I'm No Reviewer

I may not be a reviewer, but that doesn't mean I don't have opinions of what I think is good writing and what isn't. And what I think is a good idea, and what isn't.

TV shows have been sinking in quality, imo, for the last several decades. I'm referring to the years since what I call the golden age of TV, which was the 60s. Back then, you had great TV shows. Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Wild, Wild West, Lost in Space, Star Trek, and even The Time Machine. Of course, the list goes on and on. I can't even count the number of great shows from the 60s.

The TV shows back then were great ideas for shows. The characters were great, and the casting for the characters was spot on. I mean James Arness as Matt Dillon was spot on. Lorne Green as Ben Cartwright was spot on. Robert Conrad as James West was spot on. Guy Williams as Professor John Robinson was spot on. And William Shatner as Captain Kirk was spot on. Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock was spot on. It seemed that the 60s was the golden age of TV.

I might concede that TV was okay in the 70s, but I was not sitting in front of a TV during that decade. Unless it was a football game. And that continued through the 80s too. Of course had there been a show worth watching, I would like to think that I would have. Alas, to me, at least, there weren't. Not even the return of Star Trek, (as in TNG) made me interested again. I'll admit I gave it a chance. At first I thought the older captain of a larger starship with a larger crew made sense. But at about half way through season one, I realized this new version of Star Trek sucked.

To be clear, I still had a deep affection for Star Trek TOS. And I had high hopes for TNG version. But those hopes were dashed by the portrayal of a starship captain who was always second-guessing himself, and who always needed the counseling of a much younger woman who actually had a position on the bridge as part of the command crew... It was like....what?

Can you imagine a captain of a battleship in our modern navy having to consult with a younger man or woman sitting next to him before he made command decisions? I don't think so... And so I stopped watching Star Trek, TNG before season one even concluded. I was glad I did. As for the subsequent editions of Star Trek shows, I'll admit I watched them on and off, with mixed opinions.

Which brought me into the 90s. Those shows were a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. There was the Babylon 5 show which I thought was pretty good. I never got into Cheers or Seinfeld, or any of those sitcoms. I wasn't much of a sitcom type of person. I didn't even appreciate All in the Family from the 70s. I thought it sucked actually. Which is my overall opinion of all sitcoms.

And now, in the 21st century, things aren't much better for me, as my most watched TV remains football games. The NFL in particular, and even that has suffered with the kneeling protests and the racially motivated lawsuits and such. It's a distraction and a detriment, imo.

Football was always a place, for me, at least, where race did not matter. First of all, skin color to me never mattered. Not when I was a kid growing up, not when I was a teenager and not now as an adult. A man was a man no matter what color was his skin, or what country was his origin. And a woman was a woman, regardless of any ethnic background.

But in the 21st century, race seems to be the issue that is on everyone's mind. Most people anyway, since it's always in the news and in TV shows and in the movies. Race and LGBTQ issues. It seems like TV and the movies are force-feeding these issues down our throats. And I don't appreciate that. I don't need Hollywood preaching to me. I don't need anyone preaching to me. Never did.

So I write what I like. Meaning I write my own books, I write my own music, I create my own art and my own stories. I don't expect anyone to appreciate what I write, nor do I need them to. If they have an opinion, even a bad one, that's their right. But life is too short to care about petty things like that. It's like I said many times, it doesn't matter to me. I have better things to do. 

Blacklist Season 9 -- Looking Good

 

I started watching The Blacklist Season 9 and just finished the two-part premiere and I actually liked it. So, hurray. The Blacklist has made a comeback! I really liked the way they laid out the new premise. It seems that once the show's main creators left the show, the new guys in charge are doing a much better job. It makes me think I was right about what I had said in an earlier post. To reiterate, I had said that I believed the show's creators and/or producers probably didn't think the show would last much past its third season, and so they didn't have a clue as to how to proceed beyond that.

It seemed like they were clutching at straws for storylines and/or story arcs, and the show suffered for that reason. But now, with the Lizzy Keen premise eliminated, which was a premise that had bogged down the show's progress, there's a new freshness about the show and it's working!

I thought this new criminal organization, The Skinners, is a great idea. I don't much care for the name "Skinners"  but the idea behind it is great. And Red Reddington as their new leader makes it even better. I loved how Red infiltrated the home of that lady senator, and arranged for the old FBI team to get back together, and continue their good work. Even if it's all in the name and memory of Lizzy, I have no problem with that. It's all good. And I'm on board for the ride!

Blacklist Slumping

 This 8th season of Blacklist, although I'm watching belatedly, started so badly with episodes 1 - 4 that I quit watching it altogether. But when I heard that Keene was killed at the end of the season, I had a renewed interest and picked up where I left off which was episode 5. And sure enough it became interesting again, as was episode 6. But then with episodes 7 through 10, it has slumped, and I'm thinking it isn't going to be worth watchin again. Why?  Well after watching episodes 7 - 10 I have determined they were just fillers. The plots don't contribute to the storyline, which, btw, is lousy. 

Elizabeth Keene is a horrible character. She wasn't always. I thought she was a pretty good character when she was a rookie FBI agent learning the ropes with more than a little help from the mysterious Red Reddington. And as the years went by, she became a better agent. Of course, with experience, that's usually the case. But focusing the storyline on her now as a super villain is painful to watch, and it's why I stopped watching after the start of this season. 

I had hopes that it would be good again without her, and with episodes 5 and 6, that seemed to be happening. But this slump better stop with episode 11 which I plan on watching tonight. And by the way, the whole show will be bullshit if they don't finally give a good reason why Red was so obsessed with her in the first place. The only reason that can make sense is if he is really her biological father. Nothing else will make sense. But I heard him say, again, that he is not her father. So do we have a show that is based on bullshit? It is appearing that way.

Goodbye Elizabeth Keen

So I returned to viewing The Blacklist. I had written it off due to the horrible writing that had made Lizzie into some super villain. But the reality was the writers were actually writing her out of the show. Once I realized the end game of it, meaning they were going to kill her off, I thought, okay, let's check it out again. And yes. The show is much better without that annoying character in it. It's a shame, really. I thought Megan Boone, the actress who had been playing Lizzie, did a fine enough job when the writing had her being what she was supposed to be -- a rookie FBI agent being helped by the criminal mastermind Red Reddington. It worked and all was good. 

I already wrote about the many reasons why it was good and how it devolved into a lousy show. But it seems they are fixing it. I would have written it differently, of course, and probably much better, but at least they are getting it right now. So I watched episode 5 and 6, and liked both of them well enough. Even in spite of the constant references to Lizzie.

It's a shame one of the characters died in real life and he died in the show, too. I guess that was fitting. And of course, James Spader gave a great performance to send him off. Or was it a performance? Maybe he wasn't acting. Since the real guy died, maybe he meant every word.

Whatever. It's a good show now. I had liked it before. Now I do again.

No Liz, No More

 

I had stopped watching this show because it had turned into garbage. But one of the reasons it had turned into garbage was because of the character of Lizzie, or Elizabeth Keene. Originally the character was fine, but after the third season, the character of Lizzie Keene turned into a stupid, wishy-washy flake. Going back and forth on her convictions was one thing, but hating someone who had saved her life time and again, and had saved the lives of her friends and coworkers, is hardly someone she would hate. I would think she would be eternally grateful to that person.

But no. She would rather be duped into believing that a stranger was her mother. Never mind that the stranger had murdered two of her fellow FBI agents. Never mind that the stranger put her daughter into harm's way. And never mind that the stranger was not her mother in the first place.   

So I have not watched any of the episodes after the second episode of this season, and what I have heard is that the character of Lizzie Keene became so bad they had to kill her off and get her off the show. Hhmmmnnn... Okay. I guess that's what you have to do.

So will I start watching again? Now that the character of Lizzie is gone, might that mean the show will be good again? Not so fast. Don't forget... The show had become my favorite show while Lizzie was a main character. It was the writers who ruined that. Meghan Boone had to perform the role as the writers wrote it. So that means the show is not necessarily good again, even without Lizzie.

Maybe I'll have to watch it again just to see. But the father/daughter dynamic between Red and Lizzie worked for me. I would rather have had that come to fruition and then they take it from there. But if that is not the case, then it's better they offed her. I guess.

Resident Alien Gets a Passing Grade

So the first season of Resident Alien has concluded, and I had agreed to watch at least this first season to give it a fair chance to convince me it was worthwhile. I had said it started slowly for me, and by midseason, I was still on the fence. It had a lot going for it. But there was enough there to criticize as well. For one thing, I just couldn't get over the alien's idiocy. For another, I didn't like that he wanted to kill the little boy who knew his true nature.

But that got settled. Like I hoped it would. First, about the alien's idiocy. To be an advocate for the show, I might say, what do you expect? This is an ALIEN. Not a secret agent from Russia! or China! This is an ALIEN. Not a human. Not a creature from this planet. Can you get that through your head? It's an alien sent to this planet, not to intermingle with humanity. Not to pretend it's one of us. It had a simple mission. Drop the "extinction device" and go home. That's it. It wasn't supposed to land or get out of its spaceship or anything like that. 

But, of course, when the U.S. fired a missile at it, the spaceship was damaged before it could launch its weapon. That kind of makes you glad that the U.S. had a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. I would think that in real life we don't have that attitude. But in this fictitious farce, it does. Hey. It's a TV show, not a documentary about how earth should respond to unannounced alien visitors.

So the alien ship crash-lands, semi-incapacitated, and with its "extinction device" broken. The alien, like Jeff Bridges in Starman, can take human form. Almost just like in Starman actually. Although we don't see him go through the infantile stage like Jeff Bridges did. Whatever. And after a length of time residing in a loner's cabin after killing him, the alien learns, to some degree, how to speak and act like a human by watching television shows for some months.

So there you go. It leaned the language and learned about human behavior from TV shows, and the internet, which it quickly learns to master. And because the loner in the cabin was a doctor, it becomes that doctor, and thus recruited by a nearby town to take over for another doctor who had been recently murdered. By the way, killing the first person the alien confronted was a hard one to swallow until you learn that it came to earth in the first place to kill everyone. So it became believable.

But wanting to kill the kid was not believable. It should have known (even from TV) that killing a kid was going to bring too much attention to its situation, and now that the kid and the alien have become "allies" so to speak, I like it much better. The kid is a great actor, and a great character. So is the Muslim girl who becomes his partner in the quest to learn more about the alien. Both kid actors play their roles well, and more importantly, their roles are written well.

I'm not so sure I can say the same for Linda Hamilton's part. She had seen a UFO when she was a child, and ever since, she's on a quest to capture it. This is another one hard to swallow because she gives orders to her female agent to kill anyone who might compromise the mission, including innocent citizens and her male partner. Yeah, she's acting as a rogue, but ordering one agent to kill another for no reason? I don't buy it.

But the two female supporting characters are great. Asta and D'Arcy are both well written characters  and both have fun parts to play in the show. D'Arcy is especially likeable, as the more comedic of the two. Once Asta learns the alien's true nature, the show gets better. But that didn't happen until near the end of the first season. And after the final episode, when the alien decides not to kill everyone, you have a good feeling.

I love it when a show makes you feel good at its conclusion. But this show is not concluded. Even the final episode of Season One had a type of cliffhanger ending, so you need to see the second season to see what happens next. For now, the alien is off the earth, and after having repaired the extinction device, it destroys it, and now it just wants to go home. (For clarification, the alien is not a he or she. It had made clear that its species does not have male and female.) So what about its mission? We'll have to see the second season for that question to be answered. I'll be waiting. And I'll watch it.

Resident Alien

Since I put The Blacklist onto the trash list, I've been looking for a new show to watch, and presto, Resident Alien had its premiere episode right at the same time I stopped watching the Blacklist. So I gave it a go. I wasn't too thrilled with it really. It started pretty slowly for me.

The Premise: An alien spaceship is fired upon by U.S jets, and crash-lands in the Colorado Rockies. The solitary alien is able to assume human shape to blend in with humanity as it tries to fulfill its mission. Sounds like the movie Starman from some years ago which starred Jeff Bridges. 

But this alien did not come to say Greetings. This alien came to earth to destroy all human life. But of course, the crash-landing throws a wrench into that plan. 

What bothers me, however, is that the alien talks and acts like a person with a very low IQ through it all. And even though this alien had assumed the form of a known doctor, the people of the nearby town accept his moronic ways as natural, and no one is even suspicious as to why he's acting like an idiot, not even his estranged wife. Yeah, they call him weird, creepy, and his wife says he's acting differently, but no, he's acting like a total idiot. Or suffice it to say, I would not let any doctor who acts like that to touch me. So everyone is fooled except a little boy who can see his alien form.

The show explained why the boy can see the alien in his true form, but I don't buy the explanation. Whatever. I like the show well enough to keep watching. At least for now, and will probably watch the full first season and then reevaluate it. As for now, let's see:

The good: The casting is perfect. From the lead character to the supporting characters including the silly acting "Big Black" sheriff, the actors fit the roles in which they are cast.

It's really a tongue-in-cheek type of show and tongue-in-cheek shows are some of the most difficult shows to pull off. So far Resident Alien has, but only by a thread at this point. It's why I can tolerate, but just barely, the idiocy of the alien as he tries to act human.

The bad: The alien just acts too stupid. And the people not wondering why a supposed doctor is so stupid is hard to accept. But, it's tongue-in-cheek, so there you go.

Let's see how it pans out. Is it entertaining? Yes, which is why I'm still watching. Unlike Blacklist.

Blacklist is on my Blacklist

 I haven't watched any episodes of The Blacklist since that last post, and I don't miss it. I do feel disappointed that the producers or the writers of the show ruined what was my favorite show. Or maybe it wasn't quite that high on my list in the first place. After all, Star Trek remained my favorite show even during its poorly written third and final season. But to be fair to Star Trek, there were some pretty well written episodes during that final third season. So it wasn't a complete washout by then.

But I understand that Lizzy or Megan Boone hasn't even been on the show lately. Still I don't care. It had become a lousy show. It failed its audience. What the Blacklist failed to realize is that the audience didn't give a hoot about Lizzy or Megan Boone. It was a story about Red Reddington, starring James Spader.

And the first three seasons were great. But the writers, or whoever was in charge of the storylines, tested the patience of the audience and way too much. We needed to know by season 4 that Red is the real father of Lizzy. Sheesh, season 8 is getting ready to be wrapped up and STILL no one has a clue. Sure it's been made clear that Red has some super secret. And he has gone to great pains keeping that secret. Even from the TV audience. It was okay during the first three seasons. But it's not okay to keep this secret any longer.

Make it known once and for all that Red is Lizzy's father. It's the only thing that can make this show have any sense. And if they can do that by the end of this current season, I might just come back and watch this show again. But that's what it would take. I'm not holding my breath.

So you see that photo of Red to the left? That's not just Red turning his back. That's me turning my back. I'm turning my back on the Blacklist. And the Blacklist is staying on my blacklist. A blacklist of shows I don't watch, that is. We'll see if that changes. But like I said. I'm not holding my breath.

John Brown - A Real and True Hero

 I first heard of John Brown when I was a little boy collecting action cards from the nickel machine in front of the 7-11 store within walking distance from my house.

Actually, these days, I would not call it walking distance for my two sons if they were the same age. (I think I was between the ages of six and ten. It was a long walk, maybe four miles one way, which covered a distance up the street, cut across some railroad tracks and through an orchard.

But back in those days, it was not an issue, and we made the walk, or sometimes a bike ride regularly. I discovered some cool collector's cards in this machine. You put in a nickel through one of those slide in things and out came five random cards.

The first ones I tried to collect were the Mars Attacks cards. For an eight year old, they were so cool. Martians invading earth, and destroying everything in their path. The artwork on the cards was very graphic and bloody. Sheesh, these days the establishment would be censoring the hell out of those cards. But not back then.

Sadly, I discovered them on the last run of the series, and one day I put my nickel in and something else came out. It was a random five card selection of the next collector cards series. Civil War cards.

But these cards were not fiction. They were historically accurate. Even so, the artwork was just as graphic and just as violent as anything fiction could dream up. So for an eight year old, they were cool enough, and I went ahead and collected them and eventually managed to get the entire set.

Civil War Card no. 1

And since the cards depicted historically accurate events, the card that was number ONE was a card that featured JOHN BROWN and his raid on Harper's Ferry to end slavery. On the back of the card, a newspaper article from the time described the event. 

I heard some old movies featured John Brown. I never saw them, but I'm glad to see there has been a recent TV movie and miniseries that included John Brown. Neither one was about him. The Good Lord Bird was more about a boy in a dress pretending to be a woman. 

Last night I saw Emperor and it was about a former slave named Shields Green. He had fought alongside Brown at Harpers Ferry, but escaped and avoided being captured. Or that's what the movie would have you believe. A quick Google search revealed he did not escape capture. But the retelling of true stories allow for "poetic license" which is fine. After all, it's something I did with my own historical novel John Dunn. It adds some flair. In Emperor, it made for a happy ending.

One day, I would like to see a fuller portrayal of this man, John Brown, and his real life and real heroic cause to end slavery. He gave his life for black people. I would think he would be more famous for that. Maybe even have a holiday named after him. Maybe one day there will be.  

Blacklist - Worst Show on TV

So yeah. After this last episode, it is confirmed. The Blacklist has become the worst show on TV. That is, the worst show of the shows I watch. I wouldn't doubt if there's a worse show, but I wouldn't know, since I don't watch all shows on TV. But of those I do watch, Blacklist has become the worst. 

What that means is I will no longer be watching it. I have better things to do than watch a show where the writers, producers, and even the creators of the show are trying to come up with storylines for a show they had no idea would still be on the air for its eighth season. (And it's been renewed again.)

But whatever, I'm off this ride now. As early as its fourth season, it started flopping. And each successive season after that it only got worse. I thought at one point it had bottomed out. But no. It would be now it has bottomed out, if that means I'm done with it.

You see, once a character is no longer true to his/her true character as had been established, that means the writers are grasping at straws and hoping to put something together to keep their ride going. But Red Reddington believing Lizzy's comment that his loyal lawyer has turned against him to join Lizzy, and then trusting some dude who had only just made his first appearance, was just too much for me.

That was so NOT like Red Reddington to trust some guy he never met before over someone who had already proven his loyalty. In short, it was bullshit. And so we have a bullshit show now, whereas once we had a show that I had called my favorite TV show. Now it's just a joke.

Such is life. So many things have happened that are bullshit lately, it's just another one on the "black" list. Excuse the pun. But I thought it was a good one. Or, it could be said the Blacklist is now on my RED list. (That is, if Red lists are the shows I DON'T watch.)

Bye Bye Blacklist. You lost yet another viewer.

The Blacklist - Now a Big Joke

The Blacklist. Once it was a very good TV show. It featured a great actor, James Spader, playing the role of a great character, Raymond Red Reddington. It also had a weak actress, Megan Boone, playing a weak character, Elizabeth Lizzy Keane. But the weak character of Keane and the weak performances of Boone did not matter. And that was because the great acting of Spader and the great character of Reddington more than made up for it.

But now we have to believe the weak Keane has become the "female" Red Reddington. Now, the former FBI agent, Keane, is going to be the top criminal mastermind who will destroy, (that word again) the current top criminal mastermind of Reddington. Yeah. Right. We've heard that how many times now?

This is all one big joke of a show. And to make my meaning clear, a big joke of a show means that a once great show has become a perverse shadow of its former self. In simpler terms, it SUCKS.

I said this before. Reddington was the main character of Blacklist, not Keane. Spader was the star of the show, not Boone. But with Hollywood's focus on "feminism" the past twenty years, they are trying to reverse the roles, I suppose. Just like the joke of making Halle Berry the "female" John Wick. And now they are making the Equalizer into a female, too, on a new TV show. Another joke. It's a fat, old woman, at that. It was enough we had a skinny old woman pretending to be John Wick. Sheesh. Nothing against skinny or fat people by the way. And nothing against old people, either.

But Hollywood has lost it. They don't care. As long as the money rolls in, that's all they need to see. What ever happened to ratings? Well, I won't be watching The Equalizer, that's for sure. I won't even give it a single viewing. I have better things to do. As for Blacklist? Hey, it used to be my favorite show. And I still hope it can return to being that. I have hope because they can still salvage it.

Here's how they can salvage it. First of all, Lizzy NEVER gets the better of Red. That just better not ever happen. And lastly, it better be revealed THIS SEASON that Red IS THE TRUE BIOLOGICAL FATHER of Lizzy. That will be the only thing that can bring any sense to this show. And even better, if it were to also be revealed that the lady known as Katarina was NOT the biological mother of Lizzy.

Then and only then can I say, "Well, they had me for a bit there. Clever assholes, as they were, they had me, but now it's all good." And it will be my favorite TV show again. Will it be? Who knows? I would like it to be. Let's see those qualifiers happen, first.

Favorite Things

 I've been very critical of the TV show The Blacklist. And for good reason. It sucks. But why would I care so much as to dedicate time to point that out? Well, because it had been my favorite TV show, that's why. And to see it "fall from grace" so to speak was a huge disappointment to me.

It seems to have been a recurring thing to me with the things I've considered my favorite things. The Raiders football team is another example. The Raiders were a great franchise. For a long time. And then they become a very bad franchise. And that has been going on for a very long time, too.

I had a favorite rock band. Black Sabbath. But they couldn't keep their line up stable for the life of them. And even though they still made good music, there is no denying the music suffered. One day I will list every song they did, or every album, and give an honest opinion of how I feel about it. 

As for Blacklist, being a TV show, they have more control of being able to maintain greatness. A football team probably has the least control. You have 31 other teams, all with professional athletes, some of whom turn out to be better athletes than others. And when your ability to judge talent suffers, your team goes down. And it's not atypical for rock bands to have problems with their line ups. How many times have we heard about egos and drugs interfering with a bands success? Often.

But a TV show should not have any of these obstacles. If you have the same line up of actors, which it does, and the same writers, which it does, then there is no reason for the show to tank. But Blacklist's writers seem to have forgotten what made the show great.

It was the character of Red Reddington that made the show great. NOT the character of Elizabeth Keene. And the character of Dembe, Red's African bodyguard. And the storyline that followed, which was how Red got the FBI to take down his competition in the underworld, all the while granting him impunity for his own crimes. That was genius. And the show was fantastic.

But after three seasons, they seem to have lost their way. Red's closest allies betray him, and the writers began focusing on topical issues that had no place in the TV show, (like that horrible episode about abortion) which was a very disgusting and disturbing story.

But my repeated criticism is the repeated idiocy of the writing that has Lizzy hating the man who had saved her life over and over again. And this stupid "secret" Red has, which she just can't get over. And now, it's starting to bother me, too. The show has teased its audience enough. Who the hell is Red? Is he Lizzy's father or not? He said he's not. He said she shot her father and then the house burned down. But there was one episode that they showed a clue. In a scene where Red was changing his shirt we saw horrible burn scars on his back. So, what does that mean? Could it mean he was there when the house burned down? Could it be that he is the "father' that Lizzy shot? 

Two things have to happen. Let the audience in on the secret. Reveal that Red is the "father" that Lizzy shot, that it was he who saved Lizzy's life that day, even though she had shot him, and he suffered burns for the effort. And stop this ridiculous hating of Red. He has saved Cooper's life, Ressler's life, and just about everyone else's life on that damn show. Can we please stay grounded in reason if not reality? If they can do that, then I can say once again it's my favorite show.

Blacklist Bottoms Out

 

Blacklist has been so bad the last two or three seasons, it's a wonder I watch it anymore. But I am, and it hasn't gotten any better. In fact, it has bottomed out. I mean it can't get any worse! Season eight is now underway, or maybe it's the conclusion of season seven? Whatever they were, whether they were season seven's conclusion or season eight's beginning, those two episodes were gawd awful.

So, we found out last season that Red is not the former lover of Lizzy's mother and had promised he would watch over her as if she were his real daughter. That was a flimsy way of explaining why he had shown the kind of affection and dedication to Lizzy as a real father would. And even though he has continued to show the affection and dedication of a real father to Lizzy for all seven seasons before this up to and including saving her life countless times, we have to watch this crap.

What crap? The kind of crap from Lizzy, I mean. Her entire role has bordered on boredom to stupidity to plain and simple crap.  Maybe it's not Megan Boone's fault. She has to play the role written for her, right? I mean, she doesn't have the kind of pull that a James Spader will have. Meaning, if he doesn't like what he's reading in a script, he can make it better. And if that's true, what the hell is he waiting for with the kind of crap we are seeing from Lizzy?

Is Spader content with shining, all the while allowing Boone to crap? Sheesh, is she nothing more than a foil to him? Does he believe that the worse she looks the better he'll look? Well, if he does, he's right and it's working. 

So, now, once again, for the umpteenth time, at the end of the last episode, (as in Season 8, episode 2) we have to watch Lizzy proclaiming how she's going to bring Red down, make him pay, utterly destroy him, and yadda, yadda, yadda. How many times has she made that declaration? I've lost count. Just like I've lost count how many times Red has saved her life!

And the combination of those two things truly makes this show suck. AND SUCK BIG TIME. I might use stronger language here, but I'm a teacher and I have to be careful what words I use. But this show sucks so bad that I wish I could use stronger language.

It's like the writers of this show had no idea that this show would last this long, and they don't know what to do with it. They probably had a good idea how the story would go for the first two or three seasons. But after that, it's like these writers are wingin' it. It truly looks like they are just trying to come up with something to last another season.

It reminds me of that other disaster of a show called LOST. They had something going for a bit, but then it was like they had no clue what to do with the story line after the first three seasons. They just winged it from there, and it had probably the worst series ending in the history of TV.

This is where Blacklist is going. For me, the ONLY thing that can save this show is if it is finally proven that Red really is Lizzy's biological father. How that can happen after he's already said he isn't her father, I don't care. Because if he isn't, then nothing about his show makes any sense at all. Because no one like a Red Reddington, or anyone I know even in the real world, would put up with a ridiculous character like Lizzy unless she really was his daughter. His real daughter. So let's see if that happens. Then and only then might I say, "Well, okay."

Blacklist is Back - But Do I Care?

 

Yes, season 8 of The Blacklist is underway. But do I really care? I do, but that care has been dwindling quite rapidly. Once upon a time this show was my favorite TV show. Oh, how times have changed. And during recent times, I have complained about this show more often than I have praised it. With good reason. It sucked the last two or three seasons.

I have lamented time and again how dizzy the female lead character Lizzy is. Thus the nickname for her, Dizzy Lizzy is more than apt. It suits her so well, in fact, that it should be her real name. Dizzy Lizzy. Yeah. Hollywood of late has become so obsessed with making strong female characters, (something I'm not opposed to, btw,) but in doing so, Hollywood has lost its grip on what, exactly IS a strong female character. Is this obsessive need for uncovering someone's "secret" something that makes a woman a strong character?

Rather, it makes Lizzy quite dizzy. Dizzy Lizzy. I would argue that respecting someone's privacy makes a character, any character, a strong character. In Dizzy Lizzy we have a woman who never knew her biological parents. But since becoming an FBI agent, she has come to know a man who has saved her life on multiple occasions. (I've actually lost count of how many times Red Reddington has saved her life.) She would be dead, dead, dead, if not for the intervention of Red Reddington. 

But does she have any appreciation of that fact? How about some gratitude? How about some loyalty or respect for the man to whom she owes her life? Um, nope. Instead, she can't get over the fact that he has a secret. It doesn't matter that he has proven time and again that he has Dizzy Lizzy's best interest at heart. What matters to Lizzy is that he has some kind of a secret and she just can't stand it.

So at the end of Season 7 we saw Dizzy Lizzy choosing to side with a mysterious woman, her supposed mother who she never knew, and after that same woman had put Dizzy Lizzy's only child into danger. And btw, she's a woman who had lied to Dizzy Lizzy when they had met to keep her own identity secret. (Talk about secrets!) On top of that this is the same woman who Dizzy Lizzy knows had murdered two of her fellow FBI agents even.

So yeah. Dizzy Lizzy sides with the mysterious mother who she never knew, and who was an enemy Russian spy, and who had lied to her, and who had put her daughter into danger, and who had murdered two of Lizzy's fellow FBI agents, instead of the man who has given her protection and has saved her life more times than I can remember. 

All of this is such crap, it's a wonder these writers are still employed by the series. I could write a lot better stories than this. I dare say anyone could. Except, that is, the writers who have the job. 

So I will watch the first two episodes of The Blacklist season eight during this holiday break, and see if these writers can pull themselves out of the hole in which they have dug themselves. It can be done. But it will take some mighty fine writing to do it. We'll see. And then I'll get back to you.

Bad TV Shows

I was talking about bad TV shows the last time I blogged, but I was getting tired of writing about them after dissing my once favorite TV show, The Blacklist. Another one I was going to condemn is the reboot of Lost in Space, now airing on Netflix. And yeah, what a joke that is.

Original cast for the original show, (minus the robot.)
Set a precedent.

Lost in Space, when I was little, was one of my favorite TV shows. SciFi adventures were an intriguing concept and I was thrilled to watch anything on TV or the movies that dealt with futuristic stories, especially when they were about space travel and alien worlds. The 1960s Lost in Space series filled that bill.

It featured strong male characters such as the leader of the family, Professor John Robinson. He was a family man with a dominant personality, leading his family, as a father should. The image to the left describes actor Guy Williams as Professor Robinson to a tee: "...the ultimate father figure symbol, powerful enough to handle himself in perilous situations, yet sensible and compassionate in matters of the heart..."




In today's Hollywood, this kind of actor (or the role he played) is shunned. In fact, it's the opposite of what they want to portray. But in the Sixties, even secondary male characters held their own. As in the pilot of the spacecraft, Major Don West. He was another strong and competent male character. And there was the "boy wonder" Will Robinson, who was just an adolescent, and the family's only son, but he was a progeny of sorts, as he was a scientific genius even at that age.

But wait. There were strong female characters too. Maureen Robinson, the mother of the family, was a strong personality, herself. Meaning she was not a whimpering, frightened female that would draw the ire of women's libbers. Not at all.

There were the two older daughters as well. I might confess here that their roles were minimal, and that was a shame because the oldest daughter, a beautiful blonde woman named Judy was the love interest for Major Don West. There could have been many story arcs that featured these two, but again, sadly, the producers or writers missed that one. Then there was the middle child, the teenage daughter Penny. She had more interactions with her younger brother Will than any other cast member and her role was never elaborated as it should have been.

And there was the "bad guy" Dr. Smith. He was the traitor hired by the enemy faction of the world order at the time to sabotage the spacecraft upon launching. But he was stuck in the ship at take off and became a permanent crew member and cast member from then on. He was always the one trying to do whatever he could to get back to earth even at the expense of the safety of the others. I remember thinking back then that if I were the captain of that ship, I would have killed the dude from the get go. And there were several times he should have been offed, but I guess the writers figured the story needed his comedic element. (It didn't.)

Lastly there was the robot, which was an important element of the cast as well. It was one of the first shows to feature a robot as a main character, and the precursor to later "robot characters" like the android "Data" from the Star Trek Next Generation series.

So the show was great, until it wasn't. Meaning it devolved into a farcical tale of goofy antics fit for a slapstick comedy. The show phased out all the serious elements of an adult SciFi series and turned it into a weird (and stupid) tale of Will and Dr. Smith. They even turned the robot into a joke. That wasn't what I ordered. And it faded into obscurity. Which was a shame.

Cast of Lost in Space the movie.
(Minus Judy, Will, and the robot.)
No complaints here.

But it had a legacy from which a movie some years later was released. It featured pretty much the same cast of characters who were all pretty much true to the original series. There were some differences in the way the story evolved, but it was a one and done story so what the heck. It passed.

But the Netflix reboot is a sham. Because they are doing what the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises have done. Which is they turned the men into weak and incompetent characters. It's the women who lead and who are the heroes now. I quit watching when it was revealed that Maureen Robinson is the professor now, and she is the one with the brains and she is the leader of the crew. And John Robinson is just another idiot, much like we've been seeing in pretty much every show from Hollywood over the last twenty years.

The new leader and hero of the crew of
Lost in Space from Netflix. The professorship has been
transferred from the man to the woman.
I wouldn't have minded if both were professors.
But Hollywood doesn't work like that.
Not anymore.

So the Netflix version of Lost in Space is great if you're a women's libber and you love to see weak men dominated by strong and heroic women. But that's not me. I will say once again, that I believe women are strong. They can be just as strong and just as heroic as men. BUT....that doesn't mean that when they are strong, the men have to be weak and dominated by them. That's a very tiring element from Hollywood, and I'm wondering when they will figure it out. The answer is they won't as long as the money keeps rolling in. And such is life, full of goose-steppers willing to call a show good just for its title.

Good Movie, Bad TV Shows

I saw the new Midway movie with my sons and it was pretty good. I know there have been a lot of movies about Pearl Harbor and such, but this time, the focus was on Midway. Yeah, they had the Pearl Harbor attack in there, and they had the Doolittle raid in there, and they had the Japanese perspective in there, which was great.

But the new deal this time was the depiction of the Battle of Midway. I know there's already a movie called Midway, in which Henry Fonda and other great actors of the past had starred. But the modern special effects really put this one over the top.

Seeing the dive bombers closing in on the Japanese aircraft carriers from the perspective of the pilots was quite a spectacle. Seeing all those anti aircraft rounds flying by, knowing that any moment one could strike was a harrowing experience. And the success the Americans had made the viewer understand why this battle was so important.



On the other hand, my one time favorite TV show, Blacklist continues to disappoint. I watch it anyway because of James Spader, and of course I'm hoping it will give me the same enjoyment it used to give me from watching it during the first three seasons. But for the fourth year in a row, now, I'm shaking my head in disgust.

In Season Four, I had to watch a one-time loyal ally of Red's turn against him. And even though Red ended up on top at the end of that season, it was a premise that was complete bullshit. Season Five was a throw-away season that carried over the same "suitcase of bones" premise from Season Four. And it sucked. Season Six was even worse. Because here we go again with Red's allies turning against him. This time it was  Lizzy herself. Again.


As I have already pointed out, Red had already saved Lizzy's life on multiple occasions, and saved the lives of her closest friends and coworkers, as well as saving their careers, and still there she goes vowing to "bring him down" and "destroy him."

Sheesh, talk about bullshit, that topped the bullshit of the prior seasons. But then at the end of the season, Lizzy was over all of that, and back on board with Red. But no. Now in the current season, Season Seven, there she goes again plotting against him because her mother is in the picture now opposing Red for who knows what reason. The writing seems to be trying to create a reason, but it makes no sense at all. She wants to know who's coming after her. She already knows. She wants to know why. But she already knows why. She wants to know what Red knows. But why? And what the heck does Red know anyway?

Lizzy's mom. I doubt she could break Halle Berry's
neck, let alone a Russian agent in his fighting prime.

It's all complete bullshit writing. To make matters worse, we have to watch a frail, sixty-year-old woman break the neck of a man in his fighting prime, a Russian agent, with her bare hands in a hand to hand fight. Really? Come on, this is more bullshit. I've blogged at length with my problem with that scenario.

And even though this woman has two FBI agents murdered, Lizzy once again chooses to oppose Red and side with her to "find out the truth" about Red.



What truth? Well, we've learned at this point that he's not really the man Lizzy thought he was: a former lover of her mother's, and this seems to be a thing Lizzy just can't get over. She just has to know who he really is.

So, The Blacklist show is pure crap at this point, but I might say there's something that might save it for me. That would be if they finally reveal somehow that Red really is Red, the real father of Lizzy. They had shown burn scars on his back once, which might suggest that this is the case. And if it is, then and only then might I return to liking this show again. But until then, it's a show that features bullshit. And that's too bad. But we'll see...

As far as the other bad TV shows, of which there are many, that will have to wait until later. This post is already long enough.

Rambo V - Great Movie

I have not been so enthralled with the Rambo franchise over the years. For me they didn't rate up there with The Transporter franchise or John Wick, but they were fun enough.

Actually, for me the John Wick franchise took a fall with the third chapter as I've blogged about.

As for Rambo V, I suspect it's the last and final episode for the Rambo franchise and it was a great one. I mean, finally we have men acting like men and women acting like women. And that is not to be mistaken as men are strong and women are weak. No. Women are strong too. But in real life they're not going around beating up and/or killing everyone. Not like in a Halle Berry fantasy, anyway.


No. In Rambo V, women are strong and determined individuals who, as adults, have their shit together, but as teenagers, they don't. (Kind of like in real life.) And that is the basis of this story. In Rambo V, you have an adult woman and a teenaged girl (her niece,) who live with Rambo, and the niece makes a choice that is not the right choice. Imagine that...


They're both strong women, but neither one of them go around beating up twenty men all at the same time. I mean they don't beat anyone up. And that was a refreshing twist in the Hollywood universe these days. I have grown very weary of watching women beating up and killing men left and right, at every turn, and sometimes as many as fifty men all at the same time.

So no. This movie was realistic. Gritty, and quite brutal. Because in the Rambo character, we have an ex special ops military man. He's trained to kill, and trained to survive. He's a veteran of wars and, of course, a veteran of the four  previous Rambo experiences to his credit.



And as an older man, the Rambo character still exudes toughness. He looked strong. Probably because of Stallone's workout ethic and yes even the steroids he doesn't lie about taking, unlike other Hollywood musclemen, (i.e. The Rock,) But whatever...

Rambo V Last Blood worked, and it was great. It was refreshing and I'll take it any day. And at this point I'll take it even over John Wick. At least over John Wick Chapter 3. No wanna be tough chicks in the Rambo franchise. Thank god.

John Wick 3 - Almost Ruined - Almost

I took my time before I went to see John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum. Of course the big news was that Halle Berry was going to be in it. It was no big news to me. In fact when I heard she was going to be in it I was disgusted.

Why? Because the John Wick franchise had become one of my favorite movie franchises. Right up there with The Transporter franchise. I thought Chapters one and two were terrific. I was so glad that Hollywood was preserving at least ONE tough guy that was still a dude.

I've lamented recently here on the blog that Hollywood had been turning men into wimps in just about every medium. We've had to see women become the new "tough guys" and the men turned into pussies in every TV show and movie franchise from Star Wars to Star Trek to Flash, Arrow, Person of Interest, and the list just goes on and on.

When The Transporter franchise tanked, thanks to Jason Statham leaving the franchise, I was glad that the John Wick franchise was still going strong. I couldn't wait for Chapter 3. Then I heard Halle Berry was going to be in it. Worse still, she had petitioned to be in it. Here's the link. And here's another. So I suppose the producers figured she was an A-list actress with an academy award in her resume. How could they refuse? Well, if they found a good part for her, I'd have had no problem.

But my fear was they were going to do the same thing to John Wick that they did to the Jim Caviezel character in Person of Interest. Meaning they had two seasons as Jim Caveizel being the show's bad-ass, then in the third season they introduce another bad-ass character in a little chick. Yeah, and she was an even tougher bad-ass than Jim Caviezel. Sheesh.

So I saw the show, and sure enough. Halle Berry is in there beating up and killing fifty dudes all at once, a la John Wick. I mean she was using the same moves and the same type of styles that John Wick had been using in the two prior movies. Did she train with the same people? No. She was just a female version of John Wick. Yeah. All 5' 2" and 110 pounds of her.

Fifty-two-year-old Halle Berry as "tough guy" Sofia in John Wick 3.
Yeah. A real tough guy. She looks about as tough as a middle school girl.
She couldn't take on 50 middle school kids, let alone 50 trained
killers all at once. Her character was a complete piece of crap.

That scene almost ruined the movie. Thankfully, it was just that scene and then she was gone. But not until after spitting in an empty water bottle as Wick is about to undergo a romp in the Sahara desert. And like a pussy, Wick takes it. The scene with Berry was nothing more than gratuitous violence inserted for her egotistical benefit. It was like placating a spoiled child. The movie would have been better without her. And yet the goose-steppers are out there claiming how great she was, which, of course, is bullshit. The fact is she almost ruined the movie.

There were so many holes in that scene and when it was all said and done the scene made no sense at all. They killed her dog? Yeah, where had we seen that before? Except wait...they didn't kill her dog. Whatever. It didn't stop her from going all John Wick on them, and completely ruining the concept that she had laid out of not wanting them going after her daughter. It made no sense for her to go into a killing frenzy for no reason at all. Her dog wasn't dead.

So yeah. Halle Berry sucked in this movie. She did not fit at all. Her character was lousy, and her acting was the worst. What happened to that great acting ability that won a best actress academy award for her role in Monster's Ball? It wasn't displayed in John Wick 3, that's for sure. Her acting sucked. And because of these reasons, John Wick 3 was almost ruined. The best thing about Halle Berry is when we didn't have to see her anymore after that horrible scene was over.

I have to admit this was the worst of the three John Wick movies so far. Will John Wick 4 get back on track? We'll have to wait another two years to see. I won't hold my breath. As far as I'm concerned, the John Wick franchise sucks now. Thanks to Halle Berry.

Maybe it can be great again. As long as Halle Berry is no longer in it. Or maybe if her character is killed off that could fix the problem they created. But I don't expect that to happen. Berry's scene and her privileged demand which was unconditionally granted, proved she has a huge ego belying her diminutive and very NON-intimidating frame. And I wouldn't doubt it if she is one of those actors and actresses who has the kind of ego that refuses to let any of the characters she plays from ever getting killed in a movie she's in. And I'm probably right.

Bottom line is it's a damn shame the producers of the John Wick franchise bent to the will of this privileged and self-serving actress who can demand to be in a movie that had already established itself as a great success without her. She brought nothing to the franchise. And like I said. She almost ruined it. Please, no more Halle Berry. Or if she does return, please, kill her off.

Avengers Endgame -- Sucked

It sure seems like I'm hard to please. At least that's what one might think when reading my blog. But  whatever. I'm not going to say a movie is good when it's not. And even though Avengers Endgame made billions of dollars, it sucked. Big time.

So why did it make so much money? I've said it before...the goose-steppers. For those of you who don't know what that means, goose-steppers are the rabid fans who will like anything, or any movie, that has their favorite heroes in it.

Jack Kirby's rendition of the Scarlet Witch

Like Star Wars for instance. Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas for four billion dollars, a price he couldn't refuse, I suppose, even though I heard he donated the money. But whatever. In selling his franchise to Disney, he surrendered what little integrity the franchise had left after its atrocious prequel trilogy.

Disney studios proceeded to destroy the legend of Star Wars. First by doing nothing more than rehashing the original story line, albeit with a female "Luke Skywalker" this time. And then by delivering prequels and sequels that totally sucked with boring scripts, tired plots, and bad casting. But the Star Wars die hard fans had been waiting so long for anything Star Wars, they ate it up. These are the "goose-steppers" and Disney made billions off of them.


The same thing was true for most Star Trek fans. So hungry for anything Star Trek, even the stupid movies and TV shows couldn't fail. The goose-steppers soaked it all up and still are. I said "most" fans because once upon a time I was a Star Trek fan. I thought the original series was terrific as did millions of other people. But the second series "Next Generation" was a total load of crap, and so were the ensuing movies...nothing but crap. I didn't buy it. I quit watching The Next Generation soon after it aired, and even though I admit to seeing the movies, I couldn't stand any of them. Therefore I am removed from the "goose-stepper" status.

The Scarlet Witch as drawn by Jack Kirby

But one might argue that since I paid for seeing the movies, doesn't that make me one of the goose-steppers? No. Because a fan will go to see a movie hoping it will be good. The goose-stepper will come out of that theater raving about how great the movie was, even if it sucked. Why? Well, because it was a "Star Trek" movie. Not me. I loved the original Star Trek. But after seeing the movies, I realized I wasted my time and money. So no. I'm not a goose-stepper.

I had been a Marvel superheroes fan since I was a kid and I can call myself an expert on the characters and the Marvel universe, at least so far as the Silver Age is concerned. I still have quite the collection to this day.

Elizabeth Olsen is NOT the Scarlet Witch

I have been critical of the casting and the story lines of most of the movies. Yeah, Robert Downey, Jr. is good as Tony Stark. Yeah, Chris Hemsworth is good as Thor. Jeremy Renner was fine as Hawkeye, and I didn't mind Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange. Chris Evans is a better Captain America than he was the Human Torch. But just about every other actor was horribly miscast.

That means from the first movies like the X-Men to the last one...Spider-man Far From Home this summer. They all have been miscast. And they ruined the characters, too. I remember seeing the first Conan movie. I was a Conan fan and I was thrilled they were making a movie. I saw it, and even during the movie I remember thinking to myself..."That isn't Conan."

But of course the goose-steppers were thrilled just to see a dude dressed up as Conan with a broadsword riding a horse. Never mind the dude had nothing else in common with the character created by Robert E. Howard. Never mind the story completely sucked.

Mila Kunis is the perfect Scarlet Witch

So it's the same thing with Avengers Endgame. The characters are all there. There's Captain America, ending up as an old man, passing the torch to a new Captain America. There's Thor, but with a pot belly and wasting his days playing video games. Yeah, that's right. A pot-bellied Thor doing nothing but playing video games all day. Everyday. I mean, um, that's supposed to be the "god of thunder" but yeah. He's a pot-bellied couch potato now. What was worse was the completely ridiculous story. The bad guy kills half of life in the universe, because... Well, there really was no reason. Balance, he said. What does that mean? The story, plot, and script sucked big time.

One last example before I go. The Scarlet Witch, as pictured above (drawn by the original artist Jack Kirby.) She used to be my favorite female superhero. But casting Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch was a disaster. Especially when the PERFECT actress for the part was available and still in her prime.

Imagine that outfit in red-The Scarlet Witch!

Who could argue that MILA KUNIS isn't the PERFECT Scarlet Witch? No one that's who. It's because Mila Kunis is the perfect Jack Kirby drawing of the Scarlet Witch come to life. So why can't the movie people get something right when it's staring them in the face?

I can go on. My point is the actors and actresses are out there. They got Thor right and Iron Man right. But that's like two out of fifty or something. With a little more effort they could get them all right. And with a little more effort they could have great stories, too. I mean it really isn't that hard to figure out. If the movie people went with the stories written by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee during the Silver Age, all of these movies would have been a hundred times better.

Too bad the effort is lacking. But why bother? They're getting their billions. That's all that matters, right? To them, at least.

The Spanish Princess

I enjoyed the first two installments of this series: The White Queen and The White Princess. Both focused on the women, (of course) of the York line, as their male counterparts vied for the throne of England, eventually losing to the Tudors. Ultimately the two bloodlines joined through matrimony, when Henry VII married Elizabeth York, ending the civil wars that plagued England for years.

In the third installment, the timeline of this historically based series takes us to the introduction of Catherine of Aragon, who was famously married to Arthur, (Henry VII's firstborn son,) and after he died, to Henry VIII, (his second son.)

And yes all this is true history, which makes for great story-telling. But being the critic I am, I am not without criticism of this third installment. I've only seen the first two episodes, so far, but right from the start there were some problems. Major ones.

As we know, Catherine's parents, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, had reconquered Spain from the Moors, (Muslims who had occupied Spain for several hundred years.) And they had rid Spain, (and the entire Iberian Peninsula) of all non-Christians. Meaning there were no more Moors or Muslims left in Spain.

But the story starts with Queen Isabella, in full armor, leading a charge to fight off a Muslim insurrection that had ambushed the royal entourage on its way to send off Catherine to England.

Um, say what? Yeah. It wasn't the king leading a charge, it was the queen fighting off Muslim attackers as if she were the top knight of the land. King Ferdinand was nowhere to be seen, once again playing into Hollywood's perverted mandate to elevate women above men in all ways, up to and including military bravery and leadership. Sheesh. So that was a two for one stain on this new show. Muslims still fighting in Spain and the queen leading the charge to fight them.

That's critique number one. Next, we see in Princess Catherine's royal entourage, one of the royal Spanish soldiers is a black Muslim. I have no problem with skin color, but the Muslim part is complete crap. I had already established that all Muslims had been kicked out of Spain or killed. In this show, not only did they portray an army of Muslims still there, but now we see a Muslim is among the royal entourage as one of Princess Catherine's personal guards!

Princess Catherine and her Entourage

Never mind that he's a secret Muslim. I mean how secret can you be when you're kneeling on your Muslim prayer rug five times a day in the ship that's crossing the English channel? It doesn't work. Clearly the show is pandering, not only to women, but to a Muslim audience. Again, it doesn't work, if only because the entire concept is crap.

As if that wasn't enough, to further the Hollywood mandate to diminish male characters, they have one of the English guardsmen, (of the royal palace, no less) trying to molest the top woman of Catherine's entourage, (a black woman, of course.) If any royal guardsman tried to molest anyone he'd be executed on the spot.



So what's next? How about little Princess Catherine bests Prince Henry in a sword fight... Yeah, that's coming next as the show's preview for the next episode portrayed. Never mind that England won every war it ever had with Spain. Never mind that Henry was 6' 3" and athletically inclined, and trained in the military arts. Never mind that Catherine, (at least THIS Catherine) is a tiny thing, standing no more than 5' 2" and weighing 100 pounds.

This is just too much. But it's  been too much for twenty years now. My only conclusion is that the goose-steppers buy into it. But like I said before. I don't.