Watching as the current season gets spread out in order to try and have something for the coming weeks has been interesting, but it’s also disheartening – and entirely understandable – as planned spring finales are being adjusted to launch the next season in the fall. That’s going to make for some awkward finales for a few shows I’m sure. but in this time of the coronavirus, it’s the smallest of worries but something tangible that you can latch onto and work with amid the bigger worries. And sometimes that’s a good coping mechanism for many.
At the moment, we just finished our weekly look at the second season of Harley Quinn with its finale as well as wrapping up Star Wars: The Clone Wars. We also did reviews of the finale of See as well as the finale for The Mandalorian and the very enjoyable Star Trek: Picard.
This coming week has some new stuff for me so I’m excited, even if most of what I watch has largely ended. Agents of SHIELD returns for its final season and we get the latest season of Somebody Feed Phil, which is an absolute charming delight.
This past week felt a lot like the week before. I did finish up a repeat viewing of the 9th season of Big Bang Theory as I’ve been slowly buying the seasons (in reverse) on iTunes as I do enjoy the show. Spreading it out to a couple of episodes a night amid other things is a nice palette cleanser of simple inoffensive fun with characters I like, having spent the past twelve years with them. And it made for a good shift after watching more Bordertown where the crimes are getting grimmer by the episode and the cast are really struggling with the changes. I’m still not pleased that we lost a good main character this season but the little twists and turns have been solid.
A new show did get underway on DC Universe and The CW this past week with Stargirl. I really enjoyed the comic from way, way, back in the day and I like the idea of dealing with the Justice Society of America in this form while bringing about a young modern version of it, even though it should technically be Infinity Inc. Regardless, it’s the kind of made for TV family-oriented project that was needed and it worked really well for me, especially in giving the staff a personality. The comics didn’t do that previously and I can imagine that they were inspired by the cloak from Doctor Strange for this and it definitely helps to slide a kind of extra non-human character in there with a distinctive personality. It’s a bit of a slow start but it has a pretty solid cast and is using some great people like Luke Wilson and Amy Smart.
With the very cute announcement of a July date for the second season of Umbrella Academy brought about this past week, I ended up starting in on a new viewing to remind myself about it but also because my current viewing partner didn’t see it last year thanks to work and college. Only one episode in but this show is just an absolute delight and, as the kids say, the soundtrack slaps.
Repeating what I said last week, when the Star Wars Rebels series first aired there were some hard feelings from some fans. Clone Wars had been ended unceremoniously and we were getting the then final season of it in shortened form through Netflix. Rebels was going to skew a bit younger and was bringing us closer to the original trilogy, taking place about five years before A New Hope. I distinctly remember being frustrated by the first season because it was focused on Lothal too heavily and we didn’t get out and about in this big galaxy all that much.
With the seventh and final season of Clone Wars wrapping up earlier this month, I opted to roll into Rebels right after while watching with my daughter because we’d enjoyed the time with the Clone Wars material and she hadn’t seen Rebels. We’ve now moved onto the second season, which was longer than the first season, and it’s proving to be a lot more enjoyable. That characters split up more for missions, the cast has expanded with some of the Clone Wars era figures, it touches upon a few more of the original trilogy era characters, and it just has a greater sense of things moving and coming together in a way that really works.