Category Archives: TV Tomb

The "Holliston" Christmas Special

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It’s free on Hulu and I don’t know a single person who has FEARNet. Just in case you were wondering why I watched this Christmas special in spite of the fact I’m not a humongous fan of the horror sitcom “Holliston.”

Now that that’s out of the way, in spite of my reservations with the series, “The Holliston Christmas Special” is a very solid and often entertaining affair. Granted, the humor is still somewhat hit or miss, but the hour long special that’s set during Christmas avoids all the pitfalls of the holiday special and works on its own track. Corrie and Laura are still really damn good looking, so much so it’s distracting, and they stop by Adam and Joe’s house to ring in the holidays with them. In spite of Adam’s refusal to celebrate since he’s Jewish, the girls inflict Christmas cheer on them with a Chinese dinner. When the lights go out all over Holliston the group has to huddle together to wait out the outage, and the cold.

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Celebrating the One and Only "The Simpsons"

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EMpGdPnThe canvas of television has changed drastically since “The Simpsons” premiered. Reality TV was a fresh concept, FOX was only just starting out, and the animated sitcom was a wildly unexplored idea. Before “The Simpsons” the only real animated sitcoms we had was “The Flintstones,” a pop culture gem that spoofed “The Honeymooners” and was intended for adults. Instead it ran for five seasons and eventually became a franchise meant for children. Then there was “The Jetsons” a rip off of “The Flintstones” that focused on a family in the future, another mature series that became a hit with children later on in its run. Back then it was pretty apparent that just about everyone assumed animation was strictly for children.

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Help for the Holidays (2012)

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It’s Summer Glau as the cutest elf ever created. As her future husband and father of her children, I have to support my gal. It’s only logical.

You say delusional, I say hopeful. I guess other people star in this movie, too, but Summer Glau stars as optimistic elf Christine, one of Santa’s most important elves who dreams of another world where Christmas isn’t the focus of every day. Christine gets her wish when Santa gets an alert that there’s a family that has lost their Christmas spirit and is in need of some fun and love. Christine is sent as an agent in to a small town to help mom Sara VanCamp (Eva LaRue), a local store owner, re-claim her spirit and discover how much she’s missing of her children. Christine’s journey is of course the one that matters in the film, as she figures out the real world is much more difficult than she ever realized and every choice she makes with the new assignment has their consequence.

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Why We Won't Miss "The Office US"

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o1SPnzmThis year NBC networks released the news that with the parting of show writers Mindy Kaling (who is going on to head a soon to be cancelled FOX show), and B.J Novak were leaving one of the very few hit NBC sitcoms, the US adaptation of “The Office.” Due to their departures, the show’s stars desires to pursue other projects and their main star Steve Carrell moving on last year, NBC was heavily considering finally ending “The Office.” In its place would be a spin-off featuring the oddly popular supporting character Dwight in his own series. My response to that was: good riddance.

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Mockingbird Lane

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This is one of the few times where my fandom has kind of come back to bite me in the ass. I am a fan of “The Munsters” and from day one was opposed to this radical reworking of the series. The darkly comic tone with a violent dramatic atmosphere made me irritated beyond belief. “Mockingbird Lane” surprising enough ends up being a wonderful re-imagining of the series that doesn’t quite alter the comic tone of the original series so much as it adds a lot of menace to it. Instead of a sitcom it’s a dark comedy drama, and instead of the eccentric tone there’s a more menacing and brooding color palette. What makes this special even better is that it completely changes the dynamic of the Munster  family.

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Our Top Ten "Tales from the Darkside" Episodes

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“Tales from the Darkside” was initially supposed to be a “Creepshow” television series after the successful run of both films. Alas it never came to be and the idea was eventually transformed in to “Tales from the Darkside” bringing along the “Creepshow” alum of George A. Romero, Tom Savini, and Stephen King, all of whom contributed episodes and directed many of the key installments of the hit series.

One of the many anthology series of the eighties anthology revival, “Tales from the Darkside” covered fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and sometimes injected dark comedy in to the narratives. While not every episode is a masterpiece, these are ten of the best episodes of the series that I can never get enough of. Also, the theme song used to scare the living crap out of me for a time when I was a kid. It was so frightening it’d often reduce me to tears. Thanks George A. Romero!

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Our Top Ten "Monsters" Episodes

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1988’s “Monsters” was one of the many anthology shows in the eighties that managed to cash in on the anthology boom of the decade and offer up its own demented take on the concept. Like “Tales from the Darkside,” and “Twilight Zone” every episode provided its own story steeped in horror, science fiction, or fantasy but had on rule: It had to feature a monster in every episode. Every episode had a monster in one form or another.

Most times it was rather clever, other times it missed big time in its efforts to deliver something new (ahem–I’m looking at you, “My Zombie Lover,” and “Taps”). “Monsters” very much approached the genre with a mixed bag of tricks offering up some dark comedy, thick terror, and often ironic climaxes that succeeded in being a fun and unique series for genre buffs. While sadly fading in to obscurity, it’s still a very entertaining show, and it’s one I fondly re-visited after so many years off the air. To celebrate the lost formula of the anthology, we offer our top ten episodes of the series run.

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