teevee sucks

[Khendraja'aro]

Okay, American Gods is weird. And bloody.

[Aimless]

Okay, American Gods is weird. And bloody.

I can't wait to see it But I must. Just as I must wait for the second half of season 2 of the Expanse.

Having finished Iron Fist I will concede that the show improves greatly towards the end, mostly thanks to Ward. The protagonist and lead actor, however... irredeemable and possibly impossible to salvage. Both the actor and the character embody the essence of lameness. The sullen looks, the sneering, the one-dimensional acting, every line (both content and delivery), every training and fight sequence--just extraordinarily lame. This lameness becomes nearly impossible to ignore because the writers constantly try to impress upon the viewer his martial prowess, wisdom, wit, etc, all of which is unearned and underwhelming when he's compared--as he must be--to those around him. This man is unworthy.

After seeing Iron Fist I checked out Into the Badlands. That show's dystopian post-apocalyptic setting doesn't really mesh with my preferences but the fight choreography is stellar. Unsurprising, given the pedigree the story's decent, too, if you like that kind of story.

We also binged on Legends of Tomorrow, which I'd been avoiding because I expected it to be a cheesy poorly-produced mess featuring DC's B-team of characters who couldn't hack it in their home series. To my surprise we enjoyed it a lot. It is certainly a little cheesy, and, for the most part, light viewing. Despite this, the first season is very focused on the overarching story and the main antagonist of that story, slightly cartoonish though he may be, is excellent. Casting was superb and there was a lot of chemistry between most of the main characters, Kendra and what'shisface excluded. Standout performance by Dominic Purcell as Rory but all the actors did their roles justice, flaws and all. I didn't much like Ray in Arrow but he really shines in LoT.

In the second season, graduates of the same class that produced the writing team on Iron Fist shat out a giant metallic turd on the show in the form of Nate, and then they insisted on trying to make us like him. Instead of one antagonist, they had to scrape together three idiots. There wasn't really enough material for a whole season, and the Stupid Stick saw a lot more action than it had in the first season, but despite this we mostly liked the second season and will happily see the third season when it arrives.