Miami Vice (1989 - 1990) 5x02&2x07
Redemption In Blood
Tubbs has all the screen presence of a mouldy j-cloth. He also does not understand the effects of mental illness/trauma and emotional regulation and boundary crossing behaviour. Burnett tries to kill Tubbs. Burnett is in great distress. Cue bad 80s music and Tubbs wincing visibly. Burnett is really vulnerable and the helpless victim of emotions and circumstances. Tubbs has consternation and lack of foresight, There is a long chase scene.
Burnett’s old colleges think he has lost integrity. Burnett coos over his bimbo. Matt Frewer meances people. Burnett has greased hair and masculinise. People yell and plot. Burnett and his bimbo do pervy writhing but he is piqued by his memories of his manly bonding loyalty stuff with Tubbs and heteronormativity. The really really tedious Frewer and bimbo plot to kill Burnett. As for Burnett, he broods so hard and then is nearly blown up by a car bomb. Ah, his nice evil suit.
Another unknown amount of time passes. This ep has no breathless excitement. Things get overwrought as Burnett menaces his bimbo. Burnett recalls he is really Sonny and wanders into the cop shop where every single one of his colleagues whip out guns and point them at him. Sonny looks confused; there is neither emotional punch nor comic menace. Social boundaries are violated as Tubbs won’t help Sonny because of the hurtful detail of Sonny trying to kill him. Things are not gloriously deranged as Sonny walks out of the cop shop and menaces people and has shiny skin.
Female characters are there just to provide male characters with motivation. This was low energy and tedious. Sonny somehow dons a new evil suit and has low-grade smarm. There is no verve and vigour or believable emotional connections. Sonny glumly frets and is a frustrating protagonist with odd blankness. The damaged toxic Sonny does more glum and listless stuff and is easily forgiven. The bimbo runs and a bad dude is eaten by a panther.
Best Lines:
“He’s turned?”
“Better than shooting squirrels.”
“Lose the knife hayseed.”
“Redneck moron.”
“Probably off getting drunk somewhere.”
“Long dark hallway.”
“We were friends, more than that.”
“You tried to kill me man. Twice.”
“Get rid of the blow.”
~
Junk Love
Oddly dressed hookers wander around. Sonny drives about in his highly conspicuous car. The female detectives go undercover as badly dressed bookers. There is bad dialogue and Sonny won’t wear socks. A hooker, Rosella (Ely Pouget of the 1991 ‘Dark Shadows’), is tossed into a mirror and wails. She’s strung out and damaged and somehow connected to a crime lord named Silva. The boss (Edward James Olmos) broods and Sonny smokes.
The cops are dim and overlook the obvious. I recall frequent tabloid target and failed movie star Don Johnson’s other less successful cop show ‘Nash Bridges’ which was soft unlike this which at least tried to have an edge. Both this show and ‘Nash Bridges’ has ambience, convoluted plots, un-convincing characterization, annoying music, an egotistical lead actor and supporting characters who were more interesting than the star.
This ep had no looseness or spontaneity just icy smirks, influence peddling and this does not cater to nostalgia. Rosella is dependent on Silva and sleeps with him. Sonny likes damaged women, a grim pattern he always followed. Tubbs is disgruntled, unkempt and angry. This was not visceral and searing. Loud mouthed, pot stirring types who are pompous, unintelligible, pseudo intellectual bitter failures wander around. People ask Rosella why she stays. Nobody asks Sonny if he ever did coke. There is no trust or importance even when the truth about Silva and Rosella’s relationship is revealed. Silva unwisely gives Rosella a gun and dares her to kill him, her own father, so she does. Emphatically no. This was as horrendously bad as a ‘Miami Vice’ slash Sonny mpreg fic I once read.
Best Lines:
“Don’t tell.”
“We know who he is and what he does.”
“You promised no more.”
“The iceman cometh.”
“Not when the truth is this sick.”
“Goodbye daddy.”
~
Blindspot 1x10
Evil Handmade Instrument
Is the shrink evil? The CIA burk has an ominous and overbearing manner. Jane has taut watchfulness. Blondie aka Patterson doesn’t seem to find her boyfriend’s death disturbing on a deeply psychological level. There are spies. Kurt seems to have no restless intellectual curiosity about his dad. How much long term action can be dragged out of this plot set up? The plot is a blunt formulation. People are dumb. Jane can speak Russian. I’m stupefied by how bad this is. Kurt chucks a spy off a ship and kills her. Kurt does not nourish empathy, just strong-man overtones. Jane has impassiveness and kisses Kurt. It’s not exactly soulful heights. The upper echelons target Jane cos of their proxy grievances. Jane has non-terrifying intimidation. There is a flashback, a mention of something called Orion, death and a reveal.
Best Lines:
“She used a found object.”
“His ‘Firefly’ DVDs.”
“A window box overlay.”
“Get these people to marry them.”
“Years of Soviet training.”
“They’re innocent but you’re not.”
“A dark hole that only I will know about.”
“How nice that hole is going to be.”
“This was all your idea. Your plan. You did this to yourself.”
~
The X Files (2016) 1x01&1x02
My Struggle
The truth is still out there. But everyone seems to have forgotten that Mulder was also abducted by ‘aliens’ and experimented on. There is exposition and a CGI flying saucer crash. The opening credits are unchanged, mostly. Scully is blonde, stretched, skinny and botoxed. Mulder is badly dressed and saggy. They are no longer a couple. Conspiracy nut/TV host Tad O’Malley makes contact. The X Files are closed, again. Tad introduces the duo to Sveta, an abuctee and they babble about conspiracies, scoop-mark scars, an ARV, zero point energy, Element 115, gravity warp drive and Scully’s abduction.
The monomyth has been changed. Tad hits on Scully. Mulder wanders around the old X Files office which seems quite clean. That fecker Skinner shows up and looks rough and hasn’t been promoted since Mulder and Scully left 14 years ago. Skinner carries on unwittingly assisting baddies, Mulder has a new deep throat. There are flashbacks back to the 40s and does anyone care about aliens anymore? Mulder rants about 2012, makes huge deductive leaps and there is no corroborative proof.
Mulder and Tad list off their idea of the conspiracy which a is a long, huge paranoid rant about weather wars, gene editing, prison camps with no stated purpose and a takeover that will cull, kill and subjugate the already fattened, dulled and sickened population. Things go awry, again.
This was good if not profound, but how is Mulder’s biological father Smoking Man (William B. Davis) still alive? He was blown up by a missile 14 years ago! Are Mulder and Scully back in the FBI to examine more paranormal science cases? The photo of a young Mulder dressed as Spock was cute.
Best Lines:
“Uber?”
“Hitchhiked.”
“Dirtboxes.”
“I take it you have enemies.”
“Actual proof is strangely hard to come by.”
“Interesting strangers.”
“Very paranoid about the work they do.”
“Very dangerous answers.”
“What if there is no alien conspiracy?”
“Fiction masquerading as fact.”
“A big turn in a very strange direction.”
“What are the tests for?”
“Odious and far reaching.”
“Isolationist techno-paranoia.”
“Uber-violent fascist elites.”
“Impugn my work.”
~
Founder’s Mutation
This had a man dying and crows flocking. A weirdo doctor known as The Founder (Doug Savant) lurks. Mulder and Scully are back in their FBI. How did Mulder pass the psych test? Is there a psych test? Mulder’s babbling about the US being a prison state is ignored. There is a sexual misunderstanding, fighting, torches and Skinner being an ass. Scully still does not have a desk. Mulder rolls around on the ground in pain. The duo talk about their son William and wonder if he really is theirs and since he would be 15 now, they wonder where he is and what he is doing. There is a vision of what life could have been like if they’d kept him. Where is Tad? A woman does a self-administered C-section, another woman annoys and creepy siblings do stuff. This was okay but failed to make any strong impression. What was the point?
Best Lines:
“Is that guy bothering you?”
“Not yet.”
“Desire is the devil’s pitchfork.”
“Bad things happen when the birds gather.”
~
Person Of Interest 4x12
Control-Alt-Delete
Fat cow Control is back to annoy. The child avatar of Samaritan annoys and can’t act. Control has people killed with stylish carelessness. Finch, Root and Reese are barely in this. Control does not ponder the significance of anything she does. Where is Shaw? Control has no oppressive shame. Control refuses to accept she’s not part of a protection initiative. She deserves a nasty comeuppance but hasn’t got one, yet. She’s career shamed for being really stupid. Finch, Root and Reese inveigle against her and mock her relentlessly. Control utters her usual barrage of cutting insults and doesn’t listen. This was okay.
Best Lines:
“The computer is melting.”
“I’m almost glad you said that.”
“No.”