Nearly two years after we finished the second season, Courtney and I finally finished up watching Veronica Mars on DVD. Raf, who lent us the DVDs and warned us that the season wasn’t the show’s best, turned out to have a point. Still, the show was still clever, funny, and interesting enough to keep you guessing with most of its mysteries.

Veronica’s transition to college was fairly smooth, if it was a bit coincidental that so many of her old pals from high school all decided to go to the same college in the same town. And it did feel like there were too many characters too fit in – many times this character or that was “out of town” just to explain why they weren’t in an episode or two. And the remix of the theme song?  Not necessary or cool.

The third season also didn’t have one long mystery that played out from the premiere to the finale like the first two seasons; instead there were two longer arcs and a few standalone episodes at the end. The campus rapist arc was a great story, while the death of the dean felt a little forced. I did, however really enjoy the standalone episodes at the end of the season, and I really felt like the show was picking up steam right as it ended. Go figure, right?

I watched the “trailer” for Season 4, where the showrunners pitched a concept of having the next season jump forward a few years to Veronica’s first day on the job at the FBI. The trailer showed promise, and I think that would have been a decent show – although it would have been somewhat irksome to have not followed up the cliffhangers from the season finale.

They say that a Veronica Mars movie is still possible,so fingers crossed for that.  But even without a movie, it was still a great show over three seasons, which is definitely impressive.

As I have mentioned before, I was a huge fan of The State when it was on MTV in the 90’s. I thought the show was brilliant and hysterical, and I have quoted lines from various skits throughout the years. As the 10 men and 1 woman in the group had moved on to work on other TV series and movies like Reno 911!, Stella, Michael and Michael have Issues, Wet Hot American Summer, The Ten, and Role Models, I – like many other fans out there – grew more and more impatient for the show to be released on DVD. Hell, I even bought the Skits and Stickers VHS compilation tape back when that format was all the rage.

Well, MTV finally released the series on DVD this summer, and I finally watched the whole thing. And when I say the whole thing, I mean every episode both with and without commentary, as well as all of the special features, deleted scenes, etc. So what did I think?

As much as it pains me to say, I was a little bit disappointed. It’s not that the show isn’t funny, or that it got less funny. It was in the 90’s and it still is now very funny stuff. I think the main problem was with me; in all the years since I had watched it last, I had remembered it being so brilliant that there was no way that the show could match my unrealistic delusions. When I watched the DVD’s, I was expecting to be laughing out loud, my side hurting, milk that I never drank shooting out of my nose. Instead, I laughed. I chuckled. When a skit that I remembered began, I smiled in anticipation. But it just didn’t hit me that hard.

The commentaries were interesting, but I have to be honest, they could have been funnier. There were little tidbits here and there about who designed this set, or what happened on that shooting day, and the origins of certain characters, and the relationship the guys had with MTV, but I was expecting more zany interplay between the group members. And while I understand that it could have been a bit much to have all 11 members of The State talking in a single commentary, it did seem like a lot of the same people were showing up in most of the commentaries: Michael Patrick Jann, Todd Holubek, Joe Lo Trulgio, Ken Marino, David Wain, and Kevin Allison. I have nothing against those guys, but it would have been nice to have heard from Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Thomas Lennon, Ben Garant, and Kerri Kenney-Silver more often. Oh, and Ken Marino, I think you’re great, really I do, but don’t eat or slurp coffee when you’re doing audio commentary – that’s just not cool.

The deleted scenes were fun to watch, but for the most part, it was fairly obvious why these skits didn’t make the cut. They even say that in the commentary – that these sketches were dredged up and weren’t ever intended to be seen, Still, it was nice to get to see some “never-before-seen” footage. (As an aside, I’ve never understood that phrase – surely everything has been seen by SOMEONE at some point, even if it was just the guy who filmed it. And even if the cameraman was blind or it was a hidden camera type situation, the second a single person found and watched the footage, you can’t really still justify calling it “never-before-seen.”)

The Spring Break appearances were a nice treat, as were the free form promos. And the version of the theme song sung by little kids on the Bonus Disc is fantastic and worth the price of admission alone. I found an Easter Egg, that was literally just a still image of an Easter Egg laying in some grass. Get it? Very “State.”

I also wasn’t crazy about the music they had to take out of the release and the random images that needed to be blurred. Don’t get me wrong – I understand why they had to take out a lot of songs and replace them with canned tracks, and they were very up front about the cost of using the original music being far too high to justify. And hell, they were able to use certain pieces of music here and there, which was a pleasant surprise. Personally, I found all of the blurred images more distracting – why did they have to blur out a cardboard cutout of Yoda? Were they really worried that Lucasfilm would come after them?

Anyway, I have a lot of fond memories of The State, it’s a great show made by very funny people, and I’m glad I could re-watch all of those old bits on DVD. Like I said, the fact that I was let down really has much more to do with my building the show up too much in my own head, so I have no one to blame but myself for not being completely blown away.

Well, myself and Ken Marino for slurping hot coffee in my ear.

Don’t worry, there will be more house and baby posts soon enough, but having FINALLY just watched Season 1 of How I Met Your Mother on DVD, I felt it worthy of a mention. (By the way, thanks Steve for the DVDs!)

Anyway, it’s a really funny show – why didn’t anyone tell me? OK fine, everyone told me about it, and we’re behind, so sue us. But Jason Segel is hysterical, Alyson Hannigan is great at comedy (she was quirky as Willow, but rarely laugh-out-loud funny), and Neil Patrick Harris has made a one-joke sitcom star with a catch-phrase NOT be annoying, which is a big accomplishment in its own right.

Oh, and the actors who play Robin and Ted are good too.

My only complaint with the show is that the concept leaves for some plot holes: How does Ted know so many details about things that happened when he wasn’t there? And why does he tell them to his kids as part of the story about how they met their mother? And why is he giving them so many details about how he was into another woman that he didn’t end up with? Isn’t that sort of creepy for the kids? Especially since they know her as “Aunt Robin?” And after a few hours, wouldn’t they just get bored and leave? And why does Ted sound so much like Bob Saget as a father? Is that going to happen to me??

But quibbles aside, it’s a damn good show, and it’s been going fast on DVD. Which is good, since we have another 3 seasons to catch up on before the new episodes start…

So the wife and I finally got through season two of Dexter – it pretty much had to wait until the TV season was over, and I can safely report that it was a solid season. Yeah, Season One was amazing, but I didn’t think that Two was a real drop-off – there was a great recurring story about the search for a serial killer, except this time the killer wasn’t stalking Dexter, it *was* Dexter. Oops!

Lila made an interesting addition to Dexter’s life, although I don’t understand how Rita could have ever bought that Dexter was a drug addict. I mean, seriously, how does that add up? And speaking of things that don’t make sense, how effed up is Debra to fall for Lundy? I mean, we know she has issues, but seriously, that was just downright creepy.

The whole storyline with Doakes was great – here’s a guy who is dead-set against destroying our protagonist, but it’s hard to root against him, especially because he’s totally right in his claims and beliefs. But the conclusion to all of the arcs was satisfying and handled well, and I’m looking forward to the third season on DVD in a few months.

It’s finally, really happening! The State is coming to DVD! YAY!

For anyone who’s never seen the show, you should definitely check it out. It’s from a lot of the same funny people who did/do Reno 911, Wet Hot American Summer, Stella, Ten, and other various bits of comedic genius. This was their first TV show, and it aired on MTV back in the Nineties. I have extremely fond memories of the show, and have been quoting it randomly for years since. I can’t wait to rewatch Porcupine Racetrack, Chicken Sandwich Carl, and Mailman Delivers Taco. Oh, and $240 Worth of Pudding. Oh yeah, and The Bearded Men of Space Station 11. I realize most of you reading will have no idea what I’m talking about, but I may be generous enough to lend out the DVDs once I watch them six or seven times.

Lollipops!

It started out with Angel acting WAY out of character.  In the first few episodes he actually killed some people.  Bad guys, sure, but it still violated his rule of showing mercy to humans.  Then he boinked Eve without any discussion of the consequences.  Sure he was under a spell, but still – everyone knows what can happen when this guy gets lucky, and it isn’t always pretty.  I get that working at Wolfram & Hart affected the way he had to do business, but just totally changing the guy’s code of conduct just seemed a bit too drastic.

Then there were the pretty ridiculous plot points that were used.  The back-story of Numero Cinco?  An episode all about Harmony?  Angel being turned into a freaking puppet??  I mean seriously, a puppet?  That episode made Beer Bad look pretty amazing by comparison.

But I shouldn’t JUST complain, as the season did provide some cool moments.  Wesley shooting his (robot) father was pretty intense.  The resolution of the Cordelia arc was handled well.  Spike’s introduction to the team felt a bit forced at first, but it was nice to see their rivalry play out, especially involving the long-forgotten Shanshu prophecy.  It was also cool to see Lindsey again, but I did wish his motivations had been made a bit clearer; he left W&H, so why the sudden grudge against them?  And of course the tie-ins with Buffy and her crew were a lot of fun even if we didn’t actually see the Slayer.  The episode with the Immortal was pretty slapstick, but well handled over all.

Fred’s death and the rise of Ilyria didn’t make much sense to me at first – didn’t they just do this story, where a character gets taken over and killed by an “old one?”  I was pretty surprised that they made Fred’s death permanent, and Ilyria did make for some interesting moments.  Still, it seemed odd to kill off a main character so close to the series finale.  The finale itself was very well done, and I really enjoyed Angel’s one last “eff-you” to the Senior Partners.  Wesley’s death was as gut-wrenching as Fred’s, and it was sort of sweet how they were both able to die in each other’s arms, though not at the same time.  The show’s final message, that even though the battle may never end, it’s always worth fighting the good fight, was a great way to cap a great show that, at it’s core, was about the search for redemption.

Deep, huh?  So now that I’m done with the Buffy/Angel TV series, I guess I have a lot of comic book reading ahead of me…

The fourth, and presumably final, Futurama has arrived, and I actually checked this one out relatively quickly compared to the last three. Despite my lukewarm reactions to these direct-to-DVD movies, I was extremely curious to see how the Futurama saga would end. All in all, I enjoyed this movie a lot, and though it still felt a little bit disjointed, it did seem a lot more like one complete story than the last two flicks.

I thought I would be annoyed by the concept of a “green” storyline, as they can get awfully preachy awfully fast, but they were able to do it relatively agita free. I was hoping for something that maybe would have tied back into the brains or some other universe ending threat from the show’s initial run, but I understand the writers’ wanting to do something fresh. The story of the “Dark Ones” required an awful lot of exposition, but the way they poked fun at that part of the story-telling made it a bit more digestible.

The Fry-Leela story was given a bit of closure, although it did feel somewhat hollow. Leela should have trusted Fry from the beginning, and her “epiphany” moment lacked any real motivation. It’s nice to see her finally falling for him, but with all he’s done for her in the past, why now? Suddenly she just loves him? I know I’ve said this about some of the other movies, but they could have a lot more fun with getting these two characters together.

As for the very end, well, they didn’t go the conventional “they all lived happily-ever” route, and that’s pretty admirable. Of course, the door was left wide open for future episodes/movies, which is always a good marketing move, especially given that they’ve already been given one new lease on life so far. I would be happy to see more Futurama down the road, and the show definitely remains in my all-time favorites list. The “fifth season” isn’t my favorite, but that’s all right – the show still remains head and shoulder above most other shows out there, especially considering the geek quotient.

Now I just need to rewatch everything with the commentaries on. Wow, that was pretty geeky, even for me…

Another season with the vampire with the soul. Well, he had a soul for most of it, anyway… The season picked up right where Three left off, with Angel stuck at the bottom of the sea, Cordelia on a higher plane, and Wes an outcast, although the writers didn’t leave things that way for long, thankfully, and set out to get our cast of characters together again.

Cordelia’s amnesia upon her return was pretty annoying, but then I have a pet peeve against amnesia being used as a plot device. And when she did remember who she was, I absolutely could not believe that she would hop into the sack with Connor – I mean, that was just icky and Oedipal and weird and so, so wrong. Of course there were larger reasons behind that which were soon revealed, and it’s a good thing they were because my first impression was that Cordelia was acting way out of character for no damn reason at all.

But as it turned out, there was a reason – to bring forth the Beast Master, Jasmine. Now, before we get to Jasmine, let me say that I really enjoyed the whole storyline with the Beast. The writers made this “end of the world” feel different from the 17 others that had preceded it, and I appreciated the effort. The Beast was strong, smart, and incredibly nasty. I was a little hesitant when the gang decided to bring back Angelus, but they were right in assuming he could destroy the Beast when no one else could. And I really enjoyed seeing Faith get a chance to earn some redemption before doing so in Sunnydale.

But then Jasmine showed up, and it left me wondering why the hell the Beast did anything it did. If she wanted to be born and enslave humanity into a peaceful state, why bother blocking out the sun, making the sky rain fire, and summoning forth Angelus? Aren’t all of those things evil? Jasmine was evil too, but in a nicer way, and the two just don’t jive as far as I’m concerned. Right? Did I miss something in the explanation somewhere?

I was glad to see Lorne become a full cast member, as he became such an integral part of the show keeping him as a special guest star just seemed weird. And even though it was kind of easy to see coming, I was bummed that Fred and Gunn let a small thing like homicide drive a permanent wedge between them. But Connor, damn is that kid annoying! By the end of the season I was really getting ready for the show to be rid of him. All he ever does is disobey Angel, then fight him, apologize, run away, and repeat the process all over again. Yawn. I’d be more relieved with him being sent away to live with his fake family if I thought for half a second he would actually stay there.

Oh well. Overall I thought this was a solid season, and I’m definitely curious to see how Angel Inc. will run with Wolfram & Hart at their disposal, and THE apocalypse looming just on the horizon…

First off – the word “Quadrilogy” is pretty awful – going forward, movie franchises should not be done in four parts, although it did work out well for Die Hard.

Secondly, the way these movies were titled is incredibly confusing, as the four movies are named, in order, “First Blood,” “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” “Rambo III,” and “Rambo.” So one assumes that First Blood was not expected to inspire a franchise, because First Blood Part II is just a pretty bad idea for a title no matter how you slice it. But it’s weird that Sly wouldn’t expect a sequel to First Blood – seeing as how after watching it, you totally want to see Rambo kick some serious bad guy ass, and not waste his time beating up lame-os David Caruso and Brian Dennehy. But the first flick was still good, and the point made about the way Vietnam vets were treated when they returned home made for good drama. Although the ultra cheesy music at the end didn’t help matters.

Rambo: First Blood Part II was a bit more fun, because we finally got to see Rambo (intentionally) kill bad guys. Putting Rambo back in a VC camp made tons of sense story-wise, but he got out so (relatively) easily, you have to wonder how they were able to keep him locked up the first time. And it was great to see that Cobra Kai jerk again, once again acting like a total prick. In the end, the movie was everything an action flick should be.

As was Rambo III – this time using Rambo’s only friend Colonel Trautman being the one getting captured. The fact that the movie focused on Afghanistan, even dedicating the film to their heroics in fighting the Soviets, is of course given a whole different perspective by recent history, but there was a whole lot of insanely cool action sequences in this flick.

Now, in Rambo, all the violence in the first three is very quickly put to shame. But the fact that it is all based on the real-life tragedies of Burma/Myanmar makes it feel less “action-flick-y” and more real. I don’t know how much of the massacring was exaggerated, but if it was realistic, then damn, those guys are insane, and we should send a few real-life Rambos in there to clean things up. And Dexter’s girlfriend/Darla made for a good damsel in distress, even if she was all ga-ga for Ryan Chappelle from 24. Of course, it didn’t make sense that the bad guys took them as prisoners, given the fact that they seemed to be more in the habit of slaughtering everyone and everything, but hey, the movie need a prison camp to break in and out of.

Overall, the franchise was a ton of fun, but I have to say that it doesn’t have the emotional weight of the Rocky franchise. And while Rocky Balboa was an amazing flick that totally justified a long-in-the-making sequel, Rambo didn’t really add much more to the character and overall story, except for the tail end of him finally heading back to his family in the States. A fifth movie may be in the works, and I’ll check it out, cuz hey, Stallone is still pretty cool in my book.

As an aside, Son of Rambow was also a really cute flick, closer to Millions than to any of the Rambo movies, but a sweet family movie nonetheless.

Angel’s a dad! Holy crap! He’s a vampire, how does that work? I gotta admit, I did not see that one coming. But alas, I’m getting a head of myself, here…

This season of Angel worked very well, as ot allowed some really interesting stories to develop, mature, and end, all without feeling either dragged out or rushed, which is no easy feat. I thought that Angel would be more pissed about BUffy having died, but he didn’t seem all that affected. I understand they were broken up and everything, but I just felt like he kind of shrugged off the whole thing a little too easily. But hey, he had his hands full with his own stuff, I suppose.

Like, for instance Cordelia’s visions being hijacked and taking more and more of a toll on her. I didn’t really think that they were going to kill her off, but I liked the fact that they allowed the visions to take more and more of a toll on her, and allowed for the situation to resolve itself, all with the help of demon guide Skip. Who is, by the way, one of my favorite ancillary characters.

The whole storyline with Holtz, Darla, and Connor also worked really well, with things moving at a good pace the whole way through. Holtz was driven by revenge, but you understand why he was doing what he was doing, which made him an interesting nemesis. Justine on the other hand seemed like she was never fully developed, but it didn’t matter much in the end. Sahjhan’s manipulation of the prophecy was a great twist, but it did leave a few unanswered questions: How could Connor kill Sahjhan if he is immaterial? If Sahjhan’s prophecy was false, why did the talking hamburger believe it was true? And why did Angel say that he would have had a snack after the earthquake/fire/blood turn of events? I didn’t really think that Connor was gone for good after Holtz pulled him into the hell dimension, but I will admit the show did sort of make me think it was a possibility with the next few episodes.

There were a lot of romantic subplots going on this year, which made sense with the growing cast of characters around. I totally bought Angel and Cordelia falling for each other, but she seemed to be a little too blind to it as soon as Groo popped back up. Which I get on one level, but Cordie just seemed to be too smart to not see what was so obvious. The Fred-Gunn-Wes triangle was painful to watch, but I guess that’s what Whedon is known for. But man, did they really beat up on poor Wes this year. It’s not bad enough that the object of his affections chose the other guy, but he totally botched the whole “saving Connor” from Angel thing pretty royally. It seems like it won’t be an easy road for him back into the good graces of Angel Investigations.

That’s assuming that AI will continue now that Angel’s at the bottom of the ocean and Cordie is who knows where. But given that there are two more seasons, I have a funny feeling those two will be back fairly quickly in Season Four. Overall, I am continuing to enjoy this show – the plots move quickly, the stories are well written, and it’s just good addicting television. Two more seasons to go…