Category: TV Review

Ken Levine: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK: my review

We’ve resisted watching Netflix’s original series, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, mostly cuz, well, women’s prison stuff, you know? But Ken Levine has convinced us to give it a try, mostly cuz, hey, women’s prison. What can you do?

orange-is-the-new-blackby Ken Levine

From the first moment there was pay cable there were women-in-prison movies. It’s almost as if the delivery system was invented just for that purpose. They came on late at night and were ridiculously gratuitous. After all, since you could now show naked women on TV, why not show them naked all the time? Like reading their mail while showering.

These movies were all singularly awful, filled with sadistic lesbian prison guards and showgirls gone bad.  There was so much silicone the prison could float.  In every film the girls plotted their escape, carving guns out of soap and turning nail files into knives. Of course, where were they going to hide them since they were always naked? read article

Fall TV Comedies To Avoid Like The Plague

Every once in awhile, HuffPo comes through. We’re really starting to love on the TV critic over there:

by Maureen Ryan

this-is-not-funnyThere are a lot of bad new comedies arriving this fall, and the thought of writing separate reviews for “Dads,” “We Are Men,” “Super Fun Night,” “Welcome to the Family,” “Sean Saves the World,” “The Millers” and “The Goldbergs” made me not want to get out of bed in the morning.

So I’m going to provide short and sweet reasons why you should avoid them. Standard caveat: Some of these shows could improve. It’s about as likely that a unicorn will fly out of NBC’s headquarters and sprinkle every TV viewer in America with joy-creating pixie dust … but you never know, I guess these things could happen. read article

Kathy Fuller: What Writers Can Learn From BABY DADDY

No, this is not a joke. But it is a beautifully photoshopped promo pic.
No, this is not a joke. But it is a beautifully photoshopped promo pic.

by Kathy Fuller

I know what you’re thinking. How can writers (or people in general) learn anything of import from an ABC Family sitcom? A sitcom that’s a total rip-off of the classic (and over-rated) Three Men and a Baby? A sitcom with a premise so thin it makes a spiderweb look indestructible?

Writing instructors will tell you to study the classics. Learn from the greats. Absorb the wisdom of genius. But I’m of the mind that the mediocre and downright bad can teach you just as much, if not more, about how to write…or rather how not to write.

One caveat–personally I think this show isn’t that bad. It’s fluff entertainment, and sometimes people need that. Not every show can be Boardwalk Empire or Breaking Bad or even The Big Bang Theory. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that Baby Daddy fails on several levels including plot, conflict, and characterization. Since there’s not enough blog space to go into all its foibles, I’ll focus on characterization. read article

Joshua Hudson: FOX has Nine-Nine Problems, but This isn’t One

by Joshua Hudson

brooklyn-nine-nine-tvwriter.comMany cop shows are heavy on the drama, action, and surprise twist endings. They are also very light on the comedic elements to lighten the mood to avert from the travesties they love to portray to hook you in.

FOX’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine says it is time for a change.

Nine-Nine is the latest comedy to attempt to build a strong following on FOX’s Tuesday night schedule. Last season, none of FOX’s comedies hit – I’m including The Mindy Project in that statement even though it was picked up for a second season – so it was time to regroup. read article

Robin Reed: The Disney/Marvel Shows You Don’t Know About

DevilDinosaur-tvwriter.com
Sorry, this isn’t the version of Devil Dinosaur you’ll see in the cartoons this article discusses. Aw…

by Robin Reed

While the Marvel movies and the upcoming “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” show get the headlines, if you flip channels enough you will find that Disney has not wasted any opportunity to get a return on their investment in Marvel. These under-the-radar shows are animated and appear on Disney-owned cable channels. I knew about (and hate, for the cutesy comments by a cartoony Spidey) “Ultimate Spider-Man.”

I have also come across shows that are set in Japan and seem to be sub-contracted out to a Japanese animé studio. One featured Iron Man and another the X-Men. (I don’t know if Disney can use the X-Men in animation when another studio owns the movie rights. What the corporate relationships are behind the Japanese shows I couldn’t tell you.)

Yesterday, on an early Sunday morning cruise through the desolate wastes of cable TV, I stopped on a show I hadn’t seen before. “Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.” is the title. It has a fully talking and thinking Hulk teaming up with other iterations of himself, including Red Hulk, She-Hulk, and A-Bomb. A-Bomb, you say? It’s Rick Jones in blue armor. If you don’t know who Rick Jones is, I don’t have time to tell you. read article