Martin Short gives a lesson on finding joy through pain in his new documentary Marty, Life Is Short.

The film, directed by Short’s longtime friend Lawrence Kasdan, details the life and career of the beloved comedian through archived footage, never-before-seen home videos and exclusive interviews with Short’s dearest friends including Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and the late Catherine O’Hara.

While the documentary highlights many of Short’s biggest wins — from his jumpstart at SCTV, to Father of the Bride’s success, to falling in love with wife Nancy Dolman to welcoming their three children, Oliver, Henry and Katherine — it also tackles his most tragic of lows. The Only Murders in the Building star lost his older brother, David, and both parents, Olive and Charles, in an eight-year span before turning 21.

Then, in 2010, his wife, Nancy, died following a three-year battle with ovarian cancer.

“What it developed in me was this muscle of survival and handling grief, and a perspective on it,” Short told CBS Mornings earlier this month, pointing out that enduring much loss has actually helped him as a performer. “I think if you’ve gone through that, an audience not liking you is really not that important anymore.”

In February, Short faced his most recent tragedy when his daughter, Katherine, died by suicide at the age of 42. Kasdan suggested they postpone the release of the documentary, but Martin wanted to move forward.

“My instinct was the opposite,” Short explained. “Because it’s about love, loss and survival … I think we proceed. We must figure a way to survive through grief without denying it or without in any way undermining its importance.”

Keep scrolling for the documentary’s biggest revelations:

Martin Short on Falling in Love With Girlfriend Gilda Radnor’s Understudy

Short opened up about dating Radner during their time in Godspell, where he said “everyone” fell in love with her “self-deprecating” sense of humor.

The cast was also interested in Radeor’s understudy: Martin’s future wife, Dolman.

“Nancy was drop-dead beautiful. It was insane,” Short recalled. “And she worked in an antique clothing store where she had smuggled clothes in from Detroit through the [Canadian] border. She had a Joni Mitchell look, long blonde hair. … but it didn’t bother me because I was with Gilda.”

After an on-and-off romance with Radner, Short’s focus shifted. “We’d broken up a few time and we’d now had a fight and we’d broken up again and I got to The Pilot bar and there’s Nancy,” he said. “She was funny … she had just broken up with her boyfriend.”

Short said that Dolman showed up to support him in a play he was doing, which led to them spending more time together off stage. “Nancy came and she was wearing short shorts and a halter top and I was wearing short shorts and a t-shirt. And we went to the Four Seasons hotel and I said to the guy, ‘My wife and I would like a room, please, and even he started laughing because we looked about 12,” Short said, adding, “And that was it.”

Catherine O’Hara Looked to Martin Short’s Marriage During Own Romance Woes

O’Hara confessed that during a troubling time in her own marriage to Bo Welch, the pair looked to Short and Dolman for inspiration.

“My husband and I went through a little rough patch in our marriage and we went to therapy, and one of the questions [the therapist] asked is, ‘Do you have friends, a couple, whose relationship you’d love to emulate? And she said, ‘We have these friends Marty and Nancy.’”

(O’Hara died in January at the age of 71. The documentary is dedicated to her and Short’s daughter, Katherine.)

Nancy Short’s Fertility Struggles

Short said he and Dolman were taken by surprise when they had trouble conceiving a child.

“Suddenly, we couldn’t get pregnant. We hadn’t even considered that,” he explained in the doc, noting they eventually discovered that Nancy suffered from endometriosis, which can cause fertility issues.

During a fight over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the couple decided they wanted to adopt their children. They went on to welcome sons Henry and Oliver and daughter Katherine, who died in February at the age of 42.

Martin Short Reflects on the Death of His Brother David Short

Short looked back at his relationship with older brother David, who died at age 20 when the Father of the Bride star was just 12 years old. Calling him “funny and so sweet,” he detailed how he discovered that his brother had died while away at camp.

“They said, ‘Your brothers been in an accident and it killed him,” he recalled. “And I said, ‘Is he OK?’ … ‘No, it killed him.’”

Short said “nothing made sense” to him after David’s death until his late brother appeared to him in a dream.

“It was in technicolor. I was sitting by a stream in the woods and David came up, and he looked beautiful, and he said, ‘i’m fine everything is wonderful and I’ll see you in a minute,” he recalled. “And I woke up and a cloud had lifted.”

Martin Short Details the Death of Mother Olive and Father Charles Short

Short said that his mother, Olive, developed a “cough” while at the funeral for his brother David after battling breast cancer years earlier — an illness he was not aware she had.

“And by the end of that year, she really started going downhill,” Short shared, recalling how his sister, Nora, “was present when the doctor said you have three months to live.”

Olive, however, had other plans. “She said, ‘This can’t happen. I have another child to raise.’ And then she came home and went into this remarkable, can’t explain it, remission. And she was in perfect health for another two years. But by the time I was in grade 13, she died.”  Short said that after his mother’s death, his father Charles’ health faded “fast.”

“It was just strokes that diminished him. Most powerful guy in the room to being quieter, quieter,”  he explained, adding that even a trip around the world couldn’t bring his dad back to his old self. “Even when we were in Ireland, he didn’t want to see exhibits because he was not in great shape,” Short remembered, noting that his dad previously smoked “two packs” of cigarettes a day.

Olive died in 1968, while Charles died two years later in 1970.

Nancy Short’s Cancer Journey

Short shared that Dolman initially believed she had a hernia in 2007 before a doctor’s scan revealed it was an ovarian cyst. Days later, it was confirmed that the cyst was cancerous.

“At one point, I did have to go and shoot [my movie] Damages,” Short recalled of that time. “No one knew what was going on and I’d be like, ‘Just give me a second in the dressing room …’”

Short noted that his wife was a “positive” person in general, so her approach was, “I can fight it.”

Related: Martin Short Through the Years: ‘SNL,’ ‘Only Murders’ and More

Martin Short is one of the most iconic comedians of all time, but he nearly ended up on a very different career path. Growing up in Ontario, Canada, Short was the youngest of five children, with three older brothers, David, Michael and Brian, and an older sister, Nora. He originally studied to be a doctor, […]

“She was on a new cocktail of chemo, went to the internet and said, ‘I’m not going to do that anymore,’” he recalled, adding that from that point on she just focused on living her life as fully as possible.

“She wanted to keep going until she couldn’t, and he was the perfect partner because he let her,” friend Eugene Levy explained. “He first threw himself into his children’s lives and then he threw himself into his work.”

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Dolman died in 2010, three years into her fight. She was 58 years old.

“Like any family, it’s a simple fact that loss is something to negotiate,” Short explained of pushing forward after his wife’s passing. “It’s going to happen to all of us.”

Marty, Life Is Short is streaming on Netflix now.

Jimmy Kimmel‘s fellow late night hosts playfully poked fun at his recent drama with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump.

Ahead of Stephen Colbert’s final episode of The Late Show, five late night hosts gathered during the Monday, May 11, broadcast. Colbert, 61, asked the group whether they ever thought about the president having “strong feelings” about their programming.

“You know what’s even weirder? Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about,” Kimmel, 58, said, as Seth Meyers joked, “Most of us have avoided that part.”

John Oliver, meanwhile, recalled the way Kimmel initially responded to the drama.

“It’s an amazing thing to get a text from Jimmy saying, ‘Oh, boy,’ and then a picture of Melania mad at him. What a way to start the day!” Oliver, 49, quipped.

Jimmy Fallon said he had an unexpected reaction, adding, “And then I sent a text to you guys, and I said, ‘Hey, don’t be mad at me, but I liked it.’ I think she’s got a point.”

Kimmel recently made headlines for a monologue on his late night show which featured a 10-minute roast about the president ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Kimmel joked that Melania, 56, has a “glow like an expectant widow.”

The comedian was subsequently slammed by Melania and Donald, 79, after a shooting took place at the Washington, D.C. event in April. Melania described the joke as “hateful and violent rhetoric” that “is intended to divide our country,” while her husband called to have Kimmel fired.

“We’re all kind of happy when you get in trouble over there, and how do you feel when you wake up, and you see the attention?” Colbert asked Kimmel, who replied, “The saddest part of it is that I realize in those moments that the only four people who care are sitting right here.”

Kimmel added: “It takes 12 hours for the rest of the people in my life to even figure out that anything’s going on.”

The five late night hosts came together in honor of Colbert’s final episode of The Late Show, which will air on Thursday, May 21.

When CBS announced in July 2025 that The Late Show was ending, the news was met with immediate backlash. Network executives then released a statement addressing their decision, claiming it was not “related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount” but was instead due to finances.

Some were still skeptical about the move, since it came after an episode where Colbert spoke out about Paramount, CBS’ parent company, settling what he called “a nuisance lawsuit” brought by Donald. In his lawsuit, the president alleged that 60 Minutes had unfairly edited an interview of Kamala Harris.

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“I do not dispute their rationale [that it was for financial reasons],” Colbert told The New York Times in April when asked about viewers who are skeptical over the reason for his late night talk show coming to an end. “I do make jokes about it.”

The comedian said he could see both sides of the argument.

“But I also completely understand why people would say (A) that doesn’t make sense to me and (B) that seems fishy to me,” he noted. “Because the network did it to themselves by bending the knee to the Trump administration over a $20 billion, settled for $16 million, completely frivolous lawsuit.”

Adam Sandler is showing off a noticeably slimmer look after debuting a hilarious song about Ozempic. The 59-year-old comedian stepped out in Los Angeles over the weekend for a father-daughter outing with his eldest child, Sadie Sandler, and fans immediately noticed his apparent weight loss.

While strolling through Brentwood, the “Billy Madison” star kept things casual in his typical oversized style, rocking a patterned button-down shirt, gray sweat shorts, and colorful sneakers. Despite the laid-back outfit, Sandler appeared significantly slimmer after reportedly dropping more than 25 pounds.

Sandler’s dramatic slim-down also comes months after he debuted a comedic song called “Grandma’s on Ozempic” during his “You’re My Best Friend Tour” last year. However, the actor has never publicly addressed using weight-loss injections himself, and there is no indication that his recent transformation is connected to GLP-1 medications.

See the photos here.

Sandler Admitted Weight Loss Has Been ‘Rough’

The actor has been candid in recent years about trying to improve his lifestyle, especially with encouragement from his daughters, Sadie and Sunny, whom he shares with his wife, Jackie Sandler. During the New York City premiere of “Adam Sandler: Love You in August 2024,” Sandler revealed that his daughters often push him to prioritize his health. “They always look out for me and my health just like I used to with my dad,” he told PEOPLE at the time.

Sandler later spoke in more detail about his fitness struggles during an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in August 2024. “I used to take working out so serious,” he admitted. “And now I can’t f-cking do it.”

The actor explained that balancing exercise and eating habits became increasingly difficult as he got older. “I play hoop, and then I eat. Every time I’m eating, I’m going, ‘What are you doing, man? You don’t need to do this,’” he said. “I can’t stop, just got a little bit of thickness all over… Now it’s f-cking rough.”

Adam Sandler Gushed Over Wife Jackie Just Days Before Family Outing

Sandler’s father-daughter outing also came just two days after the actor publicly celebrated his wife with a heartfelt Mother’s Day tribute on social media.

The Hollywood star shared throwback photos of Jackie posing with their daughters, Sadie Madison Sandler and Sunny Madeline Sandler, while honoring the important women in his life. “Happy Mother’s Day to all the great moms out there. My mom. My mother-in-law. My sisters, sister-in-law, niece, and aunts,” he wrote on Instagram.

Sandler then turned his attention to Jackie, praising her for both her parenting and unwavering support throughout their marriage. “To my wife. Thanks for being the funniest, sweetest, smartest, and most loyal lady I know,” he wrote. “And thanks for teaching our kids to want to be the same. Love you always and enjoy your day, sweetheart!”

Sandler’s Daughter Helped Push Him Back Into Shape

According to Sandler, it was his daughter Sadie who encouraged him to reconnect with the personal trainer who helped him get in shape for his 2008 comedy “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.” “My kids, one daughter, Sadie, is always saying, ‘Dad, get the trainer from the Zohan. Why would you ever give that up? Why did you stop?’” he recalled.

Sandler admitted he resisted the idea because of how demanding the process was. “It’s a lot of work,” he remembered telling her. Still, the actor acknowledged that his daughter may have been onto something. “I just can’t get back in there,” he said. “She’s right about everything, [but] I don’t promise her. I go, ‘Let me think about that. That’s a good idea.’”

Adam Sandler’s Slimmed-Down Appearance Comes Amid Secret Project Buzz

Sandler’s latest outing also arrives as rumors continue swirling about a mysterious new project involving the comedy legend. Director Kyle Newacheck recently teased that he and Sandler are quietly developing something together behind the scenes, though he stopped short of revealing exactly what the project is.

While attending the Directors Guild Awards red carpet, Newacheck was asked by ScreenRant whether he planned to reunite with Sandler again in the future. “Me and the Sandman, we’ve talked. We have something cooking, but I don’t want to say it right now,” the filmmaker revealed.

Newacheck admitted he was hesitant to share more details because he was unsure how far along the project currently is. Still, he made it clear he is eager to work with Sandler again. “I’m excited,” he said. “I love Adam Sander, and working with him is just weird because he basically raised me with his comedy. So when I show up to set, I’m like, ‘Well, I think that’s funny because you taught me that that was funny!’”

With new career rumors swirling and fans taking notice of his slimmer appearance, Sandler is proving he’s still one of Hollywood’s most talked-about stars.

By Jonathan Klotz | Published 8 seconds ago

Science fiction is a risky business, and more often than not, that risk does not pay off. The result is a media landscape littered with great science fiction programming that was so far ahead of its time, it was canceled before people would really sit down and watch it.

That means there’s a treasure trove of amazing viewing that was cut off too soon, out there waiting for you to enjoy. These are the 15 best one-season sci-fi shows. 

15. Surface

The success of Lost kicked off a Hollywood land rush to create the next big sci-fi mystery series. Most of them were canceled within weeks of their premiere. The lucky few completed their first season. Surface was one of the lucky ones. 

The mystery of Surface focuses on what lurks under the sea. Instead of a hot crustacean band, it’s rising temperatures, gigantic sea monsters, a government conspiracy, and more questions than there are episodes. Surface took so long to answer any of its questions that the audience grew bored and wandered off, but if they had stayed, they would have seen one of the most insane season 1 finales of all time. 

In its final episode, Surface flooded the planet. It’s the type of bold, daring move a show makes only when it knows the end is near. It teased a second season of humanity after the apocalypse, dealing with emerging sea monsters and a world that’s suddenly unrecognizable.

Unfortunately, the early episodes of Surface are so slow that you might never get to the ending. It remains a perennial sci-fi “What If?” 

14. Street Hawk

You’ll notice that a lot of sci-fi one-season wonders can be considered loving homages to other, more successful shows or blatant knock-offs. Street Hawk is no different. It answered the question, what if Knight Rider were about a motorcycle? 

Street Hawk was both the name of the prototype motorcycle used by Los Angeles Police Officer and dirtbike racer Jesse Mach, and the name of his vigilante crime-fighting alter-ego. Using the bike’s advanced technology, including a laser, rockets, submachine guns, and a ludicrous speed mode that reached 300 miles per hour, Jesse solved a new crime each week. This was back in 1985, before studios knew what a “mythology arc” was. 

Lacking the charisma of David Hasselhoff, Rex Smith’s Jesse could never get out of the shadow of its more popular competition. Today, Street Hawk is often a punchline among forgotten 80s television. And yet, if you manage to find episodes streaming, give them a chance, because this show’s goofy, ridiculous premise is so over the top and cheesy, you can’t help but enjoy yourself. We were robbed of six seasons and a Street Hawk legacy movie. 

13. 1899

The German series Dark is, to this day, one of the greatest sci-fi shows of all time. When the creative team announced their follow-up, 1899, everyone took notice. What would the twisted minds behind a time-traveling cave tunnel come up with next?   

1899, named for the year it takes place, follows passengers aboard two ships as they cross the Atlantic to New York. A strange symbol, an upside-down triangle with a line through it, provides a throughline as weird occurrences start up. Hidden passageways, cryptic messages, and teleportation hint at something larger and far more sinister lurking just under the surface of mutineers and class-based conflict. 

You need to watch 1899’s first and only season as blind as possible, because, like Dark, where it goes is not where you’d expect from the first episode. You’re left with many, many unanswered questions at the end, and it’s frustrating that we’ll never get to see more. But in one season, 1899 managed to be both gorgeous and thought-provoking, giving fans a puzzlebox mystery that, for once, is worth experiencing. 

12. Defying Gravity

Defying Gravity is what happens when a network refuses to give a sci-fi series time to find its audience. Sci-fi fans were put off when the show was first announced. A sci-fi show by Shonda Rhimes? The woman who created Grey’s Anatomy? How will that be any good? It is. 

First, Defying Gravity stars Ron Livingston and Malik Yoba; second, the concept of a spaceship making a tour of the solar system for an unknown mission is the type of mystery that can go anywhere. 

For the first half of the season, Defying Gravity focuses on the relationships and interpersonal conflict among the crew and the team back on Earth at Mission Control, both in the present and in flashbacks set five years earlier. That’s what kept the sci-fi audience from embracing the series and led to an early cancellation. 

For fans who grabbed the DVD, they were able to watch the rest of the season. The unaired episodes revealed the motive behind the space mission: Recover an alien artifact on each planet. 

Aliens were real, and they left something behind for humanity to find. Defying Gravity’s finale episodes managed to thread the needle between relationship drama and science fiction in a way nothing has ever since. Sadly, it’s now one of many examples of sci-fi shows canceled too early, just as they were about to pay off. 

11. Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing received one of the fastest cancellations on this list. In fact, it hadn’t even started airing yet when word leaked that Warner Bros was going to end it. 

The official announcement came one week after the first episode debuted on the DC Universe app. It was perfectly timed for the first wave of critical and fan adoration that praised Swamp Thing as the best thing DC had done in years. 

The tale of scientist Alec Holland and his transformation into Swamp Thing had been told many times before, but in 2019, it never looked better. Embracing the character’s horror roots with an equally dark storyline was a recipe for success. The Avatar of the Green isn’t a classic superhero, and this isn’t your usual superhero show. 

Bringing to life the dark side of the DC Universe may have led to critical success, but it was also expensive. Money was one of the largest reasons why Warner Bros decided a creative, unique take on superheroes had to go, but the other was the show’s plot. 

The dreaded “creative differences” was the second reason Swamp Thing was sent to an early grave. Everything fans loved about it, the incredible visuals, the dark and violent story, was why Warner Bros made another in a long, long line of bad decisions. 

Swamp Thing went one episode before cancellation, and yet, Titans aired for four seasons.

10. Terra Nova

In the future of Terra Nova, Earth is overpopulated to the point that humanity will go extinct, so the solution is obviously to send colonists back through time to the Cretaceous period, in strict violation of everything we ever learned about time travel, to harvest natural resources and send them to the future. 

Don’t think about it too hard. It’s not that kind of show. 

Instead of focusing on the damage being done to the time stream, Terra Nova is about the Shannon family adjusting to life in the past under the authoritarian rule of Commander Taylor, brought to life by Avatar’s Stephen Lang, a man born to play a militant ruler of an exotic outpost. There’s no getting around it; most of the plot of each episode is annoying, the kid and teen characters will get on your nerves almost instantly, but there’s also no denying that, with a slight tweak here and there, this show could have been great. 

The colonists end up rebelling against the government of the future, including shipping a T. rex through the time portal in the moment that proves why the show exists in the first place. Dinosaurs are awesome. Unfortunately, Dinosaurs are also expensive, and Fox pulled the plug due to the high cost of every episode, denying us the chance to see a live-action Dino-Riders on network television. 

9. Crusade

Crusade is especially frustrating to talk about because the series that aired is not what the creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, wanted out of the spin-off series. 

Just as he had with the original series, Straczynski had developed an elaborate five-year plan for Crusade. Originally about recovering lost Shadow artifacts around the galaxy, the series that ended up airing was laser-focused on curing the Drakh-induced nanoplague that had infected Earth. 

The writing was there, the cast was there, including Gary Cole, Daniel Dae Kim, and returning from the original series, Tracy Scoggins as Captain Lochley, but what they couldn’t overcome was an enemy worse than the Drakh or the Shadows: studio interference. 

Episodes aired totally out of order. Just watch how the crew’s outfits change during the season, entire plots are dropped, and then picked up again with conversations referencing events that haven’t happened yet. All of the pieces were there for Crusade to be another huge sci-fi hit, but once again, the network, TNT, set it up for failure. 

8. Dark Skies

Take The X-Files, but set it in the 1960s in the shadow of the Cold War, be upfront about the invading aliens, and add in real-life historical figures, from Jim Morrison to Dr. Carl Sagan, and you have Dark Skies. It was the most blatant of all the X-Files knock-offs, but at the same time, it’s one of the best. 

The 60s setting, complete with fashion and technology of the era, made it look and sound different from anything else airing in the 90s, and the alien Hive, parasitic mind-controlling aliens dubbed “Ganglions”, made for great villains. Opposing the Hive is Majestic 12, a shadowy organization that claims they want to save humanity, and end up recruiting John Leongrard, a Congressional aide, and eventually, a pre-Seven of Nine Jeri Ryan. It’s hard to be a Mulder and Scully when both of them believe aliens are out to get them, because they are, in every episode, but the pair has just enough of a spark to keep the back half of the season interesting. 

The early cancellation, after only one season, denied fans the opportunity to see Dark Skies planned gimmick: Every season was going to be a different decade. Starting from the 60s into the 90s, fans would see John and Juliet battle the Hive behind the scenes of American History. Frankly, that sounds amazing, and 30 years later, fans are still upset they never got to see it.

7. Almost Human

Take Blade Runner. Make it a Fox network series starring Karl Urban and Michael Ealy as mismatched detectives. One hates androids, one is an android, That’s 2011’s Almost Human. 

It’s a neo-noir cyberpunk sci-fi procedural. The only series remotely like it is Altered Carbon. There’s something about cyberpunk that scares Hollywood away, making it a miracle we ever received even 13 episodes of Almost Human. 

Urban’s John Kennex and Ealy’s DRN-0167, or Dorian, slowly reveal the world of New Pittsburgh to viewers as they solve the case of the week. We learn about augmented humans, a gigantic wall that circles the city and separates it from the badlands, and that even in the future, network procedurals love serial killers. The mystery of New Pittsburgh and the stunning revelation in the very last shot of the final episode will remain unsolved. 

Almost Human was everyone’s preview of Karl Urban in The Boys, and while Kennex isn’t as homicidal as Butcher, you can see how someone watched the Fox series and thought he’d be perfect to take down Supes. At only 13 episodes, none of the side plots or strange mysteries about the setting are given time to truly breathe, but the chemistry between Urban and Ealy overcomes those shortcomings to turn the series into an underrated, underappreciated series. 

6. The Prisoner

Airing in 1967, The Prisoner is a strange combination of science fiction and psychological horror that’s often been imitated, but never matched. Created, directed, and starring Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner defies description. This is the series that invented the puzzle-box format used by Lost, Surface, and countless others. 

In The Prisoner, McGoohan plays Number Six, a man who wakes up in a strange seaside town called the Village. Some of the residents are prisoners, some are guards, and all are shown as lacking individuality and personal freedom. 

It’s a bit heavy-handed in its metaphor, but The Prisoner succeeds by using surreal visuals, including the balloon-like monster guarding the perimeter, and by refusing to give any answers to the audience. Viewers become as desperate as Number Six to learn what the Village is, why Number Two is always someone new each episode, where the Village is located, and why everyone is being held prisoner there. 

You never get a good answer in The Prisoner’s only season, but what you realize by the end is that the answers don’t matter. 

5. Flashforward

While Lost was gearing up for its final season, ABC was already preparing its replacement, another sci-fi puzzlebox called Flashforward. Created by Star Trek’s Brannon Braga and the writer of The Dark Knight trilogy, David S. Goyer, the series had a simple concept: What if everyone on Earth fell unconscious and experienced a vision of themselves, six months in the future? 

Turns out, FBI Agent Mark Benford saw the results of his investigation into the Flashforward event during his own flashforward. Others had visions that were less useful, including his boss seeing himself on the toilet, a doctor who saw himself meeting the love of his life, and, in the case of Mark’s partner, Demetri, nothing. 

Flashforward doesn’t shy away from the lasting emotional damage that comes from knowing where you’ll be, what you’ll be doing, and who you’ll be with six months from today. Or in the case of those similar to Demetri, knowing all you saw is the void, embracing self-destructive hedonism during the time you have left. 

Unlike other Lost clones, Flashforward answered questions. For every answer there were two more questions, but the first, and only, season tells a complete story. By the time the final credits roll, you’ll know the who, what, where, how, and why of the Flashforward. That’s more than can be said for Lost. 

4. Caprica

The prequel to Battlestar Galactica, 2010’s Caprica takes place 58 years before the Cylons enacted their plan. Before it debuted, fans of the Galactica revival were going mad online trying to guess at the plot and what it would reveal about the origin of the Cylons. It was an early case of online speculation resulting in a show that was incapable of reaching the lofty expectations of fans; no matter how good it really was, the imaginary one they dreamed up would always be better.

Caprica did reveal the origin of the Cylons; the first of them was inhabited by the digital consciousness of a teenage girl killed in a terrorist attack, and I swear it’s more compelling than that sounds. Allowed to show the technology that existed on Caprica prior to humanity fleeing for the stars, fans got to see an entire virtual world, elaborate factory setups, and monorails. It’s bright, colorful, and the opposite of Battlestar Galactica’s palette of greys and browns. That’s why at the time, Caprica received mixed reactions; it was very different from the original series. 

The marketing campaign, featuring a naked Alessandra Torresani holding an apple, because she’s the first Cylon….Eve….get it?…..didn’t show the type of sci-fi that the series would embrace, and was instead dismissed as irrelevant pandering to lonely nerds. Today, the performance of Esai Morales as Admiral Adama’s father and Eric Stoltz as Daniel Greystone, creator of the Cylons, alongside Torresani as Zoe, are praised by fans who now wish, 16 years later, that Caprica had been allowed to keep going. 

At least it ended with a flashforward that sets up the conflict seen in Battlestar Galactica. Not every one-season series is able to tie up loose ends as well as Caprica, which may have failed, but succeeded in its mission as one of the best prequel series.

3. Space: Above and Beyond

When you think of space shows from the 90s, you think of Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, Stargate SG-1, Farscape, or if you’re a true sicko like me, Lexx. But for a specific type of sci-fi fan, nothing comes close to Space: Above and Beyond. One of the greatest military sci-fi shows ever produced, the one-season fans got to spend with the Wildcards squadron as they went up against the insectoid Chigs, was a tease of the planned five-season storyline. 

Space: Above and Beyond complicates the aliens vs. humans setting by introducing Silicates, artificial robotic humans incapable of experiencing fear, and the In Vitroes, genetically enhanced humans treated as expendable fodder by “normal” people. It’s a masterclass in layered storytelling that pivots between political conspiracies, deep-space dogfights, and survivor’s guilt, all within the same episode. 

The 13th episode, “Who Monitors the Birds?” isn’t only the best episode of the series, it’s one of the best sci-fi episodes of the last 30 years. The mostly silent episode follows the In Vitroe U.S. Marine Hawkes struggling to survive after a mission behind enemy lines goes horribly wrong. It’s inventive, wonderfully shot, and respects the intelligence of the audience by not spelling everything out. It’s a nearly perfect example of science fiction done right. 

There’s never been another series like it, and there never will be. Space: Above and Beyond is the best sci-fi show of the 90s you’ve never watched.

2. Kolchak: The Night Stalker

If you like The X-Files, Fringe, or Supernatural, you should thank 1974’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker. A mix between the supernatural and science fiction, Kolchak was a monster of the week procedural long before the term was ever uttered by a fan. 

Every week, Investigative reporter Carl Kolchak stumbled into a new mystery involving a vampire, or a mummy, or a succubus, or a monster lizard, or Helen of Troy. Kolchak the series worked so well because Kolchak the character was a regular guy. He’s smart and very lucky, but he’s not a trained federal agent or a former soldier going up against the beasts of the night. He’s a journalist with a deadline and a very frustrated boss. 

Kolchak: The Night Stalker is over 50 years old, but it holds up better today than shows from 5 years ago. The special effects are horrible, the presentation was low-budget even by the standards of 1974, but the writing and especially Darren McGavin’s performance as Kolchak, prove why it’s a revered cult classic. 

Kolchak was often terrified of what he was up against. McGavin’s wild-eyed stare doesn’t make Kolchak look like a cool action hero; it makes him look like a regular guy in far over his head with no idea what’s going on. 

That’s the key ingredient that was missing from the 2005 revival attempt starring Stuart Townsend. Townsend was 3 years removed from playing Lestat in Queen of the Damned. He didn’t look like a regular guy over his head, he looks like an American Eagle model briefly inconvenienced by multiple run-ins with serial killers. 

Even though Kolchak: The Night Stalker lasted only one season before star Darren McGavin decided to call it quits, its legacy lives on through X-Files, Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow, The 11th Hour, and countless other series. Next to Star Trek, it may be the most important sci-fi series of all time. 

1. Firefly

Death, Taxes, a new season of NCIS, and Firefly appearing on a list of greatest one-season sci-fi shows. These things are inevitable. 

Firefly wasn’t the first sci-fi western, but it is the best, and for good reason. Everything, from the cast to the writing, the worldbuilding to the action, is, as the kids say, peak. 

Set at the edge of civilization years, after a failed rebellion, Firefly is all about the ragtag crew going from one job to another, scrapping together enough to get by, and keep flying. It’s a simple concept, but what makes it work is how not a single person in the cast feels like they’re acting. You will believe Nathan Fillion is the charming Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Alan Tudyk really is Wash, the crew’s pilot, and the late Ron Glass, as Shepard Book, is a former government killer attempting to lead a quiet life of contemplation and atonement. 

When it aired back in 2002, Firefly suffered from a poor timeslot on Fox, and a general public that wasn’t ready for science fiction this different. Going from a spaceship to horseback riding, battling space cannibals to a duel with an arrogant aristocratic noble was too jarring for the average viewer to handle. Then again, the ratings Firefly was pulling in 2002 would, in 2026, make it one of the hottest shows on television now. 

As viewer habits have changed, Firefly has risen in popularity, going beyond being a cult classic. It’s too beloved and too popular. Firefly’s gone mainstream. 

There’s not a lot that can be said about Firefly that hasn’t already been said over the last 25 years. It’s a classic for a reason, and it’s required viewing for sci-fi fans. Firefly was taken off the air far too early, but for millions of fans worldwide, you can’t stop the signal.

By Douglas Helm
| Published 24 seconds ago

Looking for an underrated psychological horror movie with a twist? Netflix has you covered. You can stream the 2018 flick The Perfection on the platform today.

The Perfection is a film about a music prodigy who returns to her former mentors at her former school, only to find them enamored with a new student. It follows the two musicians down a dark and shocking path. The movie creates a taut atmosphere and will keep you guessing about the twist throughout.

A Must-See For Fans Of Psychological Horror

The Perfection is directed by Richard Shepard from a screenplay by Shepard, Nicole Snyder, and Eric C. Charmelo. The film stars Allison Williams, Logan Browning, Steven Weber, Alaina Huffman, Mark Kandborg, Graeme Duffy, and Eileen Tian. The film premiered at the Fantastic Fest back in 2018 before hitting Netflix in 2019, but it’s well worth checking out if you’ve missed it since Netflix made it available on its platform.

With a 71 percent fresh rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes The Perfection clearly made itself known as a solid psychological horror entry. The consensus is that the twist is intriguing and that the film brings some top-notch performances to the table from stars Allison Williams and Logan Browning. Audiences were a little less warm toward the film, with an approval rating of 56 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and most critiques focusing on the messy third act and overall pacing of the movie.

So, just keep in mind that your results may vary with The Perfection. Obviously, it’s not a film that became a massive hit or anything and has gone fairly underseen since its 2018 release, so it’s not surprising that the reviews of the film are mixed. However, it might just be the right film for you if you like psychological horrors mixed with classical music.

Speaking of classical music, the soundtrack of The Perfection certainly delivers in that category, with the likes of Bach, Mozart, and Handel being featured. Classical music and psychological thrillers always go hand-in-hand, and this film proves that it’s a combination that almost always pays off. It also continues to prove that Allison William’s talents are well suited to the horror genre.

Allison Williams And Horror

While Allison Williams was best known for her role in Girls before 2017, she proved her horror bonafides when she co-starred in Jordan Peele’s universally acclaimed 2017 film Get Out. The Perfection followed shortly after and kept Williams’ horror hot streak going. She would follow up that film with her role as Kit Snicket in Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events TV series adaptation.

Allison Williams once again took on the horror genre in 2023 with the creepy animatronic doll film, M3gan. That film ended up being a surprise horror hit of 2023, which quickly led to the film getting the green light for its sequel, M3gan 2.0, in 2025.

The Perfection may not be quite as well-received as her other horror outings, both from a critical and commercial perspective, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth checking out on Netflix if you’re looking for something new to watch.

By Joshua Tyler
| Published 1 hour ago

Not every movie that attempts to screenwash its audience succeeds right away. Sometimes, the agenda being pushed is so outlandish and ridiculous that it needs more time to take hold. That was the case in the late 1990s, as the powers that be began ramping up their crusade against prosperity by attacking Americans’ rosy view of the past with a clumsy, Pavlovian sledgehammer. 

So in 1998, when most studios were busy greenlighting asteroid destruction porn and CGI bug invasions, an attack on order and virtue slipped into theaters disguised as a high-concept sci-fi movie. It flopped at the box office and failed to influence the audience it targeted, but in the years since has gained acceptance among a new audience too young to see it at the time, as a cult classic.

This is the story of how Pleasantville was rejected by Generation X, only to screenwash Millennials into destroying everything they love.

No Color, No Problem

Pleasantville begins with a teenage boy who disconnects from abuse and neglect at the hands of his parents and his peers by escaping into the idyllic world of classic television. The movie ends with him accepting his crappy situation as fine, because he has no right to expect anything good, and everything just is what it is. In between those two bookends, he destroys an entire town, and the movie works hard to convince the audience it was worth it, because now they have brighter colors of red.

Tobey Maguire stars in the film as David, a teenage boy with a chaotic living situation and no social life. He’s obsessed with a classic, black-and-white 1950s television show called Pleasantville, which depicts an idyllic town where people are nice to each other, and things are going well. Basically, the opposite of his own life. 

For reasons that aren’t ever really explained, geeky David and his self-described “slut” sister Jennifer (played by Reese Witherspoon) are transported into the TV by a TV repairman (Don Knotts) and find themselves living in the black and white world of Pleasantville. 

For David, who is now called Bud by the townspeople, it’s a dream come true, and Pleasantville is every bit as pleasant as its name suggests. The basketball team never loses, and Main Street is perfect. Dad earns a living; Mom makes pot roast and takes care of her kids. The local diner only serves cheeseburgers, and dating mostly revolves around whether or not to hold hands. 

No one is ever hurt, no one suffers, it doesn’t even rain. The fire department’s job is to get cats out of trees because no one has ever seen a house fire. People are happy, and everything runs perfectly. Always. Their only problem is that the entire world is black and white, except it’s not a problem because none of the residents notice. 

The Lusty Battle Against Boredom

So Pleasantville is paradise, but for Jennifer, who everyone now thinks is a girl named Mary Sue, it’s a hellhole. It’s a hellhole because she’s a slut and the town’s virtuous residents don’t want to have sex with her, because they’re committed to saving themselves for marriage.

So Jennifer sets out to destroy it all, because she’s really horny. Seriously, that’s Jennifer’s actual motivation in this movie. 

As a movie, Pleasantville wants to be a story about repression, about how nostalgia is a lie. It wants to be about how the “good old days” weren’t that good. Safe enough, predictable enough, but BORING and BORING, as everyone was previously screenwashed to believe by movies like The Graduate, is the worst. 

So Pleasantville frames Jennifer’s dedication to her libido as the result of boredom. Jennifer hates BORING because BORING doesn’t get her laid.

Pleasantville wants you to believe the black-and-white town is dystopian, but not because it’s cruel. It’s dystopian because it’s orderly. Because roles exist. Because people behave. And no one should have to behave because that’s BORING.

As Jennifer begins seducing virgins, colors start to appear in the black and white landscape of the town. Before long, it’s clear that intense pleasure and emotion cause the black and white to give way to vibrant technicolor. 

As color spreads, so does chaos. You’d think David would try to stop it, because he loves this place and loves what it represents. But he soon joins in destroying Pleasantville, seemingly unaware that he’s just recreating the world he left and didn’t like. 

Every Bad Californian Stereotype All At Once

It wasn’t part of the cultural lexicon back then, but David is a prototype of every real-life bad-transplant stereotype. You know the one: it frames out-of-towners as locusts who flee their state to avoid crime and overregulation, only to set about turning their new state into a copycat of the place they just left. 

In Pleasantville, David does it because he likes the attention, and (just like modern-day Californians) he knows he can always go back where he came from when he messes things up. So when colorizing things turns him into Technicolor Jesus in the eyes of attractive teenage townsfolk, David embraces it and basks in the reverie of a full-blown savior complex. The movie, of course, frames this as enlightenment, and when he gets violent in service of the town’s newfound hedonism, he’s rewarded with colorization.

Pleasure Framed As Man’s Only Reason For Living

It’s Bill Johnson, the owner of the local diner, who really accelerates the process. He’s played by Jeff Daniels as an empty shell, who only comes to life when confronted with color.

As Bill contemplates his place in the universe, he asks Bud/David to explain why he should bother making cheeseburgers. Bud is somehow unable to come up with an answer, either, and the viewer, along with Bill, is left to conclude that there is no value in what he does. This is obviously preposterous, and it’s the spot where the movie most clearly tips its hand. 

Bill and Bud have somehow forgotten that Bill feeds the town, provides a local hangout for teens, and earns a living, which allows him to keep a roof over his head. The diner and his cheeseburgers are a focal point for the entire community, but Pleasantville hand-waves that away as valueless because it isn’t hedonistic.

This is a blatant example of Agenda Setting.

Agenda Setting To Shape Perception

Agenda Setting is a propaganda technique in which a communicator shapes public perception by controlling which issues, values, or considerations are treated as important, while ignoring or excluding others. By determining what topics are discussed and what reasons are considered legitimate, agenda-setting influences the conclusions audiences reach without directly arguing for them.

Using this technique, Pleasantville presents a world where only immediate self-gratification has meaning, and hard work serves no purpose. So Bill closes the diner and starts giggling over colors and banging Bud’s Mom, who has decided to start cheating on his loyal, hard-working father for no reason other than pure hedonistic pleasure. 

Eventually, it all comes to a head when Bill Johnson turns the town’s wholesome teen hangout into a pornographic display. The townspeople, who’ve politely minded their own business up til now, reasonably object to lewd images of naked residents publicly displayed on a building that used to be a safe place for kids, and then the film frames them all as monsters who hate beauty. 

Selling Hedonism With The Aesthetic Halo Effect

Pleasantville positions Bill’s lewd grooming of minors as morally righteous, and sells literally everything that happens in the movie using something called The Aesthetic Halo Effect. 

The Aesthetic Halo Effect is a cognitive bias in which the perceived beauty, style, or artistic presentation of a person, idea, or action causes observers to assume it is virtuous, truthful, or justified. Attractive visuals or pleasing design act as a moral shortcut, transferring positive judgment from appearance to substance.

In the case of Bill’s pornographic mural, it’s painted in stunning, bright technicolor in a town where everything is gray and dreary. It’s totally inappropriate, but also a beautiful display, and as a viewer, your brain automatically associates beauty with good, skipping over the fact that it’s literally adult material being thrust in the face of small children.

This works for the same reason data shows that attractive people are more likely to get good jobs and earn more money than unattractive people. It’s why you bought that pretty girl at the bar a drink last week, and didn’t buy one for her ugly friend.

So over the course of the movie, Pleasantville becomes a place of pleasure-seeking dopamine addicts, and when a few black and white residents try to slow things down through reasonable regulation, the film shames them with a courtroom scene deliberately ripped straight out of To Kill A Mockingbird, meant to frame the objectors as no better than evil racists arguing against Gregory Peck.

Pleasantville Triggers A Pavlovian Response

So, of course, the audience sides with the hedonists, because every betrayal, moral lapse, and sin committed by them results in more color on the screen. And in a theater, staring at a black-and-white world, color becomes the ultimate reward. 

This is Affective Conditioning.

Affective conditioning is a psychological process in which a neutral behavior, idea, or object is repeatedly paired with positive or negative emotional cues, causing people to develop the same emotional attitude toward it.

The most well-known example of this is Pavlov’s dog. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Psychologist who trained dogs by ringing a bell before feeding them. After repeated pairings, the dogs began salivating at the bell alone, proving that a neutral signal can be conditioned to trigger a reflex. In the process, he discovered that it was possible to condition nearly anyone to do anything, using variations of this technique.

That’s classical conditioning. Affective Conditioning is a variation on Pavlov’s technique in which someone is conditioned to specific emotional attitudes rather than autonomic responses. By rewarding you with exceptionally beautiful imagery whenever someone commits a morally questionable act, Pleasantville conditions its audience to share in its hedonism. 

That’s why you never feel bad for Bud’s father when he’s cheated on and abandoned, because it’s the cheating betrayal of his wife that results in some of the movie’s most stunning and beautiful colors. You can’t hear the reasonable arguments of the black and white men in the bowling alley, because you crave more color, and the only way to get it is by having Bill plaster the town in nude photos.

How Reese Witherspoon’s Jennifer Affirms Hedonism As Optimal

You might think Jennifer’s character arc contradicts all of this, but it’s actually a key part of completing and affirming it. Unlike everyone else, Jennifer begins the movie as a hedonist. She then introduces sex, temptation, and emotional intensity into Pleasantville. That’s the spark that breaks the town’s rigid system and starts the color spreading.

In propaganda terms, Jennifer is the catalyst, the outsider who destabilizes the old order. Once that system collapses, the movie no longer needs her to keep pushing chaos.

So the story reframes her. She becomes intellectual, thoughtful, and studious. The message shifts from hedonism to self-actualization. The idea is that once people are “freed” from repression by pleasure seeking, they can pursue higher things: art, literature, education, and personal identity.

This solves a messaging problem. If the movie only showed sex and rebellion, the change might look shallow or destructive. By turning Jennifer into a reader who wants to go to college, the film reframes upheaval as progress toward enlightenment.

In persuasion terms, it’s a two-step structure:

• Destabilize the old culture through Jennifer’s early influence.
• Legitimize the new one as intellectually superior through Jennifer the scholar.

Jennifer isn’t rejecting the transformation of Pleasantville. She’s proof that the transformation somehow produced a better kind of person, even though that makes no sense at all in the context of what happens in the film. 

By the final act, the town is half monochrome, half Technicolor, a visual civil war. They’re all on a path toward eventual chaos and ruin, but you’re fully on the side of the colors.

How Pleasantville Influenced Millennials

Pleasantville is a beautifully made film. Its effects were groundbreaking for the time. Its performances are earnest. But it’s not neutral. It’s not just “about feelings.” It’s a manifesto about how to view the past and how to behave in the future.

Except it didn’t work, not at first. Gen X, coming into its own and swimming in the high-energy, high-ambition early days of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, had no patience for a movie selling hedonism and chaos. Despite a slick marketing campaign and a lot of slobbering praise from critics, the movie flopped at the box office. Gen X wanted nothing to do with it.

It was Millennials, too young to see it in theaters in the 90s, who eventually embraced it. Through heavy rotation on cable and strong DVD sales in the early 2000s, they encountered Pleasantville as teenagers with underdeveloped brains. Its central visual idea, a black-and-white 1950s television town gradually turning to color as characters break social rules and express themselves, made it an easy metaphor for the individuality and rebellion against conformity that had already been planted by other forms of screenwashing. 

The movie ends with David returning home to the real world, where he finds his mother at the kitchen table, sobbing and lamenting her terrible life choices. She wants to make things better. Don’t bother David tells her, life isn’t supposed to be anything. Just accept whatever it is. 

That’s the real message of Pleasantville. Stop trying, stop striving, seek pleasure. Whatever happens happens. Roll over and take it. Expect nothing and seek only pleasure.

Congratulations, hedonist millennials, you’ve been Screenwashed.

Josh Duggar has expressed deep resentment toward his family while serving time for federal crimes, claiming he felt abandoned by almost all of his siblings. 

Despite his frustration, correspondence has revealed that one of his sisters, Jessa Duggar Seewald, did make an effort to reach out during his time in a local detention center. 

Meanwhile, Josh also lashed out at his parents in explosive messages, accusing them of prioritizing their public image amid the fallout that occurred as a result of his legal issues. 

Jessa became the only one of Josh’s nine sisters to contact him while he was held at the Washington County Detention Center in Arkansas. Following his conviction on federal charges for possessing child sexual abuse material, Jessa sent her brother a short message on his 34th birthday. 

Writing on behalf of her family, she wrote, “Happy birthday, Josh! We love you and are praying for you! Love, The Seewalds.” 

Josh responded within hours, expressing his excitement at hearing from her but also complaining that she was the only sibling to send him a note that day. He thanked her for being an encouragement to his wife, Anna, and their children, while also asking if her ministry could donate specific Bibles to the facility. 

People Magazine reported that Jessa replied kindly, assuring him that God was looking after his family and promising to look into his request for the books.

However, the tone of the family communication shifted dramatically following Josh’s 151-month prison sentence. Two days after his sentencing, Josh sent a message to his father, Jim Bob Duggar, intended for the family group chat, in which he blasted his 18 siblings for their lack of support. 

He wrote, “It is shameful that I have received only 1 message from one of my siblings,” and directly told them, “With all due respect, shame on you that you didn’t reach out.” 

Josh Duggar Accused His Parents Of Trying To Protect Their Image Amid His Legal Battles

This ongoing frustration with his siblings was also part of a larger, more explosive conflict Josh has had with his parents, Michelle and Jim Bob. Shortly after being sentenced to over 12 years in federal prison, Josh sent a series of heated messages accusing his parents of contributing to his legal downfall. 

In these texts, the former reality star claimed that his mother and father consistently prioritized their public image and the survival of their television career over genuine family support. According to The Blast, he expressed deep disappointment, writing that he felt they refused to acknowledge actions that have directly affected his life.

Throughout the exchange, he remained defiant about his conviction, insisting to his mother that she did not know the “truth” and blaming an unnamed individual at his car dealership for the crimes.

Josh Duggar Revealed That Mom Michelle Privately Supported Him

Along with blaming his parents for his legal troubles, Josh expressed deep hurt over how the family seemingly continued their lives while he remained incarcerated.

In a message sent to his mother from jail, he admitted that Michelle had supported him “privately,” for which he felt “grateful,” as noted by The Blast.

However, he lamented that this quiet support did not make up for the feeling that “there were 18 kids and life went on” without him. Josh shared that it was incredibly difficult to be an inmate while his family seemingly moved past his absence without concern for his well-being. 

He specifically noted that things had been “especially hard in light of how things have been since May 2015,” referring to the public exposure of his past teenage misconduct.

The Former TV Star Will Be In Prison Longer Than Originally Planned

While Josh feels the family has moved on without him, his own actions behind bars have ensured he will remain away from them for even longer than originally planned. The disgraced reality star had his federal prison sentence extended for a third time following a rules violation at FCI Seagoville in Texas. 

As reported by The Blast, two months were added to his time, officially pushing his release date to February 2, 2033. 

This setback followed a previous extension that occurred after he was caught with a contraband cell phone earlier in his sentence.

Anna Duggar Faces Pressure To Leave Josh

The ongoing extensions to Josh’s sentence have only increased the pressure on those he left behind, particularly his wife, Anna, who is now being encouraged to start over. 

As her husband remains at FCI Seagoville, Anna has faced intense scrutiny and growing pleas from her own inner circle to end her marriage.

A source shared that several relatives have had difficult conversations with Anna, strongly encouraging her to reconsider her future and leave Josh behind, per The Blast. 

Despite the heavy influence of her family to move on and rebuild her life, Anna continues to focus on her children while navigating the reality of her husband’s prolonged absence.

By Robert Scucci
| Published 13 seconds ago

Growing up, we all had that one edgelord friend who would say the most offensive things possible whenever the opportunity presented itself. Their entire goal is to clear the room with the things they say and do, and when you grow up, you start distancing yourself from this kind of person for reasons that don’t really require much justification. You don’t want somebody like this showing up to your job and getting you fired, or saying the wrong thing in front of your significant other because the tradeoff for their perpetually tasteless humor is sleeping on the front lawn.

If you’re looking for that guy in movie form so you can get your fill without having your life ruined, you can find it in Uwe Boll’s action comedy disasterpiece, Postal (2007), which, in my opinion, is grossly misunderstood and severely underappreciated.

Don’t get this twisted, Postal is problematic, reprehensible even, and that’s the entire point. But for some reason, this doesn’t come off like an edgelord being offensive just to get a rise out of people, like 2013’s InAPPropriate Comedy. This is Boll adapting yet another video game series to film, but instead of taking himself seriously and failing miserably like he did with films like Alone in the Dark (2005) or BloodRayne (2005), he leaned into camp, egregiously offensive humor, and total chaos instead.

I’m here to argue, however, that he didn’t fail miserably, despite what the nine-percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes would lead you to believe.

Postal Is Built Differently

Postal kicks off with a recreation of the September 11 attacks and somehow manages to get exponentially worse across its 100-minute runtime (114 minutes if you can secure a copy of the director’s cut). From there, we’re introduced to our protagonist, simply billed as The Postal Dude (Zack Ward), five years later. The Postal Dude lives in a dilapidated trailer home in Paradise, Arizona with his morbidly obese, emotionally abusive, cheating and thieving girlfriend, simply billed as B**** (Jodie Stewart). He’s looking to leave Paradise, and start his life over, because his present situation is hardly doing him any favors. 

Now, you may be wondering what the opening sequence has to do with The Postal Dude’s character arc, but it all starts to make sense when he’s contacted by his Uncle Dave (Dave Foley), the leader of a religious death cult that owes the IRS over a million dollars in back taxes. Dave recruits The Postal Dude to run a scam involving a missing shipment of plush toys known as Krotchy Dolls, whose likeness resembles the exact pieces of male anatomy that they sound like. Basically, Dave wants Postal Dude to use a mail truck to locate and secure the missing dolls so they can sell them online for money. That’s the entire plan. That’s as far as they think it through before acting on it.

Meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden (Larry Thomas) and his network of terrorists, who all just so happen to operate out of Paradise, Arizona, are also trying to secure the Krotchy dolls, but for a far more nefarious reason. Instead of flipping them for a quick profit, they want to infect them with a rare strain of bird flu, resulting in a nationwide pandemic when unsuspecting children play with the dolls after they’re distributed all over the country. Unbeknownst to Dave, his right-hand man Richie (Chris Coppola) is on the terrorists’ side because the fictional bible Dave wrote includes a prophecy about the end of days, which Richie takes literally and wants to help facilitate.

Along the way, The Postal Dude befriends a barista named Faith (Jackie Tohn) and a bunch of other smokin’ hot babes in miniskirts and bikinis who all conveniently know how to use machine guns. They join forces and rack up an absurd body count, sparing nobody in their pursuit of shutting down Al-Qaeda and restoring peace, resulting in an unthinkable amount of collateral damage, bloodshed, and dead bodies.

The Most Tasteless Movie Of The 2000s

Listen, you need to be a very special kind of person to enjoy movies like Postal. I’m not saying it’s not in poor taste or bad faith because it absolutely is. What sets it apart from other “offensive” comedies, though, is its fearless commitment to the bit. So much so that every joke lands when you consider the source material, who’s directing it, and what it’s trying to accomplish.

Every single character in Postal is reprehensible, and that’s the point. Personally, I’m willing to forgive everything everybody says and does in this movie because it’s a movie, but also because everybody rightfully gets what’s coming to them, and they all deserve it. Postal has to go all in because if it didn’t, none of it would feel earned.

Uwe Boll, who’s notorious for his love of filmmaking despite his complete ineptitude as a filmmaker, was originally asked by Vince Desi­derio, the CEO of Running With Scissors, the studio responsible for the Postal video game series, to come up with a much darker, grittier adaptation. He rejected the pitch and instead decided to lean fully into camp, satire, extreme violence, and offensive humor to get his point across.

I think this was the right move because the video game series, which also aims to be as politically incorrect as possible, benefits from being turned into a slapstick endeavor thanks to Boll’s writing and direction. If you still have that edgelord friend who you just can’t seem to quit, this movie is tailored to their sense of humor while simultaneously undermining it every step of the way, almost as if to say, “Yeah, this is funny, and you can laugh at it, but we’re also laughing at you.”

Postal succeeds in offending every single sensibility you could imagine, and it does so unapologetically. Like most Uwe Boll efforts, it’s built differently and truly a sample size of one. Objectively speaking, it’s not a great film. But since I assess most things I watch based on whether execution meets intention, I’ve got to say “job well done” here. Boll accomplished exactly what he set out to do here, whether you like it or not. 

Postal is “one of the movies of all time,” and can currently be streamed on Tubi for free in all of its disgusting, offensive, and stupid glory.