Whoops

Okay, the May 12 Months of Frozen is... not going to happen before May is over, because I am a garbage person living a garbage life, and also because I'm away with the fam. Mostly the garbage person thing, though. SORRY GUYS. There will just be two in June to make up for it.

Upfront and Judgmental: CW Edition

So the CW only has four new shows for the 2014-2015 season, and they only have trailers for two of them. Uncool, CW. Very uncool. I mean, sure, I'm capable of feeling intrigued or skeptical based solely on a synopsis, but it's just not the same as having these brief little snippets of the finished product.

Granted, since both the non-trailer-ed shows are midseason shows that, based on their descriptions, are probably going to be fairly effects-heavy, they might not actually have much of a finished product yet. Alas. I suppose I can understand this reasoning, even if it takes away like 50% of my fun. But hey, at least the trailer for The Flash is out!

Plus, because there are fewer trailers to go through, that means that I can go ahead and start with the 30-second promo trailer that started getting me really psyched for this show in the first place.



The Flash
BARRY ALLEN, YOU ADORABLE RIDICULOUS SHOW-OFF OF A HUMAN BEING.

...Yeah, that's about it. I never started watching Arrow because it seemed a little self-serious, but LOOK AT THIS GLEEFUL DORK. LOOK AT OLIVER ROLLING HIS EYES. Can any show with a promo like that take itself or its hero completely seriously?

I still hate the costume, though. It doesn't look very flexible or speedy, the chin strap is ridiculous, and the parts with a loose fit make Grant Gustin look even twiggier than normal.

Upfront and Judgmental: CBS Edition

Yes, it's silly to judge a show based on its pilot, much less its 3-minute upfronts reel. And yet, I get bored easily. (Honestly, these trailers aren't entirely helping. CBS takes itself so seriously, man.)

Let's get to it, ducklings.

Extant
I'm so curious about this title, honestly. Extant as in... currently existing? That's very SAT-prep of them. As opposed to extinct, I guess? Mostly it just makes me think of extinct mutants or something.

Also, between this and the new Rosemary's Baby, I guess this is just the summer for creepy pregnancy stories. (Specifically, stories about women of color being violated for horror purposes. Um. I'm not super in favor of this trend.) Which, like — I like Halle Berry, and I like spaceships, and I like robots, and I like mysterious stories about whether we're alone in the universe or not, but I am also immediately skeeved by anything involving: creepy pregnancy; rape/hella dubious consent; creepy children, whether they're robots or not; spouses who seem to know more than they're telling.

The trailer is edited well, but pretty much everything contained within the trailer is suggesting to me that this show has a greater-than-decent chance of being a catastrophe.

Upfront and Judgmental: ABC Edition

You're in luck today, ducklings, because ABC's fall schedule is absolutely the most interesting (insane? interesting? same thing, right?) of any of the Big 4. Also, has the most actors of color. Todd VanDerWerff actually wrote an article about how ABC seems to be hoping diversity will shore up its falling ratings; god knows if they were inspired by the success of FOX's "diversity initiative" or if they realised that maybe Scandal is popular for more reasons than just sexy backstabbing drama, but whatever, I'm here for it. Also, I'm willing to give them good press and good buzz for it if that makes it more likely that other networks will follow suit.

("Crap, our ratings are awful. Maybe we should try making shows that... aren't just about white people? Look, I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work!")

Previously: FOX and NBC.

How to Get Away With Murder

Look, guys, it's Dean Thomas from the Harry Potter movies! Also Bennett the prison guard from Orange is the New Black, but I care about that less than I care about Dean Thomas: Adorable Dork and Potential Moral Center to Viola Davis's Stunning Genius Calculating Lawyer-Professor. (Although if this is anything like Scandal, I wouldn't bet on any one character's sense of right or wrong lasting unscathed for more than half a season.) (Also: was that three seconds of Canon Queer Characters?!)

It looks like an unholy fusion of a legal drama and a university show, which ought to be great for Shonda because she can mine both the criminal aspects and dubious ethics of the former as well as the political maneuvering and young-adults-having-screwed-up-young-adult-drama of the latter. Also, apparently there's going to be a dead body? My bet's on that being a bait-and-switch, although even if it is: guys, take a forensic anthropology class. It takes way higher temperatures than that to burn a body.

Anyway, I'm here for it — as long as I can take it, at least. I had to quit out of Scandal in the middle of the third season, and not just because I hated Fitz so much. I have to give props, though; Thursday night is going to be the Night of Shonda, which is both impressive and pretty amazing.

Upfront and Judgmental: FOX Edition

Where I watch the upfronts trailers so you... well, I was going to say "so you don't have to," but come on. If you don't watch the trailers for the new fall shows, how will you begin the elaborate process of narrowing down which shows you're going to put on your increasingly complex personal TV viewing schedule for the 2014-2015 season? It's a matter of personal responsibility.

I watch the upfronts trailers so we can judge them together and all make informed decisions. There we go.

Gotham
SURPRISINGLY INTRIGUED BY THIS TRAILER. Like, I haven't been entirely sure how to feel about Gotham; academically speaking, it's a little weird, given that most cop shows tend to be ideologically reassuring. There's typically this unspoken idea of "Hey, they caught the bad guy. The world's a little better." It... indirectly reproduces faith in the system by showing the success of the system, I guess? Even if the system is just represented by rogue cops. I mean, there are exceptions — Miami Vice actually tended to be very aware of the fact that sometimes your efforts don't matter, because another crime lord, another drug runner, will just step up to fill the void — but there's, I don't know, sort of an idea of working towards a better world, and with Gotham we know from the beginning that things are only going to get worse. Sort of like when you're watching Oedipus Rex and you know that this shit isn't going to go well for him.

So purely for those reasons, I've been curious about its eventual form, but this trailer was actually pretty great. (JADA PINKETT SMITH AS FISH MOONEY. TINY CATWOMAN. GIVE ME.) I'll definitely be on my couch in the fall, ready to pass more judgment then.

Upfront and Judgmental: NBC Edition

Ducklings, I don't like to think of myself as a judgmental person.

But really, who am I kidding. I daydream about being part of a company that goes up to networks and showrunners and yells at them about what they're doing wrong. I'm a judgmental little ball of sparkles and intersectional feminism. So when upfronts happen and all the trailers for all the new fall shows come out, well. It's hard to resist.

State of Affairs
I just. Okay, someone clearly thought to themselves "Hey, Scandal and Homeland have made White House dramas sexy again, let's run with that shit!" and then they put Katherine Heigl in the lead role. I guess there's a chance that this could be interesting and not just a hilariously overblown and unconvincing piece of nonsense, but let's be real, there were only a few actually intriguing and non-derivative bits to that trailer, and they were A) Alfre Woodard as the President, and B) those ten seconds where they're talking about wanting to kill everyone responsible for the death of Alfre Woodard's son/Katherine Heigl's fiancé.

I don't know, I just really like ladies bonding over violent urges and a shared desire for vengeance. Maybe that's just me.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na BATMAN

Yesterday was a very edifying day for me. By "edifying," I mean that I finally saw an episode of the 1960s Batman  — which, for the record, is a national treasure on par with Nicholas Cage's willingness to steal the Declaration of Independence.

Now, in this transcendent new stage of my existence, I have to wonder if all those post-70s, outrageously grim adaptations of the Batman franchise are an indirect response to the 60s Batman. (Batman 6-0, if you will.) Has it all been an act of spite? Were they so annoyed by the show that they reacted by taking Batman even more seriously than he takes himself? "How dare you act like a guy dressing up as a bat in order to fight crime is an inherently silly concept? I'LL SHOW YOU! I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!"

(Note that I'm obviously not including the DC Animated Universe in this. The DCAU brings light to my life.)

[EDIT AS OF 5/9/2014: Jumping in to say that I've just seen the tape of the Batman 75th anniversary panel at Paley and OH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT. Like, Michael Uslan, who produced a ton of Batman movies including the Burton one and the Dark Knight trilogy, actually straight-up said that when he saw Batman 6-0 when it came out, he was so upset that he made a vow to show the world "what the true Batman is like." More on this later.]

Being who I am, though, I can never resist an adaptation that seems to be laughing at itself the entire time — so, out of the generosity of my heart, I thought I'd share an episode so we can all experience this together.

"Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin"