I certainly wasn’t as thrilled with the premiere of Marvel’s “The Defenders” (2017) as I thought I’d be. I’d somewhat grudgingly rate it a 7 out of 10.
The show’s first episode suffers a bit from an inescapable challenge — how to satisfy the fanbase for each of four superhero characters who have had their own shows. I’d honestly say that this show so far interests me about 50 percent of the time — I love Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but I don’t much care about Luke Cage or Iron Fist. Complicating things further is the show’s need to logically tie together all of their respective storylines, while arousing interest in a new overall story for this nascent ensemble team. (It … looks a lot like Daredevil’s story from both the second season of the Netflix series and the original comics.)
I’m optimistic I’ll enjoy it more as I catch the rest of the series. Marvel properties almost always have good writers. And the large cast here (including none other than Sigourney Weaver) is uniformly excellent.
“Airwolf” (1984 – 1987) and “Blue Thunder” (1984) were part of the decade’s fad of building TV shows around incredibly high-tech vehicles — sports cars, helicopters … even a preposterously conceived “attack motorcycle.” (Does anyone else remember 1985’s lamentable “Streethawk?”)
“Airwolf” was a decent techno-thriller produced by CBS. (It was revamped in its final year and relaunched on the USA Network.) It had great action sequences, a likable star (Jan-Michael Vincent) and seemed written to appeal to an older audience, with a fairly sophisticated and morally ambiguous overall story setup. And goddam if it didn’t have a kickass theme — even if it’s a bit of an earworm and leans heavily on the snythesizers. (It was an 80’s thing.) You can check it out in the first clip below.
“Blue Thunder” was ABC’s putative competitor, I suppose. It was an adaptation of what I remember to be a pretty respectable 1983 feature film with Roy Scheider, but the show only ran for a single season. I hardly remember it. (As you can see from the second clip below, though, it had a pretty interesting cast, including Dana Carvey, Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith.) I’ve never heard anyone bring up “Blue Thunder” nostalgically either. I do remember that my friend Keith was a fan — he and I got into a spirited debate once about which could defeat the other in an aerial battle.
If Hollywood wants to recycle everything from the 1980’s … how the hell did “Airwolf” escape its radar? (No pun intended.) I would love to hear Ki: Theory update that killer theme.
The Internet is a fine thing. Below is the complete rendition of Irma Thomas’ “Anyone Who Knows What Love is,” performed by the character of Abi in “Black Mirror’s” second episode of Season 1. It’s a beautiful song, and a real highlight of the episode, “Fifteen Million Merits.” The talented actress here is Jessica Brown Findlay.
The song actually pops up in another episode of “Black Mirror.” (I am new to the show, but I am enjoying it chronologically with a dear friend of mine who has already seen all the episodes.) Season 2’s tour de force, “White Christmas,” has one character singing the song in a karaoke bar. My friend pointed out that we briefly glimpse an in-universe TV show in the very same episode, in which dancers are seen on a stage that looks like the one in “Fifteen Million Merits.”
Do all (or some) of “Black Mirror’s” episodes take place in the same fictional universe? It kinda feels plausible. The variations of optically linked computers in different episodes, for example, seem to dovetail pretty nicely.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 