Friday, February 3, 2017

Oh, The Metahumanity! (Jan 30-Feb 2)

Perhaps soon it will live up to its awesome credits.
New show! Lots of promising ingredients in Powerless, but the big surprise this week was a perfectly enjoyable episode of The Flash. I know, right?


Agents Of SHIELD: "Hot Potato Soup" (8% Stupid)

ARTEMIS PEBDANI IS A FUCKIN' KOENIG! The show could have given me just that, but it gave me so much more, including Patton Oswalt doing a deliberately sub-par Bill Hicks as another Koenig, the story of the Koenigs, the reveal of Robomay, lots of good intrigue, Quake action... basically, everything I watch this show for.

The May-Coulson thing is on probation. Very dicey probation. Keeping the kiss so close to the robo-reveal just barely saved it this week. Where they take it after presumably the inevitable May rescue will determine its final fate. Other than that, all good.

The Flash: "Dead Or Alive" (10% Stupid)

MORE LIKE THIS, FLASH. The show still suffered from a bad case of IBS (Iris Bullshit Syndrome) but everything else was on point. The tone, the villain, the weird awkward Cisco romance, the Wells stuff, wally's weird fame arc, and Barry's conclusion at the end that Wally will be fast enough to save Iris, because he can't.

The Iris subplot was mostly awful, though, especially when it took her out of left field motivation to make a difference before she died young because her mother didn't do anything before she died young and made it all OK because hey, her mom had kids and Barry loves one of those kids. Thanks for the 1987 feminism, Flash.

Arrow: "Second Chances" (5% Stupi)

Did I miss something, or did Oliver Queen blow up a fucking helicopter with the pilots inside and then give NuCanary a lecture on not killing? I know the show's played fast and loose with henchlives int he past, but that was REALLY jarring.

Other than that, fine. I mean, yeah, we just had The Vigilante Struggle with the new team in the first half of the season, so seeing it be retread here is a little wearying. But I like the new Canary. That said, they're missing a huge opportunity by not renaming the show Dinahs, Drive-By's, And Dives. I'll get my coat.

Powerless: "Wayne Or Lose" (40% There)

Powerless is a sitcom, so giving it a Stupid ranking isn't fair. Instead, I'll be judging it against the ideal vision of the show I got in my head when the premise and cast was revealed to me. And the pilot fell pretty short. But I think there's a lot of potential here, so I'm going to stick with it.

Part of it is that Powerless is a workplace comedy, and workplace comedies are character driven, and the pilot has to establish all the characters. And Powerless has a lot of characters. Part of it is that Vanessa Hudgens as new boss Emily Locke seems to be triangulating between Leslie Knope and Kimmy Schmidt, and came off as a lesser version of both.

And part of it is that a lot of the comedy is broad, and not so much in a self aware sort of way and more of a Network Sitcom way. So the clever parts have to kind of push through this foam padding meant to make us feel safe. With the people involved, I expect that to change, but it was a little disappointing in the opener.

3 comments:

  1. Powerless has a lot to live up to since it's a replacement for The Good Place, the only sitcom I'm currently watching. Well, there's Archer but that's it.

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    1. By the way, if you've never seen The Good Place, find it on demand somewhere and binge the first season. Trust me.

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    2. My brother kept bugging me to watch The Good Place and I finally found a slot for it around Thanksgiving I think. Right around the time the first part of the season wrapped up. It's the best.

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