Category Archives: If We Controlled Your Remote

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If We Controlled Your Remote… 9/17/17

Posted on September 17, 2017 by

Last week FOX launched the new series The Orville. The series is set in the year 2418 and stars Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy) as Ed Mercer, a promising officer whose career derailed after he caught his wife Kelly (Adrianne Palicki, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Friday Night Lights) in bed with a blue alien. It’s been about a year since the divorce, and Mercer finally gets his first and last chance to prove he is worthy of captaining a ship, the Orville. When assembling his crew, Mercer hires best friend Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes, ER, American Dad ) as his helmsman, but Malloy isn’t one to stick to the rule book. The rest of the crew is comprised of folks from an assortment of human and alien species, races, and sexes. For fans of Star Trek, these characters have very familiar archetypes but with a slightly more comedic twist. Worf-like second officer Lt. Commander Bortus (Peter Macon, Shameless, Bosch) is from a species that is all male; Data-like science officer Isaac (Mark Jackson) is from a mechanical species known for being racist toward biological creatures; top physician Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald, 24, Castle) chose her position because she felt she’d be needed the most with this crew; young security officer Alara Kitan (Halston Sage, Crisis, How To Rock) hails from a planet with higher gravity, so she has increased strength and abilities; and navigator John LaMarr (J. Lee) is chill and just wants to be able to drink his soda while doing his job. The only person on his crew that Mercer didn’t get to choose was his first officer, and he is both shocked and dismayed to learn that his ex-wife Kelly was assigned to the position, which leads to some humorously awkward moments both on the bridge and during excursions.

All of the original FOX promos made this series appear to be a Galaxy Quest-like parody, but instead it turned out to be more of a straightforward show akin to Star Trek Enterprise, with a little added humor. Once I got used to this unexpected tone, I really enjoyed the premiere for the show that we got, but it still felt a little torn as to which identity it wants – a serious homage or a comedy. It feels like it will be more of the former than the latter. The special effects were impressive, the cast is great, and I really liked the dynamics of this crew. I’m looking forward to seeing what adventures await the Orville in future episodes.

If you missed last week’s premiere you can download it for free on Vudu or iTunes, and it’s probably also available On Demand or on the FOX app/website.

On tonight’s episode, “Command Performance,” when Ed and Kelly are tricked by a hologram of a ship in distress and find themselves prisoners in a replica of their former home, Alara must step up in her first command of the Orville and attempt a heroic rescue. Meanwhile, Bortus and Klyden receive some happy yet unexpected news.

Check out the second part of the premiere tonight on FOX at 8/7c.

I’ll also be watching/recording The 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, Fear the Walking Dead, The Great Food Truck Race, The Strain, The Last Ship, The Deuce, Vice Principals, and Episodes.

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If We Controlled Your Remote… 9/13/17

Posted on September 13, 2017 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

Last year’s finale of You’re the Worst saw Jimmy do the most unlikely thing we’d ever expect from this series: he proposed to Gretchen. Even more shocking? She said yes. Then to get us right back to normal, the prospect of a new family terrorized Jimmy and he fleed the scene. To kick it all off for the new season, we got two episodes back-to-back last week.

Season four opened up a few months after that fateful night with Jimmy living somewhere past Barstow, California, in a trailer park retirement village. It was there that he had grown a beard and palled up with an older man named Burt who loved fast cars and old TV shows. Burt was a curmudgeon of sorts who hated everyone else in the community. He and Jimmy spent the days watching The Fall Guy and talking about what losers all the other retirees were.

One day a neighbor mentioned to Jimmy that she was the one who stole the keys to Burt’s prized muscle car because he just couldn’t see well enough to drive anymore. Instead of holding that in confidence, he told Burt at once and they broke into her house to get them once she went out. Jimmy soon learned that Burt in fact was a horrible driver indeed. After confronting him about it and getting punched, he decided to drive back to L.A. Burt came to terms with the fact he must be a bit kinder to the other retirees if he wanted any friends at all.

Episodes two started in the City of Angels, where Gretchen was now living at Lindsay’s apartment and smoking crack and singing 90s tunes at a frightening pace regularly. It seemed she no longer worked as a publicist and had slumped into relative solitude. Lindsay, recently divorced, was now working with a fashion designer, which was perfect for her. Gretchen, who suffered from severe depression, confessed to Lindsay that she hadn’t left the house in 3 months because she was afraid she’d run into Jimmy, who rejected her. Lindsay went to see Jimmy to find that Edgar had completely redecorated the house and he insisted Jimmy was gone for good.

Lindsay went back to tell Gretchen that Jimmy vanished on the same night the proposal fell through, that he probably “drove back to England.” This gave Gretch some courage but came back to bite Lindsay in the ass when Gretchen came to the fashion design space, cracked out, during a photo shoot. Outside Gretchen cried to her best friend how she didn’t know if she and Jimmy were broken up, since technically they were engaged still. That frantic conversation ended with crunk AF Gretchen chasing Lindsay down an alley singing Bare Naked Ladies “It’s Been” at 90 mph.

To escape the pressures of work and Gretchen, Lindsay went to see Edgar. They realized the two of them had become the serious ones, whereas their besties had become the ones running from their problems. They mocked Jimmy & Gretchen playing around the house, saying things the other two would say. It ended with them in Jimmy/Gretchen’s bed, where finallllyyy (after me rooting for it for 3 seasons!!) they had sex. In the very last scene, we saw Gretchen having sex with some guy, probably on crack, when she saw a text come through on her phone from Jimmy: “Hey…”

On tonight’s episode, “Odysseus,” after Jimmy returns to Los Angeles, he attempts to make amends with Gretchen, leading to their first confrontation. Lindsay and Edgar enjoy their new friends-with-benefits arrangement while Edgar tries to show Jimmy that Gretchen wasn’t the only person he abandoned.

To see how the Jimmy/Gretchen reunion goes, tune in to FXX at 10/9c.

Tonight, I’ll also be watching the season premiere of South Park & Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.

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If We Controlled Your Remote… 9/3/17

Posted on September 3, 2017 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s been a slew of movies converted down to the small screen the last few years, many of which didn’t seem called for a TV adaptation. For example: Fargo, From Dusk till Dawn, 12 Monkeys, or Minority Report. Adding to that list now is the surprisingly well-done Get Shorty, which has been airing on Epix on Sunday nights. I’ve been watching from the jump, but today I’ll plug you in from last week and maybe my exposition will be enough for you to watch tonight. I know I’ll be fixated.

Last week, the fourth episode of ten started like a Tarantino flick might: a confusing scene that we’ll be headed toward the next hour. Unlike the book and movie versions of this title, the television iteration of Get Shorty follows an enforcer for mobster in Nevada not Miami, and his name is Miles Daly not Chili Palmer. And poor Miles is destined to get tied to a chair in a warehouse in this episode as the first scene showed. He was held at the mercy of his Mexican Mafia boss Amara and her head henchman Yago.

Flashback to that morning, and we found Amara calling Miles to check on the progress of the film she was laundering millions of dollars through. She was also dealing with a war escalating with another local mafia in Nevada. In L.A. where Miles was working as Amara’s proxy, they now had a series of offices set up for their production company to work out of. He and his partner, B-movie director Rick Moreweather, had a sit down with April Quinn, a rep from the studio who couldn’t stand either of them. She informed them that Gravity Pictures was buying out Amara at a profit. Miles decided to keep this information from Amara, reasoning that he got to stay in L.A. as long as she thought he had her money tied up in the movie.

Next a skateboarding drug dealer working under Yago got killed by Amara’s rivals. Rick wanted to ask Amara to invest in a second movie, but Miles obviously didn’t want that and he discouraged him. April & Rick started asking for changes in the screenplay from Louis, who was pretending to have written it. Meanwhile the guy they killed and took the screenplay from, Owen? His ex-girlfriend called the office to ask where he was. She knew they had his screenplay. Rick went behind Miles’s back and called Amara anyway, to see if she’d produce other movies. He inadvertently spilled the beans about the buyout, without realizing the consequences.

Miles told Louis he was being fired as writer, but he was ambivalent about it. Amara called Miles to see if he’d tell her that she was being bought out as producer on The Admiral’s Mistress. Following that, Rick took Miles to a swanky afternoon party to bump elbows with Hollywood bigwigs. They saw April, who had been demoted off her project Lethal Limit 4, relegated now to help them with their weird period piece movie. She was pissed. Miles met a kooky old man by the cliffs behind the party.

Back in Nevada, Miles’s estranged wife Katie dealt with a breakdown from her new boyfriend, Jeff. He told her how the other day, Yago mouth-raped him with the handle of one of his golf clubs. She immediately called Miles to suggest separation is not enough, that maybe they should get divorced. So Miles sent Louis to deal with Owen’s ex-girlfriend while he headed back toward Nevada to mend things with Katie. Once back in Nevada, he was spotted by one of Amara’s thugs. Louis tried to spin a lie to Owen’s ex, but in the end he found shooting her dead was the easiest solution.

Miles talked to Katie and gave her brochure information on acting classes for their daughter, trying to lure them out to California. They were on better terms when he went back to his apartment. Later that night he was abducted from there by Yago, and now we’re right back at the start. Amara had her lawyer there, who verified that Miles had the power to stop the buy-out, as producer. She was about to have him killed when he revealed that he got her the signed picture of John Stamos she’d told him to get. She spared him for now.

The next morning Rick’s secretary told him that a famous director was interested in reading the script. She had to harangue him into calling him back, but it just might work – the director was the crazy old guy Miles met on the cliffs at the party!

On tonight’s episode, “A Man of Letters,” Rick struggles with the casting process as a watchful Amara considers future film investment opportunities; meanwhile, Katie and Emma visit Miles in Los Angeles.

Check it out tonight on Epix at 10/9c.

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If We Controlled Your Remote… 9/1/17

Posted on September 1, 2017 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

As we move into tonight’s season three finale episode for Syfy’s Killjoys, we’ve wrapped up most of the major mysteries that the series had left dangling but are still plagued by the unanswered question of will this show get a season four? Last week the episode opened with Dutch and D’avin discussing the fact that killing big bad Aneela will also mean that Dutch dies – such is the nature of the green goo which spawned Aneela. Just then an alarm went off because of an unknown ship docking on the RAC without permission. It turned out to be Delle Seyah, or Kendry as they now refer to her, who requested parlay, specifically with Johnny. Once they conferred privately though, she demanded they turn over Dutch and fully surrender.

D’avin came up with the idea to insert a fake memory into the Hullen memory cloud via the captive Hullen they still had, Kitaan. They intended to lure her into an ambush by providing a fake location for Dutch. To achieve this, they pulled in brain/memory expert Pippin Foster. Dutch inserted a knife between Kitaan’s vertebrae to prevent her from moving while they experimented on her mind. Kendry used the terms of parlay to get a sonogram on her pregnant belly, as she didn’t fully understand her pregnancy. DNA tests revealed that D’avin and Aneela are in fact the parents of the child she carries. Dutch took Kitaan to the Latimer 6 System, where the pool of green from which she was birthed is. So they can destroy her if they destroy that pool. D’avin got into her memory using his special relation with the goo and input the false memory correctly.

Kitaan woke up when she was left alone with Pippin though, and lo and behold: the knife had fallen out and she escaped. She forced Pip to hijack the ship. The timid memory expert confessed the plan to her and she sought to merge with the green goo quickly to upload the new memory, which would show the false one to be a forgery. Dutch showed up and kicked her ass, but not before she got her hand in a jar of the green goo, thusly warning the rest of the Hullen of the treachery.

They then decided to space Kitaan, knowing she wouldn’t die but would likely spin in space forever.

At the end of the episode, D’avin & Dutch had a fierce confrontation when discussing the next move to make. She was determined to go kill Aneela, despite the consequences. The Jaqobis boys didn’t like it, but they accepted her choice. Then for some reason, Dutch went and killed the scarback priest Alvis, who was both her ex-lover and recurring ally. It was an utter WTF?! moment for me, so okay, maybe one more mystery other than renewal. Tune in tonight to see if we get any answers!!

On tonight’s episode, “Wargasm,” the Killjoy militia has gathered everything they need, ready to go to war with Aneela and her Hullen using Delle Seyah as bait. But as the battle begins, Aneela changes the entire game.

See how the season (series??) ends tonight on Syfy at 8/7c.

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If We Controlled Your Remote… 8/25/17

Posted on August 25, 2017 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

Last week on Dark Matter, we finally got all but the money shot on the resolution of the lasting rivalry between Two and Ryo that began late season two. After she was kidnapped the episode before by the alternate timeline Three, who goes by Boone, she was brought before Emperor Ryo Ishida on his home world. She hastened to making mincemeat of his guards and was dueling with him when an explosion rocked the whole palace. A meeting of Ryo’s generals had been sabotaged.

Back aboard the Raza, the rest of the crew wondered if Two could still be alive but soon learned the truth when Ryo called and invited them to Zairon to negotiate a trade: the Blink Drive in exchange for Two. Instead of going in person, Three, Five, & Six beamed their minds into clones to talk about an exchange. Six confronted the leader of the royal guards, Misaki, who confessed to her murder of former Raza crew member Nix. The Emperor’s advisor Teku took Five to see Two, and together they weighed options.

Ryo confided in Three that when he regained his memories, he recalled that Three himself was the cause of the radiation poisoning that eventually led to the death of his lover, Sarah, who existed now only as a digital copy of her former human self. Next in a private talk with Five, Ryo revealed to her the identity of her sister, whom she knew was adopted by a wealthy family. Though the reveal never made it past the fourth wall, she was visibly shocked and upset.

Later Ryo had his private talk with Six, and Six thwarted an attempt on the Emperor’s life. Then, for some reason, despite the state of emergency, Ryo had a full dinner with all of the Raza crew. There, he told Six that their Portia/Two discovered that he was a mole through an informant high in the ranks of the G.A. (Could it be Anders?!?) Misaki interrupted dinner, saying they are under attack. She also produced evidence that made it appear Teku was behind the attempt on Ryo’s life. She was soon ordered to execute the Raza crew members, but they were already breaking free to get Two to a ship to escape.

Misaki lured Ryo to an ambush, finally revealing that it was her treachery all along. He slayed the group of assassins then engaged her in an exciting katana fight. Six & Five got into their clone/transport units that would transfer their memories of the day back to their real bodies. Three stuck around and got his clone killed on purpose so he didn’t have to retain the memory of his contribution to the tragedy of Sarah’s death.

Just as Misaki was about to kill Ryo, Two intervened and killed the traitor with the same poisoned knife she used to kill Nix. Two then took Ryo into custody, and both of them headed back to the Raza. Once on the ship, the crew debated the fate of their former ally Four, who was Ryo. She went into where he was being held as their prisoner, and they had a long talk. He told her she had a child that she has no memory of. It was his apology before she was to execute him. And then. In fine cliff-hangar fashion… The episode ended with her finger on the trigger about to execute him!

Does Four/Ryo die tonight in the first two seconds of the episode? Is Anders the one who betrayed Six? Will we also learn who Five’s sister is? Only one way to find out, and that’s by watching the final episode of season three of Dark Matter tonight! Also, be sure to check out my interview with Jeff Teravainen, who plays Anders! You can see it here: Jeff Teravainen Interview

On tonight’s episode, “Nowhere to Go,” the crew of the Raza unite Ferrous Corps’ enemies in an effort to end the corporate war.

See how the season ends tonight on Syfy at 9/8c.

I’ll also be watching the season finale of Wynonna Earp & Killjoys!

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