Tag Archives: season

Update on TV watching for the new season ….

The PolyBlog
October 15 2016

I gave some shows a try, but it is time to thin the herd.

First on my chopping block is American Housewife. I said initially that I wouldn’t try it, but gave it a go anyway. It was theoretically a comedy. I have no idea as I didn’t last three minutes before I was grinding my teeth. It was complete and utter pretentious crap.

I’m pulling the plug on Conviction. The show is okay, and could be a great Cold Case-lite clone, but it is just not pulling me in for the team. If it got down to just Hayes and the former gang ADA, I’d be watching.

I already pulled the plug on The Exorcist. Creepy, not sure where it was going for future episodes (freak of the week, or continuing intrigue of single storyline), but it just wasn’t there for me.

I wanted to like Frequency. Episode 1 was okay, and I liked the actress enough to come back for episode 2, but it too is just not jiving for me enough to keep going. Pass.

Lethal Weapon was just plain bad, done and gone in a single Ep for me.

Ditto for MacGyver.

No Tomorrow may be the one I hate myself for cutting. The main actress was SO charming in the pilot that it sucked me in. And I love the “change my life through a bucket list” premise, but not enough to work my way through the secondary characters who were driving me crazy. I’m out.

Notorious was the Revenge show for this year…scandalous, fast-moving, some interesting players, an overall mystery. But bad acting and bad writing. Cheesy. Enjoyable but you know it’s rotting your teeth. I’m going to improve my life and drop it.

This is Us may be them, but apparently it is not me. I watched the first, found a bit of it quirky, didn’t mind it, but two weeks later, I have no interest in what happens to any of the characters to watch Ep 2, except Gerald McRaney and he was only in Ep 1. Easy to cut.

Oh, and I totally forgot about Son of Zorn. Blech.

I’m sticking with Bull, Designated Survivor, Falling Water, Pitch, Timeless, Van Helsing for now, although I won’t be surprised if none of them make it to the end of the season.

I’m also still watching Arrow, Blue Bloods, Blacklist, BlindSpot, DC Legends of Tomorrow, Elementary, the Flash, Gotham, Grimm, Lucifer, NCIS, Quantico (barely), Rosewood, and Supergirl. In theory, I’m also tracking for future binging on 12 Monkeys, Dark Matter, Into the Badlands, Jessica Jones, Killjoys, The Librarians, Lucky Man, Marvel’s Agents of Shield, NCIS: LA and NO, Orphan Black, Scorpion, Shannara Chronicles, Shadowhunters, and Suits.

And I’m occasionally binge-watching Buffy, JAG, Moonlighting, Colony, and I just finished Luke Cage.

Season premiere: DC Legends of Tomorrow – 2016/17

The PolyBlog
October 15 2016

I knew of Batman (for Gotham), Superman (for Smallville), Green Arrow (for Arrow) and the Flash (for, well, The Flash). But I am not a huge comics fan for either DC or Marvel so lots of the recent spates of shows go beyond my knowledge. DC Legends of Tomorrow is in that category, never having heard of them as a group. But I love time travel shows and was enjoying some of the characters before they went wandering through time, so it was a no-brainer for me to start watching. I confess though that the ensemble approach leaves me a bit spread out in my support for the show, and it hovers on the “watch this week” vs. “catch it on binge later” toss-up line.

When the season ended last year, the producers didn’t know yet the fate of the show. It ended up moving to the CW, but they didn’t know that at the time so the final episode ended with a cliff-hanger…the ship is headed for the sun, likely to be destroyed, etc.

Episode 1 of Season 2? Picks up as if that episode never happened. Reminds me of the end of JAG Season 1 where Season 2 started off as if that episode never happened. Took them another 20 eps to figure out how to write it into the show. Instead, DCLoT starts with the ship trapped on the bottom of the ocean, and a professor coming to see Oliver Queen as Mayor and Green Arrow to help save the ship (the professor is an amateur time detective). They go to the ship, find one crew member, hear the story of how the team chased time gremlins for six months after the death of the time masters, and then ran up against Damian Dark, the reverse flash, and Nazis, only to have the ship hit with an atomic bomb. The team got scattered throughout time to save them (totally ridiculous explanation, with Palmer hanging out with Jurassic dinosaurs) and Sara trying to get vengeance for Laurel.

The episode was okay, but *spoiler alert* it ends with the Captain presumably lost, and the team set to go forward without him but with the new professor as the historical expert. As much as I am unsold on the ensemble, it only works for me if it stays stable. Predictable. Knowable. I have the same problem with Arrow this season — they’ve recruited a new team. Most of whom are likely to be fine, but really, I don’t care about their issues and their eventually-to-be-revealed backstory. I at least like the new Professor, just hope it doesn’t kill the show’s momentum as they devolve into a constant state of bickering about what to do next since nobody will be in charge.

Okay episode, not great.

Season premiere: Supergirl – 2016/17

The PolyBlog
October 12 2016

When Supergirl debuted last year, I wasn’t sure it was fully going to work. The “aw, shucks” innocence of Kara was hard to take without more backstory, but it was precisely that missing backstory that probably made it work. There are few “other” Supergirls to contend with…Laura Vandervoort played her on Smallville, and was decent but only amassed about a season’s worth of episodes overall, and often as a secondary character. And of course Helen Slater in the Supergirl movie. Let’s forget about her though. Which is easy to do. So, when Melissa Benoist started as SG last year, she had almost a clean slate.

But the first episode of Season 2? Her cousin stops by. Yep, Superman. Clark Kent. The Man of Steel. The big ICON that everyone knows. And honestly, I wasn’t that excited by it. Sure, the Flash stopped by last season, but that was Grant Gustin, who is already playing The Flash. This one is an entirely new Superman. A HUGE ROLE. For anyone.

I love Smallville, mostly as it focuses so much on the origin — how he learns to become Superman as opposed to “hey, look, I’m Superman today”. And Tom Welling was perfect in that role — not sure how I would like him in the suit, but as young Clark Kent, he was awesome. Other TV options include Dean Cain, George Reeves. In the movies, you have Henry Cavill, Brandon Routh, Christopher Reeve, or Bud Collyer. Sure, lots of others too, but those are the main ones. For me, Christopher Reeve was one of the few who got both Clark and Kal-El “right”. It’s really hard to not make Clark look “like” Superman, but not “like Superman”.

So who is the new Superman? Tyler Hoechlin. Wait, who? Sure, he might have been big on 7th Heaven or Teen Wolf, but I didn’t watch either. For me, he is brand new. And you know what?

I loved him. He is good as Superman…looks pretty young, almost a bit “youthful”. But he is GREAT as Clark Kent. Not bumbling, some steel in his role as reporter, confident, settled. The contrast with Kara was of course deliberate, but I was totally sold on him being Superman. Not like the others, all his own rendition. But believable. Totally in line with the way they have Kara written, with a bit more edge.

Overall, great episode. I’m not sure I want the entire series to be “Flying Cousins”, but for an occasional visit, it’s nice.

Series premiere: Conviction – 2016/17

The PolyBlog
October 9 2016

Back in the day, I used to love watching Cold Case. The twists, the turns, the realization that something someone said was taken out of context, misinterpreted, and it led cops in one direction that ended up going nowhere. Some twenty years later, they get a new clue, a fresh perspective, something, and it leads them off in a new direction. Often, the solution starts with someone admitting something they knew back in the day but didn’t share…like maybe the dead guy might have been cheating, but his buddy didn’t want to drag it out and destroy the memory at the time, but now, 20 years later, he’s willing to share. Less emotional trauma.

Conviction has a bit of the same premise, but instead of a case that was never solved, these are ones where the case WAS solved…except the person claims, even years later, that they were and are innocent of the crime, despite having been convicted. These aren’t Innocence Project cases where DNA might save them, these are high-intensity cases where the person was tried, convicted, and everyone went home to a good night’s sleep. Except the convicted still claims innocence. Not claiming “not guilty beyond reasonable doubt”, they’re still claiming they were completely innocent. So the D.A. in NYC creates a Criminal Integrity Unit to go back and look at the cases one more time. Five days of review, start to finish, see if there is any merit to the claim. And at the end of the five days, they either recommend the conviction be vacated, or that the case was likely solved correctly and the conviction stands. Note they aren’t overturning cases, it’s not a judicial appeal, it’s seeing if there is enough evidence to completely vacate the conviction.

So the premise, generally, is interesting to me. The rub is how they package it.

The premise is that a former President’s daughter (aka Chelsey Clinton mixed with Lindsay Lohan) got into a lot of trouble with the extra limelight growing up, went to law school, worked as a defence attorney and now teaches law. Busted for cocaine possession, she’s blackmailed into being the head for the new CIU. Of course, that’s not great news for the planned head, a former ADA with years of handling gang cases, or the other members of the team — an ex gangbanger who has expertise in forensics, a former witness who got an ID wrong when she was a kid, and a former police detective. She’s hoping to be a figurehead consulting from a beach, but her Mom is making a Senate run (aka Hillary) and wants her to clean up her act. Make it work for three years or they’ll prosecute her for intent to sell. At least that’s the premise.

Of course, you know by the end of the first episode she’s going to find her “calling” and passion and dig into the cases. Which she does. Of course, the actress (Hayley Atwell) is used to playing the hero — she’s been embodying Peggy Carter in the Marvel shows for several years now. I confess I liked her better as Peggy, but she has more available range here, which is either going to be great or just chaotic to watch. Eddie Cahill from CSI:NY plays the DA in charge of everything, but that’s not a huge plus for me…he was one of the weakest elements for me on CSI:NY.

Shawn Ashmore plays the ex-ADA in charge of gang cases, and I really like the Ashmore brothers. I think Aaron is awesome in Smallville and Killjoys, and every time I see Shawn (the twin brother), I have to stop and remind myself it isn’t Aaron. Of course, when they are side by side, it’s obvious, but individually I think it is Aaron each time. I haven’t seen as much as Shawn’s work, but definitely a plus for me having him on the show.

Merrin Dungey, Emily Kinney, and Manny Montana round out the team, but they are all relatively new to full series status for me…although they were in other series, or guest starred on other shows, they weren’t on shows that I watched. I find all three a bit earnest in the first episode, but hopefully they’ll find their character.

When I did my early predictions, based on the premise alone, I thought I would give it one episode, and I’m willing to come back for more. However, unless it kicks up the quality pretty fast or has some gravitas like Cold Case, I’m still holding on to my “half-season” prediction with no renewal.

Series premiere: Frequency – 2016/17

The PolyBlog
October 8 2016

I should confess upfront that I didn’t see the movie that prompted this series. I thought, at the time, that it was some schmaltzy homage to fathers and sons, more Field of Dreams than Silence of the Lambs. “If you talk, he will answer” type storyline.Not so though. And apparently the similarities between the two storylines are pretty clear.

In both, it is a ham radio connecting across time. Child convinces Dad of veracity through knowledge of baseball games. Child tries to alter the past, succeeds, but it also changes other things too, including somehow increasing the success of a serial killer.

The real change for TV is Dad goes from being firefighter who died some years earlier to cop undercover who DIED TWO DAYS LATER in the original timeline. Randy Quaid as Dad gets replaced by Riley Smith, who has a long history of acting credits, particularly in shows where his storyline lasted last than a year (dun dun dun). The son though is now a daughter and played by Peyton List.

She first showed on my radar on the show Windfall (1 season and done) but the show didn’t excite me enough to watch. I was however watching FlashForward that was unceremoniously cancelled after one season and I liked her in it. Not awesome, but watchable. She showed up in Smallville as Lucy Lane, but wasn’t around long enough to really notice her. Then she made her big splash – Cara in The Tomorrow People. I have to confess though, she was one of my least favorite characters in the show…too angst-y for my taste, which is more about the character than the acting, and it shows here. She’s pretty good in this first episode. The writing has her overcome her disbelief pretty fast, but well, the show has to establish its premises early I guess.

I am, indeed, intrigued, but I am far from convinced the show has any legs. I said I would try 1 episode, and it’s good enough to keep watching, but I doubt it will get past the mid-season winnowing process.