Last night’s episode of AoS, ‘BOOM’, was a peculiar
episode in several ways. Let us try to list them.
Firstly, Jeffrey Mace has allowed himself to be captured
by the Russians so that the rest of the team would help Daisy stop Sparkly, a
Watchdog revealed to be an InHuman, whose power is to self-detonate and survive
this – repeatedly. Now, on one hand, AoS has finally created a new InHuman with
new, and unique powers, (there were rumors of AoS showing/introducing a
character named Molecule Man into the MCU, but it’s anyone’s guess if that’s
Shockley, or Vijay Nadeer, or whoever – see below). On the other, however, they
killed off senator Nadeer.
Yes, the senator was an unsympathetic character to say
the least, but somehow AoS has handled her death prematurely; in an earlier
episode they depicted her brother having survived having shot and going into an
InHuman version of hibernation as well. It made sense that he would have a
confrontation with his sister the senator sometime in the future. Now she is
dead, (officially?), so what role is Vijay to play? Killing Shockley in the
future with his own InHuman powers, (whatever they are)?
Shockley himself is another topic of contention. On
one hand, it is nice that he now has a name to go with the face – until ‘BOOM’
he was known as Watchdog Alpha, a rank, rather than a name, so there’s that; on
the other hand, Shockley? It’s up for discussion, whether this makes him rank
with the episodic characters of Robert
Stevenson, (in the original ‘Treasure Island’ novel there were such minor
characters as Mrs. Blankley and Mr. Crossly), or with Pokémon (“Shockley, I
choose you!’ “Shockley-Shock!”). The man has used a Taser before, and now he
just explodes, so – Shockley? Just who is the genius behind that name, anyhow?
Speaking of genius, let us talk about how Mace has
stopped Ivanov’s truck. It was the same way as to how Steel has stopped a train
in ‘LoT’ S2, (the first half). ‘LoT’ is part of DCEU, not MCU, so – copyright infringement?
And that’s not even getting to the Russians – back in ‘Arrowverse’, team Arrow
is also fighting them, just in a different incarnation: unlike Jeffrey Mace/the
Patriot, the Arrow was never especially American; not that he doesn’t have his
own problems, but still. AoS often had problems with originality, but at least
it did not appear to be ripping off from other shows so directly. Greater
real-life politics in the U.S. is one thing; the situation in D.C. is getting
increasingly messy; but lifting off from other shows? Yeah, AoS will probably
catch flak for that; other TV shows have lifted off ideas from it, (‘Blindspot’,
cough), but never so blatantly…
Speaking of other shows, ‘APB’ deserves a mention,
since it has begun this week. So has ‘Legion’, of course but it works. ‘APB’… it
is hard to say. Whereas AoS usually
has good ideas, but bad delivery, ‘APB’ has it almost the other way around. For
one thing, its’ basic idea – a millionaire inventor has a personal tragedy, and
repents from greedy ass into a good person – was lifted from the ‘Iron Man’,
movie, comic and character. For another, another of its’ basic ideas is have
robots help cops fight crime, and—
And ‘APB’ is a cop show, but there are already plenty
of police-based shows on TV: ‘Law and Order: SVU’, ‘Chicago PD’, etc. So far,
robots are not enough to make ‘APB’ stand out in the crowd, as ‘Blindspot’ has
its puzzles to achieve that.
And on the topic of robots and technology, the drone
that has appeared in ‘APB’ certainly looked amazing – and also very similar to
the drone that my family had bought as a toy for the New Year; the two certainly
share the body plan/design. Our drone looks also impressive, and can also fly,
but—
But first, you have to charge it, its’ battery. To do
that, you have to link the drone to a computer – it cannot be charged directly
from an electric outlet, too risky for the battery in question. You charge the
battery for half an hour, (i.e. 30 minutes), and then you can fly the drone…for
about 6 to 8 minutes, depending on the weather conditions; our drone is
especially vulnerable to strong winds, so… I cannot help but wonder just how
well ‘APB’s’ drone works in real life, off TV?
So: AoS continues to go down, (currently, the ratings
are even lower than what they were in the ‘Ghost Rider’ story arc), and ‘APB’ is
not doing so well either. What will the future bring them? We will just have to
see.
No comments:
Post a Comment