TV
The X-Files
I feel like the first episode of The X-Files mini-series got a bad rap last week. A lot of people complained that it just wasn’t very good. I think some of that was just series creator Chris Carter balancing a whole lot of things in the plot in a limited amount of time which made the show feel a bit rushed. In 45 minutes he needed to; reintroduce the characters that haven’t been on TV together in 13 years AND introduce these characters to a new audience who’s never seen them before, introduce a new story/conspiracy to hang the new series off of WHILE AT THE SAME TIME telling some kind of actual contained story in this episode.
Which is a whole lot to do. Which is why a lot of pilot/first TV series episodes aren’t very good and aren’t necessarily indicative of where the series and future episodes are headed.
And in fact without this baggage the second episode was a much improvement over the first and felt much more like a return to form for The X-Files.
Episode #1: “My Struggle” – B-
Episode #2: “Founder’s Mutation” – B+
The Expanse
The two hour first season finale of The Expanse is set to air on SyFy this Tuesday evening. From what I can gather this season ends about two-thirds of the way through the first book of the Leviathan Wakes series of which The Expanse is based on. Just last fall I was thinking that I couldn’t remember the last really good sci-fi with spaceships series on TV — it was probably Battlestar Galactica. And just weeks later The Expanse with its cool visuals and great story swooped in to fit that bill perfectly.
The Expanse is my new favorite series of the season and is an early contender to appear on my top TV shows list of 2016.
Fawlty Towers
Our local PBS station began airing episodes of the classic TV series Fawlty Towers at the start of the year. It’s probably been a decade since I originally saw the show — I came to the series after watching the British The Office and hearing about it in discussions on that show — and watching it again today Fawlty Towers is still a great show!
Movies
Mr. Holmes
In Mr. Holmes Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen), the world’s greatest detective, is 93, living in a post-World War II Great Britain and has one more case to solve yet is slowly losing his mind to age. Or is there really a last case and is it just as Holmes memory fades certain things get mixed up in his mind? Is it just a mix of ghosts from his past?
By presenting Holmes at the end of his life rather than at the beginning of his career as a detective, Mr. Holmes is an interesting counterpoint to other Sherlock Holmes related TV series like Sherlock and Elementary. – B
Batman vs Superman
With all the lead up to the upcoming Batman vs Superman movie, officially Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it kind’a feels like Warner Bros has been promoting this movie forever. Batman vs Superman was announced ’13 with an early ’15 release date, then was pushed back to March of this year after it was decided that hitting that date wasn’t realistic. And since it was pushed back so far it seems like we’ve spent the last two and a half years getting a constant stream of marketing from the movie.
Is there anything new left to see by actually going to see Batman vs Superman? It’s been so long since that original San Diego announcement that in between then and now Marvel’s released FOUR movies to DC’s none.
Batman vs Superman might be the first movie in history to feel like a re-release on its initial release.
