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.

 

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….

 

Enterprise had very few scary episodes from what I could see. So it made sense to discuss the one episode that is sort of infamous for what they do. I didn’t remember this episode very much so I was interested in seeing just how good it is. Let’s take a look:

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 :

 

Voyager has several contenders, like Twisted which was just lame and The Thaw which I already discussed. Darkling was another one but I hardly remember it, it’s sort of a Jekyl and Hyde story involving the Doctor. I decided this episode was better to discuss. This episode, much like the one last time, was another homage of horror tropes. This time an old fashioned ghost story. But since it’s Voyager, it’s not quite as good.

 

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:

There weren’t to many DS9 episodes to pick from. I covered Distant Voices already. And Whispers barely makes it as a scary episode. This episode is perfect, it’s basically a homage to classic horror movies. And being DS9, they do a fantastic job! Let’s take a look at it.

 

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:

I had a few choices from TNG, such as Conspiracy which was scary at the time but is more silly today. There was also Genesis and Identity Crisis, but I already covered them. Schisms and Frame of Mind are hard one’s to talk about, being closer to Twilight Zone than horror. Though you could argue Schisms is the idea in this episode realized a lot better, the ending is a bit more satisfying but not entirely. I finally decided that this is as close as TNG would come to a genuine scary episode…which makes it more tragic that the episode basically fails. Lets to a closer look at it.

 

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 :

 

As I noted, I already did Catspaw. I also already covered The Man Trap, and no other Original Series episode come closer to being scary than this one. So what makes it scary? How about Jack the Ripper meets Star Trek!

 

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.