Dreams are a crazy thing! The other night, I had a dream that I went abroad, as part of some kind of exchange program, maybe to Poland? I mean, there were foreigners, but they were white foreigners. Anyway, I got picked up from the airport by our very own Secretary of War, who was speeding around in his junky Forerunner, with his wife riding shotgun. And he was actually a nice guy – so nice, in fact, that I was scared he might see the stuff I’ve said about him on social media. But then it all went to Hell, because he drove us through a battlefield at night, which was filled with US Gundams. And I cried, like a bitch – Not because of the beauty, but out of fear. Later, he dropped me off at a hostel, where his wife made a pass at me, which wasn’t surprising, seeing as how he likes the “ladies of ill repute”. Anyway, if it turns out we have a secret Gundam program in Poland, remember that you heard it here first!
Adventures On Pluto
My TV buddies and I like to talk about how we grew up watching shows that we didn’t necessarily like. No, we watched them because there were only 4 networks (later 6), and there wasn’t much on. So, with this in mind, I gotta say I HATE Roseanne. Yeah, they had some memorable Halloween episodes, but I never cared much for the show’s star. We live in a time now where folks love to say they “separate the Art from the Artist”, but I’ve never agreed with that, because where do you think the Art comes from? Yup, all those R.Kelly songs were about teenagers. So, during Roseanne‘s 9-season run, I was constantly distracted by the antics that its star was getting into, whether it was her infamous National Anthem performance, or her volatile marriage to Tom Arnold.
Beside all that, however, the show was just depressing as Hell. I sometimes refer to is as “White Good Times“, because the Conners simply cannot win in life. That’s sort of why I loved that 9th season, because it was an exploration of what happens when you give money to folks not used to having it, and it ends up with them hanging out with a royal Jim Varney, and hobnob with the Absolutely Fabulous gals. Then, they kicked us all in the face with the finale, telling us the whole season was a chapter of a book Roseanne was writing to cope with the death of Dan, and she had fudged other aspects of the characters we had come to know: Becky was really with David, Darlene was with Mark, and Jackie was a lesbian. Like many series finales of that era, it left a bad taste in my mouth. So, when they announced the show was being revived, while retconning the events of that final season, I had no interest whatsoever. The show returned in 2018, and its 10th season was well-received. Then Roseanne The Instigator reared her ugly head, where she went to Twitter to discuss former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett, saying that Jarrett was like the “Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby”. ABC released statements denouncing her tweets, and they canceled a planned 11th season.
Let’s sidebar here, as I don’t know if I ever really got into this when it happened (I mean, the archives are here, but I’m too lazy to check), but I think it’s fair to say that ABC totally overreacted to this. This was still “Peak Twitter”, where folks were saying out-of-pocket shit left and right. It was only a matter of time before they made an example of someone, but I’m sure worse things had been said by bigger stars, about more notable people. Donald Trump said a TON of things about Obama’s presidency that somehow don’t seem to apply to his own administration, but I digress… Sometimes corporations feel that something has to be done, but they never really make a plan as to what that something should be. The problem is that they have to act quickly, and you can’t round off all the edges when things are moving that fast. It reminds me of when country star Morgan Wallen was caught saying the N-word one drunken night, and then country radio swiftly denounced it, and he was pulled from major radio stations, while his televised awards show performances were canceled. Similar to when WWE disavowed Hulk Hogan for past racist remarks revealed during his lawsuit against Gawker, everyone knew it couldn’t last forever, but it was clear that no one knew how it should end. Sure, Wallen didn’t win any CMAs for a year, but the crazier part is that he still experienced stellar record sales during that period. Know why? Because his audience didn’t give a fuck! They were like “Shit, man, I say that word, too!” And then you had iHeart and the rest, looking stupid, because they don’t know how to soft launch his return to the spotlight. I know there’s no One Size Fits All response to these things, but it seems to happen enough that corporations really shouldn’t be caught with their pants down as often as they are.
So, after some lobbying by Sara Gilbert, she managed to get ABC to greenlight The Conners, which would star the entire cast – except for Roseanne. In this series, Roseanne has been killed off, in what is revealed to be an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. So, season 1 of The Conners starts right after Roseanne’s funeral, and shows the family as they try to move on from their loss. They sort of toy with addressing the opioid crisis, as Roseanne has knee pain, but they can’t afford surgery. So, she ends up getting someone else’s prescription painkillers, which caused her heart to stop while she was sleeping. This revelation sparks some anger amongst the survivors, but they sort of move on from that aspect until they circle back to it in the final season, when Dan considers filing a lawsuit.
I found The Conners airing on Pluto’s Sitcom Legends channel, and I’ve pretty much watched the first six seasons of the show so far (Pluto doesn’t have the seventh and final season yet). I can’t believe how much I love this series, but also how well it works without Roseanne. Sure, she was the lynchpin of the original show, but these actors more than know their characters by this point – not only had most spent 9 seasons playing these roles, but they also had almost 20 years to really think about those roles between seasons 9 and 10. The show works just fine without Roseanne’s shrill sarcasm, and it really allows this ensemble to shine in ways we never saw in the original run. Jackie is still crazy, but she’s trying to figure herself out. Dan is still an honest working man, trying to come out on top. Darlene is still the sarcastic artistic one, but she’s also managed to provide as a single mother, while taking jobs that don’t fulfill her passions. DJ is an Army veteran now working for a vending machine company, and has a tween daughter with his black (!) wife – which is really funny, given she’s the same character from one of the most DJ-centric episodes of the original run, where DJ didn’t want to kiss a girl in a school play because she was black! Also back is Lecy Goranson, as Becky I (Sarah Chalke, AKA Becky II, appeared in the Roseanne revival season, but doesn’t show up for The Conners), whose grief over Mark’s death leads her to alcoholism, and an accidental pregnancy from a drunken tryst with a coworker.
The new characters, however, are just as good as the veterans. First up, we’ve got DJ’s aforementioned wife, Geena, who spends most of the series deployed, but she returns every now and then, to be the audience insert character to go “WTF?!” to all of the events the family has endured while she was away. She doesn’t do much, but what she does is valuable. Then, we’ve got Dan’s new girlfriend, and eventual wife, Louise, played by Peg Bundy herself, Katey Sagal. She’s never been able to shake the rock & roll lifestyle, traveling as the singer in a not-very-famous bar band. When she meets Dan, she’s grown tired of the road, but she wants a commitment, while he struggles to move on from Roseanne, to whom he’d been married for 46 years. Louise brings her own issues and baggage, but it meshes well with the issues and baggage that the family already had. There’s also Darlene’s kids, Harris and Mark. Harris was actually born in season 8 of Roseanne, so they’re somewhat fudging the timeline here, as she’s a teenager now. She’s just as sarcastic as her mother, but she’s got the fire of her grandmother in her, too. Mark is a gentle and brilliant kid who struggles with being his true self in an environment like Lanford. Darlene does the best she can, but she constantly feels guilty that she couldn’t provide them with a better life than the one she had. Since their father, David, turned out to be a deadbeat, she’s forced to move back into her childhood home, kids in tow, to help Dan out with bills. The most important new character, however, would be Ben Olinsky.
Ben is introduced as the surly boss at a true crime magazine where Darlene applies to be a writer. While they don’t see eye to eye on the direction of the magazine, he recognizes talent in her, and the Will They/Won’t They begins. I’ve got to say that Ben endures more over the course of the series than anyone should have to deal with, and he’s the True MVP. When he asked Darlene to move in with him numerous times, and she always chooses some other option. She cheats on him with her ex-husband David. She nearly cheats on him with Brian Austin Green. She proposes to him, and he refuses because he can’t keep doing the back and forth. The magazine folds, and he inherits his father’s hardware shop (which he hates), and eventually becomes Dan’s boss there. The hardware shop burns down, and he longs to find purpose, so he becomes Guy Who Starts A Podcast. He didn’t deserve much of what he faced, and I can only hope he gets the happy ending he deserves. He reminds me a lot of the Keith character from the later seasons of Good Times. Keith was a young NFL prospect who fell in love with Thelma, and his career was going to take them all out of the ghetto. Then, he tripped over JJ’s leg at the wedding, and messed up his leg, ending his football career. So, now he has to wallow in the ghetto with the rest of them, resentful of the career he was robbed of, and resentful that they had “dragged” him to their level. He meant well, and he did the best he could, but it was like the Evans Luck had tainted him, as their struggles became his struggle. Keith did get his happy ending, so I can only wish for the same for Ben.
The Conners is one of the more successful executions of the Old Show Revival that has become commonplace for networks and streamers since Covid. It’s not without its problems, however. The biggest issue is how it applies a “fix on fail” model in terms of continuity with the overall franchise. Not only does it have to retcon developments from the original run of Roseanne, but it also has to ignore developments from the season 10 revival. For example, Becky I decides to become a surrogate for Becky II in season 10, but that plot point is gone once the new series rolls around. It also plays fast and loose with relationships. In season 10, we are reintroduced to the family’s ditzy friend Crystal, who had married Dan’s father, and had kids with him. We don’t know much of the kids OR Dan’s dad when we see her at that time. Later, on The Conners, Dan’s dad dies, and he’s reunited with his half brother, Ed Jr, under uncomfortable circumstances. There’s a period of time where it seems like Ed Jr. is going to be welcomed into the family, but then the writers just…changed their mind? Speaking of missing kids, Roseanne season 10 says that youngest son Jerry is working in Alaska, while The Conners doesn’t acknowledge his existence, nor that of Jackie’s son. In fact, Jackie never married Fred in this revised timeline. Finally, in what was something of a slap in the face, the show writes off Michael Fishman’s DJ during the 5th season. It didn’t seem like he wanted to leave, but rather the writers didn’t seem to want to find stuff for him to do. So, to my knowledge, he doesn’t even get to see the end of the franchise he’d been a part of for most of its existence (There’s a different, terrible DJ actor in the Roseanne pilot).
As I said, I’ve still got one season to go, but I am more than impressed by what they were able to make even without having the “core” of the franchise that had brought them all together. I know Roseanne has pretty much disavowed all of them, and I get it. I mean, they were, for all intents and purposes, a family. But this is business. Plus, she was hurt that they turned their backs on her for her remarks, but I’m sure they were equally upset that she would jeopardize their livelihood by being flippant.
Run The Numbers
It’s coming down to the wire, as there are only 7 and a half weeks left in 2025, and I’ve still got 3 books and 87 comics to read before Dick Clark gets his wings, or whatever it is we’re celebrating on New Years. I’m honestly not worried about the comics. I could do that in a week. I’m going to have to be strategic, however, when it comes to the books. In my mind, I really only need to read 2 more, as I simply need to finish the book I started over the summer. I got kinda bored with it, but I was about 70% through it, so I can knock it out fairly easily. Now, to choose the final two entries in my literary saga…
In comics, I finally read Star Trek: The Last Starship #1, which came out last month. I had been dragging my feet because I thought the art looked bad, but I was wrong. The art is moody and somewhat abstract, but it fits the vibe of the story. It’s the cover that looks bad. I mean, given the profile of this series, this was NOT the cover to go with. It’s especially surprising that Francesco Francavilla did this cover, and he’s usually exceptional. Does he just not do spaceships?
Anyway, this is a really good story. I mean REALLY GOOD. I was concerned that I’d need to know a lot about Star Trek: Discovery, which is a series I haven’t watched yet. There’s spoilers here, so skip this paragraph if ya gotta: In the later seasons of Discovery, the ship is flung 1,000 years into the future, during a time when the Federation isn’t much of a galactic power anymore. There had been an event, called “The Burn”, that destroyed every vessel with an active warp drive. Basically, in mere minutes, dilithium across the galaxy was rendered inert, causing warp core breaches that killed trillions. Yes, TRILLIONS. So, the Federation had to find new methods of space travel since their old reliable source was no longer an option.
Well, The Last Starship is set during, and immediately after, The Burn, and we watch as Starfleet deals with the colossal effects of what happened. With 96% of the fleet gone, forecasting models predict that the Federation will cease to exist within a year. One intrepid Captain – and lucky survivor of The Burn – Delacourt Sato insists that the Federation has to maintain a presence, to show that hope can’t be defeated so easily. He suggests that they use transwarp technology for a new ship. That, however, is met with opposition, seeing as how that’s Borg technology, and the Borg haven’t been encountered for roughly 500 years at this point. Just as the captains are considering reaching out the the Borg, the Borg Queen appears, right in the middle of Starfleet HQ. But it’s not the Borg Queen that fought Picard and Janeway all those times. No, it’s Agnes, from Star Trek: Picard seasons 1 & 2!
I will tell anyone who’ll listen that I enjoyed the first two seasons of Star Trek: Picard. Sure, they weren’t the fan service TNG reunion that everyone wanted, and would eventually get from season 3, but they did a lot of interesting things with the franchise, even if the execution was sometimes clunky. We were introduced to a lot of great new characters, many of whom were shown the door when producers realized they could just bring back the TNG crew. One character who was done dirty was Agnes, in that she’s really not a “fan favorite” character at her introduction. She’s a murder suspect, she’s clearly on whatever the 24th century considers to be “the spectrum”, and you sometimes wonder why she’s even there. However, over the course of those two seasons, you really come to like her and her quirkiness, only for her to “sacrifice” herself, by allowing herself to become assimilated. She becomes a Borg Queen, but not the Borg Queen, as she’s part of a sect that sort of remained hidden all that time the other Queen was pestering the Enterprise and Voyager. Her Borg are sort of like the Eternals, where you’re like “How come y’all didn’t help against Thanos?!” Anyway, I’m so glad to see that this series picks up on threads left unresolved from Picard rather than Discovery. It also addresses another Picard Easter Egg, but we don’t get a lot of information about that here, and you can pretty much figure out what it is if you’ve even heard the smallest bit of a summary of what this comic is about. I’m really excited to see where this goes, and I might have to buy it monthly instead of waiting for the trade.
If you’re not a listener of the After Lunch Podcast, then you’d better become one, as a lot of my reading choices are related to that show. Every month, they have my favorite segment – The After Dinner Lounge – where they discuss the media they’ve consumed since the last recording. Whenever the topic of reading comes up, it’s always either a book I bought but haven’t read yet OR a book that sounds really interesting that I go on to buy. Hell, even the books they hate sound interesting to me. Well, a few months back, they discussed a book called We Have Always Lived In The Castle, by Shirley Jackson. To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t even remember what they had said about the book, but the shear fact that I thought of them when I noticed it on the shelf at the thrift store was enough for me to give it a chance. If it was good enough for them, then it’s good enough for me!
I don’t know a ton about Jackson, though I’m told she wrote The Lottery, which I feel like I’ve read, but can’t remember a thing about it. My memory is terrible these days. Age and medication are a terrible combination! I’ll say, however, that this is one of those books where I probably should have skipped the introduction, which was written by author Jonathan Lethem. You see, having already read the book, he was approaching concepts that might not have occurred to me on my own. In fact, I think it colored the way I looked at certain characters to the point where “surprising” reveals weren’t so surprising anymore. I don’t think it was his intent to do this, but it probably would have worked best as a “Can you believe what you just read?!” afterword, as opposed to a “You’re really in for a treat!” foreword.
In Reddit circles, there’s a subreddit called AITA, where users submit scenarios and ask “Am I The Asshole?” Common responses are NTA (Not The Asshole) or YTA (You’re The Asshole). Every now and then, however, there’s the rare ESH (Everyone Sucks Here), where the person who submitted was an asshole, but they were somewhat justified due to the behavior/actions of the offended party. That’s the kind of book this was, as Everyone Sucks Here. We Have Always Lived In The Castle follows Mary Kate (Merricat) Blackwood, and her older sister Constance, as they tend to their senile uncle Julian in the family estate outside of town. Years prior, there was a scandal as the entire Blackwood family, sans Merricat and Constance, died from arsenic poisoning. It was said that the sugar bowl had been poisoned, which took out their father, mother, brother, and aunt. Uncle Julian had ingested a small amount of sugar, which had permanently affected him in different ways. Merricat had been sent to her room without dinner, due to bad behavior, while Constance never used sugar, so that’s how they were spared. However, since Constance did the family cooking, she had been put on trial for the murder, while Merricat was shuffled away to an orphanage. After being acquitted, Constance returned home, becoming the de facto caretaker of Merricat and Uncle Julian.
The three Blackwoods led a rather simple life of routine, where Constance and Uncle Julian never left the property, while Merricat regularly went to the village for food and supplies. Due to the salacious events of the trial, as well as how much the villagers ate up the gossip, Merricat came to hate the villagers. She treated them with contempt whenever she had to be around them, and the villagers came to resent her and her family. You see, the Blackwoods always thought themselves better than the villagers, and used this as justification to make the villagers’ lives more difficult. For example, the Blackwood property provided a shortcut to the highway, but Mrs. Blackwood didn’t like stranger walking across her front lawn, so Mr. Blackwood erected a fence, closing off the property to the villagers, and adding about a quarter of a mile to the villagers’ treks. So, when the Blackwoods all died, you can’t really say that they were missed by the people of the village. In fact, the village children made up nursery rhymes about Constance and Merricat and their deadly Blackwood sugar. So, you can see that Merricat was somewhat trained by her father to hate the villagers, but then had reason to hate them based on their actions. Likewise, you can see how Mr. Blackwood’s selfishness led the villagers not to think too kindly of him, either.
The book follows a particular point in time, where Merricat begins to feel there are changes coming to the routine that they have built, and she doesn’t like it one bit. They’re visited by their cousin Charles, who immediately lets tips off the reader that he’s not there with the best of intentions, and their lives are never the same after he steps into their kitchen.
It’s an engaging, yet difficult, read, as you spent a lot of time not knowing whom, if anyone, to root for. Merricat is not a precocious child, but rather a brat who has never been truly disciplined. The parents used to send her to bed without dinner as a punishment, but this was never harsh enough, as Constance always snuck a plate up to her later. She never faced consequences for any of her worst actions, and that’s a problem. Constance is probably the most pure character, but she realizes, as does the reader, that she had enabled Merricat’s antisocial behavior her entire life. Meanwhile, Uncle Julian is an interesting trope, where he’s supposed to be senile, yet he’s sometimes the source of the most important information in the story. From the minute we meet Charles, we know he’s up to no good, but everything, from every angle, escalates to a fever pitch, where the dam breaks at once and you’re just along for the ride. It’s a tense story, but there are also moments of beauty. They really have established a picturesque routine, where they tend the garden, come in for lunch, go down to the creek, come back for dinner. No real responsibilities, and they’ve cut themselves off from most of society, so they don’t have to care what others might think of them. You can understand why Merricat loves it so much, as you can also understand why it would shatter her to have it all taken away from her. I won’t say it’s an instant recommend, as it’s a book you sort of need to sit with and think about once it’s over. If you wish Home Alone had a bit more class warfare involved, then this is the book for you. That said, I’ll chalk this up as another great suggestion from After Lunch.
Will Around The Web
Wizards episode #118 was released this week, where Adam and I discussed changes that were coming to Top Cow Productions, while Classic Marvel, Ultimate Marvel, and Marvel Knights were pitted against each other, in terms of quality. Plus, there were updates for 50 different comic book movies (many of which are never made). Check it out here or wherever you get your podcasts!
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- It’s the end of an era, as MTV has canceled Ridiculousness after 14 years and 46 seasons. I told y’all basic cable ruined the concept of a “season”! The new Paramount regime swears MTV isn’t going anywhere, and yet…
- Speaking of endings, Teen Vogue – known for its impressive investigative reporting – has been folded into Vogue editorial, resulting in layoffs for many women of color and members of the LGBTQ community.
- Back when I watched Broad City, I never imagined that Ilana Glazer would one day be someone’s mom, and reading bedtime stories on the Calm app. Yet, here we are.
- Bridgerton‘s Jonathan Bailey was named as People’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2025. *insert Djimon Hounsou GOTG Who? gif*
- Following a developing sports gambling scandal, ESPN is closing ESPN BET. Don’t get too excited, though, as they’re jumping right into bed with DraftKings. When I first read “ESPN BET”, I was like “They’ve got an ESPN just for black people?!”
- Apparently, they’re making a Gremlins 3, but I’ll believe it when there’s a trailer.
- Over in Japan, reportedly the 50+ year old Super Sentai franchise – source material for Power Rangers and other Saban shows – is ending, to make way for something called “Universe Heroes”. It’s rumored that this change is beingmade because the original contracts with Saban prohibit the airing of the original Super Sentai shows in some regions. Those rules, however, would not apply to a newly created entity.
Did somebody say “Blue Wave”? I dunno. I’m sure somebody over on Bluesky has said it. That’s the kind of place it is over there. Anyway, I’m not very involved in politics these days, as I pretty much just get the news that’s forced in my face. And nobody’s been forced into it as much as Zohran Mamdani, running for mayor of NYC. And I don’t have a single thing against the man, but I don’t get why I’m supposed to care about local politics in a locality that is not my own. Sure, I can have interest, but at the end of the day, I can’t cast a vote for the man, and he doesn’t really affect my life until he runs for Congress. That said, you would think that election was gonna determine the fate of the world or something. And that’s from the Left and the Right. The Left felt a Mamdani win would be a step in “preserving democracy”, while the Right acted as if a Mamdani win would take us right back to September 12th, 2001, as he would enact Sharia Law and just do a bunch of things that were just downright “unAmerican”. And, based on those fears (and the power of their lobbyists), I didn’t think he was gonna win. In fact, I was sure they would stop at nothing to ensure his defeat, even if that came to them disabling the elevators in every NYC high-rise, while locking the stairwells, to prevent folks from being able to get to the polls. It was that comedic. I guess, however, they got too distracted by Dick Cheney’s death that morning, and they let their guard down, as Mamdani did win, and the world didn’t end.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, former US Representative Abigail Spanberger won the gubernatorial election, making her the first woman governor in Virginia history. That’s an amazing accomplishment, but I’m still kinda bewildered that we’re still experiencing “firsts” of this nature, in 2025. It would be one thing if we were talking about the First one-legged acrobat to be elected governor. I mean, that would have been some campaign trail, amirite?! But, no, this is the first white woman to be elected governor of Virginia. Society considers that to be “top shelf” woman! How did it take this long, Virginia? Was it that “commonwealth” bullshit? I should probably shut my mouth, though, as it appears there are 17 states that have never elected a female governor, and Maryland is right there on that list. So, I’m gonna go eat a crabcake and mind my own business…
There were some other important wins this week, but this ain’t MSNOW, and I ain’t Rachel Maddow (though I did get a haircut the other day, so I can understand the confusion). I don’t want to get all “partisan” here, but it’s pretty clear that the Left had the West Week Ever. But let’s be honest here: it’s not that hard of a feat to pull off when the other party is celebrating all the gaudy gold embellishments it’s adding to the White House, as the government shutdown enters its 38th day. Ah, the White House: Come for the cheap weight loss drugs, stay for the old white guy who collapses on the hour. Deuces!
