2019-20 TV Season Recap

Previous TV Season Recaps - (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19)

JULY 2, 2020 UPDATED WITH RANKINGS FOR WATCHMEN AND FINAL SEASONS OF GAME OF THRONES CLICK HERE TO JUMP RIGHT TO THEM

Greetings, and welcome to my yearly TV season breakdown of all the shows I followed that were released during the past school year. For newer readers, please take a peek at previous TV recaps above that go as far back to the 2013-14 season. I usually try and watch a couple more shows during the summer and will update the top of this entry with an addendum link to new shows I kept up with during the summer. I will keep up my tradition of beginning with some animation shows….

South Park - This is a slight improvement from last year’s season, and it continues South Park’s return to form of episodic storylines. There were a couple dud episodes sprinkled in, but I was a fan of most of the ten shows this season. Standouts were cable TV installers fighting the war on streaming services, criticizing the Chinese government’s censorship to the point of getting South Park banned in China and an awesome season finale that sees Randy’s pot farm in despair when pot is outlawed during Christmas season so he turns to growing cocaine and gets everyone, including Santa and Jesus, hooked on it. Grade: B

Simpsons - Last few years I have stuck to watching a few episodes a year of The Simpsons and Family Guy to at least have that constant association with those long lasting shows. Usually it is only the season premiere, finale and the Christmas episode of each show. The Simpsons I will also watch its annual Treehouse of Horror special, but something about this season kept me coming back to it where I watched nearly half of their episodes this season. They had their first ever Thanksgiving of Horror special which I was surprised with the amount of gore that got in. With this being the first full season of the show where it officially fell under the Disney ownership umbrella, there are now constant Disney, Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel references throughout, but likely due to the nature of the show it was not that intrusive to put up with. I really dug an episode with the Flanders coming to terms on reconciling with Maude’s death in a ‘special’ episode. Other fun episodes were the return of Sideshow Bob for the Christmas special and a touching season finale centering around Santa’s Little Helper, complete with a flashback to a clip of the very first Simpsons episode in 1989. Grade: B+

The Conners - Loving how most of the cast is settling into their roles by this point. I was thrilled to see the family regain ownership and reopen ‘The Lunchbox.’ Loved episodes that centered on that homey diner in the original. Sara Gilbert and John Goodman continue to carry the show on their backs. Seeing Dan’s dilemma of coming to terms with accepting the passing of Roseanne and committing to Louise was a chase that was worth following all season and had a gratifying payoff. I loved the ups and downs of Darlene and Ben’s relationship this season, and Ben has easily won me over as a regular on the show and I hope he is there to stay. Harris on the other hand…not so much. I would love to see more of DJ and his family in the mix, and it is disheartening to see he seems like such an afterthought of the show. Seeing Becky’s newfound motherhood troubles were a bit much to keep up with but it had its moments. One nagging issue I have with the series that has now been back for three seasons is that they never addressed what happened to Jackie's kid yet from the original run which is kind of ridiculous. Not even in a passing ‘Fred has custody now on the other side of the country’ sort of way. I was hoping to see Fred make a surprise return for an episode or something to address that, but will have to keep my fingers crossed for season four. Loved most of this season minus the Harris-centered episodes, and a couple of plotlines and barbs that felt like overkill. Grade: B+

Arrow – It was bittersweet to see the final episode of Arrow this past January. It was the last show I kept up with in the DC line of CW shows since I dropped the other couple midseason last year because it became too much to keep up with. Oliver had a fond farewell as the entire season built up that Olly would be riding off into the sunset this season. This season saw the continued use of jumping back and forth between current and future timelines where Oliver’s two children, Mia & William are all grown up and doing their own vigilante justice. I watched the entire five part Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover special between all the DC-CW shows. I will not attempt to explain it because my brain will explode in doing so, but it has a major impact dealing with Oliver’s fate and it all comes full circle in the finale with a heartfelt memorial for Oliver in front of a lot of familiar faces that were delightful to see again. The memorial saw an absolutely killer speech from Diggle that had my emotions running wild.

Arrow has consistently remained my favorite DC show on the CW. It had a touch more edge than the other shows which eventually morphed into a carefree, watered down formula I could not tolerate anymore. It sounds like there will be a new spinoff show with Mia and William starting next season, but I think but this seems like the perfect jumping off point from the ever-growing lineup of DC shows. There were times I felt like I needed a guide to keep up with all the time travelling plot threads, but the recaps helped keep me in check, and this was a great way to wrap up my favorite show of the CW-DC ‘Arrow-verse.’ Grade: A

The Witcher – I heard a lot of positive buzz going into this Netflix original series, and being only eight episodes did not seem like too much of a commitment so I dove right in. The videogames this series is based on have been in my backlog forever so I cannot say how they compare, but I was won over by the two main characters of Geralt and Yennefer. Jaskier the bard was also the perfect companion to provide brief moments of levity. Henry Cavill has a tremendous presence as Geralt, and comes off as one powerful badass not to mess with. My favorite episode is where Geralt competes against a couple other factions going up a mountain to hunt a dragon that has many fun twists and turns. It would not be a medieval fantasy show without a big awesome setpiece war of a finale, and Witcher also delivers on that front. Only nitpick I have is sometimes the lore can be a bit dense to keep up with, but at only eight episodes that does not prevent it from being an easy recommendation. Grade: A-

Castlevania – The third season of the Netflix original show based on the hit videogame series is easily my favorite season of the three. There are several separate story arcs transpiring throughout the season, and most of them I was able to get into with the exception of Alucard's odd arc where mysterious loners seek his guidance who oddly turn on him for not revealing all his secrets after only a week under his tutelage. The rest of the cast had vastly more intriguing storylines. Trevor and Sypha are an adorably deadly couple that find themselves helping out a village filled with all kinds of dark secrets. Forgemaster Hector is wrapped up in a pickle of a situation as a prisoner of vampires who want global conquest. Forgemaster Isaac had an arc that I got into where he also is on his own quest for taking over the world. Something about the way it was written this season especially made it pop for me with each episode having one or two standout sessions of conversing. That boat captain especially, I want him to come back after his enticing conversations with Isaac! The last two episodes packed a really mean punch and compensate for the lack of action for the rest of the season. Sure as hell hope to see a fourth season soon enough! Grade: A

Star Trek: Picard - During the early weeks of the global pandemic we are now in, a lot of streaming services offered extended free trials. I took advantage of that for CBS All Access, which is the exclusive home of Picard. Despite being nearly 20 years older since we last saw him as Picard, Sir Patrick Stewart remains masterful in the role. Now that it has been about a month since I wrapped it up, I am kind of 50/50 on the first season of Picard. There were some characters that I did not care for, but the show ultimately came together for a semi-decent season. Loved the expected old faces that returned for rushes of nostalgia I was totally into, and am glad only a few older faces returned to save room for future cameos. Took a while to get use to watching Star Trek in a serialized format with story arcs lasting the whole season, but I liked the crew Picard assembled by the end of the season, and although the season arc spiraled into a bit of a mess by the season finale that I additionally will refrain from attempting to explain, a big part of me is feeling like the cast was starting to organically gel by the last episode which leads me hoping for a better dynamic in season two. Grade: B-

Star Trek: Discovery (Seasons 1 & 2) – That CBS All Access trial wound up getting extended further into two months for me so I once again took advantage of that to plow through the first two seasons of the newest core Star Trek show, Discovery. The first season was a bit of a chore to get through. After an explosive two episode season opener setting up the protagonist Michael Burnham, the show gradually got less interesting as they mixed in plot tropes I despise like time travelling and alternate dimensions that play a major role in the first season. I will give props to a guilty pleasure time loop episode I was all in for however that can easily be watched in its own without taking in the rest of the serialized plot. I was not that into Rainn Wilson before, but his recurring role here as con-man Harry Mudd was my unlikely favorite character of the first season.

My main gripe about the first season is it is all about Michael, with the rest of the crew primarily relegated to B and C plot affairs while most other past Star Trek shows shined the spotlight on the entire crew. The second season is a step up with some noticeable improvements. I liked the introduction of their versions of Captain Pike and Spock on here that drastically helped the rest of the cast to step up. Seeing Spock & Michael’s sibling rivalry and their past revealed as the season went on was an arc that I was able to invest in. Discovery did a little bit of fleshing out of some parts of the rest of the crew, but it could have done better where instead a lot more emphasis was placed on Michael's character making silly Jennifer Garner-esque reactionary faces. She does a mean vulcan eyebrow though, ditto with Spock! Special effects are in a league of their own, no idea how they have the budget for it with nearly every episode having a ton of spectacular action scenes. TNG nut in me would prefer Discovery to dial back the action a notch or two, but supposedly the new Pike spinoff show, Strange New Worlds, will do that next year. Season 1 Grade: C- Season 2 Grade: B-

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UPDATE – July 2, 2020

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A couple weeks after I posted this originally I did one of them free one week trials for HBO Max to crank out two more shows I have been meaning to get to for quite some time so here are my thoughts on them….

Watchmen - The 2009 film is extraordinarily polarizing among anyone I talk to. I have a love/hate/love relationship with it myself. The HBO TV series from several months ago appears to be the same from the first few people I spoke with about it too after finishing it earlier this week. It is set in the present in 2019, some 34 years after the events of the graphic novel. I was hooked by the end of the first episode which had an impactful viewing experience due to the similarities of how the police are portrayed in Watchmen to the recent real life events/riots/protests in recent weeks. Nearly every episode had an interesting hook that spiraled into another arc that had its own callback and references to the original story and how the present world in the show was still enduring the rippling effects from the conclusion of the original saga.

The second half of the season has a different dynamic to it once certain revelations are made of key characters and other characters are introduced. Seeing each episode’s dose of Ozymandias’ journey from the past 34 years had me scratching my head where it was going until his arc came full circle and it all pleasantly came together. A couple little twists and turns did not sit well with me in how the finale played out, but for the most part I was absolutely invested in the series throughout and hopes the show gets picked up for a second season which is currently in doubt because the season one showrunner feels the first season put an overall conclusion to Watchmen all together. Grade: A-

Game of Thrones - I finally got around to watching the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones. I somehow managed to escape spoilers all this time too. Was in no rush to see it due to noticeable step down in quality from the seventh season based on how rushed it felt and how it crammed two seasons of content into one. Unfortunately the same can be said here for the last season. The thing is though the first half of season eight is extremely good. Episode one is all about reuniting the characters and setting up for the battle of all battles against the undead army that has been building since the very beginning of the show. I loved how the second episode gave nearly every character a moment of their own to take in their presumable last evening before the fight ahead as they basked in each other’s fellowship and drink. Then the battle itself was a huge undertaking for a TV show to pull off a battle scene of that magnitude for over an hour, even with a premium HBO budget. There are parts where I can nitpick and see where they tried little camera tricks and implemented other special effects tomfoolery to give the false illusion they were on par with the AAA budget cinematic battles of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but by and large that battle with the Whitewalkers is an impressive feat of television filmmaking that I will never forget. Loved every chapter of that third episode. If you have fallen off of Game of Thrones after season seven, then do yourself a favor and at least watch episodes two and three of the final season. Now if the series would have ended after that big battle that would have been ideal, but there was still one Queen Cersei to deal with….

…and the final three episodes of the season eight dealt with the rest of the kingdoms building up for one last battle to take over the Red Keep and remove Cersei from the throne. The final three episodes feel overwhelmingly rushed and should have had their own expanded season, and that is saying something because those episodes are all longer than average episodes and around the length of a movie each. While the first half of the final season has key characters meet their demise in a blaze of glory, the final episodes have anticlimactic finales for fan favorite characters and it felt like the writers were trying to make the best of the worst situation for trying to wrap up the show. There are a couple fleeting moments I enjoyed for certain characters having a gratifying conclusion to their stories, but I could not shake this gut-wrenching feeling throughout the final two episodes that the wheels were quickly flying off the rails. For what it is worth, I did like Bran and Jon Snow’s final destinations and scenes for how they were shot and am now relieved I have now got this show out of the way. I avoided reading recaps and spoilers, but had a feeling this was not going to be a good season due to a general lack of reaction and enthusiasm for the final season as it was transpiring, minus a little optimism for the aforementioned midseason battle. The series finale came and went without much of an online reaction to my surprise and in the succeeding months little murmurs of ‘meh’ was what I picked up on in the general sense of how it wrapped up when asking around….and I am essentially on board with that after seeing it myself. Now with that out of the way…should I read the books? Grade: C


Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
2018-19 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

2018-19 TV Season Recap

Previous TV Season Recaps - (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18)

9-13-2019 Update: 2019 Summer TV Season Recap now online! Click here for recaps of latest seasons of GLOW, Veronica Mars & Jessica Jones!

Greetings and welcome to my belated annual TV season recap! Got to this several weeks later than I wanted to, but glad to finally knock this out of the park! I will…attempt…to make this a little more concise than previous years so fingers crossed that I do not drone on forever! If you do have the time and want to check out my past year in TV breakdowns going back to 2013 please check out the links above! With that out of the way let us jump to the seasons of new TV I devoured from late summer/fall 2018 through spring 2019.

South Park – Like the past few seasons of South Park it features a season spanning arc, though it is not as prevalent as past seasons as the build up is for the town’s annual bike parade the kids are all stoked for. It was an interesting build up throughout to the payoff in the finale. A secondary, smaller season-spanning arc focusing on legalization of weed in South Park was a hokey plot thread to see touched on from time to time and had a payoff at the end I cracked up at. Other episodes were kind of a little lower fare than past seasons with the usual riffing on current events that South Park is known for with notable takes this season on the Roseanne Barr controversy conveyed through the return of Mr. Hankey and additionally ManBearPig making his deadly return and rampaging through South Park. Grade: B-

The Conners – Previously known as Roseanne, but because of some ill-worded tweets from her last year lead to her removal of the show and being rebranded as The Conners. I am fine with how they wrote Roseanne out of the show by touching on her pill-addiction issues that were a focus in the first season. That said, I dug it more than its return season, primarily because the cast is gelling together far better now. Sarah Gilbert and Lecy Goransen both stepped up to fill the void with Barr's exit from the show. Darlene is the front and center star now, and she is nailing it holding the chaos at home down. It is good see DJ finally receive a marginal, but noticeable bump up in screen time this season after being an afterthought in a handful of episodes in the return season. I was glad to see an episode emphasize Dan dealing with Roseanne's storyline passing of the show. Also was fun to see cameos from recurring characters from the first run of the show throughout this season. Darlene finally gets a new gig at a newspaper and her boss there has tremendous chemistry with her character. A part of me still seems like that show is just not right with Roseanne not on there, but I understand why that is how it is and the cast is making the best out of a bad situation and are all bringing it with a pretty damn good second return season. Grade:B+

Orville – So I mentioned in last year’s TV recap I dropped off this show towards the end of the season because McFarlane’s humor felt a little too forced in an otherwise fine and occasionally pretty good modern take on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Eventually I revisited it and finished off last few episodes of the first season and I was glad I did because Orville stepped it up and dialed back McFarlane’s jokes and while still noticeable are better paced and not as nonstop as most of the first season was.

The second season does a little cast swapping and position shifting around the Orville vessel much like the second season of TNG did. It leads to a better flowing second season with LaMarr now heading up engineering. I will miss Halston Sage’s kickass security character from the show, but Jessica Szohr proves to be a suitable replacement. Seeing the true nature of Isaac’s home planet was a two-part episode arc I will never forget that ranked near the top as my favorite TV all year and was highlighted by a huge CG-quality space dogfight of theatrical quality. As much as I loved this season there were still a couple head-scratcher episodes with one Bortus-themed episode that did not go over well with me, and another where Claire attempts to date Isaac in an intriguing arc, but eventually had a lackluster conclusion. Major props again to Seth McFarlane for restraining his humor which leads to the times when Seth does work in his jokes playing out far better and more memorable including a Twinkie joke ranking right up there with Twinkie references in UHF and Die Hard. Props also to Seth for portraying a pretty damn good captain too. Grade: A-

Castlevania - I cranked out both seasons of Netflix’s exclusive anime based on the hit videogame series at the beginning of this year. Both are really quick watches with the first season being four episodes and the second only eight episodes. I am not even going to attempt to elucidate the intricacies of the plot. Both seasons involve signature characters from the series such as Belmonts, Dracula and Alucard. Both seasons also have exquisite animation and all kinds of lusciously crafted gory medieval violence. I was not super huge into both seasons as the lore sometimes went right over my head, but both served as entertaining background noise to indulge. Grade: B

Arrested Development - The second half of season five hit Netflix earlier this year. I consider it more-or-less season six since it launched about roughly a year after season five first started. It puts a nice bow on most of the Netflix-era arcs such as George Michael’s FakeBlock business, whether Joeb’s controversial magic trick really spelled the end of Tony Wonder, Michael’s repeated failed attempts at trying to save the family and yes it all wraps up with the breaking-ground ceremony for the Mexico/America border wall. For the most part I was a fan of this season although it is a victim of past Netflix-era seasons where they could not film with the entire ensemble cast present which leads to many odd camera angles and noticeable stand-ins present. I do not know if a future season is announced, but I am guessing not as this season had a nice sense of closure to it, and by that I mean in only the most pure, awkward nature possible that proved to be a worthy sendoff to Arrested Development. Grade: B+

Gotham - This was the fifth and final season of Gotham. FOX announced a year ahead of time they would be running a shortened final season of the show to give an opportunity to the creators and cast to wrap up all the story threads. Only problem was Gotham had a ton of threads and a huge cast. Season four’s theme was all about the ‘rise of the villain’ with Batman’s trademark wide range of antagonists coming into their own by season four. With the shortened season, several of those villains like Mr. Freeze and the…flamethrower girl do not appear whatsoever in the final seasons and some of my favorites like Poison Ivy and Zsasz are limited to only one or two episodes. Rest assured fan favorites Penguin and Riddler are featured throughout and both are awesome to follow along with in their constant love/hate relationship.

This season-spanning arc features Gotham declared a DMZ and is ruled by gang warfare and Gordon is in charge of a resource-depleted Gotham PD constantly under siege throughout. Since the show presumably wrapped up three-to-five years early I understand the direction FOX went with having the final episode jump several years in the future so we can finally see Bruce Wayne’s destiny come to fruition and I loved the build to the memorable closing shot of the series. The final episode also has many other caps sealed to see how the rest of the fantastic cast evolved. While I could not help but get the feeling that this season was rushed, I felt the cast and crew did as best as they possibly could with the condensed season they were allotted to wrap it up. Grade: A-

DC/CW ARROW-VERSE

Arrow - The seventh season of Arrow gets the distinction of being the only one of the four CW shows I started at their season premiere that I made it to the season finale of. Ollie’s compromise to serve time in jail at the end of season six had real consequences where he spends the first half of the season in prison and his journey to get out of there was an enticing ride that sees him making unlikely enemies and allies and having to go through the prison’s twisted underground fight club to stay in the warden’s good graces while Team Arrow looks through every nook and cranny to get his sentence repealed.

I loved the flash forwards this season that focuses on the cast’s offspring coming together as future vigilantes to save Star City. The Arrow-verse crossover special this season, Elseworlds was another solid crossover and served as introducing the Batwoman character while CW primes up that show later this year. Seeing Barry and Oliver react to their introduction to Superman was priceless. The annual cameo of Tommy was the best yet this season, and I absolutely loved his final interaction with Oliver. The conclusion paved the way for what is announce to be Arrow’s final season debuting this fall. I was very saddened to hear one long-standing character will not be part of it, but loved the heartfelt way they were taken care of on the season finale.

Pen15 - This Hulu-exclusive show is a nostalgia trip for me. It focuses on two 13-year old girls in 1999 starting seventh grade. There is a lot of late-90s ‘extreme’ pop culture window dressing that I could not help but sink my teeth into since it is what I grew up with in high school. The episode dedicated to AOL Instant Messenger is spot-on and brought back so many memories. Pen15 focuses on all the craziness of middle school one could anticipate, including a few awkward pubescent encounters that got borderline uncomfortable to watch. For the most part though I am on board with following along with the adventures of Anna and Maya in future seasons. Grade: B+

Riverdale, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow - I dropped almost all of the CW shows I follow except for Arrow. Riverdale jumped the shark too many times this season and it seems like they are placing the Archie characters in some odd beast of a show that is a Warriors-Hunger Games-DnD hybrid that got progressively nuts-o by the week. I was initially on board with the new direction and twists on the Archie characters I grew up with, but as this seasons warred on it has gone off the deep end with a horrible intro thread that saw Archie in juvie and eventually on the run for the first half of the season and Veronica heading up a speakeasy underground at Pop’s. Without diving into too many spoilers I was not a fan of how Riverdale glorified certain things that rubbed me the wrong way and a few other characters overstayed their welcome who did not gel with the rest of the cast. The whole speakeasy scenes in the show never gelled, even with the new hard-edge drama this series has and finally when Cheryl ups and forms her Hunger Games tribute gang of archers was the line I finally went and threw my hands up and dropped Riverdale a few episodes after the winter break.

Flash was on a slow downward spiral of mediocrity past couple seasons and I could not take it anymore with new characters I could not get into and Flash looking like a buffoon every week. Chris Klein portrayed the season-long villain and I could not help but feel the producers had no idea how to implement him as he seemed like more of an afterthought. Legends of Tomorrow was my surprise favorite CW show last season, but this season gradually introduced a new character named Mona Wu that was a minor background annoyance at first, but grew into the major character to circle the season around and the character did not get any more affable and was still grating to endure and it also got to the point where I said no more! Like with Riverdale, I dropped both Flash and Legends of Tomorrow within a few episodes past their midseason break. Sorry CW, it is me, not you. Grade: Dropped


MARVEL NETFLIX SERIES

Punisher - People who know me, and if you have been following this blog long enough you know I am a huge Punisher fan, so obviously I am biased, but I still got to say I loved both seasons, and I will give the nudge slightly to season one. I loved the first setting the first few episodes of the second season takes place in to mix things up a bit from the other Marvel Netflix shows. The new love/hate sidekick, Amy took me awhile to warm up to, but I warmed up to her about halfway through and watching their relationship develop with Frank was a lot of fun and to see how some of their foreshadowing paid off later on in the season was pretty special. Curt's and Midani's interplay with Frank is still on the mark and they did not miss a beat in season two. The interplay with the therapist and Billy Russo could have been dialed back a little bit as I felt she was in one scene too many nearly every episode.

As with the first season, loved the action, loved the dialogue for nearly the entire cast and I thought they expertly handled the Punisher as a man of few words, but obviously they had to give him some dialogue to span an entire season, and Netflix got a ton out of his body language and cadence of the dialogue he does deliver throughout the season. I agree with many that John Berenthal is far and away the best actor to portray the Punisher, and I will forever remember all the little things he did to make him pop out and stand out among the rest as the way to play the Punisher. His final line of dialogue to close out the series is perfect! While I was saddened to see this get the inevitable cancellation announcement from Netflix along with the rest of its Marvel shows, I hope this one day gets picked up by Hulu or Disney+. Grade: A

Iron Fist – I had no intentions of watching the second season of Iron Fist, but then I heard it got canned and after being a little optimistic for how he was portrayed in the episode of season two of Luke Cage he guest appeared in I decided to give it a shot. It is better than season one, but it still has a far way to go from being must-see. Finn Jones is far more entertaining this season as Danny Rand and is nowhere near as insufferable this season, although he does he have his moments on occasion. His Kun-Lun background is explored much more this season with some intriguing flashbacks. There is a new split personality character introduced this season who I became a big fan of by the end of the season. Ward and Joy are both more tolerable this season and by the end I was kind of won over by Ward with his whole NA/recovery arc. Davos returns as the main villain and with his background with Danny he winds up a more viable villain than Bakuto and the Hand. Also, no Hand this season!!!

The season loses points with me this season because Joy's arc was initially promising, but kind of falls apart by the end. Same with Colleen who was another character I was not big on, but won over this season...until the last couple of episodes anyway. Finally, Luke Cage’s Misty Knight is on several episodes of this season and I was never a fan of her before and she is equally unpleasing to endure here. If you got the time to kill and want to keep up with everything in the Marvel Netflix universe than I would say it is kind of barely worth it and is enough of a step up from the disastrous first season to check out. Grade: D+ (But a good D+ if there ever was a thing considering how big of an improvement this is from the first season)

Daredevil - What a big step up from the disappointing previous season! Glad to see Kingpin as the forefront again as the antagonist this season and to see him go from prison to taking control of the reins of ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ again was a delight! Also a delight was the evolution of newcomer Dex to the show into a certain favorite Marvel character of mine. The way Daredevil handled Dex could not have been done any better. Coming out of the Defenders team up season, I loved the opening episodes focusing on Matt going into isolation as he recovered and gradually worked his way back into the fray. As with Punisher, all the action and fights here are masterfully choreographed and I was glued to the screen once a fight kicked off. I cannot think of a single person that is mis-casted since everyone delivers sublime performances. Karen and Foggy are awesome supporting characters and I loved their angles this season with more background into Foggy’s family struggles while trying to save the Nelson & Murdoch firm and Karen taking insane risks in her journalistic endeavors.

My highest praise is I think this is probably the sole Marvel Netflix season that could have went an extra episode or two because it felt like they kind of had to rush through a few scenes that felt a little condensed in the final episode. Another similarity Daredevil shared with Punisher is that it also unfortunately was cancelled by Netflix and I am super-bummed to see it go after this redemption season. Here is hoping it too gets picked up on another streaming service or maybe even by some stroke of luck both Daredevil and Punisher get incorporated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

FINISH!!!

That wraps up this past year’s worth of TV coverage. I tip my hat to you if you somehow managed to stick with me all this way through! I do not know if I will do my annual bonus summer TV viewing follow-up or not. I know Netflix still has to unload the last season of Jessica Jones, but I thought it would have dropped within the last few months so who knows when it will hit. I know season three of GLOW will hit Netflix this summer and that will jump instant viewing right away because of how much I enjoyed the last two seasons. I keep telling myself I need to do a one week trial of HBO Now to binge watch the final season of Game of Thrones and get caught up on Ballers so I might go down that well later this summer too. I am also tempted to do a trial of ESPN+ to watch that highly rated Love & Basketball docu-series and get caught on the last several 30 for 30s I am behind on. Got other suggestions for what I should watch this summer? Feel free to tweet them away to me @Gruel

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

2017-18 TV Season Recap, Part Two

Previous TV Season Recaps – (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17)

2017-18 TV Season Recap - Part One (Gotham, Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Jessica Jones, Punisher) | Part Three (Glow, Arrested Development, Luke Cage)

Roseanne – I have no idea what drove Roseanne to go on her racist Twitter tirade that made ABC cancel the show, only to see them shortly thereafter renege and announce the show back for a second season this fall without Roseanne Barr in the show and redub it as The Connors. I was able to keep up with the show on a weekly basis and finished the season the day before Roseanne’s ill-fated tweets. It seemed it took the cast a couple episodes to get the chemistry gelling again after being away from each other for 20 years, but by episode three they were back to form and I was adjusted to how all the returning cast looked and sounded. The first season back had me itching to see which old recurring characters they would bring back and I could not help but crack a smile for every favorite that made a one or two episode return.

The new generation of Connor grandchildren the show debuts all have unique personalities and all three proved themselves worthy of the Connor name. Props to whomever responsible for retcon-ing Dan’s death out of the show and the opening bit on the season premiere ragging on the awful season nine ending. It was great to see the original cast back again, but poor DJ and his kid were not all that featured this season and only in a handful of episodes. Becky and especially Darlene standout as the two main leads on this show. Becky has a fascinating arc watching her attempt to put her life back together after her husband’s death and Darlene has hit rock bottom moving back home with her two kids after divorcing from David. Just like the show was throughout its first run, it deals with some controversial themes and runs with their take on them for better or worse. Regardless, it made for some great TV and I will definitely be there for whatever form the show returns in this fall. Grade: A-

South Park – For the third straight season, South Park rolls out a season-long narrative arc. However, it is not a grand epic arc like the previous two seasons, but more like two or three supporting arcs playing out throughout the year. Cartman & Heidi’s relationship has some unexpected twists and turns throughout the season, and the same can be said for PC Principal and newcomer, Strong Woman. The show is all over the place too with other random themes, be it outrage for Columbus Day, protesting rights for Neanderthals, nuking Canada and a much-needed spoof of Stranger Things that depicts the children of South Park jamming out to the ‘Super Bowl Shuffle.’ I was not super gung-ho on this season of the show, but I was not super against it either as it has better staying power than other long-running adult animated shows such as The Simpsons and Family Guy. Grade: B

Evil Genius – This Netflix exclusive series was a quick watch a little over two hours all together. It is a four part docu-series that breaks down the crime of the dreaded ‘Pizza Bomber’ bank robbery/murder. I am always a sucker for in-depth crime mysteries, and taking in all the peculiar characters involved here was fun to follow along with. Things unravel some in the final part where the series presents its final verdict on the investigation in a way that I could not 100% buy into and thus why I had to go down a letter grade, but I still recommend binging through it with your thinking cap on! Grade: B

Riverdale – This is not based on the wholesome, all-American Archie comics we all grew up with. Season two of Riverdale keeps up the edgy, murder-mystery high school soap opera that the first season debuted. It is essentially Beverly Hills 90210 meets Veronica Mars. The show is unapologetically progressive with a diverse mix of characters and switches up some characteristics of the cast from how they were portrayed for decades in print. For those that might read that and get up in arms rest assured most of the cast are near-perfect portrayals of how I remember them. They even achieved the impossible and made Jughead’s trademark hat somehow work on the show.

Some episodes go a little too over-the-top as it seems Riverdale will experiment with any number of show themes be it related to camming, fictitious new drugs dominating the school, gang wars, attempted rape, sexuality, death by a hundred knives and while they were at it, they also gave a go of attempting a musical for one episode. Why not? More episodes hit than miss, and the season spanning mystery here of Archie and his ‘Red Circle’ tracking down the murderer known as ‘The Black Hood’ kept me glued in every episode. While Riverdale evolves Archie and the gang for the modern age, they still keep plenty of references to its old-school roots with the standout nod being a lovingly nostalgic 50s ‘Pop’s Cock-lit Shop.’ Grade: A

Orville – I desperately wanted to enjoy this more than I actually did. This is Seth McFarlane’s take on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since it is Seth at the helm, it is filled with his style of Family Guy-esque humor….which does not jive while simultaneously trying to be a serious live action sci-fi show. TNG’s humor was more of the dry variety, but obviously that is not Seth’s style. They dial the jokes back somewhat after the first couple episodes, but whenever a McFarlane-esque joke pops in it instantly ruins the flow of a show that otherwise does a pretty solid homage to TNG with an equally comparable and affable crew that proudly wears its inspirations. Seth portrays the captain of the ship, and is surprisingly good in the lead role, and most of the cast is also commendable, minus his first officer who is responsible for most of the out-of-place humor. A few episodes I really dug, but the jokes eventually just took me out of an otherwise fine sci-fi show which I unfortunately had to stop watching halfway through the season. Grade: B-

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

Roseanne - Season 9

-It took a little over a year since I started, but here I am covering the ninth and final season of the original run of Roseanne! I am still bamboozled that in the middle of doing this I found out the show was returning, and that I was able to catch up in time just a couple months before Roseanne returns to ABC on March 27. Click here to catch up on my entries covering all the prior seasons.

-I knew going into this season that I heard a lot over the years that the ‘lottery-winning’ season was the only bad season of the show and that I should have avoided it all together. Season eight had a huge cliffhanger where Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) and Dan (John Goodman) got into a huge dispute involving all kinds of broken furniture that implied their marriage was on the brink of collapse. In what was mostly a good season premiere the two overcome their huge fight and got back together by the end of the episode. However, in the closing credits scene of that episode the Connors find out they won the lottery, which is the catalyst for the worst season of the series.

-The next several episodes are absolute train wrecks! The Connors travel overseas to wine and dine with their newfound wealth in a series of gimmick episodes that I despised so much over the last couple seasons. Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) dates a detestable European prince, there is an awful wild west train heist episode, another that satires Rosemary’s Baby, an episode where Roseanne and Jackie spend at the spa that is easily the worst episode in the entire series, and a couple of episodes where they try and fit in with the wealthy and elite with their lottery winnings. This whole string of episodes is cringe-inducing throughout and saying it was a chore to get through these is a severe understatement. It got to the point I had to watch this stretch of episodes at 1.5x speed to gradually ease the pain.

-The Connors winning the lottery kind of negates the need for a job roll call since they now are filthy rich. A couple early episodes of the season take place at the Lunchbox diner before Roseanne and Jackie ultimately decide to sell their shares to Nancy (Sandra Bernhard) and Leon (Martin Mull). As a tribute to the Lunchbox, last weekend I was playing Scattegories and we rolled the letter ‘L’ and one of the categories was ‘sandwich’ so I felt it would have been a sin not to list ‘Loose-Meat’ as my sandwich of choice! Here’s hoping The Lunchbox returns in season 10!

-Darlene’s (Sara Gilbert) college situation in Chicago is never really addressed at all this season since she and David (Johnny Galecki) are expecting their child. While the Connors are overseas, their house gets renovated with decorations more fitting of their new tax bracket. It is kind of a downer actually watching this much-relatable blue-collar family transform their home into everything that went against the show’s theme all these years.

-I got the vibe the producers felt they went off the rails a bit too far nearly halfway into the season and thankfully dialed back the hokey episodes, and by the halfway point in the season them winning the lottery is almost an afterthought. Roseanne and Dan getting into another huge fight at this point in the season is when this season kind of gets somewhat back on track.

-Roseanne’s yearly Halloween special this season is easily their worst as it was the aforementioned Rosemary’s Baby knockoff that did not pan out. The Thanksgiving episode was a riot though as they have the trademark family fight at the dinner table where Bev (Estelle Parsons) comes out of the closet. Readers of these blogs will recall how bummed I am that Fred (Michael ‘O Keefe) was no longer part of the show, but I was a little relieved to see Jackie and Roseanne at least address his absence during the Christmas special stating that he found a new lady.

-Also around the halfway point of the season DJ (Michael Fishman) is given a few new takes on his character when he is revealed to be into filmmaking and a big time movie buff. He also gets his first girlfriend in the series and the two seem to hit it off by the end of the season. Good on the writers for finally giving DJ some depth….halfway into the very last season.

-Last season saw Lecy Goransen return as Becky after a few years off, but with Sarah Chalke subbing in for a few episodes as a nice gesture for her filling in for a few years. I have no idea why, but Lecy did not stick with the show for its final season so they had Chalke return again to play Becky throughout the entire season. I feel awful though because Becky is very much a background character this season even moreso compared to the previous few seasons. Becky is only in about half the episodes this season, and she only has a couple lines an episode she appears in as she is never really in a featured arc throughout the season. Becky essentially is receiving the Meg treatment on Family Guy. Her husband Mark (Glenn Quinn) is again a more featured presence throughout this season, and like the past few years is played up for comic relief throughout the season. On the season finale the two do reveal they are expecting their first kid however.

-I think I may have only addressed Roseanne’s grandma Mary (Shelley Winters), only once or twice before. Nana Mary appears only once or twice a season on average, kind of like Rose on Lost. Whenever she was on, it felt like a truly special episode where the writers made sure her appearance mattered. I was surprised they kept her character alive all these years to the point they kind of 4th-wall jest about how she is still alive. She has a great final episode in the 9th season where Mary and Bev bury the hatchet after all their years of differences. According to her Wiki, she guest-ed on a total of 10 episodes throughout her run. Winters eventually passed in 2006. Speaking of passing, I was saddened to see in my research for the show’s relaunch to find out that Glenn Quinn passed away in 2002 from a drug overdose. I saw that Mark will be re-casted for the return, but bummed to see I went this long without seeing the news.

-Even though a good chunk of this season is awful, it has one of my favorite episodes where Darlene delivers her kid two months early. Nearly everyone on the cast steps up to deliver a strong performance in this dire time for the family, with an especially powerful scene with Mark, Dan and David that I instantly re-watched a few times. Another fun episode is when Jackie and Mark get involved at the matches at a local wrestling show. It was at this point for the last several episodes of Roseanne where it is brought back down to Earth with back-to-basics storytelling and I nearly forgot they won the lottery.

-Let us touch on the controversial last episode, beware of ending spoilers in this paragraph. Darlene and David are getting setup at Roseanne’s for the interim until their kid is in full health. All the cast has an individual one-on-one with the newborn, Harris in an interesting final moment for each character. Then in an ode to the show’s opening theme where we see the cast gathering around the table for dinner all these seasons we see almost the entire cast gathering around the supper table for Chinese. Earlier in the episode DJ is moved to the basement and he references to Roseanne how they used that room for Roseanne’s writing room way back in season two.

Roseanne then goes in a voiceover during this dinner table scene saying how she has been writing ever since Dan had his heart attack and passed away the previous season. She reveals that she has been trying to cope with his death by rewriting history and essentially the final season of the show was all in Roseanne’s head. She reveals one-by-one the true fate of each cast member with Dan being dead for over a year since his heart attack, Jackie and not her mom actually being gay, and Darlene and Becky swapping spouses. It is truly a bizarre ending and definitely threw me for a loop. I was relieved to hear that ABC is pretending that final voiceover twist reveal from Roseanne never happened and that Dan will be there in full form for the re-launch in March.

-There are two bonus interviews with Roseanne Barr touching on her overall thoughts with the series and final episode. Even though the extras have been minimal to none in all prior Roseanne DVD sets I am surprised they did not interview a few other cast members for a more comprehensive final set of interviews, but I guess this is better than nothing. There is no question, the 9th and final season of Roseanne is easily the worst. Most of the first half of the season is unbelievably hard to watch, and there are a few scattered weak episodes in the second half as well. That twist ending certainly did not help either, but at least there are a few really strong episodes buried in the trenches that made it marginally worthwhile to stick with it all the way through.

-Even though this is the only season of the show I recommend to avoid, that does not take away the fact that I rank Roseanne right up there with Seinfeld as my two all-time favorite sitcoms. If I were to cherry pick the best three seasons of the show to watch, I would recommend seasons three, four and six. By season three the entire cast was clicking and Roseanne finally hit her groove with working in the mall café and having a great supporting cast with Crystal and Bonnie to bounce off of and that chemistry carried over throughout season four as well. Season six was a great redemption season for the series by bringing Becky and Mark back into the mix and David and Fred injecting new life and perfectly blending into the regular cast.

Seasons two, seven and eight are also strong seasons but having some minor hiccups from me ranking them in the same company as seasons three, four and six. Seasons one, five and nine are the weakest seasons with only season nine being the only one I recommend to avoid all together. It took about half the first season for the cast to find their groove and to finally start evolving into the characters we got to love. Season five hit a major lull after Becky and Mark left a couple episodes in and it was not until towards the end of that season that Roseanne finally started to recover from it and you can already tell from this blog why you should avoid season nine.

This was a blast reliving Roseanne for the past year. Thank you all for sticking with me throughout it, and have to re-enforce that I am flabbergasted that the show was announced to return in the middle of going through all these seasons so I am taking credit for these blogs inspiring ABC to bring Roseanne back! Rest assured, I will most likely dedicate a separate future blog covering the new season of Roseanne instead of lumping it in with all the other TV shows in my annual TV season recaps you can find in the links below. So please come back and join me in a few months for my thoughts on season 10 of America’s favorite dysfunctional family!

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television

Roseanne - Season 8

We are just a month away from the return of new episodes of Roseanne (season 8 excerpt) on ABC! Last week I finished season eight, and now must try and blitz through the final season in time for the series premiere next month! If this is the first Roseanne blog you are viewing here dear reader, then you can catch up on past season recaps by clicking here.

-It’s time for the job roll call. Roseanne (Roseanne Barr), Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), Nancy (Sandra Bernhard) and Leon (Martin Mull) are still holding down the fort at The Lunchbox restaurant. Like last season, the restaurant takes a little more of a backseat this season and is only featured in several episodes. Also like last season, Nancy is only sprinkled in a few episodes this season as well. I am all for that as less is more with her character, as the show went overkill with Nancy in her first couple seasons on the show. Darlene (Sara Gilbert) is still in college in Chicago and pops in every other episode as a result, while Becky (Lecy Goransen & Sarah Chalke, more on that in a bit) references having a job at one point in the season, but does not specify where. Dan (John Goodman), Mark (Glenn Quinn) and Fred (Michael ‘O Keefe) are still at the city garage, but a new opportunity comes across their desk late in the season. David (Johnny Galecki) references working part time at a pizza shop, but bails on that late in the season to spend one episode training at a Disney World-esque theme park that turns out to have some dark characteristics that leads to David bailing on that too.

-If you recall last season, Roseanne was midway through her pregnancy when the season ended. With the offseason break, it feels like Roseanne’s pregnancy is dragging on endlessly to the point that family members make some 4th-wall-bending gags referencing just as much. I did find it fitting that Roseanne has her kid on Halloween. If you thought that was the last pregnancy of the series, you are dead wrong because late in the season Darlene and David find out they are having a kid too and shortly thereafter get hitched in one of the most memorable episodes of the series!

-In a bizarre twist, Lecy Goransen returns to portray Becky after taking three seasons off for college. I always preferred Lecy’s portrayal of Becky more, but I am guessing the production staff did not want to give Sarah Chalke’s version of Becky the complete burial and they had her comeback for three random episodes this season as Becky. It takes a little adjustment adapting to the Becky-swapping but eventually I was acclimated to it by the end of the season.

-I referenced in the previous season recap that the writers of Roseanne must have been big fans of Friends because they referenced it a couple of times last season. The writers continue to shed some form of appreciation to Friends again this season when Dan concludes his favorite classic sitcom is a lot like a 1970s version of Friends, and Roseanne later goes on a tirade stating it is impossible for the cast to eat anything and look as good as they do. I stated last season the writers must have borrowed a page out of Friends by dumbing-down Mark to make him the Joey Tribianni of the cast. I thought it was impossible for them to make Mark even more of a tool, but I was proven wrong in grand fashion this season when Mark gloats about his Scrabble skills and later gets jealous in the Disney World episode when he goes on a rage when he presumes Goofy is making a pass at Becky.

-This season marks the final appearances of Fred and Crystal. Fred was a huge character in the previous two seasons and it was jarring to see him only in a couple early episodes this season and never referenced again. I thought they could have kept something going with the uncomfortable divorcees dynamic between him and Jackie constantly passing their kid over to each other in an early episode, but it was not to be. Crystal has even more of a depressing sendoff. Crystal was a huge supporting character in the first four seasons of the show, but she only appeared on a handful of episodes in the previous three seasons. Her decreased presence on the show is baffling considering she is married to Dan’s father. Her final appearance is on the season premiere where she gives Roseanne a baby shower gift and only has one line of dialogue.

-Aside from the pitiful sendoffs to major supporting characters my other gripe this season is there is a midseason lull filled with too many gimmick episodes. My theory is the writers were getting a little burnt out this late into Roseanne’s run and decided to do a few episodes they had on the backburner for awhile. There is a 1950s black and white themed episode filmed in the fashion of Leave it to Beaver that did not win me over. It may have been a fresh satire when it originally aired, but seeing it for the first time in 2017 comes off as a spoof I have seen countless times. There is also an episode that did not work for me which features Dan jamming out with Blues Traveler, who were kind of a big deal when this episode aired in the late 90s.

-I did not mind the two-part Disney World episode as the first episode is primarily the Connor family annoying the passengers and staff on the airplane ride there and the second episode is the family taking on the rides and thrills of Disney World like only the Connors can. I felt dirty for liking these episodes however when I was doing my background research for this blog when I discovered that episode aired shortly after Disney acquired ABC and it forced most of the hit ABC shows of the time to incorporate Disney World themed episodes.

-Other quick highlights of mine this season is when Jacki and Roseanne team up to get a stereotypical older-cranky manager type fired from his job in three straight episodes. Another stellar episode is when the Connors throw Becky and Mark a party in their trailer and guilt-shame Becky in the process in order for Becky to improve her life. The dangers of the Internet are revealed this season when David connects Jacki up to the Internet (and with AOL of all services!) and she instantly succumbs to its addictive qualities in another killer moment. I am happy for Leon finding happiness this season when he marries Scott (Fred Willard). Roseanne’s ideas for the ultimate gay wedding do not sit well with Leon, but luckily the wedding winds up going off without a hitch!

-Darlene’s wedding was a very special episode that leads to a grand three episode finale for the season. Dan was not a fan of how quickly the wedding came to be, but him and Darlene eventually talk out their differences in a touching scene and the wedding is a success…..until Dan has a heart attack during the reception. The next episode features the family coming together and being there for Dan while he recovers in the hospital. All initially seems well in the season finale when Dan comes back home, but when Roseanne confronts Dan about cheating on his new hospital-ordered diet Dan looses it and the two have THE ultimate fight of the series thusfar. It was goosebump-scary how intense the two got into it, and such a downer to end the season on a cliffhanger that had me thinking the Connors may be heading for a divorce.

-After a couple seasons with no extra features, season eight has two extras. One is a video commentary with Roseanne and Michael Fishman doing commentary over the episode where David works at the evil-Disney World. It is not worth watching unfortunately as the two do not have much to say and there are many lulls throughout. Other than that there is a quick eight minute feature on all the jobs Roseanne has held throughout the show’s run which is a quirky little watch. As I mentioned in previous blogs I will echo again here that I would have loved more in-depth interviews with the cast and crew about the controversial topics the show hits on and what was going on with Chalke/Goransen constantly swapping out and Darlene only being on every other episode for the show’s last several seasons.

-Minus a stretch in the middle part of the season, I will give a thumbs up to season eight of Roseanne. A part of me is super-bummed to see things get so heated in the season finale, but another part of me is excited to see if and how Roseanne and Dan salvage their marriage. Then again, I recall hearing a few times over the years that Roseanne’s final season is complete garbage, but I have no choice but to try and breeze through it before the show returns to ABC next month! Please join me here soon for my season nine recap to see if season nine is as dreadful as everyone else says it is!

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television