Of Swords and Parasols

1. The Librarians is back and I hadn't even realized z return date had been set yet.

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2. Supergirl officially started! I watched the pilot when it leaked and it was mostly like I remembered it, though there were a few scenes I remembered being longer before.

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Despite its issues, I really really like it. And sure, it's pretty 101 when it comes to feminism, but let's face it, unlike the bulk of the people criticizing the show for the heavyhanded feminism (and ignoring the ones who are trying to cover for being afraid of girl cooties getting in their superhero shows) the vast majority of people who watch superhero shows and movies don't spend hours a week directly or indirectly consuming information on or discussing feminist theory and intersectionality.  And even a lot of those have decently long passages that amount to "it has this thing which is actually a really good thing but I feel compelled to explain why it isn't, or should barely count."

3. Every new episode of Scream Queens makes me hope that i'll finally lose interest in the mystery and save myself from this garbage, but nope.

4. Mark Pellegrino playing Graham Norton's father in Quantico is very weird to me, since the only other thing I've seen either in is Revolution. (Where they both played much more endearing characters.

5. Sleepy Hollow continues to be better than last season, but not as good as season 1.

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6  I've started watching the supernatural fusion sageuk The Scholar Who Walks the Night (AKA, romance between vampire scholar and crossdressing bookseller) now that it's over. It's a bit cheesy (a lot of which, IMO, is the soundtrack. Hard not to compare it to Arang and the Magistrate's excellent soundtrack, as both are supernatural fusion sageuks starring Lee Joon Ki.), but good so far. My problem with it, though, is that the antagonist is SO BORING so far. Part of it is that the actor is...not good. At all. Like, he fails embarassingly at "dangerously evil but sexy" (It takes more than lighting and eyeliner to pull that off.) and I just cringe at all his scenes. I'm apparently meant to believe that he's so dangerous that Lee Joon Ki's vampire scholar hasn't been able to kill him in 120 years of trying. I can only conclude that, all evidence to the contrary, Our Hero is just amazingly incompetent. I mostly want him to quit boring up my screen so more time can be spent on the protagonists and Lee Joon Ki's sidekicks and even the angstmuffin prince. (Who I do like so far, but he has the potential to go very wrong for me.) Everyone else in the show ranges from competent to pretty good as far as acting goes, and then there's Cardboard Guyliner Vampire. The tumblr tag for the show is about 85% him, though, so I guess others felt differently.c

7. I'm watching season 3 of Grand Hotel (aka, the first telenovela I watched back before Hulu and Netflix started carrying any, though only the first season was available then.) and it's the last season. The first episode (well, Netflix's first episode, Netflix breaks the 70-90 minute episodes into 44 minutes, which gets awkward at times) was rather awful, but it got better after that, though it's not as good as the first two seasons were. Largely because Diego's villainy is is almost comical in how over the top and extreme it's become. I keep expecting him to try to twirl his mustache.

1. The return of Star Wars Rebels is probably my TV highlight this week.

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2. I've gotten fairly into Minority Report with the last 2 episodes, so of course it looks like it's about to be cancelled...

Also, Agatha is the character Katrina could and should have been in Sleepy Hollow, if only they'd been willing to commit to a solid stance on her.

3. I'm getting pretty "meh" about Blindspot though, especially since the mystery of Jane's identity is almost all about Weller at this point and not, you know, Jane. I'm mostly still watching because a coworker who shares my cubicle watches it.

4. I really, really wish I wasn't interested in the mystery in Scream Queens. Very little of it is actually funny, and literally every joke relies on racism, classism, homophobia or misogyny to provide the humor, so even if it actually was funny, the offensiveness would kill the humor aspect. There are perfectly decent actors and some who should really know better than this, but the only character I care for so far is Zayday. But, I mean, I want to know what's going on.

5. The main thing I got out of this week's Sleepy Hollow was the mini-Nikita reunion brought on by Jessica Camacho guest starring.

I ended to make full posts on the other pilots I watched, but Real Life interfered.

1. My opinions of Blindspot and Rosewood's second episodes are about the same as my opinions of their pilots.

2. I'm enjoying Minority Report and it's easy on the eyes in various ways, but that's about it so far. The show can't seem to make up it's mind about precrime. It seems to really endorse it and talks about the lives it saved/could save, but then shows how much it sucked for anyone actually involved. Also, Dash comes across as a lot younger that the other precogs, even though Arthur is his twin, and Agatha is close to them in age.

3. I really liked the pilot of Quantico. The male characters are mostly blended together in my head, but I like the ladies a lot, and am interested in theplot. I think it also did a better job setting up the two-timelines structure than a lot of other shows that do that do. Warning for suicide.

4. Scream Queens is awful and racist and classist and ableist and homophobic and thinks all these things are genuinely funny (and, with one or two exceptions, has no room to really interpret it as criticizing the hateful mindsets. It isn't even "This is wrong and you know it's wrong and I know that you know it's wrong so it's ok to do it" [which has plenty of it's own issues].) but I can't stop watching with trainwreck fascination. Also, lots of consent issues with Jamie Lee Curtis's character, because apparently when an older person who regularly uses institutionalized power to coerce people of the opposite sex to have sex with them is a woman, it's funny. I mean, the show knows these people are horrible, they just think their expressions of horribleness are truly funny.

5. How to Get Away With Murder is off to a good start this season, though I'm very disappointed that they're going to do Laurel/Frank again. At least Famke Janssen and her plot came along? I'm choosing not to think about possible interpretations of the flashforwards and am instead focusing on the students (plus Oliver) becoming actual friends. The Connor/Michaela and Laurel/Michaela stuff in particular delight me.

6. I don't know what to make of the direction Empire's plot is going, but at least it's as entertaining as ever.

7. I was close to giving up on Sleepy Hollow after last season, but decided to give the premeire a chance. i liked it more than a lot of Season 2, but it's still a far cry from season 1. At least they remembered that Jenny has spent her entire adult life (when not institutionalized) hunting down magic artifacts, and that Abbie had life goals before Ichabod came along. I enjoyed Shannyn Sossamon and hope that her character actually gets good development. All I really have to say about Betsy Ross so far is that her wardrobe makes Katrina's look historically accurate.

8. Hwajung ended. The first 37 or so episodes were stronger than the later episodes, which involved a lot of timeskips and cramming things in to cover the Sohyeon story and get to the beginning of Hyojong's rein, but I enjoyed it throughout. They ignored everything about the realy Princess Jeongmyung in order to make her a potlically active heroine, but for fictional entertainment purposes, I can't make myself object. Not sure what my next sageuk will be.

10. My airing anime finished (the non-ending of Gangsta. is going to be making me shake my fist for a long time. It wasn't even a cliffhanger ending, it was a "whoops, we forgot to write an ending.") and all I have coming up are the second seasons of K Project and Noragami, unless someone has something I'd like to recommend as things get going.

Lots of stuff ended,this week, either for the season, or forever.

1. My opinion of Agent Carter was pretty consistent throughout. I enjoyed it, I want more of it, but was consistently disappointed in how it chose to present 1946. If there is a second season, I hope they have Angie becoming a spy, or at least getting involved in that part of Peggy's life. (I actually thought they might start to go there, at one point.) Really I just hope they develop her more. I like her a lot, but am aware that, without carryover feelings from Nikita, I'd mostly just find her amusing.

2. Sleepy Hollow never regained the charm of the first season, though it did improve somewhat in the second half, despite problems. The finale had some very fun parts, and the end set up good possibilities if the show gets removed, however...

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3. This season of Parks and Rec is the only one I've followed as it aired, as opposed to binging on the whole season. I'm sure a lot of people didn't like the time jump, but it's one of the few times I think a time jump was actually a good idea, and things had really gotten a bit stale in some areas in the last couple of seasons. Aside from that one realtionship that should never be fractured being fractured at the beginning of the season, I really enjoyed the season, and mostly enjoyed the finale. really, there were only 2 things about the finale that I didn't like.

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4. Empire is still great. There are things in it that I have issues with, and when my coworkers find out I watch it, every single one of them says they didn't think it was the kind of show i'd like. And really, they're right? It isn't my normal kind of show, but Taraji Henson as Cookie makes everything better, though I am starting to get attached to other characters.

5. The 100 is also still great, and recent developments have certainly been interesting. Apparently, I even like Jasper again? I'm starting to get a feeling of dread about the next few episodes, though.

6. How to Get Away With Murder went from a show I appreciated but didn't think I'd get invested in to one that I felt I had to brace and prepare myself for this week. The finale was mostly amazing, but the very long, lovingly filmed choking scene was right up there with the scene that kept switching between the autopsy and the sex scene earlier in the season. SIGH. It's getting a second season, to no one's surprise, and I'm thrilled, despite my yech-ness over that part.

7. A week or so ago, I also watched the first season of Grantchester which is a mystery series set in the 50s in which a strapping young vicar (who has PTSD from the war, is a borderline alcoholic, and is in love with an upper class girl who's finally given up on waiting for him to make a move) teams up with an atheist inspector to solve crime.

The relationship between the leads went something like this:
EPISODE ONE:
VICAR: So, uhm, for reasons I cannot disclose, I believe the guy who committed suicide was actually murdered.
INSPECTOR: This is a very bad sports week for me, so you have very bad timing. Also your evidence is circumstantial and your theories aren't that logical.
VICAR: I shall run around visiting people in my concerned vicarly way, and maybe you won't notice that I'm also investigating.
INSPECTOR: I have jail cells, you know. I might introduce you too them once I finish banging my head against this pillar here.
VICAR'S HOUSEKEEPER: I very loudly disapprove of the company he's keeping this week, but you can't lock him up, because he has to write a sermon.

EPISODE TWO:
VICAR: Inspector, I know that this murder involves my sister, as well as the woman I'm pretending not to be in love with, and her friends and family, and you think my sister's boyfriend did it, but I promise not to interfere this time.
INSPECTOR: Actually, it's a funny thing. Did you know people are more willing to talk to vicars than inspectors? Especially vicars who they know? Especially when it's a bunch of young ladies having a handsome young man wanting to make everything ever better for them? Wanna come?
VICAR: YES PLEASE. I mean, uhm, I know I don't act like it, but I actually do have a full time job that's important, and NO WAIT I AM COMING.
VICAR'S HOUSEKEEPER: You will have him home by dinner, and then he will write his sermons.

EPISODE THREE:

INSPECTOR: Hey. vicar, did you know there was another murder?
VICAR: No, that is awful.
INSPECTOR: Come along, then.
VICAR: Come what now?
INSPECTOR: Funny thing, but people STILL seem to be more comfortable talking to handsome young vicars than grumpy middleaged inspectors.
VICAR: But, I mean, I really do have a job and-are you actually dragging me away?
INSPECTOR: FUNNY THING, THERE'S A MURDER INVESTIGATION, AND PEOPLE ARE MORE COMFORTABLE TALKING TO VICARS THAN THE POLICE!
VICAR: But my parishioners!
VICAR'S HOUSEKEEPER: The dead man was one of those, you know.
VICAR: Who's side are you on, anyway?
VICAR'S HOUSEKEEPER: God's.
VICAR: But my sermons!
VICAR'S HOUSEKEEPER: Funny thing, I JUST finished helping your new curate settle in to his new bedroom.

It was a bit odd watching it a couple weeks after watching the third series of Father Brown, which is set around the same time and features a catholic priest and his friends and sidekicks running around, solving murders and annoying the local inspector. Between the two, I do think Father Brown is better (but it's not exactly a fair comparison since I've seen 6 episodes of Grantchester and around 40 of Father Brown) but Grantchester is certainly a more fannish type of show.

138 x Sleepy Hollow (season 1)

  

 

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How to Get Away With Murder 1.3: I'm getting more into this now that the characters are getting more developed.

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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:

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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.

Now that's how you do a season premiere. Mostly.

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 153 x Sleepy Hollow (1.1-1.4)

  


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