DearEvette

I am up to episode 9 and that is one thing I would have liked too, to a least get some flashbacks or an entire episode st in the future. Especially now that we've met the Traveller who basically tries to "defect" from the future. It was that bad apparently. Also I would have liked a little more time to see the travelers acclimate to their new bodies. It is one thing for them to research the people they are traveling into, but once you are inside their bodies, then that becomes a whole other thing. If you got into the body of of someone taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, different muscle mass etc. wouldn't you have to take some time to figure out how to move in that new body? Wouldn't it feel alien to you? We get a smallish glimpse of the real Carly who is white and looks to be taller and thinner than the 21st century body she is in. They are so phenotypically different, why wouldn't we get a shot of her staring at herself in the mirror, touching her face, her hair, her lips? It would have been nice to have an episode of them really dealing with their new reality before jumping right into the action.

Holy shit. That poor family. Joely Fisher tweeted "God Speed Mama" like 3 hours ago so I wonder if it happened then and they only just announced it publicly.

So far I am on episode four and out of all their personal issues I am least interested in Phillip's. Not at all interested in his woobiness, his guilt issues, his wanting to save everyone or his need to manage his addiction. I like Carly as she seems very mission focused and honestly, if you are going to assemble a team to go on a specific mission like this at least have people on it who stay focused, but am not at all interested in her child care issues. I am intrigued by her difficulties with her domestic abuser police boyfriend though. Ditto Marcy. She seems pragmatic and mission focused. Her relationship with the social worker is a little weird, though. She's using the poor sucker. I like Trevor's personal situation the best but only because him dealing with high school bullies and his bitchy girlfriend have much more entertainment potential than the rest. Grant's domestic issues are interestingly awkward given he doesn't know how to deal with his wife and his hist being married puts a spike in whatever romance his real self had Carly's real self. But man does he not catch cues well. LOL. Overall I am liking it so far.

Honestly, I don't feel the cable critical darlings are all that darling. I have watched many a prestige show on cable and frankly outside of Breaking Bad, most of them I have found to be either or all: pretentious, badly paced, too much of a writer's vanity or self importance peeking through, not entertaining, too "twisty" for its own good, starts out great and goes steeply downhill after the first season(due to becoming pretentious, too twisty, or badly paced) , or is just plain old boring. I know critics sniff at network, but on the whole I think network tv is a lot more entertaining.

This year just felt really bad to me because Prince died. If I ever had a top ten list of favorite musical artists or celebrities ever he always would land in the top three at any given time. No matter when you polled me. So it really hit me. So his death along with Bowie's and so many other musicians like Maurice White, Rod Temperton, Colonel Abrams, Sharon Jones, Phife Dawg, Glen Frey, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, and or course George Michael... it just seems like the musical losses loomed so much larger for this year.

When I read that interview, hilariously I was immediately brought to mind of the maddening Mad Men previews of the next week's show. This was like the interview version of those previews. But really I have to wonder, outside of the weird "cheese" response to the Mer/Alex question what was so objectionable with how she answered those questions? Most of them sound like she is not trying to give anything away. I mean "is there going to be a wedding?' If she said no. And there is, then people will drag her later for lying. if she said "yes" then she will have given away a plot point she may not have wanted to. If she declined to answer it practically screams "yes" or people will get frustrated at another "declined" to answer response. I thought given that he prefaced it with she was super busy and answered by email it was a quick squeeze in type of thing. I follow her on twitter and she's been completely twitter silent since about the 16th of this month. So either she though she was doing him a solid and answering a handful of questions on her phone via email or she coulda just iced him completely. But some of the questions are just stupid. Come on, the guy is supposed to be a tv industry professional and with a handful of questions he comes up with a Callie question? Hadn't that been covered extensively? Even by his own site? Why even ask that? Sara hasn't even been off the show a whole season yet. I dunno, maybe it is my own bias because I am finding it harder to take that site seriously anymore. Frankly I think the site has devolved into more of a vanity fan site than a real industry information site. The Gilmore Girls coverage on that site went beyond reasonable coverage and straight into fangirl tumblr.

I love how in all the scenes, Marilyn wore that iconic white dress.

Nothing to add to the Rasheeda observation as I completely agree that your work demeanor is not your hanging out with your homies demeanour. But on a rather shallow note, I love Molly's work wardrobe. Professional yet soft. Always look great against her dark skin tones.

Anybody planning to watch Emerald City? Dorothy is Latina and much older. The cast is international and diverse and the story looks much darker. The visuals look pretty interesting.

Ok, I concede the Toby thing, heh. But I am gonna disagree on the William thing because for me that wasn't a WTF it was an interesting way to make me stop and question my own assumptions.

LOL, true dat. CW is always graded on a ratings curve. But it is still a Network and is is a subsidiary of CBS and advertising on a network costs more so, they are held to a different ratings standard than cable. So it is rather significant that a relatively small cable channel like OWN with very little original content is managing to perform like an albeit slow network. In fact amongst like basic channels that offer similar content, OWN is growing hugely. And -- back on topic -- speaking of CBS, it really chaps my ass that they are stacking their WOC leads on shows on their All Access channel. So in order to see Michelle Yeoh and Sonequa Martin-Green on Star Trek and Cush Gumbo & Erica Tazel on The Good Fight you have to pony up 6 to 10 bucks a month. The message of course is if you want more diversity on CBS you have to pay extra for it.

I don't know about Greenleaf because I don't watch it but ratings wise, Queen Sugar is not a flop at all. It is basic cable so it will not compete with Network, necessarily. And of course it can't compete with cable monsters like Walking Dead. But it's first season average it has done better than some CW shows, it outperforms other AA centric shows like Atlanta & Insecure and also other buzzy cable shows like Mr. Robot, Fargo, Orphan Black, etc. in both demo and total numbers. It is also one of the highest social media rated shows on its night. For a show that absolutely targets black women as its audience, I think that is pretty impressive.

Heh. I have to agree with this. I think they do land to some extent but I am not a crier so I receive them with more of a "hmmm, that is an interesting development' or "Man, so-and-so really killed that scene!" I don't know if I would necessarily characterize them as WTF! moments in the vein of a Shonda show mainly because I think hers are especially designed to shock and sometimes come off as inserted solely for the shock value. Almost as if they are the thing that drives narrative. At least with TIU, I can see how the storyline set in the past is being doled out in pieces into the present time and we are finding out stuff in dribs and drabs. Some of it may seem shocking, like the first time Rebecca shows up at Randall and Beth's house in the present day, but it makes sense from a story perspective because there are 36 missing years in the past storyline and we are seeing the just present day results. A lot happens in 36 years. If the story had played out in real time what we are seeing wouldn't be shocking because you'd see the linear progression of events, but since we are just getting present day moments of the 36-year old story it feels more shocking because we don't know how this person's life or situation got from point A to point Z.

Have you met Fox? LOL.

I kind of agree with this. I think on the one hand it does make sense that inside the clubhouse the overwhelming focus is going to be on her gender because that is the most glaring difference about her. There are players of all ethnicities on team, but Ginny is the only woman. By concentrating primarily on the players' reaction to her inclusion I do think hr gender is the most jarring thing. But yeah, it would have been nice to see her race addressed more explicitly, maybe not solely in focusing on the misogynoir, but really by looking more closely at what her ascension means to black americans. I mean they could have really just read through all of the reactions to Monae Davis to see how different people reacted to her. Most of it I do think they are getting right because a lot of people were thrilled an supportive of her across the board. But she did get some resentment and outright hate by mostly white fans whereas she was lionized by black fans especially black women. So I do agree that element is missing. However.... how well they handle it would depend on the writing room. It could go wrong. Like ranging from hilariously wrong to just cringe-inducing wrong. I can give writers credit for wanting to go there and attempting it, but depending on the results sometimes you just wish they'd leave stuff alone.

I was one of the people who did not think Iris and Barry had any real chemistry. I actually liked her a lot more with Eddie than I did with Barry. It wasn't til the Earth-2 Episodes that I finally saw it. It could be that E2 Iris and Barry were married and the displays of affection were assured, and in Iris' case, quite ggressive, but I finally saw the spark. It may have just been the dynamic of the E2 Iris and Barry relationship -- her coming off more dominant and he being more nerdy -- it just felt more blatantly sexual, kinda like some sexy role play they were doing. But it worked. It certainly made me interested in them as a couple for the first time. Iris sitting on Barry's lap in that sexy dark red dress in the Xmas episode harkened back to some of that E2 dynamic. I do think that people who are skeptical of them a couple might be won over if they are allowed to act their age when it comes to their romance. It certainly worked for me. Up til now it feels as it they've been treating Barry and Iris almost as if they were still teenagers.

I am happy the baby mama plot is (hopefully) over, but man did they have to make LaSalle so monumentally dumb to get us there? I am even questioning what the overall plan was for the plot? The girlfriend never once seemed like she was running from something or in danger or even fear for her and her kid. She just came off as seeming like an opportunistic schemer who got lucky that LaSalle was too stupid to insist on a paternity test. What is worse the show doesn't do a convincing job of making Daryl look like the domestic abuser he supposedly is, since the only person we even see him hitting is Lasalle. Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to have grabbed the ex and the kid and forced them to leave with LaSalle none the wiser if he was such a controlling abuser? Instead they have him tracking down LaSalle at his place of work? Honestly until she said she was afraid for Tucker because Daryl had a temper, I was assuming they were just having her be a simple liar. She lied to LaSalle about the kid and then she lied to Daryl about LaSalle. Didn't realize until then they were going the "danger" route because literally nothing up til that point telegraphed it. This is the most I liked Gregario the whole time. Her scenes with her ex-GF were well done and conveyed a sense of intimacy so you believe they had been a couple. Even so Vanessa Ferlito's acting tics are hard to overcome and I found myself annoyed when she'd show up or the clumsy way the show is trying to make her necessary to the team.

So much this! This is why I am loving not only Beth & Randall on this show but also Trish & Murtaugh on Lethal Weapon and Evelyn & Blip on Pitch. All these marriages are being portrayed strong and healthy. And while women are supportive to their men they are also accomplished in their own right with opinions and a real personality that shines through and makes their roles seem actually bigger and more important than they at first seem. Regarding life skills: my stepdad had this list of things he felt all his daughters (there were four of us girls) needed to know how to do, stuff like, cook at least three types of meals, swim, drive, patch or sew garments, fix a flat tire, fix a faucet... stuff like that. And my husband and I have translated this list to our kids with some modern additions. Also in our school district Consumer Skills is a required course for 8th graders and they learn basic cooking but also budgets, and they learn about job searching such as writing resumes and going on interviews. As a final class project they have to answer a mock job ad and send in their resume. The "employer" is usually a volunteer from the community whose own work or skills mimic that of the job ad placed and they act as the interviewer. The kids are really instructed on how to conduct themselves in an interview, what to wear, what questions they shouldn't answer stuff like that. My husband and I both did the "employer" bit and it was a blast. I have a ton of experience because I have been on a billion search committees and we get to give written feedback.

My UO as well. I liked Gabby fine (when I actually watched the show) She's feisty! My other CF UO was that I wasn't too fussed that they killed off Shay.

I always wonder about tv bad guy minions. Like really, what is in it for you? Are the benefits that great? Full Health, dental, college credits and a 401k? What? Or do you just like taking orders from megalomaniacs who use you as human bullet shields and will turn on you on a dime when they get angry?

I almost believe that has to be the case. The kid has been fed a steady of diet of The Poors are awful etc. etc. all his life and you just don't wipe that away in one night. We don't know how much of his father's philosophy he really has internalized. Just because he is young doesn't mean he isn't a sociopath. And regardless of how much or little he may have agreed with his dad, these people killed his father. Speaking of, I was so nervous about how Rittenhouse was eyeing that modern gun. I was almost sure he would get away and the gun with him. Talk about a historic catastrophe! I also Iove how there is a thread through the show that while Lucy and Wyatt's whiteness gives them visual access to all the major haps, Rufus being black requires him to work on the fringes, almost invisibly and yet his very invisibility is almost always the thing that helps them out at a critical time. Also, given how invisible slaves, POC and servants seem to be in all points in history they would have made a fabulous spy network.

For the first time all season, I think this one felt like it has the real possibility to cause serious consequences. They really effed up the past. They killed (or caused to be killed) two major historical figures and of course Rittenhouse. It really felt like the stakes were high in this one and I got a sense of urgency and tension that I hadn't felt in any of the previous eps. Also this is the first epi where they haven;t come back to the present so we haven't yet seen what the effects of what they have done are. I loved the open with Agent Christopher and Lucy at her house and her finally, finally, realizing that her present life with could be impacted by their past actions. Great scene. Also an interesting follow up scene between Rufus and Mason. It has been a bit unrealistic of those two (Mason and Agent Christopher) to be so unaffected by what they know they are doing.

Yeah, I like the way they played that. Percy's reaction is about hurt that she was the last to know not about some lame jealousy. Also she was giving him common sense advice. But the whole baby mama story is an insult to the audience. 'The timing is right and he looks like me' is not proof of paternity. I mean LaSalle is a cop, he should he suspicious just out of principal. Even though Gregorio is not as abrasive as she has been, she is still annoying because messy hair and pursed lips is not an acting choice. I thought the COTW was meh, but I did love the music aspect of it.

Yup. That is what I loved about it too. I like that the show presented in such a way that it doesn't merit any other meaning than the show simply revealing he has a present day love life. The gender of his lover is irrelevant. The very manner in which they did it makes it clear they aren't trying to be political about it. It also helps that Denis O'Hare commanded the scene so wonderfully. I re-listened to his speech twice. The anger, the shade (!) , the heartache, the sarcasm, the little hints of humor "Are you dying tonight? Okay, tomorrow then?" Oh he was just wonderful! I finally did watch that and my interpretation of that was just like his. I've heard more than one bisexual person say they fall in love with the person, not the gender. I've even known one person who said she had no idea she was attracted to women until she'd met this woman who just did it for her! And now they've been together for like 12 years. So my own head wank was that Randall just connected with Jessie and that was it. So yeah it was kinda gratifying to see his take on their relationship.

Y'know, I am not actually bothered that Randall didn't follow up with Andy. Honestly, I can't think of what Randall could have realistically done if he had chased him down. What more could Randall have said or done for him that he hadn't already done? He had already done the most important thing and removed the immediate threat of self harm. But I can't see where else that could have gone after Andy had already left, especially since Randall was obviously shocky himself. I think it was real because before Randall got there, there was an extreme close up of Andy taking off his ring & watched and setting it on the letter addressed to Chloe. I thought for a minute there we had cut to a commercial.