This is it, folks -- tonight's your last chance, maybe this season, maybe ever, to tune into NBC's Chuck. It's a funny, sweet, breezy show with a winning cast and a great big heart, and it deserves another season -- especially on the increasingly blighted crudhole that is NBC's prime-time lineup. (Does anyone actually want five more hours of Jay Leno and his Imitation Humor-Flavored Product every week? Didn't we learn the terrible lessons of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?)

Last week's episode deftly tied up many of the show's long-running plot threads -- it could almost have been a series finale itself -- and cleared the decks for what could be an intriguing and fun reboot of the show's premise. I'd like to see where it goes next, way, way more than I'd like to see Jay Leno kick comedy's corpse in the nads for another billion years, or until his chin expands to throw Earth's orbit out of balance, whichever comes first.

If you really, really love the show, you can follow star Zachary Levi's inspired idea to buy a $5 footlong from frequent sponsor Subway today. I must confess, to my regret, that I won't be taking part in this clever plan; my loathing for Subway eclipses even my considerable love for this very worthy, immensely watchable show.

But hey, if you love digestion-mauling sub sandwiches AND truly awesome, perfectly balanced superspy action-comedy-dramas with cute nerdy fellas and hot, hot ladies, this is truly your lucky day.

NBC moved "Kings" to Saturdays and promptly cancelled it after one showing. Idiots. 

My son and I finally got to the comic store where I picked up Savior 28 and The Amazing Spider-Monkey (as per an earlier post) and he bought Amazing Spider-Man 590 and 591. And, wow, they were lame. Poor story and really mediocre art. All the characters look like 12-year-olds -- really skinny 12-year-olds -- and the layouts entirely lack excitement. I mean, when Susie looks off-panel and says, "I think I'm looking at a Frazetta painting come to life!" and then the revealed scene looks more like a cheap Heavy Metal knock-off left in the rain for a year -- you know, not even that good. At least a Heavy Metal knock-off would have some character.

And while I'm here complaining for no good reason, let me offer this panel, showing one of what I consider to be the most egregious misuses of the comics medium I've been suffering through for at least the last decade:  The color hold.  I may be misusing the term, but you all know what I mean:  Those characters or things that are printed without the usual comic book outlines, like our buddy the Human Torch here.  (He's blue, incidentally, because he's in the Macroverse.  If you wanted proof that making a new dimension really cool-looking -- which guys like Jack Kirby could do in their sleep -- isn't easy, then you should check out the Macroverse as depicted by the team of Kitson/Farmer/Cox in these two issues.) It just takes me right out of the comic to see this ghostly thing floating around in it when everything else has decent black outlines.  I know what the artists are trying to do, but, guys, it ain't working.  It almost never does.  Give it up already.  The old-fashioned Torch with his liney lines and all?  Much better-looking, even if your Photoshop-addled eyes can't see it.  Trust me.

However, let us not complain overmuch; nay, let us sing the praises of those comics of noble mien. Yesterday Reilly showed me a recent copy of Thor. The cover would've sent me running from the store it's so bad -- who knew Goldilocks lived in West Hollywood? -- but the inside looks really good -- colors by Laura Martin, who I loved on Astonishing X-Men, pencils by Olivier Coipel -- and the story's by J. Michael Stracynzski, so it's got potential. I think I'm going to look into it. I haven't bought Thor since Walt Simonson and Beta Ray Bill.

I just wanted to make note of some good comics on sale now that I think everyone should hear about.

I've mentioned my studiomates before, as well as some of the people working in the studio around the way. I'll probably mention them all again, too, because I honestly feel privileged to know these guys and see them work. The building my studio is in will, I think, be one of those places you read about twenty years from now as being the center of great things. People will marvel at all the talent assembled and read about the creative energy crackling in the room, the way today we read about the old Marvel Bullpen or the studios of Paris where Pablo met Henri, or maybe the Cedar Tavern where Willem punched Clem. I really think it's going to be that important to the world of comics. Great things are ahead!

Of course I don't have anything to do with the great things. I feel as if I'm indulged, like a stray dog who wandered into the building. Because these are artists who work for a living, doing something very challenging, while I'm just goofing around with my "fine" art. (For "fine" read "pointless and masturbatory".)

But these guys, they inspire me, with their talent and their work ethic. They're really brilliant. They also have taught me a few things about the world of comics.

The first thing they've taught me is that the creators don't give a crap about the actual comic books. I've been breaking the habit of treating comic books like valuable objects -- so many of the ones I bought over the years turned out to be slightly less valuable than toilet paper -- but the way these guys toss the books around, it's actively painful. I'm reminded of Brodie from Mallrats: "Hey, I tried to teach you how to handle comics in the sixth grade, but oh no, you wanted to play little league instead." They write 'em, they draw 'em, but they don't care about 'em. At least not the physical manifestations of 'em.

The second thing they've taught me is that the creators don't give a crap about the actual publishing. They're all excited to talk about what they're working on now but just try and get them to tell you when you can actually buy their books. They don't care. They forget. They get confused. It just doesn't occur to them. I can't explain it but I've said more than once to more than one of them: "Let me know when it comes out." I might as well say, "Let me know when that monkey flies out of your ass."

So this is where this post comes in. I want to let you know about a couple of comics you can buy right now (April 2009) by a couple of guys I know.  First up, here's the monkey that flew out of Reilly's ass.

Reilly Brown is the penciller on the absolutely fantastic Amazing Spider-Monkey one-shot. I have no idea what's wrong with Marvel these days, with the Ultimate Dark Noir Zombie Monkey 3D X-books, but Reilly says it has something to do with some study that was done showing what covers best sell comic books, and monkeys always sell. Also, he thinks, the color purple. The point here, though, is that I watched over Reilly's shoulder as he worked on some of these pages and the art is terrific and far, far better than any primate-based story deserves. (Reilly didn't do the cover, by the way, but I can't find any interior pages online.)

Currently I've been looking over his shoulder and seeing the Inhumans and the Shi'ar, so you can look forward to that, but in the meantime, get your Reilly with apes.

If monkeys aren't your thing, though, then you might like my second recommendation. One of the first guys I met from Deep Six, the studio around the corner, was Mike Cavallaro. He gave me copies of his lovely two-issue story Parade (with Fireworks). Lately when I've seen him he's been working on Savior 28 which I only accidentally found out is on stands now when I introduced Mike to my son and Mike showed him what he's doing. Savior 28 sounds like a good project and Mike is working with some serious talent: the book is written by the great J.M. DeMatteis, who I remember from a run of Kraven stories in Amazing Spider-Man back in the mid-1980s, and of course from the fantastic Justice League books around Crisis time. If that's not enough, the legendary Joe Sinnott inked a cover, and I think Mike Zeck did, too.

I don't get to peer over Mike's shoulder as much as I do Reilly's, but from what I've seen, Savior 28 is going to be pretty excellent, also. I can't say anything about the story since I haven't read it yet, but I've always liked J.M. Should be worth the four bucks, anyway.

So there you go: Something to buy next time you're in the comic store. Hie thee hence!

[Edit:  If your local comic shop is one of those that puts titles up in alphabetical order, then look for The Life and Times of Savior 28, which is apparently the official title.  It took us ten minutes or so to find it, and the helpful comic person at the Joker's Child had to go through their incoming comics list one by one looking for it.  It's like the publishers don't want you to buy comics!]

A couple of quick notes, since I can't seem to stop writing about TV these days:

I don't know about you, but I would have been a lot more likely to watch Friends if it included the possibility that once a month, Ross might flip out and maul Chandler limb from limb. Which is why I'm eagerly looking forward to the U.S. premiere of Being Human, recently aired on the BBC and is headed for BBC America later this year. 

I used to watch “Siskel & Ebert,” and later “Ebert & Roeper,” religiously. Not because I was ever a heavy moviegoer, but because I was curious about what what going on in the popular culture and I wanted to know what movies to rent when they came to video. Later, after welcoming two babies into my family, watching a show about movies became a nice escape from the cold reality of many years without any movie-theater viewing whatsoever.

When Ebert left the balcony due to surgery complications that robbed him of his ability to speak (but not write — he’s still reviewing movies and even blogging), I kept on watching. Ebert’s partner, Richard Roeper, had grown on me. And I still needed to know about the movies that were arriving in theaters.

Recently the Ebert & Roeper train came to an end, their program altered by its distributor into a movie-slash-entertainment plugfest hosted by two gibbons. As I removed the show from my Season Pass list, I mourned a little bit.

So here’s the good news: I’ve found a replacement. “The Rotten Tomatoes Show” on Current TV isn’t the same show as Ebert and Roeper’s show, not by a mile. It only covers a handful of movies a week, and it’s a week late in covering them. And yet, I love it.

Here’s how “The Rotten Tomatoes Show” fulfills me: It’s an half-hour show about movies that fills me with knowledge about the latest releases while keeping me entertained. Hosts Ellen Fox and Brett Erlich are smart and funny — and Erlich’s penchant for wearing classic “Real Genius” t-shirts suggests that he is a man with impeccable movie taste. (That’s International Order for Gorillas up there.)

The show itself works like this: The hosts watch three new movies, and solicit video comments from the users of RottenTomatoes.com and Current TV. Each review, a montage of the hosts’ and viewers’ comments, encapsulates the movie pretty well, and many are laugh-out-loud funny. When all is said and done, the show also reveals the movie’s final Tomatometer score, indicating the critical consensus for the flick. In addition, there are reviews of new DVDs, reviews in haiku and DVD form, and a weekly list on silly topics like the best monsters or best car chases in the history of film.

So… smart and funny people talking about movies? I’m sold. Is “The Rotten Tomatoes Show” going to change the world? No, no it’s not. But as a replacement for the late, lamented “Ebert & Roeper,” It’ll do nicely.

(“The Rotten Tomatoes Show” premieres Thursdays at 10:30 on Current TV, located on DirecTV 358, Dish Network 196, and Comcast 107, and then repeats endlessly throughout the week.)

You can keep your Chucks, your The Wires, your 1996 People's Choice Awards. My new favorite show is WCG Ultimate Gamer on the Sci Fi Channel. It's not really Science Fiction. It's barely a television show, really.

How great is NBC's sophomore series Chuck? Last night, it managed to resurrect Scott Bakula and make Chevy Chase interesting.

With the exception of some middling episodes around the middle of this season, Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak's lovable, feather-light spy series has moved from strength to strength since its return last fall. Stars Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski, and Adam Baldwin were charming from the outset, and the show's first season was pleasantly affable entertainment. But season two has rapidly eclipsed Heroes -- despite that show's recent, tentative creative second wind -- as the main reason I look forward to Monday night TV.

All season long, the characters have gotten deeper and more likeable, and the jokes even funnier. The writers have also gotten really good at finding believable ways for the show's dweeby hero to save the day without magically becoming some sort of badass superspy. In all, Schwartz and Fedak have successfully struck a tricky balance between goofy heroics, honest heart, and, uh, a lot of Subway product placement, for some reason. (And if the show does take particularly nerdy glee in dressing Ms. Strahovski in a parade of mind-boggling, Sydney-Bristow-worthy getups, it compensates nicely by giving her a thoughtful, surprisingly complex character to play.)

It doesn't hurt that the guest casting's been truly geektacular: Jordana Brewster, a surprisingly non-horrible Nicole Richie (getting the snot kicked out of her, as an added bonus), Tricia "Six" Helfer, Andy Richter, Michael Rooker, Arnold Vosloo, and even Reginald VelJohnson sneakily reprising his character from Die Hard. Other shows may land bigger names for guest appearances, but none has assembled a lineup as much fun as Chuck's, nor used them so well.

Last night brought in Chase as a wonderfully smarmy Steve Jobs analogue, and Bakula as Chuck's paranoid absentee father. Chase isn't the first guy who springs to mind when you think "smug corporate overlord," but he did a nicely nasty job of it. And in the space of an hour, the episode managed to remind me a) why I liked Bakula as an actor, and b) that I ever liked Bakula as an actor, period.

After four years of grimacing his way wearily through Star Trek: Enterprise, here at last was the guy I remembered fondly from Quantum Leap. Bakula played Chuck's dad as a shuffly, twitchy, damaged bundle of bitterness and regrets -- a complex, interesting, honest-to-God performance that packed a lot more punch than it probably should have. (Some of the show's strongest writing to date definitely didn't hurt.) And sure, I probably should have seen his character's big reveal coming, but that didn't make it any more delightful or triumphant. Nice to have you back, Dr. Beckett.

It looks like Bakula and Chase will be back sometime before the end of the season, which suits me just fine. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about Chuck's odds for a third-season pickup; like pretty much everything else on NBC these days, its ratings have reportedly been in the tank. (Clearly, too few Americans have learned what Joss Whedon taught us long ago: Adam Baldwin + tranquilizer darts = comedy gold.)

So watch while you can, and hope for the best. While Heroes has flailed wildly around this season, desperately searching for a workable strategy, the other geek-targeted show on NBC's Monday nights has been quietly, consistently, and awesomely getting it right.

Marvel Comics is clearly making comic collecting as hard as possible. My son bought Amazing Spider-Man #588 a couple of weeks ago. Today I wanted to see when the next issue would be out and I can find...#592 on April 22. With a variant cover! What happened to issues 589 through 591? Who knows?

Click on "Spider-Man" on the Website and you find Amazing Spider-Man 588 (got it, thanks!) followed by Spider-Man: With Great Power, Sensational Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Girl (Zombie Variant), Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Girl, Spider-Man Fairy Tales, Amazing Spider-Man #544 (Djurdjevic Variant (!)), Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, and absolutely no sign of Amazing Spider-Man 589.

Do not under any circumstances attempt to use the search function. Even if you think that by unchecking "Trade Paperbacks", "Digests", and "Hardcovers", and then putting "amazing spider-man" into the search box, and narrowing the release date to April 2009, even if you think by doing all that you'll somehow find what you're looking for; don't do it, because the results will lead off with Ms. Marvel #40 followed by Spider-Woman #1. The cover of which is creepy -- how does one get a superhero costume with a navel? Those crazy unstable molecules!

What the hell is wrong with Marvel Comics? Oh, wait, the answer's right there on the bottom of every Web page, where you can find prominently linked "Corporate Information & Investor Relations".

As if there aren't enough reasons to worry for the state of civilization, Fast & Furious managed to have the best opening weekend of 2009 despite being such an obvious retread of the first not very good movie Universal couldn't even invent a new name for it. It beat out the equally obviously mediocre Monsters vs. Aliens, the main purpose of which seemed to be furthering the experiment to calculate, to the third decimal place, how quickly Seth Rogen can wear out his welcome. And that film topped Watchmen's opening weekend. At least one movie's strong opening makes some kind of sense: Who didn't want to see Billy Crudup naked?

All of this horror pales, however, if you give in to your curiosity and visit Box Office Mojo to see that the top domestic gross taken by any film this year so far is $143 million or so for Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Which can only mean there's more Kevin James in our future.

Unfortunately, Kevin James' particular brand of mediocrity has been found to penetrate even the most robust bomb shelter, so this Apocalypse will be unpleasantly complete.

Speaking of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I found out that the Blob is being played by Kevin Durand. You probably remember Durand as the bad-ass mercenary from the fourth season of Lost. What you probably don't remember is Durand being enormously fat. (He's apparently really tall, though.)

This bothers me. Couldn't the producers find an authentically fat actor to play the Blob? I can't believe no one was available. Having a mesomorph play one of the few superpowered ectomorphs is insulting to fat people everywhere; they might as well get Sylvester Stallone to play Luke Cage in blackface.

It's the sad fate of fat actors in Hollywood: Sure, they're fine to play the bodies of fat characters in movies like Shallow Hal and Norbit, but as soon as we need a face, we're getting a real thin actor in there, like Gwyneth Paltrow or Eddie Murphy. How crappy must that be, to have your body used as the cellulite-ridden jiggly butt of a movie full of jokes with someone else's head stuck on it? Your thighs and gut put on a great performance, but keep your fatty face to yourself, meatball! Then there's Simon Pegg starring in a movie called Run Fatboy Run. Simon Pegg is not a fat boy. How did he sit next to Nick Frost for at least two movies and still think he qualified for the fat guy role?

And does anyone besides me remember Dom DeLuise in Fatso? I saw a few minutes of that movie on some obscure satellite channel a few months ago and was horrified to discover that I'm at least twice the size DeLuise was then, and that I'd kill to be as small as he was. He'd probably kill, too, considering he's about nine hundred pounds these days. Did DeLuise retire or did his craft services costs get too high?

Is that why they didn't get him to play the Blob?

So I’m watching the third season of Friday Night Lights and I keep seeing scenes that essentially contradict the entire previous season. Remember when Landry killed that guy? Remember when Buddy adopted a released convict named Santiago and let him live in his spare bedroom? As I watch Lyla drink heavily and date Tim Riggins, I am reminded of her time last season as a born-again Christian.

And of course there are the ages of the characters, who have been in high school for half a decade now. I think Tim Riggins fell down and fractured his hip in the last game of the year.

I don’t mind, really. Last season’s Friday Night Lights was a cock-up all the way around. Better to forget it ever happened. File it in a parallel universe — we’ll call it the Santiagoverse — and never speak of it again.

My friend and frequent collaborator Joel Mathis interviewed 30 Rock's Frank for Philadelphia Weekly, wherein we learn that:

Yesterday I was in the studio I share with Reilly Brown, erstwhile Cable & Deadpool penciller, and Chris Irving, comic book writer. Reilly said something about the upcoming movie Wolverine having been pirated and already released online, and both Chris and he were saying things like "What kind of jerk would do such a thing?"

I jumped in because, with these guys, I'm not afraid of sounding like an idiot. They already know I'm an idiot. "Who cares?" I asked.

Reilly's opinion is that now the movie's box office will be ruined. "Most comic fans have seen the trailers already and know it's going to suck, so they're only going to go so they can see how bad it is. And now they won't have to, they can just download it."

"And think of all the creators who worked on the movie, what about them?" added Chris.

As far as that goes, I'm pretty sure all the gaffers and best boys and hot-gluers got paid already.

As far as Reilly's point, though, I think it's amusing, because I'm a comic fan, and an old-time X-Men collector, and this is the first X-movie I've actually been interested in seeing. Comic fans of my acquaintance really liked the first X-movie, and the director Bryan Singer gained a lot of cred in comic circles -- where he was even forgiven for the aggressively mediocre Superman Returns -- but about the best I could say about it was it was better than I expected. Since I expected it to be the worst superhero movie of all time, this isn't saying much. The second X-movie was less good, and I never bothered with the third one. I just didn't need another two hours or so of underlit cranky mutant angst and blurry CGI, not even for brief shots of Rebecca Romijn essentially naked.

But Wolverine looks pretty cool. Not, you know, great or anything. I mean, isn't Liev Schreiber just too limp-wristed and sensitive an actor to pull off a feral villain named for a giant prehistoric carnivore? Maybe part of why it looks good to me is none of the characters aside from Wolverine had really gained prominence before I stopped collecting. Chris said, "I really want to see them do Gambit well." Who? Name rings a bell. Wasn't he one of the New Mutants or something Art Adams used to draw? Do we give a crap about him now?

In any case, I can't imagine the pirated version making a difference to the movie's bottom line. If anything it might help by generating even more buzz, although the damned thing's being marketed so strongly I can't imagine squeezing any more out of it. Still, Reilly eventually became sanguine about the financial damage: "Fox deserves whatever it gets for how the movie ruins Deadpool."

Who?

Comedies about the workplace are a tricky feat to pull off. When you manage to nail the delicate balance of dysfunctional personalities, minor absurdities, and petty indignities right, you get The Office. When you get them wrong, you get … well, pretty much every workplace-centric comedy that isn’t The Office. Two of TV’s newest work-themed comedies happily succeed with style, one with delightful whimsy, and the other with heaping doses of soul-grinding misery.

I loved the 1999 ABC series Cupid, starring Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall. It was a delightful modern version of the Love Boat-style romantic anthology show, with a strong enough cast of ongoing characters to avoid some of the Incredible Hulk new-town-each-week ennui that makes me avoid most Fugitive knock-offs on general principle.

Someone at ABC must have loved it, too. Because although the original show was on the wrong network at the wrong time, today’s ABC — which seems like a better fit for such a show, what with the success of Grey’s Anatomy and its ilk — has revived Cupid and is giving it another go.

Well, not revived. Jeremy Piven is busy chewing scenery on Entourage these days. So instead we get Bobby Cannavale in the Piven role, as Trevor, a bachelor matchmaker who may or may not be Cupid, the god of love, banished to Earth by an angry Zeus. And Sarah Paulson of Studio 60 infamy is Claire, the psychologist who is Trevor’s keeper and antagonist. (New York subs for Chicago this time around, too, which is a shame, because I’m awfully tired of shows set in New York and L.A.)

It’s a clever conceit. Not only is there a light fantasy element to the whole is-he-a-god thing, but Claire and Trevor can endlessly joust about whether love is all hormoney and chemical (Trevor’s side) or all about finding an appropriate mate using cool logic rather than emotion (Claire’s take). That the reality of love is firmly in between makes their tug of war so much fun.

For those who remember the original, well, yeah, this one’s probably not as good, at least in terms of the cast. That’s mostly because Piven as Trevor was one of the best pairings of actor to role in TV history. But Cannavale’s take on the god of love is not an attempt to ape Piven, and he’s pretty good. So is Paulsen, who doesn’t push my buttons like Paula Marshall does — I don’t care if she’s a showkiller, she’s just so purty! — but executes the melting-ice-queen bit with a lot of flair.

What I’m not clear on is why, after all this, ABC chose to not promote Cupid, which premiered this week to disappointing ratings. It’s a great match for its shows with strong female audiences, and I think guys would like it too. There’s no way to know whether the new Cupid will get better or worse after its pilot episode, but the format is just so solid, and the producers are talented. (Original Cupid creator Rob Thomas, late of Veronica Mars, is back aboard.)

Is Cupid cutting-edge drama? Not on your life. Like its predecessor, it’s a light, funny romantic comedy with a touch of drama. That’s fine. These days, I think we could all use a little more comfortable romantic comedy in our lives. It’s comfort food, served up on a platter by the god of love.

Cupid airs Tuesdays at 10 on ABC, and is available to stream on ABC’s web site.

I'd like to take a moment of out your busy schedule to ask you a simple question:

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

I ask this because of George Gershwin.  You see, I've owned more than one copy of recordings of Gershwin's wonderful Rhapsody in Blue, often along with An American in Paris and Lullaby for Strings.  Somehow over the years my CD copies of these greats have gotten the crap kicked out of them -- my kids, when they were much younger, loved Rhapsody in Blue and consequently the CD saw some hard use; and my first CD copy was one of the earliest CDs ever made and the aluminum layer actually began to flake away.  I was thinking I'd like to hear the piece again recently, so I decided to download a copy over BitTorrent.  Considering how many recordings I've owned -- to say nothing of my father and grandfather's copies -- I feel entitled.

I found a lovely torrent of a four CD set called The Ultimate Gershwin.  I began to download it.  Eventually the download halted at 93 percent because, it turns out, there are no seeds for this torrent.  Well, certainly if there are only partial copies of the set, they'll include Rhapsody in Blue at least, and probably An American in Paris.

I checked.  The answer is no.  This Ultimate Gershwin torrent actually manages to lack An American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue, and Lullaby for Strings.  (In fact the original CD set fails to include Lullaby).

Truly I weep for the state of Western civilization.