Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Defenders Assemble But Not Yet Though

Yup, this one is a bit of a Marvel/Netflix special in some ways as I completed two of their shows and started the other one though.


Game Of Thrones: The last three episodes of Season Seven certainly ramped up basically everything, didn't it? We had some welcome deaths (Littlefinger, you won't be missed), some shocks (Viseron being taken over by the Night King) and that melee with Jon, Daenerys and Cersei as the latter took her self preservation to a new level, which meant even isolating Jaime of all people. The reveal of Jon's heritage from last season got more expansion during the worst/most clickbait grabbing moment and with six episodes left before the end in 2019 (the current rumour for the eighth season to air), the final moments as the White Walkers make their biggest attack yet was a hell of a way to end an overall excellent penultimate season.


Iron Fist: The weakest of the Marvel/Netflix shows still, but I'll admit things did pick a little in the second half of the season. Adding both Bakuto and Davos into the mix livened up the interactions between Danny, Colleen and Claire as the Hand storyline took something of a brief pause in the finale while Ward and Joy both had to deal with the fallout of Harold's increasingly unhinged behaviour. While I do think there were times where Finn Jones struggled a bit in the role, I am hoping that between The Defenders (which I've just started) and this show's proposed second season the show gets a better handle on Danny. There's certainly potential for that.


Luke Cage: Like it's other Marvel series, this is a show that could do with better pacing but saying that, the second half was pretty solid stuff. I liked the Mariah/Shades team up after Cottonmouth was taken out of the picture along with Luke and Diamondback finally going head to head. The finale didn't feel quite like an event compared to other ones but it was a good way to end the series. I also have to give props to both Misty and Claire, both of whom got better as the series went along, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of them next season.


Midnight, Texas: I've been sticking with this show and while it's not gripping as True Blood was back in the day, it's still a lot of fun to watch. Focusing on characters like Lemuel, Olivia and Fiji certainly doesn't hurt the series as they're easily the three strongest of the bunch but there isn't anyone I actively dislike. Manfred and Creek's budding relationship isn't hugely compelling but it's nice enough and the mix of baddies like a Succubus and that biker gang does keep things moving along at a nice pace along with the arc hints here and there. Just five more episodes to go.


Orange Is The New Black: I've loved this season and given that the riot arc could've easily wore thin after a few episodes, I'm genuinely surprised that the writers managed to get a whole season's worth of a story out of it. Of course it had to come to an end but with the cliffhanger we've got, there's also the chance we might lose a character or two going into the show's sixth season. In terms of flashbacks, I quite enjoyed Piper and Alex's (even with the return of Larry) and their engagement was rather sweet. Next season should be very interesting.


The Defenders: Blitzing through both Luke Cage and Iron Fist in the last week meant getting to the first two episodes of this team up and so far, so good. I've loved seeing the various characters from each show interacting with one another and while we've only had half the gang interacting so far - Luke and Danny, Matt and Jessica, the build up has certainly been rather fun to see. As for Alexandra/Madame Gao/The Hand stuff - at least it's actually going somewhere now and with Elektra and Stick in the mix, I can imagine a lot of bad shit is about to go down in the remaining episodes of this crossover series.


- Ben Platt will be guesting in Will & Grace while Minnie Driver will also reprise her role as Lorraine in the upcoming season.
- Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose will be returning for Season 11 of The X Files.
- Lena Dunham will be playing Valerie Solanas in American Horror Story: Cult. Emma Roberts will be playing a newscaster named Serina Belinda for an episode. Angela Bassett will direct the ninth episode in the upcoming season.
- UK viewers will be able to see The Gifted on FOX from October.
- UK viewers also can see the first season of Star on 5* from this Thursday. It's also been rumoured that Empire will be moved there as well instead of E4 for it's upcoming fourth season.
- Jane The Virgin's fourth season will now be 17 episodes.
- Richard Flood will recur in Shameless's eighth season.
- Kevin Ryan will guest in Once Upon A Time's seventh season.
- Anna Diop and Teagan Croft have been cast as Starfire and Raven respectively for the upcoming live action Teen Titans TV series.
- Katee Sackhoff has a recurring in The Flash's fourth season as the villain, Blacksmith.

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