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shadowkatWell, I binge watched television today, and did laundry. Felt crampy (time of month or whatever euphemism you choose for it -- let's just say my body has decided to stay in a perimenopausal state for as long as it possibly can get away with it -- so I decided to rebel and have chocolate, potato chips, and of course for breakfast banana pancakes. Hah. Weirdly I'm not ill. Of course I didn't have it all at the same time), irritable, and I needed a people free day. (Which of course would only be possible if I lived in a cabin in the wilderness, so it was as close as I could get. You do what you can.)
Anyhow..TV shows. I'm sort of tv'd out at the moment. That's more television than I've watched since...forgot when.
1. All Rise -- great cast, bad writing and set-up. Sigh. Why do television writers write about things they know zip about? Don't they realize they'll fall into cliche and formulaic tropes? Granted it's CBS, so really, what did I expect? Although CBS can do a good legal drama when it really wants to. (See The Good Wife.)
Anyhow, the cast is great. We have Marge Helgenberger playing the supervising judge (CSI & China Beach), the actress who played Misty Knight in the Luke Cage series is playing the lead character -- although this feels more like an ensemble to be honest. The actor and best thing in Heart of Dixie is playing Misty's best friend and former associate, Deputy Chief DA, then there's a few cool supporting actors, and Paul McCrane in a guest role as another judge.
And I like the characters, it's a nice mix and could be a good ensemble. If only the writing were bit better. It's not horrible -- the dialogue doesn't make you cringe, and the characters are interesting to a degree. But the court-room stuff makes me cringe, and there's a lot of plot points that are rather formulaic or cliche. It needs to be edgier, and little less on the preachy side.
That said, I've seen worse legal shows. This one is more realistic than some of them but it also errs towards melodrama and hyperbolic sentimentality, which could either turn off viewers (such as myself) or bring them in. It's hard to say.
The set-up? Lola, nicknamed Roller-Coaster Lola by the court reporters, a Former District Attorney, becomes a Judge in the Los Angeles District Court system. The first episode details her first few weeks on the job. We are introduced to the supervising judge (Marge Helgenberger who is playing mentor and telling Lola to be careful of political lines), the deputy chief district attorney, Marcus Hall (who is also her best friend, his father (who pretends is dead) is a former grifter and mob boss), public defender (who has a restraining order against her boyfriend that Lola acquired for her), her snotty court-reporter, another court reporter in the court house who has a crush on the deputy chief district attorney. Lola is married to an FBI agent, who we have yet to meet.
The agent takes place squarely in the work place. We don't see anything really outside of it -- well except for a barroom fight with Marcus.
I'm not quite sure what the writers are going for here. It's a drama. It's not really a legal procedure. It seems to be more a drama about people who work at a court house. Anyhow, because of the cast -- I may stick it out for five episode to see where it goes. Depends on whether I have the time and don't end up just deleting all the episodes in December, when I figure out that I'm really not all that interested. (This happens a lot. More than I like to admit.)
2. Evil -- this is by the Kings (the male/female writing/production team behind the Good Fight, Brain Dead, and The Good Wife). It's by far the most polished of most of the new television series seen to date. Also has the best camera work.
Also, great cast and sharp writing.
But alas, I miss the wit. It's not as witty or satirical as their other dramas and takes itself a tad too seriously for my liking. (In some respects I liked The Exorcist more...)
This is for the most part a formulaic episodic procedural with a through line.
Think X-Files, without the aliens, or instead of aliens, demons. Also without the convoluted plot of the X-files, or the mythology.
We have the female skeptic -- who is smartly played by Katja Herbers, Kristin Bouchard. Kristin has four daughters, a husband who would rather give climbing tours in Nepal than come home, and Kristin a former climber, who has become a forensic psychologist working for the police as an independent contractor. She leaves their employ and takes a job with a team working for the Catholic Church to assess demonic possessions, hauntings, and miracles -- are they real or is their a simple scientific explanation?
The head of the team, who offers her a job, is David Acosta played by Mike Coulter from Luke Cage. Who plays this role somewhat the same way he did that one, with quiet face and constrained charismatic violence.
The show, of course, has a villain in Michael Emerson (the King's have employed Emerson's wife for years in The Good Fight and The Good Wife, so it's about time he got a turn). He plays Kristen's competition, forensic psychologist Leland Townsend, who has an air of Hannibal Lector about him.
The first episode is creepy. Kristen has night terrors, where she sees a demonic shadow in her bedroom, named George, who terrorizes her. He's apparently a demonic succubus. (It's proven to be not real, but we're never quite sure and he's listed in the main cast, which is beyond disturbing.) And the serial killer who is claiming innocence by demonic possession, is creepy as well.
Not for the faint of heart. If you don't like the horror genre, specifically demons, serial killers, and the like -- best to skip.
That said, it does has sparks of humor and the characters are well-played and intriguing. I particularly like Aasif Mandvi as Ben Shroff, a contractor who works with David as his technical expert and equipment handler.
Christine Lahti rounds out the adult cast as Kristin's mother.
The series definitely has potential. And it's well-shot, well-performed and well-written. So I may stick with it for a bit, even though I'm not overly crazy about the set-up or genre.
Oh, for Farscape fans, other writers include Rockne S. O'Bannon.
3. Stumptown -- starring Cobie Smulders and based on the graphic novel of the same name. This is the best of the bunch. It's gritty female detective noir, adult, with just the right amount of fist-i-cuffs.
Smulders plays Dex, a down on her luck veternan of Afghanistan, who has PTSD, and is haunted by the love of her life dying in front of her by IUD. In Afghanistan she tracked down missing people. Now, down on her luck, she's hired by her ex-lover's mother to find his daughter by another woman. We get snippets of what happened between them. And why Dex is so messed up with her own demons.
Anyhow the episode shows why she decides to become a private investigator and work to get her license. (She doesn't have it yet.) And it sets up some of the players amidst non-stop action and a mystery. The Mystery is interesting and does comment heavily on Dex's own history and establishes various relationships.
The cast is rounded out by Camryn Mannheim, Michael Ealy (the hot cop), Jake Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal (as Sue Lynn Blackbird, the owner of a tribal asino),and Donal Logue shows up in later episodes (according to the previews).
The plot is tight for the most part. While it is formula -- I mean honestly, if you've ever read a noir detective novel or watched a noir detective series, you know where it leads for the most part -- it's entertaining. It's a little less noir than most -- in that it ends well for the most part. The actors are good and Smulders has enough charisma to be compelling. And Michael Early is a hot romantic interest -- to the degree that he actually is one. Dex doesn't seem to care past a hot role in the bed.
And it didn't disappoint -- it played out pretty much as advertised. With a few unexpected twists along the way. Definitely didn't play out the way I thought. Was more interesting and character driven than expected. So yes, for the most part, it lives up to its hype (let's face it, it doesn't have a lot of competition on network television at the moment, at least not in this genre.)
So, will continue with it for the time being. Sort of female version of Philip Marlow.
4. Grey's Anatomy - Season Opener -- honestly we're in our 16th season by now, if you haven't been watching all along, don't bother getting in now.
I've mixed feelings about "Nothing Left to Cling to". Grey's does have a tendency to swing towards soapy melodrama, unlike other medical shows, Grey's has always been more soapy than melodramatic, with a heavy focus on romantic pairings -- often to its own detriment, although that is admittedly why most of us watch it or continue to. We don't watch for the medical stuff -- which defies belief for the most part.
Shonda Rhimes and company were definitely not doctors in a former life nor did they bother consulting that many.
But in a way, I find that comforting. Sloan-Grey Memorial is both the hospital I'd want to end up in and the one, I really wouldn't.
* I still don't like the Owen/Teddy pairing. And sort of agree with Tom K that this is short lived, and she'll figure out eventually she made a big mistake and go back to Tom. But I don't know what the writers will do. Nor is it made clear by the episodes, where Owen and Teddy struggle with having a newborn baby and being with each other on that level as parents. Tom surprised me, by not reacting with rage or anger -- but merely sense. He clearly loves her and isn't about to make her decisions for her. Owen might be better looking, but I like Tom more. Owen, I want to kick.
* Alex and Wilson for the win. I rather liked this story-arc, more than I expected.
It's handled well, is subdued, and they don't go over board with the melodrama.
Wilson goes into therapy to deal with her depressive episode and manages to come out of it. And Alex is there for her when she is released.
* Alex and Webber -- Webber convinces Alex to take a job with the hospital no one wants to work for, and turn it around. More to the point take the job and hire him.
(They were both fired last season for supporting Meredith Grey. Dumb move by Baily in my open. And it backfired on her, since Kathryn got fed up and hired Tom to oversee Baily and the Foundation, because she didn't want to deal with it any longer. It cost her her husband.]
* Avery and Maggie -- they broke up. Thank god. I'd been anti-shipping them for a while now. I can't stand Maggie. And after a certain point, neither could Avery.
Maggie proved to be self-centered and narcissistic with way too much personal baggage. It's consistent writing at least. And deliberate. At any rate, their break culminated with Maggie being pissed that he left her in the fog in a car on the road, and took off. When she hunts him down -- he's busy trying to save two hikers.
She resents him for going off to save the hikers and not sticking by her.
Anyhow, by the end of the episode, she discovers that he is now dating Vic the EMT and fire-fighter from Station 19, who lost someone and has had to move on.( Vic is actually the best woman that Avery has dated to date. Avery has the worst taste in women, he keeps falling for selfish narcissists that I want to smack.) Maggie is pissed off and says, finally, "Right, it's none of my business. Because we don't like each other. And we aren't friends." Nope, they really aren't.
* Amelia and Link -- who are exploring their relationship. I like the two of them together. Ameila while exploring a possible threesome with Link and the Bisexual OBGYN, who is De Luca's sister, finds out she is pregnant and doesn't know how to react.
Apparently she wasn't using protection and neither was he -- or not consistently or well.
(They really need to show the consequences more of all the sexual hook-ups these folks have.)
* Meredith and the Law...eh, I had troubles with this and still do. The insurance fraud storyline is annoying. And makes me angry. They need to move past it soon and on to something else.
5. A Million Little Things -- apparently I stuck with it, more out of curiosity than anything else. I wanted to see what happened between Kathryn and Eddie.
Delia is still annoying. She's such a weak character. I don't know what people see in her.
Maggie Bloom has the best moment when she shuts down an obnoxious lactose expert, who thinks you have to breast feed your child or else. And if you use a bottle it is the worst thing ever. (It's not, and people are nuts. Frak studies. Unless you can study every woman and child around the planet, you really do not know.)
It reminds me a little of Thirty-Something, but neither the writing nor the acting come close to that series.
I'll still stick with it. Because I'm curious. And I like some of the characters in spite of myself -- mostly due to the actors. Grace Park is really good in the role she's playing and I like the actress a lot. I also have a fondness for the actors playing Eddie, Gary, Maggie Bloom...so I'm sticking with it. Until I get bored.
But I'm not rec'ing it to anyone. There, I draw the line.
I saw ten shows. I have eight left. I must have DVR'd 18 hours worth? Sigh. Too many television shows. (And a lot of them aren't that good. There is quality television out there, as you can see above, but you have to weed through a lot of crap to find it. This is unfortunately true of books, movies, and music -- we live in the age of content overload and bad editing choices. Just saying.)
Anyhow..TV shows. I'm sort of tv'd out at the moment. That's more television than I've watched since...forgot when.
1. All Rise -- great cast, bad writing and set-up. Sigh. Why do television writers write about things they know zip about? Don't they realize they'll fall into cliche and formulaic tropes? Granted it's CBS, so really, what did I expect? Although CBS can do a good legal drama when it really wants to. (See The Good Wife.)
Anyhow, the cast is great. We have Marge Helgenberger playing the supervising judge (CSI & China Beach), the actress who played Misty Knight in the Luke Cage series is playing the lead character -- although this feels more like an ensemble to be honest. The actor and best thing in Heart of Dixie is playing Misty's best friend and former associate, Deputy Chief DA, then there's a few cool supporting actors, and Paul McCrane in a guest role as another judge.
And I like the characters, it's a nice mix and could be a good ensemble. If only the writing were bit better. It's not horrible -- the dialogue doesn't make you cringe, and the characters are interesting to a degree. But the court-room stuff makes me cringe, and there's a lot of plot points that are rather formulaic or cliche. It needs to be edgier, and little less on the preachy side.
That said, I've seen worse legal shows. This one is more realistic than some of them but it also errs towards melodrama and hyperbolic sentimentality, which could either turn off viewers (such as myself) or bring them in. It's hard to say.
The set-up? Lola, nicknamed Roller-Coaster Lola by the court reporters, a Former District Attorney, becomes a Judge in the Los Angeles District Court system. The first episode details her first few weeks on the job. We are introduced to the supervising judge (Marge Helgenberger who is playing mentor and telling Lola to be careful of political lines), the deputy chief district attorney, Marcus Hall (who is also her best friend, his father (who pretends is dead) is a former grifter and mob boss), public defender (who has a restraining order against her boyfriend that Lola acquired for her), her snotty court-reporter, another court reporter in the court house who has a crush on the deputy chief district attorney. Lola is married to an FBI agent, who we have yet to meet.
The agent takes place squarely in the work place. We don't see anything really outside of it -- well except for a barroom fight with Marcus.
I'm not quite sure what the writers are going for here. It's a drama. It's not really a legal procedure. It seems to be more a drama about people who work at a court house. Anyhow, because of the cast -- I may stick it out for five episode to see where it goes. Depends on whether I have the time and don't end up just deleting all the episodes in December, when I figure out that I'm really not all that interested. (This happens a lot. More than I like to admit.)
2. Evil -- this is by the Kings (the male/female writing/production team behind the Good Fight, Brain Dead, and The Good Wife). It's by far the most polished of most of the new television series seen to date. Also has the best camera work.
Also, great cast and sharp writing.
But alas, I miss the wit. It's not as witty or satirical as their other dramas and takes itself a tad too seriously for my liking. (In some respects I liked The Exorcist more...)
This is for the most part a formulaic episodic procedural with a through line.
Think X-Files, without the aliens, or instead of aliens, demons. Also without the convoluted plot of the X-files, or the mythology.
We have the female skeptic -- who is smartly played by Katja Herbers, Kristin Bouchard. Kristin has four daughters, a husband who would rather give climbing tours in Nepal than come home, and Kristin a former climber, who has become a forensic psychologist working for the police as an independent contractor. She leaves their employ and takes a job with a team working for the Catholic Church to assess demonic possessions, hauntings, and miracles -- are they real or is their a simple scientific explanation?
The head of the team, who offers her a job, is David Acosta played by Mike Coulter from Luke Cage. Who plays this role somewhat the same way he did that one, with quiet face and constrained charismatic violence.
The show, of course, has a villain in Michael Emerson (the King's have employed Emerson's wife for years in The Good Fight and The Good Wife, so it's about time he got a turn). He plays Kristen's competition, forensic psychologist Leland Townsend, who has an air of Hannibal Lector about him.
The first episode is creepy. Kristen has night terrors, where she sees a demonic shadow in her bedroom, named George, who terrorizes her. He's apparently a demonic succubus. (It's proven to be not real, but we're never quite sure and he's listed in the main cast, which is beyond disturbing.) And the serial killer who is claiming innocence by demonic possession, is creepy as well.
Not for the faint of heart. If you don't like the horror genre, specifically demons, serial killers, and the like -- best to skip.
That said, it does has sparks of humor and the characters are well-played and intriguing. I particularly like Aasif Mandvi as Ben Shroff, a contractor who works with David as his technical expert and equipment handler.
Christine Lahti rounds out the adult cast as Kristin's mother.
The series definitely has potential. And it's well-shot, well-performed and well-written. So I may stick with it for a bit, even though I'm not overly crazy about the set-up or genre.
Oh, for Farscape fans, other writers include Rockne S. O'Bannon.
3. Stumptown -- starring Cobie Smulders and based on the graphic novel of the same name. This is the best of the bunch. It's gritty female detective noir, adult, with just the right amount of fist-i-cuffs.
Smulders plays Dex, a down on her luck veternan of Afghanistan, who has PTSD, and is haunted by the love of her life dying in front of her by IUD. In Afghanistan she tracked down missing people. Now, down on her luck, she's hired by her ex-lover's mother to find his daughter by another woman. We get snippets of what happened between them. And why Dex is so messed up with her own demons.
Anyhow the episode shows why she decides to become a private investigator and work to get her license. (She doesn't have it yet.) And it sets up some of the players amidst non-stop action and a mystery. The Mystery is interesting and does comment heavily on Dex's own history and establishes various relationships.
The cast is rounded out by Camryn Mannheim, Michael Ealy (the hot cop), Jake Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal (as Sue Lynn Blackbird, the owner of a tribal asino),and Donal Logue shows up in later episodes (according to the previews).
The plot is tight for the most part. While it is formula -- I mean honestly, if you've ever read a noir detective novel or watched a noir detective series, you know where it leads for the most part -- it's entertaining. It's a little less noir than most -- in that it ends well for the most part. The actors are good and Smulders has enough charisma to be compelling. And Michael Early is a hot romantic interest -- to the degree that he actually is one. Dex doesn't seem to care past a hot role in the bed.
And it didn't disappoint -- it played out pretty much as advertised. With a few unexpected twists along the way. Definitely didn't play out the way I thought. Was more interesting and character driven than expected. So yes, for the most part, it lives up to its hype (let's face it, it doesn't have a lot of competition on network television at the moment, at least not in this genre.)
So, will continue with it for the time being. Sort of female version of Philip Marlow.
4. Grey's Anatomy - Season Opener -- honestly we're in our 16th season by now, if you haven't been watching all along, don't bother getting in now.
I've mixed feelings about "Nothing Left to Cling to". Grey's does have a tendency to swing towards soapy melodrama, unlike other medical shows, Grey's has always been more soapy than melodramatic, with a heavy focus on romantic pairings -- often to its own detriment, although that is admittedly why most of us watch it or continue to. We don't watch for the medical stuff -- which defies belief for the most part.
Shonda Rhimes and company were definitely not doctors in a former life nor did they bother consulting that many.
But in a way, I find that comforting. Sloan-Grey Memorial is both the hospital I'd want to end up in and the one, I really wouldn't.
* I still don't like the Owen/Teddy pairing. And sort of agree with Tom K that this is short lived, and she'll figure out eventually she made a big mistake and go back to Tom. But I don't know what the writers will do. Nor is it made clear by the episodes, where Owen and Teddy struggle with having a newborn baby and being with each other on that level as parents. Tom surprised me, by not reacting with rage or anger -- but merely sense. He clearly loves her and isn't about to make her decisions for her. Owen might be better looking, but I like Tom more. Owen, I want to kick.
* Alex and Wilson for the win. I rather liked this story-arc, more than I expected.
It's handled well, is subdued, and they don't go over board with the melodrama.
Wilson goes into therapy to deal with her depressive episode and manages to come out of it. And Alex is there for her when she is released.
* Alex and Webber -- Webber convinces Alex to take a job with the hospital no one wants to work for, and turn it around. More to the point take the job and hire him.
(They were both fired last season for supporting Meredith Grey. Dumb move by Baily in my open. And it backfired on her, since Kathryn got fed up and hired Tom to oversee Baily and the Foundation, because she didn't want to deal with it any longer. It cost her her husband.]
* Avery and Maggie -- they broke up. Thank god. I'd been anti-shipping them for a while now. I can't stand Maggie. And after a certain point, neither could Avery.
Maggie proved to be self-centered and narcissistic with way too much personal baggage. It's consistent writing at least. And deliberate. At any rate, their break culminated with Maggie being pissed that he left her in the fog in a car on the road, and took off. When she hunts him down -- he's busy trying to save two hikers.
She resents him for going off to save the hikers and not sticking by her.
Anyhow, by the end of the episode, she discovers that he is now dating Vic the EMT and fire-fighter from Station 19, who lost someone and has had to move on.( Vic is actually the best woman that Avery has dated to date. Avery has the worst taste in women, he keeps falling for selfish narcissists that I want to smack.) Maggie is pissed off and says, finally, "Right, it's none of my business. Because we don't like each other. And we aren't friends." Nope, they really aren't.
* Amelia and Link -- who are exploring their relationship. I like the two of them together. Ameila while exploring a possible threesome with Link and the Bisexual OBGYN, who is De Luca's sister, finds out she is pregnant and doesn't know how to react.
Apparently she wasn't using protection and neither was he -- or not consistently or well.
(They really need to show the consequences more of all the sexual hook-ups these folks have.)
* Meredith and the Law...eh, I had troubles with this and still do. The insurance fraud storyline is annoying. And makes me angry. They need to move past it soon and on to something else.
5. A Million Little Things -- apparently I stuck with it, more out of curiosity than anything else. I wanted to see what happened between Kathryn and Eddie.
Delia is still annoying. She's such a weak character. I don't know what people see in her.
Maggie Bloom has the best moment when she shuts down an obnoxious lactose expert, who thinks you have to breast feed your child or else. And if you use a bottle it is the worst thing ever. (It's not, and people are nuts. Frak studies. Unless you can study every woman and child around the planet, you really do not know.)
It reminds me a little of Thirty-Something, but neither the writing nor the acting come close to that series.
I'll still stick with it. Because I'm curious. And I like some of the characters in spite of myself -- mostly due to the actors. Grace Park is really good in the role she's playing and I like the actress a lot. I also have a fondness for the actors playing Eddie, Gary, Maggie Bloom...so I'm sticking with it. Until I get bored.
But I'm not rec'ing it to anyone. There, I draw the line.
I saw ten shows. I have eight left. I must have DVR'd 18 hours worth? Sigh. Too many television shows. (And a lot of them aren't that good. There is quality television out there, as you can see above, but you have to weed through a lot of crap to find it. This is unfortunately true of books, movies, and music -- we live in the age of content overload and bad editing choices. Just saying.)