien Darhk at the end of Season Four has inspired a new crop of masked heroes to step up and defend the city, though their painful inexperience makes them obstacles rather than allies in the field. The arrival of a deadly new adversary will force Oliver to confront questions about his own legacy, both as mayor and as the Green Arrow.
“After five strong seasons, Arrow remains one of the most talked-about shows on the air,” said Rosemary Markson, WBHE Senior Vice President, Television Marketing. “The loyal fan base will enjoy the special features, in addition to the 23 gripping episodes following new challenges and new characters.”
With Blu-ray’s unsurpassed picture and sound, Arrow: The Complete Fifth Season Blu-ray release will include 1080p Full HD Video with DTS-HD Master Audio for English 5.1. The 4-disc Blu-ray will feature a high-definition Blu-ray and a Digital Copy of all 23 episodes from Season Five.
Arrow stars Stephen Amell (Private Practice), David Ramsey (Blue Bloods, Dexter), Willa Holland (The O.C.), Emily Bett Rickards (Brooklyn), Echo Kellum (Sean Saves The World), with Josh Segarra (Sirens, Chicago P.D.) and Paul Blackthorne (The River). Based on the characters from DC, Arrow is produced by Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (The Flash, Supergirl, Blindspot), Marc Guggenheim (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), Andrew Kreisberg (The Flash, Supergirl), Wendy Mericle (Desperate Housewives) and Sarah Schechter (The Flash, Supergirl,Blindspot).
BLU-RAY & DVD FEATURES
· Arrow: 2016 Comic-Con Panel
· The New Team Arrow
· Allied: The Invasion Complex (Arrow)
Returning to the Roots of Arrow: Prometheus
· Deleted Scenes
· Gag Reel
23 ONE-HOUR EPISODES
Legacy
The Recruits
A Matter of Trust
Penance
Human Target
So It Begins
Vigilante
Invasion!
What We Leave Behind
Who Are You?
Second Chances
Bratva
Spectre of the Gun
The Sin-Eater
Fighting Fire With Fire
Checkmate
Kapiushon
Disbanded
Dangerous Liaisons
Underneath
Honor Thy Fathers
Missing
Lian Yu
DIGITAL HD
The fifth season of Arrow is also currently available to own on Digital HD. Digital HD allows consumers to instantly stream and download all episodes to watch anywhere and anytime on their favorite devices. Digital HD is available from various digital retailers including Amazon Video, CinemaNow, iTunes, PlayStation, Vudu, Xbox and others. A Digital Copy is also included with the purchase of specially marked Blu-ray discs for redemption and cloud storage through participating UltraViolet retail services including CinemaNow, Vudu and Flixster Video.
BASICS
Street Date: September 19, 2017
BD and DVD Presented in 16×9 widescreen format
Running Time: Feature: Approx 1012min
Enhanced Content: Approx 78 min
DVD
Price: $49.99 SRP
5 DVD-9s
Audio – English (5.1)
Subtitles – ESDH, Spanish, French
BLU-RAY
Price: $54.97 SRP
4-Disc Elite
BD Audio –DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 – English
BD Subtitles – ESDH, Spanish, French
Paramount Pictures announced yesterday that exclusive OPTIMUS PRIME TIME opening night events for Michael Bay’s TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT will be held across the U.S. on Tuesday, June 20, 2017, at 7:00 p.m. local time at participating theaters.
Moviegoers will be the first audiences in the world to see the highly anticipated film in the highest quality IMAX® 3D and select REALD 3D premium large format theatres across the country.
Ticketholders at these events will receive exclusive collector’s edition TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT Prime Time t-shirts or other promotional items while supplies last at each participating theatre, subject to additional restrictions. For complete details and to buy tickets go to Tickets.TransformersMovie.com.
Director Michael Bay, who shot TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT in native 3D and filmed with IMAX® cameras, will bring to theaters later this month a film that shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero.
Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).
There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.
TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT opens nationwide on June 21, 2017.
Now then, if you aren’t familiar with Sina Grace I’m here to help change that. Especially since Sina has a few new comics hitting the shelves on Wednesday.
He’s someone entirely unique in comics. He’s worn nearly every hat you can in comics as a self-publisher, imprint editor, writer, and artist. His skills have graced most of the comics publishers here in the States that you can name, he’s edited The Walking Dead, put out deeply personal memoir comics, and is most recently taking on Iceman over at Marvel… but more on that later.
I first got into Sina Grace’s work as an artist with The Li’l Depressed Boy, written, colored and lettered by S. Steven Struble. He happened to be in Manhattan signing at Carmine Street Comics in 2014 just after my birthday so I picked up the first two volumes. He was incredibly sweet and welcoming. I even got a sketch of Jem (as in Jem and the Holograms) from him, which he seemed to look up reference for on his phone, but I like to think he could have done from memory. Fun fact about me; I prefer this version of the Jem theme song that basically everyone else hates.
Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked. Anyway, The Li’l Depressed Boy is a surrealist take on unreqited love with an indie film aesthetic filled with music and youth. It’s the kind of comic that checks a lot of boxes for me in terms of what I like, so it both was a comic I enjoyed and something that put Sina on my radar.
That really paid off when Self-Obsessed came out in 2015.
Self-Obsessed is a deeply person memoir. Prior to this, Sina had put out another memoir, Not My Bag, back in 2012. Whereas Not My Bag dealt with Sina’s personal struggles working retail, Self-Obsessed cuts deeper. It’s filled with comics, essays, photos, and interviews. It’s an incredibly blunt, raw, and unapologetic reflection on life. It’s a brave graphic novel and I have a great deal of respect for Sina putting this out. If you like memoir comics and the kind of books you see over at the likes of Top Shelf and First Second and you haven’t checked out Self-Obsessed yet, then you need to add it to your list. Seriously. Do it.
Sina Grace was back in New York for NYCC in 2015 to promote Self-Obsessed. Needless to say, I picked up a copy then and read it on the train home after. Self-Obsessed went on to become a web series starring not only Sina but Amber Benson, Colleen Green and more. It’s currently two seasons in.
I’m stressing how much I enjoy Self-Obsessed not only in the hopes that maybe you’ll go pick it up but because his new graphic memoir, Nothing Lasts Forever, is one of his new books hitting the shelves Wednesday and may turn out to be even more personal than his other memoirs. A lot has happened fairly recently in Sina’s life and he’s gonna lay it all out for us. I’ll be picking it up on Wednesday, and I hope you do the same.
One of the other books with Sina’s name on it coming at us on Wednesday is Iceman #1. This book is part of Marvel’s X-Men ResurrXion reboot. Now, I made my feelings clear the other month based on the first book in the series, X-Men Gold #1. TL:DR, I wasn’t a fan. X-Men Blue #1 was better, but still not quite there for me. And I’ll be honest, I picked Jean Grey #1 off the rack at a shop and skimmed through it only to find that in the first issue they are already talking about the Phoenix force so I’m gonna hard pass that one. No offense to the creative team, really, but the idea of dealing with the Phoenix force again is just too exhausting and a wasted opportunity to make Jean Grey something more. Because of all that, I’m relying on Iceman to restore my excitement in the X franchise.
Seriously though, this book has a lot going for it. Though editor Daniel Ketchum has been let go from Marvel, this is certainly in part his baby. I got to talk to Daniel briefly back at NYCC 2015 about Iceman and my reservations to how the character had been handled in All-New X-Men. Daniel told me to stick it out and see where the character was going. This book is where it was all going. Between Daniel Ketchum editing, Sina Grace writing, and Kevin Wanda doing the cover, we have three queer men of color working on a queer superhero. That’s really huge and means the world to me. Many of you familiar with my column know I bitch about diversity and inclusion here a lot, and Iceman is the kind of book I’ve been demanding over at that big two. Please, if diversity in comics is important to you, or if the X-Men are important to you, pick up this book. We all need Iceman to succeed.
No pressure, Sina!
Finally, Sina also did a pride variant cover for the latest issue of The Walking Dead and it’s gorgeous! Image is doing pride variants for multiple titles, and 100% of the proceeds will go to the Human Rights Campaign. Considering the kind of rollbacks in LGBT rights we see happening all across the country, this is an important stand for a comic company to be making and I applaud Image for taking a stand against bigotry.
This Wednesday, comic shops will be stocking up on three different projects that Sina Grace has poured his heart into. When you hit up your local comic shop tomorrow, go out and take some of those home with you.
Some quick reviews this week. Well, not quite reviews, as I’m not going to get much into plot synopses, but as always I will express some definitely personal opinions. (You know me.) There will be S*P*O*I*L*E*R*S inferred, so caveat emptor!
“The Lie of the Land” (Episode 8, Doctor Who, Series 10): The final episode of a three-episode arc – the first two being “Extremis” and “The Pyramid at the End of the World” – in which alien “monks” have taken over the world through the consent of Bill Potts, the Doctor’s newest companion. She did this in order to have the monks cure the Doctor’s blindness – which occurred in Episode 5, “Oxygen.”
I wasn’t sure where the show was going with this, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t much engaged by our hero’s disability; I found it more annoying than anything else, as the good Doctor only seemed to be afflicted with blindness when it suited the story, as in “Pyramid,” in which our Time Lord had no trouble putting together a bomb, or navigating winding hallways, or walking the streets of a London city, but couldn’t open a simple combination lock – not even with the sonic screwdriver, and would somebody please explain to me why the screwdriver couldn’t open a simple combination lock when in the past it has done just about everything else? It’s now clear to me that the only reason this “tragedy” was written into the show was to engineer this storyline.
I also found the ending, in which Bill subjected herself to the monks’ “brainwave booster” incredibly cheesy, with Bill thinking about her mom – who is, the storyline established, nothing more than artificial construct herself, built out of Bill’s childhood memories, imaginings, and the Doctor’s pictures of her…honestly, I was waiting for Bill to start singing:
“M is for the million things she gave me.
“O means only that she’s growing old.
“T is for the tears she shed to save me.
“H is for her heart of purest gold.
“E is for her eyes with love-light shining.
“R means right and right she’s always be…”
The only thing I did really love about this episode was that, beyond the by now humdrum plot of aliens taking over the world, it was a sly and sarcastic bit of political commentary, attacking revisionist history, fake news and alternative facts. Oh, and Donald Trump:
Bill: “How would I know the President?” asked a baffled Bill. “I wouldn’t even have voted for him. He’s …orange.”
Tonight (as I write this; Sunday, June 4) I will be watching the season finale of The White Princess on Starz and the series finale of The Leftovers on HBO. Obviously, I won’t comment on things I haven’t yet seen, but here are my thoughts going in…
I’m a British monarchy nut. It started long ago when I read Forever Amber in high school. Written by Kathleen Winsor and first published in 1944, incurring the wrath of the Catholic Church, banishment from 14 states as “pornography,” and banned in Australia, Amber is actually an amazingly well-written and researched historical romance that takes place in the late 17th century during the English Restoration, when the monarchy was reestablished and Charles Stuart became Charles II.
And no, my parents had no objections to my reading it. I then read Katherine, by Anya Seton, another well-researched and well-written historical fiction novel set in the 14th century, chronicling the story of Katherine Swynford, the mistress and later wife to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and son of King Edward III. Katherine’s children through John were the Beaufort family, and her great-granddaughter was Margaret Beaufort, whose son was Henry VII, the first Tudor King. And the Tudors and their dynasty captured my imagination, as it has for so many, many others.
The White Princess, adapted from the book by Phillipa Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) is the story of Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward VI, and niece of Richard III, and the Lancastrian claimant, Henry VII. Their political marriage ended the War of the Roses, a civil war between the two royal houses of England, the Yorks and the Lancasters. However, it wasn’t as if the priest said, “I now pronounce you man and wife” and all was, if you’ll excuse the expression, roses. There were still many who believed that Henry was a “false king,” a usurper, and his reign, especially in the early years, was one of paranoia, political intrigue, treason, and death.
The mini-series concentrates on the machinations of the women behind the throne of England, and although a little bit liberty has been taken with historical facts for the sake of the drama, it adheres closely enough to what happened to serve as an excellent opening to England’s bloody royal history.
The Leftovers, based on the book by Tom Perotta, is ending tonight after three seasons. Created by Lost’s Damon Lindeloff and Mr. Perotta, it is the story of what happens to the people “left over” after a rapture-like event erases 140 million people from the face of the Earth
I’m not sure how much I like The Leftovers, though paradoxically I have been watching it since it debuted on HBO three years ago, and even read the book after the first season. There’s not a lot of explanation – certainly the “Sudden Departure,” as it is called, is never really explained, though the characters have their own interpretations…or none. By the end of the first season, there seemed to be an acceptance of what had happened, a “life goes on” attitude, but by the second season, it was clear that this was mostly a façade.
Despite the “Rapture” leanings, it’s not really a show about religion and faith. It’s not really a show about faithlessness, either. I think it’s really a show about grief and acceptance. Or maybe it’s a show about grief and the inability to accept. Maybe it’s a show about defiance in the face of ruin. Or maybe it’s a show about defiance in the face of madness. Or maybe it’s just a show about madness and futility. I don’t expect tonight’s episode to be rife with definitive answers, the number 1 being, of course, why did all those people just disappear?
A few reasons: We thought the WW sections of Superman vs Batman were much the best things about it (and if you want to say that I’m damning with faint praise I can’t stop you). Then there’s this: WW and I go way back. I can’t say that I was an avid WW fan when I was taking my first timid steps into comics at about age six, give or take. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that I saw one or two or a few because if it was a comic book, I wanted to read it. But WW didn’t have the staying power in my psyche of… oh, say Batman and Robin. She came and she went.
