So I am heading into my viewing of Sunday night shows and just wanted to share my feelings with you on what I am about to watch. this isn't a recap, just expression. I'm going to talk about each show in order of interest, from lowest to highest.
Falling Skies. The season is almost over and I have had a difficult time getting excited about this show this season. It feels very disjointed to me and it is dragging on a bit. It has entered shit or get off the pot territory. The truth is I enjoyed last week's flash back/alternate reality/alien torture thing they did with Tom Mason but it was really strange. as a stand alone episode it would have been great but with a 10 episode season to dedicate a whole episode pretty much to that is excessive and slows the development of the plot. Bad guys want to know where you are attacking, got it. He hasn't gone back to lead the "new America," they have done nothing with finding out who the other spy is, even though we already know it is Lourdes (and how they haven't figured out it is her is beyond me) and Anne and the baby are still missing (I know they were discovered at the end of last week's episode but by then I almost didn't care anymore). I'm not saying the show has jumped the shark or anything, I just don't know how much more it has in the tank. I kind of hope they defeat the aliens once and for all and the show shifts its focus to people rebuilding societies.
Continuum. I'm guessing most of you reading this have either not heard of this show or don't watch it. It is Canadian Science Fiction and airs on the Showcase channel. It is about a law keeper who travels back from the future (2077) to present time in order to catch terrorists who have been convicted and sentenced to death but escape to change the past. The truth is I only started watching it because it stars Rachel Nichols (the green roommate who was hooking up with Kirk in Star Trek 2009 and Scarlett from G.I. Joe: Rise of COBRA). she is one of my main celebrity crushes so even though it is not that great of a show, it has one of my main squeezes and although it is cheesy and Canadian, it is still Science Fiction.
Copper. You can check out more info on the show here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_(TV_series). The show caught my attention first because it is on BBC America and I LOVE BBC America. It also sounded pretty interesting, a show about police work well before modern technology. Also the dealing with the racial issues from the time is quite fascinating since black people were free in the north but were still not accepted by many as equals. There is a black doctor of medicine on the show who despite his status as an educated healer, is still sometimes treated as a lower class citizen by people who are beneath him!
Season 1 focused on Detective Corcoran finding out what happened to his wife (had an affair and crazy) and child (dead). Now it is more just focusing on their attempts to clean up the Five Points, one of the worst and toughest places in all of New York. Last week's episode kicked it up a notch when we find out that Corcoran's former best friend and fellow detective who he thought had become a murdering villain was really working undercover and they will have to work together once again. This should be good news but his former friend, Francis Maguire is the one who cheated with Corcoran's wife while he was away fighting in the Civil War.
True Blood. I like what they are doing on the show. I like how they are developing Warlow and Sookie's relationship. I like how they are showing that the humans can have the upper hand on the vampires. I love everything they do with Jason Stackhouse. I'm curious what is going to happen though now that Billith killed the Governor and seemingly averted the mass vampire murder he had a vision of previously. I thought that would last the whole season, I thought wrong. I really like how they are showing that vampires can be more human than humans can. The scene with Jessica and the other vampire in the copulation study chamber showed that. Mrs. Newlan orchestrated Jessica being in there to punish Jason. The vampire they put in with Jessica refused to have sex with Jessica because he could see she didn't want to and he would not rape her. It is hard for me to watch it a little bit, these scenes in the vampire prison camps because they remind me very much of the Nazi camps and how their scientists treated Jews as specimens with little to no regard for them. I love how Eric and Pam didn't fight and kicked some ass together. They are giving Andy some really tender moments with his remaining daughter. The scene where she asks for a name and he gives her one was touching. It started off as schtick with all of the fairy daughters but now that there is only one it is getting more emotionally real. Very much looking forward to seeing where this season is going.
Dexter. This show is getting deep. We are really getting to the core of who Dexter is and what we can expect for his future. For one of the few times on the show last week Dexter got outsmarted by another killer. The other psychopath showed he was someone at least on Dexter's level and got the jump on him. We got to see that even though Dr. Vogel, the one who helped create him, keeps trying to keep him boxed in as a garden variety psychopath but Dexer continues to prove he truly is unique. Dexter couldn't understand how the other killer could use his father as cover and leave him without a second thought because Dexter is so close with Deb and couldn't imagine ever doing that to her, that is BEFORE she tried to kill the both of them by driving the car into a lake. It's fascinating how Harry killed himself because of his role in creating Dexter and it seems Deb is heading down that road also, except she might be willing to go the extra mile, to go where their dad couldn't and actually try and put Dexter down. vogel is playing games but Deb is distressed.
I don't know why they continue to make Angel a douche bag but as long as Quinn keeps screwing his sister Jamie and we get to see her naked and going at him like a bunny on speed, I'm good. still not sure if Quinn and Deb are going to be romantic or not but it is nice that they each have someone to watch their backs. Even in its 8th season this show is keeping me guessing and I am enjoying the hell of this final season.
The Newsroom. I would call this Aaron Sorkin's masterpiece but I honestly think that every time he creates a new show. This show is one of the best shows on television, period. The writing is top level, the characters are compelling and the story lines come right of reality. I have watched the first two episodes of the second (and current) season multiple times and I can't wait to finish this post and start watching.
It is really great to see Don BEING a good guy instead of everyone talking about how good of a guy he is. The way he handled the situation with Maggie was classy. The way he handled the Troy Davis story in last week's episode was compelling. I like the fact that Sorkin kept Don in as one of the main characters and we are already seeing why.
I also really like how he set up the long game in the first episode of the season which starts about 14 months or so after the events of season one. There is a black Op called Genoa that apparently ACN reports on and might not be accurate about. We see a few of the characters getting interviewed by a lawyer and it gets us off to the races. Maggie enters the room with short, orange/red hair and looking hideous. Will explains that something happened in Africa and the lawyer would sit in a room and cry if it had happened to her.
So we learn that one of the main story lines will be the Genoa story. We know that Maggie goes to Africa and some shit goes down. We learn that Occupy Wall Street will be a major story as well (one that Neal chases).
Even though there have only been 2 episodes, Sorkin already has established that he will continue with his patented back and forth story telling. It can be a little off-putting at first but once you calibrate you will be fine.
There is as much focus on relationships as ever and boy are they fun! Everything from the simple yet fun interactions between Sloan and Charlie to the complex and difficult between Mckenzie and Will. will is softening up though and is much kinder to her this season. He isn't ready to forgive and forget yet but we are really seeing a more human side to Will and that is letting him get closer to her. Maggie and Don are done and Maggie wants things to go back to normal with Jim but Jim didn't like normal. Lisa finds out about the Sex and the City bus incident and now Jim and Lisa are done and Lisa and Maggie are simply roommates.
Jim has gone on the road with Romney to get away from Maggie and Maggie is consequently looking to go to Africa to get away as well, even though it is clearly her damned fault. There is a new character, Hallie (played by Meryl Streep's daughter) who is on the road with Jim and passive/aggressively shows interest in him, or at least in what is going on with his life. She is much more his type than Maggie so we are rooting for her. sloan befriends Maggie and that is nice to see but once sloan and don start dating we'll see how long that friendship lasts.
Finally, Sorkin's use of music continues to be perfectly on point. sorkin seriously is a genius when it comes to A)picking really good music and B) really good music that tells the story about what is going on with the characters.
Who is this source for Genoa? Will Will recover from the beat down he has taken? will neal get his story? Will jim hook up with Hallie? Will Don and Sloan get together? What the f*&k happens to Maggie in Africa?
I'm about to go find out now!
--Mike D
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