Winter 2022-2023 TV
Feb. 11th, 2023 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroWednesday (Netflix, Season 1) – I don’t love the actors playing Gomez and Morticia; their performance feels awkward and stilted. I appreciate the call-backs to the original series and movies and also that they aren’t overwhelming. (I adore Christina Ricci and I’m glad they used her in this.) I think there’s a thesis to be written about Wednesday’s autism-coding. They aren’t terribly consistent about where her interests and fascination with death, gore and mayhem end and where her dislike of the season’s villains begins. When the monster finally does his smirking confession to her, it felt like she should have responded, “I’m shockingly attracted to you right now;” but instead she inexplicably stayed in “You’re evil and I hate you” mode. They go into the second season (assuming they get one) with pretty much all of the “adult” regulars dead, so a return to Nevermore will be with the same core cast of teenagers and a completely new staff. Oh, and yes, the “Wednesday Dance” scene was worth all the hype about it.
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 4) – The existence of a fourth season of this caught me off-guard; I figured it was dead and buried. I’m wondering if they’ll actually get the full six seasons they were clearly going for from the start (there are six forms of elemental magic and they’ve been naming each season after them). They have an issue with constantly repeating the exposition over and over, even within the same episode; and the season felt stretched out because of it. They do some decent foreshadowing, but Chekov’s gun can only get you so far. And there are several points where a character clearly does something specifically because the plot needed them to get somewhere, not because it made any particular sense. There are a couple of cute references to Avatar. I appreciate that characters are just matter-of-fact queer, including the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reveal that the himbo wood elf boyfriend is trans. I think this is going to end up being a forgettable imitator to Avatar when all is said and done, but I’ll watch whatever else they manage to produce.
Titans (HBOMax, Season 4, Part 1) and Doom Patrol (HBOMax, Season 4, Part 1) - I’m annoyed that HBOMax dropped half a season of each of these, both leaving off on big cliffhangers. The Titans narrowly escaped to The Red as Brother Blood rises to use Trigon’s power to destroy the world. The Doom Patrol are captives of the Scissormen who are going to bring Immortus to destroy the world, and the zombie butt apocalypse is still a going concern. I think both of these shows have really found their voices and hit a good stride (and love that, since they’re keeping Tim Drake as a main character, Titans has introduced Bernard), I’m mostly just annoyed I can’t binge the who season in one go.
Superman & Lois (HBOMax, Season 2) – They apparently felt the need to beef up the show’s diversity credentials by having Sarah come out as bi and letting her change from the Cushing family back to the original Cortez after her quinceañera. This season’s villains include a self-help guru/cult leader; and Superman’s new liaison to the US military whose America First brain poisoning causes him to fundamentally misunderstand the government’s relationship to Superman. Credit here for maintaining Clark and Lois as decent parents who love each other and try their best, and for giving all of the really stupid decisions to either teenagers or villains.
The nods to the Silver Age comic material on Bizzaro world (including it being square!) are delightful. I also like Bizzaro-Jon’s resemblance to Kon-El Superboy circa 1995. I’m not sure if they originally decided to put everyone on Bizarro-Earth into the makeup Bizarro-Superman was wearing and changed their mind, or always intended to have him suffering the effects of extended Kryptonite abuse. (Honestly, my money’s on the former—they wanted him to look like “Bizarro” for the reveal but then realized what a mess the Bizarro-world scenes would be if everyone looked like that.) I was deeply irritated by the finale involving throwing Superman into the sun, though—they set up that it would take time for him to recover, and there was a perfectly good time-dilating void right there.
There’s apparently going to be a third season, and we go into it with most of the main cast now knowing Clark’s secret, with John Diggle setting John Henry to search for his doppelganger’s killer, and with apparently a new Lex Luthor. I did appreciate Tal-Ro’s sendoff in finding his way to Bizarro-Earth so he can take his dead Bizarro-self’s place as Bizarro-Lana’s husband. (As an aside, the stinger with Diggle pissed me off. Superman & Lois clearly doesn’t take place in the Arrowverse; it takes place on an alternate Earth where Superman is pretty much the only hero, which Sam Lane actively calls out late in the season. And if they’re going that route, they should just go that damn route.)
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 4) – The existence of a fourth season of this caught me off-guard; I figured it was dead and buried. I’m wondering if they’ll actually get the full six seasons they were clearly going for from the start (there are six forms of elemental magic and they’ve been naming each season after them). They have an issue with constantly repeating the exposition over and over, even within the same episode; and the season felt stretched out because of it. They do some decent foreshadowing, but Chekov’s gun can only get you so far. And there are several points where a character clearly does something specifically because the plot needed them to get somewhere, not because it made any particular sense. There are a couple of cute references to Avatar. I appreciate that characters are just matter-of-fact queer, including the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reveal that the himbo wood elf boyfriend is trans. I think this is going to end up being a forgettable imitator to Avatar when all is said and done, but I’ll watch whatever else they manage to produce.
Titans (HBOMax, Season 4, Part 1) and Doom Patrol (HBOMax, Season 4, Part 1) - I’m annoyed that HBOMax dropped half a season of each of these, both leaving off on big cliffhangers. The Titans narrowly escaped to The Red as Brother Blood rises to use Trigon’s power to destroy the world. The Doom Patrol are captives of the Scissormen who are going to bring Immortus to destroy the world, and the zombie butt apocalypse is still a going concern. I think both of these shows have really found their voices and hit a good stride (and love that, since they’re keeping Tim Drake as a main character, Titans has introduced Bernard), I’m mostly just annoyed I can’t binge the who season in one go.
Superman & Lois (HBOMax, Season 2) – They apparently felt the need to beef up the show’s diversity credentials by having Sarah come out as bi and letting her change from the Cushing family back to the original Cortez after her quinceañera. This season’s villains include a self-help guru/cult leader; and Superman’s new liaison to the US military whose America First brain poisoning causes him to fundamentally misunderstand the government’s relationship to Superman. Credit here for maintaining Clark and Lois as decent parents who love each other and try their best, and for giving all of the really stupid decisions to either teenagers or villains.
The nods to the Silver Age comic material on Bizzaro world (including it being square!) are delightful. I also like Bizzaro-Jon’s resemblance to Kon-El Superboy circa 1995. I’m not sure if they originally decided to put everyone on Bizarro-Earth into the makeup Bizarro-Superman was wearing and changed their mind, or always intended to have him suffering the effects of extended Kryptonite abuse. (Honestly, my money’s on the former—they wanted him to look like “Bizarro” for the reveal but then realized what a mess the Bizarro-world scenes would be if everyone looked like that.) I was deeply irritated by the finale involving throwing Superman into the sun, though—they set up that it would take time for him to recover, and there was a perfectly good time-dilating void right there.
There’s apparently going to be a third season, and we go into it with most of the main cast now knowing Clark’s secret, with John Diggle setting John Henry to search for his doppelganger’s killer, and with apparently a new Lex Luthor. I did appreciate Tal-Ro’s sendoff in finding his way to Bizarro-Earth so he can take his dead Bizarro-self’s place as Bizarro-Lana’s husband. (As an aside, the stinger with Diggle pissed me off. Superman & Lois clearly doesn’t take place in the Arrowverse; it takes place on an alternate Earth where Superman is pretty much the only hero, which Sam Lane actively calls out late in the season. And if they’re going that route, they should just go that damn route.)
