This show looks pretty darn cool, guys. It's dropping on Amazon on November 20th, based on the classic Philip K. Dick novel about how America would function if the Axis powers had won the second world war. The world itself looks mesmerizing in this new glance at it.
Hood and the Gang Return in Trailer for the Final Season of 'Banshee'
Banshee's outlaw "sheriff" returns with his criminal cohorts in the final season of Banshee, premiering January 29th on Cinemax. I haven't caught up totally with this show yet (I'm about halfway through Season 2), but it's actually a pretty awesome, if insanely violent and over the top (think Kill Bill style), action thriller that allows its female characters be just as badass and brutal as the men, which is something I've wanted to see on TV for ages. I don't know how it didn't have enough buzz that I only heard about it in the last year, but it's a shame I had to catch up right as it's coming to an end.
REVIEW: "Masters of Sex" Season 3
Masters of Sex finished its third season recently, one that seemed like a misfire for a lot of people, but I'm not one of those who ever thought the show was all that consistent in the first place. In fact, while this season did make some strange creative choices, it didn't seem any more or less out of place than some of the uneven arcs that came in the first and second season, and for my money, the most important part, the relationship between Masters and Johnson, remains just as intriguing as ever, even if the character's ambivalence are sometimes hard to reconcile with their actions, leaving their motivations inscrutable.
But let's start with the thing that bothered people right off the bat. The show took another significant time jump at the beginning to 1965, and gave us an episode that explored the odd, threeway relationship that had developed between Bill, Virginia and Libby, with their uniquely blended families making for some odd regular vacations. This episode was fascinating as it touched on this rarely seen (but apparently true) dynamic that existed between them, but then for some strange reason was never explored again. What seemed to be setting up a theme is instead left for one episode and one episode only, as the rest of the season went in a different direction.
Josh Charles added some intrigue as a suitor intent on taking Virginia away from the clinic
Okay, strange, but I'm still onboard for the most part. But then here comes the event that deeply polarized everyone, and that was giving Virginia another baby and putting her in an arranged marriage in name only to her ex-husband, a wildly concocted story that was apparently done only for behind the scenes legal reasons involving threatened lawsuits from the surviving real life Masters and Johnson children. Another odd choice, but again, just one episode, so it didn't necessarily hurt the show for me that much. Once the season’s arc really got going after the first two episodes, we got more typical Masters of Sex stories, like a plot involving the always great Allison Janney and Beau Bridges, a pregnancy storyline for Betty and her girlfriend Helen (Sarah Silverman) that brought back old favorite Dr. Austin (Teddy Sears), and then the main story of the season, Virginia's affair with M&J's new investor, Dan Logan (Josh Charles), which threatened to eventually break up the duo, since Virginia was drawn more to Dan over the season and away from Bill, ending on a cliffhanger in which Bill professes his love for her and tries to stop her from leaving the clinic at the last minute.
I was more or less alright with this story, except for the fact that it drew attention to Virginia's somewhat maddening motivations, which were always murky and never clear on why she was doing this or what she thought was going to happen. We're never allowed any insight into her own thoughts about Bill or Dan, and her seeming desire to keep seeing them both while hiding the relationship from Bill never made sense for a woman who supposedly wants to have her job, and two lovers who work in the same place. I never quite understood what she was thinking or feeling at any moment, even if the acting from Lizzy Caplan and Michael Sheen remained strong as always. Despite that, I was still interested to see where things ended up and remain involved in the relationship (although in doing actual research on the two, their real life activities around this time are starting to sound more interesting than what Michelle Ashford was creating for fiction, since she's been fudging both the facts and the timeline more and more lately).
Virginia's daughter Tessa joins the many irritating teens on TV
For me, the worst part of the season was the presence of Bill and Virginia's kids. Repeat after me, showrunners- it's NEVER a good idea to introduce a bratty teenager into your main cast. Ever. But that's exactly what they did this year, so Virginia's demonic daughter Tessa joined the ranks of Dana from Homeland as the world's most horrible teen, and even a somewhat sensitive and realistically handled sexual assault subplot couldn't bring a whole lot of sympathy towards a girl you wanted to punch in the face every time she showed up onscreen. Bill's twelve year old moody son Johnny was only slightly less irritating by comparison. The idea seemed to be to show that Bill and Gini are awful parents, and maybe they were, but I think we got the message in one episode without having to suffer the kids any more than was necessary. God, I hope that's a story that started and ended this season.
Finally, poor Libby got to have some happiness as she indulged in an affair with a new neighbor (her lover Robert from last season apparently died offscreen, in another missed opportunity lost in the time jump), and Ashford and co. apparently decided to speed up the timeline in ending the Masters' miserable marriage about five years earlier than it happened in real life (we only get up to 1966 by season's end). I'm assuming they felt they could no longer drag out Libby's victim status creatively- even if it did go on in reality for longer as the real Libby Masters kept up appearances and played friend to her husband's mistress for at least a decade. The show didn't want to indulge that mindset to its true end though, and had Bill apologetically confess his affair to Libby in the finale- a scene that I didn't buy for one minute. Bill Masters was a narcissist like no other and any man who has a 15 year affair will probably never own up to anything as his own fault no matter what occurs- however the real life marriage ended, I would never believe it would come with an apology from a guilt ridden Masters to his long jilted wife.
A problem some have had with the show is exactly that narcissism and inherent unlikability from Masters as the protagonist, but that's never bothered me as Michael Sheen plays him, and especially this season as Bill became somewhat more open, affectionate (towards Virginia) and self-aware. The show remains its many parts rather than the sum of them overall, but I still find the majority of those parts engaging and involving, and I still want to see in what direction all these relationships go, especially the main one. But then again, I'm also a sucker for relationship dramas, history and based on true life events, and the basic adherence to facts, even with fudged timelines, intrigues me plenty with this story to keep me hooked. It may be more my cup of tea than others, but I remain a devotee.
Grade: B
Bill and Virginia face child woes this season
Meet Jessica Jones's Villain in Fourth Teaser
They're really cranking 'em out, aren't they? Here's the "purple man," a look at Jessica Jones's big bad, along with the first shot of her facing the camera. Still looks cool.
The 'Sherlock' Christmas Special Trailer is Here
Woo-hoo! The new full trailer for the Sherlock Christmas special gives us Sherlock and Watson in full 19th century garb and manner- even if they're not that different from their usual incarnations. I can't wait though- this will apparently be screening in a limited theatrical release in some cities, while also on PBS come Christmas Day. And then we have to wait at least another year and a half before a proper season again, but let's just not think about that yet.
Jessica Jones Takes a Leap in Third Teaser
The teasers continue- we've seen hints of super strength, and now we get a glimpse of Jessica Jones's powers of flight, or at least her ability to jump really, really high. Can't wait- you can't deny the effectiveness of these build-up teasers. I just hope the show is worth the hype.
Bobby Cannavale Stars in Full Trailer for HBO's 'Vinyl'
Here's a longer look at the new series Vinyl, coming in January about the 70's rock scene in LA, and from Boardwalk Empire showrunner Terence Winter- it still looks pretty good to me, although you'd probably have to have some interest in the era. Any historical time period is catnip for me though. I'm in.
RECAP: SNL 10/03 "Miley Cyrus"
Yay, my weekly water torture sessions are back! Saturday Night Live returns for its 41st season tonight, and hey, I've seen much worse premieres from this show, so that's something. Even if I was dreading it pretty badly going in, thanks to Miley Cyrus shoehorning her way into "friend of the show" status so that she gets to sing and host the premiere- despite that, they decided not really feature her too heavily in the sketches, so it wasn't that painful.
COLD OPEN: This however, was, due to Taran Killam's surprisingly bad Donald Trump impression. SNL gets to basically be the last show to weigh in with the requisite Trump mockery, so of course it was going to be old hat by now, but their idea to bring Melania Trump into the mix in the form of Cecily's typical exotic accent character added nothing. Disappointing- this should have been easy. And since Darrell Hammond is like, right there off the side of the stage, why not just have him keep doing Trump? Good idea, right?
MONOLOGUE: Miley comes out in her first (but not most) ridiculous outfit of the night to sing "My Way" to a montage of characters the show missed getting to mock over the summer, including Kim Davis (first funny thing I've seen Aidy do in a while), Jared Fogle and Josh Duggar (both played by Bobby with and then without glasses) and Rachel Dolezal. It's a fairly clever way to recap the last four months.
ABILIFY: An ad for a pill in case you're suffering from delusions of running for president, made for eleven specific GOP candidates- it's pretty good, although I admit it may be more due to my agreeing with the premise rather than inadvertently laughing at the jokes.
HOMECOMING 1955: A greaser sketch giving everyone a chance to do a big musical number while Miley raps salacious lyrics in the middle of it- eh. Not funny at all, even though everyone obviously likes getting to sing and dance.
VAL: Hillary Clinton's first SNL appearance of the 2016 campaign gets her started similar to the way she did last time, when she faced her Amy Poehler doppelganger. This time she goes head to head with Kate's impression (which I much prefer) and is a good sport as Val the bartender, who chats with "Hillary" about her woes, gets in a dig at Donald Trump, and gets dinged a bit on her late support for gay marriage and rejecting the keystone pipeline. Darrell Hammond also cameos as Bill and then they sing "Lean on Me" before fake Hillary wakes up from her daydream. I don't know- I thought it worked. And I liked Kate's obvious excitement about getting to do the bit with Hillary throughout.
WEEKEND UPDATE: First of all, I can't believe we're stuck with these two stooges all season again- how can Lorne not see that Colin Jost and Michael Che are the worst Update anchors in history? Sigh. Some election jabs and Kim Davis zingers before Kyle comes on as a wannabe hip Pope Francis (it's really awkward and unfunny though), and Pete shows up as the resident young person to talk politics. He's okay I guess- better than Leslie's relationship expert that I've never warmed to. Sorry, but there's just too much screaming going on there.
THE MILLENNIALS: A promo for a Fox show about a workplace featuring annoying and entitled millennials obsessed with texting and social media- what's weird is that it seems to rip off the "Californians" of all skits with the voices used by the girl millennials. Why would anyone want to take a cue from that sketch? Shudder. Otherwise it's just okay.
KATZ'S: Leslie, Vanessa, Miley and Cecily go the famous When Harry Met Sally diner to mimic Meg Ryan's orgasm, but Leslie gets crazy with insane situations happening during hers. Unfortunately, this is mostly just a LOT of screaming from her, as per usual. Sorry, but her humor just isn't my thing much of the time.
THE SQUAD: A trailer for a movie where Vanessa and Aidy wake up after a car crash to find the world had been lost to Taylor Swift's squad. Gotta be honest, I pay zero attention and have close to zero knowledge of anything regarding Taylor Swift since the infamous Kanye incident, so I'm proud to say I don't understand the entire premise of this sketch and I don't care to one bit.
AMERICAN VOICES: A PBS look back at a 1950's talk show Leslie hosted where she can only make jokes about the segregated '50's- this is actually pretty on point and I did find Leslie funny in this one, so that's something. But it's pretty short and gets cut off abruptly.
KYLE & MILEY: A weird last minute Kyle video where he tapes a rapid runthrough of his entire life if he married Miley Cyrus- you know that I don't find his bits funny about 99% of the time, and this is no exception, so, yeah. That's done.
And there we have it- the 41st season of SNL commenced and all I can say is that it wasn't too painful, Miley wasn't too annoying, but I also didn't really laugh out loud at any point either. A couple of clever bits and a big moment involving Hillary Clinton bring it to "B-" status though, which is pretty generous from me, especially for an opener. We'll see what next week brings when Amy Schumer, she of the ubiquitous media presence, rises to the hosting occasion. See you guys then and welcome back to fall, everyone!
Jessica Jones Goes to a Bar in 2nd Teaser
Netflix is building up Marvel's first property centered entirely on a female superhero with ads that tease her super strength without showing her face. It's pretty effective, I have to admit- I have a feeling the first trailer will debut at New York Comic Con in a couple weeks. Stay tuned.
First Full 'X-Files' Trailer is Here
Well, sort of. The show teased two separate 40 second teasers during two different shows last night, so here they are smushed together to create a full trailer! Neat, huh? This is of course coming on the heels of the heartbreaking (and irritating) news that Chris Carter decided to break up Mulder and Scully for this new season, supposedly to bring back some of the original setup between them, but really just to piss off as many fans as possible I think.
