After the Stranger Things finale: What I believe happens...

As of tonight it has been 120 hours since the series finale of Stranger Things dropped on Netflix.  And in that time the Internets have been going full-blown wacky with theories and speculations.  It's the kind of debate and discussion that I can't remember seeing in a very long time, at least not since the Lost finale almost sixteen years ago.

I have now watched "The Upside Down" twice all the way through and numerous bits and pieces of it since it went live on streaming.  And I thought it was the most beautiful thing that I've seen on the television medium in quite awhile.  But if you've seen it also, you're well aware that it left a few things dangling.  Not "critical" information, but we are certainly teased a bit about what becomes of these characters who we've followed for almost a full decade.  The Duffer Brothers, the creators of Stranger Things, have given us just enough to whet our appetites for more.  Or as one friend put it, they made a satisfying conclusion without putting a solid padlock on it.

So since everyone else it seems is weighing in with their own thoughts and theories, I might as well chime in with my own.  What happens to our heroes after their struggle against the Upside Down and Vecna?

Be warned: Spoilers ahead!!

I believe that El survived.  She did so knowing that never again could she see Mike and the rest of her friends but it had to be done.  El knew that she had to break the cycle and that nobody else could do it.  That there would always be people like Brenner and Kay who would continue the work.  So El took herself out of the equation and I think that in her dying breath Kali saw to it that El would escape as cleanly as she could.

I'm thinking to something that Hopper tells her earlier in the episode.  About El getting to have a normal life, and be a parent herself and have children.  I believe that she goes on to do that.  El goes on to find herself, and in time she will marry and have children.  But she will never forget the love that she had with Mike and I very strongly doubt that Mike is ever going to forget her. As long as they live they will be thinking of each other.

This finale evoked so much thought.  It's been a LONG time since a story has had me ruminating upon its ending.

I can't help but imagine that Will went on to have a better story than he could have imagined.  And I say that as a trauma survivor also.  The full measure of what Will went through because of Vecna was something that could not be portrayed on screen.  Will survived but he's going to forever be scarred.  Maybe Will goes on to make his life a triumph over Vecna.  I think Will becomes something like a behavioral therapist, with a master's degree and everything.  Will knows what it means to be damaged, he's going to use that experience toward helping others who have survived their own Vecnas.  Just a hunch that I have.  I may not have ever had a homosexual temptation but in many ways I still identify with Will (I also identify with Dustin a lot, but I digress).  I know what it's like to be hurt and be discarded by society.  There was a Vecna in my own life, and that's something I write about in my book.  Going through that, coming out on the other side, a person absolutely wants to do what he or she can to keep others from knowing that same pain.  It's what led to my having a career in the mental health field and I think that if Will doesn't end up doing much the same professionally, his heart is definitely inclined toward that direction.

I had wanted Dustin and Suzie to come together and get married.  But it's been established by the Duffer Brothers that their relationship ended.  It was mostly Dustin's fault.  He was so torn up about Eddie's death that he pushed aside almost every other relationship he had with people.  It took the party and especially Steve to pull Dustin back from the brink of self destruction.  In the end we see that Dustin comes back, and has embraced life again.  I like to think that he goes on to have a brilliant time in college and career in science and technology afterward.  That Dustin comes to fall in love again and he and his wife have a son who they name Eddie.

Lucas and Max are going to end up together happily ever after.  I've seen love like theirs a few times.  Sometimes it goes well and others, it doesn't.  But a young man like Lucas doesn't go to the hospital every day for a year and a half to play "Running Up That Hill" for a comatose girl without that meaning something profound.  By the way, the Duffers have said that the movie we see them sitting together watching is Ghost, so by the summer of 1990 their love is still going strong.  I think it's going to keep getting stronger.

I also think that Nancy and Jonathan end up with each other after all.  The two of them are each in a place where they're discovering who they are supposed to be.  They had that taken away from them for the better part of six years.  Now Nancy is pursuing her dream of being a journalist and Jonathan is where he wanted to be, studying photography and film at NYU.  They've seemingly gone separate ways but they're always going to share something remarkable and very unique and that's going to draw them together sooner than later.

Steve is a wandering journeyman of sorts for a few years.  But he comes to discover that his heart really is for helping young people be their best.  It started with being "baby-sitter" for the Party and it's going to continue.  If he doesn't get his full "six nuggets" he's still going to get that family he longs for... and that is very encouraging and inspiring.

Robin?  I'm not sure of her.  I do believe that she completes her college education.  I like to think that she ends up happy.

Holly, Derek, and the other kids that Vecna captured bounce back none the worse for wear.  Derek though has discovered personal responsibility, including for himself.  I think that Derek becomes quite the athletic type, taking part not only in baseball but also swimming (I say that because I was a swimmer in high school and taking part in that was one of the best things that ever happened to me).

Murray Bauman, the Duffers have already said he continues to be weird.  Maybe so but he's also a happy weirdo.  By the end of the series his conspiracy theories have been proven true, he's taken out government forces and he's saved the day for the entire world.  I imagine that ten years or so later Murray has become the master of a website devoted to conspiracy theories, and maybe even hosting a late-night radio show a'la the one Art Bell had for many years.

Mr. Clarke is going to be Hawkins, Indiana's most eligible bachelor.  But his first and foremost love is going to be teaching children.  Playing a part in the final battle against Vecna, seeing his star pupil Dustin come up with the conclusion that the Upside Down was a wormhole, filled Mr. Clarke with enormous pride.  He truly got to have a dream come true as a science teacher and he's going to do his best to catch lightning in a bottle again.

Erica.  Ahhhh yes, Erica.  Who ties with Dustin as my most favorite character in Stranger Things.  The Duffers have said that she goes on to be valedictorian also when she graduates.  Erica Sinclair is a force of nature and she goes far.  She's either going to get involved in Internet commerce at the start of the industry revolution (like Bezos, she can call her company Ericorps) or, more likely, she enters politics.  For some reason or another I think she's a registered Republican.  Erica eventually runs for U.S. Senate, wins the race, and provokes discussion about her running for higher office.  But that's maybe saying too much.

Hopper and Joyce spend the rest of their lives happy.  Hopper finds fulfillment that he never knew he needed before.  It's a quiet life at Montauk.  The only real trouble that comes about is when a great white shark starts prowling the waters and eating people.  Just kidding 😛 

And Mike?  The storyteller?  He goes on to write what he can about the time that he and the Party and their friends had together.  It becomes a book that goes on to be a bestseller, and it's going to be a story that will forever perpetuate debate and discussion about whether it's true or not.

The title of Mike's book?  It is "Stranger Things".

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"The Rightside Up", the Stranger Things series finale, finished about 20 minutes ago

 What did I think of it?

This was as perfect an ending to a story as The Lord of the Rings had.  I am soooo not kidding.

The final scenes... wow.  I was almost in tears.  Those nearly came after everything else that preceded it in this very last episode of Stranger Things.

I feel like it's the end of a journey for me.  This show, which I first discovered while staying in a hotel in Albuquerque in September of 2016, has been a part of my life ever since then.  I became a true believer in this story and its wonderful characters.  And now the story is done and... I don't quite know what to do now.  I feared this would happen.  Stranger Things has been the one thing of pop culture that I've held onto for almost a decade and now it's ended.  That is an enormous void that it's leaving in my time on this earth.  It's like a part of my youth peacefully passed away tonight.

Well, like is said at one point in this final episode, there are two paths to take.  I am going to choose the one that leads away from the sadness.  I am going to choose life.  Just as I've always been trying to do.

I think I needed to see this episode.  More to the point, I think that I needed this show.  What a ride it has been!

One of the greatest endings to a story in the history of anything.  I'm going to have to watch it again, after my brain calms down.

Dear Duffer Brothers: Thank you for sharing this story with us.  I for one feel all the better for being along for where you took us.  And I wish you well in your future endeavors.

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MeTV is now running Hawaii Five-O on weekdays

This isn't the more recent series.  MeTV is playing the original Hawaii Five-O at 11 a.m. EST on weekdays.  Yesterday and today the network broadcast the two-part first story and I watched it.  Think I'll be tuning in whenever I find myself not doing anything else in particular on weekday mornings.

Hawaii Five-O is one of the very first television series that I clearly remember watching.  Dad used to love this show so I have memories of seeing it in the mid to late Seventies.  I especially recall the title sequence, particularly its theme music.

If you've never seen this before, prepare to be stunned.  This is from a series that premiered in 1968 (Hawaii Five-O might be the only television show from the 1960s to survive as far as the Eighties) so many people might be expecting something a little more... shall we say, "primitive"?  But this intro is a work of art in and of itself.  This composition of imagery and music is more like something that could be expected of a modern editing software package like Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, not from the period around 1970.  A lot of heart, soul, and hardcore precision went into making this sequence, and it definitely shows.

So here is the intro for the original Hawaii Five-O.  Something as magnificent as it is timeless.

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I've been called conservative. I believe homosexuality is wrong. And I'm about to defend Will Byers on Stranger Things (buuuut...)

 On Christmas Night I started watching the newest three episodes, volume 2 it's being called, of the final season of Stranger Things.  I was as eager to see these next three chapters as I have been to watch anything else from the television/movies sphere of things in the past ten years or so.

I'll be honest: I felt like I'd "missed" something.  Volume 2 failed to stick the landing it seemed.  The previous four episodes were a high-balling rollickin' ball of high-grade hashish washed down with a bottle of pure awesomeness.  But these three episodes, well...

It seems that I wasn't alone in that sentiment.  Many people have said that these were the low point of the entire series.

Especially...

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Let's talk about the scene in episode seven, "The Bridge", that got the most attention.

I actually don't have an issue with Will's situation.  Not anymore than I do regarding Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books.  That does NOT mean that I can condone homosexuality at all though!  That is something that I am forever going to believe is wrong.  But I also understand that it is a temptation that some people face, for whatever reason.  God knows that I have my own temptations, some even that I wonder if anyone on earth will ever remotely understand.  Having a mental condition that inflames those temptations at times only makes things worse, but I digress.

Will's confession to the others was something that had been building up since the first season.  He has always been different, off-kilter, something of an outsider to "The Party" and their allies, no matter how much he has been a part of that group of close-knit friends.  His own father cruelly believed that Will wasn't normal.  His ordeals relating to the Upside Down further severed that connection Will had to the human condition.  If nothing else, what he went through because of Vecna mutilated and disfigured Will in heart and soul.  There is no telling what he would have been like had the events of November 6th, 1983 not happened. That night forever marked Will Byers as being different, for the worst, in every possible way.

In some ways I find myself relating to Will.  I was quite an outsider also, growing up.  Always "looking in".  And as I've shared in my book, I did go quite a long time unable to allow myself to appreciate females.  I had been abducted also, and pulled into an "upside-down" too.  There was a Vecna figure who came into my life.  As I share in my book, I was thought of as being different - sometimes being called "fag" by other people - because of my reluctance to appreciate how girls look.  That stemmed from the abuse I experienced.

So, I can absolutely understand Will in ways that maybe most people can't.  I can empathize with Will.  It's almost like the Duffer Brothers were writing about me, when they wrote for the character.  I of all people am in a position to understand Will Byers more than many if not most other people can, and I'm glad that most people DON'T have to understand what Will has gone through.

For a lot of reasons, I am never going to be able to accept homosexuality as being something good.  But it is a temptation that many people have.  And I can understand Will if that's what he's been driven to.  If that makes sense.

So no, in all honesty, I don't have any problem with the scene in "The Bridge" where Will is "coming out" and saying "I don't like girls."  I can readily understand why he's telling the group that.  It's something he was ashamed of, and harbored deep resentment about.  He had to confront that, and make it into something that Vecna could not turn against him and consequently the group.  It was Will's biggest weakness and he negated it.  That is certainly something that I can appreciate, and even admire.  It could have been practically anything that Will had shame about.  But in the case of Will it was the most private thing that any young person in the years surrounding adolescence can wrestle with.  Vecna has become THE prototype of the child molester, in a fashion that no other fictional monster has ever been.  Will was his first and most tragic victim.  Of course there is going to be a secret shame from that.  But Will confronted that and came through with flying colors.

No, it's not what Will did that bothers me.  It's HOW that was handled is what bugs me.

Much of the entertainment industry has been accused of fronting an agenda.  It's not an unqualified accusation.  Stranger Things has been no different.  I've never found it any more so than most other series or movies though.  Indeed, other than the profanity (ehhhh Duffers, most kids did not talk like that in the Eighties, trust me, I was there) it's been pretty neutral so far as projected ideologies go.  Now, some are saying that Will's "coming out" is going to be a textbook example of leftist propaganda.

THAT is something that is certainly not an unfair accusation.

It was too "in your face".  Too blatant.  It was too much aimed at the audience more than it was a revelation meant for the group to absorb.  It was designed for shock effect, even if all the signs were there from the beginning that Will was headed for this moment.  I've never read Stephen King's It but when Will's time came, I imagined it would be something like Eddie's revelation in the It miniseries from 1990: his confession that he was still a virgin, that the only people he had ever really bonded with were the rest of the Losers.  That could have been the model for Will's confession.  It would have let down the burden of Will's secret shame and beautifully established his acceptance by the group, that no matter what Will was never going to be alone.  As it happened in the episode, it was too blunt, too "brusque".

That's the biggest problem I have with Will's coming to the group as he did.  It could have been written and executed and even acted better.  But the cast did the best they could with what they were given.  Maybe the Duffers will learn from this experience.  It certainly seems like I am not alone in my assessment about this episode.  Perhaps the Duffers will take it to heart.  Hey, we can't hit a home run every time.  And so far the creators and producers of Stranger Things have been doing pretty good.  I can forgive this one faux pas.

That's pretty much it.  That's everything of what's been bugging me since watching volume 2 about 96 hours ago.  But last night I rewatched these three chapters again, and found myself enjoying them much more than I had initially.  So much so that now I don't think they're bad at all.  They did what they were supposed to do at this stage in the same: set the board up for the final moves.  The pierces are now in place and war is coming.  Everything else has been cleared away.  The Duffer Brothers have been pulling rabbits out of their hat for the better part of a decade... and now they'd darn well better pull out an alligator.

Whatever else could be said about those three episodes, I'm expecting the grand finale, "The Rightside Up", to wildly exceed them.  Maybe in hindsight we'll all these three episodes as being set-up for what is to come.  And then they will be better appreciated.  Perhaps so.

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Why the Star Wars Holiday Special was so bad, in the words of the man who made it

It's become something of a tragic holiday tradition for me.  Every year about this time, I watch The Star Wars Holiday Special - considered by many to be the very worst two hours of television ever produced - and do a running commentary about it for my friends on Facebook.  Why do I torment myself like this?  I have no idea apart from the comedy (?) value.  I'll do most anything within reason (emphasis on "reason"!) to make my friends laugh.  And if it takes subjecting myself to this... thing... then it's a minor sacrifice to make each holiday season.

Pic I took of my TV screen while watching The Star Wars Holiday Special,
here depicting the lowest moment of Harvey Korman's career

For whatever reason, I didn't watch the Star Wars Holiday Special when I usually do between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wound up setting it to play last night, after I came home from helping some friends catalog and inventory a bunch of Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies, and Care Bears (do kids still go for things like that?).  I think maybe I did it because I was reminded about lunch time yesterday that I still hadn't seen the special this year.  What jogged that thought was this interview that SlashFilm did with Steve Binder, the director of the special.  This interview was originally published in 2015 but it's so authoritative and enlightening that it should be required reading for anyone who during the holidays is curious enough about the Star Wars thingy to want to watch it.

Long story short: Star Wars, the epic space opera that had thus far only had one entry to establish itself and call its own, something that had already won millions of fans across the globe, was treated like a Seventies-era variety show.  It was two successful genres that enough people thought were compatible with each other as a combined product.  Instead it produced one of the biggest FUBARs in the modern history of all pop culture.  And that's how we got the Jefferson Starship, Harvey Korman (in three different roles!), Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and Diahann Carroll (what was that she was doing?) mushed together with ten minutes (?!?) of Wookiees growling at each other, an overly made-up Mark Hamill (I call him "Mannequin Skywalker"), Leia looking a little tipsy, and a cartoon short featuring Boba Fett (his first ever appearance).

So the holiday special is a collision of Star Wars and variety show.  I can see that.  I can even appreciate that.  It does make sense, in a perverse sort of way.  And now that we've got artificial intelligence wheedling its way into everything, maybe by next year some enterprising youngster will fix the Star Wars Holiday Special by inserting Jim Nabors or Sonny and Cher into it.

Jim Nabors as an Imperial officer?  Well gaw-aaahhh-lee!!

(I almost forgot to note that I did NOT finish watching the special last night.  I got as far as the animated short before deciding my heart just wasn't into this this time.  Maybe it's something better appreciated between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So I guess there's always next year!)

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Fallout presents: The Ghoul Log

The second season of Fallout premiered a few days ago on Amazon Prime.  I haven't seen it yet but I'll probably watch it later this evening.  Have had a few things on my plate lately.  Although at the recommendation of a friend last night I did watch Wake 

Up Dead Man, the latest of Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" series starring Daniel Craig.  I really liked it.

Anyhoo, the new season of Fallout is unfolding this holiday season.  And as part of the festivities Amazon has posted on YouTube a special lil' treat.  In the tradition of broadcast Yule logs that goes back many decades across the history of television, here is... the Ghoul Log!

Nothing says Christmas cheer quite like ninety minutes of Wayne Newton music and the fattened arm of some poor sap roasting over an open fire.

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"It is time": Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 has a trailer!

Since Thanksgiving night I have watched the first volume of the final season of Stranger Things twice.  The shock still hasn't faded.  Dang it I want to talk openly about what's been streamed so far!!!  But there are still so many who haven't watched the latest episodes yet.  I'm going to be considerate of them.

But if you have seen the first four episodes of season five already, here is the new trailer that dropped earlier today:

I'll share an interesting theory I've heard, though.  It's being posited that Vecna, for all his malevolence and power, is not the ultimate villain of Stranger Things.  That there is some one or some thing over him that is the true monster behind everything that has happened.  I've heard it suggested that in keeping with the Dungeons & Dragons motif that's rife through this show, this final entity could be code-named Tiamat.  I kind of like that idea, though I don't know if there's going to be enough time to elaborate on that in the four final episodes.  Still a neat notion.

I'll go ahead and share my personal theory for the big finale.  Stranger Things's very last scene is going to be fifteen or twenty years later.  We get to see our heroes all grown up and happy and long past all the trauma and heartbreak that they went through together.  Among other things, Dustin and Suzie are married and have a son named Eddie.  That would be a happy ending for Dustin, who I've been cheering for since I first saw this show in a hotel room in Phoenix years ago.

Ten days to go.

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Happy Sixtieth Anniversary to A Charlie Brown Christmas!

 

Premiered on CBS on December 9th, 1965.

No matter how many times I've seen this, I always take time to watch it again every Christmas season.  A few years ago I bought the Blu-ray containing A Charlie Brown Christmas along with the Halloween and Thanksgiving specials.

I can barely remember it, but when I was two or three years old CBS had scheduled the Christmas special for broadcast.  But a football game went over long and completely pre-empted A Charlie Brown Christmas.  I was furious!  Mom said I was really crying about not getting to see Charlie Brown.  It bothered Mom too.  Enough so that she called CBS affiliate WFMY in neighboring Greensboro to complain about it.  I don't know what she said to them but they gave her the home phone number of the station's general manager!  Mom let him have it, telling him it was wrong to advertise Charlie Brown and then yank it away from all the children because of a football game.  The way Mom put it, I get the feeling that she wasn't the only irate parent calling the station that night.  And parents across America were probably calling their own local CBS affiliates too.  In the end the network rescheduled A Charlie Brown Christmas to an airdate ideal for viewers of all ages and the kiddies got to see it after all.

I treasure knowing that.  For all that happened between my mother and I (something I explore at length in my book Keeping the Tryst), there are anecdotes scattered here and there which prove that Mom wasn't the bad person I went so long believing that she was.  A parent doesn't do something like that if there wasn't love for his or her child.  I very much appreciate that.

Well, happy anniversary Charlie Brown.  Someone said during your special's production that they'll be watching this for a hundred years.  You're well on your way to reaching that goal.  I hope to be around to see it when it comes :-) 

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Just saw this Christmas-themed Publix commercial and I love it!

Whoever came up with this ad deserves an award.  This spot is brilliant, tragicomic, heart-tugging, funny, and beautiful.  Publix has a long history of having great commercials and this is one of their best.

Growing up I thought that people whose birthdays fell on Christmas must be so lucky, because it meant that they got more toys.  Watching poor Isabelle suffer from being a Christmas baby makes me greatly regret having that notion.  May all who were born on Christmas have a birthday just as wonderful as this young lady's :-) 

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Just finished watching Stranger Things season five, volume one. Aaaaaand...

Good GOOGLY MOOOGLY!!  Holy HECK!!  Good LORD!!  Jeebus cripes crispies with milk!!!

I mean, did I just watch that?  I watched that.  That just happened.  That was much better television than we possibly deserve to have.  This is at least the greatest show since Lost.

And the kids do not too terribly old either considering it's been over three years since season four.  They all appear pretty consistent with their characters's on-screen ages.  Even Erica - who I was concerned about most, because I love that character - looks great!  The crew did an amazing job with makeup.  I totally bought that these were still teenagers.

I totally called it on the title of episode two, which was being called "The Vanishing Of..." ever since the titles reveal last year.  The foreshadowing was there all the way back in season one.  Can't believe I nailed that one :-)

It was a real delight to see that the copy of A Wrinkle in Time that Holly is reading is the very same edition of my own copy, that I got as fourth grader in 1984.  That became one of my favorite books from childhood and it was really something seeing how that classic tale got referenced in these episodes.

I'm just... wow.  The past five hours were amazing.  Definitely time well spent away from real world concerns.  That can be a good thing, in moderation.  I've neglected having some leisure time for my own enjoyment for much too long.  Tonight I got to have that again.

Today is officially Thanksgiving.  I'm going to be joining some friends for a late celebration tomorrow, so I have today pretty much to myself.  I'm going to spend it playing with my dog, for fun I'm going to make the dinner that Snoopy cooked in A Charlie  Brown Thanksgiving (complete with toast and pretzels), and I might watch these first four episodes again.  I'll certainly watch them again before volume two comes out on Christmas Day.

Okay well, go watch the new Stranger Things.  It gets my highest recommendation.  And if you've never watched it before, what are you waiting for??  You're missing a heck of a story, with an amazing cast of characters.  I hope this comes to Blu-ray eventually, because I would be very happy to have the series in my collection.  But you don't have to wait.  Get Netflix now, just for Stranger Things.  Trust me it's worth it.

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The final trailer for Stranger Things season five

"William, you are going to help me... one last time."

Love that cover of Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever?"  I have to wonder what that portends.

Feels like the end of an era of my lifetime is looming.  I really don't know what is going to fill the void left by Stranger Things after the finale airs, streams, whatever.  I watched the first season on my iPad one day in a hotel room in Albuquerque.  From the very first moments I loved it.  That was nine years ago.  So much has happened since then.  And now... well, what do I do now?

The final season begins with volume one on November 26th.

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So... the BBC just said that Doctor Who is still alive and that there will be a Christmas special in 2026

 I say FORGET IT!

From the good ol' days when a Doctor Who Christmas special really MEANT something.

I shall properly preface this post by noting that when the franchise has gotten so bad that Disney+ has washed their hands free of it, you know things are dire and not apt to get better anytime soon.

The BBC announced today that Doctor Who is still viable somehow and that there will be a Christmas special next year.  But according to the article, Russell T. Davies is still in charge of the show.

Like I said, forget THAT!!

As long as Davies is calling the shots, this show is dead and it's not regenerating.  Although I will confess that the twisted little "id" creature within me is harboring morbid fascination about what the '26 Christmas special will entail.  Because the last time we saw anything of Doctor Who, Ncuti Gatwa's dress-wearing Doctor (either the Fourteenth or Fifteenth, does it really matter anymore?) transitioned to Rose Tyler, again played by Billie Piper.  It was a cheap stunt born out of desperation and all it did was paint the saga into a corner with no way out.

As I said last time that the subject of Doctor Who was brought up on this site, the series needs to go away for awhile.  Maybe a long while.  Like, five or ten years, much like the "wilderness years" between 1989 and 2005.  Then brought back with an ENTIRELY new showrunner and production team.  Have it be people who truly get Doctor Who and what has made this show so beloved.  Make sure that they're committed to characters and story first, WITHOUT any ideological agenda (which in my opinion is at the heart meat of what killed this show, Davies was determined that it would be a platform for his personal beliefs and unfortunately he wasn't the only one).  Have the rebooted series jettison or at least thoroughly retcon away all that "Timeless Child" bull$hit (I'm being polite) and establish that the Doctor is always intended to be a male character.  There is a dynamic in this show between the Doctor and his companions and that must NEVER be tampered with.  I think the Doctor can be portrayed by a woman, playing against gender, but it has to be someone special (I've always thought that Tilda Swinton would make a terrific Doctor).  Or at least do NOT have the Doctor wearing a kilt, or whatever the h-ll that was that Gatwa's "Doctor In Name Only" was dancing around in.

It sounds like extremely invasive surgery.  And it is.  It will even require some amputations.  But the subject is beyond repair by normal procedure.  Doctor Who is NOT coming back anywhere close to the stature it had twelve years ago at the height of the Matt Smith era, and even the Peter Capaldi period (which despite some problems I really did end up liking a lot), without VERY drastic measures being taken.  It can't stay on its present course and it's insanity to believe it can go any further.  The BBC must fire Davies, learn from its mistakes, and let the show rest for awhile, and start anew.

That's the only way to make sure that there will again be a Doctor to save the universe every Saturday for the children to enjoy watching.  And I would love to see that again too, for that matter.

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Former writer admits what we all know: Doctor Who is DEAD

I know: this pic is from "The Name Of The Doctor" from the Steven Moffat era.  Its bleakness is plenty fitting for this post though.

There might well be volumes written, many years from now, about what happened to Doctor Who: the much-beloved British science-fiction television series that had delighted generations of viewers around the world.  Maybe those to come will take to heart the lesson of why the show defied so much, only to die at the hands of liberal ideology.

To Russell T. Davies and Chris Chibnall before him: the Doctor is dead... and you killed him!

Oh sure, Davies had his moments when he initially ran the show between 2005 and 2009, but there was still a good measure of respect for the saga, for the writing and for the audience.  Chibnall was the one who first pulled the trigger in earnest though, when he decided to make the Doctor a woman (there is a dynamic at work in Doctor Who and the Doctor should ALWAYS be male in keeping to that) and then made practically every episode a sermon about leftism.

Then Davies took over again.  And that's when the show truly went to hell.

Look, I had my hopes up.  I knew nothing of Ncuti Gatwa.  Just as I had known nothing of Peter Capaldi and Matt Smith when they were announced to be their respective Doctors.  But I was willing to give them a chance.  I was willing and eager to be surprised.

But Gatwa very quickly proved that of all the people who have ever played the Doctor, he is hands-down the very worst.  That he casually and chronically insulted everyone who didn't like the new direction of the show, telling them to "touch grass" instead, only made it worse.

(Maybe it's just me but I also don't think the Doctor should wear a dress.)

Here's what I think happened in the past few years: Doctor Who became Russell T. Davies' midlife crisis.  In the time between 2009 and 2022 Davies came to be confronted with his mortality.  He has no family of his own, his lifestyle prohibits having any progeny.  So Davies became driven to inflict his personal mark on the one thing that has proven to give him a sense of immortality: his work on Doctor Who.  And so Davies made it all about himself.  He opened up the spigot of his wokery.  In the process he drove away the core audience of Doctor Who.  Davies seriously believed that his fellow leftists were going to be legion enough to sustain his "work".

Doctor Who stopped being the show that it had been since 1963 and instead became a vehicle for leftist propaganda.  And the true fans departed.  They took Davies and Chibnall at their word: they had been told that they weren't welcome, so they grabbed their hats and left.

Former Doctor Who writer Robert Shearman has come forth to tell us what we all know: the show has been brought to a screeching halt right at the edge of an open grave.  And there is no foreseeable plan to bring it back.

The series is stuck where it last left off: Ncuti Gatwa's "Fourteenth Doctor" regenerating into the form of Billie Piper (who has at various times played the Doctor's companion Rose ever since the show first restarted in 2005).  It was a cheap stunt that underscored the obvious: the showrunners didn't know what they were doing.  Their ideology is all that mattered to them.  They were handed the keys to one of the most respected science-fiction mythologies ever crafted and they destroyed it with gross negligence.

For what it's worth, here's what I think: Doctor Who needs not just a hiatus but major invasive surgery under most potent anesthesia.  Let it be asleep for the next five or ten years.  And then pick up the show but ignoring everything from the Chibnall era on forward.  The final canonical words of the Doctor before regenerating should be those of the Twelfth: "Doctor, I let you go."  Let the Doctor disappear in that flash of light and in his place... a true Doctor.  One bereft of egotistical management and political agendas.

A dire measure?  Yes.  Yes it is.  But it's the only one I can see that will resurrect the Doctor Who franchise and correct its course.

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There's a trailer for Fallout season two?? Why didn't I know about this already??

Okay, the past few days have been a little wacky on my side of the screen.  Quite a bit of stuff going on that has been below my radar and this is one of them.  Five days ago the trailer for Fallout second season dropped and I'm just now looking at it.

And having just seen it I got to say: it looks glorious!  Now, Fallout: New Vegas is the one Fallout title that I've yet to complete.  I bought it when the game first came out in 2010 and, let's just say that real-world circumstances have kept me from finishing it.  The last thing that I did in the game before having to take a "leave of absence" from it was to get to New Vegas and explore around.  I'm pretty familiar with the landscape surrounding the city before arriving there.  So I already know much of the terrain that this trailer touches upon.

Which makes my appreciation for this trailer even more profound.  This looks amazing.  Season one was some of the best television I'd seen all this past decade and this next season looks to intensify that.

Okay well, on with the trailer!

Fallout second season premieres on Amazon Prime this December.  Who knows, maybe I'll finally finish the game by then.

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After Johnny Robertson: What happens to WGSR now?

Maybe I'm about to say too much, with this post.  But a few of you have asked me about recent events and my take on them.  And this does pertain to some people who I had blogged about much (though it's been awhile, like fifteen years or so).

I feel obligated, for sake of completion, to weigh in on the matter.  So here it goes...

As reported a few days ago, Johnny Robertson of the Martinsville Church of Christ died a week ago.  The funeral service was held this past weekend.  Robertson was cremated, which may or may not be germane to the conversation.

The manner of Robertson's death has become a topic of considerable discussion in the Martinsville, Virginia and Reidsville, North Carolina area.  I am aware of what the medical examination determined.  By now many people have correctly surmised how Johnny Robertson came to pass away.  Regardless of the history that existed between Robertson and myself, I am greatly troubled and even grieved that his end came in such a way.  "There but for the grace of God..."

Although I no longer live in that vicinity, I do maintain interest in what transpires around my old stompin' grounds.  And so it is that from where I see things, Johnny Robertson's death may have significant ramifications to that region. Especially in regard to WGSR, the television station from which Robertson's "Church of Christ" had three solid hours of broadcasting each week.

Here's what it comes down to: WGSR, the Star News station, is now on the brink of destruction.  It is far removed from the fairly vibrant television station that I first went to work at in 2006.  The WGSR of that time had a lot of variety of programming.  But that's dwindled away, from what I've heard.

For all of this time though, there has been one consistent constant: that the "Church of Christ" (which is nothing at all like the mainstream Church of Christ denomination) was WGSR's biggest-paying client.  Johnny Robertson kept the money coming into the station.  So long as Robertson kept stoking the flames of controversy, the "rich Texans" out west would send money for the broadcasts.  And stoking controversy has always been something right up WGSR general manager Charles Roark's alley.  The man trades and deals in strife.  Johnny Robertson and his confederates of the "Church of Christ" came loaded with footage  of their trespasses against decent Christians with seemingly each new hour of broadcast, and Roark was ever eager to put it on the air.  It was a vicious cycle that kept Robertson and his cronies doing their "work" and consequently kept WGSR in business.

But now, Johnny Robertson is gone.  And with him goes much if not most of the funding that WGSR has relied on for the past twenty years.  There will be no more shows from the Martinsville Church of Christ.  The "Church of Christ" as has been known in that area, represented by the Robertson family, is done with.  It's over.  It took awhile but they are finally extinguished.

Sources in the Martinsville/Reidsville area have told me that WGSR's management has been thrown into chaos.  Roark bet the farm on the Robertson gang, and he has now lost bigly.  But it was only a matter of time before this happened.  And now Roark is facing the very severe consequences of having hitched the WGSR wagon to Johnny Robertson's star to begin with.

I suppose if nothing else, I'm writing this post out of an obligation to chronicle something that doesn't happen very often: the death of a television station.  Because that is what it seems is now happening to WGSR.  Reidsville has had a TV station for more than forty years, and suddenly it is facing the possibility that there will be no local television broadcasting anymore.  How it came to this point, is something well worth analyzing and discussing.  Because what may be about to happen, is something that could have been avoided had smarter and more mature management been in charge.  WGSR is about to become an object lesson in running a media outlet into the ground.

Maybe others will watch what happens with the station, and take from it a measure of wisdom.  The well of controversy has dried up at WGSR.  And that's what it had put its stock in.

It wouldn't surprise me if the station was defunct by the end of the year.  Barring significant reform, its days are certainly numbered.

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I know why CBS is canceling Stephen Colbert

 

Colbert and Trump in happier times (2015)

Stephen Colbert can stamp his feet all he wants about CBS ending his late-night show.  He can scream and tantrum to his heart's content.  But in the end the loss of The Late Show is squarely on him.  And the rest of the "talent" on late at night would do well to learn from his example.

Here's the secret to success at television after the eleven o'clock news.  Most people do not want the last thing that they allow into their minds before going to bed be unrelenting bitterness.  Late-night hosts like Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno after him, knew that people at that hour wanted one last shot of laughter to end their day on.  And those hosts provided that.  Viewers tuned in, got a good chuckle, and wound up going to sleep feeling that however rotten the day had been, it ended on a somewhat happy note after all.  It's a formula that kept television audiences tuned in for decades to those hosts of times past.

Colbert and the rest of his kind never understood that or ever really cared to.  That kind of "comedy" isn't their forté.  They believe that "humor" is vile and mean-spirited and they went to great lengths to proclaim that they represented "new comedy".

But in the end, their "comedy" for the past decade had only one setting: "Trump Bad And Republicans Evil"(tm).  People got tired of that.  Bitterness can only go so far in a business that is allegedly about entertaining people instead of preaching down to them.  If nothing else, Colbert was doing his best to insult half of his potential audience... and that's never a good practice, either.

No, it wasn't politics that led CBS to can The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.  It was solid numbers that Colbert and his staff weren't justifying having a presence with.  I'm seeing that it cost the network $40 million a year to keep the show running.  What kind of an audience does that kind of money supposed to achieve?  Carson had higher numbers than that during his long tenure on The Tonight Show, with far less a budget.

It wasn't politics.  It certainly wasn't President Donald Trump waving a cloaked sleeve like he's a Dark Lord of the Sith telling his minions to "do it!" to anyone who merits his wrath.  It was nothing but raw hatred and anger, perpetuated long past their expiration dates.  It's kind of ironic: Stephen Colbert liked cancel culture.  Until cancel culture came to cancel him.

Maybe the pendulum will begin to swing the other way now.  I've believed for awhile that the ground is fertile for a late-night host in the tradition of Carson and Leno.  Hosts who devoted at most three jokes a night about the president.  They were men who understood laughter and people's need for it.  Something that Colbert and his sort never did and probably never will.

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In memory of Malcolm-Jamal Warner

The very sad news broke today that Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the extremely talented actor and director and producer whose greatest role Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show kept us uproariously laughing, has passed away at age 54.

It was hard to name a favorite character from that series, but Theo was definitely up there on my list.  Maybe because he was the only son of Cliff and Claire.  A lot of the comedy was his to bear because of that and he did it magnificently!

When I think of all the Theo-centric episodes of The Cosby Show, there is one stands out above the rest, and I believe that a lot of other people are going to say that this is funniest the character had.  Here in Warner's memory is a clip from the first season episode where Theo buys a "Gordon Gartrayal" shirt.  The interaction between Theo and his parents is hilarious!

Thoughts and prayers going out for his family.

EDIT: Wow, there's a part 2 from that episode that's been uploaded!  Here it is, Theo in the shirt that Denise made for him:

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"Found you": The trailer for the final season of Stranger Things just hit the Intertubes!

Just like "Running Up That Hill" did three years ago, "Child In Time" by Deep Purple is no doubt going to burn up the charts on Spotify and iTunes the next few days

Behold the trailer for the very last season of Stranger Things:

The kids look GREAT!  It's almost like no time has passed at all since we last saw them in 2022.  For all the delays that COVID and then the strikes caused to this series's production, it doesn't really seem like the cast has become too old for their parts.

Maybe we should call Stranger Things "the little Netflix series that could."

Part one of the final season drops the day before this Thanksgiving.  The second part on Christmas Day.  The grand finale on New Years Eve.  And I seriously don't know what my pop culture drug of choice is going to be after this series is finished.  For the past decade Stranger Things has been the only series of television or movies that has really interested me.  What's going to take the place of that?  Or could it be that the final season will herald my "growing up" at last ?  I like to think that I've still got a smidgeon of "the old fire" in me, waiting to be fanned into new life with the right kindling.  But I really don't know what that could be.

EDIT: late yesterday Netflix released the poster for season five.  I'm getting the shivers looking at this one....

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Watch the General Lee jump the fountain in Somerset, Kentucky

This is already the most beautiful thing I've seen all week.  A Dodge Charger kitted out to look like the famous General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard goes roaring down the street in Somerset, Kentucky and jumps a ramp and goes soaring through the town's water fountain.

Behold the stunt!

Okay, yeah the car got banged up a bit (the driver didn't get a scratch apparently, thank the Lord) but that'll buff right out.  Throw on some Bondo and a good sanding and it'll be good as new!

Notice how this car is all-out faithful to the General Lee of the show.  Including the Confederate flat on the roof.  That's a really good touch, completely in the spirit of the TV series.

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Svengoolie! Or: How I spend many Saturday nights

Not looking like there's going to be any going about this evening.  There are a few things I've got on my plate, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  And there is always church in the morning, so that accomplishes my spiritual and social needs in great part.

So on a Saturday like this I do some errands around the house, play with my miniature dachshund, make dinner, and for the rest of the afternoon and early evening it's usually sitting up on my sofa with my iPad and keyboard and working on writing.  And that's how a lot of my other nights develop into: writing for my book or op-ed pieces, or the fantasy romance novel that I've been inspired to start (seriously).

But since this is Saturday I've also got the weekly entertainment to look forward to, straight outta Berwyn.

Every Saturday night at 8 p.m. Eastern (and 7 Central) sees the next two and a half hours blocked off for Svengoolie on the MeTV network.  Svengoolie is a madcap "horror host" of the kind that many television stations had back in the day who every week would present a scary(?) movie.  These actually ran the gamut from straight-up horror classics to science-fiction extravaganzas to mélanges of both and sometimes it would be more comic fare.  It was all good and great fun!  And the hosts were as much a hoot to behold as the movies themselves.

Svengoolie - whose real name is Rich Koz - has been upholding this noble tradition from the Chicago market since 1979 (yes, more than 45 years now!).  Some time ago he and his franchise were picked up by MeTV and he's now presenting his favorite films for a nationwide audience.  And the nation has certainly taken notice.  Svengoolie is now one of the most-watched programs during the weekend.  It has become a true Saturday night ritual for countless fans, who show their appreciation in many different ways (being photographed wearing a Svengoolie shirt in some exotic location is particularly popular).

It's a terrific formula for good hearty entertainment!  And it has also introduced me to a lot of movies that I otherwise might have never seen.  A few weeks ago Svengoolie presented Strait-Jacket from 1964 starring Joan Crawford.  I thought it was an amazing film that more than deserved to be seen by a modern audience.  And last week's feature was Village of the Damned (a movie I first saw in 1989 on "Billy Bobb's Action Theatre" on Greensboro's Channel 48).  That is also a motion picture that merits appreciation by people of our era.  Whether the movie of the week is terrifying or thought-inducing or evoking laughter, you can't go wrong with Svengoolie (and his pals on the Sven Squad).

If you've never had the pleasure, I can't recommend Svengoolie nearly enough for Saturday night.  It's a rollicking fun time to be had by all.  And hey Sven, if you're reading this, I would like to suggest that some week you might run Yor: The Hunter From The Future.  It's perfect Eighties schlock that deserves some modern appreciation.  The #svengooolie hashtag on X/Twitter will be burning up with commentary!

'We will need a lot more hemp before we're through."

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