Tag Archives: 2019

Series premiere: Batwoman

The PolyBlog
October 7 2019

The DC Universe on TV burst out with Arrow, added Flash, added DC Legends of Tomorrow, added Supergirl, added Black Lightning, and this season has gone full series for Batwoman. And, while Arrow is ending, a “birds of prey” by another name is set to spin off too. Since I like superhero shows and the tropes they follow, I tend to watch all of them. I’m not a equal fan of all of them, but I enjoy them. Arrow used to be dark, and I liked the difference. Flash is white innocence, as is Supergirl, while DC Legends is quirky and irreverent. I like Black Lightning probably least of all, as it seems more campy as they figure out their powers — less super hero than people with fun tech or mutants with glitz. Anyway. I love the Bat, so I was definitely going to be all in for Batwoman. Heck, I even watched Gotham and have burned through Season 1 of Pennyworth.

Yet, I’m not steeped in Batman lore. I have no idea all the different versions, nor the various links with Robin incarnations, and no idea why “Batman has left Gotham” three years ago as the story opens. But Kate Kane is his cousin (cute, huh? kind of like Kara and Clark) and while she didn’t know that Bruce was Batman, she loved him and hated Batman after Batman failed to save her and her family after a bus crash from the Joker (he thought he had saved them until the car materials gave way and the car fell).

Anyway, Kate is a badass who has been training to be a super private soldier in her father’s company, training all over the world kind of like the Dark Knight backstory (in the Christian Bale version of the Bat). She returns to Gotham, discovers Bruce’s lair, puts on the suit to protect the city and her family. A lot happens in the first episode, and overall it’s great.

Ruby Rose plays Kane, and other than other EPs of the DC shows, the only thing I had seen her in was Dark Matter where she played a kickass android. She was awesome in that EP, but it is her presence that defines her performance. She owns almost every scenes she’s in. I confess I was less impressed in a scene where she’s strung up and talking to Alice, the villain, and she didn’t look awesome in the first view of her in the suit when she’s not fighting. It seems awkward to me.

The villain, Alice, is played by Rachel Skarsten and I am a little embarrassed when it comes to her. Every time I see her, I can’t place her. AT ALL. Which makes no sense. I really only had a reason to pay attention when she played Tamsin on Lost Girl. She was fantastic, loved her and loved her various episodes. I went back and binged Birds of Prey at one point, and didn’t recognize her. Sure she was ten years younger, but still. She was also in The Listener, didn’t recognize her. Republic of Doyle, nope, no clue. Wynonna Earp, no clue. And here as Alice? Nope, couldn’t place her. Sigh. I generally love her, and while I even like her fight scenes, the fight scene here with Batwoman wasn’t that great. And it was no surprise ** spoiler alert ** to find out that she was Kane’s supposedly dead sister, as soon as they said they never found her body. They held that detail back or it would have been WAY too obvious upfront. Meh.

There are a bunch of other roles buried in there:

  • Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox, aka Alfred to her Batwoman;
  • Elizabeth Anweis as a flaky step mom;
  • Nicole Kang as a weird, completely inconsistent step-sister — one minute flighty, one minute suburban underground clinic doctor; and,
  • Meagan Tandy as a previous GF of Kane’s.

None of them are really worth writing about, but they were all fine. The only real other role in the pilot is that of Kane’s father, played by Dougray Scott. I don’t recognize him, although there’s a cute in-joke in the opener that his character is showing Zorro in the park, and Scott played in the Zorro TV series back in the day. Most of the episode, he seemed like a low-rent Russell Crowe wannabe, but he’s okay. Nothing great. If he turns out to be an evil Doc Ock-like turncoat, that will work probably just as well.

Will I watch? Yes. That was a given. Was it great? For the genre, sure. Will I predict renewal? Of course, it’s the CW and all the DC shows get renewed.

Series premiere: Stumptown

The PolyBlog
September 29 2019

I love private investigator stories, pretty much in any form. Give me a PI, lawyer, military investigator, mentalist, profiler, detective, mystery writer, psychic, whatever you want, if they’re investigating crime, I’m willing to give it a go. So ABC has a new PI show called Stumptown, takes place in Portland, and focuses on an ex military intelligence type who might be able to help people who don’t want to go to the police. It’s well-trod ground, all the way from the Busted Flush to the A-Team. If you have a problem. If nobody else can help. And if you can find her, maybe you can hire…Cobie Smulders?

Yeah, that was my reaction too. I liked Smulders on How I Met Your Mother. And I mostly hate her whenever she’s in the Marvel universe. Nor did I consider it a positive when she showed up on Andromeda. So…PI show on the one hand, Smulders on the other. Sigh. Let’s give it a go. Maybe I’ll be surprised.

And I was. She didn’t suck. Hardly high praise, but she was watchable. She plays it relatively straight, no fake comedic bits, albeit a bit cynically wry at times. Sure, she’s got PTSD of some sort, and her ability to fake that or pull off a sex scene isn’t great. But the PI side? Decent enough to watch.

But every PI needs a cop foil, and hers are two-fold — first up is Michael Ealy as the good cop and love interest / sex partner. I enjoyed him in Almost Human, skipped Common Law, and liked him in Flashforward. Here he is good, although his character is a bit uneven for Ep1. His boss, Camryn Manheim, basically scowls at people the whole time, which she has done lots of times before. Way back at the start of The Practice, she was decent, but I lost interest in the series and she was part of the reason. Not a plus for me, but she has a limited role here and it’s fine.

The rest of the cast is okay. Her friend Grey seems too good to be true — best friend? Something more? Curious if they’ll later reveal he’s either gay or has had a crush on her for years. Played by Jake Johnson, a little too earnest at times. Her brother Ansel is played by Cole Sibus, and is a maturing influence on Smulders character as she has to take care of him (unexplained condition, likely Down Syndrome or equivalent, and I like that they don’t explain it). And some people from the local reserve, Tantoo Cardinal (as the casino owner) and Gregory Zaragoza (as her right hand). Cardinal is decent, although mostly she just has to seem old and wise, with a bit of disdain for others.

Overall, I liked the show. Because of Smulders, I originally predicted cancellation. Unfortunately for me, I’ll be watching anyway but I think cancellation was the right call. I just don’t see enough meat in the show to get to renewal.

Series premiere: First Wives Club

The PolyBlog
September 29 2019

The original First Wives Club back in ’96 had a strong revenge motive as its plot. Three divorced women reunite, have each others back, and decide to get back at the husbands who dumped them for younger models. The TV series has some of that same premise in the pilot, with three friends getting together when one has a very public meltdown against her husband and the video goes viral.

Ryan Michelle Bathe plays Friend #1, Ari, who in the pilot is married to an up and coming Senatorial candidate. She has left her law practice to run his campaign, and is doing her best to make it happen, an equal partner to his movement forward, despite being totally bored with him. She’s decent, but hard to get a handle on who she is or what she wants as a character.

Michelle Buteau plays Friend #2, Bree, who is separated from her husband Gary after finding out that he cheated on her. Gary is still chasing after her, wanting to get back together, go to therapy, etc. but she’s having none of it. In the opener, she matches a Sex in the City-like plot and gets a new man to rock her world for a night. Bree is okay, but not a lot going on with her in the episode — she’s struggling to balance her family life as a single mom but it seems more plot device than realistic.

Jill Scott plays Friend #3, Hazel, who is married to a record producer husband Derek. Derek and Hazel are tussling because Hazel is working on a comeback album, and she gets her release date bumped for a young artist that Derek is trying to sleep with too. Hazel and Ari work out a bit of revenge, and the Ep ends with it escalating badly against Hazel. War has begun.

As an aside, of the males running around the show, the only one with any presence is Malik Yoba as husband #3, Derek. I loved him on Defying Gravity and he was good on Designated Survivor, and I even liked him way back on Alphas.

So, at the end of Ep 1, you have Ari supposedly solidly but unhappily married, Bree separated and moving on, and Hazel feuding with her husband. It didn’t exactly ring “organized revenge” to me, and I have no idea where this could go after Season 1. I didn’t get a good feel for any of them and while I’m not the intended demographic, I’m going to keep with my original cancellation prediction. I know, it’s on BET+, and they’ll likely renew everything this year, but hey, for now, I’m saying cancellation.

Series premiere: Prodigal Son

The PolyBlog
September 28 2019

There are a lot of profiler shows that have come and gone. Some work, some don’t. They often try for a twist. A woman who grew up not knowing who her father was who suddenly is confronted with the FBI’s most wanted man saying he’ll only speak to her. An agent who investigated a series of murders until it consumed them and now they’re back. A victim who became a counsellor or an agent or an actual profiler. 

Or, in this case, the son of a serial killer who became an FBI profiler and was fired for breaching protocol. I wasn’t convinced it would work, so I predicted cancellation.

Tom Payne plays the titular son, Malcolm. I didn’t see him in The Walking Dead so he’s a fresh face for me. Decent, a little unsteady in his performance, but interesting character and watchable as an actor.

His boss is played by Lou Diamond Phillips and I think he does a great job.  I confess I’m hit or miss with LDP. I found him weak on Blue Bloods, so-so on Blindspot, watchable on Stargate: Universe, painful on Numb3rs, and okay for Young Guns. It’s not like his breakout in La Bamba. But he was okay here. Plays it straight, no curves, and it seems to fit better. Other coworkers include Aurora Perrineau, Keiko Agena, and Frank Harts. I didn’t get a fix on any of them, hard to tell.

His family consists of a sister, mother and of course the psycho father. The sister, Ainsley, is played by Halston Sage and I was struggling to place her at all. I just couldn’t figure out who she was, but she seemed so familiar. Of course, without all the alien makeup from Orville, she looks a bit different. Decent, but a bit weak of a character in the pilot.  Bellamy Young plays the mom, Jessica, and she has definite presence but not sure I care for the character much. Watching her, I also struggled to place her. Sure, I saw her in Dirty Sexy Money. But going back through her credits, I realized it was an episode of Cold Case where she played a housewife turned dance hall girl during the Depression and the subsequent War of the Worlds. She lit up the screen for that episode. Hope to see more of THAT here.

Finally, Hannibal Lecter, err, I mean Dr. Martin Whitly aka the serial killer father nicknamed The Surgeon is played by Michael Sheen. I haven’t watched Good Omens yet so hadn’t seen him there. I didn’t watch The Good Fight or Masters of Sex, so hadn’t seen him there either. Nor any of the other long list of roles. But for me, he is the weakest of the characters. There is almost zero menace or intrigue for his portrayal at all. More like milquetoast than Hannibal. He’s almost pathetic. Put differently, he shows no presence or gravitas to create a mythic figure for his son or his family.

Overall, I saw enough for me to keep watching. Unfortunately, I didn’t see enough to predict renewal.

Series premiere: Undone

The PolyBlog
September 28 2019

I have almost no idea how to review the Amazon show, Undone. I predicted cancellation, but I’m going to wait a minute to tell you why. Let’s look at the show first.

The premise of the show is a young woman, Alma, whose life is a bit disappointing to her. She lives with her boyfriend, Sam, and she wakes up every morning next to the same man, has a shower, brushes her teeth, eats the same cereal, takes the same commute, and she’s terrified this is all there is for the rest of her life. She also has a lot of complicated baggage from her past — her father died when she was young (car crash, apparently), and his mother was schizophrenic. So Alma is afraid that getting married and having kids is too big a risk in case she either dies on them or becomes like her grandmother. When her sister gets engaged, Alma is confused about why Becca would take such a risk. It ends up in some self-destructive behaviour, lots of dysfunctional family stuff, and eventually a sister fight. Driving away, Alma is in a car crash of her own and sees her father.

So here’s the issue. First, the show is sitcom-length, but definitely not a sitcom. No real jokes, more drama, or more pointedly, more dysfunctional interactions without the 22-minute “everything is resolved” ending. Second, while it isn’t described in the first episode, I’ve seen some of the descriptions of the later episodes, and there’s a weird sci-fi / fantasy element. Yep, she really saw Dad, or a ghost, or something. But the final point is the real question mark…it’s an animated show.

No, go ahead, take a minute to let that percolate in your brain. We’re not talking Family Guy or the Simpson’s, or Futurama, or pretty much any other animated show out there. This is a full-on half-hour drama show about Alma’s life spinning out of control (literally, her car crash involves a car spin!), and it just happens to be animated.

I would be hard-pressed to predict renewal for the show, simply based on the writing or plot. There are too many gaps in the first episode to hook the right audience (Dr. Who or Star Trek watchers perhaps). And the animation was not even the typical cartoon animation you see. It was more like Sim Life turned into a TV show.

And so I have to predict cancellation. I just don’t see how it can succeed. Yet there’s a time travel concept buried in it, so I will likely watch to see what happens. I don’t know why. But I will. I just don’t think anyone else will stick around to the end.