The minimal Doctor Who Series 6 Part 1 set, out on Tuesday, July 19, consists of two discs containing the seven 45-minute episodes aired so far. “The Impossible Astronaut” brought the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) to the U.S. in an episode filmed partially in Utah. He, Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), and the impressive River Song (Alex Kingston) team up with a fired FBI agent (Mark Sheppard) in 1969 to fight the Silence, a race of alien […]

Review by KC Carlson “Batman’s rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure, this is a lighter incarnation, but it’s certainly no less valid and true to the character’s roots than the tortured avenger crying out for mommy and daddy.” — Bat-Mite (2009) Yay! Another (half-)season of Batman: The Brave and the Bold on DVD (no Blu-Ray yet)! Since Warners has split the season into two parts, I will follow suit and declare […]

I’ve been meaning to talk about this revamped Scooby-Doo cartoon for ages, even before the first DVD came out, because it’s a lot of fun. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated has reinvented the crime-solving canine and his four buddies in a way that keeps them entertaining for a modern generation, young and old alike. Last month, Warner Bros. released its first DVD set for the new show. Volume 1 contains four episodes (out of 13 shown so far). The package is clearly […]

First, an apology — the Batman Beyond: The Complete Series set is very cool and deserves more attention than we give it here, but KC is currently recovering from eye surgery (he’s fine, thanks) and wasn’t able to write about it as much as he’d like. I’m working from his notes, and any errors are probably mine. — Johanna It’s hard to believe that something this good came out of a meeting that started “we need a Batman show that […]

Or the one where the gangly, floppy-haired Matt Smith debuts. (Matt? I suppose it’s no worse than Tom.) Almost everyone is new, actually, with Steven Moffat taking over from Russell T. Davies as head writer and executive producer. I can’t blame them for wanting a change — four successful seasons plus a whole bunch of specials has got to be a lot of work. However, I’m still coming to terms with it all. Smith doesn’t create the same kind of […]

I loved Sherlock from the opening, where we’re introduced to Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman, Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the very nice porn stand-in in Love Actually). Dr. Watson is still an Army medic, but that means a very different thing to the viewer when the war was in today’s Afghanistan instead of that of 1880. He’s living in a tiny flat, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, with a leg wounded in action, and […]

Review by KC Carlson To paraphrase someone much smarter than me, “Writing intelligently about Lost is like dancing about architecture.” There has been so much written about Lost over the past six years that it’s been on broadcast TV — and especially this final year — it’s difficult to find anything new to say about it. Besides, it seems somewhat appropriate to attach Lost to a famous literary quote, especially one whose actual origins are widely disputed. (The original quotation […]

Review by KC Carlson As a DC comic book, the original Brave and the Bold title ran from 1955 to 1983. For the first 24 issues, it was an adventure-style comic featuring tales of the Silent Knight, Viking Prince, Robin Hood, Golden Gladiator, and others. Issues #26-49 featured try-out series (ala Showcase), the most successful of which were Hawkman, the Justice League of America, and (later) the Teen Titans. Beginning with #50, the title contained a series of stories featuring […]