Tag: TV

Walmart Buys Vizio

What does a cool $2.3 billion get you? A well-established TV manufacturer if you’re Walmart. Just announced this morning, Walmart is acquiring Vizio in a deal to expand its ad business. Tom Warren at The Verge has more. “The acquisition of Vizio and its SmartCast Operating System (OS) would enable Walmart to connect with and serve its customers in new ways including innovative television and in-home entertainment and media experiences,” says Walmart in a press release. “It would also create new opportunities to help advertisers connect with customers, empowering brands with differentiated and compelling opportunities to engage at scale and…

Bidding on The Enterprise

eBay is always filled with various bits and bobs of movie and TV memorabilia. Scripts, set pieces, small trinkets from the entertainment industry always find their way to the ‘world’s biggest yard sale’. But late last year something odd hit the marketplace: a model of the USS Enterprise used to film the opening credits of the original Star Trek. Samuel Axon at Ars Technica has more. The first model of the USS Enterprise ever used in shooting the original Star Trek series may have surfaced after going missing decades ago. An eBay listing of a 3-foot model of the Enterprise appeared early last week and named a starting…

Apple’s Problem With Jon Stewart

It’s no secret I’m an Apple fan and generally support what the company does. Today is certainly not that day. Buried in the plethora of Apple TV+ content is the fantastic show The Problem With Jon Stewart. It’s a topical half-hour show that’s a cross between the Daily Show and Last Week Tonight. Stewart doesn’t pull any punches, as is his personality. But it seems there’s a line that was crossed… by Apple. Charles Pulliam-Moore at The Verge has more. Along with concerns about some of the guests booked to be on The Problem With Jon Stewart, Stewart’s intended discussions…

Ala Cable Carte

Twenty years ago the ‘promise land’ for TV was not only cutting the cord but getting access to only the channels or networks you wanted. The Ala Carte model was a pipe dream until Netflix kicked off the streaming revolution. Fast-forward to today and you have a plethora of streaming services to choose from: Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Hulu, YouTube TV, Paramount+, HBO Max, and on and on. But in a cruel twist of fate, it’s now even more expensive to watch this content than traditional cable. Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac has more. As little as a year ago, a…

ABC’s 1980’s All-In Promo

Television’s landscape 40 years was a big push for eyeballs. When only a few networks were in existence, each of the national broadcasters were in fierce competition for viewers. In 1980, it seems ABC decided to go all in. One single promo that lasts a whopping minute and forty seconds features every. single. actor. on its network. How ABC was able to get the talent for each program onto a set at a single time is beyond my comprehension but it’s a feat ABC achieved. Crazy to think that not only were these big A-List actors but they were all…

Ahsoka Tano Gets Her Due

I was late to Star Wars: The Clone Wars and I was late to Star Wars: Rebels. Hell, I’m late to season 3 of The Mandalorian. But… there is something I won’t be late for: Ahsoka Tano getting her own dedicated series on Disney+. For anyone asking “Who the hell is Ahsoka Tano??” let’s rewind a moment. In the mid-2000s George Lucas came up with a cartoon series that depicted the Clone Wars. This took place between episodes II and III of the prequel trilogy. In this series, we learn that Anakin Skywalker had an apprentice. She was a young…

AI Attempts Seinfeld Recreation

Nothing, Forever is an AI-generated stream that recreates Seinfeld, the hit 90s sitcom, with a fully-automated system. Created via machine learning and AI algorithms, the always-on show creates & delivers new content every minute on the fly.

Darth Vader is More Machine Than Man

In all the years of Star Wars movies and television shows, one thing has remained a constant: James Earl Jones. The actor who has appeared in countless movies throughout his career is the defining voice of Darth Vader. At age 91, Jones has agreed to call it quits. It makes sense that would want to hang up his Vader mask. But who will replace him? A computer, of course. [Lucasfilm] has enlisted the assistance of Respeecher, a Ukrainian startup that uses AI technology to craft new conversations from revitalized old voice recordings. Respeecher’s relationship with Lucasfilm began with the Disney+…

Giving Rogue One Its Due

Star Wars has always been a cash cow. However, in the Disney-ownership era, there’s been hits and misses. An early risk they took with their newly-purchased franchise was Rogue One. This was going to be a non-Skywalker side story. Nobody knew what to expect, but it turned out to be fantastic. On the heels of the Andor TV show releasing on Disney+ tomorrow, Shirley Li at The Atlantic looks back on this odd duck of a Star Wars movie. It primarily follows an ensemble of new characters, none of them named Skywalker, Solo, or Palpatine. The Force is mentioned but…

I Want My NFT TV

A new entry from the “we never asked for this” department. LG has announced its Arts Lab with this bonehead feature: you can display, buy, and sell NFTs directly on the television. Emma Roth at The Verge brings us this gem of an idea. For now, only users in the US with an LG TV that runs webOS 5.0 or later can access the app, which is available to download from the TV’s home screen. Through the portal, you can buy and sell digital works made available through LG’s NFT drops. The first one of these drops is set to…

Nichelle Nichols dies at 89

A terrible loss in the sci-fi world this past weekend as Nichelle Nichols has beamed up to join some of her fellow Enterprise crewmates. Nichols, best known for playing Lieutenant Uhura, was active throughout the years between Trek shows and movies. Nichols was a groundbreaking performer, sharing American television’s first scripted interracial kiss with “Star Trek” co-star William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk, in the 1968 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Nichols also used her celebrity to shed light on the civil rights struggle in the 1960s. In an interview for the Archive of American Television, Nichols explained how she wanted to…

The Correct Fan Theory

Spoiler Warning if you’re not caught up on Stranger Things 4. If you haven’t watched it yet, skip this story. Back in 2016 the kids were doing an interview for the show. At one point, shown below, Gaten Matarazzo who plays Dustin, speaks of a fan theory as to what is going on in the Upside Down. Now here in 2022, it seems this was very much spot on. You can view the video directly on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAuN5yVFkfQ Well played 2016 Stranger Things fan who nailed this. Well played indeed.

What’s Your Vecna Song?

Stranger Things is all the hype once more. Season 4 has dropped, bringing the next chapter to completion. Two episodes clocking in at 4-hours is certainly a lot of Hawkins kids to watch. However, one thing that makes a great season even better is the incorporation of music this time around. The Duffer Brothers have not shied away from bringing iconic 80’s music into the Stranger Things universe. It’s always been prominent. But, Season 4 took it to a new level. Without giving anything away, music is a means of survival. To help celebrate this deep interweaving of music into…

The Witch Of Sesame Street

One of my favorite parts of writing TimeMachiner is finding things that should be on the internet but aren’t. Those little things that fall through the cracks. This video certainly is one of them! Back in the mid-1970s Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, reprised her role on Sesame Street! Thanks to the incredible efforts of people who unearth these things and put them online, we get to see this amazing footage. According to the poster’s description, this was aired only once but was deemed too scary for children. It was shelved and never…

Apple TV+ Comes Into Its Own

I’ve been saying it for many months: Apple TV+ is a bonafide hit of a streaming service. But what are the best shows on Apple TV+? Of course, we all know about Ted Lasso. Apple promotes it at every opportunity. However, Severance is the latest show to really knock it out of the park. I cannot state enough how great this show is. It combines great storytelling and visuals that drive the ideas home. There’s a lot more than this pair to watch. Keith Nelson, Evan Romaro, and Milan Polk at Men’s Health breakdown of the top 20 shows on…

iPod Saves The Office

For fans of The Office (a show I’m just now watching for the first time), there’s a great interview with Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. Appearing on Seth Meyer’s talkshow, the duo from our favorite paper company talks about how the show was saved by an unsuspecting device. The episode from 2005 revolves around an iPod as a Secret Santa gift. Apple shortly thereafter announces its 5th generation iPod, which can now play video. Part of this enhancement was a new offering to sell individual episodes of TV shows on the iTunes Store. Sure enough, The Office was one of…

Netflix Reaps What it Sows

Last week was a rough week for Netflix. The company that basically invented modern-day streaming, binge-watching, and kicked off the endless rebooting of shows, is in a world of hurt. Last week Netflix officially let go 150 employees. On the surface, this may seem like no big deal. Netflix is a giant company with many thousands of employees. The company is losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers. They’re seeing their stock slide on all this news. However, there’s more to it than that. This is the culmination of a company whose MO led them to catch lightning in a bottle…

All The Data

The same news comes around every few years: Friends, the TV show that shows no slowing down in popularity, moves to another streaming service. From Netflix to HBO Go Max, this is one show that always makes headlines when it moves. Plenty of others makes the rounds too: Seinfeld, classic Disney films, etc. But there are those who are immune to this Where’s Waldo of programming. People who look to own their media and have it always available at the press of a button, regardless of where it’s available for streaming. In their cases, they may not even have a…

Roy Kent

One of the greatest things to come out of the TV show Ted Lasso is the character of Roy Kent. The brash, unfiltered, and ornery soccer player is so wonderfully written that it’s hard not to like him. In a nod to how much viewers have enjoyed Brett Goldstein’s work playing Kent, he achieved a fantastic new role: guest-starring on Sesame Street. They talk about Brett’s favorite letter of the alphabet and a word that begins with that letter. I’ll give you one guess as to what it can be.

I Spy With My Little TV

The march of technology is inevitable. As time passes, components get cheaper. Manufacturing costs dwindle as efficiencies get established. What was once an expensive device to build can get lower in price with better ways to do things. From computers to phones to most any gadget, we see this happen time and time again. But one piece of technology has come so far that it can turn against us if we’re not careful. One item we all have and very possible two or three. It watches everything we do and reports it back to its manufacturer wherein that information is…

Reboot Madness

Clicking around the internet, you may be looking for something new to watch. Some TV shows look interesting while some have run their course, yet continue for another season. But then you spot it. Something familiar. A title that hasn’t crossed your mind in 5, 10, or even 20 years. A TV show that once graced the airwaves is in the news again. But it’s not because of some controversy. It’s because it’s new. And it’s coming back. It happens again and again and it’s the state of many streaming services to bring back “TV comfort food”. Because we live…

I’ll Spin

Every few months some new Wheel of Fortune “controversy” swirls around the internet. This time around it’s about three contestants who either don’t know, what looks to be an obvious, answer or never get the chance. With the puzzle nearly revealed, a contestant asks to solve and then gets it wrong. It’s a cringy moment, but it happens. Heck, it’s a game show. People are going to mess up. But then the next contestant also guesses letters that weren’t there and the third ends up landing on Bankrupt. They go around the horn a few more times, with the middle…

The Final Upside-Down

We’ve been teased about the fourth season of Stranger Things for so long. Then COVID had other plans for the show and things were on hold. But finally, finally, finally we get not only new information about season 4 but a release date! Netflix announced last week that this upcoming season will be split into two volumes. Season 5 will also be our final foray into Hawkins. That, to me, is fantastic news. Season 4 has been split into two parts with Volume 1 coming on May 27th. The second volume will stream on July 1st. David Tyler over at…

What Is Work

My list of “Wow, that looks interesting” tv shows is growing. The newest one to add is Apple TV+’s Severence starring Adam Scott. Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Sasha Urban over at Variety reveal what the show is about. From writer and creator Dan Erickson, “Severance” follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott), who leads a team at Lumon Industries — where employees have undergone a “severance procedure,” which surgically divides their memories between work and personal lives. Throughout the course of the series, the mysterious and chilling “work-life balance” experiment is called into question as Mark is forced to confront reality. Variety The…

One Final Frontier

On Friday Paramount dropped the trailer for the second season of Star Trek: Picard. After streaming the first season last year, I have been looking forward to the next season for a while. Season 2 brings back many characters introduced the first time and we get some fun surprises for this second installment. Between who is returning and the storyline looking to be a time travel adventure, I’m ready to go! Season 2 begins on March 3rd on Paramount+. You can watch the full trailer below.

Thundercats Redrawn

Classic animation gets a modern take over on YouTube where user Xtremee_Ghost has done a phenomenal job with Thundercats. This person has hand drawn each frame of the original opening of the 80’s cartoon. It has a modern style and it’s super-crisp, which I suspect is due to modern tools that exceed what could be done in the 80’s. Thundercats Redrawn captures the essence of the original show while also showcasing how a modern take on drawing can revitalize a television show’s look. Xtremee_Ghost has really knocked it out of the park. You can watch Thundercats Redrawn directly on YouTube…

Goodbye Danny Tanner

News broke late Sunday that Bob Saget had passed at the too-young-age of 65. It was a shock to me, and to most I’m sure. Of course Saget was known as the straight-laced dad on Full House but he also was a really funny stand-up comedian. And he was the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos, which was basically TikTok long before the internet was invented. The man never stopped working though. Variety has a nice list of the work Saget did in the years since his most-notable roles: Besides “Full House” and “AFHV,” Saget was also known for narrating…

YouTube TV Loses The Mouse

For many cord-cutters out there, YouTube TV has been a good option as a replacement service. The Alphabet-owned streaming service carries a bunch of live channels for $65 a month. Unlike cable, there’s no contracts or hoops or bundling or any other nonsense. One thing however that has carried over from cable-land are disputes with networks. As of today, YouTube TV lost access to all Disney channels it was carrying. Jon Brodkin as more at Ars Technica. YouTube TV was seeking a most-favored-nation (MFN) clause from Disney. “Our ask to Disney, as with all our partners, is to treat YouTube…

PlutoGoogs

Streaming TV service Pluto is coming to the Google TV platform. Pluto does something pretty revolutionary: they have liner TV channels that run commercials and doesn’t let you rewind, skip, or pause. It’s literally the style of live TV but on a streaming app. And I love it. Catie Keck at The Verge has more: Beginning today, Google TV will now support Pluto TV within the live TV tab, meaning users can easily access more than 300 free channels from the platform’s primary live TV hub. Pluto TV is the fourth streaming service to grab a spot on Google TV’s tab. …

The Beatles Are Coming

Disney+, best known for endless Star Wars and Marvel stuff these days, is dropping an amazing docuseries on November 25th with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of The Beatles. It’s produced by Peter Jackson (the Lord of the Rings guy) and will release on the service for three consecutive days. The Beatles official channel has released a small clip of the show to YouTube. It’s only 85-seconds long but you can see the magic of the Fab Four in action. I’ve been waiting for this for nearly a year since it was originally introduced and cannot wait to view it. The footage…