Reverie, 'Point of Origin' - Aug 9

‘Reverie’s’ first season ended; what next?

Well, firstly, was it good? Compared to the other ‘Reverie’ episodes, it was mixed – yes, Mara resolved her conflict with her former brother-in-law, and she and her friends rescued Alexis from Oliver and stopped him from destroying ‘Oneira’, but…

But the way this all was executed was rushed, dissatisfactory, kind of flawed. Throughout the S1 finale, ‘Reverie’ rushed about, trying to do maximum action with minimum expose and CGI – here the budget restraints of ‘Reverie’ really showed.

The plot of ‘Point of Origin’… This time, ‘Reverie’ showed us Oliver-Alexis relationship; Oliver was supposed to be an evil Ward-Fitz fusion from AoS, making Alexis a Skye-Simmons fusion, while Mara is more like Melinda, (while her ex-fiancé Chris was kind of reminiscent of Andrew/Lash). Did it work?

On one hand, AoS itself was full of such failed allusions, especially from S3 onwards – it itself had its’ script, and its’ cast, fractured and reset many times, from S2 onwards, and it showed, and it cost AoS: while it does have a sixth season, it will be far shorter than the previous 5: only 13 episodes as opposed to the regular 22. On the other,… everything in AoS was original and it did not really borrow from other shows, ABC or otherwise, so here ‘Reverie’ is definitely inferior than AoS is. Even ‘Blindspot’ – it too came from AoS, (just as DCEU’s LoT did), but it did not openly quote AoS in its episodes. A definite minus to ‘Reverie’ for lack of originality.

Look: Oliver was supposed to be like Ward in that he was a pyromaniac, among other things, and like Fitz because he had mental issues, but because he was in less than half of ‘Reverie’s’ S1 episodes, people don’t really relate to him and he isn’t like either AoS’ Grant Ward or Leo Fitz. That is fine, but due to the quotations from AoS and the like, Oliver doesn’t come out like an original character either; in fact, all of the characters of ‘Reverie’ suffer in ‘Point of Origin’ (and the rest of the show’s episodes) because of their association with AoS’ and its’ characters.

Yes, ‘Blindspot’ too based its’ characters (and plot, to a lesser degree) upon AoS, especially the earlier seasons, but by the end of S3 it moved beyond AoS. ‘Reverie’ does not appear to be even trying to do that. Pity. Whenever ‘Reverie’ was original, it worked, and it was – relatively speaking – even better than AoS was. When it ripped AoS off, it would become just an imitation of AoS, and not even a flattering one. At the end of its’ S1 finale, ‘Reverie’ seemed to have reached a choice, and it does not appear to be the right one, (because of reasons that had been discussed at different times earlier). Hopefully, if it gets renewed for the second season, ‘Reverie’ will do a better job.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!