Just finished episode 5 of Hijack “Less than an Hour”, and I will say it was my favorite episode so far.
It can be a bit schlocky at times, but I am still enjoying it. If you like 24 you would probably like something like this.
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For those who enjoy the awesome Invincible, Amazon just dropped a pre-season episode today that examines the origins of Atom Eve and announced the release date for the first half of S2 in November
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Hype
Absolutely. Good episode too. Pretty standard origin story ep, but good to see this style back
Cheers is so damn good. Currently in the final season of another viewing. That they had that kind of longevity and didn’t lose in quality or humor (imo) is nothing short of incredible. In fact, I feel Cheers was stronger in the later seasons. Rebecca years > Diane years ainec. The show really shifted towards focusing on everyone and giving other people more dialogue and story lines. Season 1-5 was so Sam and Diane focused and Season 6 + was about the bar and everyone in it. Ted Danson is so impressive. By the end of the series he had really become Sam Malone. His timing and facial expressions are just perfect. I have really been watching him closely this time and have been in awe.
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There’s a reason he had the Ted Danson Plane.
Cheers is great, Ted Danson was elite, but I can’t agree that the Rebecca years were the better part. I do think it was probably a blessing in disguise when Shelley Long left because it forced the show dynamic to change, but there’s a reason that Sam and Diane became a go-to archetype that shows have relentlessly tried to recreate ever since; their chemistry was off the charts and was really compelling.
As a kid, I only joined in with Cheers during the Rebecca years, so if anything that’s where the nostalgia would have set in for me since there was no ready way for me to see the Diane episodes for a long time, but when I was able to conduct a full rewatch later I did come to understand why the Sam/Diane years were the most legendary part of the show. Kirstie Alley did a great job in her own right, but I just don’t think the Rebecca character was nearly as good as Diane.
As mid-series replacements go, Coach vs. Woody is a tougher call. Woody is the funnier of the two characters, but Coach provided much more of an emotional center to the show. I guess that one just comes down to which dynamic a person prefers, and I think you could argue for either. Oddly, it almost seems like they were leaving open the possibility of simply recasting Coach with a new actor? I haven’t read that, but it’s the only explanation I can come up with for how they handled his death when it happened mid-season. “Oh yeah, Coach sent us another postcard, he’s still on that trip of his!” Dude, he’s dead, he’s not holding out for a new contract. If that was why they were keeping the character alive off-screen for a while, I’m glad they made the right call and simply stood in a brand new and very different character for him.
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It’s pretty cool to realize that Cheers essentially put Danson, Woody, Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth all on their paths to stardom.
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Hmmm now you have me curious to revisit these two retrospectives by Jose. Curious what they said about the same changes over the life of the show.
Yeah, I thought of it after my last post, but I do think that the existence of a Frasier spin-off is one of the other really positive downstream effects of Shelley Long leaving. The zoom-out to an ensemble cast almost certainly had to be what enabled Kelsey Grammer to shine enough to get them to think in that direction.
It is a little surprising to me that there weren’t significant opportunities for George Wendt after the show ended. John Ratzenberger did a lot better just by becoming a long-term Pixar staple.
Funny that John Mahoney’s Cheers episode just got memory-holed so that he could become Martin Crane later.
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Re-rewatching Q The Winged Serpent. I don’t care what anyone says, this is simply the finest kaiju movie ever made.
Jose’s retrospectives are awesome. He reviews 80/90s sitcoms generally from a leftist bent. His Malcolm in the Middle and Home Improvement videos are great.
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A fellow Jose fan!! Cheers.
And it must be said not just the analysis but their VOICE.
I gasped hard when listening to The Matrix LGBTQ Charity Script Reading and heard their voice as the person reading the narration.
On the Cheers front, I really do think this, the final scene of Diane’s main run on the show, goes into the sitcom hall of fame. Ted Danson does a ton with very few words here.
Scenes like this show just what sort of shoes Woody had to fill. It’s a true feat that he even made it a debatable question. Between these two clips, I clearly must be a sucker for the “meathead shows an unexpected amount of heart and emotional depth” trope.
On the lighter side, Norm and Cliff finding out that they got blackout drunk and got their asses tattooed is an excellent sequence.
I usually didn’t much like Cliff Clavin, but Ratzenberger more than held his own as part of the cast.
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It really is kind of amazing to look over his entire career. One amazing performance after another, including alongside one of the only roles Macaulay Culkin did after Home Alone before mostly retiring.
I still find myself curious about the years he was with Whoopi Goldberg, who he met on the set of Made in America.
Back to Cheers, let’s not forget the scene that started what is still a long running Ted Danson gag.
Yeah that S5 finale is a tear jerker and he’s crushing it.
Enjoying first four episodes of Full Circle but my subscription to max going to expire before 5 and 6 🥹
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Danson was also pretty solid in Saving Private Ryan.
Also, Danson playing Danson on Curb.
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