Of Swords and Parasols

Covert Affairs3.15-3.16:

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Haven 3.9: I actually could have gone for this one lasting a few episodes.( spoilers )

Once Upon A Time 2.7: This was pretty good despite some terrible dialogue, and apparently combining two episodes into one. I mean, Once doesn't exactly have the best dialogue ever, but it's usually better than this.

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Person of Interest 2.7: Apparently on tumblr, there's some sort of wank between PoI and Sherlock fans because PoI fans were referring to Finch as "their hedgehog" and Sherlock fans took offense. I have no idea what the significance is, but it certainly created some imagery when watching the episode.

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Revenge: I'm current, but forget what the actual episode numbers involved are. This season is doing plot things that I don't really care about (Pretty much most plot things not directly related to Emily) and so I'm having trouble paying attention to some of it, particularly given how irritating I find the narrative's attitude towards Amanda and Ashley to be this season. Really, I don't know. I liked the first couple of episodes of the season a lot because of the Emily/Charlotte/Victoria focus but the episodes since have left me cold despite my affection for some of the characters. I'm starting to wonder if it's one of those series that has a excellent first season but only really had about a season's worth of truly maintainable plot. (TBH, there seemed to be a fair bit of that going around last fall.) And, unfortunately, it's having the same problem as Once Upon A Time, which is an overabundance of (typically scruffy) white dudes in roughly the 30-40 range being shoehorned in and taking attention away from the more interesting characters and storylines. (Revenge, at least, was nice enough to cast J. R. Bourne and Michael Trucco as two of theirs, so at least there's some actor affection going there, but their characters pretty much exist to give a couple white guys things to do outside their relationships with women, so...) This is made even more annoying by the fact that right now, Revenge is probably doing the worst of the shows I'm watching in terms of female character relationships and how the women treat other women. Only Charlotte, apparently, is allowed to have anything positive in her relationships with other women, and even then they're all lyin to or manipulating her, and while Emily can somehow find sympathy for all the men in her life, she seems to have nothing but contempt and disdain for other women, particularly Amanda.

Revolution 1.8:

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And because I didn't get around to posting on last week's TV until after this week's Revolution aired:

Revolution 1.9: Not exactly filler as it was mostly character development (apparently largely designed to cater to shippers) But the only real plot momentum was with Rachel. My thoughts on Rachel are that I am very happy that this TV season and this show in particular is providing me with plenty of mothers who are morally ambiguous if not outright shady and have things going on besides thier kids while still being written as sympathetic and loving their kids.

Scandal 2.6: Have we actually had two whole episodes and no Fitz? Is it early Christmas?
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The latest Arrow and Beauty and the Beast were good but felt like filler with a few important bits thrown in. Elementary was interesting on the Watson front but the Mystery Of The Week was brought down by a trope whose execution I didn't care for with Gregson's old partner.

I've pretty much finished Rich Man Poor Woman and Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan, the two jdramas I started a few months ago and got sidetracked from. "Pretty much" because, the last time I looked, the last episode of Naniwa hadn't been subbed yet. RMPW floundered a lot in the middle but got back on track in thel ast two episodes and had a pretty strong ending. Naniwa was pretty hit-and-miss in terms of the cases, but the characters and character interactions were great. I also finished season 4 of Fringe, which had a lot of interesting ideas going on but seemed determined to strip Olivia of agency in as many ways as possible. Like with AltLiv's storyline in the second half of season 3, I keep wanting to write up a rant but dissolve into inarticulate raging before I even get started. Then there's season 4 of Parks and Rec, which was largely very fun (as expected) but while I like Leslie/Ben and Leslie running for office, I dislike how it seemed to isolate them from the rest of the cast for large chunks of the season, and I'm unable to comment on Ann/Tom.

Arrow1.1: Better than I expected, but still rather eyerolly. Particularly Oliver's "I am Batman with a touch of Edmond Dantes" voiceovers, and I mostly cringe at Oliver's somewhat annoying BFF and how they appear to be treating his bodyguard. I started it not expecting to like Oliver and don't particularly, but don't dislike him the way some things I'd heard made me expect I would. No idea what I think of the plot yet, but I was entertained. Dinah lance is now a lawyer and goes by Laurel. I refuse to ship her with the guy who cheated on her with her sister (especially since her sister died in the middle of the cheating. Err, because of a shipwreck, not his killing her) but they are pretty and maybe he'll work really really hard at it.* But I hope she gets to join in on the crimefighting in the literal sense before long too. Roy Harper also appears to have been genderbent into Oliver's younger sister (And, uhm, he held on to a rock for 5 years because it had an engraving that reminded him of her and it was his "beacon of hope" type thing or whatever? CW shows and siblings...) which I think I approve of. Especially if sh ever joins in on the literal crimefighting.

*There's also a scene that goes pretty much like this:

LAUREL: Well, I guess I'm glad you're alive.
OLIVER: OMG YOU STILL LOVE ME. WE ARE OTP. FOREVER.
LAUREL: I mean, my sister still died while you were cheating on me with her, so there's not going to be anything happening there, but if you ever need to talk...
OLIVER: OMG YOU TOTALLY WANT TO GET BACK TOETHER EEEEEEEE. Wait, this doesn't work well with my angst.
LAUREL: I'm not sure we're having the same conversation.
OLIVER: I LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER BUT WE CANNOT BE FOR I AM A DARK AND ANGSTY AVENGER. I MUST PUSH YOU AWAY FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.
LAUREL: What is going on here?
OLIVER: FOR. YOUR. OWN. GOOD. Cocky playboy time!
LAUREL: Well, you're still a jerk.

Beauty and the Beast 1.1: Very entertaining, bad dialogue, multiple POC, and soundly fails to pass the reserse Bechdel Test due to the fact that the 1 scene with 2 men and no women is the men talking about Catherine. They don't even try to make Vincent look beastly (he just has a strategically placed scar) most of the time and the beast part is that he kinda...werewolfs out? They seem to be doing a Jekyll/Hyde thing which has the unfortunate potential to head south fast but we'll see. I'm going to be watching in fear that we'll start having Catherine having to learn how to behave around him, though I don't actually get that vibe from the pilot. But, well, it's CW, and they have a certain history there when it comes to controlling/abusive men as love interests. (I also remember that in the original series, he lived in an underground city filled with "society's rejects" or however they put it-my mother loved that show so I saw a lot of it, but not since my early teens-and i think I much prefer that to being holed up in his buddy's apartment.) I feel like multiple episodes worth of Catherine and Vincent's relationship was condensed into one episode (I suppose they wanted to jump straight to the "Angsty forbidden romance" part?) and wish they'd taken their time. It's called "Beauty and the Beast," we know you're going to have lots of angsty romance, you don't have to shove as much of it into the first episode as you can to make sure we know that, ok? It's not going to win any "Best Anything" awards (well, maybe for Kristen Kreuk's hair) but I mostly enjoyed it, though I suspect that of the new shows I'm watching, it's the one most likely to get cancelled.

(Err, Both Arrow and Beauty and the Beast pretty much end with the dude watching the heroine from above without her knowing? What's with that, CW?)

Haven 3.4: I enjoyed this episode's Troubled plot, but so much of it made me think of the things I don't want to have happen (love triangles, Audrey and Duke not trusting each other, Audrey and Nathan not being buddycops anymore with Boston Cop on the scene, Boston Cop ending up evil, etc.) threatening to happen. I mostly enjoyed Claire's scenes (I'm starting to suspect she's Troubled herself.) and hope she doesn't go the way of other non-Audrey female characters on this show. I'd much rather have more of Audrey's past selves than the stuff Nathan and Duke are up to.

Once Upon A Time 2.2: Well, that was a pretty good episode despite the almost total lack of Emma and Snow.

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Revenge 2.2:

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Revolution 1.4: 

( spoilers )Scandal 2.1-2.2: I adore this show despite not caring about roughly 2/3 of the plot. (Though I think I'll much prefer the "What happened to Quinn?" plot more than the Amanda Tanner plot simply because Fitz isn't involved in it.) But then, I adore Olivia and Mellie and like and am interested in every other important character except Fitz. 2.2 makes me just want to...not talk about anything but how much I hate Fitz. He's verbally abusive to Mellie, might as well be an ornament but likes to rant about how the people who keep him afloat are the unimportant ones, andhe has no respect for Olivia's interests or boundaries in the name of their "true love" (which she seems to suffer more than reciprocate, more often than not. I mean, those phone calls are downright creepy. Try replacing "call" with "touch." Especially the one at the beginning of 2.2, when it pretty much becomes "I stayed up late and made 23 people work late so that I could impose on you in the middle of the night and touch you. Do you want me to stop touching you? Tell me, the most powerful man in the country, to stop touching you in private. No? Ok, I'll abuse my power and misuse my staff again so I can touch you again tomorrow night." WHY SHOW WHY DO YOU FIND THIS RELATIONSHIP ROMANTIC? Yet, I will endure it for the sake of watching Olivia and Mellie verbally smack people around and rule the world. (Why can't Mellie be olivia's Forbidden True Love? At least that'd be different and interesting.)

World Without End 5-6: I thought these episodes were a lot better than the first 4. Things felt more unified in general, and it pretty much did away with the violence against women that was so pervasive in the first half. I briefly considered liking the king again, but then I remembered the "you can be my mother or you can be a whore" bit, and, nope. Sorry Blake Ritson. Hopefully the last two episodes stay on the same track as these two. Sadly, Godfrey (Godwin? I tend to be busy wishing him ill when he's on my screen and so don't pay much attention to his name.) and Alfred didn't die of the plague.

29 x Elementary (pilot)
117 x Revenge (mid-season 1)

  

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Avatar: The Legend of Korra 1.6-1.7: Pretty good episodes. Pretty sure I'm in the minority regarding Tahno (don't care for him) but I lie the overall plot more and moreand how Amon is legitimately creepy and scary. Love all the flashbacks to the characters from the first series as adults, and hope we get more of those.

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The Borgias 2.5-2.7: Can we just have Lucrezia, Giulia and Vannozza running around, manipulating the cardinals and doing good deeds with a side of wrapping everyone ever arond their fingers? Because aside from every episode needing lots of Caterina Sforza (though not at the expense of Giulia, thankyouverymuch) that's all that's going on that really interests me right now, though I still largely enjoy all the rest. Also, while Cesare is still a homicidal sociopath, I find it interesting that his less appealing traits and less appealing/successful ventures (both known and believed) are being transferred to Juan. TBH, while the first season deviated from history a fair bit, it still seemed to be trying to stay somewhat true to it, but this season is being a lot more liberal in that regard.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 1.12-1.13: Not sure if this is the end of the season or the end of the series. I believe this is actually my first Australian TV series, so I'm not sure how these things go there. I was worried for a bit that episode 12 was going to go an unfortunate ableist route (it didn't, in the end) and I'm not sure what I think of Foyle's motivation, but I thought this was a pretty good ending to a very enjoyable series in which I pretty much adore the lead and her posse of friends, family and associates (including her 2 henchmen whose names I can never remember). I particularly like how well it manages to balance being adorable and fluffy while handling (and being) legitimately dark and angsty in it's subject matter. If there is more (*crosses fingers*) I hope Jack learns not to leave Hugh unsupervised if there's a chance Phryne might show up, because that boy has no defenses whatsoever when it comes to her devious schemes.

Missing 1.9-1.10: Played out about as expected. On the surface, it has the needed emotional payoff, but you see all the things that weren't addressed or start falling apart once you scratch it. Honestly, though, while this wasn't necessarily good, I enjoyed it a lot and am sad it wasn't be renewed, though I understand they're trying to sell it to another network. I hope they succeed, being I like having Ashley Judd being bossy and unrealistically badass on my screen.

Nikita 2.22-2.23: Much better ending than the first season (the last quarter of season 1 and roughly the first half of this season, I was mostly watching for Maggie Q shooting things and Amanda being evil, but it went back to being the show I wanted it to be in the second half.) I'm sure people will complain about the ending being predictable, but whatever. Looking forward to season 3.

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Once Upon A Time 1.22-1.23: The finale was a bit rushed (should have been longer), but I liked these episodes. I have no idea what they're going to do next season.
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Person of Interest 1.22-1.23: I was so happy seeing Amy Acker playing a character who wasn't an awkward yet lovable child-woman that I forgot to wonder where it was all leading. I suspect the development in the finale that I liked most wasn't what others liked most.

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Revenge 1.20-1.21: I kind of desperately want the season to end with Victoria calling Emanda "Amanda," but that probably won't happen. So excited for the finale!

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Legend of Korra 1.4: That statue of Aang is going to crack me up every time I see it.

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Missing 1.7: So, apparently this is being submitted for awards as a miniseries? If that means it's cancelled, I hope they actually hav an ending in mind. (Really, like a lot of this season's shows, it actually feels like it'd be better suited as a miniseries?)

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Nikita 1.19:

( spoilers )Person of Interest 1.19:

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Revenge 1.18:

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Once Upon A Time is back from hiatus, but one episode was a Rumples ep and both are apparently very heavy on August, so I don't have a lot of drive to watch them, though I'm sure I'll get to them this week. (My main interest in these episodes is to test my theory that August is Pinocchio who is the boy who found baby!Emma and was supposed to take care of her but didn't/couldn't and has found her again.

Lost Girl 2.17: 
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Once Upon A Time 1.13: Well, that was more fun than I've had with this show since ep 6.

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Pan Am 1.13-1.14: You know while episode 13 cleared up some things, I think I get why it didn't originally air in the middle of the season. I like to think that someone high up there got a look at the resolution of the Ginny plot and went "no, we are not doing that."(Though, just dropping it all together isn't exactly an improvement.)  I am glad we got a bit more of Lanzo though.

On to the actual season finale.

( spoilers )Revenge 1.16:

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Ringer 1.14-1.15:

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White Collar 3.15-3.16:

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lyssie on Bomb Girls, and why you should watch it.

prozacpark on Revenge, and why you should watch it.

sartorias on the differences between Austen and Heyer.  (And  why you should read them?)

161 x Revenge
75 x The Undercovers

  

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There was no Revenge this week! I was not emotionally prepared for that and felt rather bereft and lost. I should find a community to help me keep up with these things. (What am I going to do if it gets cancelled? If it gets cancelled before confirming that Emanda and Charlotte are half-sisters, I may be devastated! I refuse to consider that they may not be!)

Also, I find it very tragic that Pan Am and Covert Affairs are not on the same channel. If they were, I feel positive that Danielle and Annie would suddenly have a second cousin or godmother or great-aunt-by-marriage with red hair who used to tell them about her adventures back when she was a flight stewardess who moonlighted as a spy during the cold war, and that that's what really triggered annie's interest in languages and the CIA. (Sadly, the years just can't work for Kate to be their mother or grandmother...)

( Lost Girl 2.7 )


( Nikita 2.7 )
I haven't watched this week's episode yet.

( Once Upon A Time 1.3 )

Homeland 1.1

This is going to be very awkward show for me. See, regardless of whether or not Damien Lewis's character is a traitor, I sympathize with him because if he did turn, he was obviously relentlessly physically and mentally tortured.

However, I have a deep need for Claire Dane's analyst character to be RIGHT and for Morena Baccarin's character (she plays Lewis's wife) to be HAPPY, which basically means that I want the male lead to be a traitor. (I am also a bit iffy on how very easy it would be for the show to go into the realm of complete Fail with both their arcs.)

But it's...interesting? And has a lot of excellent actors. Not something I'll be able to watch in large doses, but I'm curious to see where it goes.

That said, there are exceptionally awkward sex scenes (and by "awkward" I mean "WTF?" and "Whoa what? Uncomfortable much?" in chronological order) and I feel the writers may be slightly too devoted to Life and possibly think they're writing an AU.

( Covert Affairs 2.12 )

( Ringer 1.8 )

( Pan Am 1.7 )

Or at least,onces I've checked out/plan to check out.

Ones I'm watching:

Revenge:  Blonde leading lady.  (Character is bottle blonde, unless she was dying itdark as a teen.  No idea about the actress.)  All but 1 supporting female character is brunette. Other is blonde.

Ringer: Blonde leading lady in dual role.   All but 1 supporting female character is brunette. Other is a redhead.

Once Upon A Time:  Blonde leading lady.  All supporting female characters in pilot were brunette, except the grey haired granny.

Pan Am:  So far, the screen time is fairly evenly divided between the four leading ladies: 1 blonde, 2 brunette, 1 redhead.  However between being the new girl + the fairly central sister relationship + being 1/2 of the 2 romances the show is building up to = heavier narrative and POV focus the blonde, though not, so far, to the point of actua putting her forward as a corelead as opposed to part of an ensemble.

Shows I checked out but will not be watching more of unless people whose judgement I trust start consistently saying things about them that make me think I'll likethem more than what I hav seen would lead me to believe:

Grimm:  I think the main cast list onl has 1 female character, but I'm not sure if it's the aunt (bald) fiancee (I think light brown?) or the blonde monster lady.

Secret Circle:  Blonde female lead, other female characters in her age group brunette, I think both female characters in the older generation were blonde?

Show I intend to check out:

Homeland:  As I haven't watched it yet, I obviously don't know the full cast, but the female lead is blonde.

(The problem with Homeland is that I've heard a variety of things good and bad, but from all of them I get the feeling that I will desperately want Claire Danes's character to be right, but then that means I'll be wanting the male lead to be a traitor...)

Now, I quite like all the blondes I mentioned and a while back there were a bunch of ladies in various fandoms who were all blonde that I was seeing hated on all at once so I went and added "little blonde heroines" to my now-woefully-out-of-date interests in a fit of pique so I don't exactly have an issue with blondes, and I knowthere are other new shows where the female lead isn't blonde, but that's some trend there, at least in my viewing.  (Is this a trend that just mostly showed up in the shows more likely to interest me?  I remember last fall's new shows being more skewed towards brunettes, at least in the ones I checked out.  Though, were there any new shows beside Nikita and Undercovers last fall that I watched?  I actually can't remember now.)

TBH, I actually have no idea what I think of it beyond the normal going on about standards of beauty and such, I just notice these things...