Funny how jumbling old TV shows together accidentally, like happens sometimes when they coincidentally get released on DVD around the same time, makes you see connections between them you never expected. Like how a beloved sitcom and a beloved fantasy, both new on DVD but hailing from the late 1980s, could highlight how much ground … more…

This Sci Fi Channel series has always been a pale shadow of its progenitor, the long-running Stargate SG-1: heavy on action, short on thoughtfulness, it touches on wit, smarts, and true science fiction speculation only momentarily, and sometimes even seemingly accidentally. The adventures of a military, scientific, and exploratory team from modern Earth in a … more…

As if the original Scooby-Doo show of the late 1960s and early 70s weren’t poor enough an example of pointless cartoonery — not to mention a blight on the collective childhood memory of Generation X — this 2002-3 revival demonstrates just how hollow pop-culture nostalgia can be. Shaggy and Scooby, along Velma, Daphne, and Fred, … more…

I thought I was up on everything Irish, but I’d never heard of this one, and maybe there’s a reason why. James Plunkett’s 1969 best-selling epic novel was turned into this made-for-Irish-TV miniseries in 1980, the first major production of Ireland’s RTE TV, but honestly, it’s really pretty dull, and dates itself with its slow-moving … more…

No film is “too small or too depressing” for Hopeles(s) Pictures, the stuggling film studio headed up by Mel Wax (the voice of Michael McKean: For Your Consideration) — that he would bestow this moniker upon his company by conflating the names of his parent’s, Hope and Les, is emblematic of the dual driving force … more…

Would you put a devastatingly powerful piece of alien technology into the hands of 10-year-old boy? Of course not, which is why that premise has made this Cartoon Network entry a hit among boys aged 6 to 11. Grade-schooler Ben Tennyson stumbles across the “Omnitrix” on a summer camping trip — don’t ask how; it … more…