I’m appointed acting director and take over assignment duties for a week, and this is what I come up with?  To be fair, the Netflix randomizer, or Stream Crosser can be blamed for this debacle.  If 1 trillionth of 1 trillionth of 1% of the total mass of the Internet is occupied by episodes and/or discussions revolving around Prison Break, it’s too much.  So let’s add a little to it, shall we!

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Rob: Another “Crossing Streams” assignment, another TV show that I avoided watching as it aired. Prison Break began airing in the fall of 2005 and I had two reasons that I refused to watch it. First, I still believe to this day that Prison Break was responsible for the early cancellation of Arrested Development. They aired on the same night and an Arrested Development/Kitchen Confidential/Prison Break block just begs the viewer to either watch the first hour or the second hour. Most people may not remember but the ratings for Arrested Development tanked so hard that fall that Fox stopped airing the show right after the new year and dumped the last four episodes back-to-back on a Friday night in February. This probably had nothing to do with Prison Break but I just remember thinking that Fox devoted a lot of ad time and general promotion to that show while unceremoniously dumping one of the best sitcoms of all-time.

The other reason I refused to watch Prison Break is that I had already seen the definitive prison genre show, HBO’s “Oz”. I am already predisposed to disregard most network dramas as they are somewhat subdued due to the censorship. Everything that your mind could possibly imagine happening in prison, happened on Oz (plus some things that your mind couldn’t imagine!). Why would I want to watch a network show that I presumed would be a mainstream, accessible version of a show I had already devoured? Plus with a name like Prison Break, it begged the questions “what happens when they break out of prison?” “Do they break out of different prisons each week?” “Do they keep getting sent back to prison?” “where’s the goddamn remote?”

(I guess reason three for not watching this show is because my brother loves it)

So once again, I load up Netflix and pull my assigned episode “Tweener”, episode nine from season 1. The first thing I immediately notice is how attractive everyone on the show is. Goddamn network TV. They even have to make the appearance of the actors more accessible to the mainstream viewer. There is a creepy character named T-Bag who apparently rapes the weaker prisoners on the show…he would be the most handsome guy on Oz.

This is definitely not a show that you could just jump into the middle of and peep. I’m not really sure what is going on. There is a group of guys working on remodeling a room in the prison, but they are actually digging a hole in the center of the room to escape. In order to disguise the mess they’re making, they take the debris out into the yard and slowly toss it onto the ground. To anyone who hasn’t seen Shawshank Redemption, this is likely fucking mindblowing. Never mind that they don’t seem to be making actual headway on the remodel or that there are no guards in the room overseeing their work.

This show features two actors who portrayed two of the worst characters I have seen on TV in recent memory. There is Sarah Wayne Callies, who plays Dr. Sara on this show, but I know her more for her horrible portrayal of Lori on The Walking Dead. It’s probably not her fault as that character was terribly written, but based on the limited scenes of hers in this episode, she isn’t exactly Emmy material. Then there is Marshall Allman, who is playing the wrongly-accused brother of meathead Lincoln (who himself is wrongly accused, I think (?), and is on death row). Marshall played Sam Merlotte’s idiot brother on True Blood, and if you can stand out as a terrible character on that shitshow, you have really made a name for yourself in my book.

So the gist of this episode is that there are dudes trying to escape from prison (just like the title of the show!), then there is some anal rape stuff (one of the victims ends up hanging himself), and then there is a wrongly-accused character on the run from the law. I will give this show credit, the acting is ok, the writing is ok, the set design and cinematography does not look cheap. I do like Peter Stormare, so it was cool to see him have a part on the show. Just based on this one episode, my interest my piqued enough that if I were laid up and there was a Prison Break marathon on FX, I would consider not changing the channel. That’s about as ringing of an endorsement that I will give to a show that gave the world an 8-year Bluth hiatus.

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Joe: Okay, honestly?  I watched 10 full minutes of season 2 episode 4 and regretted it.  I’m trying to catch up with House of Cards, and this is how I’m spending the little time I have in between GoT, Mad Men, The Americans, and the 24 season debut?

So yes, I quit watching, I couldn’t stomach it.  Hamfisted acting, stock direction, unbearable dialogue, a completely unreasonable high concept, basically no redeeming qualities.  But it did get me thinking, which is probably the point of the exercise.  Do those of us who enjoy medium to high quality television somehow need the buffer of awfulness provided by shows like Prison Break?  Yes, I feel like one of those assholes that turns down a Miller Lite and will only drink Stella poured in an approved regulation glass, but I don’t want the unwashed masses infecting my enjoyment of Mad Men.  I don’t need to hear “DUDE WASN’T THAT AWESOME WHEN DON FUCKED THAT ONE BITCH AND THEN GOT ALL FUCKED UP?!?” when I come in to work on Mondays.  At this point, it’s a proven fact with five decades of evidence that some people are inevitably going to watch shit movies (when is Deuce Bigalow 3 coming out?) listen to shit music (people 30 and older know the dangers of boy bands, but there’s no way we’re passing that lesson on to future generations) and watch shit TV (do we need to review the network lineup success rate of shows that launched the last few autumns?).  So no, I’m not going to watch Prison Break.  But on some level, I’m grateful that garbage like this exists, so that I can enjoy my 1917 Chateau Blanche Madmoiselle Blahblahblah without the Keystone Light riffraff pissing on my shoes.  Viva la 4+ seasons of Prison Break!  When they gonna break out dis damn prison?!?!?

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Phil: Dramas frequently require the suspension of disbelief by their viewers, but Prison Break requires the expulsion of disbelief. This show is alarmingly complex, yet somehow vapid.

As a virgin viewer, here is what I could ascertain:

-An evil organization called “The Company” and led by “The General” is pulling all of the strings
-The prison break has successfully occurred, because there are no scenes shot in a penitentiary
-A musclebound fellow did sneak into a prison to break his brother out. One of the brothers now works for “The Company”
-You can track the location of somebody on a flip phone using a stock Windows laptop
-Everyone is after something called “Scylla”, some form of uber-weapon (which I would guess has little to do the monster from the Odyssey)
-Even bound and at gunpoint, your mother will still criticize you, offer unsolicited advice and try to resolve twenty-year-old parenting issues
-Really attractive and high-functioning pregnant women can be smackheads
-The barrier for entry for television actors is much, much lower than I would have guessed
-Apparently there are people who will watch anything which airs at 9PM on a network

In fairness, I dropped into the series at the nineteenth episode of the fourth season with no knowledge of the (wooden) characters or the (convoluted) plot lines. That said, I am pretty happy not to have invested the 70+ hours of time I would need for this piece of shit to make sense to me. If you are going to just drop in on a network drama, stick to the single-serving fare offered by procedurals.

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So, as per the norm, Screensnark recommends you avoid the show that we sampled at all costs.  Unless you need a hangover marathon show.

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Welcome to this week’s Animation Quick look. I’ve spent the last two columns basically praising the hell out of DC animation. It’s awesome. What about Marvel though? Marvel unfortunately has a much more spotty record. Sure more recent stuff like Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man and especially Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have all been pretty damn good. But basically up until those recent shows Marvel cartoons were a mixed bag at best. Spider-Man Unlimited tried to build on the successful Spider-Man series that ended in 98, but only lasted one season. Want to know why? Let me relay the plot for you.

Ok we all know J. Jonah Jameson is a first rate asshole and Spider-Man hates him. But his son, John Jameson is a good heroic astronaut, so he and Spider-Man are kind of cool. John Jameson is manning a one-man mission to “Counter-Earth” (wait it gets better), but somehow Carnage and Venom (who are apparently best buddies because reasons) sneak aboard and sabotage the shuttle mid-flight. Spider-Man attempts to stop them and actually fails, but everybody only sees Spider-Man so they blame him thanks to Jameson’s usual blame game tactics. The shuttle is lost and everyone presumes Astronaut Jameson is pretty much done for. Best case scenario he’s trapped on “Counter-Earth” with no way home.

No big deal, right? Spider-Man should just shrug it off and keep protecting New York. He’s dealt with being labeled as criminal and menace for decades, this shouldn’t be a problem. Nope. He somehow gets a job at NASA (they say Jameson pulled some strings, I’d like to know what clout a publisher of one little newspaper has to get a photographer a job at NASA), STEALS A FUCKING SHUTTLE THAT HE SOMEHOW KNOWS HOW TO PILOT (because you know he’s a scientist in one area and it applies to all science somehow) AND GOES OFF TO RESCUE ONE DUDE LEAVING NEW YORK TO THE MERCY OF ALL HIS ARCH ENEMIES. Spider-Man is not someone who goes to other planets, that’s part of his appeal, he’s a fairly earth-bound regular guy. This seems more like a job for the Fantastic Four, I’m pretty sure they even have their own space shuttle. And no one cares when they leave the planet. Hell the planet is usually better off.

But it gets better. You see “Counter-Earth” is different from our Earth. How different you ask? It’s run by furries! With great names like General Ram and Lord Tyger! See some random human from our Earth somehow escaped to Counter-Earth after being sick of all the war and destruction. Because apparently anybody can just go there. He found it to be just as bad (grass is always greener dude), but vows to fix it. How? By making “Bestials”, which are basically animals with human form. How does he even accomplish this? IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW!

Hellloooo ladies…

So this leads to present day Counter-Earth where this douchebag has crowned himself the “High-Evolutionary”, Bestials run things and treat humans like trash, but everything is of course better in his view. To his credit, Spider-Man doesn’t really give a shit and just wants to get John boy and go home. But of course, John is the leader of the human revolution! Because of course some dude who’s been there maybe six months is the leader of the revolution. And both the shuttle Spider-Man came in on and John’s shuttle are trashed. But you say can’t Spider-Man just use his SCIENCE to fix the shuttles? No such luck I’m afraid. So he’s sort of just stuck here. The Bestials don’t really know what to do with him (because thanks to his clever costume, they think he might be a Bestial and apparently they don’t really hunt their own) and he doesn’t join the revolution, remaining a neutral party.

So what does he do? Basically just dick around as far as I can tell. I mean Venom & Carnage are there and up to no good, but he doesn’t know that until several episodes in, and even then doesn’t make defeating these insane criminal mass murderers a priority. He runs into Counter-Earth versions of Green Goblin and Vulture, who are not only heroes (because you know, it’s Counter-Earth, but somehow Kraven is still Kraven) but have even gaudier outfits than their Earth counterparts. And also his has a cape made of webbing. WHY THE HELL DOES HE HAVE A CAPE MADE OF WEBBING?!?

How is this guy the Vulture again? He looks nothing like a vulture…

So yeah in case you haven’t guessed this is an all-around awful show. The “best” thing about it is the animation, which is that exact same Marvel animation that seemed top notch in the 90s, but doesn’t really hold up so well these days. If you want some good Marvel cartoons, stick to anything released in the last 4 or so years, the older stuff either doesn’t hold up or was pretty awful to begin with and Spider-Man Unlimited is a prime example of this.

Final Rating: 1/5-”Sexy” Rat ladies who clearly want to fuck Spider-Man

The post Animation Quick Look: Spider-Man Unlimited appeared first on screensnark..

Dads
Dads is story about 2 guys who work at a video game production company who have to deal with their old crazy and kooky dads. Thats about the nice as this is going to get…

First off I don’t want anyone reading this to think “well you clearly went into Dads with a negative view and judgement was clouded by it” That’s wrong, I laugh at dumb shit all the time I absolutely hate Big Bang Theory but I have seen some of it before and yes I have laughed at parts but overall it just ain’t my thing. That being said I watched Dads expecting to chuckle and laugh at parts and I didn’t at all.

What a pile of shit this was. It started with a big THUD as the opening joke was “What kind of Wizard is he?” replied with “a magical one” lulz were had by many judging from the canned laughter but I can only bet those people were watching something else. Dads is so shticky and sitcom-y and it’s in every bad way possible. It doesn’t necessarily leave a bad taste in your mouth since it’s never really good to begin with. The clichés and jokes are so dated and bad that even if this came out in 2004 they would all be tired and overused.

While I generally like half of the cast in Green, Ribisi, and even Mull they all just kind of fall flat here. I’m also not above jokes that could be deemed sexist or racist, and Dads has them all out in full force in the premiere; from Asian school girls to racist dad(s) saying don’t trust the Asians and thanks to the maid (but was actually Ribisi’s wife who might be the worst actor on the show altogether), to small Asian penis jokes. That’s pretty much Dads in a nutshell. Two asshole sons have to deal with their asshole-ish dads with canned laughter to try and trick you into thinking you should laugh now. I don’t see a bright future for this but who knows its got Seth McFarlane’s name on it so that may carry it.

I give this 6 episodes until cancellation

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Now for the good, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine is really good. B99 is led by Andy Samberg as a hotshot detective Jake Peralta who is a good detective but likes to goof off and is put head to head with his new by-the-books Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher). I laughed my ass off during this, granted after Dads maybe my bar was set lower,but there’s not much bad I can think of about this show it was genuinely funny. I really hope this stays around. I think I have been jaded in the past so I don’t have high hopes. This will probably be lucky to get a full season and Dads will be renewed by the end of the week. Lets just hope those meaningless ratings stay up. (They probably won’t) Most people I bet tuned in to see if its worth throwing on their DVR schedule (It is). FOX had a great cop comedy in The Good Guys two years ago and has a chance of having an even better one now. We just have to hope FOX doesn’t fuck it up. (They will)

Watch This. I give it a whole season with possible renewal.

New Girl

I’ve only watched a few episodes of the New Girl on Netflix when my girlfriend was watching so I’m assuming this show has found its footing since it’s the 3rd season. Nothing much has changed here from the formula I saw in I’m assuming was the first season. Though I have heard Damon Wayans Jr’s Coach character might return since Happy Endings is over(*tear*) . For those that can’t stand Zooey Deschanel’s whimsy and girly girly attitude, I’m not sure why you are still watching. This is its 3rd season so get off the train already, that’s her bread and butter and its in full force. To be honest when I watch this show I get the same feeling as I did watching Girls on HBO, it’s kind of the guys that are carrying the show.

This show isn’t going anywhere for a couple more seasons or until someone decides to do something else. If you’re going to watch this though a girl should probably be present/nearby.

The Mindy Project (Which will now be referred to as TMP with James Franco)
This is another show I watched with the lady, though its not nearly as airy and light as New Girl. I like TMP with James Franco much more. Quick tangent, I didn’t really like MADtv all that much but man Ike Barenholtz, Keagan Michael Key, Jordan Peele, and even Will Sasso have been cracking me up as of late (If you are wondering about Sasso, google “Sasso Lemons”) Anyways everyone here is on point. The addition of Franco doesn’t disrupt the flow the show has created thus far. TMP with James Franco is at its best when it’s being brutally honest (almost too much so) and the self deprecating humor at Kaling’s expense is still funny while not seeming bully-ish not to mention she handles it well and quips back just as much.  One thing that I don’t like is the formerly skinny guy is fat now bit, It’s Always Sunny In Philidelphia just did this. It didn’t really lend too much to the story so I doubt it will here either except the opportunity for a few more fat jokes. Maybe it was to pull some of the fat jokes off of Kaling?

This show seems like it has a few seasons left in it. It’s biggest hurdle will be once again FOX and whether or not they decide to go a new direction if they feel somethings not working.

Overall a solid start for FOX’s comedy block, I’m sure there are a lot of those that hope Dads gets dropped and maybe Ben and Kate returns to take its place but I think McFarland has brought in so much money to FOX that he will be given a pass and be allowed to finish out the season. I hope that Dads shiftiness doesn’t affect what otherwise could be a solid block of good to great shows.

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