Of Swords and Parasols

73 x Continuum (mid-season 1)
33 x Covert Affairs (mid-season 3)

  

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Covert Affairs3.15-3.16:

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Haven 3.9: I actually could have gone for this one lasting a few episodes.( spoilers )

Once Upon A Time 2.7: This was pretty good despite some terrible dialogue, and apparently combining two episodes into one. I mean, Once doesn't exactly have the best dialogue ever, but it's usually better than this.

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Person of Interest 2.7: Apparently on tumblr, there's some sort of wank between PoI and Sherlock fans because PoI fans were referring to Finch as "their hedgehog" and Sherlock fans took offense. I have no idea what the significance is, but it certainly created some imagery when watching the episode.

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Revenge: I'm current, but forget what the actual episode numbers involved are. This season is doing plot things that I don't really care about (Pretty much most plot things not directly related to Emily) and so I'm having trouble paying attention to some of it, particularly given how irritating I find the narrative's attitude towards Amanda and Ashley to be this season. Really, I don't know. I liked the first couple of episodes of the season a lot because of the Emily/Charlotte/Victoria focus but the episodes since have left me cold despite my affection for some of the characters. I'm starting to wonder if it's one of those series that has a excellent first season but only really had about a season's worth of truly maintainable plot. (TBH, there seemed to be a fair bit of that going around last fall.) And, unfortunately, it's having the same problem as Once Upon A Time, which is an overabundance of (typically scruffy) white dudes in roughly the 30-40 range being shoehorned in and taking attention away from the more interesting characters and storylines. (Revenge, at least, was nice enough to cast J. R. Bourne and Michael Trucco as two of theirs, so at least there's some actor affection going there, but their characters pretty much exist to give a couple white guys things to do outside their relationships with women, so...) This is made even more annoying by the fact that right now, Revenge is probably doing the worst of the shows I'm watching in terms of female character relationships and how the women treat other women. Only Charlotte, apparently, is allowed to have anything positive in her relationships with other women, and even then they're all lyin to or manipulating her, and while Emily can somehow find sympathy for all the men in her life, she seems to have nothing but contempt and disdain for other women, particularly Amanda.

Revolution 1.8:

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And because I didn't get around to posting on last week's TV until after this week's Revolution aired:

Revolution 1.9: Not exactly filler as it was mostly character development (apparently largely designed to cater to shippers) But the only real plot momentum was with Rachel. My thoughts on Rachel are that I am very happy that this TV season and this show in particular is providing me with plenty of mothers who are morally ambiguous if not outright shady and have things going on besides thier kids while still being written as sympathetic and loving their kids.

Scandal 2.6: Have we actually had two whole episodes and no Fitz? Is it early Christmas?
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The latest Arrow and Beauty and the Beast were good but felt like filler with a few important bits thrown in. Elementary was interesting on the Watson front but the Mystery Of The Week was brought down by a trope whose execution I didn't care for with Gregson's old partner.

I've pretty much finished Rich Man Poor Woman and Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan, the two jdramas I started a few months ago and got sidetracked from. "Pretty much" because, the last time I looked, the last episode of Naniwa hadn't been subbed yet. RMPW floundered a lot in the middle but got back on track in thel ast two episodes and had a pretty strong ending. Naniwa was pretty hit-and-miss in terms of the cases, but the characters and character interactions were great. I also finished season 4 of Fringe, which had a lot of interesting ideas going on but seemed determined to strip Olivia of agency in as many ways as possible. Like with AltLiv's storyline in the second half of season 3, I keep wanting to write up a rant but dissolve into inarticulate raging before I even get started. Then there's season 4 of Parks and Rec, which was largely very fun (as expected) but while I like Leslie/Ben and Leslie running for office, I dislike how it seemed to isolate them from the rest of the cast for large chunks of the season, and I'm unable to comment on Ann/Tom.

Covert Affairs 3.12:
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Elementary 1.4: I think they were trying to make up for Watson not having as many scenes last week. I approve.

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Haven 3.6: Pretty solid Haunted House episode, properly spooky and creepy, and I was surprised all named characters made it out alive. Though the main thing I came away with is that Claire is a Buffy fan. Something of an underuse of Iain Glen, though, but I highly anticipate Claudia Black's arc.

Once Upon A Time 2.4: Well, it was only a matter of time before this season churned out an episode I didn't care for. I think I'm going to try to banish everything that didn't involve Red in general or Belle telling off men for trying to control her. And the last scene. At this point, my dearest wish is for Cora to off Rumples and become the main villain of the series, which would be much more interesting to me. BTW, I'm assuming that all the people talking about how "daring" and "unusual" it was to have an episode without Emma, Snow or Regina has never actually watched another episode of US tv before without blinders, because there's nothing remotely unusual or unprecedented in women (or anyone besides straight white men) being shoved to the side so that men can be developed, especially if they can be developed via violence towards women. (All I'll let myself say about the main plot-talked about it too mych elsewhere already-is that while I quite dislike Belle's dad, I think the show expects us to find it illogical for a parent to flip out upon learning that their kid is shacking up with the god of evil who terrorized the world for centuries and enjoys randomly turning people into plants and animals for kicks.  Then again, his role here was purely an attempt to make umlpes look better by having someone else do bad.  Oh, and Charming seems to be raiding his daughter's wardrobe.)

Person of Interest 3.4: This week, Reese crashed a romance novel.

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World Without End ep 8: Pretty solid ending there. Ralph and Godwin needed to suffer a lot more (naturally, the villain I kinda wanted to escape and run away to be evil elsewhere seems to have had the worst death) but I'm glad this show remained true to the end in not coming up with reasons for us to excuse their actions and sympathize with them. Philippa summed up Ralph best when he was all "I know you always wanted me!" ie, "Yeah, you got a rough deal and I felt bad for you, but then you turned into a creepy raping murderer and that went away." Which is pretty much this show (and Pillars of the Earth) is about villains. A nice contrast to all the "but you don't understand HIS PAIN that drives him to be evil which we will primarily show via misogyny and racism, because we know fans are willing to look past that" that we get in so many shows. Not as good as PotE, but still worth watching. (As a side note, I'm very fond of Caris's outfit from this episode.)

The Bletchley Circle: Like "a series about women who made bombs in WW2" and "midwives who work out of a convent in 1950s London," "a quartet of female Bletchley Park codebreakers reunite in 1952 to catch a serial killer" isn't a series I would have believed would actually be made a year ago. And yet, they all came to be in 2012. None in my own country, but still. So, Bletchley Circle. A 3 part miniseries that just aired in Britain, is about Susan, Millie, Lucy and Jean, 4 women who worked in Bletchley Park during WW2, who are reunited in 1952 when Susan, now a housewife, pieces together parts of a serial killer's pattern from a radio broadcast. Some parts reminded me a bit much of why I don't watch many procedurals (various trigger warnings regarding dead bodies, violence against women and disturbing imagery apply, though I wouldn't say that there was anything gratuitous or, except one scene in the second episode, could have really been left out) and I thought parts of the climax happened more for drama than for logic or plot consistency (it's in keeping with Susan's character in one way, but not in another) but I enjoyed it and would not remotely object to a sequel. (Also, it has Anna Maxwell Martin and Rachael Sterling as the main character and nominal second lead character, and so I kept expecting canon lesbianism, which didn't happen. But it was nicely unapologetic about completely failing to pass the Reverse Bechdel Test.)

Covert Affairs 3.7-3.10: Despite this season being rather hit-and-miss with me so far (I still haven't forgiven them for that thing they kicked the season off with, and there was that boring Auggie stuff for a while) I mostly liked these episodes a lot.

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White Collar 4.7-4.10: I will be very surprised if episode 7 isn't my favorite episode this season. And I never pegged White Collar as a show likely to have an "ovaries before brovaries" scene, and yet it did. Not necessarily surprised that it did, though.

( spoilers )World Without End 1-3 (of ?): Nominal sequel to Pillars of the Earth in that it's set in the same fictional town 100 years later. And also, has an abusive husband named Alfred Builder as a supporting character. It's somewhat mixed and while I can't speak for the book, it actually seems to be relying a lot on similar plotlines. There are more women front-and-center than in PotE, but they're also on the receiving end more violence. Most of it is realistic enough as far as that goes (but we're dealing with fictional characters in a fictional town and aren't exactly closely adhering to history here anyway...) but most of it just makes me go "Was that really necessary now?" Though the villains in general aren't quite as over-the-top as in PotE. The romances are pretty decent so far (and neither of the guys in the 2 main romances have abandoned a baby to die in the woods-mindchanging or no-or make me wonder if he's a stalker) and I highly approve of the inclusion of the nuns, but things don't seem to tie together as well as they could. I like large chunks of it and dislike others (creepy monk [and icky plot stuff surrounding him] and Alfred need to diiiiiiiieeeeeeee. Though I was thinking I might like Alfred for a while there.) and will keep watching because I like Gwenda and Carris and the Mother Superior and enjoy Petronella's Eeeevil (mostly) and Isabella's ambition. (Also, Isabella's actress bears such a striking resemblance to Claudia Black that I forgot it wasn't her a couple times, depending on the lighting.) I also suspect it's something I"ll like more once I've seen the whole thing than on an episode-by-episode basis.

Haven and Downton Abbey are both back, but I haven't watched them yet, and I'm very behind on Sinbad without meaning to be (I think I'm grumpy about something in the last episode I watched). I think the season finale of that actually airs tonight. In non-currently-airing TV news, I waatched the pilot for Justified and kinda want that hour of my life back. I was going to watch more just in case, since pilots are often weaker than subsequent episodes and handle various things differently than the pilot would make you think, but then the main character broke into his ex-wife's house in the middle of the night so he could make a man Pain-y speech in which he ponders whether or not he colud kill someone in cold blood, and I decided my time would be better spent elsewhere. I also watched Hogfather, which was apparently in my Netflix queue because it has Michelle Dockery, since I haven't read the book yet, and it was grand fun, and I enjoy how the plot can almost be boiled down to "DiscworldEquivalent!Santa gets kidnapped! Death takes over his job and annoys his granddaughter so that she'll save reality! Hijinks!" I also have a thing for Michelle Dockery in general and her voice in particular. I've also almost finished Prime Suspect (UK version) after about 2 years of watching it off and on (Netflix kept having long waits on some discs). Helen Mirren is always most excellent, but while I'm glad I watched it, it's something I more appreciate than like. It's very Serious Business all the time and the revolving cast means there are no relationships of any variety to develop a real investment in, and no character but Jane to get attached to.

And I've been rewatching Poirot the last couple weeks, and between that and all the above, it rather feels like there's been an endless stream of dead bodies on my sceen lately.

Continuum 1.9: This show has now thoroughly confused me by actually being pretty good instead of just fun for two episodes in a row.

( spoilers )Covert Affairs 3.4:

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Political Animals 1.3: Why can't this show be ongoing instead of a miniseries? I want to keep it in my life a bit longer.

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Sinbad 1.4:

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White Collar 4.4:

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I'm also watching 2 airing jdramas that I keep meaning to post on but forgetting to. Naniwa Shounen Tanteidan is a comedy/mystery series about a 6th grade teacher who solvs crimes with the aid of 4 of her students and, sometimes, 2 police officers (one of whom inevitably has a crush on her, and is essentially a human teddy bear) who might be the only jdrama police officers allowed to be good cops without the series actuslly being about police officers. It's adorably and giddy and fluffy depsite having a plot that repeatedly exposes 12 year olds to dangerous criminals, dead bodies, and random other trauma. (Admittedly, most of it ends up not being as bad as initially believed.) It's delightful to watch but doesn't look to really do anything revolutionary. Rich Man Poor Woman, OTOH, is utterly addictive and reminds me of a lot of the jdramas from around the late 90s-2005, which I watched at about the rate of a drama a week for months when I started watched doramas in I think early 2006 (it was shortly after the first Hana Yori Dango and before the second was announced.) RMPW is half romantic comedy and half office drama, about Hyuga Tohru, an eccentric and abrassive near-genius who runs and IT firm and has a medical condition that prevents him from remembering most nams a faces, and Sawaki Chihiro, a college student with near-perfect memorization skills who has difficulty with social andp rofessional situations. She also happens to share a name with Hyuga's mother. There's lots of Drama and Shock Reveals that alternately make you go "...what...?" and "THIS DRAMA!" and they regularly consult shoujo manga (there's literally a scene where Sawaki is drunk and sees Hyuga in a cloud of sparkles) and I'm pretty sire they polled Oguri Shun fans to see what they wanted him to do if he was ever the lead in a romance drama. There's also a female romantic rival who seems to think "romantic rival" means "future BFF who thinks you're absolutely adorable" based on their interactions so far. It's utterly addictive. I should warn, though, that whoever does the women's hair in this should never be allowed near hair again. There are times when I think they're actively trying to make very attractive women look plain by bad hair alone.

NST has 5 episodes out, but only 4 have subs, and RMPW has 4 episodes currently out, all with subs.

Continuum 1.5-1.7: This show is really kind of not good at all, but whatever, I love it despite it's tendenc to be kinda of faily at anything but women with agency shooting things.

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Covert Affairs 3.1-3.2:

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The Hollow Crown: BBC miniseries (clocking in at around hours total) adapting Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. I've read plays but recall little about them, so I can't really comment on how faithful they are or aren't. It took me about 40 minutes in part 1 to stop just going "oooooooooooooo" over the costumes and settings, and I think I mostly enjoyed it (well, the first 3 parts, I haven't watched Henry V yet as it just aired in the UK todays) for the performances and visuals. I'd be interested in seeing what others those more familiar with the plays think. I think there will be more adaptations of Shakespeare plays airing on BBC 2 over the next couple months, but am not certain which.

Also, I first saw Michelle Dockery and Tom Hiddleston in Return to Cranford (and mostly associate him with that, despite being prone to refer to him as "Loki," though I associate Dockery more with Downton Abbey) where they were basically BFF who grew up like siblings and she got her jollies through trolling him and was trying to marry him off to Jodie Whittaker, so their being enemies here was just odd.

Political Animals 1.1: (I think this is actually a miniseries, but we can hold out hope for it being popular enough to get a sequel.) PA is basically an AU version of Hilary Clinton that may have actually started life as a Hillary Clinton/Murphy Brown fanfic. Sigourney Weaver stars as Elaine Barrish, the secretary of state (working for the president she lsot to in the primaries)and ex-wife of a former philandering president, and Carla Gugino stars as Susan Berg, a journalist who has been critical of Elaine in the past (to the point where she got banned from the White House for several years) but who has developed a certain appreciation for Elaine and is suppressing a scandal of the parrish family's in exchange for an exclusive week with Elaine. There are a bunch of other charcters floating around (Perhaps most notably Ciaran Hinds as Elaine's ex-husband and Ellen Burstyn as her mother, who appears to have a very adventurous sexual past. Sebastian Stan is also hanging around as one of Elaine's sons. I know he's popular in these parts.) but the main focus in the pilot was on Elaine and Susan's professional lives and balancing them with personal drama. It's a bit soapy but not detrimentally so, and it's amusingly devoted to making sure we realize that it intends to be a feminist show. Not that it isn't, but I kind of wanted to pat the writers on the head every time Elaine or Susan had a "we will now call society on it's sexism and/or double standards now" oneliner. (I mean, it actually does this well, but fairly obviously.) I have a few issues with the portrayal of homosexuality (or rather, with the plotline they seem to be going with with the one canon gay character, realistic as it may be) and how the POC characters seem to be heading (and I wonder if Adrian Pasdar being of Iranian descent had any affect on one plotline), but both of those could end up being done well by the end of the season.

Sinbad 1.1-1.2: A very fun show in which a Sinbad adaptation actually has a cast with more POC than not. (Kind of sad that the latter part is surprising.) In this version, 20-ish Sinbad messes up on an amazing enough level that not only is the Emir's brother (Sayid from Lost) sending every soldier in the country looking for him, but his own grandmother curses him so that a golden collar will strangle him if he spends more than a day and night on land (though, it seems you could get around some of that if you could manage to keep a small boat anchored just off shore...). But basically, you know you messed up if your granny who clearly loves you very much puts a deadly curse on you. (His granny is kinda really badass.) There are a lot mor female characters than I was expecting. Granny, of course, but also a fabulous evil sorceress, a thief, an African lady with A Mysterious Secret, possibly Sinbad's mother, a pirate cannibal queen with the potential to be a recurring character, and i think I've spotted what looks to be a female hunter in a promotional image or two. Sinbad's crew also includes an amusingly (for now, I can see it getting old) naive doctor, a drill sergeant for a cook, andthe show's token white dude, who has the potential to be fairly interesting. It's hard not to compare it to the 90s show (Which it clearly does better than in some areas, but also lacks the giddy cheese and crack of the 90s show. And, well, this Sinbad just isn't as blithely coky. Though he is a very pretty boy, and well cast.) but it's exceptionally fun and I hope it remains so.

White Collar 4.1-4.2: Oh look, after being in every episode for 3 seasons, Jones finally got moved from the guest stars list to the regulars list.

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211 x Covert Affairs (season 2)


  

icons @ my LJ

Homeland through whatever: I ended up bingeing on this in a "this is too much for me I need a break CANNOTSTOPMUSTKNOWWHATISNEXT" way. And I'm not even sure I like it! For that matter, i'm not sure if I like any of the characters besides Jessica, though I'm kinda a wee bit obsessed with Carrie. But it's undeniably well written and acted and while I have problems with the plot, the twists and suspense work for me, even if I don't always like the twists. Also, I'm glad we've eased off with the really uncomfortable/awkward sex scenes and random nudity, and it always helps when major characters actually interact with each other.


( Once Upon A Time 1.4 )

( Ringer 1.9 )

( Covert Affairs 2.13 )
 

( Revenge 1.8 )

 

( Lost Girl 2.8 )

 

( Pan Am 1.8 )

 

( Nikita 2.8-2.9 )

Nikita 2.6: Wow, show, it only took you 1 1/4 seasons to actually get into your main character's background.

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Lost Girl 2.6:

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Pan Am 1.5-1.6: For reasons I do not fully understand, I like this show more with every episode. That probably mean it will be cancelled.

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Ringer 1.7: I did not know this was going on break for a week until I didn't have a new episode!

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Once Upon A Time 1.2: 

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Covert Affairs 2.11: I did not know this was coming back this week! So happy!

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Revenge 1.6-1.7: So very glad there wasn't any hiatus between these episodes.

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