Category Archives: TV-G[eek]

Moonlighting S1 E4

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“The Next Murder You Hear”

Boink! Boink! Boink!

Another key moment for David and Maddie… when David used the term ‘boink’ and said that Maddie was repressed or suppressed or on of those S-words. Their outstanding banter made this series what is was.

David and Maddie get involved in a sensational case of the murder of a romance/love spurned talk show DJ that happened live on the air. No clients, but Addison believed solving this case would be a boom for business.

Maddie didn’t want to take the case and David wanted to, which was a reoccurring theme on the show. However, when Maddie started listening to the tapes of his show, she changed her tune.

This episode looked at David’s developing feeling for Maddie and he goes on a binger, talking to anyone who would listen (or wouldn’t) .

The episode ends with the typical all-out Moonlighting fight scene with David and the killer struggling on a neon light sign.

A great episode that looks at the characters more and a story that is less convoluted than normal.

The Fall of the House of Usher E3-8

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I had no intention of finishing this series today. I wanted to spread it out over the next several weeks. However, with the schedule packed with TV shows, movies and comics, and since I was really engaged in it, I just kept watching another episode as I would finish the previous one.

The titles of the series included;

Ep. 3: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”

Ep. 4: “The Black Cat”

Ep. 5: “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Ep. 6: “Goldbug”

Ep. 7: “The Pit and the Pendulum”

Ep. 8: “The Raven”

Because of these titles, I knew which of the Usher kids were doomed that episode. They were all neat adaptations of the short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe, into a new story, a new format.

There were plenty of other stories/poem incorporated into the series as we met Annabel Lee, The Cask of Amontillado was highlighted, Rufus Griswold (who wrote Poe’s scandalous obituary), The Belles (poem), among others.

Some of the allusions to Poe’s work was subtle, some was anything but. Several lines of Poe’s poetry is recited in the episodes, especially lines from Annabel Lee.

Each of the Usher kids’ deaths are fun and earned. They all take form similar to Poe’s works. It’s cool knowing some of these reference. For example, as Roderick sat in the basement staring at the brick wall, I wondered whom was bricked up in the wall. Of course that was coming. As a writer, Poe buried people in walls several times in his career.

To be honest, the finale did feel a little preachy at times. Some of the monologues delivered in the episode spoke of a lot of the political controversies of the day and it did feel somewhat out of place. The message was there without needing to bludgeon the audience over the head with it. I did find that to be a bit unnecessary.

Though, I admit that I laughed with the line about Trump when the mysterious Verna said,  “Like I said to one of my clients, when I’m done, you can stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and it won’t cost you a thing.”

The Fall of the House of Usher was great. I love Edgar Allan Poe and this had him all over the place. Greta acting. Cool kills.

Goosebumps S1 E4 & E5

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Episode 4: “Go Eat Worms”

Episode 5: “Reader Beware”

I am really digging this new Goosebumps series on Disney +. It feels so much more mature and targeted to an older audience than any of the other versions I have seen without losing that youthful appeal that the series intended.

This show has been weaving together an overarching story about Harold Biddle, what happened to him and how the parents of our group of protagonists were involved. It is telling that story while including character moments for all involved. It has been well done so far, with each episode building suspense and curiosity about what happened.

I mentioned it after episode 3, but this show is absolutely giving me Marvel’s The Runaway vibes. The Runaways discovered that their parents were actually supervillains, but I think there is more here than what we have seen so far. It is not that the parents in Goosebumps were involved in the fire that killed Harold Biddle. There is more to it and I believe that involved Mister Slappy.

Episode four was featuring Lucas and the worms he found on Halloween at the Biddle house party. I have to say, of all the actors playing the kids, Will Price, who plays Lucas, looks the oldest. He is only 23 years old, but I would have guessed 32. His older look does distract me more than the others (who are clearly all older than high school).

Episode five sees Mr. Bratt give Margot a scrapbook he said he found in his house, but it was clearly a set up from Harold Biddle to try and get the kids to help him find what the parents had taken on the night Biddle died. This episode went into more detail with the affair between Colin and Nora as Colin’s wife, Sarah, had returned form Seattle. Sarah feels like a wild card tossed into this mix. She told Nora that she believes what she has been saying, things that got Nora tossed into a mental hospital and drugged by Victoria. This episode dove deep into the mysterious story being told in this series and it was great.

I really have enjoyed watching these Goosebumps episodes so far. The next one drops on Disney + coming Friday, I believe and I will be there to see it.

American Horror Story: Delicate S12 E4

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“Vanishing Twin”

Perhaps I shouldn’t watch AHS: Delicate at breakfast time.

I was thinking that this week’s AHS was lacking… that nothing much happened… and then Anna started to eat the dead raccoon she found last episode. She had wrapped it up like a baby and took it into the basement. Already sus behavior of course.

The show confirmed that Anna was still pregnant, as she suspected, and the doctor speculated that she had lost a twin in something called ‘vanishing twin’ syndrome.

The episode began with a flashback to England and the birth of a baby by the Queen at the time. The black suited women were there and confiscated the baby, which had been called a monster by the queen.

The show couldn’t be more obvious that Anna’s baby is not normal. The correlations to Rosemary’s Baby is getting stronger with every episode.

Oh, and the whole “It’s my body” campaign Anna did to reinvigorate her image was really on the nose.

It feels as if this show needs to start picking the story up a bit soon.

The Fall of the House of Usher E1 & E2

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Episode One: “A Midnight Dreary”

Episode Two: “The Masque of the Red Death”

I started to watch episode one of The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix with the intention of not continuing after the first one. To be honest, with two rewatches (X-Files, Moonlighting) going on right now, along with multiple series (Loki, Gen V, American Horror Story, Goosebumps, Bonus Action) and the October 13, there is not a ton of time for another series. But I do love Edgar Allan Poe and so I wanted to say that I gave this new limited series on Netflix a chance.

After two episodes, I am totally hooked.

I need to find the time to watch the rest of this because it is a masterpiece.

As I mentioned, I love Edgar Allan Poe and there are so many allusions to Poe’s work that it is nearly impossible to keep up with them. I realized about half way through the second episode that they were doing the Masque of the Red Death and that the character named Prospero was even involved. I see now that the episode title is even based on the short story.

The narration of the series is Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) confessing to C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), sitting in his house, drinking a glass of the best whiskey available. Roderick is telling Dupin (who by the way is the main character in Poe’s Murder in the Rue Morgue) about the deaths of his six children over the last two weeks.

There are allusions to Poe’s work everywhere, from The Raven to Annabel Lee to The Black Cat to Gold Bug. It feels like a comic book movie with the Easter eggs they drop for the comic readers in the audience, except this is for those who read Poe. It’s just great.

And it is compelling as can be. I want to know what happened to the six kids. We have seen the end of Prospero at the end of the shocking episode two, but there are five more to go.

Then, there was Mark Hamill. He played Arthur Pym, based on the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Pym is the Usher family lawyer.

These first two episodes are just so good and I have added this to the crowded EYG schedule.

The X-Files S1 E8

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“Ice”

The X-Files meets John Carpenter’s The Thing.

This was an excellent episode. It was obviously just like The Thing, a mysterious creature (probably from space) that causes the crew of an Arctic station turn on each other and kill everyone. Mulder and Scully are among the investigative group sent in to the station to find out what happened.

There was an interesting cast in this episode including Felicity Huffman, Jeff Kober, Xander Berkeley, and Steve Hytner joined David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The interaction of the performances created an awesome paranoia. It was never apparent which of the group had been exposed to the worms that were causing the trouble.

One of the major moments of this episode was how Mulder and Scully had their first moment of conflict between them. Scully held a gun on Mulder when she was not sure if he was exposed to the worm. Mulder refused to be tested because he did not trust any of them, and Scully had pulled a gun. In the end, they were able to get past the paranoia and had each other’s back.

This was an excellent episode and quite the step up from the last one.

Goosebumps S1 E2 & E3

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E2: “The Haunted Mask”

E3: “The Cuckoo Clock of Doom”

I have really started to like this new series on Disney +.

After watching the first episode, I found it okay and planned on watching another episode to see how I feel then. After watching episodes two and three, I am in on the new Goosebumps series 100%.

I really like how the series keeps returning to the Halloween party at the Biddle house to see POV of a different kid and how three of our core group had an interaction with something magical, whether it be the camera that takes pics of future events, the mask, or the cuckoo clock of doom.

The end of episode two was a huge shock as James exploded into a green blob when struck accidentally by a pool ball. I literally held my hands out and exclaimed WTF when that happened. I did not expect that little twist to occur. That exploding James tease at the end of episode 2 led into episode three and one of the funniest episodes so far.

I also like how the kids’ parents are clearly hiding secrets and trying to forget about something. It is giving me vibes like Marvel Comics’ The Runaways, who found out their parents were all super villains. I don’t expect anything like that, but they definitely have some kind of secret they are keeping.

Then, when Mr. Bratt (who is possessed by Harold Biddle) threw a fit at the end of the episode when the remaining faux James brought him the empty case, he was clearly setting up for the arrival of Mister Slappy, the iconic ventriloquist doll from the Goosebumps past. I can’t wait for him to arrive.

There are two more Goosebumps episodes available on Disney + and then new episodes will continue to air weekly starting Friday. I want to get E4 & E5 done before the next one comes out.

Moonlighting S1 E3

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“Read the Mind…See the Movie”

Dave and Maddie investigate a psychic who they believe are selling secrets of a company that they have a security contract with to another businessman.

The story is, once again, very convoluted in the best possible Moonlighting way. As with all of the best Moonlighting episodes, the case is just an excuse to have interactions between the main leads. In this episodes, David and Maddie end up in their underwear on the roof of the psychic’s house and have to jump off into a pool of water to escape. It is an iconic scene that was replayed multiple times over the years with this episode.

As always, even though David appeared to be a blowhard, he has a sweetness, a caring for Maddie. Of course he hides his feelings behind bluster… hence the hook of the show.

There was quite a bit of action in this episode and you could really see the stuntmen that replaced Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. It was TV in the 1980s, I mean.

Goosebumps S1 E1

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“Say Cheese and Die!”

While I was on Hulu today, I came across this first episode in a new TV series based around the classic R.L. Stein book series, Goosebumps. I actually found it also on Disney + later in the day with five episodes dropped at the same time.

Watching the first episode on Hulu, it felt a little more mature of a story than other versions of Goosebumps.

According to IMDB, “A group of five high schoolers who unleash supernatural forces upon their town and must all work together thanks to and in spite of their friendships, rivalries, and pasts with each other in order to save it, learning much about their own parents’ teenage secrets in the process.“

Justin Long plays Nathan Bratt, the new owner of a local house with the reputation for being haunted. Zach Morris is Isaiah, one of the high schoolers who was involved. He was a quarterback who found a camera that could tell the future.

This does not seem to be an anthology series as it appears that the story continues through the episodes available on Disney +.

This was reasonably fun and I will give it a try as it goes on.

Gen V S1 E5

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“Welcome to the Monster Club”

Last week’s Gen V had an ending that really detracted from that episode and left me feeling, for the first time, that perhaps this was not as great of a series as it seemed. However, with this week’s offering, I feel as if the negatives were all negated and changed my opinion of the end of last week’s show.

The show goes into the world of mental powers as Marie, Andre, Jordan and Emma had been mindwiped and the reason it was such a sudden cut,

The show then played with our own perception as we believed that this was connected to Rufus, who we met last week, using his mental powers to try an rape Marie (which led to her exploding his penis). However, the twist that it was not Rufus, but instead was Kate who did the mindwiping, betraying her friends.

Why Kate why? She is a fascinating character whose backstory is clearly at issue with her. She has a background of abuse and being manipulated and Dean Indira Shetty is using her and her powers, including by manipulating the mind of Golden Boy to keep forgetting his brother.

Emma had been mindwiped to forget about Sam completely, which, when he came back, threw him off. He went to hide out and have delusions about fighting puppets and ripping them apart. Of course, they were not actual puppets and it was an awesome way to make a incredibly brutal scene in a less than R rated manner.

As I said, this was a big step back towards where this show started off and really did help to redeem last week’s seeming misstep (that wasn’t).

Moonlighting S1 E2

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“Gunfight at the So-So Corral”

The first regular length episode of the EYG Hall of Fame series Moonlighting was entitled “Gunfight at the So-So Corral” which was a typical pun that the show used as titles.

It also started the trope of the show where the cases that wind up with Dave and Maddie are not what they seem. This episode was not about a kind little old man who was searching for his estranged son, but instead one contract killer looking for another. Most of the Moonlighting cases had a twist to them.

This episode had some major iconic moments, including the “Do Wah Diddy” scene that David was trying to get Maddie ready to go inside a dive bar with the worst people. That moment that she walks into the bar and David immediately realizes that she has more than enough attitude was one of the best of the episode.

We establish more of the banter between David and Maddie as they find themselves disagreeing about just about everything and yet you can tell how much they are starting to need each other through the little moments such as David offering to wait in the car for Maddie to tell their client that his “son” was a contract killer. Of course, she did not tell him and it lead to another argument between the pair of them.

Of course, we knew already that the little old man had a background as we saw him defend himself against Tim Robbins in a hospital… in a bad ass way too as the man pulled along his IV as he fought off the killer.

In the end it was a great episode with some real emotion to it and it showed us more of the budding relationship with David and Maddie. Great start to Moonlighting on Hulu!

Loki S2 E2

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“Breaking Brad”

I think it was inevitable that episode 2 of the second season of Loki was going to be a step back because that first episode was such a monumental show that it was not reasonable to expect that near perfection again.

I still enjoyed episode two of Loki a great deal, but it definitely was a step back from last week. This week’s show featured a conclusion that felt too rushed and that lacked some stakes. Everything leading up to it though was very solid and still made for an overall enjoyable episode of television.

This week kicked off with Loki , Mobius and B-15 pursuing Hunter X-05 to the sacred timeline. They knew he had gone to try and find Sylvie but had then deserted his job as a Hunter for the TVA and became an actor. They found him at the premiere night for his big movie Zaniac. The whole scene chasing Brad Wolfe, the name X-05 was going by, was excellent and showcased Loki’s powers in a way that we have not had a chance to see in the series so far.

The acting scenes of this episode were outstanding. Brad’s brutal deliveries of truths to Loki and Mobius provided some excellent character arcs for our two main protagonists. It feels as if the whole, “You’re no hero, you’re a villain” concept is going to be a main theme for Loki this season.

Then, the scene with Loki and Mobius talking over some Key Lime Pie was simple and yet thoroughly engaging. The writing of that scene was wonderful, and it feels like they are foreshadowing things we are going to see in future episodes.

Actor Rafael Casal got some cool stuff to play as the disgruntled hunter and his interactions with Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson was gold. The scene where Loki was ‘torturing’ Brad was some intense moments and really worked well.

It was also great to see that Ke Huy Quan was back after the season opener last week. That makes me think that his character, O.B. (short for Ouroboros) is going to be a regular and not just a cameo and I will take as much O.B. as I can get. This episode, they paired him up with Casey and that led to some funny results… Casey fan-boying O.B.

The ending sequence with Dox was the weakest part of the episode, but it does feel as if they have set up the rest of the series well. With the rogue TVA agents having pruned a huge chunk of the timelines, it will be interesting to see where they go from here. Clearly where they are headed in to Victor Timely.

It was good to see Sylvie again and her choices this episode were very understandable when you think about the life that she has led, constantly being chased by the TVA and just wanting to live a free existence. She and Loki still have a ton of chemistry.

Yes, it was not as amazing of an episode as week one, but it was absolutely a fun, enjoyable watch. Was there a lot of product placement for McDonald’s? Sure. I hope McDonald’s paid Marvel Studios a pretty penny for the advertising, but stuff like that does not bother me.

I think next week is going to be epic.

Bonus Action Vol. 1- Odd Jobs 3

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This week was the third of the two character mini-campaigns splitting the six person group into twos. This week we have Jason Spina and Adam Lash. And oh was it great.

With all due respect to the other four players, this mini-adventure, called Odd Jobs 3, was an epic confrontation.

Jason was playing a character named Rory and Adam was playing Victor. They both did an excellent job of portraying these characters prior to the battle. I found myself really interested in both Rory and Victor. Their flashbacks were both fascinating and watching them play their characters was awesome.

The battle they put up was even more amazing, coming through with some unbelievable rolls. The whole creature at the end was scary dangerous and they truly took it out without too much trouble.

This was my favorite of the three Odd Jobs. I really enjoyed the first two, but I was completely engaged in the third one. I am anxious to see all six of the players starting next week.

X-Files S1 E7

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“Ghost in the Machine”

Artificial Intelligence as a bad guy is a fairly well known sci-fi trope.

This is the seventh episode of the X-Files and, in my opinion, Ghost in the Machine has been the worst of the X-Files episodes so far.

A machine designed by a genius Brad Wilczek runs a building, and the machine ends up murdering one of the partners.

Mulder is brought into the case by an old partner and friend who had been having some trouble with the Bureau. Mulder’s friend also wound up dead from the machine.

Overall I found this fairly derivative and dull. It is basically a rip off of 2001: A Space Odyssey and, honestly, not a good one. Yes, there are some good scenes between Mulder and Scully, as they are always the highlight of these episodes.

The finale of the episode was unintentionally funny at times and the actual last shot of the show was so obvious that it was almost insulting.

Not a good episode. Every series has them (especially those full season orders of 23 episodes in the old days).

Moonlighting (1985)

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One of my favorite TV shows of all time is coming to Hulu this week. October 10th will see the arrival of ABC’s Moonlighting on the streaming service and I plan on adding Moonlighting to the list of shows that I am doing a rewatch for.

However, I decided that I would kick things off tonight by doing a review of the pilot episode of Moonlighting, which was a TV movie which went for an hour and a half and gave us the story of how Dave and Maddie came to be together.

Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) awoke one day to find that all of her money and assets had been stolen from her. She did have a few businesses that were in place as tax write-offs so she was preparing to close these all down.

When she came to the detective agency that she owned, she met David Addison (Bruce Willis) and the chemistry was off the charts. He was annoying and would not accept being fired. He recognized Maddie as the Blue Moon Girl and he could see how her name and reputation could help the agency.

Maddie was not interested, but David would not give up, following her to a date she was having at a restaurant. Before they knew it, a man with a mohawk hairstyle gave Maddie a mysterious wristwatch and fell dead at her feet with a knife in his back.

With David’s manipulations, the pair found themselves involved in the case, trying to determine why this watch was worth killing for.

David and Maddie were absolutely gold together. The chemistry, the banter, the talking at the same time, it all just worked beautifully. Both had a ton of charm and they were clearly taken with one another. Yet, they were so different that the conflict between them was just palpable and drove so much story.

David was such a BS artist, but you could see that beneath it all was a heart of gold. Maddie was cold and withdrawn, but beneath that was a warm and passionate person. They made an amazing pairing and you could see how this was going to become the phenomenon that it did.

The case was good, which was not always the way with Moonlighting storylines. Many times the story was just an excuse to put Dave and Maddie into certain situations. This one had some good twists and actually highlighted some of the skills Dave and Maddie had.

There is so much good about this pilot that you can tell how it is moving forward. Moonlighting depends on Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis and they carry that charisma a long way.