Behind on television again so short reviews and a lot missing. :(
No ragging on Fringe's overall plot incoherence this time. I'll think of the show as an anthology, each season a different story with the same characters. In this particular iteration, people from the future have invaded, the characters we know have been frozen for two decades, while Peter and Olivia's daughter have been growing without them. Her development in this twisted world has gone way off the mark Olivia envisioned, adding an extra layer to an already torn world. The character dynamic in the episode is remarkable stuff and it's been the strength of the show through all the seasons. The plot, on the other hand, felt video game-y, like a quest to collect a couple items.
Grimm made progress last week, sort of. Monroe finally explains the whole shifting deal to Hank, and at long last the viewers aren't confused about the mechanics of the magic (took long enough, writers). The plot is pretty resonant this week, putting Monroe front and center. But then there is Renard doing his usual mystery business. Hint to the writers: without explaining anything, I don't give a crap. So as usual, Renard and this blond woman are talking in circles, skirting around the words that would actually shed new light on the situation.
It looks like the final season of the The Office is going to be a mixed bag. The two regular characters, Pam and Jim, are going to have a solid story to finish off the show while the others continue their sad existences. That's the problem when the show relied on gags for so long. The characters outside of Pam and Jim don't even have the possibility of a good plots because they been marginalized over the years.
Last Resort's ratings started off pretty low and went down in the second week expectedly. If it wants to stop bleeding viewers, it should pulling the gimmicks it did in the second episode. First, the RUSSIANS!! twist is too easy of a way to avoid any hard choices and then there's the reluctant SEAL comes to save the day "twist" to get out of yet another sticky situation. Beyond that, we get some good, needed backstory on the characters. Maybe the second episode exposed the limitations of the show, with the single island and single ship.
Supernatural hasn't been the same since the end of the fifth season. Years of plot and twists came together and once that was resolved, there was nothing left, as much as the writers tried. The Leviathans in the previous season were a complete bust, boring beyond belief. It's hard to get excited about this new season. It's an amalgamation of stuff we've seen before. Dean's been in Hell before, Sam's been in Hell before, and Dean's tried the domestic thing before. Shuffle around the names, and you get the new situation, Dean having been in Purgatory and Sam having tried the domestic thing. The season premiere dispenses with all this information as fast as possible in order to get the boys back on the road, so there are a bunch of flashbacks and not much else. I'm sticking around, but the show doesn't have much left.
If the rest of Vegas plays out like the second episode did, I'll keep watching. There's Lamb solving a case, Savino doing dirty work, and the two butting heads from time to time, all good enough for me.
