Things I’ve Watched As We Close Out 2019
Dec. 11th, 2019 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroGalavant (TV Series, Season 2) - Richard is redeemed, backstory is presented, more musicals are parodied. I did quite love that, rather than spending a full episode moving people around and arranging alliances, they spent two minutes in the Forest of Coincidences rearranging everyone and then killed Galavant for an episode. Also loved the recurring Weird Al cameo. I think it was just as well this didn’t get a third season; they were getting a little long in the tooth with some of their jokes, and I think they knew it—Madeleina going to learn the darker arts was the only real hook left; everyone else had their plotlines resolved and the Tad Cooper stinger would never have unfolded into an actual plot.
Dollface (Hulu, Season 1) - There’s a problem of too much wince-comedy, and I’m not certain of how well the hallucinations illustrating Jules’ anxieties actually work. (Of course, we leave off on a weird “maybe the cat lady is real…?” note, so it’s possible that they aren’t hallucinations after all.) It’s a collection of extremely funny women regardless, and even if the overall plotline is a bit rough, each scene works and the dialogue is sharp. Oh, and the guest stars! Malin Ackerman recurs, Macauley Culkin might be a serial killer, Margot Robbie as a New Age guru. If they make another season, I’ll watch it.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix, Season 4) – Catra continues to go off the deep end. Scorpia finally has enough of being the doormat. Double Trouble is quietly introduced as a character that uses “they” pronouns. The Hoard drives a wedge between Adora and Glimmer, and in turn, the Hoard wins a bunch of military victories. Secrets continue to be teased...and then they finally reveal everything: The history of Light Hope and Mara, the nature of the runestones, and the reason behind the rainbow power at the end of season one. We go into season four with crazy stakes: The sword is broken, the princesses may or may not still have powers, Hoard Prime has arrived, and Etheria is defenseless. (Random side note: The first season seemed to imply that Spinerella, Netossa, etc. were proper princesses and had runestones of their own; and that there were others as well. This seemed to retcon that to there only being five runestones total.)
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 3) - They make an odd effort to backtrack a lot of the events that ended season two—Virin’s fortunes change again, the party continues on the run, and we drift back to status quo in time for the armies of man to march on Zadia. (Side note on strategy: When you lead the best-trained and equipped army humanity knows, don’t turn them into mindless berserkers. Additional note: Shield walls work best when you have artillery behind them.) Which leads to a Battle of Five Armies and a resolution to pretty much everything we’ve seen so far: They resolve the romantic subplot, the magic subplot, the royalty subplot, Soren’s subplot, and the main quest. If it weren’t for the stinger, I would think this was a proper finale. (I wonder if they only expected to get three seasons.) As it stands, I’ll expect a time-skip as we go into season four. Oh, and I’m going to lay a prediction that pretty much every family member Reyla has lost is in Virin’s bag of coins.
I also watched the first nine episodes of the final season of The Good Place and also the first season of Perfect Harmony, but I’ll save the reviews until those wrap up in the new year.
Dollface (Hulu, Season 1) - There’s a problem of too much wince-comedy, and I’m not certain of how well the hallucinations illustrating Jules’ anxieties actually work. (Of course, we leave off on a weird “maybe the cat lady is real…?” note, so it’s possible that they aren’t hallucinations after all.) It’s a collection of extremely funny women regardless, and even if the overall plotline is a bit rough, each scene works and the dialogue is sharp. Oh, and the guest stars! Malin Ackerman recurs, Macauley Culkin might be a serial killer, Margot Robbie as a New Age guru. If they make another season, I’ll watch it.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix, Season 4) – Catra continues to go off the deep end. Scorpia finally has enough of being the doormat. Double Trouble is quietly introduced as a character that uses “they” pronouns. The Hoard drives a wedge between Adora and Glimmer, and in turn, the Hoard wins a bunch of military victories. Secrets continue to be teased...and then they finally reveal everything: The history of Light Hope and Mara, the nature of the runestones, and the reason behind the rainbow power at the end of season one. We go into season four with crazy stakes: The sword is broken, the princesses may or may not still have powers, Hoard Prime has arrived, and Etheria is defenseless. (Random side note: The first season seemed to imply that Spinerella, Netossa, etc. were proper princesses and had runestones of their own; and that there were others as well. This seemed to retcon that to there only being five runestones total.)
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 3) - They make an odd effort to backtrack a lot of the events that ended season two—Virin’s fortunes change again, the party continues on the run, and we drift back to status quo in time for the armies of man to march on Zadia. (Side note on strategy: When you lead the best-trained and equipped army humanity knows, don’t turn them into mindless berserkers. Additional note: Shield walls work best when you have artillery behind them.) Which leads to a Battle of Five Armies and a resolution to pretty much everything we’ve seen so far: They resolve the romantic subplot, the magic subplot, the royalty subplot, Soren’s subplot, and the main quest. If it weren’t for the stinger, I would think this was a proper finale. (I wonder if they only expected to get three seasons.) As it stands, I’ll expect a time-skip as we go into season four. Oh, and I’m going to lay a prediction that pretty much every family member Reyla has lost is in Virin’s bag of coins.
I also watched the first nine episodes of the final season of The Good Place and also the first season of Perfect Harmony, but I’ll save the reviews until those wrap up in the new year.
