Reviews
I originally decided to skip this one, but I was bored and watched an episode. It is surprisingly good. Linda Lavin is the perfect New York Jewish mother, and the older brother (was in the Perfect Couples series a few years ago) is very funny as well. The comedy writting is good with a dozen plus funny bits per episode. You think its going to get old, but I've watched the first eight episodes, and its probably my favorite comedy show at the moment. The doorman and his sidekick are funny as well. Its almost like Seinfeld if his mom and dad lived next door, and Elaine lived across the hall. Almost.
One word: Strange. Its a little bit like The Secret Circle. A group of friends (kids) are coming of age, and they are all the kids of parants who are in some weird cult. The kids start finding out that they somehow have superpowers, and that their parants are not normal either. Its unclear form the three episode teaser what the origin of the powers are or where the plot is going. Its certainly intriguing. Definitely not your typical WHAAAM POOOOW superhero show. Oh, and there is a dinosaur... of course.
EDIT: I decided to stop watching after the 5th episode. Its a decent show, but the "super powers" are so random and contrived it makes it hard to buy into the fantasy world. Did I mention the girl who talks to dinosaurs? Or the girl who shoots rainbows from her hands? Or the boy who turns into a giant bird? Or the girl who can see through walls? Or the girl who is a witch with a magic wand? Or the boy who doesn't like math but builds gloves 'Macgyver-style' out of plastic parts that somehow defy all known laws of physics and shoot blasts of energy? etc...
[I made a couple of those up, can you tell which ones? Bet you can't unless you watched the show. That's what I mean by random powers. You could make up anything and it would fit right in.]
I think the depiction of religious people killing kids to drain their life energy is an accurate descripton of religions, however, I'm just not that into killing poor black kids so that rich white people can be reserected indefintiely.
This review contains spoilers. Click the text to reveal.
The first episode is very good. The nostalgia aspects of the Tonight Show were folded into the live shots seamlessly. I'm old enough that I remember Johnny being a real American icon, he was like The Beatles of talkshow hosts. If you didn't live through that time then the show probably won't connect as well, but its still a good show. The naivete of the rube from Nebraska is done well and his exposure(literally) to the den of iniquity that was and is Hollywood is probably the correct level of culture shock that a lot of people were experiencing around this time. Its hard to understand now how isolated everyone was then, even if you lived 50 miles from a large city, you might as well have lived on Mars as far as cultural education. George Carlin is one of the guests on the real Tonight Show that they use as the backdrop to the live action in this first episode. Did Johnny just say cunnilingus?
EDIT: I finished the season. Its a fairly standard show format for the first 4 episodes, but then 5 through 7 get a little rocky. They use a skipping ahead narrative technique that is ok, but it comes off like the writers were told to cut a few episodes and therefore they hacked out bits that had made it a continuous time flow. Its still a decent 7 episodes arc, better than most shows, but the first few episodes were definitely better so I took off a star.
They could pick up for another season, but I don't see the point, they told the story they set out to tell and most of the plot lines wrapped up at the end or were left with some sense of closure soon to come.
I couldn't make it through 5 minutes... its a spanish novella, melodramatic for no apparant reason. The costumes were nice though. Highly anti-misogynistic, which is interesting, but again overly dramatic for no reason.
The show pokes fun at itself in the first episode, making the obvious references to The Last Starfighter and Quantum Leap... though I think referencing Back to the Future would have been more appropriate. The show walks the line between being juvenile (there is a masterbation scene in the first episode) and trying to depart a moral message straight from the politically correct media (black people are repressed and killing people is wrong). But it is occassionally funny, and the back in time (though this is physically impossible) references are rife for the taking. Its kind of surprising there are not more shows like this riffing off Back to The Future. I could see this going for 2 or 3 seasons, though I think I will probably drop it after this first one season assuming I make it all the way through. It could get even dumber.
Alternative: Just watch The Last Starfighter. Its a very good movie that had amazing graphics for 1984. It still holds up.
I recommend only watching the first and second seasons and then stopping. They get into a kind of false drama from there on that I personally find insulting. Its like the writers run out of ideas and resort to writing a soap opera... drama without any substance.
Episode 1: The opening will throw you... stay with it... its very Sarah. Quite a unique show.
I dropped it after the second episode, while I appriciate what Sarah is doing, she may be one of the nicest most mature people on the planet, that doesn't mean I want to watch it. The interviews with the obese uneducated hicks (I mean typical Amerikans) verges on disturbing. You can really see how the moron in the White House got elected.
An amazing series. Following a group of people over decades through their life and work during the computer revolution while jumping years ahead with each season to get to the good parts. More shows should adopt this type of plot format. Sure, there were some boring parts and it gets bogged down in the minutia of self indulgent characters at times... but aren't we all self indulgent characters in our own plays?
I watched the first two episodes but have decided to drop it. Its a decent show and the lead actor does a great job acting autistic, but the plot is based on a very young man who never, NEVER, would have a job in a hospital no matter how idiot savantly he solved medical issues. The Holier Than Thou attitude is so thick you are waiting for the other characters to slap the kid in the face.
I watched this as a kid. Its probably hard for people to appreciate it now, but the couple decades after WWII were ripe for this kind of humorous germany bashing comedy. I liked The Great Escape and this is kind of like a campy version of that. It was kind of monotonous though. I'm sure if I watched it again now I would lower my opinion, but it was a very funny show at the time.