We all know Hollywood will steal a clever idea. I mean we all do it. of these podcasts so far only, a handful have been original. Why waste a lot of time for no reason when it works. I have no issue with retreading a story or trying to pull more stories from a world. We have seen this not work, a lot. When it goes wrong it is very disappointing. Now I understand it is not easy to adapt some media to other forms. Let’s face it fans never know what they want. I am guilty of wanting a true and authentic remake and then I am upset when that is exactly what I get. It really is a simple task. I mean all the fans want from a retooling is for the new movie or show to be exactly like the original and yet somehow completely different at the same time. This is no easy feat, and only has been done a handful of times. So here is my list of five shows that are exactly like their source material and yet somehow completely different. Oh, I am a little nervous on this one.

First up, and as no surprise to anyone who has heard any other episode of this podcast, I am going to start with a game and a cartoon from my youth. I grew up in the late seventies and early eighties. I know your thinking “no way this guy is gen x? you’d never know by the topics he picks.” But yes, I am gen x and I love all things gen x. I got interested in Dungeons & Dragons, AD&D as it was in those days, around the third grade. You had Dungeons & Dragons, which was the original. Then we got Advanced D&D, an update to rules and math. I love that game. It was unlike anything I had ever played. This was the first time I played a game where you worked with everybody at the table to solve a puzzle or overcome some obstacles. This was amazing to me. I also discovered, quickly there were a ton of games like this out there. While my focus, and the focus of many of my friends, was on D&D we also played things like top secret, a spy version of D&D, we also played shadow run, a cyber noir version of D&D, but we always came back to D&D. being broke we did not buy a lot of modules or anything, we would make up our own adventures. This devolved into creating characters and running them through these hundred room trials, or the grind as we called it. it was fun and let’s face it was what we really wanted to do. we wanted to be these powerful characters who would be able to slay all the monsters in our path. We were also starved for this world to be accurately displayed in media. I think in the early eighties there were a bunch of fantasy-oriented films, Dragonslayer comes to mind, but nothing quite scratched the itch of the world of Dungeons & Dragons. You also have to remember at the time the nation was in the grips of the “satanic panic”. This was a scary period where parent groups were outraged over anything non-Christian or magic oriented. I am not joking. I had a friend in the seventh grade he was suspended for having the core books in his backpack. Not out. Not being used or disrupting class in any way. The possession of these books in the early to mid-eighties where I lived got him in trouble. Books were confiscated, he was suspended for three days. I always laughed at the criticism this game received from the parent’s groups when I was growing up. Here is a game that has kids reading and doing high level math, in the early days you really had have basic calculous knowledge to make the math all work correctly. These groups would engage in interpersonal communication and brainstorming ideas for creative problem solving. Many of the adventures I engaged in, and most people I talk to about this, were the standard strange evil occurrence on the edge of town and our group of heroes would defeat the ultimate evil, save the town, the people, and the universe from some evil force. Anyway, the closest depiction of D&D at that time was a movie with Tom Hanks and Chris Makepeace. This was the Mazes and Monsters tv movie about kids playing live action D&D in an abandon mine shaft and going crazy. Ever hear the story about the kids who played D&D in the sewers of New York, or another big city? Well, this is most likely where they come from. Mazes and Monsters is such an after school special style tv movie. If you get a chance to see it check it out. I believe it is on peacock as well as for purchase at Vudu. Not going to tell you if you should buy it or not, I will leave that up to you.

So, D&D was the original. This was the game. Now how do you get this out in other media forms? By changing as much of the perceived satanism as possible and then selling it to small children. The exactly the same but completely different remake here is the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

The Dungeons & Dragons’ cartoon has a simple, well as simple as possible, premise. Our group of heroes are at a local carnival / fair. They go on the cool Dungeons and Dragons’ ride. While on the ride a portal opens up and sucks them in to the world of Dungeons & Dragons. They immediately meet a major villain, Vengor voiced by peter Cullen who you may know as the voice of Optimus Prime in the Michael Bay Transformers movies. He wants the magical items given to our group by the dungeon master, voiced by Sydney Miller. The dungeon master gives our heroes weapons and clues to try and survive long enough to return home. many of the classes have been changed for the show and even lost in updates to rules versions. We have a thief, voiced by Katie Leigh, and her robe that allows her to disappear at will, always wanted that one. Don Most voices our cavalier, you will remember him most as Ralph Malph on happy days he was also on Glee for a while. He is your standard rich kid, and the bad jokes are there to prove it. Willy Aames of Eight is Enough, Charles in Charge and Bibleman fame, plays our ranger. We have a barbarian voiced by Adam Rich, Nicholas from Eight is Enough. Can I just say I used love eight is enough when I was a kid? Not to get too far off but it was a show about a single dad with eight kids, I think one had moved out on his own already. Family drama and the one thing you knew for sure was that no matter what this family was a family, but that is a list for another time. In Dungeons & Dragons, the story was simple our merry band was trying to get home. Every week they would receive mysterious instructions from the dungeon master and off we go. The dungeon master always spoke in riddles, I got to say this seems to me to be a break point. Before this show there were DM’s who would have you ask them questions to attempt to sus out the mystery ahead. After this show everything was now a riddle and far more mysterious. If you want to view this gym, I am going to say good luck finding episodes or clips on you tube. I do believe this was produced by Marvel so maybe Disney+ will get it soon, and we get more animation, or live action even, episodes. I have to find this. Always takes me back to the sixth grade when I think of it.

This next one I remember so fondly, now if the memory is correct would be wonderful as well. I am talking about Fantasy Island. I loved this show when I was kid. Let me dig way back and say this was like Saturday nights on ABC. They would do Love Boat first then Fantasy Island. Fantasy Island always felt like the ten o’clock show as the themes were a bit more adult. The premise of the show was simple. Guest would buy a fantasy from Mr. Rourke, the enigmatic Ricardo Maltobaun, these fantasies did not always turn out the way they were expected to. This was one of those wonderful shows, like Love Boat, where the guest stars each week were almost more important than the show itself. I loved this as a thing. Fantasy island was late seventies into the eighties and with the abundance of television in the decades prior they were able to grab some of those stars that had not done anything in a while. I mean can anyone tell what Charo was famous for, I mean besides all her guest shots on love boat and various other shows? I was also just starting to explore television, as much as you could in those days, but I was watching things that were in syndication and then finding those actors on Fantasy Island, as well as other shows like it. Really there was no other show like fantasy Island. This was my first venture into genre-based shows, unless you want to count the batman from the sixties which was always wonderful to find on tv. Fantasy Island had the word fantasy right there in the title. All stories, by nature, already had a bit of s scif-fi fantasy element just from the island and whether Rourke was God, the devil or just a trapped soul doing time in purgatory. As far as I can remember this was never addressed. I am seriously thinking of signing up for tubi as it is the only place, I can even find episodes listed. the stories were also remarkably simple, you know like those eight basic story structures we all learned in elementary school. You had a regret fantasy; something was done and now the person wished to have it undone. The revenge story, someone done somebody wrong story. the hero story, one person was idolizing a dead relative, usually, but learns they have to die or even that they were not who they thought. The good life, this one starts as the best vacation ever then slowly devolves into the be careful what you wish for scenario, and really this is the idea at the base of all of these stories. We are talking Twilight Zone on a tropical island.

I have many times had the conversation about the Love Boat Fantasy Island crossover. Many thinks this does not exist, and they are wrong, well sort of. I know we all talk about the Love Boat making port at Fantasy Island and may even think we saw an episode that had our cast from love boat running around the island. This is not what it was. Loni Anderson, from WKRP and a ton of other stuff, takes a trip to Fantasy Island by way of the Love Boat. So yes, it is a crossover but not like we all imagine. I do have fond memories of this show. It was one of those shows I watched and was probably a little too young for. I know I was missing a lot of stuff but what I loved was the horror episodes. Now understand it is network, so we are not talking blood and gore. We are talking a little more psychological horror than that. We are also seeing it watered down a bit. Again, it was network, however it was network in the late seventies and early eighties, so it did get a little dark. I remember an episode that had a group of four girlfriends from college being hunted by a killer and he would yank the heads off of these dolls after each kill. My wife has this memory about a darkness with three white doors. One of the doors was opened to reveal a devil and fire behind him. This really has stuck with my wife, and that serial killer one has stuck with me.

The movie does a wonderful job of presenting entirely new material wrapped in a wonderful package that was Fantasy Island. The remake, in my opinion, nails it. My only issue is that there seems to be too much of a focus on Rourke and the island. Everything else is spot on. Mr. Rourke, in the movie, is portrayed wonderfully by Michael Pena, from the ant man movies as well as the movie shooter which we will also be talking about. The movie opens with someone running in fear. She hides in Rourke’s office only to be dragged out and hauled off. Which makes you wonder just exactly how does Rourke get all those people to play along in the fantasies. It makes you think for a second, but only a second. Our guests arrive on the island and true to form from the original we get the run down on each of our guests. Maggie Q, from Nikita and Mission Impossible 3, plays Gwen Olson, she needs a do over. Lucy Hale, Bionic woman and pretty little liars, is interested in seeking revenge on her high school bully. I bet that is common with everyone. even those who were bullying you have a bully they want revenge on, we are all connected here man. Anyway, Austin Stowell, from whiplash and bridge of spies, is there to be the hero he wants to be. Jimmy O. Yang, from Silicon Valley, and Ryan Hansen, Friday the thirteen reboot as well as GI Joe Retaliation, play brothers who want it all. And of course, these things will all go as planned. Obviously, no one is quite sure what to expect. Maggie Q’s character actually changes her regret from refusing a marriage proposal to trying to save the neighbor above her from a fire in the building. She discovered how hollow and empty her stated regret was when she realized she could actually might be able to change the past. Austin Stowell’s character gets off to a rough start. He wants to be a soldier and as soon as his fantasy begins, he is taken prisoner. Turns out it is his father’s unit that have captured him. Stowell’s father is played by Mike Vogel, you may know him from Under the Dome, The Brave, and for the really good television addicts he was Lilly’s boyfriend on Grounded for Life. Stowell reveals to his father that he will not return from this mission. Always love watching people fighting fate when it is done well, and here it is done well. Yang and Hansen are most certainly living the good life and are having a blast until they learn that if you have it all someone will want to take it from you. These stories are wonderful woven throughout this production. Hale’s character has a scene in this dark basement area with, what she believes is a hologram, of her high school bully. She discovers that it is her bully, then she changes her mind. I mean we all fantasize about vengeance at some time, but I have to imagine if push came to shove, we would not actually want to hurt someone the way we feel as though we have been hurt, at least I hope we would do the right thing. A lot of twists and turns here so do not want to give away too much. I will say that these all come together nicely and intersect very well. There is a nice little piece of writing at the end that reveals a couple of things and sets up for the possibility of a sequel. If they do a sequel, and they should, all I want, at the very least, is a recap of the earlier film done by Paul Rudd in the style of Michael Pena in Antman. I think it would be fun. There is a reboot on television, so I am not sure if a movie is even in the works. I have only watched a couple of episodes of the new show, but I do like it. just a little hard right now to be up for the dark twists and turns usually associated with Fantasy Island.

This next one is definitely a movie I can watch at any time. Shooter is a wonderful homage to the conspiracy thrillers of the nineteen seventies. We start off with a sniper in combat. Mark Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger, a marine sniper. We see him and his scout covering the exfil route for a team that has just engaged in some activity. Being vague because we do not know anything about this op. there is truck threatening our convoy. Swagger takes the shot and removes the truck from the equation. As the caravan passes, we see an influx of enemy troops from there everything goes wrong. We lose our spotter, and all hell breaks loose as our guy is completely cut off and left for dead. We now jump three years to the future and find Swagger living an isolated life in a small cabin in the woods. Yes, that’s decent work if you can get it. Members of our government approach him. Danny Glover plays Colonel Johnson, and he has a mission for Swagger. The colonel wants Swagger to aid in finding a sniper threat against the president. So naturally why not call in the best and get him to plan the shot. Yes, this sticks out like a soar thumb. I mean really, we know what happens next. We get all these great shots of Swagger planning the assassination. Looks like anormal tourist walking through a city. He delivers the plan to the Colonel and now is asked to be at the event where the president will be speaking. This is the place where Swagger has said that the assassination is going to happen. To everyone’s surprise the assassination is set off, but a local police officer tries to kill Swagger. The whole thing was a set up from the start? Yes of course it was. As Swagger is trying to make his getaway, he comes across Michael Pena, playing agent Memphis. Swagger hand cuffs Memphis to a street pole and tells him he did not kill the president. Swagger steals the agent’s car and makes a getaway. Now I do not want to do the full book report here. This is clearly the set up, and the rest of the film is executed wonderfully. This is a thrill ride I love to go on. Great cast throughout. In addition to those already mentioned we have Kate Mara as the Swaggers spotter’s girlfriend. Elias Koteas as the morally grey operative, okay more than grey he is pretty dark. I got to say I always love seeing Elias Koteas on screen. He was excellent in Some Kind of Wonderful. An excellent “chick flick,” but from a guy’s point of view. He was great on Chicago PD as the veteran police officer who had done it all and seen it all. He is even good as Casey Jones in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I guess what I am saying is I am a bit of a fan. We also get Rhona Mitra as high-ranking lawyer within the defense department. I also love seeing her on screen. I am disappointed that we did not get more of her here. Another fantastic addition is Ned Beaty, you may remember him from Deliverance and just about every movie in the eighties, he plays a corrupt senator who runs this black ops team. This is where we learn about the team from the beginning of the movie and what they were doing. Essentially making Swagger part of the larger conspiracy since he covered their exfil on his last official mission. This is a great movie. High energy, believable action, and a conspiracy, while predictable, executed perfectly. I mean really how do you hide a good conspiracy anymore? There really is not a lot of room to move in the format. Unless of course you apply it to a different venue. Shooter the television show does just that. It takes all the nooks and crannies that are hinted at, or glossed over in the movie, and expands on it. this done with precision. Nothing in the show feels like it is being expanded for filler. It all has a point or some connection to the larger story.

The first season of shooter, and that will be where I focus, follows the movie, and expands on the idea. Ryan Phillipe plays Swagger, and he does it wonderfully. Our tv Swagger has a little more than the movie Swagger. Phillipe’s Swagger is married to Julie Swagger played by Shantel VanSanten, you may know here from The Boys on amazon or The Flash over at cw. This up the stakes as our guy now has something to fight for, a wife and a daughter. Colonel Isaac becomes secret service agent Isaac, played wonderfully by Omar Epps. You may know him from house, which I recently started watching, as well as juice and Love and basketball. The role I will always remember him from was an hbo movie about college in the early nineties called Higher Learning. He was excellent in that, and it was the first thing I saw him. Over the course of the first season of Shooter we play out the movie, with more depth and extension. It is wonderful how this show is able to create more tension than the movie and give more information than the movie. It is because we have more time to bond with the characters I think. I always say it Television is the long format. You can always get more background and understanding of motivation over several episodes than you can with a single film. It is all about the amount of time you put in. the show ran for three seasons. Yes, it does dip a little after the first season, but that is to be expected. Season 1, like I said, follows the movie; after that we are building new stories connected to the world. I am honestly surprised this was three seasons. With a tight premise like this there really is not a whole lot left. I will say the second and third season are a good watch, and I did enjoy them. You really should watch both of these. They are both available on Netflix at this time. Do your self a favor and check this one out.

This next one is really good, and if I am being honest, I have not seen this movie as much as you would think. I am talking about the Exorcist, currently available on Netflix. This is the story of a young girl who becomes possessed after playing with a Ouija board, or at least that is the best I can get from the movie. It really does not draw a straight line from the opening scenes to the main story. a young girl, Reagan MacNeil played by Linda Blair, now normally I would tell you what else you would know her from, but this is what you know her from, her other film credits are where you would comment “that’s the girl from the exorcist,” becomes possessed. Mom, played by Ellen Burstyn, goes through all the steps you would go through with the sort of mystery illness her daughter has. I love that the approach is not to run to a priest but puts her daughter through several diagnostic procedures before consulting the church. Father Karras, played by Jason Miller, gives an impressive performance. He is priest but he has doubts. We all go through this from time to time in our careers. We wonder are we where we belong, is this still the right place for me. All the normal doubts. Father Karras is hesitant at first about an exorcism. He is a priest and a psychologist. He explains exorcisms were done in a time when the church did not know about mental health. He is convinced and the exorcism does happen.

This movie does a wonderful job of building the characters and world around them. Some immensely powerful scenes here. I love how this movie plays with sound; I have always loved that. You get these quiet moments of normalcy and then an alarm goes off. Not a literal alarm mind you but more of a figurative alarm. Simply a loud noise from outside to jar us into a new reality, or the phones ringing. My god those phones are so jarring. I remembered thinking that in one of my early viewings but this time around it seemed so much more. Probably because I cannot remember the last time I heard a phone ring, and it has been decades since I heard the loud glaring ring of the old phones. I do not miss that at all, but I do miss that satisfying feeling when you used to be able to slam a phone down on the cradle so hard you hear the bell inside ring just a little. Anyway, the Exorcist does a fantastic job of building up to the final sequence. Much of what people talk about with this movie occurs in the last thirty minutes or so of the film. It builds to it, too slow but exactly on time, if that makes any sense at all. I will say this is something the television series of the Exorcist does well also.

The first season starts off with what feels like a simple retelling of the movie. Of course, there have been some changes made for the series. We up the stakes with Father Thomas, Alfonso Herrera from Sense 8, and Ozark, as he now has a sister and her son he helps take care of. Father Thomas is also having some questions, the subject of his opening sermon. This sermon is being heard by our main family, the Rance family is where we focus for season one, and there is plenty here to focus on. Kat, played by Brianne Howey from bat woman, has recently returned home from college after her friend has died in a car crash. Her sister Casey, played by Hannah Kasulka, is the people pleaser in the family. Always presenting so cheery and upbeat. The father has a neurological issue that presents similar to Alzheimer’s disease, and it may well have been that, is played by the talented Alan Ruck you know Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day off as well as Star trek Generations, Speed, and one of my favs Twister. He is so talented and really does shine in this role. The mom is played by Gina Davis, another fine actor from Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own and The Long Kiss Goodnight, does an excellent job here in being the mother. She is going to will this family to stay together. Another character we get, and probably one of my favorites in the show, is Father Marcus Keane expertly played by Ben Daniels. You may know Ben Daniels from House of Cards and Rogue One. Daniels’ Father Marcus is an exorcist. We see him performing an exorcism in Mexico. Father Thomas is witnessing this exorcism, but in Thomas’s dreams. Some sort of astral projection kind of thing. Thomas tracks down Father Marcus and implores him to help. And this is the end of the first episode. I do not want to give too much away. I will say that much like the movie the first several episodes build up the people and the world around them. There are no straight lines here. You get set up to think anyone could be possessed. There are scenes done in such a way that you wonder if you just saw what you saw or was it something else. The last three or four episodes is where the pay off is on this. Again, I do not want to spoil it. I will say season two is wonderful as well. Creates a new story in the universe. We only really keep Father Thomas and Father Marcus and most of the others are new. This show does not only look at the infestation of the people we are trying to help but also takes a deep look into the church itself. We are led to believe that these demons are infiltrating the church itself. I have to say of all the shows that have been cancelled far too soon this should be at the top of that list. The ending of season two, while a complete and full package, really hints at a crazy season three. And yes, I am still waiting for it!!! the exorcist movie is on Netflix and the show is on Amazon Prime and available for purchase on Vudu. I like both but I think the show would be a little more accessible to more people.

My first viewing of the exorcist I was too young. My dad’s girlfriend, who would later become my stepmom, her parents had a viewing party, for lack of a better phrasing, at their home and we went over to watch it. now I was seven-ish, and no one thought about me being so young in the planning but during the viewing it was apparent to me that the adults were now thinking about it. I remember wanting to see this movie that so many people had talked about, but during the viewing my step grandpa, and my dad, would explain the technical side of some of the scarier parts. This would just pull me right out of the viewing, you know like the old late night horror hosts. I was annoyed but was polite and listened. Yeah, I was seven and annoyed at people talking through a movie. It is who I have always been. And I am a little thankful they did this as it would have been one of those nightmare inducing movies. I mean I was seven so yes definitely.

If you know me, you know I am obsessed with time travel. This has been my favorite subgenre of science fiction for as long as I can remember. It is hard to find it done really well. 12 monkeys get it right. The movie stars Bruce Willis, you know the diehard guy, he is living in the future. A future where the globe has been ravaged by a virus outbreak killing off roughly ninety percent of humans. Humans now live underground attempting to find a way to return to the surface. Willis’s James Cole is sent topside as an observer to try and track down any clues as to the virus’s spread, mutation, or beginnings. After he returns, he is sent on another mission, much the same and yet so very completely different. He is sent back in time to track the virus from its outbreak. Trouble is he is sent too far back. Cole was supposed to land in 1996 but actually lands in 1990. This creates a whole slew of problems. The obvious one, as is with any good time travel movie, he is put in a mental institution. This is done fairly early, and, in a way, you sort of begin to wonder is he crazy? Terry Gilliam is a wonderful director and builds a very stylized world. The future, when released, seemed this sort of oddly germophobic existence. Latex suits under atmospheric protective suits. When I saw this initially, I thought “like we would ever go that far?”; rewatching it for this episode I thought “is that really even enough protection?”. Interesting how a little thing like perspective and experience will push what you think or believe. While Cole is in a mental asylum he meets Jeffrey Goines, played by Brad Pitt. Remember when Brad Pitt played all those wonderfully character driven roles, Kalifornia, Fight Club, and of course Seven. Here Pitt plays a mentally deranged man fighting for the planet and revenge against his father. We see him as obviously crazy, but he also makes us wonder about Cole, could our Cole be crazy as well. Cole connects with his psychiatrist Katherine Railly, Madeleine Stowe does a wonderful job in this role, she is trying to protect herself and help the person who has kid napped her at the same time. You may remember Madeline Stowe from We Were Soldiers, a great Viet Name film war film. She walks this line perfectly here until she starts to believe Cole. In the background there is an incident we hear news reports about a child who has fallen in a well. Cole tells her it’s a hoax and when it is revealed to be a hoax, she becomes a believer. Remember in the late eighties early nineties when kids were falling into abandoned wells? I mean even the Simpsons did an episode about it. one of those weird things that seems to happen from time to time. Of course, the movie is centered around stopping Goines from releasing the virus and causing this massive pandemic. We learn that it was not Goines and the Army of 12 monkeys but a single man working for Goines’s father who releases the virus. I think what I like most about time travel is we always see people hoping against hope and fighting fate. The really good time travel movies reveal that fate is inevitable and can not be, no matter how hard you fight, altered in anyway. I honestly think this is the main issue with people not liking Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. I mean first of all the title tells you the ending, but we all ignore it. I like Terminator 3, I may be the only one and I am okay with that. The show 12 Monkeys on Sci-fi is just us fighting fate.

The show was on for four seasons on sci-fi channel and is probably the best adaptation of a movie to a television show. The world is basically the same as the movie. A virus wipes out much of mankind. Humans are now in small groups spread out across the globe; I am assuming as we really only focus on our group. Our group is held up in a test facility and they have figured out time travel, well sort of. Does anyone every really figure out time travel? James Cole is played here by Aaron Stanford who you may know from Nikita, the hills have eyes and X-men the last stand, he is the one who has survived the time travel process, so he is sent back to contact Dr. Cassandra Railly. Dr. Railly is played by Amanda Schull who was on Suits and Murder in the First. Dr. Railly works for the CDC and is generally the public relations face, as well as a virologist, and that is how they find her. She left a recorded message about where to go and what to do in relations to the virus for citizens of the world. Cole is sent back in time to find Dr. Railly except, just like the movie, he is sent too far back. The meeting has an impact on her and she goes a year later to meet Mr. Cole. Dr. Jones runs the splinter facility, that is how they refer to time travel as splintering, just like the first movie except our Dr. Jones is actually a doctor. At the end of the movie, it is shown the Mrs. Jones, head scientist in the future, is actually in insurance. It is a quick throw away line at the end of the movie if you blink you miss it. I have to confess I just saw it this last watch for this episode. Dr. Jones, the show version, is hell bent on stopping the plague that destroys mankind. True to any time travel story she is in to save her daughter. We get so many wonderful characters in the show. A gender Bent Goines, Jennifer instead of Jeffery, is played by Emily Hampshire. You may know here from Chapelwaite and Schitt’s Creek, and her brand of crazy is a little more coherent than that of Brad Pitt’s Jeffery Goines. Jennifer is using mostly eighties pop culture references in her delusions, and really seems to truly understand the flow of time. Kirk Acevedo plays Ramsey Coles’ brother. You may remember him from Fringe, or Oz on hbo. They apparently grew up together and have been inseparable since the start of the virus. A wonderful story between these two. I think my favorite on this show, and anytime I see him, is Todd Stashwick. You know him from Gotham, Phineas and Ferb, yes that Phineas and Ferb, as well as one shots on many series including Terminator the Sara Connor Chronicles. I love him in this role. He is our lovable rogue and you can never really figure out what he is up to, I don’t think he really knows what he is up to until he is, well, up to it. he changes sides, or at least appears to change sides, and follows a path that initially looks to be in his best interest. He does this character very well. The bond between Deacon and Jennifer Goines is absolutely the sweetest thing to see develop over time.

I can not say enough good things about this show. It feels like I am always in the midst of a re-watch. The attention to detail is wonderful. They have call backs to the movie, they have interactions and depth you can’t get in a movie, and they will take a quick line in one episode and turn it into a three episode arc the following season. The last season gets a little off the rails, but in a good way. If you like time travel this is the show. Terry Matalas has done some excellent work here. I have not mentioned the entire cast as they are all wonderful and I would not want to give away anything. However, I will once again mention the man himself, Zeljko Ivanek, is here and does a wonderful job. This entire cast is excellent, the writing is wonderful, and the way it is done is so wonderfully meticulous, as you would expect with time travel, but not slow or labored in any way. Okay I am rambling about my fave. Look I like it and think you will too, watch it. the movie is available on Peacock, with adds, and the show you can find on Hulu with a subscription, or you can buy it on VUDU. Trust me buy it; it is good.

So here are four movies and shows as well as one game and show that are exactly the same but completely different. I honestly think these remakes are able to capture the essence of their originals but are not direct recaps or fan service. These are all wonderful, and now I am scrambling to find the time to re-watch some of these shows as well. If you want hear my lunatic ravings about film and television please check out my podcast, That and a Dollar…, where ever you find your podcasts.