In this episode of TV or GTFO, Sachin and Gary explore the dystopian-future sci-fi series about women being driven underground and forced to battle an all-seeing male overlord. Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale? No, it’s… Wait, this can’t be right, Sam Raimi’s Cleopatra 2525?
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On TV or GTFO, we try to keep things pretty light, and never expect that things will take as dark a turn as they do on this week’s episode. If we’re not mistaken, this is the first show we’ve covered in which a baby dies! Is it another gritty police drama? No, it’s Dinosaurs, a “high” (because you pretty much have to be) concept sitcom about a family of prehistoric lizards, by way of Archie Bunker. It was the final project from Muppeteer Jim Henson, before his death in 1990. What were you smoking at the end there, Jim Henson?
For a show that delves into such heady topics as steroid abuse and body dysmorphia, racism and xenophobia, masturbation, corporate crime, and of course, environmental destruction, it’s easy to forget that these are actors in giant rubber suits, being voiced by the likes of Jessica Walter and Sally Struthers. Regardless, none of the heaviness of those episodes is adequate preparation for the pitch-black non-humor of the show’s final scenes.
And let’s talk about the Baby, shall we? My goodness, this creature makes Steve Urkel look like Don Draper. If you don’t want to strangle him by the end of this episode, I’ll eat my hat. And at the time of the show’s peak, such as it was, this fucker was everywhere. You could barely walk through a mall in the early 1990s without hearing the incessant wail of “NOT THE MAMA!”
So strap in and up your dosage of antidepressants, because things are about to get rough for a family of prehistoric predators as TV or GTFO does Dinosaurs!
Don’t forget to like and subscribe to TV or GTFO in iTunes, on your favorite podcast app, or check out the episode right here!
“I am not my art, and he is not me,” says Torquil Campbell. It ends up being the least truthful line in True Crime, a new one-man show by the Stars frontman. In the piece the musician tells of his uneasy obsession and growing relationship with the “he” in that statement, the very real con man and alleged murderer, Christian Gerhartsreiter. The work is fiercely honest, but perhaps it’s only honest about being a lie.
But if you want to see it, you’ll have to hurry: True Crime only runs until Saturday at the Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre in Toronto’s east end.
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Time travel shows that use innocuous items to send their users years into the past are my beat here on Popshifter. The new FOX mid-season comedy Making History, though, is a very rare example of a network series that takes a cable concept (in this case, Comedy Central) and does nearly every part of it better by fully fleshing out and committing to its characters and their relationships, rather than watering them down in order to get to their next joke.
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We have a very special episode of TV or GTFO this week, and we’ve invited New York City-based freelance writer/general layabout, Seinfeld superfan, and friend of the show, Liz Heather along for the ride! It’s fitting that this episode comes out around Valentine’s Day, because, unlike most weeks when we throw shade on a TV series from the 1990s, this episode is nothing short of a love letter to one of our favorites—the iconic, incomparable show about nothing from the minds of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld!
Gary, Liz, and I grew up watching Seinfeld, and like so many others it’s become a huge part of our lives. For a show that has little in the way of an overarching plot or theme, it’s left indelible marks on our brain and on our culture at large.
Breaking with our usual format of only talking about the series premiere and the series finale, we’ll talk about our favorite episodes from the entire series, how Elaine is perhaps the greatest TV character ever crafted, our differing views about the series finale, and much more! This episode is also notable for being our first tri-country show (Scotland, Canada, and the US). Suck it, borders!
If you’re that person who yells “SEPARATE KNOB” at hapless strangers in the street, chastise your friends and family about double-dipping, have ever uttered the words “NO SOUP FOR YOU”, or given serious thought to stealing a marble rye, this is the show for you!
Don’t forget to like and subscribe to TV or GTFO in iTunes, on your favorite podcast app, or check out the episode right here!
A show about teenager with near-infinite power, who can bend the very fabric of space and time. A show about the shocking revelation that our main character is half-alien, and her father is millions of miles away from Earth, communicating only through a mysterious glowing cube. A surefire hit? No, it’s Out Of This World, a late 1980s sitcom that more than one outlet has called the worst sitcom ever!
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Comparisons to Rockstar Games’ unbelievably popular crime opus, Grand Theft Auto, are always apt with the Yakuza series. Like those games, Yakuza Zero, a prequel to the prior five main entries and several spin-offs in the series, attempts to provide a snapshot of the culture embodied in its distinct setting (fictionalized cities in America in Grand Theft Auto, Japan in Yakuza) by telling stories about their criminal underbellies. Though fundamentally similar in this way, it’s the cultural distinctions that make both games into well-crafted, interactive time capsules, albeit with some confounding elements.
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It took eleven episodes of TV or GTFO and not one, but two pretenders to the “king of beach-based crime drama” throne, but we’ve finally decided to tackle the OG, the undisputed champion of the lifeguard detective genre, Baywatch!
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This week on the TENTH episode of TV or GTFO, Sachin and Gary finally acknowledge the show whose lead character, Steve Urkel, is somehow, one of the most iconic TV personalities ever. Family Matters ran from 1989 to 1997, amassing a whopping 215 episodes and becoming the crown jewel of ABC’s TGIF Friday lineup (along with Full House and Perfect Strangers).
It’s the story of a Chicago cop, Carl Winslow, and the comedic adventures of his curiously fluid family, one that seems to add and remove characters at the drop of a hat. It also shows how wildly different the show became from its pilot episode to its series finale; Urkel isn’t even present in the premiere, but is very obviously the focal point of the show by the end.
Will this show ever stop making us think about Urkel having sex? Did Urkel murder his fellow astronauts? Where the heck are his parents? Why does Carl think an appropriate gift for his son is a 20-year-old used kevlar vest with a bullet hole in it? Why did they replace the actor playing Harriet so late in the series run? Why is the iconic, and awesome, theme song not present in any of these episodes? Who are these children and where did they come from? Join us to find out, and in the meantime, jam out with “Days Go By!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYvNiKwWvhk
Don’t forget to like and subscribe to TV or GTFO on iTunes or in your favorite podcast app, or you can check out the episode right here!
This week on TV or GTFO, Sachin and Gary are doing something a little different with a mini-sized episode about a 1990 TV pilot you’ve almost certainly never heard of called Poochinski!
It’s the classic tale of the filthy horndog detective (played here by the late Emmy award-winning actor Peter Boyle) whose soul is transferred into the body of a filthy bulldog and made to solve crimes. With that kind of bulletproof setup, it’s frankly shocking that Poochinski never made it past the pilot stage.
If you can stand that much flatulent bulldoggery, you can watch along with us on YouTube here!
Don’t forget to like and subscribe to TV or GTFO on iTunes or in your favourite podcast app, or you can check out the (mini) episode right here!