LOL: Honest Trailers vs. Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

It's December 1, so let's kick off the countdown to Christmas with some irreverent hilarity from the humorists of Honest Trailers:

The Boys Are Back in Town: "The Grand Tour" Roars Online

A post-BBC Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond - yes, that glorious triumvirate of bantering car fanatics from Top Gear - are back with their new show The Grand Tour.  It only took watching the first 5 minutes to convince me that Top Gear (still limping along with new hosts) is dead. Not just kind of dead, mind you. It is a smoking ruin over which Clarkson and company are cheerfully roasting marshmallows.

Seriously, watch the first 5 minutes of The Grand Tour premiere on Amazon Prime streaming. They are perfectly conceived, flawlessly executed, and absolutely amazing right down to the musical accompaniment.

As for what other people are saying? The Guardian says,"Clarkson and co leave the BBC in their dust."  The Telegraph titles its review "How Jeremy Clarkson's new £160m show blew Top Gear out of the water."

(As for the BBC, its review complained that the premiere episode's undeniable swagger was "uncomfortably hubristic." Well, as a friend of mine says, "It ain't braggin' if it's true.")  Some fans are as busy tweaking the BBC as Clarkson himself is:

Dear @BBC_TopGear thank you for sacking @JeremyClarkson His #grandtour show is epicly good.

— Eddie Bonelli (@eddie_BONE) November 17, 2016

I'm more or less convinced that the BBC in the final analysis grossly misunderstood the magic of Top Gear. It wasn't about the cars, not really. It was about the larger-than-life personalities who were having fun with those cars.  The way in the end to deal with Clarkson is not to contain him, but to unleash him. 

I'll leave you with the trailer. New episodes every week from Amazon! 

Quote of the Day: Ian McShane on "Game of Thrones"

The great British actor sums up the show in 5 words in this interview, which is itself well worth a read for its sheer personality.  By the way, if you've never seen McShane in Deadwood or Kings, you really should.

Couch Potato Chronicles: Cabin Fever Edition

In case you haven't heard, this past holiday weekend was pretty much a disaster for the East Coast, which got absolutely slammed with completely ridiculous temperatures.  Here's one example from the Big Apple.  In my corner of Nerdworld, just about everybody I knew (and I) stayed indoors the entire time.  It's not the same as being properly "snowed in," but the effect is the same.  On the bright side, you can't get frostbite from sitting on the couch and bingewatching TV shows.

Speaking of, here is the list that I marathoned via Netflix and Amazon Prime during WindChillpocalypse 2016:

• Extant.  I'm always looking for new sci fi.  This one somehow managed to land Halle Berry, of all people, as an astronaut.  Season 1 was bumpy but interesting even if it wasted some good actors and really didn't fulfill its potential.  Season 2 was pretty much silly and overwrought, but I stuck with it mostly for Jeffrey Dean Morgan's dimples.
• Stargate SG-1.  It was time to revisit an old favorite.  The show is a rarity: it's the only example I can think of right now of a movie spinoff TV show that is actually better than the source movie.  In all honesty, SG-1 was really only good as long as Richard Dean Anderson and Don S. "Hammond of Texas" Davis were on the cast, but it's still way better than its spinoff Atlantis.  I spent a lot of time wanting to slap Michael Shanks, but I'll also love Teal'c forever, the perfect deadpan straight man.  Indeed.
• X-Files.  You know I've already been at this, but I kept going.  The truth is out there, even if the 90s special effects look really dated now.
• Justified.  I finally got to the last season of US marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) taking on his nemesis, the almost unsettlingly articulate villain Boyd Crowder (Walter Goggins).  Givens has a great cowboy vibe, right down to the hat and drawling voice and all.  Besides, Nick Searcy as his often frustrated avuncular boss is a great supporting figure.
• Vikings.  Way more entertaining than I thought it would be.  Season 1 has - get this - Gabriel Byrne as a Viking chieftain.   The Cine-Sib gives his seal of approval too, especially to shield maiden Lagertha because she's "a badass."

Couch Potato Chronicles: Enough Politics. Let's Talk About X-Files.

Yes, the new X-Files miniseries is here, and even though - let's be honest - it's been kind of disappointing (except for that hilarious episode with the lizard guy), the sheer reunion factor is enough to make me keep watching.  Come on, Scully and Mulder are back, and they're bringing a 1990s nostalgia bomb with them!

So, in the spirit of things, the Cine-Mad Sibling and I name some of our favorite X-Files episodes that we (and you) can watch streaming online at Netflix.  Here they are in no particular order ...  

• "First Person Shooter." Yup, it's the one where Mulder gets stuck inside a video game.  The special effects haven't aged well at ALL, but the episode is a complete hoot.  Three words: "Jade Blue Afterglow."
• "Arcadia." Mulder and Scully go undercover as a married couple in an unsettlingly perfect Stepfordesque neighborhood where residents keep disappearing.  You'll never look at a pink plastic lawn flamingo the same way again.  The Sib and I quote this often-hilarious ep endlessly. "Woman, make me a sandwich!"
• "Drive." Bryan Cranston.  Nuff said.  Bonus: This was the episode that introduced then-X-Files writer Vince Gilligan to Cranston ... a meeting that would later turn into the incomparable Breaking Bad series.
• "Jose Chung's From Outer Space." The men in black have never been so good.  That's Alex Trebek!
• "Beyond the Sea." X-Files does Silence of the Lambs via Brad "Grima Wormtongue" Dourif.
• "Bad Blood." It's like Rashomon. With vampires.
• "The Unnatural." Baseball-playing aliens.  Because why not!  I love TV eps about baseball.  That one from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ("Take Me Out to the Holodeck") is a lot of fun too, by the way. 

Finally, we'll point out "The Host," not because we like it per se, but because it totally creeped us out when we were kids.  I personally don't much care to ever see the Flukeman again. Like, EVER. 

We'll sign off with this, and get ready for some retro 90s tech hilarity:

Couch Potato Chronicles: Laddie, Come Home - "Outlander" Returns

The STARZ adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's historical fiction novels returns, and not a moment too soon.  I need to forget the lunacy in the news and the home stretch-to-final exams rush at school.  Fun fact: Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica is one of the showrunners for this.  (At first the two shows seem wildly different, but they both deal intensely with politics and characterization.)

Short version of Outlander: Claire Randall, an English World War II nurse, is on a second honeymoon to Scotland with historian husband Frank when she suddenly finds herself transported to the 1740s in the same location.  Those are the days of Highlander clans, English redcoats, and the Jacobite risings for Bonnie Prince Charlie that would culminate in the catastrophic Battle of Culloden, the last pitched battle in the British Isles.  Claire finds herself a stranger in a strange land ... and a dangerous one, in which she is a Sassenach, a foreigner, a stranger, and - yep - outlander.
She soon gets caught up in local political turmoil, for the redcoats suspect her of being a spy (for the French, perhaps?) and the Scots suspect her of being an English one.  What would you make of a stranger who suddenly appears in your lands, who has odd mannerisms and no connections? As Claire quickly finds out, she's caught between two radically different worlds.

OK, I must admit, it doesn't hurt in the slightest that the scenery is beautiful, the re-creation of that historical period is quite evocative, Caitriona Balfe as Claire offers us a heroine with brains and spunk (thank goodness for that as an anti-Anastasia Steele!), and Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser provides both a complex personality and ample testimony to just how much of a chick magnet an outlaw Scotsman in a kilt can be. 

There's a good deal of violence and some nudity, but both are pretty much nothing compared to HBO's (also wildly popular) fantasy-political epic Game of Thrones.  Still, Outlander is a cable show and not for little ones.

Couch Potato Chronicles: "Walking Dead" Season 5 Premiere Oct.12

So of course I'm busy marathoning the show on Netflix as a way to get ready.  If you've never seen it and don't mind some occasionally gory (but not too gory) zombie action horror thrills, you might give it a try yourself. Maybe one has to be in the mood.  Some days I want Pride and Prejudice, some days I want Parks and Recreation, some days I want Star Trek, some days I want Justified, some days I want Copper, some days I want Doctor Who (but less and less these days because the current season's plotlines kind of suck), and some days I want The Walking Dead.  (Look, I have to have something to watch now that Breaking Bad is over.)

Oh, sure, I would probably last about 3 seconds in an actual zombie apocalypse, and I hate the undead (though Shaun of the Dead is a hilarious movie and World War Z a far better book than flick).  Still, there's a lot to love in a show that has a Korean American pizza delivery guy turned action hero (Steven Yeun), a taciturn African American woman (Danai Gurira) who wields a mean katana (!), and a crossbow-toting, squirrel-hunting redneck who manages to steal the show even though he doesn't get all that much screen time (fan favorite Norman Reedus as Daryl).  The ostensible lead, small-town cop Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), sometimes seems almost beside the point.

The Walking Dead also refreshingly set in a place other than New York and Los Angeles: the show starts off in Atlanta and takes off into other spots in Georgia where it's filmed on location.  So check it out if you're in the mood for a zombie apocalypse, and remember: you have to stab/shoot/bash the zombies IN THE HEAD or else they'll just keep coming.  Also remember: you can never have too much ammo during a zombie invasion, so stock up!

Couch Potato Chronicles: "Sons of Anarchy"

The long-running TV saga of a California biker gang - I mean, motorcycle club - has been, despite a few flaws and occasional missteps, surprisingly compelling ... and not just because Charlie Hunnam is easy on the eyes or because the soundtrack is so darn good (the music choices are as great as Supernatural's).  The regular cast (anchored by Ron "Hellboy" Perlman and Katey "Peg Bundy" Sagal) is excellent, and the show boasts such guest stars as Peter Weller, David Hasselhoff, Jimmy Smits, Walter Goggins, and Robert Patrick.  I didn't think I would like it, but I gave it a chance, and, well, here I am six seasons later.  The season premiere of the final season is tonight.  Catch up on previous seasons on Netflix! 

Couch Potato Chronicles: Peter Dinklage Summarizes "Game of Thrones" In Under a Minute

Peter "Tyrion Lannister" Dinklage is, of course, brilliant both on and off the screen. Take a look at this summary of the entire series (alas, nobody demands trial by combat):

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LOL: Workouts for TV Marathons

I laugh, but you can bet I'm going to try this the next time I binge-watch a show on this list.  Hey, La Parisienne, up for some Supernatural?

• Do 5 pushups every time Dean refers to the Impala as his "baby."
• Do 5 situps every time Dean asks for pie.
• Do jumping jacks for the duration of every classic rock song that plays over a montage.

I should add: Do 5 lunges every time Dean says, "Son of a b*tch!"

The show has had plenty of ups and downs, but in the final analysis Jensen Ackles is still so darn pretty.  Are you going to say no to this face?

Idjits.

Couch Potato Chronicles: Stats and Arguing About TV

Lies, damned lies, and statistics!  I don't care.  I still think Breaking Bad is better than The Wire.  There. I said it.

Friday Fun Video: Simpsons International

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in" AKA the Breaking Bad marathon

FYI, AMC is right this minute running a marathon of its iconic pop culture Emmy-winning behemoth Breaking Bad.  Just when I thought I had gotten over the fact that the show had ended, this brings it all back.  What a great show.  It's streaming on Netflix too, so if you've never tried it, you've no excuse.  (Besides, no matter how awful your family holiday gathering is, at least you're not the Whites and Schraders.)  Also, either you ultimately love Jesse Pinkman, or you're wrong.

Couch Potato Chronicles: The "Breaking Bad" Finale

It's the end of this highly praised show, and I'm marking the occasion with this:

 

Couch Potato Chronicles: Libertarian "Firefly"?

Thoughts on one of my favorite TV shows ever.

Couch Potato Chronicles: "Breaking Bad" Hoopla

The much-praised TV show in a nutshell?

What [Bryan] Cranston and his utterly fearless series have allowed us to watch over the past five seasons is the complete moral disintegration of a man who thought he could dabble in drugs for the money and come away untouched. Taken as a whole, Bad is a far more convincing anti-drug screed than any educational film ever shown in our high schools.

As a prelude to last night, I went back and watched the first episode of the entire series.  It's been one heck of a ride.

Couch Potato Chronicles: Souring On "Supernatural" and "Doctor Who"

La Parisienne just sent me this link to Wil Wheaton's blog, in which he nails the reason why we've all fallen out of love with Supernatural, a TV show that used to be so much fun.  It's too bad, because Jensen Ackles is really easy on the eyes and Misha Collins is just adorable.

On a related note, we've also fallen out of love with Doctor Who.  The show was never as much fun after the departure of Rory and Amy.  Recently the BBC with great fanfare announced Peter Capaldi as the next actor who will play the renegade Time Lord, but all I could summon up in response was "meh."  It's not Capaldi's fault.  I lay the blame squarely at the feet of showrunner Steven Moffat.  The season finale was a snoozefest, and in retrospect there are other issues too, some of which are covered here.

I should add, though, that I am emphatically not in the chorus of whining Whovians who seem to think that feminism's been gut-shot and left to die because the next Doctor is a man and not a woman.  Personally I thought that there was (a) practically zero chance that a woman would be cast as the Twelfth Doctor, while (b) maybe an actor of another race would be chosen.  Can you just imagine the glory of someone like Idris Elba in that role?  (No chance of Idris himself, though - he's far too busy being a star elsewhere.)

Anyway, another thought about the show: the Doctor's supposed to be the good guy and all, but everywhere he goes, he leaves a huge body count in his wake, and not just of bad guys.  Plenty of good people end up dead or injured or traumatized, and it's really starting to bother me. (Remember when the rot started to set in?)

Couch Potato Chronicles: 101 Excellently Written TV Shows

The Writers Guild of America East has compiled a list of shows that it considers the best written in American TV history.  This is debate fodder for sure.  Besides, some shows that are critically acclaimed are rubbish (to me, anyway).  Argue away!

Couch Potato Chronicles: "Justified"

Television programming can be a fickle thing ... or maybe I'm a fickle viewer ... or both.  I've loved shows and hated shows, and sometimes they were the same shows.  (For those of you keeping track, I'm out of love with Doctor Who and Supernatural for now but hoping they get better writing.)  So what to do?  Look for something else to watch, of course, because sometimes the news is so terrible you just can't watch it anymore.  I'm not feeling too well anyway, so I'm basically passed out on the couch in front of the TV.

So!  There are actually a number of very watchable TV shows available streaming online via Netflix or Amazon Prime and such (and certainly available on physical media), so maybe I'll occasionally post a suggestion.  Right now I just want to talk about FX's Justified (2010-present), which I had heard good things about (it's been nominated for a basketful of awards and won some), but I had never made a point of sitting to see it for myself until now.  Here's what all the fuss is about, because it really is a good, often great, show.  Watch it from the start, though!

Couch Potato Chronicles: Et Tu, "Supernatural"?

It wasn't even that long ago that I said I was back.  Tonight's episode was only the fourth one of the season, and you give me something that took an hour of my life and gave nothing back.  The ultimate problem was that in an attempt to change things up, the episode marginalized the Winchesters and made them bit players in their own show. LOOK, THE WINCHESTERS ARE THE ONLY REASON TO WATCH THIS SHOW AT ALL.  I hate it when the show attempts to make someone else the protagonist for an episode.  The one that focused on the "Ghostfacers" was awful, and the only reason "Weekend at Bobby's" worked was because Bobby himself is awesome and we love him and we happily wanted to see more of his adventures after seeing him be the loyal supporting character he was since the first season.

Well, tonight's episode "Bitten" marginalized Sam and Dean in order to give a group of annoying morons the spotlight, and I frankly hated every single one of them.  By the end, I was actively rooting for them to come to the predictable sticky ends that they had set up for themselves. Can we all get back to the arc with Crowley and Castiel, please? Heck, even Kevin too.  And give us Metallicar and classic rock, come on!

I am so ticked!  Hey, I haven't much time, and if I'm going to spend a precious hour of it on a guilty pleasure of a TV show, I want it to - you  know - actually provide a guilty pleasure instead of an hour of eye-roll-inducing idiocy. If I'd wanted that, I would have just watched more politics.  BLERG.