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.
The second half of the second season of Revenge kicked off last night with the Initiative starting to control Daniel as head of Grayson Global. They trick him into getting Nolan to go fishing in the Grayson servers, not realizing that the Initiative is doing it just so that they can backtrace the breadcrumbs to Nolan’s own servers. Nolan’s ex-lover and ex-CF points out to Nolan that he has an old project called “Carrion” (?) that he could dust off to protect himself but Nolan is afraid of its power. Aiden ends up meeting with the Initiative, and they tell him that his sister is actually alive, so he has to do what they say or they’ll kill her. Oooh, can we say double-agent?
For Emily, the target of the week is the judge who convicted her father. She has evidence that the trial clerk had proof of a conspiracy to convict David Clarke, but the judge buried it, and someone killed the clerk. After Emily eventually figures out that the judge’s wife knows more than she appears to, and that she’s an abused spouse, Emily gets her to show how brave she is and reveall all for the sake of the dead trial clerk. Which she does, in a speech supposedly introducing her husband to a bunch of supporters. One more participant down the tubes. On the “shipper” front, good news — Daniel and Emily are kissing again! None too happy is Aiden, but well, revenge is a dirty business. Meanwhile, the whole Jack/Faux Amanda/Declan situation in the bar is starting to just get stupid with their imposed business partners — dead merchants, others trying to muscle in, drugs, frame-ups, etc. It feels like it’s 1982 and General Hospital scripts are being recycled…the only thing missing is Anna and Scorpio. The fact that I know that scares me.
The second episode of the series aired, and my first thought was, “Already? They’re trying to get home already?”. Of course, the series is going to contain those elements, just as shows like ST: Voyager did. The time jumpers are stranded, they want to get home, I get it. But it’s not like episode 2 is going to really help the storyline, is it? Overall, the episode is fine, with Lucas having figured out a way to power the time travel device using technology from 2012. As a small niggling, nitpicky detail, Lucas said in the previous episode that it was a one-way trip, no way back. And he was under truth serum at the time, so he couldn’t lie. Yet, just one episode later, he’s figured out a way to power the device to go the other way. A little too convenient for the storyline, in my view, but small details. Kellog announces that he prefers to remain behind and it will be interesting to see where it goes.
There’s a subplot where Kiera’s cover is blown, and is arrested by Carlos. Yet there is nothing to arrest her for, she hasn’t done anything actually illegal in this timeframe — she impersonated a Portland police officer, but they’re not in Portland. Again, small details, and she manages to escape, but overall the dynamic is a little too forgiving of her transgressions and gaps in her story. Kiera’s character continues to come across “torn” between two worlds, and as long as she’s not breaking down in tears, it works. One down-side to the storyline is that there is a huge shootout, and the cops must be the worst shooters in history — while Liber8 members seem able to pick off SWAT team people easily, nobody even comes close to hitting any of Liber8.
Sunday night, I had the pleasure of catching the premiere of a new sci-fi show called “Continuum”. I had seen the TV ads, basically showing one of two people standing on a beach with a spherical device that’s very high-tech and mysterious. In the case of the man standing on the beach, the message is that he is destined to destroy the world — but has to go back in time to do it. For the woman on the beach, it’s the opposite, she’s going back in time to stop it, but has to give up everything in the present. The premiere was a blast as you meet the main character named Kiera Cameron, a cop in the year 2077. The opening premise explains how governments fell, corporations took over, and now there are liberty-fighters aka terrorists fighting against the big corporations by blowing up corporate buildings. Keira arrests one of the leaders, and then goes to his planned execution, only to see him and seven other inmates start some sort of energy device. She rushes to stop them, and in a blinding flash, her and the eight criminals are all transported back to the year 2012. Kiera chases one of the inmates, gets him arrested, and then teams up with a local cop (by pretending there’s a new gang in town, and she’s just following them from another city). She’s traumatized that she has family back in 2077 (including a son) and wants to get back to them, but she remains dedicated to re-arresting the terrorists before they change the future and inflict damage on an unsuspecting society in 2012. The opening episode called “A Stitch in Time” was pretty solid, and there is a lot of meaty threads for future episodes to pick up:
Not all of the citizens in 2077 like that corporations are in charge, so the terrorists may be egregious in their methods but there is some counter-support for their message (i.e. they’re harsh but they are fighting for their liberties, potentially);
At the last minute, there’s a change in logistics at the prison, and Kiera is assigned to be a guard in the room at the time of the execution (and putting her there when the time travel event happens)…but just before the event, her husband reacts to her surprised presence and tries to convince his boss and a guard to get her out, thus signaling perhaps that he and his boss were involved in the escape attempt;
Kiera has a high-tech bio-electrical suit that she’s wearing — fully computerized, lots of implants in her, plus the computer has high-tech weapons, scanning tools, etc. But while it will give her an advantage, it will be difficult to hide AND probably doesn’t have an unlimited power supply;
She has a comms implant in her head (audio and video) and when she tries to contact her precinct (not realizing she’s in 2012, not 2077), she accidentally contacts a 17-year old kid name Alec Sadler running on the same network, who turns out to be the primary inventor of most of the technology from 2077 (i.e. he’ll be an ally, at least initially); and,
Kiera took an injection on the second day of her visit that looked both necessary and painful, with little explanation of the meds she injected, but also likely to eventually be in short supply in 2012.
However, the part I found REALLY interesting was not the basic plot (hey, you had me at time travel), but rather the people involved. Rachel Nichols plays the lead, Kiera. If she looks familiar to genre lovers, she should — Conan the Barbarian (2011), G.I. Joe – Rise of Cobra, Star Trek (2009), and a recurring character on Alias. Plus, somebody must have watched Jodie Foster in Contact (1997) because the opening sequence steals her hairdo and most of her facial expressions. Which is weird because nobody would mistake Nichols’ normal model appearances as looking like Foster. But let’s just say Nichols has genre street cred. Then they tagged Victor Webster to play her cop partner…Scorpion King 3 (2012), Castle (2010/11, played Beckett’s failed love interest), and, of course, Mutant X (2001-2004).
For the rest of the show, I just played a game called “Hey, she / he looks familiar…hmm, that’s going to drive me nuts”. Well, no need to go nuts on your own! Erik Knudsen plays young Alec Sadler, and you’ll likely recognize him from Jericho (2006-2008) or perhaps Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). But, hang on to your hats, cuz young Alec grows up to be, CSM — Cigarette-Smoking Man from X-Files, William B. Davis (okay, his name was Spender, but you didn’t know that when you first met him on X-Files). Add in Caprica, Stargate SG-1, Smallville, Andromeda, etc. Heck, he was even in Airwolf back in the day. He’s not listed as a major player for the new series, not even credited on the main IMDB page. But, then again, neither is Tony Amendola who is the supposed leader of the terrorists but who “fails” to survive the jump (according to one of the inmates, who’s probably doing a misdirect). At any rate, Amendola is busy over on Once Upon A Time playing Marco / Gepetto, and also not credited for his pilot work here. Very curious. Who else do we have? Stephen Lobo (used to be on Painkiller Jane); Richard Harmon (from The Killing); Brian Markinson (Dark Angel); Jennifer Spence (Stargate Universe); Roger Cross (X-Men 2, The Gates); Lexa Doig (Andromeda, V, Stargate SG-1); and let’s not forget Zahf Paroo (Defying Gravity, cancelled WAY too soon).
They had me at time travel.
Perhaps the inmates can start small, with some protests: What do we want? Time Travel! When do we want it? Irrelevant!
