This Week: Tom Welling is Blessed with a God-Given Jawline

What are you all watching this week?

Moonlighting update: I can report that Bruce Willis' David Addison is much less of a jerk after the pilot episode, and I'm enjoying my rewatch – although I'm doing it slowly. I just finished season one and had forgotten the wonderful pie fight and the banter about the man with the mole on his nose.

I was disappointed in the second season of Loki. Sigh.

Morella: Not a ton recently. I mostly play video games instead of watching much. I have recently watched a few old movies, including re-watching House of Usher just before the review I posted, but also; Castle of Blood, Black Sunday, The House of Long Shadows, and The Comedy of Terrors.

An Honest Fangirl: I still need to finish the last two episodes of Loki (although I know what happens in them at this point.) Not sure how I feel about the season as a whole either yet, although I'm sure I'll have thoughts later.

Most of the stuff I really want to watch isn't out just yet. Apple TV apparently has a new Godzilla series that starts tomorrow (Friday, the 17th). I have zero idea if it will be any good whatsoever but I'm very curious to see how it is. It's part of their MonsterVerse or whatever they've been calling the recent live action movies. I shall report back once I do see it.

I also really really want to see Saltburn, although that doesn't get a wide release until the 22nd, I believe. It looks gorgeous from the trailers and also like a hot mess.

Survivor has been going strong, and it's without a doubt the best season they've had in years. We got a full 90 minutes this time thanks to the strikes, and it really should have 90 minutes for every season going forward. It's so nice to be able to spend more time with everyone and actually understand the relationships and dynamics. Plus they brought back the Survivor Auction! It's been 15 seasons and we finally have it back! And it was awesome!

Mikey Heinrich: I'm about half way through the fifth and final season of Arrested Development. It's all been very funny, but man, there's a lot of jokes that have not aged well. I'm thinking mostly of every single aspect of Michael's British girlfriend in season three...

One thing that REALLY irritated me about Arrested Development, though, is the way Netflix has it presented. I was totally unaware of this until it was too late, but there are two entirely different cuts of season four (i.e. the first season that Netflix did when they picked it up).

So here's the frustrating deal. For season four, all of the actors had gotten much busier because they're all amazing and were further along in their careers. Which made scheduling difficult. The producers apparently dealt with this by making each episode focus on one specific cast member and show what they'd been up to in the six years since the previous season. And there were all sorts of connections and things going on in the background once you'd heard everybody's stories so you understood how things were tied together without having to get the actors free at the same time. Which is a fun way to handle it, I thought. The season was 15 episodes long.

BUT, apparently everybody in the world bitched about that as being a flaw because most of the episodes only had a few of the main characters in them. So Netflix chopped them all up and shuffled them together into 22 episodes and called them Arrested Development: Remix – Fateful Consequences. The result is incredibly repetitive, MUCH less funny, and a couple hours longer to get through. Oh, and apparently they also tried to stiff all the actors for all the additional unused footage that they were now using and ended up getting rightfully sued for it.

But the real cherry on the cake is that if you're unaware of this and are just working through the episodes on Netflix, they only include the 22 remixed episodes, which means you're tricked into watching the shitty version so that you spend more minutes watching. You can find the original cuts of the episodes in the bonus materials section of 'Episodes and More,' but they don't exactly draw attention to them by telling anybody about it.

This is particularly frustrating if you only figure it out after watching the entire remix series and then checking on line to see why it's so bad. The original version is great, by the way.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

Mark Greig: I've been rewatching a lot of Classic Who lately since it's (almost) all on iPlayer now. Mostly just dipping in and out and watching random Pertwee and T. Baker stories. Really do not have the energy to do a full beginning to end rewatch. Also read the original comic the first of the 60th specials will be based on (loved it) which eventually got me reading Grant Morrison's hit and miss Sixth Doctor comics.

As for the actual not all that far away now 60th, I'm trying to keep all my expectations in check. I love the Tennant/Tate team and I'm confident that at least this will be a marked improvement over what the show has been doing since 2018, but I was always hot and cold with RTD's writing. I just hope the decade away has given him some fresh ideas and the 60th and seasons beyond won't just turn out to be a complete rehash of his first era, although I will still gladly take that over more Chibnall.

Adam D. Jones: Back in the early 00s, I had no idea why any sane person would watch Smallville, but that's only because I was in my embarrassing "Comic Book Guy" phase. Last month, I decided to check it out on a whim, and now I'm hooked. I think I'm growing up in reverse and have finally gotten old enough to enjoy this fun TV show. Like Bob Dylan said, "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now."

I was very curious to see why all the fuss over Kristin Kreuk, who I had never seen in anything. At first I thought she wasn't going to be outstanding, but after a few episodes I finally got it: Lana is the actual male fantasy. Sure, men fantasize about inappropriate things, like midriff-baring cheerleaders pouring string cheese on each other, but... secretly... we really daydream about someone being nice to us. Lana must have been the nicest "nice girl" in the history of television at the time (Caitlin Snow may have taken up that mantle recently), and I'm not surprised men were melting at the thought of her.

And I'm VERY disappointed at the ticket sales for The Marvels. Everyone who's been whining that we don't get enough female-centered stories couldn't be bothered to buy a ticket when the very movie they've been asking for finally shows up. Now the investors will re-embrace The Smurfs Formula, where each movie has one carefully placed female who gets only one line.

And The Marvels is good. People are missing out.

Billie Doux: Adam, my deepest apologies for all of the terrible things I said about Kristin Kreuk while I was reviewing Smallville. And if you've never read anything about the recent adventures of Allison Mack, you might want to avoid it until after you've finished the series.

Adam D. Jones: I already noticed your lack of enthusiasm for Kreuk in those reviews. I swing between agreeing with you and agreeing with her fans. All I can say for sure is that I know why she's liked.

Victoria Grossack: I didn't watch anything new on TV this week, as I was traveling (the trip did not go well, but hey, I'm alive and home and catching up on my sleep). However, I did read All the Light We Cannot See, and now I understand why many readers were not happy with the Netflix series. Many changes were made to adapt the novel to the screen, with its almost not being the same story in the end. However, I liked the series more than I liked the original novel. By the way, that's a rare reaction for me – or maybe humans tend to be attached to their first experiences.

ChrisB: OK, Victoria, you’ve managed to change my mind. I have been dithering about All the Light We Cannot See because I loved the book. But, the combination of your comment that you preferred the series and your excellent review have convinced me to give it a try. I am waiting to get Netflix until after Bake-Off is complete so I can binge that. Now I have two reasons to look forward to a month of it.

I haven’t been watching much TV at all. Books have taken over again. I just finished If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery. Shortlisted for the Booker, it is an interesting read as it is a series of short stories all of which share the same family of characters. I didn’t love it, but I have found myself thinking a lot about it since I finished it. Always a good sign.

Adam — I loved Smallville, but I’m afraid I am not a Kreuk fan either. And Billie, your comment about Allison Mack made me laugh out loud.

Samantha M. Quinn: I kind-of put up with Lana until a certain character shows up later in the series and completely overshadows her. Kreuk was fine, pretty and nice, but she isn't a strong or engaging actress. It's a shame about Allison Mack, and I'm not sure I can do a rewatch because Chloe was a favorite character for me.

Adam, The Marvels' box office is a weird storm of issues, ranging from the fact that we haven't had much presence from any of the main characters to the piss poor marketing and the fact the thee stars couldn't promote the film. There is also this kind of odd review bias about this film where half of the critics are tearing it apart. After watching the film and enjoying it a lot, I don't get the hard. It might have to do with warped expectations and the 'superhero fatigue' that's been brought up endlessly lately.

An Honest Fangirl: Update on Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: it's... fine? They jump between a few different time lines a bit too many times and some of the monster CGI is very shaky. But there's Godzilla and new MUTOs and the acting is fairly good. There are worse ways to spend an hour and I'll prob see the next episode, too.

Morella: I've also watched my Universal classic monsters collection up to Son of Dracula. I could start reviewing those as well, although it's been a mixed bag, and Lon Chaney Jr. for all that I like him as the Wolfman, is not a great Dracula.

Adam D. Jones: I would love to watch those old classic monster movies. I have a fondness for monster stories, even the cheesiest, corniest movies about monsters make me want to sit on the living room floor with a bucket of popcorn.

I think I know which actress you're saying may outshine Lana on Smallville. She showed up on Supergirl and she's a total babe.

Billie Doux: (In case anyone is wondering, we're talking about Erica Durance as Lois Lane.)

Mikey Heinrich: I always thought that Eric Johnson's Whitney was super hot.

Sorry. I was starting to worry that we weren't objectifying dudes enough on this topic.

Adam D. Jones: In that case, Tom Welling is blessed with a god-given jawline that I'd kill for. Mine's just a half ring of dough on top of my neck.

Mikey Heinrich: You are not wrong about Tom Welling's jawline. Thank you, I feel much more balanced now.