Tag Archives: 2015-16

Season premiere: Elementary

The PolyBlog
November 9 2015

At the end of last season, Holmes was having a horrible, no good, very bad day:

  • Antonio had been kidnapped and he was being forced to solve clues around the city;
  • the baddie of the episode was trying to seduce him into using heroin to rescue Antonio;
  • Holmes beat the crap out of the baddie, near killing him; and,
  • he went off with the drugs at the episode to presumably shoot up.

I was worried that the season would start up with a revelation that he hadn’t actually used. That, somehow, at the last minute, he thrown off his demons, and had walked the righteous path. Instead, the reality was actually worse.

I don’t mean that he used, although that did indeed happen. I mean that the show starts only a few days after the incident and Holmes is back to his regretful self. No withdrawal, no cravings, oops, I used. All better now, let’s go to meetings. No darkness. No despair. No wallowing. Not even Holmes turning his cruel observations inward to self-immolate his failure. Honestly, it’s like he made a resolution to work out every day and to eat healthy, and all he did was eat a chocolate bar and skip the gym. He is back on the wagon so fast, with no emotional or intellectual fall-out whatsoever, I have no idea what the writers were thinking. I feel ripped off. The equivalent of him saying, “oops, my bad”, and moving on.

Which isn’t to say there isn’t fall-out — the DA is deciding if they will charge him with attempted murder or not, and the NYPD has cut all ties with their consultants, including Watson. That actually registers with Holmes in the episode…not his personal failure, but that it has impacted Watson. Who last year went her own way, wants to still work with him but with distance, but also wants to do stuff on her own too, and yet when it is revealed to her that she’s out too, she’s all “well, I only work with you, so if you’re out, I’d be out anyway”. Sure she would. Like last year when he left and she kept working with them. WTF?

Their NYPD partners said goodbye, and I don’t know if that is the plan for the season that they will work with others or not. Holmes hit up the NSA who basically told them all the agencies will consider them radioactive too.

The only real upside to the episode was the end of episode twist of having Holmes’ father, Morland, arrive to “fix everything”, with his reputed harsh assessment of Holmes, etc. Very priggish. I love the actor, John Noble, who plays Morland and I loved him on both Fringe and to a slightly lesser extent on Sleepy Hollow. But the reality is that he is least enjoyable when he’s trying to play a prig, so not sure how well that will play out. Instead of seeming “nasty”, he comes off more immature / childishly evil. Draco Malfoy was more sinister, and he sucked most of the time. Sigh.

Season premiere: Grimm

The PolyBlog
November 9 2015

At the end of last season, Nick was having a horrible, no good, very bad day:

  • He found his dead mother’s head in a box on his dining room table;
  • Juliette had gone full-on Hexenbeist, burned down his trailer of Grimm artifacts, and tried to kill him, embracing the feud with all Grimms;
  • Trubel shot Juliette with a crossbow to save Nick; and,
  • Nick held Juliette in his arms as she died.

The first episode picks up from that point, and I wanted to scream foul. As Juliette lies dying, the secret wesen FBI taskforce breaks in, steals Juliet’s body / kidnaps Trubel / removes the mother’s head. Sooo, chances are that Mom isn’t actually dead. There was a twist in the last episode where it never actually showed it was indeed his mother before she died, and she didn’t fight very well for a Grimm. With the head gone, no way to be certain. Same for Juliette’s body, I’m sure she isn’t dead. As for Trubel, two episodes in and she hasn’t reappeared, but although they’re looking for her, nobody’s very worried.

If things weren’t bad enough, the FBI agent (secretly a wesen) turns out to be not so bad before she gets killed, although she does have time to warn Nick “they’re coming” and it means war. But oh, look, Nick’s a daddy with the hexenbeist that tricked him into impregnating her.

I can’t believe I’ve written the words above. It sounds so outlandish, it’s hard to believe it makes sense for the show. As I said, I’m really disappointed in the Trubel / mom’s head / Juliette’s body thing. Very cheap plot devices. But I’m hoping the battle that is coming is worth the setup and it doesn’t end up being something they resolve in a single episode after all the build-up.

TV shows on the bubble at 25% of the way through the season

The PolyBlog
November 3 2015

I like reading the website TVByTheNumbers (zaptoit.com) as they pull together some of the hits and duds each week to see how they’re doing based on ratings and whether networks are likely to keep them. They adjust for things like demographics, whether the network owns the show or it’s produced outside the fold, etc. It’s a fun read, and their prediction rate isn’t bad. Mostly I just like to check in from time to time for my shows and see how they’re doing…

ABC:

  • Blood and Oil — The “Dallas” remake, more or less, it held no interest for me and is on fumes;
  • Wicked City — The premiere was last week, this is the 1982 serial killer show, pretty low on predictions but only just started, hard to tell;
  • Nashville — Why is this show still on?
  • Castle — I watch, but I’m not sure why anymore. They should have had a better ending for last season, bigger, badder, etc., and just ended it instead of separating Castle and Beckett this year for ridiculous reasons;
  • Last Man Standing — Haven’t watched since the beginning, let it die;
  • Muppets — I had initially hoped this would be kid-friendly, but most of the pilot was more for adults, more so than the previous version, fine to let it die;

CBS:

  • CSI: Cyber — this should have died the first week;
  • Hawaii Five-O — this should have died two years ago;
  • Code Black — St. Elsewhere with updated DRAMA! ACTION! ROMANCE!…yawn;
  • The Good Wife — has probably run its course, don’t have strong views, it never hooked me;
  • NCIS: LA — I was watching regularly, but lately, it is definitely third on my list of NCIS shows, and happy to see it go;
  • Madam Secretary — yawn, never hooked me, fine to see it die;

CW:

  • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — I can’t figure out how this was greenlit…confused mess;
  • Reign — never watched it;
  • iZombie — haven’t watched it through an episode, but some friends like it, no real view on this one;

FOX:

  • Minority Report — I think there’s a show buried in there somewhere, not sure where, but won’t be surprised to see it die;
  • Sleepy Hollow — I would miss this one…it’s like X-Files with things actually appearing rather than just hinted at;
  • The Grinder — Rob Lowe, yes…this show, hell no;
  • Grandfathered — premise bored me before I finished reading it;
  • Bones — I should love this show, as I like procedurals, I like the stars, I like forensics…but I don’t, the chemistry was never, and I mean NEVER, there for me;
  • The Last Man on Earth — no interest;

NBC:

  • Truth Be Told — no interest in this from the beginning;
  • The Player — each week, save the victim…there have been a lot of these action shows in recent years, and if there was no secret identity, super power, or cape, they`ve all failed…this one is no better or worse then most of them, and Wesley Snipes isn’t enough to save it;
  • The Mysteries of Laura — I have no idea how this one survived the pilot;
  • Undateable — I don`t know where this show went, it started off with “let the dating guru give lessons to the nerds” and it was great, funny, watchable…then it became, let the nerd reclaim the gigolo, and the show tanked…now it’s *gasp* live (!)…or not;
  • Heroes Reborn — I hope this one grows legs (and not in the evil grow-your-own-clone way), as I’m actually enjoying it again. Save the past, save the future isn’t as compelling as save the cheerleader, but they also haven’t introduced a really bad super villain yet (honestly, Erika is a bureaucratic joke);

The rest of the big shows that I watch are likely to be renewed. And if I had the power to save a show of the 8 that I actually watch, it would be Heroes Reborn, with The Player and Sleepy Hollow fighting it out for a distant second place.

Series premiere: Wicked City

The PolyBlog
October 31 2015

I have no idea if Wicked City is a show that will catch on or not. First of all, they delayed it until way after premiere season, don’t know how many people even noticed it premiere this week. Second, it follows what was rumoured to be the original premise for when Law and Order: Criminal Intent premiered — half on the cops, half on the killer. CI apparently ditched that in production and went with standard L&O format, partly (supposedly) because some people find the show less compelling if you know who the bad guy is. More pointedly, I think, you don’t care about the bad guy because it is really hard in a one-off episode to create a truly vivid character who isn’t a cliché.

The new cop drama is set back in the summer of ’82 when L.A. was apparently the murder capital of the U.S. There’s definitely a “Almost Famous” feel to the way it is set and staged, even plotted with a naive reporter trying to break into the rock ‘n’ roll reporting scene.

Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl) is the killer, and his first kill is nicely staged. Ruthless, he could just be a cop or victim getting his jollies until the kill. One of the benefits of ’82 is you don’t have to worry too much about advanced forensics or databases. Heck, they’re having trouble just identifying his victims.

Jeremy Sisto is the lead detective…dark, brooding, scruffy. You’ve seen him before in Purgatory, Six Feet Under and The Returned, none of which I watched. I realized his other cop pedigree pretty fast as his movement, carriage, and personality all scream “Lupo”. He actually used to be on the original Law and Order back in 2007-2010. Slight change in time, and a marked difference in tolerance for bending the rule book, it’s a bit like Miami Vice brought to the street level — all the drugs, none of the glitz. He’s having a small existential crisis, both with his marriage and with his former partner having killed himself, but other than that, he’s Lupo still. Which is a good thing.

Erika Christensen is Westwick’s girlfriend, Betty Beaumontaine, and it looks like he’s going to focus on corrupting her throughout the first season i.e. you think she might bite it in episode one but she’s contracted for ten episodes, so doesn’t look like it. She also stars in Parenthood, so you may have seen her there, while oddly enough, I only remember her from an episode of Lie to Me. Her character is hard to nail down, and maybe that’s the point — single mom, overworked, underpaid, kids to look after, struggling to find some excitement in her life and she’s tagged by Westwick early as easily vulnerable. I don’t know if she becomes his partner or not, guess we’ll see, but the writers need to nail her down soon, her wishy-washy-side is hard to watch.

Taissa Farmiga plays the intrepid, young reporter, Karen McClaren (really? is she supposed to be a superhero in disguise?) and at only 21 years of age in real life, she looks in the show like she’s barely legal for the bars. Very innocent, very naive, very fragile. There’s a strong father thing with the detective, and if something romantic happens there, there is going to be a giant ick factor. Something weird happens at the end of the first episode, she seems to disappear, and there is no explanation of what happens — did the killer get her, is she dead, what? You know he isn’t leaving with her, he’s with another woman instead as he realizes the cops are on to him, but it’s a weird gap.

There are a bunch of other characters, and hard to know if any of them will end up being relevant. Sisto is willing to work with his new partner by the end of the episode, after the first half sets him up as the biggest opportunistic d-bag around. Add in a daughter, a wife, a frumpy detective and a hot detective, plus a Captain that Sisto leaves in the dark, there are lots of people running around. Even a next-door neighbour who has the secret killer babysit regularly.

The first episode was interesting, but we’ll see if the killer keeps it so…

Season premiere: The Flash

The PolyBlog
October 16 2015

At the end of last season, Flash managed to go back in time, see himself fighting Reverse Flash, have the other version of himself tell him not to complete the save of his mom, come back to regular time, and for Reverse Flash to get killed by Eddie. Just in time for a singularity to open above the city making it look like the world was ending. Which it would have, but then there’d be no new season.

The new season opens six months later, Flash is basically working alone, having shut out everyone else. Through flashback you find out that he ran up into the singularity, was temporarily able to contain it by — hey, no guessing — running really fast, but not able to close it. Firestorm did however, but with Ronnie disappearing in the subsequent blast. Flash opened the portal, so he feels responsible for Ronnie, Eddie and a host of other people who got killed that day, so he basically is doing everything on his own now.

Cisco works with the meta-human task force at the police station, Caitlyn is off doing regular science, everyone’s worried about the Flash’s mental state. Then a meta human shows up who looks like a corpse, is radio-active almost, and incredibly strong. Eventually, the Band gets back together, they stop Atom Smasher, and learn that somebody sent him to kill the Flash — Zoom.

The Ep is okay, but the false angst of “oh, am I responsible for all these deaths” that is resolved in 44 minutes is pretty tiresome. Berlanti does it in every one of the Berlanti empire’s shows (like Arrow), or worse, they drag it out like a whining kid. If there’s really such trauma and angst, how about showing some growth from the change? Or kick it to the curb and insert trauma cuz they didn’t learn something?

Nevertheless, the storyline was interesting, with a great last 30 seconds where they say, “Hey, nobody can get in here, all new security”, just before a new guy walks in and says hello. Oh, and he knows Zoom.