Paradise's Fool

Sorry I’m late getting this week’s Weekly Television Roundup out. Ha ha. Just kidding. This is the FIRST ONE EVER, so while it may be late, I’m not really sorry as I haven’t really established any sort of expectations around producing these things. Anyway, here are the TV shows I watched in the past week (first-run episodes only, so those four episodes of Batman, The Brave and the Bold on Netflix I watched with the kids don’t count). Beyond here be spoilers, so if you don’t want anything spoiled for you on any given show, just skip over that section.

Defiance – “The Devil In the Dark”: This is the third episode of the show Defiance and it was really kind of puzzling. Parts of it were boring (the peace-hookah ritual and the montage at the end), parts of it were weird (is pouring bacon grease on someone’s chest really a thing now? Please tell me that’s not a thing now), and parts of it showed the inherent risk of basing your TV show on a videogame (or vice versa). The hellbug monster design really screamed “basic videogame grunt enemy” and the hellbug queen design was so over the top that it could really only be a videogame boss monster; neither one of them fit the look and feel of the television show — or any television show for that matter. And besides from a basic plot perspective, if you’re going to terraform a planet, why would you even bring along hellbugs in the first place? And no: “because they are in the videogame” is not an answer. So, yeah: not all that impressive.

Warehouse 13 – “The Living and the Dead”: This was a very good episode, picking up after the long hiatus — so long a hiatus that I thought we were already in a new season, but I guess not! James Marsters’ character here was excellent — his characters really are better when they have an English accent — and was utilized effectively. It was cool to have Kate Mulgrew on an episode with James Marsters, too, as a nice Buffyverse/Star Trek crossover seeing as how much I miss Armin Shimerman being on TV. So things could be looking up for Warehouse 13. We’ll see.

Grimm – “Endangered”: Not on the same level as last week’s volcano god episode (though that kind of didn’t fit in with the series’ established mythology, but this whole show is nothing but one big plot hole) but this was the first episode on its new night, right after “The Voice” or some singing show on NBC so I imagine there were a lot of confused “The Voice” or whatever watchers who stuck around for a few minutes after the end of that show and were like “What the heck am I watching here?” and that thought amuses me a little. I guess Grimm will be back for a third season, though, so yippee.

Arrow – “The Undertaking”: Finally we learn a little more about what the Undertaking is all about (and it has nothing to do with WWE, sorry). This was a pretty good episode for progressing the story as not only did we find out what Oliver’s dad was doing on that boat, why it sank, why Malcolm Merlyn is such a meanie, etc. but Oliver found out most of that, too. Betcha he fills pretty stupid for saving Mr. Merlyn now, huh? There were no island flashbacks in this episode, that I can recall, which I think is a first for the show. Felicity also had a couple funny, Whedonesque lines so all in all it was a pretty good night for Arrow.

Supernatural – “The Great Escapist”: Supernatural is pretty much our favorite currently-airing show, so an episode written by Ben Edlund and directed by Lt. Tom Paris was a double-special treat. And then I saw the “2 episodes left!” promo after this episode and got really sad, but then someone told me that the show has been renewed for a 9th season and I got happy again. This espiode was great, with some really horrible angel-on-human violence, but then with a really good angel-kicking-demon-butt moment. The fact that the angel in question was Booger from Revenge of the Nerds was pretty awesome, too. They did right by that character. Also, there was another nice moment where Sam gains some self-awareness of the trials, confiding in Dean that he believes that the trials are purifying him for what lies ahead. My guess would be that the trials are changing Sam into an angel. I am super excited about the last two episodes of this season, though — especially knowing that more are on the way!

Psych – “Santa Barbarian Candidate”: While not as funny as the earlier episodes in Season 7, this week’s episode was still light-years better than last week’s episode, which barely rose above the level of poorly-written fan-fiction. The mystery in this episode was actually fairly twisty, but the real moment here was Shaun almost telling the Chief about his big secret – and who bailed him out at the last moment. This show, too, has been picked up for another season which is a pleasant surprise considering that this current season has already featured some of the funniest episodes of the show’s entire run: “Santabarbaratown 2”, “Lassie Jerky”, “No Country for Two Old Men”, and “Deez Nups” all being outstanding episodes.

Community and Parks & Recreation: Yes we still watch these shows. Parks & Rec was really lame. Community was slightly better with the whole origin-story wrap-up. Are they really only doing 13 episodes this season? I guess so.

Person of Interest – “Zero Day”: By any objective measure I can think of, PoI is the best hour-long televised serial drama ever. This was a great episode of a great show, then, as all of the seen and unseen forces that have been at play for the last two years all finally start to come out of the woodwork and interact with each other. The ending of this episode was perfect. I can’t wait to see what happens next week on the finale and then next season, too, as this show has also been renewed!

Merlin – “With All My Heart”: If there was any thing I could take, any action I could undergo, to purge Colin Morgan’s lisping old-lady drag-queen performance parody from my mind, I would take or do it, no matter the cost.

Doctor Who – “The Crimson Horror”: So this was the comic-relief episode, then? It worked very well on that level. The backhanded shout-out to (Fourth and Fifth Doctor’s companion) Tegan was very funny but the Tom-Tom GPS joke fell a little flat. If the kid’s name had turned out to be Julius Garmin or something like that, it almost would have worked in a “Your cousin Marvin Berry!” kind of way. Matt Smith’s performance as the Doctor in that red makeup, woodenly walking along was perfect. Oh, and the leech puppet: one of the best-filmed sci-fi puppets ever, in that bit at the end where he’s pathetically crawling along the floor. Next week’s is Neil Gaiman’s episode, I guess, so that’ll probably have even less to do with Doctor Who than this one.

So that’s it for this first-ever Weekly Television Roundup! Considering how long it took to write this one, though, this will probably also be the last Weekly Television Roundup. Sorry about that.