Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Keeping Up With TV - Fall 2015

Part of the spiel of why my productivity is so low, beyond family life and kids' activities is television catering to this man's demographic.  It's not perfect, but unlike comic book reboots, TV is even harder to cater to everyone's sensibilities.

The Walking Dead:  Considering I'm typing this after grabbing the DVR of the mid-season finale, it's as good a place as any to start with.  The "casual" WD fans hate this season.  Not enough deaths, weird pairings, and if I have to hear about the fate of Chinese kid for weeks on end, I'm going to start hitting people in the face with a shovel.

For me, it's the opposite reaction to the Season 2 at the Farm.  A whole half of a season dedicated to maybe 72 hours?    I expected a lot more maiming and death from the mid-season finale, but I appreciate the nods to the potential of things happening.  The Saviours are coming, and to do it properly might require more than a half a season of episodes.

And yeah, I know the kid's Korean  B-

Dr. Who:  This season has been rather bland.  I have a higher threshold for pain in regards to Moffat when compared to "True Whovians"  but everything is so intricately tied to everything else that I truly can't enjoy a "standalone" episode.  Oh, and my hate for Clara Oswald is finally pushing the boundaries.  I loved Jenna-Louise Coleman as Oswin long ago in  Asylum of the Daleks, but each appearance, each explanation of the storyline made things more insufferable.

The great news is that Peter Capaldi can chew through horrible lines and monologues like a herd of cows at feeding time.  "Heaven Sent" has been the only episode this season that I truly enjoyed, a "classic" Moffat redirection story that was tight, but ridiculous enough to make a great Who story.  My only worry is that the follow-up will be a flaming pile of crap that disregards half of what had been built up this season.   C

Jessica Jones:  This much vaunted second submission to the gritty, street level world of Marvel was supposed to blow the doors off Daredevil.  For me, someone with only the base idea of the original comic storyline, I watched the first four episodes, then the finale for very few surprises.   Dialogue was horribly inconsistent, ranging from updated noir-speak, to high falutin' indy comic scripts, to a vapid Image 90's style "THIS ENDS HERE!" approach.   C-

Agents of SHIELD: I was one of the few people who enjoyed the first season "Marvel Comics Present Spy/Police Procedural," so others may consider my standards low.  I'm enjoying all the haphazard moves Ward is making for Hydra, the other planet stuff with Simmons, but the spy soap opera stuff with the ATCU, May and Andrew, and Bobbi and Lance.  B

The Flash:  The girls and I started watching The Flash on Netflix and we've gotten through eight or nine episodes from Season One.  It's great.  The actors seem to enjoy the comic book lines when they get the chance, the special effects are solid, and for all the comic book logic that needs to be accepted, there is a more realistic look at death and dying in this series than I would have expected. And I love me some Captain Cold.  A

Supergirl:  My wife has crowded out our DVR on Mondays with The Voice and Dancing with the Stars, so hopefully the girls and I can catch up on a few missed episodes.  Another top notch series, although they drive home the feminist angle a bit harder than they need to.   The fact that an action series is populated by multiple highly-proficient women is fantastic (and something I missed before I started writing,) doesn't need comic-book level dialogue espousing the difficulty of being a woman under the scrutiny of the male-dominated peers.  Even with that minor nit-pick, and the cheesey super-prison as a main plot point, is my girls' favorite shows, finally supplanting Doctor Who as most requested Daddy-Daughter viewing.  A

The Big Bang Theory:  Even with the aftershocks of a wedding dominating the season, they've managed to keep up a healthier dose of nerdist itinerary to offset the practical relationship mumbo-jumbo that logically needs to be kept up.  Much better than last season  A

Drunk History:  The concept will always work on a base level, although this year I'm more enthused by the special guest stars reenacting the story (Urkel!)  B-

Gravity Falls:   There's only one more episode (Weirdmageddon III) before they close the book on the series as it is today.    There's so much more I want them to cover, but there are only so many days in a Summer to do it in.  Truly the one show that kept our whole family (wife included) entertained.  A+

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