Teen Wolf Returns, Gets "Tattoo"

With Smash gone to its grave and Mad Men nearing its end and still no official word on a second season of Bunheads (i'm losing hope) I need a new TV show to write about weekly. So indulge me in TEEN WOLF which has finally given werewolves a good name again. It's roughly three trillion times better than Hemlock Grove and roughly one billion times sexier than The Twilight Saga probably because the guys and girls are hotter and have personalities that extend beyond "mopey" and "lovestruck" though they amply cover those character traits, too.  I have flirted with covering it before writing up the first three episodes and ogling the muscles. But weirdly, though I realized the leaps and bounds it made in quality in Season 2, I didn't commit to blogging it. So... Season Three!

Teen Wolf Magical Logic #1: Werewolves can't get tattoos because they heal too quickly. Unless those tattoos are by torch in which case the healing just gives up or something?

"Tattoo"
In the first episode we pick up as the school year begins (teen shows always have this trouble of built-in expiration dates that they always botch by NOT allowing for a rotating cast of different-aged main characters right from season 1!). Scott and Stiles (Tyler Posey, Dylan O'Brien) are still pining for Alison (Crystal Reed) and Lydia (Holland Roden) who they've barely seen during the summer. Lydia's boyfriend and season 1 & 2's half villain / full hunk Jackson (Coulton Haynes) left the show *sniffle* so we learn that his rich daddy has moved him overseas. In a supernatural show where killing off a main character would be totally dramatic (and dramatically sensible) this feels like a cheat. It's obviously only Blighty so they can make an American Werewolf in London joke. That honor goes to Lydia.  [more...]

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Burning Questions: Can Binge Watching Hurt a Show?

Hello, dear readers. Michael C here to take a detour into TV blogging.

Is season four picking at the carcass of a once great show or just more greatness?

It has now been a full week since Netflix returned the Bluth family to us, which in Internet time means by this point I may as well writing about the final episode of MASH. By midweek the long awaited return of Arrested Development had already been watched, analyzed, celebrated, backlashed, and defended a few times over. [more...]

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R.I.P. "Smash"

Smash, age 2, passed away on Sunday May 26th, 2013 at an undisclosed location at NBC after airing its final two-part episode "The Nominations" and "The Tony Awards". Few were there to mark its passing due to its long and quite unamusing terminal illness. Smash's difficult short life was plagued by self-sabotage, and two unfortunately common showbiz ailments: Actress Dysmorphia Disorder, in which everyone pretends that a gifted actress is NOT awesome so as to place another lesser being on a pedestal, and the no less deadly Audience Prosopagnosia in which a piece of showbiz believes it is performing for a different audience entirely than the one it's got.

Smash, television's first and now only Broadway musical series, was born on February 6th, 2012 to stubborn scarf-aficionado Theresa Rebeck but wrestled away from her and placed in the care of foster parents who, from all filmed evidence, had never set foot inside a Broadway theater, never witnessed a Tony Awards telecast and prefer American Idol Results Shows to Broadway Musicals. 

In its final death rattle on Sunday night, Smash continued to exhibit all of its usual signs of self-loathing and  mental illness: oh look another "Cute" moment about leaving your cel phone on during live theater!; oh look a lame subplot suggesting the show's best actress should chuck aside her showbiz career the second she's earned it; oh look, more encouraging of absolutely unprofessional behavior to get your way in your profession as if everyone working in musical theater is a complete sociopath and everyone else is okay with this!). In its final two hours of life Smash drifted in and out of consciousness and lucidity forgetting it was a musical and then remembering and even breaking the fourth wall (during one bizarre gay flirtation) on the way to its "Big Finish", a cute reminder that McPhee & Hilty did always sound good singing together, despite all the rest.

In the tradition of all self-immolating entertainments, Smash will be buried with the careers of several of its participants though these names are as yet undisclosed and mourners are asked to withhold petitions calling for Katharine McPhee, Jeremy Jordan, and Joshua Safran's entombment. Smash is survived by Megan Hilty (aka "Ivy Lynn"), actress, Christian Borle & Debra Messing (aka "Will & Grace" "Tom & Julia"), actors, and presumably by Anjelica Huston, diva, who survived Jack Nicholson and is rumored to be indestructible.

A Cluster of Links

articles elsewhere
The House Next Door Aaron Tveit on the rise
Salon Jennifer Wright relays the joy and weirdness of tweeting The Great Gatsby line by line
In Contention Warner Bros will distribute Ryan Gosling's directorial debut How to Catch a Monster starring Christina Hendricks. I'm so excited for this one. I guess it takes a great actor to finally give Christina her due as a potential film star
Guardian looks back at Carey Mulligan's career thus far
Empire Is Joe Wright directing 50 Shades of Grey. If so my interest in the project went from minimal to lots.
The New Yorker on Upstream Color. I feel terrible that I haven't yet seen this movie and loved Primer

three things that made me lol this week that i keep clicking back to
My New Plaid Pants Myrtle mowed down in The Great Gatsby (1949)
Des Hommes et des Chatons hot guys and cute cats in mirror poses
Gosloving "Ryan Gosling won't eat his cereal" -- my favorite one is the Lars and the Real Girl. Yours? (Do you think he recoiled at the "date" scene in Silver Linings Playbook)

Something That Bugs Me That Actors Keep Doing...
Typecasting is one thing. It happens to the best of them. But why do some stars willingly dive into roles that are so much like their other roles that you'd be entirely forgiven for thinking they're making a sequel. Why is Timothy Olyphant, for example, who played a Sheriff/ US Marshall on Deadwood and then a US Marshall on  Justified taking up another violent sherrif for The Man on Carrion Road? That's the kind of tiny niche that can just wreck your career for anything else (or did I miss some trend where violent sheriffs are ubiqui-hot like zombies?). Isn't it time he played like, I dont know, a chef or a used car salesman or something?  And why is Tom Cruise starring in yet another espionage franchise based on a TV series. How will they differentiate The Man From U.N.C.L.E. from Mission: Impossible now as film franchises? Why not just make Mission: Impossible 5. Oh, wait, he's doing that too!?! STOP IT!!!

TV Cancellations
Southland is done says TNT. I'd mourn its loss after a stellar fifth season but five seasons is a good run for any show and often shows nose dive in quality after five so quitting while you're ahead is kind of beautiful. Meanwhile Smash is officially axed as is The New Normal. Is this a dark day for gays who love television or a relief given the obnoxious self-loathing of the former and the preachy self-love of the latter?

You decide!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Resurrection and the Protocol of Promos

Last night the first promotional photo of the cast from the new Joss Whedon series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." premiered. And here it is in all its *anonymous* 'glory'...

Whedonverse Series #5... Expect That it's More Marvel Universe... So Marvel Universe #1 (Reboot)?

more from the Whedonverse and promo photos after the jump...

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