Friday, October 30, 2015

The Beast Who Bit Richelle Verlaine: A Werewolf Western

You don't usually hear about a woman getting so enraged she sees red but I've done it.  In tenth grade I had a real bad day.  I missed the bus, got to class late, got a detention scheduled for it, there was a hair in my lunch so I went hungry and it didn't help that, according to Mom, I came out ornery and I'll be ornery when they put me in the ground.  Then Lisa Chandler called me a "cunt" just for bumping into her in the hallway when she was standing still.  Red.  I slammed her head into the wall.  She fell onto her stomach and I climbed on top of her.  Red.  I grabbed a fistful of  her hair and pulled up, ready to put a crack in the tile.  Another misconception is that when you see red you lose all control.  Really you just lose most control.  Still red.  I let go of her head and hoped gravity would hurt her at least a little.  I punched her shoulder blades three times before someone's hands got under my pits and pulled me off her.  I punched the air a few times and poor Mr. Meadows took an elbow to the chin.  Full damn rainbow.  I apologized to Mr. Meadows not quite as profusely as I should have and then I took a totally voluntary brief vacation from school on account of my "exhaustion."

Speaking of myths and misconceptions, you might be interested to know that werewolves exist.  I can prove it but your better off just taking my word for it.  Even if you don't, it wouldn't hurt to stay in and lock your doors extra tight on nights with a full moon.  One night is all it takes, but obviously you can't know what night it's going to be until it's too late.  After that you never forget the date and you can go out any night you want without much fear of danger.  My date was Thursday, March 8, 2012.  After work I drove into the city to run some errands.  On the drive home I got a flat tire.  I hadn't seen any headlights for miles so when I got out the car I stood in the middle of the road, took a deep breath and stared into the clear night sky to calm my nerves.  The moon wasn't especially bright, but I've never seen a dull full moon, certainly not recently.  I looked into a cluster of stars until I felt it look back then I went on to the next.  Eventually I felt calm enough to change the tire without getting frustrated and introducing the tire iron to my good friend and only mode of transportation.  I got the jack out of the trunk then moved to the back left tire.


When my foot hit the grass I started to think about where I was.  Alone in the middle of nowhere.  Nothing between me and the wall of trees mortared with black void.  I told myself there was nothing out there.  I put one knee on the ground and my phone next to it with the light pointing up then got to work on the tire.  Something snapped.  It was nothing.  If there was I sure wasn't fool enough to go towards it.  If I just looked to see that there was nothing there I could relax.  It would be easier to change the tire if my hands weren't shaking.  I picked up my phone and pointed it at the woods.  Nothing.  I turned back and put my phone down.  The wolf growled.  I turned around and saw it, eyes alive with darkness, breath leaving its snout like steam from an engine, moonlight flowing into the white spots of its fur like a stream joining the river.  A heartbeat later its jaw was clasped around my shoulder.

I woke up in the hospital the next morning.  The nurse told me someone drove up and scared the wolf away then called 911.  She stayed long enough to make sure I would live then left.  I asked if I could get her information to thank her but the hospital couldn't give it to me for privacy reasons.  Fair enough.  All they could tell me was her name.  Amy Grace.  Usually that's enough to track down everything from a person's favorite movie to their preferred brand of undergarment but not Amy Grace.  Her Facebook is little more than a picture.  I called my boss to tell him I was going to be out for a few days.  The hospital already called my parents.  I reached them just in time to stop them from wasting money on a plane ticket.  The last thing any of us needs is for them to work themselves up about me.  That afternoon Amy Grace came back.

"I'm glad you're doing better.  I couldn't stop thinking about you.  You were... you looked so... I just couldn't get you out of my mind.  But you look better already," she said.  She smiled but seemed afraid that she hurt my feelings, like I didn't know that I looked like I just survived a wolf attack.

"Thank you," was all I could say.  She just smiled again then turned to leave.  "Please stay.  You saved my life.  I have to thank you at least a few more times."  She stayed under the condition that I didn't say "thank you" again.  We talked for hours.  Before she left we exchanged information so I could let her know I was doing okay and keep her mind at ease.  She didn't say I couldn't text her a few dozen "thank you"'s.  I stayed in the hospital for a week recovering from deep cuts and broken bones.  Three weeks went by like normal.  Black.

I woke up naked in the middle of the woods next to a deer carcass.  All of my half-healed scars from a month before were gone.  According to the local news and my own guesstimation I was less than a mile from a human carcass.  It didn't prove anything.  Still, I had seen enough movies to have some idea what was happening, hard as it was to believe.  At home I started researching werewolves.  It was mostly the same stuff everyone knows.  Other theories were obviously just made up.  Some things just felt true.  Apparently the transformation comes with a certain kind of supernatural self-awareness.  The good stuff only kicked in after the first transition.  On the hike home I had felt more thorns than I could count dig into my skin but they all healed before even a drop of blood could spill.  I was more vulnerable as a wolf but there are only so many dangers to a wolf.  A silver bullet could kill me in any form.  There was a way to get rid of the wolf.  I had to kill the one who gave it to me but only under the full moon.

I kept my ear to the ground for any strange occurrences, animal attacks, or business trips once a month.  I was talking with Amy almost everyday.  In July she told me about Miranda at work who everyone says is bipolar because she freaks out every few weeks.  On August 2 I followed Miranda into the woods.  At dusk she started taking her clothes off, folding them neatly even though she clearly chose them because they could be spared if she didn't get them off before the change.

"Who are you?  What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm like you."

"Like me?  Did you do this to me?"

"No.  Did you do it to me."

"No.  I don't think so."

She was telling the truth.  The wolf was still in me the next day.  There's no telling how many people Miranda hurt over the past year.  Two months later I found out Jason didn't do it either.  In November it was Ben.  In December it was Pete.  January, Max.  April, Mary.  In May Mitchell made plans to be with his family all night.  I think Mary changed him.  In July I met Steven.  When I caught up to him he was locking on a metal collar tied to a tree with a thick chain.  It looked huge around his skinny neck and under his thinning hair.  About thirty yards away I could see his over sized suit hanging from a branch.

"Say the word and I'll run in the other direction even if it was you that turned me," I told him.

"You would know if it was me."  It felt true.  I stepped back.

"Stay," he said.

On months when I wasn't hunting I used his collar and chain on myself.  I hunted Kasey, Logan, James, Julia, and Roger.  Amy started to notice my lunar absences.  I figured she deserved nothing less than the truth.  She took it about as well as expected.  I hunted Chris and Louise.  Word got to me about a rich business man who drove into the country once a month for "stress relief."  He happened to show up at the first of a very few gas stations between the city and the town.  It was him.  I knew it.  I had to see Amy.

"You don't have to believe everything, just trust me when I say after tonight it will all be over.  I found him.  It's almost over," I said.

"What do you mean?  You're going to..."

"End it.  Everything will be over."

"What if he..."

"He won't," I hope she never cries again, "but one way or another it all ends tonight." I squeezed the two silver bullets in my pocket; one was for Thomas.

I went to Thomas' country house and waited.  He led me into the woods.  When he stopped to take off his clothes I stopped too.  I cut one last message into a tree and left the gun there where I could find it in case we both survived in the morning.

Thank You
"What are you doing here?"

"You made me like you.  Now I'm undoing it and all the others you've made."

"I suppose I can't blame you and I can't stop you from trying, but I'll certainly try to kill you first."

The change started.  Black.  No control.  Only tooth and claw and him and Amy Grace.  I bit his throat.  He clawed my shoulder.  He bit my leg.  I scratched his face.  He scratched mine.  I scratched again.  He bit my throat.  Bite, scratch, bite, bite.  She pulled the trigger.  He was gone.  Still black.  I went towards the noise, towards Amy Grace.  Please, fire again.  I can't stop.  Please.  You have to shoot me.  Fucking Technicolor.  The wolf was gone.

"You saved me again."

"You're welcome," she said.

The wounds weren't healing.  I collapsed in her arms.  She called 911.  We rode that ambulance into the sunrise as survivors of another wild animal attack.

Friday, October 23, 2015

On The Sunny Side of The Sequel

Not long ago I had a conversation with an acquaintance about movies.  I hadn't seen Jurassic World yet and she said it was inferior to the original Jurassic Park but superior to the two sequels that followed it.  I said that made sense based on what I'd heard about it and what I had seen of the original trilogy.  She said, "Of course, the rule of sequels.  They're almost always worse."  I didn't say it at the time, but I realized the old rule doesn't really apply anymore.

Sequels have always been a major part of the film industry but now more so than ever.  In 2014 six of the ten best performing movies in the U.S. were sequels, prequels or spin-offs which is what we'll call Guardians of the Galaxy.  Just look at the list.

  1. American Sniper
  2. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
  3. Guardians of the Galaxy
  4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
  5. The Lego Movie
  6. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
  7. Transformers: Age of Extinction
  8. Maleficent
  9. X-Men: Days of Future Past
  10. Big Hero 6

Half of those titles have colons in them.  One even has a hyphen that effectively serves as a second colon.  If we consider the live-action Marvel movies as part of the same franchise, Guardians, Captain America, The Hobbit, X-Men and Transformers are all the fourth or higher entry.  We've reached a point in cinematic history where the rules of trilogies don't apply anymore.  Instead of abandoning a series after one or two failures studios keep making sequels until something sticks, AKA The Bond Method.

Maybe the method works but...
Shia LaBeouf is no one's 007.
That sounds bad and favoring old franchises over fresh new ideas is definitely a problem but you can't argue with the results.  Some of the best blockbuster movies in recent years have been the fourth installment or higher.  Just this summer the fourth Mad Max movie and the first since 1985 was praised like it was the second coming.  It has a well earned score of 97% on the rating site Rotten Tomatoes.  That's higher than Schindler's List.

I think we all know what made the difference.
Of course, all of the Mad Max movies have pretty impressive scores, all "Certified Fresh."  The Fast and The Furious franchise on the other hand was for years seen as the epitome of low-brow trash.  The first one got a 53% in 2001 and it only got worse from there until Fast Five shot up to a respectable 78%, the next one a 69% and the most recent Furious 7 pulled off an 81%.  Similarly Mission: Impossible was seen as a poor man's Bond or Bourne until 2011's Ghost Protocol and 2015's Rogue Nation, which both earned a 91%, over 20 higher than any of the previous three.  It's not quite as extreme of a U-turn as Fast and Furious but still impressive.

Maybe the first indication that sequels could start to outperform their predecessors was the rise of the superhero genre.  Because the first in a superhero series is usually a familiar and formulaic origin story, the second movie is where things can really take off.  Arguably, that's been the way since Christopher Reeve and Richard Donner basically created the superhero film genre in 1978.  At 93%, the classic Superman is just barely higher rated than Superman II at 89%.  There's certainly room for discussion there and plenty of people justifiably consider Superman II the best movie about my favorite Kryptonian.  The next great superhero series didn't arrive until 1989's Batman which has a score eight percent lower than its sequel's 80%.

The nu-metal blaring half-vampire vampire hunting Blade, which was the first financially successful Marvel movie in 1998, has a score of 54%, three points lower than Blade II.  Those low scores are probably why the narrative of the superhero renaissance often overlooks Blade and instead credits the X-Men series with kicking off the Marvel Age of movies.  2000's X-Men scored 81% and X2 scored 86%.  A couple of years later Sam Raimi's beloved Spider-Man premiered, gaining an 89% followed by Spider-Man 2, which has a 93%, is almost universally considered one of the greatest superhero films ever made, and is one of my personal favorite movies.

Oddly enough, one of the most prominent examples of a superhero sequel that's actually worse than its predecessor is Amazing Spider-Man 2.  The sequel to a reboot scored almost 20 points lower than The Amazing Spider-Man's 72%.  In a few years Spidey will be rebooted again when he joins the same Marvel Cinematic Universe as the Avengers, which is a big mixed bag of sequel quality.  2008's Iron Man, the mother of the Avengers, scored 94% but Iron Man 2 has a much lower but still respectable 72% and Iron Man 3 has 79%.  Thor starts off with a 77% and its aggressively mediocre sequel has a 66%.  2011's Captain America: The First Avenger has a 79% and the aforementioned Winter Soldier, another personal favorite and a highlight of the MCU, has a much better 89%.  The Avengers, a perfect action movie, has a 92% and the much more complicated?, let's go with complicated, Avengers: Age of Ultron has a 74%.

Yes.  Complicated.
Even after disappointments like The Dark World and Age of Ultron fans flocked to Ant-Man and will probably do the same for next year's Captain America: Civil War, myself included, because to be a fan of anything you have to be forgiving.  You can't give up on a football team after a bad season and you can't give up on a musician after one bad album.  That's why earlier this week people broke the Internet trying to buy tickets to Star Wars VII even though the overwhelming majority of those people thought the three movies that came before it were the greatest threat to humanity since a time traveler almost stepped on an single-cell organism once billions of years ago.  Still, it's worrying to think that all of this franchise loyalty makes it harder for the next Star Wars that isn't actually Star Wars to break through.  Nevertheless, you can be sure I'll watch the Rocky continuation Creed but then again I'd watch just about any movie where Michael B. Jordan punches people in the face.  There's no way I'm missing Spectre but I've seen every Bond movie since Casino Royale as long as you count sleeping through Quantum of Solace.  And I'll certainly be in theaters for The Force Awakens but I'd do the same for any movie that has Oscar Isaac and the original cast of Star Wars and lightsabers and the Millennium Falcon and Gwendoline Christie and Adam Driver and more lightsabers and is directed by J.J. Abrams.

Friday, October 16, 2015

The Music of 'Back to the Future'

We are now less than a week from October 21, 2015, the day that Doc Brown, Marty McFly, and the latter's girlfriend Jennifer Parker arrived at from the then present of 1985 in the beginning of Back to The Future Part II.  It's an exciting time to be a fan of one of the greatest movie trilogies ever.  Corporations have been trying their hardest to make our 2015 look like the fictional one, with a trailer for Jaws 19, something that miiight be a working hoverboard and a reunion of the series' stars Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd who talk about what the future looked like to them thirty years ago like they're out for coffee with Jerry Seinfeld.  However, the best part of the celebration is an excuse to watch the movies again, or perhaps in some rare cases a chance to watch them for the first time.  To experience the time travel hijinks and the flux capacitor and other serious shit.  To hear the music that made the movies what they are.


Music is an intrinsic part of Back to the Future, even more so than the typical movie.  It is present all through the fabric of the films including the plot.  Marty McFly longs to be rockstar and as the first movie opens he is playing guitar.  At the climax he finds himself on stage at his parents' high school dance.  One of the most iconic scenes of the franchise is Marty playing Chuck Berry's rock and roll anthem "Johnny B. Goode" years before it had ever been written.  Generations since are hardly aware of the song outside of the context of Marty's anachronistic performance.  While Marty is playing Berry gets a call from his cousin Marvin, the guitarist Marty replaced.  Marvin introduces Chuck to "that new sound [he's] been looking for" and it certainly is a new sound.  "Johnny B. Goode" was the perfect choice for the scene because even when it was actually created in 1958 it was far ahead of its time.  It was faster, more dense, and more exciting than anything before.  Yet at the same time it's thematically timeless.  It's the most prominent telling of the mythology of the rags-to-riches rock star which has roots in and before the 19th century work of Horatio Alger and continues to resonate in music to this day, especially in hip-hop.

Marty imbues "Johnny B. Goode" with performing styles popular in the 80's because that's what he's most familiar with.  McFly is a modern fellow and he listens to modern music.  Back to the Future is Huey Lewis and the News' greatest claim to fame.  Their first hit was "The Power of Love," created specially for the movie.  It plays during Marty's skateboard commute to school and he and his band play it in their tryout for the Battle of the Bands.  An audition that they fail because a character played by Huey Lewis himself tells them they are too loud.  Huey Lewis gets a bad rep and his songs certainly date the film, which actually makes them perfect for a time travel movie.  Nothing says 1980's like an original hit song by Huey Lewis and the News.  Then again, there's also a noticeable 50's influence in a lot of their music, specifically doo-wop.  Reputation aside, the band's sound is perfect for the lighthearted, energetic tone of BttF.

Hit singles are just the tip of the iceberg that is the music of Back to the Future.  Underneath is the fantastic original orchestral score composed by Alan Silvestri.  1985 was the beginning of Silvestri's long, illustrious career of scoring tremendous adventures, including movies as recent as the Night at the Museum trilogy, The Avengers, and The Walk.  It was also the second of many collaborations with director Robert Zemeckis, the first being Romancing the Stone, and later films including Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, and the aforementioned Walk.  Silvestri's score for Back to the Future established him at the forefront of his field, it is so grand and thrilling.  The sense of flight and wonder is perhaps surpassed only by John Williams' scores for Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and especially Superman. 

Music is just one of many threads that make up the delicate but flawless tapestry of the Back to the Future trilogy.  If one string is pulled away the whole thing would fall apart.  Without Michael J. Fox's grounded but lively performance Marty McFly would just be what a young person looked like to adults in the 1980's, all guitars and skateboards and resentment for authority.  Cast, director, writer, Huey Lewis, the News.  Every piece is irreplaceable.  That's why it has so far resisted the call of the reboot.  Because it's bigger than any one person, place or thing.  Because it's an odyssey that transcends time and defies the greed in the hearts of men.  Because Huey Lewis really does have some pretty good stuff.

Friday, October 9, 2015

The Seven Best Versions of Scooby-Doo

They say "if it ain't broke don't fix it," but they don't say much about changing a few things here or there.  When Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! first aired in 1969 it created a trend of teenagers solving mysteries with a goofy sidekick.  By sticking to a reliable formula but adapting with the times Scooby-Doo became one of the most recognizable and enduring figures in popular culture.  There have been over a dozen different versions of the Mystery Incorporated team on TV alone.  The most recent incarnation, Be Cool, Scooby-Doo, aired on Cartoon Network on Monday.  This is the kind of legacy it has to live up to.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!





In the late 60's the cartoon makers at Hanna-Barbera wanted to get away from violent superheroes to appease concerned parents so they moved towards gothic horror.  They created Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! as a home for safe adventures with running and traps instead of face punches.  Before long several elements of the show entered the zeitgeist like the traditional unmasking of the villain followed by the phrase "I would have gotten away with if it weren't for you meddling kids."  Also, the characters became cultural touchstones; Fred the leader, Daphne the pretty one, Velma the nerd, Shaggy the slacker, and Scooby the talking dog, a must-have for any friend group.

The New Scooby-Doo Movies





The follow up to Where Are You! had the same structure but with one important addition.  When the Mystery Machine broke down the gang found a celebrity to help them solve the mystery.  Among the famous faces were The Three Stooges, Phyllis Diller and Mama Cass.  Ironically, Batman and Robin proved a natural fit and appeared in two different episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies.  The team-up had enough impact that it was revisited as recently as a 2011 episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold and in 2014 the Dynamic Duo kicked off the comic book series Scooby-Doo Team Up.  Celebrity cameos became an intrinsic element of the franchise with appearances by John Cena, KISS, Harlan Ellison and Ruben Studdard.

A Pup Named Scooby-Doo





In 1988 the version of Scooby-Doo that is the farthest from the rest arrived.  As the title implies, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo follows the adventures of a much younger, more cartoonish Mystery Inc.  Instead of roaming the country the team solved mysteries in their own backyard in the town of Coolsville while defying physics in a zany Loony Tunes style.  In four seasons the show made some memorable additions to the Scooby mythos that are rarely referenced afterwards, for instance, Fred's nemesis Red Herring, who gets blamed for every crime but is never guilty.

Zombie Island





After A Pup Named Scooby-Doo the team laid low for a while.  In 1998 the series was revitalized by the direct-to-video Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.  Contrary to popular belief, Zombie Island is not the first Scooby-Doo story with monsters that are real, but it is the first to feature monsters that are a real threat.  Along with zombies, the island was inhabited by supernatural spirits, face melting voo-doo, and soul-sucking werecats, none of which were the result of masks and at least one of which was thoroughly malicious.  The following two movies, The Witch's Ghost and The Alien Invaders had a similar tone and supernatural facet, and Witch's Ghost introduced the beloved Wiccan goth rock band The Hex Girls.

What's New, Scooby-Doo?





In 2002 Scooby appeared in his first TV show since A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.  What's New Scooby-Doo? is for the most part a straightforward early-2000's adaptation of Where are You?  The gang drives around in a van pulling off masks and having a talking dog.  It was an attempt to get back to basics and a fairly successful one at that.  The biggest difference between 1969 and 2002 is one has more pop punk.  So much pop punk.  If nothing else, What's New can be remembered for having Scooby-Doo's best theme song, as performed by Simple Plan who also appeared as themselves in one episode.  There was also a fair bit of classic punk.  Whether they realize it or not, What's New, Scooby-Doo? was the first place a lot of millennials ever encountered The Ramones.

The Movie





The same year What's New, Scooby-Doo? premiered Mystery Incorporated made its first major motion picture appearance, with a CGI Scooby and the rest of the gang in live-action.  Although Scooby-Doo is famous for its formula, it's worth noting that a big component of that formula is strangeness and that's what makes the live-action Scooby-Doo so entertaining.  It's pretty bonkers.  The monsters are real again and they're stealing teenagers' souls and inhabiting their bodies.  They are led by Scrappy-Doo, Scooby's spunky nephew who was added to the franchise in 1979 as a desperate attempt to boost ratings and swept under the rug in the late 80's.  Instead of a mask, Scrappy's disguise is a robot Rowan Atkinson, just one example of the excellent casting for the movie.  Fred and Daphne were played by early 00's power couple Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Geller.  Linda Cardellini made the move from freak to geek to play Velma and Matthew Lillard played Shaggy.  He was so right for the part that he's been voicing the animated version since 2010, which brings us to...

Mystery Incorporated





The last Scooby-Doo TV series before Be Cool is, with little question, the best version of Scooby-Doo possible.  Instead of just solving a different mystery each week Mystery Inc. reimagines Coolsville as a Twin Peaks-like town full of conspiracy and mysticism.  The very concept parodies the Scooby formula, serial mysteries, and gritty reboots, but like any good parody Mystery Inc. is also a fantastic version of the things it mocks.  On top of all that, it is also the most stylized version of Scooby with a visual palate reminiscent of Guillermo del Toro.  It's a smart, funny, children's cartoon with a dense mythology and beautiful animation.  I can understand a need for constant reinvention but two seasons of Mystery Inc. doesn't seem like quite enough.


Friday, October 2, 2015

Mad Men Report: More TV Reviews That Have Next to Nothing to Do with 'Mad Men'

Last Friday I reviewed and rated the new TV shows that aired that week based on their potential to take time away from me watching Mad Men on Netflix.  I enjoyed it, so I'm going to keep doing it for  premieres in the foreseeable future and making adjustments whenever there's a change in a show's rating.  Eventually I will finish Mad Men and move on to a new show on Netflix like Scandal or Farscape or Friday Night Lights, at which point the rating system will change.  Try to contain your anguish.

Quantico



It sure was nice of Quantico to put an anonymous sex scene in the first five minutes to let everyone know that these aren't just spies; they're sexy spies.  They're not like all those impotent spies running around all over the place.  Sarcasm aside, Quantico really does look like a solid drama set in the famous FBI training facility.  The show takes a page from How to Get Away With Murder in order to subvert spoiler-phobia.  We know what will happen, the mystery is in the journey.  The focus is on Alex Parrish, played by Bollywood megastar Priyanka Chopra, as she enters the FBI Academy in the past and in the present she tries to figure out which of her peers was a terrorist the whole time and clear her own name.  I'm far from the first to compare Quantico to a Shonda Rhimes show and the way I see it, until such time as Rhimes deems to give us a sexy spy show this will do just fine.

Mad Men threat level: 7/10

Brooklyn 99



The Jake and Amy romance has been a long time coming and now that it's here it works just fine.  I don't foresee any Moonlighting problems from the 99.  There'll be the typical on-again-off-again stuff but this show is so consistent it probably won't slow down for a second.  The real danger is Captain Holt's departure for the PR department.  Every episode Holt and Gina spend apart from the rest of the cast is a risk.  Admittedly, it's still a relatively small risk because every episode Holt spends sparring with his nemesis Wuntch is a boon.

Mad Men threat level: 8/10

Last Man on Earth



How a comedy about the absence of people will sustain itself for even one more episode is one of the best mysteries on TV.  The first season built an impressive cast from almost nothing then burned it to the ground with a surprising amount of literalness.  Now Phil Miller has lost the last person on his side (again, quite literally), leaving Phil and Carol alone on Earth while Phil's brother drifts alone in space.  We don't know for sure how or if they will come together but whatever happens, we probably won't see it coming.

Mad Men threat level: 8/10

Life in Pieces


This if from the first episode because the second one
doesn't have Jordan Peele so it really doesn't matter.
In its second episode the focus can shift from introductions to actually exhibiting the characters in Life in Pieces which is much to its benefit.  However, it still feels stale even with vivid performances from James Brolin and Dianne Wiest.

Mad Men threat level: 3/10.  Down from 4/10.

Blindspot



As with any good serial mystery, the more that is exposed the more questions arise.  In the second episode of Blindspot the enigma is a little less about Jane Doe and a little more about the agent with his name on her back, Kurt Weller.  We learn about his family and get a hint of why his name might be on Jane's back.  However, Jane doesn't exactly disappear.  She continues to struggle with what little she knows of her past and Blindspot continues on a strong start to an enormously promising new drama.

Mad Men threat level: 8/10.  Up from 7/10.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah



The Daily Show has a long history as a kingmaker.  It launched the careers of dozens of comedy stars so it was surprising to me that so many people doubted the successor Jon Stewart anointed himself.  What makes The Daily Show great is smart writing and a trustworthy face; only one of those has really changed at all.  However, what made Jon Stewart a beloved icon was his passion and despair.  It was comforting to end the day knowing that someone so smart and dapper on the outside was just as baffled and frustrated on the inside as everyone else.  That can and probably will come with time, or maybe Noah will develop an entirely different appeal, but for the next few years at least he shouldn't count on winning every Emmy like Stewart did.

Mad Men threat level: 8/10

Grandfathered



Somehow John Stamos wasn't the first result when I Googled "aging lothario" but I don't know any other way to describe any character he has played in the past decade.  What makes this particular silver fox stand out is that he doesn't just find out he has offspring, but his offspring has offspring.  Likewise, Grandfathered is more than just a gimmick.  The writing is smart and the pace is quick.  Also, Stamos is joined by a great cast including millennial TV icon Josh Peck as Stamos' son and Paget Brewster as the baby grandmama.

Mad Men threat level: 8/10

The Grinder



I've long been impressed by Fred Savage's TV directing work but it's nice to see him back in front of the camera.  He plays an unassuming lawyer overshadowed by his charismatic brother who played a very assuming lawyer on TV.  Savage is a believable everyman and Rob Lowe is Rob Lowe, which in this case thankfully means more Parks and Rec Lowe and a continued separation from douchey early 90's Lowe.  What remains to be seen is how long the show can rely on mocking legal procedurals before the family aspect takes over completely and what kind of show it will be then.

Mad Men threat level: 7/10

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.



Going into it's third season Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the most confident it's been since it peaked in the end of season one.  The show is strongest when it has a clearly defined enemy so it was a good move to introduce a big baddie in the season opener.  It's less obvious how Constance Zimmer's mysterious Rosalind Price will fit in but she looks like she could turn out to be the most interesting sparring partner Director Coulson has ever had.  The bigger question is where Simmons is but hopefully the answer won't come with the end of Fitz as the cool customer he's become tracking her down.

Mad Men threat level: 8/10

Minority Report



I haven't read the short story or seen the movie that inspired this show.  It should not feel as familiar as it does.  The dialogue is too stiff and the characters aren't interesting.  That's why I will no longer watch Minority Report.  It is no longer a threat to Mad Men but it can rest easy knowing it inspired the title of this blog post and the one before it.  Surely that will do something to ease the pain of losing one viewer and his meaningless reviews.  Farewell Minority Report.

Mad Men threat level: 0/10