![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yet More TV Reviews
Oct. 27th, 2020 07:09 amDoom Patrol (DC Direct, Season 2) – Somewhat disappointingly, they pick up from where they left off, with the team tiny and Dorothy added to the roster. They make terrible, terrible life choices—like, most of Cliff’s issues with his daughter are a direct result of him being a dumbass, and everyone around him reacting appropriately to a robot-man being a dumbass. (Though him killing Niles next season would be totally justified.) They give us a lot more of Jane’s backstory, including the details of previous-primary Miranda. Rita bounces from subplot to subplot with little fanfare, dragging pieces of her backstory as she goes…but at least she isn’t melting any more. And then they leave off on an unfortunate cliffhanger (they had to cut filming short) where the team is encased in wax, Jane has just discovered the truth of the returned Miranda, and Dorothy is confronting the Candlemaker. It’s like the first season of Titans, but at least they didn’t do it on purpose this time?
The Hollow (Netflix, Season 2) - Three teenagers who thought they had escaped The Hollow wake up to discover their childhood fears are stalking them in a world that clearly isn’t right. Realizing they obviously haven’t escaped, they go searching for what really happened. This gets a bit darker than the first season, including explicitly killing a side character, and dealing with some of the ramifications of that. Also, clearly responding to criticisms and/or shipping wars, they make one of the main characters realize he’s gay when he regains his memory, and add new diversity in the new characters this season introduces. Though there’s a small “stinger” bit at the end, this wraps up pretty much any hanging threads from the first season. If nothing else, a third season that didn’t somehow involve the “real life” characters again wouldn’t make much sense. This isn’t the best show—the writing is fairly weak, the twists are easy to figure out—but it’s entertainingly wacky “trapped in a video game” adventures.
Star Trek: Lower Decks (TV Series, Season 1) – Alternately “Redshirts” the series (and it’s upsetting that Scalzi isn’t involved), this is goofy parody Star Trek, approximately early post-Voyager era, focusing on the ensigns that keep the ship running rather than the command crew. Of course, the main character used to be high-ranked and got herself into major trouble (a la Discovery). It name-drops characters and events from earlier series like crazy, and dials up the “weird space disasters” to the point where everything feels old hat to the lower decks crewmen. Bonus credit for including Federation races we haven’t seen since the Animated Series (and a few Peter David novels). It’s not brilliant or amazing—a lot of the best jokes were done in parodies decades ago—but it’s entertaining. I’m not sure what it says that they can do the parody show as an official branded property at this point. I do know it’s going to be a nightmare for fanboys who care about “official canon” details.
Steven Universe Future (TV Series, Season 1) – Or, y’know, season 6. The Steven Universe movie covered a ~2 year time skip, and this picks up shortly thereafter as we watch Steven deal with teenage angst and the problems of his universe-saving career being largely behind him. A few antagonists appear…but none with any major aspirations. A number of familiar faces reappear, mostly to show that they’ve been aging and going on with their lives. But Steven, now that his life is finally quiet, has the chance to look inwards and examine his own trauma, with all the success of any testosterone-fueled teenage boy plus the bonus of massive property damage from his uncontrolled superpowers. The 20 episodes pretty much break down into the “How’s everybody doing in the future” Movie (that honestly kinda meanders without much point) and then the “Steven’s Nervous Breakdown” Movie.
The New Legends of Monkey (Netflix, Season 2) - Continuing the adventures of Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka as they try to find the seven sacred scrolls and save people from demons. When Mycella, a plant-woman, appeared early on, I though “Oh, it’s Lady Kikka”, and then it occurred to me that, especially since I’d re-played Saiyuki: Journey West since watching the first season of this, I know the Japanese names of the characters much better than any other version. This remains entertaining Xena-style goofiness and poor life choices; and they kill off virtually all of this season’s villains and resolve the major new concerns by the end. If you picked up next season only knowing they had three of seven scrolls and the demon queen had been reborn, you’d be pretty much on top of things.
Also, I had started Marvel’s Runaways (Hulu, Season 2) something like six months ago. (Further diverging from the comics, we keep a lot of focus on the parents as they try to figure out Jonah’s plans and stop them. Because they’re supervillains, but even supervillains have standards. And meanwhile the kids are settling in at an abandoned mansion in the same goddamn city and having drama.) I lost interest in actually continuing to watch it, and I’m probably not going back.
The Hollow (Netflix, Season 2) - Three teenagers who thought they had escaped The Hollow wake up to discover their childhood fears are stalking them in a world that clearly isn’t right. Realizing they obviously haven’t escaped, they go searching for what really happened. This gets a bit darker than the first season, including explicitly killing a side character, and dealing with some of the ramifications of that. Also, clearly responding to criticisms and/or shipping wars, they make one of the main characters realize he’s gay when he regains his memory, and add new diversity in the new characters this season introduces. Though there’s a small “stinger” bit at the end, this wraps up pretty much any hanging threads from the first season. If nothing else, a third season that didn’t somehow involve the “real life” characters again wouldn’t make much sense. This isn’t the best show—the writing is fairly weak, the twists are easy to figure out—but it’s entertainingly wacky “trapped in a video game” adventures.
Star Trek: Lower Decks (TV Series, Season 1) – Alternately “Redshirts” the series (and it’s upsetting that Scalzi isn’t involved), this is goofy parody Star Trek, approximately early post-Voyager era, focusing on the ensigns that keep the ship running rather than the command crew. Of course, the main character used to be high-ranked and got herself into major trouble (a la Discovery). It name-drops characters and events from earlier series like crazy, and dials up the “weird space disasters” to the point where everything feels old hat to the lower decks crewmen. Bonus credit for including Federation races we haven’t seen since the Animated Series (and a few Peter David novels). It’s not brilliant or amazing—a lot of the best jokes were done in parodies decades ago—but it’s entertaining. I’m not sure what it says that they can do the parody show as an official branded property at this point. I do know it’s going to be a nightmare for fanboys who care about “official canon” details.
Steven Universe Future (TV Series, Season 1) – Or, y’know, season 6. The Steven Universe movie covered a ~2 year time skip, and this picks up shortly thereafter as we watch Steven deal with teenage angst and the problems of his universe-saving career being largely behind him. A few antagonists appear…but none with any major aspirations. A number of familiar faces reappear, mostly to show that they’ve been aging and going on with their lives. But Steven, now that his life is finally quiet, has the chance to look inwards and examine his own trauma, with all the success of any testosterone-fueled teenage boy plus the bonus of massive property damage from his uncontrolled superpowers. The 20 episodes pretty much break down into the “How’s everybody doing in the future” Movie (that honestly kinda meanders without much point) and then the “Steven’s Nervous Breakdown” Movie.
The New Legends of Monkey (Netflix, Season 2) - Continuing the adventures of Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka as they try to find the seven sacred scrolls and save people from demons. When Mycella, a plant-woman, appeared early on, I though “Oh, it’s Lady Kikka”, and then it occurred to me that, especially since I’d re-played Saiyuki: Journey West since watching the first season of this, I know the Japanese names of the characters much better than any other version. This remains entertaining Xena-style goofiness and poor life choices; and they kill off virtually all of this season’s villains and resolve the major new concerns by the end. If you picked up next season only knowing they had three of seven scrolls and the demon queen had been reborn, you’d be pretty much on top of things.
Also, I had started Marvel’s Runaways (Hulu, Season 2) something like six months ago. (Further diverging from the comics, we keep a lot of focus on the parents as they try to figure out Jonah’s plans and stop them. Because they’re supervillains, but even supervillains have standards. And meanwhile the kids are settling in at an abandoned mansion in the same goddamn city and having drama.) I lost interest in actually continuing to watch it, and I’m probably not going back.
