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: Supergirl

The first half of the season is done. Time to break them down.

Item the First

It's a puff piece, it's agit-prop, no, it's Supergirl!

Dear, God, SOMEBODY SAVE THIS SHOW.

Sigh. Too late.

Okay, fine, let's break this down.

The Good: The move for the CW has definitely improved the series. In the first few episodes, you can see the budget actually show up on the screen.

 I guess that means that the filming on location in LA really did eat up most of the budget while they were on CBS.


There is obvious effort put in here and there. The end result of the villain Parasite, for example, wasn't that bad. I say the end result because he was really a global warming fanatic who went insane.

They had one or two obvious character choices for certain players that they did not take that surprised me -- mostly, their decision to not make every member of the Luthor family into a flaming psychopath.

And, to be honest, I don't mind their Superman. I mean, heck, he SMILES. Was a Superman allowed to smile since Christopher Reeves? Hell, Brandon Routh was so dang stiff, he should have been an awesome Superman. He wasn't even allowed to smile until he became Ray Palmer, and now, he makes a great Clark Kent on Legends of Tomorrow ... as the wrong character.

The Bad: everything else.

No, really. This is bad. The opening of the season wasn't that bad. It had Kara and Clark, and it wasn't that bad ... okay, the Cat Grant lusting after a man who is obviously 15-20 years younger than herself was amazingly creepy, and everyone else just looked uncomfortable without calling her on it.

The primary thread for the season revolves around "anti-alien sentiment" and a "home-grown terrorist group, Cadmus." I mean, I can't imagine why anyone would have harsh feelings against aliens. I mean, they nearly DESTROYED THE PLANET last season. Though they actually have some counterpoint to this thinly-veiled political analogue, with even the Martian Manhunter directly opposing an "alien amnesty" proposed by a President Lynda Carter. So they have some props there.

And, seriously, "amnesty"? I'm sorry, in a world where Superman has official citizenship of the United States, are they telling me there's no way for these people to just fill out some paperwork? Is INS / ICE really still screwed up, even in the DCU? Are we kidding?

And we won't even get into the blunt forced message fiction about Kara's sister becoming a lesbian out of ... nowhere, really. Yes, the character of Officer Leslie Thompson from the Superman comic was gay ... then again, so was Rene Montoya, Cassandra Kane, and about half the women in the DC universe feel like they're at least bi, if not 100% lesbian. But they've spent so much time with the sister becoming gay, and less and less time addressing an overall plot. I fast forward through at least a third of every episode, looking for a plot. Kickass female characters ... and they made them gay. Yes, of course. Because "kickass" somehow must mean ... what? Butch? Therefore gay? Um, no, people. That's not how this works.

The sister's sudden coming out of the closet is particularly startling after first season and her having a relationship with Maxwell Lord -- who was so overbearing and overshadowing last season, his disappearance this season is whiplash-inducing.

Oh, and then there's Jimmy Olsen becoming the Guardian .... Do I even have to explain why this is a bad idea? Jimmy Olsen ... as a superhero.  Somehow, Jimmy Olsen is a cross between Iron Man and Batman. Look at him. He's even IN IRON MAN'S SUPERHERO POSE.

Even Kara mentions how her cousin sometimes works with a guy with a lot of gadgets and a lot of issues -- ie, Batman.

Oh, does this mean I can have Batman now? Please? Pretty please?

But, yeah, Jimmy Olsen as a superhero ... because the son of the Toyman made him a suit. Um, point of order, but did Wynn cobble together this super suit out of DEO technology? Did no one notice what had to be millions of dollars in hardware suddenly going missing? Is it as inefficiently run as every other government organization that millions can just disappear without anyone noticing? And screw that, now we just have the problem that Tony Stark has -- why is Wynn not making Guardian suits fro everyone in the DEO? Considering the amount of crap that they have to put up with on a daily basis, why hasn't Wynn made an entire SWAT team suits like this?

Worst of all ... why is JIMMY OLSEN having more time on screen as a superhero THAN SUPERGIRL. You know, in a series called SUPERGIRL?

Yes, I do consider it possible that Supergirl could recover. There was hint that Lynda Carter's President was an alien, suggesting that she be an alien menace, and that all of this illegal immigration analogy falls apart. But I don't see it happening, I truly don't.

And the sad thing is that this is all so easily fixable. I honestly don't care about Kara's sister and her new girlfriend -- that the sister has become gay, or that she has a girlfriend -- if they focused less on that and more on THE PLOT, I'll be happy.

In fact, you will find that complaint very often in the Berlantiverse reviews.  I want less focus on interpersonal relationships, and more of a plot. The sad thing is, for Supergirl, this is still an improvement over last season.

I may keep watching, if I have additional brain cells I feel like sacrificing. Otherwise, this is one hero I can without.

And, I can say without any shame at all, you're better off reading any of the following books.

 

Superhero Fight Club 2.0

Watch the shiny special effects and the dancing. It makes about as much sense as the first one, but it's cute.

It makes even less sense when you consider that they're still keeping the Supergirl universe separate from the Arrowverse, but if you're interested in making sense, don't go into comic books.

Strong Female Character Autopsy: Agent Carter and Supergirl

By now, we all know that Supergirl and Agent Carter have failed at being TV shows. The former has been moved from CBS and a $3 billion budget, and the latter has been outright cancelled.

Both have "Strong Female Characters," but is that actually the reason? Not really. Both failed from a failure to act.

If we're all being honest here, Agent Carter's season 1 should have killed it. At worst, women were ignored in the late 40s, not belittled and treated like crap. Almost everyone in her entire office outright hated her. Seriously, how did any of these guys ever have dates with attitudes like that? Carter, in turn, was so hostile to every single male in the office it was grating (hate the people who hate her? Fine. Hate the people who are NICE to her? WTF lady?). By the end of the first season, it had been toned down. And Season 2 almost turned that off completely, which was nice ... then it went soapy with the villains, and finally just went bizarre with a ten minute musical number in one of the last few episodes ... a musical number that came out of nowhere THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REST OF THE STORY.

Gah!

So, no, while it's better than Agents of Stupid, I will not really miss the show. Then again, who'll miss it? It's already got a petition to make it a NetFlix show with fifty thousand names on it. Yes. Really. Maybe then they'll cut back on the ultra-hard "Men are evil, womyn rules" bit entirely, cut out the soap opera, and just stick with halfway decent writing.

At the end of the day, Agent Carter didn't fail because the character wasn't strong enough, or even too strong.

The writing sucked.

Even the good season, number 2, was padded with irrelevant, unnecessary flashbacks that felt like an Arrow knockoff. I didn't care about the crazy super villain going from her politician husband to her gangster boyfriend. I didn't care about the pseudo-Illuminati (Seriously? Evil Businessmen rule the world? What is this? The 90s? Why not have evil white supremacist militias, too?).

Perhaps the writers felt that the character could carry the program. It might have happened if the show had actually spent more time with her. The show is called Agent Carter, not "Super-powered Criminal Minds."

And then there was Supergirl, brought to you by the same man who did The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow.

And it was an utter train wreck, a puff piece of a TV show filled with more cotton candy than a carnival. The characters were very ... chick flick. And no, not a good or witty chick flick (yes, those exist), but bad ones, with all the cliches. You know the ones I'm talking about: eating ice cream with her sister on a couch, talking out her feelings with her friends, and where her true "strength" isn't that she can lift a building, but that's she caring, compassionate and understanding. Are all of these automatically a problem? Not really. The Flash and Arrow also lean heavily on emotional stability, even angst. But the CW programs breaks up these thoughtful moments about our characters' emotional lives with at least four fight scenes an episode, a puzzle to solve, and threats to people we care about.

But for Supergirl, the writers relied on these moments. The better episodes had all of the latter elements. Their episode with a nuclear-powered psychopath hunting Cat Grant, and they had to figure out who the bad guy was, what his motivations were, and how to actually beat him? Those parts were fun, weren't they?

Then there's 15 minutes of Kara whining that Jimmy Olsen called in Superman to save her when it clearly looked like she was getting her ass kicked. Then she had to apologize for whining. Wasn't that fun? No? Yeah, you're not alone. That was so much of the series, it was painful.

What went wrong? Why did a team that puts out a product of quality put out this level of drek?

To start with, Supergirl was originally a project meant for the CW. But CBS wanted it, and obviously wanted it for their targeted audience -- really stupid ten year old girls who didn't know any better, and SJWs who felt like they could pat themselves on the back about such a strooooonnnnggg woman role model. Granted, on Supergirl, there are a lot of moments I can see a good script struggling to get through.

It's one of those moments where I can almost see studio interference doodling on the script pages in crayon. Every time that the show looks like it's going to be awesome, it starts whining.

And Supergirl is budgeted at $3 million an episode? Where'd that money go? Calista Flockhart's salary and hair care? They have THREE major sets -- a bat cave that looks less impressive than Arrow's, an office set, and a spaceship that is only a black room with a CGI table. Are they telling me that it costs $3 million for special effects that aren't much better than the ones Christopher Reeves had? Or was it all because it was shot in LA, and not the cheaper Vancouver of the other Berlanti-verse shows.

I'm figuring the move to the CW could be a vast improvement. Especially if they do something simple and merge the universes. No, I'm not suggestion a four-part crossover even that ends with Supergirl coming to the same universe as the other three shows ... that could be a bit of a Crisis in and of itself. Heh.

Besides, I'm trying to imagine Kara meeting .... anyone on Arrow, really. "Hi, meet Oliver .... no, perhaps Thea .... er, um, Felicity. That's safe. Except Felicity is just like Kara, only without superpowers."

That would be amusing.

At the end of the day, why did these shows fail? You could say that it was political -- you know, writers or studios pushing an agenda. Though I'm not even entirely certain that they know what their agenda was? Was it Grrrl power? In which case, I can recommend a webcomic for you. Was it men are evil? Well, then, it would be strange, since Kara lusted after photographer and part time underwear model Jimmy Olsen, while Agent Carter didn't know what she wanted in her convoluted love life.

So, while it may in part be that CBS wanted a role model for ten year old girls and TrigglyPuff, the simple version is that there wasn't any "there" there. There was no substance, and barely any style. You know you have to worry when one of the most interesting characters on the show was their low-rent Lex Luthor, played by objectivist Maxwell Lord. Hell, I spent the last two episodes screaming at the television for them to stop talking at each other and JUST DO SOMETHING DAMNIT. And while Agent Carter didn't suffer as much from the problem, there was a lot of uneven writing, where they didn't know if they wanted a spy thriller, or if they wanted a soap opera. They tried for both, and got neither. Seriously, when the most interesting character on the show, with the most character development, is Jarvis, not Agent Carter, in the words of Oliver Queen, you have failed this series.

But, again, in the case of Supergirl, I still hold out hope. With the move to Vancouver, expect to see the end of Calista Flockhart, and probably a few of the other actors, who would rather not move to the frozen north. They would rather stay in Hell-A, along with the CBS studio execs who scribbled notes all over the scripts.

And the advantage of being on the CW? Look over the writers of The Flash and Arrow. You might recognize some names. They're comic book writers, like Geoff Johns, or Paul Dini (of the cartoon Batman from the early 90s). And you won't see them on Agent Carter or on Supergirl.

First rule of writing for a comic book show? You might want to know something about comic books.

Season in Review: the DOA -- Castle, Agent Carter, and Supergirl

There have been so many shows this season, I van't even keep track, really.

So let's start with the dead, or the dying.

To start with, Yes, Castle has finally bit the bullet. But let's face it, we knew that it was dead the moment that Stana Katic wasn't going to come back. It has been eight seasons of utter insanity, and I enjoyed every minute of it. You could say that it taught me how to do romance ... though not quite as drawn out. Hell, you could even say that this was the tv show that taught network television that, yes, you CAN have a man and a woman get married and grow together as a couple, and not kill the show.

But, alas, it couldn't go on forever. You knew it was on its last legs when Season 7 ended neatly. I knew it was on it's last season with the incredibly shaky opening this season.

Oh well. All in all, it was a fun ride. And it will be missed.

Agent Carter, on the other hand, won't be. While I like the character of Peggy Carter, the show ... oh my God, the show. It had two modes: fun or brain dead. While the second season cut back on the out and out man-hating from season 1, there was a lot of talking and not a lot of actually doing anything. Seriously, people, the secret to a tv show is that STUFF ACTUALLY HAPPENS. As strange as that might be. In Europe, it is "the cinema" so we could see all the things on screen. In America, they're movies, because THEY MOVE. Remember that.

Of course, the past of Peggy Carter was completely irrelevant to the story. While it was amusing to see them at least acknowledge that Carter was a Bletchley girl, I didn't need to know that she was going to be a normal woman at one point. Who cared? Get on with the story. And then, in one of the last episodes, we had a 10-15 minute musical number while she was knocked out.

I will not miss this show. Good night, Miss Carter. You missed every opportunity to surpass Agents of SHIELD, and I look forward to when I can write the obituary on that show, too.

On the other hand, then there's Supergirl -- a preachy, whiny, wussy little show that somehow manages to spend over $3 million an episode. How does it do that? They don't really have an awful lot of stunts. Not even a ton of special effects. The sets might cost that much, but I'm a little curious where all that money went, because it wasn't on the screen.

Season 1 was a massive disappointment to me, and it can be summed up in the last two episodes. Yes, the last two episodes boiled down to "STOP TALKING AND DEBATING AND JUST DO SOMETHING. ANYTHING."  I didn't quite throw things at the tv, but it was close.

Also, there is something truly wrong with the show when it has a crossover with The Flash, and wastes it. I'm reasonably certain that they made Barry Allen dumber for his appearance on ths show -- it's the only reason I can imagine they had him throw lightning at someone made from pure electricity. And similarly stupid things. The only reason to watch that episode boiled down to watching the dynamic of Flash and Supergirl interacting.

The sad thing is that the entire point of the last two episodes, "Hope conquers all," is being covered to better effect on Arrow at the same time.

It's especially disappointing when the final fight scene for Supergirl was Kara and her uncle Non blasting at each other with eye beams. The result was for Non's eyes to explode, and him apparently dying. Please consider that the actor for that was Chris Vance, the same man who did some great Jason Statham fight scenes on a weekly basis in a Transporter TV show. And no one figured out that maybe having an epic knock-down drag-out for a season finale might, just might, have been a good thing.

Can you tell I'm annoyed?

While this show is not dead, it is moving to The CW, which is a good thing. I suspect that 90% of the problems with the show come from direct studio interference. They had one demographic, and guided the show for that demographic and that alone, completely ignoring every other type of possible viewer. Maybe whoever was jerking it around at CBS will be hands off when it comes to CW, and maybe the 8 million viewers will follow along with it.

And, with that show, Greg Berlanti will own Monday-Thursday at 8 pm on the CW, with Friday as a day off. Just imagine that crossover between Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow. You'd think that crossover might be a bit of a mess.

You might even call it .... a Crisis.

BWAHAHAAHAHAA

The Catholic Geek: Superbowl Edition

The Catholic Geek: Superbowl Edition



Host Declan Finn once against tackles a broadcast all by himself by completely ignoring the Superbowl, but does stop to make fun of Liz Bourke of Tor, Marvel's tv shows, and deliver some news about Deadpool, the Hugos, and maybe even do a reading from his work. Again.

May the stupid be with you -- Tor on Star Wars, Supergirl and Marvel

Tor, will you people stop being morons for five seconds? Please? That way I don't feel compelled to school your ass?

First, I saw the article on how "Supergirl is a metaphor for Being a Modern Woman," but you know what? I decided to not fisk it from orbit because it was just so stupid.

There's spin, and then there's using the stupid as an alternate energy source.

Especially when I got to the part of "In almost every scene, the Supergirl pilot is about a woman falling short of expectations, usually set by men." ... Except that the most belitting she gets is from her female boss.  Sorry, you have failed this review, this article, and, well, life. Thanks.

But hey, Supergirl is fighting men. And nothing can be good because men exist. And ... tell me how Tor isn't misandrist?

Second, I saw an article literally entitled "Is Marvel Shying Away From A Black Widow Movie Because They Know They’ll Never Get It Right?"  Which is funny because I just saw that Marvel announced a Black Widow movie within the last three months. So congratulations, Tor, you done f**ked it up.  A lot. Again, yet still, already.

Uh huh ... yeah, the entire thing boiled down to the Black Widow "controversy" a few months ago. In short: They're just fretting that Black Widow won't be a feminist movie, because they think their own narratives are the only ones that should be told.

And then, I read through their article asking if Star Wars fans should forgive The Phantom Menace, and if we should.

You know what? That's the point where I realized that Tor is a worthless piece of crap.

Follow this logic, if you can.  The article on Phantom Menace states that at least an hour should be cut from the movie. An hour. After cutting that, you get a tv episode. Maybe less.

And, after going through everything wrong with The Phantom Menace, the article cites a few things that were good about the movie .... and that's it. The article then uses those few breadcrumbs as proof that Star Wars fans should get over ourselves, and seems a little offended that we haven't all ready.

In fact, there is as least one section of the article that states that, well, The Phantom Menace is canon now, and if you don't like it, you can't really be a fan of Star Wars, now can you?

Welcome to hipster-fascism, ladies and gentlemen.

Review: Supergirl

My name is Kara Zor-el” …

And she spent 5 years on an island....

No, wait, that’s Oliver Queen. My, does Greg Berlanti love that opening.

Anyway, a feeling of excitement and dread followed the announcement of a Supergirl show. The media blitz looked like “OMIGAWWWWDDD!!!! A FEMINIST ICON! OH YAY!” I’m not sure if I have properly given a phonetic rendering of a Valley Girl there, but that’s what I was shooting for.

Despite the initial commercial, which looked like it would just be Felicity Smoake (from Arrow) with superpowers, the media buzz around this reeked of Social Justice Warrior, Politically Correct bull. In fact, the closer it got to the air date, the heavier it got. What excitement I had was starting to wane.

Then I saw the pilot.

Superman! Suicide Squad! Who cares?

A while ago, Kevin Feige, currently running the phases of Marvels' movies, has mentioned that Marvel will never go "GrimDark," like the first Batman vs. Superman trailer.

As he said it, I discovered I had the perfect word for what's happening with my tv shows. Seriously, multiple shows in my TV watching season, some of the better ones, have started going into ... bleak, dark, utterly hopeless crap. I'm really kinda tired of it.

But then came the new trailers over at Comic Con.

I guess the first question to ask is: Why is Kyra Segwick is in this film? Why, God? Why? Superman testifying before a Senate hearing? Batfleck shoehorned into the previous Superman film?

You know, the film Man of Steel felt like someone rewrote the awesome Superman: Earth One comic book by the amazing J. Michael Straczynski.

This feels like someone read the other two volumes and said "Hey, wouldn't it be just great if we crammed Batman into this?"

Sigh.

A few thoughts on Supergirl

This latest DC television show is brought to you by Greg Berlanti, who's busy taking over the CW network with Flash and Arrow, and whoever else he can get his hands on.  For some reason, CW didn't want his Supergirl project. So, he went to CBS.

My first thought, as I looked at Kara and her civilian dress?  "Did they just give Felicity Smoake Superpowers?"  Because the awkwardness and personality kinda match up.

My second thought was "Why is Calista Flockhart on this show? In fact, why is she employed? And can she be the villain?"

I like the feel of this, especially in the wake of the GrimDark Batman Vs. Superman trailer, which if it gets any blacker will require night vision goggles to see anything. I'm seriously, seriously tired of the GrimDark. This? This is bright and colorful and things blow up.

Though there are some odd moments I have with what's going on here, and it's probably the editing of the trailer: You have an army guy who deals with aliens dismissing the woman who can redirect a plane and stop bullets as someone who gets coffee?  Huh? What?  I think someone had time to fill and didn't know what to stuff in.

Another head tilt moment: Jimmy Olsen in the comics is a scrawny, nerdy, redheaded stepchild. They've turned him into a tall, knowledgeable, suave fellow .... who's black. The ethnic swap is the least of these changes, but the character changes are such that I'm thinking "Why even name the guy Jimmy Olsen?" Now, if they're going with the awesome, awesome graphic novel Superman Earth One, which had Jimmy Olsen as a former embedded war photographer who will do anything to get a picture .... that would be fun.  But this guy comes off as less Jimmy Olsen and more elder-mentor type.  At which point, is Perry White so damn copyrighted? Really?

Again, it might be how the trailer was put together that we're missing a lot of context. It might turn out to be stupid, but you know what, this at least looks like fun. And when DC comics seems to think that Grim and Gritty is the way to go, I'll take a heroine who smiles.

But my real problem?  I miss John Williams.

Supergirl reveal

Brought to you by Greg Berlanti, the man who brought you The Flash and Arrow on tv.  Supergirl, the tv show.

It'll be on CBS, not CW, but Berlanti has said "It's my show, try to stop me from having it as the same universe."

I don't know about you folks, but I like it.  And Melissa Benoist is cute. I'll take her / it.

Yes, I know I did two blogs today, but whatever.

THIS. IS. DRAGONCON.... 2009

These are notes compiled from my time at DragonCon, 2009, in Atlanta, GA.  Please forgive me if some of these are incomplete.

Day 1, Thursday, September 3rd

Arriving the day before the Convention started, we went to pick up the tickets we had purchased months ago. The line for pre-registration was …. first we went to one hotel, did a U-turn to get onto one line, which u-turned onto yet another line, and that was the line to get INTO the hotel, onto the line for the pre-registration room, where we got onto that line....

Yes, we went from a line, to get onto a line, to get onto a line, to get onto a line.

The preregistration line was was a serpentine deal across a ballroom about 30 yards long, roped off and packed. Organizers kept calling out names, because there was one person to deal with people in select alphabetical segments (Adams-Alabaster, Annoying-Bradbury, etc). It took two hours to get to the front of the line, where they had broken the line up into the segments per group—and we noticed they took 5-10 minutes per member. Later, they had tried to close the pre-registration line at 9 PM, with the room still full. The registrants refused to leave, and they didn’t close until 10:30 PM.



Day 2-- and now the Convention Starts.

10 AM: For the appearance of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (together for possibly the first time in years), the line into the Hyatt hotel wrapped AROUND the hotel. We asked, discovered that Nimoy-Shatner had been moved to the Marriott Marquis—the line we saw was for watching the reunion on remote large-screen TVs. It was originally placed opposite a Babylon 5 panel, but that panel had been moved to 4PM. Our last option was a panel called “Celluloid Heroes”



“Celluloid Heroes,” with Mike Mignola (Creator of Hellboy), Helen Slater (the original movie Supergirl ), Doug Jones (“Abe Sapien,” and Silver Surfer in the films), and Bruce Davison (Senator Kelly from the first two “X-Men” films).

Items of interest:

Mignola talked about how he wasn’t called to consult for the second Hellboy movie, which gave the director Guillermo Del Toro free reign, which is probably why it was so terrible. However, when Mignola looked at the finished product of Hellboy, he decided that those characters were more Del Toro's than his own. Also, the two of them had tried for eight hours to adapt a plot from the original Hellboy comic for the second film, and failed. Also noted was that Del Toro has a great way for getting around studio “suits”—film in Eastern Europe (aka the back end of Hell), where they would not go.

Apparently, Mignola was brought into Disney to do extra concept art for a movie that would become “Journey to Atlantis”. The artists at Disney are very cliquish, looking at Mignola like “what is HE doing here?” Apparently, the artists never talk to the screenwriters at idea meetings. Mignola, on the other hand, hadn't been informed about that policy, and when he went out to lunch with the writers and talked with them, they came back and they had a different film. He doesn’t know not to speak up. Also, when he first arrived, he had a thought of “Why is there a large poster of Hellboy on the wall?” After hearing about how the Disney artists admired his technique about different things, his first thought about one of the “techniques” was “I did it that way because I can't draw feet.”

Slater attended the High School for the Performing Arts (the “Fame” school), and auditioned for and won the role of Supergirl immediately after graduating. While on set, she performed a Shakespeare sonnet for Peter O’Toole, who was her co-star on the film. Being from New York, she talked with her hands gesturing. O’Toole asked her to hold two dandelions between her thumbs and forefingers and do it again. She learned how to put the poetry over the performance, or, as she put it, “getting the blonde out of her speech”. She would more recently play Clark’s Kryptonian mother on “Smallville.”

Now, originally, the primary villain from John Woo's Mission Impossible II was slated to be Wolverine in the X-Men films, but Woo kept him so long, Singer and company decided to go with an Aussie actor who was playing Curly in “Oklahoma” for the London stage, some guy named Hugh Jackman. They decided “hey we gotta keep an eye on him, he’s gonna go far.” Oh yes, and after shooting, the cast would apparently head to the bar, where Patrick Stewart taught everyone “photon torpedo” acting, moving as if hit, while the camera moved. “Position #7 [Pull to the right.]”

Jones, who also played the Silver Surfer in the second Fantastic 4 movie, is signed on to a Surfer 3-picture deal. The second movie has been written by J. Michael Straczynski.


Panel 2: The Star Trek authors cavalcade: with Peter David, Alan Dean Foster, Keith DeCandido.

When the panel started, there was a brief introduction of everyone except Peter David. He simplified it by asking “Is there anyone here who DOESN’T know who I am?” Answer: no.

Simon and Schuster: the people who bring you the Trek novels have been through a massive let-go of ST editors; they've cut two in the last year. In addition, the authors were told “no more multi-book story arcs”...and there are some who are thinking that this is the end of the Trek book franchise, since the contract is expiring soon.


Editors and Paramount have a great deal of power over the plots. One idiot named Richard Arnold once told Peter David that “there are no female Borg; we haven't seen them on the show, so they don't exist” (This was before the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine). As a result, Peter David's novel “Vendetta” originally came with a disclaimer that it was “not series cannon”. David's reply “So they assimilate everyone but the women? What are they, Hasidic Jews?”

An example of Editorial Power is the Death of Kathryn Janeway—yes, Voyager fans, she'd dead, get over it. It was an idea that was given to Peter David for the book “Before Dishonor.” It was not his idea, don't yell at him for it.

DeCandido had problems writing for Will Riker; According to Peter David, Jonathan Frakes told him that he played Riker as John Wayne. David then went on to discuss how he pictured his creation of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun as Mel Gibson as Braveheart ("I was a teenage warlord"), only without the death and dismemberment.

Alan Dean Foster talked about other projects like the novelization of the first Alien movie, where he could explain things that didn't make sense in the film. Peter David asked “Why did the escape pod only hold four people? Was this ship created by the people who built the Titanic?”

David continued with, “And another thing, I'm still waiting for someone to explain gravity on most of these ships. The only time I've ever seen it done was on Babylon 5, and they even made it a plot point in one story.”



Panel 3: Angel/Buffy guest stars: Kristy Swanson (KS, the original Buffy), Charisma Carpenter (CC), Julie Benz (JB), Felicia Day (FD. Creator of The Guild ).

Miscellaneous facts here and there: Tv sets have doctors to deal with pimples.

According to KS, the original Buffy movie was a Luke Perry vehicle. The soul patch in the move was a fake, and Swanson's cat one day licked it off and ate it.

Felicia Day reads romance novels,on kindle, just because the covers are embarrassing. Also reads JD Robb, which are mystery romances.

After a large round of applause upon her arrival, CC: “I come here for the ego boost.”


Q: “Ms. Carpenter, do you read the comics?”
A: “Well, I’m at DCon, so, yes, of course I do.”



Question on favorite character development:
A, Julie Benz: I was originally supposed to be vamp girl #1.... I got a name and a story arc, so, yay!
A, Charisma Carpenter: It was a little odd giving birth to a 6’2” African-American woman (Gina Torres).
FD: “Your vagina much be huge... on the show! On the show I mean!”
Charisma Carpenter laughs: “Yeah, Franken-pussy.”

Charisma Carpenter was recently filmed for Legend of the Seeker: The lead, Craig Horner, is a Buffy fan and geeked out on her.



Q: Charisma, did you like Buffy or Angel more...?
Charisma Carpenter: “Angel, of course, it had more of me!” [Done for the laugh, I think] “Buffy was fun though.”



Q: “So, Charisma, what did you think of the five seasons of Angel?”
A: “Well, first of all, I wasn’t in the last season; I was cut in season four... then the series got canceled... MUWHAHAHA. No, with the fourth season, it was really tough. I got pregnant, and things became strained with Joss (Whedon), and it reached a breaking point when I found out I would be fired FROM A REPORTER who called to ask about it. When I was approached about doing my cameo in Season 5, I told them, 'Don't kill me. I don't want to do this if you're just going to kill me... don't kill me...' and then I heard the plot of the episode and Damnit, they killed me. When I heard how I was going to buy it, I thought, 'Wow, that’s GOOD! Joss is still the master.' So, we're good now.”

Julie Benz will be in a new movie, a sequel to “Reservoir Dogs”, where her character wears 6-inch Louis Vuitton heels to crime scenes (Charisma Carpenter hugs her and says “I love you!”).



Q: What badass do you want to play next?
Charisma Carpenter: “I wanna play Julie! Or any Quentin Tarantino Heroine.” (Kill Bill’s Bride)
Q: No, I mean a real person.
Charisma Carpenter: “Julie is a real person!”
Julie Benz: No I’m not.
Charisma Carpenter: --Or I'd play Wonder Woman, but Joss isn’t involved with that anymore, so never mind.
Julie Benz: Well, as far as real people go, I was once mistaken for Kristy Swanson.
Kristy Swanson: You don’t look like me.

And, finally, one last exchange.



Charisma Carpenter: Julie bit me once.
Julie Benz: I liked it.
Charisma Carpenter: And then I hit you, and I liked it!


Panel 4: Apocalypse Rising Track,:the writers panel, starring John Ringo, SM Stirling, and Michael Z. Williamson.

When John Ringo's on a panel, by the way, expect to hear very little from anyone else. He doesn't seem to like the sound of his own voice, and though he came into the panel after driving 6 hours in 18, he still takes over

John Ringo: “I find it funny that this is a panel of disasters and someone just handed me a novelization of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen....

“Now, with Post Apocalyptic fiction, it's a way for a writer to make the world over in his own image, using the most unlikely hero—usually a version of themselves. In fact, the Western tradition has been scarred by it, with the Plague, which killed a third of Europe.

“Oh, and by the way, did anyone here see Cloverfield? I just wanted them all to die! Does anyone here known anyone as stupid as those people?

“One of the various problems with our modern world is that the Sun occasionally burbs. And that's fine if you're an ancient Roman, not so good for us. Right now, if we lost modern technology, it would be worse and more devastating than a nuclear war; with technology, we can support a planet of six billion people. If we lose modern technology, the planet has has a max capacity to support only 450-500 million people. Please realize that the “normal” world is not America, it's Darfur and Saudia Arabia.

“In 1869, there was the Carrington event, a solar storm that lasted for hours, hit the entire planet with a barrage of electromagnetic pulse. Now, it doesn't effect telegraphs. Us, not so lucky. Then again, in Tennesee, we can live off of squirrels--75 squirrels per person. And I live in Chattanooga, with the Tennessee Valley Authority. They'd have the power back up in two months.”

Miscellanous someone [most likely Stirling] “As for what's left afterwards... for example, archaeologists found a 3800-year-old clay tablet from town destroyed by Hammurabi. It had a stone letter in it. They were all excited and such, the first such letter they found of this kind.... what was on it? 'This is the third letter I have written regarding the silver you owe me…' The second one was 'You have not written me in the three years since your marriage…'

“And speaking of modern technology, Los Angeles.... You put a city in the desert? Really?”

Ringo: No I didn’t.

MZ Williamson [I think]: “As for after the fall, and what would be left, in my book, I had them retell Star Wars as their myth, only with the siege tower of doom instead of the Death Star, and they found a Star Trek Technical manual and decided to put it together themselves...after all, it had been done before.”

Stirling [I also think]: “James Clavell, the English author, was a POW in a Japanese camp in WW2, which he turned into his novel King Rat. After the war, he walked around the streets of London with two tins of sardines in his pockets because he had learned that he could survive on two tins and a pound of rice should everything fall apart.”

Ringo: by the way, for the record, the average lifespan of a lone wolf is about six months. Humans are also pack animals. Should the crap hit the fan, you can have all the food in the world, but that won't help if there are thirty people surrounding your house. Get friends.



Panel 5, 4PM. John Ringo reading

“Has anyone read Princess of Wands?” EVERY HAND shot up. “OK, then.” Working on the sequel for 18 months. Problems: Should he do it as one novel? Vignettes? What order should the vignettes be? And how do you top the last book?

Eventually, the reading was “Live Free or Die” (“no relation to the Bruce Willis movie”).
Premise of this book: a Libertarian with a napoleon complex becomes richest and most powerful man on Earth.
It starts with a statement of the real Scientific principle “Hm, that’s odd.”

And it leads into SkyWatch: watching the skies and the stars for things that can crash into the Earth and kill us. The joke is those that who can’t teach, go to SkyWatch.

And then they find a 10.4 KM concentric circle in space.

“Is this a joke?”
“It's from the Germans, they don’t have a sense of humor.”
“You do know what shape that's in, right?”
"Yeah, it’s a halo; maybe it’s Covenant. At the speed and angle, it won't hit us, but keep an eye on it, when it hits something, the explosion will be REALLY COOL."

Several weeks later: “Um, it's stopped.” Oh crap.

Cut to the White House Switchboard.

Operator: “White House Switchboard.”
Robotic voice: “WE ARE THE GLEEN. WE COME IN PEACE.”
Operator: “A prank call will only be wasting my time.”
Voice: WE. ARE. THE. GLEEN. IF YOU LOOK AT YOUR CALLER INFORMATION BOX, YOU WILL SEE THAT THIS CALL IS COMING FROM A SATELLITE. WE. ARE. USING. TO. RELAY. THE. SIGNAL. WE WILL CALL BACK IN 5 DAYS AND CALL AT NOON. GREENWICH. MEAN. TIME. PLEASE HAVE YOUR PRESIDENT CLEAR HIS SCHEDULE. HAVE. A. NICE. DAY.

Five days later, on a conference call with the G8 world leaders: “WE ARE THE GLEEN. WE COME IN PEACE. WE HAVE SENT YOU AN INTERSTELLAR GATE FOR YOUR USE TO COME INTO AND OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM. ANYONE CAN USE THE GATE AT ANY TIME AFTER YOU PAY THE OPERATING FEE. PLEASE DO NOT HAVE EXPLOSIONS WITHIN 300,000 KM OF THE GATE. THANK YOU. HAVE. A. NICE. DAY. ”

Now, to the hero—Vernon Taylor, or Taylor Vernon, no one can recall, not even Ringo. This Libertarian webcomic artist ran a SF site, which died after science fiction was superceded by events. One day, he discovered that the Gleen is addicted to maple syrup; he grabs a big rig full of 50 gallon drums of syrup, becomes their supplier, and is rich overnight.

The first story: “The Maple Syrup War”: Earth is too backwater for the Gleen to interfere, they don't have a world government body, no real political organization that the Gleen find acceptable, and that includes the UN. Every few years, the Rastor come, blow up Singapore and two other cities (because they were the brightest lit), and have tribute.

And then they take Hostages for maple syrup. Vernon sets up a transmission from his moon colony, relays it thru several satellites and Fox News. Green screen is set up behind him to add to the image of him being at home. “It may seem to you that we who collect the syrup are the servants of the people in the cities. To your collective mindset, you don't know this concept of freedom. Of individuality. Of liberty. The people in the cities... THEY ARE OUR ENEMIES. We WANT you to kill them. BLOW UP BOSTON. DESTROY NEW YORK. And please, PLEASE, NUKE DC! This is America. A place of FREEDOM. LIVE FREE OR—”
“We lost the first relay, swtiching to second.”
Picture behind him reverts to Mount Rushmore. “AND WE HAVE CGI AND GREEN SCREEN YOU ALIEN BASTARDS.”
“Lost the second one.”
“Cut.”
Afterwards, a CNN reporter says “We were hurt by what you said. You didn't mean the cities are you enemies.”
“Of course I did. They are. They're against everything we stand for. But I didn't want anyone to die.”
“Then why did you say that?”
“To quote the smartest rabbit I know, 'Please don’t throw me into that briar patch.'”



By the second vignette, Vernon has created a warship out of a 10km wide nickel asteroid, 9 trillion tons, armed with Archimedes mirrors; described as “insufficiently ambitious.”
An audience member hummed the Imperial Waltz, Ringo said “Exactly. In this, everyone's trying NOT to do the death star.”
And this armed asteroid is called Troy.



Panel 5: 
The league of redheaded stepchildren: Media tie-in authors Peter David, Timothy Zahn, Robert Greenberger, Catherine Asaro.

Most often line that they hear: “When are you going to write a REAL book? Not some Star Wars novel.” Tie-ins are a rung below SF/Fantasy.

When asked what projects he's turned down, Timothy Zahn turned down B5 —
PD: Don't worry, I did it.
TZ: Then I turned down a Halo novel.
PD: Don't worry, I did it.
TZ: I have objections to writing “Other people’s stories.”
PD: “Would you object to $100K for a screenplay?”
TZ: “Maybe, but that's weeks, a novel takes months.”
PD: “Not the way I write. I burn out keyboards. ”
TZ: My other problem with the Halo novel was that they wouldn't let me see their bible for the mythology.
PD: I didn't have a that problem. The Microsoft people were very supportive. When I was approached, I say “Yes, I love Halo,” and spend days doing research playing the game or reading strategy guides. When I handed in my outline, they said “Oh, you can't do that with this weapon, but you can with this, which is one that we haven't released yet.” But yeah, they were very supportive with me.
TZ. “Mom always liked you best.”
PD: “And is it any wonder? As for what I've turned down, I turned down writing the first Voyager novel; the show bible said Janeway was supposed to hold the ship together with willpower, spit and baling wire, between the Marquis and the starfleet crew members, the show ironed out all those rough edges.. And I turned down the novelization for Iron Man 2; Marvel was so paranoid, they insisted the writer do this with pen and paper. Then again, my theory is that if anyone asks if you can do something, then say yes! Then learn how.



Max Allan Collins wrote Road to Perdition, the novelization of movie based on his comic book. He put in background and stories that he couldn’t fit into comic. Publisher said take it out because “it wasn't in the movie.” The novelization ended up as 40k words. His revenge: he put the material into sequel.

On the Return of Swamp Thing: PD took old Alan Moore comics and rewrote the movie. Greenberger, working for DC at the time, said forget the movie, read the book.