What's To Watch? - May 13 - Funny, how it goes

 

     It's a week of transitions - or, maybe transitions adjacency, or transitions by proxy for me. Big changes on the home front that will still leave me physically where I am - in what will soon be a much emptier, quieter place - likely until nearly this time next year. Much for me to ponder, but more for me to do while thinking about it. It has to become a year of head-to-toe, and in all senses heart - rebirth and reinvention for me if I have any remaining scrap of sense. That that really should be the essence of life in the first place is one of the lessons I'll be continuing to trying to learn.
     Either way, I'm lacking on time this week, and scarce energy has to be marshaled.

     A missed opportunity on a Friday the 13th theme, perhaps, but I'm not looking for mayhem this week, nor wanting to find any cursed objects. My heart wouldn't have been in it. If you're looking for a bloodbath, though, you can take a look at all of the network tv cancellations handed down recently. 

     The home situation is an odd mix of extended stable (barring something either horrible or wonderful I'll be remaining where I am until on the brink of spring next year) and something new, as where I will be moving next year will be available to me for an extended set-up, but my not being in there from day one... concerns me a little. I tend to fret, despite knowing it's neither a good quality nor does it make anything better. Meanwhile, professional matters lurk ominously, and health concerns... are concerning. Again, it's nothing directly to do with this column, though it all contributes to a generally diminished energy for me.

     More or less, it's mostly one item this week, or more correctly, one collaborative effort trying to recapture their lightning after just over a quarter century.

     In 1984 two pairs of Canadian comics - Bruce McCullogh & Mark McKinney, and Dave Foley & Kevin McDonald - the latter pair performing as The Kids In the Hall, merged and kept the KitH name. (The name harkens back the 1950s and Sid Ceasar, an early comedy superstar of television, would blame any failed jokes on young writers hanging around the studio -- the kids in the hall.) After a year of them working with a shifting assortment of others, Scott Thompson joined and fit well enough that they locked in as a comedy quintet. For part of a year they were pulled in different directions - two received overtures from Saturday Night Live to come work as writers, another heard Hollywood's call and the other two went to mix with Second City, but in '86 they fell back together, apparently realizing each in his own way that he'd left something better behind.
     Lorne Michaels saw them perform as a troupe, and started plans rolling toward developing a showcase for them. A special in '88 turned into a series in '89, which ran until 1995, followed by the movie Brain Candy in '96 (Which, btw, appears to be oddly unavailable at the moment - and which they waste no time throwing shade on in the first sketch of the new series.) Then... they were scattered to the winds again.
     Well, they're back today, on (Amazon) Prime Video. An 8-episode series of sketch comedies with all five of the members. Fans of the original series are told to expect several of their favorite - or at least best-remembered - characters. Here's the lightly sanitized green band trailer, because the red band one would only play over on YouTube.

     I was interested to see how their comedy tastes - and ours - had aged. Having watched it all now (updating this piece) I'm happy to report they come back together pretty well. Their game is solid. With the TV-MA rating pretty much anything goes, so the full, male nudity they've worked in will remind you that they're not having to deal with broadcast restrictions. The troupe clearly had fun working together again, and no problem at all taking shots at themselves along the way.

     Interestingly enough, one week later they'll be running a documentary on the group, The Kids In the Hall: Comedy Punks.

     As interested as I may be in getting more details on their early backgrounds and the behind-the-scenes for their long-ago show, I'm hoping some time is spent on where they each are now, as much in their own heads and in their lives and careers.

     Ahead of all this, Prime added all five seasons of their '89-'95 sketch comedy show, too, though it's a little confusing. It can look at first as if they're only available to be rented or bought, but if you go down a menu into each and look at the individual episodes you'll see they're there as "free to you" items, too. (Hey, Bezos! WTF?) I started to look back over some of the shows, and much as with revisiting seasons of SNL, the hit & miss is often heavy on the miss. Still, there's fun material in there.
     Or, Hell, maybe you just want to listen to their surf guitarish theme music. It's "Having An Average Weekend" by Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. One of those one hit wonder successes that haunted the band, resentful of its imposed limitation on them, being the first and defining thing people knew them for, but ultimately accepted as something they had to be friendly with or get out of the way. Here's the full version.

     Beyond all that, go back through previous weeks' Friday pieces for so much of what's already waiting out there. Currently among them I'm enjoying seeing new episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount+ plus each Thursday (and enjoying the at least temporary oasis of seeing more fans praise a new entry rather than immediately tear it down), and am looking forward to watching the next episode of Bosch: Legacy over on Freevee - which seems to be IMBDtv's rebranding as the free-with-commercials service game they're running.
     Oh, between various PBS stations or, if you make an appropriate contribution to your local station and get their Passport to so much streaming content, I recommend both the inspirational two-part Ken Burns documentary on Benjamin Franklin

...and a two-part Nova episode covering the Dinosaur Apocalypse 66 million years ago, centering on the latest information.

     The Franklin documentary was not only fascinating on several levels, it again reminded me how much better an age we'd be in now if several self-described innovators of the modern world had done as Ben did, focusing on the common good, rather than in acquiring inhumanly vast fortunes.
     In a couple weeks there'll be an Obi-Wan Kenobi series starting on Disney+, and another long-awaited series return with Stranger Things season four on Netflix.  But that'll be then, and then will be getting pretty damn close to June... so let's get ourselves back to today, where we're not even at the middle of May. Time's racing us to our ends quickly enough without me seeming to be impatient about it.
     
     Continued good luck to us all. I know I'm feeling the need for it.  - Mike