Merlin - Season 3

In a way it's amazing how consistently Merlin manages to squander any potential it has to be an exciting show. So many good ideas wasted by sloppy plotting or overacting in search of comedy or absolutely atrocious computer effects or just not taking things as far as they should go. And most essentially, the central premise is just beyond annoying at this point. If you're doing a hidden identity story where the main character has a secret no one can know, and it's still a secret to your second most important character after three seasons, you're doing it wrong. People finding out shocking things about someone who's been close to them for years? That's good drama. Merlin saving Arthur's ass with magic but covering it up somehow, resulting in Arthur making a snide comment about Merlin's uselessness for the umpteenth time? That's extremely boring.

The whole anti-magic thing just makes for an eternally frustrating series. Interesting ideas could be explored by having something as potentially devastating as magic be outlawed, and having good and bad people on both sides of that line, but all it results in on this show is alternating between stories of Uther punishing innocent people because they use magic and stories of evil people using magic to punish Uther for punishing innocent people because they use magic. Much like Star Wars: The Clone Wars, it's hard to enjoy storylines where the main characters try desperately to save an authority figure who is essentially a bad person, and whose death would ultimately push the whole plot forward in an intriguing direction (or in Clone Wars' case, stop the third through sixth movies from happening). There are hints that the fourth season might move away from Uther as the ultimate power in the series, but since I won't be watching it, I don't care about those baby steps.

And with every good thing the show does, you have to take a couple bad things with it. Finally establishing Morgana as a real villain is good. But the way she operates through the entire season is extremely irritating, manipulating events and then overly obviously smiling evilly in front of people when their lives are going horribly, and the whole dynamic where neither she nor Merlin will reveal the truth about the other is one of the most boring and nonsensical stalemates I've ever seen. I don't want to be too hard on the show, because I can see why someone would still like it after everything that's happened. At its heart, it's a simple, family-friendly fantasy adventure with a couple laughs and maybe an interesting idea or two every week. It's just not my kind of series - the plots are simplistic and inconsistent, the characters are static, and there simply hasn't been nearly enough progress in three years to keep my interest. The occasional nods to recognizable Arthurian legend come off as only there to remind people that this is somewhat, loosely, vaguely, occasionally based on it, and it has this weird issue where whoever happens to be taking the lead role in an episode comes off as less interesting than they do in a supporting capacity. I still don't hate it, but I've definitely had enough of Merlin and Arthur's faces at this point to safely call it quits without losing any sleep.

Caprica

Review at Player Affinity

Merlin - Season 2

While SyFy did lose Doctor Who to the American BBC this season, they did gain Merlin from NBC. Which is uh... something. Not to be mean though, the show has improved a bit from the shaky first year. It's still no great shakes, but it's certainly not bad and as far as being the only real fantasy show I know of right now, it's pretty watchable. There are a few issues still, but at least I can say I like the two main characters for the most part. I'd actually take Arthur over Merlin in most situations, because while he's a jerk to the real hero more often to not, it's a likable kind of jerk, and he has enough nobility to keep you rooting for him. Colin Morgan's Merlin is still a bit annoying here and there, but he actually did some decent acting this time and he wasn't responsible for all of the troubles during the season like he seemed to be before. The show continued to grow stronger as it went on, and by the end it had some genuinely powerful episodes as it allowed itself to break from the formula it had maintained for so long. It felt more alive, with characters actually making decisions that impacted their lives and things happening that will change the entire feel of the third season.

There were those issues though, and some good content here and there didn't make them less glaring, in fact they might have made them stick out more. The inconsistency of the romantic entanglements would almost be funny if they weren't so bad. Look, this show is about a teenage Merlin and Arthur fighting bad guys together, I get that it deviates from the original legends. So I accepted it in season one when Guinevere showed up as a servant and had some romantic tension with Merlin. But then this year it's like the writers remembered "Oh crap, Guinevere is Arthur's wife!" and totally shoehorn in a relationship between the two, completely ignoring everything that happened before (except her continued infatuation with Lancelot). It just breaks the suspension of disbelief when they seemingly forget their own established continuity. And that's far from the only thing. The show seems to revel in completely abandoning any sense of internal logic for the sake of a story, or even worse, a bit of comedy. The fact that it's a fantasy series about a wizard has nothing to do with it, a story in any genre is supposed to be intellectually coherent unless there's a specific reason it doesn't. When Merlin rescues a captured damsel and goes searching for some food for her, the first thing he does is steal food right off Arthur's plate. Prince Arthur. Future king of Camelot. Merlin figures it makes sense to do this rather than sneaking into the kitchen, or giving her his own food, or anything else that makes tons more sense than stealing from the heir of the kingdom. And they do this for a couple laughs. What the hell is this? And it's but one example of the show's occasional inanity, which is much more frequent than it should be. It's an enjoyable series, but also a frustrating one. I'm not fed up to the point of abandoning it, I just hope the stories in the third season try a bit harder than this.

Television Update 4: Straight-to-DVD Finales

A few shows that have recently ended or been in danger of ending have seen episodes or even feature length movies be put out on home video instead of the airwaves, at least in the USA. Here's what I think of them.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan


Edward James Olmos, who directed this movie, claims it won't be the end of the Galactica saga, and he's not talking about Caprica. In any case, it felt less like a real film and more like a very long, somewhat informative filler episode, giving a lot of background on what was happening with the Cylons in secret in the beginning of the war, within the context of what we know from the end of the series. Cavill and Simon have the biggest roles, with the former orchestrating nearly every move made within the walls of Galactica in the first couple seasons, and the latter having a genuinely intriguing character arc, adding some purpose to a model which was hardly used at all during the regular run of the show. The new footage is heavily interspersed with clips from earlier episodes, although the new perspective was enough to prevent it from feeling like a recap show to me. Not great really, but had some interesting nuggets.

Dollhouse - "Epitaph One"


Because of filming two pilots, the season order got a little screwy for Dollhouse's first season. Only the first twelve regular episodes ending up airing in America, with an extra thirteenth filmed cheaply and shoved onto the DVD. Epitaph One could have been the last episode of the series until it was somehow picked up for a second season, and it jumps into the show's future, showing an apocalyptic world torn apart by the organization's apparent poor business practices. It's pretty fascinating, though it will probably end up becoming frustrating when the show eventually does get canned before the plot can really get this far along. Despite some real clunker episodes, it's brilliant, original science fiction like this that makes the show worth watching every week, although unfortunately there won't be another new episode until December.

Prison Break: The Final Break


I believe this was originally intended to be the show's final two episodes, but they ended up packaging them together into a separate movie, which honestly feels like the right decision. It just doesn't really jive with a series ending, feeling more like a little bonus adventure that's not really relevant to the story arc. I guess it really is the ending anyway, but oh well. It features one last jail break, this time from a women's penitentiary. It fills in some details missing from the ending montage in the series' final episode, and provides an adequately tense and interesting story, although it seems weird that they are able to get in so quickly after the series' other two breaks both took at least a dozen hours of television to pull off. Prison Break was always a second tier series to me, and this does little to change that, but has a nice send-off for the characters.

Doctor Who - Season 4

David Tennant's final regular season as the Doctor is a suitably epic one, and especially with the scope of the finale it seems sort of anti-climactic that they're stretching out his last days with a whole year of specials. They bring back practically every significant character from the reboot and the spin-offs, and it's a pretty awesome set up even if the bad guys are kind of tired. I also thought they telegraphed the final conflict better than they have before. Hiding clues in previous episodes is fine, but this felt the most like a true serial.

I'm a bit ahead of myself, though. This season brings the return of the Companion from the Christmas special after the second season. I'm pretty ambivalent on her, because she has some nice points but it's not hard at all for her to turn into an annoyance. Still, she did a decent job as the most important Companion of the series that I've seen, even if the Doctor seemingly couldn't go an hour without mentioning Rose. There was actually some pretty good multi-parters this season, from the Sontarans who I found to be the show's most interesting war-mongering alien race to a really good and fairly creepy story in a gigantic library. Russell T. Davies has done a lot for the series, but I'm excited to see Steven Moffat take over next season, as each season he's written one or two episodes that have been among the best that year, if not the best. I still don't think Doctor Who is that amazing of a series, but it's certainly quite a bit of fun.

Doctor Who - Season 3

This was my favorite season so far of the revived series. Martha Jones isn't too different a character from Rose besides being a little smarter and hotter, but that's enough to make her more likable to me. I mean, I understand Billie Piper is famous in Britain for things besides Who, but does she need to be brought up in every episode even though she's gone? She kind of looks like a monkey. Meanwhile, Freema Agyeman has one of the best asses to ever fill a pair of jeans. Anyway, it's pretty much the same show, the standard of the stories just seems a bit higher. From the Christmas special featuring an angry yet strangely tolerable bride to be and ancient giant arachnids to the finale that just might be the most epic yet, I enjoyed it nearly fairly a lot.

I have a theory why the show doesn't totally work for me. There's nothing wrong with the show in concept. I mean, a clever, somewhat nerdy guy accompanied by a hot girl travel all through time and space touching on every science fiction staple imaginable from alien invasions to dying space stations to alternate history to mad scientists and everything in between. There's just something wrong with the execution, and it feels like the pacing. The conflict of the show seems to be introduced too quickly, and they spend too much time fighting against whatever the villain is and it gets a bit boring before it finishes. There's no sense of rising action, climax, and falling action like a normal story, it's just the same baseline of excitement the entire time until the last five minutes when things finally resolve. If it spent a bit more time establishing things and just having the characters interact I'd probably like it more. Not that what it is is bad, it just isn't quite right. An example of an episode that I thought was perfectly paced is "Blink", which is one of the best quirky time travel stories I've ever seen or read. Doctor Who doesn't have to be perfect though, it's enjoyable enough to keep watching.

Doctor Who - Season 2

I'm not quite sure what it is, but I enjoyed this season a bit more than the previous. David Tennant's Doctor is a bit sillier than Christopher Eccleston's, and while the latter might have had a bit more gravitas in the most important scenes, the former seemed to be written a bit better and fit the show's strengths better. Also since we've already gone through the reestablishment of the universe after the long break between regular installments, which is necessary and not too bad but still tiring when every show has to do it, there's more time to just do what makes the show fun. Billie Piper's Rose is gone for a while after this season which means more new companions, but their transitions into regular cast should go a bit quicker.

Doctor Who has two modes, and I like it more when it's lighthearted and fun as opposed to dark and epic. Most episodes feature both of these at least a little, but the pattern so far is to shift focus from the former to the latter over the course of the season as they start doing more multiple part stories that rarely have enough actual story content to require the extra time. These episodes aren't bad, I just prefer the show when it's less serious. I mean, if I want adult and menacing entertainment, I'll watch Torchwood. Which I am now, by the way. Just like Bad Wolf from the first season, all of the Doctor and Rose's adventures this time coincidentally are tangentially related to the Torchwood Institute, which ties everything together in a less than satisfying way since they never really explain why this convenient stuff keeps happening, but it does establish the spin-off which follows directly in continuity after this season. Also, the first Christmas special that was technically a part of this production I guess was all right.

Doctor Who - Season 1

So after an absence of over fifteen years from regular episodes and a decade since the last incarnation, Russell T. Davies finally brought Doctor Who back to life in 2005. I've never seen it before, but it's always been a beloved and seemingly interesting series, and this seemed like a good point to jump on, so I decided to check it out. This is Christopher Eccleston's only season as the Doctor, with David Tennant already cast to take the part over before it aired, but he does a pretty entertaining job with the part in his one go at it. It's a more complicated character than I expected at first, normally pretty happy-go-lucky about his position as the final Time Lord who jumps around averting disasters, but he can get deadly serious if he has to. Billie Piper's his main companion and the most remarkable thing about her is the severity of her accent.

I wasn't totally sold on the show in the beginning, as it seems to be filmed on a much lower budget than the current standard for American science fiction television and was a little goofier than I thought. It did seem to get better as it went on, with more intriguing and intelligent conflicts and plot developments. The time travel mechanics often don't seem to make sense, as they ignore obvious solutions to their problems and the universe's solution for paradoxes is laughable. It's definitely very, very British. The whole genesis for this relaunch of the show seems to be Davies' idea for an episode where then-popular shows like Big Brother still exist in the future, though in a much deadlier form, and while it's a bit funny in places it just seems to date the show. Futurama did that too sometimes, and those are generally the weakest episodes in retrospect years later. If you accept Doctor Who as a comedy about as much as science fiction though, it's mostly enjoyable.

Caprica

Ronald D. Moore, a big name in the world of science fiction television, has recently had a couple of series pilots aired or released as movies. One's going to continue on as a show and the other probably isn't. Caprica is the former, and it's a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, although one far enough in the past that there are very few recognizable characters and we don't know what's going to happen beyond the broad strokes already established, while still feeling like part of the same universe. It has a different feel from Battlestar, setting itself up as more of a family drama with the familiar themes of artificial intelligence and using technology to bring back lost loved ones instead of an epic war in space.

I honestly was slightly bored the entire time I was watching this. No single element failed too bad or was responsible for my disinterest, it just didn't come together in an exciting way for me. There was some interesting scenes, and I was intrigued enough by some of the ideas and story threads they set up for the series to give it a shot when it starts airing next year. There's a lot of cool places they could go with it, I'm just worried the sources of conflict will be a little too pedestrian after the apocalpytic war that could wipe out humanity in Battlestar. I'm a little fuzzy on the exact timeline and when things really hit the fan, but if that's something Caprica could explore, that would be a lot of fun.

Battlestar Galactica - Season 4

After a season which some fans thought had too many one-off episodes, the fourth and final pretty much told a continuous story of the ship and its crew's last days as they searched for Earth and an end to the conflict with the Cylons. Thanks to that damned writers' strike there was over half a year of waiting in between the first and second halves, which makes my memory of what happened earlier pretty fuzzy, though I remember being entertained by it all at roughly the same slightly diminished level as season three. There's not a lot of action these days, with large dogfights in space kept to a minimum, though there's still plenty of tension and drama.

I guess the movie Razor was part of this production cycle? It was all right. The Face of the Enemy webisodes were pretty blah, though important for Gaeta's character.

The second half of the season proper was even talkier than the first, although it kept me interested with moments of tension, surprise, and the joy of finally seeing threads created long ago brought to their conclusion. A two part mutiny story was one of the most intense couple hours of television I've seen, and what they do with Starbuck through the whole thing is equal parts baffling and incredible. Most of the rest of it was not quite thrilling, but peppered with enough interesting nuggets to easily keep me going towards the finale, which seems to be dividing the fanbase but I found pretty enjoyable. After a nice setup and pretty exciting battle fought across multiple scenes and scales, there's a nice, long period of wrap-up as the strange quasi-religious imagery that has permeated the series finally sees some resolution and the characters all see their stories end in a mostly satisfying way. There's a couple "what the hell?"s along the way and the final scene was a strange way to make sure the viewer got the message that I thought was obvious, but in the end I was satisfied with it as the ending to a great part of science fiction history.

Battlestar Galactica - Season 3

I felt that the third season of one of the better shows on television was a bit of a step back, but it was still successful for the most part. The main problem was the descent of the mood. Battlestar has always been a bit heavier and more realistic than most science fiction, but it's always had a more playful side, with intriguing human interactions and big space battles. The large Cylon fleets are absent for most of this season, as a lot of the conflict comes from within; more supply problems, unhappy workers, and the trial of Gaius Baltar. The relationships shift from simply interesting to more depressingly melodramatic, and in general the mood of the show is just much bleaker.

Despite the stylistic shift, it's still a good show. While New Caprica was more of a small arc than a complete change in the way the series works, it was still very well done and had rippling effects throughout the season. A lot of characters faced major changes, and they definitely don't go without casualties. They really go deep with a few characters, and by this point they're some of the best there are. Starbuck's constant mind changes can get annoying, but her story is great and where it will go after that finale has me already waiting for the final season's premiere in a couple months.

Battlestar Galactica - Season 2

The second season of Battlestar Galactica falls right into stride with the first season, providing entertaining and often exciting space-based drama and action. The show's greatest success might be how convincingly it pulls of the setting without it ever seeming cheesy. It's just a matter of fact. They strike a good balance between the battles against Cylon and the other troubles the fleet faces like resource troubles and political backstabbing, and romance is a much bigger part this season, and it's handled with a little less awkwardness than a lot of shows seem to end up with.

The special effects are always great, but the show's most interesting aspect is the plot, which always manages to add some new wrinkles when you don't expect it. I always seem to prefer shows that allow the status quo to change wildly without trying to keep everything the same all the time, and the show isn't afraid to skip forward in time or kill off some characters. The discovery of another Battlestar makes tides through the fleet, and the shift as we realize humans don't always see eye to eye is very nice. The political workings near the end lead to the show being turned on its ear unexpectedly in the finale, and I greatly look forward to jumping right into season three and seeing how this will turn out.

Battlestar Galactica - Season 1

I never saw the original series, so I can't say how much the new version owes to it or even how much of the plot is the same. All I can say is that what Battlestar Galactica is is one of the most visually impressive and interesting shows on television. Briefly, 40 years earlier, robots called Cylons, created by the humans of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, rebel and start a war, eventually being pushed back. During the miniseries which kicks off the show, the Cylons use new models that look and act exactly like humans to infiltrate human society and create an opening, allowing them to land a devastating blow, wiping out the vast majority of civilization and the military. Only one battleship, the Galactica, and about 50,000 humans survive. The attack was so effective that the Secretary of Education, 43rd in line of succession, has to become president.

The first season of the show focuses on the large scale space battles, delicate subterfuge, and complicated personal relationships involving the remaining humans. Anyone could be a Cylon, and some don't even know it, leading to a great sense of mystery and suspense. Evil robots aren't the only problem either, the setting is taken seriously, and the crew has to worry about fuel, water, and ammunition in addition to the constant threat of discovery as they search for Earth, the fabled thirteenth colony. Not even all the humans can stick together, as they're suspicious of each others' true natures and an old terrorist (or freedom fighter as some would call him) has a distressing amount of loyalty among some of the survivors. The core cast of characters is quite strong, and it's interesting to note how important women are in a male dominated sort of entertainment. The president and best pilot in the fleet are women, and the two most prominent of human-looking Cylons are two. There are multiple copies of each model, each with their own consciousness, and of those is currently locked inside the mind of one of the humans, and it's very interesting to see how she helps him and wonder where her allegiances really are. The end of the season is quite the cliffhanger, and I'm ready to jump into the second.