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The third episode of Blindspot was pretty "meh," and agent whatshisface's dialogue was awful. I'm giving it another episode or two, but I lost a lot of my energy for the show this week. OTOH, I really enjoyed the new Minority Report, and am sad that it's apparently doing terrible in the ratings.
This week's Empire was, IMO, a lot better than the first two episodes of the season.
iZombie's season premeire did not impress me much. The Brain of the Week seemed to just be an excuse to make a lot of racist jokes and avoid and consequences or the need to address it because we know "the real Liv" would never say those things. I'm also not really a fan of Major, and it looks like the progression that led to his plotline overpowering everyone else's in the later part of last season is going to be even more prominent this season. Madam Secretary, OTOH, had a very strong premeire.
( spoiler )
Sleepy Hollow was largely enjoyable, but the Betsy Ross scenes made me cringe. It's like they took the problems with Katrina and amplified them, but with a less talented actress. Katrina, IMO, was a character with the potential to be good played by an actress who was good enough that she could have made a well written character great, but wasn't quite good enough to salvage such an inconsistently written character. She was also very much a modern woman in (fake) period clothing, which is, of course, not inherently bad, but so far, Betsy Ross is almost a caricature of the "gutsy period heroine with modern sensibilities" type. (Granted, we haven't really learned much about her opinions or life yet, but the dialogue and approach are definitely there.) I'm crossing my fingers that they'll get better with her, but the show doesn't really have a good record with women who aren't Abbie and Jenny. (I mean, I liked Reyes a lot, but she wasn't always handled well. Macey and Cynthia they did a good job with, but forgot all about them for most of season 2.) I do enjoy Pandora, but mostly for Shannyn Sossamon.
That said...
( spoilers )
How to Get Away With Murder is actually stressing me out a bit. I'm so worried about everyone! Also, in the flashforwards, I'm pretty sure Annelise told them to do it, but we'll see. Friendship things in the present still fill me with delight, though. Also, nice to see that my assumption about the murder siblings was right, and Sherri Saum was a nice treat.
This week's Empire was, IMO, a lot better than the first two episodes of the season.
iZombie's season premeire did not impress me much. The Brain of the Week seemed to just be an excuse to make a lot of racist jokes and avoid and consequences or the need to address it because we know "the real Liv" would never say those things. I'm also not really a fan of Major, and it looks like the progression that led to his plotline overpowering everyone else's in the later part of last season is going to be even more prominent this season. Madam Secretary, OTOH, had a very strong premeire.
( spoiler )
Sleepy Hollow was largely enjoyable, but the Betsy Ross scenes made me cringe. It's like they took the problems with Katrina and amplified them, but with a less talented actress. Katrina, IMO, was a character with the potential to be good played by an actress who was good enough that she could have made a well written character great, but wasn't quite good enough to salvage such an inconsistently written character. She was also very much a modern woman in (fake) period clothing, which is, of course, not inherently bad, but so far, Betsy Ross is almost a caricature of the "gutsy period heroine with modern sensibilities" type. (Granted, we haven't really learned much about her opinions or life yet, but the dialogue and approach are definitely there.) I'm crossing my fingers that they'll get better with her, but the show doesn't really have a good record with women who aren't Abbie and Jenny. (I mean, I liked Reyes a lot, but she wasn't always handled well. Macey and Cynthia they did a good job with, but forgot all about them for most of season 2.) I do enjoy Pandora, but mostly for Shannyn Sossamon.
That said...
( spoilers )
How to Get Away With Murder is actually stressing me out a bit. I'm so worried about everyone! Also, in the flashforwards, I'm pretty sure Annelise told them to do it, but we'll see. Friendship things in the present still fill me with delight, though. Also, nice to see that my assumption about the murder siblings was right, and Sherri Saum was a nice treat.
(no subject)
Sep. 7th, 2015 06:31 pm PSA that Netflix now has the first season of Madam Secretary. Watch it so I don't feel alone anymore. (Honestly, the plot is average and the conspiracy plot is silly at times, but the characters and actors are great and I know you've all watched way worse.) Related, the trailer for season 2.
1A. Secrets and Lies ended. Well, the season did, at least. I had thought it was a miniseries going in, and seem to recall it being promoted as such. Pretty much, I didn't realize it was possible to feel that betrayed and let down by a show you found faily all over the place anyway, and didn't actually like.
1B. It was renewed, and I'll probably end up at least trying out season 2 in the hopes that the one element of the finale that I liked gets followed up on.
1C. Agent Carter and Galavant were also renewed, and I'm pretty sure they were also originally promoted as miniseries? At least I mostly liked both of them, though, and can hope the second seasons will be better about the things I didn't
2. Madam Secretary's first season also ended, and was a much better ending. I've seen some people call it anticlimactic, but I don't think it really was. I think we're just conditioned to expect cliffhangers, and for parts of the BIg Mystery to carry over into the second season, not leave things resolved, especially when another season is already a done thing. Fandom seems to have skipped over this one for the most part, which makes me sad, but at least it apparently has decent enough ratings.
3. Hwajung is probably my favorite thing I'm watching right now. For those who don't like to start sageuks until the leads have grown up, they grow up at the end of episode 7. I am pleased to report that the crossdressing exiled princess heroine who wants revenge is also a conartist who braves volcanoes and Edo era checkpoints (hey, those things were scary!) I can see some of the things I liked best about Queen Seon Deok as influence here (well, the 51 episodes of QSD that I acknowledge exist), particularly in regards to character dynamics and how Jungmyung thinks and plots, but not to a really obvious degree. I made a few picspams for tumblr for it. Two general ones for the first episode, and one for episode 8 that's more character specific.
( cut for spoilers and caps )
4. Interesting article about the influence of Nancy Drew.
5. I took a break from Murder She Wrote because the narrative POV of Jessica's writing and adventuring in it really, really irked me, but I'm watching season 6 now. An interesting thing about watching older shows is that they're prone to reusing the same guest actors in multiple roles. Today, with DVDs and streaming services being the norm, it's really noticeable. But 20+ years ago, the episodes wouldn't be spaced far enough apart that you wouldn't immediately go 'this producer was the lady in prison back in X episode of season 1, and this guy was the cheating husband in Y episode, the hapless cop in Z episode, and the evil brother in T episode."
Also, people's hair looks they they could have conceivably done it themselves. I mean, you know wardrobe got their hands on them, but it LOOKS like they could have done it themselves, as opposed to completely broke people's "disheveled" look making them look like they just spent 3 hours at the salon.
6. While they don't have much in common besides being historical mysteries with a civilian female lead solving crime with a police officer who initially doesn't care for their butting in, I think fans of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries might like Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mysteries.
1B. It was renewed, and I'll probably end up at least trying out season 2 in the hopes that the one element of the finale that I liked gets followed up on.
1C. Agent Carter and Galavant were also renewed, and I'm pretty sure they were also originally promoted as miniseries? At least I mostly liked both of them, though, and can hope the second seasons will be better about the things I didn't
2. Madam Secretary's first season also ended, and was a much better ending. I've seen some people call it anticlimactic, but I don't think it really was. I think we're just conditioned to expect cliffhangers, and for parts of the BIg Mystery to carry over into the second season, not leave things resolved, especially when another season is already a done thing. Fandom seems to have skipped over this one for the most part, which makes me sad, but at least it apparently has decent enough ratings.
3. Hwajung is probably my favorite thing I'm watching right now. For those who don't like to start sageuks until the leads have grown up, they grow up at the end of episode 7. I am pleased to report that the crossdressing exiled princess heroine who wants revenge is also a conartist who braves volcanoes and Edo era checkpoints (hey, those things were scary!) I can see some of the things I liked best about Queen Seon Deok as influence here (well, the 51 episodes of QSD that I acknowledge exist), particularly in regards to character dynamics and how Jungmyung thinks and plots, but not to a really obvious degree. I made a few picspams for tumblr for it. Two general ones for the first episode, and one for episode 8 that's more character specific.
( cut for spoilers and caps )
4. Interesting article about the influence of Nancy Drew.
5. I took a break from Murder She Wrote because the narrative POV of Jessica's writing and adventuring in it really, really irked me, but I'm watching season 6 now. An interesting thing about watching older shows is that they're prone to reusing the same guest actors in multiple roles. Today, with DVDs and streaming services being the norm, it's really noticeable. But 20+ years ago, the episodes wouldn't be spaced far enough apart that you wouldn't immediately go 'this producer was the lady in prison back in X episode of season 1, and this guy was the cheating husband in Y episode, the hapless cop in Z episode, and the evil brother in T episode."
Also, people's hair looks they they could have conceivably done it themselves. I mean, you know wardrobe got their hands on them, but it LOOKS like they could have done it themselves, as opposed to completely broke people's "disheveled" look making them look like they just spent 3 hours at the salon.
6. While they don't have much in common besides being historical mysteries with a civilian female lead solving crime with a police officer who initially doesn't care for their butting in, I think fans of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries might like Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mysteries.
TeeVee and movies
Mar. 8th, 2015 01:45 pm1. Madam Secretary is back, which makes me very happy. The politics are still very "whatever" at best, but the characters and relationships are great. Granted, having watched the entire awful first season of State of Affairs might be making it look better than it would otherwise.
2. I watched the first two episodes of Secrets and Lies and will watch more, but in part because so many of my shows have wrapped up for a while. I mean, it was ok and all, but the first 2 episodes pretty actively didn't care about any PoV aside from that of Ryan Phillippe's character.
3. The first season of Star Wars: Rebels is over, and apparently I got invested along the way. And curse Star Wars: The clone Wars for making me excited about certain things coming in season 2.
( spoilers )
I'm currently reading Star Wars; a New Dawn, which is a repquel to the series about how Kanan and Hera met. The book ships them to an absurd degree, and Kanan is spending most of his time mooning over Hera when he isn't busy internally chanting "I am an angsty loner, a looonnnneeeerrrr!" while Hera occassionally tries to decide whether its amusing or annoying as she Does Important Stuff.
4. This week's Empire both proved that Lucious is the worst and most abusive father on TV (well on TV that I'm watching) and that Trai Byers really needs to win Best Supporting Actor next year. (Best Actress needs to be determined by having Taraji Henson and Viola Davis go up on stage and argue their cases for why they should win in character as Cookie and Annelise. That way, everyone wins.)
5. I watched all 31 episodes of The Fosters that Netflix has. It's very good, but also very stressful to watch at times. I'm kinda glad that I ran out, so I can take a bit of a break.
6. And then there's MTV's Eye Candy, which is about a hacker who is working with the police to catch a cyberstalker and serial killer. There are I think 8-9 episodes aired, but hulu only has the first 5. I really like Lindy, the main character (and that the character, like the actress, is biracial, when a lot of shows would have made the character white) and her friends and that Lindy is out to singlehandedly rescue all the missing/abducted people in the world singlehandedly. I don't like the stalker's voiceovers, which are ucky, don't actually add anything useful to the show, and make me want to fastforward through parts of every episode, or how the internet is apparently and evil, evil place full of nothing but stalkers and liars and creepers, and Lindy is apparently the only person ever to use it for good. It also has the typical issue I have with procedurals which is that the camera is much fonder of lingering over female corpses and death scenes than male ones.
7. I also watched some good movies recently. The new Annie was really adorable. Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart is a gothic steampunk fairy tale about a boy born on the coldest night ever, and whose heart is replaced with a cuckoo clock, because his real one was frozen, and his journey's through life and love. It's strange and surreal and very engaging, but probably not for kids. The Book of Life was a fairy tale of another sort entirely. I really liked it and how it went about the narrative structure (it's certainly not the first to tell a story that way, but it did it well) but I wish I hadn't felt like it was shouting "STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER" at me in all of Maria's scenes. I mean, I liked Maria, I just kept thinking the movie wanted me to pat it on the back and tell it what a great job it'd done a lot of the time.
2. I watched the first two episodes of Secrets and Lies and will watch more, but in part because so many of my shows have wrapped up for a while. I mean, it was ok and all, but the first 2 episodes pretty actively didn't care about any PoV aside from that of Ryan Phillippe's character.
3. The first season of Star Wars: Rebels is over, and apparently I got invested along the way. And curse Star Wars: The clone Wars for making me excited about certain things coming in season 2.
( spoilers )
I'm currently reading Star Wars; a New Dawn, which is a repquel to the series about how Kanan and Hera met. The book ships them to an absurd degree, and Kanan is spending most of his time mooning over Hera when he isn't busy internally chanting "I am an angsty loner, a looonnnneeeerrrr!" while Hera occassionally tries to decide whether its amusing or annoying as she Does Important Stuff.
4. This week's Empire both proved that Lucious is the worst and most abusive father on TV (well on TV that I'm watching) and that Trai Byers really needs to win Best Supporting Actor next year. (Best Actress needs to be determined by having Taraji Henson and Viola Davis go up on stage and argue their cases for why they should win in character as Cookie and Annelise. That way, everyone wins.)
5. I watched all 31 episodes of The Fosters that Netflix has. It's very good, but also very stressful to watch at times. I'm kinda glad that I ran out, so I can take a bit of a break.
6. And then there's MTV's Eye Candy, which is about a hacker who is working with the police to catch a cyberstalker and serial killer. There are I think 8-9 episodes aired, but hulu only has the first 5. I really like Lindy, the main character (and that the character, like the actress, is biracial, when a lot of shows would have made the character white) and her friends and that Lindy is out to singlehandedly rescue all the missing/abducted people in the world singlehandedly. I don't like the stalker's voiceovers, which are ucky, don't actually add anything useful to the show, and make me want to fastforward through parts of every episode, or how the internet is apparently and evil, evil place full of nothing but stalkers and liars and creepers, and Lindy is apparently the only person ever to use it for good. It also has the typical issue I have with procedurals which is that the camera is much fonder of lingering over female corpses and death scenes than male ones.
7. I also watched some good movies recently. The new Annie was really adorable. Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart is a gothic steampunk fairy tale about a boy born on the coldest night ever, and whose heart is replaced with a cuckoo clock, because his real one was frozen, and his journey's through life and love. It's strange and surreal and very engaging, but probably not for kids. The Book of Life was a fairy tale of another sort entirely. I really liked it and how it went about the narrative structure (it's certainly not the first to tell a story that way, but it did it well) but I wish I hadn't felt like it was shouting "STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER" at me in all of Maria's scenes. I mean, I liked Maria, I just kept thinking the movie wanted me to pat it on the back and tell it what a great job it'd done a lot of the time.
everything under the son
Dec. 12th, 2014 03:58 pmI woke up this morning all eager for my 3 day weekend, went to Wal-Mart, started getting the chills, got back home and barely managed to take care of perishable before collapsing. Got up about an hour later and had a 102.2f temperature. Whee! At least I didn't have to call in sick to work? It went up to a littler over 103 but has gone down a bit since, and I've managed to stay mobile for about 15 minutes, so maybe I'll get lucky and whatever it is will pass as quickly as I came down with it.
Anyway, I typed this up a couple days ago and hadn't gotten around to posting, so I'll post it now before collapsing again.
1. Flight Rising is having another open registration window next Monday. I guess it's officially a monthly thing now. As always, I will be giving dragons to friends who join, though possibly not until later in the week, as site competitions this week might wipe me out of all dragons that aren't permanent residents in my lair.
2. Related, your pet dragons can now have PET ROBOTS. Though they were created for the highest difficulty level (so far) in the coliseum, but there are other ways to get them. But I repeat YOUR PET PIXEL DRAGONS CAN HAVE PET PIXEL ROBOTS.
3. The newest version of Return of the Condor Heroes is apparently as awful as one would expect a series advertising itself as choosing to make a rapist adorable to be. (I mean, the rape plot in ROCH has problems all over the place, but at least it doesn't think the rapist is sympathetic or likable or fassscinating, so it has that over quite a few rape plots. And also the bit where the person who was rapes finds out who really raped her and hunts him across half of China and kills him. Which probably won't happen with an "adorable" rapist.) It's ok, my backlog of shows to watch is enormous as it is.
4. Kevin Kostner's comments on racism may not be as blatantly horrific as Kevin Sorbo's, but maybe Hollywood needs to make a rule about past-their-professional-prime actors named Kevin aren't allowed to talk about race in public without someone there to kick them in the shin when they go wrong.
5. I started watching the Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic anime on Netflix a couple weeks ago out of boredom, and really enjoyed it. It's a shounen adventure series very, very loosely based on 1001 Nights (loosely=It uses some names and the settings sometimes look vaguely right). The main characters are Aladdin, a child magician, Ali Baba, a wanderer with A Secret Angsty Past, and Morgianna, a former slave girl with super strength and speed. It does a better job than a lot of shounen with the grander scope of things and handling a coming war between three major countries. Unfortunately, season 2, Magi: The Kingdom of Magic splits up the 3 main characters and separates them from their other friends. Ali Baba and Morgianna are MIA for most of the season (Morgianna is considerably more MIA that Ali Baba, or course...) and most of it is Aladdin learning more about magic in another country. Unfortunately, while I like Aladdin, he's way, way less interesting than Morgianna and Ali Baba (and the other supporting characters who are also mostly MIA), and the 2 friends he makes are nice and all, but the actual kingdom is BORING, as is the characters who (as of ep 20, where I am) appears to be the main antagonist. I mean, I'm still enjoying it, just a lot less than the first season, and hoping that if there's a third season, it'll be better. There are some events that are making things more interesting going on, but it's in conjunction with my caring even less about the magic kingdom and being more annoyed by the antagonist.
6. Madame Secretary is on hiatus, but at least it was given a full season. Maybe State of Affairs will seem less horrible when I'm not also watching a far superior female-lead political thriller show? (I mean Madam Secretary's politics and conspiracy plot are just as awful, but the show itself is much better written, as are the characters and their relationships.
7. I've been reading "cozy mysteries" lately, and I'd really like to know how a genre about multiple murders in a small town over a relatively brief period of time not only came to be called "cozy," but also gained a reputation for being comfort reading. I mean, they are comfort reading, and I should write up my thoughts about why some time, but you have to admit, it's a bit odd. (I suspect Agatha Christie and Rex Stout having had dozens and dozens of such books consistently in print for decades contributes some there. I mean, not just them, but they're the big ones that immediately spring to mind.
8. Taraji Henson's new series starts soon! I deliberately have not watched the preview for Empire, but based on what I've read, I'm hoping that her character is on an epic revenge quest and steal her ex-husband's music empire. *hopes*
9. I watched the pilot of The Librarians (or rather, the first 2 episodes, which were aired together because networks don't like 2 hours pilots anymore and air episodes together and confuse everyone about episode numbering). It was entertaining. Christian Kane looked very confused every time he didn't beat up 10 guys at once and Noah Wylie looked very tired thanks to his day job of fighting off alien invasions (though I'm sure he's happy that he has this lined up if it lasts, since Falling Skies's next season will be the last) And Rebecca Romjin made "WTF?" faces a lot. And, I mean, of course Matt Frewer and John Larroquette are running around being...well, themselves. It VERY much felt like a pilot for a series based on a franchise most people forgot exists, and as others have noted, it seems to want to appeal to Warehouse 13 fans, so it was a bit...off, but I'll watch more.
10. Star Wars: Rebels is on midseason hiatus, and I'm not sure who else is watching, but a few comments:
( spoilery )
Anyway, I typed this up a couple days ago and hadn't gotten around to posting, so I'll post it now before collapsing again.
1. Flight Rising is having another open registration window next Monday. I guess it's officially a monthly thing now. As always, I will be giving dragons to friends who join, though possibly not until later in the week, as site competitions this week might wipe me out of all dragons that aren't permanent residents in my lair.
2. Related, your pet dragons can now have PET ROBOTS. Though they were created for the highest difficulty level (so far) in the coliseum, but there are other ways to get them. But I repeat YOUR PET PIXEL DRAGONS CAN HAVE PET PIXEL ROBOTS.
3. The newest version of Return of the Condor Heroes is apparently as awful as one would expect a series advertising itself as choosing to make a rapist adorable to be. (I mean, the rape plot in ROCH has problems all over the place, but at least it doesn't think the rapist is sympathetic or likable or fassscinating, so it has that over quite a few rape plots. And also the bit where the person who was rapes finds out who really raped her and hunts him across half of China and kills him. Which probably won't happen with an "adorable" rapist.) It's ok, my backlog of shows to watch is enormous as it is.
4. Kevin Kostner's comments on racism may not be as blatantly horrific as Kevin Sorbo's, but maybe Hollywood needs to make a rule about past-their-professional-prime actors named Kevin aren't allowed to talk about race in public without someone there to kick them in the shin when they go wrong.
5. I started watching the Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic anime on Netflix a couple weeks ago out of boredom, and really enjoyed it. It's a shounen adventure series very, very loosely based on 1001 Nights (loosely=It uses some names and the settings sometimes look vaguely right). The main characters are Aladdin, a child magician, Ali Baba, a wanderer with A Secret Angsty Past, and Morgianna, a former slave girl with super strength and speed. It does a better job than a lot of shounen with the grander scope of things and handling a coming war between three major countries. Unfortunately, season 2, Magi: The Kingdom of Magic splits up the 3 main characters and separates them from their other friends. Ali Baba and Morgianna are MIA for most of the season (Morgianna is considerably more MIA that Ali Baba, or course...) and most of it is Aladdin learning more about magic in another country. Unfortunately, while I like Aladdin, he's way, way less interesting than Morgianna and Ali Baba (and the other supporting characters who are also mostly MIA), and the 2 friends he makes are nice and all, but the actual kingdom is BORING, as is the characters who (as of ep 20, where I am) appears to be the main antagonist. I mean, I'm still enjoying it, just a lot less than the first season, and hoping that if there's a third season, it'll be better. There are some events that are making things more interesting going on, but it's in conjunction with my caring even less about the magic kingdom and being more annoyed by the antagonist.
6. Madame Secretary is on hiatus, but at least it was given a full season. Maybe State of Affairs will seem less horrible when I'm not also watching a far superior female-lead political thriller show? (I mean Madam Secretary's politics and conspiracy plot are just as awful, but the show itself is much better written, as are the characters and their relationships.
7. I've been reading "cozy mysteries" lately, and I'd really like to know how a genre about multiple murders in a small town over a relatively brief period of time not only came to be called "cozy," but also gained a reputation for being comfort reading. I mean, they are comfort reading, and I should write up my thoughts about why some time, but you have to admit, it's a bit odd. (I suspect Agatha Christie and Rex Stout having had dozens and dozens of such books consistently in print for decades contributes some there. I mean, not just them, but they're the big ones that immediately spring to mind.
8. Taraji Henson's new series starts soon! I deliberately have not watched the preview for Empire, but based on what I've read, I'm hoping that her character is on an epic revenge quest and steal her ex-husband's music empire. *hopes*
9. I watched the pilot of The Librarians (or rather, the first 2 episodes, which were aired together because networks don't like 2 hours pilots anymore and air episodes together and confuse everyone about episode numbering). It was entertaining. Christian Kane looked very confused every time he didn't beat up 10 guys at once and Noah Wylie looked very tired thanks to his day job of fighting off alien invasions (though I'm sure he's happy that he has this lined up if it lasts, since Falling Skies's next season will be the last) And Rebecca Romjin made "WTF?" faces a lot. And, I mean, of course Matt Frewer and John Larroquette are running around being...well, themselves. It VERY much felt like a pilot for a series based on a franchise most people forgot exists, and as others have noted, it seems to want to appeal to Warehouse 13 fans, so it was a bit...off, but I'll watch more.
10. Star Wars: Rebels is on midseason hiatus, and I'm not sure who else is watching, but a few comments:
( spoilery )
Madam Secretary 1.4-1.9
Nov. 21st, 2014 09:28 pm( spoilers )
I'm also current on Jane the Virgin, Happyland, The 100, Sleepy Hollow, State of Affairs and How to Get Away With Murder, but don't feel up to writing them up right now. Feel free to ask me any questions about my thoughts on whatever in comments. (Ok, i've gone on EXTENSIVELY about one thing in The 100 on twitter, but sometimes you have to get ranting out of your system.)
I'm also current on Jane the Virgin, Happyland, The 100, Sleepy Hollow, State of Affairs and How to Get Away With Murder, but don't feel up to writing them up right now. Feel free to ask me any questions about my thoughts on whatever in comments. (Ok, i've gone on EXTENSIVELY about one thing in The 100 on twitter, but sometimes you have to get ranting out of your system.)
How to Get Away With Murder 1.3: I'm getting more into this now that the characters are getting more developed.
( spoilers )
Madam Secretary 1/3: The things i like about this series, I like more each episode, and the political Problem of the Week was more interesting than the ones in the first two episodes. But I really just want more scenes of Tea Leoni and Bebe Neuwirth discussing White House office politics.
Sleepy Hollow 2.3:
( spoilers )
Star Wars: Rebels 1.1-1.2: I probably would have passed this by, except that I liked Clone Wars. Set 14 years after Revenge of the Sith and 5 years before A New Hope, SWR is about a ragtag group of rebels. The leader is Kanan, a Jedi who survived Order 66 and went into hiding (I question how he managed to stay under the radar for 15 years, given these episodes, but moving on...) and the captain is his apparent lover, Hera, who appears to be the only member whose head is completely screwed up straight. The rest of the crew are Sabine (next in line for "head screwed on striaghtest") a teenaged girl who appears to be the group's explosive expert, and likes to graffiti things before blowing them up, and Zeb, whose characterization so far is largely 'grouchy muscleguy who is secretly soft." They also acquire Ezra, a teenaged thief and conartist, and probable future Jedi. Ezra's character seems to be directly lifted form Disney's Aladdin, and a couple scenes, based on my memories, almost look like the same storyboards from the "Street Rat" song, but altered for SciFi. (I'm not complaining, just observing.) They also have a droid, "Chopper," who seems to find them all very annoying.
I'm not sure what the target audience is-some of it seems skewed to younger audiences, and some of it less so, and the Storm Troopers are incompetent even for Storm Troopers, but I liked it. Would recommend if you like space rebels, found families, explosions, competent women (who may or may not get sidelined...we'll see), and Star Wars in general.
( more of a clone Wars spoiler than a Rebels spoiler )
Strange Empire 1.1: New Canadian western series about a group of women on a wagon train who have to survive after all their men are killed.The first episode was good, but also very focused on being dark and gritty. The main characters are a markswoman who was probably an outlaw pre-series, a female doctor who appears to be high functioning autistic, and the wife of the man who killed them groups men, and who doesn't appear to like or approve of her husband at all. Warning for the death of an infant in the opening scene, and the rather gruesome murder of a young child later. (The murder is offscreen, but we see the corpse.)
PS-Unrelated to TV, I am giving a free dragon to any of my friends who join Flight Rising on Monday.
( spoilers )
Madam Secretary 1/3: The things i like about this series, I like more each episode, and the political Problem of the Week was more interesting than the ones in the first two episodes. But I really just want more scenes of Tea Leoni and Bebe Neuwirth discussing White House office politics.
Sleepy Hollow 2.3:
( spoilers )
Star Wars: Rebels 1.1-1.2: I probably would have passed this by, except that I liked Clone Wars. Set 14 years after Revenge of the Sith and 5 years before A New Hope, SWR is about a ragtag group of rebels. The leader is Kanan, a Jedi who survived Order 66 and went into hiding (I question how he managed to stay under the radar for 15 years, given these episodes, but moving on...) and the captain is his apparent lover, Hera, who appears to be the only member whose head is completely screwed up straight. The rest of the crew are Sabine (next in line for "head screwed on striaghtest") a teenaged girl who appears to be the group's explosive expert, and likes to graffiti things before blowing them up, and Zeb, whose characterization so far is largely 'grouchy muscleguy who is secretly soft." They also acquire Ezra, a teenaged thief and conartist, and probable future Jedi. Ezra's character seems to be directly lifted form Disney's Aladdin, and a couple scenes, based on my memories, almost look like the same storyboards from the "Street Rat" song, but altered for SciFi. (I'm not complaining, just observing.) They also have a droid, "Chopper," who seems to find them all very annoying.
I'm not sure what the target audience is-some of it seems skewed to younger audiences, and some of it less so, and the Storm Troopers are incompetent even for Storm Troopers, but I liked it. Would recommend if you like space rebels, found families, explosions, competent women (who may or may not get sidelined...we'll see), and Star Wars in general.
( more of a clone Wars spoiler than a Rebels spoiler )
Strange Empire 1.1: New Canadian western series about a group of women on a wagon train who have to survive after all their men are killed.The first episode was good, but also very focused on being dark and gritty. The main characters are a markswoman who was probably an outlaw pre-series, a female doctor who appears to be high functioning autistic, and the wife of the man who killed them groups men, and who doesn't appear to like or approve of her husband at all. Warning for the death of an infant in the opening scene, and the rather gruesome murder of a young child later. (The murder is offscreen, but we see the corpse.)
PS-Unrelated to TV, I am giving a free dragon to any of my friends who join Flight Rising on Monday.
Haven 5.1-5.4: Well, that metanarrative sunk into the pits of Fail pretty fast, didn't it? At least Emily Rose seems to be having a lot of fun. I do like Mara and am invested in the mythology, but this show keeps piling its problems on top of each other and patting itself on the back.
Also, I refuse to believe that Vince and Dave, the career conspiracy theorists and myth hunters, don't recognize the word "Croatoan."
How to Get Away With Murder 1.2:I think "appreciate" is more accurate than "like" for me with this show so far, but I'm going to keep watching it. I do think I got a better feel for some of the characters than in the first episode, but not enough yet to be strongly attached to any of them. And it really needs to calm down with the shaky cam and overactive cuts. (Also, I'm glad I know very little about practicing law, criminal or otherwise, so that I can suspend my disbelief enough to believe that a group of first year law students would be given such important roles investigating high profile murder trials.)
Madam Secretary 1.2: Definitely the show Political Animals wanted to do. I'm not sold on the international issues they have Elizabeth dealing with (and suspect this will continue), but I am sold on Elizabeth as a character and her approach to her job, and with how they're having her family adjust to and deal with their change in lifestyle. I hope it continues along this track so I can point to it as proof that you can have interesting conflict and compromise and teenage drama and/or adjustment problems without it being about drugs and cheating and whatnot.
Sleepy Hollow 2.2:
( spoilers are longer than the rest of the post combined )
Also, I refuse to believe that Vince and Dave, the career conspiracy theorists and myth hunters, don't recognize the word "Croatoan."
How to Get Away With Murder 1.2:I think "appreciate" is more accurate than "like" for me with this show so far, but I'm going to keep watching it. I do think I got a better feel for some of the characters than in the first episode, but not enough yet to be strongly attached to any of them. And it really needs to calm down with the shaky cam and overactive cuts. (Also, I'm glad I know very little about practicing law, criminal or otherwise, so that I can suspend my disbelief enough to believe that a group of first year law students would be given such important roles investigating high profile murder trials.)
Madam Secretary 1.2: Definitely the show Political Animals wanted to do. I'm not sold on the international issues they have Elizabeth dealing with (and suspect this will continue), but I am sold on Elizabeth as a character and her approach to her job, and with how they're having her family adjust to and deal with their change in lifestyle. I hope it continues along this track so I can point to it as proof that you can have interesting conflict and compromise and teenage drama and/or adjustment problems without it being about drugs and cheating and whatnot.
Sleepy Hollow 2.2:
( spoilers are longer than the rest of the post combined )
Madam Secretary: Tea Leoni stars as Elizabeth Faulkner Mccord, a college professor and former CIA analyst who is approached by POTUS to be the new Secretary of State after the previous one dies in a plane crash. There are a bunch of familiar faces in the cast, the most important of which (to me) is Bebe Neuwirth and Elizabeth's Chief of Staff. The pilot is mostly about Elizabeth settling into her new role , but also introduces a conspiracy that will probably play a larger role as the show moves forward. There's potential for a lot of Drama with how her family deals with the changes in their new lives, but it was handled ok here, and hopefully won't get annoying.
( mild spoiler )
TBH, it didn't actually live up to my expectations (which were pretty high) but it was good, and has the potential to be the show Political Animals thought it was.
How to Get Away With Murder: This is a very "I am high art" show right now and...well, it is good. Somewhat-amoral law professor uses her students to help her win cases, framing it as a competition to get ahead in her class. Meanwhile, there are flashforwards with four of her students dealing with a murder that they either just committed, or are covering for someone else. It's very well written and has an interesting plot, but the pilot was so busy that I don't think I really have a good feel for any of the characters. The show, though, seems to want to intrigue me and make me wonder how characters get from the main plot to the flashforwards, as opposed to care about the characters, so we'll see how it goes. Also, jumpy cam. Not really a good stylistic choice, IMO.
Between the two, I think How to Get Away With Murder is probably the stronger show overall, but I prefer Madam Secretary because I have a much better feel for the characters, and the beginnings of an investment in them and their relationships, which How to Get Away With Murder didn't give me.
I'm up to...uhm...I think 5.18 of The Good Wife and have seen that one spoiler that couldn't be avoided, and its aftermath. It was certainly an interesting way to handle that kind of development. There are things in this season that I'm not sure about, but aside from the almost total lack of interaction between Alicia and Kalinda, I think I do like it more than season 4.
( mild spoiler )
TBH, it didn't actually live up to my expectations (which were pretty high) but it was good, and has the potential to be the show Political Animals thought it was.
How to Get Away With Murder: This is a very "I am high art" show right now and...well, it is good. Somewhat-amoral law professor uses her students to help her win cases, framing it as a competition to get ahead in her class. Meanwhile, there are flashforwards with four of her students dealing with a murder that they either just committed, or are covering for someone else. It's very well written and has an interesting plot, but the pilot was so busy that I don't think I really have a good feel for any of the characters. The show, though, seems to want to intrigue me and make me wonder how characters get from the main plot to the flashforwards, as opposed to care about the characters, so we'll see how it goes. Also, jumpy cam. Not really a good stylistic choice, IMO.
Between the two, I think How to Get Away With Murder is probably the stronger show overall, but I prefer Madam Secretary because I have a much better feel for the characters, and the beginnings of an investment in them and their relationships, which How to Get Away With Murder didn't give me.
I'm up to...uhm...I think 5.18 of The Good Wife and have seen that one spoiler that couldn't be avoided, and its aftermath. It was certainly an interesting way to handle that kind of development. There are things in this season that I'm not sure about, but aside from the almost total lack of interaction between Alicia and Kalinda, I think I do like it more than season 4.
