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jedi_of_urthI suspect a lot of my shows won’t be caught up o until there’s at least a gap in the baseball playoffs, maybe until the world series is over. As is, this is mostly the CW shows that came back this past week.
Supergirl 3x01
So we’re back, and I’ll confess before I sat down to watch it I was doubting if I really cared enough to watch this and Flash week to week, I care about Legends and Arrow (I’m not sure I have high expectations of Arrow right now, but I care) but not so much these two. Still I decided to watch normally and see, and...while I’ll probably stick with week to week I still wouldn’t say I’m super invested here.
I’m sympathetic to Kara’s heartbreak, but I don’t exactly feel her pain and obviously I would care more if I did (and would if I cared more). I don’t even exactly feel like deriding how easily the world works out in Kara’s favor here (no consequences for quitting her job, no lengthy danger of change at work) because so much of it is done by her friends that it doesn’t come off like the story ignoring having conflict as it is her friends looking out for her, and that’s fair.
I’m actually more annoyed by the agenda spouting of and about Kat. I even agree with all the points, it’s just blatant and kind of grating. I was cool with it near the end of AoS last season, but maybe it’s more palatable in a dystopian AU than the shiny happy world of Supergirl.
I’m...bothered by something in Alex’s plot and can’t quite put my finger on it. I did like her thinking about why she was having a hard time getting into the wedding plans, and I like her J’onn at the end (although if Jeremiah doesn’t at least show up I’m going to be sad). Partly I did get a vibe that the new lady was going to create a love triangle as this progresses, and that’s a weird feeling to have after like half a scene. I’m also not sure I see why either of these women would be looking to have the biggest gayest wedding around, it doesn’t feel like them; and I know Alex better so I’m probably more saying it doesn’t feel like her; and since I’ve always felt that she’s rushing into this relationship I then feel like Maggie must be the one pushing something what definitely doesn’t feel like Alex, and/or Alex is just faking being a person she isn’t and losing herself in an illusion. Even if that’s what’s bugging me (and I’m not sure it is) and even if I’m saying it in a way that makes sense (maybe, maybe not), we’ll see how it develops; maybe I’m supposed to get that vibe and I actually read a social situation correctly.
Legends of Tomorrow 3x01
I really liked that episode, it was a pretty good story for most of the characters and a good kickoff to the new state of things.
Because I’m me I will start by pointing out that a) Sara slept with one of Rip’s agents and that’s totally not because it was because he wasn’t around and meant for him to hear about and piss him off (I will personally headcanon that this guy even looked a touch like Rip and may have been English, maybe Scottish if she didn’t want to be too obvious. Or she’s sleeping with Rip and just being coy about it, he totally would have let her swipe his card and then not reported it missing, we know that’s something he would do), and b) Rip’s replacement Sara -Lance- is named -Sharpe- again totally showing he’s not trying to fill the hole of Sara in his life. He set up the Time Bureau in Star(ling) City in Sara’s time; the time could be argued as being about the Legends as a group and him making their time his time now, but why Star City except for Sara?
As another point, Rip absolutely did not tell any of them as he was leaving that he was planning to make anything like the Time Bureau , if he had I would have been annoyed by his departure in the finale for entirely different reasons than I actually was. And is he going to be out of the coming episodes again? At least they know where he is this time.
Now, on a more broad note, I don’t really buy the lives these people had in the six months they were off duty. Well, Stein and Jax seem reasonable (both the good and the bad, though does anyone else get the feeling like Lily’s fiancé is going to turn out to be someone we know but they’re not telling us who it is yet?); I probably buy Mick’s choices; and Nate’s new life is borderline (I can buy him working with Wally in CC, but we don’t get much of a look into what he’s been up to); but Ray and Sara’s paths don’t make sense. Palmer Tech, last we heard, was still there; they fired Felicity over her *wanting* to give away the spinal chips at a low cost (and the fact that she was never around for meetings when needed), a move I’m pretty sure Ray would endorse though he might have more business acumen to make it seem reasonable to the board. And Star City was renamed for Ray’s great service to the city, coming from the dead should net him a better spot than moving away to work for a dating-ap developer. Also, how did Ray explain coming from back from the dead? We’ve seen that isn’t exactly the easiest process. And Sara is friends with the mayor; her father may or may not be the deputy mayor depending on whether he’s alive or not; and it’s not as if there’s no nepotism allowed since Thea is (or isn’t, again depending on living status) the chief of staff and they got their fried Rene a job without any hassle. She could work for Lyla at ARGUS or “work for” whatever dummy company Diggle pretends to be employed by as Oliver’s bodyguard; she could *be* Oliver’s bodyguard. Also, was Sara actually declared dead the second time? I thought that news didn’t leave the extended family.
I do like where most of the characters are emotionally though. I’m not crazy about pushing Rip’s personal timeline five years ahead, but that is the kind of thing that happens in time travel (I don’t like his new hair) and it could be a good thing as the events with Savage and the Legion are further behind him. I like the role reversal between Stein and Jax, and I just like how much their relationship has grown. I even like that Nate’s clearly very confused about how to feel about the way things went with Amaya; he had blaming Rip (maybe a little rightly, I can totally see Rip encouraging Amaya to return to her proper time) but he also knows that Amaya makes her own choices (she also seems to have leveled up since we last saw her). Gideon seems...pissed at Rip, and seems to be on Team Sara as far as any captain-off might go; actually I’m pissed at Rip for his treatment of Gideon for five years so I may be projecting, but she definitely called Sara ‘Captain’ straight off the bat and I don’t think we saw her interact with Rip at all.
So I have lots of thoughts, as fairly usual for this show, and I liked it, so good on this.
The Flash 4x01
I really don’t like this show, and I don’t think it likes me, or possibly anyone. Could we not have gotten even one episode without Barry so that we actually felt the reality of his absence? Could we have waited maybe three episodes before showing the bad guy for the season? Could they have avoided spoiling that Felicity and Curtis are alive and let Arrow reveal its own plots? Could they have respected that legends showed Nate was working with them (yes this technically airs second but I think that may make it worse). I was just about willing to let slide the fact that we didn’t follow through on Caitlyn’s resolving that she’s someone different but then they went and brought back the gods damned split identity thing that we fucking (I’m not even using a stand in here) resolved last season. There’s clearly not going to be any actual consequences for Barry being one for six months, because god forbid Barry have consequences.
Thing is, it wasn’t actually a bad episode, but it hit so many notes that piss me off especially near the end of the episode that I’m left angry even by a mostly okay episode. I think I may shelve this and marathon it before the crossover, I feel like I’ll be a little less mad at the series if I can take it in a few larger chunks.
Arrow 6x01
I have no idea how I felt about that episode. Partly because I spent half of it waiting for some twist that this was all a dream about how everyone inexplicably survived the explosions on Lian Yu, it was all so easy. Even though it got a little less easy as the episode progressed it still sort of felt like the episode...didn’t care, so I didn’t care right back. When Rene got hurt I felt nothing, I wasn’t sure if it was Oliver’s illusions falling apart but it was hollow either way.
This episode was far too crowded trying to explain wat happened, return us to a sort of status quo, and have a plot of the week, especially with so much focus on the plot of the week, it felt like we barely got anything on the characters. There’s so many characters that I can see the problem, but that doesn’t make it not a problem. Everyone feels a little like shells of actual characters, which would be fine if they were illusions, but it seems they weren’t.
I can’t decide if I like the return of Raisa or not, since she basically hasn’t been seen since the pilot episode but she reappears here. Is she going to disappear for another five years? It was something that kind of made sense when I thought this was dreamlike, because Oliver could certainly have imagined Raisa as part of his life once again, but maybe she’ll stick around now we’ll see.
I hope Black Siren doesn’t stick around for long, or only shows up sparingly. I kind of like her stuff with Quentin, but only for Quentin’s pain and guilt and grief, Black Siren isn’t anything herself, just an angst causer for Quentin and someone for Dinah to fight. Having done the full analysis of s1&2 this summer, Katie Cassidy was never a great actress, but she was better than this, she sucks at this (not that the writing helps).
I do hope Nyssa managed to save Evelyn, so many fans seem to have cared about whether Siren survived, of Team Bad-guy I only cared about Evelyn (and I hope we see them sooner than more bloody Black Siren). Killing Samantha feels cheap, and was really badly done; as was William’s grief actually; that at least is logical but it’s badly handled. And I will reserve judgement on coma-Thea for now until it actually means something; though I will say that it seems to me this should be a bigger deal with Oliver than it’s presented as so it can be a reveal near then end of the episode.
Also, I’m going to point out how this doesn’t work with Sara’s position in Legends; now there is definitely no reason why she wouldn’t be working with them both day and night. I had interpreted her line about even vigilantes needing to pay the bills to mean she was part of Team Arrow while inexplicably working a retail job, now I’m even more confused how this makes any sense.
But at least William’s a kid after my own heart and wants to watch baseball more than football; though the writers do realize that there’s baseball on most every night, right?
The Good Place 2x04
This episode had good moments, but I’m not entirely sure how much I liked it. It certainly plays well as part of the ongoing story but there’s not much that’s great about this chapter. It makes sense that Michael character growth is getting focus as it’s one of the big differences from season 1 but I’m also not as invested in it. I don’t think the show had established before this that the pairings were the same as they were initially, but it looks like they are, though apparently there’s not as much care to whether Jason stays quiet as there was the first time through.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 3x01
I’ll start by discussing the songs here. I’m fairly meh about the opening number, it was a good way to at least briefly get the whole cast involved but I didn’t really like the song that much. I did however quite enjoy ‘Let’s Generalize About Men’ I thought it was a fun and had some interesting commentary about sexism conflict. I also got a kick out of the strains of ‘Let’s Have Intercourse’ we here in Rebecca/Nathanial scenes.
As for the story, I think it’s a little interesting that we don’t actually see Josh in this episode, I think it’s going to eventually become an issue that Rebecca doesn’t tell Paula about Robert, I’m not sure what to make of the way Valencia gets sidelined near the end but it feels like something. I thought Paula’s plot was interesting and I like that she’s clearly better bonded with the rest of the girl squad than she was most of last season. I have some half-formed thoughts about how Rebecca clearly doesn’t get as much juice about of fighting with the law as Paula does and how that informs both of their characters, but I’m not getting into them yet.
This show is still a comedy so I don’t know how much I’ll usually have to say about it, but I can always at least talk about the music, so there will be slightly more to say than on TGP. And there are things I could say about the show overall and its treatment of various issues, but I’m not really inclined to most of the time.
Did I miss the season’s opening credits or did we not get them, or will there not be credits this time? The credits have really set the tone in the first couple seasons, even though I really didn’t like the s2 credits and found them annoying, they seemed like they were supposed to be because Rebecca was in a weird place.
Supergirl 3x01
So we’re back, and I’ll confess before I sat down to watch it I was doubting if I really cared enough to watch this and Flash week to week, I care about Legends and Arrow (I’m not sure I have high expectations of Arrow right now, but I care) but not so much these two. Still I decided to watch normally and see, and...while I’ll probably stick with week to week I still wouldn’t say I’m super invested here.
I’m sympathetic to Kara’s heartbreak, but I don’t exactly feel her pain and obviously I would care more if I did (and would if I cared more). I don’t even exactly feel like deriding how easily the world works out in Kara’s favor here (no consequences for quitting her job, no lengthy danger of change at work) because so much of it is done by her friends that it doesn’t come off like the story ignoring having conflict as it is her friends looking out for her, and that’s fair.
I’m actually more annoyed by the agenda spouting of and about Kat. I even agree with all the points, it’s just blatant and kind of grating. I was cool with it near the end of AoS last season, but maybe it’s more palatable in a dystopian AU than the shiny happy world of Supergirl.
I’m...bothered by something in Alex’s plot and can’t quite put my finger on it. I did like her thinking about why she was having a hard time getting into the wedding plans, and I like her J’onn at the end (although if Jeremiah doesn’t at least show up I’m going to be sad). Partly I did get a vibe that the new lady was going to create a love triangle as this progresses, and that’s a weird feeling to have after like half a scene. I’m also not sure I see why either of these women would be looking to have the biggest gayest wedding around, it doesn’t feel like them; and I know Alex better so I’m probably more saying it doesn’t feel like her; and since I’ve always felt that she’s rushing into this relationship I then feel like Maggie must be the one pushing something what definitely doesn’t feel like Alex, and/or Alex is just faking being a person she isn’t and losing herself in an illusion. Even if that’s what’s bugging me (and I’m not sure it is) and even if I’m saying it in a way that makes sense (maybe, maybe not), we’ll see how it develops; maybe I’m supposed to get that vibe and I actually read a social situation correctly.
Legends of Tomorrow 3x01
I really liked that episode, it was a pretty good story for most of the characters and a good kickoff to the new state of things.
Because I’m me I will start by pointing out that a) Sara slept with one of Rip’s agents and that’s totally not because it was because he wasn’t around and meant for him to hear about and piss him off (I will personally headcanon that this guy even looked a touch like Rip and may have been English, maybe Scottish if she didn’t want to be too obvious. Or she’s sleeping with Rip and just being coy about it, he totally would have let her swipe his card and then not reported it missing, we know that’s something he would do), and b) Rip’s replacement Sara -Lance- is named -Sharpe- again totally showing he’s not trying to fill the hole of Sara in his life. He set up the Time Bureau in Star(ling) City in Sara’s time; the time could be argued as being about the Legends as a group and him making their time his time now, but why Star City except for Sara?
As another point, Rip absolutely did not tell any of them as he was leaving that he was planning to make anything like the Time Bureau , if he had I would have been annoyed by his departure in the finale for entirely different reasons than I actually was. And is he going to be out of the coming episodes again? At least they know where he is this time.
Now, on a more broad note, I don’t really buy the lives these people had in the six months they were off duty. Well, Stein and Jax seem reasonable (both the good and the bad, though does anyone else get the feeling like Lily’s fiancé is going to turn out to be someone we know but they’re not telling us who it is yet?); I probably buy Mick’s choices; and Nate’s new life is borderline (I can buy him working with Wally in CC, but we don’t get much of a look into what he’s been up to); but Ray and Sara’s paths don’t make sense. Palmer Tech, last we heard, was still there; they fired Felicity over her *wanting* to give away the spinal chips at a low cost (and the fact that she was never around for meetings when needed), a move I’m pretty sure Ray would endorse though he might have more business acumen to make it seem reasonable to the board. And Star City was renamed for Ray’s great service to the city, coming from the dead should net him a better spot than moving away to work for a dating-ap developer. Also, how did Ray explain coming from back from the dead? We’ve seen that isn’t exactly the easiest process. And Sara is friends with the mayor; her father may or may not be the deputy mayor depending on whether he’s alive or not; and it’s not as if there’s no nepotism allowed since Thea is (or isn’t, again depending on living status) the chief of staff and they got their fried Rene a job without any hassle. She could work for Lyla at ARGUS or “work for” whatever dummy company Diggle pretends to be employed by as Oliver’s bodyguard; she could *be* Oliver’s bodyguard. Also, was Sara actually declared dead the second time? I thought that news didn’t leave the extended family.
I do like where most of the characters are emotionally though. I’m not crazy about pushing Rip’s personal timeline five years ahead, but that is the kind of thing that happens in time travel (I don’t like his new hair) and it could be a good thing as the events with Savage and the Legion are further behind him. I like the role reversal between Stein and Jax, and I just like how much their relationship has grown. I even like that Nate’s clearly very confused about how to feel about the way things went with Amaya; he had blaming Rip (maybe a little rightly, I can totally see Rip encouraging Amaya to return to her proper time) but he also knows that Amaya makes her own choices (she also seems to have leveled up since we last saw her). Gideon seems...pissed at Rip, and seems to be on Team Sara as far as any captain-off might go; actually I’m pissed at Rip for his treatment of Gideon for five years so I may be projecting, but she definitely called Sara ‘Captain’ straight off the bat and I don’t think we saw her interact with Rip at all.
So I have lots of thoughts, as fairly usual for this show, and I liked it, so good on this.
The Flash 4x01
I really don’t like this show, and I don’t think it likes me, or possibly anyone. Could we not have gotten even one episode without Barry so that we actually felt the reality of his absence? Could we have waited maybe three episodes before showing the bad guy for the season? Could they have avoided spoiling that Felicity and Curtis are alive and let Arrow reveal its own plots? Could they have respected that legends showed Nate was working with them (yes this technically airs second but I think that may make it worse). I was just about willing to let slide the fact that we didn’t follow through on Caitlyn’s resolving that she’s someone different but then they went and brought back the gods damned split identity thing that we fucking (I’m not even using a stand in here) resolved last season. There’s clearly not going to be any actual consequences for Barry being one for six months, because god forbid Barry have consequences.
Thing is, it wasn’t actually a bad episode, but it hit so many notes that piss me off especially near the end of the episode that I’m left angry even by a mostly okay episode. I think I may shelve this and marathon it before the crossover, I feel like I’ll be a little less mad at the series if I can take it in a few larger chunks.
Arrow 6x01
I have no idea how I felt about that episode. Partly because I spent half of it waiting for some twist that this was all a dream about how everyone inexplicably survived the explosions on Lian Yu, it was all so easy. Even though it got a little less easy as the episode progressed it still sort of felt like the episode...didn’t care, so I didn’t care right back. When Rene got hurt I felt nothing, I wasn’t sure if it was Oliver’s illusions falling apart but it was hollow either way.
This episode was far too crowded trying to explain wat happened, return us to a sort of status quo, and have a plot of the week, especially with so much focus on the plot of the week, it felt like we barely got anything on the characters. There’s so many characters that I can see the problem, but that doesn’t make it not a problem. Everyone feels a little like shells of actual characters, which would be fine if they were illusions, but it seems they weren’t.
I can’t decide if I like the return of Raisa or not, since she basically hasn’t been seen since the pilot episode but she reappears here. Is she going to disappear for another five years? It was something that kind of made sense when I thought this was dreamlike, because Oliver could certainly have imagined Raisa as part of his life once again, but maybe she’ll stick around now we’ll see.
I hope Black Siren doesn’t stick around for long, or only shows up sparingly. I kind of like her stuff with Quentin, but only for Quentin’s pain and guilt and grief, Black Siren isn’t anything herself, just an angst causer for Quentin and someone for Dinah to fight. Having done the full analysis of s1&2 this summer, Katie Cassidy was never a great actress, but she was better than this, she sucks at this (not that the writing helps).
I do hope Nyssa managed to save Evelyn, so many fans seem to have cared about whether Siren survived, of Team Bad-guy I only cared about Evelyn (and I hope we see them sooner than more bloody Black Siren). Killing Samantha feels cheap, and was really badly done; as was William’s grief actually; that at least is logical but it’s badly handled. And I will reserve judgement on coma-Thea for now until it actually means something; though I will say that it seems to me this should be a bigger deal with Oliver than it’s presented as so it can be a reveal near then end of the episode.
Also, I’m going to point out how this doesn’t work with Sara’s position in Legends; now there is definitely no reason why she wouldn’t be working with them both day and night. I had interpreted her line about even vigilantes needing to pay the bills to mean she was part of Team Arrow while inexplicably working a retail job, now I’m even more confused how this makes any sense.
But at least William’s a kid after my own heart and wants to watch baseball more than football; though the writers do realize that there’s baseball on most every night, right?
The Good Place 2x04
This episode had good moments, but I’m not entirely sure how much I liked it. It certainly plays well as part of the ongoing story but there’s not much that’s great about this chapter. It makes sense that Michael character growth is getting focus as it’s one of the big differences from season 1 but I’m also not as invested in it. I don’t think the show had established before this that the pairings were the same as they were initially, but it looks like they are, though apparently there’s not as much care to whether Jason stays quiet as there was the first time through.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 3x01
I’ll start by discussing the songs here. I’m fairly meh about the opening number, it was a good way to at least briefly get the whole cast involved but I didn’t really like the song that much. I did however quite enjoy ‘Let’s Generalize About Men’ I thought it was a fun and had some interesting commentary about sexism conflict. I also got a kick out of the strains of ‘Let’s Have Intercourse’ we here in Rebecca/Nathanial scenes.
As for the story, I think it’s a little interesting that we don’t actually see Josh in this episode, I think it’s going to eventually become an issue that Rebecca doesn’t tell Paula about Robert, I’m not sure what to make of the way Valencia gets sidelined near the end but it feels like something. I thought Paula’s plot was interesting and I like that she’s clearly better bonded with the rest of the girl squad than she was most of last season. I have some half-formed thoughts about how Rebecca clearly doesn’t get as much juice about of fighting with the law as Paula does and how that informs both of their characters, but I’m not getting into them yet.
This show is still a comedy so I don’t know how much I’ll usually have to say about it, but I can always at least talk about the music, so there will be slightly more to say than on TGP. And there are things I could say about the show overall and its treatment of various issues, but I’m not really inclined to most of the time.
Did I miss the season’s opening credits or did we not get them, or will there not be credits this time? The credits have really set the tone in the first couple seasons, even though I really didn’t like the s2 credits and found them annoying, they seemed like they were supposed to be because Rebecca was in a weird place.
