Fast Five was a breakthrough for the Fast and Furious franchise. It was a film that seemed to know exactly what its fans wanted and delivered on all fronts – an Avengers‘ like team up of cast members from previous films, copious amounts of flashy cars and the most ridiculously over-the-top action sequences they could imagine. It wasn’t exactly the Citizen Kane of car films, but it was certainly a solidly-entertaining crowd-pleaser.

Wisely, in another Avengers-esque move, that film ended with a cliffhanger Easter egg that ensured fans would be back in theaters for Fast & Furious 6. As the credits roll, DSS agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is handed surveillance footage from a recent heist. The photo is of Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) childhood friend/love interest, who was “killed” in 2009′s Fast & Furious.

Fast & Furious 6 picks up right where that film left off, showing fans a payoff to another moment teased at the end of Fast Five – Toretto and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) race to prove once and for all who is the best driver. It turns out the two are racing to the hospital to see Mia (Jordana Brewster), O’Conner’s wife and Toretto’s sister, who is giving birth to her and O’Conner’s first child. Shortly thereafter, Hobbs shows up on Toretto’s doorstep with the surveillance photo in order to recruit him and his crew to track down Letty’s new boss, an elusive mercenary named Owen Shaw (Luke Evans).

From a logical standpoint, this is absolutely ridiculous in every way. Hobbs spent the entire last film trying to catch Toretto and his crew to bring them back to justice. Even though he ended up teaming up with them to take down the villain of that film, it ended with him letting Toretto and O’Conner go, but warning them he would arrest them on sight the next time they crossed paths. So the idea that he would seek their help (under the flimsy logic that it takes a fast driving thief to catch a fast driving thief) and offer them all immunity for their previous crimes is utterly nonsensical. But this is a film where souped up cars are used to neutralize tanks and cargo planes, so it’s best not to dwell on the set up for too long. (That being said, even by Fast and Furious believability standards, the explanation for Letty cheating death and resurfacing as one of Shaw’s operatives is just mind numbingly bad.)

All of the set up and explanations are simply window dressing. Fans want to see Dwanye Johnson and Vin Diesel team up together, they want to see more of Letty and they want an excuse for “the band” to get back together. As long as there are plenty of street races, epic throwdowns and explosions, no one is likely to ask too many questions. Besides, the only relevant question is a simple one: Is it as entertaining as Fast Five?

Unfortunately, I don’t think it quite reaches that bar. Fast & Furious 6 certainly has its moments and, for the most part, it works, but there are a few disappointing decisions made by director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan that keep it from being as entertaining as it should be.

One of the biggest problems is that the film seems overly crowded. Fast Five did an excellent job making sure its sizable cast all got their fair share of screen time. There were wonderful character moments for supporting players like Gisele Harabo (Gal Gadot) and Han Lue (Sung Kang), whose love story ended up being one of my favorite parts of Fast Five, and Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej Parker (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), who spend these films bickering back and forth with one another, which is always funny. But this time around, even with Tego Leo (Tego Calderon) and Rico Santos (Don Omar) sitting this mission out, these supporting players seem rather marginalized. Tragically, so does Mia, who spends most of the film at home taking care of her newborn.

Adding to this problem is the fact that the new characters who get the bulk of the screen time just aren’t as interesting as the ones shuffled off to the sidelines. Our villain Shaw just seems like an amalgam of every action movie bad guy cliché you’ve ever seen. Luke Evans doesn’t inject much charisma or personality into the character – and there certainly isn’t much of either on the page – so you’ve never really given much of a reason to care about Shaw, which is a problem since so much of the plot hinges on him. The other notable new character is DSS agent Riley (Gina Carano). Carano is a former MMA fighter, so she excels in all of the action scenes, but her line delivery generally comes across as wooden and her character doesn’t have much of a defined personality outside of “bad ass.”

Justin Lin also put himself in a corner by bringing back Letty. At the end of Fast Five, Toretto ends up with Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky), a local cop Hobbs recruits to hunt our heroes down. As I mentioned, the end of that film teased the return of Letty, so Lin knew he was bringing her back when he put Toretto and Neves together. He knew he’d have to address this love triangle somehow. But instead of really tackling it in a meaningful way, Neves is given as little screen time as possible in hopes that we just forget about her and never start to wonder how she feels about her new boyfriend reconnecting with his presumed-dead ex.

Then there’s Lin’s decision to stage a lot of his action sequences at night, including the climactic battle. These films are already edited in a frenetic style, so making them dimly lit makes it difficult to follow some of the action. I spent too much time during big action moments trying to figure out what was happening. The action scenes are obviously the bread and butter of these movies, so this is a pretty big problem.

But even with a nonsensical plot and a handful of questionable choices, Fast & Furious 6 is a solid popcorn flick that will appeal to fans of the franchise. And brilliantly, it ends with an even better Easter egg than Fast Five, one that ensures we will all be back in theaters in 2015 to see Fast & Furious 7.

Written by Joel Murphy. If you enjoy his reviews, he also writes a weekly pop culture column called Murphy’s Law, which you can find here. Follow Joel on Twitter @FreeMisterClark or email him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

Charles Ramsey, the hero to emerge from the horrific Cleveland kidnapping saga, mentioned that he ate ribs and listened to salsa music with the kidnapper before he knew the man was imprisoning young girls in his home. Joel Murphy and Lars discuss the idea of combining the Latin dance style with the tasty barbecued meat with returning guest Greg Smith. This leads to a larger discussion of salsa music, which Greg actually does in his free time (and Joel and Lars are much too uncoordinated to engage in themselves).

They also discuss bowling, which leads to a heated discussion between Joel and Lars about bowling terminology. After Lars refers to a bowling lane as a “hallway,” Joel objects to the term, which leads to the one of the shoutiest segments on Hobo Radio ever.

What is the most depressing city in America? What did the guys think of The Office finale? Can Joel get away with wearing a cowboy hat? The answers to these questions and more are in this week’s podcast.

This week’s music:

• Intro – “Giddy Up” by Tahuna Breaks
• End – “Stinky Pants Goo” by Lei Benders

Joel Murphy

I thought this went without saying, but just so we’re clear: I don’t care about your kids.

At all.

I bring this up because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is actually considering loosening its guidelines to allow more adult content onto network television. They have a notice on their site soliciting feedback as they conduct a review to consider a major overhaul to their current system. They’ve already received close to 100,000 comments.

It also prompted a response from groups like The Parents Television Council (PTC) and the American Family Association.

“If the FCC drops the standard, the networks will give us all the profanity and nudity they think they can get away with, and they’d just keep pushing the envelope,” said Bryan Fischer, director of issues analysis at the American Family Association.

I think Fischer meant that as a negative, but that sounds pretty awesome, doesn’t it?

Fischer also said, “Today’s television programming already goes well beyond the content parameters most parents find acceptable. No parent, after watching a program with their children says, ‘you know, that sure would have been a better program if they’d only thrown some nudity and profanity in there.”

First of all, I’m not sure that’s true. Three or four hours into a mind numbing Dora the Explorer marathon with their kids, I think there are some parents who might be okay if the show mixed things up by having Dora say, “Swiper, keep your hands off my shit or I’ll fucking cut you.”

And secondly, I say again, I don’t care about your kids.

I’m sure that being a parent is very difficult. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it’s like trying to protect your kids from seeing things you find objectionable, let alone any of the other dangers lurking out there in the world. But why should that affect what I – a grown adult – am able to watch on my television screen? Why should we have to put draconian regulations on network television just so you can avoid monitoring what your children are watching? How is it the FCC’s responsibility to raise your kids for you?

If you want to keep your kids from seeing bad things on television, be in the room with them when they are watching it. It is really that simple. They don’t have to have a TV in their room or one somewhere you can’t monitor it. Put one TV in the family room and fucking sit there doing your bills or drinking mimosas or whatever it is you do while your kids zone out in front of the TV and make sure they aren’t watching Cinemax After Dark. That’s your responsibility as a parent. We shouldn’t have to get rid of Cinemax After Dark just because you don’t feel like watching your kids. I know they say “It takes a village” and all that bullshit, but it really doesn’t.

Besides, you are focusing your energy on the wrong area anyway. You can fight the FCC tooth and nail if you really want, but all you are doing is expediting the slow and painful death network television has been suffering though. You can handicap the networks and keep them from having the same rules apply to them as cable TV, but keeping us from seeing the real Annie’s boobs on Community won’t protect your kids eyeballs. It will simply help the networks to continue to be irrelevant in an era of cable TV, streaming sites like Hulu and original programing on Netlix.

I’m going to break this to you gently, but here it goes: if you are reading this right now, that means you have access to the Internet. Which most likely means that your children have access to the Internet too. Which, frankly, means you’re fucked.

Seriously, just let the television crusade go and immediately focus all of your energy on shutting down the Internet. Mr. Rogers could depict a big ol’ puppet orgy right there in the middle of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe and it wouldn’t be nearly as traumatic or graphic as the first three videos that randomly pop up when your kids log on to YouPorn or PornTube or LubeTube or whatever their adult video site of choice is.

Google “goatse” sometime and you’ll never worry about what your children are seeing on television again. I promise.

Or don’t. Frankly, do whatever you want. Like I said, I don’t really care about your kids. I just want to watch Parks and Recreation in peace.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. Follow Joel on Twitter @FreeMisterClark or email him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

Fontina Turner

Seven years. Seven long years since the darkness has engulfed our lives and the Bluth family was ripped away from us. Dramatic? Perhaps. But I think it’s a pretty good summary of how all of Arrested Development’s fans have felt throughout the years since Fox canceled the cult favorite TV series.

But now they’re back. Kind of. Netflix has licensed a fourth season. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not exactly watching this one episode at a time, once a week. It’s all about the marathon, baby. And with any marathon, you don’t want to take time out of watching to go to the bathroom, answer your mom’s phone call or make food. I’ve got ya covered. Well not with the pissing or talking to your mom. Sorry, you’re on your own. But what I DO have is a couple make-ahead, Bluth-themed dishes to munch on throughout your marathon. Whether it’s the first time you are watching it, the second … or … yeah, the fifth.

Lindsay might not be the best mom, or human, in the world, but that slut knows how to cook … Hot Ham Water at least. I may have taken a few liberties with the recipe, like adding ham, and beans, and spices … but it’s essentially the same. Throw it in the crock pot and after a few hours, you’re set to have a warm bowl of soup throughout the day. With just a smack of ham.

In the mood for something sweet? Pop open your freezer and grab one of the Bluth Bananas you made ahead of time. There’s always dessert in the banana stand.

And in case you want a handful of things that you don’t have to cook that will go with these fabulous dishes, you can still theme them out! You can have a bowl of hard boiled eggs in your fridge, Tobias and George Michael would be all over that. A little sign taped to a popsicle stick that says “Where the Fuck Are My Hard Boiled Eggs” is all it takes to make it themed. Maybe start your day off with some breakfast: a Skipp’s Scramble might require some heavy lifting, so take a page out of Lucille’s cookbook and enjoy some vodka on the rocks and a piece of toast. Don’t forget your love affair with that box of ice cream sandwiches you bought at the grocery store.

And if you DO feel like cooking more, you can break out your Cornballer and whip up some Corn Fritters.

So put on your cutoffs, grab your cousin and cuddle up for some Bluth family fun!

Hot Ham Water
(Very Loosely Adapted from Lindsay Bluth)

Ingredients

• 1-2 lb. ham
• 1 lb. dried beans (navy beans, cannellini beans, pink beans, something along those lines)
• 1 large vidalia onion, diced
• 4 stalks of celery, diced
• 4 carrots, diced
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp cumin
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• salt & pepper to taste
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups water
• 1/4 cup flour mixed with 1/4 cup water
• Bread and butter

Soak beans overnight. (Discard any broken beans and sort through for any stones.)

Combine all ingredients (except for bread and flour mixture) in a crock pot. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 7-8 hours.

Remove any bones from the ham and shred or dice the meat.

Mix together your flour and water and add to the soup. Also to thicken up for five minutes or so before serving.

Serve with crusty bread and butter.

Bluth Bananas
(Stick it in the what? Stick it in the what!?)

Ingredients

• Bananas
• Chocolate chips (it’s good to go with quality chocolate for this, I get the Ghirardelli)
• Crushed peanuts, mini M&Ms, coconut, etc.
• Blue food coloring (for the “those are blue too” version)

• Plastic Wrap
• Skewers, short if you can find them
• A freezer

Peel. Cut your bananas in halves and stick a skewer in the flat end.

Wrap each one in plastic wrap and then put them in a freezer bag.

Seal and freeze for several hours, or preferably, overnight.

After bananas are frozen, get ready to dunk them in shit. Melt your chocolate in a double boiler. (If you don’t have one, make one. Put a pan of water on the stove top with a smaller pan inside of it. Put the chocolate in the smaller pan.) Stir a lot.

Line a cookie sheet with wax paper. Put your toppings in wide-mouthed bowls.

For the “Those Are Blue Too” version, mix a few drops of food coloring into the coconut.

When the chocolate is nice and melty, unwrap your bananas and dunk them. Let the extra chocolate drain off the tip, then either roll in your toppings or place directly on the wax paper without toppings.

Put in the fridge to dry the chocolate. Once they are dry, rewrap them in plastic wrap and keep them in the freezer till you’re ready to mister banana-grabber one.

They’ll make YOUR banana stand.

Fontina Turner, a food blogger and graphic designer from Philadelphia, makes classy-as-fuck comfort food and consumes an unhealthy amount of cheeses and craft beers. She can be found in the kitchen, at the bar, on Twitter or trying to make H. Jon Benjamin love her. Contact her at thelegs@baconandlegs.com.

“The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discovered.”

- Clarence DeMarco

Well now, that certainly was a finale, wasn’t it?

There are so many facets of it to discuss and so many far-reaching implications of what we saw that I’m going to try to take a moment to simply look at the episode as a whole before plunging my hand all the way down into the bottom of this particular can of worms.

This back stretch of series seven has been an uneven one. It hasn’t been bad by any means, but with the first half of the season devoted to the Ponds’ farewell and so much of this stretch being standalone episodes where The Doctor offhandedly wonders about the origin of “Impossible Girl,” it feels like we never really got to know Clara as a person. One thing I think former showrunner Russell T. Davies was better at than Steven Moffat was grounding his characters in the real world and getting the audience to intimately know the worlds they were leaving behind to travel with The Doctor. Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Donna Noble had rich lives filled with families and friends. With Moffat, most of the screen time is spent inside that little blue box traveling the globe, so the world back home only gets seen in passing.

I think Jenna-Louise Coleman has done a great job injecting a lot of charm and personality into Clara, but I still wish we had a better grasp on who she was. We got the story of how her parents met and we got a few glimpses at her life as a nanny, but not much beyond that. We don’t really know why she was so willing to hop inside the TARDIS and run away with The Doctor. We don’t know how she went from being initially wary of him to trusting him implicitly. So because of that, we don’t really understand why she would be willing to sacrifice herself in order to save him at the end of this episode, outside of the fact that she thinks she’s fated to since other Claras have already popped up. So while I thought her jumping into the time stream worked on a narrative level and worked as an explanation for her mystery, I thought it didn’t have the emotional punch it could have had if we had spent more time with this character and had gotten to know her better as a person.

Outside of that though, I thought it was a damn entertaining hour of television. Moffat knows how to make things seem epic. He also knows how to write quippy dialogue and to give fans entertaining moments. The Whisper Men were suitably creepy. Strax spending his off days in Glasgow fighting the locals made me laugh (especially since Moffat is from Scotland and attended the University of Glasgow). Everything involving River was pure gold, including her sultry smile at revealing that she turned the tea into wine “distastefully.” And the image of the monolithic dead TARDIS as The Doctor’s final resting place was one of my favorite images Moffat has ever given us.

If you didn’t stop too long to dwell on the implications of what you were seeing, I thought it was a fun and entertaining finale. In a vacuum, it’s a solid hour of television. But outside of giving us an explanation for the “Impossible Girl” and giving River some closure, it didn’t resolve things and instead left us with a big ol’ “To be continued …” So a lot of this episode’s success will hinge on what Moffat does with the 50th anniversary special in November.

But between now and then, let’s get into that can of worms, shall we …

Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff

The Doctor warns that him being in the same room as that beam of time energy (the “scar tissue” of his journey through time and space) is a paradox in and of itself. So I can’t even begin to process what him jumping into that time stream to rescue Clara means. But again, this is probably something we’ll have to wait for the 50th anniversary to see how Moffat handles it.

There was another paradox created though, one that wasn’t address at all. Clara’s entire storyline with The Doctor is one big Predestination Paradox. The Doctor becomes obsessed with Clara after crossing paths with her at the Asylum of the Daleks and in Victorian London at Christmas. Both of those versions of Clara die, uttering the same final words, “Run you clever boy and remember.” Because of this, The Doctor woos modern-day Clara onto the TARDIS in order to get to the bottom of this bizarre mystery. As a result of their travels together, she jumps into the time stream, sending her back across The Doctor’s life, which is why she is there at the asylum and in Victorian London. This is one big causality loop, but it’s a self-correcting paradox since this is all self-contained, meaning we don’t have to worry about the universe exploding or anything since it is all limited to this one chain of events.

And if that isn’t wrinkling your brain at all, consider this – there was actually an even bigger causality loop created as well. When Clara jumps into the time stream and is scattered throughout The Doctor’s life, she goes back to the day he steals the TARDIS and tells him which one to steal. If the first Doctor takes a different TARDIS, that creates a giant butterfly effect and alters countless Who stories, since so many of them revolved around personality quirks in the specific TARDIS he chose. And again, if Clara isn’t there to tell him which one to take, The Doctor might never cross paths with Clara at all.

There was another issue raised by Clara’s leap into the time stream. When John Hurt shows up at the end as The Doctor’s “secret,” Clara says she’s never seen him before. She says that she has only seen 11 Doctors. But the episode clearly states that the time energy that Clara, The Doctor and the Great Intelligence all jump into is from the end of The Doctor’s life. So it extends beyond the eleventh Doctor to any and all future incarnations (which the show has previously stated should include at least a twelfth and thirteenth regeneration). So why did Clara only get scattered back in time and not forward in time? Why couldn’t she and the Great Intelligence affect future events? My best guess is that The Doctor jumping into his own time stream somehow stopped things there and anything that happens from this point on completely changes his future. But that’s just a guess really.

Speaking of John Hurt, let’s take a look at his character for a moment, shall we …

The Doctor’s secret

(Before I get into this, let me give a special shout out to the brilliant Chris Kirkman, who runs the tabletop gaming site Dice Hate Me. It was Chris who put originally offered this theory up to me as a possible explanation for who John Hurt is.)

Here’s what we know about Hurt’s character – he’s a part of The Doctor, but he’s not “The Doctor.” Instead, the eleventh Doctor says: “He’s the one who broke the promise.” He is The Doctor’s “secret,” the incarnation of himself that he is ashamed of.

Earlier in the episode, the Great Intelligence says something very interesting when talking about The Doctor. He says, “The Doctor lives his life in darker hues day upon day. He will have other names before the end. The Storm. The Beast. The Valeyard.”

The Great Intelligence’s words could very well be foreshadowing. The Valeyard was a character introduced in season 23 of the original Doctor Who, way back in 1986. The entire series was one overarcing storyline, broken into four parts, entitled “The Trial of a Time Lord.” As the name suggests, the sixth Doctor was put on trial for crimes he had allegedly committed. On Gallifrey, a valeyard is a prosecutor. So the Valeyard was the man attempting to get The Doctor sentenced to death for his “crimes.” But in a twist ending, it turns out that the Valeyard is actually a future incarnation of The Doctor.

As The Master explains in “The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe”: “There is some evil in all of us, Doctor – even you. The Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation, and I may say you do not improve with age.”

The whole thing turns out to be an attempt at a massive coverup. Certain powerful Gallifreyans wanted The Doctor killed because he was the sole witness to their crimes. In 2,000,000 AD, the High Council of Time Lords moved Earth out of its orbit, killing almost everyone on the planet. They used the Valeyard to drum up charges against The Doctor in order to have him executed. His reward was that they would give all of The Doctor’s remaining regenerations to him, making him the only remaining version of The Doctor. The Valeyard planned to betray the council once he got what he wanted, killing them after going all Highlander on his previous selfs.

The line Hurt utters before turning around for his big dramatic reveal is: “What I did I did without choice in the name of peace and sanity.”

Certainly, betraying the sixth Doctor at the behest of the High Council in order to keep their dark secrets hidden would qualify as making a choice in the name of “peace and sanity.” And the description The Doctor gives of Hurt being his secret and him not truly being The Doctor would fit as well. Moffat enjoys doing the unexpected, so it’s entirely possible that Hurt’s character could be something else entirely, but for now, this is certainly the explanation that makes the most sense given the (extremely limited) amount of information we have.

(This is what the Valeyard looked like in 1986. I really hope they make John Hurt wear that hat at some point.)

Update: After having one more night to think about this, I came up with another possible theory – John Hurt is the very last Doctor. He is the one buried at Trenzalore and enshrined inside the dead TARDIS. The Great Intelligence’s statement that “The Doctor lives his life in darker hues day upon day” becomes even more poignant then because this is an incarnation of The Doctor that is even darker than the Valeyard. We know that he died on a battlefield, so the war he fights in and the actions leading to his death could be what Hurt was talking about when he said, “What I did I did without choice in the name of peace and sanity.”

I actually really like this interpretation the more I think about it (and not just because I came up with it and Kirkman didn’t). This way, Hurt’s character is haunted by his actions at Trenzalore and he’s trapped inside the time stream forced to live with the mistakes that he made, aimlessly wandering in a Gallifreyan purgatory. And the eleventh Doctor stumbling across him could lead to some sort of redemption for his character in the anniversary special.

And another thing …

• Trenzalore was first mentioned by Dorium Maldovar (the tubby blue guy) in “The Wedding of River Song.” He said, “On the Fields of Trenzalore, on the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never ever be answered.” The entire discussion with Dorium and The Doctor reveals that the Silence are trying to stop the question from getting asked. Dorium’s comments seem to indicate that this is where the eleventh Doctor will die. But, if you pay attention to the episode, when The Doctor enters the console room of the TARDIS and sees his time stream, he collapses. So his “fall” is a literal one.

• Clara being there on Gallifrey to tell The Doctor which TARDIS to take means that, in theory, the Great Intelligence was there in Gallifrey at the beginning as well. What if, while Clara was talking to The Doctor, the Great Intelligence was hacking its way into the Matrix, the database that contains all of Gallifrey’s combined knowledge? Could be a fun avenue to explore during the 50th anniversary special.

• At this point, they don’t even need to put Moffat’s name in the credits. All you have to do is wait for an on-screen character to say “Doctor who?” and you know you are watching a Moffat-penned episode.

• The less you dwell on the whole conference call thing, the better. The entire conceit that people from different time periods could someone merge their consciousnesses is dodgy enough, but when you throw in the fact that the River that appeared was the River trapped in the Library, it gets even more convoluted. Add to that the idea that The Doctor could still somehow see (and kiss) River at the end and logically the entire thing doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. (It also felt a bit like Moffat had just watched Inception on cable.) But, once again, dramatically it was satisfying.

• The Doctor linked Clara’s mind to the TARDIS’ telepathic circuit when getting the coordinates to Trenzalore. Was that link ever broken or is her mind still connected to the TARDIS? I feel like this could end up being a very important plot point going forward.

• In addition to the Glasgow thing, Strax’s continued inability to distinguish men and women and his description of River as “the one with the gigantic head” made me giggle.

• In case you missed it, it has been confirmed that both Steven Moffat and Matt Smith will be returning for an eighth season of Doctor Who. Brian Minchin will join Moffat as executive producer.

See you guys back here in November.

Written by Joel Murphy. If you enjoy his recaps, he also writes a weekly pop culture column called Murphy’s Law, which you can find here. Follow Joel on Twitter @FreeMisterClark or email him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

Hobo Stu

Hello everyone,

It does seem hard to let go of The Office. It’s become a part of the public consciousness. It’s a part of our lives. We could count on those characters to be there every Thursday with their office hijinks and the drama that comes from working with an eclectic group of people. And now that’s all over. The only office entertainment I’ll have now is the stuff taking place here at Hobo Headquarters. And as much as Joel mugs for an imaginary camera or Ned sees how many M&Ms he can fit in is mouth, it will just never be the same.

Here’s what’s new on HoboTrashcan.com this week:

Review – Star Trek Into Darkness
After months of speculation and hype, Star Trek Into Darkness finally hits theaters. J.J. Abrams’ second Star Trek film picks up where the first one left off, while giving the U.S.S. Enterprise a powerful and mysterious villain to square off against – John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). It’s a big budget, 3D blockbuster film that has been shrouded in mystery since being announced. Find out if Abrams’ sophomore effort lives up to the hype or if it ends up being a disappointment in our review.

Bacon and Legs – Star Trek Into Darkness … into my mouth
J.J. Abrams’ highly-anticipated Star Trek Into Darkness – the exciting follow up to Abrams’ blockbuster 2009 reboot of the franchise. An epic film such as this deserves an epic meal. That’s where HoboTrashcan’s newest writer comes in. In her first installment in a new series on the site, writer/chef Fontina Turner makes a meal worthy of a Trekkie – the bacon-heavy Wrap of Khan with U.S.S. Enterfries and a Spocktail to wash it all down. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but the Wrap of Khan is a hot, tasty dish that will go where many dishes have gone before – in your mouth.

Murphy’s Law – Just can’t get enough
This week Joel Murphy poses the eternal question: How much is enough? When it comes to American television, it seems like viewers appetites are absolutely insatiable. Shows like Futurama, Veronica Mars and Arrested Development get a second life thanks to passionate pleas from fans. Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness reign supreme at the box office. Can American audiences ever truly be happy with what they have or will they always want more, more, more of their favorite shows?

Positive Cynicism – Fan entitlement
The Internet has empowered fans to gather together to talk about the television shows, movies and comic books that they love. Unfortunately, this is not always a good thing. While social media sites can be a great avenue for passionate discussions about characters people love, it can also be a place to bash the makers of those properties for making decisions that fans don’t always agree with. Aaron R. Davis looks at the darker side of fandom in this week’s column, citing discussions of the new Star Trek and Superman movies as examples.

Doctor Who – “Nightmare in Silver”: Beware of the evil Bluetooth
Neil Gaiman’s Doctor Who episode from last season – “The Doctor’s Wife” – was a game changer. Gaiman returned on Saturday with a new script, one that found The Doctor, Clara and her the two children under her care traveling to a rundown amusement park to battle an army of Cybermen. Was Gaiman able to capture lightning in a bottle twice? Find out in our in-depth review, which also has an embedded video of “She Said, He Said,” the online prequel to next week’s season finale, which promises to reveal Clara’s backstory and The Doctor’s real name.

From the Vault – The Office interviews
This week, fans said goodbye to the American version of The Office, a show that ran on NBC for nine seasons (and over 200 episodes). If you are having trouble letting go of the much loved sitcom, spend some time reliving the glory days with our classic interviews with members of the cast. In 2006 and 2007, we talked to Angela Kinsey (Angela), Kate Flannery (Meredith), Brian Baumgartner (Kevin) and Melora Hardin (Jan). You can find links to all of those interviews in this installment of “From the Vault.”

- Hobo Stu

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Last night fans said goodbye to the American version of The Office, a show that ran on NBC for nine seasons (and over 200 episodes). If you are having trouble letting go of the much loved sitcom, spend some time reliving the glory days with our classic interviews with members of the cast. In 2006 and 2007, we talked to Angela Kinsey (Angela), Kate Flannery (Meredith), Brian Baumgartner (Kevin) and Melora Hardin (Jan). You can find links to all of those interviews in this installment of “From the Vault.”

One on One with Angela Kinsey
(Originally published Feb 28th, 2006)
Angela Martin can be a bit uptight. She is the sort of judgmental buzzkill that we’ve all had to deal with in our workplace. But Angela Kinsey, who plays Martin on The Office, couldn’t be more different from her character. Upbeat and bubbly, this Texan was more than happy to sit down and chat with us.

One on One with Kate Flannery
(Originally published Apr 4th, 2006)
Alcoholic and lactose intolerant, Meredith Palmer is definitely an interesting character. And while she might not be the best employee in the world, she is definitely fun at parties. Fearlessly tackling the role is Kate Flannery, who was nice enough to sit down and talk to us.

One on One with Brian Baumgartner
(Originally published May 2nd, 2006)
It’s hard not to love Kevin Malone. The spectacularly unspectacular Dunder-Mifflin employee can get away with talking about Hedonism or his favorite number, 69, simply by flashing a big grin to the camera. Portraying Kevin is Brian Baumgartner, who sat down and talked to us about life at The Office.

One on One with Melora Hardin
(Originally published Nov 15th, 2007)
Jim and Pam’s relationship may grab all of the headlines, but any real fan of The Office knows that the show’s true power couple is Michael Scott and Jan Levinson. Playing Jan on the show is Melora Hardin, who luckily is much more grounded than her character, who continues to spiral out of control. We recently talked with Hardin about The Office, the writers’ strike and what it feels like to have almost been Marty McFly’s girlfriend.

With his reboot of the Star Trek franchise, director J.J. Abrams is trying to walk a very thin line. His stated goal is to make films that will satisfy diehard fans while also appealing to casual moviegoers who want to be entertained without having to be familiar with every Star Trek show and movie that came before the one they are watching.

Despite his best efforts, Abrams is never going to make everyone happy. And where you land on the Star Trek fandom spectrum is likely to influence how much you enjoy Star Trek Into Darkness. Personally, as someone who watched the original Star Trek films but never delved much deeper into the world than that, I have for the most part enjoyed Abrams’ take on the franchise. I have some minor issues with Into Darkness, but overall I thought it was a solidly entertaining and appropriately epic film.

Into Darkness picks up not far from where Abrams’ original Star Trek ended. Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is in command of the U.S.S. Enterprise. But he’s still young and cocky and prone to rash, cowboy-esque decisions. The opening scene finds him defying orders and putting his entire crew in jeopardy in order to save Dr. Spock (Zachary Quinto), who is trying to neutralize an active volcano. His thanks for saving Spock is that the Vulcan turns in an overly-honest report detailing all of the improper things Kirk did on his rescue mission, putting the Captain in hot water. Kirk’s mentor, Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood), warns him that he can’t keep playing by his own rules and acting brash, expecting to be saved again and again by blind luck.

Unfortunately, the Federation has a lot more to worry about than James Kirk’s cockiness. They are on the brink of war with a barbaric species known as the Klingons. And a deadly and brilliant new threat, a mysterious man named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), has decided to attack Federation targets while hiding out on a remote part of the Klingon’s home planet, Kronos. Harrison figures that the Federation can’t come after him without inciting an all-out war.

It can’t be overstated just how enjoyable Cumberbatch is in this role. He is exactly as smarmy and smugly British and bad ass as you want the villain in a summer blockbuster to be. I could have watched two hours of Cumberbatch making people his Cumber-bitch. (And I’m currently working on a pitch to Hollywood where John Harrison and Tom Hiddleston’s Loki sit around a spaceship sipping tea while trying to out sass one another.) Cumberbatch is so good, in fact, that I almost didn’t mind the movie carting out something that has oddly become a cliché ever since Christopher Nolan did it brilliantly with The Joker in The Dark Knight – the villain purposely letting himself get caught by the hero as part of his master plan, which allows them to have an intense face-to-face discussion while the villain is locked up. (A gimmick that, coincidentally, was also done with Loki in The Avengers.)

The rest of the cast is solid as well. I’ve really enjoyed Pine’s take on Captain Kirk and Quinto’s take on Spock. And Zoe Saldana plays off of both of them brilliantly as Uhura. Simon Pegg’s Scotty, Karl Urban’s Bones and Alice Eve’s Carol are both solid supporting roles in the film.

Perhaps the biggest knock on Into Darkness is that the plot is a tad thin and convenient. At two hours and 12 minutes, you would expect a richer and more complex story, but the whole thing devolves pretty quickly into a straightforward hunt for Harrison and the unraveling of the mystery of who this man is and why he’s orchestrating these attacks. The plot is a bit too convenient at times and is perhaps best not examined too closely for risk of unraveling the whole story in plot holes and inconsistencies.

Personally, I also thought there were a handful of fan service moments that came across as overly forced and grating. I know that people enjoy references to iconic bits of the franchise’s history, but a lot of those moments in this film just felt shoehorned in. (For example, Bones decides to run an important medical test on a tribble just so fans can go, “Oh cool, a tribble.”)

My other big problem with the film has to do with its ending. I can’t go into too much detail without spoiling things, but I’ll simply say that the writers made a very bold decision that gave the film a satisfying and weighty emotional moment (which had been set up brilliantly earlier in the film) during the climax, then immediately ruined that moment by undoing what they had just done five minutes later. They could have trusted the audience enough to carry this plot point over to the next film, which would have made the ending of Into Darkness much more intriguing and emotionally powerful. But instead, it ultimately comes across as more of a hallow “having their cake and eating it to” moment.

Overall though, Into Darkness is a highly enjoyable summer blockbuster. It isn’t a perfect film and its unlikely to make everyone happy, but if you are looking for an epic summer film with solid performances and great action sequences, it’s definitely worth your time.

Written by Joel Murphy. If you enjoy his reviews, he also writes a weekly pop culture column called Murphy’s Law, which you can find here. You can contact Joel at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

Joel Murphy

After the amazing chicken fingers and paintball episodes in the first season, Community quickly became one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. It proved to be a show with an absolutely amazing eye for parody and an unprecedented ability to shift between genres and tones without every losing its characters or its emotional center. At its best, I think it’s an utterly brilliant half hour of television.

So you would think that I was quite ecstatic upon hearing that news that the show would be brought back for a fifth season (thanks to the fact that all of the “broader, more accessible” sitcoms NBC launched last fall failed miserably).

You would be wrong though.

I was actually incredibly disappointed.

That’s because, for the last year, Community hasn’t been Community. Dan Harmon, the show’s creator and showrunner, was let go after season three and a new regime took over. They gave us a fourth season that was occasionally quite funny and charming (particularly “Intro to Felt Surrogacy” and “Basic Human Anatomy”), but for the most part just felt like a pale imitation of Harmon’s work. It never reached the brilliant heights seasons two and three did. It’s parodies seemed half-assed and done purely out of fan service. It went for easy jokes over emotionally-compelling stories. It teased a season-long arc about Chang plotting with City College, only to drop it unceremoniously one episode before the finale. And the finale itself … ugh … such an unwatchable train wreck that tried to coast by by retreading two of the show’s greatest Harmon-era episodes.

I was told by friends that I should count my blessings. I heard people say that a watered-down, pale imitation Community is better than no Community at all. But is it? Why aren’t 71 episodes produced under the Harmon era enough? How many episodes do we really need? How much is enough?

There’s something to be said for the British approach to television. Many British shows run for only a few seasons (which typically have somewhere between six and 12 episodes) before wrapping things up for good. The British version of The Office gave fans 12 episodes and a two-part Christmas special. By the end of its second season, the American version of the show had more than doubled the amount of episodes of the original incarnation. And yet, after eight years and 201 episodes, I have friends who are absolutely devastated that The Office is ending tomorrow night. They want it to keep going on forever.

Saying that America is a culture of excess certainly isn’t a new sentiment. I mean, I grew up in the 80s, for fuck’s sake. Excess was that decade’s defining characteristic.

But I do think that as the network system dies a slow and painful death and cable television (and outlets like Netflix) become the predominant source of quality original programming, embracing the British model is a good thing. It’s already the norm for cable shows to run around 12 or 13 episodes a season. And it’s much easier and more accepted for Vince Gilligan to convince AMC to set a definitive end date for Breaking Bad than it is for Carter Bays and Craig Thomas to turn down the wheelbarrows full of cash being offered to them by CBS to give us 22 more completely unnecessary and lackluster episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

Personally, I look forward to a new less-is-more era of entertainment.

I look forward to a time when I won’t go on Twitter and see a petition to bring back Futurama once again (which I actually saw this week) – a show that was already brought back through a series of direct-to-DVD films and three extra seasons that ran on Comedy Central.

I look forward to a world where the thought of one more fucking Die Hard movie would be viewed as absolutely sacrilege.

I look forward to a time when, one week after The Dark Knight Rises is released in theaters, I won’t have to listen to people discuss who should take over the reigns of the Batman franchise and how soon the next film should be released.

I look forward to a world free of Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaigns because, let’s face it – after all this time, the chances of the movie reaching the heights of the original show or living up to fan expectations are slim to none.

In what is considered by many to be the greatest film of all time – Citizen Kane – we see a protagonist who lives a life of complete excess and yet, it’s the simple pleasure of a humble item from his childhood that he clings to at the end of his life. I think that’s an important lesson that we could all learn when begging for more episodes of our favorite TV shows and more sequels to our favorite movies. Be happy with what you have instead of constantly trying to get more, more, more. Pop in The Avengers into your Blu-ray player instead of clamoring for Iron Man 3. Rewatch season one of Veronica Mars on Hulu. Or seriously, if you’ve never done so, take some time and watch Citizen Kane. It’s absolutely brilliant.

… speaking of Citizen Kane, am I the only one who has always been dying to see a prequel where we watch a young Charles Foster Kane having madcap adventures in the snow atop his beloved Rosebud? Let’s start an online petition and see if we can get that sucker greenlit ASAP.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com

Aaron R. Davis

I first opened my email account in the year 1998. I started regularly shopping and cruising for movie news on the Internet in 1999. I joined fan groups and started writing professionally for websites in the year 2000. Also in the year 2000: I pulled out of every fan group I was in and vowed never to ever join another one. And I never have.

And the reason? Entitlement. I hate fans who are entitled. I hate fans who nitpick over pointless surface details instead of getting involved in stories. I hate fans who have reached that point where loving a show or a movie or a comic book is no longer enough, and instead their involvement in those things reaches the level of oblivious lecturing and emotional hurt. I hate fans who are devoted in a quasi-religious way, who both worship and have to imagine themselves as friends with the people who make the entertainment that was once something they enjoyed, but is now something that affects them on such a deep level that enjoyment and critical thinking have flown out the window, and now it’s just someone getting a sad fix that wears off faster every time. I hate fans for whom loving something means despising it.

Entitlement is generally the default setting now for much of the Internet, particularly on social networks.

Entitlement is why I can’t enjoy a trailer for the new Star Trek movie months in advance without a bunch of dicks speculating on every single facet of the plot based on seconds-long scenes and tiny bits of dialogue as if they were forensic accountants, trying to find the one clue to deciphering the whole story, because they can’t wait a couple of goddamn months before watching the thing unfold before their eyes. The pleasure of discovering a story isn’t good enough anymore.

Entitlement is also why I can’t talk online about being excited about the new Star Trek movie without a bunch of even sadder dicks imposing their disappointment with the new J.J. Abrams series on me, as if it’s just so profound and interesting that they “can’t … just can’t” bring themselves to like something that’s not the same as it’s always been, apparently not realizing that they could just not see something if they don’t want to. But then, of course, what would they have to complain about? (Answer: everything else they see.)

Entitlement is why I still can’t talk about how much I love The Phantom Menace, because some entitled ass is going to unload his entitled disappointment all over me, as if being unable to get over not liking a movie after 14 years is somehow normal behavior, an old war wound to dwell on, and not just some entitled dick who didn’t like something. It wasn’t interesting then, and it’s not interesting now, and my liking it has no effect on your life. You not liking it has no effect on your life!

Entitlement is what causes people to stop watching Lost because the mystery is too much for them to handle and they want it all revealed riiiiiiiight noooooooow.

Entitlement is what causes every single geek news site to dismiss the new Superman movie over and over again, simply because they don’t like Superman’s costume, Lois’ red hair, Jimmy Olsen being a girl, Perry White being a black man, half a line of Kevin Costner’s dialogue or the possible fact that Krypton might still be around, as though any of this fundamentally changes a single aspect of a story they haven’t even seen yet. Do entitled fans really think we need any more examples of how they care far more about the trappings of a story than they do about the story itself? “But if Superman can go to his home planet whenever he wants, that changes EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF THE CHARACTER FOREVER.” Really? You don’t think Superman being a refugee from a violent civil war might not be somewhat relevant to the world we live in today? Oh, I forgot, being entitled means you have no idea what’s going on outside of yourself. My mistake.

Entitlement is what creates these fan community arguments about who’s the bigger fan of an actress or a writer, as though the reward for being the biggest fan and running the bestest blog is a lifetime of friendship with these people, because being friends with a famous person automatically fixes everything that’s wrong with your life.

Entitlement is what causes these asinine arguments every time a superhero movie casts an actor of color as a character who is traditionally white, like the news that Michael B. Jordan (a talented young actor who was great on Friday Night Lights) might be cast as the Human Torch in the new Fantastic Four reboot. Immediately, we get a racist outpouring, followed by those same racists being annoyed that their racism is cited as the racism it is, followed by the spectacle of those racists trying to justify their racism as not really being racism, and then the weird accusations of how the “oversensitive” people who notice racism are the real racists, because the idea of a black superhero is totally offensive to them. Oh, not because he’s black, though, but because the character’s been white in comic books for fifty years, so it’s just not right casting, you see. I mean, this is about racial purity, but not racial purity. It’s not like they’re coming out and saying that they can’t imagine the exact same qualities of a white person existing in a black person, but they’re also not explaining it in a way that makes it not sound exactly like that.

It’s all the snobby “I know better than the creators and writers of the characters I like exactly what those characters would do” entitlement and ridiculous “the Green Goblin’s armor doesn’t look exactly right so that’s a tremendous storytelling flaw” nitpicking of fanboys, combined with the tiresome, bizarre, weirdly casual bigotry that’s so prevalent on the Internet now. These are often the same people who think that electing an African-American president somehow made it okay to be more openly racist than ever.

It’s not okay. It’s still racism.

And it’s entitlement.

And it’s tiresome.

Shut up.

I’m sorry you can’t enjoy anything anymore, but it’s not my problem. Stop bothering me with it.

Shut the fuck up.

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com.