SDCC 2016 is over and there was a metric butt-ton of new TV trailers released into the wild! Here are the Psycho Drive-In All-Stars providing first reactions to the biggest and brightest!
American Gods
While I’m not exactly a fan of this version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” (I prefer Leadbelly or Nirvana, if I have to pick a favorite), American Gods has that brilliant Bryan Fuller stylistic flair that I was hoping for. The casting is picture perfect and most of this trailer looks like an extremely literal translation of the book, so that’s good, too.
But to be honest, I wish there was a bit more pep in this trailer. As it stands, if I hadn’t read the book, I’d have no real idea what we were getting into, especially when it gets massively impressionistic there at the end. Color me curious. I’ve heard nothing about this to make me think it could be anything other than fantastic, but then again, so was Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, and look what happened there.
— Paul Brian McCoy
Ash vs Evil Dead Season 2
I have to admit, this made me freaking giddy! While the first season of Ash vs Evil Dead had its issues (mainly a meandering middle stretch that dangerously undercut the energy leading up to the excellent finale), Season 2 seems to be primed and ready to give us what we want: buckets of blood, splatterstick humor, the best classic rock and roll this side of Supernatural, and oh yeah, Lee Majors as Ash’s dad.
With Lucy Lawless back and desperate enough to need Ash’s help, things look to be bigger and better from the very start. I seriously can’t wait for this one to start!
— Paul Brian McCoy
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
This… huh. I want to like everything about this. I like Douglas Adams. I love Max Landis. The premise seems neat, and the whimsical score and colors grabbed me right away — but as it moves along, this trailer feels incredibly… disjointed. It cuts from scene to scene, bit to bit, joke to joke without really giving us a look at what this is genuinely about and how it’s actually going to look when we watch it.
As a show, I’ll check it out. I have too much desire to like it not to give it a chance. But as a teaser, this unfortunately feels a little bit weak to me, like it was pieced together specifically to look as quirky and frenetic as possible and the dial landed on “slightly too quirky and frenetic.” We’ll see.
— Alex Wolfe
The Exorcist
Slick visuals and high production values but incredibly unlikely that the show will be able to maintain a compelling storyline throughout the life of the series. The original Exorcist film is one of the greatest Horror movies ever made, but since it is primarily structured around a single event it is not a story that translates well to the format of an ongoing series. I’ll pass.
— Corin Totin
Justice League Action
The more I watch this trailer the more excited I get. We see several characters including some B-list which makes me think of Justice League Unlimited. Hopefully though, it will spread the love around to other less known characters. I absolutely dig the new animation and designs. It does make the characters look a little younger, but this is for kids, so us old fans need to be a little accommodating. Add to this the fact that we have the legends Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy reprising their roles as Joker and Batman respectively. I would literally give any show the benefit of the doubt knowing these two are involved.
— Brooke Brewer
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes this is what I need in my life right now! After resigning myself to the fact that there’s really nothing to look forward to in television, we get this. Clean, streamlined animation, great looking action, a beautiful cast (generally I could care less about Firestorm, but maybe this will change my mind), and most importantly, iconic voice acting. Justice League Action seems almost like a “sequel” to Justice League Unlimited, and there could literally not be a better way to describe a prospective new DC cartoon. My fingers are hella crossed for this.
Bonus points: I spotted Bleez, Dex-Starr, and Etrigan in the trailer. This pleases me.
— Alex Wolfe
The Man in the High Castle
The trailer, for one of the most elegant shows out there right now, purely serves to give the audience a dip into the mood of the show once again. There isn’t much revealed as to where this season is headed, but if it were to reveal anything, then it may double-down on the intensity of the first season. This trailer didn’t do much to get me revved up for next season, but it doesn’t need to, as the show is immensely intriguing to begin with. The central question of the show and how it plays out is why this show is so hypnotic.
— Peterson Hill
Marvel’s Iron Fist (Teaser)
There’s not a lot to go on here, but it still made me squee like a little girl. I hope Danny’s scraggly beard looks better in the show than it does in the teaser.
— Paul Brian McCoy
Marvel’s Luke Cage
Now that’s what I’m talking about!
Luke Cage kicking the shit out of people like it’s nothing? Sure, I’ll have some of that. Ol’ Dirty Bastard doing “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”? Oh hell yes.
What else do you need?
— Paul Brian McCoy
Sherlock Season 4
This trailer knocked me out. I’ve loved this show since the beginning, but this seems like they may be taking it to a new level. The Batch and Martin Freeman are both back and then they add Toby Jones. It looks like they are taking the visual style to something a little more in the vein of Fincher or Nolan. 2017 can’t get her fast enough.
— Peterson Hill
The Walking Dead
This trailer is frustrating, to say the least. With the question of who died lingering over season 6, the creators weren’t able to show any of the main cast members, so we don’t get tons here. We do get some zombie-pigs it would appear, so there’s that to look forward to. Hopefully, this is the season in which TWD will stop treading water and find a true propulsive momentum again. Plus, we get Jeffrey Dean Morgan who is always ripe to entertain us.
— Peterson Hill
Oh, WALKING DEAD. You dirty bastards. The season finale left a few people really pissed off, but I’ve gotta hand it to you. Even angry fans are dying to know. So you give us all of this in the new trailer. We see Negan and his barbed-wire baby, taking a swing. We see the faces of the characters we love and some we don’t. We see Ezekiel with a freakin’ tiger. We see the one they call Jesus. We see sand walkers and a dude kicking ass on horseback. We see Morgan looking pensive, Carol acting loony, and Tara getting all stabby. But we still don’t really know anything, do we? Yeah, yeah, you’ve made some folks mad, but I applaud you. We all know where we’ll be on October 23.
— John E. Meredith