TeeVee

[meganbmoore]

Aside from 2 shows deciding to do really annoying things in their last 5 minutes (actually, pretty much the same annoying thing...) this was a good week of TV for me.

Call the Midwife: Season 1: CtM is a six-episode season (everything is wrapped up, but it was renewed for a second season) about midwives and nuns in London's East End in the 1950s. You wouldn't think that's a recipe for insta-awesome but it is. Not quite Bomb Girls levels of awesome, but it'll do. It's based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, who died last year. I can't speak for anyone else, but I always feel a bit awkward watching fiction about people who are still alive, or whose kids are still alive? I'm always afraid that they disapprove of the liberties that are no doubt taken. Hopefully Worth's kids are pleased with the result. BTW, this has possibly the best in-canon response to incest ever:

MIDWIVES: OMG THAT IS INCEST! IT IS SINFUL AND WRONG!

NUN: Theirs is a lifelong love that has surpassed endless hardships and you don't understand what they mean to each other HDU JUDGE THEM!!!"

(Nuns, why do you automatically make most fiction better? I mean, except when it's about how you/the church is awful and mean and resistrictive.)

The same episode may have involved necrocuddling. I figure people were duly scandalized especially as the show was playing it pretty clean and safe, despite some graphicness regarding medical proceedings. (If anything, my only real complaint about the show is how the bulk of cases wrap up so happily and tidily. Not that I WANT dead babies or women dying in childbirth flooding my screen it just felt like it was trying to pull the punches that you expect and brace yourself for given the premise.

Lost Girl 2.19:

DANGIT SHOW I ACTUALLY KINDA TRUSTED YOU WITH NADIA AFTER KIARA!!!! Sigh. At least it was possessed and not evil, BUT WHY COULDN'T BO SUCCUBUS HER UNCONSCIOUS SHE DID IT TO SOMEONE ELSE EARLIER IN THE EPISODE!!!

Sigh.

OTOH, I'm glad Kenzi rejected all the "You must leave because YOU ARE HER ONE WEAKNESS!" talk and resolved the issue by sending Nate away. (Nate, I'd be happy for you for escaping unscathed if it weren't for Nadia.)

Kudos, Hale, for not sneaking around behind either Trick or Lachlan's backs and forcing them to work together. (Show you better not kill Hale or Kenzi. You can kill Dyson, though. Actually, normally I'd say that a show would never off the main Angsty White Dude Love Interest, but you never know with this show. i'll be a bit miffed with you if you kill Trick too, but I'm pretending that kenzi will take over the bar if that happens.)

I hope the question of if/how Bo is related to Trick is resolved this season. If nothing else Bo has certainly decided they have to be related some way and Trick didn't discourage her when she made it obvious that she thought that. I'm still leaning towards Grandfather and not Father, though.

 

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 1.4:

INSPECTOR CRANKYPANTS: We need to establish who wears the trousers in this relationship.
PHRYNE: *walks downstairs in trousers that probably cost more than he makes in a month*
INSPECTOR CRANKYPANTS and CONSTABLE: ... ... ...

Probably the best summary of that particular character dynamic.

Aunt Prue and Jane were back! I was a bit worried that this might end up one of those shows where the main character has important people all over the place but we only ever see them once. (Now bring Mac back.) I'm also glad that Aunt Prue seems to have promptly accepted Jane, instead of complaining about criminal vagabonds moving in.

I was kind of "meh" about the main mystery plot I think partly because I'm not familar with the politics involved at all. But I loved Phryne's...uhm, everything but especially her shipping Dot/Constable and trying to further his career (because Dot must have the best?) And also Phryne approving of Jane's quasi-criminal activities.

 Nikita 2.16:

I was so very happy with this episode (except for Birkoff's "you are totally fail except that you're hot so I can objectify you while insulting your intelligence and abilities" moment) and then CARLA DIED (and we'll know doubt hear lots about Birkoff's guiltridden manpain over it)and the CASSANDRA IS PROBABLY EVIL reveal.

Look, if Cassandra is turned into a villain, it might accomplish for the show what even killing Jaden didn't for me, and that isn't a good thing. Though...apparently the writers were going to be given enough notice to wrap things up in the last stretch of episodes if the show was going to be cancelled, and it did just come back from a long hiatus. I'm going to be really annoyed if the ending is "Cassandra dies and Nikita and Michael raise Max." (Max can stay with his mother and Nikita can take over Division after reforming it with Michael and Birkoff as her sidekicks, ok?)

HOWEVER!

I giggled a lot at Sean showing up to be Alex's bodyguard, and actually wonder if Nikita really did send him, or if he found out what she was doing and invited himself? I mean, under the circumstances, Nikita probably wouldn't hurt him bad if he took her name in vain this one time.

I was also glad that we let up on the "things were better when Percy was in charge" that we've been having regarding Amanda lately, and that the show remembered that Percy probably has even less regard for the agents's lives than she does.

 Side note: Apparently, Maggie Q will be voicing Wonder Woman in Young JusticeI...may end up watching that.

Once Upon A Time 1.15: Only in this show would the phrase "Emma was my lemur!" come across as borderline romantic.

Guys I am SO SAD that Ruby isn't going to be Emma's sidekick. Like, can't she at least work there parttime? They're even properly color coded!

The Red/Snow sismance was as awesome as I was hoping and I hope we get a lot more of it. (Snow was also a bit more like Mary Margaret than usual this episode? But I figured that was just natural uncertainty as she's probably only just adjusting to not living in the palace and being on the run and suddenly, people are nice to her without knowing she's a princess!) And I love Emma's look when Mary Margaret told Ruby she could come stay with them. It was all "Mary Margaret, aren't I enough of a stray for you?" (Emma, haven't we discussed this thing about having awkward chemistry with your biological parents, even if they're magically enchanted to be your age?)

Dr. Whale is such a creeper. I'm still flabbergasted that Mary Margaret had that one night stand with him. She must have been really, really down at the time.

I kind of had it pegged for either Red or Granny to be the wolf, and am both glad (because it's a good take, and worked better than the recent movie which they were clearly using for inspiration in that regard) and sad (because she accidentally ate her boyfriend!) about it. Also, I think Granny may have timestamped Rumples? Except I was kind of bored by his backstory episode and can't remember if that was the first or second Ogre War with him. And Granny was a seventh child! I hope they do something with that.

I hope that wasn't Kathryn's heart in the box! Except that in this show, that wouldn't necessarily mean she was dead. Though I wonder if, because of the curse Regina actually has everyone's heart and maybe it's actually Snow White's? No idea what's up with David, though I think the curse is still messed up with him in a way it isn't for others because he's was dying when it took effect and was in a coma for so long. (Excpet I think maybe he was just barely dead? So maybe the "no resurrecting the dead" thing isn't as solid as was previously stated.)

Sole real downside with the episode for me: Show, remember back when Regina did more than walk onscreen and ask Emma why she wasn't doing her job right? I do. Be nice to get back to that. And not just "everything bad was because of her!" FTL flashbacks either.

 

Ringer 1.17:

This episode! All the Siobahn POV! All the Bridget and Solomon running around playing detective! Juliet finding out what's going on with her mother! (Yes Juliet, Bridget really is the only decent parent you have, even if you think she;s someone else.)

Also so glad Juliet learned that guy was a creeper right away and wasn't led on by him for a while. And that she's on good terms with Tessa. And right after I commented in IMs that she really needed a hug she huggle-attacked Bridget.

Bridget explaining everything to Henry was kinda creepy but also kinda awesome and her HBIC-ness with him and the way he keeps coming back no matter what may be making me ship them a bit even though I still dislike him. (Sisters therapy is too much to hope for, isn't it?)

I was really hoping that Andrew was going to turn into a straight up villain in the first half of the episode (And he and Olivia apparently are responsible for Tyler's death, and I'm pretty sure he actually was considering killing Siobahn until she was suddenly nice? I hope Malcolm is alive!) but it looks like maybe not. Though, I think they've taken it far enough with him that they can't still keep him as the romantic lead? Uhm...if he dies, Horatio Hornblower and move on to somewhere where hhe plays a character I like and who isn't prone to paternalistic and sexist comments? Though I like to think they were deliberately putting those bits mixed in with his apparent niceness deliberately as a sign that he was not what he seemed.

Malcolm! Don't be dead!
 

Comments

[branewurms]

If they wanted me to believe what happened to Nadia was inevitable, Bo and Lauren would have actually had to, you know, TRY SOME OTHER OPTIONS FIRST?! Succubus her or SOMETHING, knock the woman out so Lauren could try her mystery serum on her? IDK THERE ARE QUITE A NUMBER OF THINGS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN TRIED, WTF.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, the way it went down is almost worse than the fact that she died. I mean, we KNOW Bo is stronger than Nadia, and she regularly succubuses people unconscious, something she did to someone else NOT TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER IN THE EPISODE. Like, for that to have worked at all narratively, they should have had Bo try to restrain her only to learn the the Garuda had made her superstrong and/or resistant or something. It also made Bo and Lauren look like they'd lost all their intelligence, creativity and characterization.

Though apparently fandom hated her, so I'm sure they're happy. I avoid this fandom.

[lea_hazel]

In my mind it's now Bo = murderer and also I will never try to enter the fandom again, ever. So sad now. Oh well, maybe this will give my brain legitimization to dwell on fic of Bo as an evil overlord who has the world in her thrall.

[meganbmoore]

I think the narrative wants us to believe that Bo had no choice, which is just bad writing on their part. I mean, it wouldn't have really taken any more screentime up to have her hulk out or something and Bo not be able to succubus her unconscious either because she couldn't overpower Nadia long enough or it wasn't working on Nadia, and then we'd actually buythat it was unavoidable at the moment, even if we'd still be pissed about it.

[jinian]

I did not know there was Phryne on TV! I will have to investigate this sometime after I finish watching Sungkyunkwan Scandal.

[meganbmoore]

There is, and she is awesome! It's an Australian show and it's going to be 13 episodes long, though I don't know if it's a miniseries or a season.

I need to watch Sungkyukwan Scandal. Actually, I need to get back to the 2 sageuks I was watching late last year, but have been in a "do not want to read my television!" mode for about 6 months. (Part of it, I suspect, is there actually consistently being a decent number of US shows I'm interested in following as they come out...I can't remember the last time I had so many.)