"The Bourne Legacy" Review (Spoilers)
Also reviews for the season premiere of Doctor Who, the latest episodes of The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo, the season finale of Stargirl, the latest episode of Supergirl, the Adult Swim short / fake-trailer Learning With Pibby, and the novel Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?.
The Bourne Legacy
Hey, look, it's the sixth-billed guy from The Avengers! The one who sort of looks like a young Popeye!
Brace yourself. I am about to give that a shockingly negative review. Maybe that idea doesn't shock you, but it does me (and I'm writing the damn thing). I expected to be underwhelmed. I never expected I would outright detest the film. What kills me is that under most circumstances I'd give something that pissed me off that much zero stars and wash my hands of it. I can't do that here because the movie had a couple of interesting themes. I'll talk about them briefly before I utterly destroy the film.
The film is sort of a meandering mess for the first 45 minutes. But by having this be a "sidequel" to "The Borne Ultimatum", the viewer isn't constantly asking where Jason Bourne is. We already saw what happened with him when this film went down. This is stuff that happened in the background.
It's an interesting theme for sure to explore the idea that if Bourne blows up Threadstone, those jerkwads are simply going to kill all of their assets and agents in the field, and well as the scientists who knew about the program. Because the government in charge of this thing totally sucks and won't stop sucking even when Jason Bourne holds sunlight up to it. The consequence to Bourne doing that in order to get the answers he sought meant that many lives were destroyed that he had no idea about. It's not just that Bourne used to be an assassin which is why he isn't a hero. It's because he never thought to look at the larger picture and what the fall-out would be for others in his position.
Aaron Cross is kind of dull, but because he has his memory he still has somewhat of a personality, which is something Bourne always lacked, simply because he didn't know anything about himself.
Now I'm going to tell you why the film sucks ass and is one of the worst popcorn flicks I've seen in recent memory. I'm not as pissed at it as I was Avatar, but it frankly disturbs me far more. The movie has a scene of a mass shooting by a crazy guy at the science lab he works at. Did I mention this was supposed to be a popcorn flick? With a freaking mass shooting! That isn't entertaining, or even suspenseful! It's horrible, grotesque and outright obscene! I think the thing that grosses me out the most about something this traumatic occurring unasked for in a project I didn't expect it to: The MPAA, dishonest taint-weasels that they are, rated this movie PG-13. Even with a workplace shooting in it. I will never stop saying the MPAA is unfathomably corrupt and bordering on a criminal enterprise. The Bourne Legacy being rated PG-13 is all the evidence I need to back up that opinion. It's absolutely sick.
If I had known this franchise had a mass workplace shooting in it, I never would have started it. That's the thing that pisses me off the most. There was no warning for me having to sit through something that horrible. It pisses me off like nothing else.
So this is the worst Bourne movie. And Matt Damon not being in it has nothing to do with it. It's torture porn disguised as a PG-13 summer popcorn flick. The very idea sickens me. *.
Doctor Who "Flux: Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse"
Interesting. I am cautiously optimistic. Not sold by a long-shot. I'll talk a bit about what the episode did right (a lot), what it did wrong (very little), and what my expectations are going forward (at least until Russell T Davies returns to destroy the show next season).
I think the whole idea behind this season is to do one of those monster multi-part serials the old show attempted very early in its run, but never quite got back to over the years. And over the years of the relaunch both Russell T Davies and Stephen Moffat attempted story arcs of a kind. And they both botched the idea very badly. Davies' idea of a story arc was to mention a single word in every single episode and pretend it meant something at the end of the season (when it didn't). That's how the first three seasons of the relaunch worked. Moffat did a LITTLE better in the sense that he would tease out future events using a random cool sounding phrase, but he could never make the events teased as cool as the tease itself sounded. By the end, when Peter Capaldi was in the TARDIS, he stopped doing it all together.
Chibnall's record in arcs is very spotty. Unlike most of fandom, I REALLY appreciated and loved the 11th Series, and the first for Jodie Whitaker. Mostly because it was small-scale, intimate, and shockingly non-depressing. To be fair to last season, I think the Timeless Child thing is a very interesting notion that probably won't work, but I would have liked to have seen where it could have gone in the long-term. But with Davies back, it's almost certain to be retconned. My problem with last year's finale was the Master killing all the Time Lords by turning them into Cybermen. That was outright grotesque and something Davies or Moffat would do, and I realized that when push comes to shove, no matter who is in the charge, the show cannot ever stop being unpleasant.
It sort of redeemed itself in the last Christmas special by bringing back Captain Jack and giving Graham and Ryan a nice and happy goodbye instead of ridiculously killing them off in a tragic fashion. But Chibnall is still on thin ice with me.
Based on the fact that the Big Bad in this episode has a secret history with the Doctor she can't remember, it seems clear the Timeless Child conceit IS a good one. The problem is that I hope if Davies DOESN'T retcon it, something like that comes up rarely going forward. Because if it's a regular thing, it's something that should have been happening for the first Twelve Doctors too.
The Big Bad is one of the scariest villains I've seen on the show in ages. The last villains to visually freak me out so much were the water-spewing zombies in "The Waters Of Mars". Also other recent goodies were The Weeping Angels. Who make an appearance here.
Doctor Who is famous for promising big and failing to deliver. I'll tell you why I'm cautiously optimistic here. I feel like the random disparate elements that are apart all throughout the episode and touched upon again at the end suggest the entire run of episodes was written at the same time, and wasn't just made up as it went along. I hate Torchwood with a passion. But the miniseries Children Of Earth, and Miracle Day, as spotty as they sometimes, were, gave off similar vibes of the story being known and understood from the first episode to the last. Doctor Who is a better show than Torchwood (by far) so I'm hoping that using this kind of storytelling technique pays better dividends for Chibnall than it did for Davies. And in fairness to Davies, both Children Of Earth AND Miracle Day were better than every single episode from Torchwood's first two seasons. Flux being a high point for the Doctor Who relaunch is not out of the question.
I'll tell you something that concerns me a little, but not a lot. I got the distinct impression that the show's budget was cut drastically for this season. I might be wrong, but it feels like the show has gone back to being shot on videotape. The visual effects also seem of the more consistently low-budgeted CGI that the Davies era was known for. Those effects were fine for the mid-aughts. I feel like the visuals of the Flux is not as amazing as the show's effects have gotten in recent years. The budget being cut concerns me only a little however. Because if it can still do the kind of effects seen in the episode, I'll be fine with it. I just have a feeling that Doctor Who is going to be back to being the cost conscious sci-fi show it used to be. I suspect because the relaunch is no longer the sensation it was, that BBC greatly cut the budget. But I think low-budget Doctor Who is something I actually feel a lot more comfortable about. It feels very consistent with both the original series, and the early years of the relaunch (and for that matter The Sarah Jane Adventures). Doctor Who has gotten too "Big" over the years and that's probably the entire problem.
My expectation for the rest of the season (and the regeneration Christmas Special) is that I suspect Chibnall is gonna take his run ending on the series very seriously. When Davies left, he basically took a huge dump on the show and canon, and left things off in the worst possible way for Moffat to have to clean up as best he could, seemingly out of pure spite. For Moffat, he literally killed off his entire cast because he had become so bereft of ideas by the end. This whole arc makes me believe that Chibnall wants to actually end on a high note, and give a good farewell to both his tenure and the underappreciated Jodie Whitaker. And damn it, I approve of both those notions!
I could be wrong. Chibnall could be heading us toward an epic and unwelcome tragedy. That's how it's always worked out every previously damn lousy season. But I hope Chibnall makes the effort to make us miss him and Whitaker. So far, he's done the right things to do that. ****1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Seth Meyers / Kelly Rowland"
Not on board. The games aren't merely rigged. They are entirely scripted. It's sort of cute that the talk show was scripted but you can't do that with a game show. It was a scandal in the 1950's when they did that. I really dislike the format this season for that reason. I want them to go back to the talk show next year.
Good things? Very cool and interesting new puppets. I love the bulldozer, the robot, and the chicken, and Rosita is right that the baby chick is adorable.
But I'm not loving the feel of this season. **1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Brady Noon / WanMor"
They actually scripted the kid to lose a round. Jayla seems to have a visible crush on Brady Moon so I doubt she minded.
I love that Spot was an ant.
Apparently Elmo has a dog named Tango. I would like to see that sometime.
Sort of cute but I still miss the talk show. ***.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Amber Ruffin / Bebe Rexha"
Bert's fashion montage was kind of funny. I liked the pigeon costume.
But how does Bert brush his teeth? He doesn't appear to have any. Neither does Snuffy for that matter.
When Ziva and Amber had to brush those giant teeth in the challenge I wondered what the heck they had been eating.
The game show version is much less interesting than the talk show version. **1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Jenna Bush Hager / Sophie Fatu"
Felix The Helpful Chicken is great. His voice is so funny.
Why does Baby Bear need swim trunks for the beach? He doesn't wear clothes.
I liked the Yip-Yip Martians randomly popping up in the last ten seconds of the episode.
Bad things? This Sophie Fatu kid creeps me out. She looks, sounds, acts, and dresses like a combination of Vicki the robot from Small Wonder, and Carmilita Spatz from A Series Of Unfortunate Events. I half-expected her to call Elmo a Cake-Sniffer. Shirley Temple, she ain't.
Sigh. ***.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Ames McNamara / Leslie Odom Jr."
Felix the Helpful Chicken continues to amuse me. It's the voice. It's hilarious.
Leslie Odom's singing voice is SO great. There's a reason he's a superstar. It can be argued he's the most famous person the show has ever snagged.
Still not loving the scripted nature of the games. ***1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Dani & Dannah Lane / AJR"
I'm caught up. So I'll now address something that concerns me. So far there hasn't been a single boy contestant on this show. That worries me. Do boys really not want to play on a Sesame Street game show? Sesame Street has spent decades being gender neutral and it's like this show is embracing its inner Disney Channel. I don't like that.
The contestants are clearly fake anyways. Hire some boys. It's not right that there haven't been any yet.
No offense to Julia, but as far as clearly Aspie Muppets go, Felix The Helpful Chicken has it all over her. And yeah, I think he's an Aspie. Not only does he seem to have weird hobbies and obsessions, but his entire shtick is misreading social cues. I like that the show asks me to be charmed by Felix's quirkiness, because it asks me to be wary of Julia's. What's amazing is that Felix probably isn't an Aspie in the writers' room, or was ever intended to be that. But I like him for that aspect far more than I do Julia.
AJR did a pretty great rendition of "People In Your Neighborhood" right here.
Felix is great, but my unease over the format change continues. Are they trying to turn Sesame Street into a girl's show? Because it never should be just that. ***.
Stargirl "Summer School: Chapter Thirteen"
Well, the subtitle of the season turned out to be a dud. But "Frenemies" sounds like it will wind up being much more apt.
The toast thing was ridiculous which made it the right ending.
I loved Sylvester coming out of nowhere to save the day at the end. I'm frustrated that we never heard his explanation for why he isn't dead though. We had been waiting all season for it and we should have gotten it.
Beth liked it better when her parents were getting divorced.
Cindy wanting to join the JSA is a VERY interesting plot turn.
Good to see Rick and Grundy made up their differences. And Shade (who is still alive!) will tell Rick how to make sure he comes back.
I love Shade describing his fake death as his love for the dramatic.
I forget the mechanic's name but his reaction to Thunderbolt was priceless. It actually struck me as a bit alarming and sinister so I'm glad it was just a goof.
This wasn't a great season exactly. But I very much remember my harsh review of the premiere, and the truth is most of my fears were groundless. It WAS too dark for my taste, but not to the point where they wrecked the show going forward, which is the problem with most shows going dark. So I was wrong there. The season turned out all right. ****.
Supergirl "Truth Or Consequences"
The ending was a mixed bag. Lex was back to being insufferable as usual but I found both good and bad things in William's death.
I loved and appreciated him reaming Andrea at the beginning and saying every disgusted thought that ever crossed my mind about that phony sell-out. And if the message didn't stick then, it did once he emailed her footage of his murder by Lex for something SHE did. There is spunk in William that he uses his death as a teaching moment for the most hopeless character on the show. That's chutzpah. Also Andrea is a moron if she ever thought it would end any other way.
The one thing I don't like about the death is that after all this, I believe William was a character who proved trustworthy enough to be let in on Supergirl's secret identity. Since he was killed before that happened, it feels like the most unsatisfying of loose ends.
The second most hopeless character on the show continues to be Kara. Kara is exactly as stupid and obnoxious in the second to last episode of the final season as she was in the first episode of the first. She has learned absolutely NOTHING over the course of six seasons. She actually thinks she gets a say in how Esme is raised. But what pisses me off the most is that the episode had Alex apologize to her about her tone during the fight afterwards. If anything, Alex wasn't harsh enough. But In the Berlantiverse apologies are like participation trophies. Everybody gets one, and the one given to the person who didn't remotely deserve it is given as much weight as the one from the person who messed up. It infuriates me, especially because while it is especially endemic to Berlanti shows, he is not the only fictional producer suffering from this idiotic idea. It bums me the frak out. Fiction is broken.
I am taking a wait and see approach about Brainy and Dreamer but the idea is irresistible to me so far. I think either scenario posited would be interesting and work like gangbusters. And I think the producers understand that too, so they are milking it (as they should). But Brainy being ripped apart from Dreamer forever to save his people by essentially sacrificing his life so they can survive would be a good ending. It would be the appropriate, self-sacrificing heroic one as well. And here's the great thing: The ending where Brainy beats the calculated odds and manages to save the future while keeping Dreamer and the memories of his family is an even better one. But the cool thing is, because both endings are great, you have no idea which one the producers are going to choose. You hope it's the second one, but you simply don't know for sure because the first would be great and appropriate too. Few villains set themselves up with a true Xanatos Gambit "Can't Lose" scenario. I think the writers just built one into Brainiac 5's ultimate fate. Well done. Of THAT, I approve.
But that's putting the cart before the horse. For this week, I liked the William stuff and found myself especially annoyed with Kara being this stupid, naive, and childish this late in the game. Call it a push or merely a wash. The mediocrity all comes out the same. ***.
Learning With Pibby
That really creeped and freaked me out. A lot of people are clamoring for this Adult Swim short trailer to be turned into a series but I don't see any way it could feasibly do that. If it WAS a real trailer, I'd be appalled but take a wait-and-see approach. Knowing it's just a gag weirdly makes me angry instead. And I'm not sure why. **1/2.
Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?
This was very similar in quality to the last book, but I for some reason didn't like it as much. I found some of the hard-boiled dialogue funny, but the toon puns wore thin after awhile. And while this book DID come out in 2015, Baby Herman's behavior is just all kinds of wrong and disgusting after MeToo. The book has references to Twitter via messenger birds, and it STILL feels totally dated because of that.
Fortunately Herman is only in a couple of scenes.
I have to confess I was sure they were going to kill Roger off at the end. I figured Wolf might use this novel to close the books on the character and that part of his career. And while I'm not SHOCKED he survived instead, the fact that I was unsure was why it was a canny plot twist. I'm sure Wolf was aware that the reader might remember Roger died in the first book as well.
As far as continuity goes, the reviews at the beginning make it sound like it ignores the first books completely. Personally? I can easily fit it into the second book's continuity in my head-canon. And the second explains the first as a dream. I don't feel as if Wolf has been ignoring what came before. He's not quite that lazy.
I'll tell you what I don't like. That Eddie STILL hates Roger Rabbit. That drives me nuts. Although Eddie seems to have conflicting opinions about Toons to begin with. He hates them all supposedly, but all throughout the book we see and learn about Toons Eddie likes and admires. These inconsistencies lead me to believe that as far as what he likes and hates goes, Eddie is an Unreliable Narrator.
For Pete's sake, he finally takes in the lovable cartoon puppy Mutt at the end, and can't even admit to the reader he actually likes him, let alone loves him. Eddie strikes me as far less emotionally healthy in this book than he was in the first two.
It was fine, but not mind-blowing. I suppose I'd be down for another one of these by Wolf in 2035. That should be enough time to keep things fresh. ***1/2.
The Bourne Legacy
Hey, look, it's the sixth-billed guy from The Avengers! The one who sort of looks like a young Popeye!
Brace yourself. I am about to give that a shockingly negative review. Maybe that idea doesn't shock you, but it does me (and I'm writing the damn thing). I expected to be underwhelmed. I never expected I would outright detest the film. What kills me is that under most circumstances I'd give something that pissed me off that much zero stars and wash my hands of it. I can't do that here because the movie had a couple of interesting themes. I'll talk about them briefly before I utterly destroy the film.
The film is sort of a meandering mess for the first 45 minutes. But by having this be a "sidequel" to "The Borne Ultimatum", the viewer isn't constantly asking where Jason Bourne is. We already saw what happened with him when this film went down. This is stuff that happened in the background.
It's an interesting theme for sure to explore the idea that if Bourne blows up Threadstone, those jerkwads are simply going to kill all of their assets and agents in the field, and well as the scientists who knew about the program. Because the government in charge of this thing totally sucks and won't stop sucking even when Jason Bourne holds sunlight up to it. The consequence to Bourne doing that in order to get the answers he sought meant that many lives were destroyed that he had no idea about. It's not just that Bourne used to be an assassin which is why he isn't a hero. It's because he never thought to look at the larger picture and what the fall-out would be for others in his position.
Aaron Cross is kind of dull, but because he has his memory he still has somewhat of a personality, which is something Bourne always lacked, simply because he didn't know anything about himself.
Now I'm going to tell you why the film sucks ass and is one of the worst popcorn flicks I've seen in recent memory. I'm not as pissed at it as I was Avatar, but it frankly disturbs me far more. The movie has a scene of a mass shooting by a crazy guy at the science lab he works at. Did I mention this was supposed to be a popcorn flick? With a freaking mass shooting! That isn't entertaining, or even suspenseful! It's horrible, grotesque and outright obscene! I think the thing that grosses me out the most about something this traumatic occurring unasked for in a project I didn't expect it to: The MPAA, dishonest taint-weasels that they are, rated this movie PG-13. Even with a workplace shooting in it. I will never stop saying the MPAA is unfathomably corrupt and bordering on a criminal enterprise. The Bourne Legacy being rated PG-13 is all the evidence I need to back up that opinion. It's absolutely sick.
If I had known this franchise had a mass workplace shooting in it, I never would have started it. That's the thing that pisses me off the most. There was no warning for me having to sit through something that horrible. It pisses me off like nothing else.
So this is the worst Bourne movie. And Matt Damon not being in it has nothing to do with it. It's torture porn disguised as a PG-13 summer popcorn flick. The very idea sickens me. *.
Doctor Who "Flux: Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse"
Interesting. I am cautiously optimistic. Not sold by a long-shot. I'll talk a bit about what the episode did right (a lot), what it did wrong (very little), and what my expectations are going forward (at least until Russell T Davies returns to destroy the show next season).
I think the whole idea behind this season is to do one of those monster multi-part serials the old show attempted very early in its run, but never quite got back to over the years. And over the years of the relaunch both Russell T Davies and Stephen Moffat attempted story arcs of a kind. And they both botched the idea very badly. Davies' idea of a story arc was to mention a single word in every single episode and pretend it meant something at the end of the season (when it didn't). That's how the first three seasons of the relaunch worked. Moffat did a LITTLE better in the sense that he would tease out future events using a random cool sounding phrase, but he could never make the events teased as cool as the tease itself sounded. By the end, when Peter Capaldi was in the TARDIS, he stopped doing it all together.
Chibnall's record in arcs is very spotty. Unlike most of fandom, I REALLY appreciated and loved the 11th Series, and the first for Jodie Whitaker. Mostly because it was small-scale, intimate, and shockingly non-depressing. To be fair to last season, I think the Timeless Child thing is a very interesting notion that probably won't work, but I would have liked to have seen where it could have gone in the long-term. But with Davies back, it's almost certain to be retconned. My problem with last year's finale was the Master killing all the Time Lords by turning them into Cybermen. That was outright grotesque and something Davies or Moffat would do, and I realized that when push comes to shove, no matter who is in the charge, the show cannot ever stop being unpleasant.
It sort of redeemed itself in the last Christmas special by bringing back Captain Jack and giving Graham and Ryan a nice and happy goodbye instead of ridiculously killing them off in a tragic fashion. But Chibnall is still on thin ice with me.
Based on the fact that the Big Bad in this episode has a secret history with the Doctor she can't remember, it seems clear the Timeless Child conceit IS a good one. The problem is that I hope if Davies DOESN'T retcon it, something like that comes up rarely going forward. Because if it's a regular thing, it's something that should have been happening for the first Twelve Doctors too.
The Big Bad is one of the scariest villains I've seen on the show in ages. The last villains to visually freak me out so much were the water-spewing zombies in "The Waters Of Mars". Also other recent goodies were The Weeping Angels. Who make an appearance here.
Doctor Who is famous for promising big and failing to deliver. I'll tell you why I'm cautiously optimistic here. I feel like the random disparate elements that are apart all throughout the episode and touched upon again at the end suggest the entire run of episodes was written at the same time, and wasn't just made up as it went along. I hate Torchwood with a passion. But the miniseries Children Of Earth, and Miracle Day, as spotty as they sometimes, were, gave off similar vibes of the story being known and understood from the first episode to the last. Doctor Who is a better show than Torchwood (by far) so I'm hoping that using this kind of storytelling technique pays better dividends for Chibnall than it did for Davies. And in fairness to Davies, both Children Of Earth AND Miracle Day were better than every single episode from Torchwood's first two seasons. Flux being a high point for the Doctor Who relaunch is not out of the question.
I'll tell you something that concerns me a little, but not a lot. I got the distinct impression that the show's budget was cut drastically for this season. I might be wrong, but it feels like the show has gone back to being shot on videotape. The visual effects also seem of the more consistently low-budgeted CGI that the Davies era was known for. Those effects were fine for the mid-aughts. I feel like the visuals of the Flux is not as amazing as the show's effects have gotten in recent years. The budget being cut concerns me only a little however. Because if it can still do the kind of effects seen in the episode, I'll be fine with it. I just have a feeling that Doctor Who is going to be back to being the cost conscious sci-fi show it used to be. I suspect because the relaunch is no longer the sensation it was, that BBC greatly cut the budget. But I think low-budget Doctor Who is something I actually feel a lot more comfortable about. It feels very consistent with both the original series, and the early years of the relaunch (and for that matter The Sarah Jane Adventures). Doctor Who has gotten too "Big" over the years and that's probably the entire problem.
My expectation for the rest of the season (and the regeneration Christmas Special) is that I suspect Chibnall is gonna take his run ending on the series very seriously. When Davies left, he basically took a huge dump on the show and canon, and left things off in the worst possible way for Moffat to have to clean up as best he could, seemingly out of pure spite. For Moffat, he literally killed off his entire cast because he had become so bereft of ideas by the end. This whole arc makes me believe that Chibnall wants to actually end on a high note, and give a good farewell to both his tenure and the underappreciated Jodie Whitaker. And damn it, I approve of both those notions!
I could be wrong. Chibnall could be heading us toward an epic and unwelcome tragedy. That's how it's always worked out every previously damn lousy season. But I hope Chibnall makes the effort to make us miss him and Whitaker. So far, he's done the right things to do that. ****1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Seth Meyers / Kelly Rowland"
Not on board. The games aren't merely rigged. They are entirely scripted. It's sort of cute that the talk show was scripted but you can't do that with a game show. It was a scandal in the 1950's when they did that. I really dislike the format this season for that reason. I want them to go back to the talk show next year.
Good things? Very cool and interesting new puppets. I love the bulldozer, the robot, and the chicken, and Rosita is right that the baby chick is adorable.
But I'm not loving the feel of this season. **1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Brady Noon / WanMor"
They actually scripted the kid to lose a round. Jayla seems to have a visible crush on Brady Moon so I doubt she minded.
I love that Spot was an ant.
Apparently Elmo has a dog named Tango. I would like to see that sometime.
Sort of cute but I still miss the talk show. ***.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Amber Ruffin / Bebe Rexha"
Bert's fashion montage was kind of funny. I liked the pigeon costume.
But how does Bert brush his teeth? He doesn't appear to have any. Neither does Snuffy for that matter.
When Ziva and Amber had to brush those giant teeth in the challenge I wondered what the heck they had been eating.
The game show version is much less interesting than the talk show version. **1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Jenna Bush Hager / Sophie Fatu"
Felix The Helpful Chicken is great. His voice is so funny.
Why does Baby Bear need swim trunks for the beach? He doesn't wear clothes.
I liked the Yip-Yip Martians randomly popping up in the last ten seconds of the episode.
Bad things? This Sophie Fatu kid creeps me out. She looks, sounds, acts, and dresses like a combination of Vicki the robot from Small Wonder, and Carmilita Spatz from A Series Of Unfortunate Events. I half-expected her to call Elmo a Cake-Sniffer. Shirley Temple, she ain't.
Sigh. ***.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Ames McNamara / Leslie Odom Jr."
Felix the Helpful Chicken continues to amuse me. It's the voice. It's hilarious.
Leslie Odom's singing voice is SO great. There's a reason he's a superstar. It can be argued he's the most famous person the show has ever snagged.
Still not loving the scripted nature of the games. ***1/2.
The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo: Game Edition "Dani & Dannah Lane / AJR"
I'm caught up. So I'll now address something that concerns me. So far there hasn't been a single boy contestant on this show. That worries me. Do boys really not want to play on a Sesame Street game show? Sesame Street has spent decades being gender neutral and it's like this show is embracing its inner Disney Channel. I don't like that.
The contestants are clearly fake anyways. Hire some boys. It's not right that there haven't been any yet.
No offense to Julia, but as far as clearly Aspie Muppets go, Felix The Helpful Chicken has it all over her. And yeah, I think he's an Aspie. Not only does he seem to have weird hobbies and obsessions, but his entire shtick is misreading social cues. I like that the show asks me to be charmed by Felix's quirkiness, because it asks me to be wary of Julia's. What's amazing is that Felix probably isn't an Aspie in the writers' room, or was ever intended to be that. But I like him for that aspect far more than I do Julia.
AJR did a pretty great rendition of "People In Your Neighborhood" right here.
Felix is great, but my unease over the format change continues. Are they trying to turn Sesame Street into a girl's show? Because it never should be just that. ***.
Stargirl "Summer School: Chapter Thirteen"
Well, the subtitle of the season turned out to be a dud. But "Frenemies" sounds like it will wind up being much more apt.
The toast thing was ridiculous which made it the right ending.
I loved Sylvester coming out of nowhere to save the day at the end. I'm frustrated that we never heard his explanation for why he isn't dead though. We had been waiting all season for it and we should have gotten it.
Beth liked it better when her parents were getting divorced.
Cindy wanting to join the JSA is a VERY interesting plot turn.
Good to see Rick and Grundy made up their differences. And Shade (who is still alive!) will tell Rick how to make sure he comes back.
I love Shade describing his fake death as his love for the dramatic.
I forget the mechanic's name but his reaction to Thunderbolt was priceless. It actually struck me as a bit alarming and sinister so I'm glad it was just a goof.
This wasn't a great season exactly. But I very much remember my harsh review of the premiere, and the truth is most of my fears were groundless. It WAS too dark for my taste, but not to the point where they wrecked the show going forward, which is the problem with most shows going dark. So I was wrong there. The season turned out all right. ****.
Supergirl "Truth Or Consequences"
The ending was a mixed bag. Lex was back to being insufferable as usual but I found both good and bad things in William's death.
I loved and appreciated him reaming Andrea at the beginning and saying every disgusted thought that ever crossed my mind about that phony sell-out. And if the message didn't stick then, it did once he emailed her footage of his murder by Lex for something SHE did. There is spunk in William that he uses his death as a teaching moment for the most hopeless character on the show. That's chutzpah. Also Andrea is a moron if she ever thought it would end any other way.
The one thing I don't like about the death is that after all this, I believe William was a character who proved trustworthy enough to be let in on Supergirl's secret identity. Since he was killed before that happened, it feels like the most unsatisfying of loose ends.
The second most hopeless character on the show continues to be Kara. Kara is exactly as stupid and obnoxious in the second to last episode of the final season as she was in the first episode of the first. She has learned absolutely NOTHING over the course of six seasons. She actually thinks she gets a say in how Esme is raised. But what pisses me off the most is that the episode had Alex apologize to her about her tone during the fight afterwards. If anything, Alex wasn't harsh enough. But In the Berlantiverse apologies are like participation trophies. Everybody gets one, and the one given to the person who didn't remotely deserve it is given as much weight as the one from the person who messed up. It infuriates me, especially because while it is especially endemic to Berlanti shows, he is not the only fictional producer suffering from this idiotic idea. It bums me the frak out. Fiction is broken.
I am taking a wait and see approach about Brainy and Dreamer but the idea is irresistible to me so far. I think either scenario posited would be interesting and work like gangbusters. And I think the producers understand that too, so they are milking it (as they should). But Brainy being ripped apart from Dreamer forever to save his people by essentially sacrificing his life so they can survive would be a good ending. It would be the appropriate, self-sacrificing heroic one as well. And here's the great thing: The ending where Brainy beats the calculated odds and manages to save the future while keeping Dreamer and the memories of his family is an even better one. But the cool thing is, because both endings are great, you have no idea which one the producers are going to choose. You hope it's the second one, but you simply don't know for sure because the first would be great and appropriate too. Few villains set themselves up with a true Xanatos Gambit "Can't Lose" scenario. I think the writers just built one into Brainiac 5's ultimate fate. Well done. Of THAT, I approve.
But that's putting the cart before the horse. For this week, I liked the William stuff and found myself especially annoyed with Kara being this stupid, naive, and childish this late in the game. Call it a push or merely a wash. The mediocrity all comes out the same. ***.
Learning With Pibby
That really creeped and freaked me out. A lot of people are clamoring for this Adult Swim short trailer to be turned into a series but I don't see any way it could feasibly do that. If it WAS a real trailer, I'd be appalled but take a wait-and-see approach. Knowing it's just a gag weirdly makes me angry instead. And I'm not sure why. **1/2.
Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?
This was very similar in quality to the last book, but I for some reason didn't like it as much. I found some of the hard-boiled dialogue funny, but the toon puns wore thin after awhile. And while this book DID come out in 2015, Baby Herman's behavior is just all kinds of wrong and disgusting after MeToo. The book has references to Twitter via messenger birds, and it STILL feels totally dated because of that.
Fortunately Herman is only in a couple of scenes.
I have to confess I was sure they were going to kill Roger off at the end. I figured Wolf might use this novel to close the books on the character and that part of his career. And while I'm not SHOCKED he survived instead, the fact that I was unsure was why it was a canny plot twist. I'm sure Wolf was aware that the reader might remember Roger died in the first book as well.
As far as continuity goes, the reviews at the beginning make it sound like it ignores the first books completely. Personally? I can easily fit it into the second book's continuity in my head-canon. And the second explains the first as a dream. I don't feel as if Wolf has been ignoring what came before. He's not quite that lazy.
I'll tell you what I don't like. That Eddie STILL hates Roger Rabbit. That drives me nuts. Although Eddie seems to have conflicting opinions about Toons to begin with. He hates them all supposedly, but all throughout the book we see and learn about Toons Eddie likes and admires. These inconsistencies lead me to believe that as far as what he likes and hates goes, Eddie is an Unreliable Narrator.
For Pete's sake, he finally takes in the lovable cartoon puppy Mutt at the end, and can't even admit to the reader he actually likes him, let alone loves him. Eddie strikes me as far less emotionally healthy in this book than he was in the first two.
It was fine, but not mind-blowing. I suppose I'd be down for another one of these by Wolf in 2035. That should be enough time to keep things fresh. ***1/2.