Munchman’s TV Musings #4
- Marti Noxon, an incredibly overrated writer for the even more incredibly overrated series Buffy the Vampire Slayer is turning Dietland, a novel by Sarai Walker, into a series for AMC because the world definitely needs more “coming-of-age” “revenge fantasy” storylines that mock fashion, fat, and, yeppers, skinniness too. Yer Fantastic Flying Munchman knows what this book’s all about, munchacolytes because he’s actually read the damn thing. And near broke me Kindle in the agonizing process.
- OTOH, there is a God after all, and the fact that Jennifer Lopez is going to star in a live version of Bye Bye Birdie on NBC in the deliriously welcome year of 2017 (cuz it absolutely has to be better than 2016, yeah?). What’s that? You never heard of Bye Bye Birdie? Well, it was a ’60s Broadway (and beyond, just like the bath store) musical based on how stupid small towns, teenagers, their parents, and Elvis Presley the Thin at That Time all were. It ain’t much of a show, truth be told, but holy crappoly! it has fucking Jennifer fucking Lopez playing Rosie, who captured a thousand and one ’60s geeks hearts by being mature, sexy as all hell and having only one wonderful goal in life – “to be an English teacher’s wife.” Yeah, baby!
- Moving back to derivative dark-sidedness, Netflix is unleashing a series called 3% on us even as munchola types this. This vileness masquerading as social satire is a reboot of a 2011 web series that itself was remarkably similar to a certain film franchise starring Jennifer Lawrence as a combination of a blond Raquel Welch (or maybe Jennifer Lopez) and Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. I absolutely guarantee that the show’s going to be a mess. Instead of being “in like Flynn” (a historical reference definitely worth checking out), 3% is more out like, oh, how about gout (a medical reference you can ask your grandfather about)?
- Then there’s the semi-annual Knight Rider reboot, brought to us this time around by Justin Lin and NBC/Universal Brand Development. The name of the production entity pretty much tells us how the creators visualize it – as another vehicle (get it?) for merchandising more crap to “a new generation of fans.” Oh well, it’s bound to be better than the Team Knight Rider sequel series, right? What? Ya never heard of that one? Proves my point!
- Have you heard the joke about fan fave Bryan Fuller “stepping down” as showrunner of the upcoming Star Trek Beyond? The funny thing about this situation is that CBS is merrily reassuring all and sundry that Fuller’s departure won’t diminish the new series in anyway while simultaneously announcing that his duties will be picked up by Alex Kurtzman, whose perspective, taste, and talent totally eviscerated the ST film franchise. Wham! Bam! “No deep thoughts or ideas, please, we’re too busy keeping things moving, moving, moving.” In the words of Mel Brooks, who would be a better showrunner than Kurtzman or just about anybody else, “Oy vay!”
That’s it for this week. I’ve got a terrible, tasteless, but shockingly popular web series to get back to work on, but I promise – I’ll seeya next time with more TV joy!
