…Last time I ranted, I tried to talk about things ending;
maybe this time I should be talking about the returning and etc.?
One of the things that has returned is ‘The Catch’, which is
the grown-up version of the ‘Zootopia’ movie, save that it is done with humans
(rather than anthropomorphic animals) and is shot live rather than as a
cartoon/animated feature. ‘The Catch’ tries
to be a mystery/crime show, but in reality, it is more of drama show, with the
mystery/crime elements actually being its bigger flaw instead. That said, it is
still enjoyable to watch, so, yeah, watch it?
Another new TV show, (this time new for real), is ‘Time
after Time’. This is a curious one, since it deals with Jack the Ripper
escaping into our time via H.G. Wells’ time machine, (yes, we are talking about
the RH person here), and H.G. has followed him to stop him, (duh).
Now, what is curious is that this is ‘take III’ on the idea,
so to speak. ‘Take I’ was the original…novel, which laid the groundwork both
for the first two episodes of the current series and the movie, (‘take II’?)
that aired in 1979, (I think). This means that the scriptwriters and co. had
plenty of ideas of what kinks need to be fixed at least for the first two
episodes, and probably even beyond. Spoilers alert: the appearance of Dr.
Brooke might be the ‘real-life prototype’ of Wells’ Dr. Moro, and frankly, I
think that one of the show’s ideas is that H.G. Wells got his inspiration for
his novels in the future – his future/our
present. As far as ideas go, this one is not bad; ‘Making History’, (which has
also premiered in March and which also features time travel) is worse.
No, I am sorry, but ‘Making History’ sucks. It makes ‘Powerless’
look good especially since the latter has gotten over its terrible first
episode and has found its’ footing, whatever it is. In part ‘Powerless’ reminds
me of Crimson Fox, the main superhero of Charm City, where the show takes
place. Have you seen her, on the show or in the comics? She doesn’t look anything like a fox; she looks a bit
like a mushroom or a cobra with its’ hood spread out, but while the crew in
Gotham, (Batman & Catwoman, cough),
look sort of like their titular animals, the Crimson Fox just…doesn’t. She is
still a proper superhero, no question about that, it is just there is nothing
obviously corresponding with her superhero identity.
The same goes for ‘Powerless’. It is supposed to be a comedy
about ordinary, common people trying to make a living in a super-powered world,
but in reality, ‘Powerless’ works best when it is a comedy about a business
company trying to make a living regardless of the facts that its’ CEO is an
incompetent and infantile jerk, most of the staff would rather do anything else
but work, and the main heroine of the show (Emily Locke) has this sort of a ‘Perky
Polly’ attitude that can be hard to swallow and can be overwhelming in a bad
way. Further complicating the show’s standings are some RL issues – the promo
videos are coming at irregular intervals, they can actually be misleading, and
they do not really reflect what will be aired in the episode per se.
…This is somewhat reminiscent of AoS, save that that AoS has
many problems that ‘Powerless’ just lacks: the former plans to return Grant
Ward to its’ screen (why, but this was discussed in earlier installments), plus
it still has not fully recovered from the mess of Lincoln Campbell, (played by
Luke Mitchell) and his (i.e. Luke’s) departure from the show.
Again: the first half of S3 did its best to depict Lincoln
as Daisy’s boyfriend/other half, fine. This makes his final demise on screen at
the S3 finale only more pointless and damaging to the show; I cannot help but
to feel that someone else was supposed to perish instead. Coulson’s demise
would’ve made the most sense – he is heroically dead, (as an Avenger should be),
there is a new director, Lincoln really has to work it out with Daisy, with the
new director, with the other agents, and-
Well, yes, given how the show was handling Daisy and Lincoln’s
relationship, Lincoln didn’t really have any other choice…but the actor who was
playing him did. These days Luke is playing Roman on ‘Blindspot’, and I do not
see he has any regrets about leaving AoS for good. AoS itself might have
mentioned Lincoln three times or so throughout the entirety of S4, so I am
guessing that his departure was a bad one…because it did do damage to the
second half of S3, for example. Lincoln just could not up and leave, so they
had to kill him off.
…Okay, he could’ve just left, as Lance and Bobbi did, (sort
of) – it’s equally possible that Joey, (played by Juan Pablo), was the one who
was going to die at the end: it would certainly be appropriate for his character development – from an ordinary
person, to a new recruit, to an agent, to a hero – and instead he left the show
on a whimper with nary a mention. For a former friend of Daisy and others this
was a low way to leave. However, what else could there be done? Juan Pablo
signed onto AoS for just one season, and this was it. With Lincoln doing the heroic self-sacrifice now, (because if
he just left Daisy and S.H.I.E.L.D. instead it’d be worse), there was no point
to keep Joey, and so he left, Lincoln died, and when Radcliffe’s framework
captured Coulson and most of his team, Coulson got to be the one who taught the
dangers of InHumans, which didn’t suit him very well, (I don’t think that he
really cared about the InHumans one way or another aside from Daisy), but it
did suit Lincoln, since Simmons and he had been working on a ‘cure’ for the
InHumans in S3…before that plot point got completely forgotten, apparently.
Lincoln was intended for S4 (and
beyond) but this never happened. The end, and AoS chose one of the worst ways
to replace him with Grant, (Brett), ‘cause this just brings back all the old
controversies and fights between the fans and what have you. Great move.
Let us stop the rant about AoS, again, and talk about other successes gone wrong, such as ‘For
Honor’. As much as it was promoted before
February 2017, now it is being torn down – and for deserved, technical issues. This
is reasonable and probably ‘earned’ – ‘For Honor’ needs to fix various technical
bugs and change/update some of its context: ‘Battlefield 1’ is not doing so hot
either, but it is getting better…and so will ‘For Honor’, I hope. What worries
me are the rumors that new classes are going to be added – the centurion and the
ninja.
Well, the centurion was a ranking officer in the ancient
Roman army, which means that he had more basic/less advanced weaponry than a
Viking, a Samurai or a Knight did. Moreover, the Roman military was badass,
especially before and during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, but-
But they were ‘team players’ fighting and working as a
single unit; their armor was not very good, but their shields were broad and
strong, and fighting cohesively, not
one on one as their enemies (Celts, Gauls, Teutons, etc.) did, so when they
could have a massive, army-on-army battle, they would win. In one on one battle,
they would lose, as the S2 of DW showed clearly and honestly, by putting the
abovementioned Roman Centurion against a Rajput warrior…who was not very
different from a Celt, tactics-wise. As individual warriors, the Romans were
worse than the Vikings, Samurais or Knights, so unless ‘For Honor’ will do some
reality- and history-bending, the Romans are going to be the underdogs – and rightfully
so…
(Of course, there were also the gladiators. The modern
concept of gladiators is ‘shaded’ by the ‘reforms’ of the emperor Nero – yes, that Nero – but during the Roman
republic they were different; at one point they were used as instructors from
the Roman soldiers instead, but that is another story…)
As for the Ninja, here is the thing. DW gave it a bad deal,
such weapons as black eggs, a medieval Japanese version of pepper spray,
against a Spartan, who used a shield and a spear as its main weapons; the
Spartan, essentially, won by points, and…let’s be fair to DW – it got rid of
such unbalanced matchups in the following seasons. And anyhow, what worries me
is that ‘For Honor’ already has a ninja-like character in its’ roster – the Samurais’
Orochi; his promo clearly says that this character was ‘trained by ninja clans’.
So why add a duplicate?
…On this note, let me end the rant. It went in a completely
different direction from where I wanted it to go, so yeah – until the next
time, and hopefully, it will not be as embarrassing for me as this one was.
No comments:
Post a Comment