SciFi Weekend: Homeland Finale; Doctor Who; Sherlock; Victoria; Orphan Black; Sense8; Star Wars The Last Jedi; The Magicians; Supergirl; The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; Big Little Lies

While not as good as the first season (a very high bar), Homeland finally figured out how to reinvent itself and become an excellent show again this season. When the series had a female president-elect, there was no question that they were playing on the thought that Hillary Clinton would have been elected last November. While the used the idea of a female president, she clearly was not Hillary Clinton. For most of the season it appeared that this was a far better choice for the first female present. Rather than being a warmonger and strong proponent the surveillance state like Clinton, President-elect Keane supported seeking peace in the middle east and was no fan of the Patriot Act. The series also dealt heavily with fake news and influencing public opinion.

The finale had an all too realistic warning. (Spoilers ahead). Shocked by an assassination attempt involving portions of the deep state, Keane snapped (as Dick Cheney may have when carried down to safety during the 9/11 attack). Like Donald Trump, President Keane went to war with her intelligence community, but to a far greater degree. She was no longer the anti-Clinton, expanding the Patriot Act and rounding up innocent people based upon metadata from NSA surveillance, including Saul Berenson. A right wing talk show host spoke of how President Keane broke her promises–somewhat like how real right wing talk shows are now talking about how Donald Trump has broken his promises to them. The name of the episode: America First.

Variety discussed the series with showrunner Alex Gansa. The interview was done before the finale and therefore does not include the surprising conclusion, but does discuss how the season was relevant to real world events:

“Homeland” storylines usually reflect real-world headlines in some way. What surprised you this year about how your show dovetailed with real events?

The most surprising and alarming coincidence was that the very thing we had posited a year ago in February — that is a President-elect in an adversarial relationship with her own intelligence community – actually came to the fore after President Trump got elected was just a coincidence of epic proportions. Frankly that was the biggest surprise second only to the fact that Donald Trump got elected in the first place. That dynamic – a newly elected President at war with her intelligence community was really the fulcrum that the entire season hinged on. The fact that it played out in the real world on the national stage was shocking to witness. There were some other (developments) that made us go back into some episodes to retrofit them.

Can you give an example?

The whole idea of fake news and propaganda – that seemed to take on a much more prominent role as we moved into our story. The one major thing we went back in and changed was introducing our Brett O’Keefe character much earlier than we intended. He was originally scheduled to be introduced in episode eight. But we went back in and did some reshoots and new scenes to introduce him in episode two…

You were clear all along in the lead-up to season six that “Homeland’s” female President-elect was not meant to be a thinly veiled Hillary Clinton. But were you concerned about that choice after Trump pulled off his upset win?

Absolutely. There was a moment we all just slapped our foreheads and wondered if the show was going to be irrelevant from that point forward. However, the story of the President-elect in an adversarial situation with her own intelligence community, that certainly wouldn’t have been Hillary Clinton. She was an establishment candidate. She was front and center of American foreign policy for years. …In a crazy way, the show would have been more irrelevant if Hillary would have been elected. The fact that Donald Trump and his team were in such a contentious relationship made the show feel current and contemporaneous. We lost on the gender but we certainly gained on the dynamic.

There has been a lot of news going into the season premiere of Doctor Who. As it has been sixteen months since a regular episode, Yahoo TV has the above catch-up guide.

Peter Capaldi has already filmed his regeneration scene. Steven Moffat has discussed the regeneration:

“With Matt I had a sort of idea that his entire run should be in the pre-math of a battle he’s having at the end of his life,” Moffat told RadioTimes.com exclusively at the BFI and Radio Times Television Festival this weekend (see video below). “But with Peter I wasn’t quite sure. I wasn’t sure for a long time whether I’d be writing him out or whether he’d be carrying on with [new showrunner] Chris Chibnall.

“That fits his Doctor, though,” the screenwriter went on, before hinting that this less mapped-out path would be echoed in Capaldi’s regeneration.

“His Doctor feels sort of impulsive and in the moment and would do something reckless that you wouldn’t expect. That suits me.

“And I mean, you can overstate the difficulty of planning a finale for a Doctor. In the end, any Doctor Who story has such catastrophe going on in it, that he could be the one that gets the rock on his head.

“But I think I’m really happy with what we’re doing for his finale. I’m just working on it now. It’s quite early. I should be further through it, but there you go.”

Moffat has also said he will be working on another show with Mark Gatiss.

Normally when Doctor Who is on, the lead item of SciFi Weekend is quite frequently a review of the current episode. Because of the holiday weekend, I have moved up this week’s post to Saturday, before this season’s premiere episode has been shown. I still might add a full review as a separate post rather than waiting until next week, depending upon both available time and how much the episode warrants it.

The Telegraph ran a story entitled, Steven Moffat talks the future of Sherlock and possible recasting. Of course, while scheduling Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman might be difficult, the show would never be the same with a different cast. Fortunately Moffat agreed:

Speaking at London’s BFI and Radio Times Television Festival, Moffat revealed: “Neither Benedict, Mark or Martin are against doing more Sherlocks. We have a great time making them, it’s a very, very nice bunch of people and we enjoy our reunions very much… [but] we’d never want to do it if we didn’t think we could do it as well as we used to.

“It also means, we’ll come back to it when we feel we’ve got the right idea. It could be off the earth quite a long while now. But I would be surprised, as I’ve said before, if we never made any more Sherlocks.”

Along with concerns over future stories, Moffat and Gatiss also have the busy schedules of their two stars to contend with: both men entrenched in the Marvel universe, as well as their multitudes of additional projects. It lead to Moffat being asked whether he would ever consider a recast.

“Absolutely not,” he was quick to reply. “You can admire great cinematography, a great score, great writing, great direction, great production. You can admire all those things, but you only fall in love with people. And the people you fall in love with are Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

“You cannot replace them. They are the magic, they are the show.”

Speaking of recasting, while The Crown plans to recast Claire Foy and Matt Smith after the second season as their characters age, Victoria will be moving more slowly through the 1840’s. Therefore there are no plans yet to recast Jenna Coleman.

BBC America has released a longer trailer for the fifth and final season of Orphan Black, which returns on June 10.

Netflix has released the above trailer for season 2 of Sense8, which will become available on May 5. The description:

From renowned creative geniuses Lana Wachowski, Grant Hill (“The Matrix,” “Cloud Atlas”) and J. Michael Straczynski (Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,’ “World War Z”), Sense8 is centered around eight characters, from different parts of the world, who experience a violent vision, and soon find themselves mentally connected by the experience. They become connected, able to see and talk to each other as though they were in the same place, with access to each other’s deepest secrets. Not only must the eight adapt to this new ability and to each other, they must figure out why their lives are now in jeopardy. In Season 2, dark forces continue to track the cluster of eight connected characters. The sensates will learn more about BPO, the secret organization searching for their cluster and others like them, and will work to protect themselves from this organization that is out to hunt and kill them.

The above teaser has been released for Star Wars: The Last Jedi which will be released December 15. More at Entertainment Weekly.

Syfy has finally announced that The Magicians will be renewed for a third season. Grace and Frankie has also been renewed by Netflix.

Calista Flockhart will be returning for the final two episodes of Supergirl this season. She was written out of the show after two episodes as a consequence of the show moving production to Vancouver. Tyler Hoechlin will also return as Superman.

Manu Bennett (Slade Wilson/Deathstroke) will be returning for the season finale of Arrow.

Gotham plans to “introduce the idea of Harley Quinn” in the Season 3 finale.

The pilot for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has received excellent reviews, so it is no surprise that Amazon has picked up this series from Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino. The only surprise is that Amazon has already picked it up for two seasons, which could keep Amy Sherman-Palladino busy if the rumors come true of a second season for Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life. The summary for her new series:

The series, written and directed by Sherman-Palladino, stars Rachel Brosnahan (House of Cards) as Miriam “Midge” Maisel, a 1958 New York City woman who has everything she’s ever wanted—the perfect husband, two kids, and an elegant Upper West Side apartment perfect for hosting Yom Kippur dinner. But her perfect life suddenly takes an unexpected turn and Midge discovers a previously unknown talent—one that changes her life forever. She charts a course that takes her from her comfortable life on Riverside Drive, through the basket houses and nightclubs of Greenwich Village as she storms the world of stand-up comedy…a course that will ultimately lead her to a spot on Johnny Carson’s couch.

In addition to House of Cards, Rachel Brosnahan also appeared as Abby Isaacs in the WGN series Manhattan.

Big Little Lies completed the events of  novel it was based on in its first season, but that might not keep it from getting a second season. It certainly is plausible–and there is precedent for this. The Leftovers was better in its second season, after its first season completed the novel it was based on, and early reviews suggest the third season might be even better. HBO was certainly not going to stop filming Game of Thrones when it caught up to the published novels.

SciFi Weekend: Legion and Sleepy Hollow Season Finales; The Magicians; Legends of Tomorrow; Doctor Who; Batgirl; Renewals & Cancellations; Tina Fey Unintentionally Shows Why Democrats Keep Losing

Just when we seemed to be suffering from super-hero fatigue, Noah Hawley showed that there is more which can be done in the genre. This was helped by excellent performances from the cast, especially Dan Stevens and Aubrey Plaza. The first season concluded an eight episode story last week and then, Marvel movie-style, used a scene during the credits to introduce a new problem for the second season.

Deadline interviewed Noah Hawley about the finale:

DEADLINE: Let’s start at the end and that orb that captured David. Where is that taking him and us going into Season 2?

HAWLEY: Well, it means that Season 2 is beginning. It means that we’ve completed this story and we’re starting a new one. You know, my goal is always that the first season would be about fighting the enemy within and, you know, learning about this entity that was inside of David and about getting it out of David, and Season 2 will be about then the enemy without and this entity now we know is a person.

But for us it’s never a simple straight line between point A and point B, so you know I wanted to complicate it some by having David disappear just at the moment where he’s about to go off in pursuit of the Shadow King. As for who’s behind the orb and who sent it, I think that’s one of the mysteries we want to explore in Season 2.

DEADLINE: Very deliberately vague of you on a show that specializes in anxiety and the surreal…

HAWLEY: I try to let the show speak for itself. It’s about everyone’s individual experience of it, and you know, so I don’t want to say too much.

DEADLINE: One thing you have spoken of, so to speak, in the last few episodes is the parentage of David Haller, and reaffirming the series’ connection to the Marvel Universe and the comic legacy with the divulging of that wheelchair from The X-Men: Apocalypse movie that Charles Xavier is Haller’s father. You started out so far from the canon of the comics, why did you come in so close to it near the end of this season?

HAWLEY: I certainly played very loosely with a lot of the canon as it relates to this character of David Haller, but one of the things I always felt was off-limits was his origin story. I didn’t really feel like there was any way that I could change who his father was, I mean that seemed like a sacrilegious thing to do.

So, it was always my intention to acknowledge who his father was. The question was when we would do it and how, obviously, we would do it. So you know I think in this case we’ve nodded to it and obviously as to any child who was adopted, he’s going to want to figure out who his father and mother were and there will be that journey.

DEADLINE: Does that mean we are going to see Professor X showing up in Season 2?

HAWLEY: I don’t know about Season 2 but I know that there’s that story will need to be addressed at some point in the future. It’s not something that I want to shy away from, but I also want to make sure that when it’s time to tell that story, we can really tell it and not dance around it.

DEADLINE: So, would you bring in a Patrick Stewart or a James McAvoy?

HAWLEY: Well, some of that is a little more logistically complicated just in terms of would we try to use either Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy. Would they be interested in doing the show? Would 20th Century Fox?

I have to consult with them about the X-Men characters and which characters they want to protect for the future franchise and which ones are available to me. So, there’s a lot of conversations I haven’t had yet but we’re willing to be had. I’m not stressed out about it. I think we all get along quite well and it’s just going to be a question of how and when…

DEADLINE: In real time, Season 1 was eight episodes on FX, and Season 2 looks to be 10 episodes. So will that change your storytelling approach?

HAWLEY: I was the one who asked for eight in the first year and I did it because I wanted to tell a single story. I wanted to tell a story of David Haller who was institutionalized and then was rescued and is told that his powers are powers and not a mental illness. Then we discover that what’s going in his mind is much more complicated, and then we rediscover what is inside his mind. Then we get it out and that’s the first season and that works the eight hours.

But I wanted to do that because I felt like the show’s very complicated and it’s very different. But I wanted the audience to feel like they got it through the coherent story.

Going forward I think that the audience now knows the show and they understand our style, our original language. It’s obviously a large ensemble and so we can expand our story in Season 2. In order to understand David, we can understand Syd more or the other characters. We can expand that universe so that we’re still telling a single story, but we’re taking our time a little bit more and with a little less singular-minded focus.

DEADLINE: Noah, it sounds like you are thinking far beyond a Season 2 like a Season 4 or 5. Is that how long you’ve planned out Legion going on?

HAWLEY: Certainly I have a sort of beginning, middle and end to this David Haller story in mind. What I don’t know is how many hours of television that is, whether it’s 20 hours or 30 or 40, so that’s part of the exploration of it over time — one that I’m very excited to keep going on.

I gave up on Sleepy Hollow before the third season ended. I began watching again this season, but around mid-season was questioning whether I would continue. I’m glad I stuck it out as the season did end well. The series has always suffered from the problem that it can create supernatural problems, and then solve them by just writing in a supernatural solution, and is most watchable due to the interaction between characters. The addition of Seychelle Gabriel as Lara gave the show what it needed to keep the last few episodes interesting. (Spoilers ahead).

I initially reacted negatively when the show brought back the Four Horsemen (who are most powerful when all four are together, like The Beatles), but this did work out well to conclude the season’s story  line. I was happy to see that Ichabod did not remain War very long as there was never any doubt they would invent a supernatural way to save him. Ichabod wound up in a bigger jam as he had to sell his soul to the devil in order to defeat Malcolm Dreyfus (with a little help from Henry agreeing to a truce in the name of freedom). There is no doubt that they will find a way out, but hopefully it does not come across as too much of an easy cheat, as so much does on this series.

The season ended with Ichabod Crane getting set up for faster internet as well as becoming an American citizen. Agency 355 has increased in importance, and size, and now reports directly to the president. If the series is renewed for a fifth season, the concluding scenes give the impression that the show might deal more Agency 355 with handling monsters and supernatural threats, along with efforts by Ichabod to get out of his contract with the Devil.

Entertainment Weekly spoke with executive producer Raven Metzner about the finale:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Crane literally sold his soul to the devil! How’s he going to get out of this one?
RAVEN METZNER: You know, we all were looking for a way to have this character who we know and love come to solid ground. He’s long been searching for a place in the modern world. He’s a man out of time. The question of the Washington letter and what that meant, the fact that he’s had his life rocked in losing the person he cared about more than anyone in the world, the fact that he sort of had lost his family along the way — these were all things that were challenges, and we wanted to find a way to solve some of those things for him, or at least start to solve them. To place him into a family that he felt comfortable with and into a role that he felt comfortable with. And give him his citizenship as an American citizen, which we thought would be really powerful for him and something he never had and always wanted.

But we also wanted to give him a challenge that, if we were to get subsequent seasons, would present an interesting problem. Because we had the Dreyfuss character all the way through, we thought it would be interesting to mirror them and give Crane a similar conundrum. He’s seen the worst version of what it can do to someone; now he’s got to figure his way out. That last bit of dialogue was something we talked about a lot, and actually [executive producer] Albert Kim pitched that little run there, which I really love, which is the idea that, you know, “Sold my soul? It’s Tuesday.” Like, “I can deal with it.” If this is the final episode, I think Crane’s attitude about it is enough that I think fans would trust that he would find his way out of it. If it’s not, and we get more seasons to tell this story, then I think it’s a great problem to be played out.

With Henry, Crane makes this grand speech about how freedom is the most important thing, but now Crane is, in a way, not free. Can you talk about that contrast between sacrificing your freedom out of hatred and sacrificing it out of love?
Oh, that’s actually a really nice way to put it. Yeah, the theme of freedom running through [the episode] came from a lot of different sides. First and foremost, there’s Malcolm Dreyfuss’ desire to rule through tyranny and his belief that as a corporate head, he knows what’s best and he can decide people’s fates. Crane has always been a voice for democracy and for the idea of personal freedom and a country that is built on the ideals of freedom, so their battle of wills through the season has been about that. And Crane’s triumph, and the team’s triumph, in defeating Dreyfuss is a triumph for freedom over tyranny.

At the same time, we have this personal drama between Crane and Henry that’s introduced at the top of the episode in their duel… They’ve failed to connect on so many other levels. For Crane to realize that the one thing they do connect about is that ideal — if you think about Henry in season 2, Henry killed Moloch because he didn’t want anyone lording over him, and he didn’t want to be part of having Moloch push him around. Also in season 2, he tried to create a free nation of witches because he believed they needed to be free. So I think Crane recognizes that that’s their commonality.

The larger piece that’s interesting that you just brought up, about how Crane has just taken on this deal in which his soul is owed to someone — he sort of has a lien placed on him, so the devil, or the devil we’ve met, hasn’t taken his soul yet. It’s a soul that is due on the day that he dies, so he still has his soul, he still has his freedom. It’s more that he knows he’ll have to find a way to defeat this bargain he’s made before the day he dies…

In happier news, the Vault saved the president. Will she play a big role if the show continues?
The idea is that as the show goes forward, there’s a new paradigm, which is: Crane has now officially realized the hope that both Washington and Benjamin Banneker had for him that he would one day be a part of the Vault. And you know Jenny and Diana would absolutely now be officially a part of it, and Jake [Jerry MacKinnon] and Alex [Rachel Melvin] would continue on. So it sets up a paradigm of a more official use of our team in going after [the supernatural] with the help of the U.S. government. We would definitely find ways to twist that and turn that. I thought the actress who played the president did a great job, so we would love to have her come back, but I think it’s more about giving them a new, more official role.

More at TV Line.

One thing I like about The Magicians is that they don’t solve every problem by bringing up new magical solutions at the time. At very least they will foreshadow what can be done. We learned about the multiple timelines earlier, with Jane giving them thirty-nine timelines so they could have a do-over every time The Beast killed them. These timeloops were raised again in last week’s episode. We saw a different version of Alice, in which she survived but Quenton was killed in the battle against The Beast. We also saw what  happened in the other timelines in which Julia was admitted to Breakbills. However, the idea of a deal costing the protagonist their child has been done so many times before.

With so much happening in Fillory this season, at times it no longer seems like we are dealing with a group of students. Blastr checked this out Rick Worthy. Worthy has a strong genre background: “A Cylon on Battlestar Galactica; a Klingon, crewman or Xindi-Aroboreal on Star Trek‘s Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise; mayor of Mystic Falls on The Vampire Diaries; the Alpha Vampire on Supernatural; or, currently, both the leader of the Resistance on The Man in the High Castle and Dean Fogg on The Magicians.”

Brakebills has a liberal attendance policy since these students don’t even go to class. Are they still his students?

They have gone off to a different experience the dean has only heard about. He has not experienced Fillory. But there is a lot of the dean that is yet to be revealed. I know how Season 2 ends, and they will need him again. Trust me. In terms of being the walking epitome of Brakebills, they’ll need the dean even though they’ve seen and done things he hasn’t.

What were the dynamics of that scene in this week’s episode between pre-time loop Fogg and Julia?

I have been dying to talk about that scene because it shows two timelines. We see one version from the earlier time loop where she’s admitted to Brakebills. I was reading the script, and it was what everyone needed to see: What was it like when Julia was admitted? Then we juxtapose that version with now.

This earlier scene with a lovely, bright-eyed, promising young student. And we see another version of the dean, who seems younger. He seems cheerful, more optimistic, sort of happy-go-lucky. He connects with her because they are so much alike, and have the same discipline. In her, he sees himself. Then, we go to the next scene, the timeline we now know, and she’s locked in the dungeon. He becomes an older, more serious person. And so did Stella. The scenes are really powerful and make you think about life and maybe the choices you make in your own life. What if I had taken this road instead of that road? I particularly love that episode.

Part of the fun of The Magicians is how it shows interrelations between the real world and the world of the show. Marlee Matlin played a character who ran the web site FuzzBeat, using clickbait such as internet lists to contain magic spells. Marlee Maitlin discussed her role with Syfy Wire.

Syfy released the above teaser for the final three episodes of The Magicians at Wondercon. It looks like we really have a giant talking dragon (who does not think much of millennials). Like the Sleepy Hollow finale, there is even a visit to the underworld.

Legends of Tomorrow has become the best show in the Berlantiverse this season, although part of that is because of a fall in quality on the other three shows. Like on recent episodes of Sleepy Hollow and The Magicians, we saw a different time line, with the Legions of Doom having created a new reality. This included the death of Felicity Smoak, who was wearing the superhero outfit I showed last week.

The CW Network has released the above trailer for the season finale and appears to reveal how this season’s story will conclude. Of course the devil is in the details, and the consequences. Here is the synopsis:

As the Legends are about to take off for their next destination, a massive timequake rocks the ship. In order to try and fix what has happened, they are forced to break the one cardinal rule of time travel. But if they are able to destroy the spear, they will face the ultimate consequence. Victor Garber, Brandon Routh, Arthur Darvill, Caity Lotz, Dominic Purcell, Franz Drameh, Nick Zano and Maisie Richardson-Sellers. Rob Seidenglanz directed the episode written by Phil Klemmer & Marc Guggenheim (#217).

While Doctor Who has had gay characters in the past, we learned last week that Bill Potts, played by Pearl Mackie, will be the first openly gay companion. From The Guardian:

Doctor Who’s next companion will be the first to be openly gay.

Pearl Mackie, who plays Bill Potts in the upcoming series, told the BBC her character’s openness about her sexuality was important to represent onscreen, but not her defining characteristic.

“It shouldn’t be a big deal in the 21st century. It’s about time, isn’t it?” she said.

“I remember watching TV as a young, mixed-race girl, not seeing many people who looked like me, so I think being able to visually recognise yourself on screen is important.

“[Being gay] is not the main thing that defines her character – it’s something that’s part of her and something that she’s very happy and very comfortable with.”

The official synopsis has been released for the opening episode of the upcoming season of Doctor Who:

Two worlds collide when the Doctor meets Bill. A chance encounter with a girl with a star in her eye leads to a terrifying chase across time and space. Bill’s mind is opened to a Universe that is bigger and more exciting than she could possibly have imagined – but who is the Doctor, and what is his secret mission with Nardole on Earth?

I suspect that we will continue to see a long list of front runners to replace Peter Capaldi. This week the bookies like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the star of Fleabag. Adding to her chances, she has a connection to incoming show runner Chris Chibnall, having appeared in season two of Broadchurch. (Incidentally, I do not want to say too much about Broadchurch as it is not showing in the United States yet, but season three has been excellent, reviving the quality of the first season. There are now many suspects for the crime of the season, with last Monday’s episode causing me to elevate someone I had not suspected to a major suspect.)

The DC superhero movies have been much less fun than those from Marvel. That just might change with Joss Whedon writing and directing Batgirl. Besides the news in the previous link, there are also rumors that Lindsay Morgan, who plays Raven on The 100, might star.

Netflix has renewed Santa Clarita Diet for a second season. For light genre, the first season was enjoyable to watch.

While not genre, Netflix released season three of Grace and Frankie, last week, which is another Netflix series well worth watching.

ABC has cancelled Time After Time after only five of seven completed episodes aired. There are not currently plans to air the final two episodes, but perhaps they will make them available on line or by streaming in case anyone cares. I have no idea if it was worth watching. In this era of peak television, I wasn’t going to try to  squeeze in a two hour premiere of a network series without seeing good reviews.

Tina Fey has criticized those who voted for Donald Trump saying, “‘A lot of this election was turned by white, college-educated women who now would maybe like to forget about this election and go back to watching HGTV.” While her objection to those who voted for Trump is understandable, I fear that Democrats will continue to have problems at the polls as long as their response to those who did not vote for them is to attack them, as opposed to try to understand why so many voters did not vote for Democrats in 2016 when led by Hillary Clinton, as well as in 2014 and 2010 when they ran as a Republican-lite party. Fey has done an outstanding job in mocking Sarah Palin, but attacking the opponent is not enough when Democrats have repeatedly failed to stand up for liberal principles or give people a positive reason to vote for them.

SciFi Weekend: The Top 20 New Shows of 2015

Once again, as I did last year, I’m concentrating, I’m concentrating on the top new shows of the past year (but will include some comments on returning shows below). This is for a few reasons:

  • Not having the time to devote professional time to television as professional television critics do, there are many shows I have not watched purely due to lack of time. Limiting to a single year reduces the impact of this.
  • Limiting to new shows eliminates the problem in many “best of” lists of including the same shows every year.
  • Talking about new shows could be of greater value. It is more likely that readers know about the top shows which have been on for the last several years, but might not be aware of some of the shows which started more recently.
  • If readers are inspired to catch up on a show from a list such as this, it is far more practical to catch up after one season than several. I know this from personal experience. This is why I cannot say much about the series finale of Justified, which has received great reviews, as I’m years behind. It was much easier to catch up on Manhattan and The 100 after missing the first season, allowing me to say more about them below.

Besides being limited to shows I have watched, this is also biased towards genre shows. Therefore, what might be the year’s biggest hit among new shows, Empire, is excluded from consideration on both counts. Rankings are also quite arbitrary, and some shows could easily be a few spots higher or lower if I were to redo this fifteen minutes later. Still, this gives a general idea of which I consider among the best as compared to those ranked lower. It is a sign of the increased number of good shows coming out, partially due to the increased influence of steaming video along with cable, that I have expanded from a top fifteen list last year to a top 20 list this year.

Top 20 New Shows Of 2015

Last Man On EarthCa

20. Last Man on Earth (ABC)

This would have ranked far higher if it could have maintained the quality of its original premiere, but adding new characters just led to it devolving into a number of more standard sitcom tropes. Still, while many gave up on the show, I continued to have interest in the first season finale and into the second season.

NUP_166495_0049.jpg

19. Childhood’s End (Syfy)

Adapting a novel from Arthur C. Clarke seemed like a sure winner, but there were problems I didn’t expect from doing this until I viewed the miniseries. It seemed far more dated in 2015 compared to when I read the novel in the 1960’s now that we have seen so many shows with alien visitation to earth. This story worked out much better as a novel as they could not capture important aspects of the story, including the magnitude of the ending, on television as compared to in prose. The show also failed to make the new world created in the miniseries seem believable, compared to the far better adaptations in a couple of other shows listed below. We heard about all the changes on earth, but rarely saw them, and what we did seem, such as mankind giving up science, didn’t seem believable.

Togetherness

18. Togetherness (HBO)

An excellent sitcom showing how cable and streaming have replaced the “must watch TV” from NBC and the other broadcast networks.

The Expanse

17.The Expanse (Syfy)

Syfy returns to space, with a mystery and quite a bit of world building in the series based upon the novels by James S. A. Corey. I have only seen the first two episodes so far, so my opinion of the show could change once I see more. It was just recently renewed for a second season.

Fresh off the Boat

16. Fresh Off The Boat (ABC)

Both Blackish last year and Fresh Off The Boat this year offer new variations on Modern Family. Constance Wu makes the show.

Casual

15. Casual (Hulu)

Yet another twist on a family sitcom, done far better by Hulu than the networks.

12Monkeys

14. 12 Monkeys (Syfy)

A time travel show which took aspects from the movie, but improved upon them for a weekly series. The series did an excellent job of building on its mythology, providing surprises, and moving in a new direction in the season finale.

Programme Name: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - TX: n/a - Episode: Ep2 (No. 2) - Picture Shows: Mr Norrell (EDDIE MARSAN) - (C) JSMN Ltd - Photographer: Matt Squire

13. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell (BBC One/BBC America)

An excellent adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s novel, making a world in which magic exists seem real.

Supergirl-TV-Show-Actress-Melissa-Benoist

12. Supergirl (CBS)

Another show from the produces of Arrow and The Flash, with his being much closer to The Flash in style. The show had an excellent pilot, but for a while seemed like a weaker version of The Flash. It started getting more interesting toward the end of the fall season as the show had an opportunity to develop. Spoilers ahead: Major events before the hiatus included the revelation that Hank Henshaw is the Martian Manhunter. Calista Flockhart is excellent as Cat Grant, but considering her profession can she be trusted now that she figured out Supergirl’s secret identity? So far Supergirl doesn’t know about Hank, but it is inevitable that she learns who he is. A shape shifter could be useful to show both Supergirl and Kara in the same place to fool Cat.

Sense8 Will and Riley

11. Sense 8 (Netflix)

A very ambitious show, which took time to develop its story, but well worth the wait. Enjoy the scenery from around the world while trying to figure it out in the early episodes.

agent-carter_promo-cast-photos-616x462

10. Agent Carter (ABC)

This shows how much better a network show can be when limited to a single eight-episode story.  Maybe that is why it is the only network show which cracked the top ten. Of course a network still could not compete with streaming when entering the Marvel universe.

kimmy23f-6-web

9. The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)

This shows how the networks have surrendered quality sitcoms to streaming and cable. The show was originally produced by Tina Fey for NBC, but they passed on it and it was picked up by Netflix. It will be interesting to see if the show is even better when the second season is produced, knowing it will appear on Netflix rather than NBC.

Daredevil Matt and Karen

8. Daredevil (Netflix)

The first of a series of shows from the Marvel universe. Dardevil was darker, grittier, and more violent than any of the superhero shows before this. The series also took advantage of the streaming medium, often telling a continuous story, but sometimes including a more conventional single episode on a specific topic (which was still part of the greater story for the season).

Master of None

7. Master of None (Netflix)

Aziz Ansari shows how good a comedy could be on what I bet is a low budget if there is excellent writing. Besides comparisons to his character on Parks and Recreation, the show is often compared to Louie. I also see a lot of early Seinfeld in it.

Catastrophe

6. Catastrophe (Channel 4/Amazon)

The British show, also made available in the United States from Amazon Prime, was the best new sitcom of the year. It was this year’s, You’re The Worst, with Sharon Horgan playing what felt like could be an older version of Aya Cash’s chacter, and the nationalities of Jimmy and Gretchen’s nationalities reversed.

Man In The High Castle Poster

5. Man In The High Castle (Amazon)

While changes were made for the new version, Man In The High Castle was an excellent adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel, providing a realistic look at what could have happened if Germany and Japan had won World War II and occupied the United States. Changes were made in some characters, and there were plot differences to turn this into an ongoing series. Hitler remaining alive in the 1960’s provides for a difference in the politics. Instead of a book with an alternate history in which the Allies won, using film reels worked better on television. While the main storyline was tied up, the finale raised new questions, making me very happy that it was renewed. Spoilers ahead: As happened earlier in the book, the finale did show a character crossing over into an alternate universe looking like ours, partially explaining the meaning of those news reels. I still have a lot of questions about them, and if the book gave any further hints, I read it too long ago to remember. The finale did wrap up the major storyline and led to an unexpected character living in a “high castle” who was interested in the news reels. Is he really the title character, and how is he connected to the films?

Humans

4. Humans (Channel 4/AMC)

Yet another British import on this list which was also shown in the United States presented a look at how robots (Synths) could change our society, along with a thriller storyline involving a small group of  Synths which were more than they seemed. I’m not sure if the second season could be as strong as the first now that all the secrets have been revealed, but they definitely left matters open to continue the story.

MR. ROBOT -- "Pilot" Episode 101 -- Pictured: (l-r) Rami Malek as Elliot, Christian Slater as Mr. Robot -- (Photo by: David Giesbrecht/USA Network)

3. Mr. Robot (USA)

A cyber-thriller which is totally different from what anyone would expect from a show on USA. The show gave a lot of hints about one element which was not confirmed until later in the season, but still came up with surprises along the way. The season finale also left room for a lot more.

Better Call Saul

2. Better Call Saul (AMC)

Better Call Saul greatly exceeded expectations, standing on its own in addition to being a prequel series to one of the greatest television series of all time, Breaking Bad.

Jessica Jones

1. Jessica Jones (Netflix)

Netflix exceeded what was accomplished on Daredevil with Jessica Jones, staring Kristin Ritter in the title role. The series, even more than Daredevil, was like a single long movie, with only brief breaks in the narrative to fill in viewers on the back stories of the major characters. This works as a stand alone story, but also has references to The Avengers, a character from Daredevil, and sets up future shows, especially Luke Cage.

Spoilers ahead. The show did so many things well.  While many super hero stories suffer from trying to create yet a bigger danger to the entire world to fight, Jessica Jones was a personal story between Jessica and the villain, with David Tennant doing a fantastic job playing Kilgrave. Without their powers, this is essentially the story of an abused woman who once again confronts the man who abused her. Add on the super powers, and it becomes a story of a man who can have whatever he wants and does not understand why Jessica does not love him when he is nice to her.

Most of the supporting cast was also excellent, including Mike Colter as Luke Cage and Rachel Taylor as Trish Walker. One neighbor initially seemed to be a stereotypical drug addict, but turned into a significant figure. The brother and sister also living in the same building were the weakest characters, but the sister was useful to allow Kilgrave to escape. The length of the story did require a series of  near-captures, captures, and escapes. Plus it was necessary to change the situation so that the ending could take place, when earlier Jessica had reason to not only capture Kilgrave alive, but provide proof of his powers.

Honorable Mention

Grace and Frankie Season 1 netflix handout .... Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the Netflix Original Series "Grace and Frankie". Photo by Melissa Moseley for Netflix.Ê

Grace and Frankie (Netflix) Any show staring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, and Sam Waterston has to be good, even if some of other new sitcoms were more consistent.

Blindspot (NBC) A fascinating premise made the early shows feel like something unique from network drama, but far too often it is just a gimmick to introduce the case of the week. Whether the show becomes a great will depend on whether the underlying mystery of the show remains compelling. Also on NBC, Blacklist almost felt like a new show with Lizzie now on the run, reminiscent of how Person of Interest evolved into more of a genre show last year on CBS.

Limitless (CBS) A lighter genre show which shows potential to be entertaining, but I doubt will rise to greatness.

Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (Netflix) A prequel to the movie.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS) and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (Comedy Central) were two excellent additions to light night television, a genre which I arbitrarily left out of the rankings. They help make up for the loss of David Letterman and Jon Stewart. I haven’t actually watched much of Larry Wilmore but he has been hilarious when I’ve seen clips. I’m looking forward to seeing him host the White House Correspondents’ dinner.

The Republican Debates have become an amusing reality show, featuring reality television star Donald Trump. His previous reality show had a similar format in gradually eliminating candidates vying for a job.

Besides the above changes on late night television,  this year marked the end of many excellent shows including Mad Men, Parks and Recreation, Hannibal, Parenthood, Continuum, and Justified. Downton Abbey concluded in the UK with the Christmas special, but the final season is just now beginning in the United States. (No spoilers, but the series ended well).

Last year I left out some shows only because I had not had a chance to see them yet. These included The 100 (CW) and Manhattan (WGN). These turned out to both be extremely high quality shows. and both would have made the top five if I had seen them when compiling last year’s list.

Among shows I’ve heard excellent things about, and very well might deserve to be ranked among the top shows but I have not had a chance to see so far are Narcos (Netflix), Wolf Hall (BBC Two/PBS), and The Jinx (HBO). While not as critically acclaimed, I have received a plug for another genre show, Wayward Pines (Fox).

SciFi Weekend: Outlander Finale; Game of Thrones Diverging From The Books; Legends of Tomorrow; Tron; Community; Orphan Black; Twin Peaks; Jon Hamm; Netflix; Serial

Outlander Season 1 Finale

Outlander ended the first season like ending a book, moving on to new things but without a television cliff hanger.  Note that even though it was divided, everything which aired so far is considered the first season, based upon the first book in the series. The episode concluded the arc with Jaime’s capture and rape by Jack. Jack even demanded that Jaime “Say my name!” I half expected Jaime to respond with “Heisenberg.” The topic of changing time did come up in the finale, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out as Outlander is a totally different type of time travel story compared to shows such as 12 Monkeys.

Ron Moore spoke with Deadline about the season finale of Outlander and the plans for next season. The comparison to the recent rape scene on Game of Thrones was also noted:

DEADLINE: The May 17 episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones featured a rape of the Sansa Stark character that erupted into controversy for a show already drenched in sex and violence. Airing so close to that, how do you think what happened there will impact reaction to the Outlander finale?

MOORE: Obviously we wrote the finale, shoot it, and put in the can a long time ago and the rape of Jamie by Jack Randall was always a part of this story. Suddenly I’m talking about our show and we’re stepping into a cultural moment where that Game of Thrones scene has suddenly grabbed everybody’s attention.

To be honest, I still haven’t even seen it. I’m behind in my Game of Thrones and I have yet to catch up on it so I keep sort of defying comparisons as a result. But I will say, it’s just one of those things you can’t control. You never know exactly what pop cultural moment a show is going to step into. Sometimes it happens and there’s nothing else around it, sometimes you’re sort of moving into the stream where something has caused a wake and that’s kind of where we are at this moment.

DEADLINE: While you haven’t seen the Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken episode of Game Of Thrones with the rape, having seen the sandstorm of a controversy it blew up into, did you think of toning down the finale?

MOORE: I’ve never even thought that for a second. This is our show. We stand by it. I stand by it. We made our decision. We’re ready to show it to the audience and we’ll see what happens, but no I never even thought about that…

DEADLINE: The season ended on what is basically the end of the first book in Diana Gabaldon’s series – is that going to be the strategy for each season going forward?

MOORE: The general plan is probably to try to do a book a season. Some of the books are bigger than others so we’ve definitely had conversations about, “well, you know, at some point we made need to split a book into two seasons,” but right now we’re not there yet so the plan is to do Dragonfly In Amber for Season 2.

DEADLINE: Are we going to see more changes from that book for Season 2 of the show?

MOORE: There will be twists and turns that aren’t in the book. The second book is more complex than the first book is. It’s a little tougher challenge to adapt it. It takes place in France and it deals with the Jacobite Rebellion. It’s much more political, it weaves in and out of actual historical events. There’s more complexity, just in terms of how Diana structured the story in Paris, in particular, as Jamie and Claire try to change history.

DEADLINE: What’s going to be different?

MOORE: It’s an urban setting and you’re dealing with aristocracy and the court of Louis XV so it’s a whole different thing. It’s not going to look anything like Season 1, so you’re really kind of prepping and shooting a whole new TV show into the second year. It has a lot of, you know, “oh my God, what can we do,” those kind of moments to it…

DEADLINE: You’ve worked on and led a number of shows, now that the first season is over on this one, how has Outlander been different for you from a creative standpoint?

MOORE: Well, it’s a very different experience, you know? Galactica was something where I took the old show and then decided to revamp it and reinvent it. But it was kind of something that I was making up in the writers room as we went along and I literally didn’t know where it was going season to season. It was a process of invention and discovery all the way along the road right up until the end. This project is different, it’s an adaptation so there is a roadmap – this is where we’re going. The challenges are very different. It’s the first time I’ve done an adaptation like this.

Just from a strictly producing standpoint, it’s been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. The story aspect and the writing aspect has just been a very different game from what I’ve done before. It’s trying to maintain the spirit of the book, it’s trying to keep these characters, trying to maintain this story and making changes along the way because you have to make changes along the way. It’s trying to get back to that, and hopefully you’re able to serve two masters, the fans of the books and those who’ve discovered the story through the show.

Outlander Finale Rape

More on next season at TVLINE:

TVLINE | Claire and Jamie are off to France for Season 2. Talk to me about how the show will look next season.
They’re going to Paris, and they’re going to be dealing with the French aristocracy. So you’re already in a completely different planet than where we were with Season 1. Scotland is about heavy stone, rough wood, dark tabletops, smoke and candlelit rooms, and now you’re in world of gilt, fine China, glassware and costumes that are made of silks and bright colors.

It’s going to be a whole different tone, a whole different…playing the story as much more political. We’re dealing with the Jacobite Rebellion. It’s much more about deception, and lies within lies, and the gossips and the surroundings of Paris. And dinner parties, and going to the court of Louis the XV — and if you know those books, there’s St. Germain, and there’s Master Raymond, and there’s more of an occult feeling to a lot of that stuff. [Plus], she’s pregnant, and he’s got the aftermath of Jack Randall.

In probably every which way you can think of, it’s going to be different than Season 1 was, which I think is one of the strengths of the series overall: its continuing evolution.

TVLINE | What can you tell me about how Jamie and Claire will navigate that world?
In a lot of ways, [Parisian society] is more familiar to him in certain ways than you would anticipate, because he is a laird in his own life, and he has lived in France, and he speaks the French language. It is a somewhat familiar culture to him. He does know his cousin, Jared, who runs a wine business, and he’s been to this place. Claire also speaks French, and she’s adapting in a different way, but she still struggles with the roles woman in these times, even in French society.

TVLINE | Do Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan speak French?
Caitriona definitely does, because she spent quite a bit of time in Paris, and Sam is learning French. I just heard him at the table read the other day, and I was pretty surprised. He did quite well.

TVLINE | Can you speak to whether Season 2 won’t be quite as true to the structure of the novel Dragonfly in Amber as Season 1 was to its source material?
It’s just a complicated process of adaptation… The Paris section [of Dragonfly in Amber], the plot is not as clean and simple as the plot was in Book 1. Book 1, for a big chunk of it, is Claire going back in time and trying to get home, and then she’s trying to find Jamie, and those are very clean narratives.

The Paris section of Book 2 is just more complex. It’s about many more ideas, other characters coming and going. They’re involved in something that’s more complex Diana [Gabaldon] shifted points of view, herself, in Book 2. So that alone just makes it a more complicated task to make the adaptation. So, yeah, we’re still struggling with the same things, with trying to be as true to the book as we possibly can while making it a television series. We always just try to do our best.

Game of Thrones Sparrows

Last week’s episode of Games of Thrones had a couple of major events, including Cersei finding that a religious movement now has more power than she does. George R.R. Martin discussed his inspiration for The Sparrows in The Game of Thrones with Entertainment Weekly:

“The Sparrows are my version of the medieval Catholic Church, with its own fantasy twist,” Martin told EW. “If you look at the history of the church in the Middle Ages, you had periods where you had very worldly and corrupt popes and bishops. People who were not spiritual, but were politicians. They were playing their own version of the game of thrones, and they were in bed with the kings and the lords. But you also had periods of religious revival or reform—the greatest of them being the Protestant Reformation, which led to the splitting of the church—where there were two or three rival popes each denouncing the other as legitimate. That’s what you’re seeing here in Westeros. The two previous High Septons we’ve seen, the first was very corrupt in his own way, and he was torn apart by the mob during the food riots [in season 2]. The one Tyrion appoints in his stead is less corrupt but is ineffectual and doesn’t make any waves. Cersei distrusts him because Tyrion appointed him. So now she has to deal with a militant and aggressive Protestant Reformation, if you will, that’s determined to resurrect a faith that was destroyed centuries ago by the Targaryens.”

And there are other, more direct influences as well between Catholic Church and the Faith of the Seven as well, Martin pointed out. “Instead of the Trinity of the Catholic Church, you have the Seven, where there is one god with seven aspects. In Catholicism, you have three aspects—the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I remember as a kid, I was always confused by that. ‘So there are three gods?’ No, one god, but with three aspects. I was still confused: ‘So he’s his own father and own son?’”

Game of Thrones has diverged from the books this season. The show runners discussed one of the changes seen in last week’s episode  which I think makes a lot of sense to move the story along–moving up the meeting between Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen:

Showrunner David Benioff said pairing these two characters—played by Emmy winner Peter Dinklage and Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke—was one of the twists the producers most eagerly anticipated this season. “We’re really excited to see these two characters we love so much finally set eyes on each other,” Benioff said. “Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen. They’re two of the best characters of the show. To have them come so close together this season then have them not meet felt incredibly frustrating. Also, we’re on a relatively fast pace. We don’t want to do a 10-year adaptation of the books, we don’t want to do a nine-year adaptation. We’re not going to spend four seasons in Meereen. It’s time for these two to get together. It’s hard to come up with a more eloquent explanation, but this just felt right. [Varys] puts Tyrion’s mission out there [in the season premiere] and the mission ends in Meereen.”

Tyrion and Daenerys have not yet met in George R.R. Martin’s novels upon which the series is based. But as is increasingly the case on the show, the producers opted to progress the story beyond the characters’ stopping point in Martin’s most recent book, A Dance with Dragons, in order to maintain an intense TV-friendly pace. Benioff and his fellow showrunner Dan Weiss have previously pointed out they prefer to cap the series around seven seasons.

“There will always be some fans who will think it’s blasphemy,” Benioff noted. “But we can’t not do something because we’re afraid of the reaction. I like to think we’ve always done what’s in the best interest of the show and we hope most people agree.”

The first real conversation between Daenerys and Tyrion, which occurs on tonight’s episode, should be interesting.

Game of Thrones The Gift

Both Ron Moore and George R.R. Martin have dealt with questions of the television works they are involved with differing from the books. Martin recently addressed fans who have been upset with events on the television show which differ from the books, such as the rape of Sansa, on his blog:

How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? Three, in the novel. One, in the movie. None, in real life: she was a fictional character, she never existed. The show is the show, the books are the books; two different tellings of the same story.

There have been differences between the novels and the television show since the first episode of season one. And for just as long, I have been talking about the butterfly effect. Small changes lead to larger changes lead to huge changes. HBO is more than forty hours into the impossible and demanding task of adapting my lengthy (extremely) and complex (exceedingly) novels, with their layers of plots and subplots, their twists and contradictions and unreliable narrators, viewpoint shifts and ambiguities, and a cast of characters in the hundreds.

There has seldom been any TV series as faithful to its source material, by and large (if you doubt that, talk to the Harry Dresden fans, or readers of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the fans of the original WALKING DEAD comic books)… but the longer the show goes on, the bigger the butterflies become. And now we have reached the point where the beat of butterfly wings is stirring up storms, like the one presently engulfing my email.

Prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, different requirements.

David and Dan and Bryan and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can.

And over here I am trying to write the best novels that I can.

And yes, more and more, they differ. Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose… but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place.S

The video above has interviews with the cast of Legends of Tomorrow, and the first few seconds shows them in uniform. This includes Caity Lotz returning as The White Canary, and a scene showing The Atom shrinking.

Disney has announced they have discontinued plans for Tron 3. While some fans are complaining, I don’t mind. I see the Tron series as something out of the past which which we have moved beyond and no longer need–like another Clinton or Bush running for president. Besides, with Disney owning the movie rights to Marvel and Star Wars they have much better genre properties to develop into movies, such as we have much better politicians to consider for the presidency.

The Community sixth season finale will be on Yahoo this upcoming week. Yvette Nicole Brown will return to reprise her role as Shirley. Then is is six seasons and a movie?

Orphan Black Mexico

Orphan Black did not advance the overall story very much this week. We don’t even know if anyone survived Paul’s grenade, but it was confirmed that the military installation was in Mexico. The highlight was another case of one clone impersonating another, in this case Cosima as Alison. Next it is the time for the suburban drug deals to play host family for Helena.

Showtime has doubled the length of the planned Twin Peaks reboot from nine to eighteen episodes.

Jon Hamm should walk away with the Emmy this year for his work on Mad Men.  Hamm has also showed other acting talent doing comedy work such  as on 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Next he has a more dramatic movie role, string in a political thriller, High Wire Act. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Jon Hamm has signed on to star in the Tony Gilroy-penned political action-thriller High Wire Act. Brad Anderson is directing the film for Radar Pictures.

Set in 1980s Beirut, Hamm plays a former U.S. diplomat who is called back into service to save a former colleague from the group possibly responsible for his own family’s death.

Netflix has renewed another show well worth watching, Grace and Frankie, for a second season. Netflix, incidentally, accounted for 37 percent of internet bandwidth during peak hours in North America in March. According to  Variety, “YouTube accounted for 15.6% of downstream Internet traffic, web browsing was 6%, Facebook was 2.7%, Amazon Instant Video was 2.0% and Hulu was 1.9%.”

In addition to increased viewing of television from streaming sources. podcasts are becoming more popular, with Serial one of the biggest. It has been announced that Serial will have at least three seasons, with the second season coming this fall.

Halt and Catch Fire starts its second season on AMC tonight. Reviewers are saying it has fixed many of its first season problems and the second season sounds worth watching.

SciFi Weekend: Finales Including Last Man on Earth & Gotham; Marvel and DC News; New Shows, Returning Shows, And Cancellations

Last Man On Earth Finale

The Last Man on Earth started out strong (my initial review here) but it was apparent in the early episodes that the story would have to evolve over time. The initial stories with just Will Forte (Phil), and even those with the edition of Kristen Schaal (Carol), could not go on for very long. Unfortunately the series got bogged down way too long with a variation on a simple sit-com scenario. Will married Carol as, even though they thought at the time that they were the only ones left alive on earth, Carol insisted upon marriage before she would have sex with Phil. Soon after the marriage January Jones turned up, followed by others. Several episodes were centered around Phil trying to have sex with January  Jones, or later additional women who appeared, despite his hasty marriage to Carol. Plus Phil repeatedly tried too hard to make himself look good, and various forms of deception were repeatedly exposed.

In the finale, things got progressively worse for Phil, who even lost his name as a newcomer was also named Phil Miller, leading to the original Phil being called by his middle name, Tandy. With all the lies he told all season, he couldn’t think of a cooler middle name? Tandy/Phil found that Carol was even having sex with the new Phil, explaining that she insisted upon marriage initially as the plan was to repopulate the earth, but she had no problems with casual sex with the new Phil. Of course casual sex is exactly what Phil wanted.Later Tandy/Phil was literally driven out of town after it was revealed that he contemplated driving the new Phil out of down and abandoning him. He had tried the same with an earlier arrival, but he couldn’t go through with it and turned around and brought him back. Tandy/Phil was left with two days worth of food, which could have lasted until he made it to the next city. Phil ate it all in twenty minutes, but Carol anticipated this and showed up with additional food. After Phil convinced her that he now actually cared for her, and even wrote a song for her, Carol decided she would rather stick with the guy who didn’t have the heart to go through with abandoning someone in the desert, as opposed to the man who actually did this. The show nearly ends with the two going off together, leaving it open as to whether they will go off somewhere else or ever return to Tuscon. As if this didn’t leave things open enough, at the end we saw Phil’s brother, an astronaut stranded in space played by Jason Sudekis. This left the question of whether he would return to earth, which is certainly possible on this show considering how fast and loose the show plays with science.Will Forte discussed the finale with Entertainment Weekly and the short answer is that he and the other writers don’t really know exactly where they plan to go with these scenarios:

Where on Earth are Phil and Carol headed? And what does this mean for all of those other characters that joined the show later in the season? Forte cautions that the plotting of season 2 is in the embryonic stages, though he notes, “I have one idea that would be a really fun first episode. It is fair to say that you haven’t seen the last of the old new gang, despite Phil’s banishment. “Obviously we’re not going to not show Mary Steenburgen or Cleopatra [Coleman] or Mel [Rodriguez] or January [Jones] or Boris,” he says. “They’re so important to the show. There’s a lot of room for play and it opens us up to having some time where the characters are once again in a very desolate situation. We really want to open up the world and look at the starting up of a society again with just a small group of people and basic rules…. Phil is not allowed on the cul-de-sac right now. It is entirely possible that Phil and Carol could be living somewhere else for the whole season, and we’re checking in on the different people. But I would think that they would somehow rendez-vous at some point earlier in the season.”

Is Phil truly going to try this time to make a relationship with Carol work? “Is this just a situation of you want what you can’t have, or is he truly in love with her?” Forte asks right back. “That’s how we go into season 2. They’re still totally different people and they have such different world views, we still think it’s going to be really fun to see how they act as a couple. Not in any way would I ever compare it to this, but an Archie-and-Edith type situation, or Sam and Diane—that’s what you shoot for, these two different people who just somehow are together.”

When did Carol decide to stay with Tandy? While you might be wondering if she had a change of heart before she left the cul-de-sac— as she told him in the desert, “I don’t want to be with a man who can leave someone in the desert to die; I want to be with the man who doesn’t have the heart to go through with it”— that was not her intention when driving out to meet him in the middle of nowhere, according to Forte.In our minds, Carol came out to the desert just to give him supplies,” he says. “She had no clue that she would be ending up with him and it just kind of hits her after the song. When he told her about the song, she didn’t believe him immediately. He’s told her a million things. We edited the show a million different ways, and it used to be edited in a way that you really didn’t believe that he had written a song, so we put a lot on that song. You can tell that Phil actually took the time to write this song and was feeling very real feelings toward Carol. [Click here to read more about the song, which was written by cast member Mary Steenburgen.] It’s an impulsive decision that she makes and Phil even says, ‘I think you’re making a really bad decision here.’ But she’s willing to take the chance and Phil really appreciates that.”

Forte said that what  happens with Will’s brother comes down to whether Jason Sudekis is available. He left it open as to whether there will be new characters and whether much is said about the virus which killed almost everyone:

Will we learn more in season 2 about the virus that wiped out almost every single person on the planet? The short answer: Possibly. The longer answer: ”We’ve purposely avoided the virus stuff because we didn’t think that it was important,” says Forte. “And it’s tricky to handle virus stuff and how real should it be. What happens if a real virus becomes a problem around the world? There were a lot of pitfalls. We’ve always had this general idea of the type of virus that it was. We’ve said that it’s a virus that is potent enough to sweep across the world in a matter of months but one that is slow moving enough that allows people to safely crawl into their beds and die very neatly in their own homes. (laughs)… At some point in the pilot, we showed a dead body. There was a lot of back and forth, and it was decided that we shouldn’t show the dead body. We’ve always wanted to address that, so I really do feel like there will come a point where we address the virus. Even if it’s just an indirect addressing. When we still were going to have flashbacks in the pilot, one of the ideas we had was just a regular dramatic scene between two people wearing surgical masks and everybody around them is wearing surgical masks. They don’t ever talk about the virus—it’s just happening. I would love to flesh out the virus with little scenelettes like that, although they would have to be in flashbacks, because obviously everyone who was not immune to the virus has died.”

GOTHAM: Bruce (David Mazouz) looks deeper into his fatherÕs past in the ÒAll Happy Families Are AlikeÓ episode of GOTHAM airing Monday, May 4 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Jessica Miglio/FOX

In other finales last week, Gotham appears to have gotten rid of some characters, most likely to open up room for more spectacular Batman-style villains. Fish Mooney appears to have drown, but there is talk that Jada Pinkett Smith might return. The big reveal at the end of the episode was a stairway which we know leads to the Batcave. Presumably next season we will learn what Bruce’s father did with it, and what  Bruce will do there as he is years away from becoming Batman.

Person of Interest ended with the situation looking bleak, but at least the Machine was saved for now. The Big Bang Theory ended with major changes for two couples. Arrow, The Flash, and Agents of SHIELD are heading towards big season finales next week, plus there are only two episodes left of Mad Men.

Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Joss Whedon and other producers on the tie-in between Agents of SHIELD and Avengers: Age of Ultron. The movie will also have an extended cut on Blu-Ray with an alternate ending.

Emily Van Kamp might have lost her job on Revenge, but she will be reprising her role as Agent 13 (Sharon Carter) in Captain America: Civil War. It actually sounds like most of the Marvel universe will be taking part. The movie will then set up the two part Avengers: Infinity War.

Jessica Jones

AKA Jessica Jones staring Krysten Ritter will be the next Marvel series on Netflix. A synopsis has been released:

Ever since her short-lived stint as a Super Hero ended in tragedy, Jessica Jones has been rebuilding her personal life and career as a hot-tempered, sardonic, badass private detective in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. Plagued by self-loathing, and a wicked case of PTSD, Jessica battles demons from within and without, using her extraordinary abilities as an unlikely champion for those in need… especially if they’re willing to cut her a check. In this new collectible volume, go behind the scenes into the world that brings the story of Jessica Jones to life. Packed with stunning production photography, as well as exclusive interviews, this deluxe companion reveals the details of the set and script of Marvel’s AKA Jessica Jones through the eyes of its makers.

There has been a lot of news this week on renewals and cancellations. I fear that the DC shows on CW and now CBS (which owns CW) might be growing exponentially. First there was Arrow. Then the number doubled with the addition of The Flash. Next year this will double again as  CBS has picked up Supergirl, and CW will have the Arrow/Flash spin-off, now named DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Will we have to find room for eight or sixteen shows the following year?

A synopsis has been released for DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, which will be premiering in January:

When heroes alone are not enough … the world needs legends. Having seen the future, one he will desperately try to prevent from happening, time-traveling rogue Rip Hunter is tasked with assembling a disparate group of both heroes and villains to confront an unstoppable threat — one in which not only is the planet at stake, but all of time itself. Can this ragtag team defeat an immortal threat unlike anything they have ever known?

I wonder if the time travel element will provide a way for Caity Lotz to return as the original Black Canary, or if she will play a different role. Incidentally time travel might be allowing for the return of a popular Doctor Who character who apparently died last season–Ingrid Oliver as Osgood.

The Marvel television universe is not growing as much as it originally appeared. Instead of the rumored spin-off of Agents of SHIELD, they will stick with this and Agent Carter will get a second season. I hope they do it the same way, putting Agent Carter in SHIELD‘s time slot temporarily, as opposed to adding yet another hour. Maybe CW will also begin to stagger their shows.

Constantine was canceled by NBC but there is speculation that it might be picked up elsewhere. The Mindy Project was also cancelled, with talk that it might be picked up by Hulu. Among other genre shows, Resurrection and Forever are both cancelled, and most likley neither will be resurrected and both are gone forever.

Fox has picked up some new genre shows including Minority Report and Lucifer.

Orphan Black and iZombie were  among the genre shows which recently received official renewals. Being busy this Sunday, I will hold of on discussing this week’s episode of Orphan Black until next week.

Grace and Frankie were released by Netflix on Friday. The handful of episodes I watched did look promising, and at this point I would rank it above Kimmy Schmidt, which received much more buzz. An incidental benefit of ent Carter, Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, Avengers, Batman, Big Bang Theory, Black Canary, Captain America, Constantine, Doctor Who, Frankie and Grace, Gotham, iZombie, Jessica Jones, Joss Whedon, Krysten Ritter, Legends of Tomorrow, Lucifer, Mad Men, Minority Report, Orphan Bla Grace and Frankie is that the major cast members have all been on Aaron Sorkin shows.