ABC’s The Goldbergs will have a Star Wars episode on May 6

The GoldbergsI thought it was odd that Lucasfilm was collaborating with CBS’ The Big Bang Theory for a Star Wars Day episode instead of a show on Disney-owned ABC, but today we get word that The Goldbergs will have one as well – on May 6th:

The episode sees Adam (Sean Giambrone) and Erica (Hayley Orrantia) encounter elaborately costumed Star Wars fans, including Reno 911′s Thomas Lennon, while waiting in line at the Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi opening.

Now I have to wonder… Will NBC (Community? Parks and Rec?) or Fox (Brooklyn Nine-Nine?) get in on the Star Wars action as well?

TV recap pioneer Television Without Pity shutting down

television-without-pityTelevision Without Pity, one of, if not the internet’s first television recap sites, is being shut down on April 4. Founded as Dawson’s Wrap in the late 90’s (and later Mighty Big TV) by Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting, and David T. Cole, the site was sold to Bravo in 2007.

TWoP, along with since-shuttered sister sites Hissyfit and Fametracker and their respective forums, were hugely influential in creating the snarky tone that characterizes much pop culture coverage today. (Including, yeah, me.)

Often controversial, particularly in regards the forums, TWoP was nonetheless a huge force in various TV fandoms. (An infamous Sorkin incident actually inspired a b-plot on The West Wing.)

Ariano, Bunting and Cole are currently running Previously.TV Other alumni include Pamela Ribon and the ladies at Go Fug Yourself.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler ‘reveal’ their Episode VII roles

What with the Golden Globe blitz beginning (you go, Tatiana Maslany,) power hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are guest-editing this week’s Entertainment Weekly – and naturally they’re taking on Star Wars. Sort of.

The comedians joke that they’re playing “really naggy mothers of Darth Vader.”

FEY: [In an elderly New Yorker accent] “Darth, eat! Why don’t you eat?” That kind of stuff.

POEHLER: “You’re never gonna find a girl when you go out looking like that!”

FEY: Making him practice his Jedi stuff for hours.

POEHLER: Hitting on all his Jedi friends inappropriately. I feel like the theme of the next Star Wars is going to be: How does a working mother juggle it all? I’m looking forward to that. What I like about all these giant superhero movies is that they speak to the issues that I’m dealing with right now — working mother and time management and how to be an interesting, sexual, curious woman in your 40s. That’s the kind of stuff that I like to see on the screen, and that’s what I see with a lot of the films out today.

Even J.J. Abrams is playing along: “The exciting thing about having Amy and Tina play the Vader Moms, as we’re calling them, is that they bring to the film that pitch-perfect Star Wars energy fans are clamoring for.”

Somewhere, someone is taking all this at face value. Let’s pretend we don’t see them.