TV Talk: Godzilla (and friends!) attack; ‘Cartoon Academy’ returns
Share this post:
Despite its presence on one of the smaller streaming services, WhipMedia’s anticipation report said Apple TV+’s new 10-episode live-action Godzilla series, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” is the most-anticipated new series in November.
Turns out there’s a huge fandom for Godzilla – and not just in Japan – that I only know about because my 13-year-old son will rattle off facts and figures about the Shōwa era and the Hesei era of the original Toho movies made in Japan. There’s even a Godzilla convention, G-Fest, in Chicago every July.
Executive produced by Pittsburgh resident Thomas Tull through his former stake in Legendary Entertainment and written by Chris Black (“Severance,” “Outcast”) and Matt Fraction (“DaVinci’s Demons”), “Monarch,” streaming its first two episodes Friday, is ultimately more about humans than the titan monsters. Producers add a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) attack to almost every episode but the real focus is on a trio of characters in the 1950s and a quartet in 2015.
Set between the events of 2014’s “Godzilla” and 2019’s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” “Monarch” opens with a cameo by John Goodman, reprising a character from the movies in a scene set on Skull Island in 1973. A younger version of the same character, Bill Randa (Anders Holm), appears in “Monarch.” The Goodman cameo is the series’ primary human tie to the films, although later there’s a reference to tech entrepreneur Walter Simmons, a character from the 2024-set “Godzilla vs. Kong.”
In “Monarch” in the 1950s, military liaison Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell) guards Dr. Keiko Mura (Mari Yamamoto) and Bill Randa (Holm) as they investigate an anomaly.
“Monarch” jumps around in time A LOT — even within decades — but the primary other setting is 2015, a year after the old fire-breather attacked San Francisco in “Godzilla.” Cate Randa (Anna Sawai), Bill’s granddaughter, discovers her believed-to-be-deceased father has a second family in Japan, including a half-brother, Kentaro (Ren Watabe). The half-siblings believe their father died in an Alaska plane crash but no wreckage or body was found. Together with Kentaro’s quasi-girlfriend May (Kiersey Clemons), they set out on a quest to find the half-sibling’s father, which ultimately leads them to MUTO-investigating secret organization Monarch and an older Lee Shaw, played by Wyatt Russell’s real-life father, Kurt Russell.
As a drama series, “Monarch” offers a mixed bag. Early episodes are one fetch quest after another with copious flashbacks to develop character backstories.
Episode four, set largely in Alaska, is most like the action-adventure movies “Monarch” spins off from. But the back half of the season devolves into convoluted, continent-hopping efforts to rescue a presumably kidnapped May before coming full circle in episode eight, returning to a location featured in the first episode. Apple TV+ did not make the final two episodes of the season available for review.
Premiere dates
The Hollywood Reporter says NBC’s “Night Court” resumed production this week. ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and NBC’s “Chicago” shows return to filming Nov. 27 with most other shows restarting filming in late November/early December, while ABC’s “9-1-1” and The CW’s “All American: Homecoming” won’t film until January.
CBS announced premiere dates for its series, including “The Neighborhood,” “Bob (Hearts) Abishola,” “NCIS,” and “NCIS: Hawai’i” on Feb. 12; “FBI,” “FBI: International,” and “FBI: Most Wanted” on Feb. 13; “Young Sheldon,” American “Ghosts” and “So Help Me Todd” on Feb. 15 (“Young Sheldon” will end with this upcoming seventh season; its series finale will air May 16); “S.W.A.T.,” “Fire Country,” and “Blue Bloods” on Feb. 16; “The Equalizer” and “CSI: Vegas” on Feb. 18; “Survivor” on Feb. 28 and “The Amazing Race” on March 13.
“Survivor” will begin with two two-hour episodes and then it and “The Amazing Race” will continue to air 90-minute episodes as they have this fall.
New series “Tracker” starring Justin Hartley (“This is Us”) as a crime-solver will premiere after “Super Bowl LVIII” before moving to 9 p.m. Sunday. “Good Wife”/”Good Fight” spin-off “Elsbeth” starring Carrie Preston as a crime-solver premieres at 10 p.m. Feb. 29.
As expected, two programs ordered in May, a “Matlock” reboot starring Kathy Bates and comedy “Poppa’s House” starring Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr., are on hold until the 2024-25 TV season.
More ‘Cartoon Academy’
Regional Emmy winner “Cartoon Academy with Joe Wos” returns for a six-episode fourth season exploring environment/habitats and social-emotional learning that will be released at youtube.com/@WQED and at wqed.org/cartoonacademy.
Episodes include “The Everglades” (releasing Nov. 20), “Rainforest of Costa Rica” (Nov. 21), “Sky Islands of the Desert” (Nov. 22), “Diversity Acceptance” (Dec. 18), “Emotion” (Dec. 19) and “Relationships” (Dec. 20).
Wos explained the new season’s more abstract episodes play with the idea of illustration as a form of communication.
“We hit on this idea that emotion is actually very difficult to talk about and to express but it’s something we do in illustration all the time,” Wos said.
For the diversity piece, Wos created creatures called Florps.
“Some are short, some are tall, some are wide, some are narrow, some have stripes, others have spots,” he said. “It gives us an opportunity to talk not just about our differences and similarities, but also talk about how variables in illustration allow you to create completely new characters.”
A televised compilation of all the fourth season episodes will air on linear WQED-TV in early 2024 but no date/time has been set.
‘Kingstown’ seeks extras
For its third season, filming in Pittsburgh January through May, Paramount+’s “Mayor of Kingstown” seeks paid background actors, stand-ins and photo doubles, including kids, teens and adults of all ethnicities to play citizens, cops, prisoners and nightclub goers.
For details and to apply, visit movieextraspittsburgh.com.
Channel surfing
“The 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards,” postponed from summer due to the strikes, will air at 9 p.m. Dec. 15 on CBS and Paramount+ with Showtime. … Homewood native Antoine Fuqua will direct Denzel Washington in the Netflix film “Hannibal,” about the real-life military commander and warrior during his battles against the Roman Republic. … Freeform canceled the animated comedy “Praise Petey” after one season. … FX ordered a third season of “Welcome to Wrexham.”