SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who; Jessica Jones; Fargo; Extant Canceled & Minority Report Unlikely To Survive; Blindspot; Limitless; Casual; The Flash; Arrow; Continuum

Doctor Who Before-the-Flood-3

The conclusion to last week’s episode of Doctor Who, Before the Flood, got more timey wimey. Under the Lake, possibly not trusting the audience to realize they were seeing a paradox, began with the Doctor speaking directly to the audience about the Bootstrap Paradox (named after the paradox in Robert A. Heinlein’s classic story By His Bootstraps). The doctor told what he called a fake story about a time traveler who loved the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. He went back in time to meet Beethoven, and even took all his sheet music for Beethoven to autograph. The time traveler found that Beethoven did not exist, so he had the sheet music he brought published under Beethoven’s name. History went on as he remembered it, but who actually composed all the music in the first place?

The Doctor also had to find a way to break the rules of time in this episode–which he wold only do for Clara. When he first found out that he was to become a ghost in the time  period where the story began, he assumed that this was part of history, a fixed point in time, and could not be changed. Clara urged the Doctor to try and he did find a way. He created a hologram, so that Clara saw what she told the Doctor she saw, but it was not actually a ghost. He then set up a prerecorded message claiming to be the order of the deaths, motivating the Doctor to take action to prevent Clara’s death (but not O’Donnell’s). There was also a second message, “The chamber will open tonight.” The Doctor then came out of the suspended animation chamber in  the future, like his companions and the Pandorica. The messages given by the hologram gave the Doctor the information he needed, but where did the idea for those messages come from in the first place? Maybe the same place as those messages in Blink.

Best line from the show: “You might find you’ve lost a couple other memories too. Like people you went to school with, or previous addresses, or how to drink liquids…”

The early reviews of Jessica Jones have been excellent. The show includes superpowers,  hot sex scenes, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first lesbian character. There have now been a few teasers such as above, without Krysten Ritter’s face actually being shown. This makes me wonder if these scenes are not from the show, and possibly filmed with a body double. Jessica Jones premiers on Neflix on  November 20.

Fargo returns on Monday and sounds quite promising. Reviews herehere, here, here, and here.

Manhattan is also starting its second season soon. This show deserves a far bigger audience than it has received. I highly recommend binging on the first season and then watching the second.

CBS has finally canceled Extant, and plans another project with Halle Berry. They should have made this decision at least a year ago.

I held off on watching Minority Report after the first couple of episodes were not received well. Fox has now cut back the order from thirteen to ten episodes, which looks like a poor sign for the show to continue.

AMC has renewed Halt and Catch Fire for a third season. While it has low ratings, I’ve heard that AMC likes the demographics of the viewers. Plus AMC directly owns the show and hopes to make money off of streaming rights in the future.

Blindspot

Blindspot is the first new drama of the season to receive a full season pickup. It is well deserved, so far being my favorite new network drama of the season. Another new drama I’ve watched has been Limitless. I see Blindspot and Limitless as having a lot in common, with Blindspot the better of the two and Limitless as being a lighter version.

Both shows feature protagonists with powers (fighting ability plus her clues in Blindspot, and abilities from the pill in Limitless) who are working with the FBI. The first few episodes of each centered around them gaining trust and getting involved in cases rather than remaining behind in an office. Both have some type of mysterious  background stories.

I was surprised to see how quickly Blindspot revealed that Jane Doe is Weller’s missing childhood neighbor Taylor Shaw, but that really does not answer any of the mysteries. (Does star Jaimie Alexander’s Asgardian roots explain anything about her character?) I was also surprised to see the bearded guy get killed so soon. Actors on this show have even less job security than those on Games of Thrones.

When Brian’s new “boss” introduced himself on Limitless, I wondered if this was a way to continue the story without Bradley Cooper, but reportedly he will return in future episodes.

Sleepy Hollow also follows this pattern to some degree with Abbie now being in the FBI and, while not having unusual abilities, Ichibad does have an unusual background in other days. This season feels like an attempt to reboot the series, but so far has not captured the unique entertainment of the first season. It does look promising enough to watch longer.

Other worthwhile shows of the new season include Supergirl, based upon the pilot previously released on line, and Casual. While totally non-genre, Casual (on Hulu) is an excellent family dramedy. The first two episodes were very entertaining, and reviews have been great from those who saw the series at the Toronto Film Festival.

Above are trailers for this season of The Flash and Arrow from New York Comic-Con. Note that characters who have apparently died are present, in preparation for them joining together on Legends of Tomorrow.

The penultimate episode of Continuum has aired in the United States and the series finale aired on Showcase in Canada. The Desperate Hours was mostly all action, including another heroic death, setting up the finale which is obviously named Final Hour. It seems rather pointless now to discuss the questions I have had during the season and after The Desperate Hours considering that they were answered in Final Hour. I will wait to discuss Final Hour to avoid spoiling those who wait for the US presentation of the show.

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