Spectacular Spider-Man

The Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series

TV Show Review

Good ol’ Spidey has been on the tube more than once before with mostly positive results. The classic series, Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and the 90s version all hold fond memories for me, and probably a lot of other people too. The live action series and that weird, motion capture, creepy looking, MTV cartoon on the other hand were less successful. And that's not even getting into the really odd and really bad stuff out there. But, overall, he's had a pretty good run of it, and with the success of the movies it makes sense to launch a new cartoon now. The question then has to be: which version of Spider-Man is this? Will it follow the continuity of the comic books (And if so, will it be the regular Marvel universe or the Ultimate one?) the movies, or something entirely new? Personally, I’m not one of those purists who complain whenever anything deviates from how it happened in the comics. All that matters is that they do something good and interesting.

That being said, I was actually pretty pleased to see that the creators chose to follow the comics. With a series, you have a little more time to maneuver, so some of the plot points that had to be excised from the story in order to keep the movies from reaching ridiculous runtimes can be put back in. This includes Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn as friends of Peter’s, as well as the old-school (and now new-school) web-shooters as opposed to the organic versions. It also means that Norman and Harry Osborn look more like their comic versions, which was especially nice to see. The first episode picks up with Spider-Man at the end of his initial summer in costume fighting run-of-the-mill criminals and relates his first encounter with an actual super-villain. Skipping the origin story was probably a good idea since anyone interested enough to watch the show is pretty likely to already know how he got his powers. There were a lot of indications as to what villains may be coming up in this episode as well. Perhaps too many, to be honest. Within thirty minutes we were introduced to the Green Goblin, Sandman, Hammerhead, the Enforcers, the Lizard, Venom, and the Vulture, or at least the characters that will eventually become them. That’s an awful lot for one short story and it felt a bit cramped, but by the second episode they had fallen back on the tried and true villain-of-the-week formula and everything seemed to have settled down.

Overall, I rather enjoyed these two episodes once the generally awful theme song was over (it's not catchy until the very end and is just a little too hipster for me). The redesigns for the Vulture and the Enforcers were nice, while Electro was all right (his weird energy tubes are unnecessary and look like someone was trying to pimp their super-villain). The animation is surprisingly active and fluid in an age obsessed with aping the anime style, and for the most part the character designs were very clean-cut and looked good. The one, very unfortunate, exception to this being Peter Parker himself. In a cartoon featuring a few characters with large, lifeless eyes, his were the most lifeless, and the weird notch in his nose was distracting throughout the show. Pretty much every other character in the show looked fine, and the friendly, rounded design they made for Spider-Man works really well, even if his web-swinging occasionally makes no sense with regards to movement through a three dimensional space. There may have been no mention of Peter ever running out of web fluid (leaving one to wonder why they bothered to confuse a whole generation of kids who are trying to figure out what those weird bracelets Peter’s wearing are all about), and I’m not sure what they plan to do with Gwen Stacy (meaning they can’t kill her on a kid’s show, so why not just put Mary Jane in there instead?) but as a long-time fan of the comics I appreciate these points and am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after this debut. The show will be written in arcs of four episodes each, with just a small amount of continuity connecting them, allowing for certain villains to be built up over time instead of simply given the single episode treatment. All in all, the whole thing is pretty promising.

But seriously, Eddie Brock as a friend of Peter’s? That’s totally not what happened in the comic books.

Suitable for kids?: Absolutely. Good wholesome fun for the whole family.

Rating: 4/5

Knight Rider

Knight Rider (2008)

TV Review

Damn you Battlestar Galactica! For years it was pretty well understood that remaking an old TV show was just going to produce garbage. Sure, there were a couple of success stories, but for the most part trying to recapture the magic by bringing back an old favorite was just a disaster.

Then, to the shock of pretty well everyone everywhere, the new Battlestar Galactica show turned out to be good. Really good. And the eyebrows of television executives everywhere shot straight up. Why, just thinking about all the other old shows they could bring back probably sent some of them home with a new-found spring in their step. There isn’t a need to come up with a concept or to figure out how to promote the show and let people know what it’s about. Because everyone already knows what it is! It’s brilliant! Or… it would be if the shows were any good.

The new Knight Rider is just the latest in a string of programs proving that, whatever it was the minds behind BSG did, it isn’t easy to duplicate. The first five minutes of the premiere two-hour event (something that usually translates into “a little too much to squeeze into one hour, and not nearly enough to stretch out to two hours, but watch us do it anyhow”) show some promise. There’s some action, some interrogation, and the car is awesome. Then the credits come along and things just head downhill for an hour and fifty-five more minutes. It's not just that the show is clichéd, it's that it's full of old clichés. Some villains want to get something that will start a war and make them money. There’s the hero and the girl. She’s the beautiful and brilliant daughter of a scientist. They dated, but, you know, they're from different worlds. He never called. But now, hey, they're together again and that 60 second conversation pretty well worked out all the problems they had, so let's all work together and have a will they/won’t they thing until this gets mercifully canceled. Also, there was some fast driving.

And, that’s pretty much whatnow and that 60 second conversation pretty well worked out all the problems we had, so let's wor part trying to bring you got out of the whole two hours. Now they can set up the villain of the week format and get down to the business of doing exactly what the old Knight Rider did but with a less charming lead and much better shows to compare it to. Is it possible for a show to have jumped the shark years before it even begins airing? At the end of the movie when David Hasselhoff made his brief appearance, it didn’t leave me thinking, “Yes! What an awesome way to end this!” but rather, “Now, that’s the show I'd rather be watching.”

Suitable for kids?: Yeah, from about age 10 and up. There’s not enough sexual innuendo or tension to be an issue (or to be interesting), and very little violence.

Rating: 2/5

Welcome to the Captain

Welcome to the Captain
CBS, Mondays at 8:30 EST

TV Show Review

Raquel Welch still looks great, and Jeffrey Tambor always brings charm and great timing to whatever he works on.

And, yep, I think that’s all of the nice stuff I have to say about the new sitcom, Welcome to the Captain. Maybe if the whole show were about Welch and Tambor's characters it would be enjoyable, but it isn't. He's in it only intermittently, and she makes two very small appearances that left me with the impression she might not even be featured in every episode. Instead, the show focuses on Josh Flug, played by Fran Kranz who you'll recognize from... Oh yeah, nowhere. It's nice to see that one guy from American Pie who never did anything else finally getting more work as the buddy who convinces Flug (Is that name supposed to be funny?) to stay in L.A. instead of returning to New York. I guess. And apparently the hopeful future love interest is also on Reba, so you just know she can bring the funny.

Ahem.

When I saw this show was starting up now, I wondered if it had been sitting around since before the writers’ strike started, or if it were simply not written by writers. After watching it, I’m guessing it was written by a couple of unpaid interns circa 1998. Like I said, Tambor is always good when he has something to work with. But here his funniest line is, after mentioning that he used to write for Three’s Company, saying, “Yeah, yeah, I was a writer on T-CO.” Ha. He called Three’s Company “T-CO”. That's a... good one? Oh, and the guy working the front desk of the apartment building is named Jesus, but he pronounces it like the son of God instead of the way you would normally expect a Hispanic person to. Kind of like in The Big Lebowski except without all of the stuff that made that funny. Oh, and we already have The Big Lebowski. So this is like someone saying, "You like Turkey and mayo sandwiches? Well, I made one with just mayo! Isn't that great?" No. at funny. Oh, and we alreqd that made that funny. sonf to write for g around since before the wirter'No, it isn’t.

I don’t know what else to say. This show isn’t funny. Ever. And there’s not even the promise of future funny. Some people might say that it’s unfair to judge the show based solely on the pilot, but honestly that’s how the networks do it and there are plenty of shows whose first episodes weren't that funny, but at least showed how the series could be funny. This one just makes me want to watch something else.

Suitable for kids: Not really. Too much sexual innuendo. That being said, it’s not really suitable for human consumption at all.

Rating: 1/5