Entry tags:
Catching up on TV feels
I am just poking my head up from massive, massive book edits. Even proofreading a 130K book takes forever. WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF. It should be out early next week, though.
So, a catchup post on various recent TV-related stuff.
First of all, a vid rec: Fringe - Walter - 1985 by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jmtorres. I never, ever would've thought of using 1985 for Walter, but it's such a hilarious and perfect song choice for him. Now I have Fringe feels.
This week's Flash: was certainly an episode of TV that happened.
When you've only got five episodes to the end of the season, it's really frustrating to get an episode that feels so much like filler.
I kept thinking about last season's time travel episode where Barry went back and encountered past!Eobard and Hartley. I LOVED THAT EPISODE. And this one just fell flat for me. There were things about it I liked (Cisco and Barry, especially) but in general I think the things that frustrated me most about this episode were, first of all, that none of it really matters since they're going to change all of it anyway. You can still have fun with an episode like that when you learn new things about the characters, but all the characters' dystopic futures were just so flat. And most of them hinged around Barry ruining people's lives by being a self-centered jerk. I actually am in the probably 10% of the fandom who does not think that canon Barry is a self-centered jerk, but boy, he sure was in this episode. (I did like that even our Barry had 0% patience with his future self. STOP CHANNELING YOUR INNER OLIVER, BARRY.)
But yeah, for an episode that was entirely about the future fates of the characters, there just wasn't any there there. Nobody's really changed at all in 8 years except to get a little more depressed and lonely (except for HR, who apparently is incapable of having deep emotional reactions to anything), and the only person who will be affected by any of this is present!Barry anyway; the city is the most flimsily dystopic dystopia ever (the only bad consequence of Barry quitting superheroing, beyond making his friends sad, seems to be that two of the show's less-effective villains are now committing more robberies?), and while he DID get a useful clue to take back to the past, I still can't believe Cisco invented a device that interferes with Barry's ability to use his speed, and none of the characters thought that this might be useful against, oh, say, the main speedster villain of the season.
This episode also made me very aware that, of their major female characters, one is dead in the future, one is evil, and one (if you can still count Jesse as a main character) is apparently permanently offworld and forgotten, which means the "getting the band back together" was literally all dudes. Really, show?
At least it looks like we're going to get a reveal on Savitar next week, FREAKING FINALLY. The tag scene suggests that it might be Ronnie, except that makes absolutely zero logistical sense, but I can't think of who else might've made Caitlin react like that. I think at this point they've dragged out the reveal so long that it's going to be anti-climactic and probably contradictory to previous episodes no matter who it is.
This week's Agents of SHIELD: continues to be my favorite thing on TV right now, and I STILL can't believe I'm saying that about THIS SHOW.
I really can't believe that Ward is still alive. Pretty sure that the writers know everyone is expecting him to die and are trolling us, especially this episode, between Coulson's "don't die" and then staying behind to guard the radio station at the end while everyone else escapes AFTER having a heartfelt goodbye with Daisy - yeah, now they're just messing with us. Not that I'm complaining.
I also had a thought while I was watching about the way they're playing Good!Ward as opposed to Real!Ward, which is the way that he's so respectful of Daisy's autonomy. Once he understands that she's not Skye, he notices immediately that he's making her uncomfortable by touching her and stops, and he makes an effort to call her by the name she prefers, even though it must be incredibly weird for him. (Asking her about her real name, back in the first Framework episode, was probably the moment when I tipped over into "okay, yes, I like him GODDAMMIT SHOW".) I also love that the point of divergence between this Ward and our Ward is after the fire and his jail time and not before, because it really plays into the show's current theme that we aren't really inherently good or bad, it's the people who influence us and the choices we make that cause us to be so.
I think the whole idea of the characters' bodies being in the care of homicidal robots who really WANT to kill them but can't, because of their programming, is perhaps the most wonderfully creepy thing this show has ever come up with. The tension is really ratcheting up. I also don't know how to feel about the fact that the show has now introduced a plausible means of bringing back actual, living versions of anyone who is currently alive in the Framework. tbh, I think the fact that there are so many people they COULD do it to is the biggest argument that they won't do it to anyone, because I'm not sure if they could get away with it for just one character without fans of the other characters screaming bloody murder. If they do it with anyone, I'm going to guess that it'll be Hope (or else Mack will opt to stay in the Framework with her, which, NOOOO, but I've seen people suggesting that the Framework might stick around and some characters, such as Ward, might voluntarily opt to stay behind and fix things there, which is pretty plausible, and if that IS an option, it's hard to see Mack going back to the real world without her).
This week's Supergirl: made me have conflicted thoughts about my least favorite character(s).
Okay, so, I can't STAND Snapper Carr. But the frustrating thing is that he's actually right most of the time. The show drove me up the absolute freaking wall the first season with the sheer do-not-want of the entire Cat Grant approach to news, which is "decide what you want people to feel, then provide information to make them feel that way/cover up anything to make them feel otherwise". And that's ... honestly, probably not inaccurate for how major corporate news works, but REALLY FUCKING CREEPY when it's coming from well-intentioned characters we're supposed to sympathize with, in light of actual real-world events lately. Let's just say that marathoning the series in the months following last fall's election was, uh, NOT the time to sell me on a character whose entire life is devoted to using news media to manipulate the public. I'm not sure if I hate Cat Grant, but I was vastly glad she's not on the show this season because just seeing her makes my eye twitch.
Except Snapper Carr is SO MUCH WORSE.
Except he's actually right about the journalistic ethics thing! And I keep wondering if there's a possibility that a lot of the way the show handles Snapper and Kara is actually a direct counterpoint to the the skeevier aspects of Cat's reporting style. (I feel like this would be giving the writers too much credit, though.) I really loved the theory of Kara having an older female mentor, but couldn't stand the character they gave her. In practical terms, as far as teaching her about being a reporter, Snapper is a much better mentor. Except he's so. fucking. irritating. In pretty much every way. And literally one of my biggest character-relationship buttons is "grouchy older mentor and young female mentee", and it is incredibly frustrating that both Cat and Kara, and Snapper and Kara's relationship epically fails to hit that button because I just hate watching them interact with each other. But I think under Snapper's guidance, she'll actually end up being a pretty good reporter. I just want him on screen as little as possible.
Dammit, show.
However, by the end of the episode I was totally down with a James/Winn/Lyra threesome. Some aspects of that plot frustrated me, but A+ cute character shenanigans.
A+ Kara & Mon-El sneaking-around shenanigans, too. KARA AND MON-EL INVESTIGATIONS. I'm there for it. I think I like the show best when the characters are just running around having hijinks while solving comparatively minor crimes. They're all so cute, and the actors are such darlings, and could we just have a whole season of that kind of thing?
However, I can't WAIT for next week, which looks completely up my h/c-loving street, and promises to have lots of Alex and Maggie feels. Fingers crossed the show will also manage to give James and Winn a teeny bit of screentime, or at least not forget that they (particularly James) exist.
So, a catchup post on various recent TV-related stuff.
First of all, a vid rec: Fringe - Walter - 1985 by
jmtorres. I never, ever would've thought of using 1985 for Walter, but it's such a hilarious and perfect song choice for him. Now I have Fringe feels.This week's Flash: was certainly an episode of TV that happened.
When you've only got five episodes to the end of the season, it's really frustrating to get an episode that feels so much like filler.
I kept thinking about last season's time travel episode where Barry went back and encountered past!Eobard and Hartley. I LOVED THAT EPISODE. And this one just fell flat for me. There were things about it I liked (Cisco and Barry, especially) but in general I think the things that frustrated me most about this episode were, first of all, that none of it really matters since they're going to change all of it anyway. You can still have fun with an episode like that when you learn new things about the characters, but all the characters' dystopic futures were just so flat. And most of them hinged around Barry ruining people's lives by being a self-centered jerk. I actually am in the probably 10% of the fandom who does not think that canon Barry is a self-centered jerk, but boy, he sure was in this episode. (I did like that even our Barry had 0% patience with his future self. STOP CHANNELING YOUR INNER OLIVER, BARRY.)
But yeah, for an episode that was entirely about the future fates of the characters, there just wasn't any there there. Nobody's really changed at all in 8 years except to get a little more depressed and lonely (except for HR, who apparently is incapable of having deep emotional reactions to anything), and the only person who will be affected by any of this is present!Barry anyway; the city is the most flimsily dystopic dystopia ever (the only bad consequence of Barry quitting superheroing, beyond making his friends sad, seems to be that two of the show's less-effective villains are now committing more robberies?), and while he DID get a useful clue to take back to the past, I still can't believe Cisco invented a device that interferes with Barry's ability to use his speed, and none of the characters thought that this might be useful against, oh, say, the main speedster villain of the season.
This episode also made me very aware that, of their major female characters, one is dead in the future, one is evil, and one (if you can still count Jesse as a main character) is apparently permanently offworld and forgotten, which means the "getting the band back together" was literally all dudes. Really, show?
At least it looks like we're going to get a reveal on Savitar next week, FREAKING FINALLY. The tag scene suggests that it might be Ronnie, except that makes absolutely zero logistical sense, but I can't think of who else might've made Caitlin react like that. I think at this point they've dragged out the reveal so long that it's going to be anti-climactic and probably contradictory to previous episodes no matter who it is.
This week's Agents of SHIELD: continues to be my favorite thing on TV right now, and I STILL can't believe I'm saying that about THIS SHOW.
I really can't believe that Ward is still alive. Pretty sure that the writers know everyone is expecting him to die and are trolling us, especially this episode, between Coulson's "don't die" and then staying behind to guard the radio station at the end while everyone else escapes AFTER having a heartfelt goodbye with Daisy - yeah, now they're just messing with us. Not that I'm complaining.
I also had a thought while I was watching about the way they're playing Good!Ward as opposed to Real!Ward, which is the way that he's so respectful of Daisy's autonomy. Once he understands that she's not Skye, he notices immediately that he's making her uncomfortable by touching her and stops, and he makes an effort to call her by the name she prefers, even though it must be incredibly weird for him. (Asking her about her real name, back in the first Framework episode, was probably the moment when I tipped over into "okay, yes, I like him GODDAMMIT SHOW".) I also love that the point of divergence between this Ward and our Ward is after the fire and his jail time and not before, because it really plays into the show's current theme that we aren't really inherently good or bad, it's the people who influence us and the choices we make that cause us to be so.
I think the whole idea of the characters' bodies being in the care of homicidal robots who really WANT to kill them but can't, because of their programming, is perhaps the most wonderfully creepy thing this show has ever come up with. The tension is really ratcheting up. I also don't know how to feel about the fact that the show has now introduced a plausible means of bringing back actual, living versions of anyone who is currently alive in the Framework. tbh, I think the fact that there are so many people they COULD do it to is the biggest argument that they won't do it to anyone, because I'm not sure if they could get away with it for just one character without fans of the other characters screaming bloody murder. If they do it with anyone, I'm going to guess that it'll be Hope (or else Mack will opt to stay in the Framework with her, which, NOOOO, but I've seen people suggesting that the Framework might stick around and some characters, such as Ward, might voluntarily opt to stay behind and fix things there, which is pretty plausible, and if that IS an option, it's hard to see Mack going back to the real world without her).
This week's Supergirl: made me have conflicted thoughts about my least favorite character(s).
Okay, so, I can't STAND Snapper Carr. But the frustrating thing is that he's actually right most of the time. The show drove me up the absolute freaking wall the first season with the sheer do-not-want of the entire Cat Grant approach to news, which is "decide what you want people to feel, then provide information to make them feel that way/cover up anything to make them feel otherwise". And that's ... honestly, probably not inaccurate for how major corporate news works, but REALLY FUCKING CREEPY when it's coming from well-intentioned characters we're supposed to sympathize with, in light of actual real-world events lately. Let's just say that marathoning the series in the months following last fall's election was, uh, NOT the time to sell me on a character whose entire life is devoted to using news media to manipulate the public. I'm not sure if I hate Cat Grant, but I was vastly glad she's not on the show this season because just seeing her makes my eye twitch.
Except Snapper Carr is SO MUCH WORSE.
Except he's actually right about the journalistic ethics thing! And I keep wondering if there's a possibility that a lot of the way the show handles Snapper and Kara is actually a direct counterpoint to the the skeevier aspects of Cat's reporting style. (I feel like this would be giving the writers too much credit, though.) I really loved the theory of Kara having an older female mentor, but couldn't stand the character they gave her. In practical terms, as far as teaching her about being a reporter, Snapper is a much better mentor. Except he's so. fucking. irritating. In pretty much every way. And literally one of my biggest character-relationship buttons is "grouchy older mentor and young female mentee", and it is incredibly frustrating that both Cat and Kara, and Snapper and Kara's relationship epically fails to hit that button because I just hate watching them interact with each other. But I think under Snapper's guidance, she'll actually end up being a pretty good reporter. I just want him on screen as little as possible.
Dammit, show.
However, by the end of the episode I was totally down with a James/Winn/Lyra threesome. Some aspects of that plot frustrated me, but A+ cute character shenanigans.
A+ Kara & Mon-El sneaking-around shenanigans, too. KARA AND MON-EL INVESTIGATIONS. I'm there for it. I think I like the show best when the characters are just running around having hijinks while solving comparatively minor crimes. They're all so cute, and the actors are such darlings, and could we just have a whole season of that kind of thing?
However, I can't WAIT for next week, which looks completely up my h/c-loving street, and promises to have lots of Alex and Maggie feels. Fingers crossed the show will also manage to give James and Winn a teeny bit of screentime, or at least not forget that they (particularly James) exist.
no subject
SAME!
It's also interesting to me that the people who have ended up so different, so fundamentally at-the-core different, are the two people who had changes that began at a point in their lives when they were malleable. It was the presence or absence of other people at such crucial times that made them radically different. You can argue that May and Coulson are still the same, just under the surface, but Ward and Fitz really, really aren't.
Oh, that's a brilliant point, and I think you're right. Coulson and May are coming back more easily and slipping back into their old identities, and Mack really hasn't changed a whole lot from the canon version, but Fitz and Ward are COMPLETELY different. Good catch.
Someone on Tumblr also made an interesting point, that with both Fitz and Ward, the big difference between their Framework and canon selves hinged upon the biggest influence on their early lives being a female vs. a male role model, mentor, and primary shaper-of-identity -- Fitz's mother vs. his father, and Victoria Hand vs. Garrett. It's hard to say whether that's intentional, especially since Aida is the architect of all the changes in the Framework, but it is an interesting parallel.
no subject
Ooh, now that's a thought I hadn't had before! It's definitely interesting, although as you need, with Aida as the architect it's hard to know how much of that was intentional. There are so many interesting layers to the Framework.