TV Times

I thought there was no way they could maintain the gut-churning spirit of the comic book by Robert Kirkman but the AMC series 'The Walking Dead' just keeps tightening the knot.

I swear if they don't find that girl Sophia alive (I can't remember from the comic and I AM NOT going to research it - that will only spoil a great moment when she is found or it will crush all hope I still have in life and put me into a death spiral the likes of which the heavens have yet to witness. ;)

I just need SOME hope. Please, AMC...give a brother a break here.

Bravo's Next Great Artist is one show I love because I am insanely interested in design. The way things are put together and function and look and all the variations on a theme are things that make me crazy.

As a kid I used to love this PBS show about these two working class guys who restored furniture - the process they went through to transfer one thing into something else was endless fascinating to me.

This is the show's second year and this time they have an Internet favorite in the custom action figure genre, The Sucklord - that's his name - as one of the artists. Very pretentious by reputation and in person he doesn't disappoint. He's a New York sewer rat with the bite to back up his swagger. I love his action figure customs and pieces. He's also got passion for art as was shown in the way he defended other artists work to the judges when he felt that the judges didn't get their critique right. I loves me an artist with some crazy to him. Full retard all the way. He has no chance of winning but is smart enough and talented enough to prove me wrong.


The mentor for the artistes is the Tim Gunn like and very effete Frenchman, Simon de Pury. He may act like an aristocratic dandy but the man knows his modern art. I wish he was more warm and encouraging to the artists but that will come with time. I can't compare him to Tim Gunn from 'Project Runway' because TIM stands alone at the top of the hill when it comes to mentoring young artists on reality tv shows.

I likes these types of programs (and some of the cooking ones) because the contestants actually have to PRODUCE something to be judged by knowledgeable people after a set time. There is imagination here, there is risk taking here, there is EFFORT. You have to back up your bullshit. Win or lose you have to take a chance. I try to drill that lesson into my head daily. I may not do much with my blog of balloon juice but you can't deny the effort I put into my failures.

That is one reason why I say FUCK YOU KIM KARDASIAN. Hasn't your grifting gone on long enough? Isn't it time for your whole family of con artists to take your filthy loot and leave us all alone...forever? You fucking do nothing that makes our civilization the least bit better. You only take and if you even return anything to the world it always feels soiled and used.


I am liking 'Hell on Wheels' because it's trying to be a realistic portrayal of the taming of the West by the railway - warts and all. It feels like Justified only 100 years earlier. I like the old west vibe and the creepy characters they have invented. The Swede is a particularly scary bogeyman.

Colm Meany gets to chew up some scenery and kick around some extras in a role custom made for his acting style - that of an arrogant, bloodthirsty, calculating, selfish, vain, naive, visionary Railway baron. He is the man with the iron will to drive the railway where the land didn't want it go. Guy like that is part con-artist part industrialist and part mad man. The perfect skill set for the job. Meany takes his character to interesting places. You can see the wheels turning.

I love the experiences he has with a young reporter who came to cover a settler massacre by natives. With detached relish Meany ADDS arrows to bodies so that pictures will be more sensational. Then he tells the reporter how things REALLY happened so as best to aid his own position and agenda. Rupert Murdock of the Old West.

Rapper Common is a nice surprise in a role that requires a lot from an actor. Like fellow one named rapper, Ludicrous, he's got the acting chops to pull of the role of a newly freed slave working on a railway for an ex Rebel army soldier. Let me put it this way - every character on this show has 'issues' and 'challenges'.



I find that I am not watching Castle anymore. I don't know when that show being insufferable to me. The Mentalist has got to go too. I don't know why I hate them so but I do. Hawaii-5-0 is working my last nerve.


I think all those shows feel like so much filler after the lean storytelling of British TV. I have been getting my fill of great shows like 'Luther' and 'Sherlock'. Five years is a long time to try and keep a show fresh. Imagine how great 'Lost' would have been if it only had two six episode seasons. Less is so often more when it comes to great television these days.



Loving my cartoons - Young Justice is great superhero storytelling using fresh characters in a a fresh universe that is continuity free but rewards old time comic book geeks like myself with nice little easter eggs along the way.


I even like the playfulness and grown-up issues of the new Green Lantern cartoon. The look of this one is clean, no sharp edges really. But this is the kind of order I expect from a Green Lantern cartoon and the look fits the themes and the stories. Somebody has done a good job at replicating the best of the 'colored lantern' stories of the past several years.

I am dying for the moment that Sinestro arrives and I am so glad they didn't use him in the first two episodes of the series that I saw. I hope they pick the right voice actor to do him. You gotta get Sinestro's arrogance just right for it to work and if you don't get Sinestro right then you might as well pack it in.

Even this fantastic episode of Duck Dodgers got it right.