Okay, so here's my problem with The Walking Dead...

So, I watched tonight's episode, I watched Talking Dead to work through it, I ate half a pint of icecream, and now I think I can put into words what my biggest problem with this show is.

I've been watching this show a long time. I'm aware that they're going to kill people. But that's also the problem. See, one of the major reasons I gave up on Game of Thrones was that it didn't matter who you loved, they were going to die, and by the second or so season, I just found it very hard to even care--and if you don't care, what's the point of watching.

The Walking Dead has been on for six years now, and my original favs are few and far between, and they aren't really being replaced, lately, by people who are as cool, as likable, or as interesting as the ones they're killing. And every time there's an episode like this one, it brings it up again: if they're just going to kill everyone, why do I bother investing? They feel like they're killing them off more quickly in the second half of last season and into this one, so if I keep investing, it's a form of self torture.

And that brings up a related issue that I've talked about before: if there's no hope ever, if nothing they do gets them anywhere, if there's no chance of setting up a new sort of life, and if every single other community they meet is made of psychopaths and cannibals, what is even the point? What's the point of their struggle and all the deaths and losses they suffer and survive? What's the point of them fighting so hard to establish something useful and maintain any humanity and civilization at all? And, most importantly, what's the point of tuning in? If they're all just going to die anyway, every new baddie is going to be worse and more perverse than the last, and nothing is ever going to get better, then there isn't a point.

If that's all I have to look forward to, as a fan of this show for more than half a decade now, I'm just going to call it quits.

I don't want to do that. I want to watch a show where I care about the characters and they have some chance of doing something that matters and continues and living long enough to enjoy that it matters. I don't want to watch a show where the nature of the show makes it impossible to keep caring. I also don't want to watch a show where the new characters are too idiotic or weak or indecisive or bland to care about.

Will The Walking Dead manage to avoid that hole? I don't know. In this moment, I'm close to calling quits. I was close after Beth, too, and it took a month to convince me otherwise. If anything happens to Rick, Daryl, Carol, or Michonne? On top of all the losses I've already taken? I don't know if it can. Every time it happens, no matter how artistically or how meaningfully, that thread tying me to the show frays a little more, and there's eventually going to be a point where the ends are too frayed to tie together again.

Guys, I'm very upset now.

What did you think? Can you talk me out of this? Do you have a point of view I didn't consider? Share in the comments.

Geeky TV commentary - Fear the Walking Dead season 1 finale

Fear the Walking Dead aired at 9pm on AMC Sunday nights until this week; it'll be replaced by The Walking Dead starting next week.

From a slow start with a dumb name, how far have we gone with Fear the Walking Dead?

This week, everyone finally really gets their shit together and leaves the neighborhood...though they do it in a distressingly sociopathic way that no one really questions all that much, and that's worrying. Daniel opens up that stadium and releases, what, ten thousand dead sports fans? Twenty thousand? It effectively turned the show from Zero Zombies Here to All The Zombies Here, and it got them through the soldier barricade before the soldiers could enact whatever vague clean-up plan they had, but it also will have swamped their homes, and no one fought the idea of not telling the neighbors. That's hateful. They were all "they did nothing" about the soldiers taking people in the night, but not one of the main characters ever shared all of their knowledge and built a feasible idea of what was actually going on. Not with each other, and certainly not with their neighbors, who were literally as scared and confused as they were, and were 100% in the same situation.

It makes it very hard to care about people who don't care about anyone else.

But they get out. And they head to the Facility to save their family members that were taken, so at least there's that. Doctor whats-her-face calls for an evac before the cleanup, but because of the stadium horde, there's delays that get people killed and cause hysteria, and she loses hope and takes out a lot of the patients. Travis and the adults break in the side door and make it to the holding pens, where they free as many of those people as they can...even though three minutes ago, they let all their neighbors die in ignorance. Nick and Strand make their move before that when the soldiers and doctors are distracted, so that they're stuck like idiots in a closed hall full of biters when Team Travis arrives. The same Team Travis that left everything they own in the care of Alicia and Chris who might one day be cool fighters but now have no training and know weapons, so that when some AWOL soldiers show up and harass them and threaten Alicia's virtue, they have to give up one of the cars--with all their stuff and supplies in it. Liza, meanwhile, runs around staring at the destruction, and somehow manages to show up at exactly the same time as everyone else so that they can all be reunited conveniently without having to look for each other, and uses her pass card to get them through the building and back to the cars. Where Soldier Andy pops up out of nowhere, shoots Ofelia, and gets his face beat in my Travis.

Thank god Strand has a plan, because these people are a mess.

They take bizarrely empty roads through a dark and burning LA (and when was the last time there were ever empty roads in LA?), to the beach, where Strand has a huge modern mansion with a generator and is "prepared for this", whatever that means. He's also got a yacht off the beach, and his plan is to get there. Since these guys helped him out and kept him alive, they can come with him.

But nothing is ever that easy. Liza, somehow, when we weren't looking, was bitten on her hip but doesn't have any other injuries and wasn't ever pulled down and eaten, but she knows what that means. She wants Maddie to take care of her, because of their pact to not let Travis do it to either of them--and then they both just throw that out the window by not protesting at all when Travis takes the gun and does it.

So the season ends with, out of that whole group, two women dead, one woman injured and trying not to die of an ordinary infection to rise from an extraordinary one, and and extra man. Which is annoying.

These characters spent a whole season being inconsistent and not sharing what little information they have at all, and then are surprised when people get killed or turn on them. It's one thing to argue that they don't know anything about a zombie apocalypse; it's something else to write off that they're all bad friends, selfish jerks, unanimously bad at asking the right questions or sharing what little info they have, and then asking us to care for them. As said above, it's very hard to care for people who only care about themselves and can't even keep that straight. So far, Strand, after his first episode, is the most interesting, and he makes the others more interesting just by interacting with them. The lesson of that seems to be, if you're going to be self-interested and selfishly murderous, at least commit to it and do it with style. Don't act like there's anything else there.

On the other hand, the city, when we get to see it, is a neat setting; there should be piles of other people around, fighting and surviving, and maybe some of them will be more sympathetic, this close to the collapse, where people should still have humanity and be trying to start over. It's way too early for all this back-stabbing and sociopathy.

The dry hot desert should make for some neat, dried-up zombies, the water might make for some gross drowned ones out there in the kelp, and the idea of having the first "road" season actually be on the water like some weird Waterworld analog could be cool. And maybe getting them out and active instead of penned in by someone else we don't see enough to really know what they're even doing will take care of the passivity of these characters--they can't rely on the soldiers to keep them safe anymore, and if any of those soldiers survived, they're gonna be ticked and know who to blame for what happened. Or any of their neighbors, for that matter.

It was not a terrible first season. It was just a frustratingly inconsistent one, It was being sold to us as a realistic look at the fear and trauma of the world collapsing, but inside of that fear and trauma, they weren't doing all that much to shore up their defenses by, say, teaching their kids what they needed to do to survive? Or even paying all that much attention to where their kids even were? They talked a lot about pacts and sticking together, and then never did anything you'd need to keep those pacts--like, sticking together or keeping their pacts. Are we supposed to really believe that not a single one of them would have wanted to learn how to fight? That they wouldn't have asked each other specifically what they saw and compared notes in any of those nine days of downtime? That none of them would have talked to someone outside the group and figured out what they saw? That no one would have thought about where to get food and water? They did a good job of worrying about medicine, and being resourceful about it, but other than that, not even the ones who were established as once having to start with nothing did much about supplies.

The thing that rankled most, however, was that the people making and pushing the show seemed to equate "these people don't know what's happening" with "the viewer doesn't know what's happening"--which isn't true. We've all watched half a decade of the other show, we've seen much worse than this, and it's frustrating and dull to have the focus on the show so firmly on the level of "none of that has happened yet" when we know it will.

It's a storytelling choice that makes the show as a whole look like it's pulling punches; there's all sorts of ways they could have shown us stuff that the characters don't know--through the soldiers, through barely-received radio or walkie-talkie messages (more than just that one good scene), through people from outside washing up at the gates and asking for help, through any of the characters from other parts of the city that disappeared and were never seen again--and instead, we were given this narrow, closed-off, mostly-threat-free and basically safe sliver while all the interesting stuff happened somewhere else. It was a set up that was not effectively used.

What happened to Tobias and the implied bad life he had? How would those people act as everything fell apart? What happened to any of the students and their families for that matter, or any of the other teachers?

How many of the soldiers were as scared and freaked out as the people, and how many were freakishly happy to run around being gun-toting jerks? All we saw was a uniformity of gun-toting jerk. And how many of them saw what was going on in other parts of the city and had different views about how it was being handled?

Why are all the people we're following basically of the same class, in a city where there's all sorts of classes, races, lifestyles, and a history of falling apart along those lines when things get rough? We saw a riot early on, but all the people involved were very much faceless and none of them had much to do with the story.

Maybe next season will take better advantage of the opportunities this season fumbled. There's a hint of that with the set up of the boat, and Nick saying that he's bascally been living his own apocalypse since he became a drug addict; maybe there will be other rich people trying to do something about the end, and other drug addicts applying their street-learned skills to survive. Maybe there will be poor neighborhoods held together by their shared goals, or mobsters holding things together with the force the cops and soldiers couldn't give them, or branches of the military that aren't just gross caricatures and who are still trying to keep people safe instead of preying on them across the board. Maybe there will be survivalists up in the hills or out in the country who already know how to handle collapses because they've actually prepared for this. It's California. There should be all sorts of interesting and strange and varied people to encounter, now that everyone is all mixed up together!

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Geeky TV commentary - Fear the Walking Dead 1.5

Fear the Walking Dead airs at 9pm on AMC Sunday nights until next week (the season finale) and then will be replaced by The Walking Dead.

Do you guys remember when Flash Forward was on and their main problem wasn't the concept or the characters, but that they kept looking at and focusing on the ones that had very little going on while people off screen kept having much more interesting stuff happen to them? That's what I kept thinking of as this episode unfurled.

See, Ofelia's soldier boyfriend was captured and was being tortured by her father to get the information needed to save her mother. Did we get to focus on Ofelia and what that must be like? No, we focused on Travis trying to talk to the soldier we already know is a raging a-hole and not likely to help them at all. Even when Travis is on his way with them to the Facility and gets stuck in the car while the soldiers get in a firefight, we were stuck with him. It was atmospheric how he could only see snippets of what was happening and could only hear people dying on the radio, but it wasn't story--not the way the slow-mo drive-by of the hospital the other episode was. It was a perfect chance to take us in with the soldiers and show us what's really going on outside the fence and with the military, but nothing really happened to anyone we know there.

Or we were with Alicia. Her mother went looking for her, found the soldier boyfriend in the basement, and promptly forgot that she had a daughter or a story of her own, and, from what we can see, basically sat at a table in another room while all that was happening. Meanwhile, Alicia and Chris went and busted up a rich person's abandoned house up the road.

Nick was in a cage, going through withdrawal again, with a guy who talked Doug The Neighbor into a breakdown and then turned around and saved Nick, but we only got two little scenes of that, and there's not much indication of what's going on with that except that the dude has a plan and thinks he needs Nick.

Griselda was off-screen, then unconscious in a cage with a missing leg, then feverish, then dead. Liza had to put her down so she wouldn't get up, and like barely a handful of moments were spent on that.

The focus was in all the wrong places. It's the second to last episode, and it feels like they're holding back, and that's annoying. Don't save your best stuff for the finale, show, give something good in every episode.

What we did learn this ep, though:

• Daniel is almost definitely a retired hitman, and definitely used to be a torturer
• Griselda knew about whatever he was and seems to have defied someone about it
• The doctors definitely know what's going on, but they apparently keep disappearing
• The soldiers had a plan to abandon everyone, and it goes into operation in the morning
• They're already leaving late at night when Alicia and Chris are heading home, and they don't so much as blink at two kids out after curfew
• There's a plant to "humanely dispose of..." something
• Daniel found a stadium PACKED with zoms that will almost definitely cause the first real havoc in the finale, if we're lucky
• Travis is STILL to soft-hearted to survive in the wild now, and can't stop seeing zombies as people and somehow it hasn't killed him yet
• This family was all manner of fragile before the end of the world or be so fractured and disjointed so quickly now

We already knew the soldiers were awful people. Except for that one, apparently, who looks like he's going to get as abandoned as the civilians there in the fence. It would be useful if he stayed with the group, but will he want to, after being tortured for his information when he was the only nice soldier we ever saw at all?

It feels almost like the characters are not characters so much as they're pawns being moved around by the plot. Maddie is a self-possessed and reasonable potential leader--except when she's not because that would get in the way. Alicia is the only one with a heart--except for when she's entirely gone. Chris is the activist--except when he's also gone, and busy whining and complaining instead of doing anything useful like he was one episode ago. The show as a whole seems to be drawing things out and pulling punches and looking in the wrong place. It's possible that this is intentional--that in the finale they'll all find out they are the ones focusing on the wrong things and looking in the wrong directions, and then the second season will be more focused because they are...

But if that's the plan, it's awfully risky. And it's very annoying to sit through. The parts that are good really just make it more annoying when the rest of it is so bland and contrived. Maybe this series would have done better as a four-episode, or three-episode intro, and then picked up again next season with more episodes after they get out of the Safe Zone and have to actually scavenge and fight and make choices and keep moving.

What did you guys think of this episode? Do you think the finale will change the context? Share in the comments, or come join me on Twitter!


Previous episodes of Fear the Walking Dead (still don't like the name):

• Episode 1.1
• Episode 1.2
• Episode 1.3
• Episode 1.4

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Geeky TV commentary - Fear the Walking Dead 1.3

Fear the Walking Dead airs at 9pm on Sunday nights on AMC.

Finally something is happening that actually moves the story!

Travis and co are in the babershop for all of, like, five minutes (though they mention at least two hours that they've been trying to wait out the rioting and hoping for the authorities to do something), and the shop nextdoor gets broken into and set on fire. They have to flee, and the whole "when we leave, we go separate directions" line that Daniel said all of a minute before they actually had to goes right out the window.

They dodge through the crazy crowds, where sometimes people are eating each other and the cops are doing almost nothing despite the riot gear. As always, riots are all chaos and destruction, and in this case, do almost no good and actually a lot of bad, since they're not getting supplies or rescuing people, they're just trashing their own neighborhood and making it easy for the zombies to get dinner.

Hopefully, Travis learned a lesson about the need to park closer. And then when they're almost out from under scaffolding in their way, the cops start hosing down the crowd, which knocks down the scaffold, which knocks down Griselda, and her foot gets crushed. It looked like someone stepped on her on the way down, too, so maybe she'll wind up being like the first lady on Independence Day and get got by the internal bleeding; we'll have to see how that goes.

So everyone gets into the pickup and heads to the hospital where the cops are shooting and shooting and shooting and there's no help to be had. They go back to Travis's house.

Meanwhile, Maddie and the kids have been trying to pretend it's normal--until their neighbor Peter eats their dog. They then break into another neighbor's house to get a gun Nick knows they have, and manage to leave the shells behind when Travis shows up and walks in on the zom; Maddie goes to warn Travis while Alicia goes back to get the shells and discovers that their neighbor Susan is turned and trying to get them.

Travis still wants to help people and it gets him nearly bit, until Daniel the mysteriously hard-edged barber takes Peter out with a shotgun shell to the face--which doesn't stop him, so then he tries again point-blank. Mess everywhere. Daniel wants to stay till morning, when his "cousin" will come get him, and Maddie wants to leave now, and they eventually settle on everyone waiting until morning because the grid is down and they don't know what's out there.

In the morning, they're all ready to go and leave the Salazars there, and then Maddie sees Patrick, the husband of their zombie neighbor Susan, and tries to save him--and he's the most heartbreaking one so far in three episodes of this show. He's so happy to be home, and then he sees his wife all dirty and crazy and looks so crushed, and he goes to hug her and she goes to eat him, and then the soldiers arrive and snipe her before she can get him and all he knows is that she's been shot.

Seriously, it was traumatizing.

So now they think everything's gonna be alright because it's daytime and there's soldiers and hummers and we all know that there's three more episodes and then a second season--and also that this is only the beginning of the End of the World, and their moment of hope is mostly just a mix of "um no" and "oh honey".

This was a much better episode than the others, finally! I still think it took too long to get here, where stuff happens that actually involves making plans and talking to each other and trying to make sense of things, but if the rest of the season is more like this and less like the slow beginning, we'll be okay.

There was also some really nice artistic sections here, which is great, because those scenes where the sound goes down and the movements slow give us a chance to process what we're seeing, and then it has much more impact. In this case, it was going past the hospital, which should be a safe place, and seeing what looked like Nick's old-man room mate lurching through the parking lot and taking rounds from at least six cops who apparently haven't talked to their comrades from last ep who knew to aim for the head. We also got to pause and listen to the radio without pausing the action, and learned that the National Guard has been called in and the area has declared a state of emergency, and that things are bad in more places than just here.

Probably the best character this episode was Daniel. He seems to know something about things like this--I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to have dealt with an outbreak back wherever he's from, but that's probably unlikely. It feels like he's being set up to be a retired hitman or something, and he doesn't want to get involved with things or to owe people because of whatever made him retire, but that he'll be invaluable to them when he does join up. It also seems that Griselda knows what's going on with him, and was maybe part of it (is that why she's so devout and penitent?), but that their daughter Ofelia doesn't know any of it.

Other things about this episode:

• Nick is once again the only voice of actual reason; he understands that they aren't their neighbors anymore AND that they're actually somehow animated dead people.
• Alicia wins points by going back for the shotgun shells when they need them and without being told, but then sort of loses them by being hysterical about her boyfriend--though, to be fair, literally no one told her what was going on even in a vague sense, and that's really unfair to her.
• Chris seems to have a crush on his step sister to go with the huge chip on his shoulder.
• The collapsed and bloody bouncy castle says so much more than all the screaming they've been doing about what's going on.
• The lights going out transformer by transformer as they drive along the highway on the way home was very well done--little by little, the world just disappears around them. Symbolism!
• Maddie gave most of the drugs she stole for Nick's come-down to Griselda for her smashed leg; how long before a) Nick does something crazy or gets sick again, or b) they have to amputate Griselda's leg to save the rest of her from gangrene-induced zombieness? 
• (the answer to a) is not long, since he almost immediately goes to break into a different neighbor's house, except a little girl sees him and he backs down)
• The zombie ATE THE DOG. How could he? How could they leave him there? Dogs are invaluable resources in the apocalypse! These guys are so bad at apocalypses, and they haven't yet thought to go find Tobias, who isn't entirely crap at them.
• Maddie might wind up being the one to watch out for. She went with a hammer to take care of Susan, and it looked like she actually would have done it if it weren't for Travis being too kind-hearted for the apocalypse and talking her out of it on the off-chance that it might be cured. Which led directly to that heart-wrenching scene with Patrick, so he really should have let her do it.
• There's also a hint of comradery, hopefully, between the ex and the girlfriend when the ex said that they need to stick together for the kids, and Maddie said if she turns, not to let Travis take her out.

All in all, it felt like the characters were settling into themselves and the plot was actually happening instead of just setting up. Which was a relief. This marks the half-way point of this short season, and it would have been criminal to spend the whole six episodes only setting things up, when that was so frustratingly punch-pulling. The pace was much smoother, the visual storytelling was more artistic and creative, and the sense that they were shorthanding things was much much less than it was before. Plus, everyone is starting to feel like more rounded, human people--though it's still concerning how little the main family communicates, especially since the Salazars are communicating just fine, so we know the writers know how to do it. If they make it a point that they don't think things out much and don't ever talk to each other about them, it'll be okay; if it's never a point, it's going to keep being annoying.

What did you guys think about this week's episode? Questions, comments, small cash gifts here, or come talk to me on Twitter!


Previous Episodes:

• Episode One
• Episode Two

@pirategirljack livetweets roundup for Wk 13 2015!

Hello Twitter-and-blog-friends! In case you missed it, here's what I had to say about ALL THE TV this week:

Monday 3-23-15

Gotham: Rerunnnnn

Scorpion: 1x19 "Young Hearts Spark Fire"

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Let's talk about: How Toby totally knows what's up with Walter and how Walter has no idea. This was a cute episode full of cuteness, and it both progressed Toby and Happy's relationship and offered the first real (teeny tiny) movement of Walter toward Paige--something more than longing looks when he thinks no one can see him. I'm pretty sure, though, that she basically thinks he either can't care, or won't care, and so she's holding herself back. She's smart enough to know that a relationship with an emotionally unavailable man is going to be disastrous, and she's also seen little in the way of actual declarations of intent. Though these last two or so eps have done better, I'm pretty sure she hasn't caught on yet.

Let's also talk about Sylvester! Sweet, scared Sylvester, who ran away from home young because his dad couldn't understand him, and who stepped up and saved the pilot this episode! He keeps getting the shittiest part of the cases, but he has done so well!

NCIS:LA: 6x18 "Fighting Shadows"

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Lets talk about: Really, all I ever want to talk about on this show is Kensi and Deeks, and thankfully, we got lots of them today! Being cute at the park. Being scared but unified. Being sweet. Pulling together when they need to be together. And Hetty doing her best to protect them! Which, really, she should do since she basically is the one who made sure they got together.

Castle: 7x18 "At Close Range"

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Let's talk about: Ryan! And how it took him so long to get a him-centric episode! Did you know he had a sister? I only barely remember anything about a brother-in-law, Ryan gets so little screentime to himself. And I'm SO GLAD that he got to be serious, and a good cop, and basically take the lead on this case. And I'm glad he's still alive, because the more behind-the-scenes stuff we get on underused characters, the more nervous I get!

*Disclosure: I watched this on Thursday, off the DVR because Monday and Tuesday are too busy.

Tuesday 3-24-15

The Flash: 1x16 "Rogue Time"

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Let's talk about: How Barry is an idiot. Like, last episode was so great, and then this episode, he basically messes everything up while somehow managing to avoid the worst stuff that happened last time. I'm deliriously glad that Cisco doesn't have his heart out, but instead that reporter guy that I was just starting to like as a mentor for Iris got it. And Cisco got backstory and family-not-understanding and still had to cry and make unfair choices. So now Captain Cold knows who Barry is. I'm sure that's not at all going to cause a million problems.

Other things of note:

• Central City has the worse mobsters ever
• Cold delivers lines like he's in Dick Tracy
• Even knowing the future can't help Barry be less of a twelve year old around girls
• Cold has a sister with a gun that turns things into gold; why does he need to do crimes?

iZombie: 1x2 "Brother Can You Spare A Brain?"

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Let's talk about: How much I love this show?? Like, every week, Liv gets to be a slightly different character, with slightly different skills, and they're teaching her how to get her life back. And also, they're hilarious. Liv describing things artistically, and being desperately sensual the whole episode, weirding out Babineax was so great. There was less of Ravi and Babs this ep, a little bit, to make space for Blaine, who is sort of awesome and sort of hateful and I'm not sure which way he's going to go in the long run, but it's sure to be crazy and bad for Liv.

Let's also talk about: How glad I am that her passes that she made on Major were rebuffed. He's been very good about her not telling him what's going on, but she doesn't get to jump him just because she's got a philandering artist in her mind. It's too much, and I'm glad he sent her home. It makes him more of an actual person, and it reminds her of everything that's wrong right now--and maybe helps her figure some stuff out, if we're lucky.

Agents of Shield: 2x14 "Love In The Time of Hydra"

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Let's talk about: How vaguely uncomfortable this episode made me? Like, Coulson leaving Skye unattended and alone in isolation seems like overkill and a really bad idea--and I'm glad he said that it feels like that to him, too, because maybe that means that we've got a story-altering-context-shift coming up soon to make sense of some of this. Skye needs to be somewhere where people she trusts are--and more importantly, where no one else can get their hands on her. Also? She quakes stuff, but she hasn't really done more than break some windows and knock some stuff down so far, and everyone's acting like she's leveled a city. That might be a SFX issue; it hasn't looked as bad, to me, as everyone is acting like it is.

And the whole Ward / 33 thing? Creepy. And Other!Shield? So far, it seems like they're a bunch of hypocrites since they're all "we need transparancy" but we had no inkling that they existed until now and they're not answering any more questions than Coulson is. And really, neither is significantly different than OldShield that I've seen. If this drives Coulson into a looser, more active, more super-hero-y sort of Shield, that'd be cool since he has all the cool young agents, but then he's not really in Shield anymore. So I'm assuming the OtherShield will turn out to be, like, 10x worse than OldShield? I don't know. I can't tell where this is going. I thought it'd be one Shield for each side of Civil War, but unless the show is going to be way ahead of the movie timeline, making everything out of synch, I have no idea what this "lets get him now" stuff is about.

Forever: 1x18 "Dead Men Tell Long Tales"

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Let's talk about: How Henry is both redeemed and effectively uncursed in this episode, and also an embodiment of the White Savior. Though I don't think that second part is what they were going for. And there's that reveal (or, at least, it's framed as a reveal) that only the weapon that killed you the first time can kill you now. Henry's flintlock is probably never going to be functional again--or, at least, reality says it shouldn't be--and he's enjoying his life enough now that I don't see him testing it, but he's been established to have a sort of suicidal tendency. He hasn't died needlessly since they came back from break, but who knows when that'll come back.

Let's also talk about: How Jo is being swept off her feet by a rich guy who is pushy enough to make her all shy and wide-eyed, and how that seems to...wash out some of her character? Like, it's not too bad now, but I wouldn't have forseen her being so easily swayed before I saw this ep, and it's annoying me a little. But look how proud Henry looked when they busted in on her and he found she'd taken her gun with her on this date with this man she hardly knows who was a suspect three minutes ago.

Disclosure: I watched this Thursday bc of overbooking on Tuesday nights.

NCIS: 12x18 "Status Update"

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Let's talk about: Hell if I know. I didn't have a whole lot to say about this ep; I'm not terribly interested in their cases, I'm getting tired of stories about terrorists, and the interpersonal relationships have been mostly outward-focused on people outside the core team that aren't hardly on the show, so meh. I like that McGee and Delilah are reunited, but I don't feel like their problems were really solved--she's home, but she's got "more secrets" because of her higher security clearance now.

Disclosure: I also watched this one on Thursday.


Wednesday 3-25-15

Arrow: 3x17 "Suicidal Tendencies"

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Let's talk about: How I'm so glad that the Ra's storyline was way in the background in this one, because I'm so done with it. It was a plot point this week--something to get Roy to believe that Ollie isn't a mass murderer, and I'm glad, for once, that they didn't drag it out. Because they've been dragging everything out. I don't like how everyone keeps dumping everything on Felicity, or how that whole mission they sent the Suicide Squad on was stupid, but I loved the Squad itself and the wedding and Ray realizing that he's in over his head and has some opinions wrong. They keep reaffirming his connecting to Felicity, though, and we already know that he's spinning off into the teamup show, so...is she going to be IT for every hero on two shows now? Or is it doomed to be breakup city when that show happens? Is he going to leave when she decides that it actually IS Ollie he'd rather be with?

Did you see Ollie just leave Roy unconscious on the ground so that he could walk away from Atom dramatically?


Thursday 3-26-15

Elementary: Reruuuuunnnnnn

Backstrom: 1x8 "Give Till It Hurts"

Tweets about #backstrom from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Let's talk about: How cute and competent everyone on his team is? I think my favorite scene was when everyone was just arriving at that swanky party and admiring how nice everyone else looks--and sort of flirting and pairing off. With Valentine moving in and shaking things up some. It's just piles of fun.

But the most important part, I think, in the whole episode, is seeing how charming Backstrom can be, which gives a little context to how he was ever married to Amy to begin with. Maybe he's in the depths of despair right now, going all House on the world, but at one point--a point she lets him get back to a little bit--he was nicer and more fun and likable a little. And then he messes it up.

And the second important part was that dream board. It's covered in food and booze, stuff he could get right now if he wanted, so those aren't dreams. What are his actual dreams? What doesn't he want to face and let people see? Does he even allow himself to have dreams?

This show is really growing on me.

Bones: 10x11 "The Psychic In the Soup"

Tweets about #bones from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Let's talk about: How this show has been off so long I totally forgot about looking up when it came back?? Thank goodness I follow All The TV People on Twitter!

This one came back with a punch in the feels with it  being Sweets's birthday--the first since he died. The show has floated a little toward the ineffable, and I like the idea that Christine's imaginary friend is Sweets still looking out for her, because really what I wanted most in the world before his death was for him to just join their family and stay there forever. I am sad that his last act on earth wasn't to talk to Daisy or his own baby, though; maybe that'll come back later, and we just didn't see that part. I'm also a little sad that Sweets sticks around but not Mr Nigel Murray. Maybe Avalon can find him, too.

I wonder when they're going to bring up that Bones is preggers again?


Friday 3-27-15

12 Monkeys: 1x11 "Shonin"
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Let's talk about: How this show NEEDS an aftershow?? And how it's so close to the finale and I just know I'm going to be reeling for DAYS??

And how EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW? I'm trying to be cautious as all hell, because I know they're gonna smack this cookie out of my hands and step on it, but the ending of this still feels like a reward for having stuck with them this far. It's like 3D puzzle pieces slotting into place and then all of a sudden you can turn the thing you're building and see this whole other side to it. And because of that new side, you can also see all these opportunities that were invisible before:

• Cole now knows exactly who the Witness is, and therefor exactly what he told him--which means he knows also what he didn't tell him
• And anyway, they're back even--Cole landed home with Cassie after Ramse left, so anything from this part on is New Ground
• And New Ground means they can do things now that can't be preempted--at least as easily
• And that means maybe they can actually have a chance of causing change
• And that means maybe this isn't a closed loop of a show that will beat me up and end the way it started--maybe there is an actual chance, no matter how small, that things could alter and that the Mission wasn't all obsessive BS from the beginning

I'm just ???!!!! Like, I'm almost actually looking at my actual hands. I feel like I've been handed something wonderful, and I've only just grasped some of what that wonderful thing was. I feel like I just wrote this thing myself.

Now, there's still two episodes and any number of things could go wrong--

• Ramse could still cause chaos and just do it, like, randomly now, making him potentially much more dangerous
• Cole could bleed out on Cassie's floor
• The Army could regroup or launch some new offensive
• Aaron could weenie out and call in whatever deals he's made (now that he's where Cassie was two years ago when he thought she was crazy, and he's lost everything, and now Cole is back again)
• Striking Olivia could have some new monstrosity up her sleeve (and almost definitely does)

But now, for the first time since maybe episode 3 or so, it feels like they can actually do something about it. Here's my pet ideas (I won't call them theories because this show is gleefully hard to figure out and always goes unexpected angles even when you do guess the broad strokes, but these are the things I'm hoping for):

• Ramse doesn't know what happens between 2015 and 2017 because OlderCassie didn't tell Cole so he couldn't tell Ramse, so that's two whole years to effect change
• Also, that's two whole years to convince Cassie that maintaining spoiler-safety across timehops is a bad idea that always gets someone killed, so that they can have more warning when they get there naturally, and Keep Her Alive
• Because I'm convinced that the plan that results in them working together and Not Dying is the one that will Fix History--they've failed so far because they've been blocked, but also because they were coming at it in straight lines, one at a time, not together and not from odd angles

You guys, this show. This show is everything.

Saturday 3-28-15

SNL: 40x16 "Dwayne Johnson"

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Let's talk about: That Indiana Jones skit! How did they get away with that?? Oh my god, I died! We're still talking about it on Monday, and I can't remember the last time that happened on SNL. The show is still funny, but it's sort of become this collection of weird slice of life things where there's not really a plotline or a punchline, just being being strange. But with The Rock? That worked a lot better than it has with some!


Sunday 3-29-15

The Walking Dead: 5x16 "Conquest"

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Let's talk about: How this is the finale??? (this slot will eventually be filled by Hell on Wheels if they come back on the same days they left on, and maybe by the "companion series" Fear of the Walking Dead (which is a lame name), but STILL) I feel simultaneously like a lot has happened and like not much has happened at all--most of this half of the season has been psychological, which has been a new and more creepy sort of horror--and maybe that's why so many people died this year all in a row; they had to make up for how there weren't any cannibals or conquering Governors by having everyone dead.

I'm still mad about Beth. And Tyreese. And Bob. And Noah. For different reasons, even, which is both impressive and annoying.

• Beth was the gentle heart of the show, so I guess she had to go so they could all be filthy and depressed again, with no hope. But she humanized Daryl and he wanted her back so badly and then she died when he barely got to say hello-I-saved-you, and it wasn't even a noble death.
• Tyreese had a very good death-episode, but he had the same problem--he was swearing off killing, he was gentle and caring, and so he was killed by the world, and it was bad.
• Bob seems to have been man-fridged, and maybe Tyreese, too--they both were all Sasha had in the world, and now she's alone and crazy with her woman-pain making her act the way men do when their women are killed off.
• And Noah! Beth died to save Noah, effectively, she got caught so that he could escape when she was almost free, too, and then he died because that other guy from Alexandria is a COWARD, and Glenn has seniority and people would riot if he died.

That's a lot of non-white dudes, too, which is alarming.

So here at the end of the season, I don't like the Alexandrians anymore, but I do like that they're finally listening to Rick when he says he knows what's what, and I'm looking forward to them building an actual strong community next season--you know, when the next outside threat comes along and ruins it for them.

I'm glad that Glenn is still good enough that he couldn't kill that guy, but he didn't really deserve that niceness.

And the other show: It looks like it's going to be in the city and that should be awesome--think of all the skyscrapers and warehouses and abandoned movie and tv lots and whatever else. There could be malls! Like, classic zombie-movie malls! It'll be a lot different than tromping around woods all the time, and the racial mix could, potentially be more diverse, too, so that should be cool. And the class mix--really awful super-rich dudes and really poor people and lots and lots of people in between. I'm bummed that the city isn't somewhere with a wildly different climate though--zombies drying out in the desert and being brittle and sharp, or freezing in the winter snows and melting out in spring would have been so cool.

The Talking Dead: 4x16 "Conquest"

Tweets about #talkingdead from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Let's talk about: The last after show for ages! I hope they let Chris Hardwick host an after for Fear, or that he gets some other show in the meantime; I love this thing, where this one cute dude can put into words what we're all feeling about complex and sometimes upsetting shows. He's good at it, and he obviously loves it.

Really, I think that all high-budget or high-concept show should have an after-show. Like, even just a panel that literally only talks about what just happened--to weigh the morals, talk about the creative choices, make sense of the confusing parts, help us through the hard parts, celebrate the awesome stuff...how great would that be?

What did you guys think of this week's shows? What shows are you watching? I'm going to have a lot of space opening up in my schedule soon, since some have already ended for the season and a large chunk are ending soon!

Next week, though, I'm adding Outlander! Whoo, returning Scottish wonderfulness!

Stuff to talk about this week - 2015 Wk 13

The Walking Dead spinoff is going to be called Fear the Walking Dead, which is, basically, a lost opportunity to be really cool, if you ask me. Like, everyone they've met has called the zombies something else, the world is without communications networks to standardize terminology, and they just add two words to the title they already had?? Boring. Not a good sign. 

Here's what I'm hoping, though:

• It's supposed to be set in a different location, so I hope it's wildly different--inside a city in a cold or dry climate, or something like that. Then the zombies will be different too--less gooey, maybe, and more, like, leathery and dried out and harder to dismember. Or they'll freeze in the winter and spring will be a horror show of zombies coming out of snowdrifts as they melt.
• It's also supposed to start back at the beginning of the story, when the plague is new, so I'm hoping that 1) we get some of the collapse that Rick missed because he was comatose (and crazy-lucky that no one found his room), and 2) that it's somewhat less depressing and bleak than the main show has become. At the beginning of the disaster, there were more people, more resources, more potential for hope, and the main show is running out of all of that.

---

The first joint One Year Mission in space went up yesterday. They're going to study as much as they can to determine a baseline for sending people to Mars, and I'm deliriously happy about it! It's one thing for people to say it's a priority to send people to another world, and another thing entirely to actually take steps toward doing it. This is orbit on the relatively cushy ISS, but it's the longest consecutive stay any US astronaut has done (Russians apparently did long-duration space stays in the 80s and 90s), and it's Important.

• "They will conduct hundreds of science experiments focusing on at least 7 broad areas of investigation including medical, psychological and biomedical challenges faced by astronauts during long-duration space flight."

So we're one step closer to my dream of moving to the Moon or Mars.

--

Slightly old news, but I only just heard of it: The Mars Opportunity Rover was having corrupted-memory issues, and they fixed it with a long-distance software update. How cool is that? Since then, it's apparently crossed the distance of a marathon, so there's that, too.

--

io9 Has a great thread asking about villains we love but who are terrifying on closer inspection. Some included are: Loki, Q, Spike, Crowley, The Master.

--

The first official picture of Deadpool in his suit was tweeted by Ryan Reynolds and I totally jacked it from Tor.com's report. I feel like this perfectly encapsulates what I've seen of him in the comics and what he was not allowed to be in that one Wolverine movie, really. I'm really looking forward to this, now!

---

Mulder and Scully are coming back to us! Six episodes of an actual TV show and Chris Carter is there, and he says something along the lines of "think of it as a 13-year commercial break" and "the world has only gotten stranger since then". I'm so happy that we're getting SIX WHOLE HOURS and not, like, two that I have to pay a theatre to see. This is three times as much content and six times the story of a movie!

I'm hoping for:

• It to feel like the show, just now--not like that second movie that was so dark and isolated and cold and actually too much full of human monstrosity and not enough of mutants or aliens
• Nods to the cliches--dropping phones, running through the woods with overly bright flashlights that somehow don't do anything for the extreme darkness, some indication of clones and bees and black oil
• Mulder and Scully TOGETHER, because when they separate, someone always gets beat up and / or abducted
• All new monsters of the week!
• Preferably a reopening of the X-Files and a rehiring of the agents that worked there. Because X-Files without the FBI is weird and untethered. And they could concievably set it up for a return with a new cast if they can make us like other agents. (Disclosure, I actually did like Doggett and Reyes, but they came too late; if they'd introduced them several seasons earlier they maybe could have inherited the show eventually and not been so hated.)
• I vote Team Fringe takes over.
• That slight goofiness that made the best episodes best--Bad Blood, Clive Bruckman, Humbug--and lightened up the heaviest ones. Wry, irreverent humor in the face of a really weird world that is your job.
• Vindication for Mulder, who has been in hiding for flipping ages. 
• Some plausible way to get the Lone Gunmen back, even if it's just a voiceover because they found a secret journal or something. Because damn, they need those guys.

What're you guys hoping for?

@pirategirljack LiveTweet roundup for Week 12 2015

In my ever-ongoing (yes, I know that's redundant) search to make this easier, here's this week's attempt--instead of doing this by episode, which takes forever and makes a million similar posts, lets try doing it by week, and getting it all in one place!

I wish there was a way I could make all this post automatically without it being as, like, individual tweets or some shit. I might have to start learning code so I can invent my own webapp or something. If anyone knows of a thing that will take my own tweets and hashtags and post one post with just those collected tweets from just that one day, let me know what it is!

MONDAY 3-16

Gotham - Rerun this week, so we didn't watch it

Castle - 7x17 "Hong Kong Hustle"

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Lets talk about: How I had a really hard time paying attention to this episode and how, I made, like, three tweets that aren't even showing up on this feed? I don't know if the episode was just not catching me or if it was how gross I've been feeling, but with almost all my monday shows in reruns, I just couldn't even. Poor Castle. I apologize, Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic!

NCIS:LA - Rerun

Scorpion - Rerun because it's apparently making itself in realtime or something and we can't have weekly episodes

TUESDAY 3-17

The Flash - 1x16 "Out of Time"

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Let's talk about: How Barry now knows how to RUN BACK THROUGH TIME. Like, this next ep is probably going to be where he fixes, like, one thing and it dominoes across the rest of the plot and makes it better--or worse, depending if it's leading directly to the finale or not, but we're still a ways off from that. What I really want, though, is just a whole episode where Barry, as @geejayeff said on Tumblr, "plays whack-a-mole with everything that came up this episode". Seriously, like a time-loop ep, but he's powering the loop. He saves the cops but Cisco still dies because he doesn't know about Welles. He saves them both, but the wave hits the city and washes Iris away. He saves all three, but no one stops whatver next thing.

Let's also talk about Iris: She knows! I really really hate that outdated idea that otherwise useful and competent people cant connect these singular two points even when they're following leads all over the rest of the plot that should make it obvious. I hated that it took three years to tell Thea on Arrow, and I love that Iris got it now--AND THEN TIME LOOP. Dammnit. But! Barry knows that she actually does love him back, so maybe now he can do something about it and be a responsible otherwise-committed boyfriend and break it off like an adult with whats-her-other-face.

iZombie - 1x1 "Pilot"

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Let's talk about: Everything ever about this show! That classic Rob Thomas sassy-sarcasm mix, the voice overs, the crime solving by being psychic that's made cooler by it actually being a Warm-Bodies-esque memory-flashback! Babineaux, who is so sassy and sharp and cute! Ravi, who is probably the best friend an undercover zombie could ever have! The way she picks up random quirks and skills from the brains as well as memories! Everything in this pilot was practically designed to win me over, and it totally did.

Agents of Shield - 2x13 "One Of Us"

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Let's talk about: SHIELD 2 what??? From the teeny tiny bit we saw, I thinking a) Hydra remains set up as another Shield, b) All those millions who don't know Coulson is still alive set up their own revival, not knowing that he's there or that Fury handed him the keys, or c) there was always two shields, and only one fell because they're secret from each other. Personally, I think I'd be happiest with that last one, because I've been getting the feeling that the world of Agents of SHIELD is just too small--which led me to the idea that Fury said he was giving the whole thing over, but maybe he was just keeping Coulson busy, or he was setting him and his team up for some other purpose than actually rebuilding shield. Also? Two Shields totally means an army of secret agents for both sides of Civil War, and I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner! Good job, story-dudes at the MCU!

Let's also talk about: How great it is that Fitz and Simmons sort of came together again because of gossip, how that gossip was about May and her hunky ex husband, and how May is totally Skye's mom, regardless of genetics. And how Coulson is totally her dad and uses his tender-disbelief voice for her more than for anyone else. And how Mac is cracking up. And how Skye's actual dad is not the top dude in this storyline anymore--that Nightcrawler-powered mofo is!

There is so much stuff going on in this show. I can't wait to see how it pans out--because this season will be wrapping up right around when Ultron comes out, and it's had a whole season to work on its tie-ins, rather than an awkwardly-constructed thing like with Thor2.

Forever - Rerun and a sadface

WEDNESDAY 3-18

Arrow - 3x16 "The Offer"

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Let's talk about: How Ollie is FINALLY getting that he's been acting like an idiot all season and how upset everyone is about it and how bad it makes him feel??? Like, you all know I'm a shipper-supreme. You all know I want Oliver and Felicity to be Olicity for all time. But right now? Right now she's trying to do right by herself and he's seeing how that hurts and she's making sure he's very clear that it's because of HIM AND HIS DUMB CHOICES, and I'm LOVING IT. I'm so loving it. I want him to really, really feel it, because I'm so sick of this current emotional tone where he just goes around pissing everyone off and pushing them away and they just have to take it. Consequences! Yay!

Let's also talk about: How happy I am that he's decided NOT to take up Ra's on that offer, and how it's given him the purpose he should have had and lost since the beginning of the season. I'm not pleased that Ra's is all "nope, daughter, you don't get it" and I hope that means she goes after him herself--especially since he's now decided to defame Ollie and she's sort of moving onto Ollie's side. That whole plot development, I'm like "why?" I've been like that since a major Batman villain showed up instead of one of Ollie's own, and made everyone make really stupid circular choices about everything for EPISODES, but now it's shifted from a feeling of "why this dude?' to "is he, like, annoyed that Ollie has friends and he doesn't?"

But! They FINALLY admitted that the Lazarus Pit is a thing, and maybe that's how they get Sara back for that spinoff they're building, and if Nyssa goes off the deep end with revenge, maybe that's how we can get Talia?


THURSDAY 3-19

Elementary - Rerun, and I'm getting sick of it

Backstrom - Rerunnnnnsssssss

And because they're all reruns...

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Lets talk about: All the Bucky Feels! It's a very exciting movie, but it's also a really sad movie--Steve sees his Peggy failing, then Bucky comes back and doesn't know him, and the cute girl nextdoor isn't what she seems, and then Shield wasn't what it seems. It's a lot of change and sadness and conflict and crumbling reality.

FRIDAY 3-20

12 Monkeys - 1x10 "Divine Move"

Tweets about #12monkeys from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Let's talk about: EVERYONE BEING AT ODDS and how much that hurts me (which is actually proof of how invested I am / how good the drama is). Cole and Cassie together again--but only for a minute, really, and not long enough for them to get their groove back after they each witnessed the others' death. Cole went straight from Cassie dying in his arms to Cassie alive before him, but when he got there, it had been long enough since she sent him to his death that she'd resumed that interrupted relationship with Aaron, so he was there, pointing out how much she died because of him and missing that she also lived entirely because of him. As for Cassie, she mourned him for a week before she even sent him off to die, and then for more weeks before going to verify that he did, and you could tell she missed him, but missing him also meant that they did right, so having him back, that joy comes with the weight of knowing that the worst thing that ever happened to her is still going on--so that must be rough and conflict-making. She's acting happy with Aaron, planning a future they didn't think they'd have, but in the same episode, she's drinking heavily again like she did when Cole was missing for two years in the pilot; this is a bad few weeks for Cassie. And she knows he's dying and seems to be taking it personally. As she probably should. What with him saying a few episodes ago that he'd tell her anything, but not telling her that.

Ack, my heart.

Meanwhile, Ramse is totally off the Rez, and he desperately wants to save his kid, but desperation only gets him a whole lot of crazy, and he winds up being the Evil Leaper--because, I mean, he's entirely untested, he's only had one dose of that serum and no preparation, and timetravel tears you apart from the inside out when he was already close to nuts, so...basically he's probably totally off his rocker now.

And then there's Aaron, probably making deals with who is probably the devil--unless the 12 Monkeys or the Druzhe (or however) turn out to not actually be the villains in this story, which they could since everyone knows next to nothing about what everyone else is doing...And there's Cassie still having red-forest-flashbacks framed so that it looks like Cole hadn't told her about how he has to find said red forest, and so she looks like she thinks she's going off her nut.

I just really want everyone to get back on one page and to unify against the baddies, but there are no clear baddies, and we're very close to a final battle, and I just feel like everything is going to get worse. My solace is that we definitely have a second season (whoo!), and maybe the first or second episode out of the gate will have a pause for emotional healing--for those characters, but also for us!

Right now, everyone is fighting to save one person--Cole is saving Cassie, Aaron is saving Cassie, Ramse is saving his kid, Jones is saving hers--and Future!Jennifer says there are no straight lines. I think they need to be willing to sacrifice their one thing to make other things work, which is why Cassie, who wants to save the world even if she dies again, is the one who seems to be the key. I'm hoping it doesn't mean that she HAS to die to make things work, since her getting killed made it all worse, but that her insistence that they have to let her risk that is what opens up new options. Because really, I think they're all going to have to work together to jump the groove and break out of the predestination paradox. Like, they need to stop doing that whole "I can't tell you because you haven't gotten there yet" thing, because KNOWING about those things would let them avoid previous-future failures in their plans! If Cassie had said something more before sending Cole to Chechnya, how differently could it have gone? If Older!Cassie had told Cole about what happened in those two years, what could he be saving time and lives on now?

SATURDAY 3-21

SNL - Rerunnnnnn

SUNDAY 3-22

The Walking Dead - 5x15 "Try"

Tweets about #thewalkingdead from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Let's talk about: How everything is going to hell in a slow and quiet way instead of all at once this time? Like, Alexandria could be a great place, but we still know very little about the people there other than that they have no idea what they're doing, and even less about their actual history as a community. So far, they're so messed up: the kids patrolling the wall who play games with Walkers and get each other killed. The boss lady who says it's okay that one of the very few people that exist in that community is an abusive drunk because he also happens to be their only doctor. The still-creepy normalness of Alexandria when they're all severely traumatized, and there are more and more Walkers coming up on them every day, and all those severed limbs and carved-headed torsos all over, that no one seems particularly alarmed about. Who tied up that lady? Who's messing with the Walkers?

And then, of course, we have Rick who seems about to go right off the rails. I loved that Michonne was just like "STFU, Rick" and clocked him across the back of the head before he did something that started a war or got them all thrown out in the wilds again. She's the only one who seems to really be handling this the right way--Alexandria could be safe, if they make it safe and keep it safe and aren't the danger themselves.

And Carl! He has a crush on Enid, who has been out in the world like he has and sees, too, at least a little, how pampered these people are. And who the internet seems to think is a spy for a rival faction. We'll see next week, I guess!

The Talking Dead - 4x15

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Let's talk about: How much I love when Yvette Nicole Brown is on with her notes and her very astute observations! Good points she made this time:

• Rick seems to be trying to rebuild a family that he lost, and seems to be unaware that that's what he's doing
• Gabriel is "not made for this world" and is not at all acting like a man of faith, and it's gonna get him dead
• Carol is playing it close to the chest (which seems to pay off next week), while Rick is just waving all his cards all over the place--and has too many of them for it to be a clean draw

This show is the best thing to happen to The Walking Dead--it literally lets us talk through the trauma and outrage and brief moments of happiness, and to get through the plot tangles and try to understand what is sometimes a brutal and confusing show, and it's amazing.

So there are entirely too many reruns in March, which is annoying, since I feel like we only just got our TV back. Note to networks, esp our local: NOT EVERYONE LIKES SPORTS! Like, schedule it better, networks! But I think some of my shows are coming back on next week, so maybe it won't have so many gaps in next post!