Cameron Monaghan brought the character of Ian Gallagher to life on Showtime’s hit series, Shameless. The series aired for a total of 11 seasons after originally premiering in 2011. It ranked as the network’s no. 1 comedy, longest-running series, and had the youngest-skewing audience of any Showtime series. Monaghan also joined two legendary universes with roles in both Gotham and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which I got to ask him about too!
Perhaps the most anticipated event of the DC FanDome was the reveal of Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Earlier this week, Reeves dropped the logo and some awesome Jim Lee art to build up the hype. But today, all some was unveiled!
This morning, while all of you were trying (and mostly failing) to buy Avengers: Endgame tickets, Warner Bros. quietly dropped the first official poster for this fall’s Joker — with the first trailer set to drop any minute now. (UPDATED April 3, 2019 — trailer is below!) How’s that for the Day After April Fool’s?
This week on Hard NOC Life: Marvel cancels more Netflix shows and opinionated writers; 1990 Flash is Reborn on The CW, and Doctor Who has a very special Civil Rights episode.
Over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend in the Nation’s Capital, Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment held the first ever “DC in D.C.” event, bringing together the stars and creators of television and comics to celebrate and honor the diversity of the DC Universe’s superheroes. We also finally announce a Patreon and ask you for your support!
It’s one of my favorite times of the year. It’s where I review the best and brightest that television had to offer in the previous year. If you haven’t already, you should check out my Top Films of 2016. Go ahead, check it out, I’ll wait. No really, I’ll wait. You back? Awesome.
As is the standard with my movie year-in-review, my television selections have to pass the Upkins Media Litmus Test.
They say there’s nothing good on television. Clearly, more than a few shows were trying to disprove that saying. 2015 kept me busy in terms of reviewing shows but more than a few proved to be well worth it.
As is the standard, for a series to be reviewed (much less nominated), it must meet the guidelines of my Media Litmus Test.
So without further adieu, the following are my Top 15 Television Series of 2015:
If you were on the internet yesterday, you might have seen some images from the set of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice leak on to your computer screens. Part of the problem that comes with shooting on location in a real city — as opposed to in front of a blue screen inside a giant soundstage — is that there are real people with real cameraphones lurking around every corner.
BvS:DoJ has had its share of set leaks in the past, and this one isn’t all that revealing, honestly. But for me, it reveals something that I assumed we had moved past in a Batman movie. I won’t reveal anymore until after the cut, but if you’ve read the headline, you’ve already been spoiled. Sorry.
Last night, we welcomed the latest addition to the N.O.C. fam as Connie Gibbs (aka @constar24) took over the NOC twitter handle to join in on the #YungGotham and #SleepyHolla live-tweeting of Fox’s Monday night, nerd-friendly lineup.
We can’t wait to read more of Connie’s posts here at NOC HQ, in the meantime, we’ve singled out some of her tweets that best encapsulate the two hours of live-tweeting that went down Monday night.
Whatever issues you might have with The Dark Knight Rises, Tom Hardy’s portrayal of Bane is probably one of the most divisive. Either you loved it or you hated it. Nolan’s take on the villain deviated so much from the comics, it was a wonder why he even chose to go with Bane in the first place. Another strike against Nolan’s Bane is that you could also argue that the character was racebent from the way he’s depicted in the comics. Or not. Personally, I rather enjoyed Hardy’s completely wacky and out there interpretation of the character. Not only are his mannerisms and fuddy-duddy English accent so utterly imitable, but he made a character that is admittedly boring on page really compelling on screen.
The reason that I just spent 100+ words talking about Bane in The Dark Knight Rises is because last night’s episode of Gotham used the opportunity to introduce Venom, the drug responsible for Bane’s abilities in the comic. And the whole time, all I could think about was Tom Hardy in his ridiculous face mask.
This week both episodes of Gotham and Sleepy Hollow left me feeling a lot less meh, especially Sleepy Hollow. During Gotham, I noticed on my Twitter timeline either a lot of rage toward the Arkham storyline or a lot of excitement seeing the asylum for the first time on the show. Since I am not a reader of the comic books and unfamiliar with the Batman canon, perhaps I am less disturbed and annoyed by the way Arkham (and the role of the Wayne family) was introduced on the show.
Episode four of Sleepy Hollow, on the other hand, had an embarrassment of riches for #Ichabbie shippers. Those golden shipper moments in combination with some great action and comedic scenes made this episode much more fun to watch and live-tweet.
I’d have to say both episodes of Gotham and Sleepy Hollow this week left me feeling a bit meh. It feels like the episodes are, dare I say it, becoming formulaic. And yet, I must be a servant of Moloch because I will most likely live-tweet again next week. The question is, will Moloch (a.k.a., the God Demon of Child Sacrifice) reward me for my loyal viewing?
Here are some choice tweets for this week’s episodes of Gotham and Sleepy Hollow, “Balloonman” and “Root of All Evil,” respectively. For more, check out the hashtags #Gotham and #YungGotham for the Batman prequel and #SleepyHeads and #SleepyHolla for some great tweets. And check out Keith’s take on last night’s Gotham.
Last week, I got some grief for writing about why I was done with Gotham. So naturally, I not only tuned in for Episode 3, “The Balloonman,” I live-tweeted it as well. The fact that this episode had nothing to do with the B-side to Prince’s “Batdance” was already strike number one for me.
I won’t go into all of the problems I have with the show’s premise — since I already did that. A couple times. I will say that I realize that the reason I’m so bitter about this show is because I always wanted a Gotham Central series, and that Fox’s attempt is just a half-assed one. Because Gotham Central is the non-Batman police procedural series we deserve, just not the one we’re getting right now, apparently.
I tried to like Gotham, honest, I did. Despite my previous reservations, I tuned into the firsttwo episodes like everyone else in the geek-o-sphere did. And you know what, I didn’t hate it. At least not as much as I was anticipating. In fact, some of what I saw was quite good. But the problems I had remained. Namely, that the whole conceit of the show is that it exists in the Batman universe. Also, the acting is pretty horrible. I’m looking at you, Ben and Jada!
If this were just a typical police procedural, I’d find it pretty entertaining (even though I’m not a fan of the genre). Where the show loses me, though, is that it fundamentally misunderstands the universe in which it has chosen to partake. Case in point? They’ve just cast 34-year old actor Nicholas D’Agosto to play Harvey Dent.
Monday nights are just full of nerdy goodness. First with Gotham and then Sleepy Hollow on FOX. It’s been fun live-tweeting both episodes back-to-back. Here are some choice tweets for the second episodes of Gotham and Sleepy Hollow, “Selina Kyle” and “The Kindred,” respectively.
Since last night was the kickoff to the new fall season, I was tasked with watching the FOX network for two straight hours, with Gotham debuting and NOC-favorite Sleepy Hollow returning. Fortunately, I was joined by the lovely folks on twitter since I was live tweeting both shows on the official NOC twitter, using the hashtags #GothamPremiere and #YungGotham.
If you didn’t get a chance to follow along, here’s a Storify for my live-tweets of the Gotham pilot. Check back later for the Sleepy Hollow one. I’ve also highlighted some choice tweets below as well.
Oh, I love me a good origin story. For those who loved Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy starring Christian Bale and a panoply of excellent actors, this fall’s Fox television series Gotham will be giving us a chance to revisit Bruce Wayne as a young boy when the city was as dank and gross as Times Square in the 70s.
Sensing it might have a hit on its hands, Fox’s marketing department has gone into overdrive promoting the show. After releasing an official trailer and first look preview, eight new character posters were just unveiled by Entertainment Weekly. Apparently, they’re celebrating Bat Week, too.
Here are some initial thoughts on the latest live action take on the Batman universe.
Against my better judgement, I’m starting to get excited for more live action Batman stuff. I’m bound to be disappointed, I know. But this moment is the reason we are fans. Twitter teases and casting announcements that lead to forum posts full of speculation — often times, it’s the buildup to a thing that is more exciting than the thing itself. And during these last two days, I have officially shifted from being cautiously optimistic about future Bat offerings like Gotham and the Superman sequel I hope isn’t called Batman Vs. Superman to being the easily excitable fanboy that gets giddy about stuff like this.
We’ll start with Gotham. And then we’ll talk about that picture at the top of this post.
On Monday night, during the broadcast of the much-hyped return of Jack Bauer in 24: Live Another Day, the Fox network treated viewers to a first look at a similarly hyped new series that will makes its debut later this fall. That new show is none other than Gotham, and on the same day the trailer was released, it was announced that the show was already greenlit for a full season, no less.
So here’s your first taste of actual real footage below, and I’ll share my first impressions on the other side of two minutes:
Yesterday, FOX TV announced it is developing a new DC Comics-based drama for the 2014-2015 television season. Called Gotham, the show, created by The Mentalist‘s Bruno Heller, will focus on the exploits of Detective James Gordon and his early days in the Gotham City Police Department. Since this is an origin story for Gordon, Batman and his Rogues Gallery will not feature into it — though the announcement mentions Gotham’s colorful villains, I’m not sure how you include them if this is a pre-Batman time period. While I’m always down for more TV shows based on comics, I’m actually not sure what to think about this.
At least the show already has a theme song:
I’ve long been a proponent for a television series based on one of my favorite Batman books of all time, Gotham Central. The book reads like a crime procedural and spotlights a diverse cast of characters, including Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen, Maggie Sawyer, and Josie Mac. Unfortunately, the book’s initial run did not sell very well — probably because Commissioner Gordon and Batman, though their presence is felt throughout, were not the focus of the book — and the series ended after 40 issues. And though there were rumors of a potential Gotham Central television show in the early 2000s, it never materialized. Silver lining? We got Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy instead. So the idea of a show based on the Gotham police department isn’t a new one. How they shoehorn Jim Gordon’s origin into this remains to be seen.
