Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, episode 129: 'Community,' 'House,' 'Avengers' & more
Dan and Alan also review TBS' 'Men at Work' and announce their summer rewatch
A very busy, very long Firewall & Iceberg Podcast this week deals with finales, firings, a forgettable new TBS sitcom, a metaphorical Marvel Team-Up between Don Draper and Joan Harris, a more literal Marvel team-up between the members of The Avengers, and the announcement of this week's summer re-watch.
The line-up:
Tessa's Mom Candidates (00:01:30 - 00:05:00)
"Men at Work" (00:05:00 - 00:10:45)
"Community" finale/Dan Harmon (00:10:45 - 00:28:00)
"Grey's Anatomy"/"Scandal" finales (00:28:10 - 00:45:45)
"House" finale (00:45:45 - 00:58:45)
Listener Mail - "Breaking Bad" premiere (00:59:00 - 01:03:45)
"Mad Men" (01:03:50 - 01:20:00)
"Avengers" (01:20:10 - 01:36:00)
Our Summer Re-Watch Announcement (01:36:10 - 01:39:25)
As we discuss towards the end of the show, there may or may not be a podcast next week, due to Dan's travel schedule, but there will definitely not be a podcast on Monday, due to the Memorial Day holiday.
As always, you can subscribe to The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast over at the iTunes Store, where you can also rate us and comment on us. Or you can always follow our RSS Feed, download the MP3 file or stream it on Dan's blog.
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupLazy Iggy
May 22, 2012 at 9:41PM EST Reply to Comment*happy snoopy dancing* over your summer re-watch choice!!! I am was going to watch anyway because I'm that kind of fan...but yay!!!!
coolsid
May 22, 2012 at 10:04PM EST Reply to CommentHey Alan,
Is this podcast 129 or 130, because there seems to be some disagreement between you and Dan on this...
dan CoolSid - It's 130. Alan headlined both of last week's podcasts as 128. But don't worry... The official count is safe with me!
May 22, 2012 at 10:16PM EST-Daniel
coolsid Ok...Phew.. It got real confusing for a minute.But you guys defintely need Stat Pheobe Tonkin to keep things straight....
May 23, 2012 at 12:21AM ESTJoyeful
May 22, 2012 at 11:16PM EST Reply to CommentThis was a great podcast...and FYI, I was one of the 2-3 listeners who hadn't watched Buffy before - thanks for the spoiler :-). I saw the movie when I was younger and didn't like it, that's why I didn't watch the series. I only discovered the awesomeness of Whedon recently, having watched Firefly, Serenity, Dr Horrible. This will give me a good reason to get started on Buffy :-)
Bgklein
May 23, 2012 at 1:39AM EST Reply to CommentSo did Buffy kill Laura Palmer? I'm still unsure from last summer.
May 23, 2012 at 9:06AM ESTAndrei ... and that's how Buffy met Laura Palmer's mother!
May 24, 2012 at 1:17PM ESTMadel
May 23, 2012 at 1:51AM EST Reply to CommentIt's been 3 years (in the show's timeline) at SCDP, not 2 as Alan mentioned: it began on Dec 16th, 1963. In the Mad Men timeline the show has now passed 45.5 months at Sterling Cooper - 36.5 months at SCDP.
Madel Of course, Alan might have meant two seasons of the show - and not two years of 'time' - but I wasn't sure in the context of your discussion about 'blowing up' the agency.
May 23, 2012 at 1:56AM ESTMike
May 23, 2012 at 2:30AM EST Reply to CommentHey Alan, will you also be doing a Summer Re-Watch in blog form? I can't recall what you did last summer (or if you did one at all), so perhaps you have Season 2 of that forthcoming?
Or something else entirely new?
sepinwall I'll be announcing the blog rewind later this week.
May 23, 2012 at 9:37AM ESTrexmism
May 23, 2012 at 9:26AM EST Reply to CommentAlan, have you decided if you reviewing Deadwood season 2 or something else yet?
Dan3320 I find it hard to believe Alan would do a rewind on something other than Deadwood season 2. He doesn't seem the type to bounce around from show to show each summer.
May 23, 2012 at 12:12PM ESTMadel
May 23, 2012 at 11:24AM EST Reply to CommentIt's interesting that in the HitFix poll, almost half of the responders say they either won't or might not watch Community without Dan Harmon. Now I don't know what the number of people taking part in the poll is, but if we extrapolate (as if it's statistically significant) that means that Sony is, with their boneheaded move, risking losing half of the minimal audience that the show has managed to accrue.
Given the bottom-line mentality mentioned by Dan in the podcast, I wonder what that risk equates to in dollars; i.e. what is the monetary cost of losing half the audience versus the monetary cost of keeping Harmon as show-runner for 13 episodes.
odessasteps
May 23, 2012 at 12:16PM EST Reply to CommentJust for a second, when Dan said the Summer Project was a seque from the Avengers movie, I thought they were going to a season of the Avengers with Steed and Mrs. Peel.
Andrei I'd be up for that! Diana Rigg - mrowrrr...
May 24, 2012 at 1:09PM ESTed w
May 23, 2012 at 2:56PM EST Reply to CommentI was a little struck by how long Dan thought that House had left to live. 40-45 years or so? The guy is around mid 50s from the looks of him, not very healthy and in general single men don't tend to live as long. He's probably got about 20 years left.
Mike
May 23, 2012 at 5:14PM EST Reply to CommentAlan, I think I would have to side with the commenters of your blog on the video game episode of Community being one of the funniest ones they've ever done.
Tirey
May 23, 2012 at 5:21PM EST Reply to CommentDrew McSweeney also doing "The Buffy Project" pod. coincidence or just lazy?
dan Tirey - "McWeeny." And "neither."
May 23, 2012 at 5:25PM EST-Daniel
RU Serious How can it be neither lazy nor coincidence? Are you saying this was actively planned? What would be the point of that? I think it would have to be coincidence, right? I don't really care, I'm not down with Buffy in any way, so it just makes your podcasts shorter for me. I was really hoping for Deadwood.
May 24, 2012 at 8:10AM ESTAndrei Chill, RU, chill...
May 24, 2012 at 1:14PM ESTGiven the problems that Drew has had with his "Buffy project" podcasts so far (being sick, yelling at his kids, losing half a podcast...), Alan and Dan could probably give him some recording lessons. At least, they could let him know never to mention Dustin Hoffman's Emmy chances....
dan RU Serious - Well, it's not lazy because Alan and I are taking a completely different approach from the one that Drew is taking. And I wouldn't use the word "coincidence" because the reasons Drew is doing what Drew's doing and we're doing what we're doing is because "Buffy" is fun to talk about and Joss Whedon is in an elevated place in pop culture at the moment. So we're drinking from the same water or breathing the same air. His decision to do what he's doing and our decision to do what we're doing? They're completely separate and unrelated decisions, but they're parallel.
May 24, 2012 at 1:30PM ESTAnd also, it's not like I was unaware that Drew was doing his "Buffy" project and I specifically conversed with him to make sure that nobody would feel that toes were being stepped on, since he's doing a season-by-season "macro" take on Buffy and we're doing a one-season episode-by-episode "micro" take.
Regardless, I know there's no answer I could give that you'd like. But in my mind, that's why it's neither lazy nor coincidental.
-Daniel
MatthewL
May 24, 2012 at 6:53AM EST Reply to CommentExcited by the rewatch, and frustrated.
Excited, because I think the conversation will be really interesting, particularly since (as you point out) it is going to be focused on a show discovering itself, rather than just a flawless show.
Frustrated, because I coincidentally bought the first three seasons on special last weekend, I've already watched the first three, and now I need to put my viewing on hold while I wait for you to catch up.
sepinwall
May 24, 2012 at 1:21PM EST Reply to CommentAnyone still checking the comments, by the way, please note that whenever we podcast next, we are going to be discussing the first TWO hours of "Buffy," both "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest," which were made as a two-hour pilot and then split into two individual episodes.
JedyKnight by any chance, would you be commenting on the unaired original pilot, the casting changes made after and why Wheedon wants to erase the world's memory of it ever having existed ? (would you, please..)
May 24, 2012 at 7:43PM EST