Underthinking Pilot Season: Marvel's Agent Carter

Hello there,

Cat here. I know, I know. I am super behind on this. At this point I've already seen the entire first season of Marvel's Agent Carter and I'm sure you have as well if you had any interest in the show. But let's just go ahead and talk about it anyway. The best way I can explain my experience watching the show was that the things that I thought would appeal to me didn't, but I still found a lot to enjoy about it.

It is still so difficult to write good female characters for some reason that it seems that many times people just stumble into a good female character without that being their main goal. I think that might be why there are often more compelling female characters in ensemble shows or in the background than female leads. It gets very tricky and the dearth of well-written female characters results in an incredible pressure on a show that decides to have a single female protagonist, never mind one with a so called "feminist agenda."

So yes, I could pick this pilot apart. I could point out that it starts with establishing Peggy Carter as a character in relation to Captain America and with her uttering the lines "I'll get Howard on the line. He'll know what to do." The hero makes a brave, self-sacrificing choice while the heroine is helpless to stop him or to help. But over the course of the series, we see this moment as the anomaly. Usually. Although it never stretches believability in Agent Carter, having such a capable character can be a bit boring. After a while it's not as a exciting to watch a show where the doctor, lawyer, detective, etc. is going to be able to resolve the problem within the hour. Having the series start with this moment which stands in stark contrast to the rest of Peggy's adventures makes her successes somehow more satisfying. We've already seen her fail.

So what was it that I expected to be drawn to that let me down? Well, after two or three episodes, you stop caring but this is really not a period show. The costumes are... fine, but did nothing to place me in the era. There's something about the entire world that feels like they were trying but didn't really succeed. I don't know if it was a budget issue or an attempt to recreate the comics or just a lack of research and imagination but I always had that sense of remove. And, oh, the accents. I don't know if it was worse when people were trying or when they weren't. I'm looking at you Chad Michael Murray. The dialogue didn't always help. Again, I wasn't sure if it was worse when it sounded completely modern or when they forced period slang.

My other issue was the female empowerment angle. Throughout the series, I feel like they failed time and time again at portraying sexism. It was just so overt. And yet still not that offensive. It was an odd middle ground where they seemed too afraid to show characters act truly reprehensibly and yet too afraid that more subtle forms of sexism would be missed by the audience. The show asks us to have sympathy for pretty much all of the other agents with speaking parts who display sexist behaviors or attitudes so I understand not wanting to make them unlikable but it ended up feeling so awkward and undercutting whatever message they were trying to get across.

There were some fun gadgets in the pilot. I wish there'd been more of those throughout the series instead of Howard Stark's weapon of the week.

So now let's talk about what I did enjoy. The show is very easily digestible. It has a decent blend of the procedural and the overarching story line which made it compelling from episode to episode. And as someone who pretty much ignores most action and crime films, it was unexpectedly satisfying to watch the fight scenes in Agent Carter. I'm far from an expert on fight choreography but I think Hayley Atwell and whoever directed those scenes did a brilliant job making them exciting to watch and believable.

CONCLUSION: I feel like I rambled quite a bit with this one but here are my final thoughts. It's not a perfect show. It wasn't the period piece I wanted it to be and it bungled the feminism but I found it pretty entertaining and I would absolutely watch a second season. They'll have to work harder to make me actually emotionally invest in any of these characters but it has a lot of potential as a spy show.

Underthinking Pilot Season: Empire

Hello everyone,

Cat here. Put music in your show and I will watch it. Glee. Smash. Nashville. Galavant. But unlike the creators of those properties, I understand that those shows aren't meant for everyone. But then there's Empire.

Guys, if you're not watching Empire... why are you not watching Empire? It is delicious, soapy goodness with musical breaks and I can't get enough of it.

Sure, not everything makes sense. There's that nonsense Lucious spouted about the internet and disenfranchised youths when the internet has lowered the barrier to entry for the music business and allowed smaller artists and unrepresented artists to reach a larger public than they would have been able to without it. There's no good reason why he has to groom one son to be his successor instead of having them work together. King Lear had three daughters.

But if you can watch this show and not get taken in by Terrence Howard's and Taraji P. Henson's performances, I don't know if we can be friends. Taraji in particular is amazing. Not that the show needs carrying but let's just say she's ready and able to shoulder the burden should she need to. Beyond that, Cookie is still a very interesting character. She's not politically correct at all but at her core, she's a good person. And don't think I missed her shout out to one of (I think) the only two women in that boardroom. I see you, Empire. I see you.

While I think the family dynamics are the strongest part of the show I would like to learn more about Tiana and they really need to do something about how they're writing Andre's wife because none of that makes even an ounce of sense.

CONCLUSION: Watch Empire. I'm going to. At this point in the series I don't care that much about any of the sons and there's a whole boatload of craziness happening but I will continue watching to see what they pile on next. You should too. 

Underthinking Pilot Season: Marry Me

Hi guys,

Cat here. Continuing on with my effort to just plow through a bunch of these posts, let's talk about Marry Me. I like Casey Wilson. Happy Endings was great. The Hotwives of Orlando was occasionally amusing. I like Ken Marino (Reaper, Burning Love). I should like this show, right?

Well, at the start, I didn't. I didn't hate the show but it was feeling a little forced. I was hyper aware that the show was a show. I didn't connect with the characters because it felt like one long sketch or a game of how fast people could deliver their dialogue. Honestly, I felt like I was drowning in banter.

However, as the pilot went on the laughs picked up. The jokes are there and the line delivery is great. Having now watched more episodes, the characters are growing on me though I still feel that sense of remove. They feel more like actors than people and in going for a laugh you sacrifice a lot of emotional depth. So while I don't really care about the characters that much even now, it is an enjoyable little half hour show.

Lastly, tell me the Kevin's are not how they should have written Rachel's dads on Glee.

CONCLUSION: Give it a chance for a few episodes. If it doesn't win you over, it just might not be for you. It's pleasant and funny and diverting but not a must watch.

Underthinking Pilot Season: Red Band Society

Hi there,

Cat here. I've had a bunch of notes cooling in drafts for different shows and it's time to speed through them. We might as well start with Red Band Society since it's been cancelled. Spoilers for the pilot ahead.

The first strike against RBS was the voiceover. I eventually got used to it on Blackish, Selfie, Manhattan Love Story, and A to Z but enough already. And now it's on Fresh Off the Boat. Who came up with this infuriating trend for this TV season? Red Band Society is without a doubt the worst offender though since the narrator here is the kid in a coma. It also stretches believability to have him as the narrator because even with him overhearing things in his room and the other characters talking to him, he would not know this much about everything happening in the hospital.

There's a level of ridiculousness here but it's less Glee and more Juno and I don't mean that as a compliment in spite of how you might feel about those respective properties. The dialogue is terrible and I don't know where this hospital is that has a giant school room with all of these students who I guess are at relatively the same learning level. The characters are ridiculous and not in an appealing way.

Overall, I didn't find the pilot funny at all and none of the characters (except for Octavia Spencer's nurse character) made me want to watch another episode.

And now for a list of times RBS seemed to want me to hate it.

• "Shouldn't we call 911?" "Not til I post this on Instagram." 
• when the cheerleader visited the coma kid in the "in between" world
• the mindbogglingly terrible metaphor of the cheerleader having an enlarged heart and needing a heart transplant
• the textbook characterization of the girl with the eating disorder
• the time the cheerleader said "cray cray" unironically
• the probable love square

Underthinking Pilot Season: Fresh Off the Boat

Hello lovely readers,

Did you miss me? I've been around. Not on this blog, but I've been around. I could tell you what I thought of Galavant but that can always be a post for another day (maybe if it gets a second season). I was recapping it for another site and I had enough of it without trying to review the pilot here. Suffice it to say I don't think they really did right by their female characters and I place a lot of the blame for the lackluster quality of the show at Glenn Slater's door because I think stronger lyrics would have helped a lot.

Now, on to Fresh Off The Boat. It worries me a little that they aired the first two episodes back to back in Galavant fashion. This isn't The Quest. You should not be trying to burn off episodes as quickly as possible. And furthermore, it's not necessary because this show is fantastic. It does not reinvent the wheel as far as family sitcoms go. And the comparisons to Blackish are fair. It's another smart, funny family sitcom that deals with racial issues. And I'm totally cool with that. I'm still watching Blackish and I will keep watching Fresh Off the Boat every week until/unless they take it off the air. Now, I don't think this show deserves to get cancelled but the majority of shows I love don't have a long shelf life, or at least spend that air time scrabbling to stay on the air.

I understand that the focus right now is on Eddie and his father. They are the two main characters who have the strongest motivations and the clearest goals right now so it makes sense that their stories are dominant. But I would love to eventually see more meaningful input from the female characters whether that's Eddie's grandmother or other students in school or easily one of my new favorite characters on television, Jessica Huang. Constance Wu is everything. Her favorite song is Something To Talk About by Bonnie Raitt. Yes. If I were younger and watching this show, Jessica/Constance would totally be one of my role models along with Lea Salonga for whom I harbor a deep-seated adoration. In two episodes she is already a strong, complex human character who is well written and well acted. And if that weren't enough, she gets to be funny. She's not an utterly ridiculous clown and she's not the straight man. Instead she's given a part that I can only describe as one that you'd expect a male character to have on any show where the actress wasn't also involved in the development process.

Conclusion: Needless to say I highly recommend checking this show out and supporting it. It might not rock your world but it has a strong, coherent voice and unlike many of the comedies we've gotten this season, it manages to be consistently funny. ABC might have failed on the rom-com revolution (though I did watch the entire seasons of Manhattan Love Story... it got better and Selfie... it was amazing and I hate them for cancelling it) but they are knocking it out of the park with their family comedies.

Underthinking Pilot Season: Black-ish

Cat here. I just found out that Selfie has probably been cancelled so I'm not in a great mood. If I genuinely like a television show it's a good sign that it's not built to last. I'm amazed The Mindy Project and Nashville have made it this long. Suburgatory? Pushing Daisies? And yet they renewed Stalker and Scorpion. I have no words.

Let's turn our attention to an ABC that is still on the air... Black-ish. The show shares this fall season's odd obsession with voice-over and the family comedy isn't that unique but I did enjoy the pilot. Anthony Anderson appears to have woken up after sleepwalking through some recent past roles and Laurence Fishburne's presence is very much appreciated. I know his character needs to be used sparingly but I can't help wishing he had a bigger part on the show. His line delivery is just spot on sometimes. I'm not completely sold on the rest of the cast but I think that will come with time, particularly with the child actors. Tracee Ellis Ross is also doing a pretty good job anchoring the show.

As I've mentioned before, with all the awkwardly constructed pilots I've been watching, it's nice to see something competent. The pilot feels slick. The writing is solid. Even though the cast hasn't established the dynamic of a long running family sitcom, you feel like they could get there.

And you have to love a show with an unusual title than manages to get the title into the dialogue.

"I may have to be 'urban' at work but I'm still going to need my family to be black, not black-ish, but black."

Finally, I liked that it was a show that had something to say even if I didn't always agree its sentiments or the way they were stated. Some quotes...

Underthinking Pilot Season: Cristela

Cat here with another short review. Cristela is very sitcom-y. I haven't watched a show like this in years and even then I was usually watching them in re-runs or late at night with nothing better to watch. This was before hulu and getting a DVR. It was a dark time. Anyway, I think the cast is totally solid and the jokes are actually pretty good. For me, the humor doesn't always land because of the format. I've never seen her stand-up but in this pilot I can clearly see how those jokes would have worked better in the context of a stand-up act. They lose something in being performed by the characters. However, Cristela is very winning and charming as a leading lady and she carries the show effortlessly. It's an ensemble but she's got a star quality as opposed to other shows where the lead just gets all the best jokes.

I would like to give a shout out to two other things in this pilot. Firstly, I appreciated that they used Spanish in a casual, natural way but didn't feel obligated to explain it to an English-speaking audience. I took French in high school but the Spanish never made the show feel inaccessible to me. Secondly, I liked the small subplot about Cristela's niece wanting to play soccer instead of being a cheerleader. Now I do think that competitive cheerleading is a dangerous sport that takes hard work and skill and many of the other positive attributes you would want to foster in children with extracurricular activities. However, the show framed it nicely in this quote.

"I can't believe it. Today my little girl's going to be a cheerleader."
"Ah, yes. The great Texas tradition where girls learn they're not quite as important as boys."

Final Conclusion: This is not a must watch. If you enjoy sitcoms or you can at least tolerate a new one, this is an enjoyable way to spend a half hour. I'm interested to hear what she has to say but the sitcom format is personally holding me back from loving this show. But I'll stick with it for a while.