Best of the Batman: The Brave and The Bold voice-cast

Batman: The Brave And The Bold is starting its third and final season this week, and really, that's a damn shame. It started as very much skewed towards a younger audience, even by adults-who-still-watch-cartoon standards; something of a preschool Silver Age primer. However, even then it had a certain absurdist charm that, along with its penchant for dragging up some of the most obscure or forgotten DC characters, it brought in an older audience and seemed to adapt itself in that regard. Somewhere in the second season, it had become a genuinely great, at times completely insane superhero show.

I could look at the episodes, or the characters they've dragged up, or the fact that the Batmobile has on several occasions turned into a giant bat-mech (that is somehow inexplicably not a toy yet) but one of the things that has most impressed me about the show has been the cast. If you look at the talent assembled, it's basically a list of the best voice-over talent working today, plus some random stars from elsewhere such as Alan Tudyk, Wil Wheaton, J.K. Simmons, et al. Today I'm going to look at some of my favorites who worked on the show (turns out most of the clips available on YouTube are not embeddable anymore so I changed it to a link where needed).

Watching Dead: A Wishlist

The key to a good adaptation between incongruent mediums isn't slavish accuracy to the source material, but knowing what to keep, what to cut and what to change entirely. A poor adaptation isn't necessarily the fault of a bad writer, but perfectly competent writer who couldn't pull off the balancing act. In terms of adapting the comic into the television series, the Walking Dead was all over the map, mostly to its benefit. The first episode was almost verbatim to the first few issues, beyond that it bounced between following some aspects of the comic and it's own unique series of events and characters. As such, it's pretty hard to guess how closely the series is going to stick to the comic in the following seasons, and even harder to guess what's in store for the characters. When dealing with the wholly-fictional characters in the comic, they come and go with alarming frequency and no guarantee of any particular lifespan. With actors contracted and making a living, we're probably going to see less of a revolving, expendable cast. I'm sure there'll be deaths, but I can't imagine it'll be quite the same revolving-door roster as the books; prime example being how Shane's role has already been substantially expanded and we're promised to see more of him in the second season.

As I'm writing this, some news of the second season has already been revealed, including that part of the season will take place at the Hershel's farm. Not knowing how closely they're going to keep to the books, or at what pace, I'm taking a look at some of the other things I'd like to see make it from the comics to the screen in the upcoming season(s). I'll be looking at things from throughout the comic run, so anyone catching up beware of potential spoilers.

Watching Dead: Babylon Fields

The first season of the Walking Dead comes out on home video tomorrow, and this got me thinking of the another recent attempt at a serial zombie show that never quite got off the launch pad: CBS's Babylon Fields.

Valentime's Day

Tried to come up with something snarky for Valentine's Day but I'm really more apathetic about the whole thing so instead figured I'd write about one of my favorite "couples" who cropped up in pop culture in the past year: The Doctor and River Song from Doctor Who. Disclaimer first: This story is one that's still being told, and it could go in a way discounting everything we know at this point, especially with Moffat in charge. Also, if you're still catching on the new Who, there will be some spoilers in here.