Tagged: Fox

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: THE LAW IS A ASS #373

ROSEWOOD IS STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURAL

Seriously writers and producers of Rosewood, you don’t have to make it this easy for me.

Rosewood is a new TV series on Fox. It’s a police procedural; but to make it different from all the other procedurals it has a gimmick: the main character takes a drug that unlocks the full potential of his brain. No, wait, it’s that the main character is a naked amnesiac with tattoos all over her body.

Sorry I get confused. There are so many of these procedurals on TV that they’re starting to mix into one giant alphabet soup of NCSICIS.

Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr. is an independent pathologist in Miami. When someone dies and the grieving family or friends aren’t satisfied with the findings of a standard autopsy performed by that incompetent government pathologist, they plop down 5k – 7,500 for a rush job – to hire Rosewood and all of his state-of-the-art equipment for an independent autopsy. So every week, Dr. Rosewood will look into some homicide and then proceed to procedural with Homicide detective Annalise Villa to solve that murder, because the police and their incompetent government pathologist could never do it on their own. (How many multi-millionaires took their talents to South Beach, anyway? Are there really enough super rich grieving family and friends to keep this pricey pathologist in practice?)

In the pilot episode of Rosewood, Dr. Rosewood and Detective Villa investigated the murder of a young woman. After they spun their wheels (literally; they showed Rosewood’s classic GTO convertible so many times, GM must have coughed up for product placement) for thirty-three of the show’s forty-five minutes – because wheel spinning’s the procedure of procedurals – they settled on their prime suspect. I’d say they found said suspect, because he was the only one left after they eliminated everyone else, but that wouldn’t be true. The first time this suspect was even mentioned in the show was when Rosewood and Villa decided he was the killer.

Said suspect was a

SPOILER ALERT!

high-end Miami DJ with a yacht from which he held spun platters and held parties. Sometimes he’d even take the party to Mexico, where he’d pick up black cocaine that had been molded so that it looked like records and smuggled it into Miami by mixing it in with his other records. The victim was one of his party girl dancers, who learned what he was doing. So he killed her.

In order to investigate the DJ, Rosewood and Villa went to one of his parties. Villa danced with the DJ. Then, while Rosewood created a diversion, Villa went below deck, knocked out the security guard who was guarding the below deck area insecurely, and proceeded to search the DJ’s living quarters and office. She found the black cocaine. She also found the DJ, who chose this plot-appropriate time to come below deck.

The DJ pulled a gun on Villa, because what’s a cop show without a cop in jeopardy? The DJ proceeded to confess to the murder, because what’s a cop show without a bad guy who monologs? Villa disarmed the DJ, but he got away and started to run, because what’s a cop show without a chase scene?

Not to worry, Rosewood and Villa caught him.

(Oops, forgot to SPOILER ALERT that “they caught him” bit. If you didn’t see the police catching the murderer in a police procedural coming, sorry I spoiled it for you.)

And, I’m sure they took the DJ to trial. I’m just not sure on what charges.

Murder? I’m not sure they have the evidence to make that charge stick. The second Villa searched the below deck area without a warrant she made an illegal search. The cocaine disguised as records that she found would be inadmissible. hat would make proving the DJ’s motive difficult.

Drug smuggling? Same problem. Illegal search, inadmissible evidence.

What about the fact that the DJ confessed to the crimes? Well here’s the thing, Villa got the DJ to confess by talking to him while he held the gun on her. She exploited her initial illegal search to get the confession. The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine says any evidence obtained by exploiting an initial illegal search is also inadmissible. So the DJ’s confession probably wouldn’t be admissible, either.

Moreover, even if the confession wasn’t Fruit-of-the-Poisonous-Tree inadmissible, it was inadmissible for another reason. When Villa was dancing with the DJ, she slipped her phone’s bluetooth headset into his pocket. What he said was broadcast to some nearby police officers who had recording equipment bonded to Villa’s bluetooth.

Which begs the question, how powerful was Villa’s bluetooth? If I leave my phone in the kitchen and walk to the bedroom, my phone drops the bluetooth connection. How were some police officers who were several dozen yards away able to keep the connection open?

It also begs a more important question; hasn’t anyone connected with Rosewood heard of wiretap laws?

Seriously, how long would it take to research illegal wiretap laws in Florida? Exactly as long as it takes to type “Florida illegal wiretap law” into Google then hit the Enter key. That simple task immediately produces a link to Florida Statute 934.03.

Okay, it takes a little longer. You also have to read the statute.

Or you can trust me when I say I read the statute and it makes using an electric device – like a bluetooth – to intercept an oral communication a crime. So Villa’s bugging the DJ was also an illegal search, because it broke the law. (Breaking the law, how much more illegal can you get?)

But don’t worry, Rosewood and Villa can still get the DJ on another charge. See, while he was running away from the police, the DJ grabbed a girl at gunpoint used her as a hostage. Then he was captured.

While I had the Florida statutes keyed up, I also read Florida Statute 787.01. So if you’re still willing to trust me, I can tell you in Florida, a person who abducts another person (i.e., like grabbing her at gunpoint) to use as a hostage is guilty of kidnapping. When the DJ kidnapped the girl, he committed a new crime. Even better, the kidnapping was sufficiently attenuated from Villa’s illegal search, that the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine wouldn’t apply to it.

So good news Rosewood and Villa, you can convict that bad old DJ on something. Maybe not murder. Or even drug smuggling. But kidnapping ain’t exactly chump change. And it’s extra special good news, considering your bad police work almost botched the case entirely. Remember Columbo’s gimmick was that he only pretended to be incompetent.

Although…

These procedurals all have some gimmick to differentiate them from all the other procedurals on the air. As gimmicks to separate you from other procedurals go, having investigators who are actually incompetent might be kind of fun.

Upcoming Lucifer TV Series Coming Under Fire

lucifer_morningstar_p-4076055

It’s been a couple weeks since we got the news of this coming fall’s network TV lineups. Many have noted it’s a golden age for comic-sourced television. One of the fall’s new shows on FOX will be Lucifer, based on the series of the same name featuring characters created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith & Mike Dringenberg for DC Comics.

Not so surprisingly, a show about The First of The Fallen getting bored with his tenure ruling Hell so he moves to L.A. to be a nightclub impresario has some folks upset, namely the American Family Association and its offshoot OneMillionMoms.com. AFA & OMM have started online petitions to “urge Fox [to] drop plans to air Lucifer” citing “The program previews mischaracterize Satan, departs from true biblical teachings about him, and inaccurately portrays the beliefs of the Christian faith. By choosing to air this show, FOX is disrespecting Christianity and mocking the Bible.” OMM also points out that “Previews of the pilot episode depict graphic acts of violence, a nightclub featuring scantily-clad women and a demon,” as objectionable content.

Here’s the first look trailer for Lucifer starring Tom Ellis:

OneMillionMoms.com state that “Our goal is to stop the exploitation of our children, especially by the entertainment media,” which begs the questions: Why haven’t they gone after the source material? Why are there no online petitions against any comics or comic book publishers on either the OMM or AFA sites? Doesn’t Fredric Wertham’s theories of youth corruption dovetail nicely with their “values”? Are comics not an entertainment medium?

At the time of this writing 9,175 “Moms” had e-signed (that’s almost 1% of one million) and 53,386 e-signatures have been collected on the AFA petition. It’s unclear if AFA’s numbers include the Moms or not. Oh, and the trailer has 565,783 views on YouTube.

It’s probable that if their petition fails to get FOX to cancel the show prior to its 2016 airdate, they will turn to the tactics they are currently using against TV Land’s Younger and urge sponsors to pull their spots.

REVIEW: Beware the Batman Season 1 Part 1

1000x1000_bewarethebatmans1-e1397424318907-8050370As much as there has been a fascination with Batman since his debut 75 years ago, lately, the trend has been to examine those vital origins. This began back with the Christopher Nolan Batman Begins and will most likely be on display next fall on Fox’s Gotham. In the comics, Scott Snyder is wrapping up his own take on that first pivotal year in the cape and even Cartoon Network took a stab at it with Beware the Batman: Shadows of Gotham. The latter debuted last July only to be unceremoniously yanked off the air in October after 11 episodes. A total of 17 are known to exist out of the 26 ordered but despite promises the show remains off the schedule.

Meantime, Warner Archive recently collected the first 13 stories onto a two disc Blu-ray set billing it as Season One, Part One. From a content standpoint, the idea of looking at those early days is ripe for exploration in any form. Interestingly, under Executive Producer Sam Register, the production team led by Glen Mirakmai, Mitch Watson, and Butch Lukic proclaim this is Batman (Anthony Ruivivar) after being in action five years. He’s no novice by then and depending upon which continuity you follow, he’s clearly a veteran hero. That length of experience puts him at odds with how he’s portrayed, somewhat unsure of himself, somewhat error-prone.

And unlike his one-man crusade as seen in the superior Year One animated film and graphic novel, he was on his own. Alfred was reluctantly aiding him but here, he’s a willing and very active participant as his one-0time experience as a secret agent handily comes into play. James Gordon (Kurtwood Smith) is still a lieutenant at the outset, graduating to commissioner during this season. What doesn’t work at all, for me, is the adding on of Katana (Sumalee Montano) as Alfred’s goddaughter and Robin surrogate. Batman should remain a loner if you’re exploring those first days and years and if he gets a sidekick, it should certainly not be someone from another culture with her own baggage but someone more organic to the story, such as Barbara Gordon, who merely crushes on the Caped Crusader here.

That said, the series gets kudos for avoiding the tried and true villains in favor of a wide assortment of lesser lights starting with Grant Morrison’s silly Professor Pyg (Brian George) and Mister Toad (Udo Kier). The second episode introduces a darker, more malevolent Anarky (Wallace Langham) who is the meta villain for the arc and has eschewed his comic book-based philosophy in favor of being a criminal mastermind. We also get a deadlier and less silly Magpie (Grey DeLisle-Griffin). On the other hand, we get Ra’s al Ghul (Lance Reddick), Lady Shiva (Finola Hughes), and the League of Assassins so the Dark Knight certainly has his hands full.

The series is also rich with other elements of the DC Universe such as Michael Holt and Simon Stagg; and if Stagg is on hand, you can bet Rex Mason (Adam Baldwin) is here, too. In fact, “Toxic” is one of the stronger stories as Mason becomes Metamorpho and is first seen as a threat dubbed the “Golem of Old Gotham”. There’s also Jason Burr, introduced in “Safe” but who recurs and sharp-eyed readers know he is destined to become Kobra.

The series looks different, with the figure work being more angular and distorted than one expects. The CGI-animation is somewhat off-putting but better than the last straight Batman series but nowhere near as good as the original Animated Series or The Brave and the Bold. The strong writing makes you overlook the odd visuals which is a benefit.

The Blu-ray disc looks and sounds just fine, as one has come to expect. And being from the cut-rate Archive arm, there are no extras.

Jen Krueger: Checking in to The Grand Budapest Hotel

Sometimes living in L.A. has great perks, and one of the most recent I’ve enjoyed is the fact that of the four theaters in the U.S. that had The Grand Budapest Hotel on limited release this past weekend, one was just a few blocks from my apartment. I know Wes Anderson isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but as someone who’s been a fan of his films for more than a decade, I find myself increasingly annoyed by the most frequent criticism of his work: he’s making the same movie over and over again. The most common things cited to support this complaint are the look and themes of his films, but I don’t find either of these to be valid arguments. (more…)

REVIEW: Bones the Complete Eighth Season

bones_s8_blu_f-e1381191798408-4356880The premise behind Fox’s Bones has always felt as it was straining against credulity. After all, how many bizarre murders occur that require a dedicated team of forensic anthropologists? Well, the answer appears to be eight and counting although with season nine now airing, it’s also starting to sag under its own weight and age. As a result, the cases have taken a back seat to meta stories and character arcs that never feel fully explored.

At the end of the seventh season, Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) took her infant son and abandoned her lover, FBI Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) and was on the run after a series of unbelievable charges were leveled against her by the sadistic Pelant (Andrew Leeds). We open the eighth season, out now on home video from 20th Century Home Entertainment, several months later as the couple is reunited. However, the Spectre of Pelant, which has been growing over the years, now begins to hang on like an overripe albatross and sucks the life out of the show.

He reappears later in the season, in a far-fetched plot that is designed to rob Jack Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) of his fortune, fueling the madman’s schemes, which also sets up the season’s cliffhanger. The problem is that he’s not a very interesting foe and he always seems to be flawlessly perfect in his execution. After years of building up the romance between Booth and Bones, they have conceived a child and moved in together, forging a life. He finally proposes and then Pelant arrives to orchestrate events that have him call off the deal or innocents will die. Feh.

The only person who seems genuinely happy this year is the boss, Cam (Tamara Taylor), as she engages in a full blown affair with occasional intern Arastoo Vaziri (Pej Vahdat) but she has to keep it quiet because, after all, she’s his boss and there’s a bit of an age difference which never seems to come up.

After more than a hundred episodes, the series is free to take chances and the most satisfying one may be the one that brings back psychic Avalon Harmonia (Cyndi Lauper) and everyone talks to the teen victim’s skull and we see things from its point of view.

Meantime, early in the season we have Angela (Michaela Conlin) question her personal goals which is neatly packed away after only a few episodes while Sweets (John Francis Daley) gets his mini-arc of self-doubt after failing to capture Pelant in the finale.

The series looks fine thanks to the clean transfer to high definition and the sound is also good. As usual, there are some fun and interesting bonus features. There’s occasional commentary from producer Hart Hanson, accompanied by Stephen Nathan and Ian Toynton. There are a few scattered deleted scenes, and Dying to Know: Bones Answers Your Questions! (9:00) as the cast and crew answer fan questions, which also fills Bare Bones: Total Fandom-onium (1:59). Finally, there’s the requisite Gag Reel (5:26).

Martha Thomases: Cosplay Everyday

thomases-art-130927-146x225-3832893I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, it’s Comic-Con everywhere. I’m not just talking about the crowds of people from out of town, the ones who don’t know how to walk down an aisle (or street) in a way that allows for the existence of other pedestrians.

I’m talking about the outfits.

The way I figure, it all started out at Disneyland. First, and from the beginning, it was a place where seemingly mature adults would wear hats that made them look like giant mice. More recently, they have this deal where little girls can spend the day in princess outfits. A little girl arrives in shorts and a t-shirt, complains for a while and gets to change into royal gear. She spends the day on rides, in her gown, and then changes back to her civvies when it’s time to go home.

Once we’ve seen people in formal wear on roller-coasters (and before 6 PM!), what else is there shock us? The geek have inherited the earth.

We control the eyeballs that Hollywood most wants. Look at the fall television line-up. I think most of the new shows have an element of the fantastic, whether it involves witches or zombies or believing Robin Williams could have fathered Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

I don’t particularly want to dress up in a costume. I mean, I wore a uniform in boarding school for four years, so every day, when I get dressed, and I get to choose my own outfits from clothes that weren’t selected by Episcopalians, it feels like a costume. I just went shopping for a dress to wear to a formal event next month, when I will be in costume as a responsible adult, maybe even one with a little skin in the game. That’s enough fantasy for me, thanks.

Cosplay is everywhere, and it’s not just for kids anymore. It’s not even just for nerds anymore. There are reality shows starring cosplayers. There are major Internet arguments about who is and who isn’t the real deal.

So cosplay has gone mainstream. Maybe no one is going down the street dressed like Wonder Woman, but the stuff designers are offering for sale are just as unrealistic. Actually, I take that back. I think Seventh Avenue (the New York fashion industry) and the magazines that rely on Seventh Avenue would go bankrupt if women were encouraged to find our inner Amazon.

Still, at least in New York, people walk down the streets in all kinds of outfits. I’m not surprised that Fox had trouble attracting attention to one of their new shows if this was how they thought they would get attention. A headless horseman? As long as he isn’t wearing a backpack, he’d get no attention at all.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Archie Unleashes the Fox

  • News
  • July 15, 2013
Cover: Dean Haspiel
Cover: Darwyn Cooke

Archie Comics has tapped an A-List line up of talent to celebrate the launch of their new Red Circle Comics series, The Fox. Award-winning creators Mark Waid and Dean Haspiel craft the story inside the book, which also includes variant covers by Darwyn Cooke and Fiona Staples.

THE FOX #1
NEW RED CIRCLE SERIES!
From the world of the New Crusaders, comes the FANTASTIC debut of the high-flying FOX! Emmy Award winning writer/artist Dean Haspiel (Billy Dogma, HBO’s Bored to Death) and Eisner Award winning writer Mark Waid (Daredevil, Thrillbent) bring the legendary, pulp-style hero The Fox to life in “Freak Magnet, Part One: The True Face of MyFace”! When photojournalist Paul Patton, Jr. donned a super hero costume,

Cover: Fiona Staples

he thought it would be a quick way to make some news—now the strange and unusual just can’t help but be drawn to the freak-magnetism of the fabulous fighting FOX! While working on a puff-piece at the Red Circle Gazette, an evil truth about social media mogul Lucy Fur is discovered, bringing Paul face-to-face with a criminal kingpin! Get in on the ground floor with the hottest new fall series featuring art and story from the biggest names in comics today! Get freaky!

Plot/Script: Dean Haspiel, Mark Waid
Art: Dean Haspiel, Allen Passalaqua, John Workman
Cover: Dean Haspiel
FREAK MAGNET Variant: Dean Haspiel
Running with the Foxes Variant Cover: Darwyn Cooke

 

High-Flying Variant Cover: Fiona Staples

Cover: Dean Haspiel

Shipping Date: 10/16
On Sale at Comic Specialty Shops:
32-page, full color comic
$2.99 US.

Click on images for a larger view.

Monday Mix-Up: The Simpsons Family, guy!

  • Uncategorized
  • March 18, 2013

What? I mean… what??? Has somebody gotten the scheduling screwed up on Sunday night on Fox?

I don’t know the next time April Fool’s Day falls on a Sunday, but if both The Simpsons and Family Guy are still on the air (I’ll bet they will be) I think this would be a great switch.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 Synopsis Unveiled

  • News
  • February 6, 2013

watch-the-amazing-spider-man-super-preview-550x207Sony has released the first formal details on the sequel to last year’s hit reboot, Amazing Spider-Man:

In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), life is busy – between taking out the bad guys as Spider-Man and spending time with the person he loves, Gwen (Emma Stone), high school graduation can’t come quickly enough. Peter hasn’t forgotten about the promise he made to Gwen’s father to protect her by staying away – but that’s a promise he just can’t keep. Things will change for Peter when a new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), emerges, an old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, and Peter uncovers new clues about his past.

The official, announced cast list: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Shailene Woodley, Dane DeHaan, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti and Sally Field.

Additionally, the studio said that behind the camera Dan Mindel will be the cinematographer, Mark Friedberg is the production designer and Deborah L. Scott will be the costume designer and Pietro Scalia and Elliot Graham are the editors.

The film is scheduled for production this year, to be released May 2, 2014, one month after Disney’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and two months before Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, scheduled for July 18.

REVIEW: Glee the Complete Third Season

glee-season-3-b_glee_bd_ssn3_spine_boxshot_jp01_rgb-300x400-2757563The greatest pitfall television series featuring high school cast members has is that the cast is already older when the series begins and they age out rapidly. Smallville stopped setting stories in the high school because the cast looked ridiculous on the sets. Confronting the inevitable graduation challenges the producers to find tortured ways to keep the cast intact after the caps and gowns are put away. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer suffered from this challenge so it is refreshing to see Glee take graduation head on in the third season of the Fox series.

Glee the Complete Third Season came out on DVD last week and seeing it without the weeks-long breaks between cycles, allows you to see how they handled the coming graduation and choices the teens are being asked to make. While the series has never really focused on the kids’ academics, there was almost zero interest in ACTs or college visits, so it was always in the ether but never the focal point of the stories. Instead, it was all about getting to Nationals in New York and succeeding. The season opened with the need for fresh members thanks to a rival Glee Club set up by Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel) while Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) ran for Congress on an anti-arts platform.

Clearly, the producers had no real idea of where to take the characters as motivations and the status quo changed, twisting them beyond recognizabilty. The most ill-served may have been Quinn (Dianna Agron) who started off trying to steal back her baby, given to Shelby for adoption,  then embracing the final year of high school until her driving accident (don’t text and drive) and recovery. Somewhere along the line, this sympathetic character, who in season two recognized she was a small town girl stuck in Ohio, gained 50 IQ points and got into Yale and was Ivy League bound. Huh? The best teen villain has become a hero. All the edges to characters are gone, from Puck (Mark Salling) to the divas Mercedes (Amber Riley), robbing the students of interesting character variety. Santana (Naya Rivera) was also softened although her coming out as a lesbian and rising as a performer were among the season’s highlights.

Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), the romantic couple at the center of the storm, decided to get married and their arc dealt with that reality and the choices each need make for themselves and each other. This rang far more true than the disastrous marriage between Coach Beiste (Dot-Marie Jones) and Cooter Menkins (Eric Bruskotter), which formed a mini-arc in the final third of the season.

While each of the 22 episodes is entertaining and often heartfelt, as a season-long arc for the faculty and students it’s a mess and by now Ryan Murphy should have a very clear idea of who they are and where these characters are going. Instead, he seems to have lost any sense of edge in Sylvester, giving her instead a rival in Roz Washington (NeNe Leakes). Even the show’s most intriguing character, Burt Hummel (Mike O’Malley), somehow found himself running for Congress and winning, stealing him from Kurt (Chris Colfer), just as his son’s dreams of going to NYADA are crushed.

Musically, the show remains strong, aided by the welcome addition of Darren Criss’ Blaine to the New Directions. Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) is also back after a brief contract issue. Some of the winners of the reality series, The Glee Project, wind up added to the cast but are little more than hangers-on with little learned about them and rarely given a showcase. The quest for a championship takes a backseat to the fall musical, West Side Story, which featured some terrific reimaginings of the classic numbers.

In the finale, eight of the cast graduate and turnover in the New Directions will fuel the fourth season as it begins in a few weeks. Most of the graduates will continue to appear so the ensemble swells which is not always a good idea.

The four disc set looks amazing and of course sounds terrific but we’ve come to expect that from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. A neat feature to the set is that the menus will help you keep track as you work your way through the season, remembering where you are.

As usual, the extras are heavy on the music, the show’s hallmark. We get more from the Glee Music Jukebox, although you get clips and not the full songs that were edited to air. Some of the non-musical bits include “Glee Under the Stars” (7:45), a kickoff event at Santa Monica High School. “Glee Give a Note” (7:46) shows stars Jayma Mays and Jones present Culver City Middle School a check for $10,000 for arts education.

You can enjoy some extended and deleted scenes throughout the discs. The highlight here is a Sue Sylvester flashback that should have found its way on air. “Glee Swap: Behind the Scenes of ‘Props'” (5:41) is a nice look at the fun body-swapping episode. “Meet the Newbies” (13:20) spends more time with the new cast members than the series seemed to. “Saying Goodbye” (15:19) is a good look at the emotional toll the finale took on one and all. Lynch’s acerbic Sylvester is found on “Ask Sue: World Domination Blog” (6:07) and “Return of Sue’s Quips” (2:58).

One can hope that the freshened cast will ignite some greater dramatic consistency to match its musical excellence. For now, we have this set which is maddeningly enjoyable while being frustratingly inconsistent.

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