Saturday, October 5, 2013

It's Officially Autumn, and You Know What That Means!

Premiership games!

Okay, what it really means to most Americans is that the new television season starts on networks. Does anyone else remember the preview nights they used to run for the new and returning shows? Yeah. CBS tried that with the actors from We Are Men and it was embarrassingly horrible. Maybe with the advent of quality television (the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones), I'm getting picky about my junk food viewing.

I can't bear to watch it, but is that Robin Williams show as painfully forced as it looks from the ads?

Elementary debuted in it's sophomore season last week. My (extremely cool) niece, who is big into maker world, robotics, and 3D printers was vastly disappointed by the incorrectly portrayal of 3D printer technology. Welcome to my world, Alicia. Now you know how I cringed at the Moriarty/Irene Adler story's nonsensical financial plot in season 1.

Through most of the sequence of Joan and Sherlock riding through London, the word 'travelogue' popped into mind, which is my mental shorthand for 'if I mapped out the sites shown in this montage, would I find out they traveled five ties further than necessary to get where they were going?' Don't feel bad, Elementary. I often wonder the same thing about BBC's Sherlock.

Overall, not an interesting mystery and a rather flimsy excuse for the second murder. Getting rid of the nail would have accomplished the same thing. And why couldn't the murderer hang the mask at the same height? Really sloppy 'believe it because we wrote it' from the writers.

Oh yeah, and Mycroft showed up. Couldn't care less. He added nothing to the story.

Jumping over to Agents of Shield, the debut and following week were a bit rough but once they get the hang of things it may be a good show. I saw comparisons between Torchwood and AoS, which isn't a criticism by a long shot. A group of humans dealing with alien advanced technology secretly to help the world deal with aliens superheroes works for me, except that there seems to be one more cast member than fits comfortably in these types of ensemble pieces. I'd give up the hardass agent dude. He's by far the least interesting, although the wonder twin scientists are a close second. I liked Ming-Na Wen's work. When she's on screen, she has my complete attention. She feels like someone in command of things. Chloe Bennet has the right light comedic touch and her role is by far the most developed. So I'll watch for the women and hope the male characters get more interesting fast, because they're starting waaaay behind the curve.   

I'm sorry, but I didn't get a chance to see Sleepy Hollow. If it's my typical pattern, I'll binge watch it next summer and decide then if it's worth a regular time slot.