Noiseless Chatter Archive

  ALF Reviews: “My Back Pages” (season 3, episode 10) “My Back Pages” is named after a Bob Dylan song. I’ll get that out of the way right now, since it was bound to happen sooner or later. My all-time favorite musician has an  ALF  connection. So it goes. I guess it’s not really anything to get that grumpy about. As I’ve said before, somebody on the staff had pretty solid taste in music, based on the episode titles and on the choices of songs used (and referenced) in the episodes themselves. Alongside the competent (and often very good) puppetry, the nods and winks to music history represent the only observable passion in the show. It’s an odd choice of title, though. For one, it’s not one of Dylan’s more popular songs. (Though it is one of my personal favorites.) It’s also a title that doesn’t occur anywhere in the song itself, meaning that folks who have actually heard it might not know what it’s called. It’s especially puzzling when the theme of the episode — though by...

…and we all have a lot of catching up to do. I got a press release regarding Turner Broadcasting and Hulu reaching an agreement. But as many stations as Turner owns, and as many programs as it has the rights to, the press release spotlighted Adult Swim coming to the streaming site. This is both interesting and refreshing to me. While other shows on TBS and TNT draw larger viewing figures regularly (understandably so, being as Adult Swim is only discovered by those who have trouble sleeping one night), Adult Swim’s programming pushes the envelope. And while it’s by no means always good (hello, Assy McGee! ), it’s at least always interesting. To see these shows being heralded above the more traditional comedy fare on its sister stations represents a much-deserved step forward in terms of visibility. The press release doesn’t specify a date, and it’s crawling with future-tense, so I have no idea when these shows will actually arrive. But it promises full back catalogues...

  ALF Reviews: “Changes” (season 3, episode 9) Well, we’re back…and just in time for a pretty important episode in the history of  ALF . Not because people remember it fondly (or at all…I certainly didn’t) but because it has an actual job to do. “Changes” must shoulder more responsibility than any episode before it, barring the pilot: it needs to introduce Anne Schedeen’s real life pregnancy. In any other episode,  ALF  could spin its wheels. There’s no real serialization here, and like most sitcoms this one comes with a press of the big reset button at the end of every episode. That means that very few of them have long-term impacts on the narrative of the show. This, in itself, is not a weakness, but I point it out now to contrast the role of “Changes.” In any other episode,  ALF  just needs to make us laugh. (Ostensibly.) Here, it needs to go further, because, like it or not, Kate’s going to look pregnant for the next few episodes, and we’ve got to addre...