[TV] Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season 5 Review

Brooklyn Nine-Nine had it's turn on the Fox chopping block after completing a healthy five seasons, but fans manages to intervene sufficiently for an unexpected save by rival network NBC. But how did we get to this point?

Over the years the show's characters have nicely progressed, developed, and evolved along with their relationships one another both as colleagues and as friends. But beyond all that the show was deemed fit for cancellation despite a pretty vocal fan following.

So this season has that distinct feel of trying to wrap things up at the last minute in case they hadn't gotten picked up for a future season.

[Videos] Hundreds of Simpsons Facts

I was a little surprised when ChannelFrederator ran a 107 Facts video just about Homer J. Simpson given they had already shared a good amount with two sets of videos for The Simpson as a show. But the video did have a lot to say about our favorite, dopey patriarch so I figured it might be worth a reshare for all you Simpsons fans out there. And given the series now spans 28 seasons, that's still a LOT of content to dig into.

So here are 321 Simpsons trivia factoids for your enjoyment:


107 Homer Simpson Facts You Should Know! (Tooned Up #295) The Simpsons Facts! | ChannelFrederator


107 Simpsons Facts Everyone Should Know! (ToonedUp #8)


107 MORE Facts About The Simpsons! (ToonedUp #64) @ChannelFred

[Movies] Logan (2017)

I'm definitely one of those people that feels that Hugh Jackman's run as Wolverine has gone on a wee bit too long. Sure has certainly done the character justice in terms of his portrayal but Fox seems unable to make the most of the character and so we've ended with increasing disappointing movies. The initial X-Men movie franchise quickly burned out and the decision to create spinoff Wolverine-centric movies didn't quite pan out all that well either.

But then the trailers for Logan started to come out and things certainly seemed promising. It had a strong Old Man Logan vibe but also an odd note of The Last of Us. But on the whole it seemed to be a good thing - plus the fact that this an R-rated Wolverine movie (as inspired by the likes of the Deadpool movie), so we'd finally get to see the character really get as violent as his comic book description implies.

The movie was definitely better than some of the other standalone Wolverine movies but still not quite what I had hoped. It certainly had some great action and some great individual character moments but it also has a story that gets a little wonky in the middle of things.

[TV] Lucifer: Season 1

Tom Ellis was rather charming on Miranda as the rather adorkable love interest Gary. There was something about him being all awkward and unsure that made his character so endearing.

So it was a little weird to hear that he had signed on for Lucifer to portray the titular fallen angel. And this wasn't just any random depiction of Lucifer - it was based on the Neil Gaiman character that had initially appeared in his Sandman comics. And so it was a particular version of the character that initially looked a lot like David Bowie at Gaiman's request.

So yeah, it felt like a bit of a jump to go from Gary to Lucifer. But beyond that it also wasn't too clear what direction the show would take since it was obvious that they weren't going to depict his initial story arc in Sandman nor were they going to just adapt the standalone Lucifer comics either.

So instead we got a weird police procedural that wasn't terrible but wasn't all that great either.

[Movies] Fantastic Four (2015)

Some movies seemed doomed to fail. All the early buzz related to this Fantastic Four reboot had the fan in me cringing and every new update just felt more and more wrong. The prior Fantastic Four movies weren't exactly Oscar-worthy, but at least they generally captured some aspects of the vibe of the comic.

But this movie seemed determined to go in a very different direction versus the comic book series and was almost proud of it. The best example of this was the decision to cast an African American as the Human Torch while his sister, the Invisible Woman remained Caucasian. It didn't quite feel like a meaningful change either - just a decision that seemed to reflect a desire to make the casting more diverse and thus feature a token minority or something.

But a lot of movies have had bad buzz before the release and managed to salvage things once people had a chance to see the whole thing. Instead the movie was confusing and oddly long-winded and yet seemingly unable to accomplish much either from a narrative flow perspective. What happened?

[TV] New Girl: Season 2

New Girl is one of those shows that I don't fully understand why I continue to watch, but I do. Maybe it's Zooey Deschanel being all quirky Zooey Deschanel. Perhaps it's the crazy situations that she and her three roommates constantly get into. Maybe it's something outside of all that. Who knows, right?

At the end of the day, New Girl is a charming show that has some great moments and other episodes that leave you wondering what the heck just happened. And the show's ability to dance on that line between the humorous and the peculiar is where a lot of the charm comes from.

The show has already started its third season, which is pretty impressive given how so many interesting shows are dying quick deaths in the harsh US network television wars. That may be part of my hesitation in saying that I genuinely like the show or something. Channels like Fox are notorious for killing shows that we love after all. Yes, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right?

On to business.

[TV] The Mindy Project: Season 1

In this post-The Office world that we live in, I find myself experimenting with a wide variety of sitcoms to see myself through the network seasons. There are some decently reliable ones like Modern Family and others that have not survived the battle like Partners. 

The Mindy Project was a weird entry since it featured longtime The Office writer and star Mindy Kaling (who left the show after its penultimate season) in a completely different situation. But in many ways, the show relies a lot on her new office ensemble, but still makes sure to put a bit more focus on her titular character.

Or maybe a lot of focus. But it works, I assure you.

Like all new shows, its first season is all about finding its true voice. The pilot pitch isn't necessarily what'll work for audiences and that's something you can only really find out once you go on air. And I'm catching up with this review this week since the second season premiere came a little early.

[TV] Fringe: Season 4

The fact is not lost on me that the fifth season of Fringe is well underway and I'm only getting around to posting a review for the fourth season now. Then again, this is one of those those that are best savored instead of rushed through - plus it hurts when there's no new Fringe to watch for extended periods of time. Case in point, we're actually still at least 2 episodes behind in terms of the current season since we don't want to be left without the option of going forward to the next episode in case we end on a particularly compelling cliffhanger.

And let's face it, Fringe loves its cliffhangers.

This penultimate fourth season wobbled a bit for me, but in the long run it still makes a lot of sense in terms of the overall progression of the series. And things do look increasingly grim for the realities / universes covered and perhaps inevitably complicated as well.

But that's really part of the fun of the series, when you really get down to it.

[TV] The End of the Road for Dollhouse and Eastwick

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Well, it's not like the news was a TOTAL surprise, now was it?

Despite the fact that the show managed to come back for a second season despite poor ratings, FOX has finally decided to cancel Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. This was pretty much a sure bet as soon as they announced that the show was going on a month-long break for November and would come back in December.

At the very least, it's been announced that the network will at least finish the show's current 13-episode run in order to give the series some closure. It doesn't mean it makes me understand or forgive FOX for killing yet another budding science fiction series (can anyone say Firefly?). Damn you FOX, damn you.

At the same time, ABC has just announced they're also killing the fantasy series, Eastwick, which was based on the books and the movie by the same name. I wasn't an actual fan of the show but a lot of my friends are and I'm man enough to admit I am more of a fan of Matt Dallas (hello Kyle XY!), especially when he's shirtless.

Sure, the series wasn't exactly the smartest show on air but it was a nice mash-up of fantasy and the kind of soap opera style dramas many viewers have also come to love. Again they expressed commitment has been to air the remaining episodes with the showing ending on #13, but how that will be executed remains to be seen.

Frankly, today has just been a disappointing day for the worlds of science fiction and fantasy with the death of these two shows. This whole debacle has me remembering the pain of losing Pushing Daisies around the same last year. This is the season when the networks evaluate their shows and decide who lives and who dies. Science fiction and fantasy shows hardly survive this period when you think about it (I say again, FIREFLY!)

Well, here's to hoping that new shows like FlashForward and V survive to manage a decent run at the very least. It's all we can hope for in these trying times.