Of Swords and Parasols

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.

I 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 )