Various things...
Oct. 16th, 2013 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I'm nostalgic for the 1990s...when airfare was cheaper, Congress wasn't run by idiots, no one had cell phones, and clothing sizes made sense. The technological/information revolution hasn't made the world better...it's just made it more convoluted and confused.
2.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tightropegirl aka Doris Egan (Smallville, Tru Calling, House, Dark Angel, Homicide Life on the Streets) is working on Reign. Which she describes as crack tv or chocolate and peanut butter with dark caramel. (Which I can't eat at the moment, so I might as well watch the intellectual equivalent.)
3. Watched Marvel's Agents of Shield. By the way, people keep forgetting to put Marvel in the title, which is actually important. The show screams - I'm a franchise. It's like forgetting to put the McDonald's brand or Starbucks. It also indicates that the writers are sort of reigned in.
It occurs to me that I haven't written a decent review of the series. Part of the problem is...my attention keeps wandering during it. I don't know if this true of anyone else? But it's a very difficult series for me to focus on. It reminds me a lot of the criminal procedurals - CSI, NCSI, Numbers, etc...where you basically have the case of the week, and the characters pat each other on the back for doing a great job, have their little falling's out, romantic entanglements, get in danger, and betray each other - but at the end of the day they are all one happy working family. Unfortunately my attention tends to wander during this type of series. I think I find them too predictable.
Agents of Shield is basically a comic book geek's take on NCSI, except younger cast.
Also I keep wanting to recast it with ahem more colorblind and less racist casting choices. The case of the week - or Amidore - the agent being controlled by an outside force - is played by a wickedly interesting actress. She should have gotten the role of Skye. J August should have gotten the role of Wade. The guy who played Topher on Dollhouse? Fitz. Amy Acker - Simmons. Keep Ming-Na Wen. And replace Clark Gregg with Alexis Denisof or Harry Lennix (who, oops, was already taken by the Back List).
That said? This was actually the most interesting of the episodes to date. It was written solely by Jeff Bell, which might be the reason? It's about a former Shield Agent, trained by Coulson, who appears to have gone rogue and is stealing diamonds. Further investigation determines that she's actually being controlled by an unseen organization who is monitoring her movements and has implanted cameras, with what amounts to x-ray vision in her eyes and extra-sensory hearing - enabling her to hear and see things while her eyes are closed. In short she's a weapon under their control. It's up to Shield to save her ass. Headquarters didn't assign it, Coulson picked the job because he feels responsible.
The series is set up to focus on a procedural case of the week - with a brewing character driven mystery in the background. In short similar to about 90% of the procedural television series currently on. The mysteries brewing in the background are 1) What really happened to Coulson and what is Shield hiding from him, 2) Why doesn't Belinda Bay, the pilot, want to do field work and has a stick up her butt? 3) Who is Skye working for and why? and possibly 4) is Wade really an advanced Robot created by Fitz-Simmons? He's stiffer than the Buffybot.
This week advances two of the three mysteries. Amidore asks Bay what happened to Coulson, what did Shield do to him - he's too different. (Making me wonder if he was an ass before). And Bay gets upset with Amidore and goes after her - because she killed her team and went after the people in the truck, but backs off after she hears her pain at losing her team and her isolation.
Also, the normal teasing and fun between team-mates, developing comraderi which is the norm in these series. It's a very safe series, Shield, feels positively boilerplate in concept.
I spent most of the episode waiting for the ironic twist, but it never came.
The villain appears to be an evil org, possibly Viper. Personally, I think it would be more interesting if it were just another branch of SHIELD.
Episode? B- Series rating to date? C+
4. Finished Ready Player One. It was okay. I didn't find it all that humorous. Nor that well written. Too much exposition. And at times it read like a historical listing of 1980s videogames, including how to play them, model make and serial number. The writer spent way too much time describing his gadgets, virtual reality devices, and old 1980s and 1970s computers. The pop culture television and movies was fairly limited in scope, and focused primarily on the 10 and under set, with few exceptions. For example no mention of Farscape, little on BattleStar Galatica, or Space 1999. No, mostly videogames.
That said, it had a sweet ending and I adored the character of Aech, who was a nice twist.
The writer plays nicely with racial and gender stereotypes and depicts how the both fall by the wayside online. But I wish someone had edited out the insane amount of exposition and lengthy details on videogames. I found myself doing a lot of skimming.
Next up? Courtney Milan's The Heiress Effect. It's self-published. But oddly better written, so far, than Ready Player One, which I found a bit rambling in places.
2.
tightropegirl aka Doris Egan (Smallville, Tru Calling, House, Dark Angel, Homicide Life on the Streets) is working on Reign. Which she describes as crack tv or chocolate and peanut butter with dark caramel. (Which I can't eat at the moment, so I might as well watch the intellectual equivalent.)3. Watched Marvel's Agents of Shield. By the way, people keep forgetting to put Marvel in the title, which is actually important. The show screams - I'm a franchise. It's like forgetting to put the McDonald's brand or Starbucks. It also indicates that the writers are sort of reigned in.
It occurs to me that I haven't written a decent review of the series. Part of the problem is...my attention keeps wandering during it. I don't know if this true of anyone else? But it's a very difficult series for me to focus on. It reminds me a lot of the criminal procedurals - CSI, NCSI, Numbers, etc...where you basically have the case of the week, and the characters pat each other on the back for doing a great job, have their little falling's out, romantic entanglements, get in danger, and betray each other - but at the end of the day they are all one happy working family. Unfortunately my attention tends to wander during this type of series. I think I find them too predictable.
Agents of Shield is basically a comic book geek's take on NCSI, except younger cast.
Also I keep wanting to recast it with ahem more colorblind and less racist casting choices. The case of the week - or Amidore - the agent being controlled by an outside force - is played by a wickedly interesting actress. She should have gotten the role of Skye. J August should have gotten the role of Wade. The guy who played Topher on Dollhouse? Fitz. Amy Acker - Simmons. Keep Ming-Na Wen. And replace Clark Gregg with Alexis Denisof or Harry Lennix (who, oops, was already taken by the Back List).
That said? This was actually the most interesting of the episodes to date. It was written solely by Jeff Bell, which might be the reason? It's about a former Shield Agent, trained by Coulson, who appears to have gone rogue and is stealing diamonds. Further investigation determines that she's actually being controlled by an unseen organization who is monitoring her movements and has implanted cameras, with what amounts to x-ray vision in her eyes and extra-sensory hearing - enabling her to hear and see things while her eyes are closed. In short she's a weapon under their control. It's up to Shield to save her ass. Headquarters didn't assign it, Coulson picked the job because he feels responsible.
The series is set up to focus on a procedural case of the week - with a brewing character driven mystery in the background. In short similar to about 90% of the procedural television series currently on. The mysteries brewing in the background are 1) What really happened to Coulson and what is Shield hiding from him, 2) Why doesn't Belinda Bay, the pilot, want to do field work and has a stick up her butt? 3) Who is Skye working for and why? and possibly 4) is Wade really an advanced Robot created by Fitz-Simmons? He's stiffer than the Buffybot.
This week advances two of the three mysteries. Amidore asks Bay what happened to Coulson, what did Shield do to him - he's too different. (Making me wonder if he was an ass before). And Bay gets upset with Amidore and goes after her - because she killed her team and went after the people in the truck, but backs off after she hears her pain at losing her team and her isolation.
Also, the normal teasing and fun between team-mates, developing comraderi which is the norm in these series. It's a very safe series, Shield, feels positively boilerplate in concept.
I spent most of the episode waiting for the ironic twist, but it never came.
The villain appears to be an evil org, possibly Viper. Personally, I think it would be more interesting if it were just another branch of SHIELD.
Episode? B- Series rating to date? C+
4. Finished Ready Player One. It was okay. I didn't find it all that humorous. Nor that well written. Too much exposition. And at times it read like a historical listing of 1980s videogames, including how to play them, model make and serial number. The writer spent way too much time describing his gadgets, virtual reality devices, and old 1980s and 1970s computers. The pop culture television and movies was fairly limited in scope, and focused primarily on the 10 and under set, with few exceptions. For example no mention of Farscape, little on BattleStar Galatica, or Space 1999. No, mostly videogames.
That said, it had a sweet ending and I adored the character of Aech, who was a nice twist.
The writer plays nicely with racial and gender stereotypes and depicts how the both fall by the wayside online. But I wish someone had edited out the insane amount of exposition and lengthy details on videogames. I found myself doing a lot of skimming.
Next up? Courtney Milan's The Heiress Effect. It's self-published. But oddly better written, so far, than Ready Player One, which I found a bit rambling in places.
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-17 02:58 am (UTC)I couldn't actually tell you what has happened, the wandering is so bad.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-17 03:22 am (UTC)I would have forgiven much if Ward had been game with the "seduce him" command. It could have been fun and easily resolved by the guard not being into it, but instead we had the supposedly suave secret agent getting gay panicky.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-17 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-17 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-18 12:48 am (UTC)Agree on Fitz/Simmons..who sort of grate on my nerves. They are too geeky. Compare to Topher in Dollhouse or Willow in Buffy or even Q in the Bond films...
I'm pretty sure its the writing and direction on Fitz/Simmons - Entertainment Weekly has a slice of the shooting script for the pilot, featuring Wade and Fitz/Simmons - and they came across like that on the page. It's meant to be funny, but it's too over-the-top, so is grating instead.