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Remember, I'm not done with Jessica Jones yet. I have some episodes remaining, so maybe I haven't seen it yet.

Jessica Jones... I'm up to episode 10 or 11. It's far better than most of the Marvel products (makes Agents of SHIELD look like Saturday morning material). But not as good as Daredevil. At the moment, I'm thinking that the season is at least 3 episodes too long. They keep having confrontations, followed by someone doing something stupid, followed by another confrontation in the next episode. It makes everyone look stupid, and they keep doing nonsensical things, just to keep the story going for more episodes.

It's frustrating. It started out well and I hoped that it would get stronger as it went, but the closer I get to the end, the more it seem to be falling apart. I'm not thrilled as much as I'm rolling my eyes and yelling "Seriously?!" at the TV.

That is a weird notion.

My hope is that the Robin suit and the older Batman mean that we might finally get a Nightwing movie at some point. That would make the older Batman worth it, right?

I wonder... if Batman did exist in our world, how would people react to him? If you look at Gitmo, people who disagree with their tactics call it torture and want it shut down immediately. People who agree with their tactics don't remotely see it as torture and see no option but to keep the place (or somewhere like it) around. And as I stated above with attacks, many refuse to use terms like "terrorism" or "Islamic terrorists" because they don't want to concede certain points, politically speaking.

So if Batman existed, I can totally see a world where to Perry White he is Batman, the masked hero of Gotham who is willing to do whatever it takes to fight the bad guys. But to someone else he is "the bat vigilante", the madman who runs around in a costume, declaring himself the law. The subtle phrasing that people use, especially in the media, says a lot about those people.

I don't know if they're putting that much thought into such things, but in a world like I'm talking about, Clark could totally use that phrasing to get under Bruce's skin. I wouldn't mind seeing the movie reflect that part of the media, since so few movies or shows acknowledge that the "impartiality" thing flew out the window long ago.

Weird idea about Lex. When I looked at the picture, I started to wonder if Lex actually was Doomsday in the trailer (a failed attempt to make himself super)... but this could just be because both of them are bald. That is flimsy reasoning.

Agreed. But then, they never cared much about keeping Parkman consistent.

My concern is that this is just another situation like last year's winter finale where they stabbed Oliver through the chest and threw him off a cliff, and then they resolve it by simply ignoring the magnitude of that event and having him walk it off. The flash forward tease is a promise that this is a major event. Someone important is going to die (according to said promise). Barry showing up implies that it is someone that isn't just a part of Team Arrow, but a part of the JLA that they're building on the show.

I feel like Lance will go, just because they made a complete mess of the character and he is the easiest to kill off. But I don't feel like that is actually the logical way to go in terms of the flash forward's promise, or just in terms of opening up stories for the remaining characters. If Lance is the one that died, it becomes weird that the big mournful scene was about Oliver and Barry, and not Laurel and Sara.

Then again, it would hardly be the first time that they side-stepped a legitimate and strong character moment for Laurel.

Okay, Arrow watchers. Cast your vote...

Is the sickeningly sweet Olicity crap this season merely a case of the writers sucking, or are they setting things up for the epic fridging of Felicity Smoak?

I got a pretty good deal on a 250GB SSD. It's half the storage of my old drive, but it should be enough for now. Especially with other storage options. Right now, I'm just happy to have the basics running a lot more smoothly.

Eventually, I'd like to get my old drive out, if only to reduce noise and power consumption. I'll keep it around for storage, but it doesn't make long-term sense to keep it internal.

I am currently in the process of switching my laptop's hard drive over to an SSD. Ithe should make the computer faster and more stable, assuming that I don't lose everything by mistake.

Wish me luck!

I think that I will watch the new X-Files and see how it goes before I get my hopes up for a spinoff.

Sad but true. They could have saved so much time if they just made it a two hour movie.

I am posting this here, because I doubt that the show will ever deserve its own thread...

Supergirl.

Watched the pilot. It was really bad. The writing was bad. The directing was bad. The actors were miscast, but that could be because of bad writing.

The show wants to be all about girl power. The problem is that unlike Sara, Laurel, Thea, Nyssa or Lyla, the fact that she was just a little girl was highlighted over and over again. They kept making excuses and apologizing for the fact, to the point where I felt like they were begging me not to turn it off.
And it makes no sense, because Kara would have no reason to feel this way. She is the second strongest person on the planet, from a world where women were powerful, now on a world where she is surrounded by powerful women. Why would this be an issue for her?

The issue shouldn't be an issue. They don't have to explain her being strong and heroic, they just need to write her that way.

But that is another issue. They didn't bother to build her world, develop interesting characters or make me care. Arrow, The Flash and Gotham had great pilots, so there is no reason for Supergirl's to suck. I want to know why she feels compelled to be a hero, the way Clark's upbringing informed that decision.

The execution of the fight scenes was weak, with obvious wire work. The shadowy government organization was a boring cliche that just isn't needed.

Superman was turned into a douchebag who dumped his newly (from her POV) orphaned cousin into a strange family and literally never spoke to her again. Why? If they just said that she knows him and he trained her, the show would only be better for it and his absence would be less awkward.

I don't like the way Jimmy is being used. Aside from being the wrong personality, he is just awkwardly playing go-between, despite the fact that there is no reason for Clark to not be there himself. Especially considering the size of this alien threat.

Speaking of which... Did they really try to go with "aliens don't exist" while knowing that Superman exists? Why?
Why did Kara take off her glasses to use x-ray vision? I can see through my glasses and I don't even have superpowers!
Why was her sister standing in Kara's hallway, yelling every super secret detail of Kara's life, loud enough for the entire building to hear?

Everything that made Arrow and The Flash work out of the gate was missing here. It is like they didn't even care about writing the script.

I like Supergirl as a character, but this just didn't work at all.

Rembrandt!

Yeah, I watched it. The problem is that I watched it with a lot of pre-existing frustration toward the series.

I think Daredevil had its first real trailer a couple of months out. But I don't mind teasers that are done well. I just think that they should tease rather than annoy. The teasers for Jessica Jones were old cliches and a cartoon that offered me nothing and left me to wonder why they didn't want to show me anything from the series (that was done filming an entire season).

I've been thinking that they could use the alt-Tommy as the new Dark Archer. Maybe he could try to force Oliver into abandoning the no-kill policy.

Unfortunately, their marketing strategy to date has created a negative impression of the show for me. I'll check it out and possibly even like it, but as it stands, I am just annoyed and frustrated by the whole thing at this point.

I am jealous.

My brother is one of my primary readers. He will do all of that nitpicking and force me to view my work from different angles. But he has been busy lately, so he hasn't had time to read through all of the books that I'm working on, which is setting back my whole schedule. He just read book 2 of 6, so I can work on that. Hopefully he will be able to get to book 3 quickly.

I have another friend who is very blunt with feedback. He wanted my Strange Fall character to be horribly murdered for her stupidity. But that is also valuable feedback. But he is busy as well.

My whole regular team of readers/editors are busy, so I am making incredibly slow progress.

I am pretty much done with book 1 though. Now I can prep it for publication while I edit the rest. :-)

They keep bringing back shows that don't really need to be brought back. They never bring back the shows that never really fulfilled their potential or had a chance. Better Off Ted. Lone Star. Even Sliders!

Sad, but not surprising.

Interesting. I will have to check that out.

It would be nice if they went through their catalog and freshened up some of their old shows. Sliders is a show that still gets plenty of mentions, so it should be on their radar.

That can be a dangerous path to go down. Be careful that you don't get caught making revisions after every comment you get. I have a policy of finalizing my books at publication. Aside from formatting issues or other technical flaws, I just end the process. If someone dislikes something (which happens often enough) I just accept it and move on.

Others like to keep the door open for revisions, but that would drive me nuts.

Season 11 has started out pretty well. I like that they are taking more time to care about saving people and not just worrying about themselves. It feels right for this show.

The Darkness/Amara story could go either way at this point. Obviously, they need to build it up over the entire season and if they came out too big, there would be noplace for it to go. So far, it's cool. A little bit of a throwback to Lilith and also the Croatoan virus, but thus far it is leaps and bounds above the Leviathans (which I thought they were in danger of rehashing, which would just be crap on top of crap).

Castiel... I guess it's okay. They need to give Jensen and Jared some time off and at least Castiel has something going on this time and isn't aimlessly wandering around. I'd still prefer less demons and angels, but I doubt that this season will go that way. I can only hope that they are used well. So far, not bad. But do all of the angels have to be bad guys? I don't imagine that this show is going over well in Heaven right now.

Crowley was well used in episode 2. He was used the way that he should be used. The problem is the way he was used in episode 1 (which is the way he is usually used). It didn't fit the tone of the rest of the episode. It was silly and useless comic relief, which is the wrong way to go for the King of Hell. Crowley should not be a series regular. He should be brought in as needed, when he can serve a purpose. Most of his scenes last year could be cut while only improving the episodes in the process. I don't need to see his throne room. I don't need to see him in some random, wacky 70's throwback orgy scenario. When he is around, he should be imposing.

Honestly, I've been hoping for his death for years. Of all of the demons who could have taken over Hell, why did we get stuck with him?

The bulk of this season is solid thus far. I like the way they're hinting at God and what's going on in the Cage. I wouldn't mind seeing Adam show up again. They hinted at him last year for the first time since season 6, which got my hopes up. But if they bring in Michael and Lucifer, I just hope that they don't rehash what we've already gone through on the show. I hope they use it to close the door on a lot of the Heaven/Hell mythology once and for all, and they move in a different direction once this arc is complete.

Okay, thoughts...

Arrow:
So far, this season is okay. I don't like how they're writing Felicity the CEO. She comes across as immature and unqualified. I don't mind if she doesn't do this job well, but they're making her an idiot. Honestly, I think that they should have put her back in her old tech position and left the running of the company to someone else.

Damien is a cool villain. Much, much better than Ra's last year. I just hope that they don't drop the ball.

Green Arrow... It is fine that they are changing things up, but the show doesn't feel like the writers are taking it as seriously as they did in season 1. I know they have opened the door to a slew of superpowers and whatnot, but they should still try to make it feel grounded and real.

I find myself hoping that Felicity is in the grave. It just seems like it would open up a ton of stories and honest emotion. But they will probably go with Lance instead, since they've completely destroyed his character and he is the easiest one to kill.

The Flash:
So far, this season is going pretty well. I don't like the idea of replacing Ronnie and I hope that he comes back. But Jay is pretty cool and I like the way that they're using the alternate realities. It seems like they learned from what Fringe did, at least in the glimpse that we got.

Zoom is pretty scary. He could easily be a rehash of Reverse Flash, but they have avoided that so far.

So, how will they do Wally? Will he be the brother that Iris never knew she had? Will he be an Iris double from Earth 2? I still think it is way too early to be using him, but I guess I don't get a say in the matter.

Your experience with writing those scripts is why I've always thought that fanfic is a good way for writers to get started. You learn a lot just writing it, and more when you get feedback.

The food was good, but there were a lot of people, so I didn't always get in line early enough to get the good stuff.

So, I guess Jerome wasn't the Joker... Unless they're playing the Joker as an idea or a spirit rather than one character. Is he one person, or is he many people?

Yeah, I guess Jerome just wasn't the Joker :-)

Ringer was a fun show. It was over the top in a lot of ways, but it was interesting to watch.

Honestly though, I don't really remember the ending.

I agree, mostly. The whole series feels muted and aimless to me. They started the series with a big exciting attack, but then immediately flashed forward a year, making that event seem less important. They could have just picked up that story from there, with most of the public feeling sympathy for the evos, but the mystery of who attacked the event. That would allow them to have a bunch of otherwise unrelated characters, united by this one event and hunted by whoever blew the place up.
Instead we get false mystery and Hollow intrigue.

Zachary Levi's character never got the chance to be dark and menacing. I never had the chance to believe that he didn't have powers before he did have powers. And his wife is friggin annoying!

I don't care about the Japanese characters who are just less interesting knockoffs of Hiro and Ando.

I don't care about Noah's meandering storyline.

Molly would have been a great character to focus on, if they did that. But they didn't.

Tommy is okay, but I feel like I've seen it all a hundred times before.

Carlos is okay, but seems useless. This is a big thing with the show. There doesn't seem to be a thread connecting any of these people. I'm sure that they will all unite at some point, but are we going to spend most of the series just spinning our wheels? How much of this series thus far could be edited out without hurting whatever main arc eventually comes out of it?

It would be different if these characters were very compelling, but they're not. So we have no plot and no characters. Why did they bring this show back?

I want to rewrite it so badly! But it would be a waste of my time, so I probably shouldn't. I could make this good though.

The problem, Jessica Jones isn't a small scale project. These Marvel shows on Netflix cost $200,000,000 to produce. That is spread across 60 episodes of multiple series, to be sure... but Jessica Jones is going to springboard Luke Cage. If Jessica Jones isn't a success, a spinoff from that series will be in very dangerous waters as well. On top of that, there are rumors that they're having trouble figuring out how to approach their Iron Fist series. So that series is unsteady as well. Right here, we have three out of their four regular series that are playing a giant game of Jenga. If those three projects aren't successful, nobody will care about The Defenders miniseries, which is what all of this is supposed to be building up to (we weren't even sure if Daredevil would have a second season originally).

This is a huge investment because it's all interconnected. Right now, Daredevil is generating buzz because of a solid first season and the Punisher introduction. Marvel/Netflix need to make sure that all three other series go off without a hitch though. It needs to be perfect. Jessica Jones could take down Luke Cage before Luke Cage even starts production.

"Jessica Jones" isn't Superman. They can't attract people with a name or a logo. They need to attract people with actual footage that makes people want to watch the series. The clock teaser and the bar teaser look incredibly unoriginal and not very exciting. The cartoon teaser... I don't know what they were thinking with that.

In terms of how they're budgeting, I'm not sure how smart they're being. The shows are set in New York, but New York is an expensive place to film. Even the extras would cost more there than many other cities. They're doing it anyway. Is that a smart way to spend money, or is that a luxury that they could make up for in post production if they wanted to save money? I'm sure that it looks better to actually film there, but is it necessary? I guess it's a matter of opinion.

I just think that they made the same mistake with these shows that they made with the Marvel movies. They made their success dependent on each other and the big event that they're building up to. They're building yet another house of cards.

It is a mistake to ever assume that the audience will be there, especially with a character that we have no reason to care about. Agents of SHIELD gets to interact with the Avengers storyline and characters and they assumed that it would be a slam dunk, but it actually isn't doing all that well. Daredevil did much better (judging by critic reactions and fan feedback) and that has to piss off the mother ship, ABC.

Netflix had a flop in Marco Polo, so it isn't like people will watch anything that they put out. They should be taking this more seriously, especially since they have so much invested in these shows.

The impression that I get from these trailers hadn't been about mystery and intrigue. The impression I get is that they don't want to show us their star or any actual footage from the show. It doesn't look good from where I am sitting.

Of course, I watch everything so I will check it out either way. But that doesn't mean that everyone is like me. The first trailer literally made the show look like a cartoon. How does that help them?

I am just taking the show as it comes, trying not to think too hard about what needs to happen in order to line up with what I know about Batman. Granted, I sometimes theorize about why Jim would name his daughter after a psycho ex, but I try not to get too caught up in it.

For what it is, I think the show is going pretty well. Jerome is a great villain (though I hesitate to call him Joker, because they could pull that rug out from under us at any moment. Right now, he is just a crazy kid). Barbara is more interesting as a villain. Jim's mission is interesting to watch.

So far, I don't have any real complaints. I even kinda like the idea that Batman is the product of the city, rather than the usual idea that Batman brings out the crazies himself.