Secrets, Politics and Torture on Frontline. Who needs loony conspiracy theories when there's so much actual evil in the world?
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365492758/
To paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android of the Hitchhiker's Guide series (in response to a query if he's lying):
"Reality is terrible enough as it is. Why would I want to invent more of it?"
In the meantime, we seem to have pretty well entered the rerun-doldrums of the summer, with most shows having aired their season finales (and a new rush of reality/game show programming beginning). Here's my
SPOILERY roundup of opinion:
Gotham: The show did pretty well with extended mini-arcs of 3-4 episodes, but the finale went all-out as pretty much every major character LOST IT and went nuts. I didn't really think it needed a shakeup, but I don't think it'd wreck the show; certainly I'm pleased with Bruce's discovery of the cavern underneath the mansion and I'm enough of a fan of Batman and his supporting players to tune in and see what develops next season. One item of note: it seems they decided to kill off the protagonist's original love interest from the very first episode of the series, apparently the writers couldn't figure out any further prospects of interest and just unimaginatively ditched her.
Sleepy Hollow: The introduction of the relic hunter guy was pretty well unnecessary, but it brought us Jaime Murray for an episode and possible future appearances, so that's always a plus. Also a pretty cool extremist angel character who'd make a good villain, especially since big bad Moloch and all his schemes have been pretty well trashed. Also trashed is basically everything about Ichabod's family (and associated melodrama), which frankly was one of the dragging elements of the season that made everything tiresome and took away from the great chemistry & rapport between Ichabod & Abbie that had been a drawing point from the first season. Doing so meant that Katrina, the protagonist's original love interest from the very first episode of the series, was killed off because apparently the writers couldn't figure out any further prospects of interest and just unimaginatively ditched her. Anyway, the upshot is that the core characters that did a great job of establishing the show in the first place are back to being the center of the series (apparently), so I'll be tuning in to see where they go with it.
Grimm: Yes! Trubel's back, Wu's in, the Royals & major associates are largely dead, Adalind and her magic offspring are being carted off with a nice freedom fighter (to hopefully never drag down a plotline, especially since the aforementioned Royals that would pursue her are largely dead). Unfortunately, we lost the Grimmebago and Nick's mother, which will no doubt be the source of much angst down the line, especially because it was at the hands of recently hexenbeist-ed Juliette (whose storyline wasn't terribly enjoyable even before the evilness, simply because it had been nice to have a supernatural series with a stable romantic relationship). So it made sense that she was offed too, though it means they decided to kill off the protagonist's original love interest from the very first episode of the series, apparently the writers couldn't figure out any further prospects of interest and just unimaginatively ditched her. I'm not looking forward to the fallout of angst, but since a lot of the chaff seems to have been ditched, I'll be tuning in anyway next season.
So for those keeping score of my not-entirely-subtle phrasing, that's THREE shows that decided it was important to kill off an important/original female member of the ensemble in order to continue forward, because there was apparently no way for the character to meaningfully contribute anything further. That's...kind of a bothersome incidence, really, but it seems that's the way it is for these genre shows, and it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the writing.
Once Upon A Time: One of the show's strengths has been in exploring various familial relationships, and while that did (and does) mean a fair amount of soap-opera-style drama, it's mostly been pretty well supported by the acting and decent/mostly consistent characterization by the writers. Well, the last half of the season pretty well tossed out a bunch of the characterization of the central Charming family while also playing up the Author storyline, which had little connection to any of the families and while ostensibly about what defines heroes & villains, and still did a pretty awful job there too. The wreckage left me not really caring about all the melodrama anymore, not even with introducing two characters who are DRAGONS. I'm not certain if I'll bother tuning in next season, this seems like as good a stopping point as any...actually, probably could blot out anything that happened after the Snow Queen story ended midseason and Rumple got booted from town.
Agents of SHIELD: The Inhumans arc has been pretty good, it didn't really link in to the Avengers movie but it didn't have to, and probably benefited from not having to be tied down to those events. Also, didn't see the twist of Skye's mother being totally evil and ganking Adama coming, plus we got Skye's dad as Mr. Hyde, which actually was pretty well built up without being blatantly broadcast. It's too bad he's mindwiped, but I'm sure that can be reverted when they need to make a Masters of Evil group/storyline. I'm guessing the Terrigen Mist Fish Oil pills is going to be this series version of the Flash's Particle Accelerator explosion, but I don't mind if it brings some fun/interested powered characters into the mix, which is why I'll be tuning in next season.
The Flash: Spent the episode worrying about a major timeline shift ala Flashpoint, only to have the twist reveal of Future Barry (in the past) signal Present Barry (also in the past) to avoid making changes, which was a relief. Unmaking the Reverse Flash was cool except for the part where that confounds the timeline EVEN MORE. I'm guessing there'll be a hand-wavy explanation using the multidimensional timehole to explain that mess, hopefully from Rip Hunter as
Rory Williams Arthur Darville has loads of experience trying to sell nonsensical time-travel gobbledygook to an audience from his other show about
Steven Moffat a lunatic in a blue box. Speaking of, I'm VERY much looking forward to the spinoff "Legends of Tomorrow" series with the aforementioned
Rory Williams Rip Hunter gathering up a ragtag group of DC characters for crazy time-hopping adventure. And even with a cuckoo timeywimey explanation, I'm still tuning into this next season because it's been loads of fun, and I hope the paradox still allows Reverse Flash to return, because he really was an awesome villain even as Harrison Wells.
That just leaves
iZombie to get to its finale, and I've been enjoying it so far, so unless they somehow go completely off the rails I expect I'll be looking forward to its next season too. I have to admit that the CW's current live-action DC-verse and comic-related series are pretty much knocking it out of the park for entertainment value (for me, anyway). I'm not sure if the upcoming Supergirl series will match this quality, being on CBS as it is...I'm kinda planning on finding out anyway. Also, I only learned this afternoon that there was a
Defiance marathon on SciFi, which annoys me since I pretty much missed its entire previous season and would love to have caught up all in one fell swoop. Also, you can never watch too much footage of Jaime Murray.
