Welcome to the weekly TV thread.
The Original TV Score Selection of the Week is JG Thirlwell’s “Tuff,” the end title theme from The Venture Bros. The bass line alone is why “Tuff” is one of my favorite instrumentals from the closing credits of a TV show.
Ted Lasso is pulling a Coach in its new season.
Okay, to be more accurate, Lasso only kind of does. Hayden Fox moved from Minnesota college football to an Orlando NFL expansion team in Coach’s eighth and penultimate season. Meanwhile, the former coach of the AFC Richmond men’s club, who moved back to Kansas City to concentrate on fatherhood, is unretiring to coach the AFC Richmond women’s club.
It’s too early to tell if this attempt to reinvigorate a show TV critics grew impatient with during its most recent season (which Apple TV released three years ago) will work like The Venture Bros.’s move to New York and Friday Night Lights’s transfer of the Taylors from well-funded Dillon High to underfunded East Dillon High did. Those are two of my favorite soft reboots. However, Tanya Reynolds is terrific in her debut episode as assistant coach Alice Chilton, the new deadpan foil to Ted, and I’m curious what Tracey Ullman, another new addition to the Lasso cast, will bring to the table.
Today’s prompt is: Which soft reboot or permanent setting change worked for you?
Maybe someone in this comments section is the only one who liked The Adventures of Superboy’s third-season change from an upbeat, very late ’80s, and overlit show about Clark Kent’s college years to a slightly moodier, Art Deco-fonted one that took place at “the Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters” and was a precursor to The X-Files. That was the first time the popularity of a darker-toned Batman project influenced a Superman project.
In The Adventures of Superboy’s case, it was Tim Burton’s first Batman movie, whose popularity caused the Adventures of Superboy producers to change the look of their show during Clark and Lana’s move to Capitol City. Yep, they moved to Capitol City. There’s a swinging town I know called Capitol City. People stop and scream hello in Capitol City. It’s the kind of place that makes a bum feel like a king. And it makes a king feel like some nutty, cuckoo super-king. Look, it’s Tony Bennett.
Whenever a Superman project tries to be more like a Batman one, I always say, “Why?” Just let Superman be Superman, man.