Television

I have long had a sense of humor that finds me making jokes that leave others looking at me like they're still waiting for the punch line. I blame that on Chuck Barris, whose schtick I would often try to emulate, after years of watching him host the hilarious, oddball, and frequently non sequitur variety contest, THE GONG SHOW.

The man who made so few people laugh, but laugh loudly nonetheless, was also the brains behind THE DATING GAME and it's post-coital follow-up, THE NEWLYWED GAME, both of which were Q&A sessions designed to test the tenuous boundaries where the sexual revolution met the television censors.

Chuck Barris passed away March 21, 2017 of natural causes.

Part of me thinks he did this as one final joke, to continue the verbal confusion of those who interchanged his name with Chuck Berry, who also passed this same week. If I were named Charles Bears right now, I'd be staying alert.

Perhaps the most anticipated, most dreaded episode of THE FLASH has come upon us -- the musical crossover with SUPERGIRL.

Things kicked off in SUPERGIRL when a mysterious person puts Kara (MELISSA BENOIST) into a coma and then jumps through a breach, declaring he is looking for "the fastest man alive."

My Two-Bits: My Love of Stephen Colbert

A few weeks ago, my daughter asked me the question, “If you could spend the day with anyone, who would it be?”  I started to talk about family and all that, and she said, “I mean famous person.” And without hesitation, I answered “Stephen Colbert.”  Colbert is a source of endless fascination and entertainment for me.  

Rip Hunter (ARTHUR DARVILL) scattered the Justice Society of America across time to protect the fragments of the Spear of Destiny, which, if assembled, could rewrite reality. He leaves Henry Heywood (MATTHEW MACCAULL), aka Commander Steel, in 1965 Manhattan, with the realization that his family will think he died in the mission to Liepzig. Mere seconds after they part ways, Rip Hunter reappears with the Legends trying to intercept Henry. This was a nice bit of time travel, nearly running into yourself, which you could theoretically do decades and seconds apart simultaneously. But Henry is a master chameleon, and if he wants to get lost, he's going to be lost.

Greetings, Flash fans! So here's where we are to date: Kid Flash Wally West (KEIYNAN LONSDALE) got tricked by Savitar into releasing him from the Speed Force prison only to end up trapped there himself. The Flash (GRANT GUSTIN) takes it upon himself to zip into the Speed Force and break Wally out, by hook or by crook. Cisco (CARLOS VALDES) whips up some techno magic called a Goldtooth (an interdimensional Bluetooth) so that Team Flash can pull Barry out if they need to do so. You can probably guess how that's going to work.

With Jughead (COLE SPROUSE) and Betty (LILI REINHART) discovering Jason Blossom's hidden car, only to find it a burned out husk when the Sheriff arrives, things couldn't get much weirder in RIVERDALE. And then they find that Betty's sister, Polly (TIERA SKOVBYE), pregnant with Jason's baby, has escaped from the home where her parents placed her.

The crew of the Waverider have captured Rip Hunter (ARTHUR DARVILL) in the hopes of restoring him to his former personality, his current one being the product of mental tampering by the Legion of Doom. However, what they did not expect was that Rip still possesses the override codes to Gideon, the ship's AI computer, which easily lets him escape his cell, take back the Longinus Medallion that guides them all to the missing pieces of the Spear of Destiny, and destroy it so that the Legends can never find the final piece before the Legion of Doom gets it and rewrites all reality.

Oh, and he starts up the ship's self-destruct sequence, because every good spaceship has one of those built into it.

We here at Critical Blast do not cover politics but you'd have to be living under a rock to realize the issues that are facing America today. If you're watching TV from under that rock, you'd notice that Monday's episode of SUPERGIRL unearths a lot of important issues from the current political landscape.

Wally West (KEIYNAN LONSDALE) is still seeing images of Savitar, but hasn't told anyone, even as he runs through a speed trial with Barry (GRANT GUSTIN) and Jesse (VIOLETT BEANE) in which he manages to cover the required distance to save Iris (CANDICE PATTON) in the future in the right amount of time. He's fast enough. But he's haunted.

Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, the entire team is brought together but they don't know why. Barry and Iris address the group to announce their engagement. Joe (JESSE L. MARTIN) is happy for his kids, but takes Barry aside to ask why he didn't go through the tradition of asking him first. Barry is rescued from the awkward situation by a fire emergency that he and Wally speed off to take care of. (Jesse is too "preoccupied with the ring" business of the engagement. So much for International Women's Day.

Despite my misgivings with the pilot of RIVERDALE, I've nonetheless continued to check in on the CW take on the Archie Comics gang. And with Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa at the helm, I at least understand why it can't be a lighthearted, kid-friendly rom-com. It's how he views the Archie world, through a lens darkly. It worked for AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, and so long as I view RIVERDALE as another alternate look at Archie, I can make peace with it. I just can't let my nine year old boy watch it, much as he wants to, having seen the ads in his mountain of Archie digest comics he reads endlessly.

Disney XD posted up a trailer for their new Duck Tales reboot! 

Commentary: Okay, first the "negatives."  The animation reminds me of the Mickey Mouse shorts. I like that in small doses, but not sure it would work for a full length cartoon.  And Huey, Dewey, and Louie's voices already annoy me. 

Monday's episode of SUPERGIRL brought the Danvers' dad, Jeremiah, home to be reunited with his family. But did everyone welcome him back with open arms?

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD

The episode starts off with some funny moments as Mon-El awakens from a night spent at Kara's. Wondering why she wasn't there when he woke up, he opines on whether that means 'it' was really bad...or really good.

When she returns, she comes bearing flowers and coffee for Mon-El. She also requests that when they get to the DEO, he says nothing about their relationship. She wants to keep it under wraps for now. When they arrive Mon-El makes his announcement in a way that Ron Burgundy would be proud.

Love is in the air as Team Flash revels in having thwarted Grodd's gorilla invasion by heading it off at the pass on Earth 2. Barry (GRANT GUSTIN) is sure the headline for the future will change, and that the team is on the right path to saving Iris (CANDICE PATTON) from being murdered by Savitar.

It's Valentine's Day, but H.R. (TOM CAVANAGH) is calling it "Friends Day" as it is referred to on his home on Earth 19. H.R. has S.T.A.R. Labs all decked out in finery, much to the chagrin of his doppelganger from Earth 2, Harrison Wells. Jesse (VIOLETT BEANE) takes this time to tell her father that she's going to stay on Earth 1 with wally (KEIYNAN LONSDALE). They expect him to lose his cool, but he dissolves into a disgrunted "Okay," then remains taciturn for the remainder of the episode.

In the previous episode, we ended with the arrival of Jesse Quick (VIOLETT BEANE) from Earth 2 with the message that her father, Harrison Wells (TOM CAVANAGH) had been kidnapped by Grodd and taken to Gorilla City. So now we know that Gorilla City is on Earth 2. He was invited there via a mathematical cryptogram (apparently Grodd is taking notes on how Team Flash recruits other Wellses from across the multiverse), but the team that accompanied him went missing, and all searchers found were their bones.

Last night's episode of SUPERGIRL explored Valentine's Day through the eyes of many of it's characters. While the title villain Mr. Mxyzptlk sought Kara's hand in marriage, one former romantic interest was mysteriously missing.

The absence of James Olsen only confirms my thoughts that, while moving him into the role of 'Guardian', the show just isn't quite sure what to do with his character. That's not to say they haven't given him a lot to do, running Cat Co is quite a chore, but a lot of what he does takes him away from the central plot of the season.

A streak has been broken. While CW's THE FLASH has taken this award for 2014 and 2015, the so-called Fastest Man Alive gets beaten this year by a horde of shamblers.

Continuing our series of announcements for all the Best of 2016, as voted on by the readers of CriticalBlast.com, we come to our Best Television Actor of 2016 award.

Among the nominees, the CW made a powerful, powerful showing. Nominated for this award were both Carlos Valdes and Grant Gustin for their roles on THE FLASH, Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards for their work on ARROW, and last year's winner, Melissa Benoist, for SUPERGIRL. Also in the running this year were Kit Harrington for GAME OF THRONES, Thandie Newton for WESTWORLD, and -- Sweet Christms! -- LUKE CAGE made a last minute entry, garnering Mike Colter a nomination for that series!

NBC's POWERLESS has coasted to it's third episode, where 'Da Boss' Van Wayne hopes to get Atlantis to sign an agreement with Wayne Securities after losing his firms biggest client Ace Chemicals.

In a very Michael Scott (THE OFFICE) way, Van Wayne continues his incompetence by dropping the ball with Ace Chemical company. When he forgot to forward an important email to Emily, they built something that Ace didn't want; this led them to take their business to LexCorp.

Not wanting to disappoint his father, Van taps Emily for advice. Meanwhile the team tries to figure out if the new guy, Alex, is actually a superhero in disguise.

The introduction to this episode is delivered by Mick Rory (DOMINIC PURCELL), and it's the most brilliant thing ever! If anything sets the tone for this series, this did it. "Who writes this crap, anyway?" That's just genius.

Rip Hunter (ARTHUR DARVILL) has returned -- only he's not Rip Hunter any more. No, he's not "Phil" the hippy movie director either. The Legion of Doom have restored his memories from a backup, but not without having made some alterations to his personality. He's now no longer the hero he used to be -- he's with the Legion of Doom, and to attract the attention of the Legends team, so that he can retrieve the portion of the Spear of Destiny from them, he decides to make a big change to history. He assassinates General George Washington on Christmas Day, 1776. And he arms the British soldiers with automatic weapons. The United States now will never exist.

The evolution of Kid Flash (KEIYNAN LONSDALE) continues this episode as Barry (GRANT GUSTIN) works on furthering the training of his protégé. To that end, "Untouchable" opens with a race between the two, with sensors around the city set up to track their movements back at S.T.A.R. Labs, where Cisco Ramon (CARLOS VALDES) is taking bets on the outcome, quoting HUNGER GAMES. We learn that gambling was banned on Earth-19 after an unfortunate incident with Vice-President Al Capone), but H.R. (TOM CAVANAGH) nonetheless seems quite adept at it. It's neck and neck, despite all the talk that persists about Wally getting faster at an accelerated rate, but in the end Barry cross the finish line first by vibrating through a building while Wally has to run up the wall. He still hasn't learned how to phase yet, and it's something that Barry tells him he's going to have to learn if he's going to defeat Savitar in a few months and save Iris.