Creative Loafing presents Ed Loves Bacon

While it remains to be seen if Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will be one of the all time best animated series, Its interesting that the show creator and director Craig Kyle thinks so. In a post on GeekTyrant, Kyle shared his excitement and explains why he feels this will be one of the greatest series to date.

It’s going to be the best show ever made. I am so excited about “Avengers” I can’t even tell you. It is the comic book put on screen. It is the classic team set in modern day. They’re not fighting communists or anything. It is going to be big. It’s Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man and Wasp. It’s the team. It’s what you know and love put right on the screen. We are well on our way. It’s definitely in heavy production right now as for a premier I do not know? It may be tied to the future film, it may not, I just don’t know… With “Hulk Vs.” we really got controls taken off as far as violence goes with Wolverine and the Hulk. But I got to tell you, working on “Avengers,” that’s a cool show. As a comic book fan, I’m so excited about it. I think the reason that animated series get the edge now [over direct-to-DVD features] is because when they’re good, you get a lot of more of them. “Hulk vs. Wolverine” was what, 33 minutes? So with shows like “Armored Adventures,” “Wolverine and the X-Men” and the upcoming “Avengers,” if they’re good you get like thirteen hours of them.

No specific date has been given for the 2011 premiere of the animated series, but people around the net are enthusiastic about its release.

The Avengers have manifested four times in the past in both series and film formats. They make their first appearance on the small screen in 1966 on the Captain America cartoon series. Later, the Avengers get their own series on Fox Kids in 1999 with Avengers United They Stand which received poor marks from the Avenger fan base. Marvel Animation created a winning combination with the release of their direct to DVD Ultimate Avengers animated features in 2006. They followed up the popular movies with a new imagining of the popular franchise with Next Avengers in 2008, a film featuring the children of some of the most popular Avenger heroes.

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will be penned by Chris Yost (Next Avengers, Wolverine and The X-Men) and produced by Ciro Nieli (Teen Titans, Transformers Animated), animation will be done by Film Roman, the production company for King of the Hill, The Simpsons and The Oblongs.

You Go Girl! Jada Pinkett Smith makes history as Nurse Christina Hawthorne in TNT's Hawthorne.

The phone rings, a hurried conversation and Nurse Christina Hawthorne dashes to the hospital, avoiding security and helping a wandering elderly patient as she rushes to console a friend and fatally ill cancer patient from jumping off the roof. She fails. Soon after, she’s arrested under protest for roughing up the security guard. So goes the first few minutes from the pilot episode of TNT’s latest drama, Hawthorne starring Jada Pinkett Smith.

As the episode progresses we’re given a day-in-the-life of a hospital from the views of the often unsung heroes – the nurses. While much of the show involves the often trivial tasks that take place throughout the day, the supporting characters and their stories slowly start to manifest peaking your curiosity and drawing you in.

We meet the boyish chief of surgery, Thomas Wakefield (Michael Vartan, Alias) who glides in a out of scenes with Smith who feels more like an extra than a co-star. Then there’s hard as nails nurse Bobbie Jackson (Suleka Mathew, Men In Trees), who acts as Hawthorne’s right hand and delivers the much needed shoulder most of the more inexperienced nurses turn to.

Unfortunately, the often unnatural dialog and predictable plots makes the field of nursing seem not only lackluster but boring. There’s not a lot of action, extensive medical jargon or unusual medical conditions to beef up the mystique of hospitals as most of these divisive medical dramas tend to use. Instead you’re giving solemn and often unrewarding views that build up to syrupy emotional payoffs as each episode concludes.

The saving grace (pun intended) of the show is its main character who anchors as medical maverick and mother hen to her many charges while trying to keep the same focus with her teenage daughter, Camile (Hannah Hodson).

Smith is always a delight to watch. Her chiseled features and steely glazes makes you want to take the hour long ride, throw you hands up and hope for the best. As always, she tends to waffle between her “girlfriend” shtick and an over-enunciating soccer mom, which hits and misses with each episode. But as whole, her various personas give the show a much needed injection of personality and charm that makes the show worth watching. Also, be on the lookout for the scene stealing guest appearances that make the show more bearable amongst its many slow points.

Its not surprising to learn the show is penned by veteran writer John Masius who’s no stranger to TV medical dramas. Masius was a writer and producer of the Emmy winning series St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, Showtime’s Dead Like Me and Providence among others so Hawthorne isn’t a far cry from his bread and butter style of story telling.

Personally, I am glad to see Jada Pinkett Smith return to television. This is her first appearance on the small screen in over 13 years after her stint on the Cosby spin off A Different World. Consequently,  Hawthorne sets a television milestone as the second series featuring an African-American female lead. Not since Diahann Carrol’s show Julia in the late 60’s has this occurred.

Hawthorne seems to stall out the gate, but has a trump in the fiery yet seductive energy of Smith which may make it a must-see as the series progresses.

Grade: B-
Hawthorne airs Tuesday nights at 10pm on TNT.