Binge watching the streams and eye-balling the books falling off the shelf. What a life.
Finished the fifth season of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and I’m wondering how much to the Hydra well they will go. I like that each season builds on that never-ending threat, sort of, but constantly making S.H.I.E.L.D destroyed by the lop off one head, two more take its place thematic is getting scripturally claustrophobic. And there’s the time travel goto that seems more a what-do-we-do-next necessity than an inspired creative exercise. I liked the first season more, where there was a solo episodic feel to the stories instead of a multi-threaded continuing narrative as the team came together with Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg–just sublime in the role, really). That team has the requisite techie nerds/hackers du jour/problem solvers duo of Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons (lain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge), May (Ming-Na Wen) the martial arts prone pilot with a grim past; Ward (Brett Dalton) the dashing and heroic agent who turns out to be…but that would spoil it for you; Mack (Henry Simmons) who provides the moral compass and some solid knuckles; and Skye(Chloe Bennet) who can whip up a quake in a second. Interestingly, you can find some similarities between the Skye and Jane Doe (Blindspot) characters. Luke Mitchell, who plays Lincoln Campbell, an inhuman here, and Roman, a mean human in Blindspot, also generates a similar ambivalence in both of his characters across the two series.
Surrealestate is back for its third season on Hulu. A novel touch has a real estate group tackling the more paranormal aspects of their properties with August (Maurice Dean Wint), the nerdy guy who builds their ectoplasmic-fantastic gadgets to deal with the supernatural; the good hair guy, Luke Roman (Tim Rozon), who leads the group and can sense through the ether and talk to ghosts; his partner Susan (Sarah Levy) with her telekinetic and pyrotechnic abilities; and Clytemnestra (Elena Juatco) or just Lomax for short, who seems the more grounded-to-the-ordinary side of things person among them. Zooey (Savannah Basley), former receptionist and office manager, but now law career-minded–one foot in, one foot out–character, rounds out the main cast. There was Phil (Adam Korson), a former priest who worked with the group, but he was in seasons one and two. Being a Canadian production, like the X-Files first five seasons, it has that narrative je ne sais guoi quality that differentiates it from American television storytelling. At first I thought a show about ghosts every episode would be redundant, but Surrealestate goes the heavenly highway route as seen in Touched by an Angel, Highway to Heaven, and Ghost Whisperer. But, and it’s a big but, it manages to avoid the saccharine aftertaste and leans more toward sinister shenanigans that need to be excised. That’s not to say that each story doesn’t wrap up to a white light ending, but in these stories, the characters and storylines are presented with more salt and less sugar. …
Crossing the Streams:
Blindspot, Surrealestate, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.DRead More »
