The CW collection of DC superhero shows *might* be in a bit of trouble. I say this for a variety of reasons. 

*First, after 8 seasons, they no longer have Arrow anchoring the “Arrowverse”. This is not really that bad but it seems a tad awkward. I’m surprised that they not only allowed Ollie to die as Ollie but to also die as the Spectre in Crisis. Especially since the Spectre shouldn’t really be able to die, plus, it would have been kind of interesting to see Ollie pop up in the future in a green hood of a different, sepulchral nature. But that’s a small niggle, not really an issue.

1.Ruby Rose leaving Batwoman. *That’s* an issue. As is how they’re addressing it. Both officially and unofficially, the arrangement wasn’t working out for her *or* the production company and the rest of the crew that had to work with her. Tensions and attitudes on set made for problems, so both sides decided she had to go. The producers could just recast the role of Kate Kane/Batwoman but instead, they’re going to cast a new character to be Batwoman. This new character will be a former drug runner who made a lot of bad decisions but is also kind of goofy and an out lesbian. Not sure how they came up with this decision. They’ve stated that they’re looking to cast an out lesbian actress as well. 

I was initially happy to see Batwoman get a show on the CW, roughly based on the comic. IN the comics, Kate Kane is a pretty cool, formidable, capable character, with an awesome costume and impressive backstory. That being said, the CW screwed it up, in my opinion. For whatever reason, this Kate Kane didn’t seem that capable or impressive and when it came to villains, they focused almost exclusively on her sister Alice. I got bored and bailed after Crisis. She was fairly useless in Crisis as well– so was Ollie, but he got the honor of dying a couple times. All in all, the show was quickly taking a nosedive.

The producers now bringing in an entirely new character to play Batwoman makes no sense to me at all. Are they ditching the entire supporting cast? Because I’m not sure how a brand new character would just insert herself into the system of working with Luke Fox in the Batcave. I would have thought they’d just insert Kate’s old girlfriend from the academy or maybe even Julia Pennyworth, Alfred’s daughter, who’s also an out lesbian to take over. Keep it in the family. But no. Good luck to them and this entirely questionable new direction.

2.Supergirl has taken the biggest nosedive as far as ratings go, starting out with 12 million four years ago, and now trying to scrape by with less than a million. Mind you, I’ve heard the show is a bit better now that Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) is a regular in the post Crisis version but whether it’s helped the ratings, I don’t know. Although it’s worth noting that CW will gladly take any ratings, being a third rate cable network. I also don’t know how many more seasons Supergirl will last. I haven’t been able to stomach the show, mostly because the writers and Benoist made Kara/Supergirl out to be a bit of a nerdy, perky, wimpy, precious idiot. Usually acting more like an insecure sidekick to Superman than a hero in her own right. The majority of the supporting cast was decent, although there is the typical comic relief that undercuts the intellectual content thanks to Brainiac 5–although I’ve been told that’s changed since Crisis too. I think Supergirl’s going into its sixth season next fall, if filming resumes depending on COVID-19. It might be their last since Superman and Lois are getting their own show this fall. 

3.Heart to hearts and pep talks. The sheer volume of instances where heroes have a weekly crisis of faith in their own abilities and desperately need to be talked down off the insecurity ledge EVERY WEEK is frightening. This mushy soap opera crap is part of the CW “house style” and my god it is annoying. A few weeks ago in an ep of the Flash, in the span of 15 minutes, they wasted all of our time by having six straight pep talks back to back to back to back to back to back. It doesn’t matter that half the characters needed the same heart to heart talk the week before but evidently they are either just really really insecure or have crap memories. 

4.Legends of the DC Universe… it’s continued existence mystifies me. I mean, it has its fans but it’s not my cup of tea. Why these cartoonish buffoons are even allowed to call themselves “Legends” is laughable, but I guess that’s all part of the joke. I guess it’s offensive to me on one level because they’re taking established heroes and turning them into scatterbrained imbeciles and laughing stocks. But then it’s also offensive to me on a comedy level because the humor is aimed at the lowest common  denominator, and is not the slightest bit clever, just very remedial. The Hudson brothers had smarter material than this (look it up, kids). Somehow, the show even manages to offend me regarding its idiot handling of time travel. The producers claim to be big fans of Doctor Who but guh. You’d never know it from the writing quality.

5.Hartley Sawyer, who played Ralph Dibney/Elongated Man has been fired from the Flash because of sexually and racially insensitive tweets from a few years ago. Some really stupid, violent tweets that sat there like a digital time bomb for 6 to 8 years. You’d think by this point, producers would start including Twitter history in the background checks when hiring actors because it is astonishing how many celebrities came right out of the Tweet-box with incredibly career ending comments. The atmosphere is more more sensitive and intolerant today but even 8 years ago, these were deal breakers. See ya, Ralph.

BUT there are positives. 

1.Black Lightning is going into its 4th season this fall, COVID-19 permitting. This show has been an impressive production at almost every step. It runs with a shorter season of 16 eps, thus, a tighter narrative and far mess padding eps like all the rest of the CW selections. The characters and relationships are more real and grounded as well. Up until now, it’s been the best of the CW. And Black Lightning himself is resoundingly kick-ass.

2.Stargirl is three eps in and so far, it’s been hitting some home runs. Good performances and stories so far, that set the show apart from most of the usual CW fare. There are only 13 eps this season. Again, like Black Lightning, very smart. No huge, padded, bloated 23 ep seasons like Flash or Supergirl. Less soap opera. Better scripts. This is probably because this show was created for the DC streaming service as well as being made available to the CW. As such, it’s possibly not as beholden to some of the lame CW rules and “house style”. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out, but Stargirl, so far, is a bright spot on the roster.

Sadly, the series starts with a flashback to ten years earlier, when the original Justice Society of America is killed in battle. It’s really a shame because first, they were all more interesting characters and second, I get the feeling a batch of inexperienced teens are going to try and take up the mantles. I see disaster awaiting –probably some really unfortunate deaths–but we’ll see which way it all goes. 

3.Green Lantern is another property being developed into a DC tv show, but I don’t know much about it other than it’s slated to appear only on HBOMAX, the latest streaming service, the second to hawk DC material and another service I won’t be buying. It’d be nice if they showed it on the CW, like they’re doing with Stargirl.

Honestly, I had hopes that they’d put together a Justice League of America show at some point, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. Even if it did, seeing as how the writers handled Legends, maybe it’s for the best. Besides, it doesn’t look like we’ll ever have Batman, Aquaman or Wonder Woman showing up, Green Arrow’s dead, Flash has only got maybe one or two seasons left in him and GL isn’t even here yet. So, probably not.

 All in all, the producers (the Berlanti group), still have some good cards up their sleeves. I just hope more are coming, because the thing IS.

By the turn of the century, Timm and his gang were revered as comic and animation gods, after giving us the best realization of Batman ever (even to this very day), a wonderful Superman and even expanding the Bat brand Beyond. The biggest surprise was still to come when it was announced that Timm was doing a Justice League series. And as I say, think of how much we normally trust Kevin Fiege when it comes to the MCU these days, that’s where the trust level was with Timm at this point around 2000 and he did not let us down.

He simply expanded the BTAS universe to include all the rest of the superheroes incrementally. First step, they brought in a slightly redesigned Batman (Conroy!) into the team, then Superman (George Newbern), Flash (Michael Rosenbaum), Wonder Woman (Susan Eisenberg), Green Lantern (Phil Lamar), Hawkgirl (Maria Canals) and Martian Manhunter J’onn J’onzz (Carl Lumbly). Together, these seven heroes had 52 episodes across two seasons, battling Luther, Joker, the Injustice League, monsters, alien threats, you name it. But just as interesting as the threats were, the personal interactions were also very well written. 

The buttoned up, military minded Jon Stewart/Green Lantern was sometimes at odds with the more laid back and comical Wally West/Flash. At the same time, Stewart was becoming close with the war-like Shayera Hol/Hawkgirl.  Batman’s methods were sometimes at odds with Superman’s, and most of them felt like loners, being either orphans, the last of their kind, outsiders, or all of the above. The show worked on every level but it took a few stories for Timm and co. to nail the mechanics of animating a team book as opposed to a lone hero. They initially had trouble finding ways to keep so many powerful heroes occupied but they figured it out brilliantly in the end. They brought the second season to a close with an epic three parter, which shook up the status quo. 

The first two seasons were 26 eps each, usually two part stories, but for the third season, they changed things up, going with a 13 ep season, usually stand alone eps, expanded the roster by adding dozens of heroes, and calling it Justice League Unlimited, with a new look, new satellite HQ, and a rockin’ new theme. It was bigger, better, bolder and this continued for three seasons. 

Part of the magic of all five seasons was their ability to bring second and third string heroes to the forefront and make you appreciate them for the first time. Even those that had been around for 50 or 60 years. The Jon Stewart Green Lantern had been around since 1970 but has never been a big headliner. This show transformed him into the favorite GL for a whole generation of fans. Hawkgirl had always been known mostly has Hawkman’s wife for decades and a C list character. Shayera Hol was now A list material. The Question (Jeffrey Combs) raised his profile dramatically in the show, as did Vixen (Gina Torres), Vigilante (Nathan Fillion), Shining Knight (Chris Cox) and so so so many more. The show elevated so many heroes that never had that chance in the past, it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that ANY character can be amazing if you’ve got the right creative team behind it. And it must be said that most of these latter eps had fantastic direction from the likes of Joquim DeSantos (Invader Zim). Beautiful stuff.

But all good things must come to an end. After a combined 300 episodes between series, plus the the feature movies, this part of the party was over. Timm and company went their separate ways to produce other shows. The DC animated universe went in a different direction, mostly doing feature adaptations of existing comic stories. Honestly, it’s a mixed bag. Some adaptations are faithful and really well done (Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, Justice League/New Frontier), others are incredibly screwed up and lesser end products (The Killing Joke, Doomed, Doomsday). Plus, a bunch of others of varying quality. There’ve also been some original productions that were great such as Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, or Batman: Gotham Knight. I haven’t bothered with the vast majority of the direct to videos because of the varied quality, and in some cases, Timm’s notions about some heroes and their personal relationships (Batman and Batgirl) have not gone over well with the public. More’s the pity.

But in the end, the gang did give us some of the finest adventures of the DC heroes we have or will ever see. During a lockdown, you could a lot worse than to immerse yourselves in:

Batman the Animated Series (4 seasons)

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Batman: Sub Zero

Superman the Animated Series

Batman Beyond the series 

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

Justice League the series

Justice League Unlimited the series

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths 

Justice League: The New Frontier

Batman: Year One

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Batman: Gotham Knights

 Back in early 1970, New Zealand had its first successful television show called “What?”. It starred a relatively unknown Japanese/Irish-American actor named Harry Finnegan (pronounced Harquort Faraday), who portrayed the breakout character, Mewley Burke.

“What?” was a story about a man (Burke), his common law wife and their six daughters who move to NZ to start fresh, maybe marry off his daughters and enjoy the quiet life. Things get complicated when Burke loses all their money in a crooked land deal and they’re forced to start a circus to make ends meet. Hilarity ensues when they gather only the native animals in the vicinity for their exhibitions and the daughters try to grow beards, gain weight, and lift heavy weights for their acts.

The show was the brainchild of Arther Preck, late of Australia (the prison continent), who had a definitive vision for the story. The show, broadcast twice weekly, had over 100 episodes in it’s one season but the success was all down to Finnegan and his emotive talents.

Finnegan had “one of those faces” where even at the reported youthful age of 26, he had a “character’s face”, a real, leathery, grizzled mess. Almost impossible to tell how old he was, it allowed him to pull off the character of Burke, who was supposed to be in his 70’s.

His physical comedy was actually enhanced by his boneless left arm. His normal left hand, which swung at his side like a ham in a tube sock, was used to great effect. And his catch phrases are still around today in the NZ.

“Well, crap in my hat and call me pinky!”

“What?”

“Insouciant youth! FACE ME!”

and “Don’t crap in my hat!”

All these elements came together seamlessly in a truly beloved show by some of its fans.

Finnegan, it turns out, was lying about his real age during the show and really *was* 70 at the time, with his real age revealed to be 120 at his demise under suspicious circumstances last week in Lisbon. 

Mr. Finnegan is survived by his older brother, Barry.

R.I.P.

No, that’s no metaphor, as it is just about summer, the spring rains have let up, the backyard is no longer a swamp and there are several big pieces o’ wood to get to a choppin’!

The winter months are full of P90X, insanity, jumping jacks and 500 rep challenges but everyone needs a change of pace and the hot months mean doing the walk/run and choppin’ the wood. So far, I’ve been able to get in about a couple weeks straight, about 20 to 30 minutes a session. 

It is wonderfully exhausting, trying to muscle an axe through wood. I *think* I’ve got enough to keep me busy for another month or so, I’m not sure. Just have to get them into small enough pieces for Lin to burn in the fire pit. 

Of course the only danger–aside from me swinging an axe around–  is if my form is off on the chopping. If I err and really screw up on the swing, I could aggravate the sciatic nerve. That’s no picnic. In fact, that’s what stopped my last chopping summer a few years ago. Or was it ten years ago? Time passes at an alarming rate these days. 

Well, fingers crossed. I’ll try to keep good form, take regular breaks, etc.  Got a decent pair of gardening gloves too. Good grip, yet doesn’t easily allow blisters.

Yes, from here on in, it’s smooooooth sailin’, Skipper!

ITEM! Because of good word of mouth, I checked out the second season of Star Trek: Discovery. Not bad, not great. As a cast and a show, from seeing season 2, I’d rank it thusly on the roster of Trek shows:

1.Deep Space Nine. 10/10

2.The Original Series, films 9/10

3.The Next Generation, films 7/10

4.Enterprise 6/10

5.Discovery 5/10

6.Voyager 4/10

Kelvin timeline films

The cast/crew is mostly unremarkable, aside from Michael Burnam (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Saru (Doug Jones). Every Trek show has that one special character, that outsider who proves to be the emotional anchor or breakout character from the pack, whether it’s Spock, Data, or actually, virtually everyone on DS9, but here, it’s Saru. Jones does a great job bringing this gangly alien to life. Martin-Green does a very nice job with Burnam as well, even though the writers tend to make her a sobbing mess about as often as she’s kicking ass, if not more so. 

Aside from those two, there’s Tilly (Mary Wiseman), who plays the ditzy– yet brilliant –ensign who never ever shuts up. It’s meant to be endearing but she makes me want to hit her with a baseball bat. I guess every crew needs a Wesley Crusher. There are at least another four or five bridge officers who are part of the furniture. There’s also a meticulous chief engineer (Anthony Rapp), who occasionally squabbles with another engineer (Tig Notaro), but over all, not a very memorable crew in general. I also can’t get with their weird take on the look of Klingons. The empress has some false teeth that she can’t speak through and for some reason, all the Klingons are different, vibrant colors, green, steel blue, shiny black, copper/metallic….it tends to make the rubber heads look more like rubber and plastic toys than one alien race. Not sure of their thought process there. 

The most interesting character on the crew is not *part* of the crew. It’s Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), the man who commanded the Enterprise before Kirk. He steps in to command Discovery for the main mission of season 2. I don’t know whether it was always planned that there’d be a spinoff with Pike’s Enterprise crew, or Mount proved to be so instantly popular that they made it so to answer the demand, but it’s happening. “Strange New Worlds” premieres on CBS All Access in late 2021. Looking forward to getting that on Blu-ray in like two and a half years.

ITEM! Steve Shives hosts a YouTube channel called “Trek Actually”, which talks about all things Trek. He’s a life long Trekkie and it’s clear that he loves all things Trek. 

For instance, he, like myself, had a problem with the finale to Voyager, and had a better ending in mind. He talks about it length on his channel and it is interesting. He gives his pitch on a better alternative.  For myself, when the crew got back to earth, I maintain that Starfleet would detain all the Maquis crew members, experiment and disassemble Seven and impound the Doctor’s Mobile Emitter. Because Starfleet. Failing that, because Section 31. It would be such an unhappy ending that the crew, who’d become a family during their years in the Delta quadrant, would break out and skeedaddle, with the possible exceptions of guys like Tuvok and Harry, who had family on Earth. Done and done. And better than what they gave us.

ITEM! The Enterprise finale was worse. But the show was better than some think. If you want a *good* Star Trek Enterprise viewing experience, there’s actually an alternative viewing order that ups the quality immensely. Trust me on this. It’s worked for me as well as others. *Start* by watching the very last ep of Season Two first. Then watch Season Three and Four. Then, go back to the beginning and start watching from the beginning of Season One, through all of One and Two. It works.

ITEM! Those who haven’t watched Star Trek Continues on YouTube, you’re missing out. Go for it. We won’t be in lockdown forever!

Unloading groceries the other day and what emerged from one of the bags but a moderately sized tub of Pub Cheese.

You’re probably wondering whether this is a non issue or to get extremely excited. I agree, let’s get excited. 

I mean… Pub Cheese.

That dazzling, zingy orange cheese paste that insinuates… something. 

I honestly can’t tell if it means Linda found some cheap cheese, a new expensive cheese, she has a new recipe that calls for it or if there’s an impromptu Vegas Night coming to the house. The possibilities are admittedly finite. 

I haven’t broached the Pub Cheese subject with her yet. 

Conversely, she has said nothing about it. 

She hasn’t put a label on it yet that says ‘Don’t Eat This”, as she would have if she’s intending to use it on or with something.

We have a Cheese history in this house, sometimes harboring as many as ten different cheeses in the dedicated fridge drawer (although such bountiful, Cheese extremism is rare).

If it remains unopened, I’ll eventually ask what the deal is, as I think this might be the first time we’ve had Pub Cheese and I want to know if I should feel anything like impressed or honored. 

This might all just be because we’ve got some crackers in the house. 

Probably no Vegas Night coming. 

Mm.

I don’t even know if I like Pub Cheese. 

Tom Baker’s  is the most popular Doctor in the show’s history and the longest running, including the finest set of stories ever under producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor/writer Robert Holmes. There are recommendations.

*Note: Unlike his predecessors, the fourth Doctor didn’t stick with any steady theme. He ventured into present day adventures with UNIT, traveled to earth’s history and future, went to alien planets and faced cosmic, galactic threats. This pattern was kept in place for the duration of the classic version of the show.

1)Robot, where Tom Baker makes an unforgettable entrance over four parts, with Sarah and the Brig trying to catch up as they face a giant robot. 

2)The Ark in Space is a gripping space drama featuring a brilliant speech about Homo sapiens, that forever cements Bakers place in Who history. 

3)Genesis of the Daleks is THE Dalek adventure, showing their origins and creator, Davros. The Doctor is sent back in time and tasked by the Time Lords to prevent the Dalek’s creation, even if it means genocide. One of the best.

4)Terror of the Zygons is a four part story mostly notable for the design of the Zygons, one of the coolest monster designs in the show’s history. 

5)Pyramids of Mars is another classic, gothic masterpiece as the Doctor goes up against the renegade Osiran, Sutekh. 

6)The Brain of Morbius is a four part fan favorite with the Sisterhood of Karn, Mehendri Solon, and deadly renegade Time Lord, Morbius. And now, potentially the most important peek into the Doctor’s past lives…

8)The Seeds of Doom. A fantastic six part tale featuring the Krynoids, a world devouring plant. 

9)The Robots of Death. The title says it all but the story and design work is phenomenal.

10)The Talons of Weng Chiang, is, along with Genesis and Pyramids, the best of the best of the Baker era. It’s the end of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era and this Jack the Ripper era, atmospheric classic is truly one of the best episodes of all classic DW.

Honorable mentions:

*Planet of Evil — antimatter monster and the most beautifully designed alien planet on any show anywhere, ever in the history of television.

*The Sontaran Experiment, a taut, two part, torturous adventure.

*The Masque of Mandragora, featuring a malevolent, deadly energy set loose in 15th century Italy.

*Hand of Fear gives us some fantastic character work, the menace of Eldrad and the departure of our beloved Sarah Jane.

*The Deadly Assassin is our first look at Time Lord society, as the Doctor must fight for his life in the Matrix and battle the Master. 

*Horror of Fang Rock. A claustrophobic thriller all taking place in a lighthouse, wonderfully done.

British fans, please put the sharp instruments, torches and brass knuckles down and hear me out. 

I just want to clarify up front I don’t really want this and historically, it’s just a bad idea when we try to adapt a Brit show, just like it’s usually a mistake when Brits try and adapt ours. 

As far as I’m concerned, we can try and adapt all the British shows ever, but the very last on the list would be Doctor Who. Why? The Britishness.

It’s not because we don’t have any good tv over here. We do. We have just as many if not more quality shows over here. Make no mistake though: while we have more quality shows, WE ALSO have more crap. So right off the bat, let’s not let focus on the wrong things. Fair enough? Alright, so…. Britishness.

99% of Doctor Who’s charm involves good stories, good performances and Britishness. The iconic Police Box alone screams Britishness. 

So, years ago, I’d thought about America making a Doctor Who program. It’s an interesting exercise. You first have to think how it would be approached. You’d have to have a showrunner that knows what works and what doesn’t for an American audience. What elements to keep, dump and change. 

The conclusion I’ve come to is you’d have to exorcise the Britishness out of it. You….put down the flamethrower. Where did you get a..? Never mind. 

Something I’d like to point out here… when Russell T. Davies left DW and went to America to work with BBC International, I was very worried they’d talk him into doing an American version. You know the suits lined up with their idiot ideas. Because we’ve seen the suits line up here before with idiot ideas. We’ve seen the suits at the BBC line up with…. ideas recently, and look where the show is now. 

Let’s face it, over here, we would try to adapt anything and everything, so you just know DW was on the table at some point. Thankfully, I think they tried and tried and RTD successfully held them off, convincing them it was just not a good idea. I think we all agree, that although it wouldn’t be impossible, it’s *highly* improbable that we could reinvent the show here and have it be highly successful. 

And to be more clear, the main reason I’ve been thinking about this at all, is because of where the current show is. If the Timeless Child mandate is upheld and/or reenforced by Chibs, well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a very different show now and hey, all bets are off. May as well try to create some Doctor Who. It’s not really brain surgery. Is it? Maybe.

It is, however, a very engaging puzzle. An interesting hypothetical exercise–a game, if you will, and the only way to win would be to figure out an angle in which it would be successful. In which it would WORK. An uphill battle but what the hell…I’m not going anywhere.

So, here I am in my Hollywood office, getting paid obscene amounts of money to come up with an American version of Doctor Who. Russell just slowly wandered by my open doorway, shaking his head with a look of pity on his face. I shut the door, as he’s not helping. I’ve already decided that except for a possible British companion far down the line, this has show to have an independent American vibe, but a good one. Verisimilitude. All the characters within this world and the actors portraying them must respect this world and treat the material accordingly. This is not camp, this is not OTT. 

Item one: The TARDIS. Of all the hurdles, this might be the largest one. I’ve spent a LOT of time thinking about this. A structure that is easily and readily identifiable to an American audience but also an *international* audience, as much as possible. A structure that takes up roughly the same footprint as the police box, give or take a foot. The answer? A dilapidated, blue garden shed with white trim, with maybe a weather vane on top that spins around. Double doors, a few frosted windows. Inside? Possibilities are endless but I think I’d start out with a console room that lay somewhere in between Capaldi’s, McGanns, and maybe Season 14. And maybe the console itself would be the original Hartnell version.

Item two: The writing. The showrunning. Lots of discussions here but it would depend on who wants the jobs and what they’re pitching. Verisimilitude again. And it should be aimed at the whole family. We don’t want to go Deadwood, but we also definitely don’t want to go Scooby Doo. Give me the imagination of Rod Serling, the characterization of Ira Steven Behr –actually, Behr’s not a bad choice for showrunner. He did a helluva job on DS9. But you get the idea.

Item three: The show pilot. The main character is known as the Doctor. He is not from this planet. At the start, he is an older man, maybe late 50’s, has a granddaughter named Susan. She has two teachers whose curiosity about the strange girl land them in a confrontation with this mysterious grandfather, the Doctor. This happens after finding out to their horror, that she evidently lives with the old man in a small shed in the back of a junk yard. An attempted call to child services! A struggle ensues, landing them all inside the shed to find the inside is much larger than the outside and they’re about to find out that it’s a time machine. Having been exposed, the Doctor cuts his losses, activating the dematerialization circuit, whisking them off to prehistoric times. 

*Note: I do believe patterning the pilot more or less after the original is a very good idea for obvious reasons and the principle characters will work here again. Ian is still a science teacher, Barbara, a history teacher. The TARDIS is still hidden away in a junkyard, the Doctor is still a somewhat suspicious, prickly old man, Ian and Barbara are still horrified to find Susan stashed away in a box. Susan, instead of being a screamer, is actually more accomplished and acts mature beyond her years. The Doctor makes it clear again that stopping in this one time on this one planet and letting Susan experience that stupid school has now caused all this!

Item four: The Doctor. Why so far down on the list? Because you need the proper set up, the writing, an actual writers room, a good roadmap for what you want to do first. Then you hold your auditions. *Initially*, we would specifically be casting a white male but with the explicit plan to audition only women of any and all colors when the time comes for regeneration, to *immediately* illustrate that anything can happen with regeneration. After that, a third Doctor could be virtually anyone, men, women of any color, but there’d always be a rigorous audition process to get the best Doctor possible. The same holds true for the companions starting off with Ian, Barbara, and Susan. 

Item 5: The Doctor’s history. This show would start fresh but aside from the set up as mentioned above, certain things would be revealed in time. Probably sooner rather than later. The original producers were adding bits of history as they went and some of it can stay as it does makes sense within the narrative. The Doctor would still be a Time Lord from Gallifrey that can regenerate. 12 regenerations/13 bodies and you’re done. It’s good to have boundaries but of course you wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with running out of bodies for at least a half century as we know. Absolutely NO plans to turn the character into a billion year old God that’s *not*  from Gallifrey. That would be bonkers. 

Item 6: Season length. While there is sometimes still a tendency to do 22 or 23 episode seasons over here, I’d definitely go with a shorter season, because as we’ve seen with so many quality shows, like Breaking Bad, The Americans, The Sopranos, you can get a much tighter narrative doing 13, 45 minute episodes and I think we’ve seen this successfully played out in nu-Who in Britain as well. The over all season and story breakdown would determine which eps would be one shots, two parters, etc.

The network: I’d be more inclined to reach out to a network like AMC or perhaps go right to Netflix or Amazon Prime, as there’s a bit more freedom and respect for the creative process and the creators wishes than with say, the CW, NBC, CBS, etc. 

And there you have it. It probably shouldn’t and wouldn’t be done, but if it is, I think it best to do it right, if at all humanly possible. 

I’m sure this idea is less welcome than Kill the Moon to most Doctor Who fans but I’m at least more open to it *now* than ever before. 

Time has passed. So much in fact, that some may not be aware of what they missed when it comes to excellent animation. So here’s the scoop:

The ’70’s and ’80’s were 63 layers of garbage when it came to cartoons and live action stuff for superheroes on tv. Let’s leave it at that for now. I can devote another blog entry to the Superfriends.

1992 is when it all changed. Bruce Timm and his team of writers and animators graduated from working on other Warner Bros. cartoons to create Batman, the Animated Series. This was and is the ultimate version of Batman. This wasn’t campy or humorous like the Adam West show from the ’60’s. This wasn’t mindless pablum for little kids like the Superfriends. These were intelligent, suspenseful, dynamic, action packed adventures that presented the caped crusader in the best possible light. This Batman and Bruce Wayne were voiced by Kevin Conroy. 

Now, to be clear– West was a true and noble hero. Keaton had an excellent Bat attitude in the suit. Bale was a wonderfully driven Bruce Wayne. Affleck’s Batman knew how to clear a room of bad guys better than anyone. But they all pale in comparison to the voice of Conroy. Over 25 years later, Conroy is still THE voice of Batman. One or two actors have come close with excellent vocal portrayals over the past 15 years in other animated productions, but none can match the nuance and presence of Conroy. In fact recently, he even got the chance to play an older, live action “Kingdom Come” version of Bruce Wayne in the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. He’s the king. 

But then there’s the rest of the cast assembled by the brilliant Andrea Romano. Loren Lester as Dick Grayson/Robin/Nightwing. Effeminate Zimbalist jr. as Alfred Pennyworth. Bob Hastings as commissioner Gordon. Melissa Gilbert and later Tara Strong as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. And then, there were the villains.

There I was, age 30 in 1992, absolutely blown away by this unbelievable show, the story, the animation, the atmosphere, the voice work, especially that of the Joker. This was without a doubt the most interesting, disturbing, fully realized, homicidal, even *funny* version of the Joker ever presented. But I never looked at who did the voices of any of these guys at the time, figuring they were all unknown to me. It was months later, after getting a birthday present from Lin–a framed print of Batman and the Joker standing back to back in front of a sequence of storyboards. I was trying to figure out who actually signed the thing. Yes, only *then* did I find out that Mark Hamill did the voice of the Joker. Only then did I find out that he actually had talent. A LOT of talent. Since the start of the series until now, there is no other voice of the Joker. There have been good ones. Heath Ledger for one, but no, sorry, even he pales next to Hamill.

Other stand out performances as villains include Arleen Sorkin as the first and finest Harley Quinn, Paul Williams as the Penguin, David Warner as Ras Al Ghul, and the wonderful Michael Ansara with his emotional, tragic portrayal of Victor Fries/Mr. freeze. 

Another massive piece of the puzzle was Timm’s “Dark deco” design of Gotham city. Most of the backgrounds were painted on black canvas to add to the grim and gritty atmosphere but instead of wallowing in darkness, they used the back drop to contrast the explosions of colorful characters in it. Top it all off with Danny Elfman musical themes and you had a fantastic series. 

They even put out a theatrical feature called Mask of the Phantasm (4 stars), a wonderful animated film in the same style and one of the best Bat films around. In the next couple years, they followed up with a couple more direct to video entries, Sub Zero(4 stars) and Mystery of the Batwoman (2 stars).

As I said, this Batman is serious about his code, his war on crime, and doing things his way. The series takes place maybe 10 years into his career, as Robin is now an adult and even though they make an excellent team, Dick starts to chafe at always taking orders. The arrival of Batgirl and certain unexpected events produce changes to the status quo, resulting that when the show commits to the redesign, those last 20 eps pick up the action maybe a year later when Dick Grayson’s moved out of the picture and away to Bludhaven to become his own man, Nightwing. A new, younger Robin joined the team, Tim Drake, (Mathew Valencia), and the character’s background was a blend of Drake but also that of the comics’ Jason Todd, which would have somewhat dire consequences down the road. But these character notes and interpersonal dramas do play out in both the New Adventures (see below) and later in Batman Beyond, Return of the Joker.

After the initial 65 episodes, referred to as “Batman, the animated series”, they added 20 more, titling it The New Adventures of Batman and Robin. Then an additional 20 where they did a series redesign where they streamlined the look of the characters, calling it Batman, the New Adventures. This updated look carried over as Batman started crossing over with Superman on occasion in the other Timm produced show, Superman the Animated Series, which had 52 of its own episodes with a great cast headed up by Tim Daly (Clark Kent/Superman) and Dana Delaney (Lois Lane). When this Batman and Superman meet however, expect the unexpected, as they have to deal with not only the Joker but Lex Luther, played by Clancy Brown. Over the course of more than a decade, Brown provided THE voice for Luthor and like Conroy and Hamill, when I read anything with Luther in the comics, I “hear” Brown’s voice.

But Timm and company weren’t done yet. They had what seemed to be a bonkers idea doomed to fail. Teen Batman in the future. But you know how we trust Kevin Fiege with the MCU? Well, that’s how it was with Timm back then. The end product turned out to be Batman Beyond. A series set 50 years in our future in a Gotham that looked closer to Akira’s Neo-Tokyo than anything we would recognize as Gotham. We meet Terry McGuiness (Will Friedle), a troubled youth who’s father is killed under suspicious circumstances. Through a series of events, he meets an 80+ year old Bruce Wayne (Conroy!) and discovers who the old man once was. Terry steals the experimental Bat suit Bruce wore in his final days in action and proves himself worthy of taking on the mantle of the Batman, albeit with remote assistance by Bruce.

This idea shouldn’t have worked. Future Gotham, old Bruce, teen Batman, but it *does* and it is brilliant. They finished up with yet another feature film, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Another idea which should not, could not, would not work in any other circumstances but in these hands, it actually might be one of the best animated films I’ve seen. Amazing. 

I’d love to be able to give you recommendations for individual episodes but seriously, you’re going to want to buy the entire four seasons of BTAS, as that’s how they break it down, as well as the movies. So kick back, and start at the beginning. But here’s the order as far as inserting the movies– I’d say watch seasons sets one and two, then watch Mask of the Phantasm. Then watch season 3, then Sub Zero, as it’s still in the original visual style, and then the new design in season 4.  

Buying STAS—not really necessary but it is a very well done show. Worth it.

Then with Batman Beyond, watch all three seasons, then Return of the Joker last. 

All the season sets, the 100+ eps of BTAS, 52 eps of the STAS, 52 eps of Batman Beyond, plus all the above mentioned movies–Phantasm, Return of the Joker, are all available at Amazon and highly, *highly* recommended. 

In part two, I’ll give the lowdown on the various incarnations of the Justice League animated series and what came next for Timm and company. 

Time has passed. So much in fact, that some may not be aware of what they missed when it comes to excellent animation. So here’s the scoop:

The ’70’s and ’80’s were 63 layers of garbage when it came to cartoons and live action stuff for superheroes on tv. Let’s leave it at that for now. I can devote another blog entry to the Superfriends.

1992 is when it all changed. Bruce Timm and his team of writers and animators graduated from working on other Warner Bros. cartoons to create Batman, the Animated Series. This was and is the ultimate version of Batman. This wasn’t campy or humorous like the Adam West show from the ’60’s. This wasn’t mindless pablum for little kids like the Superfriends. These were intelligent, suspenseful, dynamic, action packed adventures that presented the caped crusader in the best possible light. This Batman and Bruce Wayne were voiced by Kevin Conroy. 

Now, to be clear– West was a true and noble hero. Keaton had an excellent Bat attitude in the suit. Bale was a wonderfully driven Bruce Wayne. Affleck’s Batman knew how to clear a room of bad guys better than anyone. But they all pale in comparison to the voice of Conroy. Over 25 years later, Conroy is still THE voice of Batman. One or two actors have come close with excellent vocal portrayals over the past 15 years in other animated productions, but none can match the nuance and presence of Conroy. In fact recently, he even got the chance to play an older, live action “Kingdom Come” version of Bruce Wayne in the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. He’s the king. 

But then there’s the rest of the cast assembled by the brilliant Andrea Romano. Loren Lester as Dick Grayson/Robin/Nightwing. Effeminate Zimbalist jr. as Alfred Pennyworth. Bob Hastings as commissioner Gordon. Melissa Gilbert and later Tara Strong as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. And then, there were the villains.

There I was, age 30 in 1992, absolutely blown away by this unbelievable show, the story, the animation, the atmosphere, the voice work, especially that of the Joker. This was without a doubt the most interesting, disturbing, fully realized, homicidal, even *funny* version of the Joker ever presented. But I never looked at who did the voices of any of these guys at the time, figuring they were all unknown to me. It was months later, after getting a birthday present from Lin–a framed print of Batman and the Joker standing back to back in front of a sequence of storyboards. I was trying to figure out who actually signed the thing. Yes, only *then* did I find out that Mark Hamill did the voice of the Joker. Only then did I find out that he actually had talent. A LOT of talent. Since the start of the series until now, there is no other voice of the Joker. There have been good ones. Heath Ledger for one, but no, sorry, even he pales next to Hamill.

Other stand out performances as villains include Arleen Sorkin as the first and finest Harley Quinn, Paul Williams as the Penguin, David Warner as Ras Al Ghul, and the wonderful Michael Ansara with his emotional, tragic portrayal of Victor Fries/Mr. freeze. 

Another massive piece of the puzzle was Timm’s “Dark deco” design of Gotham city. Most of the backgrounds were painted on black canvas to add to the grim and gritty atmosphere but instead of wallowing in darkness, they used the back drop to contrast the explosions of colorful characters in it. Top it all off with Danny Elfman musical themes and you had a fantastic series. 

They even put out a theatrical feature called Mask of the Phantasm (4 stars), a wonderful animated film in the same style and one of the best Bat films around. In the next couple years, they followed up with a couple more direct to video entries, Sub Zero(4 stars) and Mystery of the Batwoman (2 stars).

As I said, this Batman is serious about his code, his war on crime, and doing things his way. The series takes place maybe 10 years into his career, as Robin is now an adult and even though they make an excellent team, Dick starts to chafe at always taking orders. The arrival of Batgirl and certain unexpected events produce changes to the status quo, resulting that when the show commits to the redesign, those last 20 eps pick up the action maybe a year later when Dick Grayson’s moved out of the picture and away to Bludhaven to become his own man, Nightwing. A new, younger Robin joined the team, Tim Drake, (Mathew Valencia), and the character’s background was a blend of Drake but also that of the comics’ Jason Todd, which would have somewhat dire consequences down the road. But these character notes and interpersonal dramas do play out in both the New Adventures (see below) and later in Batman Beyond, Return of the Joker.

After the initial 65 episodes, referred to as “Batman, the animated series”, they added 20 more, titling it The New Adventures of Batman and Robin. Then an additional 20 where they did a series redesign where they streamlined the look of the characters, calling it Batman, the New Adventures. This updated look carried over as Batman started crossing over with Superman on occasion in the other Timm produced show, Superman the Animated Series, which had 52 of its own episodes with a great cast headed up by Tim Daly (Clark Kent/Superman) and Dana Delaney (Lois Lane). When this Batman and Superman meet however, expect the unexpected, as they have to deal with not only the Joker but Lex Luther, played by Clancy Brown. Over the course of more than a decade, Brown provided THE voice for Luthor and like Conroy and Hamill, when I read anything with Luther in the comics, I “hear” Brown’s voice.

But Timm and company weren’t done yet. They had what seemed to be a bonkers idea doomed to fail. Teen Batman in the future. But you know how we trust Kevin Fiege with the MCU? Well, that’s how it was with Timm back then. The end product turned out to be Batman Beyond. A series set 50 years in our future in a Gotham that looked closer to Akira’s Neo-Tokyo than anything we would recognize as Gotham. We meet Terry McGuiness (Will Friedle), a troubled youth who’s father is killed under suspicious circumstances. Through a series of events, he meets an 80+ year old Bruce Wayne (Conroy!) and discovers who the old man once was. Terry steals the experimental Bat suit Bruce wore in his final days in action and proves himself worthy of taking on the mantle of the Batman, albeit with remote assistance by Bruce.

This idea shouldn’t have worked. Future Gotham, old Bruce, teen Batman, but it *does* and it is brilliant. They finished up with yet another feature film, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Another idea which should not, could not, would not work in any other circumstances but in these hands, it actually might be one of the best animated films I’ve seen. Amazing. 

I’d love to be able to give you recommendations for individual episodes but seriously, you’re going to want to buy the entire four seasons of BTAS, as that’s how they break it down, as well as the movies. So kick back, and start at the beginning. But here’s the order as far as inserting the movies– I’d say watch seasons sets one and two, then watch Mask of the Phantasm. Then watch season 3, then Sub Zero, as it’s still in the original visual style, and then the new design in season 4.  

Buying STAS—not really necessary but it is a very well done show. Worth it.

Then with Batman Beyond, watch all three seasons, then Return of the Joker last. 

All the season sets, the 100+ eps of BTAS, 52 eps of the STAS, 52 eps of Batman Beyond, plus all the above mentioned movies —Mask of the Phantasm, Sub Zero, BB, Return of the Joker, are all available at Amazon and highly, *highly* recommended. 

In part two, I’ll give the lowdown on the various incarnations of the Justice League animated series and what came next for Timm and company.