Thoughts on the fall TV season pt 2
Since Castle 7x10 was a Christmas episode and had a very lead-into-hiatus feel, I’m going to assume this is a good time to give my thoughts on the season so far.
I think I’ve liked just about all the episodes so far this season, though the only one I loved was the alternate reality/wedding episode, but then I’m a sucker for any time the show becomes more than a strict procedural. Either its occasional toe dips into something vaguely supernatural/sci-fi or the ongoing arcs, and that had elements of both, so of ocurse I loved it.
Mostly I think I have things to say on 7x10 itself. First off, ending Espo/Lanie felt a little weird, after the subway episode I got the impression that relationship was going to continue to be a big deal, and the way they decided to end it feels like it should have happened a while ago (I guess it kind of did in one of their earlier off phases). I was never really a shipper of that ship, but the writing in the end seemed weird.
The bigger issue is Castle being kicked off the team. Honestly, the probably should have happened a long time ago too. There have been several instances over the years where I’ve felt kind of uncomfortable with a civilian tag along being given such authority within the police department. But it definitely should have happened this time, so I don’t mind at all that it did. I know we’ll return to the status quo soon enough, but I’m glad Rick got smacked back a bit; maybe he’ll actually have to have some kind of oversight when the status quo is otherwise restored.
It’s pretty obvious this is the last episode of Agents of SHIELD for a while, so thoughts on that season so far.
TRIIIIIIPPPPPPP.
I don’t even know if I expect Trip to come back somehow even though this is a comic book universe. They never seemed all that interested in developing Trip as a character and if I recall he wasn’t a regular so damn it.
Why is Ward still breathing when Trip isn’t? Total cheers for Skye taking that bastard down even after Raina’s stupid little twu luv thingy. Sink the SkyeWard in every way you can as far as I’m concerned. Even beyond just being ready for Ward to be gone, I’m conflicted about the Ward and Agent 33 impending side plot; it’s a relatively logical direction for those characters to go, but anyone else a touch suspicious that someone really liked the chemistry between Ward and May last season and wanted some way to get around the fact that at this point May would kill him on sight.
I have mixed opinions on the Skye’s dad plot. I kind of think it’s handled okay, in that little orphan Skye can’t 100% ignore the fact that she’s meeting her dad and reject him at every turn; I just don’t care enough about this plot. I still expect that at some point we’ll get Skye telling him “No, Skye is my name, it’s who I am” after all the set up with “That’s not her name” we’ve had, we just couldn’t get it yet.
FitzSimmons are working their way back together slowly. I think that’s probably the right way to handle it and we’ll look back eventually and think it was a great story about love (whatever form that love ultimately takes) overcoming the odds and keeping them together, but in the middle of that story it still hurts.
I’m pretty sure Lance/Bobbi is headed for heartbreak though, one of them is pretty likely to die or get captured or brainwashed or just bad things going to happen. They’re way too close to functional for a dysfunctional couple and on a Whedon show no less. I may be heartbroken by what happens to whichever of them gets the short end of the writing stick, but I’m not invested enough in the couple to be upset by them as a couple being torn up.
My beloved May/Coulson on the other hand I think still have some sword of Damocles hanging over them. There was too much set up to have them dodge tragedy all season; if not the brain eating carving then something else is going to be their next crisis point. Plus I can’t have been the only one to think their pseudo stand-off before he went down into the tunnels was leading to something more shippy.
Over all I think I liked the season so far. The Coulson’s crazy plot was wrapped up a little quick and easy for my tastes and there’s never enough Mat for me, and Trip is sadly dead while Ward isn’t, but I think it’s been a mostly good story so far and a lot of places it could go in the spring. But until then AGENT CARTER; I’ll bother to get excited for AoS’s return when the time comes and I’m not focused on how great AGENT CARTER could be (damn I should scale back my expectations, those high hopes were what made early AoS s1 seem so underwhelming; but it’s hard to keep that rational thought in mind when I’m so excited for Peggy Carter).
And then tonight was a pretty clear break point for Arrow, so might as well discuss that.
So...unless the League of Assassins has the ability to resurrect the dead in this universe (which I think I’ve heard they can in some, and given Malcom’s survival maybe) then I don’t exactly see how Oliver’s coming back from this. And if they can raise the dead, how long until we start seeing Tommy or Moira or Sara come back? But either way I’m guessing Ollie is going to be out of action for a little while at least, let the show focus on Ray becoming the Atom and Laurel as new Black Canary (Sara will always be the real Black Canary though) and Roy having to step up and maybe Thea taking up arms in Oliver’s place too. They have a fair number of up and coming potential heroes to choose from is what I’m saying.
Maybe during the hiatus I’ll really watch The Flash too; I watch the crossover episode, but I thought the Arrow half was fair more interesting, but it might back feed into the Flash side of thing as one of the things. One of the things I wasn’t crazy about on Flash was how light and fluffy things seemed to be for them and they seem to have gotten some reality check in Starling (not that I want them to be team Arrow mark 2, it’s good to have some variety and not all heroes have to be all grim and gritty but they seemed swung too far the other way on Flash).
So are we to assume Oliver didn’t say anything to Laurel before he left? That seems the only logical conclusion, I mean what would he say? She knows too much for it to be a scene like with Thea, but it’s not as if he could explain what was going on. Mainly I just continue to be surprised by how useless Laurel is to the story, and how much the show has changed from where it started with her supposedly holding such importance in Oliver’s story. At this point the writers have to be aware of how removed Laurel is from that role.
Because they have steadily removed everything that Laurel could have been to Oliver. Sara filled the Black Canary love interest role; Thea always gets the important emotional touchstone with the past bits; and Felicity is the one he loves/his light in the darkness. In spite on not even watching TVD this season (yet, I might get to it over the holidays) I’ve still got a lot of residual bitterness towards CW love stories built up from that so that even after the scene where Oliver finally straight up tells Felicity he loves her (when did Oliver Queen become more emotionally balanced than the Doctor...wait that’s a whole different bitterness), when the flashbacks started as Oliver was dying I expected it to be an everyone he loves kind of thing that maybe looped around and ended on Felicity to continue the shippy thread, but just family and Felicity made it even more clear that the show has committed to their ship. Even then, I’m still bitter enough to assume that they would only commit to it now so that they can wreck it more soon.
Also Diggle continues to be the biggest shipper on the Olicity ship. He’s constantly angling Roy out of the room to leave Felicity and Oliver alone together, they just drew attention to it this time.
I can’t decide if I’m excited for when the show comes back or not. The show hasn’t really disappointed me yet, but this has so much potential to go badly that cautious optimism would be overstating my feelings towards what’s to come. I’m more in a hope for the bes, expect the worst type place I think.
I’m behind on Reign so I may not be able to give my up to date thoughts there. I suspect Saving Hope only has another episode or two before it goes on break. Korra is coming to an end soon and I am cautiously optimistic they can pull this into something great; but I will have to post some thoughts once it’s over, because I have thoughts I’ve never really gone into before. And I've kind of put off any Downton thoughts until after the Christmas episode depending on what ends up happening then.
What shows (especially new ones) are people watching this season that I should watch? Like I said, I think I’ll finally watch Flash, maybe catch up on TVD and TO, maybe the first block of Revenge this season. That may be enough to keep me occupied for a bit, but I’m open to suggestions.
I think I’ve liked just about all the episodes so far this season, though the only one I loved was the alternate reality/wedding episode, but then I’m a sucker for any time the show becomes more than a strict procedural. Either its occasional toe dips into something vaguely supernatural/sci-fi or the ongoing arcs, and that had elements of both, so of ocurse I loved it.
Mostly I think I have things to say on 7x10 itself. First off, ending Espo/Lanie felt a little weird, after the subway episode I got the impression that relationship was going to continue to be a big deal, and the way they decided to end it feels like it should have happened a while ago (I guess it kind of did in one of their earlier off phases). I was never really a shipper of that ship, but the writing in the end seemed weird.
The bigger issue is Castle being kicked off the team. Honestly, the probably should have happened a long time ago too. There have been several instances over the years where I’ve felt kind of uncomfortable with a civilian tag along being given such authority within the police department. But it definitely should have happened this time, so I don’t mind at all that it did. I know we’ll return to the status quo soon enough, but I’m glad Rick got smacked back a bit; maybe he’ll actually have to have some kind of oversight when the status quo is otherwise restored.
It’s pretty obvious this is the last episode of Agents of SHIELD for a while, so thoughts on that season so far.
TRIIIIIIPPPPPPP.
I don’t even know if I expect Trip to come back somehow even though this is a comic book universe. They never seemed all that interested in developing Trip as a character and if I recall he wasn’t a regular so damn it.
Why is Ward still breathing when Trip isn’t? Total cheers for Skye taking that bastard down even after Raina’s stupid little twu luv thingy. Sink the SkyeWard in every way you can as far as I’m concerned. Even beyond just being ready for Ward to be gone, I’m conflicted about the Ward and Agent 33 impending side plot; it’s a relatively logical direction for those characters to go, but anyone else a touch suspicious that someone really liked the chemistry between Ward and May last season and wanted some way to get around the fact that at this point May would kill him on sight.
I have mixed opinions on the Skye’s dad plot. I kind of think it’s handled okay, in that little orphan Skye can’t 100% ignore the fact that she’s meeting her dad and reject him at every turn; I just don’t care enough about this plot. I still expect that at some point we’ll get Skye telling him “No, Skye is my name, it’s who I am” after all the set up with “That’s not her name” we’ve had, we just couldn’t get it yet.
FitzSimmons are working their way back together slowly. I think that’s probably the right way to handle it and we’ll look back eventually and think it was a great story about love (whatever form that love ultimately takes) overcoming the odds and keeping them together, but in the middle of that story it still hurts.
I’m pretty sure Lance/Bobbi is headed for heartbreak though, one of them is pretty likely to die or get captured or brainwashed or just bad things going to happen. They’re way too close to functional for a dysfunctional couple and on a Whedon show no less. I may be heartbroken by what happens to whichever of them gets the short end of the writing stick, but I’m not invested enough in the couple to be upset by them as a couple being torn up.
My beloved May/Coulson on the other hand I think still have some sword of Damocles hanging over them. There was too much set up to have them dodge tragedy all season; if not the brain eating carving then something else is going to be their next crisis point. Plus I can’t have been the only one to think their pseudo stand-off before he went down into the tunnels was leading to something more shippy.
Over all I think I liked the season so far. The Coulson’s crazy plot was wrapped up a little quick and easy for my tastes and there’s never enough Mat for me, and Trip is sadly dead while Ward isn’t, but I think it’s been a mostly good story so far and a lot of places it could go in the spring. But until then AGENT CARTER; I’ll bother to get excited for AoS’s return when the time comes and I’m not focused on how great AGENT CARTER could be (damn I should scale back my expectations, those high hopes were what made early AoS s1 seem so underwhelming; but it’s hard to keep that rational thought in mind when I’m so excited for Peggy Carter).
And then tonight was a pretty clear break point for Arrow, so might as well discuss that.
So...unless the League of Assassins has the ability to resurrect the dead in this universe (which I think I’ve heard they can in some, and given Malcom’s survival maybe) then I don’t exactly see how Oliver’s coming back from this. And if they can raise the dead, how long until we start seeing Tommy or Moira or Sara come back? But either way I’m guessing Ollie is going to be out of action for a little while at least, let the show focus on Ray becoming the Atom and Laurel as new Black Canary (Sara will always be the real Black Canary though) and Roy having to step up and maybe Thea taking up arms in Oliver’s place too. They have a fair number of up and coming potential heroes to choose from is what I’m saying.
Maybe during the hiatus I’ll really watch The Flash too; I watch the crossover episode, but I thought the Arrow half was fair more interesting, but it might back feed into the Flash side of thing as one of the things. One of the things I wasn’t crazy about on Flash was how light and fluffy things seemed to be for them and they seem to have gotten some reality check in Starling (not that I want them to be team Arrow mark 2, it’s good to have some variety and not all heroes have to be all grim and gritty but they seemed swung too far the other way on Flash).
So are we to assume Oliver didn’t say anything to Laurel before he left? That seems the only logical conclusion, I mean what would he say? She knows too much for it to be a scene like with Thea, but it’s not as if he could explain what was going on. Mainly I just continue to be surprised by how useless Laurel is to the story, and how much the show has changed from where it started with her supposedly holding such importance in Oliver’s story. At this point the writers have to be aware of how removed Laurel is from that role.
Because they have steadily removed everything that Laurel could have been to Oliver. Sara filled the Black Canary love interest role; Thea always gets the important emotional touchstone with the past bits; and Felicity is the one he loves/his light in the darkness. In spite on not even watching TVD this season (yet, I might get to it over the holidays) I’ve still got a lot of residual bitterness towards CW love stories built up from that so that even after the scene where Oliver finally straight up tells Felicity he loves her (when did Oliver Queen become more emotionally balanced than the Doctor...wait that’s a whole different bitterness), when the flashbacks started as Oliver was dying I expected it to be an everyone he loves kind of thing that maybe looped around and ended on Felicity to continue the shippy thread, but just family and Felicity made it even more clear that the show has committed to their ship. Even then, I’m still bitter enough to assume that they would only commit to it now so that they can wreck it more soon.
Also Diggle continues to be the biggest shipper on the Olicity ship. He’s constantly angling Roy out of the room to leave Felicity and Oliver alone together, they just drew attention to it this time.
I can’t decide if I’m excited for when the show comes back or not. The show hasn’t really disappointed me yet, but this has so much potential to go badly that cautious optimism would be overstating my feelings towards what’s to come. I’m more in a hope for the bes, expect the worst type place I think.
I’m behind on Reign so I may not be able to give my up to date thoughts there. I suspect Saving Hope only has another episode or two before it goes on break. Korra is coming to an end soon and I am cautiously optimistic they can pull this into something great; but I will have to post some thoughts once it’s over, because I have thoughts I’ve never really gone into before. And I've kind of put off any Downton thoughts until after the Christmas episode depending on what ends up happening then.
What shows (especially new ones) are people watching this season that I should watch? Like I said, I think I’ll finally watch Flash, maybe catch up on TVD and TO, maybe the first block of Revenge this season. That may be enough to keep me occupied for a bit, but I’m open to suggestions.