Alternate versions are one of the great joys of nerd-dom, allowing us endless ways to pick apart and reimagine the other ways our favorite fictions could’ve gone. Sometimes slight tweaks—like, say, removing Blade Runner’s voiceover—completely change a film’s perception. Other works have notorious unexplored pathways; …

The hard part of processing the final act of Ten Years Later is figuring out what exactly happened to the Camp Firewood crew. It’s also the fun part. A lot of stuff happens between “Dance” and “End Summer Night’s Dream,” and for the vast majority of the Wet Hot characters, the conclusion of Ten Years Later is about as…

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Friday, August 11, and Saturday, August 12. All times are Eastern.

Wet Hot American Summer teeters between being a rousing, fast-paced tall tale suited to the campfire and a relentless joke delivery machine. The first half of Ten Years Later has leaned too far toward the latter, so even when the jokes land, there’s a certain emptiness to the whole affair. It’s the same challenge…

Here’s what’s up in the world of television for Thursday, August 10. All times are Eastern.

At some point during these eight episodes of Wet Hot, I’m going to have to get it through my head that Ten Years Later is not a sequel to the movie. It’s a sequel to the entire franchise, including, but not limited to, practically every single character and element introduced so far. I’m half-expecting the legendary…

Here’s what’s up in the word of TV for Wednesday, August 9. All times are Eastern.

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Tuesday, August 8. All times are Eastern.

In 2001, David Wain teamed up with his fellow Stella and The State alum Michael Showalter to write a loving yet irreverent ode to their summer camp experiences, which Wain directed. Wet Hot American Summer failed to make much of an impact at first (and still stands only at 32 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). But the movie…

Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Monday, August 7. All times are Eastern.

Wet Hot American Summer has expanded from a relatively small, esoteric comedy film about a weird summer camp into a massive, highly populated action series that also just happens to be set at a weird summer camp. Sequels always demand a raising of the stakes, even if those stakes were already comically hyperbolic and…

Here’s what’s up in the world of television for Sunday, August 6. All times are Eastern.

The Wet Hot American Summer Cinematic Universe is crammed tightly with goofy gags and absurd premises, many of which could be spun off into their own series. (I, for one, would enjoy a dark origin story chronicling the genesis of Coop’s superhero alter-ego, Miss Patty Pancakes.) Michael Showalter and David Wain chose…

“Seeing what kind of people the counselors have blossomed into is a poignant subtext that was also present, just not as pronounced (or chronologically accurate), in First Day Of Camp. But it’s also the emotional firmament from which [Michael] Showalter, [David] Wain, and the writers (who include Showalter’s Search…

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Friday, August 4, and Saturday, August 5. All times are Eastern.

Wet Hot American Summer’s latest Netflix miniseries Ten Years Later comes out tomorrow, fulfilling an off-hand joke made at the close of the original movie from 2001. Fortunately, it’s really good, providing series creators David Wain and Michael Showalter plenty more room for comedy that flits instantaneously between…

Michael Showalter and David Wain have an ear for dialogue. It’s one of the things that makes them such sharp film parodists, the type who don’t settle for re-staging a famous scene or putting a popular film’s words in a new context. They pick up on the bigger picture—how that scene looks, or how those words sound—and…

Pretty much everybody you knew and loved from the original Wet Hot American Summer and its Netflix prequel were there in the first trailer for Netflix’s sequel series Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later, but Bradley Cooper’s Ben—Amy Poehler’s theatrical partner and Michael Ian Black’s husband—was strangely…

Netflix seems to be shooting for something of a theme in August, presumably to coincide with the release of a highly anticipated original series bringing together a team of superhumanly talented individuals to change the world for the better. We speak, of course of Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later, the latest…