October 29, 2017

Special TV-Michael Jackson’s Halloween

Well I haven’t done one of these in a very long time. But my friends, we have to talk about this one. This aired last Friday (Oct 27) and I watched it last night. Normally I would feel bad I need Wikipedia’s help with some details, but this time I really did. So here are my gut reactions after only seeing this once…..






 


I’m rushing this a bit, I admit, so forgive the lack of details. And spoilers by the way





The Plot-OK, I am going to to try to make sense of this. A young and woman cross paths on Halloween night, and the woman loses her dog. They follow him into a haunted house, and after listening to a Monkey named Bubbles (of course he’s named Bubbles) the two end up on a magical journey where they meet a scarecrow, a spider security guard. and a cat mad scientist (all three who become Michael Jackson? I missed that part) and an evil witch they all have to stop. What’s her goal? Getting ti of music and dancing. Of course it is. The thriller dance saves the day and I wont even try to talk about how the villain is defeated.  Let’s just say it was the power of love. Of course.


 


October 24, 2017

Underrated Trek:Impulse (ENT)


Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek. So we’ve had Jack the Ripper, nightmares, a horror movie and ghost stories. What could be left? How does Vulcan Zombies sound?! This is….




October 21, 2017

Underrated Trek:The Haunting of Deck Twelve (VOY)


Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of Voyager. If last time was a classic horror movie, what would an old fashioned campfire story on Star Trek look like? Let’s discuss :



October 19, 2017

Underrated Trek-Empok Nor (DS9)


Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of DS9 that is scary. But unlike last time, it is a good episode too! This is:




October 16, 2017

Underrated Trek-Night Terrors (TNG)


Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. Today we continue our special Halloween look at scary Trek with a look at an episode of Next Generation that is scary. Even if it’s also a far from perfect episode. This is:


October 12, 2017

Underrated Trek-Wolf in the Fold (TOS)


Welcome back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by most. I wanted to do something Halloween related, but I already did Catspaw. So what else can I check out? Looking at a list there are plenty of creepy Trek episodes which are perfect for the season.In fact each series has a handful. So for Halloween something a little different. Five Trek articles on scary episodes from each Trek series. I want to be clear, these are EPISODES that are creepy not just an episode that has a random creepy scene. Today we start with :

October 9, 2017

Another Look at Retcons in Sitcoms (and Trek)

Four years ago I did a short list of some of my favorite sitcom retcons. You can see that article here:
http://nostalgiarush.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-look-at-retcons-in-sitcoms.html


Retcons of course is when established continuity is disregarded or even changed to further the current story line. They often piss people off, but I find them fascinating. The way a show will so blatantly disregard something that has been established in the past like we’re supposed to forget it. Sometimes they work, let’s be honest isn’t forgetting “The Brady Bunch Variety Show” ever happened a good thing?, and other times they can be aggravating like the Everybody Loves Raymond episode that brought up the fact Ray and Debra had a maid when they were first married, a fact which was never mentioned before and make no sense in context with the series.





Here are some more I just love. Some small and others a little more problematic:




Will & Grace

Gee, I wonder what brought this idea up? Yeah Will & Grace returned to network TV the other week but there was one little problem. The show had a firm final episode which closed the book on Will & Grace’s lives. How do you get around it? Make it a dream of course! Well a drug induced one that Karen had anyway. Final episode basically never happened in fact they also retconned Grace being pregnant so basically that whole final season never happened.


This wasn’t the only retcon for Will & Grace. Besides the others I mentioned in the other article we also had Karen’s mother. Karen commented a couple time she’d had her mother committed and when we finally met her she said “she was only joking” about that. Also Jack had said he made a vow to his mother when he came out that he would never deny who he really was. Which was a lie when we find out he never told his mother he was gay in one memorable episode.

October 4, 2017

Eight Favorite Fantasy World’s From TV and Movies





I talk a lot about sci fi and comedy, but one genre I hardly touch upon is fantasy. Fantasy is awesome when done right, giving us new worlds and characters that we could never see in the real world. Some of these movies and TV shows give us amazing world’s we never forget, like Wonderland. Or Neverland. These are amazing places that we find ourselves wishing that were real places we could visit and play in. In some cases, we can. Azeroth is the magic world that World of Warcraft takes place in and of course Dungeons and Dragons has several campaign settings including Greyhawk and Khorvaire.

October 2, 2017

Five Special Effects From 80’s Movies That Seem Dated Today


With the release of the new “IT” movie that came out recently, I thought about how back in the 80’s the Tim Curry version scared the hell out of all who watched it. But looking back that movie doesn’t seems as scary with goofy acting and noticeably bad special effects. A few weeks ago I talked about special effects from Star Trek TNG that seem outdated. Including that awful shuttle sequence from Star Trek V. But there are other 80’s effects which have not aged well. And it’s not the fault of anyone who made the movie, they were great at the time, and it sure doesn’t make the movie bad now. But it’s still fun to look at these today and say “Wait, that’s not real!”