TV Review: 2017 Season Finale

Several of the shows I'm going to list I haven't done a review of yet, so bear with me.

For example? I have not reviewed...

24: Legacy: It's ... okay. The basic setup hasn't changed. In this particular case, we have an Army Ranger who took out not-Osama knockoff #6. He and his Rangers are being hunted by not-Osama's son. The son is also looking for a list of sleeper cells they want to activate, and one of the Rangers have stolen. Miranda Otto plays a former CTU head who planned the mission. She's married to a Presidential candidate. Hilarious ensues. Our lead is married, and sends his wife to the protection of his brother, the gang leader, so that's another subplot.

Part of the problem with the show was our lead. Yes, they had traded Kiefer Sutherland for a younger black actor, but the problem isn't that he's young, black, or just not Kiefer. That isn't the problem-- it's that everybody was more interesting. Miranda Otto was interesting, her husband, played by Jimmy Smits (whose father was Gerald MacRanie, go figure) were interesting. Our lead's gangsta brother is more charismatic than he was. I also liked gangstas versus jihadis, that was fun. And we had Oded Fehr (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns) once again playing Middle Eastern.  It was all right. And it's renewed. We'll see how far nostalgia can take them. 7/10

Taken: Yes, this is supposed to be a prequel to the films, only they're really not trying that hard for accuracy. There is only one person who looks like he could turn into a character we saw in the films.

On the one hand, I like the cast. Jennifer Beals needs a career, and she's fun.. One or two characters from The Unit make a return in basically the same roles. And yes, I can see their lead growing up to be Liam Neeson.

Though the pace is incredibly different from the films, ponderous, and very slow some times. Though I must admit, Vince Flynn would be happy with the dead politician count. And it's supposed to be under a Hillary Clinton administration (the President is referred to as "she"), so the depth of the political corruption is hilarious, and I don't think they meant it to be so.

6/10, with room to grow.

iZombie: I originally tripped over this show on NetFlix, tried the first episode, and ended up binging the first season in on go. Then season 2. I was a little worried about Season 3. Would it hold up on a week to week format? Apparently.  The Premise of the series is simple: Zombies are only mindless killers under certain conditions -- but if they get their brains quickly enough, they can pass for albino humans. Olivia "Liv" Moore (yes, breath in the pun) works at a morgue, so she can get her brains. Her boss, Ravi, used to work at the CDC, caught on to her condition, and started thinking "cure." At the end of season 2, we were introduced to a PMC that is filled with zombies, and I thought "oh, come on, are these the bad guys in season 3? This is going to be cliche and sucky."  No.  It isn't. No, they didn't. They took the premise and went a direction I didn't even think of. It's awesome, really. It is funny as all yell, and smart. You might even say that have a really, really nice set .... of brains.

YYYYEEEEAAAAHHHHH

Go, watch it.

10/10... Yes. Really. There hasn't been a sucky episode yet. And it's still broadcasting.

The Arrowverse.


Sigh. I'm done with The Flash, Supergirl, probably done with Legends of the Idiots. Arrow is the only one that's tolerable lately.

The problem is still that the season-long plot is overshadowing the villain of the week, and I liked the villain du jour method of handling problems. I remember when they used to be able to do both at once.

• The Flash: They lost my interest early on this season. They opened with the "Flashpoint" alternate timeline, and made the start of the season so disorienting that people I watched it with were confused and turned off. Then it went totally downhill, becoming melodrama, and completely rejecting any and all sense of plot and story for the sake of whining. Then there's a vision of the future where Iris is murdered, and everyone's attention is focused on saving her.... it might have been nice if I cared about the character. Iris died in the comics, time for her to die in the show, too. Barry will get over it. 4/10
• Legends of Tomorrow: Due to schedule conflicts, Arthur Darville, Captain Hunter, left for the first half of the season. This put Sarah Lance in charge of the ship. And I don't think I cared when she seduced a French queen while her colleagues were being shot at -- oh, wait, I really do. They plain old pissed me off when they put Guinevere in plate armor AND had her making out with Sarah. And their Union versus Zombies episode? Don't even get me started on that BS. Right now, I'd be more interested in a Captain Cold and Heat Wave TV show, except they already have that on Fox, and it's called Prison Break. 4/10
• Supergirl: Agit-prop dumpster fire where they care less for plot and character than any of the shows above, and that is an extremely difficult challenge. 1/10
• Arrow: Aside from some editing, and needing a shorter season, season 5 was fairly solid. And the return of Manu Bennett was nice to see. I only hope that means he can come back to the show on a regular basis now. But they lose an entire point for attempting to do a gun control episode, and doing it poorly; it was message fiction that barely had a coherent message. Also, for their torture Oliver episode. 7/10

MacGyver: I watch for the Murdoc episodes. That actor chews scenery in an entertaining fashion. It's fun to watch. And while it's gotten better than the first episodes, it's still mediocre. 5/10

NCIS: This was a strange season, and I think it took have the season for them to get their bearings. The cast seems tired of showing up, and Gibbs has less and less screentime. I'm waiting for them to have Gibbs die, set MacGee up as team leader, and we can close the book on this show before it turns into original CSI on us. Because right now, the minute that actors David MacCallum, Paulie Perrette, or Sean Murray die, or decide to leave the show, the producers had better hit the panic button, because I will stop watching soon after. 6-/10, depending on the episode.

NCIS: Los Angeles -- I say this every time, but someone has to stop pretending that LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell are interesting. I watch for .... pretty much everyone else, really. There is some fun character byplay that, at times, reminds me of Homicide: Life on the Streets. 7/10

NCIS: New Orleans -- This was a very strange season. I'm not even sure if I liked where they ended up. At least they remembered to have New Oreleans in their New Orleans show.  6/10.

Scorpion: I like the pacing. I like the characters, who have turned into entertaining people instead of the cardboard caricatures from the first episode. But good Lord, someone tell them to stop pretending to have something like science. The space rocket episode? No. Just no. Mileage may vary. 6-8/10

Hawaii 5-0: It's okay. Nothing really stood out about this season. Though I'm getting tired of the old married couple bickering of our main characters. You'd think they'd tone it down after a while. 6/10

Blue Bloods: Solid series. Generally sane. They usually deal with topics as apolitically as possible. But there were still a few elements of pure stupid in there. They avoided some of the SJW scripts this season, I don't know how, but they did. Congrats, guys.  9/10.

Criminal Minds: AAARRRRGGGGHHHH. If anyone does a repeat of this season, I'm done. While the season-long story arc had a satisfactory conclusion, good God, it was painful to watch .... I'm sorry, not watch, fast forward through. "Spencer in jail" was a waste of time, generally not interesting, and I was able to pick up on what was happening while I sped through the Shawshank sequences.  6/10, and don't do that again.

Bull: Eh. I generally like the series.  It's mostly a 6/10, though the last few episodes were closer to 8/10 -- mostly due to the introduction of Eliza Dushku, a character who could talk at least as good a game as Michael Weatherly. If we keep her for season 2, I'll probably even watch.

Lucifer: With the introduction of Tricia Helfer as Lucifer's mother, a goddess, they lost any pretense of this being the Judeo-Christian Devil, and basically turned the show into a straight-up urban fantasy. I guess that could be seen as an improvement, so they're obviously tossing out any standard mythology around Lucifer. Also, since there is no reference to Jesus as a historical event within the universe, it pretty much makes this more Zoroastrian than Judeo-Christian. Turn your brain off, enjoy the insanity. It's a comedy police procedural ... almost like Castle. Only more insane. 8/10

Elementary: It was okay. The season finale subplot was out of left field, and jarring, and I'm not sure I was a fan of the primary arch. Tolerable, and generally entertaining. 7/10.

The Blacklist: The second half of the season had nothing to do with the first half, and that's a positive. The war with "Mister Kaplan" was an interesting battle, and there's a glimmer of an explanation behind everything going on. But I think they have only one more season left to them. They've broken up the story into half-seasons, and it's getting a little tedious. Finish it, or ratings finish you, Blacklist. 7/10-- points deducted for the first half of the season sucking so much.

Lethal Weapon:  Still the best series of the season. 10/10. If you haven't watched, you're missing out. It has heart, humor, character development, and a great balanced between solo episodes and overall season plot. I miss this series, and next season needs more episodes. Watch it, and throw out the Mel Gibson films.

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The Love at First Bite series. 

    

Midseason Review: Quick Hits

Some of these shows don't really deserve a full review. Especially if they're a franchise that's been on forever and a day ... (ahem *NCIS*).  And some of them have been reviewed, and very little has changed.

Lethal Weapon: Continues to be the best new show, if not the best show, all season. There is depth. There is a mystery. There is heartbreak. This is better than the original movies had ever hoped for and more. I love this show. Period. 10/10

Blue Bloods: Just watch the show already. It actually keeps getting better, and does "ripped from the headlines" in a way that Law & Order only dreamed of. 10/10

Conviction: For a show that looked like "Chelsea Clinton meets Paris Hilton with a law degree" in the commercials, I am shocked and amazed at the level of character development, plotting, and overall fun they've done here. This "conviction integrity unit" is apparently a real thing (cutting off the Innocence project at the knees). And our heroes haven't won every battle, not all the clients are innocent, and one episode had the client AND an unknown accomplice thrown in jail.  There was one death penalty case episode, that could have been agit-prop, but I missed it. Probably for the best.

Overall? I'm shocked and amazed, and pleasantly surprised.  8/10

Notorious: Talk about out of left field. I thought I would have never gotten this far with this show. Started surprisingly strong, but they're straying a little off the field. They've managed to create a lawyer and a tv producer that I don't actually despise. There's something like an ethical code around here. Who knew? Overall, really good writing. There are mature relationships, and it feels like grown ups are in charge. In short, nothing like their usual Thursday night idiocy. They can, and probably will, make a come back ... if the show comes back. With any luck, it'll replace a Shonda Rhimes POS without becoming one.  8/10, overall, if they stop with the more outlandish elements.

Agents of SHIELD: Nope, still not watching it. And you can't make me.  0/10

NCIS, The Franchise 

This is the only one that needs to be broken down by component parts. Overall, it's fun, usually mindless television.  Some quick notes, though.

NCIS: The show is holding up well after the departure of Michael Weatherly.  I don't know why they replaced him with not two but three people. Perhaps they could not decide between the Blue Bloods alumni, the Idris Elba Bond clone, or the Adam Rodriquez knockoff (I swear, I have problems telling the difference if I look at the screen too fast). Personally, I like the return of Jennifer Esposito to television. If they need to vote people off this island, I hope they keep her. But right now, they're not suffering from character clutter, and I'm sure their budget is enough to sustain all of them. 7/10

NCIS: LA-- this time last year, I honestly thought that I was going to be done with this show by now. But, thanks to most of their cast, it holds up well.  Granted, there have been one or two episodes I watched and wanted to throttle the writers for screwing up, but they've managed to skip a lot of potential errors.  And the one subplot from this year that was annoying was also easily fast forwarded through. 7/10

NCIS: New Orleans -- this is really the lesser of the shows, but it has its moments. They're finally remembering that, "Hey! We're in New Orleans! Perhaps we should use local color and culture!" They're only three seasons in. I also like the arrival of their latest player, Vanessa Ferlito (24, Day 3, and CSI: NY, season 1), who's an FBI agent that's guaranteed to be fired from the FBI by year's end, because she's in the opening credits. 6/10

Bull: I still don't know what to make of this show, really. I guess "cute" is the best description I can come up with. I wouldn't use this for legal research, but this is television. 6.5-7/10, depending on the episode

The Blacklist: They lost me after making the return of Agent Keane's daughter became the #1 priority of the show. It was long, drawn out, and there was no resolution in sight. This plot was a bad idea from start to finish. This show is dead to me.  3/10

Blindspot: After too much SJW crap in season 1, this show was on the bubble for me. This year, the bubble burst. Instead of focusing on the crime du jour, they focused on melodrama, angst, and undercover work with a bunch of bring-down-the-government crazies of undecipherable political designation or philosophy. Or purpose. Kill it with fire.  2/10

Lucifer: while the insanity is still strong with this one, Lucifer went the wrong kind of strange this season. They've decided to ditch anything Judeo-Christian about the backstory of Lucifer, and went more Gnostic. I'm told it was a suggestion by Neil Gaiman, which explains a lot. 8/10, if you ignore Tricia Helfer


MacGyver: This show no longer makes me want to hurt myself or others. It's gotten better. That's all I'll say about it. 5/10

Elementary: Good thus far, but I think the season-long plot needs work. 7/10

Scorpion: Strange season. A few episodes needed work on their science. There's suspension of disbelief, and there's "WTF?" Fun, overall.  7/10

Hawaii 5-0: Solid work thus far. 7/10

Criminals Minds: This one is on the bubble. The sickos are becoming more and more depraved, and getting more of the screen time.  The writers are still recovering from losing two main characters this season -- one of them unplanned --and replacement Adam Rodriquez is not yet annoying. They can come back, but they should do it soon, before I quit entirely. 5.5/10

If you haven't already, check out some of the books below.

 

Fall TV Review: MacGyver

If you're bored on a Friday night before you watch Hawaii 5-0, you could do worse...

Yeah. That's it. That's all I have to say.

I'd love to say that this is, in part, CBS studio mandate, because the original commercial for the show was almost completely scrubbed from YouTube. You can even tell in the writing of the pilot that it was put together in a hurry. How? You mean aside from the lousy acting that sounds like a dress rehearsal, and a slap-dash script that had all the originality of an episode of Glee?

In the original commercial, you might remember that Angus MacGyver rescues himself from what looks like a terrorist camp. There is explosions, and makeshift weapons, and tripwires made from a hose, a press conference with him in front of a great big American flag and military officers? Also an operation that looks like it's from later in the episode as he's infiltrating a high tech white-wall and glass lobby? Remember that commercial? That commercial looked like fun.

It looked like this.

That has nothing to do with the pilot, which really was scrapped and redone. And you could tell from the way the pilot unfolded.

The first ten minutes of the episode feature our titular protagonist working for ... a government alphabet agency cobbled together from leftover letters of the alphabet that haven't yet been used, DGX. Yes, I know it was the random agency mentioned in the early years of the original MacGyver, but did they have to try spelling it out?

Of course, OCP consists of a whole four members: MacGyver, a computer he's banging, a holdover from CSI who has some leftover charisma, and Patricia Thornton, their boss. Yes, if you were expecting Dana Elcar as Thornton, sorry, you're not getting him. Mainly because I think he's dead.

And, yes, MacGyver doesn't have a girlfriend here, he has a bang buddy, and they have all the emotional connection of actors in Twilight.

The pilot opens with our protagonist grabbing a random MacGuffin device from the mansion in the opening of True Lies. Mac returns to their Scooby Van (tricked out by CTU), to find his f***friend at gunpoint. So, he hands over the MacGuffin, like a total moron, gets shot for his trouble, and the computer techie woman is also shot, and her body is never found.

What's that? Disappeared bodies are always eyebrow raising in this instance? Almost like she's bound to turn up? That's right, and if she's not dead, what does that mean, gentle reader?  If you said, "She must be a bad guy," then you'd be right.

Agency XYZ is dissolved (because they have more leaks than a pasta strainer) and they reform as the Phoenix Foundation think tank....because they had to get in that somewhere.

Oh good God I hated that pilot.

Now, SOP is to try three episodes to see if things get better. And ... they have. The show is now "just okay." It's sad that this MacGyver (played by Lucas Till, a reject from the latest round of X-Men films) doesn't have that salt-of-the-Earth, mildly snarky narration, but a smug, self-satisfied explanation of things that make me think, "I miss Michael Weston and Burn Notice. He did MacGyver much better. Was Matt Nix busy?"

I mean, heck, you remember how MacGyver worked with a team every episode, right? Oh, wait, no, he didn't, that's why he had to explain everything in narration, because he had no one else to explain it to. At most, he had a really annoying friend come out of the woodwork to cause trouble, or a side kick he'd pick up over the course of an episode.

Speaking of MacGyver's troublemaking friends, you remember Jack Dalton from the original, right? Played by Bruce MacGill (most recently of Rizzoli and Isles)? He was a bit of a con man, shyster, mildly insane? A short, stocky fellow, who usually meant well, but would almost unavoidably get MacGyver into trouble one way or another? Yeah, that guy.

So, of course, this being CBS, they decided to dig up one of the usual suspects from CSI, George Eads, a smart mouth CIA shooter...No, they couldn't get Michael Weatherly, he's starring on his own show, now. Nor could they get Bruce Campbell, he's got his own show.

And Jeffrey Donovan not only did this show already, he's busy working on a TV show and two other movies this year.

Can you tell that this show makes me miss Burn Notice?  Every time the narration on this series starts, I expect it to start every paragraph with When you're a spy....

It also doesn't help that I can't track what MacGyver is supposed to be making, or how he's supposed to be making them. Which I somewhat remember being one of the interesting draws of the original show.

You want the big let down? It's not how they've jettisoned Richard Dean Anderson's show from continuity. It's not how this MacGyver is a womanizing schmuck who had to fish off the company pier. It's not even that Jack Dalton has been rewritten, or that they need a goth chick Chloe O'Brian knockoff from prison, or an annoying roommate for MacGyver instead of a house boat...it's that they only used the first ten notes of the opening theme song.

This is the new version.




To help you recover, this is the old version.



Enjoy.

Until further notice, I'll keep watching this show. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Fall Season Mini Reviews: The Failures and the Returning

I, and my family, have long since held the idea that we never judge a television show by its pilot episode. In fact, if we're interested in the topic, we do our best to hold out through 3 episodes before we declare it a failure or a success.

And then there are some exceptions to the rule. The following include the exceptions.

The Exorcist: I knew this was in trouble the moment that the original author, William Peter Blatty, wasn't named in the credits as working on the project. That was a great big warning flag. The first ten minutes were atmospherics. I know that's a lot of the original film, but good God in Heaven, this is a pilot episode, not a movie, the two things operate differently. Eventually, we get to the primary family to be haunted in this particular incident, and we see them in church, with Father Charismatic, who is upbeat, and friendly, and does a reread of the gospel reading in layman's terms and modern English. He's not hippy-dippy, but this is just the opening, during a sermon. They try to set up a bit of the character dynamics of the family, and they do an okay job -- enough to give us a sense of how the family operates, including a hint of the reclusive daughter, and highlighting that the father is a bit of a flake who can't keep track of his hat. Okay, fine. This is all right. Then, we're whisked away to a Flavella, where an African Priest is hunting down an exorcist in Rio, who "hasn't checked in," and is supposedly in the midst of an exorcism....while hanging outside, in the sun, drinking a beer, while the person being exorcised is chained up inside. I'm a little curious at this point to see exactly what's going on, when Father African objects, claims that this is against Church policy, blah blah blah, and Father Burnout pulls a gun on him.

That's the point when I checked out of this particular fiasco.

Blindspot: This was on the bubble for me last season, especially when half the episodes were good, and the other half were agit-prop written by morons, for morons. Especially when they had an episode dedicated to Black Lives Matter, suddenly made one character a lesbian who had been involved in Prism, and had evil cops using body cameras for blackmailing gay sports stars.  Yes, that was season 1.

Season 2 opened with our heroine, Jane Doe, being tortured by the CIA. We will discover that she was part of a super-duper black ops team that no one has ever heard of called Orion, and had been nuked by the CIA Director. They're pissed, and the tattoos on Jane's body are all part of a plan to bring down the entire government of the United States, BWAHAHAHAHAHA.  And Jane has to spend all of her time undercover with these idiots.

Yeah. I'm done.

ON THE BUBBLE

I'm going to be giving the following shows just one more episode to prove to me that I shouldn't ditch them and be done with it.

Conviction and Timeless only just aired this week, and they didn't immediately suck, as I was afraid they would. Give it time.

Designated Survivor: We all know the premise by now -- during the State of the Union, one guy in the line of succession stays away so that someone would stay alive in the event of an attack on the SotU. Part of the problem I have with it is that for every good moment they have, they added a subplot that looks like Seven Days in May, and I'm worried that it will be the punchline. If you don't know what that is, I'll explain when I do the full review.

Blacklist: I enjoy James Spader as Raymond Reddington, but the original premise of the Blacklist, taking down the Bond villain du jour. seems to have been replaced by bad soap opera. Let's just say that it's become a cold bowl of ... Masha potatoes.

You may groan now.

I'm going to give them one more day before I just tell them to go to Hell already.

MacGyver, the pilot sucked, with bad acting, color-by-numbers writing, and their MacGyver moments were so poorly executed, I said "I miss Burn Notice, they did this so much better."  The second episode was okay. The third episode is going to be the deciding factor.

Bull: I like Michael Weatherly, and I do like the premise. But I'm afraid they're going to SJW this to death. The first one was, again, iffy, with your standard alibi of "he's accused of killing a girl, so he's really gay!" I've only seen that about a dozen times.

Notorious: They haven't alienated me yet. If they haven't by the end of episode 3, I'll review it.

I'm currently watching: Scorpion, Lucifer, NCIS (the franchise), Hawaii 5-0, and Elementary.

More to come.

Anyway, you might want to check out my novel Sad Puppies Bite Back.  I promise, it's funny.

Fall season 2016 preview

Why, yes, I am off at DragonCon. However, I have some things to look at before I go,

I've already started my look at the fall season, where we discovered that Lethal Weapon, Exorcist, and 24, were all coming back, with only one new show.

And how we have. ... Training Day (CBS)

Guys, when I joked that this was the return of everything? IT WASN'T A SUGGESTION.

On the one hand, I never liked the premise of the original. Yes, I've heard that Denzel was awesome in the film, but... Denzel? Bad guy? Yes, he was also the bad guy in The Siege (sorry, post 9-11, Bruce Willis it the hero of that one), but still, really?

This ... I don't know, I might be able to get behind it. It'll be nice to see Katrina Law as someone other than part of the League of Assassins (she's a side character, honest. She's there). It's also nice to see Bill Paxton as something other than being horribly misused on Agents of SHIELD. Okay, he was gleefully chewing the scenery there ... and looks like he might have a bit of fun here as well.

Here, Paxton seems a little less of a corrupt cop and more of a burnout cop, with a few corrupt tendencies. Though, to be perfectly honest, destroying a drug lab and stealing their money sounds like a reasonable way to deal with the problem.

Pro: It has potential.

Con: Never bought the idea of the original movie.

Pure Genius (CBS)

In APB, the new series from Burn Notice creator Matt Nix, we have "Tony Stark takes over the police."

In this, we have "really boring Stark takes over a hospital."

Yes, I'm sorry, this does look an awful lot like one of those "inspirational shows," that looks about as inspirational as an insipid romance novel.

But then there's Reshma Shetty.

If you don't know Shetty, she's a fun Indian actress who was a star of Royal Pains for its eight seasons. She was charming and witty, and entertaining.

And yes, I'm hoping she's playing the exact same character, just with a different name.

And since she's going from a PA to being a doctor, my guess is that it's likely.

But yes, in general, it looks highly uninspiring. I've read Avon romance novels that had more depth and character.

Yeah, there's really only on Pro here. The rest, I can do without.

TIMELESS (NBC)

Oh God, not another time travel show.

I'm wondering what the bloody blue hell the writers were smoking. Did they binge watch Legends of Tomorrow back to back with Doctor Who and decide that time travel was the in thing?

Okay, yes, I'm being picky, but ... a show of hands, how many people think that this is going to have at least one preachy moment an episode? You know, the same exactly parts of Legends of Tomorrow  that really, really, really drag, and make me want to bash my head against a wall? Like trying to preach at us about the "sexually repressive sixties," even though, you know, IT GENERATED A BABY BOOM?

But, yeah, like with the bad episodes of Legends of Tomorrow, or with the entire series that was Cold Case, I expect that a good chunk of this series is going to be Orwellian rewriting of history to match whatever PC BS narrative is up and running.

I will give this a try in the hopes that it will try something new and creative with it. I won't hold my breath. I would like Goran Visnjic to have a good TV show, since I generally liked him, even on e.r. 

Pro: Goran, and perhaps a good action scene every episode.

Con: "In this episode, we have to make sure over a dozen people DIE on the Hidenberg." Yeah. That's going to be a barrel of laughs. Add in the potential preach factor, and the "I'm drunk, didn't think I'd be called in" cliche, and I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

MacGyver (CBS)

Oh come on. MacGyver? Why ... what ...

No, really? MacGyver?

Granted, in a world where Burn Notice lasted for years, we should have all seen this coming.

Also, he's still not comfortable with guns, but high explosives aren't a problem.

And oh God, the hair. Why? Wasn't the mullet bad enough?

And, while the original series had the concept of spy for hire (seriously, he blew up a Middle East nuclear reactor before the opening credits once), it wasn't quite this explicit.

Also ... where's the music?

Bull (CBS)

Dear Michael Weatherly ... was NCIS so bad that you had to leave it to come to this?

Sigh. On the one hand, the psychology of jury selection and running juries can be fun. Don't believe me, just watch The Runaway Jury. Or one of the Parker episodes of Leverage where it's 12 Angry Men.

This .... I'll give it a shot, though I think I'd rather shoot myself in the head by the end of it. Especially if they make it into multiple PC endings. "Oh, his alibi is he's gay."  Pull that once to get past your politically correct overlords, and I'll understand. Do that every episode, and I'm out of here.

Notorious (ABC)

Oh look, it's Piper Perabo, the blonde who made a CIA television show into a boring soap opera.

With games that slimy lawyers play action.

The description?

“Notorious” is inspired by the true-life stories of famed criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos and cable news producer Wendy Walker, who serve as executive producers. The series is a provocative look at the unique, sexy and dangerous interplay of criminal law and the media

1) Geragos never looked that good.

2) Geragos is also known as the man who only defends the guilty, and does it badly.

Among Geragos' clients are:

Clinton crony Susan McDougal: spent 18 months in federal prison. In his defense, at least Geragos didn't get Susan McDougal the death penalty. Any additional damage Geragos could do to McDougal's case was nullified when Clinton granted her a presidential pardon hours before he left office. As Susan McDougal assured New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in 1997, Clinton would never pardon her: "He's not going to wake up one day and confer it on me." As to how McDougal knows the way Bill Clinton behaves when he first wakes up in the morning, I'll leave that to your imagination.

Gary Condit: suspected (but never accused!) of involvement in Chandra Levy's disappearance. Condit was never charged with any crime. But he hired Geragos to manage a media campaign to defend his reputation. The next thing Condit knew, he was kissing his 30-year political career goodbye when he lost to his Democratic primary opponent by a whopping 18 points. Or as the kids are saying these days, Condit got "shrummed" by 18 points. The only way Condit could have lost by a bigger margin would be if Bob Shrum had managed his campaign.

Winona Ryder: convicted of grand theft. Instead of having her throw herself on the state's mercy and beg for a plea bargain, Geragos took the case to trial, where the jury had to balance a videotape of Ryder caught in the act of stealing against Geragos' argument that the store security guards were mean to her. (If there was any more to the defense's theory, I missed it.) Geragos boasts that he won a sentence of only community service and probation for Ryder. That might be something to crow about if the prosecutor had asked for anything more than ... community service and probation.

Michael Jackson: fired Geragos almost immediately after hiring him.

Scott Peterson: convicted of first- and second-degree murder 

With him as executive producer (meaning he has direct control over the content of the show) expect this to be Geragos rewriting a lot of history to make him look good.

Seriously, though, Geragos? Has Shonda Rhimes run out of ideas for morally bankrupt bastards, so they had to go to the LA lawyer?

Designated Survivor (ABC)

On the one hand, Jack Bauer is back on television. On the other hand ... the last time Kiefer Sutherland had a season that focused really heavily  on politics, is was season 6 of 24, and none of us want a rehash of that.

And he's the HUD secretary? HUD as president? Oh good God, this has so much potential to suck.

Please, I really want Jack Bauer back. Don't screw this up, ABC....

Oh, who am I kidding, ABC is dedicated to the morally bankrupt and the vile, I think it's their primary audience. If you want to prove me wrong, feel free to point out when all of Shonda Rhimes' shows are off the air.

Pro: President Jack Bauer. And you thought President Jack Ryan was scary. And FBI agent Maggie Q investigating the initial attack, leaving us plenty of 24 like drama to play out.

Con: HUD secretary as President. With Kal Penn ... freaking Kumar ... former Obama employee ... as his aide de camp. We are so f***ing doomed.

Conviction (ABC)

Oh, Hayley Atwell, I really do like you. You have a great smile. Lovely eyes. You're downright beautiful. How the heck did you end up with this mess for a show?

Pro: It's a new concept. We're going to take a former first daughter, who has all the bad habits of Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, and every other child actor train wreck, all blended into one person, and put her in charge of reviewing cases that had come before the DA's office. Add to that Eddie Cahill of CSI: NY (my personal favorite among all of the CSI franchise).

Con: There is no way this would work in real life. Suspension of disbelief? Heck with that. Just turn off your brain entirely just to get into the initial premise. She's a law professor sleeping with multiple students, drug, alcohol and party habits? Once upon a time, you had to be smarter than lawyers to teach law, but this? This.... This.... gah!

Time After Time

Here we have a plot instead of just "Oh look, a time travel show!" Granted, it's HG Wells versus Jack the Ripper, but okay.

I don't know how to feel about this one. Mainly because HG Wells hanging around just to deal with one villain seems a little like a solid movie of the week, not an entire tv show. And no, I don't recognize anyone off hand, but that doesn't really mean anything.

Biggest con, though? In the trailer, he has Jack the Ripper at gunpoint, and doesn't pull the trigger.

When in doubt, YOU SHOOT JACK THE RIPPER. Seriously, dude, otherwise he gets kidnapped by the Vorlons and used as their own personal psychopath.

This season has a lot of mishmash around here. It may all suck. Only time will tell.

And while you're waiting for all this to come out, you can kill some time with my novel Honor at Stake. Heh.

And ... enjoy.

DragonCon Report 1: Marketing Wins, Epic Fails, MacGyver, and Rocket City Rednecks

A casual Con-goer at DragonCon, dressed
in a Witchblade costume

Yup, I'm back from DragonCon.  This has possibly been one of the craziest I've ever been exposed to.  One panel said that the registration was up 30% this year, and another one mentioned that "We stopped selling tickets around 50,000 this year.  That's what we told the fire marshal. Shh."

Yes, "50,000" people spread over five hotels.  Did I ever mention I have a mild phobia of large groups of people?

Let me see, a few things worked, a few didn't.  You remember I had at least two evil plans for DragonCon.

One was an epic fail. I was going to give copies of It Was Only On Stun! to John Ringo, Timothy Zahn, and Peter David, and hope they liked it enough to give me a blurb.

John Ringo said that, since he tends to write in the voice of books he read, he was rereading his own books.

Timothy Zahn stated, before a room full of people, that he hasn't read fiction in ten years.

By that point, I didn't even bother with Peter David.

However, on the other hand, I was going to hand out flyers for the five free days I was giving out my book to Kindle users.  I had 500 flyers.  The free promo period ended last Thursday. I had 1304 people read the book. So, I guess that's a bit of a win.

Anyway, moving right along, we're going to start the first DragonCon report with something a little lazy -- to start with, I'm going to post a video of Richard Dean Anderson, better known as MacGyver, or as an officer from Stargate, the tv show.



Now, I found him a little boring, and if you folks agree, well, I'm going to try to make it up to you with a video of Travis Taylor (author, physicist, runs a show called Rocket City Rednecks) and John Ringo (author, author, and font of a lot of various and sundry knowledge),  Sadly, it's only ten minutes.  I couldn't get into this panel, since it was standing room only, and I didn't feel like being fit in with a shoehorn.

I actually thought it was kinda awesome, but I'm a nerd.



Be back tomorrow with more vids, and photos, and maybe some written reports.