Category Archives: television

The History Writer, The American Storyteller, The PBS Narrator

Posted on by toddpanther

I think he might have been the first white American historian I ever paid attention to back in the day when he used to host PBS’ American Experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McCullough#Books

Book Mini-Review: The Glossy Raised Fist

Posted on by toddpanther
Writing history, making history, repeating for generations, then becoming history

Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett, Jr.

E. James West.

Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 328 pp., $27.95.

West uses his mastery of the histories of Black Chicago and Ebony/Jet well here, significantly building on and adding to his previous work on the topic. An author explains an author in a wonderful intellectual history that sticks to very exciting facts: Lerone Bennett rises in a rising time, gaining knowledge and experience and pointing them toward what he would call in print the Black Revolution. He transforms himself from journalist to historian, from moderate, Kappa Morehouse Man to Pan-Africanist revolutionary. Absolutely necessary for those who want to understand 20th-century Black press history and, perhaps more importantly, how one “Black-famous” author’s Black history texts–all the outgrowth of one national Black magazine, a 20th-century legend once on every Black American coffee table–were significant weapons in the Black struggle before African-Americans had full access to local and national broadcasting and now international streaming.

Keeping That Black Absurdist Thang Going :)

Posted on by toddpanther

My only other Fantastic Four. I am in mourning for this show’s demise already. I miss arguing with it, laughing with it, being simultaneously flabbergasted and confused by it. We shall not know its like again.

YouTuber #JohnCampea Pays It Forward

Posted on by toddpanther
Surprise! This OG online critic sees you!

As folks who follow me on social media can see by now, I spend a *ridiculous* amount of time each week watching #JohnCampea, #GraceRandolph, #ScreenCrush, #NewRockStars and others to get my TV/movie superhero news fix. Because of this act of kindness, I will no longer feel guilty about the two hours I spend with Campea almost every damn weekday! #TJCS #TheJohnCampeaShow

This Marvel Zombie Is In Deep Denial About This Being His Favorite Superhero TV Show [Update: Not Named “Ms. Marvel”] :)

Posted on by toddpanther

#supermanandlois #superman&lois

Lana (finding out that Clark is Superman and talking about how he took his sweet time coming back to Smallville after he abandoned her to find his way to the cape): Did you ever love me?

Clark: Oh, Lana, of course I did.

Lana: (PAUSE) Just not enough.

I was determined to hate this show when it premiered and initially I was successful. A Superman TV narrative without Metropolis, The Daily Planet, etc.? A re-tread of Smallville? Superman with a brother? No. This ain’t the Thor movies.

But almost two full seasons in and after me pretty much memorizing Season 1, it’s clear this is the best Superman TV show ever. And that’s not easy, since there’s 70 years’ worth of truth-justice-American-way-TV to evaluate (including the very-good, just canceled homage show Naomi). The message of this well-written, well-photographed show–if you don’t take care of your family, every part of it, and do the hard work of sustaining that care every day, your family and you will fall apart–is clearly articulated by its expert use of nearly 100 years of Superman lore.

Lana will heal because she’s not jealous of Lois; she has her own beautiful and loving family to fix. And that’s the point of this show. Everyone’s busy keeping their family foundation solid. It be hard.

The best compliment I can give this show is that the only Marvel TV shows I ever put on loop are Disney+’s WandaVision followed by Daredevil. So for the CW’s Superman and Lois, a proud and strong DC product, to join that ranking is fantastic.