Happy Halloween! Everything is scary now, so I guess that just makes this a regular Friday. When I get stressed out about the things going on in this country, I just remind myself that it’s not just an American thing. A lot of countries are run by crazies right now, so at least we’re not unique in that. No, that doesn’t make me feel any better, but it is a fact.
Lately, however, I’ve been thankful – for showers. Whenever I take a shower lately, I’m often wondering if it could be my last shower. It’s a common trope in dystopian fiction where folks take things, like showers, for granted until after the fall of society. Then, the protagonists stumble upon an old farmhouse that still has running water. Sure, it’s 20 years after “The Incident”, but it wasn’t connected to the city, so things still work. And they enjoy their first shower in years. In some cases, like The Road, their first shower EVER. So, this is a time to focus on “the little things”.
Speaking of tropes, I finally watched Disney XD’s Armorsaurs, which actually debuted 2 weeks ago, but I’ve completely lost track of TV scheduling lately. I wrote about it when the trailer dropped, but the actual episode was a totally different beast than I was expecting. Anyway, as you can imagine, this is Disney saying “We’ve got Power Rangers at home.” It’s clearly Sentai-inspired, even if not using actual Sentai footage.
According to the show, we lost the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but they didn’t die, but were instead abducted by aliens. Yeah. So, there’s a government task force, named A.R.M., that is preparing to fight an oncoming alien threat. They’ve created advanced armor for the fight, but it bonds with dinosaurs, and can only be wielded by people with the “avian gene”, which means they can communicate with birds. Since birds are dinosaurs, yadda yadda. Oh, and A.R.M. has dinosaurs. Real ones. The commander keeps saying “We brought them back!”, but it’s never clear if that means they got them back from the aliens or they managed to bring back the species. Anyway, next stop: Trope City.
The pilot starts with a T-Rex being transported to A.R.M. HQ, but the convoy is attacked by a mysterious badass, who looks like a Dollar Tree Kamen Rider. A.R.M. deploys an older teen named Su, who is the most recent member of the Armorsaurs project. Before he leaves, Su calls his little brother Joon. Ya know, just to check in and tell him that he loves him. Yeah, so long, Su! A few days pass, and Joon starts to worry that he hasn’t heard from his brother. That’s when he’s attacked at his dojo, by the mysterious badass. Seems like it was a test, and Joon is later delivered to a secret government facility, where he meets tomboy Prisca, her vapid yet hot sister Pamona, science boy Liam, and cool guy TJ. They’re briefed about how they have the gene, there’s a threat coming, yadda yadda. Oh, but they can’t wield their dinosaurs until they form a bond with them. So, unlike Power Rangers, these kids don’t know which dino has been assigned to them. Instead, it’s dino’s choice. So, this means their suits are somewhat nondescript. They’re tasked with tracking down the stolen T-Rex. Ya know what? I’m already bored with this.
OK, the first thing you need to know is this show uses a lot of CGI. I’m talking A LOT OF CGI. Unnecessarily so. There was a time when the technology was expensive, and something like Reboot looked futuristic. Then, it became pretty cheap, and get got direct to DVD stuff like Angel Wars. This is somewhere around the latter. To keep things cheap for Power Rangers, Saban just purchased Japanese fight footage. Here, Disney just did it with CGI. Once the teens are powered up, NOTHING is practical effects. Even their armored forms are full CGI, as there doesn’t seem to be any footage of them actually wearing the suits. I’d go as far as to say that physical versions of the suits don’t exist anywhere. About a decade ago, Tim Heidecker used to do a webseries/Adult Swim series called Decker, where he played a character that was basically “What if Donald Trump was Jack Bauer?” And the show was deliberately low-budget for comedic effect. There’s a season where Decker dies in the distant future, and his slacker son (also played by Heidecker) has to take over where his father left off. To make it futuristic, all the backgrounds are basically Encarta art on greenscreen. That’s what they’re doing here. They could have built a set pretty easily (and cheaply), but they just decided to let the computer do it. I’m sure it saved them some money, but it gets old fast. The opening with the T-Rex transport looked like Halo cutscenes, and I’m talking the first Halo.
Anyway, the show has all the tropes: socially awkward scientist who is probably on the spectrum; grizzled military blonde with an eyepatch (Her name is “Kex”, and she was one of the first recruits of the Armorsaur Project. Her attitude and missing eye are supposed to make us wonder about the project’s past failures); great martial artist who’s a terrible actor. I’d like to talk about that last one – it seems like there tends to be a trade-off: you either get a great actor, who doesn’t really do stunts OR you get a great martial artist who can’t act his way out of a paper bag. When they are charismatic, you end up with Johnny Cage, and that’s too hammy for most projects. Joon is a terrible actor, but he can execute a roundhouse kick, which is something Power Rangers moved away from as the franchise aged.
At the end of the day, nobody is trying to win any Emmys here. This is the sort of project designed to sell merchandise, and it’s toyetic as Hell. It’s Power Rangers meets Dino Riders so, on paper, it’s like printing money. They just need to rush out those toys, as I can see kids getting bored with this thing FAST. And it’s not slick enough to trick the adult fans of this sort of thing.
A few months back, I had Ayo Edebiri Day, where I watched a bunch of films in which she starred. Well, I just finished a Tim Robinson week. I realized I have never sat down and watched his popular Netflix series I Think You Should Leave, and I figured it was probably time I take care of that. After bingeing the complete series, I, then, watched the three available episodes of his new HBO Max series, The Chair Company. Finally, I wrapped things up by watching his theatrical debut in Friendship, also on HBO Max. Can I just say that I love this guy? I mean, if it isn’t clear yet, I love this guy. Otherwise, I’d have stopped after ITYSL. I mean, I can get that he’s not everyone’s taste, but he’s definitely mine. He thrives on a cringe humor that’s just a couple blocks over from “normal behavior”. I mean, a lot of material is based on social awkwardness, but then it takes it to the next level. A lot of his stuff starts off in an “I can relate to that place”, but then he goes to “Michael Douglas in Falling Down” extremes to really commit to the bit. It’s really masterful. But let’s go in order here.
First up, I Think You Should Leave. It was just as good as the memes and viral clips had led me to believe. I will say, however, that it’s sort of evidence of where TV is these days. So, it’s a sketch show that’s basically Chappelle’s Show or Key & Peele, but it just doesn’t have the live studio audience bumpers between sketches. Another difference, however, is that those shows were put together as sketch shows, from which several sketches went viral. Meanwhile, ITYSL feels more like several potentially viral sketches packaged together as a TV show. There’s no thru-line, no connection between the sketches other than the actors. Eventually, an average episode is roughly 16 minutes, as it’s less about building a narrative, and more about equally balancing the number of filmed sketches over the number of episodes that Netflix ordered. The same way that basic cable rendered the concept of a “season” to be meaningless, none of these are “episodes”, but rather “clumps”, if that makes sense. And, honestly, each sketch stands better on its own, than by trying to force them into a format unsuitable for them.
Like modern SNL, some of the sketches don’t really have endings. You don’t always get a complete story, and you often feel like there’s a lot of backstory or lore, which is never shared, but was developed simply to ensure that what the audience does see actually works comedically. Also, while Tim is the crazy wild card here, some of the best sketches don’t even have him in it. For example, there’s a great season 1 sketch where Vanessa Bayer (LOVE HER!) is doing brunch with her friends, and doesn’t understand how to properly post about the outing on social media. I’m not explaining it well, but it’s great. Also, we know that Robinson and Sam Richardson have great chemistry, mainly from their 2-season stint on Detroiters, but it’s a shame they don’t work together more here. Sure, Richardson pops up, but I don’t think Robinson is in any of his sketches? Needless to say, I loved the show, but I agree that it was probably time to end it after 3 seasons and 18 episodes. Seasons 3 had Robinson going to greater extremes, where it was still funny, but not as “relatable”. I was, however, glad to see that Robinson and his crew would be sticking with the same sort of vibe for their next project.
The Chair Company premiered on HBO this month, and it’s really just a longform ITYSL sketch. It’s the kind of concept that really only works with someone like Robinson, yet the format gives him more room to breathe. In the series, he’s an executive for a shopping mall developer who has just received a promotion overseeing a new development that’s under construction. He has just returned to his company following a midlife crisis where he had quit to start up a touring and adventure company in his back yard. So, he isn’t too confident about the new job, the company isn’t too confident about him, and his family isn’t very confident about it all either. Also, nobody goes to malls anymore. So, during an important companywide meeting, Robinson finishes an impassioned speech, only to return to his seat onstage, and the chair breaks underneath him. In that moment, he became the joke of the company, and it cast more doubt on his ability to do the job. Though no fault of his own, that one moment seemingly ruins his life, and he becomes obsessed with tracking down the company that made the chair, in order to give them a piece of his mind. As he continues his search, however, he begins to realize there’s more to that chair company than anyone realized. After he finds an address for the company, he breaks into an abandoned building at its known address, only to find it empty. The next night, he’s leaving work, where he’s attacked by someone who warns him to stay away from the chair company. And it only gets crazier from there.
Like I said, this is that typical Robinson thing that starts relatable, and then gets insane. I think we all can understand being embarrassed by a public incident like that, and we might even fire off a stern email to their customer support department. But when that email bounced back, we’d leave it there. Not Robinson, though. He was gonna be heard! And I gotta say that I respect that. We’re not even halfway through the season yet, but I’m liking it so far. Still, I needed something “finite”, which led me to the final entry.
Friendship is an A24 film, which pretty much tells you all you need to know. If that’s not enough, however, the role was reportedly written specifically for Robinson, and it shows. Like The Chair Company, this is another longform ITYSL sketch, where a normal, awkward guy ends up in some crazy shit. I want to say that it’s a comment on the “male loneliness epidemic”, but I might be giving it too much credit. Anyway, Robinson plays an awkward middle aged guy who doesn’t seem to have much control over his life. The movie starts with him at a support group meeting with his wife, played by Kate Mara, whose cancer is in remission. While sharing with the group, she sort of humiliates him by telling everyone that she’s constantly worried that the cancer will come back, leading her to wonder if she’ll live to see her son graduate high school, or if she’d ever experience an orgasm again. Clearly, this was news to Robinson, so when it’s his turn to speak, he says “Well, there’s certainly no problem achieving orgasms for this guy!”, which lands like a lead balloon. And this is who he is: uncomfortable in his own skin, which leads him to make those around him uncomfortable. When a package is mistakenly delivered to his house, he takes it to the correct address, where he meets Paul Rudd’s Austin, who has just moved to the neighborhood. And Austin is the COOLEST guy. He’s a TV meteorologist, he’s in a band, and he sneaks around in the sewer. He’s the coolest guy Robinson has ever met, and he almost flirts with Robinson. Immediately captivated, Robinson laps up all the attention that Austin gives him, believing they’re gonna be best friends. And they are. For about a week.
One night, Austin invites Robinson over for a gettogether with his other guy friends, and there’s a weird vibe as Robinson is the new addition, while it’s clear these other guys have known Austin a lot longer. This is where the awkwardness kicks in, and he tries too hard to prove he deserves to be there. The night ends after Robinson almost knocks Austin out during a sparring match. After that night, everything changes. Austin eventually makes it clear that he no longer wants to pursue the friendship, but Robinson’s obsessive personality kicks in, and he begins to chase the friendship with the same fervor used to track down the maker of the chair that shamed him. He goes from Awkward to Nutball in 10 seconds. And it is a WILD RIDE!
Also, folks who watched ITYSL will recognize some familiar faces, as it seems these guys all run in the same circles and/or did Second City, so you’ll see Conner O’Malley (Joe Pera Talks with You and Aidy Bryant’s husband), Eric Rahill (The Paper), Jon Glaser (Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter), and Carmen Christopher (English Teacher). The film is FULL of A24 craziness, and I’m not entirely sure what I saw. Yes, it follows the vibe of an ITYSL concept, but then it gets really “A24” about it, and there’s a moment in the film where one might say is the true ending of the movie, and that everything after it may not have happened. It’s sort of like the theory of The Dark Knight Rises, where everyone is like “Bruce didn’t actually survive to see Alfred at the seaside resort.” I recommend it, but it was probably the weaker of the three Robinson projects I watched. Like I said, I love this guy, and can’t wait to watch the rest of The Chair Company.
Run The Numbers
We ran pretty long with the Tim Robinson gushing, so this feature will return next week!
Will Around The Web
Wizards episode #117.5 came out this week, where Adam and I continued our discussion of Wizard Magazine #117. Check your podcatchers!
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- As of midnight, all Disney-owned channels, including ABC and ESPN, have been removed from YouTube TV due to a carriage dispute. I swear that these are the modern “rolling blackouts”. “Sorry, honey, but you can’t watch Zombies 3 because two corporations are arguing over ungodly amounts of money.”
- Blumhouse has acquired the rights to indie comic Something Is Killing The Children, in a deal that will call for a live action film, as well as an adult animated series. A live action series was previously in development, but fell apart in December.
- She may have kissed a girl and liked it, but “space” changed Katy Perry, and she and former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau hard launched their relationship this week.
- Speaking of pop chanteuses, Nelly Furtado announced her retirement from performing, as she would like to “pursue other creative and personal endeavors”. Fans will be relieved to know that she will still remain THICC.
- Despite him creating pretty much ALL of their current hit series, Skydance Paramount managed to let Taylor Sheridan defect to NBCUniversal, in a 5-year deal reportedly worth $1B. Yes, ONE BILLION DOLLARS, just for him to make more shows about masculinity, set in a locale with a color palette of brown, beige, and rust. I swear, Sheridan makes Vince Gilligan-type shows for your uncle who put “School of Hard Knocks” in the education portion of his Facebook page.
- On the renewal front, King of the Hill has been renewed for seasons 16 and 17 at Hulu. Meanwhile, FX has renewed Adults for a second season.
- Original costumes from Adam West’s Batman series just sold at auction for just under $1 million.
- The BBC officially confirmed that Disney had ended their coproduction deal on Doctor Who, with the The War Between the Land and the Sea spinoff miniseries as the last entry in that partnership. Other than a 2026 holiday special, the future of the franchise is up in the air.
- Finally, I reviewed it a few months back, and I’m happy to announce that Bigfoot Club is now available on Prime Video, so I highly recommend you check it out!
So, I was a huge fan of Lily Allen’s Alright, Still back when it came out in 2006, back when Mark Ronson was the producer making the hits for all the UK girlies. For some reason, I thought it performed better than it did (It only went Gold in the US, in an era when artists were still pretty easily going Platinum), but it still impressed all the right critics and tastemakers. Then, music changed, and she sort of disappeared over here. The next time I heard about her, it was that she was dating the sheriff from Stranger Things. Seriously, that was pretty much his biggest credit at the time. Little did we realize David Harbour would go on to play Hellboy, as well as join the MCU as Red Guardian. So, I wouldn’t exactly call him a “household name”, but he at least garners a “Hey, that’s what’s-his-face!” Seemed like an odd pairing, but good for them. Then the rumors started circulating that he had cheated on her. They had gotten married, but that was over. Then, last Friday, she released West End Girl – her fifth album, and her first release in seven years – which seemed to pretty much put all her cards on the table.
Over the album’s 14 tracks, Allen does everything from tell intimate details of their marriage to reenact voicemail messages left during the ordeal. She alleges that Harbour flew his mistress to their house in Georgia when he knew she wouldn’t be there. She also mentions a bag of butt plugs and sex toys she had discovered. She goes on to say that they had an open marriage, but there were rules, including they could only step out with strangers, and that payment was required. She didn’t want him “catching feelings” with anyone else, which is exactly what happened. Reports allege that “Madeline” (the name given to The Other Woman on the album) was costume designer Natalie Tippett, whom Harbour met while working on Netflix’s 2021 film We Have A Ghost (I’ve never heard of this movie, which probably means a lot of folks are gonna be seeking it out this weekend).
Anyway, the album is incredible, from “Ruminating” to “Pussy Palace” to “Nonmonogamummy”, Allen takes us for a ride with her account of what happened. Even if it was all fiction, it’s sonically a great album. But when you factor in that there is at least a kernel of truth to the lyrics, it takes things to a new level. This is the sound that I wanted from Taylor’s The Life of a Showgirl, but I got it here instead.
I also need to point out that Allen is no angel. Despite the fact that she fell off over here, she’s been a tabloid mainstay over the years, from her foot-focused OnlyFans account, and her reported assault of Zoe Kravitz, to her struggles with sobriety. When Taylor makes a breakup album, it’s sort of built on the expectation that the audience will sympathize with her, and go “Who would do such a thing to Taylor?! Who would cause her such pain?!” And it usually works. Allen has no such protection or reputation. Meanwhile, I don’t think America really cares that much about David Harbour. Sure, he’s done a few parts we enjoyed, but he’s not a “star”. He’s just a dude, who has reportedly struggled with alcoholism. And now some “unknown” is coming out of the woodwork to accuse him of all this stuff. That’s sort of the benefit of of having an ocean separating them, in that I feel the UK media probably feels for Harbour, while the America media seems to be scrambling to do damage control for him. Most folks here don’t know of Allen’s antics, so an informed perspective is that this is a messy situation involving two people who are very damaged in very different ways. Without the racial component, this still could halt Harbour’s career trajectory in much the same way that scandal halted the rise of Jonathan Majors. Plus, the timing is impeccable, as Netflix revs up the promotion machine for the final season of Stranger Things – the reason most of us even know Harbour’s name. Meanwhile, Allen has nothing to gain over here but a new fanbase.
I don’t know how this will shake out, and I don’t know if either of them is important enough to really make a lasting dent in American Pop Culture. Still, it’s a slow period for celebrity news, as most of the big stories lately involve the companies and not the talent. So, the salacious, “real life” aspects of the album are something of a “bonus” for a standalone great album. Plus, Americans are talking about Lily Allen again for the first time in nearly 20 years. So, that’s why Lily Allen had the West Week Ever.
