“Oh, this is the end…”

Well, FX just announced that their mind-f*ck Marvel series ‘Legion‘ will end after Season Three. Creator Noah Hawley apparently planned it as a three season story. But, come on. It’s obvious that had the ratings been better and that Disney hadn’t recently acquired Fox and all their Marvel properties–which includes ‘Legion‘–they would’ve continued the run. I’m mean, Disney’s ending rebooting the entire “X-men” film franchise. So, it’s not like this is a complete shocker.

However, I think this is good news. Any genre TV show that gets to end on its own terms and without unresolved cliffhanger bullsh*t is perfectly fine by me. Short and sweet is just how I roll. Anyway, Season Three looks to be another dark and twisted mind-f*ck. Here’s hoping.

A ‘Moonglow’ Teaser

Tobias Sammet’s latest AVANTASIA album ‘Moonglow‘ is about to drop–February 15th 2019. As a fan since their glorious debut ‘The Metal Opera’, I’ve embraced their gradual transition away from Symphonic Metal towards epic-scaled Prog Rock. It allows added complexity and nuance to the deep melodies and intricate arrangements. And, more importantly, it permits a greater range of guest vocalists in not requiring that they all must scream above the fury.

Each album typically gets at least one ballad putting Sammet’s soar alongside an ethereal female guest. As these songs often end up as album highlights the choice of his counterpart is essential. Thankfully, this time he got the effervescent Candice Night onboard for the title track, “Moonglow“. It’s nice to see Night branching out and tackling “heavier” material than her regular gig in BLACKMORE’S NIGHT. It’s a decent song. I’m hoping the album’s another Prog masterpiece. We’ll see.

Video Clip:

An Argument for Change

Recently, I saw ‘Aquaman’ at a local theater. And before the 140+ minute feature even began I was forced to endure the perfunctory batch of commercials and trailers. In fact, they lasted so long I almost got up out of my chair at their end forgetting I hadn’t yet finished started watching the film I’d come to see.

And, as movie theaters make less money off of ticket sales (the studios get almost all the money directly) and more off the advertising and marketing dollars, I don’t believe this trend of extra paid-for marketing content is going away any time soon. However, I have an idea…

Trailers have become their own thing, with millions of YouTube views for every “next shiny thing”. So maybe we skip the whole inconvenience of watching movies in movie theaters and just binge on trailers there, instead. For $5 dollars you get to sit down with a bucket of $20 popcorn and a $15 beer and watch an hour (or two) of big spectacle trailers broken up occasionally with some hipster doofus commercials. I figure one visit about every third week to stay current should suffice.

And then, after deciding which of those films we’re actually willing to waste more time and money to see in their entirety, we then turn to Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu or whatever and watch them in the comfort of our own homes without any commercial (or annoying other patron) interruptions. Sounds like a win win to me. ;-)