Runaways: Refraction - Dec 28

‘Runaways’ continue to gather steam, as they are going slowly but relentlessly towards their S1 finale. (Are seasons even a thing for Web TV shows?) They are continuing to be separate and apart, different from the traditional comics, but that is no problem – so does ‘Riverdale’, when it comes to the rest of its’ franchise: there’re ‘Riverdale’ comics, and there’re ‘Archies’ comic, they are together but separate. Ditto for the ‘Runaways’.

In other news, the ‘Librarians’ TV show also continues to go…through its’ 4^th season, as a matter of fact. It already has embraced the old age progression gag as the (upcoming) episode 4x05. Again, as it was written regarding their S3, the ‘Librarians’ are unconventional heroes…that are going down the conventional path since S3. They are still going strong, but they are still going nowhere, even if they have their own comic book series, (at least for a while). Yay them, that is so impressive.

Yes, not really – often TV shows and their literary adaptions, (comics, books, etc.) do not often mesh, not even if they are part of ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Dr. Who’ franchise, which brings us back to the following: all of these TV shows, (and Web TV shows) are commodities to be sold to, and bought by, consumers, audience. They need to sell, because otherwise? They don’t go anywhere, as AoS has done by S5; even though ‘Rewind’ gave them something of a boost, AoS’ S5 is still in the lower ranges of AoS numbers, still lower than S3, for example, and ‘Life Earned’ was probably the lowest AoS episode yet. Why? For a number of reasons, including the argument over whether Hydra is Nazi or just fascist, and the issue of the characters’ treatment – the latter continues even now, with the FitzSimmons doing, well, the whole gender role stereotype: in the first four S5 episodes Jemma was made really, well, feminine, while in ‘Rewind’ Fitz turned into some sort of a commando, causing Lance Hunter, (or Nick Blood?) to exclaim: “But that’s my thing!”

That is certainly a thing – yes, the return of Lance Hunter did boost the numbers for ‘Rewind’ – and then AoS promptly hit everyone with a ‘fall finale’ hiatus, causing everyone to lose attention and interest in AoS again, at least for a while, and with new shows (i.e. ‘Grown-ish’) coming and old shows (i.e. ‘X-Files’) returning to the TV in 2018, AoS got its’ job cut out for it – again. Yes, the Hydra controversy has mostly gone back into the background, as MCU got rid of Hydra for good…although AoS seems to be showing signs that it might be coming back or something; ‘Rewind’, with its’ U.S. military conspiracies and co. was much more interesting than the previous episodes of S5 combined, but again – the fall finale, and it seems that all of the goodwill gathered by ‘Rewind’ will be wasted. At least ‘Librarians’ have better sense than to do anything like that, now do they?

This gets us back to creativity, and here is the thing. AoS’ S5 has it. So do ‘Runaways’. Only ‘Runaways’ are using it more sensibly than AoS ever did, but yes, it’s tricky to work it out; ‘Librarians’ seem to be going all out, and so far they aren’t having much better luck than AoS does, plus AoS has racial variety going for them, while ‘Librarians’ have only one person of color in their cast – Ezekiel. With a name like this, you have to wonder as to just how and why John Harlan Kim got this particular job: was he lucky, or is he some sort of a token actor here?

This question obviously does not apply to ‘Runaways’ because of the obvious reasons, and they still had plenty of creativity, (though Old Lace did not appear in this episode – and he is a part of the regular cast back in the ‘Runaways’ comics, damn it!). They are still going strong, (though yes, they do not have much distance left to cover), and they are still different and varied. Hydra may (or may not) be gone from MCU for good, but AoS seems to be on the way out of MCU all the same – already it is gone from the MCU mainstream, and we’re talking about Disney here – they know where the money goes, and if it is out, so’re you.

Hopefully, Hulu will be able to keep ‘Runaways’ – and the upcoming ‘Cloak & Dagger’ series – out of its’ clutches. See you all next time!

The Librarians - Jan 22

‘The Librarians 2014’ S3 has ended. It was good, as ‘The Librarians’ were before, the only issue was the limited budget and special effects, but otherwise? It was still good. Not too scary, not too childish, the titular heroes saved the day, Apep is gone, as is the rest of pure evil that he tried to conjure up, (it was just shown as a generic black smoke cloud, with some blue lightning – not very evil, actually), and DOSA will probably disband…or at the very least, it won’t be mentioned, (or be making appearance) in S4 at all. (Or maybe it will, if ‘The Librarians’ need some sort of a villain that isn’t very original – it could happen).

‘The Librarians’ are a good show, but neither are they ‘that’ good. You can watch them when they return in S4, (if they do – this sort of thing is fickle), or you may not, it all comes down to your taste. ‘The Librarians’ don’t captivate; they entertain and amuse, and sometimes this isn’t enough.

…Oh sure, they have tried changing the formula here, as I written regarding the previous episode, but they did it in a half-hearted way; Ezekiel’s new love interest Cindy has disappeared, completely, and Charlene seems to be coming and going sporadically, playing only a minor role here. Odds are, the limited budget affects more than just the special effects…

…Also ending is ‘Salem’ the series. It was a very good horror show, and it will be missed, but to counterbalance it, I suppose, ‘Riverdale’ is coming to TV – mainly to the CW, but still. As I have also written before, it is yet another adaptation of ‘Archies’, this one with plenty of changes, especially secondary ones, but the main character depictions are the same, although if Archie ends up with a new and younger Ms. Grundy, now that will be a plot twist.

…The truth is that ‘Archies’ regularly tries to go beyond its’ comic book limits. Aside from the already mentioned ‘STTW’, that didn’t really have any characters beyond the ‘Sabrina’-related ones, but was still set in Riverdale, there had been an ‘Archie and friends’ cartoon show, where the gang was in junior high school rather than high school, and Dilton was replaced by his Afro-American counterpart named Eugene. I think that it vanished after a single season.

‘Archie’s Weird Mysteries’ lasted for 3 seasons. It was another cartoon, one about the supernatural – ghouls, werewolves, especially vampires – and its’ episodes usually held some sort of a moral lesson for the viewers. Other cartoons, like ‘Guardians of Legends’, also tried the same approach; at least AWM didn’t go for specifically Christian values as ‘Guardians’ did, even though the latter were actually about Greek myths, (and mangled them terribly, especially the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Argonauts’ story arcs); plus ‘Guardians’ had aired their S2 before S1, so nowadays they are found mostly on the Internet, and they aren’t very popular.

With AWM it is somewhat different – ‘Archies’ is deliberately keeping AWM off YouTube and the like; they really don’t like to share, which makes ‘Riverdale’ only more surprising – this is a major breakthrough for them, especially now. Of course, it should be remembered that ‘Archies’ do best with a limited series, such as ‘Archie vs. Predator’, (yeah, that predator), while when it tries to do something longer, like the series where a grown-up version of Archie married Betty in universe, and Veronica in another, the result just fizzles out, as that particular series had. Who knows if ‘Riverdale’ will not experience something similar?

Finally, ‘For Honor’ is also beginning to beta tested for real this January. As people know now, it is going to be a platform game with three factions – the Samurais, the Vikings, and the Knights. On one hand, all three factions may fight for the sake of it, (it is this sort of game, after all), on the other – there were spoilers of an official Apollyon game path, where the titular villain plans to set off ‘an age of war’ between the three nations, so there is that. Maybe this game path will be beta-tested too.

So that is it for tonight; I will see you all soon, probably with another AoS review, yeah?

The Librarians - Jan 15

‘The Librarians’ S3 has completed its penultimate episode; here the titular heroes save Shangri-La from evil and­ finally rescue Charlene (sort of). That is good, but again, the show’s atypical shtick is breaking down.

As I probably wrote before, ‘The Librarians’ strength is that it has unconventional heroes fighting unconventional villains to save the world, (mostly). The main idea itself is fairly conventional, especially in S1, (S2, with its’ ‘fictionals’ was something else). ‘The Librarians’ get to be atypical and unique due to the unconventional secondary details, and now they are vanishing from the show.

…If they are gone, what is left? Yet another ‘team’-based show, not unlike Marvel’s AoS, or any of the DC TV shows, (the new ‘Powerless’ coming this year is going to be fun), or even something like ‘Blindspot’ with its emphasis on ‘the team’. This is not bad, but it means that ‘The Librarians’ can get lost in the crowd, plus – lower ratings. In particular, AoS has experienced them, and while the show has soldiered on for 4 seasons, it is anyone’s guess if it will be around for the fifth. ‘The Librarians’ have aired just 3 seasons, and they are already changing the formula? I am not sure if it is a good idea.

BTW, in S3 the titular heroes are dealing with Apep, (i.e. they are working with primarily Egyptian mythology in a manner that Rick Riordan would consider cavalier in an unprofessional – in an unnecessarily unprofessional – manner), and with DOSA, which is a stereotypical secret government organization, just think S.H.I.E.L.D. from Marvel’s AoS, or its’ counterpart from DC’s ‘Arrowverse’ (especially ‘Arrow’ proper). DOSA thinks that the librarians are the bad guys and is trying to handle them accordingly. Considering that yesterday’s episode has introduced Eve’s old superior, and the theme of divided loyalties, (and which action show doesn’t have such thematic clichés?), the viewers can already predict how the S3’s finale is going to go, at least to a point. Without its’ atypical trappings, ‘The Librarians’ are just left with Cassandra’s numerous dresses, (several per episode – seriously, has the actress made a contract clause that ensures that she dresses sexily/fancily/etc. every episode? Because otherwise those dress changes of her play little effect. Okay, there is the comic effect, but ‘The Librarians’ cannot be unique via this comic effect alone).

So, Apep is a typical apocalyptic monster, albeit from the ancient Egyptian mythology; DOSA is a typical evil/misguided government organization, (rather than some sort of ruthless brigands, or savage marauders, or scandalous pirates, or a secret society), and-

In addition ‘The Librarians’ are trying to change its’ formula in other ways – by expanding its’ cast, (sort of). We got Charlene, (from the initial movies) acting as a part-time love interest of Jenkins and few episodes ago, we had Ezekiel apparently fall in love with a character named Cindy. Neither of these plot developments were foreshadowed, and considering that ‘The Librarians’ have a fairly limited budget, it is yet unknown if the show is going to develop them further. Maybe in S4 neither Charlene nor Cindy will make much of appearances, who knows?

And yes, this is another change to the ‘initial formula’. These things work, (albeit usually on a scale small enough NOT to make a difference), as STTW has shown back in the 1990s (‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’). The show was ‘static’ for the first three seasons, changed one way in S4, and changed in completely different ways in the next seasons. Sadly, that final change, with Sabrina being in college and beyond, resulted in a show that was more like ‘Bewitched’ for a younger audience, instead of STTW (well, its’ comic version) proper – and I’m not sure that it was an improvement. (And Sabrina got married to Harvey all the same – what gives? Anything else would actually be honestly original rather than some sort of an unnecessary and self-defeating compromise?) Ergo, I’m not sure that this isn’t going to happen to ‘The Librarians’ as well post-S3 – the show will transform into something new, and not necessarily for the better.

…Speaking of something new, ‘Riverdale’ is coming to TV screens this year. It is loosely based on ‘Archie’ comics, (which include the original Sabrina, sort of), but everything about it show to be something original. We will just have to wait and see how it goes down.

That’s it for today; until next time, (probably with an AoS review).

Pre-New Year Rant - Dec 26

And so, 2016 is almost coming to an end. Odds are, we will be celebrating New Year in the USA, where I will not be able to regularly access the Internet, most likely, so first, let me wish everyone a happy New Year beforehand.

Secondly, let us wish good luck and good riddance to 2016. With less than a week to go, we had a major airplane crush in Russia, (no survivors), death of George Michael in the U.K., and the fallout between U.S. and Israel in the U.N. The last is particularly WTF-worthy: throughout its existence, Obama’s administration, (and the man himself), was very slow-mo. Now, with less than a month left, it, including Obama itself, is trying to compensate for 8 years of missed chances and opportunities, by running around like some crazy chicken making one mess after another. (The only thing different between now and then is that now Obama is making his usual snafus at a breakneck speed, rather than slowly, as he did back then). Either way, I feel sorry for Obama; I am not the biggest fan of the Donald, but I can see why the Americans have voted for the latter: the man is an unknown entity, while Hillary would have just continued Obama’s plotlines and strategies, and the Americans had enough of this for the last 8 years.

…The problems is that Obama himself just continued the strategies of the Republican president George Bush Jr. in those last 8 years, so regardless of what the president-elect has promised has electorate, there is no guarantee that things will be fundamentally different after January 20^th, 2017. People want variety, but they also want stability, and democracy is not very stable, (just ask the ancient Greeks – in Sparta they invented communism instead). With the election of Trump, the American society has once again put the plebeians/proletariat against the patricians/elite, and now both sides must figure out where to go from here. In Ancient Rome, it can be seen even in plays of Shakespeare – ‘Coriolanus’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ – this conflict brought the end to the Republic, and paved way to the Empire. George Lucas, your Star Wars franchise says hi to the real world…maybe.

SW, incidentally, have developed its own issues: they do not know how to move forwards, now that the old canon has been declared apocrypha and redubbed ‘Star Wars: Legends’ instead. SW7 was very good, but it heavily relied on SW4 in terms of the script; ‘Rogue One’ is even better, but it is still set in the past, in the realm of the movies 4 through 6, (and it isn’t much different from some SW novels set in the ‘Legends’ universe. Still better than the real life U.S. politics, though).

Back in real life, there are not any breakthroughs or major shifts of the happy variety; in my own life…ditto. The TV and the like? Well, we have to look forwards the rest of ‘The Librarians’ S3. They seem to have conflated Horus and Ra – or confused him, but so did the ancient Egyptians. Ra was a sun god and the creator of the ancient Egyptian world. Horus was the brother and/or son of Isis and Osiris, (and just a brother of several other Egyptian gods); he was more of a war god instead. But! Both of them had the falcon as their sacred animal. Both of them had solar qualities in their divine portfolios. And! For a while, the ancient Egyptians worshipped both of them in the figure of Ra-Horakhty, so the differences between Ra and Horus are not important. What is important, (relatively speaking), that in S3, ‘The Librarians’ are faced with Apep, a snake-demon of darkness and night, and they are bringing a magical artefact of a sun god, (or the sun as a god) to challenge him. Frankly, they could have done the Greek version with Apollo and Python instead – it would be really similar, and as the S3 episode with the oracle has shown, they are keeping/have kept it in mind already.

…But still, this cavalier attitude towards the Egyptian mythology is grating. Rick Riordan and his novels were able to keep it straight; this really bad movie, ‘Gods of Egypt’, was able to keep it straight; so why ‘The Librarians’ cannot? Who knows…?

Then we have ‘For Honor’ game, by Ubisoft. It had appeared earlier in 2016, very exciting, but with flaws. Yet it continues to develop, and so far, it has appeared better than even before – not just with the new characters, but even a new game plan, that of Apollyon the warlord, who has to be stopped with plenty of melee fighting, maybe ranged too.

No, seriously, so far in all the game simulations, the combat was melee – but in the Apollyon promo, there are bows and arrows too, as well as combat-trained animals, maybe? Wolves and at least one war elephant… This game is shaping up to be really exciting, believe it!

The mention of war elephants reminds me of DW – I have been rewatching some of its episodes, the last one being ‘Ming Warrior vs. Musketeer’, which showed DW at its best. The hosts were unprejudiced; the tests showed the relative weaknesses and strengths of the various weapons, and the combat simulation was well orchestrated and interesting. The lack of prejudice really showed, too, as opposed to such S3 episode as ‘Hernan Cortez vs. Ivan the Terrible’, for example. For the first two seasons, DW was a good show, and then in S3 it went downhill so rapidly, that DW got cancelled – no funding, no staff, no anything. Even AoS has done better than DW – it is in its’ fourth season, remember?

…Mind you, for a while probably the entire MCU had problems: not only Luke Mitchell had left, but Jaimie Alexander (Sif) and Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter) did, as well as who knows whom else. However, MCU – including AoS – survived. ‘Agent Carter’ did not…

Speaking of TW, a new show – ‘Riverdale’ – is coming to the screens in 2017. It is based on the characters from ‘Archie’ comics, but-

On one hand, Archie and his friends are very flexible. There were crossovers with the Predator movie franchise, the Walking Dead TV series, the Ramones’ music group, the Marvel comics (such as the Punisher, who might be getting his own TV series in MCU, BTW), etc. The ‘Riverdale’ adaptation – a soap opera/drama/mystery/etc. – is not very different. But-

On the other hand, ‘Archie’ was very demanding and particular when it came to its’ mark/brand/whatever. It generally took down the smaller folk who tried to use them for its’ own game, but when it came to someone more powerful – like the Marvel comics – it generally backed down first. Now, when faced with the CW and the ‘Archie’-based show, it seems to have reached a compromise with them: ‘Riverdale’ will keep the ‘Archie’-based character names, but the trademarks and everything else? It will probably something separate from ‘Archie’ comics instead. This is how ‘the Cursed Child’ works, after all. It is still a fanfic, but Ms. Rowling endorsed it at least to a point, for a part of the profits at least. Everyone got happy and we will have to see how ‘Riverdale’ works in 2017.

This is the end of this rant, and for now? Have a happy 2017!

PS: Here is a pallid vector ogrekin based on the new ‘Villain Codex’ rules:

OGREKIN (HALF-OGRE) CR 4

XP 600

Male human ogrekin fighter 2

CE Medium humanoid (giant)

Int +5; Senses low-light vision; Perception +1

DEFENSE

AC 16, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +6 natural)

hp 25 (2d10+10)

Fort +7, Ref +1, Will +1

Defensive Abilities bravery +1, pale rebirth

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.

Melee shortspear +7 (1d6+9 plus disease), bite +2 (1d4+4 plus disease)

Special Attacks disease

STATISTICS

Str 23, Dex 13, Con 22, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 6

Base Atk +2; CMB +7; CMD 18

Feats Cleave, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack

Skills Climb +12, Swim +12

Languages Giant

SQ deformities (oversized maw, weak mind)

ECOLOGY

Environment any

Organization solitary or family (2–6)

Treasure NPC gear (spear, other treasure)

Couple more points that I acquired from this year’s Comic-Con.

Firstly, Lincoln is gone from AoS, because Luke Mitchell (aka the bloke who plays him) will be starring on ‘Blindspot’ instead. I like ‘Blindspot’. It is influenced by AoS, but it has found its’ own niche soon enough, and one of the crucial differences between the two shows in question is that ‘Blindspot’ treats its characters with respect. It also has a consistent script that goes exactly where the staff of ‘Blindspot’ wants it to go, and does not meander over the last two seasons, as it did in AoS. ‘Blindspot’ already has Jaimie Alexander as its female lead – and she was lady Sif in MCU, meaning that she was much more prominent than Luke and his character were, but-

But regardless, one feels that there is some bad blood between Luke and the cast of AoS – judging by the official AoS material that found its way online – YouTube, the official AoS sites – the cast didn’t mention Luke/Lincoln at all; rather, they pretended that Chloe/Daisy was dating Brett/Grant all this time – sort of. What gives?

…Luke’s choice not to stay with AoS did cause extra problems for a show with already problematic and re-arranged plot; in particular, the finale of S3 would’ve made more sense if Daisy’s not-interaction ‘6 months later’ was with Mack and Lincoln than with Mack and Coulson, for example; much of S3 plot was to build-up Lincoln and Daisy as a couple – and then Luke shot it all in the foot by going over to ‘Blindspot’, so now Chloe’s character is single, again. Yes, it is just a show, yes it probably was just the matter of money or something similarly pragmatic, but apparently Luke’s decision not to stay with AoS hurt some feelings altogether.

So now, they will probably just sweep Lincoln under the metaphorical rug and almost do not mention him in AoS S4 and beyond. The show already did it with Kara Palamas and her plot line after the S2 finale; ditto for Raina, (Ruth Negga, who played her, is one of the female leads in ‘Preacher’ now); and Jaimie Alexander’s character, Sif, so far isn’t appearing on ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie either. Fair enough, and besides, MCU is having larger problems, apparently – the InHumans own movie was postponed, (and frankly, in S3 they were largely a plot device than anything else), and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ is now going to be a single movie, rather than two. Between that, ‘Agent Carter’ and ‘Most Wanted’ TV series cancelled leaves one wonder if MCU is not experiencing some problems – with budget, with viewers, etc.

Of course, things are not rosy over at DCEU either. If MCU has problems with its’ TV series, (frankly, it might’ve been better to keep ‘Agent Carter’, rather than AoS – but Hayley Atwell, who was the titular heroine, decided to star in ‘Conviction’, not unlike what Jaimie Alexander or Luke Mitchell have done), then DCEU just cannot make it big on the movie screen. Their ‘Arrowverse’ is developing nicely: there are ‘Arrow’ and ‘Flash’, there’s ‘Legends of Tomorrow’, and now ‘Supergirl’ is joining them on CW, and now that TV show is going to star Superman proper…perhaps as a special guest superhero?..

This is all very good and outright impressive – but DC movies are not connected to this at all. This might actually be for the best, since when it comes to films DC seems to be largely trying to rip-off Marvel: ‘Batman vs. Superman’ was very reminiscent of the latest ‘Captain America’ movie, ‘Wonder Woman’, (both the film and the titular heroine) is ‘Captain America’, gender-flipped, complete with WWII scenario, while the ‘Avengers’…pardon me, the ‘Justice League’ (the film) is showing similarities with the ‘Avengers’ even in the trailer – Diana is Cap, Bruce is Stark, (complete with an iron suit), this version of Barry is the latest incarnation of Spider-Man, etc. Seriously, how does copyright infringement here works?

However, while DC suffers from being too similar to Marvel, Riverdale (the upcoming 2016 TV series) suffers from the opposite problem – it has too few connections to the original material, the Archies’ comic.

Let us be fair. Archies’ main feature is that it is a comic about teenagers, and it is generic. It can be transformed into anything – there was a crossover with Marvel’s Punisher, (way before he appeared on Daredevil’s S2), with ‘Alien’ the movie franchise (you know, the one that fights the ‘Predator’), currently they are doing something both with zombies and with the Lovecraftian mythos, etc. The fact that CW (yes, the same CW that has DC ‘Arrowverse’) took the characters and made them into another teen drama is no big deal.

And yet… from what we have seen on Comic-Con? K.J. Apa is not a redhead, which is strange, because Archie is THE redhead, that is his trademark shtick. Lili Reinhart may be playing Betty, but she came across like a blonde Veronica, while Camila Mendes, who will be playing Veronica, looks like a Latin American Betty instead. Cole Sprouse, who was one of the twin stars in Disney’s ‘Suite Life’ series does not look like Jughead, and so far, his character is something of an anti-Jughead, since he is a ladies’ man, and the canonical Jughead is anything but.

So… we got AoS, who got problems with its cast; we got Marvel in general, who has greater problems; we got DC, who has creativity problems; and we got Riverdale, which is basically a teen detective drama with characters who share names, and some personality traits, with the characters of the Archies’ comics. Whether this will hinder or help Riverdale the show, we will have to wait and see when Riverdale comes out; until then, there is always ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ to keep our spirits up…