Sitcom | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On the Recursive Nostalgia of “That ’90s Show”…

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist yesterday. With the recent release of That ’90s Show on streaming, it seemed like a good opportunity to delve into the show’s very interesting nostalgia.

Part of what is so fascinating about That ’90s Show is that layers of nostalgia that permeate it. It is not simply a show nostalgic for the nineties. It is a show that is itself nostalgic for the nostalgia of the nineties. It’s a conscious effort to resurrect the multi-camera sitcom, a classic institution of American television that has become something of a cultural artifact. It’s also a show that is less interested in its own nineties setting than it is in indirectly channelling the nostalgia that that show felt for the seventies. It’s a hall of mirrors.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: netflix, nineties, nostalgia, resurrection, revival, Sitcom, that '90s show | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Rarely Going – “Star Trek: Lower Decks 3×09 – Trusted Sources”

Posted on October 23, 2022 by Darren

I was delighted to join the wonderful Kurt North for an episode of the animated Star Trek podcast, Rarely Going.

Trusted Sources is the penultimate episode of the third season of Lower Decks. It is an episode that is obviously teeing up the season finale, but it is also an episode that is engaged with the idea of continuity. Lower Decks is a show built around references to past Star Trek shows, but the third season of the show has seen Lower Decks becoming just a little more comfortable in its own skin. Trusted Sources is an episode about how these seemingly episodic adventures can build and escalate to pay off in interesting ways.

You can listen directly to the episode below or by clicking here.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: breen, comedy, continuity, episodic, history, podcast, rarely going, Sitcom, star trek, star trek: lower decks, storytelling, Symbiosis, trusted sources, we made this | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “A Marvelous Escape” – “M.O.D.O.K. Full Series Review”…

Posted on May 31, 2021 by Darren

With a slew of Marvel Studios productions coming to Disney+ over the next six months, The Escapist has launched a weekly show discussing these series

This week, in the gap between The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki, KC Nwosu and I take a look at a rather unconventional entry in the Marvel television canon: M.O.D.O.K., the half-hour sitcom from Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum about the maniacal supervillain trying to strike a work/life balance.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: comedy, jordan blum, loki, m.o.d.o.k, marvel, marvel comics, Marvel Studios, modok, Patton Oswalt, Sitcom, Television | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “A Marvelous Escape” – Re-Runs…

Posted on February 27, 2021 by Darren

With a slew of Marvel Studios productions coming to Disney+ over the next six months, The Escapist has launched a weekly show discussing these series. I’ll be joining the wonderful Jack Packard and the fantastic KC Nwosu to break down WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki as they come out.

This week, we take a look at the eighth (and penultimate) episode of WandaVision, which offers a lot of backstory and a healthy dose of retcons. It’s a mixed back as the show beds down for its endgame, combining beautiful lines and interesting images with decidedly unambitious plotting and clunky construction.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Elizabeth Olsen, exposition, flashback, retcon, Sitcom, Television, wanda, wandavision | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Pensky File – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 5, Episode 9 (“The Ascent”)

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Darren

I was thrilled to be asked back to join The Pensky Podcast to discuss Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, particularly as they hit the fifth season, which may well be the best season of Star Trek ever produced. So, no pressure talking about The Ascent, then.

Wes had a family emergency to take care of, so I joined Clay to discuss this mid-season double-buddy comedy episode in which Odo and Quark find themselves stranded on a hostile alien world while Nog and Jake discover that life as roommates is less than ideal. It’s a fun, broad discussion. We cover everything from the writers’ tendency to use subplots lifted directly from sitcoms to flesh out supporting characters through to debates about stakes in modern mass media, as well as the shift away from the twenty-odd episode season that has squeezed out episodes like The Ascent. It was great fun, and I hope you enjoy listening. I’ll let you decide which one of us is Quark and which one of us is Odo.

You can find more from The Pensky Podcast here, and listen to the podcast by clicking the link or just listening below.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine, Podcasts! | Tagged: buddy comedy, Odo, Quark, Sitcom, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the ascent | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: One Chance

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Darren

It’s very easy to dismiss reality television. Personally, I wouldn’t be the hugest fan of the genre. However, it’s worth remarking that – in the right hands – it can be elevated to an artform. While the use of the word “reality” is applied loosely, it comes with its own narrative conventions – its own strengths and limitations. Carefully micro-managed, painstakingly edited and even sometimes clumsily scripted, reality television is simply another format of televisual entertainment.

It’s not that reality lacks a central crafted narrative or story arcs or character beats. These exist in reality television, albeit in a hyper-stylised meta-textual form. Just as some might advise you to read A Song of Ice and Fire to fully appreciate Game of Thrones, the meta-narrative from reality television spills out the side of the television set, unfolding in tabloids or gossip website. Characters are defined as rigidly, arcs are plotted just as carefully, it’s just that the narrative is crafted differently than it would be in an hour-long scripted drama or a half-hour sit-com.

One Chance, then, feels like the feature length adaptation of one such narrative. The story of Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts (“like the Cambodian dictator?” a nurse inquires in the opening scene), One Chance often feels more like the adaptation of a much-loved novel than an attempt to tell a true story.