******TARDIS-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Last we saw the new Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa), he’d just ‘bi-generated’ from the 14th Doctor (David Tennant) atop UNIT Headquarters as they battled the Toymaker (Neil Patrick Harris) together in Special #3: “The Giggle.” With Doctor 14 surviving the split and living in a state of semi-retirement with the Noble family, this 15th Doctor…
Month: December 2023
Retro-Musings for the Holidays: TV’s Happy Days; “Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas?” (1974)…
*****CATHODE-RAY TUBE SPOILERS!!***** As I did with legendary TV producer Norman Lear’s recent passing, I’m taking a brief break from this site’s usual sci-fi/fantasy/horror fare for a look at a classic episode of the old sitcom, “Happy Days.” Happy Days began as a 1972 segment of the then-popular TV comedy anthology series, “Love, American Style”…
“Superman: The Movie” (1978) made my generation believe a man could fly…
****SUPER-SPOILERS AHEAD!***** Having written a retrospective on “Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut” a couple years ago, I recently realized I’d never tackled my personal favorite of the Superman (and superhero) movie canon. In December of 1978, I’d just turned a precocious 12 years old when a new movie was released that everyone at school…
Doctor Who Special #3: “The Giggle” wins the game…
After last week’s bizarre, creepy voyage to the end of spacetime (“Into the Wild Blue Yonder”) the third of three Doctor Who 60th anniversary celebration specials brings it home with the return of a classic Doctor Who villain (one not seen since the Hartnell era), a uniquely Doctor Who-style apocalypse, and of course, the introduction…
Television’s trailblazing legend, Norman Lear: 1922-2023…
Reshaping Television To my regular readers, I hope you’ll bear with me as I do another rare digression from my usual sci-fi/fantasy/horror-related content for this column, but a television legend has passed away, and I couldn’t bring myself to focus on another subject without first paying tribute to the late, great writer/producer Norman Lear, who…
“Godzilla Minus One” (2023) is a HUGE plus…
******GODZILLA-SIZED SPOILERS!****** I’ve been a Godzilla fan since I was a little boy (“The King (of Monsters) and I”); from watching the increasingly silly English-dubbed movies on TV (seen/own them all) to worshipping at the altar of my green plastic Aurora Godzilla model kit. Highlights of my long love for the franchise reached a peak…