Tag Archives: fall

Series premiere: Heroes: Reborn

The PolyBlog
September 29 2015

So about a month ago, I reviewed what I thought was a leaked copy of the series premiere of Heroes: Reborn (Six 2015-16 TV premieres: Supergirl, Minority Report, Blindspot, Public Morals, Heroes: Reborn, Hand of God). It turned out however that what I was actually reviewing was a prequel of webisodes online to give a bit of transitional backstory between the old show and the new. Oops, my bad.

But that experience lowered my expectations too. It was pretty far from the mystery of Season 1 of the original Heroes, where the “Save the cheerleader, save the world” mantra kept me tuning in each week. No, the webisodes were slightly better than season 2 or 3 of the old show as it tanked, but not a slam dunk.

The actual series premiere, however? Over the top, slam dunk, no word of a lie, absolutely awesome. I am hooked big time. I rarely gush about a show, perhaps jaded by the number of times I’ve seen a strong premise totally tank a few episodes later, but I have to gush about this one. Like the original, there are multiple storylines running concurrently, weaving, bobbing, and intersecting.

Noah Bennett is back, having learned that something big and bad is coming and he wants to find out what he has forgotten. And his daughter Clare-bear? She might not have died in Odessa during the terrorist attack. She might still be alive. Noah has teamed up with the nutjob truther from the webisodes,

There’s a Mexican wrestler superhero with super strength who is helping Evos (evolved humans) with an underground railway, and his brother might have to take his place.

There’s a kid, young, compelling, with a naive innocent girlfriend, who is a teleporter. With an evo named Casper Abraham following him around (remember Laroche from The Mentalist? Pruitt Taylor Vince is his real name, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but yeah, that guy).

There’s a girl in Japan, who can enter into video games, and is searching for her father (also trapped in a game), with a young gamer helping her.

And finally, there’s a husband and wife out for revenge against all Evos because their son was killed.

At least four of those stories are completely compelling.

I am so in for the duration, it is ridiculous.

Series premiere: Quantico

The PolyBlog
September 29 2015

I don’t know who was watching How To Get Away With Murder last year, but they took pretty solid notes. Freshman class. Check. Female authority figure in charge of class telling them it is not like anywhere else. Check. Some big criminal event in the future, class members involved, flashing back to tell the story of how they got there. Check.

Except instead of it being law school leading to murder, it’s enrolment in the fresh class at the FBI’s Quantico Academy leading to a terrorist attack in NYC. Yet, where I found HTGAWM boring, I find Quantico strangely compelling. Let’s look at the class and see if I can figure out why. All of them have secrets, some we’ll find out sooner rather than later. Warning, definite spoilers ahead.

The main agent-in-training Alex Parrish is played by Priyanka Chopra, an Indian bombshell. Exotic, sexy, presence. Her big secret is that her mother shot her father; her bigger secret is that SHE shot her father, and then found his Special Agent credentials. Fast forward to the terrorist attack, and she is the only one on scene, unhurt, and the prime suspect with lots of evidence to tie her to the plot.

Next up we have Ryan Booth. He seems to be just another agent, but he’s actually undercover to get close to Alex. Decent character, decent actor.

Next is Nimah, the Muslim who should be the prime suspect, right? Except she has an interesting secret. She’s one half of a twin, and they’re both hiding in the same room doing the work.

Shelby Wyatt is the blonde bimbo who came from money. Her first secret is that her parents were killed in a plane on 9/11. I’m sure there are more secrets to come, but that is where she starts. She’s played pretty well by Johanna Brady — I don’t know any of her work, but with 48 credits in 10 years, she’s been working. A lot.

Simon Asher is the resident gay character. Except he’s a virgin, all his ex-bfs say so. And his “current” boyfriend is imaginary — he got a stranger to take a picture with him, smooch included. So is he really gay? And if not, why is he pretending to be? His other secret is some sort of ties to Palestine, but the FBI already knows about that.

Moving on, we have Graham Rogers as Caleb Haas. Caleb is the worst recruit ever — fails just about everything. But his parents are agents, so he has squeaked his way in. Not sure what his secret is yet, but it’s building.

Last we have the most disappointing development of all — Brian J. Smith as trainee Eric Packer. I loved Smith in Stargate: Universe. So why am I disappointed he’s in this? Because — SPOILER ALERT — he dies in the first episode. What a waste of an opportunity, he would have been awesome.

So there are two other characters running around, the academy staff — the woman in charge, Aunjanue Ellis playing Deputy administrator Miranda Shaw, and Josh Hopkins as head instructor Liam O’Connor. Both of them have their secrets and could be easily involved more so than a recruit. Ellis has been good on NCIS: LA, and I even liked her back in the day on The Mentalist. She even gave a good performance way back in a one-season show called E-ring. But she is good in support, not sure she’ll be able to handle running some of the plot. Hopkins is a good short-term character actor, and I’ve liked him in those roles ever since I first saw him way back on Cold Case when he was romancing Lilly. But like Ellis, he doesn’t have the gravitas to drive the plot forward. Almost every scene with him was lightweight.

But the show looks like it will rise or fall based on Chopra’s talents, and while she is awesome at the Academy, her time as FBI agent/lead suspect seemed false, too much like bad play-acting. I think the show has a lot of buzz and budget behind it, so it will play out for the season. Only the ratings will tell if it comes back for Round 2 next year, although rumour is that next year it would be a new batch of recruits and a new storyline, not the same ones continuing. I’ll stick around for a while.

Series premiere: Rosewood

The PolyBlog
September 28 2015

One of the new shows premiering this year is a quirky Miami show called Rosewood. It’s the name of the lead character, Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr., who runs — wait for it — a private pathology consulting firm. Apparently, in some jurisdictions, it’s a real thing. And it makes for an interesting hook…rather than a consultant who works with the police or with a medical examiner, he IS the consultant/medical examiner/forensics guy. And he works on contract with the police. Cool.

The lead is played by Morris Chestnut, who looks like a slicker version of Taye Diggs, and I’d swear I’ve seen him in other shows, and his impressive resume goes back 20 years, but none of the shows were ones I regularly watched. No idea who he is, but he had a presence in the first episode. His gimmick is that he has a bunch of medical issues going on from birth, and he grabs life and seizes every breath he can take. So he’s a ray of sunshine all through the episode, but somehow avoids being smarmy. He is consummate charm, with just enough self-deprecation and gravitas to avoid being a used-car salesman. Most of his moves are on the new Latina detective, Villa, played by Jaina Lee Ortiz. Her resume has a lot fewer credits, but she does a decent job.

Working with Rosewood is his sister and her lesbian lover (ooh, we can get the Latina, black and LGBT demographics, cool!), both lightweights, but his mother? Lorraine Toussaint. I liked her in Forever last year, and even more back on Saving Grace. or even way back to Crossing Jordan. I even like her when she pops up as cameos in various other series over the years. I have no idea what they’re going to do with her in this show, but I suspect basically waste her. There’s very little role for the mother of the investigator, I don’t think, even if she brings the case in the first episode (an old student, dead in a driving accident, except she didn’t like to drive, never would speed, and didn’t drive while impaired, and not at night either).

Another odd one was another detective at the precinct — Anthony Michael Hall. Really? They have him as fourth banana? Talk about bench strength. Let’s hope they upgrade him at some point. His character is basically a doofus though, so they would have to give him something better to do too.

Soooo, where does that leave me? The show was okay, a quirky premise. There was no chemistry between the two leads though, so if they are hoping for a romantic spark, it wasn’t there. I’m willing to watch, but I doubt it will make it past 5 episodes. However, I have no clue how they count demographics, and they were throwing out a lot of feelers to various communities. Maybe it will take.

Season premiere: NCIS: New Orleans

The PolyBlog
September 28 2015

Of the three NCIS shows, this is the one that I like the least for plots and acting, but the most for a few of the actors. I like Scott Bakula, and I really like Zoe McLellan in the series. Most of the rest I could take or leave, but those two bring something to the screen. Yet oddly enough, zero chemistry between them. I like the fact that they have few scenes together where it’s just the two of them as they do better with other supporting cast members.

Last season got a little bogged down with a conspiracy over several episodes, and none of the episodes were particularly compelling. They did, more or less, wrap it up at the end of the season. So the season premiere kicked off with a regular bad-guy-of-the-week premise. They made it interesting — lots of different militia types from around the U.S. united against the government, all working together. Would never happen, their basic zeitgeist prevents cooperation with others, but it was interesting at least. I’m more interested in seeing where Brody’s personal case goes over the season — someone is sending her photos from high school except she’s been photoshopped into them, she wasn’t there for the events, her sister was. Along with a musician guy who died around that time. Could be interesting, at least as long as they follow one of Gibbs’ rules — your case, your lead.

I’ve changed my watching setup for this year, and NCIS:NO is a perfect candidate for binge watching — it is not must-see TV any week, and the season premiere didn’t change that.

Series premiere: The Player

The PolyBlog
September 27 2015

Okay, I admit, I’m a sucker for the “one man against the world” storylines. Bourne. Bond. All the action hero movies ever made. The new show, The Player, is right up my alley. Let’s get to the elaborate premise.

Meet Alex Kane, ex-special ops soldier who was good at hunting terrorists and then killing them. He liked it too much and he was good at it. Until along came a pretty doctor lady who taught him to “do good” and thus he would “be good”. Fast forward a few years, him and the doctor lady are separated, but fraternizing with the enemy regularly and still in love. Alex is working as a high-priced security consultant, she’s a doctor in a local hospital again, all is sunny and warm.

Until a hitman tries to kill Alex and gets Jennie instead. Then things get weird. Remember in the Matrix when Neo meets Morpheus? Well, Alex gets to meet Mr. Johnson aka The Pit Boss. He runs “the game” where wealthy clients bet on crime outcomes, with heavy stakes. Minimum bid $1.5 million; maximum bid $100 million. He is aided by Cassandra, the Dealer, who handles data analysis. Think like Person of Interest, except the machine is controlled by the House. And they want Alex to be their new player. A single man, working alone and anonymously, to combat the forces of evil, or at least, the bad guy of the week. As an added bonus, he gets to target the man who killed Alex’ wife.

Alex eventually agrees, but only to avenge his wife and save a kidnapped girl. And that is the first episode. Alex Kane in Die Hard in Vegas. And (SPOILER ALERT), he does save the girl. Then gets sprung from police holding (a funny story actually, they think he murdered his wife), and the House offers Alex a full time gig. He says no. Then he discovers the body of his wife is not actually his wife (missing a secret tattoo). So he accepts the job, planning to bring down whoever “took” his wife, assuming she’s still alive.

Is the show fantastic? No, it’s not, and that’s the problem. Lots of other shows have tried to go down this road. Intelligence two years ago, the guy with a computer chip in his brain making him a super investigator/soldier working for Cyber Command. A few years ago, they tried it with Nathan Filion — it was called Drive. The premise was ex-wheelman comes home to find wife or daughter or some loved one kidnapped, and if he wants to see her alive, he has to play “the Game” err, no, that’s not right, he has to “win the race” where people bet on who will win Cannonball Run except the stakes are life or death. Intelligence ran the whole season, Drive only lasted an episode or two. A few years ago too, there was a Taye Diggs one where he kept having to relive the same day over and over again, one man against the odds, trying to save his wife.

It’s a good theory that the stakes will be compelling for viewers, but few have ever got the mix right. I like the show, but I’m not convinced this one has it right either. Maybe if they gave him super powers…that’s pretty hot right now.

There are three things going for it though. Alex Kane is played by Philip Winchester, and he has definite action hero presence without being giant ego man. Wesley Snipes is pretty good as the pit boss, although I’d be curious to see if all of his pay cheque goes to the IRS. But the real star of Episode One was Charity Wakefield as Cassandra aka The Dealer. She is in charge of data analysis, and is Alex’ one and only resource. She’s also likely the one who did something with Kane’s wife, since back in the day, they were friends at some point.

I’ll watch, but I suspect it will be cancelled before mid-season since it will be difficult to keep high enough viewership to justify the production costs.