DearEvette

She's the highest billed female actress, but overall she is third bill. I never got the impression she was supposed to be a lead and the show doesn't support it. The show is very much a Freddie Highmore star vehicle with everyone else being supporting.

This actually sounds like it is a good step for the show. And Rick, wanting to re-build community and not being constantly at war other groups makes so much sense. And I think i'd be a lot more optimistic if Andy were staying and Carl were still alive and we knew Negan would die. Instead the show has irrevocably tainted this development. I don't know if I could enjoy it knowing that this 'new beginning' has been bought on the back of three seasons on absolute character assassination and unnecessary shock value deaths. Fact of the matter is, Andrew Lincoln is leaving. And God love him, but neither Normal Reedus nor the character of Daryl has the necessary heft to fill those shoes especially given the fact that the only characters that'll be left by the time the season ends that are in any way recognizable or have any real audience investment left will be Carol, Darryl and Michonne. So that is a lot of heavy lifting. Everyone else are paperweights. And who the fuck is Earl anyway? And I finally, I just don't trust these writers/producers. At all. They've talked a good game before and we've gotten stuck with the people like Jadis anf the plot armor villain that is Negan. So no. It is hard to feel that this will be back to being the best show on television.

Naw. That was a Lifetime movie. Not Hallmark. People very pointedly mentioned to Hallmark on twitter and FB that see... non-white people can be happy and in love at Christmas too.

Basically. Also really short sighted of the producers and the Network. If they were really paying attention to their demographics, they would have noticed that POI was a big performer in black households in the Nielsen's when Taraji was a lead character. The show dropped out the top 10 of the demographic in the Nielsens after Taraji left. And black households, at least according to Nielsen, is a major consumer. Now, it might just be a case where that demographic didn't didn't match their advertisers target group, but in the end that doesn't matter because that is the group that had big eyeballs on your ads and advertisers are willfully ignorant of the purchasing power of the black population and are wedded to that myopia. But then again it is CBS....

You really have to excuse me, but I feel like I can gush for paragraphs over the whole Kate Daniels series. Magic Breaks is GANGSTA! It does mark a major turning point in the series, but not in a bad way. But rather in an, 'Huh, didn't expect that to happen." way. Just really smart storytelling, imo. Ok, I'm just shutting up now.

I am not surprised. The show was getting crowded with the four new regulars. They made no effort to create any storyline just for her last season, her only involvement was as a satellite to Melendez and to a lesser extent Glassman. They broke her and Melendez up, so there goes that connection. And they seem to be moving Glassman into a new direction. And honestly her past with Glassman's dead daughter felt like it was just a writer's ruse to give her something else to be part of. Having said all that, it does puzzle me why they chose to have Lea come back and make that actress a regular. But that could just me my bias speaking, because I found Lea as a character to be very much a 'tv character' character who is given a bunch of plot necessary traits, rather than someone who feels like a real person.

Heh. I was looking at the hashtag on twitter. Yeah, the shows that you can probably guess just from the writing are diverse are the ones proudly posting. There are loud crickets elsewhere. Legends of Tomorrow is the only Berlanti-verse show from the CW that posted theirs and I may be projecting but they look like a fun group so no wonder the show is so damned fun. Surprised by the new Suits spin off show. It looks like the majority of their writing room is POC. This Is Us is pretty diverse as well, including two black women (no wonder Beth has such great lines and the stuff with Deja's hair rang so true) The new football drama on The CW is also pretty diverse as well.

I remember the season Carter was killed off, CBS has been using 'major death' as their pre-season promo. Since I knew damn well it wasn't going to be either John or Finch, then it had to either Fusco or Carter. Most people were sure it was Fusco. But the minute I heard that Taraji got the sizzle reel at NYC ComicCon ahead of season 3 and everyone was buzzing about it and how bad ass Carter was in it, And then i saw how much extra face time she was getting on the show for that season, I knew, I knew she was the one being killed off.

Ugh. don't get me started on Twisted. Such wasted potential and they did Kylie dirty. I console myself that the universe tried to make a small reparation by putting her and Avan Jogia together that Tut miniseries so we could actually bask in their chemistry.

Heh. Speaking of American Vandal, it took me almost all of episode one to figure out it was a parody. In my defense... I wandered into the living room while my husband was watching it so I had no idea what it was. And my husband is an inveterate documentary watcher. That man loves a good documentary. He had just finished Ava Duernay's the 13th. So how was I to know he hadn't just started a new one? At any rate, I remember sitting there outraged that this asshole was getting a whole documentary because he was vandalizing his school. My husband laughed his head off while I was making my pissy comments. and then laughed harder at me once the light bulb went on.

This is fantastic. For the record I have never read a Jodi Picoult book, but that is only because I can never make it past the blurbs. Every time one comes out I pick it up and read the blurb thinking "maybe this one" but something always turns me away.

I believe they've never been able to recapture what made S1 so good because they've created no other antagonist other than Thawne that has had good motivation for their actions. I will always believe, if you give your villain a motivation that the audience can at least understand (if not agree with) then you've laid a great story foundation. The other part is to write the plot to fit the characters -- not the other way around. And finally cast an actor that the audience can sell it all. Thawne's motivation in S1 was great. He came back to change time and beat Barry. But something went wrong and he got stuck here and really wanted to get back home. His main focus was getting back home, he was wiling to do anything to get back home. When all was said and done, you can look back at the season and see all the steps, all the decisions Thawne/Wells made. And they made sense. Also Tom Cavanaugh & Matt Letcsher were perfect as the dual Thawnes: Cavanaugh as the who had to wear the mask and create the subterfuge to make his plan work and Letscher as the Thawne with the gloves off who finally revealed himself when he no longer had to hide. Meanwhile S2 Zoom's motivations were all over the place. First he was sending just meta-humans to kill Barry. Why? I think it was a 'There can be only one!' Highlander thing only for speedsters? Then with no explanation he needed Barry's speed so no more killing Barry, just keep kidnapping people to get his speed. And then? He just wanted to the rule world because he had grown up in an orphanage where they gave him electroshock therapy? And while Teddy Sears is a nice looking man, his Zoom had all the charisma of a potato. S3 had Savitar. Which turned out to bean evil version of Barry himself and his big motivation was... nobody on the team liked me anymore so now I am so bitter I have to become a God? Yeah. No. S4 DaVoe had the potential to be just as good as Thawne. He and Marlize had chemistry to burn. And Neil Sandilands were excellent. The set up was perfect. But then they bungle it all up with his motivation: He just wanted everybody to be dumb? Even worse, his need to first create and then steal the powers of 12 metas was so ridiculous that even Bond villains with their overly elaborate plants would be like "dude that is just too extra."

I am right there with you. Was purely flummoxed how he got the Tonight show gig. He comes off as rather juvenile to me. And I don't know if it this is unpopular opinion or not, but I also hated how he'd constantly break on SNL during a skit. I know some people found it charming or just funny in a "well it is Jimmy Fallon' *shrug* way. But I found it annoying. The 'More Cowbell' skit, I can forgive because that shit was funny. The sight gag of Will Farell's gut hanging out of that too tight shirt all by itself is funny. But there were times when he'd break and what he was giggling over wasn't even remotely funny. By contrast, I loved it when somebody like Tim Conway or Carole Burnett would break because they were so top tier and when they broke it felt so organic that it became part of the bit itself. But for Fallon it seemed after awhile to be disingenuous and a little too precious.

I read that article yesterday and I found it very interesting and illuminating. It it hard enough to break into writing/producing at a network and then the added minefields POC have to navigate to make themselves comfortable and to make other people comfortable. I found this quote particularly telling: It also confirms what everybody already knew. ABC specifically wanted to woo the Trump/Red state viewers and that is why they green-lit Rosanne. And you can't help but see the karma here in that in the end, Roseanne is the one who ended up giving them a bigger PR headache than if they had gone ahead and aired the episode of Black-ish. And episode that was completed but that no one will ever see, so will probably grow mythical in the re-telling. In the end it sounds like he and network tv were just not a great fit. I never thought about him one way or the other as a person outside of his role as the writer or creator of Back-ish, but I actually liked reading his perspective and respect that he seems philosophical about everything rather than bitter.

They really should. It is excellent casting. I mentioned she looks like she could be their kid biologically back in when she first appeared in the crossover episode when we were all speculating who she was. Someone on twitter pointed out that JPK is actually older than Candice and Grant. Which just tickles me. I wonder what age Nora is supposed to be in this? JPK has a pretty youthful face so she could believably play any age from late teens (19-ish) to mid-twenties. But it would be a hoot if they played with the age thing so that Nora is either the same age or older than the 2018 version of her parents. It helps that Candice and Grant also look younger than their bio ages.

I just finished Scout's Progress by Sharon Lee and Steve Miler. I loved the heroine who used the power of her mathematical genius as her exit plan from an abusive domestic situation. And it was a space opera to boot!

So I just finished binge watching Midnight, Texas on Hulu. The show is cheese to the max but it was a fun binge full of pretty people. Most of the characters/actors I really enjoyed. And even though I thought the show had a high cheese factor, the storytelling and the entire main plot arc over the whole season was actually deployed really well. But then there is a character named Creek. She is the love interest of the main character. He falls in love with her like a nanosecond after meeting her and I have no idea why. She has no personality. She soo bland. I mean, cat on the show had more personality than she did. She had a really good story arc and I felt nothing for or from her during it. The actress did not sell me on anything. I ended up hating her so hard because we had to spend time on her (lack of) emotions and I felt like the main hero guy was wasted on her.

Yes. I agree they did not expect it. I should have said they inadvertently sabotaged their OTP. I believe that they felt that simply casting a character named 'Laurel Lance' that they'd thought they'd have the luxury to play with the ship. But they underestimated the lack of chemistry between their pair Also, I have to admit, while I had no particular animus toward KC or Laurel, the writing did her no favors. Her writing was humorless and lackluster and no matter how good an actress KC is (and yes, I believe she is a better actress than EBR who I think is a collection of tics) she still couldn't rise above her material. The usurpation of Laurel by Felicity definitely felt like mde the possibility tat Iris would be shuffled off a real threat. As you point out, they had already set the precedent so she was never safe just because she was Iris west. But unlike KC, Candice was able to shine past some of the more questionable writing for her character and she and Grant had loads more chemistry than KC/SA had.

Arrow did manage sabotage their OTP couple successfully, though. Laurel's Black Canary is the canonical love interest for The Arrow and she was clearly set up that way when the show first began. But that got all turned around and Felicity became the leading lady. In the comics she is a minor character who has never had any sort of romantic relationship with Oliver. For WestAllen fans, 2A is hard to watch. I remember being resigned that she was gonna go the way of Laurel. Also, I remember being on twitter and Iris fans being pissed to the point of counting how many lines of dialogue she had in any given episode and calling out the CW. The course correct on 2B was so noticeable that I can't help but think that no matter what AJK was trying to pull, that he got reined in finally and luckily neither Cailtin nor Patty managed to become Felicity 2.0. Funny you mention Sleepy Hollow because Sam Chalsen was an EP on SH and one of the ones I hold responsible for the mess it became. Him and Meztner both. When I read that Metzner was on Iron Fist and that they were messing up the Misty canon I wasn't the least bit surprised.

Yeah, I know it is pretty funny in restrospect. At the time people were just perplexed about it all. It was at a New Year's Eve house party several years ago and people were pretty drunk. To add insult to injury the snatchee also had a drink in her hand so I think she also inadvertently doused the snatcher as well. I think she (the snatcher) had a split lip and the cracked tooth which she got fixed, but was otherwise ok. And the snatchee had some marks on her neck and a little divot in her head (temporary), but I think she didn't need any medical attention. I never found out the resolution of the ownership of necklace though.

I know right? They were a messed up, dysfunctional ratchet family all around. And don't forget Athena. Holy cow she did Medusa dirty. Poseidon raped poor Medusa in one of Athena's temples. And what does Athena do? She turns Medusa into a monster for having the audacity to be raped. And even worse, according to Ovid, the prevailing attitude was that Medusa deserved what Athena did for being 'too pretty.' And the final insult was that Athena helped Perseus kill Medusa even though Medusa wasn't doing anything to anyone on purpose. It wasn't her fault she turned people to stone.

I dunno, I don't think I'd call Kellerman's intro a way to make the show white led. I think the intro of Reed Diamond and then later Jon Seda, Michael Michelle, etc. was NBC's attempt to 'pretty' the cast up. The original cast was older character actors. They made pains to make Melissa Leo look plain and frumpy. Kay Howard never wore make up etc. compare her to Michael Michelle who came in all glamorous looking. I just think he got the tried and true new guy edit, where a show tries super hard to make the new person incorporate into the team so to the audience it feels like that is all you see, They partnered Kellerman up with Lewis (Clark Johnson) so it just felt like they pushed Frank and Tim to the back burner and replaced them with slicker versions of themselves. Lewis was still the veteran (like Frank) while Kellerman was new to the squad (like Tim) but each was more brash and less intelligent (imo) than Frank or Tim. And with the intro of Luther Mahoney as Kellerman's nemesis it was very much a precursor to what eventually would be The Wire. So he was like a proto McNulty.

OMG. This reminds of the time I actually saw someone try to do this IRL. But it didn't work like it does on tv. The snatcher tried to claim that the snatchee (ex-roommate) stole her necklace. And she tried to be all Alexis Carrington-like and snatch it off. But instead of the necklace popping off in dramatic swell of righteous music, all the wanna-be snatcher accomplished was to drag the other girl's head/neck forward with such force that the girl's head bashed into her own face and chipped a tooth. It turns out that it wasn't a necklace with some little dingle clasp, but some sort of bar clasp that locked in place. It was an expensive necklace. I am inclined to think it wasn't hers (the snatcher's) because if it was, you'd think she'd know she wasn't gonna be getting that thing off with a quick snap.

Man, I could just weep thinking of the Anita Blake novels. They started out so good as really fun paranormal detective noir. And then just.... porn...sex...orgies and long descriptions of the black/spandex/leather outfits everyone wore to go have those sex orgies. Sigh.

Heh. I totally thought the same thing.