TV Show Review: The (Green) Arrow

Title: The (Green) Arrow
Author: DC Comics
Release Date: 2012 (season 4 showing now)
Genre: action, adventure, superheroes, science fiction
My Rating: **
Official Rating: TV-14 (probably PG-13)
Age Group: 16+ or 18+

Summary
Oliver Queen and his father died on a yacht trip years ago, a rich teen cut down in his prime. Well, then there was Sara Lance, Oliver's girlfriend's sister, who snuck aboard at the last moment at Oliver's urging. But that's complicated.
So they died.
And then Oliver appears again, apparently not dead after all. And what happens with billionaires who disappear for a long time? They continue their playboy lives by day, and by night they turn into epic bad-guy-beating heroes who have crazy combat skills. Far be it for Oliver to do anything but live up to our expectations. Of course, he forms a team around himself, mostly consisting of cute tech genius Felicity Smoak but suplimented by friend John Diggle, former army man.
And while others come and go, ultimately it's up to these three to save the world of Starling City from the rather messed up crime lords.

Word of Warning
Please note that while I am not reviewing specific episodes (for the most part), I am commenting on trends the show carries. I will also do my best to comment on any problems that really stand out, even if they were only in one episode.

• Comic book violence. Can get pretty graphic. People die a lot, to the point where you're numb against it.
• Torture. Sometimes this is done by the bad guys, sometimes by Oliver.
• Oliver is a playboy. Like, a lot. We get passionate kissing scenes and more than once a trip to the bedroom is implied. The only scene I can remember where we actually saw the characters in bed is in season 3 and is discrete as to what is shown, but there is no doubt what is going on.
• Evil mentors. Deception. Dark themes (death, killing, manipulation, torture, etc).
• Injuries. Blood, broken bones, etc. While painful, Oliver is somewhat superhuman in that he can take injuries pretty well (usually).
• Drinking to the point of getting drunk.
• There is a whole cult thing (the League of Shadows, I believe) where the people are very cruel. They have a Lazarus Pit which brings people back to life, but when they come back they're usually pretty messed up and go kind of crazy (having what is called a "bloodlust").

This list looks a lot shorter than that of The Flash, but there are a few reasons for that:

1. This show has so many problems it's hard to be as specific as I was with the other show.
2. I don't watch this one as closely or carefully as I do The Flash, partially because I don't like how its dark themes affect my thinking (not that I would do any of these things, just that it skews my view of the world).
3. It's so dark there is no end to the problems.
4. There are a lot more seasons here to deal with.

My Thoughts
I remember describing this show to Stacy when I first discovered it. I tried to give her the intro shpeel, but eventually, since it was identical to Batman, I reached for something else. How about Oliver's character and his relationships? Five minutes in and I had lost count of the girls I'd mentioned. And while Bruce Wayne is in love with Rachel but pretending with the girls he plays, it's super hard to figure out what Oliver is doing. The one thing we know is that he's in love with Felicity (spoiler alert really isn't necessary since this is so obvious), and she's in love with him.
So of course that never actually works out for them.

Oliver's problems with girls, as well as his inner darkness, it all just hits me the wrong way. Sure, I've enjoyed the series, since I usually enjoy a DC or Marvel story, but the enjoyment is usually in the moment and mixed with so much frustration and darkness that when I step back and actually think about it, I wonder why I watch in the first place.


It's dark, very dark, and just keeps getting darker. Oliver is no hero, just as Batman and Katniss aren't heroes. Oliver does try, but not hard enough.

TV Show Review: The Flash

Title: The Flash
Author: DC Comics
Release Date: 2014
Genre: action, adventure, superheroes, science fiction
My Rating: *****
Stacy's Rating: *****
Official Rating: TV-PG (I propose a PG-13 rating)
Age Group: 14+

Summary
Harrison Wells built a particle accelerator because, well, he's brilliant.
And Barry Allen's role model.
But let's back up. Barry Allen is an orphan adopted by a police detective after his father apparently murdered his mother (Barry believes differently). The 10 year old whose mother died is now in his twenties and working as a forensic scientist--a very good forensic scientist who, in his spare time, still tries to prove his father innocent.
Alright. Forward now.
Wells' big scientific thing explodes. That same night, Barry is hit by lightening and goes into a coma. Nine months later, he wakes up with abs and the ability to run super super fast.
Cool.
But he also discovers his first love (who he never actually approached on the topic) is dating someone else and apparently does not return his affections.
Bummer.
It keeps going! Barry discovers other people have been changed by that explosion too and now they have powers. Unfortunately, he's having a really hard time finding anyone who doesn't want to use their powers to do evil.
It's a known fact that selfish people get more selfish when big sci-fi explosions happen. And nice people like Barry?
They become superheroes.

Word of Warning
Please note that while I am not reviewing specific episodes (for the most part), I am commenting on trends the show carries. I will also do my best to comment on any problems that really stand out, even if they were only in one episode.
All these problems are very spread out over two seasons. I would like to point out that the second season is more violent, a little darker (though really, you can't be the happy go lucky  hero in a city with a vortex to another world with super villains for every long), and more intense. Not so much that I need to change the rating from season 1 to 2.

General:

• Comic book violence. Relatively non-graphic. Few deaths. When they do die, it's generally very heartbreaking.
•  Dead parents. Both Barry and Iris have death mothers.
• Injuries. Blood, broken bones, etc. While painful, these clear up pretty quickly (super fast healing and all that).
• There's a running joke that Barry can't get drunk, and this seems to be a disappointment to everyone.
• Very mild swearing. So much so that Stacy had to remind me it was there.
• One character often makes rather veiled inappropriate comments. One or two are more obvious than the rest.
• Kisses here and there.

Specific:

• A mother is kicked out of her house and daughter's life due to a drug problem that puts the daughter in danger more than once. This is all in the past and is only verbally related.
• At a low point, Barry breaks a bad guy out of jail, threatens him, and then leaves him to be caught and sentenced more harshly than before.
• A man shoots himself to save the city. Heroic, but still suicide.
• Barry watches his mother die in a horrible tear-inducing scene.
• Barry's romantic relationship gets a little too physical in two episodes. Passionate kissing and, in one scene, both characters lose their shirts while kissing passionately on the couch. This is ended rather abruptly (but by chance, not because someone was actually thinking).
• A female character gets very drunk and undresses down to her underwear in front of a male character. While this is awful (and her "did you take a peek at my goods?" comment is worse), this is also one of my favorite scenes because the male character does everything right.
• It's implied that a woman and her fiance are living together.
• A few really big violent moments: a man's head is smashed against a wall and a huge blood smear is left (season 2); people's heads get blown of by implanted bombs, we see only the stumps (season 2); an innocent girl blows up off screen after dying (season 1).

My Thoughts
If there's one thing I do when life gets crazy and I'm super busy with homework and work, it's to watch The Flash. While I may be a few days ahead of Stacy, she's usually right on my trail.
Do remember we're both full time students. I have two jobs, Stacy has one really big one. And we have various other things going on in our lives.
So when we say this is a really good show, and we make sure to stay up to date on it, you should know that it is, in fact, fantastic.

DC seems to have a dark brooding side (think Batman and Arrow) and a lighter side (think Superman). Well, the Flash falls on this lighter side. This isn't to say that horrible things are made small, or that good moral points are not made. The opposite, in fact. They're there, they're just not shrouded by all the other messy things.

Stacy says: Watch it. It's awesome. Also, it's addicting. So expect to lose half your life to Netflix. But you won't regret it.

I agree.

TV Show Review: Flashpoint

(Please note that while I will not be reviewing specific episodes, I will be commenting on the specific trends that most of the episodes followed.)

Title: Flashpoint
Author: ION Television, CTV Television Network, CBS (a Canadian police drama)
Release Date: 2008-2012 (5 seasons)
Genre: crime, violence, drama, family, friendship, action, thriller, romance
My Rating: ****
Official Rating: N/A
Age Group: 16+

Summary:
IMDb describes it simply as "The missions and trials of a Toronto police tactical unit."
I guess so.
But this is the story of the Team 1 of the SRU (Strategic Response Unit). People who face death every day and are forced to kill become really close, so this isn't your typical idea of the word "team." People come and people go, both on the team and in team member's lives, but the story goes on. A threat is called in, and off the SRU goes to face whatever it is and save the lives of anyone put at risk. Anyone. Even the drug dealers and murderers and people they don't like. And they do it at the risk to their own lives. Every time.
But this isn't something you can do and then go home and forget about it. Because you can't forget about when you shot a man threatening to blow up a building, nor a girl threatening to shoot her father. You can't forget watching the girl you love get shot by a sniper buildings away. A man stealing a baby. A teammate's death. Bombs blowing up. Stuff. Life--to those on the team.

Word of Warning

•  Crime. There is a whole awful lot of crime going around. This might surprise you, it being a cop show and all, but there's a lot of it. Theft, murder, attempted murder, blowing things up, kidnapping, rape, gangs, drugs, the list goes on forever.
• Death. People die. Sometimes they are shot by SRU officers, sometimes they are not saved in time. Sometimes they try to kill themselves. There are a few major deaths that keep popping up during the series, so I will mention those. 1) a man is shot in the first episode by an SRU officer, right in front of the man's teenage son. 2) a girl who is threatening her father with a gun is shot by an SRU officer. There is a slow-mo shot of her falling, but no blood is shown. 3) one of the officers shot his friend by accident while in the military. 4) one member of the SRU dies in an explosion (off screen).
• Injuries. People get hurt a lot too. Gunshot wounds, getting punched and shoved around, stab wounds, etc. Rarely is there any gore shown. Blood, yes, but that's not the focus of the show so it is not dwelt upon. Even when there is blood just enough is used to make the point. Three instances stand out to me where there was a lot of blood: when a woman is hit in the arm with a piece of shrapnel, when a woman is shot by a sniper on a rooftop, a man is shot in the abdomen.
• Romance. It's not necessarily a problem, unless it is. I'm not spoiling anything by telling you this, since it establishes itself pretty early on, but two of the SRU team members quickly form a romantic relationship even though it is against regulations. They sleep together often. Aside from the SRU couple, some of the violence revolves around couples (abuse, rape, divorce, cheating on spouses, etc). There is more than one out of wedlock pregnancy.
• Stress. Sure, this is a big deal for the minor characters committing the crimes, but the focus is on the SRU. There's a lot of mental stress that goes with the job, and that's not ignored. Flashbacks, freezing up, PTSD, all that good stuff. The mental stress is there and it's acknowledged.
• Drinking and drugs. People go and get drinks all the time and rarely get drunk. Sometimes minor characters get drunk and that's involved in the SRU call. One officer had a history of being drunk, resulting in his wife taking their young son and moving to a different state. Drugs are not a problem on the SRU team, but are involved in a few different calls.

My Thoughts
It's good. It's also really hard to stop watching. While I really did find the action part of it interesting, I appreciated that attention was given to the mental state of the SRU officers. I think that was my favorite part, aside from the on-again-off-again romance on the team (which drove me crazy sometimes). My only objection is that there seems to be a disconnect at times between episodes. After doing some research on the web, it appears the disconnect (storylines not being carried over to the next episode when they should have been, etc) is because this is a Canadian show so the US only has most of the episodes. I haven't found anything to confirm this, but it would make sense. The whole thing is so well-written I have a hard time believing they just decided to forget about key storylines when writing the next episode.
I like that the focus is on the lives of the SRU officers, not the calls themselves. And I really like the bond of the team, how it flexes to work with new situations or nearly breaks when it cannot get over the old.
Overall, there's really not much to say about this show. It's just good. And if you have some free time, you might want to watch all of it. Because once you watch one episode, you'll be watching all of them.

TV Show Review: Terra Nova

(Please note that while I will not be reviewing specific episodes, I will be commenting on the specific trends that most of the episodes followed.)

Title: Terra Nova
Release Date: 2011
Genre: family, survival, dystopia, romance, TV series
My Rating: ***
Official Rating: N/A
Age Group: 12+

Summary
The Shannon family lives in a horrible dystopian Chicago in which there is a 2 child policy and air so thick masks are worn to keep from suffocating. But as the Shannons tell their youngest, they love each other and their children so much they wanted another. So they broke the law, and their third child Zoe lived happily with them for a few years before they were found out. Then, the father was thrown in prison, separated from his beloved family.
Then Mrs (Dr) Shannon receives an offer for a new life. She and her family can travel into the past through a time machine where an outpost (Terra Nova) has been set up to give people a second chance. She takes it. Only problem is that Mr. Shannon can't come. But the family always beats the odds, and Mr. Shannon escapes from prison and sneaks his youngest through the portal.
That's when the real excitement comes. The Shannons must learn to deal with family problems, giant dinosaurs, school, friends left behind, strange diseases, rebels attacking the outpost, mysterious deaths, and of course boys (and girls) from outside the family.
Can they make it? Will they remain a closely knit family? Will they all live?

Word of Warning

•  There is one episode early in the season in which the parents try over and over to get some time alone in their bedroom. While it's pretty clear to an older audience that they want to have sex (they're married and have been apart for years), it isn't ever stated and they only kiss and embrace. They finally do get their moment, but all we see their shadows as they kiss, then the scene cuts. It's actually a rather sweet and cute storyline, but could be seen as a problem.
• Dinosaurs kill people. In terrible ways. There is a good amount of gore in this show.
• People steal and sneak out when they're not supposed to and teens drink concoctions that are equivalent to being alcoholic.
• There are traitors and crazy people and a storyline eventually surfaces that shows how a father alienated his son.
• Blackmail.
• Kissing between married and unmarried couples.
• Death happens all the time. People's close family members die, members of Terra Nova die, people just die. Sometimes main characters cause this. Sometimes it isn't right, sometimes it's the only option.

My Thoughts

Part of me feels that I have forgotten something. But then I remember that all things considered it was a relatively clean TV show, which really impressed me. Aside from the gore, it wasn't so bad. The story was interesting, and as with all TV shows just when you're ready to stop watching because you realized the plot is the same for every episode, it gets more interesting and a twist is added.
And then, after working out that twist, another twist was thrown in, and the show as canceled. So there's that.
The reason I watched it though was not for the twists or the story. Honestly, I am very tired of dystopian anything. I watched it because it was mostly clean and it was about a family. It was sweet, watching the father bond again with his teen son as they learned how to understand each other again. Watching the father protect his family and decide what to do about his oldest daughter's love interest. Watching the mother interact with her children and her husband. Watching all of them interact with each other. There was self-sacrifice, love, fighting, forgiveness, suffering, fear...everything a normal family encounters.
In a dystopian universe where the characters travel back in time. And yes, I am still battling with whether or not traveling back in time counters the point of the dystopian genre.

My only problem (aside from the gore) is that this was not continued. I really fell in love with the family. Not one character and not the plot line. It was the family.

TV Show Review: The Lone Ranger (1949-57)

(Please note that as I am not reviewing specific episodes, I will be commenting on trends that most of the episodes followed.)

Title: The Lone Ranger
Author: N/A
Genre: Western
My Rating: *****
Official Rating: PG? I don't think it has one
Age Group: 6+
Summary:
John Reid and his brother, along with other Texas Rangers, are ambushed by Cavendish in a canyon. All are killed.
When Tonto the Native American rides through, he sees the bodies and is horrified. He begins to bury them out of respect and finds something very strange: one of them is still alive.
Tonto nurses John Reid back to health and Reid decides he must put a stop to the evil deeds of people like Cavendish. In order to do this, he must put on a mask, get a new horse, and find some ammo. Thus, the Lone Ranger is born. He has a white hat, a black mask, shoots silver bullets, and rides a white horse with Tonto by his side (riding Scout)
They ride for justice.

Word of Warning

• This is the wild west. People are shot, though the death count is low compared to most westerns.
• The Lone Ranger is disguised and refuses to tell anyone who he is. He allows people to believe that John Reid is dead.
• The Lone Ranger shoots, but not to kill. Instead, he shoots to disarm his opponent and not injure him (if possible).
• People are in danger, shot at, and in need of assistance (thus the appearance of the Lone Ranger).
• Animals die, things burn, people are hurt.
• There is very little romance when it comes to the episodes (mainly because the main characters encounter one or two in the course of the entire show). Granted, it does exist, but if I remember correctly, it is rarely (if ever) problematic.
• Note that while danger does occur, it is usually portrayed in a rather tame way compared to what is shown on the screen today.
• This may be one of the cleanest westerns ever written and aired.

My Thoughts:
Appropriate for children, the show attracted a variety of ages, though one did not often see the older fans running around the house shouting "Hi-yo Silver, away!", chattering about using silver bullets, or using the words "ke-mo sah-bee" as often as possible.
The Lone Ranger is a super hero of sorts. He wears a mask and rode about the west coming to the rescue of those in need who could get help from no one else. He always succeed, though it is not always clear that this will be the case. He has almost no character flaws. The Lone Ranger is the western's Superman. And that's not so bad, because Superman was one of the few superheroes who was truly good. Bringing an exciting experience to the screen, then, is this superhero of the west: The Lone Ranger--a good man. A true man.
What more could we possibly want?

TV Show Review: Bonanza (1959-73)

(Please note that I am not reviewing specific episodes, but just all of them as a whole. As a result I will comment on trends, not necessarily particular problems with each episode.)

Title: Bonanza (1959-73)
Author: N/A
Genre: Historical Fiction, Western
My Rating: ****
Official Rating: None (probably PG--a few possibly reaching PG-13)
Age Group: 10+

Summary:
Mr. Cartwright and his three sons own a huge chunk of land known as the Ponderosa, located in Nevada. The Bonanza TV series tells the stories of their battles with the land, and those living on it, attempting to keep their belongings safe from those who would take or destroy them. In typical western style, there are horses, guns, and fights everywhere.

Word of Warning:

• Guns are used, but people are rarely shot. If they are, it is even more rarely the good guy who is shot. Even if the bad guy is the one who is shot, people still feel bad about it and try to make up for it. The Cartwrights are especially wary of shooting at another person, which often puts their lives in danger.
• Fist fights.
• Drinking. All the time. Sometimes it ends up in drunkenness, but usually this is not the case.
• The youngest of the three brothers, Little Joe, is always falling for a new woman. This results in flirting and some kissing.
• A few deaths here and there.
• A rough and tough way of life. Sometimes under a roof, sometimes under the stars. Sometimes on the run, sometimes at home in bed.

My Thoughts:
For those of us who love westerns, this is right up there with The Lone Ranger. Only in this case, it's just a family (minus the mother who passed on years ago) fighting to protect what's theirs. The West is a harsh place, and the boys are brought up not only to protect themselves but also to do what's right. The episodes are filled with mini lessons and illustrations of moral virtue. Granted, they don't always make the right choice, but they always try. When they mess up, they confess and try to fix the damage they've done. It is, in a sense, what true story telling is meant to be.