State of the Blog

Okay, it's been a day or so since we got word on Haven, we're slightly saner or at least less stuck in a permanent state of squee, and we have a lot of shit to organize. Fortunately we're both awesome at that, so we present to you the results!

Haven: We currently intend to recaplysize the remaining back eps, which is to say s2, and have that up on the blog starting around June, as we did with s1 last year. When s5 comes back in the fall, we plan to have the usual weekly post up on Saturdays. Now with 200% more swearing! Standard warning for backlog posts applies: there will be spoilers, they will be for the entire run of the show so far.

Sleepy Hollow: While Grimm is on hiatus for the Olympics, we plan to start working on s1 of this show. We've been watching since the pilot, but at the time we were still working our way through Person of Interest mayitrestinpeace, and thus didn't have the ability to devote time to a new show. While we're regretting that now, we'd like to make it up to y'all by providing new analysis of the content over the long, painful wait for s2. As with all backlog posts, they will be in light of all the information acquired over the course of the season. I really cannot urge you highly enough, if you haven't already seen the full season, to wait to read our posts until that time. Coming from us, who seek out and devour spoilers like John Noble devours scenery… let me put it this way. We did not see the twists in the finale coming. The foreshadowing was there. We cannot turn analysis-brain off, and these twists impressed us. Which is why we're blogging this show.

Grimm: This season has been rocky. You may have noticed. We have hope that that'll shape up; the writers, actors, crew, everyone very clearly would rather be doing exciting metaplot than boring procedural stuff. (Note that procedurals don't have to be boring; see also Haven and Sleepy Hollow. Just that Grimm is, right now.) That said, we're in a position to finish out the season and reevaluate where we want to go with it. Right now we're working on the assumption that we'll continue, since numbers for renewal are looking good. Assuming both of these things happen, what we'll probably end up doing on weekends where Grimm airs simultaneous with Haven next fall is plan for Grimm posts to be published the Sunday after airing. This gives us a little more breathing room. A little.

A word of warning for those who might be new to the blog as we start Sleepy Hollow: we swear a lot and, for future reference, we speak on many adult subjects in recaplyses, as these are adult programs which often touch on a number of issues. Please keep this in mind, and read and share responsibly.

Behind the cut, a compilation of shows we're watching and why! Also quoteboards. Always quoteboards. 

What Murderboarding is Watching

We've been meaning to do a post about other shows we're watching, so you can find out where our tastes run, what we might be blogging if our clone army would hurry up and mature in the tanks, and what we consider mental floss.

Almost Human: This show is 90% of what I could ask of a cyberpunk dystopia. (I say 90% because they keep dicking around with a lot of worldbuilding stuff that I would like them to just tell us instead. Or show us. One of the two.) One of these days we're going to watch it in the order it was written and filmed, not the order it was aired, because Fox needs to stop fucking around with ep order. Once you know they're up to those tricks again, the seesaw characterization makes, sadly, a lot of sense. It'd be nice if they had a greater variety of roles for women, but Karl Urban and Michael Ealy make this show. Their buddy-cop dynamic is the biggest selling point, followed closely by how clear they make it that this is a labor of love, love for the cyberpunk dystopias that have gone before and for the characters and world they've created while paying their respects to the works they're borrowing from.

Sleepy Hollow: You'll find out. At length. Look, I really expected to hate it. I expected to shriek to high heaven about the historical inaccuracies. I expected all kinds of things that didn't happen, and that's because this show has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek about the genre and history aspects while taking its characters very, very seriously.

Agents of SHIELD: Arguably the weakest of the shows we're currently watching, this is our mind-candy show. We watch for Coulson and May, we're warming up to the young'uns, and for a change this show's strengths are in the eps that have nothing to do with any recognizable Marvel metaplot. The character development has been shocking in the good way at how much it's progressed since the first few episode. The case of the week aspect is still the weakest, and their overarching plot is paced so that it's hard to tell if the awkward will subside once all the facts are known or if it really is that clunky, but the heart of the show is clearly in the actors and their enjoyment and pride in what they're doing, and in the characters and their relentless yet practical optimism. One of the biggest problems as well as assets of Agents of SHIELD is that it doesn't address the extreme shadiness of what SHIELD does: renditions and blackbagging, theft, aggressive negotiations. Within the context of the people on the bus though, the argument is entirely one of optimism, the belief that it's okay because they are doing the necessary thing for the right reasons. Whether or not you buy their earnest optimism and faith in SHIELD, well, that's one of those exercises for the viewer. Mind-candy show means we deliberately put that aside, but we nod to it here.

Witches of East End: Yes, it's on Lifetime. Yes, it started out with a lot of bodice-ripping romance novel tropes. It also has women being honest with each other, women caring about each other, women with friendships and bonds, which is something TV has been lacking in focus on lately.  Women having no-strings sex (not with each other. most of them are related.) without being punished for it, and hilarious magical hijinks. Okay, to be fair it also has a lot of people being fucking morons. It's the most enjoyable show where we yell at the screen NO DON'T DO THAT HAVE YOU NO SENSE I think I've ever found. I don't know how that happened.

The Blacklist: Kitty's the only one watching this one. Arguably the main reason to watch this is to watch Spader Spadering all over your screen, because he is glorious. The other reason I (Kitty) watch it is because it's been a damn long while since a new federal procedural came around that I at all enjoyed. In the vein of Criminal Minds and CSI, NCIS and to an extent, The Shield, I'm enjoying the straight up Solve The Case of it all. There's nothing really new or unique about it, you have the Computer Geek, Da Chief, The Earnest Protagonist who in this case is also a Woman In A Man's World, which gives an interesting gender subversion for the Law Enforcement Will Ruin Your Marriage trope, especially given the constant potential addition of a child. The Battle Scarred Veteran is Ressler, who is less self-isolating and cold than some examples while still filling that role. Everyone plays their parts well, the cases and villains are interesting, and the schtick hasn't gotten old yet. Plus I think I enjoy Spader's Spadering more when it's couched in Anti-Hero procedural than I did on Boston Legal.

Things Murderboarding Is Not Watching So Please Don't Ask: ...almost everything else currently airing, because we only have so much time in the week.

Haven

K: ...... OH FUCK YOU DAVE.

K: WERE YOU ABLE TO HEAR THE BARN THE WHOLE TIME.

A: ...................

A: FUCK YOU DAVE.

Grimm

A: ELOPE.

K: GOD YES

A: YES ELOPE.

K: MUCH ELOPE.

A: SO SMART.

K: .... Danilov. Why... OH FUCK ME.

K: WASN'T DANILOV FROM THE LAST CONVERSATION WITH THE PARISIAN?

A: ...I THINK SO.

A: ...AUGH HANDS.

K: So there's Verrat power plays going on here AUGH REALLY.

A: LITTLE HANDS DO NOT GO THERE.

Sleepy Hollow (pilot and pre-pilot promos only; yes, we shriek about this show a lot)

K: Uh-hOH GOD. *dying* I love tumblr. "OH MY GOD JUST GO THROUGH THE YELLOW LIGHT."

"IT IS MY UNDERSTANDING THAT YELLOW SIGNIFIES THAT ONE MUST SLOW DOWN IN PREPARATION TO STOP WHEN THE LIGHT TURNS RED, AND ONLY WHEN GREEN SHINES THAT WE MAY CONTINUE."

A: I LOVE YOU THOR.

K: Actually that's Ichabod.

BUT THEY'RE PRETTY MUCH THE SAME as far as human culture goes.

A: ...THOR AND ICHABOD NEED TO MEET.

K: YES. YES THEY DO OH MY GOD.

K: IT'S A RINGWRAITH.

IT'S A FUCKING RING WRAITH.

A: OH THAT EXPLAINS.

K: Yes.

A: FOUR RINGWRAITHS.

RUN BETTER, ICHABOD.

K: ....And he's in the forest of the Evil Dead? YES.

A: I do like that reworking his backstory to have him prominent in the war fighting means he's accustomed to this shit.

Or at least capable of keeping up a really good front.

K: As opposed to a schoolteacher who freaks out at violence?

A: Mm-hmm.

A: ...batcave?

K: I LOVE YOU ICHABOD.

A: BATCAVE.

K: I LOVE YOU SO MUCH ICHABATMAN.

A: .........

RAVEN.

K: AUGUST. CORBIN.

A: YOU'RE NOT AS FUNNY AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

Grimm

A: Also we're quoting the Bible now?

A: Godfuckingdammit writers.

A: Deuteronomy.

A: Or possibly Leviticus.

K: ... Deuteronomy or Hammurabi.

A: I'll have to dig up yup.

K: 'cause I went straight to Hammurabi.

A: Well yes.

A: Exodus, too.

K: True. Anyway. Now that we've established that we're incredibly overeducated? XD