TV Stuff & Preemptive Powerpuff

Greetings! Long time, no blog. I have some exciting news! It’s mostly just exciting to me right now, so I’ve attached it after some more broadly appealing TV tidbits. I’m even gonna rant about Powerpuff instead of waiting for it to air!

Doom Patrol’s Unfinished Second Season Deserves Praise

To celebrate the release of Jupiter’s Legacy, I finally watched Doom Patrol season two! I have no regrets! Better late to the second party than never! I’m still gobsmacked that this is a real television series verified by assorted strangers rather than a private ayahuasca hallucination. This HBO Max show survived the death of DC Universe. The following cold take is full of season two SPOILERS that sound like gibberish!

Nobody questions clipboards!

The Toy Fair’s Not Back In Town

Action figures are good, but they can be better! All you have to do is become a customizer! Toys are like drugs except you need to find a place to keep them after the high wears off.

NY Toy Fair has been cancelled for 2021. In lieu of the big press show, many companies are doing smaller virtual conventions through the year. The most hyped was last week’s Hasbro Pulse Fest Fan Fest. Rather than spacing things out, Mattel, Diamond Select, & NECA decided to post similar events around the same time with less fanfare. They were all underwhelming to various degrees. I would’ve made more impulse pre-orders had Hasbro not suddenly jacked up the price of all their 6″ lines by $3. It doesn’t sound that steep on an individual basis, but it adds up when they encourage you to buy entire series of Marvel Legends to complete BAFs. With customers’ budgets already stretched thin by the terrible 2020, this feels like a precarious time to raise prices on non-essentials.

“Ach, I’m not some nouveau riche piker! I employ people to burn my money for me!”

Merry Almost-versary Number?

October the Disrober is over. Now commences November the Ember. (The month is halfway over already, but this rhymes better.)

I’ve been remiss in posting new content this month. (I’ve since revised my posting schedule form weekly to semi-weekly in “About” to cover myself.) One of several unconvincing excuses is that according to WordPress, I was at 299 blog posts. One of those was just me reblogging Cain S. Latrani’s review of The Dolorous Adventure of Brother Banenose, so I don’t count that as one I’d written. (Cain has new novels & merchandise available! Go patronize him with your funds!) As far as I’m concerned, this is my real 299th blog. I became paralyzed trying to think of worthy content not only for post #300 but also sufficient for its immediate predecessor! Curse my modicum of integrity!

The 100 Is Now Dead

The 100 just wrapped up its seven year run with its one hundredth episode! Who would’ve expected a network mash-up of The Hunger Games & Battlestar Galactica would’ve endured this long? I don’t normally cover this series, but I went to the trouble of making a tag for it last year. The end of a long-running series is a big deal, & I’m gonna write about it in abnormal detail to catch everyone up. If you’re not ready, go look at the Firefly custom I spent months making. (Diyoza & The Mountain King guest starred in Gotham season three!) Or you could just read Toni Maggio’s much more insightful & entertaining recaps. (Thanks to a pact with a witch, she made them lightning fast too! Her other photo recaps are delightful as well.) So go float yourself to the SPOILERS. (There may also be some slight spoilers for the end of Game of Thrones.) Does The 100 pass The Final Test to win The Last War?

The Official Kitty Blog Of 2020

After recapping two titanic televisual finales back-to-back, I took a longer than usual break to recharge from burnout. I finally changed the sharing call to action at the bottom of my posts so it’s no longer insensitive during this era. It took me way too long to figure out where that editing option was. A labor-intensive top secret custom has also been occupying my attention.  I could’ve written something about DC Fandome but it would’ve basically just said it had some nice trailers. Now I have compiled content worth regurgitating for you!

You might think I’d already done my yearly feline blog. That was about the global phenomenon Cats. (Now that she’s become a YouTubist, will Brie Larson finally share her thoughts on it?) This is about cats. If you’ve read prior installments, you’ll know these are a mix of personal anecdotes & random cat links with minimal organization.

Because No One Demanded It: Cats Continued!

You ever have one of those days where you’re exhausted even though you didn’t do anything? 2020 is shaping up to be a full year of them. The Murder Hornets were merely a distraction from mosquitoes spreading EEE! This week both Denny O’Neil & Sir Ian Holm passed away.

Last week I proposed not writing something topical, which is why I’m not going to do the sensible thing to draw in readers by reviewing Kipo & The Age Of Wonderbeasts season two. (It may technically be the back half of season one based on production windows.) You should be watching this delightful series anyway. If only Karen Fukuhara could speak as much in live action roles as she gets to in animation! Apparently it began as a webcomic. Why must its merch be so pricey?

~

Now, because no one demanded it, Cats cold takes!

Dispatches From Lodge 49’s Elsewhere

As of now, my prior article on Lodge 49 is the most read of 2020. (It has a leg up by being the year’s first blog.) So that’s a sign that the public demands I write more about it! What if all the TV series halting production before completing their seasons is cosmic punishment for nobody stepping up to bring back Lodge 49 after AMC’s president, Sarah Barnett, slew it despite claiming to champion art? Skedaddle past my SPOILERY Dispatches From Elsewhere critique so you can read me rant about Lynxes some more! Just kidding! I reference it a bunch in the review too.

Quarantined Cold Takes

I was kind of looking forward to finally seeing The New Mutants this weekend….  Now would be an opportunity to get back to writing my second novel, but the crisis has put a damper on my enthusiasm that. So I continue to squander my time. “FAILED NOVELIST” should be inscribed on my tombstone. I have a newfound respect for sequels now that I realized I otherwise have to do characterization & worldbuilding from scratch. After a really crummy run of things, however, my ex-Booktrope buddy Cain S. Latrani has a new novel published, Wonder Land: Black Ice. It even has a t-shirt!

I already freelance from home, so weirdly self-quarantine doesn’t feel much different to me than most people. This is probably to my benefit, but I still have great existential dread about the pestilence & a new fear of going to the grocery store. (Delivery is booked solid where I live.) Like many self-isolating, I’ve been watching copious amounts of television at home. I was already doing that, so it doesn’t feel like a treat or respite. Now they’re saying this behavior is “heroic,” but where was this encouragement before the pandemic? We may be cursed to live in interesting times, yet my life continues to be uninteresting to describe. I blog, therefore I am not.

So here’s a random smattering of television I’ve been watching. Get your cold takes! Maybe I ought to have saved some of these short reviews for later?

Legends Of Tomorrow In The Time Of Coronavirus

Well that escalated quickly! Isn’t this how The Last Last Man On Earth began? The one with Kristen Schaal not Vincent Price, although a vampire virus would be much cooler. (Everybody go read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson! Novel coronavirus is spread through literacy.) I am sadly very highly trained in social distancing. Panic buying groceries was less terrible than expected, but I forgot to buy Worcestershire sauce even though it was on my list!

In times of crisis, people especially need escapism. I’m usually bad at scheduling blog topics, but I get a jump on writing about the year’s blockbusters. Never mind! They’re all getting postponed! Delaying The New Mutants is the key part of a spell to cancel The Apocalypse. When the global quarantine is lifted, cinemas are going to be backed up with leftovers. At least there’s plenty of television left to keep us from going stir crazy. Oh wait, production on all the network series shut down before they could get their season finales in the bag! Well Black Lightning featuring Grunkle Gravedigger & (Green) Arrow wrapped up, but most will leave viewers hanging. If ABC could air the completed  final season of Agents of SHIELD early, that’d be lovely. All the media that’s been delayed should just be chucked in a bonfire. So go binge Lodge 49 on Hulu!

Unlike venues you enjoy visiting, Matt The Catania intends to stay open during this crisis. Sorry! Weekly coverage will probably revert to esoteric mishmashes with headlines that aren’t SEO friendly. Maybe I’ll finally get back to writing my second novel? (I wrote a key scene set in the basement of a library without checking if the real location has one. The uncertainty was contributing to my writer’s block. Then I found it does. Phew!) With luck, we’ll all be alive when this epidemic fizzles out as its curve flattens.