Z Nation 2x15
End Times
Citizen Z is in trouble. Murphy won’t be unmuted and puts on a bad disguise. People have malicious intent. TPTB have made seemingly arbitrary decisions in season 2. The decidedly shifty looking Murphy has distain and is dressed up trash. 10K has been shot. The lab is finally reached. Citizen Z and his dog head out. Murphy causes negative sentiments. There is no riddlesome mystery and Murphy is bluntly unsentimental and has an over ardent devotion to being unpleasant.
There is no idealism, just darker ramifications. How does a nuclear sub have jeeps? The Zeroes show up with their diabolically scheming Queen. There is a gunfight and Dr Kurian’s head is in a box. Zona is the future. WTF is with the submarine crew? What will season 3 be like? Murphy has negative moral judgment on Zona and Dr Merch. Murphy has many and varied failings, but in this ep he does the worst thing he’s ever done. Murphy bites people and controls them but they eventually rot and become zombies. He doesn’t care.
The Queen and Roberta fight. The Queen is of an evil sort. Murphy is contumacious. The cartel guy aka Escorpion is not dead. How? There is death and Citizen Z and his dog are in peril. Vasquez prompts exasperation. Escorpion joins the gang. People lose their agency thanks to Murphy, but he does not care and he is not all toute douceur. What’ll happen to Roberta, Vasquez, Doc and Addy now? Why has Addy done nothing all season? Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne.
Murphy and Lucy’s scurrilities promise a bleak season 3. Murphy is presumptuous and gnawingly awful. What’ll happen to 10k, Vasquez, Dr Merch (Lisa Coronado), Captain Matheson (Robert Shampain) and the sub doctor (Henry Noble)? Jets show up and it seems it was all for nothing. Who are the soldiers? What country are they from? What will happen to Citizen Z? Lucy proves to be as monstrous as her father. Her ‘foster parents’ are in a terrible way. This was very good and I’ll be there for season 3.
Best Lines:
“Satisfied?”
“Very.”
“He didn’t make it. A lot of people didn’t make it.”
“Come and get some mercy.”
“The fact that they haven’t started beating down these doors yet, worries me more than if they just kept attacking.”
“I thought the US government collapsed years ago.”
“Spend 3 years fighting my way across 10,000 miles of zombie crazed America.”
“She wasn’t human anymore. None of them were.”
“We kill him and take the truck.”
“Those don’t look American.”
“They’re not.”
“Bad zombie.”
~
Legends Of Tomorrow 1x11
The Magnificent Eight
It is 1871 and icons are not being created. Rip’s hollering insistence on his own unique insight has no long term value. Ray likes the Old West. There is temporal fragmentation. This show has been mostly dead space but this was okay. Ray and the gang do a slo-mo power walk. Mick is all abjection and desolation. Stein has particular derision and picks a fight in a boozing shop. Jonah Hex and his scar shows up.
Stein helps a boy with TB who turns out to be HG Wells. Ray calls himself John Wayne and wears black as a lawman. Kendra looks for Carter and literally finds herself. Rip and his expansive declamatory gestures is abhorrent. Did Rip name his son Jonas after the dry and knowing Hex? Kendra is cursed not to love anyone but Carter. People have an often negative appraisal of Rip. Hex is a decent person. This was not quietly affecting but was enjoyable. There is a fight and did I sense Rip/Hex slash? There is babble about Omega Protocols, the Pilgrim and a plot to target the gang’s younger selves.
Best Lines:
“I got some words that need saying.”
“That was entirely predictable.”
“Not killing nobody.”
“Loved them real and pure.”
“You deserve a lot worse.”
“Traitor!”
“Not possible.”
~
Colony 1x06
Yoknapatawpha
Is there only one TV channel now? Katie learns some info about the colonies. NY is still around. Ally Walker is playing Helena the Chief of Staff to the Governor General of LA and she’s outside the wall, is anyone out there with her? The Resistance target Snyder. Will dumps an unconscious agent on the street; it is never revealed what became of him. Katie is a bitch. Will has to save Snyder and brings him to the Yonk.
Katie is the c word. Katie sneers and does arrogant hair tosses. Snyder reveals his back-story: he was the provost of Stanford and has a PHD is economics. There are conspiracy mutterings about the aliens and the government. Snyder hints at the horrors that are outside the colonies. What is he afraid of? Katie is a moron. Snyder claims to have Charlie. Broussard is a tool. Shockingly dark things and bad moral attitudes are present.
Snyder says he saved LA from misery and imprisonment. Katie is crazy. Quayle doesn’t care about Will. Snyder claims he is the best there is and says the Hosts knew everything when they arrived. How did they? Snyder has seen an alien. What do they look like? Broussard needs to piss off. Will has to be on to Katie and her awfulness. The resistance turn on Katie. This was good.
Best Lines:
“The most merciful end he was going to get.”
“That’s somewhere you do not want to be.”
“Snyder is the devil we know.”
“Everything we have is tied to him.”
“You sure they care you’re missing?”
“This is what I do Katie.”
“I want him to die. Badly.”
“Street-art campaign.”
~
Babylon 5 (1994 - 1998) 1x05
Infection
I think I’m the only person who likes this ep. David McCallum guest stars as a former teacher of Dr Franklin. This was low budget and looks 80s. Vance (McCallum) does nefarious things for IPX and is obviously sinister. He found organic technology on an alien world. Unobservant scientists fail to notice. An annoying reporter with a bad 80s perm follows Sinclair around. After this ep, Vance was never seen or mentioned again.
Franklin has moral indignation about Vance’s deeds. Vance’s sidekick falls victim to the organic tech and rampages. Sinclair goes all out to stop it. There is plenty of foreshadowing for future events in the show. McCallum goes at his role like it is Shakespeare. Nothing ever was done about IPX. Sinclair does bug-eyed rage as the bio-weapon rampages. The bio-weapon looks like Swamp Thing which undercuts the menace. Vance causally reveals that IPX is a front for a bio-weapons company. Franklin never seems to have passed that info on to anyone. This was okay with really bad ADR. I’m going to an anti-popular position when I say, I liked this.
Best Lines:
“An outpost so far off the star maps, you couldn’t find it with a hunting dog and a Ouija board.”
“Buried nearly a mile beneath the surface.”
“Living ships that thrive in the vacuum of space.”
“Stephen, there’s a Martian war machine parked outside. They’d like a word with you about the common cold.”
“Raiding dead worlds for whatever you can scavenge and sell to the corporation.”
“Watched all 7 moons go into eclipse. I’ve walked in vaults that have been sealed longer then there’s been a human race.”
“Who is Interplanetary Expeditions?”
“No one is pure. No one.”
“Unless we go to the stars.”
~
Supergirl 1x15
Solitude
Kara throws a tantrum. Alex lies. Siobhan is an inert and lifeless joyhinge. Winn has no dramatic solidity. A hacker strikes. Lucy is all ill-founded hysterical speculation. This ep was not a rich melange, just stagy and flat. Lucy has no wit and levity and is not perennially amiable. The hacker is Indigo/Brainiac 8 (Laura Vandervoort of ‘Smallville’). She looks like Mystique.
Kara does dramatic blouse ripping and screams with scenery chewing abandon. Non (Chris Vance of ‘Prison Break’) and Indigo have BDSM scenes. This turgid ep was a horrible indication of how this show fails. Kara and James go to the styrofoam Fortress of Solitude. It’s low rent looking. Lucy is untroubled by charisma. This has no narrative thrust. Kara makes ill-judged attempts to help. This ep has no distinctive content. Indigo targets a nuclear missile silo. Hank is no longer viewed as a protective figure and then he is.
How did Hank have the kill-code for the missile? There is an explanation for how Kara escaped the Phantom Zone. There are lazy caricatures and indisputably awful dialogue. Siobhan and Winn have lasciviousness. Only Indigo visibly invigorates this ep. Alex makes a confession. Lucy dumps James. Alex sure cries a lot. How was this renewed?
Best Lines:
“Set it to popcorn.”
“The age of chaos begins now.”
“I forgot how much you enjoy a good choking.”
“That timeless void.”
~
The Secret 1x03
Hazel’s only hold on Colin is sexual and when that wanes, she is lost. Emotionally uncomfortable things happen in this hollow and unnecessary ep. There are sour reflections, no insight and this was perfunctory. There is no moral code, just the cruelty of human nature. Colin bins his murdered wife’s belongings and grubs for the life insurance. Colin and Hazel are terrible and their sexy times are interrupted by mourning children and whines about money.
Shameless people act trashy; the intent on his own needs Colin rants and is a sex offender. He and Hazel separate. He remarries and has another child. Hazel remarries and time passes. Colin tells his new wife of his crimes but she does nothing. Colin disapproves of ‘Mamma Mia!’ and the extraordinarily unpleasant people get away with their sins. Then one of Colin’s children dies and he cracks. This was bad with too many morally dubious things happening. There is no intellectual affirmation.
Best Lines:
“It is my belief that you are wholly responsible for this tragedy.”
“People have been saying things to me.”
“We’ve forgiven you.”
~
Agent Carter 1x08
The Edge Of Mystery
No surprise as to why this was axed. Jarvis is a moron and Peggy is a life-wrecker. She attempts to restore moral order, Jarvis is mannered and overwrought. This does not resonate or inspire. It is just shallow, confused and ungripping. Something happens to Jason, the mob guy rants and Jarvis is all meandering shapelessness and impinges on the viewer. Jack does stuff and is Peggy’s dead brother actually alive? Jarvis gets a gun, Jason goes bad and this was stupid.
Best Line:
“Any phlegm Vernon coughs up on the page.”