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2014 Season Finale Roundup

5/23/2014

Hi folks, sorry it’s been a while since my last entry. It’s been one of those weeks where everything meets resistance and everything is a pain in the butt. I think a lot of people are planning to be out next week, and were pushing to get things done before the imaginary Memorial Day deadline they set for themselves.

Well, TGIF, and that we have a long weekend to recover from life happening all week, right?

As promised, I’m here today with my annual Season Finale Roundup. This is the entry where I give you my thoughts on the TV shows I watched this season. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on the 2013-2014 season.

The “Show that Knocked My Socks Off” award goes to:

Arrow. The second season did a great job building off the first. There was great character development, great plot development, plenty of action, and reminders every week that you don’t have to have a gun to be a bada** and archery can be awesome. I love it. A must see every week. I’m looking forward to Season 3.

Game of Thrones. I know their season isn’t over yet, but I finished reading A Storm of Swords, so I pretty much know where it’s going, and it’s going to be good. Both the books and the TV series are fascinating. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart. You just never know what’s going to happen next, which is what makes it so addictive.

The “Well Done” award goes to:

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Like many people, I was lukewarm about this show – until Captain America The Winter Soldier gave us some (ahem) new things to consider. That was the plot twist it needed, and once the Hydra threat was unveiled, a lot made more sense. I understand they had to hold back because of the movie release, and they really are in new territory with linking a TV series to movies. So far, so good with that, and I’m interested to see where this one goes in Season 2.

Breaking Bad. I know it was actually a summer 2013 show that wrapped before this television season opened, and I did blog about the opener and finale for the season. I just wanted to give it a mention here because it was great at maintaining the momentum right through to the very end. I miss this show.

The Things that Make You Go Hmm award goes to:

Supernatural. This season was a letdown for me. It had great potential, but it seems they fiddled and farted it away – until the closing scene of the finale, which held a shock and irony factor that will bring me back next season. Let’s hope they’ll do something better with it for Season 10.

The Americans. I’m still trying to figure out what the point of this season was. Was it all setup for Stan to make his huge moral decision over whether to betray his country or his lover? Or was to set up the “second generation illegals” program? That was a heck of a reveal in the finale and, perhaps, the only thing of substance to happen this season. I’ll have to consider whether to give this one a try again when they start Season 3.

The You Deserved to be Canned award goes to:

Revolution. This show never really captured me, but Rick liked Season 1, so I gave it a try. Over the past couple of months, we both lost interest. There are too many changes in alliances on the show, which makes it virtually impossible to determine who is and isn’t likeable, much less what the heck is going on. That, plus it aired at the same time as Arrow, which is an undeniably strong show. And seriously, if I have to choose, I go with the superhero over the fickle paper dolls every time. Here’s hoping J.J. Abrams will funnel his brilliant energy into Star Wars Episode 7.

The Tomorrow People. I didn’t make it past episode 2. It just didn’t work for me, because it was too cliché and predictable. Then again, it might be that it was made for a younger audience. I guess I wasn’t the only one that thought this, because it’s not coming back for another season.

The I Didn’t Make It award goes to:

The 100. I didn’t make it past the season premiere of this one. I think it was for a younger target audience, much like The Tomorrow People. Plus, all of the characters are criminals, so you aren’t dealing with the salt of the Earth. It’s hard to relate to them when they all piss you off in their own unique way. I don’t know if this show got renewed, but as a writer I’d highly suggest that they give at least half of the characters some redeeming qualities.

Reign. I intended to try an episode of this show, but never did because a friend told me it was basically a PG version of “Game of Thrones.” Well, forget that. Once you’ve been to Westeros, the rip offs are weak and lame. So I saved myself an hour there.

All Things Considered:

I’ll definitely tune in for Arrow, Game of Thrones, and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. next season. Supernatural is on probation, and The Americans is a maybe. As for the new offerings for the 2014-2015 season, nothing is really catching my eye. I’ll no doubt give The Flash a try. I also heard that Marvel has an Agent Carter show coming out, but that one got more of a groan out of me than anything. I guess we’ll see.

What Now?

Now that the shows are in reruns (except Game of Thrones, but it only has a few episodes left), what will I do with my time? Writing. Nonstop to Nowhere, my piece for the Nightlife Anthology coming out later this year, is on a June 30 deadline, and the proofreads just came back, so I’m starting back on that. Obsidian, the sequel to Move, is also in progress, and I plan to work on that once Nonstop is ready to go. I’d really like to have Obsidian ready for proofreads by October, so that will probably be my big summer project. I also want to finish reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I just started A Feast for Crows, so I’m well along, with only 2 books left. It looks like I’ll be writing and reading this summer, which is pretty much what I do every summer.

I hope you enjoyed this roundup, and this season of television. Here’s hoping you find great things to do this summer while the reruns free up a lot of our time. I’m sure our television friends will be fine without us for a few months. And we’ll be fine as they rest, too.

That’s all today. Have a Happy Friday and a safe and fabulous Memorial Day weekend.

Bye!

Breaking Down Breaking Bad - Finale Roundup

9/30/2013

SPOILER ALERT! If you have not seen the finale of Breaking Bad, please note that this entry contains spoilers.

So it’s all over. Walter White is dead, taken out in a blaze of glory as he took down the operation that he started. The empire is fallen. Heisenberg is no more, and his work is gone forever.

I think Breaking Bad answered the age old question of whether the ends justify the means, and it seems that the answer is no, they don’t. The ends weren’t even what Walt planned or expected. That he would eventually die – of the cancer or from being killed in this whole operation – was never a question. I think we all knew that in the end, he would die. The question was, who else would go down with him? Plenty of people, it turned out, but it’s when it hit home with Hank that things really started to unravel in ways that couldn’t be rectified.

There was no humor in this season. No funny moments of strange situations with drug dealers, incidents with Saul, Mike or Huell, running from police that aren’t even interested in them, Jesse digging holes in a meth head's back yard, awkward family conversations, or even the “scabby lasagna” dinner conversation that cracked me up so much with Walt, Skyler, and Jesse. It was nothing but painful consequences as this train ran away to its inevitable conclusion. Well, except for Badger and Skinny Pete with the lasar pointers on the Schwartz’s. I did find that clever and funny, albeit in a strange way.

And yet, though the conclusion was expected, there was still disappointment. Yes, I had hope that things would work out. That the bad guy’s good intentions would lead to something worth redeeming. Unfortunately, human nature followed its natural course. At least Walt was willing to admit to Skyler that he did it for himself and his own glory. I hand him huge points for finally making that admission. We heard him tell Jesse he was in the empire business. We saw his pride in killing Gus and taking the operation international with Lydia. It ceased being about securing the family’s financial situation long ago – perhaps even with the first batch. But at least he realized it. He said it made him feel alive even as death was eating away at him through the lung cancer. And so, he never apologized for it. He stood by it, until the police came charging into that lab to find him dead on the floor of what he started and finished, in a blaze of glory. Or more accurately, a blaze of bullets rigged to a garage door opener in the trunk of his car. That was a new thing, at least for me. And I have to admit that it was an amazing scene.

So who paid for this? Everybody. Walt’s dead. He might not answer for it in a court of law, but he answered for it with his life. The family looks to be living in borderline poverty, perhaps worse off than they were before. Maybe Flinn/Walt Jr. will get that money from the Schwartz’s on his 18th birthday. Maybe he’ll believe it’s a generous donation and they’ll be alright. Or maybe he’ll see through this one last lie and reject it, just as Walt rejected the Schwartz’s offer to pay for his cancer treatment – to take the right road out of his situation instead to cooking meth – and in similar pride, the ball will continue to roll for them. The family Walt wanted to help is worse off than ever; and really they are the only ones left, besides Saul, who’s in Nebraska, and Jesse going who knows where. So many people died to protect this and for what – nothing. Most of the money is going to be confiscated by the police. Walt decided in the end to not take the money that Todd’s uncle took from him, but instead to end it for once and for all. That was perhaps the best choice he made. He was never sorry for what he did, but at least he cleaned up the mess the best way he knew how.

That was another moment that got me. Walt saved Jesse, then asked Jesse to kill him. I really didn’t know what he would do, but I saw in that moment, when Jesse dropped the gun and said “do it yourself,” that he grew up. In the worst way possible, he grew up, and that perhaps is the only good that came out of this whole fiasco. He’s the one with a chance at a life. The question is, will the scars of this 2 year journey (for them on the show) hold him back, or propel him forward? I certainly hope it’s the latter. He’s the only one with hope for a better life ahead. I’d like to think that all of this, all the deaths, all the pain, all the hurt, led to this one good thing – of saving him, even as it ruined so many others. It would make this journey of destruction worth it on a small level. Because there’s no big picture where this leads to any good.

So take a lesson from this series. The ends don’t justify the means. Doing wrong never leads to right. It may seem to work out for a while, but it’s a lie. The deception will run out and all that’s left are consequences, and they usually you the worst, but others as well. We might not be comfortable with the ugly in life, but it’s there and facing it is better than turning a blind eye. We see now what it means to make right choices, and the devastating consequences the wrong ones can have on so many people. That web kept growing. It was unbelievable in the end.

Thank you, Vince Gilligan, for taking us on this amazing journey. You are brilliant and there’s no doubt that this show was groundbreaking in so many ways. We witnessed television history last night, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. Even as a viewer munching on Jiffy Pop and sitting in my recliner saying “Oh my God! Did you see that?” and tweeting my amazement at the journey that was Walter White. And thanks to AMC for bringing this marvelous creation to viewers. It was a great, edge of your seat ride, from start to finish. You never let us down. Yes, it was rough around the edges, but so is real life. I loved this show and, like so many others, will surly miss it. I hear there’s a new spinoff series in the works titled “Better Call Saul.” So who knows? Saul might reappear from Nebraska to bring us more adventures. We shall see.

That’s all today. Take care and have a great week.

Bye!

Season Finale Roundup

5/20/2012

Hi everybody, sorry to be away for a while. I spent a lot of last week catching up from being sick week before last - and before I knew it, it had been over a week since I blogged. Oops! I certainly didn't mean for that to happen.

Today, I'd like to carry on a tradition that I started with my last blog at Writing.com. In late May of every year, I'd do a "season finale roundup" of the television shows I had watched that season. My purpose was to give my overall impressions of how the season as a whole struck me as a fan. Not that I think the TV executives are ACTUALLY reading my humble blog, but it's a nice way to connect with other fans of the shows. Don't worry - this won't be excessively long. As a general rule, I can only keep up with 2 shows at a time. My 2 shows this season were Supernatural, which I've watched since it started in 2005, and The Secret Circle, which ran it's first and sadly only season on CW.

Supernatural - Another gut punching ending for the Winchester Brothers! I felt that this season was better than last season. It seemed Sam and Dean has more purpose in hunting the levithan, and they were certainly not a cliched foe. It was nice to get a break from angels, demons, monsters, and things that go bump in the night. I felt, at least, that the show returned somewhat to it's original purpose this season. I did, naturally, have a couple of gripes. First and foremost - you killed Bobby! You bastards! Bobby was one of my favorite characters and I hated to see him die, twice actually since they purged his spirit in the finale. Now who's going to call them igits, help them pose as Feds, and drag them out of messes? I don't know because Frank had a very short run (I didn't like him at first, but saw that his character had potential. A shame it wasn't developed). My other gripe was that Castielle was largely absent this season, except for the very beginning, where he was screwed up, and the very end, where he was nuttier than Chinese Chicken Salad. I want out old Cass back and frankly, I think the Winchesters need him back because, as Elrond put it so eleoquently in "The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring," "our list of allies grows thin." They've killed off so many characters that it's going to be necessary for them to completely reconstruct the case to keep going. But then again, alive and dead are relative states on this show. This is, after all, urban fiction.

Personally, I'd like to see a return of angels and demons. They're our old standbys and frankly, they're more interesting. The levithan's, while a nice change, were largely predictable and just out to "help American's live longer and taste better" (I got a kick out of that line in the "There Will Be Blood" episode). Angels and demons are definitely NOT predictable and you never know what they'll pull - Crowly in the finale being an excellent example. They have their own agenda, you're never exactly sure of what it is, and THAT'S what keeps you comign back week after week. I'm hoping Season 8 will bring back some old favorites, with the old Cass being #1 on that list.

The Secret Circle - This show had potential but sadly, isn't being given a chance to work it out. I came into this one about mid season, so I had some catching up to do, and I'm still not sure if I'm 100% "caught up." It seemed to have a solid plot and a good bit of the complexities in relationships that kept you wondering who had what motives and will they stick with the plan - whatever that might be - or blow it to smithereens. It also had an interesting premise and I think, as I said, that this was a show that could have really fleshed out and become solid given one more season. The one major problem I had with this show, though, was flat characterization. I felt like the characters weren't real. They went on and on about their powers and binding the circle, but who were they besides being witches? Did they have an identity outside of that? It was like watching a puppet show, or winding up a music box with moving parts and watching the pieces move around one another without understanding how or why they're moving like that. Perhaps the show writers didn't realize that viewers really need to be able to connect with the characters to become hooked on the show. Take Supernatural, for example. We know that Dean likes pie, that Sam hates clowns, and that Bobby thought everybody was an igit. The little things do matter, and in fact it's those little things that connect viewers to the show. They need to feel like they're part of this world, but The Secret Circle offered no such invitation to it's viewers. Remember that the point of television, books, movies, video games, and other forms of media is to take the person out of their own life and reality and offer them an escape by bringing them into the world you created. The Secret Circle didn't do that. They opened the curtain and let you take a peek, but didn't really invite you in. You dove right into the plot and didn't really learn about the characters - nothing of their history or of where they came from to become who they are. Sure, there was a lot of talk about their parents and how they came to be born, but nothing of who the characters themselves were. And I think that two dimensional approach to characterization is what drove this series to extinction in it's first season.

As we go into the 2012 - 2013 season this fall, I can assure you that I will continue to watch Supernatural. I've been with them since the beginning and will stick through to the end. I just love this show. As for a second show, I saw a preview for a series called Arrow while watching the finale of Supernatural that caught my interest. It's about Oliver Queen, aka The Green Arrow. Not my favorite superhero but a superhero nonetheless, and it did get my attention. I'll definitely give it a try on Wednesdays this fall. Plus, we named our budgie, Ollie, after Oliver Queen on Smallville. So a show about his namesake is interesting. He's expecting great things from it I'm certainly willing to give it a chance. In fact, I was their 28th "like" on Facebook today.

So that's my season finale roundup for the 2011 - 2012 season. Fans of the shows, let me know what you think. I'd be interested to hear your take on Supernatural and The Secret Circle, and to know what you plan to check out this fall.

Take care all, and I hope you have a great week.

Bye!

2014 Season Finale Roundup

Breaking Down Breaking Bad - Finale Roundup

Season Finale Roundup

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