The New MacGyver

The Eighties was something of a Golden Age for me, we had Knight Rider, The A-Team, Airwolf, Stingray, The Equaliser, Hardcastle and McCormick, Streethawk and, of course, MacGyver. And I loved them all from ages 7- 12 you know the period you absorb the stuff you love. It may be that love is a little too uncritical but I don't care. Since then there have been shows that I’ve loved as much The Pretender, Vengeance Unlimited, Relic Hunter, The Sentinel, Bugs, Leverage, The Librarians, Arrow, The Cape, Burn Notice, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Person of Interest and I could keep going... And as is the way of things there have been attempts to revive some of these properties Knight Rider seems to get a new pilot or series every few years Knight Rider 2000, Knight Rider 2010, Team Knight Rider and Knight Rider (2008). There was an A-Team movie in 2010. Two Equaliser movies starring Denzel Washington. And I’m sure there are more to come. Which brings me to MacGyver. Richard Dean Anderson has revived the character a few times for commercials – Mastercard and Citan spring to mind.

He even appeared as MacGyver in a MacGruber skit as MacGruber’s dad.

Then there was the unaired pilot, MacGyver where a pre-Supernatural Jarod Padalecki, played Clay MacGyver the original’s nephew. This seems to be universally referred to as Young MacGyver Which brings me to the current MacGyver or NuGyver as I like to call him. The show is now at four seasons with a fifth on the way. I watch the show and my wife asked me what I thought of the show and I told her I still wasn’t sure about it. “You’ve watched how many seasons?” She asked. “Three” I said (before the fourth came out) “And you’re not sure. Riiiiiiight. Three seasons, you like it” So a little history would seem to be in order A pilot was shot in 2016, featuring a longer haired Till that was scrapped and reshot, I’m still curious about what was in that pilot (It’d be a nice special feature in one of the DVD sets – just saying) But they retooled it and reshot it and I’m not sure of the end result – many of the characters are callbacks or versions of characters from the original series which I can live with. Mac is still improvising his way out of situations and really that’s all I want but here’s the thing about the classic MacGyver – the show was about him, other characters came in and out and aside from Mac’s boss Pete Thornton there were no regular characters and a handful of recurring characters. In this iteration, Mac is part of a team. His boss was initially Patrica Thornton who was replaced by Maddie Weber, which I’m fine with (I won’t spoil why the change happened but they keep trying to hint of the same fate for Maddie which is an annoyance because I know they wouldn’t go to the same well twice). My big problem is the team and the size of it. Initially the team was Mac, Jack Dalton (Mac’s bodyguard) and Riley (a hacker) and I thought that was a bit big. Then they added Bozer, a childhood friend of Mac’s who initially didn’t know about Mac’s job at the Phoenix Foundation but soon joined the team. Then we got Samantha Cage an Australian psy ops expert but she left after one season, then Bozer’s spy school girlfriend Leanna Martin who lasted about the same time, Jack left and was replaced by Desi Nguyen and then in season 4 the Phoenix Foundation was bought by Russ Taylor.

If you think that’s a lot of characters you’d be right and the show has to give them all something to do which means that we get B plots of Bozer at spy school, Riley and the issues with her father, Jack Dalton find the guys who robbed him. Some episodes Bozer just stands there in the ready room with Maddie as the team is on a mission. I suspect that Cage and Leanna left because they had nothing to do but they keep trying to shoehorn in new regular characters. Riley’s hacking is almost as important as Mac’s improvisation and in a recent episode centred on Riley and her hacking had Mac stopping a nuclear meltdown with two jet skis relegated to a B Plot. I repeat the guy with his name in the title is relegated to a B plot doing the very thing we want him to do. And it’s not every episode but to give the characters space it means that the title character gets less space. In the next episode, Mac is out of action and Desi, Riley and Russ Taylor take on the brunt of the adventure with a showdown with the villains and a few “What would Mac dos”. Look there might be a reason why Lucas Till is taking a smaller role – I recall reading that there were on set issues which lead to health issues and I can’t begrudge him that. BUT his name is on the Title, I’m watching for MacGyver if he isn’t fairly consistently driving the A Plot then what’s the point? Knight Rider 2008 suffered from the same problem. Look, MacGyver is successful enough that it’s been renewed for a fifth season and I keep watching because of my love for the classic MacGyver but I don’t love it in the same way. It’s not MacGyver using his brains and ingenuity to save the day. Jack, or Desi, might punch the problem or Riley might hack it or Bozer, er Bozer might do something and Macgyver doesn’t feel the same. Back in the day MacGyver hated guns and when he punched someone he shook his fist afterwards because the punch hurt – it made the punch seem like a last option. Now Mac is okay with people using guns and he’s just as happy to hit someone. This a point Richard Dean Anderson made when he turned down a guest spot (I do wonder if the plan was for him to be Oversight, Mac's Dad.) I know I should judge it on it’s own merits but the producers want to trade on my nostalgia inviting the comparison. Perhaps if they called it Phoenix Foundation I wouldn’t be so hard on it. I watch the show and I may be part of the problem – the show gives me enough to remember being a boy watching the original to keep me coming back but It’s not the same. The nostalgia may give the show an extra notch or two in my ratings it’s better than Scorpion that had me hoping for some MacGyver/A Team style builds but never quite did. (A Scorpion/MacGyver crossover would have been fun) (A quick aside NuMac and Scorpion are in the same universe as NuMac crossed over with NuHawaii 5-0, who in turn crossed with NCIS LA. NCIS LA crossed with Scorpion.) There’s a story when Oasis released Wonderwall, a very 1960s Beatles inspired tune, someone asked George Harrison what he thought. George said that it would have been an average song back in the 60s but now it was a pretty good song. And that’s how I feel about NuGyver, it would have been an average show in the 80s but now it’s okay

Watchmen Season 1 starring Don Johnson, Regina King

Well what a show. Nine episodes and a complete story. Sure there were some dropped threads but generally speaking all the big questions were answered. There are going to be spoilers, don't say I didn't warn you.

We open in 1921 with the Tulsa race riots. America like Australia has moments in history that they should not be proud of. The Tulsa massacre was a real event but we don't find out the significance of it until later, several commentators have pointed out that the Tulsa massacre is in effect the destruction of Krypton. And serves as the traumatic origin of at least one character.

But that was not readily apparent and took several episodes to tie it all together. I didn't mind but it did create a little confusion as we jump to nearly a century later in the present day and I was trying to find the link. But I was rewarded but staying with the show – the sixth episode focussed on the first of the costumed adventurers Hooded Justice.

And the show succeeded in sending me back to the graphic novel to see if the revelation of who Hooded Justice was under the mask was plausible. Truth be told I have a couple of doubts. Fistly in Under the Hood, Hollis Mason says that he heard Hooded Justice openly support Hitler – not something that I would expect from the African-American Will Reeves. There is a hint that the German propaganda Will’s father brought back from World War I might account for this.

Next the actor they choose for 1930s Will Reeves seemed a little small to be Hooded Justice who shares a build with circus strongman Rolf Moller. I could make explanations that Mason was deliberately obscuring Hooded Justice's identity but that feels like I have to do too much damage to the Graphic novel.

Also Will is a man with a wife and child (and we need the child as we discover that Hooded Justice is main character Angela Abar's grandfather.) He is in a homosexual relationship with Captain Metropolis and as a beard for that he's swanning around with Sally Jupiter the original Silk Spectre on his arm. It's too much but for the TV series to work with the comic but for Will Reeves as Hooded Justice to work we need all three to happen. The latter two being what we knew from the graphic novel which the creators assured us was canon. (The TV series wisely doesn’t bring Sally Jupiter as a beard into the episode)

Another thing that bothered me as reread the graphic novel, the similarity of Hooded Justice’s origin to the first Nite Owl, both were cops in the same city at the same time, both read Superman comics and were inspired to put on costumes and fight crime. Now similar origins in comics aren’t unusual (Batman and Johnston McCulley’s The Bat – both of whom created their crime-fighting identity after a bat flew through their window). So it’s not impossible for it to play out that way but it doesn’t help my suspension of disbelief.

(given the racial politics of the show surely Hooded Justice’s original of nearly being hung and wearing the noose home has to be a reference to Jussie Smollett’s faked racially motivated attack)

 Ultimately, when watching the episode it seemed plausible enough and I am being really nit picky. I have to admit I loved the whole show.. The show has multiple callbacks to the graphic novel.

 The official tie-in Petey-pedia allows from interesting expansions to the lore of the world. Interestingly, with the Sister Night centred episode – Angela Abar took her name from a movie of the same name. Agent Petey’s memo about the movie expands about the origin of the movie and how it falls in the “Black Mask” genre which is a hybrid of Blaxploitation and Superhero movies. Now Angela’s surname Abar was niggling at the back of my mind I was sure I’d heard it before in a similar context and Agent Petey mentions Sister Night (1977), The Black Superman, Tarantula and Batman. The latter birthing a legion of click bait articles “Batman exists in Watchmen” It was the Black Superman that finally reminded where I’d heard her name. There is a real 1977 Blaxploitation movie called “Abar, the First Black Superman” (renamed “In Your Face” for VHS release in 1990). I’d presume that this was the source of Det. Abar’s surname.

Rereading Watchmen the graphic novel, while watching the TV series was equally rewarding. In Adrian Veidt’s interview in the back matter of issue 11 Adrian mentions the Seventh Cavalry. The context is completely different from the one seen in the show but one wonders if that was the source of the name (equally did Veidt form the 7th Kavalry to help discredit Rorschach )

I should mention the new characters primarily introduced though the Defence of Police Act. After the Seventh Kalvary attacks on police officers this act was introduced to allow police to wear masks and conceal their identities. The regular beat cops wear a yellow mask on their lower faces and detectives are allowed to create their own identities – the series focuses on Det Angela Abar’s Sister Night and Looking Glass, the latter’s origin tied to the ending of the Graphic novel. Red Scare, Pirate Jenny and Panda all appear but are background characters if there is to be a second season a focus on these characters would be welcome.

The TV series is a worthy continuation of the world of the graphic novel. If this all we get I can’t complain .

The Blake Mysteries:Ghost Stories (aka New Beginnings) 2018

I am a huge fan of The Doctor Blake Mysteries which aired on the ABC from 2013 to 2017.  It starred Craig McLachlan as Dr Lucien Blake, a police surgeon in Ballarat in the 1950s.  Blake was a WWII veteran who was very good at solving mysteries.

It rated quite well but the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) decided to cancel the series in 2017.  (Just as they did with Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries - although that may have been more because Essie Davis was getting more international work Game of Thrones)

But there was good news Channel 7 was going to continue the series (as well as a Miss Fisher Spinoff Miss Fisher's MODern Mysteries featuring Phyrnne Fisher's niece).

Then Craig McLachlan got caught up in #metoo and one of his co-stars from the Rocky Horror Picture Show stage production accused him of inappropriate behaviour.  McLachlan is fighting the charges and suing for defamtion  but it put a pall over the revival of Dr Blake and he bowed out.

From what I read everyone was ready to start filming casting had happened and the decision was made to make Dr Blake's new wife and former housekeeper Jean the focus of the TV movie.

Which raises the question, could the series work without the "great detective" Dr Lucien Blake.   Could you make Monk without Tony Shaloub as Adrian Monk, Elementary without Jonny Lee Miller or The Mentalist without Simon Baker?

The Blake Mysteries does work in a way because Lucien's absence is part of the show and the characters step up and take on some of the roles that Lucien would have taken.  Lucien's old colleague Dr Alice Harvey has been appointed the new police surgeon and she now takes the lead on autopsies and forensic investigations that Lucien Blake would have taken, his wife Jean effectively becomes Lucien butting into police cases,  Jean however feels more Jessica Fletcher just happening to be on the scene of this murder rather than Lucien's Quincy MD style of investigation.


It ultimatly works and I hope we get an explantion as to what happened to Dr Lucien Blake,  if McLachlan does return it my make for an interesting new direction for the show either as rival detectives or as a Nick and Nora style couple detectives.

Pulp TV

With The Black Hood making his TV debut on Riverdale, after appearing in comics, radio and a three issue pulp, I decided to look at what other pulp characters and works from pulp writers have been adapted to TV.

So either the character had to appear in a pulp magazine or it had to be the work of a pulp writer. 

Pulp Characters

Conan

Conan The Adventurer (1992)

Conan (1997-1998)

Zorro

Zorro (1957-1961)
The New Adventures of Zorro (1981)
Zorro and Son (1983)
Zorro (1990-1993)
Kaiketsu Zorro (1994)
Zorro (1997-1998)

Zorro: La Espada y La Rosa (2007)
Zorro Generation Z (2008)
Zorro The Chronicles (2015)

Sheena

Sheena Queen of Jungle (1955-56)

Sheena (2000-2002)

The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger (1949-1957)
The Tarzan Zorro Hour (1980-82)

Tarzan

Tarzan (1966-68)
Tarzan and The Super 7 (1978)

Tarzan The Lord of Jungle (1976-79)
The Tarzan Zorro Hour (1980-82)
Io Jane, Tu Tarzan (1989 – Italy)
Tarzan (1994)
Tarzan: The Epic Adventures (1996-1997) - which also featured Pellucidar and Amtor (Venus) from Burrough's other series.
The Legend Of Tarzan (2001-03)
Tarzan (2003)
Tarzan and Jane (2017)

Philip Marlowe

Philip Marlowe (1959-60)
Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983)

Flashgun Casey
Crime Photographer (1951-52)

Buck Rogers
Buck Rogers (1950)
Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century (1979-81)

Pulp Writers

Dashiell Hammett
The Thin Man (1957-59)


Erle Stanley Gardner
Perry Mason (1959-66)
The New Perry Mason (1973)
Perry Mason TV Movies (1986-1996)



Max Brand (Frederick Faust)

Destry (1964)

Doctor Kildare (1961-66)

Young Doctor Kildare (1972)

A number of stories that appeared in pulp magazines were adapted as episodes of anthology series like Robert E. Howard’s “Pigeons from Hell” as an episode of Thriller or Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos appearing in many sources such as Supernatural, Scooby Doo, Justice League, and Limitless to name a few. 

New Pulp TV Series

So after the top 50 New Pulp Movies list a couple posts back, I decided to do a New Pulp TV series list.  I've put them in alphabetical order (more so I don't double up) and not to play favourites.

1.      Adventure Inc

2.      Agent Carter

3.      Agent X

4.      Airwolf

5.      Arrow

6.      Bugs

7.      Burn Notice

8.      Daredevil

9.      Darkwing Duck

10.   Human Target

11.   Intelligence

12.   Jack of All Trades

13.   Jonny Quest

14.   Kim Possible

15.   Knight Rider/Team Knight Rider/Knight Rider 2008

16.   Legend

17.   Leverage

18.   MacGyver/MacGyver 2016

19.   Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

20.   Now and Again

21.   Nowhere Man

22.   Person of Interest

23.   Queen of Swords

24.   Relic Hunter

25.   Sable

26.   Sam Fox Extreme Adventures

27.   Soldier of Fortune Inc/ Special Ops Force

28.   Stingray

29.   Street Hawk

30.   Tales of the Golden Monkey

31.   Terra Nova

32.   The A-Team

33.   The Adventures of Briscoe County Jnr

34.   The Cape

35.   The Deep

36.   The Equalizer

37.   The  Finder

38.   The Green Hornet

39.   The Librarians

40.   The Mummy: The Animated Series

41.   The Persuaders

42.   The Player

43.   The Pretender

44.   The Punisher

45.   The Sentinel

46.   Transporter: The Series

47.   Vengeance Unlimited

48.   Veritas: The Quest

49.   Veronica Mars

50.   Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

Oz Comic Con Report

So on Sunday 20 September 2015, I attended the second ever Brisbane  Oz Comic Con.

It was a full day, I left home at 7am and didn't get back until after 8pm.

I got down and lined up before the doors opened.  Once the doors opened we flowed in fairly quickly.  Some other cons I've attended that hasn't happened.

Oz Comic Con allows you to buy autograph tokens which is a huge time saver and I was able to slip straight into the Richard Dean Anderson autograph line.  I was glad that I did as that line became massive fairly quick.  I was lined up behind a really nice family and we had a bit of a chat as Mum and Dad tag teamed in and out of the line.  They had a cast photo of Stargate SG1 signed by all the cast members except one Richard Dean Anderson. 

There I was the almost lone MacGyver guy in a sea of Stargate fans. I had taken my copy of the only MacGyver tie in from the 1980's an original novel MacGyver On Ice.  As best I can tell it's set before the TV series.  (The only other Tie In I've found is the recent five issue comic book miniseries.)

 

Richard Dean Anderson had never seen it before. So I was stoked.  I also mentioned how much I also enjoyed his one season follow up Legend.  It was a steampunk western about a dime novel writer Ernest Pratt essentially living the life of his hero Nicodemus Legend. "So you were the one." He quipped. I shook his hand. 

After that I saw that Mark Sheppard's line had no one in it.  Like a flash I was over there.  Mark's filmography reads like a list of cool genre shows from the last two decades.  Supernatural, The X Files, Charmed, Leverage, the list goes on and on. I grabbed my DVD copy of Soldier of Fortune Inc.  The show was basically an updated version of The A Team.  Mercenaries hired by the government.  In the second season, the name changed to Special Ops Force, Sheppard and a couple of other actors were out replaced by Dennis Rodman.  I quite enjoyed the second season myself but I never saw the first season except for the DVD I'd found with two episodes.  As far I could find that was the only release for the series.

Mark Sheppard was really nice, he made a comment about being nearly hidden on the cover (that's him over on the far left) as he signed it. I commented that I loved his work and shook his hand. 

The first panel of the day I was planning on seeing was at 11 and it was nearly 10 so I decided to have a bit of a wander.  I hit the Dark Oz booth and grabbed a copy of Retro Sci Fi Tales.  This a great anthology title of fun old school Sci fi stories.  If you see a copy I recommend grabbing it. (The companion horror title Decay is pretty good too.)

I then got some issues of Birds of Prey signed by Nicola Scott and Greg Rucka signed my copy of Huntress: Cry for Blood.  I then saw Dr Paul Mason and grabbed a sweet print of the new Supergirl for Abbey.

After that I saw Jim Beaver and got him to sign Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting.  He called me an Idjit. (Why? Because I asked him to.)

Then I was off to the first panel From Comic to Screen to Comic. Jim Beaver took a little longer than planned so I missed the start but it was interesting to hear the stories of adapting from one medium to another.  Everything I heard from Wolf, Tom and James makes me so keen to see The Deep animated series.  And the Fury Road tie in comics sound very interesting.

After that it was time for lunch and some more shopping before heading back to stage 3 for more panels.  I took the opportunity to grab a couple of Gesalt books Unmasked and Wasteland Panda.  I briefly spoke with Wolf mentioned how much I enjoyed the documentary Comic Book Heroes and got him to sign my copy of Wasteland Panda.

Dean Rankine, Dr Paul Mason, Kylie Chan, Queenie Chan and Doug Holgate talked about the realities of publishing.  Very few people in Australia (and around the world) make enough from their art be it writing or drawing or other.  The need to have a second career.  Dean made a point that he would like to be JK Rowling and it's true we look to the outliers, the ones who got the million dollar advances.  I know I'm probably never going to make a lot of money from writing but I have stories I want to tell which is the same for everyone else on the panel.  It was sobering and Paul, I think, jokingly referred to it as the kill your dreams panel.

After that I quickly popped down to Dean Rankine's booth and grabbed The Itty Bitty Bunnies save Christmas.  This book is just the right level of messed up.

The rest of the day was filled with panels.

Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott's Black Magick panel was interesting and the presentation got me really excited to read this new comic.  Greg Rucka described it as "Witch Noir" which sounds intriguing and Nicola Scott's grey washed style makes this a must get for me.

Next was the Scrubs panel with Sam Lloyd and Rob Maschio.  While the pair did answer the questions asked there was a lot of joking around and by the end of the panel it was standing room only. 

That ended my time on stage three.  I must say that Amanda Bacchi and her volunteers did an amazing keeping things moving and making the panels enjoyable and interesting.

Next I was up to stage one to see Richard Dean Anderson.  Man he is funny and irreverent.  I think Jack O'Neil is probably closer to the real Richard Dean Anderson that Angus MacGyver.  There were alot of questions asking him to pick his favourite thing - favourite line, favourite cast mate, favourite show etc.  But there were some funny stories like the time his brother tried the egg to fix a radiator trick that MacGyver did in one episode.  It didn't work for the Anderson brothers but they did enjoy the scrambled eggs. Or the last time he came to Australia there was a water leak on the plane and it had to turn around.  The next morning on the new plane, the pilot saw RDA and said had he known MacGyver was on board he would have kept flying and gotten MacGyver to fix it as they flew.

Lovely stuff.

Next was the Kevin Smith panel.  I've enjoyed Kevin's movies over the years.  Clerks, Mallrats, Jersey Girl, Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks II are all enjoyable films and I'd heard that he is really funny.

I wasn't disappointed, he went over time but it didn't feel long.  Stories of film financing blended into stories about Johnny Depp and making a stupid walrus movie.

I liked the message at end about as long as you're not hurting anyone have a go at your dreams.

While a long day it was a fun and enjoyable day.