A somewhat extensive TV run down
Galavant 2x07-8
I’ve been enjoying this season, but having seen these episodes I realize I wasn’t nearly as into it as last season, but these were really good. The songs were better than most have been and certainly better than last week’s offerings, and the humor was way better. I think it’s helped by having the characters in the same plot even if still divided. Good job with this showing; problem with short seasons though is that by the time they really find their feet the season’s almost over, so boo to that.
Flash 2x11
I feel like I should have liked this episode more than I did, because there was a lot to like. The consequences of Wells/Thawne/Reverse Flash’s (I should figure out how to put that eventually) actions in s1 are still the most compelling parts of the story, and that was handled pretty well (not great I don’t think, but pretty well). Which may contribute to why Harry remains the most interesting character on the show. I don’t want to cast too many aspersions on handling of the West family drama, but it isn’t working for me personally; although Wally is many times more palatable here than he was last time. It’s still not well explained how Reverse Flash still exists as he shouldn’t, but he does kind of still have still exist somehow because Barry’s mom is still dead and they all remember s1...so, comic book temporal logic. I was also surprised in some ways how the Thawne plot ended, because as soon as Cisco told him that he (Thawne) had helped design the cells, I expected it to turn out Thawne-as-Wells had built something into it that would allow him to escape, and that would be clear to Thawne-as-is; we also know that Barry’s eventually going to have to travel back to Noah’s death another time, so I was wondering if that was where this was leading. I would have to question Caitlyn’s statement that everyone has a double between Earths, because if that’s true, where’s Jesse’s double for example? On the other side, would that mean that say Oliver will never have any more kids because Earth-2-Oliver is dead and not having any? I’m also not happy with what appears to be the resolution of the Barry/Patty plotline. If Barry’s intention was for her to leave and them not be together and so keep her out of danger, that’s...not great but at least a logical thought; but it always bugs me that people like this don’t tell their SOs because somehow that will keep them safe from the hero’s enemies; I didn’t exactly ship those two (they’re fine and could have had more done with them, but shipping would be more than that), but I wanted to see a show that actively realized that.
Arrow 4x11
I think I really liked that one; while overall I’m not sure I agree with the handling of the issues involved, the moments really worked for me. I’m not sure what I feel about Andy’s development, I’m not sure how to feel about Waller being killed off, I could point out the plot of the ep made little sense and was mostly there to facilitate that character moments, while I’m pretty sure I feel that so far we’ve gotten a shallow dealing with what happened to Felicity (I’ve seen the first season of FNL), and yet I kind of liked a ton of things about this episode (such as I do have to give the writing props that they acknowledged that the world the characters live in changes the rules of what people should expect, since I kind of had a rant about that last week),. The character moments that dominated the episode really worked for me and made me teary in places, including Felicity finally getting a code name (though where Oracle is in this verse I don’t know, and seems a bit of a stretch). So good job.
Side note, on a hunch before this episode I went back and checked last week’s episode and I was right, flashforward-Felicity isn’t wearing her engagement ring, and I kind of doubt that’s an oversight since it’s only a few scenes after Oliver made a big production about putting it back on her finger. As if the clear distance between them wasn’t indication enough, there’s that.
And look, I need to talk about a difference between Arrow and Flash that I see getting worse a lot of the time, especially noticeable this week. I don’t get on the feminist soapbox very often, but Flash is SO male dominated while Arrow is so much more equal in focus. I like Flash, I do, but its female characters are so secondary to all the male ones which isn’t the case on Arrow. I’m not a big believer in the Bechdel test (I keep thinking I’ll do a meta on that, but haven’t obviously), but just compare how many women have important roles in the plot/story in the episodes this week and it’s staggering; and overall in the roles the women play in the series beyond these exact episodes. I have some ideas as to why that is, but now that I think about it this is itself probably a whole separate meta that I might want to wait on until I have a better idea where LoT fits in (they definitely did go with a much more dominantly male team, just saying).
Legends of Tomorrow 1x02
This really felt like the second half of the pilot, staying in 1975 (I assume future episodes will give us more variety), everybody still just starting to understand the rules of time travel, a lot of the call backs toward the end felt like bookending the same story rather than being two separate ones. That out of the way, I can’t tell if I liked it or not, there were parts I really liked and parts I really didn’t. While I can’t quite be glad Conner’s dead, I’m not exactly sorry either, I pretty much hated him and I’m on Kendra’s more supposedly childish side that says fate is not the be all end all of who they are. Now maybe Kendra can have actual character development that she pretty much never had around him because it was all about who they used to be rather than making choices about who they are. It does explain why Conner wasn’t in the original marketing for the show though. But I did dig Stein’s story, as common a time travel idea as it is, it was well done and got a lot of good character moments out of it. I don’t have any real opinions on the thieving plot, except that Ray seems capable of being shipped with a variety of people. The action scenes were certainly fun, which I suppose is important in an action/adventure show. But this episode does shine a light on a problem with this series, Rip wants to change the future-history of his world, that could actually explain why he picked a team from 2016, so that as they’re trying to stop Savage before it gets to the point it is in Rip’s time that team is not risking changing their own histories; and yet the first things they do is go even further back where they’re at risk of members of the team losing important parts of their lives and changing the world *they* come from rather than focusing on saving what they perceive as the future. Rip may say here that there’s no justice in Stein losing his wife to save Rip’s, which was a good scene, but if say they manage to defeat Savage in any time before 2016 (and let’s be real, this show is more likely to go into our history than future) there’s every chance their world won’t be the same when they go home. I’m not saying this very well, but hopefully I got the point across.
Mr. Selfridge 4x04
Oh boy, this is getting rough; I expected this season to get rough, but that doesn’t make it easier to watch. So much bad decision theater going on, although I think it needs a broader term because it’s not all the fault of decisions...it wasn’t in s3 either, but enough that I didn’t feel bad calling it bad decision theater. It’s not angst the way I prefer to use it either, it’s just...bad and painful and hurtful for everyone. Knowing that it isn’t going to get any better for Harry casts a pall over all the other plots where I can’t help expecting it to end badly for everyone (seems pretty likely in say Groves’ case too). I can’t decide if Kitty and Frank are on path for divorce, but seems kind of likely; given Harry’s impending downfall there’s no real happy end for Gordon in this as their fates are pretty tied together; between that and how Serge has vanished from the show I can’t imagine Rosalie getting a great ending either; I’m not sure I see at this point what a good end for Mae is (although am enjoying her a lot; also even though the frat boys were more about insulting Jimmy, I wanted her to belt them for bringing up Loxley). I still kind of wish I shipped Harry/Mae, they’d probably go into it knowing they were each going to cheat on each other and kind of be okay with that, but I can’t quite manage to jump on board. And because I’m me I kept expecting some combination of Violette and/or one or more of the Leclairs to show up while the story had been moved to France (I’d built it up in my head that Harry would invite Henri only for him to stay on the fringes of the party wishing he was home with Agnes and their probable children), but I guess the return of Miss Mardle was enough of a return, which was welcome, I do love Josie bunches.
X-Files 10x01
I...liked it...I think. It’s been ages since I actually watched this show so I barely know what I would think of it with adult eyes much less particularly modern ones, but I feel a lot different about this that I remember feeling about the old series, though the old school credits really made me feel all warm and nostalgic with the images of baby Mulder and Scully. A lot of that I think is intentional, as they say several times in the episode, it’s a different world than it was back in the 90s, and that also applies to this as a TV show. But I know I have never been so worried about Mulder’s sanity as I was this time around, and I can’t tell if that’s being deliberately done or not as Mulder himself seems more framed through Scully’s eyes than ever and she is clearly worried about him and he’s just breaking her heart by seeming so mentally fractured. I was prepared to be kind of pissed by them breaking up, but honestly I see it now; clearly he’s still the love of her life, but eventually she had to get out being with him, she wants to see him get better but she couldn’t do the (always present) codependency of their relationship anymore. And I think he gets it, or did until he was pulled deeper into it by this exposure, he loves her enough to let her go, knowing she still loves him as much as he loves her, but he couldn’t keep her in the dark where he was. All that said, I can’t help but feel we’ve gotten this plot before about alien invasion not being the issue but governments/secret cabals out there using it as a smoke screen to be able to accumulate power for themselves. So while I do definitely find it interesting to return to this old canon, and I’m rolling with some of the choices they made to come back to it, I’m also not sure I’m going to be ultimately down with the directions it may be choosing to go. Plus there were two things I remember being clear in the finale, doomsday should have hit in 2012 (and there wasn’t enough reference to that here for me to just let it go) and Cancerman was definitely dead (I’m always happy to have him around but I recall them making it very clear he was finally dead at that point), so...I guess we’ll see.
Agent Carter s1 retwatch
I decided part of the reason I wasn’t rushing to watch s2 was because I’d basically forgotten s1, and I think that was a large bit of it, as I’m now somewhat more interested in s2 (though I may wait and marathon it, I think this worked better) I also have to admit...I don’t really like this show all that much. I think a lot of it is the compressed season, even a 13 episode run would be better, because at eight the episodes are too choppy and stakes never feel all that high even when they are (that may partly be the historical setting of the MCU too). The background characters are too much comic relief and in the short time the show has feel like a waste of screen time. And for a show that is touted by so many people as being much more feminist that the other Marvel properties...I don’t really like the women in it; Peggy is kind of boring all told (not terrible, but not the greatest lady around either) and the other women are not good. I really don’t like Angie and I can’t tell if the actress is bad or she’s doing a good job playing a super annoying character. No wonder I never shipper her with Peggy, I don’t want her around. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a bad show, but it’s not that good either. Put it this way, I’m often disappointed in SHIELD because I still feel it could be better than it is; I’m disappointed in AC because I don’t think can be as good as it thinks it is. Oh well, I’ll check out s2, but maybe not right away.
I’ve been enjoying this season, but having seen these episodes I realize I wasn’t nearly as into it as last season, but these were really good. The songs were better than most have been and certainly better than last week’s offerings, and the humor was way better. I think it’s helped by having the characters in the same plot even if still divided. Good job with this showing; problem with short seasons though is that by the time they really find their feet the season’s almost over, so boo to that.
Flash 2x11
I feel like I should have liked this episode more than I did, because there was a lot to like. The consequences of Wells/Thawne/Reverse Flash’s (I should figure out how to put that eventually) actions in s1 are still the most compelling parts of the story, and that was handled pretty well (not great I don’t think, but pretty well). Which may contribute to why Harry remains the most interesting character on the show. I don’t want to cast too many aspersions on handling of the West family drama, but it isn’t working for me personally; although Wally is many times more palatable here than he was last time. It’s still not well explained how Reverse Flash still exists as he shouldn’t, but he does kind of still have still exist somehow because Barry’s mom is still dead and they all remember s1...so, comic book temporal logic. I was also surprised in some ways how the Thawne plot ended, because as soon as Cisco told him that he (Thawne) had helped design the cells, I expected it to turn out Thawne-as-Wells had built something into it that would allow him to escape, and that would be clear to Thawne-as-is; we also know that Barry’s eventually going to have to travel back to Noah’s death another time, so I was wondering if that was where this was leading. I would have to question Caitlyn’s statement that everyone has a double between Earths, because if that’s true, where’s Jesse’s double for example? On the other side, would that mean that say Oliver will never have any more kids because Earth-2-Oliver is dead and not having any? I’m also not happy with what appears to be the resolution of the Barry/Patty plotline. If Barry’s intention was for her to leave and them not be together and so keep her out of danger, that’s...not great but at least a logical thought; but it always bugs me that people like this don’t tell their SOs because somehow that will keep them safe from the hero’s enemies; I didn’t exactly ship those two (they’re fine and could have had more done with them, but shipping would be more than that), but I wanted to see a show that actively realized that.
Arrow 4x11
I think I really liked that one; while overall I’m not sure I agree with the handling of the issues involved, the moments really worked for me. I’m not sure what I feel about Andy’s development, I’m not sure how to feel about Waller being killed off, I could point out the plot of the ep made little sense and was mostly there to facilitate that character moments, while I’m pretty sure I feel that so far we’ve gotten a shallow dealing with what happened to Felicity (I’ve seen the first season of FNL), and yet I kind of liked a ton of things about this episode (such as I do have to give the writing props that they acknowledged that the world the characters live in changes the rules of what people should expect, since I kind of had a rant about that last week),. The character moments that dominated the episode really worked for me and made me teary in places, including Felicity finally getting a code name (though where Oracle is in this verse I don’t know, and seems a bit of a stretch). So good job.
Side note, on a hunch before this episode I went back and checked last week’s episode and I was right, flashforward-Felicity isn’t wearing her engagement ring, and I kind of doubt that’s an oversight since it’s only a few scenes after Oliver made a big production about putting it back on her finger. As if the clear distance between them wasn’t indication enough, there’s that.
And look, I need to talk about a difference between Arrow and Flash that I see getting worse a lot of the time, especially noticeable this week. I don’t get on the feminist soapbox very often, but Flash is SO male dominated while Arrow is so much more equal in focus. I like Flash, I do, but its female characters are so secondary to all the male ones which isn’t the case on Arrow. I’m not a big believer in the Bechdel test (I keep thinking I’ll do a meta on that, but haven’t obviously), but just compare how many women have important roles in the plot/story in the episodes this week and it’s staggering; and overall in the roles the women play in the series beyond these exact episodes. I have some ideas as to why that is, but now that I think about it this is itself probably a whole separate meta that I might want to wait on until I have a better idea where LoT fits in (they definitely did go with a much more dominantly male team, just saying).
Legends of Tomorrow 1x02
This really felt like the second half of the pilot, staying in 1975 (I assume future episodes will give us more variety), everybody still just starting to understand the rules of time travel, a lot of the call backs toward the end felt like bookending the same story rather than being two separate ones. That out of the way, I can’t tell if I liked it or not, there were parts I really liked and parts I really didn’t. While I can’t quite be glad Conner’s dead, I’m not exactly sorry either, I pretty much hated him and I’m on Kendra’s more supposedly childish side that says fate is not the be all end all of who they are. Now maybe Kendra can have actual character development that she pretty much never had around him because it was all about who they used to be rather than making choices about who they are. It does explain why Conner wasn’t in the original marketing for the show though. But I did dig Stein’s story, as common a time travel idea as it is, it was well done and got a lot of good character moments out of it. I don’t have any real opinions on the thieving plot, except that Ray seems capable of being shipped with a variety of people. The action scenes were certainly fun, which I suppose is important in an action/adventure show. But this episode does shine a light on a problem with this series, Rip wants to change the future-history of his world, that could actually explain why he picked a team from 2016, so that as they’re trying to stop Savage before it gets to the point it is in Rip’s time that team is not risking changing their own histories; and yet the first things they do is go even further back where they’re at risk of members of the team losing important parts of their lives and changing the world *they* come from rather than focusing on saving what they perceive as the future. Rip may say here that there’s no justice in Stein losing his wife to save Rip’s, which was a good scene, but if say they manage to defeat Savage in any time before 2016 (and let’s be real, this show is more likely to go into our history than future) there’s every chance their world won’t be the same when they go home. I’m not saying this very well, but hopefully I got the point across.
Mr. Selfridge 4x04
Oh boy, this is getting rough; I expected this season to get rough, but that doesn’t make it easier to watch. So much bad decision theater going on, although I think it needs a broader term because it’s not all the fault of decisions...it wasn’t in s3 either, but enough that I didn’t feel bad calling it bad decision theater. It’s not angst the way I prefer to use it either, it’s just...bad and painful and hurtful for everyone. Knowing that it isn’t going to get any better for Harry casts a pall over all the other plots where I can’t help expecting it to end badly for everyone (seems pretty likely in say Groves’ case too). I can’t decide if Kitty and Frank are on path for divorce, but seems kind of likely; given Harry’s impending downfall there’s no real happy end for Gordon in this as their fates are pretty tied together; between that and how Serge has vanished from the show I can’t imagine Rosalie getting a great ending either; I’m not sure I see at this point what a good end for Mae is (although am enjoying her a lot; also even though the frat boys were more about insulting Jimmy, I wanted her to belt them for bringing up Loxley). I still kind of wish I shipped Harry/Mae, they’d probably go into it knowing they were each going to cheat on each other and kind of be okay with that, but I can’t quite manage to jump on board. And because I’m me I kept expecting some combination of Violette and/or one or more of the Leclairs to show up while the story had been moved to France (I’d built it up in my head that Harry would invite Henri only for him to stay on the fringes of the party wishing he was home with Agnes and their probable children), but I guess the return of Miss Mardle was enough of a return, which was welcome, I do love Josie bunches.
X-Files 10x01
I...liked it...I think. It’s been ages since I actually watched this show so I barely know what I would think of it with adult eyes much less particularly modern ones, but I feel a lot different about this that I remember feeling about the old series, though the old school credits really made me feel all warm and nostalgic with the images of baby Mulder and Scully. A lot of that I think is intentional, as they say several times in the episode, it’s a different world than it was back in the 90s, and that also applies to this as a TV show. But I know I have never been so worried about Mulder’s sanity as I was this time around, and I can’t tell if that’s being deliberately done or not as Mulder himself seems more framed through Scully’s eyes than ever and she is clearly worried about him and he’s just breaking her heart by seeming so mentally fractured. I was prepared to be kind of pissed by them breaking up, but honestly I see it now; clearly he’s still the love of her life, but eventually she had to get out being with him, she wants to see him get better but she couldn’t do the (always present) codependency of their relationship anymore. And I think he gets it, or did until he was pulled deeper into it by this exposure, he loves her enough to let her go, knowing she still loves him as much as he loves her, but he couldn’t keep her in the dark where he was. All that said, I can’t help but feel we’ve gotten this plot before about alien invasion not being the issue but governments/secret cabals out there using it as a smoke screen to be able to accumulate power for themselves. So while I do definitely find it interesting to return to this old canon, and I’m rolling with some of the choices they made to come back to it, I’m also not sure I’m going to be ultimately down with the directions it may be choosing to go. Plus there were two things I remember being clear in the finale, doomsday should have hit in 2012 (and there wasn’t enough reference to that here for me to just let it go) and Cancerman was definitely dead (I’m always happy to have him around but I recall them making it very clear he was finally dead at that point), so...I guess we’ll see.
Agent Carter s1 retwatch
I decided part of the reason I wasn’t rushing to watch s2 was because I’d basically forgotten s1, and I think that was a large bit of it, as I’m now somewhat more interested in s2 (though I may wait and marathon it, I think this worked better) I also have to admit...I don’t really like this show all that much. I think a lot of it is the compressed season, even a 13 episode run would be better, because at eight the episodes are too choppy and stakes never feel all that high even when they are (that may partly be the historical setting of the MCU too). The background characters are too much comic relief and in the short time the show has feel like a waste of screen time. And for a show that is touted by so many people as being much more feminist that the other Marvel properties...I don’t really like the women in it; Peggy is kind of boring all told (not terrible, but not the greatest lady around either) and the other women are not good. I really don’t like Angie and I can’t tell if the actress is bad or she’s doing a good job playing a super annoying character. No wonder I never shipper her with Peggy, I don’t want her around. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a bad show, but it’s not that good either. Put it this way, I’m often disappointed in SHIELD because I still feel it could be better than it is; I’m disappointed in AC because I don’t think can be as good as it thinks it is. Oh well, I’ll check out s2, but maybe not right away.