cynic

This was so good! I loved the greatest hits tour, the giant time machine, everything Jennifer, badass Jones (Initiate splinter sequence!), Madeline Stowe, and all the twists. Cole giving up his happiness to save the world broke my heart.The way he looked at Cassie knowing that she wouldn't remember, gah. As much as I loved that though, I'm not sure about this baby storyline. My love of Fringe was almost ruined when the story ended up revolving around Peter and Olivia's marriage/daughter. It was just too much about that and its schmaltzyness when there were far more interesting things going on that could've gotten the attention. Please do a better job with it, show! The love story is great in moderation, but please don't let it take over. It seems likely that next season will be the last.:'( I'm really curious how they are going to wrap this up. Is it going to circle back around to the plague? Is Cassie still going to leave her message? When Cole showed up at the CDC, Cassie mentioned that he didn't know everything that had happened between them. Is that still going to happen? Is this child what she could have been talking about? Is she going to end up dying in his arms? Is she always going to die, just like Ramsey said? I really want these writers to pull this together and make it all make sense at the end. It might be asking too much, but they've done such a great job these past two years, that I'm cautiously hopeful.

I was distracted by how gorgeous Turin's hair is. Near death becomes him.

Honestly, after season 3, I'm not a big fan of either Jenny or Lyndie Greenwood as a person. I could do without her. Besides, the sister relationship was the biggest draw about the character to me and now that's gone. It is really crazy though how much the show has been retooled, especially considering it was already retooled once before. It sounds like it will be a completely different entity with just Crane as the only recognizable holdover. As much as I like Crane, I don't think this is going to work (at least for me). It's lost so much of its charm with the loss of Ichabbie, the Mills sisters, the Sleepy Hollow setting etc on top of the slow jettisoning of great original characters like Irving and Andy. And it's replacing it with a DC setting that we've seen plenty before, government LEOs we see all the time, generic tough but tender female co-lead, requisite "quirky" supporting cast, and, to top it all off, a "charming" moppett. Great. Just what I wanted on Sleepy Hollow, a precocious or maybe smart mouthed child.

But...but...DC didn't exist during Crane's time, so won't that make the flashbacks weird?

Character information for Crane's new partner

I think Lyanna said something like "Robert would kill him if he knew", which I assumed meant that Jon was Rhaegar's child.

The preference for blondes is comparable in some ways, but I don't think brunettes suffer the stigma that darker-skinned black females do. Plus, you don't necessarily have to be a natural blonde to obtain the benefits and dye is an accepted and easy process. Trying to get lighter skin is a generally harmful and derided practice. Since hair color is so easily changed, I don't think it has the same psychological impact as skin color. Heh, I'll check if the first season is available on OnDemand or any of my streaming services. I don't want to oversell Killjoys. It's not on par with something like The Expanse, but it's a fun popcorn show. I really wanted to like Defiance, but the racial stuff was a little much for me. The highest and most refined social class were the super pale people. They were intelligent and beautiful. The bronzey looking ones were tribal and in tune with nature. Then, when I realized they were going to introduce other races that were generally used for servants or hard labor and they were more animalistic, that was a big nope for me. Hard no. Granted, they might have swerved and done something unexpected with it, but no.

Where was she during the battle? I would've thought that she'd be seen back by Davos behind the lines. I hope she's okay. She's awesome. Yes, while I loved the way the battle was filmed and I got chills when the Vale showed up, we all knew how this was going to go. Plus, the contrived way it was set up with Sansa keeping them secret from Jon was just bad writing. Still, the execution of the scene was excellent, so I'll overlook it. This please. I'm so done with Mereen.

When someone is shooting arrows at you, it's probably better to not run in a straight line.

The Starks are back at Winterfell! Yes! I was so happy to see the wolf banner flying there again. Thank god Ramsay finally got what was coming to him. I've never been so happy to see Littlefinger. I loved Sansa basically saving Jon's ass with the Knights of the Vale after Jon refused to listen to her. That battle scene was crazy, some Saving Private Ryan stuff right there. Yara and Daenerys were great together, but like Tyrion, Daenerys as a ruler still worries me.

I love The Expanse. It's such a great show with a rich, diverse world. As a blerd myself, I was so excited to realize how important a character Naomi is. She's not filler or a sidekick. Plus, I'm also impressed that SyFy didn't have her straighten her hair or even have her make it look more like the loose coils that are more accepted in natural hair styles. I think Hannah John-Kamen, who plays Dutch (who I also love), probably has a bit easier of a time getting cast with her blue eyes and more ambiguous look. Killjoys is such a fun show too. With these and 12 Monkeys (which isn't racially diverse, but has wonderful, well-developed female characters), I've been loving SyFy lately. I'm still on the fence with Dark Matter though. Space shows are normally my thing and I like the diversity it has, but the Asian male character persona and back story is full of stereotypes. Also, I just don't find it as good as The Expanse or as fun as Killjoys. It's just kinda there. Plus, I can't stand Zoie Palmer. I'm hoping season two gives me more of a reason to watch or I might give up on it. I'm not a big fan of zombies (I tolerate them on WD, because I love the characters), but so many people have recommended this show to me lately, I might have to give it a try.

How Syfy is Leading The Charge With Imagining Diverse Futures “It’s my worldview. I’m an intensely non-political person, its when I tell a story, It has to come from my heart and it has to be something I believe there’s a kindness to it. There’s a lot of science fiction and there’s a lot of horror that comes from a place of darkness and it comes from a place of nihilism, and I’m just really frickin’ chipper. So, I can’t do that. I don’t want to watch that; I don’t want to make that, so often the people in my world have liberties, because I want to live in a world that grants those, and I don’t know why we wouldn’t. I don’t find that scary, I don’t find the idea of granting rights to the people around me as long as they don’t *** on me in the process, a scary thing, and so the worlds that I create are people who remind me of people that I work with, the people I grew up with and I went to school with, and it would feel fake to me to not have them around. So I don’t put them there for a purpose: I put them there because they’ve always been there, and it would feel like I was editing if I didn’t have them.” - Killjoys’ creator Michelle Lovretta

That would have been great, but maybe he'll be too busy with the Aquaman stuff. Shallowly, I love his look in the art for that. I'm just glad that Orlando is getting such a juicy role in this. When he left SH, it was couched that he left for other projects, but he didn't seem to have much going on for a while. Demore Barnes from 12 Monkeys will also be in this. I remember someone around here mentioned really liking him, but I can't remember who. I hope they find out about it.

That's so great. I like Neil Gaiman and have been looking forward to this project. This makes it even better. Also, I appreciate that this show stars a PoC, Ricky Whittle.Whittle used to play Lincoln on The 100. Apparently, he clashed with TPTB on that show about the treatment of his character and asked to be killed off because he found the situation "untenable". I hope this show works out better for him.

When I grow up, I want to be just like Lady Mormont.

In other news, Matt Barr will be in one of the Amazon pilots. The description doesn't really strike my fancy, but I like him enough to give it a shot. I kinda wish he could have a spinoff based on Hawley, but I know I'm probably the only one! :D http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/26/matt-bomer-lauren-ambrose-amazon-pilots

There was some cringey writing here or there with Hawley, but overall I really enjoyed him. If he hadn't been used to suck up Jenny's screentime, I think more people would have liked him too. I really liked the way he played off Crane and had hoped they would be funny friends. (Crane and Joe never felt like they could become buds to me.) Plus, he was really pretty. I think they leaned too heavily on comic Crane, outraged Crane, courtly Crane, and melodramatic Crane in season 3. Those have provided great moments in the series, but should really be more sparingly used to continue to have impact and not get tiresome. I also would have preferred seeing more change in Crane since he's been in the present for three years and travelled on his own.

CBS says shows are 'more diverse' despite criticism Sure, okay.

Honestly, I'm not giving up on the show for philosphical reasons. I'm just bored with it. I hung on hoping that it would start being enjoyable to me again, but it's been two years and it hasn't happened. Now, with the loss of the Abbie/Crane dynamic, it definitely isn't going to happen. Their interaction was the best part of the show. That's gone. With her death, it's also lost the sister dynamic. The focus on a deep, complicated relationship between women, especially women of color that dealt with their history and emotions instead of the men in their lives was a big reason I fell in love with the show in the first place. Over the years, it has shed almost all the other things I've enjoyed too: Irving, Andy, Hawley (yeah, I said it), scary Moloch, Headless as a regular, the Horseman of the Apocalypse storyline, the focus on Revelation, the Masons, the bsc writing, the frenetic pacing, and just the sense of fun. And it's just steadily gotten worse. I had serious issues with season 2, but there were a few great episodes and bits of fun in most of even the worst ones. Season 3 didn't suffer from the same level of terrible writing/plotting, but it also lacked the bright spots. It was dull, imo, really dull. I like Mison and he is hot, but he's not enough for me. And honestly, Crane is more of a collection of gimmicks than a fully realized character. He needs grounding. Without Abbie, he doesn't appeal nearly as much to me, especially if he's surrounded by the same characters and same writers that bored me so much in season 3. I would've rather had them spin off his character into a whole new show, maybe centering on the secret society. If it's just going to be season 3 without Abbie, I don't really have any curiosity about it.

And there's a difference between choosing to not continue to do tv and breaking a contract and salting the earth behind you. It would be especially foolish to do it when you're close to a light in the tunnel. The season 3 renewal was shaky. Common wisdom (especially after the first few ratings came in) predicted season 3 would likely be the last and if not for the loss of AI and the failure of both Minority Report and Second Chance, it probably would've been. Even though it got renewed, season 4 almost definitely will be it and that's only half a season. By causing a stink, Beharie saved herself 13 episodes. She risked ruining her reputation and devastating her career over 13 episodes. I can't imagine anyone doing that over a simple whim or general unhappiness. That seems more indicative of something deeply wrong. Either she's crazy or the situation was intolerable for some reason. If she's crazy, that'll come out eventually.

Oh yeah, that Jacob's Ladder remake. A remake of a movie that didn't exactly set the world on fire the first time around. It stars Michael Ealy, who is probably best known to most people as the guy with the pretty eyes who played the robot in that show with the guy who played Bones in the Star Trek reboot that lasted one season on Fox. Also starring, Jesse something, the other guy with the pretty eyes who played that second tier character on Grey's Anatomy. Beharie will probably play the girlfriend or something. And let's be real, it's a POC-dominant cast. It's not likely going to be a summer tentpole movie with a big studio push. If things were hunky dory at SH, I doubt that she'd be leaving for stuff like this. It's not like she got an offer to join the MCU. But yeah, I agree with Enero. I suspect there were bad actions on both sides. I just think that she did everything in her power to get out of SH as a reaction to being poorly treated rather than as a sudden whim to go try movies or "wanderlust" as one person tried to minimize it. But hey, if she did just up and decide to throw all caution to the wind and follow her bliss or whatever by trashing her rep, burning bridges, kissing a good paycheck goodbye, and jeopardizing an already slim chance of a good career in the biz (cause memories are long, the town is small, and she already has enough strikes against her) with no other reason than she just wanted to, well, good luck to her. The poor delusional girl will need it. I just wish Orlando would say something. You know he'd have the real dish.

I think that the difference in their statuses and him having the motivation to "strike while the iron is hot" while she does not make the situations incomparable if you're trying to use it to explain why she might be motivated to leave. He was motivated by the success and the fame of his hot role in a popular show. He thought he had leverage by virtue of his popularity and critical acclaim. He won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy in his year with NYPD Blue and he was being touted as someone to watch. He let it go to his head and demanded a large salary increase. The producers balked and he walked figuring he could be a movie star. Beharie is coming off a failing show where she was unappreciated and backgrounded for large stretches. She has no hype. She has a much smaller chance of consistently working much less becoming a star than even an average white male actor, much less someone in Caruso's position in the 90's. Someone in her position is much less likely to just up and leave for the movies than he is. I mean, hell, look at Lupita. She's an Oscar-winning actress and celebrated beauty and she hasn't had much luck getting major roles in Hollywood movies that are willing to actually show her face. Beharie's at a disadvantage and she knows it. And here's a more recent cautionary tale that she probably does remember - Katherine Heigl. She was another big for her britches, majorly hyped actress on a popular show who failed to achieve movie stardom. Those are the type of people that try it though. How many no-name, POC actresses on struggling shows do it?

David Caruso was a different situation. He was a highly buzzed about actor on a hit show and thought he could parlay that popularity into a huge movie career. He was wrong and quickly became an object lesson for other actors to not suffer from such hubris. He was raked over the coals by the media and in the public eye and his career took years to recover. If anything, stories like Caruso should illustrate why actors would be hesistant to give up a good thing, especially if they need to burn bridges to do so. This would be especially true for a non-biracial black actress with an atypical body for Hollywood and non Euro-centric conforming features. There's already a dearth of good roles for someone like that and biting the hand that feeds her would only make things harder. I doubt that it was a decision that she took lightly.

Even when we're not dealing with a situation like SH ( or for the people who don't see the issues with the show), the jobs argument always gives me pause. While I don't want to see people out of work, that's the nature of the beast. Shows get cancelled. They get cancelled or just end all the time for a myriad of reasons. You can't keep shows on the air simply because people will lose their jobs. And anyone who doesn't understand the lack of job security and will be devastated by the loss probably shouldn't choose to work in this industry. I can't feel bad for not supporting a bad show because "jobs". And besides, every show that ends is replaced by another show that provides other people (or perhaps, even the same people) jobs.

Sure, I would agree in general that TPTB don't owe viewers anything. They can tell whatever stories they like. On the flipside though, fans don't owe the show their viewership and support. So, when producers and writers plead with fans to have patience, to stick with the show because they heard the complaints and are addressing them, and they deride fans who drop the show over certain issues, because those aren't actually real issues and you'll see if only you stick around, then I can see why viewers get irritated at TPTB when it becomes clear that was all lip service. Also, in the end, this is a business. Some people like to think that shows are the result of a creator's vision and are pure art, so the storyteller should hold true to what they want to do. However, business decisions are made before these stories even hit the air and continue to be made through the show's run. You want to not consider your fans, the people that keep you on the air? Good luck. You better be really good. If not, don't complain then about how the viewers just don't get it or are impatient or that the ratings are falling and now the network is tying your hands. Don't complain when people stop watching your show or give you bad reviews or bad word of mouth. They owe you nothing. You want my eyeballs, then entertain me.