TV shows!

Fall TV season has been starting, and since I don't feel like being outraged at the moment I thought I'd talk about TV shows instead

Gotham
Gotham started season two, I've written before about how I love the show, and after about the middle of the first season it started developing its own identity outside the established Batman mythos. Season two starts off well, embracing the ridiculous setting and running wild with The Penguin's ascendancy to ruling the Gotham underworld. Gotham takes the Batman setting, but is getting stronger the more it relies on not Batman stuff, Bruce Wayne's story has so far been the least interesting of the lot, while Gordon and The Penguin are providing remarkably compelling fodder, I know in general terms the history of a lot of the Batman characters and setting, in the comics anyway, but despite names being the same, I don't know how the characters in this show will turn out, and it is a lot of fun finding out.

Minority Report
A spinoff/follow-up to the movie of the same name, Minority Report follows one of the precogs from the movie, now on his own and attempting to prevent crime using his limited abilities, I have mixed feelings so far, the main character is played very well as a naive person with almost no real world experience, which he is supposed to be, and is quite charming in his way. The straight woman is a detective, and I think she is supposed to be a kind of hot shot, but so far I am disappointed with her problem solving skills and her, well, acting. Actin can improve, hopefully, and I am hoping that the problem solving thing is intentional, I want to believe that since the setting once relied on stopping crime before it happened, they are still relearning real police work, but I am not sure if I am just trying to convince myself, I don't like that the mystery can be figured out by me less than halfway through the show but the characters can't do it until almost the last second, I am not Sherlock Holmes here, I spent half the episode playing Solitaire.
Heavy themes of pervasive surveillance here, as well as, you know, using psychic powers to predict crime, there are a lot of privacy violations happening that aren't even talked about that would be pretty damned hard to justify if they happened today, this could be a very good show, but I suspect it is going to turn into a run of the mill procedural that doesn't think too highly of civil liberties and just happens to take place in a sci-fi setting, which is a shame sine it doesn't take advantage of that to provide social commentary. I'll give it another episode or two.

Limitless
Shiftless millennial takes drug that makes him awesome, Bradley Cooper is involved in some, presumably nefarious, fashion. I like it, the main character and his aimlessness speaks to me on a deep level, and themes of drug dependency look like they will definitely be talked about here, from the first episode it seems to be shaping up to be a smart, witty series with a lot of room to explore some serious topics, as well as hints of a cast conspiracy, which I always like. Should be a fun show and I look forward to seeing how it goes from here.

Blindspot
Ehhh...
Ehhhh?
I dunno guys, first off, shameless appeal to the sex sells concept, our main character spends a good chunk of the first episode naked, so we can see all her tattoos, and I felt like they wanted this to be an HBO show so they could get good and pornographic with the slow camera shots gliding along her body. Little bit uncomfortable, also so far the character is a bit of a Mary Sue, I feel like if I was DMing an RPG where on of my players created her, I would be a little concerned:
"So guys, she's like, totally hot right? And she's got all these tattoos over her entire body?Like even her boobs, especially her boobs. And Amnesia? And they use the tattoos to solve mysteries? No I've never seen Memento, why do you ask? And she is a secret Navy SEAL, and can do martial arts and shoot better than anyone? Totally original character do not steal dudes.
DM shakes head, begins thinking of ways to take advantage of the amnesia to make player regret decision.
I feel like we the viewers will regret the amnesia real soon, after the sixth episode solved with a flashback coming out of nowhere just in time, or skill she figures out she has, or just another dreary scene of sobbing because "They took my life away!" God it gets old.
Anyway, it honestly wasn't badly done, but I feel like I have seen every part of this show already, in other, better shows, I don't know if I will give it another chance.

Heroes Reborn
Fuck me that's a lot of characters, I feel like I need to rewatch the original series to refresh my memory on who's who and what happened, but I still can't figure out if the original is even cannon, or who is from it anyway, also watching season four is something no one should have to do, willingly or otherwise.
It really appears that the creators wanted to make a live action X-Men series, but were unable to acquire the licenses, that's fine, we get some unique characters and unique powers, and that is cool .
There appear to be at least four distinct stories here, with so far unrelated characters and taking place in separate locations, we have a woman in Japan who can jump into a video game with the help of a magic sword trying to save her father, a kid who can teleport stuff getting a job at an ice cream shop while a fat man in a fedora mind controls people using pennies, a married couple attempting to commit genocide on every super powered person they see, a guy in California who probably isn't actually a war hero fighting crime in a luchador mask, and an ex-executive of Primatech, the paper company with a dark secret, who himself has a dark secret, trying to figure out what that dark secret actually is.
That's actually five plot threads, and to be fair two of them are showing signs of coming together soon, juries out on the others.
It's all interesting, but I just don't know if 43 minutes per episode is enough to tell the stories effectively, it at least manages to be compelling though and is certainly worth some more time.

That's all for now, there are a lot of neat things coming out and coming back, and I am a sucker for science fiction and super hero plots, so you know I will watch most of them. Night!