Television

The premise of Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS is one with a lot of promise. It's theological at its core, positing an alternate world much like our own, with an identical creation story of Adam, Eve, and Serpent. But beyond that, things diverge. The world is one of dirigible and balloon transport, and the architecture seems older and more industrial revolution era. But beyodn the trappings of technology, there is more: humans are born with a "daemon" -- a spirit animal that can change its form until the human host reaches puberty, at which point it settles on one specific animal. The connection between human and daemon is considered sacred, and indeed what effects one is felt on the other. When humans die, their daemons disintegrate.

I've greatly enjoyed the movies adapting Tom Clancy's novels. There was plenty of action and suspense, and you felt the character was always in a (wait for it) clear and present danger.

Now, I admittedly missed the first season of the JACK RYAN streaming series, and honestly I wasn't lost entering the second season without it. The storyline here was clearly a new beginning bringing back the titular character (played by John Krasinski) with James Greer (Wendell Pierce), and introducing Mike November (Michael Kelly). The setting is Venezuela, where the current corrupt leader, Nicolas Reyes (Jordi Mollà), is having his position challenged in the upcoming election by Gloria Bonalde (Cristina Umaña).

If you haven't watched any STARGIRL by now, you are lucky. Because you're only one week away from getting to binge the entire first season.

It's been a shortened first season -- only thirteen episodes in total -- but it's been a fun and enjoyable ride. DC and CW have given viewers the family-friendly super-hero show that its lineup had been sorely missing, and fans have responded positively to it. Brec Bassinger's portrayal of Courtney Whitmore, the teenager who becomes Stargirl, is fresh and optimistic, always appealing to the good in people. It's with this determined outlook that Stargirl recruits a new Justice Society from the unlikely group of social outcasts at Blue Valley High: Doctor Mid-nite (Anjelika Washington), Hourman (Cameron Gellman), and Wildcat (Yvette Monreal).

In the first season of THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, the quirky sibling superhero group failed to prevent the world-shattering apocalypse that they themselves caused, leaping through time at the last moment through the powers of their brother, Five (Aidan Gallagher), to wind up scattered across the early 1960s in Dallas, Texas, with the last of them arriving in 1963, days before the Kennedy assassination. Diego (David Castañeda) sees this as an opportunity to prevent the assassination, but somehow -- a mystery for the season -- this leads to yet another world-ending apocalypse of global nuclear war. Diego ends up committed to an insane asylum. Luther (Tom Hopper) is forced to become a bare-knuckle brawler for Jack Ruby. Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) settles into a marriage to a local civil rights activist, Ray Chestnut (Yusuf Gatewood), Klaus (Robert Sheehan) starts a cult, and Vanya ends up without her memories living on a farm with a family raising a disabled child.

While HBO's THE OUTSIDER was based on a singular novel, and while the series wrapped up an entire story arc within its confines, I find it comforting to see that the home video release of the series is listed on Amazon as "The First Season." This doesn't appear anywhere on the box art, so whether or not this cast -- or parts of this cast -- will return for another mystery is anyone's guess, but it's a ray of hope nonetheless.

The show kicks off with the gruesome murder of a child, where video, eyewitness, and even DNA evidence point to the killer as being the upstanding citizen and Little League coach, Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman). Detective Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn), who knows what it's like to lose a child, wants to make an exampe of Maitland and arranges his arrest to be made very publicly.

There's a lot happening in this episode of STARGIRL, and the title -- "Brainwave Jr." -- is a promising one. I've been hoping that Henry King Jr. (Jake Austin Walker) was going to come out a hero instead of following in the villainous footsteps of his father, the Injustice Society's resident telepath, Brainwave (Christopher James Baker), and I was right. Sort of.

But before we can deal with that, we are thrown into the family chaos that has erupted in the Whitmore-Dugan household. Barbara Whitmore (Amy Smart) has seen the cosmic staff in action, and now it's up to Pat (Luke Wilson) and Courtney (Brec Basinger) to tell her the truth about what Stargirl, and Barb does not take the news well at all. In fact, she's so angry she makes Pat leave for the night. Mike (Trae Romano) overhears, and decides to go with his dad to spend the night at the repair shop.

We've mentioned before just how much fun it is for comic book geeks to watch STARGIRL. The references to the original Justice Society, the hints and easter eggs, are all things that make our inner comic nerds grin from ear to ear.

And tonight was no exception. In fact, they ratched it up to eleven early in the episode.

Courtney (Brec Bassinger) barely survived her battle with Shiv (Meg DeLacy) -- her high school classmate, Cindy Burman, and daughter of the villainous Dr. Ito, the Dragon King (Nelson Lee). Dr. Ito is thought to have died a long time ago, but Pat Dugan (Luke Wilson) believes differently. He fought the Dragon King several years ago -- alongside a completely different team of heroes: The 7 Soldiers of Victory!

Yes, if you are a long-time comics fan, you may now take a moment to squeal.

When LUCIFER was damned to cancellation after its third season, fans reacted globally with an online campaign to #SaveLucifer: and it worked. Streaming service Netflix stepped in to offer salvation to the "police procedural meets theological fantasy" series, based off the comic book series created by Neil Gaiman.

At least, for a time.

The fourth season started answering the questions raised by that season three cliffhanger, where Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) became fully aware that Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis) was exactly who he always purported to be, and ended with him having to return to his place ruling Hell in order to keep Decker safe.

When we reached the end of the previous episode, Courtney, as Stargirl (Brec Bassinger), had been locked in a fight with Cindy Burman (Meg DeLacy), whom viewers know to be the daughter of Injustice Society member and mad scientist, Dragon King (Nelson Lee). The fight was interrupted, but not without Courtney sustaining injuries.

Her stepfather, Pat Dugan (Luke Wilson), rushed Courtney to the hospital and told them she'd been in a car accident. To cover his story, he then went out and purposely wrecked his vintage Buick, blaming the accident on his giving Courtney driving lessons.

Good news for fans of DC Comics on the small screen: CW has released a statement verifying that STARGIRL -- the show you should be watching -- has been renewed for a second season!

The statement from CW reads:

July 6, 2020 (Burbank, CA) – The CW Network today announced it has renewed the hit new series DC’S STARGIRL for a second season.  The CW will become the exclusive in-season home to the breakout superhero hit next season, airing on The CW Television Network and streaming the next day on The CW’s free, ad-supported streaming platforms.  The first season of DC’S STARGIRL is currently airing Tuesdays (8:00-9:00pm ET/PT).

Week after week, STARGIRL continues to impress, and after seven episodes I realize that I've never expressed just how much the overall soundtrack of the series contributes to its appeal. The music is just as much of the show's Americana as are the classic automobiles and clean-cut teenagers.

In this episode, two more characters make themselves known -- one of them in the very title of this two-parter. "Shiv" is the villain name given to Cindy Berman (Meg DeLacy). She's Blue Valley High's queen bee and HBIC of the mean girls. But more than that, she's the daughter of Dr. Ito, the Dragon King (Nelson Lee), whose approval she desperately seeks. Cindy is the only child of the Injustice Society legacy who knows about the ISA, and wants her seat at the table. She's the girlfriend of Henry King Jr. (Jake Austin Walker), but only because she's been assigned to him by her father to keep an eye on him until he exhibits his psionic powers.

The team comes together in the latest episode of STARGIRL, aptly titled "The Justice Society." After having successfully recruited Yolanda (Yvette Monreal), Beth (Anjelika Washington), and Rick (Cameron Gellman) as the new Wildcat, Doctor Mid-Nite, and Hourman, Courtney (Brec Bassinger) is busted by her stepdad, Pat Dugan (Luke Wilson), for having absconded with all the JSA paraphernalia. The weaponry is simply too dangerous, and he charges Courtney to go get everything back from her friends.

Her friends, unsurprisingly, disagree. Yolanda finds hope for renewal in the saga of the first Wildcat, Ted Grant. Rick has a connection to his father and a way to hunt down his killer. And Beth has a rather cringey and uncomfortable connection to the A.I. that runs through her powered goggles.

Some television shows take the viewer on cross-country trips to find the best hidden restaurants. Others take you on house-hunting journeys, or tag along with CEOs who get an incognito look inside their own companies from a new perspective.

Madison Young's trek across America is to discover, illuminate, and partake of the sexual kinks practiced in different regions. And if you think that this is all something that stops with leather and handcuffs, then you've only read the opening sentence of the opening paragraph of the encyclopedia set of sexual paraphilia.

The ranks of the new Justice Society of America expand by one this week with the induction of Yolanda Montez (Yvette Monreal) into the role of Wildcat. Yolanda's backstory is a heartbreaking cautionary tale that rings true to the viewer, making her instantly both sympathetic and heroic as we see how a young girl who only three months prior was outgoing, vivacious, and a leader in the student body go to being an outcast and introvert.

The Hollywood Reporter has just announced that Hartley Sawyer, who playes Elongated Man on The Flash on the CW Network, has been fired over tweets that have been deemed misogynistic, racist, and homophobic.

The tweets, dating from 2011 through 2014, were all posted before he began his stint on the DC Comics supehero show about the Fastest Man Alive, and read:

STARGIRL continues to scintillate for the DC television universe, aka the Arrowverse, and this third episode shows the series has no intention on dimming any time soon.

Having confronted Brainwave and leaving him in a coma, Courtney (Brec Bassinger) is eager to confront the rest of the Injustice Society of America. Now, I'm sure you may be thinking that the "Injustice Society of America" is a bit on-the-nose for a gang of criminals. But in this episode we are made privy to the notion that the group was formed to confront perceived injustice, not create it. In this instance, it's the Icicle, Jordan Mahkent (Neil Jackson) who wants to fight the injustices that gave his wife cancer and took her from him and his son.

When DC Comics first announced there would be a modern Batwoman character in their universe, it was a news event -- not because DC had a new character, nor because that character was going to be part of the Batman lineup, but because the title character was going to be openly gay. The series came out with a strong, noir-inspired start under writer Greg Rucka, but never really became integrated into the rest of the DC Universe outside of the “52” crossover miniseries where she made her debut.

Sports documentaries have always been one of the most popular forms of entertainment, as the general public loves getting the inside scoop on their favourite sports teams and players. With the coronavirus forcing the majority of people to stay indoors, there has been a huge spike in demand for content to keep people occupied, and it was this reason, coupled with the lack of live sporting events to broadcast, which led ESPN to move up the release of their ten-part documentary on the Chicago Bulls, titled ‘The Last Dance’. Broadcast by ESPN and Netflix, this series has been a runaway hit, as it has shown a side of the Bulls, and particularly Jordan, that had never been seen in public before.

If you go into the DC Universe streaming series HARLEY QUINN expecting it to be an extension of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES or any of the other DCAU projects, then you've put up an unnecessary barrier to enjoying this show. Yes, the series has Batman and Robin and the Justice League, and yes it has more DCU villains than you could feasibly lock up in a single asylum. But this is the DCU as viewed through the lens of Mad Magazine, with the editors high on cocaine while wearing bondage gear. It's irreverent, it's foul-mouthed -- and it's funny AF.

The second episode of the DC Universe streaming service's scintillating series, STARGIRL, addresses the question many viewers considered during the pilot: why are the villains of The Injustice Society all settled down in the idyllic small town of Blue Valley, Nebraska? It doesn't answer the question, mind you, but it at least aknowledges that it's a strange thing, as Courtney (Brec Bassinger) tells her new stepfather, Pat Dugan (Luke Wilson) about her run-in with the villainous Brainwave.