17 Best TV Shows Similar to Flash Gordon

The difficulty in reviewing television is, often, critics only receive a fraction of the season’s episodes. As a result, one sometimes has to offer a full review on a partial product. Frequently, that’s fine. Shows often tell you who they are, if you will, fairly early on. A character or a twist that changes things might show up in an episode down the road. Even then, though, such things often don’t change the bedrock quality of the endeavor. Sharing all of this is by way of a disclaimer because, after the first two episodes of Agatha All Along, it remains unclear what kind of show it will be. Some aspects of the tone are clear from the start. It’s obviously playing with a healthy dose of irreverence. It’s clever. Kathryn Hahn slips back into Agnes/Agatha Harkness like a second skin, quickly giving her depth without erasing the villainousness of her turn in WandaVision. The supporting characters, including Teen (Joe Locke), Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), and Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone?!), can hold the screen despite Hahn’s charisma bombardment. Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal even gives Agatha a run for her money in the charm department with a frighteningly sexual/sexually frightening turn. She carries the conclusion of episode 1 with three or four sentences that are…very intense. Debra Jo Rupp, Ali Ahn, Patti LuPone, and Sasheer Zamata support women's rights and women's wrongs. (Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Television) But is the show a drama? A comedy? A horror-drama? Horror-comedy? Horror-dramedy? One’s guess is as good as another. Episode 1, “Seekest Thou the Road,” is almost entirely a parody/homage episode, taking WandaVision’s sitcom-trappings storytelling approach and applying it to the crime-thriller limited series genre, specifically Mare of Easttown with a dollop of The Killing thrown in via the opening credits. It’s an interesting idea, a nod to the Agatha All Along’s parent series with a parallel storytelling technique. More importantly, it gives the series room enough to be more than just a reinvention of the wheel. And the show seemingly ditches it by the episode’s end. Continue Reading →

After several attempts at relaunches and reimaginings, last year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem finally hit on a formula that justified bringing those heroes on the half-shell back yet again. Ditching the cluttered live-action CGI of Platinum Dunes’ previous Turtles’ films in favor of a fresh and fluid animation style, the film shifted focus from “ninja” to “teenage.” The green guys could still fight—and did—but the story was more interested in the adolescent longing for peer connection. Add a propulsive soundtrack and a real sense of place, and they got a refreshing delight. It only makes sense that Paramount would want to move the approach from the big screen to the little one with Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Unfortunately, budgets are a thing. Moving to 12 episodes (the first six provided for critics) on streaming means fewer dollars and further to stretch them. Thus, while Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Raphael (Brady Noon), and April (Ayo Edebiri) return with their original voices, several are either changed or don’t return at all. For instance, Jackie Chan no longer voices Splinter. His replacement, James Sie, communicates only in a gibberish language called “vermin”. To be fair, it is a fun/funny solution to the usual “different guy trying for the same voice for the cartoon series” problem. Robot 02 would just like a little hug. Honest. (Paramount+) The other mutants—the antagonists turned protagonists of the film—simply don’t appear. That’s not especially surprising. It’s hard to imagine getting the likes of Paul Rudd, Giancarlo Esposito, Post Malone, and Seth Rogen to ALL commit to a 12-episode order and have any money left over. That said, Rose Byrne contributes a brief but amusing cameo as Leatherhead. There is a chance the rest, or some portion, might return in the back half of the season. Regardless, their prominence ranges from significantly curtailed to entirely eliminated. Continue Reading →

The host of a podcast I regularly listen to consistently refers to a “toxic impulse.” I’m not sure I agree, but I found myself thinking about that turn of phrase often while screening all ten episodes of Batman: Caped Crusader. Created by Timm and produced by a plethora of eye-catching names, including J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Ed Brubaker, Caped Crusader unfolds in an art deco Gotham City from some alternate universe of 1930s/40s America. It is early in the pointy-eared vigilante’s career, not necessarily Year One, but close. Not everyone in Gotham believes in the Batman’s (Hamish Linklater) existence. He hasn’t found a working relationship with the police department, and most of his wonderfully complex and scary villains do not yet exist. In the daylight, Bruce Wayne (Linklater again, natch) moves through high society, dropping all kinds of money on various charities. Along the way, he flirts (but nothing more) with enough women to make Warren Beatty in his prime ask Brucie for advice and disappears at the oddest times. Eric Morgan Stuart always manages to get perfectly framed by windows. (Prime Video) Does all of that feel familiar? Like 1992 familiar? Like Batman: The Animated Series familiar? Well, it will also look familiar to fans of that series. While Batman: Caped Crusader admirably brings more diversity—racial and body type-wise, most noticeably—to the cast, the aesthetics match those of The Animated Series original look very closely. It sounds like TAS, thanks to Frederik Wiedmann’s score. There’s nothing as big in it as the moment from Danny Elfman’s Main Credits Theme when the building explodes and the percussion kicks in, for sure. However, Wiedmann creates themes and motifs that immediately call to mind the quieter aspects of that theme and Shirley Walker’s in-episode compositions. Continue Reading →

If you’ve watched any previous season, you should have a good idea of what The Boys Season 4 offers. More to the point, it is almost certainly clear to you if it’s something you enjoy or despise. If you have formed an opinion, that should inform your decision to tune in. Because, five years after its debut, one thing you can absolutely count on is The Boys remains completely, unapologetically, itself. That isn’t to say there isn’t anything to discuss. In fact, there’s almost too much as the series continues to offer some of the most boldfaced political commentary on streaming. Not bad for a show that also boldly illustrated how that whole “Ant-Man should shrink down and enter Thanos” thing might look if the MCU took the bait. Following that memory, the gore seems as good a place as any to engage with this new season. There has perhaps never been a show as impressive in its ability to wield its considerable blood and guts touch on a wide range of emotional beats. The Boys Season 4 does not fall off in this department. If anything, it has an even more impressive level of control this time out. One moment, it proves itself intensely capable of pulling out sick laughs as a Vought event rehearsal unravels into an ever-escalating series of mishaps. Imagine it as a sort of a Rube Goldberg machine of carnage. And yet, later, when a confrontation forces a character to kill someone, the camera captures both the arterial spray and the guilt play across the protagonist’s face. Both moments play, and neither feels out of step with the series. It’s quite the magic trick. Continue Reading →

It is not typical when I review a new season of an established series that I find myself utterly lost and befuddled. Nonetheless, Sweet Tooth Season 3 earned that rare achievement. I retained the broad strokes. Gus (Christian Convery), a hybrid child, travels a US ravaged by the Sick with Big Man Tommy Jepperd (Nonso Anozie). Together, they search for Gus’s (who’s also the titular Sweet Tooth on account of his, well, sweet tooth) mom and anything that might bring the plague to an end. The quest is complicated by many survivors' hatred of hybrids. They blame the animal-human kids for the virus and Gus is Baby Zero of the new species. However, the specifics of how Season 2 led to Season 3 had utterly vacated my brain. I realized why after doing my due diligence and doubling back to watch the previous season first. Season 2 was a dark, dreary affair. It was still well-made and acted but a largely unpleasant viewing experience. It stood in contrast to Season 1’s almost fairy tale vibes, where pain and tragedy existed, but an undeniable sense of hope buoyed the show. In retrospect, it seems I forgot so much of Season 2 as something of a defense mechanism. Rosalind Chao and Louise Jiang's mother-daughter relationship may trigger some past unpleasant memories. (Matt Klitscher/Netflix © 2024) I say all this as, yes, an acknowledgment that I had to play catch-up with Sweet Tooth Season 3’s first two or so episodes. But also, I do so as a warning to prospective viewers. To truly immediately get Season 3—not necessarily like, but at least understand—it would not be a bad idea to take a quick look back on Season 2. Continue Reading →

In reviewing Dark Matter, it feels fitting to follow the moral of the show’s story. While it is easy to get lost in forever puzzling over details, the far more useful—and rewarding—path is to take a step back and fully appreciate a thing. There are elements in creator/showrunner Blake Crouch’s adaptation of his own work that do not work, especially concerning pacing. And yet, by the time the credits roll on the final episode, one is largely left satisfied and, perhaps, a bit exhilarated. The temptation to dwell on each choice at the expense of the larger picture is something Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) knows well. But we’re already getting ahead of ourselves. Dark Matters begins with the Jason I’ll christen “our Jason” for clarity. Our Jason is a Physics professor living in Chicago with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly), a former artist who now focuses more on the administrative and business sides of art, and their son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). One night, Jason meets up with his friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) to celebrate the latter’s academic success. The vibe is strained, with parties seemingly aware that Jason should’ve received the same award, if not over Ryan, then certainly before him. Continue Reading →

Dead Boy Detectives is, by its nature, a strange beast. Both a spinoff of MAX’s now-finished Doom Patrol series and Netflix’s own Sandman, it began as a sort of backdoor pilot two and a half years ago in the third episode of Doom Patrol Season 3. However, this series tossed the actors portraying the Boys and their living friend Crystal for an entirely different trio of performers. Now George Rextrew plays Edwin, the uptight turn-of-the-century boy. Jayden Revri steps into the jacket of Edwin's late 80s punk adjacent partner Charles. Finally, Kassius Nelson portrays their modern and still of this mortal plane third wheel, teen medium Crystal Palace. Soon after meeting and freeing Crystal from the clutches of a demon named David (David Iacono), the boys take her in, although Edwin is less than thrilled at the idea. Missing large chunks of her memory, she is anxious to throw herself into the boys’ work investigating cases for and about ghosts, usually in the name of sending them off to the Great Beyond. Their first case as a trio takes them away from their English home to Port Townsend, WA. Unfortunately, even after they close the case, forces conspire to keep the three stuck in the town. With only time to waste, they decide to make the best of it by solving the problems of Townsend’s surprisingly bustling phantom population. Kassius Nelson accesses those spooky-ooky powers. (Netflix) This kind of “neither here nor there” of the show’s beginning and the characters’ “house arrest” soon reveals itself as a kind of meta reflection of the series itself. Steve Yockey, the writer of that backdoor pilot episode and the creator of this series, clearly has enthusiasm and love for the concept and the characters. The central relationship between the spectral friends has a striking sweetness without being cloying. The two's connection never feels in doubt, even as they bicker or revelations of unrequited sexual attraction come to light. The scripting deftly avoids needless "can their friendship survive" melodrama or after-school special syrupiness. It doesn’t hurt that, despite the roster change, Rexstrew and Revri wear the roles like comfortable clothes. They give Edwin and Charles a casual depth that extends behind their simple archetypes. Continue Reading →

The 1960s Star Trek show did not have the chance to do a true series finale. All of its successors did though, until now. From The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine to Voyager to Enterprise to Picard, every show had the opportunity to make a final statement and sum up the years of adventures in some fashion. Yet, despite being the primogenitor of the franchise, The Original Series just sort of ends, with the sense of the conveyor belt simply stopping, and its last output accidentally becoming an end, if not quite the end. And yet “Turnabout Intruder”, infamous though it may be, is a surprisingly fitting finale for TOS. It features the good notions and abiding themes of the 1960s show: the idea that this crew knows their captain well enough to sniff out a fake; that become a well-functioning team that can work through even the most unorthodox problems, and that after seventy-nine episodes’ worth of outlandish adventures, they remain open to new and unexpected possibilities. It also features the bad ideas and problematic elements that plagued series time and again: from a mixed-at-best perspective on women to William Shatner’s over-the-top acting. In that, the show’s final outing is an inadvertent but strangely apt swan song for the series. In its new season, Star Trek: Discovery follows in those hallowed, unexpected footsteps. This is Discovery’s fifth and final year on the air, but as reported by the cast and crew, they didn’t know that when writing or filming it until the last minute. Despite the promise of a hastily-shot coda to give the show an air of finality, that makes this last leg of Discovery’s mission an accidental ending, not unlike the one endured by the original Star Trek series. Continue Reading →

Regardless of what one thinks of nostalgia—a toxic force or a pleasant refuge from the chaos that is existence—there’s no denying its significant role in shaping and guiding our pop culture. Rather than simply rallying against it, we must, from time to time, acknowledge it and evaluate its accuracy. The launching of X-Men ’97 gives The Spool a unique opportunity to look back at ’97’s progenitor, the early 90’s series X-Men, also commonly known as X-Men: The Animated Series. However, this is not a task for one person. An objective of this size requires a team-up, in the Merry Marvel Tradition. Tim Stevens, The Spool’s steadfast TV Editor, whose stoicism conceals a maelstrom of doubt and rage, much like ruby quartz holds back optic blasts, tackled the first half of the series. Then, Justin Harrison, our near-feral writer with a gift for mentorship and a head full of implanted memories, closes things down with his take on the second half of season 3 and all of seasons 4 and 5. With that, there’s no time to waste. Hop in the Blackbird and come with us for a look at the highlights—and occasional lowlight—of the X-Men! Continue Reading →

As the saying goes, only '90s kids will remember the severe cultural impact X-Men: The Animated Series had on a particular strain of latchkey millennials. For many, the show, which ran from 1992-97 on the Fox Kids programming block, was the arguable apex of the Marvel superhero team's on-screen representations. It was thrilling, exciting, and for the time, surprisingly mature in its handling of the sociopolitical issues that spawned the comics in the first place -- racism, xenophobia, homophobia. It carried an element of serialized storytelling that was rare for kids' TV and took its characters and their respective issues seriously. Plus, that theme song just slammed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjdm8BdJO4 Disney+, in its infinite wisdom, knows how to keep the franchise going while they anxiously figure out how to incorporate the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Deadpool & Wolverine should give us a portent, however grim) -- and to keep the '90s kids satiated with a heaping helping of nostalgia while we wait. So goes X-Men '97, a straightforward continuation of The Animated Series that updates its "too sophisticated for kids" remit all the way to the present day and lands on something interesting, if far from perfect, in the process. Picking up months after the original series' finale, X-Men '97 shows a world reeling from the death of Charles Xavier in the final episode of the animated series: Mutants are mistrusted more than ever, and a growing fifth column of right-wing human militants called the Friends of Humanity are gathering up mutants and taking them down with stolen Sentinel technology. Naturally, it's up to the X-Men to stop them -- if they can pull themselves together and work as a team. Scott Summers (Ray Chase) is the next natural choice for leader, but he's torn between his duty to his fellow X-Men and his desire to start a family with Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale), a move that has ol' Wolverine (Cal Dodd) itching with jealousy. Continue Reading →

Doom Patrol Season 4 Part 2 dives headfirst into what has consistently been a series favorite topic since the beginning: death. While much of Patrol has pondered what it would be like to live agelessly—essentially without fear of any possible death except the violent and unusual—but still struggle with every other aspect of being human. The members screwed up, had mental issues and physical ailments, struggled with vanity and loneliness, and frequently gave in to any number of self-loathing varietals. They would never age, but they wore their pain the same as the rest of us. Continue Reading →

One of the common complaints about Marvel’s attempts at multiverse storytelling is that it renders everything meaningless. If there is another Ikaris of the Eternals out there—or a possibly infinite number of them—why should one care if the one in front of us dies? Generally, this writer finds the argument unconvincing. If I told you there were infinite versions of your friend out there in the multiverse you might someday meet, you’d still care quite a bit to see your version die in front of you. Continue Reading →

The Boys is good. Often, it is excellent. However, the Eric Kripke-created adaptation of the Garth Ennis-Darick Robertson-created comic book series sometimes overindulged in juvenilia and “is this too edgy for you, square?” baiting. To be fair, that isn’t exactly unfaithful to the source material. Ennis frequently vacillates between scathingly insightful critiques of the human condition and truckloads of dick jokes (see also, Preacher). Continue Reading →

Much of the pre-release publicity about Moon Knight focused on the heightened brutality of the new MCU on Disney+ series. In doing so, all involved failed to mention how much stranger it would be than the average MCU streamer. Continue Reading →

A thirty-plus-year veteran of film and TV scoring, Kiner's a chameleon who can work with the themes and motifs set by other composers and spin them into broader, more dynamic cues demanded by the rigors of television storytelling. That's borne out in his work for Star Wars, especially, where at this point he's written more music for the universe than John Williams himself -- while he finds moments to work in familiar motifs and themes, Kiner also carves out room for experimentation, which you can hear in the more synth-heavy scoring for Clone Wars: The Final Season. Continue Reading →

It’s the season finale of The Mandalorian Season 2, and I hope we’re all prepared to feel our feelings. Last time, Mando and the Grogu Rescue Crew (Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune) sprung former Imperial sharpshooter Migs Mayfeld (Bill Burr) so he could help them get access to the Imperial intranet and get the coordinates for Moff Gideon’s light cruiser. The mission was a success, though not without its problems, as Mando (Pedro Pascal) was forced to use the terminal instead of Mayfeld, necessitating the second-ever removal of his helmet since taking the Creed. They got the intel and headed out (sans a released Mayfeld) to face off against Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and get back that little green guy.  Continue Reading →