When Yahoo picked up Community, it seemed fitting that this weird little show would land in the most unlikely and random place. I hadn’t heard of Yahoo’s free video service, but I thought it was a smart marketing decision to pick up Community and boost Yahoo Screen’s numbers with one of sitcom television’s most outspoken and loyal fan bases.
Now the show’s 6th season (a milestone I honestly never thought the show would reach) is here. The first two episodes premiered today with new episodes made available each Tuesday. All of which are available on a free app from a site that gave me my first email address almost two decades ago. Continue reading →
Yesterday NBC released a trailer for Season 5 of Community
It’s no secret that Community has had its fair share of struggles and controversy in the past. It’s never had impressive ratings (or average ratings for that matter,) there have been issues with cast members (notably Chevy Chase,) it lost its showrunner and creator at the end of the third season, and all of these issues culminated in a disappointing season 4. In fact, disappointing doesn’t really describe it well enough. So one can’t really be blamed for looking forward to Season five of Community with more than a bit of apprehension. Continue reading →
Pilots are interesting beasts in the television world. They’re used to convince a studio to shell out more money for more episodes. In order to do that, a pilot needs to succeed on several more fronts of storytelling than any other single episode. A pilot needs to introduce the major characters of a series in an engaging, often standalone, story that will leave the audience clamoring for more.
Furthermore, a good pilot needs to rely on a strong cast to build a rapport in a short period of time. Writers working on pilots also have to gauge possible long-term onscreen relationships completely blind of actors’ chemistry. Because of these factors, I live by one steadfast television-viewing rule:
Never judge a show by its pilot.
But some series have such strong pilot episodes that you can and should judge them on the pilots. And so, here I have compiled a list of some of my favorite pilot episodes. They aren’t necessarily my favorite shows ever, and they aren’t exactly the best episodes of said shows. These episodes are just the most engaging series-starters that I’ve seen. They also introduce the characters and story arcs in a highly satisfying way.
You can click the episode titles in the list to buy them digitally on Amazon.
The visual effects and destruction/battle sequences were really fantastic and looked incredible. Suffers from too many under developed human subplots and eye rolling logic I couldn't quite suspend my disbelief for. Still quite a bit of fun.Podcast review on The Obsessive Viewer will come out probably tomorrow.
Rewatched to record a commentary track for my Patreon.I was pretty forgiving of this movie the first time I saw it. While I still respect some of the visuals and jumps into surreal visions, as an overall movie, it just didn't really hold up that well.I love the concept (and dig the novella as well), but the movie takes this confused "lost in supern […]
First time seeing it since it was in theaters. I appreciate it a bit more this time. It's jaw droppingly gorgeous at times and the monster fighting it really cool. Surprisingly, in a movie with so much darkness, it doesn't feel like it's using dim lighting to skimp on visual effects. Instead, it uses it to conceal and put some cool lighting ef […]
