Sunday, September 30, 2012

'The Angels Take Manhattan' -- DW 7x05


This post brought to you by the best Easter Egg ever ... and also by the second best Easter Egg ever.

Ok, I do have to say that Amy and Rory went out of the show like pimps. With as much as Amy typically got on my nerves, I was glad at how she reacted when Rory decided that he was going to jump off the building to create the paradox. He has always seemed like he was willing to do more for her than she has been willing to do for him, so it was nice to see that she was willing to jump with him, instead of making him do it alone. It really made me think that she loved him, and that beyond it all (no matter how much she cares for the doctor), she really is in love with Rory and doesn't regret being with him. That and even more so when the angel unexpectedly gets him, and she decides that she is going to let herself be taken by the angel as well, just on the off chance that she might be able to be with him again. And yeah, at first I thought that River was only telling her what she wanted to hear when she said that Amy would end up in the same time and place as Rory, but after thinking about it for a bit, I wonder if she didn't already know that the angels were going to get Amy and Rory cuz she had already been with them after it happened. And I also wonder if River hasn't studied the angels and has a bit of a working knowledge of things that might happen when dealing with them; and if the only reason why the doctor doesn't know things for sure about them cuz he hasn't really paid that much attention to them ... I mean, he knows that they're there, but he hasn't really gone out of his way to figure out how and why they tick.

And as far as the angels being in NYC, I don't see how that would be a good idea for them. It's an awesome idea for a story, but when you are in the city that is famous for "not sleeping," how do you get around the fact that there are people around all of the time (night and day), and there is bound to be eyes on you all of the time? It makes things far more tricky for getting your meals (when you can only get them when you aren't being watched) than I would think they would want to put up with. And the Statue of Liberty being a weeping angel, also a very cool idea, but how does no one notice the Statue of Liberty walking around? Especially when she's creating minor earthquakes when she does it? At some point, someone (probably many someones) is going to look outside to try to figure out what the heck is going on.

There also seemed to be a whole hell of a lot of people turning their backs on angels and having dick happen to them. We've been led to believe up until this point that even blinking will ensure that you are fucked when it comes to the weeping angels, but there wasn't nearly as much of the "I'm going to eat your face ... and also your future" that we've come to know and love from the angels in this episode (at least it seemed like that to me), and that made me kind of sad.

I am also really wondering what the doctor is going to tell Rory's dad, seeing as how the doctor promised that they would be alright. Sure, we as the audience were likely to be made suspicious (at least I was) when the doctor told Pops about his previous companions and how some of them had died, but still, he promised. Well, in a way they are ok ... it's just that they're in the past, and there is no way for the doctor to go get them since they're now fixed points in time (but why 10 and Martha weren't fixed points in "Blink" as far as continuity within the show is concerned is going to make my head hurt if I start thinking about it too much). I started wondering after I watched the episode if Amy and Rory would go try to find Brian when he's a kid and see him (at least from a distance). He might not know that they're there, but they would at least be able to see him and know that he's alright. Someone I'm friended to on LJ wondered if River would be able to use the vortex manipulator to bring them forward in time, but if the two of them are time locked now, I'm not sure that would work (even if the vortex manipulator is able to get into places that the TARDIS isn't able to).

'The Good Shepherd' -- Grimm 2x05


Poor Monroe. Here he is, trying to do something good (and be a buddy to Nick), and what does it do for him? It nearly gets him killed. But at least Nick was got there in time to help him out, right? If he hadn't, I would have been very upset, since I like Monroe (him being my favorite character on the show). Sure, he's super helpful when it comes to Nick needing to know stuff about Wesen and Grimm culture, but that is completely beside the point. It's far more important that I think that he's cool. lol Also, the fact that Monroe was insulted by the idea of a digital clock ... priceless. Of course he would be.

And I was highly amused to find out that there are a couple of terms for humans amongst the Wesen (those who know about Wesen, and those who don't know about Wesen). The look on Monroe's face when he was explaining that there was a term for humans, and that it would be like Hank ... well, not exactly like Hank, since he knew about them, and then, he said what that term was. And all the while, Hank looking like "WTH?" Fantastic. Oh, boys.

I'm really starting to think that Nick needs to move the trailer. I've never liked the idea of it being out in the open like that, without anything to protect it, but I can't think of anywhere else that would be any better. Keeping it hidden in plain sight isn't a bad idea, but when Nick (and sometimes Monroe) keep coming back to it, I keep thinking that there is a chance that someone is going to make it to the trailer and either steal things from it, or else just hook it up to a pick-up. And the fact that he was followed back to it this time makes me even more nervous about him just leaving it out in the open. It's not like it's really secure. I'm sure that it wouldn't be all that hard to break into. If Nick doesn't want to leave it at his house, since he thinks that there is a chance that someone might get into it there (someone who he wouldn't want going through the stuff that's in there), why not leave it with someone he can trust? He can trust Monroe not to break or steal anything, and he could also trust Monroe to do his best to keep other people out of it. But if he's seen with Monroe, or at Monroe's a lot, it might make people think to look there. While the Eisbibers probably aren't going to be very good at fighting and keeping others out of the trailer, it still might be safe at the lodge that Bud belongs to (or even at Bud's house), since it being with them probably wouldn't seem very likely. I just don't like the idea of it being unguarded, and I like the idea less and less as time goes by.



'Pilot' -- Elementary 1x01


I'm going to try really hard to give this show a chance, since the source material is so very awesome. That being said ... I wasn't very fond of this episode, and I'm really hoping that what happens is that they find their groove with this show. "Sherlock" on the Beeb has been awesome since the very first episode, even with them making it a little bit more modern, but "Elementary" ... not so much.

I think that part of what my issue is here, is that with "Sherlock," the writing staff was still able to keep the soul of the show intact (even while making it a little more modern, and while still giving us all sorts of nods to things from canon). But with "Elementary," the writers seem to have taken the canon, and not so much left the soul intact. They turned Watson into a woman, I can handle that ... in fact, I thought it wasn't that bad of a change. The problem is that the Watson of this show is different in ways that I don't really care for. I would have liked it if they had kept the army stuff in there (even if they took out the part about him having a limp, like they did with "Sherlock"). The fact that Watson was an army doctor was kind of a big deal, and the fact that now Watson was a surgeon that came from money ... that's just a little too much of a departure for me.

I also had a bit of a problem with them sexualizing Sherlock so much, when the canon doesn't show anything like that. My god, the only woman that he really had any interactions with was The Woman ... cuz her mind was so awesome. From everything that I've ever seen, the man was asexual, and was only interested in the work. Why do we need to turn that into something else? Because it's American television? Stupid. And this Sherlock's "drug problem" ... not really happy with that either. Yes, in canon he smoked a pipe (and the patches that Cumberbatch wore as a nod to that were brilliant), and he also used cocaine, but I think that we need to remember that it was a different age then. Back when these stories were written, cocaine wasn't considered to be addictive, or even harmful. Yes, we know better now, but that doesn't mean that at the time we did. It's just that I feel kind of like, in focusing on the drugs, the writers of this show are trying to do the big PSA of "Drugs are bad, kids," instead of focusing on the character the way that he should be focused in on ... in that he is brilliant and an egomaniac, and he needs Watson to help even him out.

What I did like? Giving Sherlock tattoos. That may seem completely random and out of canon (and here I'd been harping about the spirit of canon), but I like it. I would imagine that the ink was really the actors, and the production staff really didn't have any say in whether his skin had it or not ... but they could have kept him covered up so that the ink was never shown.

I'm thinking that I'm going to give this show a couple more episodes before I really decide whether or not I'm going to stick with it, but as it is right now, I'm not holding out much hope.

Not Sure if I Like Her Yet.


I'm trying to reserve judgment for the new character on "Criminal Minds" ... that being said, in her very first appearance on the show ... she annoyed me. She kept making things awkward within the team. I guess that this might be expected in the beginning, since the team would still need to adjust to having someone new within their group. That being said, I don't remember their being this kind of need for adjustment when Emily came on the team ... or when Rossi came on, either. It seemed a little bit more smooth. Maybe I'm just remembering it that way now, since I have grown to like both of these characters. But still ... the way that she seemed so awkward when she overheard Garcia asking if she was nice, saying something about the origins of the word, and how it originally meant "stupid," and she hoped that Garcia didn't mean to say that she wanted to know if the n00b was stupid. Yeah ... awkward.

And the way that she talked over Morgan, cuz she said she didn't think that the Rangers needed to know that part of the profile ... that annoyed the hell out of me. She's new, and Morgan has been doing this for a while now. When you're the n00b, shouldn't you be deferring to those with more experience about what you should, or should not be saying in a profile?

I'm going to try to give her some more time, since it was only her first episode, but I'm really hoping that she will be a loss less jarring in the near future, that she will work well with the rest of the team, and that I won't have to hate her (and write fanfic where something horrible happens to her).

Thursday, September 27, 2012

'Arsenic & Old Cake' -- Copper 1x06


Is it wrong that I really, really want something horrible to happen to Elizabeth? Cuz I do. The fact that she keeps lying to Kevin is really bothering me, and this time when she lied to him, it bothered me even more (not just cuz she was lying to him, but also cuz her lie was adversely affecting Annie's life). I don't understand how she could willfully do something that would hurt a child ... I mean, I get that she's selfish (and really only took in Annie to make herself look better, probably specifically to Kevin himself), but when you are willfully damning a child ... how can you live with yourself? And she must have had an idea that what she was doing was horrible. If she didn't know at first, if for some reason she actually believed that jerk-face who claimed to be Annie's father, I think that she came to realize what a horrible mistake she had made when Annie acted so uncharacteristically fearful about what was about to happen to her. If she didn't, why would she try to save face with Kevin by making something up about what had happened to her. There wouldn't have been a need, if she thought that she was doing the right thing, and if she truly thought that Annie was going to be safe.

And I don't understand how she thinks she would be able to sex Kevin into forgetting about Annie. Elizabeth knows that he cares for Annie; she said as much when she was saying about how Annie has become a surrogate for Maggie. And I don't see how she somehow thinks that Annie will be the one thing in his life that he will suddenly be unlike himself about. She knows that he cares for Annie, and she knows that he has an inquisitive mind; he won't want to just take her word for it that Annie is safe ... he's going to want to see it for himself, with his own eyes to make sure that what he was told was true. And while it is evident that he likes Elizabeth, that does not mean that she has some extra-special power over him to make him suddenly different than the way that he is.

I have no doubt that once he figures out what has happened to Annie, and that she's back with the man that he promised would never hurt her again, and that it's all the fault of Elizabeth ... there is going to be some hell to pay. It won't even be just the douche that is still trying to pretend like he is her father (so that he can continue to rape her over and over again), but it's going to be for Elizabeth as well. And while I have no doubt that Kevin, O'Brien, and Maguire will beat the hell out of the douche that is pretending to be Annie's father, the tearing of a new one for Elizabeth will probably be the one that will be the bigger beatdown.

And Maguire ... poor, poor Maguire. Yes, I am still upset with him for also having pants that are on fire, but he really wants to be in love, and have someone love him back ... and he is trying to force the issue far too hard. He doesn't seem to want to wait for something that is real, and maybe that has to do with the fact that he really did care for Molly, and he is still trying to fill up the hole that she left in his life. But the way that he is going about it, I have a bad feeling that he is going to be so very, very sorry about the whole thing by the time that he realizes that he never should have tried to rush into anything after Molly died. And I don't think it will be just cuz of the emotional damage that he will have from trying to rush into a marriage when he is on such a huge rebound, but also it's going to be from the fact that I have a feeling that Mary is only using him. Once he realizes that she is using him, he's going to be crushed, and I wouldn't be surprised if he does something truly awful (either to himself, or to someone else).

'After the Storm' -- Castle 5x01


A brand new, shiny "Castle"!!

Ok, so, let's jump right into it ... we apparently have gotten right back to Castle and Beckett after they have told each other how they feel. I still think that the right time for this would have been the very last scene of the very last episode, cuz of how horribly wrong the show can go now that the two of them are together. Kind of the whole point of the show up until now has been the buildup between the two of them, them making us wonder if they would actually do anything. But now that they have ... I think that there is a real possibility that the show might turn into something far more lovie-dovie, and be far more about their relationship than it is about anything else ... and that's never been the central part of the show. Sure, that has always danced around the edges, but the real core of the show is Castle, Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito trying to solve homicides (with Alexis and Martha on the sidelines of Castle's life, giving him inspiration when he needs it).

And I will admit that I thought that it was kind of strange that the two of them, after so many seasons of them circling around each other (and everyone knowing that they are in love) that the moment that something actually (finally) happens between them, their first instinct is to hide it ... and not just one of them, but both of them. You would think that after all of this time, the two of them might be a little more willing to admit that what everybody already knew was coming, had finally occurred ... ok, so they didn't need to let everyone know that they had slept together, but what was there to hide about the two of them finally being a couple? Nothing, that's what.

But I do appreciate that even though the gang was in three different places, they all ended up at the same place in the end ... even if I'm not really liking the way that the writers are now making Ryan out like he's a little too jumpy with the gun. The guy was only trying to do what was right, and there was a tense situation happening ... plus, it's not as though he isn't a complete team player. Esposito may still be mad at him for telling on them in the finale of season four, but Ryan did the right thing there, dang it!!

Also, we now have the identity of the guy who was behind Beckett's mom's murder. And it turns out to be HRG ... sorry, I can't be frightened of HRG. He spent far too much time on "Heroes" trying to pretend like he had any idea of what he was doing. In the beginning, he was could have instilled some fear, but after we got to know him a little bit ... nope. And now, he will always be the non-threatening HRG in my mind, no matter what other roles he gets.

But now that we have Castle and Beckett together ... and now that we know who was behind Beckett's mom's murder (and as an aside ... why is it so hard for them to get the same actress to pose for pictures as her mom? Every picture that we've seen throughout the series has been with a different woman, and none of them even look alike) ... so where does that leave us. The main mystery of the show is gone, since we know who the shadowy figure is now. The "will they/won't they" question is over, since we know that they have. It makes me wonder if they're going to be able to keep the show interesting, now that they've started giving us all of the things that they've been leading us on with for so long.