Fall 2013 Television News

So it's the big week! All the networks are releasing which shows they are renewing an which are being cancelled. I thought I'd consolidate what news I could. I gathered it from a super convenient list over at the Chicago Tribune. Click the link to see the full list as I will be picking and choosing which I will be mentioning.

First off over at NBC we have Chicago Fire, Community, Grimm, Law and Order: SVU, Parks and Rec, the Voice, and SNL being renewed. No huge surprises here as these are all fairly big shows, apart from Grimm which is slowly growing a cult following. On the other hand, they canceled 30 Rock, Animal Practice, Guys With Kids, The Office, and Smash. So far I watched none of these shows apart from an occasional SNL. Grimm is really the only one I'm interested in, although I would like to give Chicago Fire a try. Series that NBC has picked up from pilots are: About a Boy, Believe, The Blacklist, Camp, Chicago PD, Crisis, Dracula, The Family Guide, Ironside, Michael J. Fox Show, Night Shift, Sean Saves the World, Undateable, Welcome to the Family, and American Dream Builders.
Out of these, The Blacklist looks to be a very interesting twist on a procedural, but I'm not sure I'll watch. Dracula, The Chicago Fire spinoff: Chicago PD, and remake of Ironside from the 60s all seem okay. All around I'm not excited about anything over at NBC, especially since they passed on The Sixth Gun pilot...

Over at ABC we have Castle, Grey's Anatomy, The Middle, Modern Family, Nashville, Once Upon a Time, and Suburgatory. I enjoy all of these except Grey's which isn't my cup of tea, and Once which tanked after season one when they wrapped up the plot that made the show interesting. I have yet to watch past episode 2 or 3 of Nashville, but it was pretty great up til then. The weirdest renewal is The Neighbors which I watched the pilot of and it had nothing to bring me back to episode 2. Canceled shows include Body of Proof, Don't Trust the B----, Happy Endings, Last Resort, Malibu Country, and Zero Hour. Of these I have watched Malibu Country since I know the prop master and Zero Hour which totally didn't hold up to the awesome sounding premise. Malibu was funny, but it didn't seem to have an audience it aimed for so not a big surprise here. The others I've had no interest in except Happy Endings which looks quite hilarious.
ABC has decided to pick up the pilots for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Mind Games, Mixology, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, and Trophy Wife. Obviously excited for SHIELD. We are in planning stages for a podcast on that, stay tuned!! Mind Games looks interesting, as does Mixology. I will probably check out the pilots for these in the fall. Once Upon a Time fell flat for me so a spinoff really doesn't appeal to me either.

CBS has renewed 2 Broke Girls, Big Bang Theory, CSI, Elementary, Hawaii Five-O, HIMYM, Mentalist, Mike and Molly, both NCIS shows, and Two and a Half Men. Can't make it through an episode of 2 Broke Girls, the jokes don't work for me and it's really obvious the actors are new to the multi camera experience as the pauses for laughter are painful. Big Bang got stale for me a few seasons ago, but I hear this season is great, HIMYM is supposedly going into its last season, which should have happened a year or 2 ago. The rest of these I don't watch but I see their appeal.
CBS has cancelled CSI: New York, Golden Boy, Partners, Rules of Engagement, and Vegas. I must say, I watched some episodes of Partners and found it to be pretty funny and had it had a stronger female lead, could have gone on much further. Shows from pilots are Crazy Ones (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Robin Williams? Okay!), Hostages, Intelligence, Mom, The Millers, Reckless, and We are Men. I've heard nothing about any of these.

Fox has renewed American Dad, Bob's Burgers, Family Guy, The Following, Glee, New Girl, Raising  Hope, and The Simpsons. I don't really care at all...
They cancelled Fringe which is bittersweet. I loved the show, but took it in a direction I wasn't a huge fan of. They also Cancelled Ben and Kate, The Mob Doctor, and Touch. None of which ever appealed to me and I was always ponderous over calling a show focused on a kid Touch. Just seemed weird.
They are picking up series from pilots: Almost Human (J.J. Abrams sci fi cop show a la Aasimov), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Dads, Enlisted, Gang Related, Murder Police, Rake, Sleepy Hollow, Surviving Jack, and Us and Them. None of these but the Abrams show sound very intriguing.

CW of course has renewed Arrow which means another season of the Rogue Arrow Podcast!! They also renewed Beauty and the Beast, The Carrie Diaries, Hart of Dixie, Nikita, Supernatural and Vampire Diaries. None of which really surprise me as they hit a huge TV watching Market with the teenage girl population. They cancelled 90210, Cult, Emily Owens MD, and Gossip Girl. Again. No stake in any of these. They picked up The 100 (After Earth with 100 juvenile lawbreakers instead of Will Smith and Son), The Originals (Vampire Diaries Spinoff), Star-Crossed (Vampire Diaries, but aliens!!!), Reign (Period piece about 15-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots), and the Tomorrow People (Kids with superpowers.) Meh.

So there's clearly a trend for spinoffs this year. It's annoying for shows like Chicago Fire and Once Upon a Time with only 1 or 2 seasons behind them. I'd rather see something new and different than to start a spinoff before they can really grow a big following... Just me. Anyways, what shows are you guys excited for? Really it boils down to SHIELD, Crazy Ones, Almost Human, and more Arrow for me!!

Weekly Pull List - 5-8-2013

And we're back! I've had a busy week. Recorded 3 podcasts and edited and posted 2 of them (still need to get Mainframe Chronicle up). Been busy with the two jobs as usual. Beat Mega Man X for the first time (a battle 20 years or so in the making). So now I'm onto Mega Man X2 as I have the Mega Man X Collection for PS2. Great game(s)!! Also saw Iron Man 3, which I liked a lot. Look for a review on that soon.

On a sadder note: news broke that the Sixth Gun Pilot was passed over by NBC. Read writer Cullen Bunn's response here. I didn't really expect it to get picked up, but was super hopeful as this could easily turn into a new Walking Dead size phenomenon. But alas...

Anyways, onto the main feature! Had a heavier week this week.

Avengers 11

I've not been impressed with this book since issue one. I was waiting for a change in style or story or something to make it better and this issue is it. Instead of feeling like exposition to an upcoming, uninteresting story, this issue was essentially a heist story. It follows a bunch of characters who I have no idea who they were as they infiltrate some place that I don't remember to find out why something happened in a previous issue (maybe?). Unfortunately the end seemed to be just set up for a new story. I'll try out issue 12 and if I'm not impressed, I'm out. Overall, decent issue. Much better than previous ones, but still not outstanding.

JLA 3

We will now jump to the big group team from DC. I think DC is handling their team books much better. We have a set roster with guest appearances instead of a pool of hundreds of people that it is ridiculous to keep track of them all. Also the story seems to be going somewhere and actually feels like it continues from month to month. I think the issue is that Marvel is trying to do a bimonthly book in Avengers so it feels rushed.
But onto the Justice League of America. This story may work better than Avengers, but it is rather cliche. It starts off where we left off: With the JLA fighting the Justice League, but surprise! it's actually robots. Since their assault didn't work, they try to infiltrate the Society of Villains or whatever they're calling themselves nowadays. They do so using a decent plot device, but of course the hot-headed Green Arrow almost ruins the plan since he's not in the know!! This confused me as I thought he was actually already part of the team, but he's apparently not... So I need to go reread the first two issues to see what I missed. Again, an enjoyable book if not at all surprising.

Sonic the Hedgehog 248

So I caught up with the Worlds Collide story where Drs. Wily and Eggman have tricked Sonic and Mega Man into fighting each other. I think the best way to describe this book is a young gamer's fantasy played out and aimed at a very young audience. In that respect it succeeds greatly. The story is predictable but it is still really cool to see. The evil doctors are sufficiently egotistical and fairly obnoxious, but it totally works for the story. Since Mega Man X and Sonic 2 were two of my absolutely favorite games growing up, I love the story. Were this not the case, I would probably not care at all.

Mega Man 25

Woo! 25th issue! In this episode Sonic and Mega Man go from fighting in Sonic's world to fighting in Mega Man's world. Eventually they start talking and realize they're on the same side. The part that's great is when the bad guys actually acknowledge this and verbalize why that's bad for them. It's amusing and again exactly what I want from these issues.

Chin Music 1

I picked this up because The owner of my LCS mentioned it was new. I saw Steve Niles was involved and he wrote the Mystery Society, one of the books that made me love comics. He also created 30 Days of Night. Everything I've read by him has been enjoyable. Not my number 1 writer by any means, but all decent at least. This book does not disappoint. It reminds me a lot of Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt's The Damned series. It looks to be a 30's gangster book with supernatural elements. I enjoy the book. Took a couple reads to follow it. Really to get into the style of story telling. Bottom line? I'm in for a few issues at least. I could me getting this book for quite a while.

Thor God of Thunder 8

I've raved quite a bit on this book here already and this one doesn't disappoint. It's not the best issue in this series, but it's great in it's set up of the (hopefully) epic fight between the three Thors (say that 5 times fast) and Gorr the god slayer. I'm interested to see how this story will go forward and really this book is worth buying for the epic final page of the Thors riding through space on a viking ship. Art is beautiful. The dialogue is subtle and has great humor in it. The time travel in the story is odd, but easy to look past as the rest of the book is awesome. Great book! All around.

Plurality scribe adapts The Sixth Gun for NBC!!

Ryan Condal is the mastermind who wrote this short film called Plurality. He is an up and coming screenwriter and I am a fan. Why is that you ask? Well just watch the movie above. Then go Here to order the Sixth Gun trade paperbacks. Yes that's right. Ryan Condal is writing the television pilot for one of the greatest comic series in the last decade! The book follows Becky Montcrief after her father gives her a present on his deathbed. What present? Why only one of a group of six mystical guns. Each gun has a special power that it yields to its owner: One gun strikes with the force of a cannon shell, one spreads flames upon its victims, one that kills the victim by spreading a flesh-rotting disease, and one that can call up the spirits of the men and women it has shot down, etc...

 

Now I'm not normally a fan of "Weird Western" tales, but this one grabbed me. I have been following it since the book started 29 issues ago and it has yet to disappoint. So let's take this premise and add in the clever brain of Condal and what do we get? I'm hoping for a beautiful pilot that leads to a long lasting series. 

The comics were created by Cullen Bunn (left) and Brian Hurtt (right). They have also collaborated on The Damned series, which is a classic 1920s noir story. With demons!!! Hurtt has worked on Queen and Country, Gotham Central, and Captain America. Hurtt has recently become a "golden boy" of marvel, recently writing several team up arcs with Captain America, the acclaimed Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, Fear Itself: The Fearless, and Wolverine. 

Needless to say, I'm excited to see my favorite comic book become a new favorite TV series (I'm optimistic). Casting wise, we have Laura Ramsey (The Ruins) playing the female lead, Becky Montcrief. Other confirmed cast members are Graham McTavish (The Hobbit, Left) as Silas Hedgepeth, Aldis Hodge (Leverage, right) as Agent Mercer, and W. Earl Brown (Deadwood, Below) as General Hume.

Brown totally looks like a badass Hume!

Edit:
The Nerdist Writers Panel just released a podcast with Ryan Condal on it. I'm super excited to listen to this one!!! Check it out here!