Category Archives: Television

Season premiere – The Republic of Doyle

The PolyBlog
January 10 2013

The Republic of Doyle kicked off this season with a couple of changes. Leslie is “missing in action”, although obviously just undercover somewhere; there’s a hot Indian chick replacing her that Jake gets to work with; and Tinny is now a police cadet. The episode is written by Allan Hawco (yes, the same actor who plays Jake and who created the series and is the show runner), so it is pretty good with the characters. Rose, Tinny, Des, and Leslie have almost nothing to do, but it’s fun to see Malachy and Jake hanging out with a visiting brother-in-law/uncle and nephew/cousin from Ireland. Uncle Gerald is a buffoon, basically a complete caricature of a drunken Irishman, which doesn’t work at all (plus the actor is just plain annoying), but Jake’s cousin is basically a younger version of Jake. Running around, getting into trouble, hairbrained schemes, chicks, the drunk tank, etc. He’s a lot of fun to watch, although when he gets the Irish brogue going at top speed, he is a wee bit hard to understand.

Simple mystery of a local thug with a priceless statue that someone is stealing to pay off some other debts, yada yada yada. All works out in the end, and the hot Indian chick gets a free collar from Jake without having to do any leg work or even really get involved in saving Jake’s butt (which Leslie normally does). The one stupid note is Des…he was shot in the chest/stomach at the end of Season 3, survives with no after effects, but is on stupid crutches which he keeps dropping (cuz apparently that is funny to Allan Hawco) and he has some sort of weird “mystery” business deal going on that looks highly illicit but they go out of their way so much to not say what it is in any way, with lots of generic pronouns, you know it isn’t anything bad at all (turns out he’s buying a car). Stupid stupid storyline.

Watching NCIS – "Shabbat Shalom" (S10E11)

The PolyBlog
January 10 2013

This was a huge episode in my view, and this season does really feel like they are planning for it to be the last. Before Christmas, you saw Fornell and Gibbs kind of close some elements related to their ex-wife, Ducky has resolved issues of whether he wants to stay or go, and Tony resolved issues with his father. This episode has two stories running concurrently — the first is about a dead journalist, dressed as a petty officer, who was working on a story about drug use in the military. It’s a pretty stupid story though as the four main suspects all confess to “protect the military image”. Uh-huh, let’s see if I have this straight — they confess to murder which is a murder IN the military, not a civilian murder, so they’ll serve their time in Leavenworth, even though it’s obvious they didn’t do it. To hide drug use. Yawn.

The second story though is about Ziva’s father Eli being in town covertly, a potential assassination attempt on his evil Iranian counterpart, and more importantly, to spend time with his estranged father. What is more significant though is the ending — GIANT spoiler alert — as there is a shootout at Vance’s house, killing both Ziva’s father and Vance’s wife. Wow! Killing off two big characters? Sounds definitely like the final season to me. I’m betting good ole Ziva is going to wind up high up in Mossad at the end of the season (maybe with Tony as a liaison officer???) and Vance gone as director. Gibbs might even retire (with Tony as lead agent???). Either way, I expect some shake ups to come in the team as they deal with aftermath.

Watching The Mentalist – “Days of Wine and Roses” (S05E11)

The PolyBlog
January 7 2013

The Mentalist episode this week had two cases running simultaneously: an old case which is Lisbon chasing Volker for old deaths (previous episode, dead journalist and personal assistant) and a new case of a dead model, Charlie, who snuck out of a rehab program. The case for Charlie is Jane doing what he does best, relatively unfettered…running around, tweaking people’s noses to get them to react, etc. He quickly figures out the case is really about a missing necklace, and it doesn’t take a genus to figure out who she might have told her secret to, since she didn’t open up to her roommate, or her lover. That pretty much leaves only one character — her counsellor at the rehab clinic — and I hate the “hold-back” that Jane does on that one. Usually when Jane holds something back from the viewer, i.e. not revealing a clue, it is still fair game as the viewer can see what Jane saw. However, Jane smells cigarette smoke on the counsellor and figures out she’s hiding something, even asks her about it, but it is quite a leap to get to the conclusion that it is a casino (based on fact that she smells REALLY STRONGLY like cigarettes, which as a simple viewer, you wouldn’t know).

The ongoing Volker case is far more interesting, although a judge that Lisbon normally trusts proves unreliable after Volker gets to her, which I find disappointing as that judge had been a strong character previously. At any rate, Lisbon eventually gets a warrant for an associate of Volker’s, only for him to wind up dead. At the end, it was really interesting to see Lisbon say to Jane very clearly, “I need your help.” She wants Volker so bad, she’s willing to openly tell Jane she needs him. Shippers won’t be happy though because earlier in the episode, Jane suggested he would like to see her find romance because she deserves to be happy, and there is no hesitation that perhaps he means him or would mind her finding it. A far cry from their first case where he asked her to go for a romantic lunch and was amused that she was flattered by it when he meant it as a location for a sting. Not bad, but not one of the best episodes overall, more like a prelude / holding episode for Lisbon to go after Volker. Her own white whale, or Red John, so to speak. And don’t get me started on the fact that Van Pelt is still doing nothing more than sitting behind a desk to hide her real-life pregnancy. It’s getting monotonous seeing her do research on the phone.

Season premiere – Lost Girl

The PolyBlog
January 7 2013

Season 3 of Lost Girl kicked off last night on ShowCase, and the fun continues from the end of Season 2. Bo and her scooby gang had kicked the Garuda’s butt, with only minor casualties — Dyson’s ex gf and Lauren’s gf, leaving the love triangle of Bo / Dyson / Lauren back in play. Bo knows Trick is her grandfather, their whole gang knows Trick is the Blood King, and it’s one big happy family. Except Kenzi has some sort of fae rash on her arm that is out of control, and Bo is a bit extra-sparky in her eyes with some sort of bonus power from having killed the Garuda and embraced her inner warrior. I watched Lost Girl Confaedential before the season premiere where Jay Firestone (as executive producer) had the actors who play Bo, Dyson, Lauren, Kenzi, Hale and Trick all sit around the table and talk about their experiences playing the characters, etc. It was basically what you get at Comic-Con type fan fares, and it worked okay. The big personal reveal is that Anna Silk is pregnant, so who knows what that will mean for shooting near the end of schedules. I have no idea how she’ll keep an 80 hour workweek going when her role is so physically demanding, but who knows.

The new episode opens three weeks later and apparently “Bo” has not been a good little succubus. She’s running wild and Dyson is chasing her. She even feeds in public! It doesn’t take much to figure out she’s undercover, but Hale as the (Acting) Ash was a bit of a surprise — I thought it was possible, but unlikely. Anyway, a female Fae prison is run by Amazons and is corrupt, so Bo is undercover to investigate the death of a doctor friend of Lauren’s. An interesting place, given that they are all Fae but without powers (a special stone lets the guards counteract the loss of power). The rest of the episode is pretty linear, except for a crying game ending, and then just when you think Bo is playing at being dark, she feeds off someone without warning and dumps the body. What the ? Oh, I’m going to like the new year, I think. Faux Bo and all.

Season premiere – Merlin

The PolyBlog
January 7 2013

Space has launched the domestic broadcast of the final season of Merlin, and it is good to finally see the show embrace more of the traditional history of the Arthurian legend. Just before the end of Season 4, King Uther was gone, Morgana was ruling Camelot and Arthur+Merlin were wandering the countryside. Arthur was about ready to give up all hope, and he needed a reminder that he was the one true King of Albion that would unite the lands … enter the Sword in the Stone mythology, which Merlin handled well. Finale of the season had Morgana defeated and being nursed back to health by a young dragon (perhaps the dragon from an egg Merlin helped save earlier) and Guinevere married to Arthur. The new season picks up three years after the previous one, and the opening episode had very little going on in terms of action, but lots going on with multiple sub-stories. Percival and Lancelot are looking in the Northern badlands for Morgana and are attacked and captured, forced to work in the mines below Izmuth to find some sort of knowledge key. Lancelot ends up finding something, or more accurately, someone, but it looked more like an episode of Stargate than it did Merlin. Meh.

Meanwhile, Merlin meets a dying Druid who shows him a possible fate for Arthur — dying in battle at the hands of a young warrior. It is so obvious that the warrior is Mordred from years earlier that Merlin has to be the biggest dunce not to notice who it is (he figures it out at the end). Meanwhile, a traitorous young girl is working as a servant to Guinevere . Guin catches her out, gets her to confess, and then finds her guilty of treason — for which the penalty is death. Of course, she exists as a love interest for Merlin, so death is unlikely, but still. Standard fare at the end — Arthur and Merlin are captured — but at least Arthur is starting to realize Merlin is not without some skills, even if Arthur isn’t sure about them. A decent opening episode, but I look more to seeing Merlin being a true sorcerer, not just hiding in plain sight. It would be interesting to see too what supposedly happened in those previous three years of wedded bliss for Guin and Arthur.