Mostly Marvel linkspam

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* CAPTAIN AMERICA TRAILER!!! So excited for this, you do not even know. Chris Evans, you are presh. Marry me.

* LOL the director of Thor: The Dark World is already disowning the post-credits Guardians of the Galaxy teaser.

* Tom Hiddleston is still doing impressions, this time of Muppets. But watch out, Tom, because Alan Rickman is onto you, dude.

* And Ben Kingsley apparently did something mysterious with Marvel. More Mandarin?

* Neil Patrick Harris and family once again win Halloween. Everybody else, just go home.

* Vince Gilligan addresses some Breaking Bad fan theories. Also, I'm losing track, did I post this interview already?

* Homeland and Masters of Sex have both been renewed for another season. While the less said about Homeland the better at this point, I am really enjoying Masters of Sex. Definitely my favorite new series of the season.

Speaking of TV, we might as well check in on the other new series:

I am still watching Mom, Agents of SHIELD, Trophy Wife, The Crazy Ones, and The Michael J. Fox Show. Mom and Trophy Wife have both improved quite a bit, while The Crazy Ones and The Michael J. Fox Show have not. AND YET STILL BETTER THAN HIMYM WTF IS EVEN HAPPENING WITH THAT TRAIN WRECK. Agents of SHIELD is still running mainly on potential, but I'm in that one for the long haul.

Also, I have gotten back into Elementary. If you'll recall, I watched the first episode a while back, but didn't feel compelled to watch more. I'm almost through season 1 now, and it's quite good?

Comments

[mikeda]

I will note that I really liked the two scenes Cristin Milioti had in the two-part premiere of HIMYM (one was her first meeting with Lily, the second was a flash-forward with Ted.)

Although she hasn't appeared since then. They seem to have decided to make rather sparing use of her character. At least so far this season.

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Yeah, I was actually really hopeful after the premiere. But so far it seems like (1) they're not going to use the Mother enough to actually get to know her, and (2) that thing about just using the wedding as the framing device to tell all sorts of stories at different points in time is not actually the case, because thus far every episode has been set DURING the wedding weekend. If it keeps up like this, we're going to end up getting the whole tedious weekend practically in real time.

[mikeda]

The reported title (How Your Mother Met Me) for Episode 16 does sound promising.

(Note that Episode 16 is also the 200th episode of the show.)

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Episode 16 is sooo far away, though! :(

[mikeda]

Michael Ausiello mentioned in his "Ask Ausiello" column back on October 9 that he had been told that every appearance of the Mother would "carry with it a significance, large or at least medium".

That may be a big part of the problem, they've been focused on making her scenes important when they should probably have focused on getting her on screen.

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Ugh, yeah. Just give us the Mother already and make us care about this relationship. While watching this week's ep, I couldn't help thinking that proposal scene would have been a lot more moving if it had happened between characters who'd shared more than 30 seconds of screen time prior to that scene.

[goldenusagi]

While the less said about Homeland the better at this point

Is S3 bad, then? I haven't watched because I decided Homeland is a show better binged for me. And also because I don't like HAVE TO SEE IT RIGHT NOW OMG.

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Heh, it's not as bad as S2, but it's still insisting it's a ~serious show when it's as cuckoo bananas as Scandal. Just embrace the soapiness already!

[jae]

While the less said about Homeland the better at this point,

Okay no no no, you have to tell me what you mean by that. (I've been saving it to watch in one shot when the season is over; it will mask the worst of the flaws.)

I like Elementary, too. It's really too episodic for me, but I think it got more and more interesting as season 1 went on, and the great things about it almost make up for the episodicness.

-J

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Oh, Homeland. It's clearly trying to course-correct where things went astray in s2, and the performances are still great, but it's like they're trying to duplicate the mystery aspect of s1, where we didn't know whether Brody was a terrorist or not. Except they're doing it all wrong, by keeping things that the characters know from the audience for no good reason except PLOT TWIST! and it's just not working. Now the characters make random OOC decisions to further the plot or that are designed solely to mislead the audience. In season 1, there were some hard-to-swallow twists, but at least the show felt grounded in the characters and the relationships, and the acting was so good.

It's frustrating, because it wouldn't take much of a shift to make it a great show, but just when you're ready to say it's improving, it does some other dumb thing.

[jae]

I am so conflicted about hearing this! But yes, I think my sadness at hearing that they didn't quite get back on track with the third season does ultimately triumph over my schadenfreude. Because while we seem to disagree about how good the first season was (I thought it was a good-but-not-excellent show with a small handful of "wtf?" moments back then), and we certainly agree that the acting was just plain amazing, even in the very-definitely-not-good second season.

My favourite critic Matt Zoller Seitz once said re Homeland" "I enjoyed it, but too often it felt like a crazy show trying to pretend it was quality television." Which is...yeah.

-J

[rosaxx50]

Wow, I'm really excited too. I only had a look at the Thor: TDW trailers yesterday so I've been overloaded with MCU lately.

Yes, Elementary is eminently watchable is it not?

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LOL I had an RDJ-intensive weekend (I watched Avengers/IM3 as a double-header, then IM1 and IM2 were on TV, plus Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was in there somewhere), so I am all hyped up on MCU. I so wish Captain America were coming out now, instead of Thor, though. I don't care about Thor. I just want my bb Steve.

[petzipellepingo]

Elementary is definitely worth watching.

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It's better than I expected it to be! Still rather procedural, but clever enough to keep my interest.

[mikeda]

There are reports that the creators of HIMYM are now in talks about a series called "How I Met Your Father".

I have this vision:

Mother: I'm going to tell you the story of how I met your father.
Kids: Please tell us this isn't going to be as long as Dad's story.

Seven seasons later, the kids stage an intervention:

Kids: Mom, Dad, we love you both but you HAVE to learn to tell shorter stories.

:-)

(Although apparently they've already said that the two shows wouldn't share casts, although they may share the MacLaren's settting.)

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I actually think it would be hilarious if they faked a spin-off where the Mother told her story to the kids and it took two minutes and Ted was like, "Wait, that's it?"

Mostly, I just do not have the energy to sit through another seven seasons (or one season) of this premise.