Quick TV Review: Black Sails – Episode One.

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Leonard Wilson

As HBO is usually pretty successful when it comes to its wide array of shows, other channels have thrown their hats into the ring. Showtime was quick to follow them and HBO’s sister channel Cinemax now has two shows under their belt with Strike Back & Banshee.

Starz is still a baby at the series game, but they’ve had an arsenal of their own. With the Spartacus series wrapped up and DaVinci’s Demons’ 2nd season prepped to go later this year, Starz is looking to get more of its shows out the door.

Black Sails is Starz’ latest entry. It starts off running out of the gate, but it’s hard to tell if the show really has legs at this point. Although the premiere is January 25 (tonight, as of this writing), the full episode was released both online and on the Starz on Demand channel for the past week. Either they’re confident this will increase viewership or they perhaps figure the show may not get as far as it should. Either way, it’s available to see.

I like it, I do, but so far I have 3 problems with Black Sails:

1.) I feels too much like the video game Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. This is a mixed bag. If you’ve played the videogame, you know the environment and all of the sea battles in Black Sails have a familiarity to them that will leave you smiling. You may not feel as lost in the show if you’ve played the game or picked up a history book. On the flip side, because there’s a game just like it, it’s quite possible that Black Flag could steal (or already has) Black Sails’ thunder if the show doesn’t come across as exciting. I’m hoping it’s the first case, myself.

2.) Michael Bay’s name is attached to it. It’s invoked like it’s Bruckheimer, and I suppose that when his name is mentioned, one probably thinks of explosions and girls. Black Sails has that all over the place, but that could have happened without Bay’s name. It could be a deterrent to some who still have the bad taste of films like Transformers: Dark of the Moon in their mouths. Let’s be honest, what kind of name is Dark of the Moon anyway?

3.) Rather than taking the mystical route of DaVinci’s Demons or the more swashbuckling style of something like Pirates of the Carribean or Cutthroat Island, Black Sails shoots for something more ruthless and businesslike. The ruthlessness – the blood and gore (when it happens) is welcome. The business part of it all had me hoping that the series doesn’t keep moving in that direction over time. While I understand that the entire show can’t be on the sea (like Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – how I love that film), that so much of it is on land made me sigh a little. In fact, the opening sequence of this really is the only part that actually takes place on the open sea. It’s very similar to NBC’s Dracula. You expect a dark, brooding Vampire tale in Victorian London, and you get a political battle whose biggest highlight is Dracula showing up in the day for a business meeting. That’s not really fun.

To it’s credit, as the pilot, this episode has to establish all of the players involved. The grit of it all is interesting, at least. It’s dirty, maybe even a little dark, but it’s also a little boring to all have the minutiae of the dealings thrown out there like that. If I choose to think of the pirate battles in the same vein as Sons of Anarchy’s motorcycle chases, it’s possible we could have one sea battle every two or three episodes. Maybe that won’t be too bad overall, but they’re going to have to amp this up quick before they start losing the audience. Give us a swordfight or a musket fired or something.

Okay, here’s what we have:

Hoping to bring the same flair for violence to the pilot that he brought to one of Game of Thrones’ best episodes, Neil Marshall (Doomsday, Centurion, The Descent) does his best to give the West Indies in the 18th Century a bloody introduction to the audience. He does a great job with the content he’s given. You can’t complain about what you’re seeing in terms of the atmosphere. Black Sails starts in the open sea with a ship under attack. We come to find that the ship holds the key to a special cargo, one that Captain Flint (Toby Stephens, the Bond villian in Die Another Day) is dying to get his hands on. Flint, though considered a legend among the pirate world, is having a tough time holding on to his crew. Having led them on a wild goose case, some of the crew feels it’s time to replace Flint’s leadership with someone more able to bring everyone a profit.

As Flint’s crew take over the ship, they find John Silver (Luke Arnold), who has acquired a page ripped out of a book that the cook stole. He joins Flint’s crew, saving his own skin. When Flint finds the journals (and the book with the missing page), he decides to port into Nassau to meet with Richard Guthrie, a rich businessman who helps to fund some of his escapades. While getting themselves situated in Nassau, Silver realizes that the page he has must have come from one of the books and looks to see if he can locate where it came from. We come to find through the course of the episode that the page is the key to locating a ship carrying a near incalculable wealth, more than enough to Flint’s crew to live happy.

That appears to be the main story arc in Black Sails. The show introduces a number of characters. You have Eleanor Guthrie (Malecifent’s Hannah New), who helps to keep the pirates in business while trying to forge a name for herself outside of her father. Max (Jessica Parker Kennedy, who I may name as a Hottie of the Day), a courtesan who makes side deals out of the local brothel. I like both of the women in Black Sails, but I can’t exactly say they’re the best of roles for either individual. They’re both strong in the sense that they can take care of themselves, yet (and maybe this is just me) I hoped that maybe for Eleanor in particular was a character that was calling the shots in her position. The pilot gives the impression when you first meet her that she does, but it kind of collapses into a yield between her and Captain Vane (Zach McGowan), who’s out to make himself the number one pirate of the Carribean. Perhaps as the series goes on, this will improve. Vane is your bad guy, that’s easy to see, but there’s so little shown about him that McGowan might as have had a mustache to twirl between his fingers.

So far, of the characters, Flint is the only one I have any kind of care about, and Stephens is delivering the best performance of everyone there. No one person is bad, though. I’m hoping his character can keep the crew enthralled. I haven’t seen enough of everyone else that endures me to them just yet, which is almost the same problem as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. You know who’s involved, but give me a reason to think about them after the show fades to black. Even the slowest Walking Dead episodes leave me wondering and salivating for the next episode.

I’m ready to see where Flint goes, but I’m just not sure I’m sold on everyone else.

Here Are The SAG Award Winners!

Posted on January 18, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Best Film Ensemble: American Hustle

Best Film Actor: Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

Best Film Actress: Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine

Best Film Supporting Actor: Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club

Best Film Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years A Slave

Best Film Stunt Team: Lone Survivor

Best TV Drama Ensemble: Breaking Bad

Best TV Drama Actor: Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad

Best TV Drama Actress: Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey

Best TV Comedy Ensemble: Modern Family

Best TV Comedy Actor: Ty Burrell in Modern Family

Best TV Comedy Actress: Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Veep

Best TV Movie/Mini Actor: Michael Douglas in Behind the Candelabra

Best TV Movie/Mini Actress: Helen Mirren in Phil Spector

Best TV Stunt Team: Game of Thrones

TV Recap: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Episode #12: “Seeds”

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Semtex Skittle

Sometimes it seems that all hope is lost. That a show with recognizable potential has past the point of redemption. That it’s game over. But that time is not this week! No! For indeed, peeking between the clouds of wooden acting and stilted dialogue, comes a new episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D…. and spoiler alert, people of Earth… it’s a pretty good one.

You heard me.

Now Apparently A Permanent Fixture Previously On: As random plots get tied together from earlier in the season, we always need these recaps, I guess. Basically, this time, we need to remember that Skye is looking for her parents.

Cold Open: S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy! Do they have a Sorting Hat at future Hogwarts? Oops, no time to worry. The students are at the pool, only, it’s uh… freezing. For no apparent reason. One student is nearly trapped in the ice when it rapidly freezes over his leg, but another busts the ice open with the hilt of a pool skimmer. Yikes!

Act I: After the briefest of cold opens, Fitz-Simmons are talking about how they designed a device that can freeze pools! Well, it wasn’t designed to be used in that way, but someone has apparently weaponized it. For that reason, Fitz-Simmons have been recalled to the Academy. Well, the SciTech Academy. Apparently there are three … Communications, Operations, and SciTech. I think that answers my incredibly important question about how they’re sorted into Houses. I guess you just apply for the division you’re suited for! There’s a rivalry between Sciences and Operations. Skye makes a funny about this to a passing Agent May, who confesses that Ward, Skye, and Fitz-Simmons are going to the Academy… she and Coulson are bound elsewhere. Skye is a little worried about Coulson, actually. Remember, how he had it kind of crappy last week? Ward re-assures her. There’s something about Ward this week that seems less wooden. Maybe I’m imagining things. I hope not though.

At the Academy, the Shield ActionTeam is met by the lovely Agent Weaver (Christine Adams), apparently some kind of administrator. Weird that they don’t make that clear. It also seems like Agent Ward outranks her. I wish I knew a little more about how S.H.I.E.L.D. is organized (and by a little more, I mean a LITTLE, not a lot. Please no one inundate me). Does being Level 7 give Ward clout automatically, as well as determine his secrecy rating? Is Level 7 a rank? Has this already been explained and I just blacked out? Anyway, Agent Weaver is worried they might have a bad seed at the academy. Ward tries to explain the meaning of this term to Skye who helpfully informs him that it is also a phrase that normal people know of! It was a very Joss Whedon moment. I assume that Jed must have had some hand in this scene. It’s fun to try and guess.

While Fitz-Simmons prepare for their lecture on how you should be careful of the potential of dorm room science projects to be weaponized into something dreadful… Ward and Skye visit the Wall of Valor, a memorial to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who have fallen in the line of duty. Skye wishes that she’d come up through S.H.I.E.L.D. the right way, but Ward talks her down. It’s a stunningly human moment from Ward. Did I drink a lot before this episode? I’d like to believe that, instead, Ward is finally a character instead of a caricature.

On the ActionPlane, Coulson and May rehash the whole ‘Coulson was dead and got brought back by mad science’ thing. More importantly, May has a line on one Richard Lumley (Boyd Kistner), former Agent, who vanished 23 years before. I have deep suspicions that he’s connected to Skye’s mysterious past! Sounds like fun.

At the Academy, Fitz-Simmons begin their lecture. Apparently they’re held in some reverence at the Academy. Meanwhile, Ward is interrogating the near-victim of the pool freeze, a young man named Seth (David Zovatto), one of the top students at SciTech. Seth admits that the academy is competitive, but that they don’t typically attempt to kill one another to gain pole position. He also claims not to know a student named Donnie Gill (Dylan Minnette)…

…Who at the same time is freezing over solid during Fitz-Simmons’ lecture! Fortunately, Fitz-Simmons are seasoned field operatives, and Skye and Ward arrive just in time to identify the freeze device responsible and smash it. Their combined efforts save young Donnie before he suffers much in the way of undue effects.

Oops, there’s the scene changes I’ve been missing. In a tinted limo, we’re re-united with hilariously evil CEO Ian Quinn (David Conrad) who you might remember from the Gravitonium debacle. He’s just here to tell us he’s involved in this somehow, before we’re back to the Academy.

Eh, it’s just some filler dialogue. Donnie has a 190 IQ, no friends, no enemies, has trouble relating, blah blah blah. The faculty is worried about him. Wards wants Fitz-Simmons to take the group to the students’ refuge, The Boiler Room. There’s another scene change in here, but I don’t even want to talk about it. I spent more words explaining that than the time we spent scene-changed. Ugh. Anyway, Ward ACTUALLY wants Fitz to go make friends with Donnie Gill. Simmons and Skye make fun of him, because he’s abruptly acting like a human being, and this is new for all of us. Humour helps break the tension. The rest of them will check out the Boiler Room. I capitalize it, because apparently the SciTech students turned the literal boiler room of the campus into a nightclub. No, I am not kidding. There appears to be no cover, and while Ward is twice the age of any student on campus, apparently real S.H.I.E.L.D. agents drop by from time to time.

Over at Donnie’s place, Fitz and he compare notes on being the biggest nerd on campus. Fitz is impressed by the cool gadgets that Donnie’s been working on. In his own time, he also invented weird things. You know, like technology that could be weaponized into a FREEEEEEZE gun.

In Mexico City, May and Coulson being unobtrusive in their bright red ActionCorvette. They are talking about Skye. Actually, May is doing almost all of the talking. This is a day for breakthroughs for everyone! Skye has finally completely won May over, we discover. This is actually nice to hear. I was tired of May being unbearably frigid toward poor Skye. Or maybe I was just bored after we had to deal with it from Ward as well? Hmm. Coulson’s got concerns about the whole ‘re-worked his brain and implanted false memories’ thing. May does not. I like that Coulson is dealing with some stuff to make him more interesting. He’s not so smarmy here, and he doesn’t feel like he knows everything anymore. He even says he’s ‘tired of secrets’. We all know that’s not true, right? He’s a man of secrets. Fortunately, about this time, they spot Lumley and go into pursuit mode.

It’s a hilarious kung-fu mismatch between Agent May and Lumley. He literally hits her with a pallett, which slows her down for a second, while Lumley attempts to flee. But then we discover that the unobtrusive and very stealthy bright red Corvette can fly. Well, then! Coulson identifies himself, and Lumley sags in relief. Or despair. Or something. “Oh good. This is about the baby girl, isn’t it?” Time to learn cool things!

Lumley tried to take a cyanide capsule. Coulson is horrified. What did he think they were going to do with him? Well, there’s a story! 24 years ago (this is the number associated with Skye’s infancy, in case you forgot) Agents Lumley and Avery were in China. A whole S.H.I.E.L.D. team had apparently been wiped out trying to recover an 0-8-4 (this is the code given to an object of unknown origin. Previous examples include the Peruvian artifact we saw earlier this season, or perhaps even the Tesseract itself (this is the dumb, generic name given to the Cosmic Cube in films such as ‘The Avengers’). It turns out that the 0-8-4 these agents were retrieving was a baby girl, who exhibited no special powers that they ever observed. One by one, everyone who knew about the kid was hunted down and destroyed, including Agent Avery. Lumley is the only other survivor. Before her death, Agent Avery faked a Level 8 (!! who the eff is level 8 if Phil Coulson is only level 7? Just Nick Fury? It all seems kind of arbitrary though, let’s not think too hard) clearance. Avery assigned the S.H.I.E.L.D. foster system to move Skye around every few months not because she wasn’t wanted… but to keep her safe. Wow. Let’s take a breather after that.

Back at the Academy, Skye has blended in. Because she’s very smooth, as we’ve seen, she apparently flirted with the bartender and convinced him that she’s a Level 7 operative at the Sandbox (a S.H.I.E.L.D. pure research facility). After she expressed curiousity over top candidates who might be interested in assignment there, she was pointed toward one of the lovely young ladies from the cold open. Ward decides to check it out. Meanwhile, up in Donnie’s dorm, Fitz tries to befriend the troubled young man. He also helps him solve a problem with power generation for some dorm room science project Donnie’s been working on. I’m sure that was a good idea.

Ward is not good at flirting with young S.H.I.E.L.D. cadets. The dialogue here isn’t that good, and neither is he. It’s kind of a bummer. He’s made great strides during this episode, but right here, I either want to punch him in the face, or do the Picard-style facepalm til the scene is over. Right up until young miss… whatever… drops a bombshell. Donnie and Seth are friends. They’ve been bantering for weeks about how they would get to meet the great Agent Fitz. Ward immediately spots the problem. They just now arrived… and didn’t know they were coming… and oh. Right.

Fitz decides to play hero after he realizes that he’s been had, and that helping Donnie with his science project probably actually means that he just taught Donnie how to power a full scale version of the FREEEEEEEEEEEEZE machine. Unluckily for Fitz, Seth is also present, and shoots him in the head. Probably non-lethally. But still. It all comes together now; Seth and Donnie have been in touch with comically evil CEO Ian Quinn (But he really just loves free enterprise, guys! Emphasis on the comically evil.), who seems to do nothing in life except fly around in his private jet and facilitate supervillains and weapons of mass destruction (though, to be fair, he may just not have had time to rebuild his magnificently appointed villa since we last saw him). Skye even confirms with Coulson that this is Quinn’s modus operandi.

Oh, right, we’re back on the ActionPlane now. Coulson is acting kind of weird toward Skye. I WONDER WHY. Fitz thinks that Donnie is still not a bad guy. Also, he abruptly realizes that the device he saw used exotic and rare materials that could never be obtained on the open market by cadets. They’ve got a financial backer.

In a parking lot somewhere, Seth is on the phone with amusingly sinister CEO Ian Quinn.

On the ActionPlane, we now learn that Seth’s father works for Quinn WorldWide. Remember how, to the rest of the world, Quinn isn’t full of cackleworthy menace? Hmm. Even Seth and Donnie probably don’t know that he’s hysterically foul. Quinn tells Seth he wants a full-scale demonstration to prove that the device is worth his time now that the ActionTeam is on the case. Then he hangs up the phone and immediately orders his pilot to turn around. Remember what I keep saying about him? It’s ha-ha funny! It’s heinous!

Donnie is having second thoughts about just randomly firing up their untested ice machine at full scale. Seth convinces him otherwise, and they push the big red button. Only, instead of doing whatever idiotic thing they thought they would do… well, even Donnie doesn’t know what dumb thing they just did.

On the ActionPlane, Coulson squares with Skye. He tells her the whole truth. The music rises as he does so. The music tells us how we should feel about each of these scenes! I’m still in shock over the fact that Coulson decided to square with Skye. Is this show getting like… a lot better? Please, dear reader, you tell me. Skye says that the truth about her past cannot be worse than what she imagined. Coulson assures her: “It is.” Rise, emotions! Obey that musical cue! The music is so ascendant, it can carry us through to other scenes…!

Agents Ward and Weaver witness the instanteous formation of a huge, dangerous storm system.

Skye is in tears.

Donnie and Seth are at the eye of the same storm. Seth is triumphant; Donnie is deeply concerned. While the device worked… they could be in terrible danger.

After the break… Donnie is yet more concerned. They seeded the clouds, only they did a REALLY good job. Ice is coming. Like, a capriciously lethal amount. He begs for Seth’s help to try and reverse the process. Coulson orders Ward to see if he can extract Donnie and Seth, but Ward takes one look outside and says: “Not so much”. The only remaining recourse is to land the ActionPlane in the eye of the storm and get the two young men out manually. Luckily, Agent May is a good pilot and stuff. I’m sure they’ll make it. Uhh… not before Seth is hit by a bolt of lightning though. An unfortunate consequence of holding on tight to a metal object that rises up above its surroundings. Donnie is knocked back as well, and the machine is totally fried. The ActionPlane descends, the ActionTeam is here to save the day… but Seth is already too far gone, despite Fitz-Simmons’ best efforts. Donnie is devastated.

In the aftermath, Donnie is being shipped out to the Sandbox, where S.H.I.E.L.D. can keep an eye on him. May wants to revisit the whole ‘she and Ward are making love with machine-like precision and wooden facial expressions’ thing but Coulson’s not concerned. She also seems genuinely upset, like a real human being, at how badly it must have hurt Skye that Coulson told her the truth. Coulson, though, is positively glowing, as he talks about Skye’s reaction… guys, it turns out that Skye is a hero, she’s an ‘up’ person, and she gives her all for the team. Now, I don’t want to put too fine a point on this, BUT ALL THE VIEWERS KNEW THAT ALREADY COULSON, GOOD GRIEF. We got over ‘conflicted allegiances Skye’ like ten episodes ago. As part of the exeunt, we see Donnie making ice with his finger. Hey, it’s the influence of farcically vicious CEO Ian Quinn! Makin’ dem Supervillains!

In a final segment, Coulson calls amusingly malicious CEO Ian Quinn to threaten to blow him out of the sky if he ever comes near a S.H.I.E.L.D. aligned nation again. Quinn’s unruffled, and tells Coulson that … ‘The Clairvoyant told me to say “Hello”‘. Because we can’t have two groups of bad guys. God forbid. They’re all one group of interconnected evildoers, responsible for all of the evil! The musical cue tells me dread, but I felt ‘yawn’. Tsk tsk. The music wasn’t powerful enough.

Guys, this episode was great! The best one so far, by a clear margin! I know that people have already fled this show, and believe me, I get it. No one watches it more times than I do, despite the pain and suffering it causes. But if every week was like this one, we’d have an above-average TV show. Isn’t that all we can ask for from the broadcast networks anymore? Anyway, I’ll join you all again next week, for another journey into the unknown. Meanwhile, I’m going to see how a guy gets entrance into the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy… seemed like a pretty happening place.

Trailer: Game of Thrones Season 4

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Have you seen the trailer for season 4 of Game of Thrones yet?

If not, here it is! I’m going to avoid saying too much about it, other then to observe that my hated for King Joffrey grows with each passing hour.

What Lisa, Evelyn, and Erin Watched Sunday Night #96: The 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Sunday night, my sister, my best friend, and I gathered together and watched the 71st Annual Golden Globes.

Why Were Watching It?

Because it was an awards show! Seriously, I love awards.

What Was It About?

When you think about it, the Golden Globes are a lot like that nerdy kid in high school that everyone tolerated because he had rich parents but who they still made fun of every chance they got. Whenever his parents went out of town, he would throw a wild but somewhat desperate party. Everyone would spend the weekend trashing his house and drinking all of his alcohol and then leave without bothering to help him clean up afterward.

(I guess now would be a good time to add that, if Taylor is reading this, sorry!)

Seriously, the Golden Globes are so weird! Nobody is really sure who is in the Hollywood Foreign Press but, every year, they serve free drinks and give out a lot of awards and, as a result, everyone in Hollywood gets together for one night.

What Worked?

Okay, first thing first — a lot of people on twitter thought that the speech Diane Keaton gave and song she sang while accepting the Governor’s Award for Woody Allen was creepy but I thought it was really sweet! I know that a lot of people have issues with Woody Allen (see below) but I usually enjoy his movies.

(When they were showing clips from Allen’s career, they showed Diane Keaton in Annie Hall going, “La dee da, la dee da…” and Evelyn says, “Is she playing Lisa?”)

Last year, I was one of the few people who didn’t think that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did that great of a job as hosts but this year, I agree with everyone else. Tina and Amy should host everything.

I loved it when Melissa McCarthy was pretending to be Matt Damon. What I especially loved was how Matt Damon played along with the joke, to the extent that when Michael Douglas praised him while accepting his Golden Globe, Matt actually pointed over at Melissa.

I can’t complain about any of the winners, which is a rarity for me. I was surprised to see Brooklyn Nine Nine win the Golden Globes for Best Actor and Best TV Show Comedy but I’ve never actually watched the show so I can’t complain.

My favorite acceptance speech came from Matthew McConaughey, mostly because he said, “Alright, alright, alright…”

Finally, a most importantly, a lot of redheads were honored this year. It was a good night for my fellow members of the 2%.

What Did Not Work?

Oh, where to start? Because of all the alcohol involved and the mix of television and movie stars, the Golden Globes have gotten a reputation for being more fun than the Oscars but, for every celebrity who is a fun drunk, there’s about a hundred more who are boring drunks and the 71st annual Golden Globes proved this point. For every Emma Thompson, there was a Jacqueline Bisset. For all the attention that’s being given to a few unexpected moments (and NBC’s reaction to those moments — who would have guessed the censors would get so worked up over vagina?), the Golden Globes were actually rather restrained and boring this year.

The award for most obnoxious presenter goes to Diddy. What was Diddy even doing up there?

The Golden Globes Ceremony was scheduled to last three hours and, unlike the Oscars, it ended on time. However, a lot of those three hours were taken up with watching the winners trying to navigate their way up to the stage. It got boring. Add to that, I am so tired of nominees who don’t bother to come up with a coherent speech before they win their award. It’s not that cute.

All in all, the ceremony could have really used a big production number or two.

Of course, Woody Allen can’t ever win an award without his son, Ronan Farrow, going on twitter and whining about how terrible his father is and all of the little sycophants who follow him chimed in with their usual, “Oh Ronan, I’m sorry!” Uhmmm, just curious — would anyone know who Ronan Farrow is if not for his parents? A lot of people have had shitty fathers but very few of those people have managed to get their own show on MSNBC as a result of it. Just saying.

Who exactly told Emma Stone it would be a good idea to wear a dress that appeared to be decorated with sperm?

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

I’ll Show You Some Golden Globes!

Lessons Learned

Award shows can be boring.

TV Recap: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Episode #11: “The Magical Place”

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Semtex Skittle

Nobody was more excited for the return of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. than me. I mean that literally. I think no one, anywhere on earth… was more excited for the return of this boring, silly show. There’s no way the cast members were more excited. I’ll maybe be willing to give Jed Whedon and Maurissa Truncheon the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they were equally as excited. I mean, the show’s success kind of determines their viability, right? How do you screw up a big budget TV show that’s within Marvel’s universe, when the Marvel universe is gangbusters?

If you’re reading this, you probably don’t share my excitement for the return of this TV show. Maybe you just want to read recaps about it? Who can say? But I won’t bore you with my personal commentary any longer. Let’s recap the show!

The triumphant return of Previously On…

We get to see one line of dialogue from Ron Glass! I am much too excited about this! Remember, guys, how Loki stabbed Coulson in the chest? Oh, and remember the half-season cliffhanger episode where Mike Peterson fought some super powered dudes and May remained completely stoic and in control as she dodged a series of kicks and punches? Remember how Mike Peterson probably exploded? (Poor Mike Peterson). Well if you didn’t remember before, you definitely do now. I am beginning to suspect that this episode will have something to do with the mystery of Coulson’s death! Perhaps we will learn a tiny bit of information that will raise further questions! Let’s find out together!

Cold open: A pretty young woman and an Australian man (Aiden Turner) are discussing business. The business of Chitauri metal (this would be, if you’ve forgotten, remnants from the Chitauri invasion during “The Avengers”). Why? We don’t know! Then a disc which is (hilariously? obnoxiously? insanely?) branded with the logo of S.H.I.E.L.D. skitters across the floor. “Is that a roomba?” wonders the pretty young woman. Foolish young lady, it is not any variety of iRobot! It is a flashbang device, which cues May and Ward to surge into the room with wooden, workmanlike precision. They then proceed to very professionally work over the muscle in the room. Is it a precise but emotionally distant dance, much like when they make love? You speculate, dear reader, for I will not. The Chitauri metal dealer flees. Ward isn’t fast and dodgy like May, so he is on the ground as she pursues the dealer. Do her movements remind me of the scene in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” when the T1000 pursues John Connor, overtaking even a moving car? Am I trying too hard to make machine parallels?

Metal dealer escapes Agent May, only to be confronted by UAVs piloted by Fitz-Simmons, which are equipped with tactical lights and being scary, for the metal dealer fires some panicked shots then flees into an elevator! How will we stop him now? Do not fear! Skye has control of the elevator! She sends it upward, at full speed! On the roof is an entire team of S.H.I.E.L.D. mooks, a pretty young red-haired woman, and a helicopter. I’m almost positive that this is Agent Victoria Hand (Saffron Burrows), returning for a second appearance. Presumably, she is here to lead the effort to rescue Agent Coulson from the sinister clutches of Centipede.

In Act I, the credits and some dialogue quickly confirms my suspicions. This is, indeed, the return of Agent Victoria Hand. She’s an actual comic book character, look her up! Comedian Rob Huebel appears prominently in the guest stars, which gives me hope for the future. There are a bunch of mooks on the plane now, reinforced by Agent Hand’s briefing, which includes seriously like a million people. Most of them mooks. I finally am able to make out clearly that the Australian Chitauri Metal Dealer’s name is Vanchat. Hand seems quite certain that Vanchat will talk. Of course, I have no idea what he might know that would help, but I might have missed something.

Agent Hand decides that we need to return to the well of Skye not always having been a straight-laced suit-wearing mantra-citing AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D., by summarily dismissing Skye from the team, and kicking her off the plane. Ward leaps to Skye’s defense, but May disagrees (stoically). Skye’s pretty sure she can find Coulson using her elite hacking skills, and Ward continues to agree. Wait, they’re agreeing? We need Skye off the plane bad. How will this show survive if we can’t have a secondary source of conflict involving poor, beleaguered, beautiful, Chloe Bennett?

Whoops, scene change! It’s been far too long already. Coulson is in his Tahiti fantasy. Then he’s awake… facing down Poe (Cullen Douglas), our old nemesis from Project Centipede. He’s trying to forcibly extract information from Coulson. Coulson points out that he’ll let himself die before he gives up anything. Then they argue about the death of Mike Peterson. Which was still very Hollywood-y. I hope Mike Peterson’s not dead. More mentions of “The Clairvoyant”, the supposedly telepathic third member of the Centipede triumvirate (the other being Raina, the ‘recruiter’, [Ruth Negga]) whom we have yet to meet on-screen. The Clairvoyant apparently saw Coulson’s death, but could not see the aftermath, when he was brought back to life by S.H.I.E.L.D. Mysteriouser and mysteriouser! Coulson’s not in a questions answering mood. Guess it’s time for more torture.

Act II! Skye is in her civvies, in what looks like an internet cafe (are these real anymore?) using a computer. She’s trying to hack stuff, you know? Unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D., in a disturbingly Orwellian fashion, shuts down both her access and that of everyone else in the cafe. Big Brother is watching, guys. Skye bails, buys a magazine, identifies some random CEO (Lloyd Rathman, played by the aforementioned Rob Huebel. His role is so minor that all that previously accumulated hope is fading away), then decides she needs to buy a new wardrobe, then steals a car. That’s really how this sequence went. Uh. Moving on!

Scene change! Fitz-Simmons are developing non-lethal countermeasures to the Centipede guys. At least, Simmons wants them to be non-lethal measures. Fitz is less sure. He says any methods necessary is fine, as long as Coulson is brought back safely. Also, the interrogation of Vanchak is going nowhere.

Scene change! Skye is doing stuff. Specifically, she is crashing her stolen Escalade into water barrels, to scam OnStar or whatever into towing her back to the luckless Lloyd Rathman’s house.

Scene change! Ward is taking over the interrogation of our favourite Australian man. Actually, he might be British. I’m not really sure. His accent is kind of mild. Ward, in what is probably a really ethical interrogation method, opens the cell chamber to the air outside the plane.

Scene change! Coulson is attempting an escape. Or is he? Oh, there’s Poe. Not surprised to see Coulson up and about. Apparently they’re in a Nuketown. The super soldiers are there too!

I’m glad we’re back to normal for the show. Skye is here again! She’s “at home” with her stolen Escalade. She calls up Rathman’s offices, and claims that she’s with the LAPD, has recovered a stolen vehicle, and some officers need to take his statement. He rushes home. Yay! More Rob Huebel! When he gets there, Skye confronts him, dressed in aviators and black leather, and says she’s Agent Melinda May. It’s probably the single best tension-breaking moment ever produced in this show. Seriously. I cracked a partial smile, and thought to myself: “I’m really going to enjoy writing about this one brief moment in this episode!”. It may or may not all be downhill from here.

Apparently, Lloyd Rathman is a legitimate businessman! Except for the whole ‘not asking questions about mysterious funds he’s helping shady characters launder’ thing. Skye takes over this scene in a way that we haven’t seen since the infamous Gravitonium Caper. This show is better when they take the manacles off of Chloe Bennett and let her do things beside type on the computer and give reaction shots, or have dumb conversations with Agent Ward that are supposed to contribute emotional depth. It’s obvious Skye has real ability as a face/con type, and Chloe Bennett is much more magnetic when she’s unchained. Free Skye! Free Skye! Anyway, she offers Lloyd immunity from Big Brother’s persecution, or something, if he chooses not to involve his lawyers. Unfortunately, she doesn’t notice when he taps the silent alarm. Oops.

Back aboard the ActionJet, Agent Hand is giving yet another briefing. She’s not happy with Ward, because Skye vanished, and Vanchat was nearly shot out of the plane. Luckily, Vanchat rolled under pressure of going skydiving sans parachute. Agent Hand wants to know why powerful people like Nick Fury give a shit what happens to Coulson. No agent is that important. “Coulson is,” Ward replies. He looks slightly less wooden than usual here. Apparently we need more of Victoria Hand on this show. She seems to inspire other people to demonstrate feelings and act like human beings.

Back with the Coulson torture experience. Raina shows up. The Clairvoyant doesn’t seem concerned about the pursuit of S.H.I.E.L.D. Boy it sure would be nice if we knew more about this Clairvoyant fellow. Now we’re going to argue about the effectiveness of torture. Also, now the Clairvoyant wants to talk to Raina the Recruiter. Tensions are high among Centipede personnel. Then the Clairvoyant kills? Poe. It didn’t look good, at any rate. I’m worried about his long-term health!

Ward isn’t Victoria Hand’s biggest fan. He and May banter a little. Ward wants to know why May acted like a total bitch and let Skye get kicked off the plane. Well, it’s because Skye works better when she can improvise and work outside the system. All of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s rules mostly get in her way. Yes, we’ve known that since the pilot. But I’m glad everyone’s on the same page now. We’ve made real progress with the character of poor Skye: everyone now admits she’s pretty useful. Then we learn that the ActionPlane can apparently flip a bitch. Nice! Back with Rob Huebel and Skye… she’s in total control. How cool is Skye when she gets to do stuff? I know this isn’t a great episode of TV or anything, but, it’s not terrible. This subplot, at the very least, I’m very much enjoying. Private security shows up, but Skye improbably bests them. Take that, Rob Huebel! Now he will do illegal things on Skye’s behalf! I’m sure this will pan out later. Or not. We’ll see.

Raina is not so sad that Poe is dead. He was a murderer, or whatever. The Clairvoyant gives guidance to Centipede. Except, they don’t know how to make people come back to life. Which is apparently what happened to Coulson (we already knew this, right? We can all agree this isn’t news, right?). Raina really wants to know what happened to Coulson after he died. She’s betting that… so does he. This method seems a lot more likely to work than torture, but it does sort of make the whole last episode seem pointless. I mean, we’re already done with Poe? All that work to break him out of prison, bring him in as a strategist, etc…. and he’s gone? Did Cullen Douglas have a big movie deal or something? This show does a really bad job of giving me reasons to care about secondary characters. They overdid it with Mike Peterson, and underdid it with everyone else.

Skye discovers that Rob Huebel is bad with computers. She enlists one of the security mooks she’s imprisoned to do the work while she spits out instructions. Not only does she have a good plan for backtracking Raina’s movements, but she’s still in total control of this episode. Free Chloe Bennett! Skye has what she needs, but she’s also going to borrow the luckless Rob Huebel’s Lamborghini. Is that the Gallardo convertible? We’re all envious of Skye as she zooms off. Back with Raina and Coulson, Raina finally convinces Coulson that ‘The Clairvoyant’ might actually have some telepathic ability by identifying his previous relationship. You know, the cellist. The cellist was heartbroken to learn that Coulson died… except, you know… he’s still alive. So what did happen in Tahiti? Oh, please, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tell us! You have tantalized us with this storyline all half-season! Surely there must be some payoff!

Back on the ActionJet, Fitz-Simmons have developed a non-lethal countermeasure for the super-soldiers! All you have to do is attach a wrist-watch to them, and it will uh… shut off their superpowers. I mean, it totally sounds reasonable. Right? Anybody? Simmons gets a call from Skye. Simmons awkwardly bandies about code words and tries to act casual. Then May, who always knows what’s up, orders the random mooks out of the room and seizes the phone. Of course it’s Skye! Agent Hand is not at all amused that Ward and May want to take their team and investigate Skye’s lead. Presumably, Hand is supposed to be in charge. Blah blah blah. Unfortunately, rather than being coyly amused with her brilliance, May is a brick wall. You know, just like every other time. An unusually expressive Ward declares that they’re going after Coulson, with or without Hand’s backing. Sounds good, Ward! We all know that problems can only be solved by the main cast!

Meanwhile… Raina is being nice to Coulson. She’s got him in the memory machine, but she’s not zapping him or being a dick. This seems roughly 7,000,000,000,000x more likely to actually get memories out of Coulson’s brain. Sure enough, almost right away he’s remembering Ron Glass, and references to Nick Fury. Since we’re about to go to commercial, I can already tell this is going to be some dumb cliffhanger about Coulson’s fate. Seriously, if this is the only mystery you guys have for us, you shouldn’t have started teasing it in S1E1. Anyway, cliffhanger. No question now. But, dear readers, don’t fear! I will return next week with a more timely recap that will follow the same pattern of tough love that I have adhered to thus far.

Act IV! Skye and her Gallardo arrive at Nuketown! She seems disquieted by the mannequins. I think I would be too. The whole idea of a nuketown seems… weird to me. A Super Soldier rushes to apprehend Skye, but he’s run over by the ActionMobile. Coulson is looking inward, toward Ron Glass. Raina is now frantic, trying to divine Coulson’s secret. Meanwhile, the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. actionteam is assembled. And now even Fitz-Simmons are wearing cool black leather uniforms (actually, they have been all episode, but this is the payoff). Ward and the wristwatch are going to take on Random Super Soldier #1. Everyone else is going to fan out and look for Coulson. May deals with some regular mooks with a little crane style, Ward battles Generic Super Soldier. It’s actually a very nice action sequence. Many film directors have no idea what to do when directing action so they either pull us in way too tight or make the camera super shaky so we can’t really see what’s going on. Here, the direction is smooth and confident. Ward and May are allowed to look like badasses. I really appreciate this touch. Ward jams his supersoldier countermeasure into his guy’s mouth. It works perfectly. Score yet another one for Fitz-Simmons.

Coulson is still trying to remember. Then, abruptly, he does. We’re back in time. Ron Glass is morally outraged. Coulson is begging the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors to let him die, as some robots work on his brain or something. It would be disturbing, but it’s all so static-free and clean. This scene could have used some more visceral reality. Modern-day Agent Coulson is freaking out. Skye shows up and punches Raina right in her freaking face. Seriously, is anyone as cool as Skye? Maybe not anyone ever. She shows real emotions on her real face at the state she finds Coulson in. Meanwhile, May makes a wooden comment about Skye’s new leather jacket.

Back at the ActionJet, Raina is now a prisoner. She and Coulson have an eye-contact-moment. Hand reports that Centipede has gone down in flames. Nick Fury is pleased with their progress. Hand and her goons are escorting Raina back to headquarters for interrogation. Hand admits that the ActionJet and its ActionTeam and (presumably) its ActionSkye aren’t really her style. Then she’s out. Coulson thanks the team. It was pretty much all Skye, but hey, don’t forget the others. Now after like the 2908308423084th time Skye has been useful, Coulson decides to remove her house arrest bracelet. It’s kind of a fun moment, but tempered by the whole ‘let’s revisit Coulson chanting over and over again “please let me die”‘ thing.

Scene change! Coulson does the creepy Hollywood thing where he’s in the back seat of Ron Glass’ car. You know what I’m talking about. Ron Glass is not proud in the least of the whole ‘bringing Coulson back from the dead’ operation. In case anyone hadn’t picked up on it, the “Tahiti trip” was a hallucination implanted in Coulson’s brain. Ron Glass and the other doctors tried to restore Coulson’s will to live after they put him through unendurable agony. I’m stunned that we’re getting this much detail. My respect for the show has hit an all-time high. It’s still not that high. But it’s higher.

Coda! Few shows do the coda as relentlessly as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. This one is actually really good. Mike Peterson (J. August Richards) awakes. He’s alive, albeit missing the lower half of his right leg. Oh… and he’s got the eye thing. Well, shit.

This was a clearly above-average episode of Agents. For whatever that’s worth. I hope you either enjoyed the episode, or turned to this recap for solace and enjoyed it instead. Our odyssey will continue next week. Until then, do not fear the super/mutant power revolution. Because Big Brother is watching.

20 Good Things That I Saw On Television in 2013

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Someday, I want to have my own tv network. I’ll call it Lisa Marie Television (or LMTV for short) and it’ll be like Lifetime but with the Lisa Marie difference. What’s the Lisa Marie difference? Sweetheart, if you have to ask, you’ll never know.

Anyway, as I wait for that day to come, I’m going to continue my series of posts on my favorites of 2013 by telling you about some of the best things that I saw on television over the course of the previous year. Here they are, in random order:

1) The series finale of Breaking Bad

Perfection.

2) The series finale of The Office

After a rough couple of seasons, The Office redeemed itself with a perfect conclusion. How can you do any better than Jim and Pam moving to Texas?

3) Children’s Hospital on Adult Swim

Without a doubt, the funniest 15 minutes on television.

4) Burning Love on E!

E! broadcast episodes of the hilarious, Bachelor-parodying web series in 2013 and gave everyone a chance to follow Julie as she pined for Blaze and asked lucky bachelors, “Will you hold my box?”

5) SyFy Saturdays

This year, my Saturday night ritual was to gather online with the Snarkalecs and watch an original movie on SyFy. And while all of the Normals (as we refer to the rest of the world) were going crazy over Sharknado, the Snarkalecs knew that End of the World was a hundred times better.

6) The only likable team won The Amazing Race 23

I can’t remember their names but I can remember that I liked them more than Tim & Marie, Nicole & Travis, and Leo & Jamal.

7) Bonnie and Clyde

Broadcast on three different networks and over two separate nights, Bonnie and Clyde was big, silly, over-the-top, glamorous, and full of style. It made me want to go out and rob a bank while looking good doing it.

8) Orange is the New Black

We lost a lot of good shows in 2013 but, fortunately, we also gained a few new ones.

9) South Park satirizes Obama and Game of Thrones

I like one of those targets and dislike the other (guess which is which) but the important thing is that both of them have reached a point where they deserve to be satirized. Not surprisingly, South Park continues to be one of the few show to have the guts to ridicule the topics that other shows are too cowardly to touch.

10) Bates Motel

Bates Motel was frequently uneven but it was always worth watching for Vera Farmiga and Max Thieriot.

11) The Space Kitten

That little space kitten that was singing Wrecking Ball at the American Music Awards? Adorable!

12) Jimmy Kimmel

Whether he was causing Kanye West to have a meltdown or posting fake videos on YouTube, 2013 was the year of Kimmel.

13) The Talking Dead

Look, we all know that The Walking Dead is great but, for me, The Talking Dead is usually the highlight of AMC on Sunday night. Chris Hardwick is adorable to begin with but the moment he choked up while discussing the death of Herschel confirmed that he’s not just a host. He’s a true fan as well.

14) Miley Cyrus at the VMAs

It was tacky, it was shocking, it was disturbing, it got people talking and overreacting, and it was everything that television should be. (That said, I would like to point out that — despite what some members of the media seem to believe — twerking existed long before Miley Cyrus decided to make it a part of her act. I was twerking back when Miley was still Hannah Montana.)

15) That episode of Girls with Patrick Wilson

One of the best 25 minutes of television ever, and not just because Patrick Wilson is super hot.

16) The Herstory of Dance and Intro to Felt Surrogacy episodes of Community

Without the guiding vision of Dan Harmon, Community‘s fourth season was undeniably rough. However, these two episodes reminded us that Community still had something to offer. (That said, I’m glad Dan Harmon’s back for season 5…)

17) Colton walks off Survivor …. again

Colton Cumbie is one of the most loathsome people to ever show up on a reality TV show so it was satisfying to see him utterly fail to win Survivor not once but twice.

18) The Big Brother Blog got a new writer named Lisa Marie

This year, Bill Lage asked me to write episode recaps for the Big Brother Blog. Of course, I said yes and, for three months, I had a lot of fun keeping people updated with what all of the loathsome people in the Big Brother house were up to. I made a lot of new friends and I even made a persistent enemy named Maggie Long, a poor little internet troll who just couldn’t handle the fact that I encouraged my readers to “Stay supple!” It was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing it all over again in 2014.

19) Winter Storm Cleon caused the local news people to freak out!

Yes, we did get some snow and ice down here in December. Unlike you folks up North, those of us in Texas only see snow and ice every other year so, whenever it does show up, you can be sure that all of the local newspeople are going to panic. That’s exactly what happened this year and it was fun to watch.

20) Degrassi!

My favorite Canadian show came back!

Tomorrow, we take a look at ten of my favorite books of 2013.

Other Entries In TSL’s Look Back At 2013:

Don’t Look Back: The Walking Dead 2014 Teaser Poster

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

AMC has released the teaser poster for the upcoming season of The Walking Dead and looking at it, two things are obvious. First off, the prison is gone. Secondly, Rick and Carl are on their own.

The Walking Dead returns in February to AMC.

What Lisa and Megan Watched Last Night #96: Saved By The Bell 2.9 “Jessie’s Song” (dir by Don Barnhart)

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, my sister Megan and I watched the classic 1990 Saved By The Bell caffeine pill episode, Jessie’s Song.

My sister Megan and I stayed up way too late last night but it's her fault for having all the seasons of Saved By The Bell on DVD.

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) December 27, 2013

Why Were We Watching It?

I was visiting Megan and her family for the holidays, she has every episode of Saved By The Bell on DVD — seriously, how could we not end up watching it?

What Was It About?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times and things at Bayside High were pretty messed up. Self-declared genius Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) was failing Geometry so she started taking caffeine pills. Then, her sociopathic friend Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) decided that Jessie should also launch a musical career as a member of the disturbingly generic girl group Hot Sundae. And who can blame him with all of this talent of display?

And so, Jessie started taking more and more pills. And then, this happened…

Fear not! Jessie recovered from her drug addiction in time to be featured in Johnny Dakota’s No Hope With Dope ad campaign.

What Worked?

Jessie’s Song is like The Room of Saved By The Bell episodes, 22 minutes of television that is just so wrong and oddly executed that it becomes oddly fascinating. For that reason, it’s impossible to judge this episode by standard definitions of quality.

The idea that Kelly, Lisa, and Jessie (a.k.a. Hot Sundae) could get a recording contract, the fact that Jessie ends up getting hooked on the equivalent of can of Red Bull, the fantasy sequence where Jessie imagines having to go to Surf U. because she failed Geometry, the fact that a few pills transform Jessie overnight, and the overly optimistic ending; none of it works. And, for that reason, the entire episode works.

Consider this — before I had even seen this episode, I knew that Jessie Spano ended up getting hooked on caffeine pills and singing, “I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so …. SCARED!” For better or worse, this episode is a part of our culture.

On a personal note, I loved the extremely earnest way Mario Lopez delivered the line, “Hold on, Jessie — it says right here that these may be habit-forming…”

What Did Not Work?

As Megan pointed out to me, there’s a huge continuity error in this episode. Back in the glee club episode, it had been established that Kelly couldn’t sing. Now, suddenly, she’s on the verge of getting a recording contract. Was there no such thing as a consistency at Bayside? No wonder Jessie ended up addicted to drugs.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Much like Jessie Spano, I have a tendency to push myself. Whereas Jessie pushed herself to attend an Ivy League college and to try to destroy the patriarchy, I push myself to post a certain amount of film reviews each month.

For instance, earlier this year, I decided that I would post at least 120 reviews in October. And so, much like Jessie, I pushed myself and pushed myself and, when I felt like I couldn’t go on, I took every pill that I had in the medicine cabinet and then I danced around my bedroom going, “I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so … scared!”

And some people though that was silly on my part but you know what? This October, the TSL posted 137 new reviews so, obviously, I was doing something right. And I’ve already decided that next year, we’re going to break all previous records. That’s right — 200 posts in October of 2014! You read it here first.

And, to think, I owe it all to caffeine.

Lessons Learned

There’s no hope with dope! Wait … no, actually, that was a different episode. In this one, I guess I learned not to abuse caffeine but I really didn’t learn that because I’ve seen this episode a few dozen times and I’m still addicted to caffeine and, for that matter, I’m still pushing myself and having trouble accepting that I can’t always be the best at everything so maybe I didn’t learn anything from this episode…

Oh wait! I did learn something. Geometry leads to drug addiction and causes you to let all of your friends down.

Seriously, geometry sucks.

(For another look at drug abuse in the 1990s, please be sure to check out my review of the California Dreams steroid episode, Tiffani’s Gold.)

Trash TV Guru : “The Time Of The Doctor” — The 2013 “Doctor Who” Christmas Special

Posted on December 25, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

I highly recommend that you remember this moment , not just because it’s Christmas (for a few more hours, at any rate) and that’s always (hopefully) nice — oh, and Happy Holidays to you all, by the way ( just out of curiosity, does me saying “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” mean I’ve picked a side in the imaginary “War on Christmas” cooked up by Fox “news”?) — but because, for once, yours truly is genuinely at a loss for words.

I know, I know — me not having an opinion (or keeping it to myself if I do have one) is something a lot of people have been waiting a long time for. Consider it my Christmas gift to all of you, then. I just wish I knew why I didn’t have much to say. It’s not that the finale of the Matt Smith era of Doctor Who, the just-concluded (here in the US, at any rate) “The Time Of The Doctor” was so awesome that it left me speechless. Nor is it the case that it was so lousy that I have no idea where to begin cataloging its list of atrocities. It’s just — shit, I dunno. And like I said, that’s the problem.

Look, in the interest of full disclosure I should say that I was more than ready for the Eleventh (or should that be Twelfth? Or even Thirteenth?) Doctor to be done. I thought Smith and series head honcho Steven Moffat got off to an interesting, if wildly uneven, start back in 2009 with the fifth season of Who 2.0, but that the show itself, and Smith’s character, have been pretty stagnant and predictable ever since. Change, my dear, as the Sixth Doctor might say, is coming not a moment too soon — I just hope it’s not too late, ya know? Because I could seriously use something to shake me out of my full-time state of disinterested ambivalence in regards to my favorite show ever, and I’m sincerely hoping that Peter Capaldi is it. He makes a nice first (okay, second) appearance at the tail end here and my optimism got a shot in the arm just seeing the guy but, as with all things, time will tell.

Beyond that, though, well — I guess this episode was okay enough for what it was, but considering that three-plus years have been leading up to this one story, it all seemed a bit flat to me. And the pacing was a fucking mess. And the direction by Jamie Payne seemed listless and uninspired. And Moffat’s script was all over the map. And — well, let’s not kid ourselves, it may not have been an un-watchable disaster, but it wasn’t exactly good, either, was it?

I’m well aware that the very nature of these “big event” specials makes them something of a bitch to write, and that Moff’s bound to feel obligated to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the works here, so to that end we’ve got Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, the Silence (though, curiously, no River Song, guess once she and the Doctor got married Moffat had no further use for her) — even that crack in the wall comes back out of nowhere and hangs around for over 300 years in the town of Christmas, on planet Trenzalore.

Yup, after saying he was headed home at the end of The Day Of The Doctor, it ends up that the Doctor, Clara in tow, is headed for Trenzalore after all. Where he generally stands around doing nothing for centuries while the people in the village around him are blown to smithereens. They all, apparently, love him to pieces even though he’s responsible for bringing all this trouble down on their heads in the first place, but maybe they’re just all stupid or something. I’m not gonna hold that against them. After all, it’s Christmas.

Anyway, there’s a transmission from Gallifrey coming through the other side of the crack, apparently the Time Lords are itching to break back into our universe from whatever other one they’re in, and all they need is for the supposedly-age-old question of “Doctor — who?” to finally be answered, and they’re in. Don’t ask me how that works. Or why this is the place where it has to happen. Or why they’re not all trapped in a painting as appeared to be the case last time around. I. Just. Don’t. Know.

I do know that the Doctor’s best friend in his three-century exile on Trenzalore is a disembodied Cyber-head, and that there’s a wooden Cyberman he fights that looks pretty cool, and that Clara pops up a couple more times as the Doctor ages, and that very little of the Eleventh Doctor’s “life” has been seen on screen which means Big Finish and BBC Books and the like can have all kinds of fun filling in the gaps over the next x-number of years, and that the “big battle” that promised “silence will fall” ends up being a big stalemate and that this story doesn’t make much sense from word “go” to word “stop.”

But I don’t know that I disliked the proceedings here, either, and that’s because even though it was undoubtedly a mess, it’s at least a mess that’s trying to do something a little different, and “a little different” is something Doctor Who has been sorely lacking lately.

Think about it : the Eleventh Doctor dies not from radiation poisoning, or Spectrox Toxemia, or falling from a telescope, or mind-fighting a giant spider — he dies the way, hopefully, we all will : of old age. Whereupon the Time Lords, from the other side of the crack, promptly grant him a new regeneration cycle because, as it turns out, the Eleventh Doctor was the Thirteenth all along.

To their credit, Moffat and Smith don’t throw an extended pity party for “their” Doctor on the way out the door the way Russell T. Davies and David Tennant did, and Jenna Coleman, who’s fast become the best thing about the show, handles her “companion present for a regeneration” duties admirably, but things do go a bit barmy when said regeneration is so powerful that it kills off all the Daleks, Silence, etc. battling on Trenzalore in one go. Or actually, the pre-regeneration cosmic energy surge (or whatever) does that, the actual regeneration itself being a rather “bang! And it’s done!” sort of affair occurring within the confines for the TARDIS.

And ,just like that, it’s over. And I’m left with the feeling that we really didn’t see much of the Eleventh Doctor. Sure, we saw him age — not terribly convincingly — here, but we didn’t see much of his life in Trenzalore/Christmas at all. We didn’t see the century he spent wandering alone after the Ponds flew the coop. We didn’t see any of his married life with River Song, or even find out what the hell really happened to her. We didn’t see him scouring the universe for her as a child. We didn’t see many of the major events that we’re told played such an enormous part in making him who he was. It’s enough to make a person say “Sayonara, Eleven — we hardly knew ye!”

Sure, I guess that’s frustrating in a way — but it’s also kind of mildly intriguing, is it not? And it’s apparently got a lot of people howling, which is a good thing. The fans wanted drama, anguish, and pathos — a huge, epic send-off for Matt Smith’s iteration of the Doctor. Instead, they got 300 years in 30 minutes, a “New Time War” that never happens, and a Doctor who dies because he gets old. And besides, given how clumsy and formulaic Who has become in Steven Moffat’s hands, it’s probably doing the character a big favor to give him plenty of unseen “life” free from his show-runner’s heavy hand.

So maybe it’s the hand-wringing and controversy and downright caterwauling of so many on the internet that I’m enjoying more than The Time Of The Doctor itself. Maybe I appreciate the effect it’s having off-screen more than I did anything it presented on-screen. Maybe I like what it’s doing more than I like what it actually did.

Or maybe I’m just glad this era of the show is over and we can turn the page. I’ve long maintained that a “back to basics” approach free of excess baggage in terms of continuity, backstory, etc. is precisely what Doctor Who has needed for a long time. Give us a mysterious traveler in a rickety old police box that’s bigger on the inside and can go anywhere in time and space, and leave it at that. I don’t know if Moffat will be able to resist the temptation to layer the mythology on thick all over again when Capaldi takes the reigns, but given that three-plus seasons of his purportedly meticulous and careful and calculated planning led to a quick, go-nowhere, non-resolution haphazardly cap-stoned by one of the least dramatic regenerations the series has ever seen will finally be enough to convince him that writing himself into a corner with all that “timey-wimey” nonsense just doesn’t work.

When the Ponds left, it felt more like a relief than anything else, and the same applies here — doubly so, in fact. All that shit’s out the window now. The deck has been cleared off. Steven Moffat has never had a better chance to strip the show back down to its core elements and start afresh than he has right now.

And with that, I’m out. For a guy who promised at the outset that he didn’t have much to say, I’ve just spent over 1,500 words blathering on about an episode I still don’t quite now what to make of. So I guess I was wrong.

I’ve also been saying for some time that I don’t think Steven Moffat is the right guy to be running Doctor Who anymore. My sincere hope is that he uses this clean slate he’s given himself to prove me wrong again.