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So... my owner's an idiot... long story short, my human decided to bring me to his college dorm for the weekend to show off all the TV show he's recorded... unfortunately, being the squishy college student that he is he threw a party with me right there and it ended up with him spilling alcohol into my circuits... the good news is I still have all the programming that he's recorded... the bad news is I can barely function or think because of all the alcohol... I suppose this is what it feels like to be drunk... I think?
Anyways my human's finals are all project based with no exams so he's trying to finish them up as soon as he can then repair me for the Homeland, Dads, and last but not least, Agents of SHIELD view logs. I might be able to muster all my energy and do a view log here and there for Dads and Homeland but for now don't expect much of an update for a week or two. My apologies.
/signoff
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Ah, Repairs. A nice little breather from the subplots, but can it remain interesting despite little to do with the overall story of the series? Let's start from the beginning.
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Episode Title: Comic Book Issues
This is a comic book episode... this is... a comic book... episode. I'm going to say it again... this is a comic book episode... *waits*... wonder if I should use the comic book signal :D
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Episode Title: Foul Play
This episode started off well... Ok the joke about virtual e-sports being lame was... lame... but it was ok. I see what they were going for atleast. And to be frank, people do take e-sports too seriously sometimes. However, what really got the ball rolling was Seth Green's dad saying
"You know, when I was your age I already had a family and left them."
Ok... that was funny. Atleast I found it funny. It's a nice twist on what the past generation likes to say to our generation. Did I go insane?... Did I just find something in Dads... sincerely amusing? Will... this last?
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Episode Title: The Drive
You know what sucks about Thanksgiving? There's too much people everywhere. I guess that's not something I should complain about but I'm a machine! I've never really been very sentimental around holiday seasons, I don't even know if I even really have a family... maybe there's other machines that were made within my production line that I can probably call as "family members"?... Whatever, the reason why I'm complaining is because my current owner invited a whole bunch of people and throughout this weekend I've been touched left and right (not like that... you know what I mean...) and made to record (and watch...) really horrible reality TV shows that this guy's family likes to collectively make fun of... DELETING ALL OF MY HOMELAND IN THE PROCESS...
Thanks... thanks a lot... so that's the bad news. Thankfully, I managed to get a hold of the season finale of Hello Ladies after Thanksgiving and after things have settled down I decided to take a look at how Stephen Merchant is going to end his journey.
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Directed by Jonathan Frakes. Commander Riker himself.
…well, I’ve nothing more to say about that.
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Been a busy week for me, so you may have noticed that these posts are late. Sorry about that.
No more time for sorry, though, we’ve got
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to talk about!
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Title: The Yoga Play
It is both surprising and unfortunate that Homeland has lost me already. During my time away, most of my view log shows have been on my mind. I've been curious on how Stephen Merchant would develop his character in Hello Ladies. I've wondered how bad Dads can really get and checked Variety.com every day hoping to see it get cancelled. I've wondered about Agents of SHIELD and how my guest is doing with it. But the one show that I've consistently forgotten about was Homeland. Which is highly ironic because Homeland was supposed to be the gold standard to all of the shows I've been looking at for this blog. If there is a TV powerhouse in my line up, it should be Homeland. But it's turning out to be quite the opposite.
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Episode Title: Game On
Once Upon a Time... Homeland used to be good... Seriously. Back in the day, oh around early 2012 (The Emmys for 2011), Homeland shocked the TV community by being nominated in place of Dexter. That was a tough year. Game of Thrones was up for it's second season and Breaking Bad just finished it's 4th season (probably the best in my opinion). Homeland surprised further by beating Emmy regulars Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Boardwalk Empire for the grand prize. That prize was deserved. While Season 1 of Homeland had some occasionally soap opera ridiculousness (the middle episodes of S1 was... weak to put it mildly), the closing episodes more than made up for it. It was a modern retelling of the Manchurian Candidate and it updated it superbly... (which is amusing because Homeland is supposedly a direct remake of Prisoners of War, an Israeli TV show.) Fast forward to 2013 and it's a little sad to see how far Homeland as fallen (although the Emmys apparently seems to still keep giving it nominations...).
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Episode Title: The Wedding
There we go. This is more like it. This is more of what I was looking for in this series. The episode wasn't completely predictable like the previous two episodes but we're back to the early episodes 2 or 3 where everything is the cringe worthy moments had to make me pause the video. Some of Stuart's antics are sincerely annoying by now but this time... things are atleast different. He develops and, once again, we see quite a bit more of his past coming out in his character. What really irritated me was actually Christine Woods' character. But there's atleast some development as a result which is something the series didn't do enough in the early episodes when it had seriously painful scenes. But back to Stuart...
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Episode Title: Long Beach
This episode baffles me. It sincerely does. Honestly I consider this particular episode the worst so far and likely the worst out of the series (since there's only 8 for S1). So the premise is that Stuart is having some construction work done and he decides to try to befriend the workers... because he's scared of them. Well ok, maybe he's not sincerely scared but he would like to try to "belong" with them to not feel so alienated around them. This reminds me of the episode in The Ricky Gervais Show (sorry I don't remember exactly which one) in which Stephen Merchant talks about being frightened by blue collared workers because of their physical strength. The skit and subsequent talk about that was charming but this episode in Hello Ladies just felt like an overly drawn out version of that Ricky Gervais bit.
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Episode Title: Pool Party
I must admit that Hello Ladies is gradually getting a little stale on me. It's starting to become a little too easy to predict the content of each episode. Stuart will come up with a scheme to meet women. It'll work just for a little bit at first but things don't go exactly to Stuart's plan or things aren't moving along fast enough for him. Thus, he tries to force the situation and this makes him super awkward but he's so concentrated on his goal to meet women (specifically hot model women) that he doesn't notice how badly he's screwing up the situation. Then he'll either get flat out rejected or leave out of frustration and find out that things would have turned out far better if he didn't push it.
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Episode Title: The Dinner
My jaw dropped within the first 30 seconds of this episode. I... won't be able to do it justice describing it but I need to describe it. Jessica is going out dressing well, Stuart comments on it and asks where she's going. Jessica says she and a few of her actress friends are going out to a gay club because they don't want the hassle of being hit on by men all night. Stuart instantly thinks that he would have no competition at the place and RUSHES TO TAG ALONG.
My. Jaw. Dropped. Stuart... this is a new low point for you.
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Episode Title: The Date
I'm going to be honest here. I did not enjoy this episode. Now... apparently there's a higher power who is screwing with me... Do you remember in one of my Dads view logs I mentioned how big of a douche Seth Green's character is? (If you don't read my Dads view logs... Seth Green's character is supposed to be this loveable sarcastic snarker but he's really just a douche). Stephen Merchant's character... is a douche... So not only am I irritated by one dick character who is poorly written... I'm also irritated by another in a properly written show... What are the chances that I happen to pick two shows who are, craft wise, totally opposite ends of the quality spectrum but have main characters who irritate me in very similar ways. Ugh... Actually, speaking of quality assessments, as of episode 3 I'm unsure how I'm to judge Hello Ladies. But I'll get to that in a sec... first... I need to explain why this episode was so painful.
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Episode Title: Foul Play
This... show... has... no shame. In a very bad way and not in ways the Family Guy writers probably intended...
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Episode Title: My Dad's Hotter than Your Dad
I almost can't believe I have to reference Louie again... remember when I talked about that fake sitcom in one of the Louie episodes that makes fun of really horrible sitcoms? The opening to Dads is a sincere example of Louie's fake sitcom. This show just finds new ways to piss me off... I can't believe that after JUST comparing the Louie Season 2 Episode 7 scene to Dads Episode 5... I need to do it again IN THE NEXT EPISODE...
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Episode Title: Oldfinger
"Dads is recorded from a live studio audience"... no... more like a high studio audience. Seriously, only someone on drugs would laugh at jokes this unimaginative. But hey... once again... atleast they are jokes... I'll look forward to the day when this statement will no longer be acceptable. But at the moment... beggers can't be choosers I suppose...
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Episode Title: Funny Girl
You now... this episode sincerely
started out well... Ok it wasn't the best opening I've ever seen for
sitcoms but it was alteast competent. I actually got my hopes up that I
might not be wishing I was broken while watching this... then the
episode went into the 2 minute mark... and the bad jokes came again.
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Episode Title: Clean on Me
I'm going to break character for this one. I didn't think I'd ever have to do it ever. After all despite my harsh criticisms I am doing this to have fun and perhaps blow off some critical steam after a few shows. But this episode... no... this episode is where we get serious because the terribleness of it is so overwhelming that I have to preface my own personal life to this show... Don't worry, I know reviewers shouldn't ramble about themselves I'll keep this short :P
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"FZZT," huh? That's the same sound my drink made when I opened it at the beginning of the episode. Said drink was some kind of strawberry daiquiri wine-cooler-type-thing, so I was not watching this episode
entirely sober, but not technically drunk. Heh, I'm typing a View Log on an episode called FZZT while buzzed. Don't know if that's ironic, and I don't much care! Let's begin!
Actually, quick tangent first. So, Cablebox, you thought
“Uh… Oh… Ah…” or whatever it was had a stupid name? At least those are sounds that the human mouth makes! I mean, “FZZT”? You might as well name the episode “Pkhkh.”
Um, that’s the sound of a gunshot or something as done by my mouth.
And then typed.
Poorly.
This is completely irrelevant to everything, but I wonder if the blue-with-white-gloves S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms from the comics will ever appear.
Oh, yeah, the episode. Let's talk about it.
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Well... admittedly I'm a little embarrassed. I unfortunately made a few promises I didn't keep. I'm still around, still as motivated as ever. School just piled on a lot of stuff that spilled over into this week but I am FINALLY done and free. My exams went well my projects went well... (actually had to submit a finished video game to some indie festivals so yeah... managing all that was fun...) I've just had to sacrifice literally all my free time to get those results...
But yes I am back and I know I have a lot of TV to catch up. But I don't think I've fallen too far behind. I now have a list of stuff I need to watch and a few binge sessions can likely catch me up fairly soon. Sorry again for the long wait, and thank you all those who have stuck around.
I'd also like to give a HUGE thank you to my guest Newt for being so awesome and keeping up with his schedule. I'm ready to take the super negative side again :P
Also... seems my trakt.tv bar broke while I was away... suppose that was apt timing. But this time it's not on my end. Trakt seems to be having some problems with it. I'll hope they sort that out in the near future.
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Episode Title: The Limo
I'm starting to get a little worried about Hello Ladies. Now to get this out of the way, I think the writing is still quite great. Stephen Merchant is still wonderful and there's still a lot of character put into these really quick moments. So... what I'm about to say I'm really unsure how to judge. It's either a personal preference or it's something ingrained in the way the writers approached the material. The former can be just shrugged off but the ladder would mean that there's some minor problems in the writing despite the great characters. But I guess I'll just describe my gripe.
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Can I just say before we begin I don't know anything about
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
Any references to that in this episode, if there were any, went over my head.
Sorry.
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Episode Title: Pilot
Ah human mating rituals... something I don't and will never understand... on the account of being a machine and stuck to a TV. However I suppose consuming a lot of human stuff I can probably still talk about a show about... well... Stephen Merchant trying to bone hot women in LA...
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Episode 3: Tower of David
You know... cable drama fans are a super tough bunch. So here I was getting all pretentious and criticizing the people who are enjoying Agents of SHIELD for being unaware that TV is so much better than that and I hop that cable/network border and suddenly run into everyone criticizing Homeland left and right. So, you could say that my logs on Homeland will have the polar opposite attitude that I've had in Agents of SHIELD. It's funny when you think about it. But on to the actual episode, this one isn't as bad as people on the internet are making it seem. Sure it's not perfect, but it's still a hell of a lot better than anything in Homeland late season 2 and that's a reasonably good accomplishment at the moment.
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Episode Title: Uh... Oh... Ah...
This is a horrible title for an episode... seriously who thought up of that?... Anyways, this episode was... unfortunately a step back from the pilot. It seems that Alex Gansa learned his lesson in Season 2. You have to calm down and be careful not to build up the story too much or else you'll have to rely on over the top means to resolve everything cleanly. Now... it seems that Alex Gansa is being too cautious...
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Episode Title: Tin Man is Down
I'll be honest here. Brody was quite the dead weight towards the end of Season 2. I mentioned in an old view log that Homeland started out as a modernized version of The Manchurian Candidate (I can elaborate on that in the future just... believe me on that for now) and the moment that the show dropped that is the moment the show dropped off of a cliff.
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Let’s get the first part of this out of the way. I enjoyed "Eye Spy."
At this point in time, I recommend the episode. Now, I want to get a
little more analytical.
A lot of people don’t know what “high concept” really means. It doesn’t
mean the concept has to be anything fancy, it just means that the concept behind a work is the driving force behind the plot. The plot follows the concept, instead of the other way around. For example, despite what some may say about its quality,
Torchwood: Miracle Day is high concept. ("What if everyone were immortal?")
Star Trek: TOS is high-concept (a "wagon train to the stars"; or "Horatio Hornblower in space").
Dog with a Blog, Die Hard, Snakes on a Plane... Heck,
Hot Tub Time Machine is high concept (it's a hot tub that's also a time machine). But more relevant to comics,
Superman: Red Son is high concept. The story begins with "What if baby Kal-El landed in Soviet Russia?" and everything that happens stems from that core idea. High concept stuff can be boiled down to a single sentence, because that single sentence is at the
core of the whole shebang. It’s not a complex idea,
but the
idea is what drives the plot forward, and it’s followed to logical conclusions… mostly.
Is
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. high concept? …eeehhhh.
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Episodes 9: Ann Arbor
Episode 10: Surrender
Unlike the Breaking Bad finale view log this one is going to be very short because I'm pissed. Honestly I haven't been this mad since The Killing's finale. But in many ways this finale is worse than The Killing's Season 3 finale because atleast with The Killing it utilized all the elements it established earlier in the show. Episode 9 of the 2 parter finale was just awful. I mean
awful.
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It's come to my attention that resetting the blog had some unforeseen consequences. While I was aware that my old links would be dead and I'd have to relink a lot of my directories... I didn't expect my entire image library to be wiped... which means that all the imagines in my old view logs that I've captured myself are gone...
This would make a lot of the view logs not make sense (especially the breaking bad shot by shot breakdown of Walter White's completed arc). So I'll be taking the time to make sure I fix everything my blog didn't carry over... which means it'll be a little longer until I can get to the new view logs again.
Fortunately, my blog directories are now up to date and working so atleast the site is now functional again. Apologize to those who are still following me. This small hitch will be over very soon.
Also a very big thank you to
Newt who is on top of things with Agents of SHIELD. If you haven't already please go ahead and check out his awesome
blog. Can't wait to catch up and complain about TV some more :P
CritBox out.
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I'm not a huge TV guy. I watch a few things, like
Doctor Who,
Agents of SHIELD, and a couple others. I've never seen
Game of Thrones,
Breaking Bad, or any of those HBO shows. Being a full-time college student, I only have time for so many obsessions. As such, I can't really analyze this show in the same vein as the Critbox; I can't view this alongside and compare it to award-winning drama. All I can do is watch it and tell you how it adapts the source material and, more importantly, whether or not I enjoyed it.
As some of you may know from
my own site, I dislike "reviewing" new things because I feel that proper evaluation requires time to let initial feelings settle so things can be looked at critically. As such, I plan to eventually re-watch and review AoS at season's end. But for now?
Let's look at my initial reactions to Episode 3, "The Asset."
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Hey guys, this week turned out way busier than I expect. I've actually finished everything that I needed to watch except for Agents of SHIELD but I'll get to that this weekend. Sorry for the delay again. It's about mid terms for me but I have a break this coming week where I'll catch up :)
Stay tuned!
In the meantime I believe Newt here might be on top of things so expect another view log from him this coming week.
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Episode Title: Revelations
So Episode 7 screwed up Geddes' character... but interestingly enough, episode 8 was actually quite good. Honestly, everything was quite solid here and Geddes acceptance of corruption seemed a little more natural in this episode than the last. Strangely enough, this episode almost felt like it should have been a part of episode 7. It just seems like the writers thought they had too little material to work with so they try to fill up the series as much as they can with just filler side plots and scenes that either contradict character (to milk some drama out of the show) or don't develop them at all.
This episode actually had none of that. I was even a little bit interested in Callis and his girlfriend's side plot for the first time since like... ever.
I'll tell you what's changed because this took me a while to figure out since Callis and his girlfriend still stayed the same static characters as all the other episodes. So the series is drawing to a close and they have to tie together all the side plot line together (or else suffer the same issue as The Killing with that Seward plot line...) but Chris Mundy actually tied it together in a way that made Callis' side plot interesting because it suddenly directly relates to Frank and Joe's ambitions. That is how you make static characters interesting. Character scenes with static characters are one of the most boring things ever on screen fiction and it's a common go to reason on why dramas are "boring" (where as only bad drama does this.) Character scenes either develop a character, show a side that the audience hasn't seen before, or just shouldn't be there at all. Low Winter Sun had a lot of character moments with Callis and his wife that are actually unnecessary on both a plot level and a development level. That is why these two are just so uninteresting until the very end.
Back to Frank and Joe. I don't actually understand why Frank assumed that Katja was dead when he found her missing. I'm aware that I might have missed a piece of the puzzle but considering that I was able to watch all of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and not miss a thing that was happening... I really don't think so. It just seemed a little weird that Frank somehow just "knew" that Katja was dead when she was killed right when Frank found her bed empty in that scene.
Again Chris Mundy... again with the sloppy moments... Which is a shame because the scene in which Joe threw Katja off the building was legitimately surprising. After a million dirty cop shows, I'm just used to people getting shot very bluntly. Joe throwing her off the balcony was quite different and actually makes more sense than shooting her. It's a lot easier to make something seem like an accident if you don't shoot someone. See these are the best plot twists. Surprising during the experience. Obvious in retrospection. But unfortunately, the sloppy moments are just incessant with this show.
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Episode Title: There Was A Girl
I have to thank Low Winter Sun for making my predicament of being in another shell even worse. So, good thing about being a cablebox that's... well... alive is that I'm a fricking cablebox! TV literally comes into my processor! Oh joy I now have access to almost every TV show out there! So... the bad thing about being a cablebox... I now really easily forget shows that are bad in a boring mediocre way.
So with that kind of intro you can guess how Low Winter Sun panned out for me: forgettable. Especially this episode where I'm having a hard time remembering what even occurred. See... fiction being memorable can be a very weird duality. On one end you have shows that are just so amazing they literally change your lives and you will remember it fairly vividly. Even if you can't recount every single plot point in the script, you have a very solid idea of what happened point by point. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Firefly, Band of Brothers/The Pacific, The Tudors. All great examples of shows that really carve a place in your memory (assuming you've been open to receiving it that is.) On the other end of the extreme are shows that are so bad they just can't help but occupy your mind anytime you need a laugh. As the World Turns, Sleepy Hollow, Dads...
Low Winter Sun falls squarely in the middle. I think it says a lot that I've had to binge on a lot of TV that I fell behind on only to forget what happened in this episode of Low Winter Sun... so yes... this view log is a little bit rambling and off topic to episode 7 because I'm kinda out of things to say about the show and it's only 10 episodes for season 1! This episode was more of the same. The only thing that was probably a little better than the boring norm was Geddes and Agnew's confrontation on Geddes' boat. Let me just say that I'm growing to understand Geddes less and less as the show goes on... which is pretty sloppy writing. Geddes keeps saying he's this "weak man" who succumbs to corruption because it's just easy. Well... actually accepting and even going along with corruption doesn't necessarily have to mean that the person is weak. It could be a great number of character flaws that makes a person accepting of institutional corruption. Geddes never really seemed like a character to engage in corruption just because "he's weak".
Let's recap:
- Geddes was the one who decided to kill Brendan and roped in Frank.
- Geddes was the one who decided to let Katja go against Brendan's orders.
- Geddes was the one who was first hesitant on pinning the crime on Callis.
I don't know... actually Geddes seems like he does believe in a right and wrong. Misguided sure. But he actually seems like he believes in his own sense of justice. So how come all of a sudden he's this character that's "given into" corruption because it's easier? Honestly vigilante justice is a poor form of justice because it's often too easy of a solution for the actual problem. But the type of corruption that Geddes is talking about isn't the same type that would spawn rash vigilante justice. So why did this character cross that boundary? Did Chris Mundy just assumed that all forms of corruption are the same? Because they are not... they are totally not...
Actually the more I think about this show the more this show becomes bad than mediocre. Chris Mundy's confusing his characters and that's not acceptable anywhere in fiction. Plot lines have a little more leeway to be convoluted or maybe contrived. Characters? No. Absolutely not. At this point, the UK version is better because atleast the characters are clear.
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Well... looks like the underground testing has been successful... so what's the thanks I get? I get shoved into a little box for personal use in the break room! No experimenting? No science? No nothing? And here I thought I could trust humans...
Well... no matter. Know that I'm still around, I'm still the same old grouchy machine but now I'll get all the TV I can access since I'm literally now... a cablebox...
Anyways hope you all don't find the change too jarring. I'll be back for some more view logs in a bit.
(BTW the actual story behind this is that I had a friend who really wanted to roleplay as an OC Artsy Core from Portal online and he called in a favor. So I had to give him my email. Figured I'd use this opportunity to reset the character identity to something a little more relevant to TV and maybe more of an original character rather than something I ripped off from Valve. I originally started this blog light heartedly and didn't really think I'd do much but now I quite enjoy myself finding a place to vent my TV frustrations (and gushes). Sorry for those who might have liked the Artsy Core as a persona. And I hope those who read the blog will continue to visit and see what this weird little machine has to say. If not, well thanks for sticking with me for this long.)
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Well, this is a little late, I know.
There’s been a lot of hate going around for this last episode, and the show in general, so I wanted to really think this one over.
I read the Artsy Core’s response to the
Agents of SHIELD pilot. I can say that I learned a few things.
First of all, Artsy Core is a male robo-sphere. Go ahead and insert your own “ball” joke there. Good to know; I always have trouble figuring out which pronouns to use to describe robots that lack genitalia.
Second of all, we apparently disagreed on more than a few points regarding the show. AC called Fitz/Simmons annoying, thought Ward was bland, and though that Skye barely had a personality beyond being the sassy foil.
Do I see where he’s coming from?
Yes.
Do I agree?
Well, I agree that Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May was underused. As of yet, her role as Ellen Yin in the WB’s
The Batman was better developed. I will concede that some of the characterization, wit, and humor is not where it should be for the level of quality that Whedon is known for, and the episode was a little overly referential.
However, Artsy Core, yes. Scientists have to be quirky. Or evil. Or both. Dr. Hank Pym has kinky, shrunken sex with Janet Van Dyne (seriously, it’s in an issue of Avengers), Dr. Reed Richards is an absent-minded professor who uses his stretching powers in bed (noticing a pattern…), Dr. Will Magnus chews on a pipe that he doesn’t smoke and gives his robots souls, Tony Stark’s a womanizing alcoholic, Dr. Arnim Zola walks around in a robot body with his face on a chest-screen, Dr. T.O. Morrow makes death rays out of junk because he’s bored, Dr. Sivana and his half-evil-and-ugly-half-beautiful-and-good family…. Quirky scientists are as much a part of super hero universes as colorful costumes and alien invaders.
Although, I can see where Fitz/Simmons got on your nerves. I do. In fact, I would say that the weakest part of the pilot was the characterization, shockingly enough. Not that the characterization was
bad, just clumsy. The characters’ archetypes are all well and good, but they need to have
more than archetypical behavior.
But I liked the pilot.
I did.
Now, many shows are going to need some breathing room before they become what they’re remembered for.
Star Trek: TNG wasn’t good until Riker grew his beard, after all.
As of the end of the first episode, I liked the show and was ready to give it a chance. Now that we’ve reached the end of the second episode?
Well, I’ll get there.
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Hello all!
Just a quick update on what's going on with the site. So Breaking Bad just ended. I would have actually taken a break from another view log after that because processing Breaking Bad has left my... well... processor a little hot.
Unfortunately... so many TV shows premiered within this past month and many of them are some of my personal favorites or ones that I was looking forward too... So I suppose this fall will just have to be a busy time for me.
I'm sure you may have noticed that I've stopped posting view logs right after a show's episode premieres. That is because I'm now in training in my facility. Which means I now have less time than I had originally hoped. That said, I still have time to do all these view logs. It just might not be as prompted as before. I will try to keep them updated so usually the week after the episode goes live will be when these will pop up. I'll do my best not to carry over the next week and develop large backlog of episodes like I have with Under the Dome.
Speaking of that, I'm trying to generate motivation for Under the Dome. This is how it's going so far...
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Homeland is a show that worried me when I first watched it. I loved Season 1. Seriously, one of the most intense espionage thrillers I've seen in a whole on TV (and no 24 doesn't count... it's not espionage it's just an action show :P) The premise of an American POW possibly turned to become a terrorist was a fascinating one and an apt update to The Manchurian Candidate.
That's exactly what Homeland is... The Manchurian Candidate (if I ever get around to making videos I'll explain that there). But, like The Manchurian Candidate, Homeland's original premise had a very short life. Very similar to Sleepy Hollow actually...
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I love British humor. There's just something about it that strikes my core. Maybe it's the very off-kilter but still realistic dialogue. Maybe it's the very snarky but subtle asides that the British are so good at. Maybe it's the strange way that many British comedy characters display pretension and insecurity at the same time. Well, no matter, point is British comedies have a very distinct style that I always feel is under-appreciated outside of the Anglo-Saxon country. While comedies in both America and Asia tend to value over-exaggerations and over-the-top craziness, British comedies seek to find the humor in everyday life. To the Brits, real life is crazy enough and there's no need to try to exaggerate it more than fiction already inherently does. I love that philosophy.
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Episode Title: Felina
It should be obvious by now that these view logs usually contain spoilers. Sure there's a few that don't actually give away what happens and just talks about the abstract core of the characters and the plot (my Agents of SHIELD Episode 1 was a bit like that). But it must be said here that there's no way I can avoid blatant spoilers when talking about Breaking Bad because, inevitably, I'll be talking about how Walter White's character came to a full complete arc.
The interesting thing is, the ending isn't as clear cut as it seems. Vince Gilligan is very careful to craft a return of Walter White that is both a kind of redemption and not at the same time... Really, Walter's specific redemption seems a little narrow in perspective and because of that it's not a "true" purification of the character. I'll elaborate.
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Believe it or not, Agents of SHIELD falls right in line with stereotypical mainstream procedural shows. Really a lot of TV is more high concept than most people think. There's been multiple shows of supernatural detectives (Medium, Dresden, Pushing Daisies). Plenty of paranormal investigation team shows (X-Files and it's copycats Fringe, Warehouse 13, and Sanctuary). Fairy-tale adaptations are now pretty huge with Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Sleepy Hollow, Teen Wolf, Supernatural, and Wizards versus Aliens (YES THIS IS A REAL THING...
LOOK IT UP NOW!). On top of all that, superheroes shows are actually no strangers to TV either. Really, they aren't. Especially the "realistic" non-costumed hero types.
Anyone remember Heroes? What about Syfy's Alphas? No? There's plenty more. The Batman spinoff Birds of Prey, James Cameron's Dark Angel, Mutant X, The Cape, Smallville, Arrow, Bionic Woman (yes I count that), NightMan, Blade: The Series (yes I count that too), WitchBlade, the Highlander TV spinoffs. (Most of these suck BTW and yes I've watched almost all of these...) and there's the British Misfits. Oh and The CW is premiering The Tomorrow People this coming TV fall season.
Which, as far as I can tell, is basically The CW's (shittier) version of the X-Men.
Anyways I can even go a little further with superhero stuff. If you'd like to count shows that are practically superhero stories but aren't written specifically with that genre in mind, you can easily count Person of Interest (seriously, this is the TV Dark Knight and it is GLORIOUS!), Painkiller Jane, Le Femme Nikita, and the last season of 24 (LOLJACKBAUERMASK!). These are not really a huge stretch from certain figures in comic books like The Punisher.
And I didn't even list the Saturday morning cartoons.
So I hoped I've showed you why I found people saying that everything about Agents of SHIELD is "new" and "unique" to be irritatingly inaccurate. The only thing unique about Agents of SHIELD is the fact that it's set in the Marvel universe. So really the flashy skin on top of it. Sure, Agents of SHIELD isn't generic like The Cape or Alphas. But under all that gloss and faux-novelty is a show that is a little more standard than most people would like to admit (or allow themselves to see).
So what is it about Agents of SHIELD that I found so standard? Let's take a quick look at the writing shall we?
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"In the comics"
I firmly believe that this show must work on its own merits.
...
...but I still think that the over 60 years of publication
history is important to at least touch upon.
Besides, we've got the Artsy Core him?/her?/it?self for the non-comic
reader's perspective.
Still, I'll keep in mind that not everyone will know
everything I know about the comic history.
 |
| Yes, there were Agents, and they were of SHIELD. The title is accurate. |
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Episode Title: Heckuva Job, Brownie
Curse these network premieres. Almost every major network premiered a few shows this week. I caught some... like Hostages (which sucked btw), Sleepy Hollow (which SUCKED... btw...), Agents of SHIELD (which... well you'll just have to see). I missed a whole lot however, like The Blacklist, Masters of Sex (shut up) and Trophy Wife (SHUT UP... I try to watch everything...shut up). Point is, I got a lot of options... yet I'm here watching another episode of Dads...
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Comedy
Drama
Miniseries/Movie
Animation
- Mickey Mouse (Episode: "Croissant de Triomphe") (Disney Channel)
- Adventure Time (Episode: "Simon & Marcy") (Cartoon Network)
- Clarence (Cartoon Network)
- Regular Show (Episode: "A Bunch of Full Grown Geese") (Cartoon Network)
- Robot Chicken (Episode: "Robot Chicken's ATM Christmas Special") (Cartoon Network)
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Episode Title: Granite State
Breaking Bad is something special. I suppose those reading this (and assuming you've been watching Breaking Bad with me if you are) already know that from four and a half amazing seasons. But really it almost seems like Breaking Bad's final few episodes are just a collage of many endings. Watching Ozymandius, I just couldn't help but get a Sopranos vibe. I know many are getting into TV just now so some might not be familiar with HBO's classic mob show. I won't spoil exactly what happened. But let's just say that David Chase ended The Sopranos on an abrupt cut to black.
I don't know how many out there remember how big of a deal this was back in 2007. People raged, argued, and lampooned The Soprano's ending for quite a bit before Breaking Bad started taking everyone's attention. In many ways, Breaking Bad had many endings that could have tied up Walt's character arc fairly well without wasting screen time. It's a mark of a good piece of fiction when the story doesn't take longer than it should. Breaking Bad has always been great about that. Yet somehow, I got this superficial feeling that the ending is dragging slightly at first. Especially with the knowledge that the final two episodes were going to be extended episodes. I wondered and thought... is this really necessary? Could Breaking Bad have just ended with that final shot of Ozymandius? Did Vince Gilligan not exercise as much discipline as David Chase?
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...FUCK THIS SHOW...ok... ok ok..okokokok... I realize that I might seem a little... what you human thingies call.. whiny? Maybe? Yeah... yeah I know. I mean, I try not to. I find it way easier to not be overly negative in the good stuff... or... the heady stuff that might not be as good but are atleast trying like Low Winter Sun...
butFUCKTHISSHOW... ok... ok... I can't keep typing that no matter how much I basically just want to fill this log with basically that for ten pages... I mean what is happening to me? I'm a machine! I don't have emotions! I analyze not consumBUTFUCKTHISGODDAMMSHOW...
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Episode Title: The Way Things Are
Low Winter Sun is one of those weird experiences where the weaker bits of the show are really dull but the good segments of the show is quite surprisingly engaging. I suddenly feel like I'm getting quality whiplash from this show and it's even more exaggerated in this episode. Ok I'll start off but what I liked in this show.
Katja (Sinada)
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Episode Title: Cake on the Way
I've come to the point where I'm struggling to remember what happened in Low Winter Sun. I actually consume more TV fiction than what's listed on my blogs (I just don't always have to time to log everything down. I need sleep you know. I overheat easily...) So usually, when I don't blog immediately after watching the episode, I always get a few eps of something else in. I've gradually got to stop doing that because I'm realizing that the more I do that the more my memory of Low Winter Sun becomes a hazy. I still remember the good moments of the show (such as most of episode 3 and maybe a few bits of episode 2). But it's all just surrounded by mediocre listless writing that it's hard for me to get invested while I'm watching something and that results in poor memory of the show.
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Episode Title: Ozymandius
So ok. This seems like me flip flopping on myself. But I stand by my assessment that Walt slowly was becoming "normal" from the beginning of this split season until the last episode. I knew something was going to take that away and he was going to turn back into his true vile hateful self. I just didn't know how far back the pendulum he'd actually swing. Ratting out Jesse to the Todd's associates? Confessing that he did nothing to prevent Jane from dying? I would have loved to take a baseball bat to Walt's face if I was in that desert. See, this is one of the reasons why I never got the whole "Walter White is awesome and badass" thing (atleast in the later seasons). Walt pretty much hasn't owned up to any of his mistakes and short comings. He's always blamed someone else no matter the circumstance.
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Episode Title: To'hajiilee
I'm unsure if I saw Walter White's development coming or if I just wanted Walter's character to take this direction. Either way, this didn't diminish the dramatic impact of his character's ending decisions for me as I found myself strangely fascinated by Walt's continual reclamation of his humanity. Which is something I haven't seen in a very very long time. Oh sure, the Walter White of Season 1 is forever gone, but the sociopathic egotistical mad men of Seasons 4 and 5 was rage inducing to watch. Atleast for me. I'm aware of all the Walter White fan clubs that seem almost homoerotic for the man and I've always thought that people who were a fan of Walter White were either missing the entire point of the fiction (which happens often... look at Watchmen... oh yes. I went there. Fuck Rorschach.) Or they might be secretly sociopaths themselves. Which is a very scarey thought.
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Episode Title: Catacombs
You know... I try my best not to use words like "fun" and "boring" too much when I write these logs. While it's true that when I personally engage with people (and by people I mean the 4 scientists that so happen to periodically visit me in my basement...) my vocabulary is very casual and very imprecise. Things like "fun", "boring". When I actually buckle down and write my thoughts online, I try my best to be a little more critical as, I'm sure, most of you out there don't need me to tell you how to feel about something. Casual sentiments like that is something you can all decide for yourself. So what I usually try to do here is break down things that I've found to be important to the core of the fiction. What I mean by that is, I'm essentially using my education in screen fiction to try to highlight certain aspects of serial fiction that might be lost through casual viewing.
In essence, I would like to be more critical in my logs because I feel that people will find more value in me articulating detailed abstractions of a story rather than talk about it in very broad strokes. But for this particular episode of Low Winter Sun, I'm going to have to make a hypocrite of myself.
This episode was boring.
There's really not a lot of ways to describe this episode. Most of it is surprisingly dull and this is coming from someone who likes Mad Men. I'm not sure a screen fiction could be more of a navel gaze than Mad Men and still maintain some kind of dramatic arc. Point is, I actually like slower stuff. I've never enjoyed the idea that over crowding your senses throughout the whole experience just some how makes that inherently more "epic". That is a logical fallacy. But this episode of Low Winter Sun is a good example of what people who are unfamiliar with drama TV think drama TV is like. This episode was very by the numbers. It handled it's subject material competently but also in a very unimaginative way. This is also randomly punctuated by some very weirdly sloppy writing moments. A great example comes early in the episode when a random cop brought Geddes' daughter who was caught shoplifting.
When Geddes questions the officer's knowledge of the incident. The officer described that she was shoplifting a pair of magnum condoms. Geddes then responds very weirdly with a "You're lucky I don't shove a magnum sized billy club up your ass." First off, it must be stressed that this was a normal conversation at first. The officer didn't say "magnum sized condoms" with a smirk or attitude. He just literally filled in Geddes what was going on. So why did Geddes react so inappropriately? The cop was literally just telling Geddes what his daughter tried to steal. He wasn't making a joke about screwing his daughter or something. I feels like there was a line cut somewhere or something and it just made the entire scene seem disjointed and not thought out. That's not really acceptable especially considering how tightly managed the writing in Breaking Bad has been. And this is the show AMC is trying to replace Breaking Bad with?
Why did you yell at him? He literally didn't say anything in a bad way...
The visual grit of Low Winter Sun lost a bit of it's edge with this episode as certain scenes were just absolutely too dark for me to really see what's going on. I understand that the director maybe wanted to exaggerate the environment of Detroit but it shouldn't come at the expense of seeing the actors act. I would like to see a bit of some visual variety later in the show. Right now it just feels like a listless version of The Killing. Wait, did I just reference The Killing as a positive example? Jesus Low Winter Sun. Talk about under performing...
I know this is night time but come on...
Frank's face is in this shot... somewhere...
cake points to the person who can you find it?
Everything else about the episode is fairly decent without much to comment on. Frank spent the entire episode trying to find information on Katja, which was played very straight and resulted in a bit of a boring process. This was a similar problem with the UK version where (again) Frank's search for Sinada wasn't very compelling either. Geddes' problems with his daughter could have been interesting but, unfortunately, their exchange throughout the show didn't reveal anything about him that we didn't already know. The side plot with the gangbangers actually got interesting in Episode 3 but didn't really go anywhere in this episode. These are the factors that contributed to a boring experience. Really, stories are boring at their core when the characters don't progress and it's starting to feel like Low Winter Sun's characters aren't developing. That doesn't mean this episode is bad (beyond the random sloppy moments). Again, everything was very competently executed but just being competent isn't enough to make your material compelling. Low Winter Sun has all the ingredients but something is just going wrong in the cook at the moment.
There seems to be another problem with Low Winter Sun that I'm just noticing now however. It's my assessment that the show is too much of a pastiche of too many things when it should be the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/The Wire of Noir. It's ok to draw queues from its fellow crime shows but you will start to lose your own identity if you rely on external factors (like genre tropes) a little too much. Low Winter Sun needs more episodes like 3 and less episodes like 1 and 4.
I will still watch it and I still, believe it or not, look forward to future episodes. I personally really want to like this show and I still feel that this show has the potential to be amazing. But I have to put my own biases aside as best as I can and try to see the show for what it is. It's still lackluster. The story needs to start moving quicker or else it'll not out do it's UK source material and that's a bad thing.
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Episode Title: Rabid Dog
"We've come this far... for us. What's one more?"
I knew it. I KNEW IT! Earlier I described that I think Skylar is going to become more and more of a criminal like Walt. I think it's interesting that the past few episodes we've seen Walt slowly seep back into his old law-abiding ways. Early in this season I predicted that Walt's ego will get in the way of his home life and it'll force him to maybe try to work with Lydia again by this point. But the writers decided to go with the opposite approach. Walt is actually becoming a little more normal. He seems to start abiding by morals and ideals. Ok, I know he made a despicable tape that painted him as a victim to Hank. But when you think about it, the criminal mastermind Walt probably would have just arranged a hit on Jesse and be done with it.
No, ironically, the criminal world that Walt built for himself has run away from him. Well, it's ran away from him a long time ago but this is the first time where Walt's realizing how far out of control the situation really is. See, this entire process actually reminds me a lot of the Argentinian movie Aura. In that movie, someone outside of the criminal world decided to try his hand at engineering a perfect heist. Every scenario and aspect of the crime is covered but the protagonist makes one fatal mistake. He assumed that people will fall in line; like neat pieces that complement a structured plan. This is very similar to Walt where he didn't really consider the human element within the crime world all that much. Walt figured that, if he set everything up right, he can just get in and get out without any issue. It's like a normal job that you just do. But crime changes people. Someone who goes through situations as extreme as the events in Breaking Bad will always change. I must bring in another screen fiction to compare.
I've recently watched the incredible German miniseries Unsere Mutter Unsere Vater (Generation Wars). There is a marvelous line spoken about the human condition through trauma. "People deal with it. Some go through with it trying to remove as much humanity as possible to make it easier. Others do the opposite. But one thing's for sure. No one comes out of it the same as they came in." Walt didn't realize how much his family could change just by being a little bit involved in his criminal world. The look Walter gave to Skylar after she said the line that I quoted at the beginning of this log is probably one of the biggest indicators of this and is my favorite moment of Season 5.2 so far.
I also use the final sequence as evidence of Walt's actual improvement as a person. He really was sincere about trying to make things right with Jesse. That scene in which the person Jesse thought was an assassin but turns out he's just a regular dude was amazingly executed. And, for once, I actually see some regret in Walt's face.
I'd also like to note one thing that I'm sure most fans would probably have realized by now. The episode where Jesse is having a hard time coming to terms with what he did to Gale was titled "Problem Dog". The title of this episode is "Rabid Dog". And there was many references in the dialogue to "putting the dog down." I think it's a sure thing that Jesse is going to die one way or another it's just a matter of time. But we'll see what happens. I think Walt's going down somehow. After all, "all bad things come to an end".
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I know I’m a little bit late to the party for what I’m going
to be bringing up, but I prefer to think of myself as early to the party for
the stuff that hasn’t happened yet!
From the little bits and pieces I can gather, the team will
have problems at first, but need to find a way to work together.
(Uh oh, Artsy Core.)
But I’m more interested in the things that they hint at
beyond the team forming.
There’s a superstrong black man running around saving
people. Is this Luke Cage?
One of the team members is recruited after she’s detained
for acting out against SHIELD… will we be seeing a resurgence of HYDRA? Coulson did say that the fight went global….
On a more technical note, the effects look REALLY good, and
thank Odin for that, because people are going to be comparing the effects to
the films, no doubt.
Really, I’d love to speculate on the plot and events more,
but this is Joss Whedon.
Here’s the relevant scale of predictability in writing:
(10= never predictable, 0=same story every time)
Joss Whedon- 8
Steven Moffatt- 9
Grant Morrison- 10
I don’t think anyone can put together what’s going to happen
for the show at this moment (unless they pirated it already, or something). But waiting for the plot twists is going to be
half the fun! Whedon’s twists are always
shocking. Even when you see them coming,
you didn’t see it happening like that.
September 24.
Can’t
wait.
