TeeVee
Beauty and the Beast 1.13-1.14: Sssssooooooo much sisters stuff and partners stuff in these episodes!
Really not thrilled with the adultery plot with Tess and Joe. Couldn't the writers have at least let him be separated first? (I'd rather not married at all, but...)
I know some people are unhappy with Heather in these episodes, but I like her even more now. Sure, Darius ended up being the bad sketchy dude (Which would make me cringe a lot, and does, actually, but it's offset by the fact that 4 of our 7 main characters are POC, so less painful than it'd normally be.) but Vincent couldn't have been acting any sketchier or untrustworthy if he tried. Especially with trying to sneak into Heather's room to steal the picture RIGHT THEN. I still really hope she learns the truth about Vincent sometime soon, especially since the fire escape outside her apartment is his favorite hangout spot. (Also, I have a need for Vincent to be bombarded with Heather's pep anytime he feels the need to wallow in his angst. Not that he hasn't earned the right to indulge in a bit of that, but it'd do him good.)
I rolled my eyes when Vincent gave the "I must leave you for your own good" but smiled when Catherine's response was pretty much "Yeah, no noble men's honor sacrifices because ladies can't make that choice themselves here. Quit wangsting and cue makeouts. I already waited over half a season."
I was really hoping that Alex was free of all this, but apparently she isn't. I really hope they aren't going to make her a spy or traitor, though.
Don't really care about the stuff with Evan right now. I was hopeful when his girlfriend was a Muirfield spy, but they appear to be done with her.
Elementary 1.16-1.17:
I'm glad we got a Bell-centric episode, but his story felt very...typical? I feel that I've seen "black cop has criminal sibling" a lot. (He filled out that TShirt quite nicely, though.)
The Reveal for Watson lying about Papa Holmes extending her contract and Holmes offering her a job was handled pretty well, though I feel Holmes shouldn't have tried combining it with stealth and not-so-stealth attacks to get Watson to take self-defense courses. (Though there aren't words for the fact that his reaction wasn't "woman in my life, you have been threatened! Let me shield you from the world and make speeches about how you must be kept safe and protected from all harm and how this isn't a safe life for you!" But rather "It hadn't occurred to me before that you might face physical danger. Clearly, we must beef up your self-defense moves, as you cannot effortlessly teleport an endless supply of Anguses to use for clobbering.")
I'm also enjoying Holmes training Watson a lot, though I wish it had been a mystery that she found on her own in 1.17, not one that Holmes had already solved.
I wish I could have more detailed, plotty thoughts about this show, but it mostly just makes me feel good and happy.
Lost Girl 3.1-3.6: The season opener was awful in 90% of aspects and I'm going to forget it exists. It got better after that, though.
I feel the writers have realized that the viewers are way more interested in Bo/Lauren and Bo/poly than Bo/Dyson, but still want everyone to think Bo/Dyson is the epic endgame OTP. Which is why suddenly Dyson is making speeches about how Bo can't be monogamous and shouldn't try to be when he used to make speeches about how she should be his and only his, and Lauren now wants Bo to be monogamous after multiple confirmations that she gets that it isn't possible for Bo. (Also, did either or them consider the fact that they were having so much enthusiastic sex that they might as well have been running a triathalon every day, and mmmmaaaayyyybbbeeee that much exercise was part of why they were so worn out?)
Tamsin is my bright new shiny darling and I draw hearts and flowers all over her (and then watch her go stabbity at them) and I want to know everything about her and her past and her relationship with The Morrigan even though I know she'll probably be cruelly ripped away from me by the end of the season. Also, Lost Girl is probably the only canon where a hot badass female character can pop in after a couple seasons, tke the place that used to be held by a popular male character, canonically "threaten" the two main canon and fandom ships, pretty much hate everyone and technically be evil, and I can plug her name into tumblr's tagging and see 95% love and shipping her with all the other characters. i admit, I kind of wish they'd cast a WOC, though. Not because there's anything wrong with Rachel Skarsten, but because our one POC has pretty much been sidelined this season.
Hale being The Ash opens a lot of narrative possibilities, and I'm glad he's getting to put his reform ideas into motion, but as I mentioned above, he's pretty much been sidelined so far. Have we even seen him since he broke up with Kenzi? (I watched all 6 episodes in 1 sitting, so things blurred a bit.)
I'm pretty sure the episode where Bo, Dyson and Tamsin get turned into teenagers exists because Kris Holden Reid wanted a chance to not be Dyson again.
Almost every scene with Vex made me want to yell "BUT WHY MUST YOU EXIST?" at the screen. And a couple times, "OMG NO PLEASE DON'T BE LEADING TO KENZI/VEX!"
Would it have been so hard to look up how to pronounce "kitsune"? (Or to show her real form a couple times, so that we don't have out asian fae be portrayed only by a white woman, excellent as Ksenia Solo was.)
So Dark Bo Saga is taking a back seat to Fae Coming Of Age? I just want to have Saskia show up again, and maybe learn about Bo's father. (I mean, I'm not sure about that one. Bo seems to realize that she's almost definitely the product of decades of rape and abuse, so I doubt she's really in a hurry to find out about him, aside from how it might affect her. But I REALLY want them to address the bit where Trick turned HIS DAUGHTER-and only child/family that we know of-over to be executed. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's closely tied to his stepping down, but while he showed guilt while telling Bo about turning Saskia/Aoife over, that and her being his daughter have been handled pretty separately so far, narratively.)
Nikita 3.11-3.12:
Congrats, Sean, now you know what it's like to be like 90% of the people you've been hanging out with for the last year and a half. (Not that it doesn't really suck to be you right now.)
I'm disappointed that Naomi ended up being a spy. Not surprised, I just wanted to keep her, especially since right now, they literally have no one who isn't living in their secret underground bunker with them.
Speaking of secret underground bunkers, I wonder what made Ari think he'd manage to keep the upper hand if he wanted to start bargaining while trapped in a secret underground bunker filled with criminals-turned-trained-assassins who Amanda had years to train and warp. I...probably enjoyed Nikita torturing Amanda's boyfriend in Amanda's torture chamber more than I should have.
I'm glad Michael's out of his funk, and now that we know the story with Alex's tattoo (even though I always thought it was because of Nikita, since she has a butterfly tattoo on her hip, IIRC) I hope they stop hinting at a SPECIAL CONNECTION there. (Ok, there's been maybe 4 minutes of SPECIAL CONNECTION combined, but still. I always feel like the writers are wanting to spring a romantic triangle on us, even though we've never actually had one.)
Once Upon A Time 2.13-2.14:
I mostly enjoyed Tiny, but also wanted to punch the writers. So, we finally get a genderbent character, but only so the supposed hero of the fairy tale can be...what? An evil seductress who uses her feminine wiles on the poor helpless giant and then gets killed for it? it's not quite on the same level as racebending Cinderella's fairy godmother and then killing her in her first scene so her role can be usurped by the white dude who also happens to be her murderer, but it's up there.
Also, I don't see why people are getting riled about Emma taking Henry? No one knew where Regina was and it was pretty clear that Emma wasn't trying to keep Regina away from him, but Cora. I mean, we can talk about guardianship laws, but if we're going to use rela world laws as an argument, then Regina is in jail for murder, corruption, rape (Well, that depends on whether or not Graham actually had any say in things, and given that we know she abused her position as mayor to manipulate and control him, it seems dubious there even if she didn't explicitly keep things so that he had to be her sex slave when casting the curse.) and attempted murder, and given that Henry almost died saving Emma when Regina's attempt to murder Emma, Regina would never be allowed near Henry again. His biological family taking him back and his biological mother wanting her to be part of his life as long as she's trying not to be the Evil Queen any more is actually a MUCH better deal than she'd get with real world laws.
I thought it was obvious that Charming's real name was David? Maybe that's just me. (And then there's the "Henry's biodaddy" reveal. The only ones who didn't see it coming were the ones futilely hoping the show wasn't going to be that obvious about it.)
Who else is weirded out by how similar Belle and Milahs wardrobes are? Belle's monster hunting outfit was a lot like Milah's pirate getup, and then in "Manhattan" flashbacks, she was wearing a shabbier version of the classic Belle getup.
I'd say "surely they aren't expecting us to buy Emma/Bae and epic True Love when he let his teenaged girlfriend go to jail for his crime because a guy he knew for 5 minutes told him to (I'm also wondering at the age difference, because she would have been 15-16 when they met to have Henry when she was 18, and he was at least legal by then, though I don't think it's the full 14-year age difference it would be if the curse landed everyone in Storybook at the same time as he arrived, as the cop didn't blink when he said Emma was his girlfriend.), but they probably do, given that we're supposed to view Rumbples/Belle and Grumpy/Nova as True Love, and those are the most unconvincing pairings they've thrown at us.
The show maintains its record of making me sympathize with everyone else 100 times more every time it wants to make Rumples more complex and/or sympathetic. (Also, WTF Rumples? You offer to take him to magic and deage him? Good way to show you didn't learn anything at all the last few centuries.)
Not enough Regina these episodes. (Especially since I'm not sure which scenes were her and which were Cora, though the Belle scene was pretty obviously her, and I think Cora would have been more waspish and less hurt if she was the one who visited the Charmings.)
Looking forward (a lot) to the flashback episodes with Cora and Snow's mother. (Uhm...separate episodes, though I suspect their being related is the next "twist" for the writers.)
Person of Interest 2.15-2.16: I suspect certain parts of this fandom were in agony over these two episodes.
2.15 was kinda light filler aside from the end and Carter. I'm disappointed that Beecher apparently is up to no good. Probably not no good that's meant to involve Carter, but still. I was spoiled for Zoe/Reese sex by the aaaaagggggoooonnnniiiieeeeesssss and ship wars it caused. (Folks, the woman kissed Reese in her first episode and has basically tattooed "I am so up for some wild rogue ex-assassin no strings sex, but if you're too busy being angsty, I have a black book of backups" on her face. Also, I kind of assumed they were having sex while fake!married.
2.16 appears to have been a backdoor pilot for rogue!vengeful!emotionally-distant!damaged!lady!Reese. I whole heartedly approve of this and didn't mind at all that the main cast had about 5 minutes combined screen time. I'm glad we're finally getting into The Machine's day job, and the people involved in it. Also, I kind of flipflop on my feelings about Root herself, but Root-the-character is amazingly good at adapting and playing these different roles, especially given what an out-there sociopath she actually is.
Really not thrilled with the adultery plot with Tess and Joe. Couldn't the writers have at least let him be separated first? (I'd rather not married at all, but...)
I know some people are unhappy with Heather in these episodes, but I like her even more now. Sure, Darius ended up being the bad sketchy dude (Which would make me cringe a lot, and does, actually, but it's offset by the fact that 4 of our 7 main characters are POC, so less painful than it'd normally be.) but Vincent couldn't have been acting any sketchier or untrustworthy if he tried. Especially with trying to sneak into Heather's room to steal the picture RIGHT THEN. I still really hope she learns the truth about Vincent sometime soon, especially since the fire escape outside her apartment is his favorite hangout spot. (Also, I have a need for Vincent to be bombarded with Heather's pep anytime he feels the need to wallow in his angst. Not that he hasn't earned the right to indulge in a bit of that, but it'd do him good.)
I rolled my eyes when Vincent gave the "I must leave you for your own good" but smiled when Catherine's response was pretty much "Yeah, no noble men's honor sacrifices because ladies can't make that choice themselves here. Quit wangsting and cue makeouts. I already waited over half a season."
I was really hoping that Alex was free of all this, but apparently she isn't. I really hope they aren't going to make her a spy or traitor, though.
Don't really care about the stuff with Evan right now. I was hopeful when his girlfriend was a Muirfield spy, but they appear to be done with her.
Elementary 1.16-1.17:
I'm glad we got a Bell-centric episode, but his story felt very...typical? I feel that I've seen "black cop has criminal sibling" a lot. (He filled out that TShirt quite nicely, though.)
The Reveal for Watson lying about Papa Holmes extending her contract and Holmes offering her a job was handled pretty well, though I feel Holmes shouldn't have tried combining it with stealth and not-so-stealth attacks to get Watson to take self-defense courses. (Though there aren't words for the fact that his reaction wasn't "woman in my life, you have been threatened! Let me shield you from the world and make speeches about how you must be kept safe and protected from all harm and how this isn't a safe life for you!" But rather "It hadn't occurred to me before that you might face physical danger. Clearly, we must beef up your self-defense moves, as you cannot effortlessly teleport an endless supply of Anguses to use for clobbering.")
I'm also enjoying Holmes training Watson a lot, though I wish it had been a mystery that she found on her own in 1.17, not one that Holmes had already solved.
I wish I could have more detailed, plotty thoughts about this show, but it mostly just makes me feel good and happy.
Lost Girl 3.1-3.6: The season opener was awful in 90% of aspects and I'm going to forget it exists. It got better after that, though.
I feel the writers have realized that the viewers are way more interested in Bo/Lauren and Bo/poly than Bo/Dyson, but still want everyone to think Bo/Dyson is the epic endgame OTP. Which is why suddenly Dyson is making speeches about how Bo can't be monogamous and shouldn't try to be when he used to make speeches about how she should be his and only his, and Lauren now wants Bo to be monogamous after multiple confirmations that she gets that it isn't possible for Bo. (Also, did either or them consider the fact that they were having so much enthusiastic sex that they might as well have been running a triathalon every day, and mmmmaaaayyyybbbeeee that much exercise was part of why they were so worn out?)
Tamsin is my bright new shiny darling and I draw hearts and flowers all over her (and then watch her go stabbity at them) and I want to know everything about her and her past and her relationship with The Morrigan even though I know she'll probably be cruelly ripped away from me by the end of the season. Also, Lost Girl is probably the only canon where a hot badass female character can pop in after a couple seasons, tke the place that used to be held by a popular male character, canonically "threaten" the two main canon and fandom ships, pretty much hate everyone and technically be evil, and I can plug her name into tumblr's tagging and see 95% love and shipping her with all the other characters. i admit, I kind of wish they'd cast a WOC, though. Not because there's anything wrong with Rachel Skarsten, but because our one POC has pretty much been sidelined this season.
Hale being The Ash opens a lot of narrative possibilities, and I'm glad he's getting to put his reform ideas into motion, but as I mentioned above, he's pretty much been sidelined so far. Have we even seen him since he broke up with Kenzi? (I watched all 6 episodes in 1 sitting, so things blurred a bit.)
I'm pretty sure the episode where Bo, Dyson and Tamsin get turned into teenagers exists because Kris Holden Reid wanted a chance to not be Dyson again.
Almost every scene with Vex made me want to yell "BUT WHY MUST YOU EXIST?" at the screen. And a couple times, "OMG NO PLEASE DON'T BE LEADING TO KENZI/VEX!"
Would it have been so hard to look up how to pronounce "kitsune"? (Or to show her real form a couple times, so that we don't have out asian fae be portrayed only by a white woman, excellent as Ksenia Solo was.)
So Dark Bo Saga is taking a back seat to Fae Coming Of Age? I just want to have Saskia show up again, and maybe learn about Bo's father. (I mean, I'm not sure about that one. Bo seems to realize that she's almost definitely the product of decades of rape and abuse, so I doubt she's really in a hurry to find out about him, aside from how it might affect her. But I REALLY want them to address the bit where Trick turned HIS DAUGHTER-and only child/family that we know of-over to be executed. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's closely tied to his stepping down, but while he showed guilt while telling Bo about turning Saskia/Aoife over, that and her being his daughter have been handled pretty separately so far, narratively.)
Nikita 3.11-3.12:
Congrats, Sean, now you know what it's like to be like 90% of the people you've been hanging out with for the last year and a half. (Not that it doesn't really suck to be you right now.)
I'm disappointed that Naomi ended up being a spy. Not surprised, I just wanted to keep her, especially since right now, they literally have no one who isn't living in their secret underground bunker with them.
Speaking of secret underground bunkers, I wonder what made Ari think he'd manage to keep the upper hand if he wanted to start bargaining while trapped in a secret underground bunker filled with criminals-turned-trained-assassins who Amanda had years to train and warp. I...probably enjoyed Nikita torturing Amanda's boyfriend in Amanda's torture chamber more than I should have.
I'm glad Michael's out of his funk, and now that we know the story with Alex's tattoo (even though I always thought it was because of Nikita, since she has a butterfly tattoo on her hip, IIRC) I hope they stop hinting at a SPECIAL CONNECTION there. (Ok, there's been maybe 4 minutes of SPECIAL CONNECTION combined, but still. I always feel like the writers are wanting to spring a romantic triangle on us, even though we've never actually had one.)
Once Upon A Time 2.13-2.14:
I mostly enjoyed Tiny, but also wanted to punch the writers. So, we finally get a genderbent character, but only so the supposed hero of the fairy tale can be...what? An evil seductress who uses her feminine wiles on the poor helpless giant and then gets killed for it? it's not quite on the same level as racebending Cinderella's fairy godmother and then killing her in her first scene so her role can be usurped by the white dude who also happens to be her murderer, but it's up there.
Also, I don't see why people are getting riled about Emma taking Henry? No one knew where Regina was and it was pretty clear that Emma wasn't trying to keep Regina away from him, but Cora. I mean, we can talk about guardianship laws, but if we're going to use rela world laws as an argument, then Regina is in jail for murder, corruption, rape (Well, that depends on whether or not Graham actually had any say in things, and given that we know she abused her position as mayor to manipulate and control him, it seems dubious there even if she didn't explicitly keep things so that he had to be her sex slave when casting the curse.) and attempted murder, and given that Henry almost died saving Emma when Regina's attempt to murder Emma, Regina would never be allowed near Henry again. His biological family taking him back and his biological mother wanting her to be part of his life as long as she's trying not to be the Evil Queen any more is actually a MUCH better deal than she'd get with real world laws.
I thought it was obvious that Charming's real name was David? Maybe that's just me. (And then there's the "Henry's biodaddy" reveal. The only ones who didn't see it coming were the ones futilely hoping the show wasn't going to be that obvious about it.)
Who else is weirded out by how similar Belle and Milahs wardrobes are? Belle's monster hunting outfit was a lot like Milah's pirate getup, and then in "Manhattan" flashbacks, she was wearing a shabbier version of the classic Belle getup.
I'd say "surely they aren't expecting us to buy Emma/Bae and epic True Love when he let his teenaged girlfriend go to jail for his crime because a guy he knew for 5 minutes told him to (I'm also wondering at the age difference, because she would have been 15-16 when they met to have Henry when she was 18, and he was at least legal by then, though I don't think it's the full 14-year age difference it would be if the curse landed everyone in Storybook at the same time as he arrived, as the cop didn't blink when he said Emma was his girlfriend.), but they probably do, given that we're supposed to view Rumbples/Belle and Grumpy/Nova as True Love, and those are the most unconvincing pairings they've thrown at us.
The show maintains its record of making me sympathize with everyone else 100 times more every time it wants to make Rumples more complex and/or sympathetic. (Also, WTF Rumples? You offer to take him to magic and deage him? Good way to show you didn't learn anything at all the last few centuries.)
Not enough Regina these episodes. (Especially since I'm not sure which scenes were her and which were Cora, though the Belle scene was pretty obviously her, and I think Cora would have been more waspish and less hurt if she was the one who visited the Charmings.)
Looking forward (a lot) to the flashback episodes with Cora and Snow's mother. (Uhm...separate episodes, though I suspect their being related is the next "twist" for the writers.)
Person of Interest 2.15-2.16: I suspect certain parts of this fandom were in agony over these two episodes.
2.15 was kinda light filler aside from the end and Carter. I'm disappointed that Beecher apparently is up to no good. Probably not no good that's meant to involve Carter, but still. I was spoiled for Zoe/Reese sex by the aaaaagggggoooonnnniiiieeeeesssss and ship wars it caused. (Folks, the woman kissed Reese in her first episode and has basically tattooed "I am so up for some wild rogue ex-assassin no strings sex, but if you're too busy being angsty, I have a black book of backups" on her face. Also, I kind of assumed they were having sex while fake!married.
2.16 appears to have been a backdoor pilot for rogue!vengeful!emotionally-distant!damaged!lady!Reese. I whole heartedly approve of this and didn't mind at all that the main cast had about 5 minutes combined screen time. I'm glad we're finally getting into The Machine's day job, and the people involved in it. Also, I kind of flipflop on my feelings about Root herself, but Root-the-character is amazingly good at adapting and playing these different roles, especially given what an out-there sociopath she actually is.