What's To Watch? - Oct 6-12 - Many Returns

 

    For the past four years I was part of a group blogging page, The Consortium of Seven, where each of us had one day of the week to post, generally on a given field or some grouping. I started broadly with movies and television, and over time started to mostly narrow it to streaming entertainment, though it would still shift off to something still in theaters or some other reminiscence from time to time. I did that every Friday from September 19, 2019 until this past Friday, September 29, 2023. It wasn't always (often?) prime reading, but it was a schedule, and even through some bad, tense times, I managed to get something up each week. It was good for keeping my hand in.
    In reviving my own blog, I'm going to aim to continue something of that sort each Friday. Now, though, I won't just be limited to Friday for such things, should I want to post something about some movie or show at a more timely moment... and I can also post about anything else on Friday, too.

     While I pointedly aim to convey exactly where I found any of the shows or movies I mention in these posts, long-time (since 1989) comics fandom buddy Chris Miller pointed out JustWatch.com as a free to all, fairly comprehensive place to pin down where a show or movie is currently available. It saves you the time of individually checking each of the streaming services you may have. I haven't gone the extra step of registering with them so far, but if one does and there's something that's not currently available, you can tag it so that if that status changes the site will contact you with the update.

     As mentioned last week, this will will have brought us the starts of season three of Chucky (Syfy and Peacock), and season two of Loki (Disney+), along with the latest episode of Gen V (Amazon Prime.) I'm 5/6 of the way through a rewatch of season one of Loki, and will almost certainly get to the season two episode that landed Thursday night sometime today. This week's Gen V will likely be close behind. I suspect I'm going to let Chucky build up some episodes before I step back into that.
     I also have this week's Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+) to get to.

     Returning yesterday for the start of a second season over on Max is the oh-so-loosely-suggested-by-history pirate comedy series Our Flag Means Death. Starring Rhys Darby as self-styled Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet, and Taika Waititi as infamous pirate Edward Teach/Blackbeard, I ended up greatly enjoying the first season, though it really took the first four episodes to lock it in. There was a great deal of establishing material and character introductions, and it really took getting the two leads together to make it spark. Much as with the first season, they dropped the first three episodes of this second season up front, and then will be adding two each week. Here's the second season trailer.

     Arriving today on Amazon Prime is a horror comedy movie with a time travel twist Totally Killer (2023 R 106m)

     It stars Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper in Mad Men and Sabrina Spellman in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) a 2023 teen who finds herself tossed back to 1987, where she teams up with her future mom, also a teen at the time, to solve slasher murders and try to get back to her own time.

    Over on Paramount+ today is a prequel horror film set in 1969, set fifty years before the events of 2019's version of Pet Sematary. So, Jud Crandall's backstory - and that of the town and the affects of the cursed burial ground - are the aims if Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023 R 84m)

     The early reviews aren't encouraging, and I wasn't even immediately sure I watched the 2019 film, though I recalled it had several, distinct differences from the 1989 version. I see that, as one would expect they'd want, the 2019 version's also on Paramount+. (The '89 version's over on Max.)

     This upcoming Tuesday, the 10th, something that had been hung up in legal limbo for many years will finally be happening. The series Moonlighting will be arriving on Hulu. The show ran for five seasons - 67 episodes - between March 3, 1985 and May 14, 1989. It starred Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis as private detectives. The show rejuvenated Shepherd's career, and largely launched Willis' - which then took off sharply late in the series when he achieved movie star status with Die Hard (1988).
     The long limbo state for the show has been a combination of two things:
     The lesser has been that with only 67 episodes, when most syndication aims for around 100. The show had atypically few episodes per season for a network series of that era. The first season was only 7 episodes, and the peak season was the second, with 18.
     The bigger issue had to do with music licensing. The show used a great deal of costly music, which became economically impossible to maintain for a longer haul. Those with video copies from the original broadcasts, or who bought the DVD set from early in the 2000s, and pirates, will be the only ones to have everything intact. Fans of the series with an ear and a memory for music will likely be running into the issue again and again while watching this new, streaming release, because while they did what they could to retain as much of the music as they could, they had to replace at least some of the songs that were originally included for background ambiance.
     Full disclosure: I ignored the show. I know I saw parts of an episode or two, but it wasn't anything that drew me in at the time. The leads didn't draw me in, and likely each time the show was hyped the emphasis was on the romantic tension between the characters, the tales of on-set feuds between the leads, and the music, each of which were non-starters for me, especially back then. My weary eye-roll of disinterest would have been automatic and pronounced.
     Anyway, here are the opening and closing theme sequences

     I'm sure I'll be giving it a look once it appears on Hulu. likely leaning on the detective story elements, the breaking of the fourth wall, and the many, many famous guest stars.

     Next Thursday, on Paramount+, we'll see the start of a much-anticipated sitcom revival/next chapter, as Kelsey Grammer returns in an update of Frasier. It shows us that the still-single lead has moved back to Boston and taken on a professorship. Frasier's son, Freddy, is now an adult who's turned out much more like Frasier's own father, and David Crane, Frasier's nephew (the son of Niles and Daphne) who turned out very much like his own father, Niles. So, the attempt to maintain some of the inter-character dynamics is, very understandably, there. I'm sincerely hoping it's worked out well, and am rooting for this to succeed.
     The main cast is all new, though we know that both his ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) and former co-worker Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) guest-star, and they were being secretive enough during production of the series that I wouldn't be surprised by other guest stars.
     The first two episodes arrive October 12th

     One final reminder about the 12th: Over on Max, we'll start to get the final six episodes of Doom Patrol.

      That's all for the moment. I may add more later in the day if I should recall or come across something else... or simply make a new post of it. It's my blog, so I don't have to keep this locked into a single, Friday post. - Mike