Because of my surgery and recovery time, I watched a lot of TV in 2013, and had a chance to catch up on entire series that I’d previously missed. Top 5 TV Shows that I discovered in 2013 (Listed alphabetically) Community: Oh, Community, how did I ever live without you? You and Parks & Rec are now my favorite two comedies of all time. I hope season 5 returns you to your former glory...
I love watching pilots of new TV shows, seeing how the writers set up the characters and relationships, the world-building, and the larger stories. Here are some of my winners and losers among the new shows for Fall 2013. NEW SHOWS I’VE GIVEN UP ON The Crazy Ones: Sarah Michelle Gellar is great, but the rest of the show is a snooze and way too homogenous. Some nice chemistry between Gellar...
Trying to compile these entries has taught me that I need to keep better records of my media consumption each year. Let me give it a go anyway… Videogames Portal 2 One of my favorite games of ALL TIME. I love logic puzzles, and the collaborative mode of this game had me scratching my head then whooping with joy every time I solved a new challenge. LOVE LOVE LOVE. The single-player mode also...
Sports Night, a half-hour comedy-drama series created by Aaron Sorkin (before he rose to West Wing fame), has just made it to Netflix streaming and should therefore be added to all of your to-be-watched (or re-watched) queues. First, it’s not about sports. Not any more than The West Wing was about politics, at least. It’s about people — about an intense workplace that has forged...
My friend, the talented YA writer Amaris Glass, is all kinds of awesome. At the recent SCBWI conference in LA, she gave me what has to be one of my favorite gifts EVER: a signed poster from the upcoming Legend of Korra TV show currently in production. (Legend of Korra is a followup to one of my favorite TV shows of all time (animated or not), Avatar: The Last Airbender.) BEHOLD: From 2011...
I’ve never been on a con panel before. I don’t consider myself an expert about anything except my own life — and even that assertion is a little shaky most days. But when editors Lynne Thomas and Deborah Stanish asked me to come to Gallifrey One for the Whedonistas launch, I couldn’t refuse. (Don’t get me wrong — I tried to refuse, I just couldn’t.) So I...
This weekend, Whedonistas will launch at the Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles. The weekend costs $75 and a day pass is $40. I’ll be on the launch panel attempting to say as little as possible. Whedonistas Book Launch Panel, Mad Norwegian Press Saturday, February 19th 3pm On the panel: Lynne Thomas Deborah Stanish Christa Dickson Lars Pearson Jane Espenson Kelly Hale Nancy Holder...
I’m thrilled to announce my inclusion in Whedonistas, “A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon By The Women Who Love Them,” edited by the fabulous duo of Lynne M. Thomas and Deborah Stanish. The book will be released March 15, 2011, by Mad Norwegian Press. I’d never written a personal essay before “Something to Sing About,” but I just couldn’t pass up...
A while back, I expressed some frustration with SyFy’s formulaic television offerings in the form of Eureka, Warehouse 13, and Haven. Here’s an update: Haven kind of hooked me near the end of the season, as Audrey’s season-long plot arc got seriously interesting. I still like the dynamic between the three leads, but am not eagerly counting the minutes until the show returns...
Back at Cosmic Toast Studios, creator/composer/actor/singer/goofball Andy Pagana has released the first album of Nonsense Box songs on iTunes! Nonsense Box is a very silly collection of very silly skits involving puppets, animation, goofy dialogue and songs intended for kids and silly adults of all ages. (Think Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but for a younger audience.) Practically everyone...
GLEE (Fox) and HUGE (ABC Family) are TV shows about modern-day teenagers struggling to figure out who they are while surviving the everyday trials and tribulations associated with being a teen. What I love about GLEE: The songs. Specifically, how well the actors portray the emotions in the songs they’re singing. As a long-time musicals fan, I can’t get enough of emotionally charged...
Nope, I’m not talking about Stonehenge Apocalypse (“We can’t just sit on our hands while Stonehenge destroys the world!”) or any of SyFy’s infamous monster mashups, I’m talking about three of their original TV shows: Eureka, Warehouse 13, and Haven. I’ll say up front that I’m not a huge fan of any of these shows, but I do watch them and I find their...
I love watching pilot episodes of new TV shows. I love studying how they set up their settings and characters and premises, how they handle dialogue, how they’re paced. If they’re trying to capitalize on another successful show, I love to see what elements they copy, where they diverge, and how they succeed or fail in their goal. Sometimes there’s more to learn from the bad...
An unexpected relapse of last week’s sinus infection had a nice side effect: I suddenly had the time to marathon watch all of season 1 of BONES. I didn’t expect to like the show for two reasons: 1. I have never been a fan of David Boreanaz in his role as Angel/Angelus on both Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel. (In fact, I’ve never even made it through all of Angel...
MTV has a new parkour show! You can watch the full pilot episode of MTV’s Ultimate Parkour Challenge below. (NOTE: Videos are restricted by region so international viewers may not be able to view them.) If you have any interest in learning about this art, I think you’ll really enjoy watching the whole 42-minute episode. You’ll see a lot of basic and advanced techniques, plus...
All the hubbub over Super Bowl commercials has reminded me of one of my favorite commercials ever, Discovery Channel’s “The World is Just Awesome.” Imagine my happy surprise to find there’s also a sequel!
So, if you haven’t seen these before (and even if you have) please watch. Your sense of wonder will thank you.
Our Slangman’s World page at gpbkids.org has just launched! You can: Play our awesome new game, Gizma’s Robot Builder, in which you build a robot while learning the names of body parts in various languages! Watch all ten of our fun, music-filled Slangman’s World episodes! And yes, this gives you an opportunity to see my entire voice acting oeuvre. Don’t forget to watch...
As 2009 speeds toward the finish line, I’ll be posting some rather silly list-style year-in-review posts, possibly more for my benefit than for yours. (Sorry about that.) 2009: FOODIE CONTEST SHOWS Why do I love cooking contest shows when I myself do not cook? I have no idea. Perhaps, as is the case with so many of the other shows I watch, I enjoy getting a detailed look into an obsession...
People fascinate me. I love them for their frailty, their intricacies, their quirks, their passions. I love the brave ones and the scared ones, the dreamers and the pragmatists. And by watching reality TV, I get a constant stream to observe without having to lurk around at a coffeehouse or an airport. Oh, sure, reality show producers don’t pick “average” people. They pick...
The first time I saw this commercial, the ending really hit me. I’m not sure if non-Californians have gotten a chance to see it, so here you go:
I’m glad to see the power of TV being used for Good. (Want more info? Go here.)
During my commute this morning, I flipped on NPR in the middle of this story: Vampire Slayer Buffy Saves Iraq Reporter’s Soul by Jamie Tarabay. NPR sums up the piece thusly: Buffy the Vampire Slayer saved the world and the sanity of NPR’s Jamie Tarabay while she was in Baghdad. Tarabay explores why she needed the slayer during her time in Iraq. This article illustrates one of the main...
I’ve been streaming radio stations through iTunes at work, bopping between classical and folk and Beatles and NPR. But yesterday I discovered my new favorite: StreamingSoundtracks.com! Some of the choice pieces I’ve heard since tuning in have been from: Totoro Battlestar Galactica (new) World of Warcraft (Lament of the Highborn!) Pirates of the Carribean Hero Final Fantasy VII (but...
If you’re a geek or a geek-sympathizer, you might want to check out a new sitcom on CBS called The Big Bang Theory. I’m no fan of sitcoms, but I really like this one. The show centers around two physics geeks, Leonard and Sheldon, their two nerdy friends, and their new neighbor who happens to be an attractive, non-geeky woman. The part that’s different? They get all the geeky...
Saturday night, my new company hosted a screening party for our new animated short, “Pronto!” Although I joined the Slangman team after the song itself had been recorded, I did get to see the process develop from script to storyboard to shoot to animatic to finished animation. You wouldn’t believe the amount of work that goes into something like this, and the amount of heart. I...