by ladyfan
When NBC announced Dan Harmon’s departure from the show Community, a shock wave echoed across the Internet – at least in the households of the shows’ fans, many of whom, in addition to watching the show, religiously follow Harmon’s tumblr (whose entries are often geared toward them) and Twitter. There was an immediate backlash from these folks, who considered Harmon synonymous with the show’s success – and it revealed an interesting trend that’s emerging in TV culture right now.
…Well, kinda. You’ll see:
Missing My So-Called Life? Check out MTV’s Awkward! – by An Nicholson
Jenna Hamilton is Angela Chase reborn. “Awkward.” embodies every single thing I loved about “My So-Called Life” and other ’90s teen dramas. Pretty boy Jordan Catalano? Check. Wacky minority friend? Check! Slutty female friend? Check. Check. Check!
Another review of a recent CW series. Uh, 2007 is recent…if you’ve been in a coma since, say, 2008.
BY ANTHONY MEDINA
**This episode originally aired in October 2007. If you are unfamiliar with the series, be aware this review contains spoilers.**
by ladyfan
As the media salivates over the ucoming season 7 of Doctor Who, lauding Steven Moffat’s work on both it and Sherlock, thereseems to be a good deal of jumping over the four seasons that actually brought Doctor Who back to life. Yes, we speak (reverentially) of what will surely in the future be known as the Russell T. Davies Dynasty (for you non Who-vians, the RTD Dynasty = Season 1-4 of new Who). Although Moffat was a freelancer on the show before his upgrade to showrunner, the voice and tone of the first four seasons is unquestionably Davies’.
The excellent and painfully truthful book about TV writing he’s co-written with Benjamin Cook reveals just how involved Davies was in the episode-to-episode process of the show – and while we wonder about how he was ever able to sleep (ever) we admire the unity of tone and carefully crafted subtle plot arcs that span from season to season each year. Bad Wolf? Torchwood? Harry Saxon? There is always a little extra credit for paying attention to the details (and if you’re an extra super nerd, like we are, watching the episode that fourth or fifth time illuminated that one reference we missed the first four times. It did! And it was worth it!)
We have a new hero. His name is Daniel Fienberg, and he writes like an angel over on HitFix.Com. Over the summer, Mr. Fienberg has been discussing his take (“This is *not* a review. Pilots change….”) on the pilots he’s seen for this Fall’s new shows. We’re going to try and play catch-up with his work. Hope you like what DF says and how he says it as much as we do.
Take Me To The Pilots ’12: NBC’S REVOLUTION – by Daniel Fienberg