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In 2022, I originally posted much of what I'm about say on POST, a platform that closed up earlier in 2024, but a lot of the sentiments still, sadly, sticks. At the time I'm rewriting this, we're entering the final hours of 2024, and by the time this article is queued up, the rest of the world is already pinky-toe-deep in 2025. A few thoughts of the year that was. A lot of it can sod off. Seriously, screw this year. It was awful. Just... awful. Granted, it wasn't the worst year of my life (2022 is definitely in the top two, and 2024 is, more or less in the top 10). 2024 was a year when a lot of things that could have gone wrong went wrong. A lot of people got put in positions they didn't deserve and ruined a lot of great things. Greedy companies continue to our lives in every part of society. Myopic, bigoted executives continue to get in way over their heads, and we all continue to get lost in their incompetence. Politicians continue to not give a damn about anythin...

NOTE: This article was originally published at POST under the title "Finding Logic in Illogical Vestments" on December 5, 2022.  Still, as the old adage goes, " Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change, the more they remain the same)." -jh  I've been thinking about something about Warner Bros Discovery for a while, and while I've said I'm not going to talk about the inner workings of the company, it's a question that vexes me and must be asked about the future of the land of the Vestman when it comes to syndicating and distributing their programs. David Zaslav, the head of the company who will be referred to as the Vestman because he really likes his vests and gave them away as a parting gift to recently-fired WBD and CNN employees, has been on the record as saying that shows produced by Warner Bros Discovery don't necessarily have to air on WBD-owned outlets including HBO Max, TBS, TNT, and Cartoon Network. Consideri...

DISCLAIMER: The following is part three of a multipart alternate history series about the history of  Doctor Who  if it was an American-made production rather than a British production. It's purely speculative and a work of fiction, although some real-world elements were included and presented for realistic situations and scenarios. Neither this series nor its author are connected to nor reflect the views and opinions of BBC Studios (the owner of the  Doctor Who  franchise) or any entity or persons mentioned and does not mean to infringe on the copyrights and trademarks of those parties. - JH “There are fixed points throughout time where things must stay exactly the way they are. This is not one of them, this is an opportunity. Whatever happens here will create its own timeline, its own reality, a temporal tipping point. The future revolves around you, here, now, so do good!” - The Doctor While the original run of  Doctor Who  ended on ABC , Universal still...

Back in July, I made a bucket list  of things I want to do before I reach 55. Basically, a nine-year list of goals I want to accomplish or at least try just once. And now, as the year is winding down (it'll be 2025 in a couple of weeks), II felt it was time to revisit what I've actually done so far. I managed to cross off a few things off my list, but I know I have a long way to go. Find love again.  Marry that love or at least try my damnedest to make her happy. Write a novel.   I have one completely done, but I'm making it into a full series, all of which are in various points of creation. But at least one is completely done. Another slightly unrelated one is ALMOST done. I say "slightly unrelated" because when I first started it, it wasn't related to another story, but now, it's connected to two other stories, and one of them is an indirect prequel that fits in the timeline.  Write at least two non-fiction history books. Editing one right now and writi...

DISCLAIMER: The following is part two of a multipart alternate history series about the history of  Doctor Who  if it was an American-made production rather than a British production. It's purely speculative and a work of fiction, although some real-world elements were included and presented for realistic situations and scenarios. Neither this series nor its author are connected to nor reflect the views and opinions of BBC Studios (the owner of the  Doctor Who  franchise) or any entity or persons mentioned and does not mean to infringe on the copyrights and trademarks of those parties. - JH “There are fixed points throughout time where things must stay exactly the way they are. This is not one of them, this is an opportunity. Whatever happens here will create its own timeline, its own reality, a temporal tipping point. The future revolves around you, here, now, so do good!” - The Doctor After CBS canceled Doctor Who in 1971 , Universal signed a deal with ABC to pick...

The following article was originally published on POST as "The Ghosts of Independent TV Networks Past" on December 15, 2022. - jh I was watching Weird Al Yankovic’s 1989 cult classic UHF and thinking about how a guy like George Newman, played by Yankovic, radically transformed a low-tier independent UHF channel and made it must-see-TV. For a while, creating a network was a dream of mine. But television changed, and not for the better. And it all began with the death of independent television. I grew up in the 1980s. The younger half of Generation X, the MTV Generation, the Pepsi Generation, or as demographic analysts call us, nonexistent. Apparently, there are Boomers and Millennials and there were no humans born between them from 1965 to 1984 (by the way, that’s Harvard’s recent definition of the makeup of my generation), but I digress. The 1980s was the first TV decade fully in color on the local level in the United States. Cable was still largely in its infancy, but local...

The vacant shell of a building of a network that barely exists. I no longer have Cartoon Network.  For the first time since May 1995, I no longer have access to Cartoon Network. I don't think I'll ever get it back, and quite frankly, I don't think I need it, and they're really not giving any reason to want to resubscribe to the channel any time soon. And for the first time since I heard about the channel's creation back in 1991, I'm fine not having it. I never thought I'd be in a position where I no longer feel the need to watch Cartoon Network let alone support the channel because, for all intents and purposes, Cartoon Network is dead, and Adult Swim killed it. Not David Zaslav because, let's be honest, he's not thinking of what happens to Cartoon Network. Despite what so many people think, I doubt his final thoughts before he goes to bed is "How can I screw over Cartoon Network viewers and fans in the morning?" Way too many animation fans...