AoS: more S6 spoilers - March 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and you can always count on your family members’ to make it work. Sometimes, separately, in modest doses, they can work, but put them all together, and they do not, yourself included. What had Gollum (in ‘Hobbit’) say? “Baggins, Baggins, thief! We hate it, we hate it, we hate it forever!” Yeah, that. The old hobgoblin knew what he was talking about after all…

Now that that is out of the way, where do we stand with AoS? To my embarrassment, I hadn’t learned in time that AoS was bumped to May 2019, (aka the last month of spring), nor that there’s going to be a seventh season on top of the earlier-promised sixth, but…

But the truth is that AoS is being ‘cute’ again. The truth is that their seventh season is going to be 13 episodes long too, just as the sixth is, so odds are is that it and the sixth season are really a single season, cut into two. This tendency was evident even way back in AoS’ S1, and by S3, we had a nameless first half, and ‘the fallen agent’ story arc in the second. In S4, there were really three mini-seasons – the Ghost Rider, the LMD and the Framework, and though by S5 that approach was abandoned, the first and the second halves of S5 were once more two related, yet separate, story arches. And now, it seems, AoS S6+7 took this approach one step further, by making each half-season into a ‘proper’ season. Whether it will work, we will have to see.

And as for the latest AoS clip, one that features Coulson’s look-alike, cough? Yeah, Gregg could always play his character in a ‘tough guy’ persona, no doubt about it. Here, he seems to be delivering it again, so yay. Whatever problems AoS had in the past, the actors’ acting was not it. The script was often reset and recycled, and the characters were often disrespected, (as opposed to ‘Blindspot’ and even ‘Reverie’), but that wasn’t really the actors fault, now was it? Fitz’s stranded in space plot – yeah, it was probably originally intended to be Lincoln, (possibly as a bridge to introduce the Kree that in RL came in S5), but because Luke Mitchell quit AoS and went to ‘Blindspot’, Lincoln just died instead. Pity, and it cost AoS in the long run, as Lincoln’s fans joined the fans of HuntingBird and Ward as they stopped watching the canon and went on to develop their own fanfics, fanvids, and so on. Probably not the best idea of AoS, but it never could fully hide its real-life problems from the audience, and yes, this is one of those problems that plague the show. Plus, as Jeff’s statement at CM premiere indicated, the actors do not get along with each other too. What is next?

We’ve began to tentatively play the new ‘Tyrant’s Grasp’ adventure path; we may or may not move past the first (out of six) installments, and we’ve started to play ‘Dead Roads’ only because of nostalgia regarding us playing ‘Mummy’s Mask’ campaign. The reason for nostalgia is two-fold. One is the psychopomps that are appearing in ‘Dead Roads’ – we’ve encountered them in the past in ‘Empty Graves’, when a necromancer began to bring all sorts of undead creatures to life. This was when we have properly encountered the nosoi, the vanth and the esobok psychopomps, in various ways. (We also acquired the ‘summon psychopomp’ spells too on that campaign). And the second are the shabti, whom we have encountered first in the Mask bestiary as a PC race, so it is interesting to deal with them as proper opponents, as well as revisit the psychopomps as well. Hence, we are currently playing ‘Dead Roads’, what happens next is anyone’s guess.

And for now, this is it. See you all soon!

The Gifted: gaMe changer - Dec 4

The obligatory disclaimer: sometimes real life sucks, and sometimes it does not. Yay, really. Now onto ‘the Gifted’.

…This week’s episode was called the ‘gaMe changer’, and it certainly lived up to its’ name. The Inner Circle has destroyed the control center for the mutants’ control collars, and now many mutants are free. With the ‘regular’ society already inflamed and divided on the mutant issue, Reeva’s plan for taking over USA is beginning to take shape and it is a workable one, too. Whether she will be able to keep the United States once she captures them, is another story, and, moreover, one that we will get to see later, after the winter break, (technically speaking). For now, more new mutant characters will be appearing on the show; whether they will stay, or go, as Rebecca did, is another story.

…Rebecca got killed off in this week’s episode, incidentally. Judging by S1, no return from the dead for her; ‘the Gifted’ are not like AoS in that fashion. (With AC, there is not enough material to make a statement). This brings us to Daredevil, or rather – to ‘Daredevil’, who got cancelled at the end of last month.

Is this noteworthy? Well, yes – ‘Reverie’ might have also gotten cancelled during November 2018, (albeit in the beginning, rather than the end), but ‘Daredevil’ lasted longer – for 3 seasons rather than 1, and it was much more exciting, proportionally speaking, than ‘Reverie’ had been. ‘Reverie’ was not a bad show, but it was very heavily influenced by AoS on one hand, and kind of… not exactly insipid, but certainly lackluster on the other. ‘Reverie’ got cancelled with a whimper; the exit of ‘Daredevil’ was more noticeable.

Yes, in part this is because ‘Iron Fist’ and ‘Luke Cage’ were cancelled earlier in November 2018 too; with only JJ still up for grabs on one hand, and with ‘The Defenders’ proper being the weakest of Marvel/Netflix shows, things aren’t looking up for the Defenders team. However, that is acceptable: right now, the most popular theory is that with Disney establishing its’ own version of Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/etc., and as such, it is no longer too interested in cooperating with Netflix proper. (And maybe its’ counterparts as well).

Of course, until Netflix’s copyright for the Defenders’ team run out, Disney will have to tread carefully here, to prevent any conflicts back in the real world. It is already in a bad place regarding its’ other takeover, of SW, so it does not really need to add any of its’ Marvel properties into the mix. With Sony, (regarding its’ universe of Marvel characters or Earth-TRN688), making its’ boundaries clear and established, it might be Netflix’s turn next – or it and Disney might do something completely different, who knows?..

Back to ‘the Gifted’? So far, it is still going strong, with the ‘gaMe changer’ trying to go for something epic, as the Inner Circle releases captured and subdued mutants, the rest of the Strucker family destroying anti-mutant research, and John, from the Mutant Underground, getting captured by Jace and his Purifiers.

Well, technically, the Purifiers’ are not Jace’s, but are more of a free-ranging secret society, like the Freemasons or the Illuminati, but Jace is shown to be taking charge of them lately. Again, it is a question of just how big the Purifiers are, as a movement, but we’ll probably see more of them in the future episodes; right now, John got captured by probably no more than three or four of them, including Jace. Of course, John’s strategy had been to run at their jeep and hold it in place, until he got exhausted, but John has been in a bad place lately, as he and Clarice constantly fought lately, and Marcos was more of a comic relief than anything else.

Pause. This brings us to the fact that by now episodes of ‘the Gifted’ got somewhat, well, disassembled into separate plotlines; Jace capturing John at the end of ‘gaMe changer’ is really the first sign that they are coming together again, and maybe we’ll get something more along the lines of ‘the Gifted’ S1 in the next episode…

And this is it, for now. See you all soon!

To All The Boys That I Have Loved - Aug 21

…And, since we have talked about Jenny Han and her LJ trilogy before, let us talk once more about the movie.

Why? Firstly, because of timing – it isn’t known if it was intentional or not, but it came out just as the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ did, and so it got to ride their wake, because the LJ movie is also a movie about the Asian-American people, who actually live in a mixed-culture family: their dad is Anglo-American, while their mom was from Korea, and now she’s dead. There is the spectre of Jane Austen hanging over the entire LJ trilogy, and it is likely to be intentional for whatever reasons the author has.

The movie has toned down that influence: the film’s LJ is much more spunky and athletic than the novels’ version is. Jenny Han did her best to show LJ as a young woman who is just coming into her womanhood throughout the trilogy…with some humor, but also some drama and tragedy. The movie has that too, but the humor is more boosted, just as it is in the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ film.

True, we did discuss it before: the LJ novels feel more like a ‘Maid in Manhattan’, not ‘Fools Rush In’ or ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (mostly, in the latter case). The author put the emphasis on romance, not on humor, while the movie feels more like a mixture of two. This makes it better than the ‘Insatiable’ series, as far as YA Netflix productions go, while ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ differ from it by trying to go international and beyond their rom-com parameters.

Listen: there are still plenty of accolades for ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ coming from…within the U.S. Abroad, even in Canada, there are more sceptics than in the U.S., and it is beginning to show. ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ is an American movie, or maybe even an Asian-American one, but it isn’t an Asian one, and if the American society doesn’t understand the differences, then it has problems. The American society, not the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ movie. The latter does its job – it entertains. So does the LJ film, as well as the original novels, (in both cases). It’s just that LJ is less ambitious in its message or scope than ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ are, which makes sense, because Netflix isn’t Disney, and it isn’t as formidable as the big league movie companies are, either.

(Apparently, Netflix did offer to make ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ a part of its’ menu, but the director decided to go for the big screens instead. Small world).

Finally, about ‘Reverie’. So far, it is still uncertain if it will be renewed for a second season or not. That is not surprising – it got potential, but little excitement, and on occasion, it was known to focus on Sarah Shahi, (who plays Mara) and her legs a little too much. It is not exactly a hot mess, nor is it insipid as Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ had been; it is just rather lackluster and sometimes – it felt hollow, unsupported, loose.

That and the fact that it ripped-off Marvel’s AoS’ framework plotline, of course. Cannot forget that either. Not surprising, then, that the face of ‘Reverie’ is still hanging in the balance. Good luck to it, though.

This is it for now; see you all soon!

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!

Reverie, 'The Key' - August 2

The penultimate episode of ‘Reverie’ S1 was upon us. ‘The Key’ was everything that we’ve seen in the ‘Reverie’ S1 so far and more, as this episode had actually tackled two separate plot lines, with both of them coming to a head next week in the season’s finale: firstly, Mara is finally dealing with the truth of her family’s demise, (and also the revelation that she isn’t as nice as she thinks that she is), while Oliver is finally going into the supervillain territory, as he kills his security officer minion and prepares to burn ‘Oneira’ with the reverie-manifesting machinery to the ground.

Is there a twist? Well, Oliver was intended to be relatable to us…or he would have been, if he had appeared in more than just two episodes of S1. (This is his third appearance in the show so far). For a long time, he did not have a backstory, as several villains of AoS did; he was the backstory, especially of Alexis and Charlie, which makes it hard for the audience to relate to him: he was cast as a villain from his start, so it is only natural that he is now revealed as one properly. No, what one rather feels in regards to Oliver is relief: at last ‘Reverie’ has its proper villain, so now it is up to Mara, (next week), to see if he can be redeemed or not.

Here’s a thing – unlike AoS, where the main cast members often had conflicts between themselves and had to resolve them to move the story line forwards, ‘Reverie’ is much more straightforward and simple: every week, until ‘The Key’ – this week’s episode – we had a…patient of the week with a problem, (usually with a subtle connection to one or another character from AoS), and Mara went into the reverie and helped sort it out with the help of the rest of team Oneira. There were some minor variations from one episode to the next, but in general? This is how it went – but now it does not. Now Mara and Paul need to actually take the initiative and resolve Mara’s conflict with her ex-brother-in-law as well as within herself, while also resolving whatever crazy-ass plan Oliver got for ‘Oneira’ and the reverie – but we’ve been there before.

Possibly, Mara’s revealed viciousness, (and Charlie’s, and maybe also Alexis’), is the AoS-like twist in ‘Reverie’, but somehow it only makes Mara – as a character – more rounded and human. Until now, the characters in ‘Reverie’ were more two-dimensional than those of AoS, for example, or of ‘Runaways’. Now, however, they are becoming more rounded, with the plot becoming more intriguing and exciting than it did before, so it can be safely proclaimed that ‘Reverie’ does everything right, ‘by the numbers’, as far as the shows go, so their big question currently is: was it enough? Are there enough people who give a damn – or even more – about ‘Reverie’ and its’ characters? Because if there is not, ‘Reverie’ falls flat, and since there are no news about it receiving renewed for a second season yet…this is not encouraging. We will just have to wait and see what will happen next.

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

Reverie, 'Despedida' - July 26

We are continuing to go our merry way with ‘Reverie’, as it reaches its’ 8^th episode, ‘Despedida’. This time, the AoS’ rip-off is Melinda May and her complex relationship with children; in the ‘Reverie’-verse she became Pilar, a woman who had sort of failed to save a group of girls back in her past, during Chile’s revolution (in 1973), and who has utilized the titular device to try and fix it – and fix it she does, with Mara’s help. What next?

…One of ‘Reverie’s’ flaws is not that it is influenced, cough, by AoS – it is not the first one to do so. ‘Blindspot’ did it, so’s ‘Quantico’ and DC’s LoT, but all of these shows are team-focused, literally speaking. There is no main character, unlike ‘Arrow’ or ‘Supergirl’ shows, for example, which do focus primarily on the titular main characters, at least to a point; everyone actually gets their ten minutes of fame, depending on an episode, whereas in ‘Reverie’, it was always about Mara, with the rest of the main characters always being in support roles. Some episodes – such as last week’s episode 1x07 – did try to change the dynamic, but not really; with just 10 episodes in the first season, the show’s cast and crew did not have too much room to maneuver, probably. This is not exactly a problem, more of an inconsistency; yes, from the common-sense-P.O.V., naming a show ‘Mara’ made it somehow less attractive than naming it ‘Reverie’; yet somehow this is still mostly a show about Mara, than about anything reverie-related.

Is it a problem? Not really; ‘Reverie’ is still in its’ first season; it might get better, or just change, in the following seasons, or it might get cancelled altogether, as ‘The Change’ did, (though ‘The Change’ ended after 2 seasons, rather than just one). Unlike ‘C&D’, there are no news of it being renewed for a S2, and somehow, this is not surprising – for all of its’ positive features, it just is not very good.

Anything else? ‘Quantico’ is ending after three seasons or so, sad. Rousey had her shark week special, which was really a personal promo piece for her badassery – she should probably see a shrink about how to make herself feel happy rather than harass sharks. She clearly has issues, and whatever she does, sharks or no sharks, it is not helping. Maybe it is time to see professional help instead? Who knows…

Facebook took a huge dive in stock, but, apparently, they had expected it, so they are not down for the count by a long shot. There are first photos of the actress who will be playing the titular character in Disney’s live action Kim Possible film, and people are already fighting over it. What a surprise. Life goes on as it usually does, i.e.

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon.

Reverie, 'Black Mandala' - July 19

‘Reverie’ continues to make good with its’ episodes; this week’s episode, ‘Black Mandala’, shows the core characters’ team…continuing to act as, well, a team, in saving a Syrian refugee from an experimental interlocution scheme in the reverie, so yay for them!

…On one hand, this is unquestionably good: the relationship between TV and real life is too often too strained… or else we’re talking about the U.S. politics for the last few years, where everything is simply insane to a point where Thanos from MCU appears as a moderate Republican and a philosopher as well, so again, congratulations to ‘Reverie’ both for dealing with real life and with not plundering plot ideas from AoS for a change too. On the other hand, having read Arundhati Roy’s novel ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’, where one of the characters – S. Tilottama – is a daughter of a Syrian Christian refugee herself, I guess I became more inured to the Syrian plight.

Let me elaborate some more. Just like ‘The God of Small Things’, ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ is a truly masterful novel, yet I found myself disagreeing with the author: she set up S. Tilottama and Musa Yeswi as some of the more positive characters of her second novel, setting them up against Tilottama’s other suitors as well as major Amrik Singh, who are much more the villains here, especially Amrik Singh. That may be so, but I found Musa and especially Tilottama to be more righteous than one can digest and possibly the author tried to set them up to be more likable than they deserved; it probably didn’t work, for while the literary critics did sing Arundhati Roy her well-deserved accolades, the readers weren’t in an great hurry to spread the fame of her novel, (I acquired my copy on a sale in a Drug Mart), but perhaps we’ve digressed?

Well, yes, we have. My point is that for as long as I have watched the ‘Black Mandala’ episode – from beginning to end – I was constantly being reminded of the above-mentioned novel and S. Tilottama and Musa Yeswi. I just did not like those characters; major Amrik Singh was undoubtedly a villain, but somehow I just could not picture Tilottama (Tilo) and Yeswi as heroes. Maybe they were anti-heroes of some sort, but otherwise? Where does ‘Reverie’ fit into it?

Nowhere. ‘Black Mandala’ was a wonderful episode, very dramatic, directed very well, (though what was Mara wearing on her date with her not-so-ex ex-boyfriend? It just looked bizarre), but also? Forgettable, and that is possibly the main problem of ‘Reverie’ – people just do not care about it very much. AoS – or rather, its characters – had similar problems, especially by S5: while Kasius and Sinara – a pair of alien villains – actually do have some fans, Deke Shaw, who was or wasn’t Daisy’s love interest in S5 doesn’t, and in fact seems to have become largely forgotten by now. Daisy is being paired with anyone else, really, other than him: like John Garrett, and Daniel Whitehall, and Sunil Bakshi, Deke was forgotten. The problem is that he is certainly not a villain, and in fact might be S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new rookie, but the viewers do not care, and so, Deke Shaw might as well have not existed in AoS’ S5. Of course, if his role had been better defined on the show things might have been different, but they are not and so he is gone.

By contrast, ‘Reverie’ runs a might tighter ship with its plot, cast, and budget – not only its CGI are tightly controlled and dosed out in appropriate doses, the number of characters per each episode is quite small too – there’s the main cast, (including one Monica Shaw, who comes and goes on the set as the plot requires it), and there are the clients of each case/episode, who need Mara’s aid in getting out of the reverie for whatever reasons. Not too bad, but ‘Reverie’ needs more recurring characters as well.

Look back at AoS; part of its’ initial success were its recurring villains…or rather, a villain – Grant Ward, (and Kara Palamas, for some time). This allowed AoS to build a bigger plot arc for its’ seasons and be a better, more developed show…at least in theory. In practice, it was something else, but even so, each later season would usually have its big bad – Alveus, AIDA/Madame Hydra, even Graviton and his alien space ninja minions…it worked. ‘Reverie’ does not have anything like that…for all that it got right in its’ script, it still has some flaws to work out, and a lack of a greater plot arc is one of them.

…Oh wait, Mara is going to have some sort of a breakdown the next episode and be the one who will need help rather than the one to help. Never mind, maybe we can have Oliver return in this episode – 1x08 – and be behind it. Otherwise, this is just a variant of the same old story, save that by this week’s episode Mara seems to have put her friendship with Paul on hold and got back with her ex ex-boyfriend instead, so there’ll probably be more conflict in 1x08 as well. How exciting. Not.

‘Reverie’ got most, if not all, parts of a winning formula right. It just got them in too small a quantity, it seems. We will just have to hope that it does not get cancelled post-S1, as APB did. Until then, however – see you all soon!

Reverie, 'Pas De Deux' - July 12

‘Reverie’ is back this week. Yay!

Well, it is ‘yay’ because otherwise, there is not too much left to talk about. Well, we can talk about the ants in the Marvel™ franchise, more specifically – in the Ant-Man and Wasp movies, (there are two now), how they can fly. The twist is in the ants themselves.

…As far as insects go, ants’ closest relatives are bees, wasps, and the like. In many of those insects, there are three adult morphs: the worker, which is technically female, but is actually sexless, the male, more usually known as the drone, and the queen – the fertile female. The ants have all of these morphs, but only the drones and queens retain their wings…for the mating flight. After that, the males die, and the fertile female queens go underground and start new ant colonies – sir David Attenborough showed all of this in one or another of his specials. (The termites are something else, not very closely related to the ants, and so we will discuss them another time). What interests us now, if we have no life, is does the Ant-Man fly an ant drone into battle, or an ant queen?

…And now that we have acknowledged that, we have no social life, back to ‘Reverie’? In this week’s episode, ‘Pas De Deux’, we encounter an ex-ballerina, who has lost everything in a bicycle accident, (including her unborn baby)…and then regained it all in the reverie, with the usual twist: she is dying in the real life, and has to be brought back, or else.

In a secondary twist, Alexis seems to have changed her attitude towards other people a lot, and now does not take their attempts at impromptu suicide by the reverie lying down: if Mara doesn’t get them out of there nicely, she will pull them out of it manually, by physically unplugging their machine parts. That course of action is fraught with its’ own risks, but since it was allocated only a single scene, we cannot really talk about it very much – not right now.

The other plotlines include Mara’s ex-fiancé, (and it’s a man, not a woman – there aren’t too many same-sex plotlines going in ‘Reverie’ yet, but this is just their first season, this may change in the future), who is also the doctor, (psychiatrist) of the ex-ballerina, so there’s some tension as well. In addition, Mara is continuing to confront her inner demons, but, presumably, the main point of PDD is that the ex-ballerina has accepted her fate and will continue teaching her sister’s children’s ballet school, while the latter is quietly dying from multiple sclerosis. Have I mentioned that PDD was especially dark even for a ‘Reverie’ episode? No? Then did I mention that PDD was based on the AoS plotline where Mack refused to leave the framework because he had his daughter in there, (she died a long time in real life before the AoS S1 events began)? Also no? Well, now I have, and I will say it again: ‘Reverie’ has taken that plot line and dealt with it much better than AoS had done, so there.

Anything else? Before ‘Reverie’ had taken their week off last week, their numbers have actually gone up slightly, so that’s good news…provided that their week off didn’t bit them in the proverbial foot this time – so far it is too early to tell about the numbers. ‘C&D’ are… still doing worse than ‘Reverie’ does, even though they are really trying to do something about it…but that is a talk for another time…

However, for now, this is it. See you all soon instead!

Cloak & Dagger, 'Offensive' - June 29

As summer of 2018 continues to pick up momentum, Marvel’s™ ‘Cloak & Dagger’ continue…to just continue. By now, they are in their fifth episode, which is a midway point, and so far, things are only beginning to get started. The first four episodes were more of an origin story than anything else, and most reviewers are not particularly impressed with the show. Am I impressed with the show? No, and I told you the reason why before – there is no Marvel™.

I.e., in this particular episode – ‘Princeton Offensive’ – Tandy tried to use her good looks…and also her powers, but, nevertheless, she still looks good here; for a semi-hobo, a criminal, and a semi-drug addict this girl certainly looks posh and healthy; anyhow, she infiltrated Roxxon to discover its’ secrets. From what we have seen on screen, Roxxon is a typical Wolfram & Hart client, whose members would screw each other in a heartbeat; Angel and co from ‘Angel the Series’ (AtS) are sorely missed here, but sadly, so far ‘C&D’ fandom is a small one, and there’re no signs of a crossover yet, so Tandy will have to do it on her own…with some help from Tyrone, perhaps. ‘Course, now that Tyrone has a girlfriend of his own now, so this can become complex, but who knows?..

Pause. Let us take a deeper breath and start again. Tandy has infiltrated the ‘Evil Inc.’ aka Roxxon, whose members behave just as evil corporate… villains are expected to behave. They are also, well, Anglo-Americans… with one exception. Secondly, Tyrone himself is behaving as a… ‘typical’, or perhaps even – a ‘stereotypical Afro-American’ teenager, complete with screwing his girlfriend, who is also an Afro-American. As a contrast, last week’s episode of ‘Reverie’ – ‘Blue’ – had an interracial semi-couple; there was no sexual content or anything like that; actually, there’s very little sexual content in ‘Reverie’ at all, which might be another reason as to why this show is still not very popular among the viewers, but at least two of the characters – Charlie and Monica – are ‘black-and-white’ themselves and are in a relationship. For a show that is supposed to be ‘edgy’ ‘C&D’ got none of that; instead, there is some sort of an official unofficial segregation, a tangible ‘us vs. them’ mentality in both the Anglo- and the Afro-American populations of the New Orleans, and that raises a question: what year is this supposed to be? 1978, maybe? Or the creative team behind ‘C&D’ is trying to create some sort of an American dystopia, here? Idiots, just look at the real life USA – the dystopia that is rising here has nothing to do with racial segregation, at least…not entirely.

Another pause. What is the ‘C&D’ finale game, here, for right now, there is no indication of it; in fact, T&T are still doing their best to stay apart from each other. This can certainly work, but… pre-story – throughout their incarnations in MCU, C&D needed each other to function, as much as they needed anything, or anyone, else. Here this does not appear to be so; in fact, T&T tend to use their other powers – seeing the hopes and fears of the other people – instead. Okay, but, that is not ‘C&D’.

Yes, it is childish and immature to exclaim that the Marvel™/Freeform™ creative team here is in the wrong, and if Marvel™ hadn’t been associated with this show, (so instead of ‘C&D’ we had something more generic ala ‘Tru Blood’), then there wouldn’t be half as many issues: it’d be ‘just a show’, like how ‘Reverie’ is, whose own numbers may be low, but still twice as high than those of ‘C&D’. Again, considering that ‘C&D’ is a Marvel™ show, and ‘Reverie’ isn’t, this is surprising, and not exactly in a good way – just what is the relationship between Marvel™ and Freeform™ here, how their cooperation works?..

Stepping away from such lofty heights, there is still the fact that the world of ‘C&D’ seems to be populated with clichés; Anglo-American clichés, Afro-American, and the episode’s finale introduced a Chinese-American character, who is extremely intelligent, very nerdy, and works for a big company, becoming a success. Maybe this new character is intended to be a foil for Tandy, but so far? She is also yet another cultural cliché. For a supposedly edgy show, ‘C&D’ appears to be too invested into a bad version of cultural appreciation, and that just is not good. In real life, if you are resorting to villainy to become successful, you have to be skillful about it, because otherwise? You will fail. In the past, DW tried to become a propaganda piece for the US – its’ government, (pre-Donald), its’ military might – and it backfired. Maybe ‘C&D’s’ own secret agenda will backfire on them too – and it will suck…

Well, this is it for now; thank you and see you in the future!

Reverie, 'Altum' - June 28

‘Reverie’ continues to improve. No, it really does. This week’s episode – ‘Altum Somnum’ – was all about… Kara Lynn Palamas, also known in S.H.I.E.L.D. as agent 33.

Yes, this is a joke, AoS and ‘Reverie’ are not going to have a crossover any time soon, but this week’s focus character Ashley/Denise was based on AoS’ agent 33, with plenty of similarities, if you know where to look. The differences is that Ashley/Denise was given dignity, redemption, humanity…everything that Kara/33 was denied as a character on her show. Not unlike how ‘Blindspot’ handled it, (just in a different way), earlier, ‘Reverie’ now shows that AoS sucked as a show, including the lack of respect for the characters; and their script got cut and revised several times…much more so than the ‘InHumans’ script had, yet because AoS is the supplement show to the greater MCU, it remains, (and will air its S6 in summer 2019), while the ‘InHumans’ are gone.

…Not that they are really missed; they were not bad, only – insipid, and also rushed. An 8-episode S1 was not bad, but a 10-episode one would have probably been better, but we got what we got, and the ‘InHumans’ are history for now. AoS remains. So’s ‘Blindspot’. And ‘Reverie’?

‘Reverie’ continues to stay low in the numbers, which is sad. Its’ initial episodes may have started slow and staid, but by now they are clearly improving; the only real handicap is its’ (incomplete) reliance on AoS’ themes and values, (relatively speaking), to get itself moving along. ‘Blindspot’ already does that, (its’ 3^rd season finished earlier this year), but it certainly is not unpopular either.

Maybe it is the lack of action: no matter how ‘Reverie’ tries, it just is not as action-high as AoS or ‘Blindspot’ are, but a show does not need a high level of action to be successful, as ‘Time after Time’ showed – it had plenty of action, but it got cancelled mid-season all the same. That is some sort of an anti-record; so far, only it and ‘Powerless’ got that treatment, and ‘Powerless’ was notably less coherent and uptight than ‘Time’ had been…

Back to ‘Reverie’? Not really; it is a good show already and it continues to improve. Will it be enough to win people over? That is another question, and so far, the prognosis is not good. Nor are the numbers, actually. Still here is to hoping – if ‘Blindspot’ was able to last for 3 seasons already, then maybe so can ‘Reverie’…

Well, that is it for now; see you all soon instead!

'Reverie', Bond - June 7

‘Reverie’ continues with its second episode. And?

And ‘Bond. Jane Bond’ episode seems to be setting at least one of themes of the series: ordinary people go into the dream world, and become someone extraordinary – a spy, in this episode, or given the spoilers for the next week’s episode, a bank robber. I.e., they are turned inside out, just as the framework did to people in AoS. Could ‘Reverie’ be more like AoS if it tried?

And try it does. To be interesting, that is. There’s Charlie, who’s friends with Monica, who is in cahoots with him to sell the Reverie to the Defense Department. And there is Alexis, whose closest friend is Dylan the A.I., who is based on her long-dead twin brother. And there’s Mara herself, who’s being now clearly haunted, (it verges on trolling, really), by her dead niece. This is very exciting…thanks to the actors’ acting and the background, CGI’d or not. The script itself is rather lukewarm – at least for now, the crew of ‘Reverie’ are playing it safe. Anything else?

Marvel’s ‘Cloak and Dagger’ premieres this week too, so this is going to be exciting…unless you are on team Marvel, who are downplaying them. ‘Runaways’ got a comic-book reboot, ‘Avengers’ and ‘Deadpool’ are enjoying a surge, even ‘Black Panther’ is going strong, but ‘Cloak and Dagger’ show not a peep. Weird, since they did appear in the comics once before, in the ‘Runaways’, for example, where they tried to rescue Molly, since they assumed that the rest of the Runaways had kidnapped her…but in the TV-version of ‘Runaways’, the teens are wanted in connection to the death of a young lady named Destiny instead, so we’ll have to wait for their S2 to see as to what will happen and who’ll come up, plus it is probably too early for them to crossover with ‘Cloak & Dagger’ Arrowverse style, but we will see. ‘Cloak & Dagger’ need to get through their own S1 first. There is already plenty of excitement, but again, we will just have to wait and see as to what will develop next.

…I guess that we will talk later for real, so for now – see you in the future. And as for ‘Reverie’? Good luck to it all the same – it is a decent show and promises us many good things to come, unless it gets cancelled, as APB and ‘Deception’ had. Here is hope to it in the future, too.

Reverie, 'Apertus' - May 30

Warning. Spoilers ahead. Proceed at your own risk. And we begin-

-With ‘Reverie’. One of the new TV shows that have appeared this May/June, (2018). What is it?

Apparently, it is a sci-fi drama. It consists of the main character, Mara Kint, going forth into the ‘Reverie’, a VR gone over-the-edge mad science and rescuing people who have trapped themselves in there, while dealing with her own past tragedies, failures and internal demons. Not a bad premise, really, so-?

So nothing. The first episode of the series, ‘Apertus’ aired last night, and it established ‘Reverie’ as a solid TV series, whose main advantage so far are the special effects. They are really bizarre but also well crafted, such as Mara Kint’s first entry into the VR world, where she has to deal with fire and water, (and all that is missing are the copper trumpets of fame…sorry), and they actually raise a couple of unusual points.

One is that that scene, of Mara finding herself in a lovely British Columbia forest, is reminiscent of several chapters of ‘Aru Shah and the End of Time’ novel. That novel is worth mentioning because its’ author is involved with Rick Riordan somehow – yes, that Riordan. ‘Aru Shah’ appears to be a different take on Riordan’s novels for children and young adults, one where the titular heroine and her new best friends, Boo and Mini, has to go save the world. For a change, this world is set in Hindu mythos, rather than the Greco-Roman, Norse or Egyptian as Riordan has done. What is more, Riordan himself either is a co-author of the novel, or plays some other role, as he had written a ringing review/introduction of ‘End’. Indeed, it is so chipper and positive that comes across as over-the-top, kind of fake and shallow, but-

But nothing. Let us go further down this road, and look at Riordan’s own novels, especially the latest ones. His series about ‘Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard’ feels abbreviated, especially the last novel. It comes across as several novels compressed into one, and it shows by having a rushed plot. Moreover, it comes across as a rushed imitation of Riordan’s second plot arch, one that introduced Piper, Jason, Leo and the others, which is sad. And speaking of Piper, Jason, Leo, the others and sadness – ‘The Burning Maze’. Trigger warning: Jason dies there, but…

But for a while, especially in ‘Magnus Chase’ series, Riordan tried include all sorts of various references, including ‘Marvel’, (such as ‘Jessica Jones), and, well, he engaged in depicting all sort of alternate characters, including Alex, the child of Loki, who’s gender-fluid (or whatever you want to call it). It was very modern, very politically correct, but ‘The Burning Maze’ has none of it instead. Rather, it focused on Apollo and Meg helping the local dryads and satyrs in defeating Caligula and Medea…with the help of Piper and Jason – and that was why Jason died.

To make matters worse, from a literary P.O.V. ‘The Burning Maze’ is flawed. Ever since Medea appeared in the above-mentioned plot arch – ‘The Last Hero’, I believe – she had some interest in Jason, because it was ‘a’ Jason. Riordan here took a straightforward idea – Medea was the villain in the ‘Golden Fleece’ mythos, even though in reality that was not quite the case; if you read the Antique tragedies written about Medea and Jason, then you will see that while Medea does get the brunt of it, Jason is not such a nice man either – but we digress. The point is that ‘The Burning Maze’ did a half-hearted attempt to set Jason/Piper and Caligula/Medea as some sort of good/evil counterparts, but it did not take. Yoda’s statement of ‘do or do not, there is no try’ is something of a truism nowadays, but the old boy was onto something here, it seems, as this half-hearted attempt just undercut ‘The Burning Maze’, in a manner not unlike how AoS had undercut its’ S5 finale. Coulson may be dying, but AoS made it look as if he and May have retired instead; Fitz is dead, only he is not; he is also alive, floating in space. So what made the S5 finale special, then? The special effects? ‘Reverie’ has them too, but-

-But special effects on their own do not work. AoS did not rely on them too much, especially in the first seasons, when it was better, AC didn’t rely on them too much, (but got cancelled just because real life sucks, it seems), while ‘Reverie’ does rely on special effects, both CGI and just visual, and the result isn’t as good as ‘Reverie’ wanted to; the show feels… confused.

On one hand ‘Reverie’ is trying to go sci-fi with the VR world, though all the oneiro/onira-based imply that it is a realm of dreams; ‘oneiric’ is a fancy word (adjective) for anything related to dreams; Willie Wonka used to talk about the ‘realm of pure imagination’; ‘Reverie’ has made his song a reality, by creating a machine that makes dreams come true-

On the other hand, it is some sort of a detective story, a mystery story, as Mara Kint has to unravel each subject’s secret issues, (revealed, in a hidden way, in their dreams), as a detective would. Who knows why Mara had to be a former hostage negotiator; so far, her first case was largely civilian: the subject felt guilt for being high and causing an accident that killed his wife, and so he is staying in his dreams, hiding from his guilt. There is no terrorism, no politics…so far, but still.

…Yes, ‘Reverie’ the machine is influenced by AoS; ‘Quantico’ and ‘Blindspot’ focused on the team-building aspect of the show, ‘Reverie’ – on the framework, device and mini-plot arch, but, regardless, here we are. This means that there going to be ‘sneaky subplots’ or whatever you want to call them; they worked for AoS, but only to a point; it did get renewed for S6, but we’ll still have to wait and see as to where they are going; and ‘Reverie’? So far, it feels somewhat bland, confused, a show that does not know where it wants to go…but it does show off the legs of Mara Kint, (aka Sarah Shahi) on a regular basis – and that is the other weird point.

Sarah Shahi had a very impressive career/resume, but a leg model she was not. Ergo, those shots that focus on her legs, feet and shoes as she’s walking around, can be not just her showing off, but also the show’s cast and scriptwriters getting fancy, or even – product placement. Are Mara Kint’s shoes somehow special?

…Well, this is it for the moment. ‘Reverie’ has made its’ debut and is not leaving anytime soon. See you all in the future!