Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2004
This box set has restored my faith in television. I actually don’t have cable or satellite or anything, and if you ask anyone that knows me, they’ll tell you that I’m a steadfast refusenik when it comes to watching TV. Law & Order, however, is intelligent, well-cast, and has very high production values – all the ingredients of a winning series, as its ridiculously long run (14+ years) is testament to. Each episode has a well thought-out plot, usually with some sort of twist – and generally without any glaring plot ho...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004
Synopsis
Treat Williams is Dr. Andrew Brown, a high-powered NYC neurosurgeon. When his wife iskilled in a traffic accident, Williams re-evaluates his life, and the fact that he had put his familyvery much on the backburner with reference to his career, and on the spur of the moment movesthe family to Everwood, Colorado, a small town he was once told was idyllic. So begins a newlife, an effort to avoid making the same mistakes, and an effort to re-connect with his alienatedteenaged s...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004
Synopsis
The scene is a middle-class apartment building in Washington, DC. Our characters are Mary(Marla Gibbs), hard-nosed mother; her best friend and gossip-buddy Rose (Alaina Reed); big-time flirt Sandra (Jackée Harry) and the relevant husbands and offspring. It’s the expectedcollection of wisecracks and Issues Moments in an utterly typical, and I would have thoughcompletely forgotten, sitcom.
Audio
The 2.0 sound may be stereo, but it has no surround pres...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004
Synopsis
In a typically golden-hued television version of the 19th Century, Katherine Heigl is movingout to the Western frontier with husband Oliver Macready. They have barely arrived at the site oftheir future homestead when Macready gets himself killed in a horse-riding accident. Widowedand alone, Heigl accepts a proposal from widower and single father Dale Midkiff: to have aplatonic marriage with him in order that the two might help each other out until the followingspring, at wh...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 19th, 2004
Synopsis
Here we go: it’s the senior year for Dawson, Joen, Pacey, Jen and Jack. Joey and Pacey haveto deal with how their new romance (which concluded the last season) is going to affect theirrelationship with Dawson. As before, we follow dreams crash or flower, and the same withrelationships. The writing is stronger than on many dramas, but sometimes is a little too pleasedwith itself -- Pacey’s crack in the opening episode about “the land of poorly written melodrama”which also fo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 18th, 2004
Synopsis
There are three volumes under review here: “Color Craze,” “Music Magic,” and “GameTime.” Imagine a kids’ show taken over by a co-ed version of the Backstreet Boys, and you’llhave some sense of what these shows are like. A group of 5 young people sing and danceenergetically, and then, in individual segments, each host focuses on a different specialty (onedoes shapes, another movement, and so on). Other segments consists of more song, storytelling,activities, and so on. I won...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Naked in New York follows the ups and downs of the relationship between EricStoltz and Mary-Louise Parker. Stoltz is our narrator. He is raised by deeply neurotic singlemother Jill Clayburgh, and he works out his conflicted feelings about his family in some(apparently) promising plays during his college years. It is hear that he meets Parker, who hashuge talent as a photographer, but is very insecure and self-deprecating about her own talent.Their relationship is put...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2004
Paul McCartney once implored John Lennon’s son Julian to “take a sad song and make it better”. The same basic concept is at work here, but the words “sad song” should be replaced with “bad cartoon”. Sealab 2021 is a clever show from Cartoon Network that takes a bad old show, Sealab 2020, and replaces the dialog track with something much more enjoyable. Think of it as the Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach to creating a cartoon.
Admittedly, the results are sometimes mixed. When a gag ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 13th, 2004
Synopsis
Welcome to Austin, Texas. Here, in a series of short, interconnected vignettes, we will meeta huge diversity of characters, who are variously eccentric, insane, disaffected, apathetic,coasting, and so on. Director/writer/producer Richard Linklater’s approach is not unlike RobertAltman taken to the next level. Plot, as such, finally disappears completely. Instead, the camerafollows one character (or set of characters) for a minute or two, then leaves them to trail someonewho...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 8th, 2004
Synopsis
A brand new, draconian security system is installed in Park Plaza Mall: steel doors that smalshut at midnight, and roving armed robots who will immobilize any intruder. The night therobots are activated, a group of young folk (who might otherwise be at Crystal Lake, beingslaughtered by Jason), hold an after-hours party in the furniture store. An electrical storm friesthe robots’ circuits, sending them on a killer rampage (and somehow giving them lasercapabilities, it seems)...
