On one hand, ‘Reverie’s’ new episode – ‘Nice Guy’ – was aired
last night, and let us be honest: the series is growing more complex, but you
can still see the AoS’ influence in its roots. ‘Reverie’ is doing its best to
get away from them through rapid character growth and plot development, and it
does a better job than Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ had. ‘InHumans’ hadn’t been a bad
show, just insipid, and had bad PR problems from the start, even during the
production stage, as did the current ‘Solo’ movie. ‘Reverie’ does not appear to
have so many problems, but so far, it is a new show, untested, not overly
popular, and – overly dramatic.
Plus, Sarah Shahi, who plays the main lead as Mara, is
developing her own aura of weirdness – in the last episode, (‘Jane Bond’), the
titular character, (the woman who was looking for her father and became a spy
in the reverie), almost never appeared in the same shot, say – face to face –
with Sarah. In this week’s episode, it was the wife of the titular character,
Nate the ‘Nice Guy’, who also almost never appeared in the same shot as Sarah.
What gives? Does Ms. Shahi not get along with the other women on the set,
(something that might have also been true for AoS’ Daisy/Skye – Chloe Bennett),
or is it some sort of ‘Reverie’s production gag? We will probably never know.
Also, Ms. Nate, the wife of the titular character, is
supposed to be pregnant. She does not look pregnant at all. Yes, this is nitpicking, but Hollywood these days
has suits for just such roles – couldn’t ‘Reverie’ get one? Just what kind of a
budget are they working with?
…That is actually an interesting question: ‘Reverie’ does
have special effects, but in a fairly dosed, controlled amount and so far, it
seems to be not relying on them very
much. On one hand, this is good; AoS showed that excessive CGI and special
effects could be a bad thing, but on the other, given that ‘Reverie’ is not
just a mystery drama, but a sci-fi one as well, this approach can backfire still.
Again, we will just have to wait and see.
What we have already seen,
instead, are the new characters of FH, and we were wrong – they are neither
Saracens nor pirates, but rather ancient Chinese warriors, ancient being the
time period here, rather than anything else. Do they work? So far, we only got
the basics, but yes, they work as well as any of the already established FH
characters.
…And who are they, the new characters? Undoubtedly, FH and
Ubisoft™ will tell
us more in the days for come, but even now, we know quite a few things from all
the released material. There is the swordsman, the man with the falchion/saber.
He is reminiscent of an assassin from the ‘Assassin’s Creed series, (also from
Ubisoft™), done in
an eastern/oriental style rather than the traditional one, and it works. Of
course, the Assassin series also work, but they are a somewhat different game
series from FH, so let us not compare the two – it’s like apples and oranges.
Second, is the monk with the quarterstaff. He is the Shaolin
monk, so yes, he is a direct relative of the Shaolin monk from DW S1, and that
deserves a mention of its own, for while the Shaolin monk did defeat his
opponent, the Maori warrior, this victory was lopsided and weird, in a bad
manner: the Shaolin won because his tiger-hook swords were superior to the
Maori’s spear; this was the only
Shaolin weapon that had the advantage, and it was a big one! Maybe even too big
– in tests, the swords were not that
overwhelming compared to the spear. As a result, when DW did the episode
follow-up, as it always did, none from team Maori were there; it is unknown
just what went behind the scenes during the making of this episode, but
something certainly did.
Back to FH? The third member of team China uses these swords
– she is probably the team’s assassin – and the last character uses a spear
that is more like Nobushi’s naginata, rather than Valkyrie’s spear – a longer
weapon that needs two arms to wield with a tip more designed for slicing than
stabbing – so for now let’s call it a glaive to differentiate from the other
weapons with reach.
This brings us to the rest of the differences. All of team
China’s members have no masks, but open faces – something that only a few other
characters have – Highlander and Shaman of the Vikings, and the Aramusha of the
Samurai. This already sets the Chinese warriors apart from the rest, and as for
the rest… FH has released, or is going to release, a new scenario – breaching the
castle – and Warden of the Knights, at least, got a new look, one that’s rather
reminiscent of Tolkien’s Sauron. What gives? Then again, FH is as much about
the looks as it is about the content, so there must be some logical reason behind their decisions…
Well, that is it for the moment; see you all soon again!
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