Counterbalance 25: Television - 'Marquee Moon'

Television’s 1977 masterpiece Marquee Moon is the 25th Greatest Album of All Time, but is it too “too too” to put a finger on? Counterbalance sees it all backward.

                                      
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Television’s 1977 masterpiece Marquee Moon is the 25th Greatest Album of All Time, but is it too “too too” to put a finger on? Counterbalance sees it all backward.

The technology and liberalism of recent series such as Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and the latest Doctor Who series have more in common with Harry Potter's childish wand-waving than Gene Roddenberry's original techno-utopian dream.

Like Netflix, the VCR diluted and transformed the film itself.

I've sworn, after learning about the latest kleptocrat billionaire to buy a club, or scrambling from the clash between hooligans and riot police, or hearing a homophobic chant rise up from the stands, I would give up on the game. Anyone with sense would.

It makes perfect sense that 2019 — the last year of the decade — should also be the last year for one of the 2010s' best shows. To continue would be a disservice to viewers.

In both The Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones, the key conflicts are not between good and evil, as one might think, but between the beginnings and endings of their stories.

Under the aegis of fluidity, Quinlan Miller advances a trans-conscious viewpoint in Camp TV that happily takes a pick-ax to more basic gender studies approaches to pop media.

Kelsey Miller's I'll Be There for You, on the production and cultural legacy of Friends, is a must-read for fans and anyone interested in understanding TV culture over the past 20 years.

Shannon Purser discusses her debut role in film, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, catfishing, and the unrealistic expectations imposed on today's youth.

A Spy In The House of Loud works best on quiet stages, taking singular trips down clearly paved roads with definite endings.

Quiet on the set! Nathan Barr's Emmy-nominated theme song -- and his at times chilling soundtrack for this tale of Russian spies in America during the Cold War -- is now available on CD.

Comedy is a cruelly subjective art form, and not much of it survives outside of its time frame.

Eschewing nostalgia, filmmaker Neville of Won't You Be My Neighbor is far more interested in Fred Rogers' ideas than his biography.

This may be a clever homage to classic hard-boiled detective fiction from the '40s, but Archer in Dreamland is not the wild man we've come to love/hate.

The first season of this icily horrific series is a crash course in the possibilities of a uniquely American 'It Could Happen Here' patriarchal Christian fascism.

The Outer Limits is a mix of science fiction, nightmares, and surrealism -- the very things that make life worth living even though they scare the bejeebers out of us.

Director Morgan Neville cuts straight to the heart of matters with this moving biography of Fred Rogers.

The next film from Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer director Maxim Pozdorovkin treats us to Russian propaganda about the United States.

Rogue filmmaker Alex Cox ties The Prisoner's island mentality and palpable "cupcake fascism" to current political events, including Brexit, in I Am Not a Number.

Curb Your Enthusiasm's well-established characters are reacting to their former selves, rather than inhabiting or reinventing themselves. Thus, it loses the rhythms and inflections that once made the show so consistently, diabolically funny.

Emmy-winning Composer Mac Quayle is one of the best in the TV soundtrack business. His mastery of synthesized instrumentation is perfectly suited to Mr. Robot's theme.

"In 1980, I was a Hispanic in a lead role on television. It was a big deal." The veteran of the acting business for 40 years relates a wealth of memories working in the Hollywood industry.

David Thomson's lucrative and exhaustive biography of television reminds us that the continuously morphing state of TV matches our increasingly digitally-enhanced society.

As Trainwreck and Inside Amy Schumer's third season demonstrated, Schumer’s comedy's most potent when it explores the stakes of what it skewers.

With its frank discussions of poverty, sexuality, class and ethnic discrimination, and small-town hypocrisy, Peyton Place was more than a tawdry potboiler.

Marvel's Daredevil is a reminder that our pop culture, even that which is rooted in the pulp tradition, can be vivid, vital, and powerful.

We are living in the second Golden Age of Television, and not just because the writing is so good: TV is where we can tune in for real diversity.

There’s no shortage of good research to be conducted on modern television, nor can it truly be said that what Leigh Edwards has accomplished isn’t good research.

The Aussie Wilfred fleshes out its sitcom universe with impressive worldbuilding and genuine heart amongst the weed smoke and scatological humor.

Tony Hancock played an Every Man with the lovable charm and the infuriating selfishness of a know-nothing know-it-all. Like his character, most of us want what we don't have and the rest of the world, we believe, is responsible for our dissatisfaction.

Medium Cool is the ultimate amalgamation of reality and illusion. Fictional characters live in real situations; real characters exist in fictional situations.

It's that time of the year, again. Music fans are making their lists of what they hope to find wrapped in pretty paper at Christmas, and music publications are making their lists of what should be on those lists. Now, I have something to say about lists.

We rarely equate television game shows with admirable life philosophies, but the BBC's QI with host Stephen Fry pulls it off by making us think as well as laugh.

The new series from the makers of Green Wing feels like comedy by the numbers.

The key to the success of pop-star turned physicist Professor Brian Cox's shows is in their titles: Wonder. Each episode is replete with stunning nature photography shot in some of the grandest locations on Earth.

"It seemed like an odd marriage: Frank Darabont and AMC ... and zombies." Jeryl Prescott talks about how her Southern roots prepared her for this story of zombie apocalypse in the South.