Category: Television

Spoiler Alert: The She-Hulk Finale #SheHulk #MCU #spoiler #GoodWatch @SheHulkOfficial @MarvelStudios

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Spoiler alert!

I enjoyed She-Hulk immensely. As with every series that came before it, it did a few things that the previous series didn’t and carried with it its own tone. In this case, one of those somethings was breaking the fourth wall. I’m not a comic book reader, but I know that breaking the fourth wall is big in both Deadpool and She-Hulk, so doing so in She-Hulk is being faithful to the comic and not a cheap rip-off of Deadpool. In fact, she did it first. I get all that and have no (more of a) problem with She-Hulk doing it as I do Deadpool doing it. That’s to say that I think it’s overdone but doesn’t ruin either character, TV show, or movie for me.

Once again, spoiler alert!

That said, the final episode of She-Hulk overdid it. Once you get past the marvelous opening, it was ridiculous. The fourth wall breaking was too much. Consider when in Me, Myself, & Irene, Irene asks Hank, “Did you just refer to yourself in the fourth person?”

As you know, there is no fourth person in English grammar. Her point was to say that Hank’s use of grammar to describe a weird situation involving multiple personalities (as Hollywood defines them) was outrageous. In a metaphorical sense, Hank’s grammar was so bizarre that it would transcend known dimensions beyond what we could sense. She used a funny, shorthanded way of saying that and then moved along because all jokes get old eventually. If they linger too much, they quickly become cheap gimmicks that distract from the actual story. This is especially true where the specific way they presented it is screwed up. For example, I didn’t find “KEVIN” either funny or clever (though I did like the line, “Everyone signs the NDA”). I didn’t like the fact that she was supposedly outside of TV land, yet everyone treated her existence as normal or expected. Is she outside the fourth wall or not? That can work with the Monkees, but not with a huge, green superhero that can’t exist in the real world.

Moreover, when Jennifer Walters returned to TV land, she didn’t really get what she asked for. Sure, she got the ending she wanted, but that doesn’t address all her complaints. She was focused on how she wanted the story leading to the ending to play out. She didn’t merely want to win. How she won mattered. She wanted to be the hero, not Bruce. She wanted Abomination to learn a lesson rather than relapse. All we got from that new story was the conclusion with no showing of how exactly it played out to reach that conclusion.

The same could be said about the (ante?)penultimate scene. I don’t want to go all lawyer on you (<– lie), but why did the prosecution drop the charges against Jennifer Walters? The fact that they goaded her, even criminally, doesn’t relieve her of responsibility for her actions (i.e., she can’t justify putting all those people in harm’s way and destroying property as “self-defense” from an invasion of privacy that’s already resolved). Importantly, the script pointed that out! When her coworkers came to visit her in prison, Jennifer defended her actions, and then the attorney continued Jennifer’s story, adding additional facts that pointed out that Jennifer was still culpable. The attorney didn’t have to say that. She could have kept her mouth shut, and everyone would have assumed that Jennifer’s rant had legal merit. All the lawyers watching would have said, “Oh, yeah, drama wins out over law. Got it. We can move forward without complaints.” Instead, they made Jennifer’s culpability the fundamental basis of the episode starting with what was said in the previous episode, but they just abandoned it without explanation. Seriously, WTF? It would be as if She-Hulk were purple in the final scene, and no one seemed to notice or care. Well, I’d notice, and I’d care, and I’d write a post about it.

Wait a second. Purple Hulk is a thing? Okay then, imagine she was orange.

God dammit.

So, this isn’t a matter of me refusing to suspend disbelief in the law or science. If they say, “gamma radiation turns people into hulks,” “everyone’s entitled to one phone call upon arrest,” “vampires exist,” or, “Me, Myself & Irene is a treatise on multiple personality disorder,” I’m 100% on board, but they must stick with those premises. Otherwise, the show becomes an inconsistent and unsatisfying mess. Granted, some issues are trivial things on their own, but combined with everything else, you get a stupid episode without true resolution. The writers were just daring me to find things to dislike about it and left a bunch of things in there for me to find. (Do they think that’s what’s meant by “Easter eggs”?) Also, the structure for the episode can be summed up like this: “Once upon a time — here’s something that didn’t happen — they lived happily ever after. The end.”

So, I didn’t like the ending, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to miss it just because it ended poorly. It was a solid season introducing a fun character that should appear in the movies. Besides, you may not have a problem with the finale. Reasonable minds and all that.

You’re probably better off watching it — warts and all — than not.

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Dumb Watch: Dark on @Netflix #netflix #GoodWatch

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The next time some website says, “This is the best show on Netflix that no one is watching,” I’m going to assume there’s a good reason no one is watching it, and I’m not going to watch it. Last week, I learned that lesson the hard way. Dark (2017) was dumb. It tried to be smart, but failed miserably.

The show centers on a science fiction premise, and I understand that science, law, medicine, etc. always come in a distant second to drama. House M.D. was not medically accurate but still a good show. Armageddon was not good science, but I enjoyed it for the action movie it was. Even shows about the law don’t bug me; I just laugh it off. I’m cool with all that. That said, you shouldn’t throw around catch phrases like “the God particle” without any grounding in what they actually are. The end relies on a trope I see as a great big cheat, but I won’t link to prior posts on the subject. That would be a spoiler for those brave and patient enough to watch this.

A larger issue is that the dialogue is just terrible. I understand that something may be lost in the translation from German to English, and if that’s all it is, fine. It still sucks. But I don’t think that’s what it is. It seems that every other line is someone asking, “What are you saying?” They don’t even change up the wording, such as, “What are you talking about?” It’s always, “What are you saying?” Over and over and over again. It never seems to stop.

The second dialogue-related issue is that people never answer questions. The first person will say, “What’s going on?” or something like that, and the second person will respond, “I have to leave now.” On multiple occasions, this conversation occurs even though the second person just arrived at the location in order to have the conversation. They’re there for the sole purpose of communicating a message, and then they refuse to do so. Again, this happens over and over again. It’s maddening.

The acting is also, for the most part, intolerable. Yelling at people and long, awkward pauses don’t create drama. They must be justified by drama the script has already created. These writers don’t seem to get that. Regarding the awkward pauses, it was yet another way characters avoided answering questions. A lot of time was devoted to one person staring at the other while getting yelled at to answer the question or tell them what’s going on. This could much more easily be blamed on the translation or the screenwriters, so I’ll give the actors the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s the cause. It still sucks. The 10-year-old who played the deaf girl was adorable, so it’s got that going for it. Not much else.

Where have I seen such makeup before? Oh yeah! A dumb movie from 1989.

But take all that with a grain of salt. It has great scores on Rotten Tomatoes. My only assumption is that you’ve all lost your minds. (Metacritic doesn’t seem to have an entry.) If you do watch it, just make sure to take note of who’s related to whom and how. Try to remember which kids belong to which parents, and, of course, who is who’s sibling.

Really dumb.

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Nostalgic Watch: The Americans @MatthewRhys @HollyTaylor97 @CostaRonin @TheAmericansFX @hulu @RoysRestaurants #TheAmericans

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I’ve been binging The Americans on Hulu (FX Network). I had never seen a single episode before I started but had heard good things. I knew the premise: Soviet spies operating in America at the start of the Reagan administration. When the current young guns talk about their time in the war, they’re talking about Viet Nam, not Desert Storm. When the older crowd is talking about fighting the Nazis, they mean fighting actual Nazis in World War II. I admit that it drags at times, and it relies on the far too frequently used trope of emotional idiots making huge mistakes to create the needed drama. The latter is especially frustrating considering that it unnecessary in a show where the anti-heroes are being chased by the FBI and CIA. However, it’s a good show overall with a solid cast of actors, some of whom are new to me. The first five seasons have 13 episodes each, and the sixth has 10 episodes. They do a good job of demonstrating how most spies are recruited; most aren’t government workers. Each episode is about 45 minutes, but with a Chrome extension that allows me to speed up the episodes to 1.25x speed, I’m blazing through it.

I love period pieces because of the music and current events that they work into the script, some worth remembering, and some worth forgetting, but this one is particularly special to me. It takes place in the Washington, DC area, and the creators did a remarkable amount of research (perhaps because they grew up there as well). They get a lot of small details correct, from long gone television commercials playing in the background to various restaurants. The spies live in in Falls Church, Virginia, and though I didn’t move to Northern Virginia until 2000, I grew up in nearby Montgomery County, Maryland. I know all of the areas portrayed. As a recent graduate of the University of Maryland in the 90s, I started spending my weekends bar hopping in downtown DC and Northern Virginia. Honestly, the night life in Montgomery County was atrocious around that time, so the spots the show visits are where I hung out. I hope they visit the “Exorcist Stairs” before the show ends. I urinated down them when I was a stupid, young adult who had a lot too much to drink. It’s not an uncommon thing to do, though I doubt you’ll find mention of it on many websites.

Early this morning, I watched an episode entitled “A Roy Rogers in Franconia.” For those of you from the western United States that have a special place in your heart for In-n-Out, Roy Rogers is my burger joint that I like more than I should due to nostalgia, but with a menu that went far beyond burgers. When I finally moved to Northern Virginia, it was near Franconia, so I visited that Manchester Lakes Roy Rogers more times than I could possibly count. The last episode I watched before this post went live is called Lotus 1-2-3. I forgot that software existed. It was released when I was in high school but was already losing the war against MS Excel and Borland’s Quattro Pro by the time I was out of college and working as a software engineer.

Watching the show really brings me back to several times in my life, from childhood to recent college graduate to recent law school graduate, even though much of that time occurred long after the period in which The Americans is based.

As always, YMMV.

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Medical Watch: House, M.D. @peacockTV #GoodWatch #HouseMD

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Every now and then, I pick a show that for some reason interests me but I’ve never watched, and I binge watch it. It may be because I’ve seen a bunch of episodes that I liked (e.g. The Office and, well, House M.D.); I’ve seen a bunch of scenes via Facebook that I liked, which sometimes worked out and sometimes didn’t; it stars actors that I love; or I just heard really great things (e.g., Parks and Recreation). The past two weeks, I started watching House M.D.

Overall, I like the show, but this isn’t about making recommendations. I just want to make two quick observations. First, other than the Shield, I can’t think of any shows I watched that had multiple antiheroes working with multiple heroes, all working well together. Second, for a relatively short time, I had to walk with a cane, so I know how to do it. You’d think that wouldn’t be a difficult skill to master, but apparently it is. Let me put it this way: I don’t think I’d ever trust a doctor would used a cane with his right hand if his right leg was the problem (or vice versa). You hold the cane with the hand on the same side as the injury.

I didn’t like the last episode of season 2, which turned out to be a massive dream sequence (it could have been worse), and the trope of a disapproving and interfering boss is annoying (especially when the main character is always right), but so far I’m good with the episodes I had never seen before. I’m on season 3, so I have a long road ahead of me.

I can’t wait to see the episode where it actually is lupus.

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An Old Commercial @StarTrek #StarTrek

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Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s a commercial advertising Star Trek Enterprise. I never saw it.

This commercial is from 2000 or 2001. Why does it look like it’s from the 80s?

I’m old.

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Connections @BBC #physics #science #engineering #history #tv

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Look at me. Ending my streak of posts after an entire year, and the very next day posting every day for a week. Will it last? (No.)

I recently rediscovered the BBC show, Connections, hosted by James Burke. I used to watch this with my dad when I was a kid. This is a show about the marvels of science and engineering throughout history and, more to the point, their connections to one another. That is, a technology over here gets merged with a technology over there, and voila! A new invention. 

It’s enough to drive you mad.

I apparently remember it extremely well, because I find myself saying the host’s lines before he says them. Nevertheless, I’m relearning a lot of material. I recently learned about, and wrote a post on, the Cistercian numerals. To my recollection, I never heard of the Cistercian monks before learning about their numbers, yet they were mentioned in the one of the first few episodes, so my memory is exceptional, but not perfect. (My short term memory is failing, which is very unsettling.)

Another thing threw me off a bit. In the first episode – which is a bit scary, by the way – the host describes the New York City blackout of 1977, which left several planes circling overhead with nowhere to land. The flight he expressly mentioned was flight 911. A spooky an odd . . . connection.

Whether your academic or professional background is in science (like me) or history, this is still a fascinating and relevant show.

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Crazy Designs for RPGs @unclemacosx #StarTrek #DnD #RPG #TTRPG

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Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I share a tweet that reminded me of something else. (Image of the tweet appears at the end in case it’s ever deleted. ) To my knowledge, this tweet had nothing to do with RPGs. It was just a ridiculous design made for the sake of ridiculousness.

That said, it instantly triggered an image in my head. Is this the FASA Star Trek RPG equivalent of 3rd Edition D&D‘s roving mauler?

Which one is more ridiculous?

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Muppet Star Trek @brucemccorkinda @hafuboti #muppets #StarTrek #StarTrekSunday

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Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, in the final stages of the death of my year-long streak of daily posts, I return to Star Trek. (Star Trek Sunday? Is that a thing?)

Not everything seen as certain death is necessarily the end. There’s often a way out.

Okay, I admit this turns out to be a bad example for inspiring hope in the face of likely death. Plus, perhaps the wrong [guy] died.

Remember, no one’s really dying. It’s just the end of a streak.

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“What’s Old Is New” Watch: Strange New Worlds Series Premiere! @ansonmount @StarTrek @paramountplus @StarTrekOnPPlus #StarTrek #StrangeNewWorlds #Picard #Borg #GoodWatch

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I got up at 5:30 am this morning to see the second season finale of Picard and the series premiere of Strange New Worlds. As to the latter, I haven’t been this excited for a Star Trek series since Next Generation was announced. First, it’s purported to be a return to the episodic format that I prefer (though I hear there will be an larger, overlayed story, which is fine). Second — I never thought I’d say this — Anson Mount’s Captain Pike has overtaken William Shatner’s Captain Kirk as my favorite Captain.

No cheese zone.

This still looks like a large, ensemble cast, so it won’t likely take over as my favorite series, but you never know. It certainly started off great. TOS is back, but without all the cheesy, 60s-era TV technology that the young-uns can’t seem to get past. Also, season2 of Picard ended today, and I was pretty happy with that as well. Here’s a spoiler for the last episode.

Called it!

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Mythic Watch: Moon Knight @moonknight @MarvelStudios #MoonKnight #MCU #GoodWatch

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So, Moon Knight. Today’s the season finale.

As always, I got up early to watch it.

This isn’t a traditional review that implicitly claims that a show is good or bad based on some make-believe objective standard. I hate that pretentious nonsense. Whether or not you like a movie, song, TV show, or food is purely subjective. Instead, my approach to reviews is to explain why I like what I like and hate what I hate. If what makes me like/hate it applies to you, then maybe you’ll like/hate it too. I say, “maybe,” because there are other factors beyond what I can possibly express, but at least you have a better chance of predicting your reaction.

So, here is the context to understand the place from which my feelings arise:

  1. I grew up reading about dinosaurs and mythology, so anything involving either one of them has an advantage in gaining me as an audience, but are still not all winners.
  2. I’m not a fan of the comic book genre. However, when I was in elementary school, I’d sometimes hang out with my cousin. When it was too hot or cold to play outside, we’d read his comics. I remember them oddly well, but there were very few that grabbed me.
  3. I’m an apologist for comic book movies.

So, what do I think of Moon Knight? I love it. Considering the context given above, I don’t think I need to say much beyond that, as the explanation has already been given. However, I don’t want any of you asking for your money back, so here’s a little more. As with Shang-Chi before it, Moon Knight is opening the door to folklore, legends, and myths of a culture rarely addressed in western media. I’m sure most (non-bot) readers of this blog get that, but for our society as a whole, these other cultures are untapped resources. Disney is just scratching the surface with Egyptian and Chinese cultures. Give me Quetzalcoatl! Give me Shango! Give me Raijin! But please keep Chris Hemsworth as Thor. 😊

I suspect the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder is going to have me lose my shit for the same reason.

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