TV Series On The Television

[Thad]

Hey, I haven't heard anything about Samantha Bee's new show lately.

Well, it turns out it's called Full Frontal, it's going to run weekly (like John Oliver's show, which is probably a good sign), and it starts February 8.

The NYT has a good writeup about the show.

[Blossom]

Having watched this week's Legends of Tomorrow, I just want to say that I am very pleased with this exciting new direction they're taking for Carter Hall, and look forward to his character really committing to this new course of action.

[Grath]

Having watched this week's Legends of Tomorrow, I just want to say that I am very pleased with this exciting new direction they're taking for Carter Hall, and look forward to his character really committing to this new course of action.

Agreed, I was much more of a fan of the direction they're taking him by the end of this episode. Also, in general it felt like the show was a bit more... in the swing of things now that it didn't have to introduce the entire ensemble of characters plus now somehow Rory Pond is a time lord whose TARDIS has functional cloaking?

I am somewhat curious how they plan on reconciling time travel with the already established (IIRC on their explanation of Earth-2) many worlds theory present in The Flash, technically they can't fuck up the future because they're just generating a new world where they decided to fuck with the past.

[Thad]

Having watched this week's Legends of Tomorrow, I just want to say that I am very pleased with this exciting new direction they're taking for Carter Hall, and look forward to his character really committing to this new course of action.

Yeah, one less character incomprehensibly growling the same exposition repeatedly to an overstuffed cast.

Also: how does reincarnation work with time travel? Does Carter's spirit bamf back to 2016 to reincarnate, or are there still two Carters in the 1970's only now one of them is a baby?

It also seems like nobody's actually done the fucking math on Carter and Shayera's reincarnations. Carter says this has happened 206 times, yet Vandal Savage pegs their original lifetimes at 4000 years ago. This means the vast majority of their lives, Carter and Shayera have died before turning twenty, which is pretty hard to reconcile with the angle that they always eventually meet, fall in love, and then are killed by Savage.

One more thing that bugs me: as compelling as Rip's reveal, partway through episode one, that he made up all that "you're legends" shit and that he just grabbed everybody up because they're inconsequential is, in the context of the Hawks this makes absolutely no sense because, as we've already established, they're the only ones who can stop Savage.

The easy interpretation of this is that what Rip actually meant was "I grabbed the Hawks because they're the people I really needed, and I grabbed the rest of you because I was in a hurry and you were both available and inconsequential to the timeline," but this is never actually reconciled in dialogue.

I am somewhat curious how they plan on reconciling time travel with the already established (IIRC on their explanation of Earth-2) many worlds theory present in The Flash, technically they can't fuck up the future because they're just generating a new world where they decided to fuck with the past.

Flash has, at this point, made a total dog's breakfast of how time travel is supposed to work. (Eobard Thawne is defeated because his ancestor Eddie Thawne kills himself and therefore Eobard vanishes because he was never born, yet apparently all the stuff he already did -- such as kill Barry's mom in the past and show up earlier in his own timeline in last week's episode -- still happens, and also Cisco starts having seizures for no reason whatsoever until they send Thawne back to his own time.)

If all this sounds excessively negative, I'd like to make it clear that I still love Flash and am enjoying Legends quite a bit so far. But yes there are very definitely plot holes.

[Grath]

Yeah, one less character incomprehensibly growling the same exposition repeatedly to an overstuffed cast.

This was less egregious in the last episode. I think part of it was "here's these established characters but Hawk Girl is the only remotely mainstream one so we need to exposition dump to bring you up to speed on everyone and this universe's rules because we can't assume you've been watching the other two shows." Spoiler simply to cover what Thad's spoiler was.

I am somewhat curious how they plan on reconciling time travel with the already established (IIRC on their explanation of Earth-2) many worlds theory present in The Flash, technically they can't assfuck up the future because they're just generating a new world where they decided to assfuck with the past.

Flash has, at this point, made a total dog's breakfast of how time travel is supposed to work. (Eobard Thawne is defeated because his ancestor Eddie Thawne kills himself and therefore Eobard vanishes because he was never born, yet apparently all the stuff he already did -- such as kill Barry's mom in the past and show up earlier in his own timeline in last week's episode -- still happens, and also Cisco starts having seizures for no reason whatsoever until they send Thawne back to his own time.)

If all this sounds excessively negative, I'd like to make it clear that I still love Flash and am enjoying Legends quite a bit so far. But yes there are very definitely plot holes.

Cisco's seizures were because he was the one who messed with time by providing the means/information to capture Eobard. "If you mess with time, time hits you back" is one of the established rules. I mentioned your point to my roommate who said this was basically a hamfisted way to try to write their way out of having already gone full Flashpoint Paradox, which also coincidentally invalidated the entire premise of Legends of Tomorrow by establishing "we changed the past so this person no longer existed to do this, it still happens" unless that only happens because of mumble mumble speed force mumble quantum physics mumble.

This also gives them a convenient recurring villain who is powerful enough to challenge The Flash, who can't be locked away in the particle accelerator because if they do that then wibbly wobbly seizurey time-travel-is-bullshitty.

[Thad]

The first episode of The Muppets under its new showrunner was about the network trying to modernize the show for a hip young audience and everybody deciding that they'd rather make it a little bit more like it used to be in the old days instead. Pretty damn meta, but a nice statement of purpose, and everybody was a lot less of an asshole.

Also, it had Key and Peele on it.

It's still not perfect -- the show-within-a-show still mostly sucks, and instead of playing that for laughs like 30 Rock they don't seem to realize that it sucks -- but it feels like a step in the right direction.

[Mothra]

Wow, I am loving SciFi's The Expanse. It's really, really good.

Tons of zero-G stuff, awesome, deliberate pacing, near-future tech level, great story, and so far, no bad characters:



Reminds me a lot of Alien in how slow but interesting it is. With this and Defiance, SciFi's been picking up quite a bit since the Dark Times of like two years ago.

[Thad]

Supergirl just adapted For the Man Who Has Everything.

I think they largely botched the Krypton scenes; there aren't enough of them, because there are only two Krypton sets, and the show messes up the narrative (where, in the original story, Superman starts out believing the illusion and then slowly shakes it off, Kara starts out knowing that it's wrong and then slowly starts buying into it).

But Benoist really sold the delivery of "Do you have any idea what you've done to me?"

[Thad]

For those who were waiting for the moment where Trevor Noah came into his own as an interviewer, I think last night's interview with Michael Hayden was it. I think he did about as well as Stewart ever did in similar adversarial positions with controversial political figures.

Which isn't to say that it was satisfying, of course. Hayden juked and jived and gave bullshit non-answers. His responses were downright chilling in some cases -- like when Noah referred to him presiding over the CIA's transition from spying to killing, and he chuckled.

I decided not to pull up the rest of the interview on the Web. Because so far it had mostly just made me angry.

But I think Noah nailed it.

[Rico]

I really want to like Supergirl more because it's starting to hit its stride, but it has really got to sort out its "We have an entire government organization which specializes in taking on superpowered extraterrestrials but we just bring regular guns and then keep shooting (not-Superman)." Particularly bad when juxtaposed in the same episode with human Alex physically staggering and fighting off a threat which, again, immune to bullets, but also had a whole fight scene with Supergirl.

At least when Flash plays stupid about Barry's abilities (not that the comics don't), his backup actually has meaningful tech on them.

[Thad]

Also, they can't seem to remember what Martian Manhunter's powers are.

[Rico]

I wonder what powers he actually has on the show. I mean, we've seen the phasing, so it was awfully laughable when there was a tension beat when Astra was holding a knife to his throat. I mean, that can be Alex's excuse for the stabbing, but then you have to drop the beat and dialogue, but he's one of the comics' definition for power creep, his telepathy has already seems scaled back, so I'm guessing they're dropping a couple of other things like "Martian Vision" (Quick, to the Arrow Cave!).

[Thad]

Yeah, true; his telepathy doesn't seem to have any setting between "off" and "completely erase memory" from what we've seen so far.

[Büge]

You never know, we might get a callback to Justice League where he howls in agony.

[Thad]

Ian McShane cast as Mr. Wednesday in American Gods.

He's so perfect for the role that I'm pretty sure I actually pictured him in it when I was reading the book.

(I definitely pictured the Rock as Shadow, but he's too old now. I'm not familiar with Ricky Whittle but from what I've seen he seems like a great choice.)

[Thad]

For those who were waiting for the moment where Trevor Noah came into his own as an interviewer, I think last night's interview with Michael Hayden was it.

Thursday night's "Don't feed me shit and tell me it's still pizza" response to the "Republicans freed the slaves; Democrats fought for segregation" argument was another highlight.

[Thad]

Wait, ANOTHER BBC Dirk Gently TV series?

What the fuck was wrong with the LAST one, BBC?

What the fuck is the point of canceling a show and then doing a completely different version four years later?

[Rico]

Spider-Man?

[Thad]

Good news/bad news: Amazon has ordered a new live-action Tick pilot, but it looks like Warburton won't be reprising the role after all. He will, however, be executive producing.

[Büge]

Will they at least be able to use the characters from the cartoon/comic?