TeeVee

[meganbmoore]

Bomb Girls: Season 1: Bomb Girls is a Canadian series about women who work in a munitions factory in WW2. Despite some developments I'm not sure about in the last episode (I guess they had to create some future Drama for the second season?), it is fairly awesome? If you like "what life was like in this time and place" period dramas, this is a pretty good one, and it feels a lot like some of the good BBC and ITV period dramas, in terms of story and characterization, if not production quality. (Which reminds me that I haven't watched Land Girls yet.) I suspect a lot of the actresses are inexperienced, but they still did a good job. It's kind of irritatingly white in many ways, with a couple exceptions, and the plotline with the lesbian character plays out a bit painfully, if realistically (but with plenty of hope for the future) and I don't know what I think of the romantic plotlines (I want to like them but am a bit iffy, though Gladys's fiance is winning me over against my will) but I like almost all the characters and don't think there are any I actually dislike, and it passes the Bechdel test in about 6 out of 7 scenes, and I think there are maybe 10 minutes of the series without one woman or another around. Warning for a rather gruesome (though less graphic than many shows would make it) factory accident in the first episode, that gets flashed back to in the last.

Lost Girl 2.14-2.16:

Looks like Dyson's newfound (refound?) likability was shortlived.  And i seriously hope Kiara isn't gone for good now.  Though, heading back to her European castle or whatever since she broke up with the guy who was her main reason for hanging around is better than the dead/evil alternative we usually get.  Speaking of dead/evil romantic rivals, please don't make Nadia be dead/evil, show!  (Especially since your track record with POC is iffy to say the least.)  I'm hoping she's just realizing that there's something up with her girlfriend besides having hooked up with someone else while she was in a coma resulting in Awkwardness, and so is investigating, but I don't know!

I'm glad the show is finally acknowledging that Bo's "unaligned" status has basically been a technicality until now, but I'm not sure it isn't still doing the "light is good and dark is bad" thing that Ryan (who, for some reason, I keep wanting to call "Adam") accused Bo of.

I...like Ryan?  Or at least am amused by him.  Moreso than Nate certainly.  I'm just really not sure where the show is going with that.  But really the most important thing is that he gave Bo WONDER WOMAN BRACELETS.  And we needed more Morrigan!

I think I almost liked Lachlan for about 5 seconds.  Because he made Bo coffee.  I still feel a bit dirty about it.
 

Nikita 2.10-2.15: 2.14 and 2.15 are a good example of why it's sometimes good to be the sort of person who tends to hoard TV until you have a few more episodes to watch together. You don't have to wait for the resolution to a cliffhanger that way.

This is more like what I'm talking about!

Here's the thing:  I know a lot of fans think season 2 is a lot better than season 1, but while I enjoy season 2 a lot, most of it hasn't been the show I fell hard for in season 1.  I disliked how Nikita's allies were all men and how, for the first handful of episodes, all the other women were aligned against her,  and while I love Amanda being in charge of Division and how she basically made Operations all women, that came with this whole "Things were better when Percy was in charge, and he'll get what's his back soon!" subtext (that, on the downside of recent episodes, has now basically become text).  I'm also not particularly fond of the "Alex is a mafia princess!" thing, and how the flashbacks in both seasons have always been all about her father and her mother was barely ever mentioned.  I'm also not big on the Michael/Nikita/Owen triangle they keep playing with the idea of, even if they haven't been obnoxious about it.  (Though, if Owen ever becomes a regular, they probably will do a lot of that?  Which would explain why I don't really want him around fulltime, despite enjoying him.)

BUT!

Now Alex and Nikita are working together again and Alex doesn't want to be a mafia princess, she just wants revenge and her mother (Who is alive!  Though I'm...not incredibly pleased with how they're doing that so far) and we have Carla to help balance out the increasing "Amanda is just evil-but now we'll also have her evil brilliance clouded by EMOTIONS-and Percy will get what's his back and things were better under him!" thing and also help increase the "women saving women who go on to help save other women" theme, and the senator is now on Nikita's side too.

But was anyone else really disappointed that the person Amanda was plotting with was Ari?  I thought he was the most obvious one so wanted them to pull something else out of the hat.  I wanted it to be KATYA (Katia?) either because she's been secretly working against Sergei for years or because she's learned that Sergei killed her husband and tried to kill her daughter and now he will destroy them.  Which would have taken the plot ways that I would have loved and largely done away with the things that bug me.

Also, while I've always been ok with the Alex/Sean pairing, though not overly into it (thogh, unlike her previous romantic plotlines, it always at least had interesting potential and was something I COULD get into, instead of be bored by) I didn't ship them until he was tied to a chair in his underwear and she punched him when he said he came to kill Nikita himself so that she wouldn't get hurt.  I'm sure it says something about me there.
 

Once Upon A Time 1.8-1.12: Emma, stop having chemistry with your bio!mom. Even if she is magically enchanted to remain your age forever and you aren't convinced she's your mother. Anyway, it's a tad awkward.

Most of fandom seems to think this show is getting better and better, but I'm having the opposite reaction? Despite problems, I really loved the first 4 episodes but since then, it...hasn't been the show I thought it was going to be? It's still fun and I largely enjoy the plot twists that don't involve cheating, rape, or portraying slavery/imprisonment as romantic, but it's not the show I wanted and the narrative's approach blocks my investment, particularly when it's going out of its way to woobify Rumples (who I enjoy as a villain, but am increasingly losing interest in the more they make me want to forget his treatment and manipulation of women and just feel BAD for him and his PAIN-I'm starting to make narrative connections between him and TV!Damon Salvatore, and that's a very bad path for me, even if Rumples entertains me way more than Damon ever did, actually has redeeming value for me as a character, and, uhm, Robert Carlyle actually possesses the ability to act) and increasingly make Regina more and more one-note evil (FUN one-note evil, but still one-note).

TBH, right now I mostly pay attention to the Emma, Ruby/Red and Snow White/Mary Margaret stuff (I'm apparently in the minority that didn't care for the Beauty & the Beast part of the latest episode but love the Galentines day subplot), and the Snow White retelling parts.

Pan Am 1.9-1.12: Show, please don't be cancelled! If anyone had told me at the start of the fall season that Pan Am and Revenge were going to be my favorite new shows (I was expecting it to be Secret Circle and Once Upon Time) I wouldn't have believed you because I initially only checked Revenge out because of the concept and Pan Am because it was a period drama with a predominantly female cast.

But wow, things got soap opera-y towards the end there, didn't they?  Not that that's particularly a BAD thing (though gosh, I got off the Collette/Dean train fast, though I'm willing to like Dean again and Collette is forbidden to leave).

Does anyone else think that they didn't seem quite sure what to do with Laura for a bit there?  It seems like everyone else was busy with a plotline and she...wasn't. 

Maggie and the politician was fun, but I wasn't really sorry to see that end, even if I could have gone with that as an off-and-on pairing.  Loved her slamming the smuggler pilot though.  Also, girl vibes!

I'm glad Kate is going forward with the spy thing, but am now worried about her.  And apparently ship her with Richard a bit.  And decided to like Anderson at least a bit after he tried to take the blame for shooting the guy so Kate wouldn't be hung out to dry.

Speaking of spies, uhm...I like Bridget, but have to wonder how good a spy she was?  She seemed t oblurt out secrets fairly easily in the episodes she came back for.

I'm not sure about the plot with Ted and his fiancee.  I mean, it makes sense and was handled a lot better than I expected it to be, but it feels a bit like drama purely to push Laura/Ted next season and so I feel bad for her.  (Poor girl, she should live today.  It's not exactly easy to be gay now but at least she'd be able to put words to what she feels better, and would have a better chance at being able to lead a lifestyle that made her happy instead of trying to force herself into a marriage because it's a nice guy who she hopes will understand.)
 

Show! Get renewed!

Revenge 1.14-1.15: Emanda x White Gloves = OTP? Seriously, wardrobe was on a roll in ep 14.

I really hope the writers were hoping we'd hate Conrad even more after he forced the parentage issue at dinner.  I mean, despite what he says I think it was just another way to strike at Victoria and that made him look good too.  (Also, aw Emanda, you tried to do right by your sister after all, but it didn't work out.  But it means you must face even more icky feeeeeeeeeeelings.)

Ashley's conversation with Conrad has me really, really hopeful that she's been secretly in league with Emanda all along and has just been playing the patsy.  But really, I just really really need them to actually care about each other, even as frenemies.  Ashley needs to go drinking with Nolan more too.

And will someone give Charlotte a hug already?  Someone who isn't her broyfriend or her loser father.  Or her grandfather, should that come up.  I was actually liking him (if mostly because he likes Victoria more than he likes Conrad) up until he told his granddaughter  to sacrifice her mental health to save the family's reputation.

I thought the framing of the Fire and Ice Ball with our seeing everyone the way they really are now instead of how they look to everyone else was good but I felt that Emanda...didn't really do much this episode?  I'm chalking it up to losing Emanda 2.0.  But it felt like the men were directing the action in that episode, and i'm not down with that.  That said, the episode really belonged to Emanda 2.0 and her getting clued in a lot more, and that I'm definitely down with.  And now she's with the sensei who dumped Emanda for not being vengeful enough!  I hope this means great things are in store for her.

I kind of...think it became too obvious throughout the season that Tyler was going to be the body?  It would have been more of a surprise if it'd been Daniel after all.  Right now I'm thinking either Emanda 2.0 conked Daniel over the head so he wouldn't see her kill Tyler (to save her One True Love Emanda) and then she or Jack smeared some of Tyler's blood on Daniel (if so, not cool framing him, but gieven what Tyler did last time he was in town, I can see thinking that no one would doubt it was self-defense) or that Tyler non-fatally shot Daniel and Daniel either fainted from pain/shock or STILL got conked over the head and then Emanda 2.0 killed Tyler.  Or maybe Daniel actually did kill Tyler then fainted and Emanda 2.0 plugged Tyler a couple more times just to be on the safe side.

 Ringer 1.11-1.13:

You know, I had a lot I was going to say and most of it was even nice and along the lines of "I love how Bridget and Siobahn keep accidentally messing up each other's plans and i'm liking this a lot more than I remember liking the last episode before hiatus despite the tragic lack of Malcolm!" and then we got to The Reveal about the rape plot and SO PISSED OFF WORLD WE DO NOT NEED PLOTLINES ABOUT WOMEN MAKING FALSE RAPE ACCUSATIONS SOCIETY HAS ENOUGH TROUBLE ACKNOWLEDGING AND ADDRESSING SEXUAL ASSAULTS ON WOMEN STOP MAKING IT WORSE!!!!

Sigh.

And until then, I actually thought the show was doing a decent job with the plotline despite not liking how it was handling Juliet's mother (and the reveal seems to rather justify the way she treats  aqnd talks to Juliet, which is another beef) AND THEN IT DID THAT.

Sigh Again.

Also, I hope Malcolm's absence is because the actor is busy with something else and not because the show is worried that with Solomon and Andrea around, too many black people would scare off the viewers.
 

Sense and Sensibility (2008): I can't quite remember what the feedback on this one was, but aside from the opening bit (which I can see the logic of, but I don't think it should have been the very first thing in the series) and the soundtrack (were those electric guitars I heard?) I liked it. I think liking but not being overly attached to the book helps me not care as much about the changes. I really liked the cast, especially the Dashwood women, and Dan Stevens tried really hard to get me to like Edward Ferrars, but didn't succeed. (That said, on a shallow note, the longish dark hair is much better for him than the short light hair he has in Downton Abbey.)

White Collar 2.11-2.14:

The show redeemed itself for Damsel In Distress-ing Elizabeth by having her effectively rescue herself.  And she and Mozzie need to run off and solve crime together more often.

I'm glad to have Sara back (hopefully they won't up and forget about her for several episodes again) but really wish she hadn't been dating the mark.  Why couldn't she have just noticed wrongdoings?  (Though at least she wasn't virtuously sitting around, bemoaning her failed relationship with Neal.)

Neal-the-teacher was unsurprisingly fabulous.  Elizabeth's parents were a blast.  i always like it whenever family friction comes from dealing with people you like but try to live up to/aren't like/don't know how to act around instead of not getting along/bad parents/too demanding/etc.

I'm very curious to see where Diana and Christie's engagement is leading (hopefully towards more Christie appearances) and hope the show doesn't drop the ball on that.

Comments

[lea_hazel]

I feel cheated because I wanted so badly to have Bo make sexy alliance time with the Dark Fae but I really wanted the Morrigan to be involved. But, all questions regarding the difference between Dark and Light would require the makers of the show to have a strict handle on it themselves, which I'm not convinced they do.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, I think the writers have gone "good-bad" in their heads and not really thought past that but are telling themselves they aren't doing that.

BTW, what's the fandomwank/fail you mentioned in your post? (I assume Lauren-centric?)

[lea_hazel]

Before the hiatus, when the episode with Nadia waking up aired, it seemed like every post on Tumblr's LG tag was all about how terrible Nadia was. What really got under my skin is that she's the victim here, and it's Lauren they should be getting mad at, because she messed around with a woman she barely knows while her girlfriend of many years was comatose, and lied to them both about it.

Worse yet, now apparently the showmakers have decided to go with the Nadia-is-evil scheme, because she's definitely plotting something. Why do they keep capitulating to Doccubus shippers instead of capitulating to me and making Bo polyamorous?

[meganbmoore]

See, I am annoyed by yet understanding of Lauren there because Nadia has been in a coma for years and Lauren had no idea if she'd ever wake up and she had her own life/feelings/libido on hold all that time and then someone else she liked came along, and then her boss/owner basically ordered her to use the attraction to get things from the new person and things happened. But dhe should have told Bo about Nadia before then. I like to think Lauren admitted to Nadia that she had something going with Bo while they were on their trip? But probably not.

(What on earth was the basis for hating Nadia at that point? She'd had about a minute screentime!)

[pikabot]

I remember hearing about Bomb Girls and thinking that it sounded pretty nifty. Maybe some day when I'm actually watching TV shows that aren't Babylon 5 and How I Mer Your Mother I'll check it out.

[meganbmoore]

To be fair, there are worse things to do than watch B5 on repeat.

[bigbrasskey]

I was really angry about Ryan, honestly, because he was so chokingly sexist and it was never really confronted or dealt with, just suddenly irrelevant in the face of him being Really A Nice Guy ~Under It All~ or at least being flattering enough to soothe Bo's bruised self-esteem. He's just plain bigoted.

Also I facepalm every time he makes some speech about her being unfair to the Dark because Bo has been really explicit about not liking the Light - or most of its members (she wasn't that fond of Dyson if attracted to him, and had no problem blackmailing him, until he was so consistently nice about helping her - ah, the early days - and took a while to warm up to both Trick and Hale) - but going to them more often because their rules are more geared towards discretion and concealment than domination.

Like, the show's screentime prioritization is pretty blatant, but Bo has really simple and logical reasons to be more associated with a collection of Light Fae, and for the show to create ~conflict~ by refusing to write her presenting any of them - even to reasonable debate, which there is - frustrates me.

[meganbmoore]

The thing is that the show plays lipservice to Bo being neutral and not liking the light fae and the light fae not being all good, it really isn't backed up past the surface. From the beginning Bo has spent all her time with the light fae and seemed to work under an assumption that they were better than the dark fae, and with the exception of Dyson's werewolf friend, every time a light fae has done something bad/amoral, there's been a reveal that it was for a "Good" reason/to save lives.

I remember back in the first sseason, where every episode we went "and this is the episode where the show will actually back up the unaligned thing!" and then...she was working with the light fae and the dark fae were the bad guys if an alignment was loan

I really want to dislike Ryan, but apparently can't yet...

[bigbrasskey]

That's true. I just wish they'd introduced a lady Dark Fae or something.