The October 2013 Follow-Up Post

If you're new to my follow-up posts, these are a collection of brief updates on topics I've previously written about, but that I don't believe require an entire new post to themselves. The original posts are linked below for your convenience.

Incoming Fall Premieres - On the cancellation hit list so far are "We Are Men" and "Ironside." NBC doing away with "Welcome to the Family" has opened up Thursdays for the return of "Community" in January. No sign of our favorite cannibal yet. On the flip side, the big hits of the year so far are "Sleepy Hollow" and "The Blacklist," neither of which intrigued me enough to keep following after their pilots. I'm still watching "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" for now, which aren't doing great, but they should at least last out the season. I find it completely inexplicable that "Dads" managed to get a full season order, but oh well. Still have to watch and review "Dracula."

A View on "The View" - Jenny McCarthy. Jenny No-Good Sassafrassin' Vaccine Alarmist Viper Woman McCarthy is who they picked to fill the void left by Joy Behar and Elizabeth Hasselbeck. I'd be more enraged if I were still actually watching the show, but I'm not, so I just fume whenever anyone brings it up. My only comfort is that McCarthy apparently hasn't been well-received by the audience, and her hosting tenure may be short. Now Barbara Walters has announced that she's retiring too next year, and possible additions to the cast include Margaret Cho (yay!), Brooke Shield (sure, why not), Ali Wentworth (fine), and Mario Cantone (whaaa?).

The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown - Netflix has been making waves again recently. Its big gambles with original serialized content this year appear to have mostly paid off, as evidenced by their soaring stock prices (I still have a few shares) and the amount of hand-wringing that I've seen among the traditional media stalwarts. This week they're at the center of attention again, thanks to recent controversial remarks made by Ted Sarandos, Netflix's head of content. Netflix is looking to move into feature films next, and intends to release them simultaneously in theaters and on its web platform. Will this lead to the end of movie theaters? Considering that many smaller films are already doing this, probably not, but the comments are making exhibitors nervous.

Tales From Development Hell - It has now been over a year since I wrote about these projects and none of them has moved forward an inch. Also, nothing new from any of the titles from 6 More Upcoming Anime Adaptations to Worry About. There's a new anime adaptation that was announced just today that we can add to the list of hopefuls, though. "Jack Reacher" director Christopher McQuarrie has been attached to Skydancer's live-action adaptation of "Star Blazers," the Americanized version of the beloved "Space Battleship Yamato" anime series from the 70s. The Japanese did their own live action version a few years ago.

Where's the Third "TRON"? - There's still nothing concrete to report, but as recently as two weeks ago, we were still getting reassurances from producer Adam Horowitz that the third "TRON" movie was getting scripts rewritten and director Joseph Kosinski was very much still involved. I have to wonder how the failure of "The Lone Ranger" and the departure of Jerry Bruckheimer has affected the film's development, and how willing Disney is to movie forward with this sequel now. They've been keeping pretty busy with Marvel and Star Wars movies, and I don't know if there's room on their slate for a "TRON 3" for the foreseeable future. It's still very possible that it could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

An A La Carte Cable Fantasy - Comcast recently announced that they're offering a new plan where HBO is available with a much lower tier subscription plan. You still have to pay for a very basic package of about ten channels, but this means you get HBO and HBO Go for $50-70 s month instead of having to pay over $100 and subscribe to bunch of other premium channels. Alas for me, too little too late. I've embraced my cordcutter existence and have no intention of ever going back to cable viewing. Still, it's a good first step toward the a la carte model that so many of us have been asking for. I hope this ploy successful, so others will join in.

All "Simpsons," All the Time - After 25 years, "The Simpsons" is finally going to cable syndication. Does this mean the show is ending soon? Does this mean that FOX managed to renegotiate its contracts for broadcast syndication, which have required exclusivity for over two decades? Right now nobody knows for sure, but this means that FOX's potential plans for an all "Simpsons" cable channel are probably kaput.
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