TV Shows, Fall 2023
Nov. 5th, 2023 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroDisenchantment (Netflix, Season 5) - This series desperately needs a "previously on" segment at the start of each season. And possibly a few new jokes. But then again, this was clearly the last season and they knew it. There’s a big climactic battle, every character comes back, every mystery and running gag I can remember gets paid off, and everybody lives happily ever after except all the assholes who die. So you know what? I can forgive it getting a bit tired because they actually did five full seasons of entertainment with a real ending and payoff. That’s so damn rare it deserves applause.
Superman & Lois (HBOMax, Season 3) – I had one of those random thoughts regarding a previous season: When John Henry and Natalie were in town, Nat started going to high school with the boys. I don’t remember a scene where anyone asked how they knew her, but they should have totally claimed she was their cousin—which is essentially true; they aren’t really half-siblings because they don’t have the same actual mother, but their mothers were functionally twin sisters from a genetic perspective. That’s a really convenient excuse for all of the Kent-Irons interactions (and why Nat is weird around Lois, should anyone pick up on it); Sam Lane would totally back it up and “fix” any necessary government records, and while Lucy wouldn’t she’s not talking to anyone in Smallville anyway. I need a comic con panel to bring this up at.
Anyway, Spoiler Warning, but this season has a big plotline around Lois getting cancer, and it’s treated fairly realistically. This is actually a really clever idea by the writers because it gives Superman a problem that he can’t punch. And it ends up tying together with the Bruno Mannheim plot. Some of the other side plots got stretched a bit (Jordan has two plot threads and both of them just keep lingering), but the writing is overall pretty good. Interestingly, the season’s real arc is 11 episodes long—Bruno is dealt with and Lois has her surgery in 3x11, there’s some denouement, and then they bring in Lex and Doomsday for the season ending cliffhanger that really should have been the first episode of next season. (They’re clearly rearranging and resolving plotlines to deal with having less use of the supporting cast next season; but it’ll probably be another year with all the strikes until season 4 gets made and they left off with Superman fighting Doomsday on the moon.)
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 5) – There are a number of points where I just got annoyed that they were artificially creating drama. The trip to Lux Aurea, for one: The monsters only come out at night, so they needed to get in and out before sundown. Why not…come back tomorrow? Make multiple trips? I think the problem is that the writers are good at writing entertaining individual scenes, but the only way they can come up with to string them together is the characters being stupid. I’m going to forget all of my predictions by the time the next season comes out, but I think my most important guess is that Aaravos is a filthy liar and Varin won’t die.
Gotham Knights (HBOMax, Season 1) – Despite the Arrowverse being over, they still made a couple of last gasps with superhero shows in the same model. In this case, it showcases a bunch of overly-attractive, hyper-competent and mostly-queer teenagers in a Gotham immediately following the death of Batman, after he’s had a long and storied career and most of his major rogues have come and gone. The Dark Knight Returns clearly was a major influence, as Carrie Kelly appears as the only Robin to have existed up to that point, and the Mutant Gang play a major role in the first few episodes. My dad’s run on various Bat-books clearly also influenced, as the Joker’s Daughter is a regular and the big twist about her backstory is, in fact, her original origin from the 70s. And yes, Harvey Dent is the major “sensible adult” character, running around as the DA and apparently having never been Two-Face. I cannot imagine the behind-the-scenes nonsense that led to the creation of Turner Hayes as a brand-new character (especially with Carrie, Duela, and also Stephanie Brown running around) instead of using Dick, Jason, Tim, or Damien. They slowly spool out to you the history of Gotham up to this point, establishing a lot of Batman backstory that only matters because of how it echoes to the modern day—especially since we can tell from the Joe Chill episode that Bruce Wayne must have been in his late 50s when he died in the first episode, so presumably had almost 30 years of running around as Batman. This only got the one 13-episode season (and it does have a little cliffhanger with Turner being presumed dead and abducted by the League of Shadows), but it works pretty well as a single-arc limited series and wraps up all the major plotlines and important character beats. Despite my usual dislike of non-super superheroes, I thought this was fun.
Poker Face (Download, Season 1) – It’s been established that I love Natasha Lyonne and her ability to play an extremely clever disaster human. And that’s on full display here, as her “Charlie” is the only regular character, drifting from place to place and running into murders along the way that she can solve with her amazing ability to be a human lie detector. I’m particularly entertained by the episode structure because it’s not a whodunit but it’s not quite a procedural either: Every episode opens by showing up the means, motive and execution, and then rewinds to introduce Charlie to the situation and then watch her do the whodunit detective work. The biggest surprise in each episode is the clever way that she (as a fugitive on the run from organized crime) manages to get the killers caught. And there’s a cavalcade of guest stars and ridiculous locations, which is always fun. Interestingly, the “fun” episodes are all concentrated in the middle of the season, and the “dark” episodes are the first and last few. I wouldn’t recommend binging all of these in a row (I watched them interspersed with other shows over a couple of months) because the episode formula gets tired, but it’s a fun series.
Superman & Lois (HBOMax, Season 3) – I had one of those random thoughts regarding a previous season: When John Henry and Natalie were in town, Nat started going to high school with the boys. I don’t remember a scene where anyone asked how they knew her, but they should have totally claimed she was their cousin—which is essentially true; they aren’t really half-siblings because they don’t have the same actual mother, but their mothers were functionally twin sisters from a genetic perspective. That’s a really convenient excuse for all of the Kent-Irons interactions (and why Nat is weird around Lois, should anyone pick up on it); Sam Lane would totally back it up and “fix” any necessary government records, and while Lucy wouldn’t she’s not talking to anyone in Smallville anyway. I need a comic con panel to bring this up at.
Anyway, Spoiler Warning, but this season has a big plotline around Lois getting cancer, and it’s treated fairly realistically. This is actually a really clever idea by the writers because it gives Superman a problem that he can’t punch. And it ends up tying together with the Bruno Mannheim plot. Some of the other side plots got stretched a bit (Jordan has two plot threads and both of them just keep lingering), but the writing is overall pretty good. Interestingly, the season’s real arc is 11 episodes long—Bruno is dealt with and Lois has her surgery in 3x11, there’s some denouement, and then they bring in Lex and Doomsday for the season ending cliffhanger that really should have been the first episode of next season. (They’re clearly rearranging and resolving plotlines to deal with having less use of the supporting cast next season; but it’ll probably be another year with all the strikes until season 4 gets made and they left off with Superman fighting Doomsday on the moon.)
The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 5) – There are a number of points where I just got annoyed that they were artificially creating drama. The trip to Lux Aurea, for one: The monsters only come out at night, so they needed to get in and out before sundown. Why not…come back tomorrow? Make multiple trips? I think the problem is that the writers are good at writing entertaining individual scenes, but the only way they can come up with to string them together is the characters being stupid. I’m going to forget all of my predictions by the time the next season comes out, but I think my most important guess is that Aaravos is a filthy liar and Varin won’t die.
Gotham Knights (HBOMax, Season 1) – Despite the Arrowverse being over, they still made a couple of last gasps with superhero shows in the same model. In this case, it showcases a bunch of overly-attractive, hyper-competent and mostly-queer teenagers in a Gotham immediately following the death of Batman, after he’s had a long and storied career and most of his major rogues have come and gone. The Dark Knight Returns clearly was a major influence, as Carrie Kelly appears as the only Robin to have existed up to that point, and the Mutant Gang play a major role in the first few episodes. My dad’s run on various Bat-books clearly also influenced, as the Joker’s Daughter is a regular and the big twist about her backstory is, in fact, her original origin from the 70s. And yes, Harvey Dent is the major “sensible adult” character, running around as the DA and apparently having never been Two-Face. I cannot imagine the behind-the-scenes nonsense that led to the creation of Turner Hayes as a brand-new character (especially with Carrie, Duela, and also Stephanie Brown running around) instead of using Dick, Jason, Tim, or Damien. They slowly spool out to you the history of Gotham up to this point, establishing a lot of Batman backstory that only matters because of how it echoes to the modern day—especially since we can tell from the Joe Chill episode that Bruce Wayne must have been in his late 50s when he died in the first episode, so presumably had almost 30 years of running around as Batman. This only got the one 13-episode season (and it does have a little cliffhanger with Turner being presumed dead and abducted by the League of Shadows), but it works pretty well as a single-arc limited series and wraps up all the major plotlines and important character beats. Despite my usual dislike of non-super superheroes, I thought this was fun.
Poker Face (Download, Season 1) – It’s been established that I love Natasha Lyonne and her ability to play an extremely clever disaster human. And that’s on full display here, as her “Charlie” is the only regular character, drifting from place to place and running into murders along the way that she can solve with her amazing ability to be a human lie detector. I’m particularly entertained by the episode structure because it’s not a whodunit but it’s not quite a procedural either: Every episode opens by showing up the means, motive and execution, and then rewinds to introduce Charlie to the situation and then watch her do the whodunit detective work. The biggest surprise in each episode is the clever way that she (as a fugitive on the run from organized crime) manages to get the killers caught. And there’s a cavalcade of guest stars and ridiculous locations, which is always fun. Interestingly, the “fun” episodes are all concentrated in the middle of the season, and the “dark” episodes are the first and last few. I wouldn’t recommend binging all of these in a row (I watched them interspersed with other shows over a couple of months) because the episode formula gets tired, but it’s a fun series.
