DC TV Weekly #30

Supergirl 'Wake Up' Review
First thing to stick out to me in this episode was the reference to Superman: The Movie, which is fitting, as that movie's tagline was "You'll believe a man can fly" while this episode's tagline should be "You'll believe Mon-El can actually be an interesting character". Okay that wasn't the smoothest of openings, but you get my point. Mon-El was never a character I hated, but I also never cared for him, and I certainly never saw why the characters in the show cared for him. Now with his return, 7 years have passed in his time and it shows, he's changed. He's responsible, caring, humble, you know, likeable traits in a character. He's for some reason sneaking around even though I feel he could have just told the others what he needed to do, but let's overlook that for now. The relationship between him and Kara was probably the most engaging its ever been. The two have gone on such different paths since the last time they saw each other, there's still clearly a connection, but it's completely unsalvageable, especially with the inclusion of Mon-El's wife...you know, in case it wasn't absolutely clear the two weren't getting back together. I would criticise them for this inclusion, but if shipper culture has taught me anything, people will ship regardless of how dumb it is. Also Carl Lumbly is back, so of course I'm gonna give it a positive review, because I love Carl Lumbly and every scene he's in is perfect. Oh, I guess I should talk about Sam's story becaus-Whoops! Outta time! Guess I don't get to talk about a storyline that I am so very clearly interested in. Oh well, 7/10.

The Flash 'Therefore I Am' Review
Part of me has to feel this guy is way OP. A villain who is so unbelievably intelligent that he can predict every possible outcome, what exactly are Team Flash gonna do to get around that? I say get around because let's be honest, conundrums like this are not the writer's speciality. That being said, he's a different villain. An actual goddamn different villain, thank Christ! There is no mystery behind his personality, no pretending to be an ally. We just get an episode explaining the man's backstory, having us understand his motivations, giving him a strength, giving him a weakness, and we get some great scenes between him and Barry. Already he's the best main villain we've had since Eobard Thawne. Unless they put him in some sort of robosuit that gives him super speed which...I would say would be really dumb, but this show has had three speedster villains in a row and they didn't seem to realise that was dumb, so I honestly wouldn't be shocked. Oh, and Wally's back; I did not miss you. Oh well, just focus on the positives, as for right now, he's a great villain, great episode, 8/10.

Legends of Tomorrow 'Welcome to the Jungle' Review
Eh, you know what? If I was in charge of these shows, I'd want to use Gorilla Grodd as much as possible to. Cause apart from his appearance in season two, the guy has had a pretty solid record for being a great villain, and you know what? They continued that record. Grodd becoming somewhat of a god like figure who then tries to steal a time machine to erase humanity from ever existing is quite possibly the most Gorilla Grodd thing ever. So they've clearly got the fun and wacky side of Legends down, but it's one of those rare episodes that does equally well with the emotions. Mick meeting his father, a man that he hates-And I swear to god the actor playing his dad is the most entertaining performer ever, I want this man to read me a bed time story!-and get to see him from a new perspective, learn about him, develop as a character, solve his problems and doing it all in a way that never betrays the stoic, uncaring nature of Mick, it was really well done. So to recap: Super fun episode that does a really good job with the emotional stuff, yeah i'd say that's worth an 8/10.

Arrow 'Thanksgiving' Review
So are Black Siren and Cayden James the big baddies for the season? I'll give the show points that up until now I didn't realise that they never set up a main villain for the heroes to fight, they usually do that within the first episode or two. Instead the rest of this season so far has been several medium plots instead of just one giant plot, which in a way I think I liked, because it meant if one plot wasn't working for you then you had several others to connect to. If they are the closest thing we get to a main villain then I'm fine with it. Katie Cassidy is just so much better as Black Siren than she was Black Canary, in the same way Danielle Pannabaker is better as Killer Frost than Caitlin Snow. They're just clearly having so much fun playing villains that they so much more entertaining to watch. Cayden James I'm not so sure about, he's the smug super genius that we've seen a million times before and his motivation is literally the reverse of Prometheus last year. But he's not the worst foil for our heroes that is still Agent Watson, who my god, every time she appears on screen the episode suddenly becomes 1/10th as interesting as it was before. She's just a generic character that has been seen in a million other things. Moving on to some more interesting developments, Oliver is now officially back in the Green Arrow suit, and hey, just in time for the big crossover next week. Also Thea is back!...Okay seriously where the fuck was she. She was hardly in last season and for the first half of this season she's been in a coma? Does Willa Holland just not want to be in the show anymore? I'm getting distracted by little things. But to be fair, this episode, like this season isn't really about one thing, it's about several small things, so I can only give small opinions on them. Sooooo...Oliver getting arrested: Stupid. Team Arrow dealing with Siren and James: Decent. Diggle and Oliver's fight: good. The episode over all: Decent. 7/10.

DC TV Weekly #29

Supergirl 'Midvale' Review
It's true what they say, limits do cause artists to be more creative. I'm guessing this was around the time when Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh were filming the big crossover event this year, seeing as they're barely in this episode. But what we get in return is certainly a strong episode to hold us over, even if it is technically filler. Seeing more of Alex & Kara's relationship as kids and how they didn't get along shows a new side we haven't seen before. All other flashbacks have shown them to be idyllic siblings, which is probably not what would happen if your parents brought home an alien one day and said they were going to live with you. On top of that, we get to see Kara's first real friendship with a human, and how losing them changed her as a person, seeing more of how she became who she is today. Also, Smallville reference, that's cute. Even though this is technically filler, it's damn good filler, with a lot of focus on the character's relationships, expanding on their history and considering the writers were basically forced to write an episode without their two main leads, I'd say they did a damn good job of it. 8/10.

The Flash 'When Harry Met Harry' Review
Can strangers just...visit children in hospitals? I know that's just one of those small suspension of disbelief things, but it's just rather odd. Just wanted to get that out of the way, because this might just be the best episode of The Flash this season. The main plot of the episode has Barry continuing to train Ralph to be a superhero, which leads to a lot of funny moments, including an attempted mugging. But it also has strong emotional moments to balance it out; Ralph's actions lead to a child getting injured while trying to capture the villain, and we get a look into his character and why he is the way he is. He went into the private detective business because he still got some vague sense of performing justice, but without having to stick around to face the consequences when things got tough. It also lends itself to creating interesting conversations between him and Barry, Ralph thinks it's more important to catch the bad guy, Barry thinks it's more important to save civilians; neither are wrong, and that's what makes the debate so engaging. We even got a funny B-Plot to back us up with Harry bringing together a Counsel of Wells, including a bunch of wacky personalities from other worlds to give us a good laugh. The only weakness of the episode is the villain is yet again lacking, but it was clearly only there to be a means to an end. What the episode wanted to do, it did really well. 8/10. God, I can't believe that's the first time I've given that rating to a Flash episode this year...

Legends of Tomorrow 'Helen Hunt' Review
Heh, nice pun. I understand that it's very difficult to understand what I mean when a "standard" episode does or doesn't work, after all, I've both complimented and criticised episodes with the exact same comments. Really I think it just comes down to how much fun the show has in their environment, if they take full advantage of their setting and play with it how they can. In this case, going back to the golden age of cinema, and everyone talks in stereotypical 1930's accents, everything looks sleek and romanticised, the show fully becomes what they're trying to represent. They even manage to take the cliche body swap episode and have fun with it, Stein being put into a younger body, one that can flirt with his childhood crush and actually have a chance (Also Stein in the Firestorm suit). Also, Themyscira makes an appearance, and any nod to Wondey is a positive in my book. My only negatives is that if Helen of Troy is so beautiful that no one can resist her beauty, then how come Sara-the self proclaimed "You know I prefers girls" doesn't falter the same way? I get that it's a nitpick, it just seems weird that the show likes to play up her as being sexually promiscuous, and yet this is the one time they don't mention it? Oh well, it's still a fun episode nonetheless. 7/10.

Arrow 'Promises Kept' Review
Wait...they were playing Injustice 2...how does that even work?? Sooooo how to write this review where I don't just repeat what I said last week? It's a continuation of Deathstroke's story, I already said he was awesome, it just continues to be awesome here. In particular that shot of him bloody after killing all his men in the flashback, such a cool shot. There are some rumours of a Deathstroke show coming out in the near future, if so then I could definitely see this as a backdoor pilot, he got the majority focus and they ended it without a full resolution for his story. However, I'm not sure I like the idea of a Deathstroke series. He's an amazing character, but he's also an anti-hero, one we don't always root for, and I doubt the CW will go full Punisher will him, so if giving him a full series means making him more "likeable" then I'd rather we keep him as a supporting character. I even have positive things to say about the B-plot this episode. Structurally it was still a basic stop the bad guy plot, but at least this one was connected to Diggle's story and his own personal struggles that he's dealing with this season, meaning we got a lot of progress there and it prevented it from being boring. Overall, another great episode. 8/10.

-Danny

Star Trek Discovery - Mid Season Thoughts

We are currently halfway through the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, so now feels like the right time to talk about my feelings on it so far. I'm rather glad I didn't do a first impressions on this series because wow talk about a show that is bad at first impressions. Though it's hard to place why exactly the pilot was bad-the main issue being its poor pacing and lack of vital plot points that carried over to the rest of the series-but it still somehow felt hollow. Like a robot that just learnt what this pesky thing called 'human interaction' is, and tried to write a script around it. Thankfully-as many others can attest-the show does get much better with each passing episode. The best thing one can say about the show and the element that certainly feels the most "Star Treky" of it, is its desire to push boundaries. Star Trek has always been a franchise about embracing the new, doing what had never been done before, all the way back to the original series when it was the first show to feature an interracial kiss. Because Star Trek is both a thinking man's sci-fi, as well as a liberal's sci-fi. In the case of this show, one: having a black female protagonist who isn't the captain, two: featuring an onscreen homosexual kiss, three: using the f word...well two out of three ain't bad.

While I compliment the show on it's forward thinking approach and giving us things that had never been done in Star Trek before, there are somethings that I just don't need from Star Trek. I don't need to hear someone say 'fuck', but more importantly I really don't need to see Klingon boobies...seriously guys, why on Earth did you make Klingon boobies a thing? Funnily enough this does come from one of the more interesting sub-plots of the series, tackling the subject of male rape, as one of the characters Ash Tyler was a prisoner on a Klingon ship and now suffers from PTSD from the torture he experienced. It's a subject that is almost never explored in any medium, so for a series as important as Star Trek to tackle it, is a very bold move.

In my mind the ensemble of a Star Trek series has always been the most important, and thankfully this series has a great and interesting crew on board. Captain Lorca is a much more controversial captain than the usual pure good captains we've had in the past, he's a man that though still believes in Federation values, is also a man that wants to win, he's not naturally trusting, is harsh when someone screws up and one way or another will always get what he wants. Saru is an alien who comes from a species of cowards, meaning they often take the path of least resistance, but as seen in the series, while he is a genius and wants to do the right thing,  he will go to extreme lengths to protect himself, even when it's not logical. Tilly-though hasn't been given any significant character development, her initial characterisation as a bubbly optimistic but still inexperienced cadet makes her a fun character. Stamets I've already briefly touched upon as the first openly gay character in a Star Trek show, and the relationship between he and his partner is very much played down to Earth and relaxed, you really get the sense that they've been a couple for years and this is their version of settling down. On top of that he's also a genius but easily frustrated engineer who has no problem letting you know how smart he is.

You might notice there is one character I failed to mention, and that is our protagonist Michael Burnham. And there's a very simple reason why...she's just not that interesting. She's a human raised by Vulcans who later went on to be the first Starfleet mutineer, that is an insanely interesting backstory! But she herself just simply isn't! The human raised by Vulcan's angle ends up making her just a stick in the mud, not purely logical like a Vulcan and not emotionally vulnerable like a human, instead just a neutral blob with no defining characteristics. Even the mutineer angle feels like it's basically been dropped, starting out as a reason for everyone on board the U.S.S. Discovery to distrust her, but after several episodes she's basically one of the crew with no explanation.

The series also suffers from some major continuity issues between itself and the other Star Trek shows, mostly how so much technology and aesthetic designs will somehow disappear within 10 years as if they never existed. The main theory behind this is that the show exists within the Mirrorverse, a universe in Star Trek where everything is dark & gritty, and if so that would actually be amazing. It would explain the continuity issues, the focus on a darker tone, be a very original premise, and considering the mid-season ends on a cliffhanger of the ship being lost in space (and possibly time) it's looking more and more likely.

Overall while the show had a rocky start, I'm glad I stuck with it, because it is truly getting better and better, the characters are interesting, the plots are engaging, and production design is beyond incredible! Without a doubt the best looking Star Trek series we've ever had! So if you were someone who watched the pilot and dropped it immediately, i'd recommend giving it another try.

-Danny

DC TV Weekly #28

Supergirl 'Damage' Review
Supergirl has done many episodes drawing parallel to the Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump election. Most of them being emotionally fair, but also so direct it is slightly cringey. This episode is quite possibly the best they've ever done. Children getting sick and the Trump reflection-Yeah I know he has a name, but I don't remember it and neither do you-accused Lena Luthor, despite having no evidence to prove it. Yet the media of course cobbles it up and thus the narrative is created that Lena is to blame, leading to harassment, abuse, even death threats, and not even given the chance to defend herself because there's nothing to defend against, just false accusations made by a charismatic lunatic. And you know what? They did all of this without once turning to the camera and going "Wow. It's just like that thing that happened in real life". Unfortunately you then do have to question why they're mimicking a real life event that happened a year ago, but on the other hand, the idea that the media is going to twist narratives and scrutinise women for ridiculous reasons is never not going to be relevant. Oh, and I guess there were other characters in this episode...they probably did something...right?...7/10.

The Flash 'Girl's Night Out' Review
If this episode succeeds in anything, it's showing that complete lack of depth Iris has outside of her relationship with Barry. She has her bachelorette party, and who does she invite? Felicity and Caitlin...both of whom are...Barry's friends. Which is definitely something the show addresses, but then just says that doesn't matter? Even though the show does focus on Barry, everyone else gets at least some resemblance of a life outside of him. We see what Caitlin and Cisco's families are like, Joe has a girlfriend, Harry has a daughter. Iris doesn't have that; everything revolves around Barry, even her job as a reporter hasn't been acknowledged since season two. Having an episode focusing on Iris: good idea, but the emotional connections between her and the other characters don't feel genuine and the action scenes are dull, apart from Killer Frost and Amunet, because then we get to see both Danielle Panabaker and Katee Sackhoff be over the top, fun and badass. If anything, Barry still somehow stole the spotlight with his drunken ramblings. It was something we haven't seen from him before, and it was really funny. Also because the people he went out with on his bachelor party are people he would already hangout with. Except for Ralph, but that's kind of the point, they don't want him there. At best this episode was an okay plot with underwhelming execution, filled with decent action and some funny scenes, but nothing special. 6/10.

Legends of Tomorrow 'Return of the Mack' Review
Oh hey, Damien Dahrk is back...you know, he might have been a great villain last season, but that was A: Teaming him up with two other villains where he had good chemistry, and B: Bringing him in from a different show. It was a different dynamic and frankly, it worked great. This is overkill at this point, or...overliving? This character has run his course, stop bringing him back, honestly, he's boring now, especially on his own. In fact, the entire episode was kind of dull, it was another basic Legends episode, but we've had so many of them so far this season that I'm becoming less forgiving for them. The only point of interest is Rip's semi-betrayal. Trying to prove that he's right and can fix everything so he goes behind everyone's back and...of course he's proven wrong and suffers the consequences for it. That's interesting, that's different and that's believable. In fact I'd say is just barely saves this episode for me to give it a positive rating. 6/10.

Arrow 'Deathstroke Returns' Review
Do you wanna bet that the writers had no plans for Vigilante when they introduced him last season? He was very clearly a red herring for Prometheus and was never again addressed. Eventually someone went "I guess he could be this guy" because, y'know, superhero stuff, no one is ever really dead. And of all the people to waste immortality on, one of the A-List powers on a B-Plot villain. Also the FBI Agent is a character that I've failed to talk about because she is simply dull. She's a generic stick in the mud no nonsense fed who's going to be a thorn in the backside of our heroes, but lead to no actual important acts. Of course the only reason why I start with this is so I can spend the rest of this review gushing because while the side story was lacking, the main event was friggin phenomenal. Not to repeat myself too much, but Manu Bennett as Deathstroke can not be overstated how much good he has done for this show. He went from their best villain to one of Oliver's allies so quickly yet their relationship has been surprisingly believable. On top of that, the fight scene in this episode is one of the show's best. Most fight scenes have to be played down in some regards as our heroes don't kill, but in this case, they don't have to hold back. Deathstroke taking on an army of soldiers, slaughtering them left and right was brutal, well shot, well choreographed and unlike anything else in the show's run. If only the b-plot was completely skippable then I might actually like it more, but seeing as it does hold relevance to the plot yet fails to be at all interesting, it actually hurts the episode. But, it's a B-Plot nonetheless, it doesn't matter at all in comparison to the A-Plot, which in case you can't tell, was brilliant. 8/10.

I just realised each episode this week had a recurring theme of returning villains, which is nice, it means we get to see it done well, it done alright and done poorly.

Nit-Fix

Two of the biggest movies of the year were the remake of Beauty & The Beast and the reboot Spider-Man: Homecoming. Both were insanely huge at the box-office and were lauded by critics and audiences alike...And I didn't like either of them. But the reasons as to why are not the main focus of this post, that would be the reasons why others seem to like them. Whenever I speak to someone who enjoyed them, often the same few points would come up for each film. For Beauty & The Beast they would say "It actually explains why the servants got cursed as well!". Meanwhile for Spider-Man: Homecoming they would say "I like that they cast actual teenagers to play high school kids!". Now these are technically true, these are both things that were improved upon from these films over their predecessors; but they're not actual problems.

Did you honestly watch the original Beauty & The Beast and go "NO! I just can't accept it! There has to be an explanation as to why the servants were cursed as well!". Or when watching any of the other Spider-Man films, regardless if it was one of the good ones or bad ones, was that really the straw that broke the camels back? That none of the other high school kids looked like they were in high school? No. These are nitpicks at best, small problems that we notice and make fun of, but are hardly going to hold against the films. Instead we focus on the things that matter, the visuals, the characters, the music, etc.

However Disney it seems took note on the fact that we like to make fun of these points and decided to base the entire motivation behind these news films around those nitpicks as if they actually mattered. And somehow, people fell for it. They were actually convinced that these were major flaws in the prior films and this is all that matters. Now the Beauty & The Beast remake I admit has a hard time having a purpose in existing, the original is a near flawless film, one of Disney's best, there's almost nothing they can do to improve upon it, so all you can do is emphasise the nitpicks and point out how you're fixing them. Meanwhile forgetting about all the important stuff in a film and letting it falter at the expense. I don't know about you, but I'd say it's more important for a musical to have a lead who can actually sing! Than give a half-arsed explanation onto why the servants got changed. Even then it's a terrible explanation, the witch cursed the Beast only after giving him a chance, none of the servants got a chance, and even then, why are they bad people? Because they didn't stand up to a malicious king. Then spend the rest of the film on auto-pilot where they retell the exact same story note for note...The fact that Disney was able to make a billion dollars just reminding people that they like Beauty & The Beast is quite impressive.

Then with Spider-Man: Homecoming, I already did a post talking about how that film lacked any form of a character arc, stakes in the plot or any form of actual tension. But hey, they cast teenagers! So it's all great! That completely makes up for the lack of even the most basic storytelling functions! Who frigging cares if the characters are played by teenagers when the characters themselves are not interesting!?

I don't want to see this become a recurring thing, where mediocre movies are able to get away with being mediocre through the cinematic equivalent of jingling keys in front of their audiences' face. We deserve better, and you know what? These properties deserve better! Like I said, Beauty & The Beast is one of Disney's all time best, and Spider-Man is one of the greatest fictional characters. They deserve some goddamn effort!

-Danny

DC TV Weekly #27

Supergirl 'The Faithful' Review
Yeah I guess this is a clever idea, DC Superheroes have always been written as godlike beings, having a story about people forming a religious cult around one is a smart place to go. Heck, even the fact that they become so obsessed that they intentionally misinterpret what their deity is saying despite being obviously wrong is still accurate to a lot of people. The problem is, a group of religious nutbags isn't really a threat for Supergirl. Hence why at the end of the episode they had to bring in the deus ex of all machinas-Kryptonite. There had to have been a more interesting ending than this, in fact, during the episode they showed people intentionally putting themselves in danger just so Supergirl would save them, couldn't they have had that on a larger scale?

I should probably also talk about the other plots being established for this season. The first one being Alex & Maggie most likely going to break up. I'm not a fan of it. It could just be because the number of LGBT relationships in media that end happily is far smaller than the ones that end tragically so I kinda hate it. But it's too early to tell, maybe it'll turn out better when we get some more episodes detailing the break-up. Then there is Samantha, a new character who works alongside Lena Luthor and is learning she has superpowers. This is...interesting? I think? I can't really tell because we don't know a whole lot about her yet and apart from a basic connection to Lena, her story so far is very much standing on her own. Which I kind of like, getting us invested in this standalone character and then making her part of the main story is a challenge but if done well comes with a big reward. So we'll just have to wait and see which one it is. 5/10.

The Flash 'Elongated Journey Into Night' Review
How dare you sir, how dare you insult the good name of Plastic Man! Like 'Elongated Man' is any better. Of course I could just be biased because I have a deep love of Plastic Man and have absolutely no connection to Elongated Man, so I have no idea if this is a good representation of the character here. That being said, what we do get, I like. Ralph Dibney is represented more like an anti-hero, and not in the constantly scowling angry violent Punisher type, but more of someone who has their heart in the right place, but they're also kind of lazy and selfish and try to find shortcuts to the answer. I've gotta be honest, that's a much more interesting idea of an anti-hero than just the brooding action star. I'm excited to see where things go with the character, though if I'm honest the effects aren't really working for me, even on a TV Budget, and perhaps Barry was a little too mean spirited towards him? He literally labelled him a villain! But overall, still an enjoyable episode. 7/10.

Legends of Tomorrow 'Phone Home' Review
I'll give the episode this, out of all the pastiches Legends has done in the past, this is probably the closest to being an accurate replication of the original material. After all coming of age sci-fi films of the 80s isn't exactly scarce in material. E.T, Explorers, Monster Squad, Flight of the Navigator. It's a subgenre that's always has a certain charm to it, even when the stories didn't always make sense or the product looked kind of cheap; and that's a description that fits perfectly at home when describing a show like Legends of Tomorrow. Even down to the final shot of the entire team trick r treating with young Ray, it's silly, but sweet. But then there's the problem of focusing on one character specifically in an ensemble show means others don't have as much to do. In this case, Jax & Mick thinking Stein has betrayed them. Really? Are we actually meant to buy this? This is clearly just a time filler, and to give the characters something to do because they're not involved in the main plot of the episode. Making the episode feel rather disjointed when a large portion of the cast have nothing to do. 6/10.

Arrow 'Reversal' Review
Points for trying to put the same product in a different package at least. I can't really say this is exactly like all the other generic villains having generic evil plots because this technically does have recurring villains in the centre of it, though being completely honest I had to google who the heck this big baddie was-apparently he's been in the show before, do you remember him? I don't. I just saw it was Michael Emerson and thought "Okay, this has to be an important bad guy to get an actor that calibre to play him. Also having Black Siren as his second in command adds some credibility to his actions. But even still, it's just another basic villain plot, do you remember what they were stealing? Or why? Of course you don't. The big draw for this episode is having Felicity in the leadership role, which adds a new flavour to the whole thing, even Ollie in the role of tech support is kind of entertaining. It's not enough to make it a great episode, but it's enough to redeem it a little bit. 6/10.