Another TV roundup
Feb. 6th, 2017 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthSo before getting started don this week’s round of shows, here’s my thoughts on last week. Which is sort of a weird one, where I have tones to say about a mediocre SHIELD ep and almost nothing to say about a good LoT one.
Supergirl 2x10
I’m about one maybe two more meh feeling episodes away from putting this show back on marathon viewing. I can’t decide how much that would help individual episodes, but it usually makes me less upset by being meh about things. Partly it helps because I don’t have to wait so long to judge whether I agree with story points or not, or at least with the framing of them.
Because I don’t like Kara in this one, and I don’t like not liking Kara. There’s parts of it where I realize I’d be okay (for certain values of ok) with it from Oliver, though probably not from Barry, but part of it is that Kara feels really racist; like humans can’t do anything in her opinion and she has some kind of authority to decide who gets to be a hero. In the middle of the episode where she was treating both Jimmy and Mon-el that way I thought the show was surely heading for calling her on that elitism, but I’m less sure with the way the episode ended. It may still be about proving her wrong as the season progresses, but it could just as easily end up framing this as if Jimmy is just a minor figure who’s going to get hurt playing in Kara’s hero sandbox. And couldn’t this have been something the big crossover gave her perspective on since so many of the Earth-1 heroes are normal people too?
I think the J’onn and M’gann plot would have been helped by watching the episodes in tighter succession because the acting was good and the scenes well done, but I think I could have felt more than I presently do for them. Plus I always end up wanting human fangirl M’gann from YJ rather than what we have here. Also, I thought the final ‘reveal’ that the other White Martians were involved was pretty obvious, but not really holding that against the episode because I don’t think it was supposed to be hard to figure out.
Agents of SHIELD 4x12
I sort of waffled between loving this episode and thinking it wasn’t very good at all. The Fitz stuff was amazing, the Coulson and May stuff left me so sad in the end (as I expected it to), the closing idea that the bad guys are after Coulson is a good twist (and considering Radcliff has May and has pretty good read and evidence as to how much they mean to each other, getting ahold of Coulson should be far from impossible), I’m glad we seem to have finally gotten an answer on the Koenigs (I thought the show had forgotten about that one until Koenig was namedropped in 4x08, and then we went into an LMD arc where they really needed to show up since the idea of them being LMDs has always been a thing. But most of the stuff on the sub was just...bland and parts of the episode just dragged badly. Even the climax felt really lifeless and what should have been utterly heartbreaking is only sad and that because I personally care so damn much about the Coulson and May ship, I don’t think a lot of it was all that well handled and was coasting on a few big reveals and my personal biases.
I can see someone finding the whole episode really boring, because the plot back on base wasn’t exactly exciting, but I got a lot out of it. We’ve never really delved into either Fitz or Simmons backstories, and it’s kind of late in the game to do so but I still like that we are. The base seemed really improbably dead during all this, but that’s mostly my big complaint about this plotline and it’s far from a dealbreaker. We got to see a real look into FitzSimmons relationship, which I’ve thought we could use for most of the season. Mack is great although I’m not quite sure why he’s so quick on the trigger with Rad-bot, it was a good callback to the fact that he is a man of faith and making that kind of person maybe consider that faith in a new way. And Fitz, just Fitz, can I hug Fitz?
So, as usual I have thoughts on May-bot and how this whole thing relates to May/Coulson. First off having May-lon standing there pointing a gun and Coulson and Coulson insisting that May would never betray him makes me realize just how far behind them he’s put the whole spying on him for Fury thing. I mean, *I* don’t count that as a betrayal because I’ve spent an inordinately large amount of time trying to write fanfics about how Fury manipulated her into that position (because like hell she was going to put Coulson’s fate in anyone else’s hands, someone who didn’t love him wouldn’t know him as well and might be quicker on the trigger if he seemed to be acting weird. Also I haven’t figured out a way to write May pointing out that she would totally understand Robbie’s deal with the devil to save Gabe; if someone had offered her that, do you think she would have turned it down, considering that one day Fury presented her with a file of very dubious medical procedures that brought Coulson back and she went with any deal that offered her?), but it’s good to confirm that Coulson seems to have figured that out along the way. Also when Coulson was coming back with drinks I was thinking ‘they better not forget that May hates coffee, they made a big deal of that a couple seasons ago’ and so I was happy he got her tea. I wish the reveal of May-lon was better handled, and that we got any sense of how it was working in her head, whether her switch had just been flipped to evil or if she was fight against it or if in her mind what she was doing was somehow reconciled with her desires. I’m personally a fan of the idea that she would have been fighting for control and losing. Because I feel like it should have been the May part of her at war with the part of her Radcliff made; May’s love for Coulson vs. Radcliff’s mission; as as she loses it should destroy her to stand there, pointing a gun at the man she loves, and not able to stop herself because she knows she isn’t built for that. Then they left her there and ran off into a fight where I was sure we were going to get the cavalry (pun quite intended) arriving at just the right moment to reassert the May part of her and die nobly, in Coulson’s arms telling him to go and find the other May because it’s the May in her that loves him. I’m kind of okay with it not playing out exactly as I expected, but Radcliff telling May-lon she wasn’t built to last keeps me fairly sure we’re going to see the May-bot die, probably tragically, before this is over (though I have some other ideas on how it goes down).
I have some thoughts about Quake being such a celebrity in the MCU, but a lot of it comes from my feelings on RPF which this would be inside the MCU so when I say I’m not a fan of the idea it’s more that than being anti Skye. But Quake/Black Widow? I find that skeevy in a way I can’t quite put my figure on. Maybe I just don’t like the idea of the Koenigs being into it since they actually know these people, although the idea of them thinking their friends/acquaintances Natasha and Daisy might be cute together doesn’t exactly bother me (since everybody in this world is a bunch of shippers of their friends). Like I said, I think it’s my RPF issues coming into play.
As for the closing bit, I have a weird sense that the show wants me to think there is something about Coulson, that maybe he is somehow connected to everything in an extranormal way rather than it being a conspiracy theory about a high ranking SHIELD agent who happens to be ended up in fantastical circumstances. But I don’t see how the show can pull that off at this point and I’m not sure I’d buy it even if I saw some method they could do it by, though those are connected issues I suppose. It’s also slightly weird that this conspiracy theory could be going on and when Nadeer had Coulson in hand last episode nothing more came of it.
The Flash 3x11
I don’t know if there was anything wrong with this episode, but I didn’t really like it; maybe I just wasn’t feeling it, maybe there was something off with it that I’m just not putting a finger on, maybe it’s just settled back into my dislike for most of the stuff on this show. Whatever it was, I found it extremely band and uninteresting. I think what Iris is going through could be interesting but I’m not feeling it as much as I’d like to and again I can’t put a finger on why. The fact that Cisco would win the fight was just inevitable so there was no tension even though it should have been much more powerful. Sure I don’t want HR dead or anything, but he’s such a nothing character when we know the actor can do more interesting things that I didn’t really care (and please say we’re not now stuck with HR for all seasons to come, you took away the interesting versions of Wells but we may be stuck with this nobody; I’m putting up with it this season but when he’s gone I’m not going to miss this version). I’m not quite back to hating Barry, but I’m not liking him very much either; same goes for Wally this time I guess. All around just...meh.
Legends of Tomorrow 2x10
I did like that one, I liked just about all the subplots and thought it did a good job advancing the story overall. I also don’t really have a lot to say about this episode, it was good and I do sort of sense that we’re starting the season endgame at this point (this was a bit lighter but still important) but it didn’t give me a lot I feel the need to talk about.
Arrow 5x11
I quite liked that one. From the tag in the last episode I didn’t expect to like the new Canary but I actually think I do. Kind of like Oliver I think, I decided they could go somewhere with this when we saw her wall of vengeance as opposed to Oliver’s book of vengeance at the start of the show. I could have told them at the start of the episode with all their perfect candidates that none of them were a good fit for the team as they were all too perfect as they were; people like that don’t need to take up vigilante-ing, but Tina/Dinah has something to work through that brings her here. Although, while I’m sure it’s comics based, having her named Dinah is going kind of far with this fate idea.
I’m...not exactly surprised but pleased that Felicity and Rory have really good chemistry; not in a shippy way and it kind of ignores the heavy stuff that probably should be between them making it awkward when it’s just the two of them, but it’s a sweet kind of friend chemistry. But I’m concerned about Felicity accepting the Pandora info, things named Pandora should maybe set off more alarm bells than instantly taking the information. Yes they got John free, and that’s good, but it’s also a lot easier than most solutions on this show and even if it wasn’t I feel like there will be more consequences coming. I also really wish we knew more about what Felicity is doing outside of Arrow work these days, does she still own enough of PT that she’s getting by not working, is she trying to get something new going, was she at least faking doing something while she was with Detective Rebound?
I also liked the chemistry between the road trip bros. And the flashbacks felt like they were going somewhere, even if it’s somewhere we should realistically have gotten to a year ago and it’s a bit convenient that Oliver was always trained by the League of Assassins when he started out so much weaker than Malcolm. But all told, a solid episode that worked for me.
Powerless 1x01
This isn’t off to a good start, but it feels very pilot-y so I’m not sure how much to think that reflects where the show might go. As is, none of these characters seem like people I want to watch regularly, but I know that could change. I was really interested in this premise before it started but my gut reaction is that I didn’t really account for it being a sitcom (even though I knew it was) where the structure seems at odds with the premise. I did like a fair number of the jokes, so it may be that the sitcom part is the most accessible, but we’ll see. I may stockpile a few episodes before watching any more though, see if it grows into itself any and gives me more to latch onto.
Supergirl 2x10
I’m about one maybe two more meh feeling episodes away from putting this show back on marathon viewing. I can’t decide how much that would help individual episodes, but it usually makes me less upset by being meh about things. Partly it helps because I don’t have to wait so long to judge whether I agree with story points or not, or at least with the framing of them.
Because I don’t like Kara in this one, and I don’t like not liking Kara. There’s parts of it where I realize I’d be okay (for certain values of ok) with it from Oliver, though probably not from Barry, but part of it is that Kara feels really racist; like humans can’t do anything in her opinion and she has some kind of authority to decide who gets to be a hero. In the middle of the episode where she was treating both Jimmy and Mon-el that way I thought the show was surely heading for calling her on that elitism, but I’m less sure with the way the episode ended. It may still be about proving her wrong as the season progresses, but it could just as easily end up framing this as if Jimmy is just a minor figure who’s going to get hurt playing in Kara’s hero sandbox. And couldn’t this have been something the big crossover gave her perspective on since so many of the Earth-1 heroes are normal people too?
I think the J’onn and M’gann plot would have been helped by watching the episodes in tighter succession because the acting was good and the scenes well done, but I think I could have felt more than I presently do for them. Plus I always end up wanting human fangirl M’gann from YJ rather than what we have here. Also, I thought the final ‘reveal’ that the other White Martians were involved was pretty obvious, but not really holding that against the episode because I don’t think it was supposed to be hard to figure out.
Agents of SHIELD 4x12
I sort of waffled between loving this episode and thinking it wasn’t very good at all. The Fitz stuff was amazing, the Coulson and May stuff left me so sad in the end (as I expected it to), the closing idea that the bad guys are after Coulson is a good twist (and considering Radcliff has May and has pretty good read and evidence as to how much they mean to each other, getting ahold of Coulson should be far from impossible), I’m glad we seem to have finally gotten an answer on the Koenigs (I thought the show had forgotten about that one until Koenig was namedropped in 4x08, and then we went into an LMD arc where they really needed to show up since the idea of them being LMDs has always been a thing. But most of the stuff on the sub was just...bland and parts of the episode just dragged badly. Even the climax felt really lifeless and what should have been utterly heartbreaking is only sad and that because I personally care so damn much about the Coulson and May ship, I don’t think a lot of it was all that well handled and was coasting on a few big reveals and my personal biases.
I can see someone finding the whole episode really boring, because the plot back on base wasn’t exactly exciting, but I got a lot out of it. We’ve never really delved into either Fitz or Simmons backstories, and it’s kind of late in the game to do so but I still like that we are. The base seemed really improbably dead during all this, but that’s mostly my big complaint about this plotline and it’s far from a dealbreaker. We got to see a real look into FitzSimmons relationship, which I’ve thought we could use for most of the season. Mack is great although I’m not quite sure why he’s so quick on the trigger with Rad-bot, it was a good callback to the fact that he is a man of faith and making that kind of person maybe consider that faith in a new way. And Fitz, just Fitz, can I hug Fitz?
So, as usual I have thoughts on May-bot and how this whole thing relates to May/Coulson. First off having May-lon standing there pointing a gun and Coulson and Coulson insisting that May would never betray him makes me realize just how far behind them he’s put the whole spying on him for Fury thing. I mean, *I* don’t count that as a betrayal because I’ve spent an inordinately large amount of time trying to write fanfics about how Fury manipulated her into that position (because like hell she was going to put Coulson’s fate in anyone else’s hands, someone who didn’t love him wouldn’t know him as well and might be quicker on the trigger if he seemed to be acting weird. Also I haven’t figured out a way to write May pointing out that she would totally understand Robbie’s deal with the devil to save Gabe; if someone had offered her that, do you think she would have turned it down, considering that one day Fury presented her with a file of very dubious medical procedures that brought Coulson back and she went with any deal that offered her?), but it’s good to confirm that Coulson seems to have figured that out along the way. Also when Coulson was coming back with drinks I was thinking ‘they better not forget that May hates coffee, they made a big deal of that a couple seasons ago’ and so I was happy he got her tea. I wish the reveal of May-lon was better handled, and that we got any sense of how it was working in her head, whether her switch had just been flipped to evil or if she was fight against it or if in her mind what she was doing was somehow reconciled with her desires. I’m personally a fan of the idea that she would have been fighting for control and losing. Because I feel like it should have been the May part of her at war with the part of her Radcliff made; May’s love for Coulson vs. Radcliff’s mission; as as she loses it should destroy her to stand there, pointing a gun at the man she loves, and not able to stop herself because she knows she isn’t built for that. Then they left her there and ran off into a fight where I was sure we were going to get the cavalry (pun quite intended) arriving at just the right moment to reassert the May part of her and die nobly, in Coulson’s arms telling him to go and find the other May because it’s the May in her that loves him. I’m kind of okay with it not playing out exactly as I expected, but Radcliff telling May-lon she wasn’t built to last keeps me fairly sure we’re going to see the May-bot die, probably tragically, before this is over (though I have some other ideas on how it goes down).
I have some thoughts about Quake being such a celebrity in the MCU, but a lot of it comes from my feelings on RPF which this would be inside the MCU so when I say I’m not a fan of the idea it’s more that than being anti Skye. But Quake/Black Widow? I find that skeevy in a way I can’t quite put my figure on. Maybe I just don’t like the idea of the Koenigs being into it since they actually know these people, although the idea of them thinking their friends/acquaintances Natasha and Daisy might be cute together doesn’t exactly bother me (since everybody in this world is a bunch of shippers of their friends). Like I said, I think it’s my RPF issues coming into play.
As for the closing bit, I have a weird sense that the show wants me to think there is something about Coulson, that maybe he is somehow connected to everything in an extranormal way rather than it being a conspiracy theory about a high ranking SHIELD agent who happens to be ended up in fantastical circumstances. But I don’t see how the show can pull that off at this point and I’m not sure I’d buy it even if I saw some method they could do it by, though those are connected issues I suppose. It’s also slightly weird that this conspiracy theory could be going on and when Nadeer had Coulson in hand last episode nothing more came of it.
The Flash 3x11
I don’t know if there was anything wrong with this episode, but I didn’t really like it; maybe I just wasn’t feeling it, maybe there was something off with it that I’m just not putting a finger on, maybe it’s just settled back into my dislike for most of the stuff on this show. Whatever it was, I found it extremely band and uninteresting. I think what Iris is going through could be interesting but I’m not feeling it as much as I’d like to and again I can’t put a finger on why. The fact that Cisco would win the fight was just inevitable so there was no tension even though it should have been much more powerful. Sure I don’t want HR dead or anything, but he’s such a nothing character when we know the actor can do more interesting things that I didn’t really care (and please say we’re not now stuck with HR for all seasons to come, you took away the interesting versions of Wells but we may be stuck with this nobody; I’m putting up with it this season but when he’s gone I’m not going to miss this version). I’m not quite back to hating Barry, but I’m not liking him very much either; same goes for Wally this time I guess. All around just...meh.
Legends of Tomorrow 2x10
I did like that one, I liked just about all the subplots and thought it did a good job advancing the story overall. I also don’t really have a lot to say about this episode, it was good and I do sort of sense that we’re starting the season endgame at this point (this was a bit lighter but still important) but it didn’t give me a lot I feel the need to talk about.
Arrow 5x11
I quite liked that one. From the tag in the last episode I didn’t expect to like the new Canary but I actually think I do. Kind of like Oliver I think, I decided they could go somewhere with this when we saw her wall of vengeance as opposed to Oliver’s book of vengeance at the start of the show. I could have told them at the start of the episode with all their perfect candidates that none of them were a good fit for the team as they were all too perfect as they were; people like that don’t need to take up vigilante-ing, but Tina/Dinah has something to work through that brings her here. Although, while I’m sure it’s comics based, having her named Dinah is going kind of far with this fate idea.
I’m...not exactly surprised but pleased that Felicity and Rory have really good chemistry; not in a shippy way and it kind of ignores the heavy stuff that probably should be between them making it awkward when it’s just the two of them, but it’s a sweet kind of friend chemistry. But I’m concerned about Felicity accepting the Pandora info, things named Pandora should maybe set off more alarm bells than instantly taking the information. Yes they got John free, and that’s good, but it’s also a lot easier than most solutions on this show and even if it wasn’t I feel like there will be more consequences coming. I also really wish we knew more about what Felicity is doing outside of Arrow work these days, does she still own enough of PT that she’s getting by not working, is she trying to get something new going, was she at least faking doing something while she was with Detective Rebound?
I also liked the chemistry between the road trip bros. And the flashbacks felt like they were going somewhere, even if it’s somewhere we should realistically have gotten to a year ago and it’s a bit convenient that Oliver was always trained by the League of Assassins when he started out so much weaker than Malcolm. But all told, a solid episode that worked for me.
Powerless 1x01
This isn’t off to a good start, but it feels very pilot-y so I’m not sure how much to think that reflects where the show might go. As is, none of these characters seem like people I want to watch regularly, but I know that could change. I was really interested in this premise before it started but my gut reaction is that I didn’t really account for it being a sitcom (even though I knew it was) where the structure seems at odds with the premise. I did like a fair number of the jokes, so it may be that the sitcom part is the most accessible, but we’ll see. I may stockpile a few episodes before watching any more though, see if it grows into itself any and gives me more to latch onto.
