The TV season started up more fully the last couple of weeks which meant a lot of familiar shows landed again. We’re now moving into a post-Crisis Arrowverse, a few shows are wrapping up and others are launching.
We’re keeping up on the latest on Harley Quinn and we’re planning weekly-ish looks Star Trek: Picard. We also did reviews of the finale of See as well as the finale for The Mandalorian.
There was a lot to like this past week, especially as I finished up the back half of the second season of Sex Education. While the show goes big and over the top at times, it also delights exactly because it does so. An erotic SF Romeo & Juliet school play? Oh, yes please! There were a few things that didn’t click as well for me as I disliked Otis and Maeve being on the outs and not working together and that shifted the energy. But I really enjoyed watching other dynamics take shape and the complications of Ola and Lily as well as seeing a range of other people and their issues and questions get a lot of attention.
I finished off the third season of Wynona Earp on Netflix and the show still just washes over me. It’s like a lot of Canadian genre material for, such as Lost Girl, that has interesting ideas but just exists in that level of syndicated hokiness in its feeling, like the old Xena and Hercules shows. Fun and enjoyable but nothing I’ll take seriously.
On the broadcast side, the first three post-Crisis episodes came out and are all going in different ways. Arrow gave us the back door pilot for a 2040 rebooted Green Arrow & The Canaries that would have a largely female focused team. I think they can pull it off but it’ll be weird without working with most of the key characters pool from the present day period as well as drawing on two characters that have been moved to the future from 2020. It’s just an odd idea and one I’m not against, but series potential lead McNamara doesn’t have the persona at this point to pull it off. Stephen Amell took a good bit of time to really sell Arrow as well but he had a certain something at the start of it that made you check it out further.
Batwoman introduces a potential Crisis related twist at the end but I’m wary of believing that too quickly since it could be a different feint. I do like that this episode teases the idea that this world, Earth Prime, may be tied to the Batman Begins movie series as well with some of its references. Supergirl was a lot more fun as we get to deal with the world that Lex has made but it’s also a big Brainiac episode that finally delivers us the character as he’s supposed to truly be presented.
I also soaked up some good trash this week with Riverdale, which continues to make me laugh in what it does. More intentional comedies this week worked better with Modern Family giving Margaret her send-off while Schooled delved into dress codes in a fun way. I’m also really enjoying how The Good Place is digging into how the Good Place itself isn’t what they thought it would be. Surprise!
