2018 was the year of the streaming series. For the geek, this was a wet dream of content. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pulled itself out of cancellation hell to score another two seasons after an incredible time/space storyline. Youtube Originals finally came into it’s own with two awesome standout series Impusle and Origin. Netflix doubled down on original content, and even though they cancelled most of the Marvel series, Daredevil. Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and yes, even Iron Fist delivered top-notch seasons. But the award has to go to The Expanse once again. Possibly the greatest sci-fi tv show since Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse continued the growing tension between Earth, Mars and The Belt leading to an incredible discovery and a bolt new direction by the end of the season. Sy Fy Channel had the balls to cancel the show, but luckily Amazon Prime made the save by picking up the series for season 4.
For those of us who lived this, it was an awesome new world to explore. Netcape, Pixelon, Mozilla.. these names may not mean anything to you, but they were the sacrificial technologies that gave us what we take for granted today. I can’t wait to watch this!!
2014’s Godzilla reboot was pretty good. it did a lot of redeeming after the 1998 hot mess. We got the monster returning to his city stomping roots and some nice foreshadowing for what’s to come. There were rumors of an upcoming crossover with King Kong, but I didn’t see the classic monster mash up we’re getting next year in Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters. Rodan, Mothra, Monster X.. all the classic monsters are showing up. Let’s pray they can keep the momentum going.
What started out as the Batman mythos rooted in reality has slowly devolved into one of most comic book-oriented shows on TV. Everyone talks about the Arrowverse and Marvel’s Television Universe, but Gotham has quietly been putting out an awesome Batman show, centered on Jim Gordon’s battle against an absent Batman’s Rogue Gallery. This coming season reaches a crazy end as everyone evolves into their classic comic character. We even may see young Bruce Wayne finallky don the cape and cowl. Gotham season 5 premiers in early 2019.
as a long time X-Men disciple, the acquisition of Fox by Disney has kicked up some interesting possibilities for my favorite Marvel franchise. And I can say with love that the mutant universe hasn’t been at it’s best for a while. I jumped on board with the comics in the 90’s when Chris Claremont and Jim Lee were killing it. And I enjoyed the movie franchise as a pioneer in quality comic movies (before the MCU raised the bar). Because of licensing deals Marvel had to make to stave off bankruptcy in the late 90’s relinquishing any rights to creating films or tv shows, any chance of seeing the core members of the X-Men on TV. So what we’ve gotten have been a few x-men adjacent shows (Mutant X, Legion, and The Gifted). And even though the most recent shows have been excellent shows, it’s still not the same as having Cyclops and Jean Grey leading the original 5 against Magneto, or The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
But somehow, the planets have aligned and the prophecy has come to pass. The powerhouse media conglomerate that is Disney has signed a deal to acquire most of the media rights from Fox, bringing the X-Men, Fantastic Four and their family of characters back to Marvel. So now can we just do what everyone wants and put together a proper X-Men television series? No more, fringe mutants and subjective references to the main characters. Just put Professor X and his mutants in the School for Gifted Youngsters and have them fight a new villain every week. We can do the long-form story arcs later. Let’s just get the basic down and build the characters.
I’ve been quietly transitioning my mix series to the Keakie.co.uk platform from mixcloud.com. Prototype of Nu-Soul, The Retro Rap Show and Return of The Boom Bap will all follow with rebranding and a relaunch. As it stands, while the paperwork is being worked out, the last few episodes of each show will be rebroadcasted under the new branding to get me use to the new schedule. Each show will drop twice a month (that’s 8 mixes a month, folks!), but be reduced from 1 hour to 45 minutes to give me a better distribution of content.
00:00 – Evil Needle – Sunrise
02:58 – Snakefoot – Retronyms
06:29 – Flitz&Suppe – About the Distance
09:24 – masked man – coupe_90
11:22 – Widsom – CULO
13:55 – 4Trackboy & Echomannm – Sweets
16:16 – Robot Orchestra – Keep Me Warm
19:18 – EYTREG – imnylc
20:34 – Khruangbin – Rules
24:51 – Asai Hazel – Royal (Interlude)
26:24 – image/object – r e p e a t ;(
31:40 – Mambele + Eric Labat & Raffaello – Trouble on Venus
34:36 – Philanthrope – Airglow
37:28 – Lex (de Kalhex) – Green
40:56 – Quickly Quickly – hawthorne (feat. cav)
42:38 – Quickly Quickly – full scope
44:10 – Supertask – Divide
48:24 – Mellow Mania + Flitz & Suppe – Elevate (feat. Rising Nature)
50:00 – Ruck P – 3UO
53:09 – Pax + TV Blonde – HerBed
55:42 – emune – Chopstix
59:00 – Allmos – Black Ting
Even though some extremists consider it pandering to their viewership, The CW’s awesome ‘OPEN TO ALL’ campaign feels like the young adult station taking a stand against the rhetoric being spewed by the current Presidential administration, I hope others follow suit. The only way to combat right-wing propaganda is with direct, concise information on where you stand and who you stand Wirth. Brave CW.
In an attempt to find a successor to my favorite 4X space game, Masters of Orion, I started to sample the few newer titles that were available on Mac OS X. Stellaris was a huge contender. It had the broad complexity and epic feel of a huge game. But the learning curve was an issue. I ended up going with Endless Space 2 but a little bit more simplicity and the GORGEOUS graphics. But now that Stellaris is coming to consoles, I’m pretty sure they’ve found a way to scale down the gameplay, much like the Civilization series. Throw in a possible port to the Star Trek mod and I’ll surely be shelling out my $60 for the console version. (MORE INFORMATION)
