Mid-season TV chatter: Revenge, Once Upon a Time, Grimm
I guess it's about time for an incomplete mid TV season round-up, hmm? Let's see.
The greatest disappointment of the season, so far, has been Revenge. This was my unexpected favorite show of last year, but, alas, this year the show has seriously slid off - more plunged off - the rails, mostly because not enough wealthy people have been thrown off buildings, shot, or boarded exploding planes. Focus, show, focus. Also the show has brought on some new villains called "The Initiative" who are just not using enough Botox or wearing enough designer clothing to have the same sizzle. Admittedly someone fell off a balcony which was nicely dramatic and added more people with English accents which is always a good thing, but, not enough. It's a classic example of the importance of sticking with your original concept.
To counter this, last year's greatest disappointment, Once Upon a Time, has improved somewhat this year, largely because it's given up on its original concept, which was "tell what really happened in fairy tales and story books," which thanks to Network Interference became "tell what really happened in Disney movies," and rarely managed to give new twists on either, despite a generally strong cast. (Lena Parilla in particular has had a lot of fun playing the Evil Queen, mostly, I suspect, because of the fabulous Evil Outfits.) Paired with this was a "real world" storyline that made no sense the more you thought about it (if nobody can come in and out of Storybook, how exactly are they getting gas to drive their cars? That sort of thing) and overall just never hit the potential of the cool concept. I couldn't exactly blame the guy playing the genie for fleeing the show, even if he ended up fleeing to the train wreck that is Revolution.
Anyway, this year the show has more or less said, to hell with the retelling fairy tales concept, and instead just gone with a hodgepodge of various characters from various books who wander around an Enchanted Forest (Motto: With our Enchanted Geography, You, Too, Can Reach the Enchanted Pond and the Enchanted Beanstalk and the Enchanted Towers and the Enchanted Poppies and Anywhere the Plot Needs You To Be Within Hours!) interacting with each other, which is a lot more fun and oddly ends up making more sense - I mean, we've all been waiting to see the Queen of Hearts and Captain Hook join forces. So that's all good. It helps that Captain Hook is really rocking the Sexy Bad Boy vibe. It's probably not a good sign that of the many, many men the show keeps throwing at its main protagonist, Emma, this is the first pairing I've liked. I mean, he's Captain Hook. (That said most of the men thrown at Emma have not exactly been the upstanding hero types.)
Which is not to say that this season hasn't had its bumps. Kudos to the show for finally introducing an Asian character (who in her last scene rather hinted that she's more than willing to, shall we say in a family friendly sort of way, go both ways), minus several hundred points for casting an actress who can so far be most kindly called "wooden" (up until the seriously gay scene, that is). Minus still more points for completely underusing the talented Sarah Bolger and inexplicably forcing her to use an American accent. (The accents are all over the place in this show and make no sense anyway, so why anyone isn't using native accents I can't tell you.) And since people still can't get in and out of Storybook (with the exception of maybe three or four people) I'm still wondering how they are getting gas for their cars. Does the town have an oil refinery we haven't seen? Anyway.
The other fairy tale show, Grimm (aka "the successor to X-Files and Fringe, except instead of aliens and whatever Fringe thinks it's doing this week we're going with shapechangers very loosely based on various fairy tales, frequently not the ones collected and retold by the Grimms"), stuck with "exactly what are we supposed to do with the generally useless girlfriend on this show," went with "love triangle with a suspiciously convenient amnesia angle!" which at least gave the actress something to do, and allowed the show to explore its mythology further. I'm still not loving it, but it's a considerably better thought out show than Once Upon a Time; less ambitious, but usually more satisfying, and not a bad replacement for X-Files and Fringe.
The greatest disappointment of the season, so far, has been Revenge. This was my unexpected favorite show of last year, but, alas, this year the show has seriously slid off - more plunged off - the rails, mostly because not enough wealthy people have been thrown off buildings, shot, or boarded exploding planes. Focus, show, focus. Also the show has brought on some new villains called "The Initiative" who are just not using enough Botox or wearing enough designer clothing to have the same sizzle. Admittedly someone fell off a balcony which was nicely dramatic and added more people with English accents which is always a good thing, but, not enough. It's a classic example of the importance of sticking with your original concept.
To counter this, last year's greatest disappointment, Once Upon a Time, has improved somewhat this year, largely because it's given up on its original concept, which was "tell what really happened in fairy tales and story books," which thanks to Network Interference became "tell what really happened in Disney movies," and rarely managed to give new twists on either, despite a generally strong cast. (Lena Parilla in particular has had a lot of fun playing the Evil Queen, mostly, I suspect, because of the fabulous Evil Outfits.) Paired with this was a "real world" storyline that made no sense the more you thought about it (if nobody can come in and out of Storybook, how exactly are they getting gas to drive their cars? That sort of thing) and overall just never hit the potential of the cool concept. I couldn't exactly blame the guy playing the genie for fleeing the show, even if he ended up fleeing to the train wreck that is Revolution.
Anyway, this year the show has more or less said, to hell with the retelling fairy tales concept, and instead just gone with a hodgepodge of various characters from various books who wander around an Enchanted Forest (Motto: With our Enchanted Geography, You, Too, Can Reach the Enchanted Pond and the Enchanted Beanstalk and the Enchanted Towers and the Enchanted Poppies and Anywhere the Plot Needs You To Be Within Hours!) interacting with each other, which is a lot more fun and oddly ends up making more sense - I mean, we've all been waiting to see the Queen of Hearts and Captain Hook join forces. So that's all good. It helps that Captain Hook is really rocking the Sexy Bad Boy vibe. It's probably not a good sign that of the many, many men the show keeps throwing at its main protagonist, Emma, this is the first pairing I've liked. I mean, he's Captain Hook. (That said most of the men thrown at Emma have not exactly been the upstanding hero types.)
Which is not to say that this season hasn't had its bumps. Kudos to the show for finally introducing an Asian character (who in her last scene rather hinted that she's more than willing to, shall we say in a family friendly sort of way, go both ways), minus several hundred points for casting an actress who can so far be most kindly called "wooden" (up until the seriously gay scene, that is). Minus still more points for completely underusing the talented Sarah Bolger and inexplicably forcing her to use an American accent. (The accents are all over the place in this show and make no sense anyway, so why anyone isn't using native accents I can't tell you.) And since people still can't get in and out of Storybook (with the exception of maybe three or four people) I'm still wondering how they are getting gas for their cars. Does the town have an oil refinery we haven't seen? Anyway.
The other fairy tale show, Grimm (aka "the successor to X-Files and Fringe, except instead of aliens and whatever Fringe thinks it's doing this week we're going with shapechangers very loosely based on various fairy tales, frequently not the ones collected and retold by the Grimms"), stuck with "exactly what are we supposed to do with the generally useless girlfriend on this show," went with "love triangle with a suspiciously convenient amnesia angle!" which at least gave the actress something to do, and allowed the show to explore its mythology further. I'm still not loving it, but it's a considerably better thought out show than Once Upon a Time; less ambitious, but usually more satisfying, and not a bad replacement for X-Files and Fringe.