Showing posts with label the flash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the flash. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Geeky TV commentary - The Flash 2.5, Agents of SHIELD 3.6, Limitless 1.7


The Flash airs at 8pm on CW Tuesday nights.

The Flash has been getting a little...loose as of late. I mean, freezing a laser? But this week, things came back to the tighter, character-centered way of the show that we all know and love.

Zoom sends Dr Light to stop Barry, presumably because she's actually Linda Park, even though this Linda has no idea who Barry is, and she's not a killer, so that whole thing goes sideways when she runs from Barry and fails to kill her Earth-1 self. Which implies that Zoom knows all sorts of stuff about Barry. Like that his ex-girlfriend's face will make him pause and allow her to blind him? Since Barry doesn't seem to exist in the retro-future Earth-2 so far, how does he manage that knowledge?

Dr Light isn't thrilled about any of this either, but Zoom is holding something over her and forcing her hand. She misses when another reporter at the newspaper dies saving one of our known characters*, and doesn't keep trying, because she's a robber, not a murderer, and she's spooked. But it means that now Iris and Linda know that Linda has a double here, and Linda is now in police custody to keep her safe.

While this was going on, Blind Barry is adorable and useless as a hero, so he goes on a date with Patty, where Cisco serves as his eyes until she figures out that he can't see and they take over for themselves. It very sweet, and Barry is adorable when he can barely walk, but it makes me worry for Patty's safety, or what her story holds. And, after a first kiss, he regains his vision.

The really good part of the episode, though, was Alt!Welles. He's golden. He's fussy, kind of an ass, and he has no time for all the baggage that comes with everyone knowing the person he looks like. His exasperation with the whole story of this world's Welles is perfect, and his bluntness is refreshing through the whole episode--especially when he cuts through the dumb plot choices and calls out Cisco for not telling everyone he's got powers now. Which means that Cisco can then help them with Dr Light's location, and he can then get a superhero name**. It also means he's got more confidence and he asks out the new girl at the coffee shop, who will turn out to be Hawkgirl.*** The Welles-Cisco dynamic through this whole episode is the best thing ever, and should be more of the series as a whole.

Welles also has no patience for Jay's inability to stop Zoom, which, as it turns out, is because Zoom has his daughter--because this Welles has family, and is presumably not actually Eobard (which is what they should be calling their own Welles now, but what evs).

Other things of note: Caitlyn and Jay almost kiss but it makes them miss the attack that ends their stakeout. Apparently the shark-man from last ep is being called King Shark. Iris still doesn't know what to do about her mom. And Joe is so done with Welles that he just opens fire on sight before he finds out that this is an alternate-reality double.

It was a fun episode!


Agents of SHIELD airs at 9pm on ABC Tuesday nights.

After last week's awesome episode where Simmons got to shine, I wasn't looking forward to getting back to the Hydra storyline that has long been my least favorite part of this show, but it actually wasn't that bad, I guess?

Andrew managed to survive the explosion last time we saw them, and says it was because he had a SHIELD bodyguard who gave his life to keep him safe. But he's all busted up, and May is pissed. She blames Hunter and gets him grounded. She goes after Bobbi to make her prove that she's fine and it's fear that's been keeping her out of the field. And then the two of them go on the warpath. That part's pretty glorious, because they make an amazing team and they have all sorts of widgets and skills outside of just fighting--but May wants to fight and Bobbi wants to talk her way out, and they don't really agree on how to handle things.

Together, they manage to get to that big guy who does Ward's dirty work, who is at that moment beating up Werner von Strucker for not finishing his mission. Bobbi takes out the thug with some awesome fighting and zapping, and May finds out what she can about Ward, but the kid is done. So much for the Hydra royal family that make no sense anyway.

Meanwhile, though, Werner has called for help on one of his dad's old cronies, who seems to feel that everyone should fear him. Ward doesn't, but it's unclear so far whether he actually should or not.

I'm just over here like -_- about the whole thing. It feels like they're setting up for a Hydra spinoff with how much story time they're handing over to Ward's actions, but it still seems more of a mess than a plan to me****, and it would be nice if Hydra would go underground again for a while.

In the always-more-interesting B-plots:

Coulson is getting to know Rosalind. He's decided it's time to see her facility, and she makes a detour to her own house where there's been a suspicious break-in that just makes him more suspicious. She finally takes him to see the literal warehouse where she's been literally sealing the Inhumans into stasis crates and storing them like cargo, and he's not nearly as upset as he should be. She thinks being Inhuman is an illness and wants to cure it, which leads directly, in comics-land, to things like Mutant Registration Acts, Genosha, various genocides. If they're setting this up as part of Civil War, okay, but if it's not, it's going to drag on and be so annoying.

Daisy and Mac and Hunter witness Coulson's lack of appropriate response. They're looking for Lash, and have decided that Rosalind's second in command is most likely him (though that's got no backup other than them not liking him), and they were tracking him while Coulson was flirting. They'd just sent a drone into the facility when they see Coulson looking okay with the crates, which makes Daisy not okay with him, and that's never good. As I said on Twitter last night...
Because we really don't. We suffered through that two-Shields BS, and the everyone-in-Shield-is-actually-Hydra BS, and this is just more of the same dumb. It bogs down the plot and distracts from them finally getting a major plot line of their own--the Inhumans.

Back at the lab, Fitz has been researching Will, and his research on the portal isn't paying off, but Simmons is closer to being able to be back to work since they have a purpose now. She's helping Andrew through his injury by giving him back the words he gave her, and she's the one that finds out that their suspect is not even a little bit Inhuman. Werner tells them that it's Andrew, as he dies--he failed in his mission because Andrew wasn't just a person.

And that means that he's among them. He's been using his position to track down the people they've been trying to help and then kill them. He's been lying to the people closest to him. And he's probably been denying everyone trying to get field clearance or release papers because it's his weird job to take them out of society.

Dun dun DUUUNNNN.

That's a promisingly super-heroic storyline to end on, and hopefully it'll bring the team back together. And hopefully, Coulson will have a reason for his lack of response and will make the decision to not work with the task force if that's what they're going to be doing, because it's a terrible way to handle the Inhumans, especially when they're working so hard to keep them good and teach them how to live with their new abilities. The obvious parallels between being suddenly Inhuman and being chronically ill or disabled or foreign or some other thing that's considered out of the norm really should be handled carefully, and if the show as a whole decides that curing something that's genetic, not a choice, and not deadly, is the way to go, it'll be really disappointing. It was bad enough when Jemma was sounding all human-purist last season; we don't need to go over that ground again.


Limitless airs at 10pm on NBC Tuesday nights.

It seems like the CIA is trying to get ahold of all the FBI assets on all my shows lately.***** This week on Limitless, they do it!

Brian pulls a very accurate and funny and endearing Ferris Bueller to get a day off, and before he's done with the opening monologue, the black ops dudes taze him and take him into the woods. They have NZT and they have a signed letter saying he's supposed to help them. They want him to solve problems as they catch and interrogate some Russian dude.

So Brian keeps taking the pills. Like, five or six of them during the day. It's worrying that there wasn't much difference between a regular day, except three of them in the self-discussions, and it begs the question of whether there'll be other fallout later that he'll have to deal with? He figures out that they're not out on a regular black op--they're out on a bounty hunt, and they're going to split money they get for selling this guy they're after to people who will pay a lot for him. Brian manages to turn them against each other, and winds up being the only team member to survive the mission, and that's only because he gives the Russian guy the last pill, even though he told him he'd poisoned it with deadly nightshade.

Along the way, he managed to get a coded message to Rebecca, who figures out that he's telling them where he is. She's pissed, the whole time that he's gone, and it's beautiful. She and Boyle are pulling every string they have and throwing around the law like crazy--the CIA broke the law and even if they can't prove it, they can make a fuss that they'd have to answer to, and all of this went over their heads. Naz is also outraged, and it's good to see her picking her team over this outside meddling.

Brian uses the plot of Ferris Bueller to keep himself alive as he's coming down off the megadose of NZT in the woods at night, and manages to make enough noise that the team can find him before anything bad happens. But the way he just casually tells the story of all this death and his part in it upsets Rebecca--he was so nice and so harmless before, and she feels like it's her job that ruined that part of him, and that she should have tried harder to protect his niceness. 

The vague implication, though, is that it's the drug that did it--that it makes other people matter less. He hallucinated her showing up (dressed like Sloane from the movie, no less), and she told him that he had to survive even though he'd have to kill people to do it--which is not what actual-Rebecca thought of the matter. And that's troubling. Especially since Brian seems to have missed that distinction. All the cute graphics and the fun voice overs and the cleverness are starting to look like side-effects covering up the actual damage that's being done to his personality, even with the anti-side-effects shot. Will he notice what's going on? Will she? Will they be able to do anything about it?

And he still didn't seem at all worried about all these dead people...


What did you think of tonight's shows? Share in the comments, or come talk to me on Twitter!

Flash
SHIELD
Limitless



*It's seriously a bad idea working in that office. Never make friends with Iris or Linda.
**Vibe!
***Which should be fun! When does that happen, and when do all the fun characters leave for the bonkers team up that will be Legends of Tomorrow?
****He says old-Hydra was bloated and entitled, but he's acting as entitled as anyone else and recruits the son of the previous boss? What? And he says they were undisciplined thugs, but his recruiting process is literally a fight club that rewards meatheads and jerks while not admitting a single scientist or thinker. Like, what is he even doing?
*****They're doing it on Blindspot, too. 
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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Geeky TV commentary - The Flash 2.4, Agents of SHIELD 3.5, Limitless 1.6



The Flash airs at 8pm on CW Tuesday nights.

This week, Stein was literally going unstable, and they had to find a new compatible that had been affected by the blast wave. They came up with two choices: a former high school quarterback that busted his knee and wound up working in a garage when he was hit, and a physicist who seemed really compatible personality wise, but turned out to be a loon. So, of course, it's the kid, who's good and wants to help, who manages to successfully bond into a new Firestorm and looks awesome doing it.

But there's other issues along the way, because that's how plots work. Caitlyn is lobbying for Hewitt, the scientist, because she's all about the scientists and seems to have some sort of education bias that functions a lot like racism, except that both choices are black.* Ageism? Classism? Some sort of ism. Hewitt is all gung ho, but when they try to bond, they fizzle, and he gets pissed. It triggers his powers but he doesn't have the ability to bond with Stein to stabilize either of them, so he's walking around on fire, breaking things and, bizarrely, stealing power from lights? When did that become part of the power set?

New Firestorm and Flash defeat him pretty easily, and it looks cool, and they put him in the Pipeline, which is so dumb. That place shouldn't be able to function as a jail, and yet they keep using it even after they have a jail to put him in. There's a lot of dumb things on this show, but it seems like there are a few particular dumb things that like to haunt us and it's starting to knock me out of the "heck yeah!" of the rest of the show.

And Iris is dealing with her mom. That whole thing is written sort of like the only experience the writers have with women is watching soap operas. It's nice that Iris isn't 100% on board with this mom that she didn't know who left her, but she was being mean when she's usually the single most forgiving person on the cast--like, to a fault when it comes to Barry and Joe and she should be mad and isn't. And Francine has such a cliched sob story. She's dying. It's because of how she used to be a junkie, she's got less than a year to live. That should have been sad and emotional, but since we don't know her as a character, only as a pile of exposition from others, it's just annoying that it's the same story estranged parents on TV always have when they come back. They should have brought her back, worked to have a relationship, then found out she was dying, if they wanted her to be anything but a contrived angst-and-new-character deliverer. The actress is doing her best, and they did a good job finding someone who looks like she might be her mother, but they didn't give her much to work with.

The whole sub plot there seemed awkward and out of character, and all it did was take Iris out of the action and set up for a new character.

And meanwhile, Barry was thinking about going out with Patty, and drew an explicit parallel between him considering dating someone who was not Iris and Caitlyn stopping being a prejudiced ass and thinking about the kid with the broken knee as a candidate, and it was just...weird? Because a) who his girlfriend is is not equivalent to whether or not she's severely biased, and b) if he's still actually in love with Iris, it's super unfair to Patty--just like it was unfair to Linda. (that was her name, right? the girlfriend who wasn't iris but had the same job?)

So the New Firestorm was cool. It was great that he was this kid that thought his whole life was going to be nothing, but still wanted to help people, and that he had the mental and emotional agility to adapt quickly and find the coolness in what he was doing. This show is best when everyone involved knows that they're not on broody ol' Arrow, and that for them, being a superhero is really neat. But the rest of the plots around that were all weird and didn't sit well with this viewer, and that's sad.

But since he wasn't killed, maybe we can get more Demore Barnes, of 12 Monkeys fame, as a recurring villain here or on Legends of Tomorrow, where Firestorm will probably wind up. Yay Demore!


Agents of SHIELD airs at 9pm on ABC Tuesday nights.

 This is probably the best episode I've seen of this show, and it's sort of ticking me off because it doesn't have all but one character through 98% of it and features none of the current plot lines. But it DOES have phenomenal acting on Elizabeth Henstridge's part, piles of feels in multiple different directions, a new character played by an actor I like, and an evil planet that definitely seems to have a purpose and a plan.

This is the story of how Simmons didn't die through the portal.

There's no sunlight on that planet. It's mostly desert. She has to mark time by how many hours she's been there, using her amazing and powerful Fitz-widgeted phone that has a battery life of, like, months. She has to find water and food--the first of which seems to come only from one spring in the middle of all that sand, and the second of which is, for a while, only the fronds of an attack-plant that lives there and tries to eat her. It sounds awful when she bites into it, but it keeps her alive.

And then after more than a month, she falls through a hole, into a cage, and meets Will. He was from a NASA mission through the obelisk, stranded when his crew that he was meant to protect started going mad and dying, and they couldn't figure out how to reopen the portal, or where it would reopen on it's own. He's been there for 14 years and didn't even know it. And he knows the ways of the planet and how to survive it.

And, of course, they fall in love, because they're literally the only people on the planet. This point is...iffy. She could have discovered something that could help them with their current plots, about the Kree or Inhumans, even Thor and his piles of pocket dimensions in the Nine Realms, or something, but if she did, they haven't even hinted at it yet. All their combined brainpower is devoted to figuring out the pattern of the moons that opens the portal and getting home, and it's the failure to make the portal they predict that breaks her and makes her lose hope and give in to the growing attachment to Will. There's no hint that she found anything that could be of use on this side of the portal. Hopefully that'll change as they sift through her memories and knowledge about it, but right now, she's focused on going back--for Will, because he was right behind her, facing the creepy planet-ghost, buying her time.

She doesn't even know if he survived, though we do. And Fitz, too good for this world, too pure, who spent his whole life for months looking for her, doesn't even comment on it, just runs to the lab to help her do it. Ooh, maybe if they get Will home, he'll be the one who knows something about what's going on, the random detail that brings the obelisk into the main plot line--but hopefully, he doesn't know he knows it, and it takes Simmons and her secret SHIELD knowledge to make the connection, so that it's still her story.

It was tense and sad and charming and exciting, and so interesting, and a lot of that, unfortunately, was because the whole Hydra storyline is stale and dragging, and the focus on so many other characters all the time in the usual format of the show is splintering attention and the power of the stories they're telling. As far back as season 1, it seemed like if they went more like Lost-style, where they focused more closely and more completely on one or two or three characters an episode, instead of all of them, the stories would be better, and this episode seems to prove it.

And that's why it's angry-making. Because this episode was so good, and it was in large part because it broke from the pattern. It proves that our gut feeling was right, AND that the writers and actors are capable of doing it better, and that they haven't. The goodness of this episode makes me feel cheated, and the return of Hydra and all that scrambling around doing nothing next episode just depresses me.

How about you?


Limitless airs at 10pm on NBC Tuesday nights.

This episode, a lot of things come to a head, and it's what we didn't even know we were waiting for.

Rebecca knows about the file, and she does what Brian couldn't, because she has a deeper knowledge of how their office works: she comes up with a plan about how they can keep looking for information. It's great, because it unites them, once and for all, on the same goal. For the first time, they're truly partners, acting like partners, protecting each other and working for each other.

So, of course, the second they walk in the office to enact their plan, Brian gets sent off because Naz wants Rebecca on a project to think of hypotheticals the FBI can plan for and defend against. Naz is on the FBI side, which means Rebecca is on the attacker side, and she's really good  at thinking up ways terrorists could destroy America. Like, maybe she missed her calling as a terrorist mastermind, and it's a really good thing that she's so devoted to her job.

All the bosses are impressed, and the head of the FBI wants to talk to her personally, but that's where their plan, and Brian get in the way.

Brian's been investigating the history of NZT and identifying people linked to the studies. He identifies a drug company that has the right people and projects and interests at the right time, and they don't help at all. He finds a scientist on the study that involved Rebecca's father. But Brian's having withdrawal symptoms. He's still taking the pill every morning because he has to for the FBI, for Rebecca, and for himself if he wants to be able to find the answer to all these problems, but the shot is wearing off and he's getting sick. Sweating, red eyes, shaky, emotionally unstable, hallucinations, paranoia, time loss, difficulty understanding what people around him are saying. Rebecca notices and wants to help, but she's thinking too conventionally there, and he ditches the doctors and goes back to his investigations.

But he can't check out that scientist because he's dying. Rebecca calls off her career-advancing meeting to go talk to the guy and finds out almost nothing, worrying about Brian along the way. And Brian passes out on the street.

Just when everything looks like it can't go any worse, everything changes. Brian wakes up on a rooftop, mostly fine, with Morra. He's already given him the shot and he says it was a test, to see what sort of person he was--would he betray his partner to save himself? And he didn't, so now Morra wants him to be the action man, the one who gets things done that Morra himself can't do because he has to work his way through the government so he can make all the real change, and that means that he can't be a free agent behind the scenes.

And Rebecca goes into Naz's office, sure she's going to be fired for calling off that very important meeting, and learn that Naz knows she knows about the file, and that the file was the point of all this. She wanted her to be able to read it legally, which meant that she needed the clearance to do so, which meant she needed to advance, which meant she needed to catch people's attention who could advance her. And that's why she was on that panel.

But the future for both of them, though less desperate at this moment, is still up in the air. What choices will everyone make? And Sands, is he even really working for Morra? Because if he is, and that bomb for the scientist was on his orders, Morra isn't telling the truth--and since there was such a parallel drawn between Brian and Rebecca, can we trust Naz's word that she's telling the truth?

This show is a lot less like Chuck than it seemed in the beginning, and that's good. It's taken its set up and run with it, and it's growing into this great intrigue show that still has all of Brian's mental creativity and that touch of humor, even when Brian is in dire straits, that keeps it from being too heavy. And they're starting to rebel from the power structures that are trying to keep them in control, which is great. Brian is almost the definition of a loose cannon, but his heart is in the right place and he's probably one of the kindest people on TV right now, trying to do what's right without having to give up anyone along the way. And Rebecca is, we now know, a lot more creative and wily than she's been allowed to be up to this point, and maybe she can now start loosening up!

It's so exciting to see this show unfolding.
Flash

SHIELD

Limitless





NOTES:
*It was uncomfortable to watch, actually, because she's usually better than that and it was sort of "where is this coming from now?" whenever she opened her mouth.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Geeky TV commentary - The Flash 2.3, Agents of SHIELD 3.4, Limitless 1.5



The Flash airs at 8pm on CW Tuesday nights.

 It's all family drama on The Flash this week.

Joe doesn't want to tell Iris that her mom is actually alive and wants to see her because he's afraid how she'll act, but after a pep talk from Barry, he comes clean. Iris is far too understanding, but that's consistent with her character, so it's okay. But it would have been nice if she'd made some protest about how everyone keeps keeping secrets from her, and how unfair that is.

On the other side of that coin, though, we get to see Iris at work, being well-liked and respected, getting her first cover story. It's only a few minutes of her loving her life, but it's more than we got before, so there's that.

Meanwhile, Barry is trying to find out what's up with Captain Cold working with his terrible-person dad, but it turns out that he has no choice because Daddy Cold is bad enough to implant a bomb in his own daughter's head to make his son use his freeze gun to get at some diamonds. All of that could have been done better, in a story line where they didn't have to make Gold Glider into some sort of sad victim when she was a self-posessed badass before, and didn't have to depend on freezing lasers, because that's just dumb.

It was nice seeing Cisco save the girl, but it seemed off the whole time, and never turned out that she was playing them again, and never had her take her own life back, and it was annoying because this show is usually better than that.

Also meanwhile, though, Jay and Caitlyn manage to figure out, mostly off screen, how to stabilize the breach closest to them. They're calling it a Speed Cannon, But they stop Expository Boy Jay Garrett from going back to his own world because he can still help Barry with the speedforce and they might need his help with Zoom. And, you know, Caitlyn wants him to stay. I guess he's squatting in one of the labs?

But of course they leave the gate open when Stein has some sort of Firestorm fit that was almost the most interesting thing in this episode, and then some sort of alt!Welles comes through looking all evil.

Dun dun DUUUUNNNN!

The episode was more set up, as far as it goes. It felt like it was arranging pieces for later, which has been a pretty common feeling this season, and that's starting to get a little old. Shouldn't it get going now? Without getting all character-compromise-y like they've been tiptoeing around? But the thing with Welles and the thing with Stein having the power without Ronnie, those are good set-ups, and so interesting.


Agents of SHIELD airs at 9pm on ABC Tuesday nights.

 Adventure time on SHIELD!

SHIELD is working with the Task Force, who's alphabet mess I can never remember, to find Inhumans. We get to see a married inhuman couple for half a minute, and then their friend Alicia who can be several people at once. Then Lash attacks and kills all three, sending the other Alicia into shock. That was a bit abrupt because Coulson was acting like he already knows her, but we don't, and it distracts from the scene. They track Lash but he's gone, and the Task Force shows up to be soldiers all over the place.

Coulson and Task Force Lady decide to sort of play fair and share info, and Daisy manages to find a virus on the dead Inhumans' computers--which the Task Techs claim they didn't see. They trace it back to an IRS dude who was changed, and got the power of being made violently ill by the presence of other Inhumans. He's been telling Lash where to find the ones in hiding, but after he's taken in, Lash comes for him--and looks right at Daisy, but doesn't kill her.

The IRS guy said that death is a mercy; Lash says he's not merciful, he's necessary. Then Daisy watches him transform, by way of seeing his shadow shrink into a normal sized person, So that explains how he can just disappear on them.

Over in the Ward side story I'm totally bored with, Hunter finally makes it in, and is immediately exposed because Ward knows who he is. There's taunting and threats and shooting, and then Ward calls his goons on Andrew to get May to call off the attack. Hunter won't be called off, so it looks like Andrew is toast, and if he thought that's gonna get them off his case, he's more messed up than we thought. Because duh, Ward, you know these people, so you'd better be actually trying to start a war. Otherwise, this is the dumbest move he's made yet.

Bobbi wants to get back into the field, but she's still not good enough to pass the physical, and she hates it.

And Fitz wants Simmons back as his partner, but Simmons is being cagey and acting fine but obviously not. He finds her folder full of portal research, and he doesn't really have to confront her with it--in the last minute of the episode, she says she has to go back because something happened to her there, and she needs to tell him what that was. Which means next week should be mostly Simmons, and that can only be good!

Aside from how tired of Ward I am, and his whole weird and inconsistent HYDRA remake, the show is mostly going well so far this season. It's nice that they've finally been given a main MCU plot point to handle, though it would be very nice if they could keep some of these people, and stop getting them all killed. And if any of these new Inhumans start popping up in the movies, they'd better at least have Daisy in there to help them, if not finally allow Coulson out of his self-imposed exile.

And any time Simmons and Fitz can be in the same room together, being on good terms, and any time Coulson admits that he misses and needs people, it's a good day.

We also got a hint of people in the Inhumans population who want to bring everyone together as a united front, and possibly a separate group that existed before the mass triggering and feels like they're different. How long before that comes back around?


Limitless airs at 10pm on NBC Tuesday nights.

This is the second show on this channel in as many days that dealt with a dirty bomb being put together, and I was half expecting Jane and the guys from Blindspot to show up, since they're all in the FBI.

Anyway, there's a kid who's involved with a terrorist attack, and it's nice that it's home-grown terrorists this time, and they aren't pulling any punches about calling them that. They go in looking for a meth lab and instead find bomb-fixins, and Brian runs into the main baddie's little brother, who thinks his bro isn't bad, he's just confused. Brian makes friends with him, and he becomes their main informant while they track down the baddies, and the one who will make contact when he's called to bring something the bombers need.

Brian tells him whatever he needs to hear to get him to agree to do it, and then he's killed in the crossfire, the accomplice gets away, and the brother isn't so much as scratched--which makes Brian feel like he's to blame, since the kid wouldn't have been there if he hadn't convinced him to do it.

The whole episode, Brian has been dealing with what he should and shouldn't do. He's been recording messages for his morning-and-no-NZT self, telling him that he can't tell Rebecca anything about her father, and he can't tell anyone else about anything else either, and he just needs to look out for himself. But looking out for himself is what got that kid killed, and even though he saved who knows how many other people, it doesn't convince him that night-time-NZT him knows what he's talking about.

So he takes the  file about Rebecca's dad to her. Mr Sand all but threatened her life when he asked why he can't tell her about that, and he did it anyway. He even knocked on her door instead of just breaking in again, so she has the option of not talking to him if she doesn't want to hear about it. He leaves a message for his NZT-self saying that he's not going to be heartless if this is what happens, and all of us watching cheered.

Other than that, Boss Lady decided that he needs hand-to-hand training, which he applies his NZT to and picks up creepy fast, which tips of Casey that something is up with him. Casey is also secretly dating Rebecca, and wants to know what the deal is with Brian, though he hasn't yet asked if there's any feelings going on. Sand basically says that he thinks there are feelings going on, and that that's a problem, but Brian denies it. He figures out that Rebecca is seeing Casey and doesn't seem to care, which surprises her; she expected some fuss that he doesn't give. 

The episode was a little hard to watch; the best part about Brian is how much he cares, and how good his heart is, and this whole episode had him trying to be hard and uncaring, and that isn't him. And it went badly, which is terrible, but it convinced him to do what he thinks is right regardless of his own self-interest, which is good. What's in that file will either unite him and Rebecca as a team once and for all, or it'll divide them--at least until they don't give him his anti-side-effect shot next week and he gets sick and crazy. Between the two, they've got to decide whether they're going to be friends or just coworkers, right?

Favorite random cinematography this week: the thought bubbles and the claymation dioramas.


All in all, not a bad evening for TV!

 Flash
SHIELD
Limitless


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Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Geeky TV commentary - Flash 2.2, SHIELD 3.3, Limitless 1.4



The Flash airs at 8pm on CW Tuesday nights.*

This week was packed with fan service, and thank goodness for Twitter because half of it would have gone right over this viewer's head.

Last week, Jay Garrett, one of the many other Flashes in the comics, showed up, and this week he tells them that there's a whole lot of holes in reality because of that singularity (that they really should just call a wormhole already, because that's what it is). and he came through one from an alternate earth. Worse, there's a dude named Zoom who wants to be the only speedster in any reality. Why? Who knows. No one knows who he is or whether he knows anything about the speedforce that everyone else doesn't know.

Barry is acting like a tool half the episode, and locks Jay up in the cells that totally didn't do any good last year, and still don't make sense as somewhere to put actual living people indefinitely, but what evs. It's understandable that he'd not trust people who come from other times / dimensions offering to teach him things after Welles, but he's being a jerk about it and Iris totally calls him out on it, and eventually, after Zoom's latest henchman Totally Not Sandman Because This Is DC proves hard to catch. Jay knows who he is and how to stop him--channel the speedforce into lightning you can throw, turning all his sand to glass--but Jay can't do it himself because he's lost most of his power inexplicably during the transfer between dimensions, even though Zoom and Sand Demon didn't.

Barry is better after he admits that he is upset that he trusted Welles so much and then was betrayed so badly, and at the end, he was more himself...though he did totally shatter that guy to death, and he wouldn't have killed people before, if he could help it, and would have felt bad about it if he did. It's alarming for the character, and it's souring for the tone of the show, because the main difference between Flash and Arrow was that Barry was always so sunny and optimistic, so his stories came out more positive and uplifting. Killing all the bad guys is not uplifting.

Meanwhile, Cisco is figuring out how to use these visions he's having now, but he's totally flipping out about them, and tells Stein (who is great) when he asks, but then says not to say anything. He's surrounded by literally the only and best people in the world to help him about it, but he's convinced that because Welles took credit for it, it'll definitely turn out to be evil. Which is dumb, because Cisco is a perfect puppy and Welles is not the boss of him.

Joe was wonderful, as always, and there's a new young cop named Patty who really wants to join his team and the fact that the team doesn't exist anymore doesn't stop her because their very first metahuman threat killed her dad and she wants to stop them...and then she gets captured, tied up, doesn't even try to get herself free and kick ass (and then there's a bomb and she can't), and has to be rescued. So disappointing, writers. On the other hand, she's snappy and cheerful and can nerd out with Barry about nerdy things, and comes straight from the comics.

Speaking of nerding, Caitlyn was thrilled to death to find out that this pretty new speedster is also a scientist as well as a hero, and she and him totally made googly eyes at each other all episode. And Cisco and Stein are probably the cutest science bros in ages.

And then Stein passes out! Dun dun DUN!

Overall, the Jay Garrett storyline was sort of meh, since he doesn't really get to do all that much other than explain what the plot is doing, but it was a fun episode, and if we're lucky, he'll come back and we can see him again. There's 52** rifts in spacetime because of that not-a-singularity-it's-a-wormhole, and that means we could, conciveably, have up to 52 speedsters crossing through the story, and that would be some kind of wonderful. They went from one earth to potentially 52 earths in one computer scan, and it pushed the world of the show into a whole other level that could be so cool--and should really help big time with Legends of Tomorrow having at least one dead person in the cast.

Now if they can just make Patty as strong in the field as she is in conversations, everything will be golden.


SHIELD airs at 9pm on ABC Monday nights.

 The main story is that Lincoln is on the run from that alphabet soup that's now being sent after "alien threats" even though they're not alien so much as they're actually humans who were altered by aliens against their will, and he's doing a really bad job of proving he's not a killer and a public danger. He's throwing lightning around, he's scaring people, he's refusing help when Daisy offers it. Eventually, he gives his only friend a heart attack, which should have been more moving than it was, but we literally didn't know anything about the guy, and he turned on him really quickly, so how good a friend could be be? After that, he calls Daisy, and accepts her help.

Which leads to a sweet scene where she reminds him that he's good as he's beating himself up over his friend's death, and then they kiss, and the fact that he's not Ward makes that okay. Mac heard it all, and decides to be a good partner and doesn't blab. Anyway, she gets him to agree to go to SHIELD for protection, but not to join them, and he's about to go with when the alphabet soupers who all look the same and none of which have names or personalities show up.

See, Coulson has been meeting with their leadress to talk about whether or not they're going to keep being antagonists. He tries to convince him they're going about it all wrong, and that they're only causing people on both sides of the equation to panic. She says they need to see that someone is doing something about all these new powers, and that no one even knows that SHIELD exists. She wants proof of his good will, and shows that she knows about Daisy, so basically it's Linc or it's Daisy, and of course Coulson decides to save her. None of that matters, though, because Lincoln isn't going for that and escapes, so she says she'll take Daisy.

Coulson trades himself for her instead. Sort of. He and SHIELD are now their consultants about how to deal with the terragen problem, and hopefully, for once, that won't go off the deep end and bite him in the tush like every other sudden choice he's made to save Daisy since the beginning. I really hope she winds up being, like, the queen of the Inhumans or something, to justify all the weird plot choices built around her, because I love her and I love Coulson, but damned if the story doesn't love to convolute between them.

And while this is happening, Hunter and May are slumming it in the underworld fight clubs trying to get into Hydra so they can take it down before it becomes a thing again. It was all very nice and brutal watching Hunter prove he can "take a punch" and all, and probably the bloodiest thing ever on this show, but it doesn't make much sense. Ward was going on and on last week and the week before about how he wants to build a better Hydra of the best of the best, and then he recruits the son of the old leader like it's a flipping monarchy he wasn't already in charge of, and now he's getting the thuggiest of the thugs? How is that going to build anything but another brute force army to mess everything up AGAIN, this time by not being subtle enough while somehow still being too convoluted? Ward really needed to be either a hero or a villain, since selling him in the space in between was handled poorly and he was not nearly roguish enough to make up for all the terrible things he did and lied about, but making him a villain that makes no sense is not going to fix the problem of what's been done with him.

But on the other hand, we have Fitz and Simmons being perfect. She's back, but she's barely holding it together. Everything startles her, noises are too loud, lights are too bright, she can't handle too many things happening around her at once. Fitz holds her hand and leads her from room to room, and she sleeps a lot. He's so gentle about her! He's not treating her like she's breakable, but he's not pushing her or asking anything of her. He's terribly worried about how the things that defined her before barely register now, but he's willing to do whatever he can to help her find her way back. But she's sick and she's unbalanced, and it's so sad.

He finally takes her out for that date he's had the restaurant hold for months, and he's rented out the whole place so that there's not too much noise or light or movement, and for a minute it seems like it'll work--until trying to decide what to get off the menu overwhems her and she finally cries about it all.

But when she gets back to the lab, Bobbi finds her messing with the portal-gravel, and all she says is "I have to go back"--with no context like "because I can't handle it here" or "because I left something important there" or "because there's something there that we need" or anything like that.

I really hope it's not the first one.


Limitless airs at 10pm on CBS Tuesday nights.

Another fun tangle of stories that Brian unravels in unusual ways!

Since he broke up with his lady, Brian's been turning hooking up into a science with NZT, and finds it bores him and makes him feel worse, which is good, because that's gross and it's against his usual sweetness. In a better attempt to distract himself, he's been taking online to several scientists and thinkers, and helping their research with his NZT-brain. One of them is a kooky old dude named Arthur, who he helps breed a rat that seems to be functionally immortal.

Arthur turns out to be the old partner of the guy who founded the biggest medical science firm around, and when that ex partner billionaire shows up dead and the mouse goes missing, it looks like Arthur did it, and Brian has to prove that it wasn't him. There's all sorts of capers with breaking into the research facility (and not finding the mouse), and hacking secret emails, and figuring out that the billionaire's will was never filed with his "I'm giving it all to charity" changes, and the guy who should have done that was making side deals with the guy's unsavory kids. So Arthur is off the hook, and he can continue his research with the unaging mouse--that will hopefully have something to do with how Brian gets out from under the threats people keep layering on him.

Because, see, Mr Sands, his new boss, wants him to steal every bit of NZT research his boss has, just when they've decided to trust him enough to give him his first classified case--someone who is stealing secret government tech and sending the stats out by marking up milk cartons in a code that people on the other end can decipher. Most of that case is off to the side, with Rebecca and Boyle handling that while Brian is supposed to be researching and is actually saving his friend and committing treason.

Because he tries to not steal anything. He fakes a bunch of files and gives them that--and then his dad suddenly gets a deadly virus that can make his body reject his new organs. And if he doesn't get the real files, he'll not get his anti-side-effects shot, and he'll die. So he steals them. And then he decides to read them and get to know everything he can about the NZT before he's forced to disappear or get arrested. 

In the file, he finds that Rebecca's dad was identified as a dealer, not a user, which neither he nor she knew. She's going to a posthumous art show of her dad's paintings, and finds a huge portrait of her that she didn't know he'd painted. They both found revelations about this guy tonight.

Despite the cases being separate for most of the episode, there was still the stuff that makes the episodes really fun to watch--the diagrams and overlays as he figures things out, the literal talking-to-yourself scenes, and the great lighting and filming differences between on and off the drug, and Mike and Ike. Brian is starting to crack under the strain, which is upsetting, because it makes him just the slightest bit meaner in his snark and his humor, and that's sad to see. He's still a goof, but he's not able to have as much fun being and doing and existing as this genius, and it's forcing him to compromise his morals and taking away his agency. Hopefully that'll go away soon, though, because the preview of "this season on Limitless" that does not say "next week"*** shows him getting the order to kill Rebecca, and he can't do that.

This episode, she placed herself firmly on his side. She said "as long as you're here when I need you and you don't hurt anyone, I've got your back", and she followed through by actually backing him up when he gets trapped in the research lab and has to get out quickly. She also talks him through his issues, which is great, because it makes it so that even though he can learn quickly and make cognitive leaps, there's still a purpose for the other people on the team--because he kind of lacks common sense, even when he's all souped up. And he was right last week, she's really the only one he can talk to. 

One more reason why he can't kill her to get his anti-drug drug later. And why she'll probably be able to talk him down and find a solution, because he'll necessarily be off the drug by then, and he'll need her more than ever. In general, it's great that the show doesn't sideline the others or make them look dumb--they don't have to be idiots for him to be smart, and they can still function as a team and as a group of human beings even when he has to trick them to do his thing, and especially when he's the smartest person in the room, but the least experienced.

And this show is starting to really make me worry about poor manipulated Brian, who only wants to help people, to save his dad, and to have a purpose where people like him and he can make a difference.





NOTES:
*And is followed by iZombie, which I still haven't managed to get watched! I miss it so much!
**Like the New 52, I'm assuming.
***Are we really going to rerun already, ABC? Really?
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Monday, April 27, 2015

@pirategirljack livetweet roundup Week 17 2015


MONDAY 4-20-15

You guys, that finale had ALL THE FEELS. Like, we all knew Walter was going to be okay, what with him being the main character, and, like, a real person who is alive, but what we didn't know was how or will it be  now or will we have to wait through an endless cliffhanger? We didn't have to wait--thank God--but also, we didn't have to deal with a cliffhanger after that previous one! I approve of seasons NOT ending on cliffhangers!

Also, being someone who watches TV shows for their emotional and character content more than for their "core episodes", I really liked this finale. The story was as simple as could be--Walter was on a cliff and had to not die with his team's help. But the genius (see what I did there) was in how the storylines set up by the last few episodes were resolved by the characters and, further, by them working together. Look:
  • Toby and Happy have been sort of tense around each other; fixed by them leading the team to save Walter, as evidenced by the two of them together watching Ralph so Paige could stay with Walter in the hospital.
  • Cabe was off the team and off Homeland; solved by him coming in and helping anyway, and being the literal last hope of the rescue effort. Walter even came to his senses about his sense of betrayal and they had a whole moment of apologies.
  • Sly got his RC bird back, and proved yet again that he's underappreciated.
  • Paige followed through with her decision to take Ralph somewhere safe--but realized that it was a bad decision the second she saw Walter on that news report and didn't even question the need to go back, to be there, to rejoin the team, Ralph and all. And at the end, there was the payoff of Ralph actually connecting with her and thanking her very sweetly for coming back.
  • And there was Walter. He admitted he was emotional and that he didn't know what to do with it. He made up with Cabe. He gave every one of them a special message, reminding them of his favorite memories of each. He almost confessed his feelings for Paige (though since it's a first season they couldn't allow that, could they?? (I'm looking at you, 12 Monkeys, too)). 
  • And at the very end, Paige confessed her feelings first, and it was very sweet.
All in all, exactly what a finale should be--emotionally complex, very effecting, and about these people we're watching the show for, not about the plots. Take a hint, NCISLA, who are in the same world but keep ending on crazy cliffhangers that wind up meaning nothing as soon as we come back.



This show. Like, I like this show, and I watch it every week, but, like, I don't really remember all that much that happens week-to-week? I don't know why it hasn't really captured me, but it definitely takes up less space in my head than any number of other shows I watch.

Stuff I don't care about:
  • 50 Shades of Serial Killer, unless Barbara decides to go full villain because of him.
  • Police politics. Like, at all.
  • Mob politics. At all.
  • How Fish's story has basically been pushed off to the side and is a totally different show about Morloks.
What I do care about:
  • Penguin, and how he can't ever get a break.
  • Nygma, and how he just wants to be loved and totally can't manage that. 
  • Harvey Bullock and whether he's eating or punching something.
  • Bruce and Alfred being cross-generational buds.
  • Whether or not everyone is leaving Morena Baccarin alone, because I swear, if they lay a finger on her...!
  • Cat and Ivy squatting in Barbara's apartment.
So, basically, all the plot stuff bores me, but the character stuff delights me. So more character, please! I almost died of cute when Cat and Bruce went to that party, and everyone was all "Aww, baby CEO brought a date!" while the two of them totally scammed that guy to pick his pocket and copy his key. Brilliant. That's what I want.

Maybe next season we can have a whole episode that is just Penguin, Nygma, Harvey and the kids. I don't know how, but that'd be golden.



This felt like a set-up episode. Like, stuff happened but nothing was resolved. No one really found much in the way of answers, but things started moving toward a finale that will bring together NCIS and LAPD and the internal investigations and Callen's Mysterious Past and probably some terrorists, since that's the sort of baddies this show fights. It wasn't bad, and there was some cute stuff in between, but it was definitely a glide episode--barely a thing, just a way to get from one status quo to the next.


StarTalk is on TV! And it's basically the same thing as the StarTalk podcast that I love, except that now you can see their faces and hand gestures. I wish it was longer than an hour--these convos went FAST because they had to hit their points while also staying within the TV shape, and I would have liked to see more of the interview with George Takei, and heard more of them nerding about various shows and the tech that could be extrapolated off them. Maybe there'll be extras up on the website or in whatever episode of the podcast is closest--just more of this, is what I want.

It was a little bumpy at the beginning, but it evened out before the first break when everyone--who was non-white and included a lady, b-t-dubs--settled into their topics, the format, and their particular ideas of what it all meant. I loved it.

Ideas of the week: 
  • Scifi doesn't predict the future, it sets a bar far out there for us to achieve and then surpass ourselves.
  • Science fiction needs to be more optimistic to foster a general optimism that the world can be fixed, that things can be discovered, etc. Not that we're doomed to fail and die.

I didn't live-tweet this show, and I watched it on Sunday night after DVRing it on Monday before, but it's so neat. I love how Brian Unger hosts a history-info show, all conversational and loose and charming and informative. Go see it.


TUESDAY 4-21-15

Barry went to Central City (for pizza, like you do) and there was a Ferris Air billboard! Does that mean we'll get Green Lantern and all that alien crazy spillover? I hope so. DC is as big a creation as Marvel, and I'd love if at least one show on TV manages to keep that feeling of bigness. Because Shield is doing a piss poor job of it.

There was a double! Who could look like any of them now, and I'm sure that won't come back to haunt us ever (insert sarcasm emoji here). But not-Barry trying to be all suave was great, and Caitlyn's face when he kissed her was pretty awesome, all WTF-eyebrows...before she sort of gave in, creating future complications...

Iris is still in the dark about everything except that Eddie has been working with the Flash. I guess that's a start? It's become one of my Common Gripes--all these shows where they aren't telling the one woman in the cast because of whatever dumb excuse when literally every other main character knows. It's condescending and it's stupid and it makes things hard to believe after a point--that Arrow just passed this season with Thea.

And they found the Secret Welles Room!


Tear my freaking heart out, why don'cha, Forever??? Like, it was bad when it seemed like the first body buried under the roses was Abigail; and then at the end? It was so much worse. She died after deciding that she'd been away too long and didn't want to give up her family. She died because of Adam. She died because she was protecting Henry and Abe! ALL THE FEELS when I hadn't even gotten over Scorpion's feels yet.

And in between that, we got Jo and Henry being a good team again, and Henry assuring Jo that things were still good between them, and PILES of wonderful Henry-Abe father-son stuff. 

Next week is the finale, and it looks like Jo will finally find out, and I hope that totally backfires on Adam since we hear him holding that over Henry's head as a threat--defuse it by having her already figure it out, and Henry telling her anyway, or her witnessing it happen, and then Adam being all "well damn, I got nothing". 

But mostly TELL HER OR LET HER FIGURE IT OUT, because of Common Gripe.


Still not sure where this story is going. Like, Ultron comes out soon, so I'm still hoping for some Real And Actual Connection, but I'm also trying to hold back hoping for too much. The Thor tie in what a joke, and the world on this show has become so muddy--all small and isolated and so hemmed in with mistrust that I don't even give a flip about two Shields, I just want Coulson to have his whole team back together and to go handle things. Screw the rest of this noise.

The best part of the episode was that scene in the hallway where he saw Skye and she saw him and they said each other's names and went to run into each other's arms--and then Gordon showed up and took her back, and Cal jumped on the Bamf wagon. If he hadn't done that, I'd be super annoyed at the reunion-blocking, but since he did, it's all complex and interesting, so I forgive it a little. 

Really, the whole ep was kind of sweet for Cal. He was trying so hard to be normal, to show his daughter the world he wanted to give her, and all his fav shops were closed and his building was a shambles, and then Hydra shows up again and is still indistinguishable from Shield because we really need to have three factions that all look the same and use the same tactics (insert eyeroll of epic proportions). And how Skye is starting to sort of understand him, and doesn't want him hurt. It was sweet. He's still a monster, but he's more understandable now, and not the worst thing ever.

Still don't like her mom. She's so calm and frosty that I don't trust her to not be a total jackass when it comes right down to it. Not sure about Lincoln who was all "I'm our friend" but was also all "I'm just gonna spy on you" and also "I know about things I'm not saying". Basically, I just want Skye to get back to Shield and stop being off on some other show being not-a-shield-agent when she spent so much time earning that badge. And I want her to be friends with Reina.


Thank god Major isn't dead. I don't want him and Liv to get back together the way things are now, because 1) he's her past and she's literally a different person now, and 2) pre-existing love is dull when shows exist to show us how people fall in love. But he still has a lot of story to handle and I want him to have the chance to handle it, and to find out for himself what's going on in his weird city.

Liv, meanwhile, was being an agoraphobic internet troll and it was sort of amazing. How she was simultaneously dismissive and knew all the codes and sites and everything? How she kept slamming caffeine and cheesy-poofs? Wonderful. 

And I loved her and King Arthur together. They have a good chemistry, and he's a good resource for her--someone who has been going through the same things as her, who can understand what no one else can, not even Ravi, who tries. Even though I adore Ravi.

More Babineaux, though, okay? He keeps getting sort of squeezed out by all these other new characters. I did LOVE how he called her his partner and didn't even bat an eye at her being half-drunk on meds, and then too scared to leave her house so he just turned the laptop to face the suspect without question. I just love it all.


WEDNESDAY 4-22-15

Olicity Did the Done! And it was a very well-handled scene, coming right after Felicity faced down the semi-immortal head of the world's biggest assassins union, and right before she drugged Ollie's stubborn ass to save his life. It was AMAZING, that whole sequence of scenes. Their mutual love was all over them--how they locked eyes and stayed that way, how there was no more holding back or hesitation, how sweet they were after. How he looked like he was being given the best gift in the world. How she ran her hands over his scars. 

Oh my god.

Unfortunately, those were the only good scenes in this episode because ugh, this story. Basically they went all the way to Nanda Parbat again, and really only managed to revive Thea from the mortal wounds Ra's gave her to get them to go to Nanda Parbat, to make them do what they then did. Ugh, shitty shitty shitty, and Thea still gets the worst of it, because first she's killed in service of this mess, and then she's brought back in a way that will basically guarantee that she's crazy or awful or something else stupid.

But we got Olicity without any hemming and hawing!


THURSDAY 4-23-15

This show. I love it, but I still feel like it's sort of coasting on its own goodness. Still, I want to come back and see these people every week. 

Bones found out she was pregnant again! We've all known anyway, and she's showing super-much, so no one should be surprised, but they're pretending her six months is like three months, so what ever. Yay Bones Baby #2! Booth thinks its a boy. I'm wondering if Angela and Hodgins are going to have another baby, too, or Cam or someone. Ooh, Cam having a baby when Mr Viziri is in unknown circumstances might make for some super-sad drama, and they seem to drop all the sad plots on her, so...

Also! Hodgins invents a thing that I'm pretty sure will bring back his fortune, which is funny because we were just wondering, before the episode started, if they were ever going to deal with all that money and influence he lost ages ago.


Backstrom continues to be just a little different from all the other cop-solves-crimes or bad-person-does-good shows. He himself is still awful, but he's being forced to realize why he's awful and at least start to deal with it, and the interaction between him and Valentine is almost always the best part of any episode. The fact that he's a cop but sort of shady, and Val is a criminal but sort of not shady enough is really fun to watch, too. I heard that this show is on the bubble, as they say, and I hope Fox takes a chance on it (ahahahahaa, as if Fox ever does ever), because it's finding its legs and they're good ones--and Thomas Dekker needs a show that doesn't get cancelled too soon; he's good at these weird and complex characters with strange goals and morals.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team continues to be awesome, and the way they just...don't listen to the bad stuff from Backstrom is like the air I breathe. He gets meaner when he's frustrated or scared or upset, and they just act more and more like he's a normal human being, and it is hilarious--but it's probably also what he needs: a whole functioning team of people who don't make a big deal about how awful he is has got to make him feel more normal and functional, too, right?


Best part of the whole episode: Sherlock firing Alfredo as his sponsor so that he can be his friend without conflict of interest, and then looking all sorts of lemon-faced about the reality of having ANOTHER friend to deal with who immediately goes all sass-mouth about the whole thing. It's amazing that he has friends now, not just acquaintances and people he calls on when he needs help with something, and I hope whoever is his new sponsor next season is similarly just absorbed into this group of people that Sherlock likes and values. But I hope that it doesn't sideline his interactions with Joan even more; she's holding herself / her story is holding her somewhere intentionally off to the side, and the only hope I have is that Holmes keeps trying to bring her back in. Which I love. He's so awkward and strange when he's dealing with feelings, and she's so isolated. I'm waiting for a scene where she's had enough and breaks down and he's the one she turns to because a) that'll be so good for the characters, and b) Holmes trying to be a good shoulder to cry on would be amazingly strange, and I want to see how he works it out. I'm also trying not to want it too hard or to count on it too much because this is a CBS show in the classic CBS mold, where emotional matters are dealt with excruciatingly slowly. Le sigh.

Meanwhile, the team is developing nicely, and Bell is getting more screentime, and Gregson is being a good papa bear, and I'm loving it.


FRIDAY 4-24-15

New this week! I'm still a little unsure about this show. Like, there's a lot of good story-potential, and I like the set up of people having to stop the apocalypse (my other current favorite genre right now, I guess), but it's firmly in the Biblical range of plotlines and the fact that one of the characters is a TV preacher is already making it a little too preachy for me. Add that to the fact that one of the Chosen is an atheist, and I just feel like this whole show is going to boil down to Making The Atheist Believe, and I'm not here for that. It's not a 700 Club special episode, and I don't want all that dogma flopping around on my screen.

On the other hand, they all have neat powers and abilities, they keep winding up in the same places, and two of the characters are actual trained scientists, which could be cool. As soon as that other one gets back with the group, it should lighten up, too--two episodes in, and the show is really taking itself seriously, which gives it a sort of Rosewell feel that puts me off a little. CW is King of the Melodrama, but the best ones--Supernatural, especially--temper it with snark and wisecracking and the occasional totally bonkers episode to keep it from being opressive, and I'm waiting for The Messengers to find that balance. I know that they're dealing with Heavy Issues, but they're almost the same issues as Sleepy Hollow, which probably has a similar audience, and SH always has humor to keep it real. Even in the depths of that terrible middle of last season, it does.

So I like The Messengers, but I need to see where this story arc is going, because if it stays vaguely heavy handed, it's going to lose me, and the people who make the show have been so nice on Twitter that it would be sad to stop caring. On the other hand, if it goes instead to the science of the apocalypse, and the issues of crime and race, and has the characters seeking out reasons to love the world and want to save it instead of just doing it because they have to, that'd be cool. Super cool. And if they all sort of remember that things are sometimes funny even in the worst times.


SATURDAY 4-25-15


I had a rough weekend this week and it's now Monday and I haven't yet seen Outlander OR Orphan Black, so I'll catch up with them and talk about them on next week's post.


SUNDAY 4-26-15
And I have yet to pick up a new Sunday show.


What did you guys think about this week's TV? Is there anything I'm not watching that I need to be?

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