It’s times like this I realize I’m a terrible blogger. If John Scalzi gets emailed a question, he
runs to his blog and answers it. A
friend of mine sent me a kindly email saying he read my blog and asked me about
Revolution, and silly me, I sent an email back to him.
This is why I’m not famous.
I’m sure there are other reasons.
So, what I’m watching and mostly caught up on…
Revolution:
As my friend pointed out to me, it’s a flawed show. The one geek character is fat and has
glasses, both of which make little to no sense 15 years after the power goes
out. Resorting to hard labor alone
should have made him a bit more fit and trim, and his prescription has probably
changed six times.
But, look, this is not a science show. They are not consulting the Sagans and asking
how this kind of thing works. It’s an
action/adventure show, and glasses are a synonym for smart on TV. We should probably count ourselves lucky that
he’s not carrying a D and D manual around.
Ultimately, I’m neither in love with the show nor bored with
it. It’s fun, it has some solid moments
of humor, and they’re working overtime to keep surprises coming at the audience
every week. They’ve even managed some
nice emotional moments, which can be hard to do this early on in the run of a
series.
I’m good with it, and will watch it to the end of the
season.
Warehouse 13:
Did I do a wrap-up on this?
I don’t recall doing one. They
upped the episode count to 20 and broke the season in half, and while I know
there’s going to be a reset button at the end of the season, I kind of don’t
care. The show has been almost
impossibly brutal and well-done this year.
And while they haven’t gotten quite at deep emotionally as they have in
the past, I do not care. This might be
my favorite show right now.
I just wanna see how they’re going to get out of this little
mess they’ve been making.
Modern Family:
People get mad because the show wins awards, even though
it’s “not as good” as it used to be. To
which I say, feh. The show’s writing and
performances were new and fresh a few years ago, and while every episode is no
longer solid gold, it’s still filled with great writing and excellent
performances.
Crawl off this show’s back, critics of America
Supernatural:
In emailing a different friend, I observed that when your
big guest star that you bring back during sweeps is the nearly forgotten guy
from Road Trip, you clearly didn’t plan to run for eight seasons.
But at this point, Supernatural is the third-highest rated
show on the CW. And while every season
shakes off a few more superfans, the ratings drops are incremental compared to
younger and more famous shows (Remember when Gossip Girl was A Big Deal? It’s blowing out a 13 episode season to wrap
things up, and the audience ain’t coming back for a visit.).
Every year I wonder out loud if the CW itself is doomed, and
every year it manages to hang around. At
this point, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Supernatural didn’t run for ten
years. Or until the CW goes off the
air. Could go either way, really.
As for the show itself, it’s shaking up its format and
trying to rework the relationships of the characters a bit. I appreciate the effort, to be sure, but it
isn’t quite there yet. They have a great
overarching plot (find a prophet and the word of God and send all the demons
away forever) and they haven’t enlisted EVERYONE THEY KNOW to help. That’s nonsensical.
And Sam and Dean are arguing, because it makes with the
drama, but even that feels a little off.
It’s a new showrunner issue, and I’m sure it’ll get
better. And I’m loving the show as I
watch it. It’s just later that I go,
“Well, some of this logic doesn’t quite track.”
Not a banner back half to the season, but funny in spots,
and tying the sale of Star Wars to the Presidential election got pretty danged
brilliant.
The Vampire Diaries:
They’ve been forced to resort to a 60 second explanation of
what’s going on every week. Not even a
“Previously on…” It’s literally, “There
are vampires. And original
vampires. And witches. And werewolves. And hybrids.
And…”
They should probably just put someone at the front of the
show helpfully holding up the DVD box sets
of the first three seasons and saying:
“Go watch these, then come back.
Or you’ll be hopelessly lost.”
This year, so far, they’ve added Hunters, and because of the
fact that the show churns at warp speed, we’re down to exactly one person on
the show who is human, with no supernatural abilities at all.
And credit where credit is due: There’s only one character
on the show I’m kind of sick of.
Unfortunately, it’s Elena, the leading lady. They’ve given her this death wish that she’s
now forced to bring up at least six times and episode, and if the show could
get rid of her, I think I’d be okay with it.
Heck, they’ve already set up the same actress as another
character, so they could just bring her back, change the focus of the show, and
carry on. Right now, something needs to change.
But maybe I shouldn’t whine so much. The fact that the show can go at Mach nine and
still have tricks up its sleeve is a minor miracle.
The Big Bang Theory:
They’re still shaking up the cast, slapping characters
together and trying to squeeze the funny out, and for the most part, they do
all right. I have noticed that over the
last couple of years they’ve started shoving more and more characters in, which
generally indicates a problem.
It’s their version of Cousin Oliver syndrome, only no one on
the show is having a baby (well, actually, now that they’ve married off two
characters, I can see the baby thing coming, because they’ve gotta do SOMETHING
for season six, right?) so they add a couple new people to the cast just to
keep things clicking along.
You know what? The
show works, and I laugh sometimes. Good
enough.
Glee:
I’m not terribly enamored with New
York
They broke up the various relationships (even though one was
technically already broken…) so maybe the New York
Meanwhile, back home, they’re already recycling plots from
the first season of Glee. Of course, now
Mr. Shu is headed off somewhere (I can’t say I care all that much) and Finn is
now taking over Shu’s season one issues, where his personal life is a wreck and
the only thing that ever mattered to him was Glee, so now he’s going to lead
that…
Meanwhile, we’ve got Rachel 2.0 going through the same love
quadrangle with the new Finn (he was the Glee Project winner in case you didn’t
know) and the new Puck (Puck’s half-brother) and the new Quinn/Santana
crossbreed, Kitty.
Really, all we need at this point is for Finn to start an
affair with Shu’s lady, and we’re pretty much back to season 1 in toto.
Am I hating it?
No. I’m still enjoying the
musical numbers, which is just about the only thing that ever made sense on the
show anyway. I’m neutral on Grease,
though recognize it’s a much-beloved musical.
Which means this week is gonna be extra-iffy for me, I suspect.
I always go back to Degrassi with this show, because Degrassi
is now 12 seasons into its latest incarnation, with 17 seasons in total, and it
still manages to bump along well, even though they’ve traded out every cast
member. They’ve created new people with
mostly new problems, and the number of times a plot has repeated pretty much
completely I can count on one hand.
Come to think of it, I’m even more disappointed that we
didn’t get the show we were promised, where Tina steps up and learns how hard
it is to be the star. And Blaine
Like I said. The
performances are still fun.
The Walking Dead:
Much has been made at how the show has been invigorated this
season, and I have to confess I’m impressed so far. They managed a handful of action-packed
episodes, they’ve dragged the characters through some vicious but fun-to-watch
storylines, and they did a nice job setting up the Governor.
They’re clearly looking to shake things up this season, and
while it hasn’t quite made it to Vampire Diaries levels of speed, they’ve got a
nice head of steam going.
Can they maintain?
That’s a tough question, as the comic got way, way bogged down in the
prison section of the story. But they’ve
wandered off the comic storyline quite a ways at this point, and I think that’s
given them the kind of freedom they need to keep going big.
This might be the season that finally works out all the
kinks. Here’s hoping.
(An aside: I’m using the phrase “Shake things up” too
often. I’d apologize, but, hey, it’s not
like it’s costing you anything…)
Community – Seasons 1 – 3:
My wife and I finally got around and through the whole show,
catching up just in time for the new season to show up, only that didn’t
happen.
Look, it’s critically acclaimed, and I get why everyone
loves and I get why it doesn’t do better.
It’s a show about TV and movie tropes, and they regularly acknowledge
them and try to turn them on their head.
If you grew up spending too much time watching a flickering screen, it’s
the greatest thing ever.
But if you don’t get the joke (my wife didn’t watch nearly
as much TV as I did, and some of the episodes are a complete mystery to her)
some of the episodes just ain’t that fun.
And if a new viewer tunes in, catches the episode where they make fun of
Westerns, and goes, “I hate Westerns, I’m never watching this show again,”
well, that’s one more viewer they didn’t get.
Right now, they’re set to show back up at the start of next
year, covering for all the shows that are coming to an end either on purpose or
through the failure to find viewers. If
they stuck Community into the Scrubs rotation, and tossed it 18 episodes a year
to fill in for failure shows, the audience will follow it.
Could happen.
As for what I think of the show? I dig it.
I think it drags itself a little too far into unreality sometimes, but
I’m good with that. It’s the show that’s
not afraid to try everything.
And unlike Glee, which is equally as random, this show
actually has fairly consistent characters.
Who saw THAT coming?
And that’s where I’m at now.
I’m way looking forward to the coming new year, wherein I’ll finally be
able to dive into the latest in Degrassi episodes, catch up with Being Human,
and watch Warehouse 13, Spartcus (Final season! Nooooooooooo!) and Game of
Thrones.
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