Babylon 5, "The Long Twilight Struggle"
Rowan Kaiser reviews “The Long Twilight Struggle,” the episode of Babylon 5 that makes all the silliness and groans worth it. Seriously, it’s a fantastic work of fiction.
Finally, fans can make money from their Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Vampire Diaries fan fiction | TV | Newswire | The A.V. Club
I figured that a service which encourages fan fiction was something to be wary of, until I read Sean O’Neal’s joke about an all-vampire Sweeney Todd. Guess I know what I’m doing this weekend.
A fan and a newbie catch up on the first season of The Venture Bros. | TV | Crosstalk | The A.V. Club
Zack Handlen and Todd VanDerWerff examine the first season of The Venture Bros. Go Team Venture!
Why the brokenness of breaking news probably won’t ever be fixed | TV | For Our Consideration | The A.V. Club
After a week in which people were glued to CNN and Twitter, following up to the second coverage of the manhunt for the Boston bombing suspects, Todd VanDerWerff examines the state of modern journalism and how the desire to break a story has overtaken the desire to be accurate. In a world where cable news networks fight for ratings and anyone with an Internet connection thinks they can contribute to the story, things get overlooked in the race to be the first to report. VanDerWerff’s remark about how reading Twitter Friday night reduced reality to performance art is especially apt. I recall checking in every now and then that night, realizing that anything I read needed to be viewed skeptically. What I saw was conflicting statements of “fact,” which were constantly being amended, and the usual brand of Twitter humor applied to the unfolding events, which, in this situation, did not come off as too humorous.
Why white critics’ fear of engaging Tyler Perry is stifling honest discussion.
Parameter 2013 will be starting soon, but in the meantime, here is last year’s winner, The Ballad of Oscar Homeslice. It is an amazing short film that was made for $0. And I don’t mean that it’s amazing for being a film made on no budget. It’s amazing on its own merits.
Parameter 2013
The A.V. Club announces its second annual film festival, Parameter
180 Days: A Year Inside An American School
Even the review is depressing. Will definitely watch this, but I foresee lots of emotions.
Get Involved, Internet: A Kickstarter campaign for the Veronica Mars movie | Great Job, Internet! | The A.V. Club
How much do I have to donate to be given the role of Veronica’s boring new boyfriend she eventually leaves to go back to Logan?
Here’s a Mad Men poster for the series premiere on April 7. From what we can tell the show is now animated with colored pencils and there are two Don Drapers.
And now I want an animated episode done in the style of 60s ads.
Netflix announced that it doesn’t have any plans to do more Arrested Development after this forthcoming season. So, essentially, it’s been canceled by Netflix now.
Guess there isn’t always money in the Banana Stand.
The A.V. Club lists their selections for works of art that are sadly unattainable. Tasha Robinson lists Studio Ghibli’s short film Mei and the Kittenbus, a spin-off to My Neighbor Totoro which can only be seen at the Ghibli Museum outside of Tokyo.
The A.V. Club Looks At Duck Tales And The Rise And Fall Of Disney Afternoon
If you grew up in the late 80s, Duck Tales is almost certainly an important cultural touchstone for you. The show was full of fun, adventure, and humor, and it has one of the best and catchiest theme songs in cartoon (possibly even television) history.
The A.V. Club looks at how the timing was exactly right in the late 80s for this wonderful show, and the many that followed it (notably Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and Tale Spin, a show I have a huge soft spot for, due to its Art Deco design and 1930s technology). Todd VanDerWerff examines how Duck Tales seemed to lead a revolution in what children’s television could be, before changes at Disney took the show off the air and failed to utilize this beloved series.
Now, sing it with me:
Life is like a hurricane
Here in Duckburg…
Watching TV Slowly
As a companion piece to my previous post, here is an article by Todd VanDerWerff advocating for not binge watching certain TV shows.
I certainly believe he makes strong points about how shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad lose something and/or take on different meanings when the viewing pace is changed. And I know from experience that frantically catching up can cause you to miss things (I read the A Song of Ice and Fire novels so rapidly, I missed a lot of details fueling the great fan theories out there). And VanDerWerff clearly isn’t advocating ceasing the practice of marathoning altogether. I think I’m slightly more open to the idea than he is (I can’t imagine watching The Wire week-to-week), but, as I said, he makes great, well-thought-out points. Give it a read!
Todd VanDerWerff On Netflix's Model Of Delivering An Entire "Season" Of TV Instantaneously
With Netflix getting into the original content market, they have decided to use a new kind of television distribution model: making an entire season available all at once. Although we’ve had TV-on-DVD and streaming options for more than a decade, those options only existed after the season had aired over the course of several months. Now, people are free to watch a season at their own pace without the option to view it “collectively” at a scheduled time with other viewers.
The A.V. Club’s Todd VanDerWerff examines what this new distribution model could mean for the future of TV. It in many ways affects the very nature of the medium, transforming an episodic art form into one similar to film.*
TV has often used real time passing to reflect time passing in-series. 30 Rock this year followed the election cycle. Buffy and Community take place over the course of a school year. Of course, not every show does this (LOST’s passage of time required viewers to pay very close attention), but the weekly passage of real time allowed viewers to discuss the show together in the time between episodes. VanDerWerff looks at these behaviors and wonders how an instantaneous distribution will affect how TV shows are made and watched.
*Interestingly enough, I’ve complained about how some people are trying to change the film medium to be more like television. For a prime example of a film-trying-to-be-a-TV-show, check out Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. Or better yet, don’t. Very little in that movie made sense, and the filmmakers promised that we’d get the continued story in the sequel.
