In 1987, Richard Simmons was a phenomenon. The health guru made a splash by going from fat to thin, then turning his exuberant personality loose on America to inspire millions of others to join him. And it worked! Everyone found a way to follow Richard's advice.

One of the more famous methods Simmons employed to get people up and moving was his video excercise course, SWEATIN' TO THE OLDIES, which was a group excercise method of dancing to classic rock songs. With Richard at the lead, and a group representative of a variety of body types (unlike so many excercise videos where it's you and the perfectly scuplted instructors), fans across the country were getting up off the couch and onto their feet, getting their heart rates up and their weights down.

It was so successful that it expanded four more times, so that there were ultimately five collections of excercise dance routines.

As Lucifer (TOM ELLIS) works on getting back to the Devil he used to be, he's caught in flagrante delicto with a judge's wife (KELLY DOWDLE). But Lucifer being Lucifer strikes a deal with the judge (TEEN WOLF's JOHN POSEY) for what the judge really desires -- which, at his age, is a nap and to get back with his ex-wife rather than the several-years-younger yoga instructor. Lucifer is happy to oblige, but now the judge owes him a favor.

At the precinct, Detective Chloe Decker (LAUREN GERMAN) asks for more responsibilities from her CO, Lietenant Marcus Pierce (TOM WELLING). She wants to be the new union rep, and Pierce shoots down her request without explanation. But a new body has dropped, so he tells her to get on that instead. Ella (AIMEE GARCIA) oversees the meeting and thinks the body language indicates that Pierce is very into Chloe, which Chloe sincerely doubts.

When the weather starts to turn crisp and the leaves start to fall, you know you're in for three months in a row of...Charlie Brown?

If you had the right kind of upbringing, then that's how you think. There's a whole generation of us out there who had their childhood holidays shaped by the television specials that came with them. (This is back in the day when they only came on once a year, did not repeat, were not recorded on any medium, and could not be purchased. Prehistoric, I know.) Chief amont those specials were the jazz-filled comforting animated cartoons of Charle's M. Schulz's PEANUTS characters.

Starting with October, it was IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN. A month later, it was popcorn and jellybeans for A CHARLIE BROWN THANKSGIVING, all leading up to the big kahuna of the trilogy, A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS.

Jump up, kick back, whip around and spin in another exciting season of LEGO NINJAGO. Yes, it's a LEGO animated series, and, yes, that means it comes with all the requisite silliness inherent in the LEGO universe of stories. And yet, the NINJAGO episodes somehow also carry a certain soap opera element to them that draws you in. Kids and adults alike will get sucked into the plot, actually caring about the characters and being surprised at plot twists.

The story begins 40 years in the past, when a younger Master Wu (Paul Dobson) and his elemental ninja friends batted two of their own: twin brothers Krux (MICHAEL DAINGERFIELD) and Acronix (IAN HANLIN), who were the masters of the element of time and felt they should control everything. The nina defeated the twins -- or so they thought. Krux disappeared, and Acronix was sucked into a time portal.

From BBC:

Jodie Whittaker, who takes over as the 13th Doctor next year, will be joined by Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill, as well as Sharon D Clarke in a returning role.

Walsh will star as Graham, Cole will play Ryan and Gill will play Yasmin.  Walsh said he was looking forward to being part of the show - some 50 years after first becoming a fan.

---

Bradley Walsh

This is just another interesting career move for the man with one of the most varied CVs in showbusiness.

Walsh is best-known for hosting game shows like The Chase and Wheel of Fortune, and will be familiar to Coronation Street fans for playing Danny Baldwin between 2004-06.

When The Masked Ace was looking at the card for TLC, he was not all that impresed.  There were two big draw matches: the Shield VS Miz, Cesaro, Sheamus, Braun Strowman, and Kane in a TLC match and The Demon Vs Sister Abigail.  But, the Universal, Intercontinental, and Tag Titles were not being defended.  And the rest of the card was three women’s matches (one featured the debut of Asuka on the main roster) and two cruiserweight matches.

Season Four finds Queen Mary rising to the challenge, taking back her country and establishing her rule in Scotland. The land of Mary's birth has become a wild and foreign nation, boasting a new court with new players, including her half-brother, James, and new suitors. The French court has changed ranks too, with Catherine's high-strung brood constantly at each other's throats.

While the pageantry of an ambitious wedding and a royal birth distracts from passionate exploits and a rising body count behind castle walls, England's Queen Elizabeth seeks to topple Mary's throne. As the regal rulers make strategic choices and brutal sacrifices, their fates become increasingly entwined.

REIGN's final 16 episodes teem with high stakes and unexpected betrayals that will change history forever. Long live the queen!

Ever since Butch Gilzean (DREW POWELL) was shot in the head, and we learned his true name was Cyrus Gold, fans have been waiting for him to resurrect as Solomon Grundy. Tonight, that wait is over.

As is typical in Gotham, no one is ever truly dead. Must be something in the water. That's certainly the case for Butch. He wasn't killed, but was put into a coma and kept at the hospital for six months. But space is at a premium, and if you've been there long enough, the hospital has a policy of transferring patients "upstate." Which is code for taking them by amulance to Slaughter Swamp and dumping their bodies into the water. But tonight there truly is something in the water: toxic waste, leaking from barrels that are clearly marked INDIAN HILL. (Isn't it nice of companies to plainly label their illegal dumping so it can be tracked back to them so easily?) 

What did we talk about on Critical Blast this week?

Reviews

Since running for (and subsequently winning) the office of President, Donald Trump has been compared to many things and called many names. Most of them have not been very nice. And even the nice comparisons have never equated the man with a cuddly bunny.

Every administration spawns collections of political cartoons that critique the administration and the policies. But Timothy Lim, Mark Pellegrini, and Brett R. Smith have gone against that grain, and produced a collection of, quite frankly, adorable anthropomorphic cartoons documenting the Trump administration in three acts, beginning with the declaration, then the campaign, and finally the inauguration.

This episode of RIVERDALE takes its name from the famous Edward Hopper painting; appropriate, since most of the action of this episode centers around Pop's Chock'lit Shop. It should be a "come together and save a landmark" kind of uplifting chapter in the series. But this is RIVERDALE, and so this is perhaps the darkest, most non-Archie-like episode yet.

From Entertainment Weekly:

After five years off the air, Discovery Channel is reviving the iconic motorcycle-construction reality series American Chopper.

The famously feuding father-son team of Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr. are back on board as the show’s bike-building craftsmen.

Shame on the writers of LEGENDS OF TOMORROW for this episode. The Legends team is on the hunt for anachronisms, time anomalies they created when they broke time. They've stolen technology from the Time Bureau to do this, and they decide that, while the Time Bureau tackles Level 10 anachronisms, they will clean up some of the smaller ones. They find a Level 1 with P.T. Barnum's circus, in its early days, where they discover a sabertooth tiger among the animals. Ray (BRANDON ROUTH) is ready to handle it with the new "shrink ray" he's developed, but his allergy to cats ends up enlarging it instead. It escapes, and the team needs someone who can deal directly with animals in order to subdue it. This leads Sara (CAITY LOTZ) to venture back to 1942 Zambesi to re-recruit Amaya (MAISIE RICHARDSON-SELLERS) to the team.

Okay, full disclosure.

We're only two episodes into the fourth season of THE FLASH and it is already by far and away the best season since the series began. I'm giving this episode a 5 point rating just for the RISKY BUSINESS opening sequence alone.

Everything old is new again at the House of Mouse. Gone are the 3D-CGI renderings of Mickey and the gang, and in their place we get 2D animation that looks like lost animation cels were found under some Oswald the Lucky Rabbit notes.

This particular collection, MICKEY MOUSE: MERRY & SCARY -- aside from five wonderful short cartoons -- give us some new Disney holiday traditionals that should get some repeat airtime.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

The main characters take something of a back seat in this episode so that we can get a focus on Mazikeen (LESLEY-ANN BRANDT). Much has been made of the fact that demon's, like Mazikeen, don't have souls, so they live in the moment. That notion gets challenged here as Maze begins to get bored with her new bounty hunting career. It's too easy, and there's no challenge. At Lucifer's usual ill-advised urging, she decides to go after harder prey -- the most elusive of fugitives -- to really give herself a good workout.

She targets Ben Rivers (CHRIS MCKENNA), on the run in Canada after reportedly killing two teenagers in cold blood. Rivers apparently runs from one wealthy woman to another, utilizing a weapon that Maze isn't used to handling: charm.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION lives up to its name! When I first heard the concept, I was more than a bit skeptical. After all, the bar was set pretty high by the JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED series, and I didn't see how this new idea was going to top it.

And, to be honest, it doesn't. But it also doesn't have to. Yes, it has its heavy dose of comedic moments: Cyborg's obsession with video gaming distracting him from monitor duty; Booster Gold's daily attempts to last longer in the ring with Batman; Superman missing out on a kiss with Wonder Woman because of garlic risotto; and Plastic Man's...well, his very existence.