RIP Roger Moore

Some notes on Roger Moore: He knew he was filling big shoes by taking over as James Bond, but he kept his sense of humor . When Sean Connery returned as Bond in "Never Say Never Again," Moore said, "It's the first time I got bad reviews for a film I wasn't even in."

Moore fans might want to check out the Julie Andrews-Ben Kinglsey recording of "The King and I." Moore has a (non-singing) cameo as a British official visiting Anna.

Lost opportunities in TV part 1: Nita Talbot

Let's pretend for a minute that "Hogan's Heroes" didn't have the most tasteless premise for a sitcom in the history of television.

Instead let's focus on Nita Talbot, the wonderful, unappreciated actress who played the recurring character of Marya. She was a Russian spy, but her relationship with Hogan was an analogy to  U.S.-Russian relations during World War II, America didn't want to trust Russia, but it had to.

And Nita Talbot was great; Hogan, and the viewers never knew what she was up to. Was she there to  have sex with Hogan, or kill him! It was hilarious and sexy and suspenseful at the same time. And Talbot played the rare sexy/funny character; Marya was using her looks to get what she wanted from the Americans and Germans, and you never quite knew whose side she was on.

The lost opportunity: This should have been a spin-off. She could have had a boss, she could have had co-spies, and unlike "Hogan's Heroes," she wouldn't be confined to a prison camp. Paris, London, Berlin, Washington(?). It could have been good.

In the late '60s, CBS was all about spin-offs: Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Gomer Pyle. It could have been done. Am I really the first person to think of this?

RIP Pixanne

Before the nation's two or three media conglomerates bought them all, local TV stations used to air locally produced programming.

Sure we have local news programs now, but they're pretty much 15 minutes of weather, sports and car crashes. There was a time you got to know what was going on in your city. Shows for kids and adults introduced you to your mayor, your zoo keeper and your grocer.

One such show for children in the  '60s and early 70s in Philly was "Pixanne." Pixanne was a Peter Pan-ish character who lived in an enchanted forest and she told stories and introduced kids to their city and who brought it to life, and never in a condescending way.

And I was glued to my seat ... or the floor. .. in front of the TV, with my brother, each of us with our fist in a box of cereal.

Needless to say, she was the first crush of many young boys.

Her real name was Jane Norman and she just passed away.

She had to know how much of an effect she had on Philly kids. Including me.

Movie review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

The mention of Peter Quill's parentage at the end of the first movie was a clumsy attempt to set up the sequel, but it paid off because the sequel is very good.

CGI is evident in every frame, but the best special effect is de-aging Kurt Russell in a flashback scene. I was astounded, it's as if they scored some unused footage of Russell from a Disney film from the 70s, it's that convincing. See it for that alone.

But plenty of reasons abound to catch it, we see the dysfunctional family dynamic play out again and it's just as much fun as the first time around. The plot is a throwback to 50s horror movies: Travellers are welcomed to a scientist's remote castle and everything seems OK, until they find the zombies in the basement.

My only real complaint is the 70s music selection is not as nostalgic, kitschy fun as from the first film. With the exception of "Brandy," (which ties into the plot), "Mr. Blue Sky," and "The Chain," I only have vague memories of the other songs.

50-year overdue review: Star Trek: What Little Girls Are Made Of

This episode was on one of the antenna channels tonight, and boy does it hold up.

It has the ingredients of the best episodes of the old show:

Introduce a scientific concept.

Debate the wisdom/dangers of the scientific concept.

And the icing on the cake: a cool fistfight/spaceship battle, and scantily-clad alien women.

This is what set Star Trek apart from other shows on back then. It was written by and for smart people.

Let's look at the scientific concept: They're talking about artificial intelligence 30 years before the term was even coined! Bonanza never did that!

And the only Star Trek film to discuss theoretical science was "Wrath of Khan" with the Genesis device.

Scientific concept, debate wisdom of scientific concept, cool spaceship battle, Kirstie Alley at her hottest. And not so coincidentally, it's still the best film.

Another thing interesting about this episode was the introduction of Nurse Chapel.

Some backstory. It gets a little complicated: Gene Roddenberry wanted to give his girlfriend, Majel Barrett, a job.

Oh, wait, that wasn't complicated at all.

The story was Nurse Chapel joined Starfleet to hopefully find her one-time lover Roger Korby who went missing.

They find him, but he turns out to be a robot, so the search continues.


Only it didn't. Her whole backstory was forgotten. They set up a starting point which could have lead to two or three episodes and they totally dropped it. The only thing she had to do after this was have a crush on Spock.

And if she weren't superfluous enough, in the first film, she's a doctor. So the ship has two doctors.

One final point to go over: Holy crap, that jumpsuit on Sherry Jackson!

Blasphemy: How "The Wrath of Khan's" centerpiece showdown could have been better

I don't have to tell the Trekkies among us that the scene where Khan ambushes Kirk in "Wrath of Khan" is the most exciting, suspenseful and hands-down the best sequence in any "Star Trek" film even to this day.

Every "Star Trek" film since then has tried to insert a mid-film showdown similar to the Khan sequence. And it's never as good.

They even tried to remake the whole film with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan.

I remember sitting in the theater on opening night. As the sequence unfolded I was dumbstruck. "The Enterprise is done! Kirk's going to beam over and Khan's going to kill him! And then he'll blow up the Enterprise just for laughs!" My mind was racing all over the possibilities, I had no idea how Kirk would get out of this.

We've seen this a million times. There's always a bad guy holding a gun over James Bond, and you think, "ehh, he'll throw sand in his eyes, he'll kick him in the shin, the love-interest will shoot the villain from behind." I've never thought James Bond was ever in real peril.

But this was the first time the villain was pointing a gun (or phasers) at a hobbled hero and I thought, "Crap! The movie is over!"

But then ... Kirk calls up the Reliant's command code, and orders the Reliant to lower its shields. The imperious Khan is suddenly stunned and clueless, and the audience gets this amazing release when The Enterprise starts firing on the now-defenseless Reliant (the audience opening night was cheering!)

(not to mention that for everyone in the audience, this sequence  more than made up for the dull, listless "Star Trek: The Motion Picture").

Brilliant!

But could the sequence have been better?

Yes, and it would have been easy and made more sense.

While delaying Khan, Kirk asks Saavik for the command code for the Reliant. Saavik is confused, "Command code?"

Kirk then explains to her (and the audience) that every Starfleet ship has a command code "to keep an enemy from doing what we're about to attempt."

Oh, OK, that makes sense. Even in 1982, we had computer passwords to prevent hacking, so this wasn't an especially new concept. It had really never been introduced in the TV series.

But, why was this concept introduced as the sequence is progressing? It would have been super easy, and more enjoyable if the concept was explained at the beginning of the film.

Think about it, in the beginning, while Enterprise was in space dock, the Starfleet air traffic controller could have easily said, "Should I use your command code to steer you out of dry dock?" and Saavik would have said, "No thank you, I don't like handing over control of the comm," then the film would continue where Kirk looks shocked and Bones offers him a sedative.

And the audience would have enjoyed the scene, not realizing they were being set up for the big action sequence an hour later. And when the sequence unfolds, there would be no need for exposition.

Think of the CAT ekto-skeleton in "Aliens." James Cameron didn't introduce that thing at the end of the movie when Ripley needed it to defeat the Alien, he introduced it at the beginning, and turned it into a red herring by convincing the audience that the CAT's only purpose was to show that Ripley was a badass in front of a male chauvinist. It worked for me, and everyone else in the audience. Meanwhile, we learned it existed and how it worked early on.

What do you think?

Flash review: The Once and Future Flash

Barry goes to the future to try to learn Savitar's identity. Future Barry would just tell him, right?

Everytime Barry travels in either direction through time, something always goes horribly wrong,  This time, in the future everyone is pretty miserable, it's like their "Wonderful Life" episode they couldn't wait till Christmas to make. But instead of George Bailey seeing how miserable everyone's life is if he hadn't been born, Barry sees how miserable everyone's life is after Iris dies and future Barry goes into seclusion.

In the end, he rallies the team together again and everyone's happy. That was easy! Even the miserable in-seclusion Barry comes back.

In the forgotten "Superboy" series from the late 80s, Superboy travels through some alternate dimensions, finds a burnt-out version of himself and he comes back to save the day.

So it was a hybrid of "Wonderful Life" and that one good episode of "Superboy."

It's still fun to watch, but they might be running out of ideas.

Killer Frost is back, with a great tease at the end to the real ID of Savitar.