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...with another coming next week.
The new show we've begun watching is not to be confused with Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which is also good, and is definitely not the older Extraordinary, the only thing to pop up if you try to tell your Facebook friends you're "watching" something of that name. No, the new Extra- in our entertainment life is this British one, shown in the US on Hulu with some very inappropriate-at-times adverts:
I was a bit hesitant about getting into it because there's definitely a superhero element in there which we're kinda Hulked out on these days. Fortunately, unlike the real SuperUniversy ones and even the parodies of the genre like The Tick and The Boys, this one puts the powers way in the background. As it must, since it features a world where everybody HAS superpowers except Our Heroine, and it's mainly about how she copes with that.
It's probably closer to Friends than to Super Friends, although not nearly as annoying as SuperJoey would be if he'd been going around freezing enemies by blowing "HOWYADOIN" at them. The powerless lead Jen is awesome, her three main companions her equal in bringing out their characters, and the stories (we've seen the first three of the initial series of eight) are short, largely self-contained and spit-take funny.
----
We did stick toes in the actual MCU water over the weekend, with Wakanda Forever finally arriving on Disney+. It's the difficult sequel to Black Panther, made difficult by the sad and unexpected death of its titular actor Chadwick Boseman. We got through about the first half of it, and it's really three different stories blended. First and by far foremost was the way they worked in the death of the lead hero, a completely unexpected development in the meticulous Marvel building of their Universe's "phases" that had to be addressed. They could have recast the part without any explanation, or rebooted it in some way to explain why T'Challa looked different, but instead they acknowledged, honored and incorporated the loss that the actors and director likely felt as strongly as their characters clearly did.
The B-story, if you will, was the introduction of a new Universe inhabitant, who's actually one of the oldest of characters from Marvel comic history. Namor was one of the five "stars" of the comics who were my introduction to their world in the 60s, with some badly animated half-hour episodes rotating every weeknight before Mets games on channel 9 in New York. Cap threw his mighty shield on Monday nights; Hulk smashed things on Tuesdays; Tony Stark became Iron Man on Wednesdays, and Thursday, fittingly, was Thor's day. Only Friday's show, starring Namor the Sub-Mariner, was kept out of the numerous live-action imaginings in the 50 years since then; he was one of the many of Marvel supes whose rights got sold off willy-nilly to various studios and moguls while Stan Lee and the gang were trying to stay solvent in the pre-blockbuster 70s. Namor wound up with Universal, which has never done anything with him other than prevent Marvel from doing anything with him itself. Now, though, the studio truce seems to be in place and Namor can appear in anything in Marvel's own productions that he's not the actual star of. Probably the casting choice will be the same for both, though. Wakanda introduces Tenoch Huerta as the first live-action bearer of the winged feet. He introduces himself to the Wakandans as "Kukulkan," with "Namor" given as a less-preferred alias; he later explains the latter name's derivation, very differently from the simpler one ("Roman" backwards) given in the comics. He comes across as more villain than hero, at least in the first half of the film, and I'm not sure if that portrayal will hold up or keep him out of the other assorted groups of Marvel Good Guys he's been associated with over the years.
Finally, there's what we haven't even seen yet, but know from spoilers: who, if anyone, will put on the mask and mantle of Black Panther themselves by the end of the film? The first half offers some logical choices for the transition, but logic was always a staple of that other sci-fi franchise more than it governs things in the Marvel or DC universes. Will that new hero save Wakanda and the rest of the world? Or will Namor summon fish to the dish to stave them off? Tune in soon, same Panther-time, same Panther channel!
----
Finally, as if that wasn't fishy enough?
A week from Wednesday night, I will return to a venue for actual ticketed live music. Alan Doyle made his name as the lead singer of Great Big Sea, who I got to see numerous times here and in Rochester during their 20-year run as a Canadian band. His solo career, which has also included television and book work, will bring him to downtown Buffalo on the 15th. Opening for him is Chris Trapper- who, in addition to performing his own shows, wrote the title track "Sea of No Cares" for the 2002 GBS album of that name (the one in the icon for this entry); Alan does a live acoustic performance of the song on one of their live albums which, he said, was much the way he heard it after Chris first played it for him. It'll be great to hear one, or both, of them bring it back to life on Wednesday night.
Later Canadian plans just made include seeing Bruce Cockburn when he comes here in June. He's been Bucket List material for a long time, as he continues touring and spreading his words well into his 70s. Dar Williams opens for him, and although this will be at least my third time seeing her, she never fails to amaze and inspire. In between, our (and Dar's) friend Lucy Kaplansky will be coming to Rochester the first weekend of March for a solo show. She's been touring extensively, but it's been years since I've gotten to see her live.
No question what their superpowers all are. They write; they sing; they play; they love.
The new show we've begun watching is not to be confused with Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which is also good, and is definitely not the older Extraordinary, the only thing to pop up if you try to tell your Facebook friends you're "watching" something of that name. No, the new Extra- in our entertainment life is this British one, shown in the US on Hulu with some very inappropriate-at-times adverts:
I was a bit hesitant about getting into it because there's definitely a superhero element in there which we're kinda Hulked out on these days. Fortunately, unlike the real SuperUniversy ones and even the parodies of the genre like The Tick and The Boys, this one puts the powers way in the background. As it must, since it features a world where everybody HAS superpowers except Our Heroine, and it's mainly about how she copes with that.
It's probably closer to Friends than to Super Friends, although not nearly as annoying as SuperJoey would be if he'd been going around freezing enemies by blowing "HOWYADOIN" at them. The powerless lead Jen is awesome, her three main companions her equal in bringing out their characters, and the stories (we've seen the first three of the initial series of eight) are short, largely self-contained and spit-take funny.
----
We did stick toes in the actual MCU water over the weekend, with Wakanda Forever finally arriving on Disney+. It's the difficult sequel to Black Panther, made difficult by the sad and unexpected death of its titular actor Chadwick Boseman. We got through about the first half of it, and it's really three different stories blended. First and by far foremost was the way they worked in the death of the lead hero, a completely unexpected development in the meticulous Marvel building of their Universe's "phases" that had to be addressed. They could have recast the part without any explanation, or rebooted it in some way to explain why T'Challa looked different, but instead they acknowledged, honored and incorporated the loss that the actors and director likely felt as strongly as their characters clearly did.
The B-story, if you will, was the introduction of a new Universe inhabitant, who's actually one of the oldest of characters from Marvel comic history. Namor was one of the five "stars" of the comics who were my introduction to their world in the 60s, with some badly animated half-hour episodes rotating every weeknight before Mets games on channel 9 in New York. Cap threw his mighty shield on Monday nights; Hulk smashed things on Tuesdays; Tony Stark became Iron Man on Wednesdays, and Thursday, fittingly, was Thor's day. Only Friday's show, starring Namor the Sub-Mariner, was kept out of the numerous live-action imaginings in the 50 years since then; he was one of the many of Marvel supes whose rights got sold off willy-nilly to various studios and moguls while Stan Lee and the gang were trying to stay solvent in the pre-blockbuster 70s. Namor wound up with Universal, which has never done anything with him other than prevent Marvel from doing anything with him itself. Now, though, the studio truce seems to be in place and Namor can appear in anything in Marvel's own productions that he's not the actual star of. Probably the casting choice will be the same for both, though. Wakanda introduces Tenoch Huerta as the first live-action bearer of the winged feet. He introduces himself to the Wakandans as "Kukulkan," with "Namor" given as a less-preferred alias; he later explains the latter name's derivation, very differently from the simpler one ("Roman" backwards) given in the comics. He comes across as more villain than hero, at least in the first half of the film, and I'm not sure if that portrayal will hold up or keep him out of the other assorted groups of Marvel Good Guys he's been associated with over the years.
Finally, there's what we haven't even seen yet, but know from spoilers: who, if anyone, will put on the mask and mantle of Black Panther themselves by the end of the film? The first half offers some logical choices for the transition, but logic was always a staple of that other sci-fi franchise more than it governs things in the Marvel or DC universes. Will that new hero save Wakanda and the rest of the world? Or will Namor summon fish to the dish to stave them off? Tune in soon, same Panther-time, same Panther channel!
----
Finally, as if that wasn't fishy enough?
A week from Wednesday night, I will return to a venue for actual ticketed live music. Alan Doyle made his name as the lead singer of Great Big Sea, who I got to see numerous times here and in Rochester during their 20-year run as a Canadian band. His solo career, which has also included television and book work, will bring him to downtown Buffalo on the 15th. Opening for him is Chris Trapper- who, in addition to performing his own shows, wrote the title track "Sea of No Cares" for the 2002 GBS album of that name (the one in the icon for this entry); Alan does a live acoustic performance of the song on one of their live albums which, he said, was much the way he heard it after Chris first played it for him. It'll be great to hear one, or both, of them bring it back to life on Wednesday night.
Later Canadian plans just made include seeing Bruce Cockburn when he comes here in June. He's been Bucket List material for a long time, as he continues touring and spreading his words well into his 70s. Dar Williams opens for him, and although this will be at least my third time seeing her, she never fails to amaze and inspire. In between, our (and Dar's) friend Lucy Kaplansky will be coming to Rochester the first weekend of March for a solo show. She's been touring extensively, but it's been years since I've gotten to see her live.
No question what their superpowers all are. They write; they sing; they play; they love.