Monsters of Television

“Spent the rest of his long life making sure his ring was charged.”

I’m not a big Green Lantern fan. All-powerful rings, like all-powerful aliens from Krypton, mean big cosmic villains that steadily have to be one-upped to maintain stakes and threats to the heroes. On the upside for Green Lanterns, their rings run out of energy, meaning they have complete the mission in a set time frame.

But I’m not so much a non-fan that Green Lantern: The Animated Series is a non-starter for me. In fact, the episode is pretty solid, apart from the animation, which is more a matter of personal taste. The story has a nice balance of exposition, humor, adventure, and the action sequences are well-choreographed. Read more »

If you follow along with us at the blog, you know I enjoy a good procedural. But good procedurals are hard to do, with their own challenges (compared to the more serialized drama). You need interesting characters (as I’ve stated before here) but you also need compelling cases-of-the-week. If you don’t have the latter, the former get a little a less interesting (unless they’re really good actors and it’s one of those cases where it’s just a pleasure to watch them).

Annoyingly, Person of Interest and Prime Suspect both stumble in their pilots in compelling cases and are dragged down by uninteresting characters (though there are interesting characters in them, thank goodness). Likewise, both shows feel oddly dated. Person of Interest might’ve felt more relevant and engaging had it aired a season or two after the World Trade Center’s collapse while Prime Suspect is just a weird case of something that would’ve been big in the late 1980s or ’90s, right along NYPD Blue, but now seems a little unnecessary. Read more »

“I have to admit, it’s nice meeting someone who never knew the old me.“

This is the first hour-long pilot I’ve gotten to this season (I’m skipping The Playboy Club until the weekend), and I’m pretty okay with it. I don’t think Revenge is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly not the worst either. Of the new shows I’ve watch so far, it’s easily the one I’m most willing to tune in for a second episode of.

And maybe it’s because I’ve just had a long week (and I don’t even get paid to watch this stuff, let alone write about it), but I’m feeling like I’ve been a bit overly critical of stuff, picking at flaws more than the strengths. Admittedly, it’s easy to do that with a pilot since there are often just so many flaws (pilots, by their very natures, are little ugly ducklings), so I’ll try and offer more than just a list of flaws. Read more »

“Are you sure we can’t get the meth addict back? She was really good at cleaning.”

As I suspect I’ll be saying fairly often whenever I watch a new pilot this season (especially this half of the season), I really wanted to like 2 Broke Girls more than I ultimately did. The pilot created the oft-experienced cognitive dissonance where I enjoyed the two leads immensely but the writing just forced them into corners that just weren’t that great and they’re weighed down by a number of factors, including a supporting cast of ethnic stereotypes to pass off as New York City diversity.

But unlike New Girl, where I was generally left feeling adrift in a see of stuff I just didn’t care for, 2 Broke Girl at least earns a few more episodes because of those two immensely likable leads and a shimmer of hope that the writing will improve itself. Read more »

Two lead roles in the CW in two years? Um, I don't get it.

I only have ten minutes, so I am going to write what I can and then maybe add more later. Here’s the summary judgement–I kinda liked The Secret Circle.  The reviews I’ve read haven’t been the most positive, but if you like cheesy TV with a side of angsty star-crossed lovers, then maybe this is for you.

Here’s the thing with the CW this year–I tried LUX but quickly figured out that the show was doomed, and then the show got so whacky trying to wrap things up.  But I just wasn’t that into the actors.  The irony is that only 2 of the 3 main actors are back on the CW this season, and they are the 2 I was less into.  Ah, well.  There is nothing wrong with cute little blondie, Cassie (Britt Robertson).  She is earnest and wears those sweet outfits with military boots well.  But am I going to root for her?  Unclear at this moment.  I’m way more into her grandmother–let’s make the show about her.

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I’m all for NBC trying to carve out another night of comedy. I like having comedy on TV, even if I’m probably pickier with comedy than I am with hour-long dramas.  And this isn’t just motivated by the fact that I generally don’t seem to care for a lot of reality and competition programs. Comedy can help us see things from a different perspective, and it can make us laugh at things that otherwise aren’t terribly funny. Comedy can make us feel better, help us cope, and give us appreciation for things in ways that drama simply can’t.

So, while even though I didn’t like the pilot (or, really, the premise) for New Girl,  I’m glad it’s on. I’m likewise glad that Up All Night and Free Agents are on, even if neither of them have particularly strong pilots. Indeed, Up All Night‘s pilot the stronger of the two, but Free Agents is the show I’m more interested in seeing more of if it can deliver on its ideas more fully (the pilot is not as successful at it as I would have liked). Read more »

“Pink wine makes me slutty.”

While it doesn’t premiere until Sep. 20, Fox has decided that early preview sessions have worked so well in the past (Glee), that they would go ahead and unleash New Girl on us a couple of weeks early (What, Terra Nova still isn’t ready?!). Never mind that  because I’ve been drowning in promos for the series on TV or due to the painful fawning over her at the TCAs I experienced via Twitter, I feel like I’ve been on board a constant hype train for Fox’s attempt to prove that they can still do a comedy (Raising Hope in a minor, but charming, fluke, I think).

But I will take a free preview (it’s on iTunes and your cable provider’s on demand options right now; it’ll be on streaming services on Sep. 13) since it means I don’t have to make time for it while trying to sort out the new schedule. And thank goodness for that since I’d be kind of annoyed that I cleared time away from watching other shows to check out New Girl.

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With Young Justice‘s extended hiatus, I haven’t had any superhero television to review for a while. Admittedly, I stopped writing about Young Justice because it was increasingly uninteresting (How bad was the Doctor Fate episode? And, really, boom tubes already? Sigh.), but I was watching it nonetheless.

I did not think, however, that I would miss Young Justice as much as I did while I was watching the Marvel anime series tonight. Animated at Madhouse, a terrific animation studio by the by, and with stories by Warren Ellis, you’d think that Iron Man  and Wolverine would be a bit livelier, but they’re both fairly uninspired affairs from the start. At least Wolverine a has a bit more of a pulse than Iron Man.  Read more »

“I’m home. Wherever that is.”

Were it not for Pretty Little Liars I doubt I would have checked out Switched at Birth. While original content is not new to ABC Family, only in recent years has it proven to be a great cable contender. Switched at Birth carries on this new found tradition and is sure to aid ABC Family in its ratings and legitimacy as a home for great television.

Is the show landmark? No. Is it bringing new stories or ideas to the table? Yes and no. But it doesn’t always take innovation to make a hit or to tell a good story. Switched at Birth tells the story of two teenage girls who are just that: switched at birth, and the toll it begins to take on the two families involved. That’s not an unheard of story. But what makes the show interesting is the characters. And the inclusion of deaf culture. And the social commentary.

Oh yeah. And some of the people who are on the show.

The genetic quest for truth begins with a blood test. A student administered blood test. Who the hell green lit that? Terribly irresponsible. Bay’s (cool girl name alert) parents are both A so she must be A or O. Science lesson for you, kids. Bay, who is AB,  is really bothered by this blood test. She remarks that she and her mother are very different, always have been. Their hands, their bodies; they’re not alike. Was she adopted? No. But apparently she thinks it sometimes, and people ask her if she was. Bay says she needs something from her mother, no matter how odd it might sound. Six weeks later, a genetic lab has determined that it is 99.9% unlikely that Bay is the daughter of her parents. A mix up (way too light of a term for what happened) must have occurred at the hospital. See, that’s why you mark your babies before they’re taken away, right Dwight?

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What, exactly, is there to be excited about here?

Was it the violence? Was it the naked women with Peter Dinklage? Was it the naked woman with the king of the heavily racialized Others (who are to be used by a lily-white man to regain his throne in a political power play)? Was it the costumes and make-up? Was it the frost zombies? Was it the direwolf pups?

Okay. The direwolf pups are kind of adorable.

But beyond them, and I found myself asking, “Why should I watch episode 2 of this airless, lifeless story about, at its core, putting aside the fantasy genre, rich white men?” Read more »