Daredevil Season 2 (Episodes 1-3)

Matt Murdock can't wait to hit the streets and rooftops each night as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. And I can't wait to finish my "Best Shot" entry super early for once. For this week's assignment (anyone can play along!) you can pick any one episode or multiple episodes of Daredevil Season 2 and choose a Best Shot. You have just under 24 hours left to pick one and post it since the Best Shot Roundup goes up tomorrow night at about 10 PM EST. 

I'll get to my three choices, one per episode, after the jump. But damn it's good to have Charlie Cox's naked torso Daredevil back on Netflix

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Lick It Up, Baby. Lick It Up

“F*ck me gently with a chainsaw,” it looks like Daniel Waters 1989 cult classic Heathers (starring Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty among others) will be getting the small-screen treatment in a new anthology series on TV Land. This reincarnation will take place in present-day and feature a modern permutation on the three central “Heathers”. One is a black lesbian, another is a gender-queer male and the third is said to resemble the beleaguered Martha Dumptruck from the original film.

This is not the first cult-classic in recent years to be adapted for television. MTV’s “Scream” (largely eclipsed by “Scream Queens” in the public consciousness) is set to begin its second season May. TV Land itself has also picked up a television adaptation of The First Wives Club set to air next year.

Adaptations of movies into television series is hardly anything new. And there’s certainly precedent of it leading to a TV series that far surpasses the film its based on. Maybe “precedent” is a strong word. One shining example would probably be a more accurate assessment. The point is, for every generation-defining “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” we get about five or six middling “Dangerous Mind” or “Clueless” level retreads (remember these TV adaptations? Yikes.)

Whatever your feelings, qualitatively about high school hierarchy satire, its iconic status is hard to deny. Make no mistake—without Heathers, there would be no Clueless, no Mean Girls, probably no “Beverly Hills: 90210” whatever that means to you in any case. It’s easily the year zero of the high school queen bee sub-genre. Entertainment Weekly even teased the story with the headline “TV Land has picked up this Mean Girls-esque ‘80s cult classic.” Heresy. No one is set to reprise their original roles, which makes sense if you’ve seen Heathers. Here’s hoping that it retains at least some of the biting, note-perfect tone of the original.

Also, Martha Dumptruck did survive the original film, so maybe her return isn't out of the question. You know you're wondering what she's up to.

Will you be watching?

Small Screen MVPs: ill-fitting gloves, a sapphic Miranda, and more.

We're accidentally having nearly a full television day today at our mostly movies site so this is as good a time as any to try to reboot that idea about a weekly glance at what we're loving on TV. So I asked members of the team to name a MVP of their television week and here's what they said...

MVP: "If it doesn't fit...," Scene
Show: The People Vs. OJ Simpson
This show gets better and better. In an episode chock-full of riveting moments, there was never any real doubt that THE moment would be the presentation of the iconic gloves, the gloves the prosecution was so convinced would win the case for them.  After tracing what led to the fatal error of asking Simpson to try them on—Chris Darden’s desire for a “big moment” to beat the defense at their own game, and perhaps to make up for a missed opportunity with Marcia Clark—the show builds up to the climax like a horror movie.  Once Bob Shapiro convinces the defense the gloves won’t fit, F. Lee Bailey and Johnnie Cochran cunningly spring the trap for the prosecution, playing Darden’s ego like a violin.  Then Simpson gives the performance of his life as he struggles with the gloves while the jury looks on, agog, and Darden realizes he may just have single-handedly blown the entire case.  But it’s the great Sarah Paulson's face as Marcia Clark that says it all: you can see her soul being slowly crushed during the whole demonstration, and it’s devastating. 
-Lynn Lee 

five more MVPs after the jump...

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HBO’s LGBT History: Girls (2012-)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we looked at Back on Board: Greg Louganis, a doc that traced the life story of the (now) out gay Olympic diver. That meant that for two straight weeks we’ve been looking back at the latter half of the twentieth century (previously we talked about Robert De Niro’s gay father), and so to shake it up we’re talking Girls this week. Well, the boy in Girls, but still.

With its new season well on its way, and with Elijah (played deliciously by Andrew Rannells) given a heck of a love interest this past week, I couldn't help but write up this most recent episode rather than reach further back. As always when we dip our toes into television we’re focusing on one episode and really, I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried seeing as “Old Loves” allows us to talk about Elijah within the confines of a burgeoning relationship and talk about that very steamy (if hilarious) sex scene. The title of the episode, as Lena Dunham has explained elsewhere, is a nod to the Tumblr of the same name which is name-dropped in the episode that puts up pictures of old celebrity couples (Tom Green & Drew Barrymore! Matt Damon & Winona Ryder! Thandie Newton & Brad Pitt!). But it is the “new” love in the episode that will be our focus today.

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Mercedes McCambridge Centennial: "Charlie's Angels" & "Bewitched"

Today is the Centennial of one of the most singular character actresses of the 1950s, Mercedes McCambridge, born in Joliet Illinois on this very day in 1916. We hope you've enjoyed our mini retrospective. We previousy discussed her sensational debut in All The King's Men (1949) her final Oscar nomination for the Texas epic Giant (1956) and her sorry fate in a teensy part in the Airport disaster series. (In the past, ICYMI, we've amply discussed The Exorcist in which she did truly legendary voice work as well as the fiery abandon of must-see western Johnny Guitar.) 

In The Concorde... Airport '79 article, Tim talked about the disaster genre's often ...um... disastrous treatment of aged film stars in cameos. But discarded stars of Old Hollywood also frequently collected paychecks through TV guest spots. On the small screen there was the same roulette wheel chances at success. In fact McCambridge was more frequently spotted on TV than in film, switching between both for her entire career after her launch in radio in the 1930s. Many early TV shows are impossible to see now but let's discuss her downright fantastic guest spots on Charlie's Angels (1978) & Bewitched (1968).

Murder mysteries and witchcraft -- and a chance to discuss two classic camp series (oh you know you want to!) follow after the jump....

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