Don’t forget about submitting your entry to the HijiNKS Ensue 6 Year Anniversary Fancy Bastard Fancy Fan Art Contest. Submissions are due this Friday. THERE ARE PRIZES! Details HERE. Phoenix Comicon is in 2 weeks (May 23-26)! I will be there with David Willis at Booth 1749. Would you like to be our intern for the weekend? We can […]]]>
Don’t forget about submitting your entry to the HijiNKS Ensue 6 Year Anniversary Fancy Bastard Fancy Fan Art Contest. Submissions are due this Friday. THERE ARE PRIZES! Details HERE.
Phoenix Comicon is in 2 weeks (May 23-26)! I will be there with David Willis at Booth 1749. Would you like to be our intern for the weekend? We can offer a con badge that will get you in, probably some lunch and in return you’ll get to work at our booth, getting shirts, making change, etc. We’ll make sure you get time to check out the show as well. Email comics at hijinksensue dot com.
The only comfort I took during the final 30 minutes of this season of NBC’s Community is that it was likely THE ACTUAL FINAL 30 MINUTES AS IN FOREVER. With creator Dan Harmon gone the spirit of the show has progressively tanked all season. The characters have become parodies of themselves, which is no small achievement considering that USED to be part of the fun of their dynamic. When handled with subtlety and smarts, self-parody can be the foundation of some very endearing moments. With this season, Community has replaced subtlety and smarts with a sledgehammer and a pie in the face. It reads like bad fan-fiction. At it’s core (considering the driving creative force behind its inception is long gone) it IS bad fan-fiction.
My friend, and Leverage co-creator, Jon Rogers said to me, “…You wanted #community so now you’re going to EAT EVERY BIT OF IT. Monkey’s Paw, #community fans. Goddam monkey’s paw.” He’s right. Community fans made a deal with the TV Devil, and he’s a dirty dealer. They traded Community’s soul so that it could have a longer life. But is it really Community? Is it even alive? ZOMBIE TV SHOW ATE MY BRAINS! Coming this fall to NBC.
The only thing incorrect about Rogers’ statement is I (ME, the actual ME) did NOT want Community without Dan Harmon, just like I didn’t want a final, bizarro season of Scrubs, just like I didn’t want and continue to not want more seasons of The Simpsons or Futurama. Do like Jerry did. Leave on a high note and leave ’em wanting more.
- NBC renews Community for a fifth season, possibly thanks to Amazon, Netflix
- The Best Sitcom Finales Of All Time
- Fox has somehow uncancelled 24
[Thanks to Mikey and an actual Yaoi I saw at SDCC for inspiring today’s alt-text.]
COMMENTERS: Which show or fiction series (books? do they make… books?) do you wish had been cancelled before it was and why?
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I AM GOING TO BE IN CALGARY THIS WEEKEND FOR CALGARY EXPO!!! Details HERE. Writing this at 3am when I should be leaving the house to catch a plane… nowish. Revolution officially went nanobotsbananapants. If you haven’t given up already, now’s a good time. COMMENTERS: What’s the longest you ever stuck with a show that you […]]]>
I AM GOING TO BE IN CALGARY THIS WEEKEND FOR CALGARY EXPO!!! Details HERE.
Writing this at 3am when I should be leaving the house to catch a plane… nowish. Revolution officially went nanobotsbananapants. If you haven’t given up already, now’s a good time.
COMMENTERS: What’s the longest you ever stuck with a show that you hated, hoping that it would improve? For me it was Smallville, seasons 5-10. Or was it 6-10? Or was it 1-10?
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I stuck it out with Lost much longer than I should have. I just wanted answers. I hated it but I wanted answers. I gave up after the season premiere of the final season. I just couldn’t make myself care enough anymore.Same with Smallville. I gave up in the final season, and then went back for the finale, hoping for tights and flights, and not really getting either. I was disgusted.
Kirby · 112 weeks ago
I can honestly like anything. Sit me in front of a TV show, movie, whatever, I’ll enjoy myself no matter how bad it tends to be. However, in Charmed I kind of have the reverse effect. I enjoy the show as a whole, but I really kinda don’t like Prue, and I can’t bring myself to just pick up the series after she leaves. So I’m forcing myself to wade through her episodes until I get through to the next part.I decided to skip Revolution, just from the tweets it was getting on the premiere night. I also don’t tend to watch a lot of TV when it premieres, or anything like that. I don’t generally stop watching a TV show because I dislike it, I generally stop watching it because I stop catching it on TV, something else catches my interest and I stop for a bit with the intention of coming back, or I just stop watching TV for a while. If there’s a show I really like, I usually finish it/what’s available in one or two shots, then wait for more, or move on.
Neph Sy · 112 weeks ago
I watched a few episodes of Charmed back when it was televised, with a “meh” reaction. Recently tried watching the first few episodes, but could not get past how much that “Power of 3” chanting grated on me. Charmed was written for teens and pre-teens. The magic powers on it is so simple, the kind of stuff I used to wish for and dream when I was a child, that I can’t stomach it now.
Poodles McGee · 111 weeks ago
Charmed was mostly just establishing shots of San Francisco (great drinking game, shots every time you see Golden Gate Bridge, everybody passes out during first episode). But the whole, crappy series served one single purpose for one single moment of awesome.In the commentary for Buffy S7 ep7, “Conversations with Dead People” (the best! the creepiest!), Drew Goddard says they had so many problems trying to film the episode, that towards the end of the very long night he was laying on the floor crying “I don’t wanna do this anymore, just put on an episode of Charmed!”
I love that. Whenever I’m having a ridiculously hard time with something that’s too important to blow off, I work up a tear and say the same thing. Then I suck it up and make something awesome anyway.
No matter how hard I try, I keep getting sucked back into Supernatural. I can honestly say I was done with that show middle of season 6, yet I’ve kept watching. I miss a few eps here and there, but somehow I end up watching again and again and again. And yet half the time I’m sitting there asking myself why I’m watching it.Besides the main two characters, they’ve killed off almost all of my favorites. The best I can hope for it a decent ending to the show that doesn’t shit all over everything that I do like about it.
Neph Sy · 112 weeks ago
It’s not a show I hate, but it’s a guilty pleasure. Sometimes I can’t believe this monster of the week/yearly apocalypse show is still on. It’s the humor that keeps me watching.
****SPOILERS BELOW****Dang, I really liked the Benny character and was hoping he was going to become a regular.
lou · 112 weeks ago
I hear ya on Supernatural. Season 6 was hit-and-miss because the showrunners never expected to make it past the 1st 5 seasons they planned out, so they passed the head-writer duty to someone else, for Seasons 6 (meh) and 7 (bleh). Now it’s on Season 8 with someone else in charge and it’s much better now.
sandchigger · 112 weeks ago
I’m the one guy who watched the entire run of Cult hoping it would start to be not crappy.Neph Sy · 112 weeks ago
You must have a strong constitution, the only thing I liked about Cult was Robert Knepper…he does intense and creepy so well.sandchigger · 112 weeks ago
I kept thinking to myself that maybe it would all tie together in some brilliant, awesome fashion. I did like the idea that the real-cult was gaining members from the tv-cult because the real-cult was literally putting words into the mouth of the tv-cult’s leader.I think I stuck with Heroes into the fourth season, or at least close to the end of the third. I think I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt that season 2 was crappy because of the writers’ strike. I was young and foolish then…I never started watching Revolution because I couldn’t get over the mental hurdle that if electrons can no longer flow, you get some very serious side effects. Like, oh say, molecules no longer being able to hold together. Nanomagicbots at least addresses that problem, so kudos to them for that I guess?
malcolm · 112 weeks ago
I’ve actually been enjoying revolution lately, I think its improved. I’m not talking about the “science”, let it be magic, I don’t care. I just like where the story is going.I watched every episode of _Andromeda_.I enejoyed it too, despite the preachiness on some episodes and the occasional ridiculousness of the dub.I’ve done better. If there’s a series that’s starting that looks like it’s going to be awful, you just don’t watch it or any commercial for it ever. It really helps to keep the brain cells up and the hate-filled rants down. I guess the worst series I’ve ever actually watched was Smallville. But that was because there wasn’t anything better on (didn’t have cable or Netflix back then) which was very few and far between. Maybe I’ve seen like ten episodes in all? I’m not really sure…
jscg · 112 weeks ago
It took me five seaons to give up on Star Trek Voyager. Even though every episode from season 3 to (it seems) the end had the big red reset button denouement, I just kept watching.Kind of like when my Grampa used to watch the Judy Garland variety show and complain about how bad it was every week. My Gram used to ask him why he kept watching if it was so bad, and his only answer was “She used to be so *good*!”
The irony is after season 3 they gave up on the “We’re totally going to get home! NO WE’RE NOT!” thing and just started focusing on the story while moving them a bit closer to home every few episodes. Towards the end they realized home was WAY too far away so every other episode it was like, “Good job crew. That little maneuver shaved 20 years off our trip!”I only watched the first three episodes of Moffat’s “Jekyll”. Granted, there were only six episodes, I think, but I was not impressed.I also quit S4 of Community this year after “Alternative History of the German Invasion” which didn’t make me laugh even once. Compared to S3, S4 is a major let down. Compared to S1 and S2, it’s like it isn’t even the same damn show any more.
I can’t think of any other shows which I’ve watched and quit part way through.
Faye · 112 weeks ago
Stargate SG-1 was never the same after season 5. But I kept watching. Season 10. The movies. Atlantis. Universe. (I actually kinda liked Universe in spite of the ‘younger and edgier’ dynamic, but then, Robert Carlyle.)My only release from this is that there is no Stargate currently in production, as far as I am aware. If it came back, I would be there, like a moth to a flame, and with about as much self-preservation instinct.
So, to answer the question: How long? Forever. (Though I wouldn’t say I ever ‘hated’ it, I was just disappointed, is all. There were still good times to be had.)
SG-1 lost me after it left Showtime. Universe was fantastic and should never have been prefaced with the word “Stargate.” It specifically wasn’t for Stargate fans.Faye · 111 weeks ago
Agreed. I did enjoy Universe, mostly, but as it’s own thing – it didn’t feel like Stargate. (Stargate barely felt like Stargate in the final seasons, it was effectively a spin off the network didn’t want to split from the main series. And that Ori stuff creeped me out.)Universe could have reached a wider audience, but they got stuck with the overlapping segment on the venn diagram of ‘Stargate fans’ and ‘gritty space drama fans’. The Stargate name hurt them.
As an aside, we joked that the series was Stargate: Voyager, but how much better would Voyager have been if it was more like Universe? They had the factions already, Starfleet vs Maquis.
The last three or four seasons of X-Files were pretty bad… and I’m still watching True Blood for some awful reason. And I saw all of Lost… but to be fair, I actually liked the way it ended. I just don’t listen to what producers and writers say before something is done.Neph Sy · 112 weeks ago
I stuck it out to the end for Lost and Heroes, I especially feel Heroes was a waste…that show had potential…why did it have to turn into such a clusterf***
Can’t believe I watched “No Ordinary Family” past the first episode. The last season of True Blood was pretty bad, but I’ll probably still watch the next one…the show is STILL better than the books.Longest show I’ve stuck to watching (and hate myself for it), “American Idol”,
To make it palatable I skip the city auditions episodes, fast forward through the critiques and listen to it while I’m working in the studio.I watched all of No Ordinary family on Hulu while I was working. It was just a horrific concept with even worse execution. A shitstorm top to bottom.diggy · 112 weeks ago
I started to watch the “Fringe” pilot, quit after 5 minutes. Haven’t watched any of the show since.If it’s not for you, that’s fine. If you managed to watch all five seasons there are some wonderful stories, character development and a ton of payoff for the open plot threads.Agreed fringe is one of my favorite network science fiction shows.I regret watching all of season one of defiance
I am currently trying to get to the end of Hemlock Grove. It is……bad. Like a supernatural german art house film written by a 15 year old from the suburbs of the States who really likes unicorns but hates his mom bad. I can’t stop.Poodles McGee · 111 weeks ago
I’ve never even heard of that. But that description alone makes me want to check it out.
DuckAmuck · 111 weeks ago
I’m still debating whether Burn Notice is still worth my time.
How many seasons can you get away with “I got the guy who got me. Wait. No I didn’t. Getting that guy led me to this other guy. NOW I’ll get the guy who got me.”Though I missed the last 3 episodes of the most recent season, so maybe that answers my question.
Poodles McGee · 111 weeks ago
Once he rejoined the CIA I … I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just didn’t care. His scrappy resourcefulness and rogue team of occasionally awesomely destructive misfits was what made it fun. Once they gave him “legitimacy” and “resources” it was just another spy story.Although really, the death knell was sounded when they brought in Jesse. Who fuckin’ cares about that guy? Nobody, that’s who.
Poodles McGee · 111 weeks ago
OH MY GOD, AND THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT. STOP TRYING TO SELL ME A FUCKING CAR, USA. HOW DARE YOU INCORPORATE YOUR ADVERTISING INTO THE SHOW’S FUCKING DIALOGUE!Bastards.
Sorry, I’m calm now. Sorry.
Congratulations on your first stopping-watching-a-bad-show, Joel.
The wife and I actually watched like 9 terrible eps of Revolution, just because we do whatever JJ Abrams tells us to. I wish I had those hours back.
I really do have SO MANY OPINIONS about TV shows, you guys! Especially some of the ones that haven’t actually come out yet. How are those opinions even formed? Upon what basis do they situate themselves? I will answer these question in order. EXPERIENCE AND PURE CONJECTURE! That is either the answer to one or […]]]>
I really do have SO MANY OPINIONS about TV shows, you guys! Especially some of the ones that haven’t actually come out yet. How are those opinions even formed? Upon what basis do they situate themselves? I will answer these question in order. EXPERIENCE AND PURE CONJECTURE! That is either the answer to one or both of the questions. Perhaps all or none of them as well. I will probably explore these opinions about shows both real and soon-to-be-real in the next few comics.
It’s a very dangerous game I play, this liking and disliking stuff and tell people about it game. The strategies involved compare closely to master level chess or even dad-against-children level Monopoly. The bottom line is, my opinions are too big to keep inside. I must share them! I feel so strongly about things like TV shows and movies that were I to contain my critiques of them, my brain would go super nova and take out half the galaxy with it. Better to let me make my silly Internet comics and posts to exorcise my demons rather than clean up such a cosmic mess.
The word “opinions” actually comes from the old phrase “old pine ones.” As in, “That guy won’t shut up about what he thinks about stuff. Let’s beat him to death with bats. These old pine ones will do the job.” In the future, opinions will be cultured in a lab, freeze dried, powered and baked into snack foods. Opin-YUMZ! will revolutionize the worlds of eating garbage and feeling ways about stuff, since each time you pop an Opin-YUMZ! flavor discus into your face-cave, you’ll instantly feel whatever opinion was baked into that particular bag. There’s Zesty “Music was better when I was in highschool” Ranch, and Cheesy Chedder “Gary’s new girlfriend is too controlling” Blast and Tangy “Everyone is a little bit racists, it’s not JUST me” Mesquite BBQ.
WHY ARE THEY STILL MAKING THE OFFICE?!?!?! Are you still watching it? SHAME ON YOU! When the star leaves 3 seasons AFTER it’s not funny any more and they continue to make more episodes, all complicit parties are equally guilty. This includes you! Of course, this is the final season and people DO like to feel a since of “sticking it out to the bitter end” and all. Still, every time I see a clip from one of the recent seasons of The Office, it’s like going to visit a loved one who’s recently suffered a traumatic brain injury. You really just want to cling to your fond memories, but they insist on overwriting them with new, morbidly depressing ones.
COMMENTERS: When I got my first email account (Hotmail circa 1995) I put a lyric from my favorite Harvey Danger song as my signature. “When you like something, it’s an opinion. When I like something, it’s a manifesto.” I feel like that perfectly sums up the way in which geeks like and dislike things. We just seem to FEEL more strongly about our preferences than the average person. There is far less, “Meh… I could take it or leave it,” within the geek community. We usually either loves something so much that it burns us or we hate something so much that we want to burn it. Do you have any particular experience (positive or negative) with this “intensity of opinions” that geeks seem to possess? Anyone ever harp on you for liking or not liking things in a way that they approved of? Are you the person that does that?
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Not cool cool cool cool at all. TV actors live under the constant threat of their livelihoods being ripped away by some faceless executive. Which I suppose is better than having their faces ripped away by some lifeless executive. It has to be an unbelievable shock going from a professionally unemployed actor to making 10’s […]]]>
Not cool cool cool cool at all.
TV actors live under the constant threat of their livelihoods being ripped away by some faceless executive. Which I suppose is better than having their faces ripped away by some lifeless executive. It has to be an unbelievable shock going from a professionally unemployed actor to making 10’s of thousands of dollars a week to wondering how you’re going to afford your pool boy’s Lexus payment when essentially not of the decisions that affect those major life changes are in your control. Hollywood is basically a glorified temp service broadcast to the world.
I’m a big Community fan, and it’s a shame to see NBC shelve their second best show (sorry Abed-heads, but 30 Rock is perfect) because not a wide enough swath of middle America can relate to its deep pop culture references, bizarre concept episodes and general geekiness. It’s one of the only shows actually pushing the boundries of what can be done with a comedy on network TV. I guess the problem is if you keep pushing boundaries, you eventually hit a wall. I hope the show rebounds and comes back stronger than ever, but it might just be too quirky, smart and genuinely funny to survive. At least we still have Whitney, right? What do you bring to your Whitney viewing parties? Chocolate? Red wine? A bullet?
- TV Bits: ‘Community’ Gets Benched and More
- The 10 geekiest moments of Community
- “Philosophy of Film and Television Narrative”: How NBC’s ‘Community’ Shatters the Boundaries Between Reality and Fiction
- ‘Community‘ Creator Fully Aware What We’re Doing Whenever Alison Brie Jiggles
COMMENTERS: Lament the seemingly inevitable demise of Community, or dare to proclaim why you won’t miss it once it’s gone (is it because you had your human heart replaced with a can of powdered turnips?). Feel free to post links to your Inspector Spacetime fanfic in the comments as well.
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READ READ READ READ: This is your LAST WEEK to order an Ultimate Fancy Edition of Book 2 AND get your name in the book. Files go to the printer on January 15th. After that you will still be able to order a UFE but you will NOT necessarily be listed in the book on the Fancy […]]]>
READ READ READ READ:
This is your LAST WEEK to order an Ultimate Fancy Edition of Book 2 AND get your name in the book. Files go to the printer on January 15th. After that you will still be able to order a UFE but you will NOT necessarily be listed in the book on the Fancy Bastard Wall Of Fancy Fame.
ORDER THAT MOTHER FANCY BOOK, YO!Don’t want a stupid book? Check out The HE Store!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: HijiNKS ENSUE is 5 days a week now. Read more HERE.
“You should come check out my new ride. I call it ‘The Scrambler.’ Oh, and you’re going to love these. Bam! Cape-arangs! Pretty sweet, right Bats?”
The Cape Spoilers ahead: I watched the first two episodes of The Cape because I feel it’s my job to jump on these sorts of tv-grenades and absorb the initial impact in hopes that more of my fellow geek-kind can be spared the poorly written, campy shrapnel. (Shrampy campnel?)
In short, The Cape gets everything wrong. It walks too thin a line between “campy superhero shenanigans” and “brooding Dark Kightesque seriousness.” The story, the costumes, the characters and the writing are so silly that any attempts the show makes at drama or real emotion are completely lost. I know many of you enjoy a healthy dose of camp in your super hero shows and The Cape delivers it in spades. It receives a 4.5 on The Greater Xena Scale of Sunday Afternoon TV Silliness. But I have a feeling even you campers out there would take issue with the completely Batmanshit nuts plot of this show.
Here’s the basic rundown (and a summary of how the whole thing is a complete rip off of Batman Begins): Palm City used to be a nice place, but now it’s full of crime and corruption (just like Gotham). All the cops are dirty except for one, our hero Vince (ie Jim Gordon from BB). There’s a villain called Chess, who has chess pieces for eyes and something something he really likes chess. He’s also the CEO of the corporation that’s taking over the city’s police force. Vince (the lone good cop), takes a job for Chess’s corporation as a private security officer and gets set up by his best friend and Chess to take the fall for Chess’s crimes. He is outed as the villain, and appears to die in an explosion leaving his wife and child behind, but escapes and is rescued by a band of circus freaks lead by Keith David. Turns out they are actually bank robbers and Vince has a magic keycard that opens any bank vault in the city. They rob a bank and everyone, including Vince, is happy about that for some reason.
Now that they are all friends, Vince decides he needs justice (like Batman), vengence (like Batman) and he needs to be a symbol for good instead of just a man (like Batman, almost verbatim from BB) and Keith David and his merry band of midgets and weirdos are just the bunch to teach him the arts of fighting, acrobatics, illusion, sleight of hand, misdirection, and mind trickery (The League of Shadows and Ras Al’Ghul from BB) to make his transformation to super hero complete. There’s a training montage where he learns to fight with a magic cape that is light but can become rigid (like in BB), how to use smoke bombs to disappear (just like BB), how to hypnotize people and how to wrestle a midget (just like in… wait…). This is all good and well until you realize that it all basically happened over the course of an afternoon or two. He MASTERS hypnotism to the point that he hypnotizes the hypnotoad hypnotist in a few hours. He can use his cape to snatch knives out of hands after maybe 45 minutes of practice. Whatever.
So with his new costume and arsenal of quickly gained super-abilities he heads out to find this shipment of super explosive that’s being brought into town by Chess. When he gets to the train yard there are shipping crates full of stuffed animals that contain the illicit cargo (just like in BB) and he begins to snatch the baddies one by one into the shadows, totally unseen (EXACTLY LIKE IN BB. IT WAS SERIOUSLY A COMPLETE REMAKE OF THE SHOT FROM BB.) While trying to take down Chess he runs into Orwell (played by Summer Glau) who is a blogger trying to expose the corruption of Chess’s false corporate identity. The first scene between The Cape and Orwell goes something like this. “So you’re a super hero now? That’s cool. Now we’re partners.” Niether party asks any questions of the other. They almost just exchange glances then form a crime-fighting duo. You would think there’d at least be a standard contract to fill out or a 1099 or something.
The Firefly code forces me to evaluate Glau with more leniency than I would others, but the best I can say is that she does all right with what she is given. And what she is given is pretty shitty. The plot is riddled with holes, the dialog is just plain dumb and the characters have little to no motivation to being doing the completely outrageous things they are doing.
The Dark Night get the “homage” treatment too. By the end of the second episode Vince’s fake-widow basically becomes the Rachel Daws character from BB and TDK. Also his “taking the fall for someone else’s crimes” echoes Harvey Dent in a not-too-coincidental way AND they introduce a second Jim Gordon/Rachel analog in the guise of “the lone city councilman who will vote against Chess taking over the prisons despite death threats and murder attempts.” There are literally dozens of other close comparisons between The Cape and Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies but to list any more of them here would be to post the entire script for the pilot.
Verdict: I didn’t hate The Cape, but I won’t be watching it regularly and I can’t give it a recommendation. It is stuck between 90’s era TV camp like M.A.N.T.I.S, VIPER and MUTANT-X and legitimate super hero franchises like Batman Begins/The Dark Knight.
COMMENTERS: Did you watch The Cape? What did you think? Did I miss anything worth mentioning?
[sorry for the lack of color, but my flight leaves early in the morning and I have a bunch of pre-Chicago errands to run today ~ Joel] C2E2 is THIS WEEKEND!!! April 16-18 Updated With TBS Release!! Conan O’Brien Finds A New Late Night Home!! Conan O’Brien Revives Edgy “Late Night” Vibe at First Live Show Surprise!! Conan’s […]]]>
[sorry for the lack of color, but my flight leaves early in the morning and I have a bunch of pre-Chicago errands to run today ~ Joel]
C2E2 is THIS WEEKEND!!! April 16-18
- Updated With TBS Release!! Conan O’Brien Finds A New Late Night Home!!
- Conan O’Brien Revives Edgy “Late Night” Vibe at First Live Show
- Surprise!! Conan’s Live Show Features Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, WALKER TEXAS RANGER & Masturbating Panda!!
- KFC’s Double Down: bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of fried chicken
Commenters: Where/how could Conan do his show with less exposure?
This will be the last regular HE comic this week due to my impending nuptials with Chicago. Though I do have some stellar guest comics lined up for Thursday and Friday. If you are going to be in Chicago, come to C2E2 and say hi and maybe pick up a book or a shirt or whatever. We can keep it casual.
[more info about C2E2 IN THIS BLOG POST]
If you enjoy HE and and would like to show your support for the comic or The Experiment, please consider getting a book or shirt in the store or making a donation.
Don’t Forget! [Edward shirts now at Topatoco!]
Check out this new “Battlestar Galactica/United Nations So Say We All” T-Shirt I made for Olmos Productions, Inc.
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I guess we can all shave off our strike-pompadours [you did grow yours right?] now that Conan has reached an agreement with NBC for an exit strategy. His final show is tonight and I urge you all to watch it live as it airs (no DVR’s) to make this the highest rated episode of The […]]]>
I guess we can all shave off our strike-pompadours [you did grow yours right?] now that Conan has reached an agreement with NBC for an exit strategy. His final show is tonight and I urge you all to watch it live as it airs (no DVR’s) to make this the highest rated episode of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien ever. It’s hard to feel bad for a guy that’s going to pocket almost $34 million for NOT working (he must have got that book about free government money from the guy in the question mark suit), but it isn’t hard to see that he wanted the show and not the payout.
Conan has always been a comedy innovator, from his days as a Simpsons writer to SNL (when both of those shows were relevant and funny) to his incredibly weird first few seasons of Late Night. Conan has real enthusiasm for comedy and I respect that. He WANTS to make you laugh. Leno wants to get home at a reasonable hour so he can work on his fleet of classic cars.
Godspeed, CoCo, you fancy Irish bastard. We’ll be waiting for you on Sept. 1 when you announce your new show… or possibly announce that you’ve purchased a small island nation and encourage us all to “go get fucked.” After what you’ve been through in the last few weeks, either option would be acceptable.
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UPDATE 3: Conan’s actual response: No Thanks, NBC UPDATE 2: David Letterman’s Advice To NBC UPDATE: Conan addresses the rumors. Sort of. In a statement about the decision to move Jay Leno back to his original time slot and bump Conan to 12:05am, a spokesperson for NBC called Leno “one of the most compelling entertainers […]]]>
UPDATE 3: Conan’s actual response: No Thanks, NBC
UPDATE 2: David Letterman’s Advice To NBC
UPDATE: Conan addresses the rumors. Sort of.
In a statement about the decision to move Jay Leno back to his original time slot and bump Conan to 12:05am, a spokesperson for NBC called Leno “one of the most compelling entertainers in the world today.” IN THE WORLD. Let’s see how I stack up to Mr. Leno. Here we go:
“Hey folks. Did you hear ‘The Tonight Show’ is getting moved to 12: 05am. That’s true. It is. Yeah, they’re changing the name to ‘The Tomorrow Show’.”
ZING! POW! PUNS! I must be one of the most compelling entertainers in the world too. Here’s another from the same awesome monologue of compelling, world class comedy:
“Jimmy Fallon’s show won’t start until 1:05am. That’s true. Now they’re going to call it The ‘Shouldn’t You Be Asleep? I Thought Weed Made You Sleepy’ Show with Jimmy Fallon.”
One more. Can your sides handle it?
“Did you hear about this? Something something veiled dick joke. Amiright folks? Kevin? Amiright?”
I got a million of ’em.
FOLLW ME ON TWITTER, because why not? Also check out Kevin Eubanks’s album art and tremble at the majesty.
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My television spies tell me that Christian Slater had a show on NBC where he played a Jekyl/Hyde/normal dude/super spy. Emphasis on “had” since it’s already been cancelled. Who knows? It could have been a great show. I have no idea. Like so many other shows it was here and gone in a flash. The […]]]>
My television spies tell me that Christian Slater had a show on NBC where he played a Jekyl/Hyde/normal dude/super spy. Emphasis on “had” since it’s already been cancelled.
Who knows? It could have been a great show. I have no idea. Like so many other shows it was here and gone in a flash. The en vogue thing for networks to do now is ramp up a show, produce 6 episodes, air 4 of them then cancel it when the ratings don’t fare well against the Super Bowl.
This was a banner week for “shows that I don’t watch” getting cancelled. Lambs led to the slaughter since Monday include:
- Pushing Daisies – (almost totally cancelled) Yay! I can watch it on DVD now!
- My Own Worst Enemy – See above comic, and this article
- Lipstick Jungle – Cashmere Mafia?
- Prison Break – First season was great, once they broke out of prison the premise became moot (the jury is still out on ACTUAL cancellation but all signs point to yes)
- MadTV – 14 seasons was 12 seasons too long
For those interested, I actually drew this comic. Like with actual art supplies that are in no way pixel based. Granted, I redrew it in Photoshop, but original art ACTUALLY HAPPENED. That’s unprecedented. You can see it HERE.
I was thinking about matting this with a print of the finished comic and putting it up on eBay. We’ll see if there is any interest in such a thing happening.
HE Podcast #36 streams live tonight at 8pm central.
Somehow “The Writers Guild” evokes imagery of shadowy figures in heavy velvet cloaks gathered around mammoth stone tables to perform sacred blood rights and cast runes. This ancient band of clandestine scribes is now on strike. They’ve struck… stricken… whatever. To be fair, the studios should just agree to remove all writing from DVD’s and […]]]>
Somehow “The Writers Guild” evokes imagery of shadowy figures in heavy velvet cloaks gathered around mammoth stone tables to perform sacred blood rights and cast runes. This ancient band of clandestine scribes is now on strike. They’ve struck… stricken… whatever. To be fair, the studios should just agree to remove all writing from DVD’s and downloaded shows. Heroes season 2 would be unaffected. O00hhh. Burn.
Today’s comic deals with the declining quality of the television show Heroes and the merits of its “creator,” one Mr. R. Timothy Kring. I’ve decided season 1 was a fluke. Season 2 is a testament to how little this guy understands about comic books or geekery in general.
The short list:
- The only thing we wanted to know is what happened to Peter. We still don’t know.
- Amnesia is teh kop 0uts.
- Focusing on new boring characters worked so well for LOST that we should totaly do it. I hope Dora and Diego get buried alive.
- Wiping out NY was last year’s big bad. This year’s is… wiping out..oh god.
- For instructions on how to do a new apocalypse every season, see Buffy: Seasons 1-7. Take notes.
- Mutant virus, eh? Don’t read much X-Men, huh?
- Claire’s boyfriend is a tool
- Hiro is an idiot. He was in feudal Japan about 8 episodes too long.
- Parkman’s dad is the killer? One more Hero needed Daddy issues? Seriously. Think about it for 5 seconds. Who on this show wasn’t permanently scarred by their father?
It turns out Tim Kring time traveled forward, read this post, went back in time and apologized for his transgressions. That’s certainly a different approach than we get from Lindelhof and Cuse. They are more of “Fuck off! Let me see you make a better show! Dick holes!” Where as Kring is taking the stance of “yeah, I really don’t know what I’m doing. You guys got any ideas? Where do you post your fan fics? Oh, here they are…. why are all the dudes gay?”
You can download today’s comic for your Webcomic Remixing delights here:
Have some fun with it and email your entries to comics (at) hijinksensue (dot) com.
UPDATE:
I moved the remix entires here and gave them their own category.
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Or possibly “Knight Rider‘s Not Unix.” Gnu joke… Anybody? Oh well. It actually stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand. Yes, they spelled out 2000 to make their super R.A.D.D. acronym work. Back in the 80’s, the year 2000 was believed to be so distant in the future (nearly 20 years) that it must be part […]]]>
Or possibly “Knight Rider‘s Not Unix.”
Gnu joke… Anybody? Oh well. It actually stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand. Yes, they spelled out 2000 to make their super R.A.D.D. acronym work. Back in the 80’s, the year 2000 was believed to be so distant in the future (nearly 20 years) that it must be part of a fantastical future scape rife with unimaginable wonders like sentient talking cars voiced by middle school principals. So any time something in an 80’s movie or TV show was supposed to be futuristic, or a thing that doesn’t normally talk had to talk they would tack a “deuce triple ought” to the tail end of it.
When I first read that NBC was bringing Knight Rider back to the smallish screen, I could only think of T.K.R.Team Knight Rider (that’s to those of you outside of the T.K.R. Fan-Fic community). Maybe YourTubes has some Team Knight Rider videos you can watch to better understand why even still I quiver in a cold sweat at the mere mention of teams or knights or anything riding anything else. Just look at the cast list. Keep in mind the names on the left are supposed to be the actors’ REAL names:
- Brixton Karnes as Kyle Stewart
- Christine Steel as Jenny Andrews
- Rick Copp as Clayton
- Michael Lexx, as Scott
- Steve Forrest as the Shadow
This is either the Team Knight Rider cast or the cast of “Backdoor Glory Hole Creampies IV.”
Oh look, I found a list of understudies:
- Tad Firetruck as Jim
- Blast Fuckfurnace as Jim C.
- Leggz Tittsington as Cheryl
- Beaf Manmeat as Jim H.
- Chest Tittsingon (no relation) as Tanya “Tits”Tittsington
NBC RESPECTS ME AS AN INTELLIGENT CONSUMER!
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A virus that only infects super powered individuals? No way. Josh seems to have a crush on Ali Larter, as much as any gay man can have a crush on a woman. He has similarly misplaced feelings for Kristen Bell, who is also joining the cast of Heroes. He’s often said things like, “Man, this […]]]>
A virus that only infects super powered individuals? No way.
Josh seems to have a crush on Ali Larter, as much as any gay man can have a crush on a woman. He has similarly misplaced feelings for Kristen Bell, who is also joining the cast of Heroes. He’s often said things like, “Man, this movie is terrible and everyone in it should get flesh eating virus and die… except for Ali Larter. I really like Ali Larter. She should get a prize.”
I caught the premier of Heroes on NBC this week. They are pulling a LOST and introducing new characters before dealing with the ones I actually give a shit and a half about. They are also continuing their sparse display of powers on screen. I want optic blasts and sonic booms, and powers that actually have a physical (or graphical) manifestation. Hiro has a great power but they chose to represent it with a “Squishy Blink” as opposed to any sort of time or space warping effect. Hell, I would settle for a sound effect. A nice “WHOOOAAAAMMMMG!” or “ZOOOOORRRMMP!” would suffice.
How about a few more lame-ass powers that require no CG:
- Guy that can reverse the Coriolis effect in Australian toilets (you could just film the toilets in America!)
- Guy that can alter international shipping rates at the Post Office (very profitable eBay business)
- Guy that can draw crude sexual flip books on Post-It Notes really fast (flip it in reverse and she doesn’t get chlamydia)
- Girl that can keep her eyes open when she sneezes (also causes a random person’s brain to melt every time she does it. But she doesn’t know that)
These are all great ideas!
I read that the new Latino heroes (I think their names are Dora and Diego) are real life Wonder Twins. Their powers are somehow connected and activated only when they make out or something. I hate the Wonder Twins so goddamn much. You’ve got these alien siblings with fantastical magic power rings and transmogrification abilities yet one of them can only turn into things made of water.
To compensate they would pull shit like,
“Wonder Twin Powers Activate!”
“Form of a fucking T-Rex with giant teeth and crushing mandibles and an insatiable hunger for flesh!”
“Shape of an Ice Dinosaur!”
They also had a space monkey, Gleek. He couldn’t do shit. Space Ghost’s space monkey, Blip,was a brilliant strategist and decorated hero. Gleek was a poo-flinging retard.
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Remember Scrooge McDuck’s money bin? It housed not only the whole of his vast riches but also his “Number One Dime.” I imagine Jeff Zucker, President of NBC, has a similar structure for housing NBC’s wealth. I also imagine (nay, assume) that Mr. Zucker backstrokes through gold ingots and bank notes alike, occasionally diving only […]]]>
Remember Scrooge McDuck’s money bin? It housed not only the whole of his vast riches but also his “Number One Dime.” I imagine Jeff Zucker, President of NBC, has a similar structure for housing NBC’s wealth. I also imagine (nay, assume) that Mr. Zucker backstrokes through gold ingots and bank notes alike, occasionally diving only to resurface and spew priceless coins from his blow hole.
The only reason I can come up with for NBC’s decision to drop iTunes as a distributor for it’s television properties is that the Money Bin in question must be full.
“We simply can’t fit any more money in this fantastic chamber! One more dollar and I won’t be able to use the diamond encrusted high dive! What good is all of this money if I can’t swim through it? What other uses could I possibly find for it? I know I can have sex on it, or WITH it, but that’s not the point. No! Do not empty that wheelbarrow of money in here! Where did that money come from? iTunes sales of popular NBC shows like “The Office” and “Heroes?” Get Steve Jobs on the phone immediately! I’ll put a stop to this!”
The guy talking was Jeff Zucker.
Josh might have been concerned by this news but it turns out that the terms of the deal in no way affect his ability to illegally download NBC shows from BitTorrent. So he’s cool with it.
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Cozworth · 107 weeks ago
I’m pretty sure it’s worked like a monkey’s paw. We’ll get our 6 seasons and a movie and in the end it’ll be like watching a car crash in slow motion, we all know it’ll be horrible, but we just can’t look away.
@sandchigger · 107 weeks ago
2 replies · active 107 weeks ago
Kryss LaBryn · 107 weeks ago
When it looked like it wasn’t going to be renewed, JMS got the major plot points wrapped up for the end of the fourth season, not wanting to leave fans hanging if there wasn’t a fifth. And I’m not suuure if the problem was that there was a fifth season after the pre-existing threads were more or less tied up, since he’d basically ditched the teep war thread in order to be able to fit it all in, so it’s not like he just pulled something out of his ass. I think it’s more that the fifth season was, well, kind of awful. It has some great Bester moments, but Jesus, Byron. Pun kinda sorta maybe intended. It just wasn’t the B5 we’d had for the first four seasons, and while it was still probably better than most other shows on TV at the time, it was still… yeah.
I can happily ignore season five in its entirety. Didn’t bother getting it on DVD. And frankly, “Sleeping in Light” at the end of season 4 is my favourite episode ever, I think. It is a really well-done finale to the series, and I just don’t think there was a NEED for more B5 after that. In the context of the series. Which was about the Shadow War, and stuff. More B5 *stuff* would definitely be cool. I’m still pissed about Crusade, and how long ago was that? Gods damn you, Time-Warner. Gods damn you.
Jason· 107 weeks ago
I honestly didn’t think Season 5 was that bad. It just… wasn’t that good, either, I suppose. I liked the ideas, and seeing some of those plot threads resolved was kind of nice. I think it was–almost literally–anticlimactic. Or perhaps post-climactic. Anyway, I didn’t dislike it, but I can skip it on a rewatch without any guilt, too.
Besides, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Legend of the Rangers. Does B5 fan orthodoxy even consider that canon? I know I don’t.
Mike Konecny · 107 weeks ago
tudza · 107 weeks ago
UnitedShoes37 · 107 weeks ago
I mean, I had my doubts about Community without Dan Harmon (and I still say the whole, Harmonless season should’ve been set in the Darkest Timeline), and I was as confused as anybody during “Journey to the Center of the TARDIS”, but I don’t feel like whoever took over Community this season or Steven Moffat have been raping our good friends Abed and the Doctor. They’ve just stumbled a bit. There were some genuinely enjoyable moments in this short season of Community, and they got Neil Gaiman to come back and write another spectacular Whopisode, not to mention Diana Rigg managing to be even more snarky and almost as delightful as she is as one of the greatest C-characters in all of A Song of Ice and Fire.
Is all the hyperbole really necessary? Hell, maybe, just maybe, if we show Community the same love we all showed it when we thought it was going to get murdered, the current showrunners will find their footing a bit more, and we all know Doctor Who isn’t going anywhere, even if Clara’s plot goes even more batshit than “The Overly Compressed Narrative of River Song” (a.k.a. “Let’s KIll Hitler!”)
1 reply · active 107 weeks ago
tomspeelman· 107 weeks ago
Riff · 107 weeks ago
One of the worst things about it is all the fans who say “It’s still good! It’s still good!” like Homer chasing the pig down the river. I’m going to stab the next person who says, “I guess I just like liking things,” in reference to the show.
Legendary Teeth · 107 weeks ago
1 reply · active 107 weeks ago
@borednihilist · 107 weeks ago
Tom327Cat · 107 weeks ago
2 replies · active 107 weeks ago
Stephen · 107 weeks ago
@lzyglutenfremom · 107 weeks ago
Khel · 107 weeks ago
w00hoo · 107 weeks ago
While I love Supernatural, I’m only watching it because it’s there. I’d have been comfortable with them finishing when they said they would…
1 reply · active 106 weeks ago
The Unknown FB · 106 weeks ago
The ending to the season/series mostly wrapped things up and left a good set up for the comic series, but still felt rushed at the end, and bummed me out.
Unrepentantfangirl · 107 weeks ago
Wesley · 107 weeks ago
It annoys the crap out of me when series that used to be based on humor eventually start relying on vicarious shame and call it comedy.
Didu· 107 weeks ago
As for Community, a friend promised to have an introductory season 1 marathon with me if I swore to never watch season 4, nor acknowledge its existence.
1 reply · active 107 weeks ago
Mitch H. · 107 weeks ago
Kryss LaBryn · 107 weeks ago
–Shut up. I was seventeen, okay?
Bill Murphy · 107 weeks ago
I loved that show. A comedy about a financially struggling family. In the final season (8 or 9) they won the lottery of 100 million dollars. They continued to live in their three bedroom house and fix it up a bit.
When I think of that show, all I remember was that last awful season.
Cherie · 107 weeks ago
@borednihilist · 107 weeks ago
3 replies · active 107 weeks ago
Joe A· 107 weeks ago
@borednihilist · 107 weeks ago
@AlyredTheEvil · 107 weeks ago
Joe A· 107 weeks ago
1 reply · active 107 weeks ago
agarda· 107 weeks ago
Bruceski · 107 weeks ago
1 reply · active 107 weeks ago
Bryce · 107 weeks ago
Jason· 107 weeks ago
Of course, in the end, the author retroactively ruined my enjoyment of those books much more than all the other works in the series, so… *shrug*
2 replies · active 97 weeks ago
njmckay· 107 weeks ago
That being said…. MOVIE!
emperorbailey· 97 weeks ago
They were a completely different feel, with the international sociopolitical maneuvering instead of family problems or whatever “Speaker of the Dead” was about. The villain was really terrifying, and seeing Peter’s change from a kind of scary kid into a decent leader was also fascinating.
DuckAmuck · 107 weeks ago
NBC is more at fault than anyone related to this season of Community.
Next year, watch the episodes at their correct times of year, and everything will be more easily understood.
Liam · 107 weeks ago
WorldMaker · 107 weeks ago
Anyone else notice a chalkboard in the S4 finale taunting us with the “Six Seasons and a Movie”?
That said, I actually somewhat liked the S4 finale. It WAS an attempt at a paintball finale (albeit without committing to anything like the old wanton damage of show sets). It hit a lot of the right notes and nearly proved the new writers room have almost gotten it. Biggest complaint was the cop out “it was all a dream”, because S1-S3 spent so much time subverting that. I think if they had owned that choice, and pushed for the crazy Sci-Fi consequences we all might actually be somewhat looking forward to an S5 that could be the closest thing to a half-hour comedy Fringe we might ever see…
Tara · 107 weeks ago
1 reply · active 106 weeks ago
Gregory · 106 weeks ago
tomspeelman· 107 weeks ago
Kryss LaBryn · 107 weeks ago
The Unknown FB · 106 weeks ago
IMO, the showrunners needed a kick in their aft warp coils about 1.5 seasons earlier to get on the stick and write some good character-driven stories.
The way that series was handled and ended basically killed off TV versions of Trek to this day, sadly.
Alyson · 106 weeks ago
emperorbailey· 97 weeks ago
Also, I think from Season 23, the episode called “The Book Job” was as funny as any Season 8 episode.