Of Swords and Parasols

 I wonder who let the Highlander fan loose in the writer's room for Beauty and the Beast's season premeire.

Context: Peter Wingfield guest stars as a mercenary hunting possibly-immortal superhumans, and kills a conspiracy theorist named Duncan along the way.

1. One more episode of Beauty and the Beast, and all my summer shows are over. Not entirely certain what to make of this season of BatB. There are parts I really like, but the main plotlines of the season just haven't grabbed me. Also, massive waste of Gloria Vostis and Natasha Henstridge.

2. When Dark Matter and Killjoys started, I preferred Dark Matter of the two, but it's pretty firmly the opposite by the end of the season. Dark Matter just has too many microaggressions against Two-as-leader, and while it isn't exactly fond of rape threats, it came up enough for the show to lose points for it with me. Also, much as I like MOST of Dark Matter's crew, I liked One less every single episode, whereas D'Avin in Killjoys, who I initially also disliked, grew on me a fair bit. I mean, I like him less than pretty much every other named and main or recurring character, but I'll take him over One easily.

Both shows broke out the big guns for the finales (though I think the rebellion in Killjoys was a bit too background for the whole season to work the way they wanted it to in the finale). Killjoys is absolutely forbidden to open season 2 with sad music playing as the camera does a slowmo pan over the bodies of dead recurring characters (the show had it's chance with the "what's behind the door?" tension. It isn't allowed to pull anything like that.), and while I'm not pleased with the reveal of the traitor in Dark Matter, there aren't many ways that could have gone without my objecting.

Fingers crossed that both will get renewed.

3. Continuum is back, though, for it's fourth and final season. I wasn't big on the new future introduced towards the end of season 3, but we'll see how things go. If nothing else, I do at least trust the show to have a good ending. (Though I hope Kiera/Brad isn't end game.)

4.Years after Moon Embracing the Sun was the big Kdrama of the Moment, I'm getting around to watching it. I remember being moderately interested in it when it aired but not enough to watch it at the time, and that it seemed everyone either loved it, or hated it because everyone else loved it. It also came out in what seems to have been a bit of a Flower Boy craze in fusion sageuks after Sungkyukwan Scandal (another that i need to see, though most of my interest is Park Min Young) and it really shows.

I'm 8 episodes in and enjoying it, though in a somewhat passive way, largely because of my disinterest in the adult version of the main character. Kim Yoo Jung as Yeon Woo in the childhood (really early teens) part was really great, and I loved the character then, but Han Ga In as the adult Yeon Woo is rather...blank. I mean, part of it is because the character has amnesia, I think, but the acting is (IMO) rather bland. There have been a couple scenes where the character grabbed me, but they were exceptions, not the rule. There are a lot of other characters that I like, but it's hard for me to get invested when I don't feel anything for the female lead. I don't dislike her or anything, she just doesn't grab me.
Sseeing Kim Min Seo as Bo Kyung is a little odd, as she's also in Hwajung, where she also plays an evil scheming lady who wants to be queen. Though i'd say that, despite the type, the characters are completely different. I actually wouldn't have even realized it was the same actress because she looks and acts so different in the two series, but she has a rather distinctive face.

Speaking of faces, I don't know what casting was doing with the child actors, to a certain degree. It's like they actively sought to find young actors who bore a strong resemblance to the adult actors, then randomly assigned the roles without paying attention to which adults the younger actors actually resembled.

5. Fall shows start up again soon, though I'm not sure there are any new ones that I'll be checking out. Nothing grabbed me when I glanced through new shows a while back, but I might have missing something.

6. I rewatched the K Project anime as a refresher before season 2 airs, and also watched the Missing Kings sequel movie, which was pretty good, despite someohw managing to make Seri's skirt even shorter. I'm never forgiving the series for the reveal about Shiro's true identity, but I do still like it, mostly for the characters. I went ahead and watched the series dubbed and...most of the dubbing was ok, but Reisi and Fushimi's dubbed voices would have made me dislike the characters even if I didn't already have issues with them. (Reisi I would like if he wren't prone to manhandling prisoners and din't seem to enjoying showing off his powers to those weaker than him so much. Fushimi just annoys me. A lot.) I'll probably rewatch Noragami before the second season of that airs, too, though I watched the first season much more recently than my first watch of K Project.

1. Galavant decided that instead of the miniseries it advertised itself as, it wanted to be an ongoing series instead, and ended with multiple cliffhangers that resulted in it going out with a sizzle instead of a bang. It had a rough start and some bad patches, but overall, I enjoyed it and hope that it does get a second season.

2. The Librarians OTOH, had an excellent end to the first season, and it ends in a way where we aren't left with dangling plotlines and too many unanswered questions if it doesn't get renewed, but that also doesn't make a second season difficult. Anyone who missed that this is by a lot of the same people who did Leverage.

3. How to Get Away With murder, The 100 and Jane the Virgin have all returned from hiatus, and all remain excellent. Empire is also getting better with every episode, and keeps reassuring me that it knows that Cookie winning (either directly or through Jamal) is the only way this can end in a satisfying way.

4. State of Affairs remains awful, but I keep watching it. Katherine Heigl sometimes looks like she's in actual pain while saying her lines, while Alfre Woodard is sitting there all "I am strong. I am talented. I AM POTUS. I shall conquer this script..."

5. Star Wars: Rebels is still good and is fleshing out the non-Ezra and Kanan characters more. I just grow increasingly fearful that, despite being more kid friendly than The Clone Wars, it's all going to end in blood and tears.

6. Sleepy Hollow is...around, I guess. Aside from the appropriation involved in the Villain of the Week, I enjoyed the latest episode more than I have a number of the episodes this season, but still not as much as I enjoyed season one.

7. Netflix has season 2 of Beauty and the Beast streaming, so i've started watching that from where I left off a while back (Episodes 2.9-onward). I'm really enjoying it, so far, despite the fact that it has the first female character who I've actively disliked in years.

 135 x Beauty and the Beast (late season 1)

  

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Agatha Christie's Marple 6.1: "A Caribbean Mystery": Pretty good adaptation overall. Once I got used to the extreme liberties this series takes (my favorite in this one when it jut randomly introduces Ian Fleming in a bit role), it became pretty near and dear to me. I am a bit confused, though, as Nemesis, whose plot is largely dependent on the death of a character in a Caribbean Mystery, was adapted in an earlier episode of the series, back in the Geraldine McEwan days, and I'm pretty sure the McEwan and McKenzie episodes are still considered part of the same series. Oh well. On a superficial note, it took me about 20 minutes to realize that Charity Wakefield was playing Molly, as blonde hair makes her look very very different.

Agatha Christie's Marple 6.2 "Greenshaw's Folly": If I've read the short story this is based on, it's been changed enough that I don't recognize it. That said, aside from a few "No! Stop traumatizing the abused little boy!" moments, I liked this one a lot. Fiona Shaw! Julia Swalhala! Julia McKenzie! Judy Parfitt! And...other perfectly fine actors and actresses. The mysteries and twists were rather standard for Christie (and, admittedly, I shudder a bit to think of how many adaptations of her stuff I've watched at this point), but but I thought they worked well anyway.

Agatha Christie's Poirot 13.1 "Elephants Can Remember": I haven't read the book this is based on (I haven't read many Poirot books, actually. Much as I love him when it's David Suchet, he aggravates me in the books) and so can't comment on it as an adaptation, but I liked this a lot, and especially enjoyed all the gothic tropes, and found myself almost rooting for the killer due to motivations.

Beauty and the Beast 1.21-1.22: My childhood memories are vague, but i'm pretty sure elements of the last scene were genderswapped versions of the season 2 finale of the 80s series.

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Bomb Girls 2.7-2.12: GUYS. Rose O'Donnell guested as a character named Dottie. If you don't know why it made me figuratively bounce around with joy to have Rosie O'Donnell play a character named Dottie in a show about women taking on men's jobs during wartime, then either you haven't seen A League of Their Own, or it's been too long since you've watched it. Either way, it should be corrected.

Also, the series is cancelled, which is tragic beyond words.

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Continuum 2.5-2.8:

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Revolution 1.19-1.20: I rarely deliberately spoil myself before watching things, but I'm glad I did this time.

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I watched a little bit of the first episode of The White Queen, based on the Philippa Gregory novel, but didn't care for it. A pity, as I'd really been anticipating it. I also watched season 4 of Community. I didn't dislike it the way a lot seem to, though maybe that's because I"d heard that it was really bad, and so had lowered expectations? But while a lot of it felt off and sometimes characters felt like regressing (and they went even further with "Britta's a dumb blonde" than last season, which is saying something, and not something good), I'm pretty sure this is also the first time Troy and Shirley have had a plot for just the two of them, and there seemed to be more scenes of Annie, Britta and Shirley interacting than I remember there being in the second and third seasons.

Beauty and the Beast 1.20: (err...I think that's the latest episode's number)

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Continuum 2.3: The true tragedy of this week's flashbacks was that poofy thing they did to Kiera's hair. The braid itself was fine, but the top poof is not my thing.

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Defiance 1.4:

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Elementary 1.21: Did Holmes just burn a GI Joe at the stake?

( spoilers )Person of Interest 2.21: It worries me when a show only has 4 regular characters and one is MIA in the seasons penultimate episode.

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Revolution 1.16:  This was a lot better than last week's episode, not that that would be hard to pull off.

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Not that I'm anywhere near current in general.

Beauty and the Beast 1.15-1.17:( spoilers )

Elementary 1.19:

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Revolution 1.11-1.13:

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Beauty and the Beast 1.13-1.14: Sssssooooooo much sisters stuff and partners stuff in these episodes!

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Elementary 1.16-1.17:

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Lost Girl 3.1-3.6: The season opener was awful in 90% of aspects and I'm going to forget it exists. It got better after that, though.
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Nikita 3.11-3.12:

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Once Upon A Time 2.13-2.14:

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Person of Interest 2.15-2.16: I suspect certain parts of this fandom were in agony over these two episodes.

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Arrow 1.8-1.9: These episodes were...entertaining, but not particularly interesting a lot of the time? I dunno.

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Beauty and the Beast 1.8-1.9:

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Elementary 1.9-1.10:

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Nikita 3.6: Interesting note to go on hiatus with.

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Once Upon A Time 2.9:

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Person of Interest 2.9-2.10:

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The Secret of Crickley Hall: 3 part BBC miniseries based on a novel by James Herbert. Rather excellent gothic horror, even if most of the elements were fairly standard. Parents and their two daughters move to big house in the countryside a year after their son goes missing, house just happens to be the site where refugee children drowned in the cellar in WW2. Very creepy and spooky, interesting mysteries, lots of women of various ages and types Doing Things. Very much recommended if you like the ghosts/haunted house/gothic variety of horror, but a strong warning for child abuse, as the hosts of the refugee children were abusive. The majority of the abuse is offscreen, but it's pretty central to the plot.

58 x Arrow (Pilot)
60 x Beauty and the Beast (Pilot)



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