Tag Archives: Television

Watch This: Arrow

Posted on by
Reply


(Proud of me for resisting a title like “Arrow Hits The Mark?” You should be. I also might have made the title: “Stephen Amell Gives This Wretched World The Olliver Queen It Deserves.”)

So, can you tell that I am kind of a slave to The CW? I may no longer watch Gossip Girl (though my love for Blair Waldorf is absolute and undying), but I am absolutely in love with The Vampire Diaries—which is much, much better than the title would suggest, is actually better than True Blood, and has something like fourteen million viewers. Though it was tragically not renewed, last season’s The Secret Circle was absolutely amazing. And I watch Supernatural every Wednesday night—that show is several episodes into its eighth season.

So, as a great big nerd, I was excited but nervous when I heard that The CW was making a show based upon the DC superhero, Green Arrow. Despite the appearance of the protagonist and a number of excellent casting decisions, Smallville, which reimagined Clark Kent’s adolescence as he comes to terms with his blossoming superpowers and struggles to save the day while keeping his secret, all before his days as Superman, Smallville was just not a good show. There were wonderful things about it. There were also some dreadful things about it that made it difficult to watch.

The Green Arrow himself looks like a Robin Hood figure. He is a masterful archer whose gadgety arrows (often self-indulgent gadgety arrows) assist him in a number of circumstances (you know Hawkeye from The Avengers? Similar basic idea. Radically different characters and backstories). In real life, his name is Olliver Queen, and he is a billionaire and owns a company, Queen Consolidated, which is based in Star City—one of many fictional metropolitan areas that exist within the DC Universe (like Metropolis, Gotham, Central City, Bludhaven). His villains are rarely big-shots, but assassin and archer Merlyn is arguably his archenemy, and Green Arrow has always had unpleasant run-ins with the Eastern European aristocratic supervillain, Count Vertigo. He has a sidekick, Speedy (best shown on Young Justice, where in addition to being incredibly handsome, he ceases to be a sidekick and adopts the name “Red Arrow”). Above all else, Green Arrow is an archer who learned how to shoot a bow while trapped on an island after his boat was sabotaged. Now he works in secret …

Continue reading →



You Might Also Like ...

Nerd Alert: Just Girls

Posted on by
2

photo of young justice pictures
On a list of current television shows, Young Justice rates among not only my favorites, but those shows which I most highly recommend. To anyone. It’s one of those shows that I forget that kids watch, too, because I am pretty accustomed to watching it and discussing it with my friends (we’re all in our twenties).

Created by Greg Weisman (maker of Gargoyles, one of the best shows of all time) and the talented Brandon Vietti, Young Justice has an interesting story, beautiful animation (and character-designs), and excellent voice-acting. And it also has wonderful characters. Of particular interest is its wonderful cast of powerful female characters—who are not simply “painted with the same brush.” These are wonderful characters for girls to look up to, or to broaden how boys see female superheroes (and females in general). They are also just really genuinely enjoyable characters to watch.

Young Justice follows a covert team of young (adolescent) DC superheroes (initially “side-kicks”) who work under the instruction of the Justice League but who are not official members of the League. In a world where big-name superheroes have celebrity status, that can have its advantages. Initially composed only of Robin (Dick Grayson), Aqualad (an original Aqualad conceived especially for this series), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Superboy (a clone, grown by supervillains as a weapon), numerous characters join the team. Miss Martian (M’gann) is first, followed soon by Artemis (an archer who is the only non-supervillain member of her family). Before the …

Continue reading →



You Might Also Like ...

Dignity: A Law & Order Review

Posted on by
Reply

photo of law & order pictures logo pic
I had never seen Law & Order before I went to college. As much as I love television, I never really watched much of it during my teen years. In fact, I did not watch all that much of it as a child (my television viewing was strictly limited when I was younger, as was my diet—which I would prefer to believe has nothing to do with the fact that I am now fairly obsessed with numerous television shows and no longer eat anything at all that I do not want to eat). Honestly, I am not even sure that I had heard of the show before I went to college.

My roommate* freshman year watched a lot of television. He set the television to be his alarm to wake up. He went to sleep with the television on. It was one while he did his homework. It was on when he was drinking in his bed and glowering at me from across the room. To someone who is unaccustomed to having a television on, this was an extremely distracting whole new world. My roommate and I had very few common interests, and most of the television that I saw that he watched did not interest me in the least (I had never seen Friends before; from what I could tell, I wasn’t missing much, no matter how fond I am of some of the actors). There were a few exceptions: Judging Amy, The 4400 (which he stopped watching because it was, and I quote: “weird as hell”), and Law & Order. I was pretty hooked on these, but especially on Law & Order.

From what I can tell, a lot of people who really enjoy Law & Order have been victims of something or another. I am no exception—my father is literally the worst person whom I have ever met. Watching fictional violent parents get prosecuted was a nice way to cope (it would be years before I actually discussed my childhood with a therapist and received the PTSD diagnosis). I enjoyed SVU, I love Law & Order: UK, and I even enjoyed Law & Order: LA after they got that lovely new intro and brought Alana de la Garza over from the canceled Law & Order to work as a Deputy District Attorney.

But original recipe Law & Order is just the best. Not the first few seasons (which are devoid of female characters and present some very alarming attitudes), but after Anita Van Buuren becomes a character, everything improves. The show was awesome—there’s a reason for which it ran for twenty years.

The final season (featuring my favorite ADA of the series, played by Alana de la Garza) included one episode which I found so very upsetting that I did not watch any more of the season until the series finale. ‘Dignity’ (the fifth episode of the twentieth season) is about a late-term abortion provider who is shot and killed in a church (having survived a previous shooting).

There is one moment in the trial (the murderer decides to put late-term abortion itself on trial, and the lead prosecutor—for whom …

Continue reading →



You Might Also Like ...

Watch This: The Good Wife

Posted on by
Reply

photo of the good wife pictures
You guys, all of my shows are about to start back up. On September 29th, the new seasons of Clone Wars and Merlin begin, and season two of Young Justice continues. On September 30th, in addition to the pilot of 666 Park Avenue (which I may watch, despite the silly title), the second season premiere of Once Upon A Time and the fourth season premiere of The Good Wife airs.

It’s The Good Wife, everyone. It’s extremely well done.

And you know that it has to be well-done, because I almost never watch anything that does not have magic or superpowers or spaceships, because not having superpowers is what I do in real life—I don’t need a television show for that.

I do make occasional exceptions to that. I have a few comedy shows that I watch (Parks and Recreation is amazing, and also starting up this month). Usually, unless a show really appeals to all of my harmful stereotypical instincts (like the Australian teen dance drama, Dance Academy, oh my goodness do not laugh at me it is way better than it sounds; I caught it by accident one night and just couldn’t stop watching), the only thing that gets my television-viewing outside of the interesting realms of fantasy and science fiction is one or more nightmarishly (and I use that word as a compliment) strong female personalities. The Closer. Major Crimes. Commander In Chief. Political Animals. Each of these has a female protagonist. Each of these has a powerful female protagonist.

I like powerful female protagonists. With The Good Wife, my cup runneth over.

There’s a set of three powerful women who dominate the show: Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), the protagonist, who spent a couple of years as a lawyer after law school, but decided to be a stay-at-home mom while her husband entered politics and became the State’s Attorney of Cook County (which contains Chicago; “State’s Attorney” is Illinois gibberish for District Attorney, by the way). The very first scene of the series is her husband, Peter Florrick (Chris Noth)* resigning his office after numerous allegations of cheating and corruption surfaced.

Months later, as the story begins, Alicia has moved to earn money for herself and her two children. She is still married to, but in a strained relationship with, her husband. And she has gotten a job at a law firm—one of the partners being an old friend from law school.

The other two powerful female protagonists are law firm name-partner Diane Lockhart (played by the incomparable Christine Baranski) and that law firm’s enigmatic in-house investigator, Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi). There are a number of other wonderful main and recurring characters (personally, I really love the two teenage Florrick children—though I like the son a lot more than I like the daughter).

Unlike with some shows that I watch which are tragically canceled, I am not the only one who feels this way about The Good Wife. In its first three seasons, the series and cast have been nominated for 21 Emmy awards, and they have won a few of those as well as a number of other awards, which I could list here but I’ll let you look them up yourselves.

Watch The Good Wife, you guys. If I could only recommend one show . . . other than Legend of Korra, that is . . . it would be The Good Wife. It’s too good to miss. If you’re as crazy as I am, you might even have time to catch up before too many episodes of this new season have aired.

*Yes, that’s Chris Noth from Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. There is a lot of crossover on this show from three sources: Law & Order, The Closer, and especially True Blood. You know how Arlene on True Blood is kind of dumb and Russell Edgington is fairly menacing? Well, those actors repeatedly guest star a secretly genius attorney and an extremely goofy judge on The Good Wife, respectively.



You Might Also Like ...