Join or Die

I am not sure why Join or Die with Craig Ferguson is on the History Channel, but I will watch the premiere tonight anyway.  

Here is the spin in the show:

Join or Die with Craig Ferguson features the comedian debating provocative and timely topics in his unorthodox and iconoclastic manner. Each episode features a panel of guests which will include celebrities, comedians and experts, as well as the American public through social media. Topics will include: biggest presidential campaign flop, greatest founding father and which invention was history’s greatest game-changer. 

Okay, now I get it. Some topics will cover history. Nice approach, yet I bet the average 5th grader will know more history than the "celebrity" guests. 

If it goes the route of Jay Leno and his "person on the street" interviews it may be too depressing to watch. However, I am willing to give Craig a chance. He can make even the depressing fun. And as a recently minted citizen of this country I bet he knows his American history better than most.  

Update: The show is not ready for prime time. I don't think it comes on at prime time, but that's not the point. The pilot was Craig and three guests reviving dead stories about untrustworthy public servants. I get enough of that on the nightly news. You can do much better, Craig.

The Vikings Are Coming!

Season four of the Vikings premieres tonight on the History Channel.  Are you ready?  The popular series will have an extra 10 episodes this season to fill even more of your nights with adventure and battles.  As one of the actors states in this clip, the show is about relationships, culture, mythology, and more.  Oh yeah, and a bear attack.  

Season three is still available online at the series' homepage, so catch up if you need to, but do not miss this show.  

Here is a quick summary of season three from the History Channel if you do not have time to view the earlier 10 episodes:

Season 3 culminated with the extraordinary battle in Paris, where Ragnar (Travis Fimmel) seized victory from the jaws of defeat–but still returns to Kattegat dangerously ill. Thoughts of his death galvanize the forces who seek to succeed him as king, including his wife Queen Aslaug (Alyssa Sutherland) and his oldest son, Bjorn (Alexander Ludwig). Meanwhile, Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) continues power struggles with her calculating, former second in command, Kalf (Ben Robson); Rollo (Clive Standen) betrays his Vikings heritage by remaining in Frankia and Floki (Gustaf Skarsgård) is seized for his brutal actions to the Christian priest Athelstan.

Now you are ready.

The New Yorker Presents

The Amazon Original pilot, The New Yorker Presents, is finally coming out as regular series tomorrow (Jan. 16). This eclectic mix of skits from the pages of the magazine is an odd bird this TV season, but I'm glad Amazon is taking a chance. 

London's Guardian newspaper notes:

Much like Saturday Night Live sketches, the sections are rather hit and miss. Unlike that late-night staple, there are far more hits than misses. This is not a way to get informed about the current events of the day, but to have one’s curiosity satisfied about far-flung experiences and one’s intellect stoked by stories that aren’t plastered all over the front page. Yes, it’s exactly like reading the New Yorker.

I don't think you need to be a reader of The New Yorker to enjoy the series, but you may gravitate toward the magazine after seeing the variety of material provided. And the nice part is that the episodes will be released weekly - no binging (or at least right away). Smart.

Will We See More Into The Badlands?

The AMC series Into The Badlands appeared one day and sowed confusion with this strange combination of southern plantations with barons, a Roman-like gladiator school for teens, an alpha mentoring friendship (more like Teen Wolf than anything else), and bike-riding Kung-fu swordsmen (though only the lead is Asian). 

Yes, it was very odd. It lasted six episodes and then disappeared. And now, strangely, I miss it. Will we see more?

The good news is that the show's premiere, with 8.2 million viewers, was the third best in cable history. The bad news is that AMC is still silent on renewal. I hope the network takes a chance on season two. It is certainly a unique story with more tales to tell. 

Stephen King Returns with 11.22.63

I was not a fan of CBS's Under The Dome, the television series based on the Stephen King book of the same name.  While it started out well enough, it soon degenerated into a poorly-acted, silly mix of teen angst and unbelievable murder that may or may not have been what King desired.  Since I never read the book, it is possible that CBS did him a disservice.  

So are we to trust the roll-out of the last television series based on a King book?  I suppose it depends on the book.  This time it is King's popular President Kennedy assassination thriller 11.22.63.  Hulu decided to take on the task this time in an eight-part series, and was able to grab James Franco for the lead role.  Both of these are good signs - a clear ending and a real actor.  

In addition, J.J. Abrams is the executive producer, finding time away from Star Wars and Star Trek to assist with this project.  What is interesting is that James Franco was cast for the role after a he wrote a review of King's story noting how he wanted the rights to the story and criticizing Abrams for taking on the project.  Abrams read the review and decided to offer Franco the role. 

In selling the 11.22.63 series, Hulu asks "What if you could change the past?" and notes:

Imagine having the power to change history. Would you journey down the “rabbit hole”? This eight–part event series follows Jake Epping (James Franco), an ordinary high school teacher, who is presented with the unthinkable mission of traveling back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Jake is willing to live in the past in order to solve perhaps the greatest mystery of the 20th century — who killed JFK, and could it have been stopped? As Jake tries to rewrite history, he discovers that the past does not want to be changed and will do anything to stop him.

Of course, if I could change the past I would have removed Under the Dome from my TV list so I could get those hours back.  I am hoping my time will be better spent with this series.  

HBO's Vinyl

A music industry drama created by Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese.  Just soak in that thought, and then consider tonight's two-hour premiere of Vinyl on HBO.  You will be taken back to the drug-filled, sex-craved, bell-bottomed 1970s where the music was everywhere and not something you kept to yourself on your iPod.  Here is a trailer of what is in store. 

Mick Jagger, whose son James plays a lead singer in the series, is not a fan of all the music during the period, as noted in this Billboard magazine interview:

It seemed anything was possible at that point. Creating any kind of music and mixing up any kind of music and making it into something that people wanted to hear was possible then. Of course, there was a lot of dreck. When I go through all the songs of the period, there are a lot of wonderful things, but there's also so much crap it's unbelievable. And that was one of the things we debated: how much crap music are we going to have in the show because we want to represent the period. We don't want to make out that the '70s was only Marvin Gaye and James Brown and Bob Marley. It wasn't. It was full of rubbish.

Hank Stuever at The Washington Post seems to be fan of the new series, though he sees the strong hand of producer Terrence Winter, stating:

Substitute the jazz age for glam rock, switch out the bootlegged hooch for endless lines of blow and “Vinyl” could very well be headed for a similar fate. “Vinyl” and “Boardwalk Empire” are in many ways the same show, even though “Vinyl” has a much lower body-count — so far.

Fox's Empire is no longer the lone story on the music industry.  We will see is Vinyl can catch the same level of excitement and viewership.

Update: Vinyl has already been approved for a second season after only one (long) episode, so someone likes it.

Horace and Pete

I miss my dose of the TV series Louis, and yet it seems Louis C.K. will not commit to another season. So I was resigned to a Louis-less future until I downloaded a copy of Louis C.K.'s new "series" Horace and Pete.  Created by and starring Louis C.K. (Horace), it also includes performances by Steve Buscemi (Pete), Alan Alda, Edie Falco, and others.  

The first episode is available for download for $5 on LouisCK.net, and as of today there are two additional episodes.  Hence, it appears Louis has gone his own route for distribution rather than relying on FX. 

Watching the pilot, I felt as though I was an audience in a quiet theater witnessing something fresh yet ancient - the ongoing plight of struggling families.  With no soundtrack or music, the episode seems far removed from television. And even the bigotry of Alan Alda seemed shocking yet familiar, like Archie Bunker on All in the Family, where the truth in all its ugliness was once allowed on regular television.  

All in all, it is a depressing view of family life tied to a struggling bar, yet authentic as well.  It is also very current, discussing this year's political race with the characters in various camps trying to understand the national situation.  I should also add that the production is far from perfect, with dull patches, wandering scenes, and other flaws indicating Louis did not want to polish a diamond but rather hand you a pail of gravel and let you find the gems on your own.  I did not expect anything less from Louis C.K. who likes to put the camera in the most uncomfortable places to talk about commonplace issues.  And I want to see more of it, as do others.  

I think Aaron Bady got it right in the Los Angeles Review of Books:

History makes it interesting, of course; Horace and Pete puts the O’Neill back in the Irish pub show, making the gang at Cheers into the vicious group of sad alcoholics that they should have been. What if Coach was a vicious bigot? What if Woody had a serious mental illness? What if Sam Malone was played by Louis CK? What if women could be lost in their cups too? These are interesting things because they tear the gloss off of one of the great genre-defining television shows, reminding you of all the things that — in order to become such a lovely fantasy — the show had to forget. Cheers had a certain darkness and occasional drifts into melancholy, but it also had jokes and a laugh track and a comic romance plot to keep things on track. 

Check it out for yourself.  If you are a Louis fan, you do not want to miss his latest creation.