• Tag Archives Televised

  • The show was aired on TV.

  • LEGIⓧN & THE ALIENIST

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    Based off of a Marvel Comics’ character, the 3-season television series Legion is a study in high-concept insanity. It takes guts to make something so deliberately incoherent, to essentially thread together one concept episode after another until you have a consistently inconsistent schizophrenic tapestry… that I can’t deny. Doesn’t mean it’s worth watching though.

    The Alienist is something quite a bit different. A Victorian era thriller with police procedural elements set in New York City, its first season mainly busies itself with highlighting police corruption and reminding people that prostitution is a gender-neutral profession. I’m not at all surprised that it had a middling reception (though I liked the first half or so), especially since the narrative basically falls apart once the focus shifts to ‘the west’.

    The second season, subtitled Angel of Darkness, puts a greater focus on Sara and women’s suffrage in general with the murder victims being babies this time rather than adolescents. The corruption elements here come across as excessive/overwhelming and the work as a whole almost feels less like a thriller and more like soapbox preaching. Meaning I can’t really recommend watching this series either.

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged

  • SHINCHOU YUUSHA ~Kono YUUSHA ga ORE TUEEE Kuse ni SHINCHOU Sugiru~ & Hataage! Kemono Michi

    Posted on by Offkorn 1 Comment

    Shinchou Yuusha is an interesting series in that you can clearly see it’s an amalgam of earlier works, yet the fusion is pulled off competently enough to result in a consistent whole. The reaction-based comedy is stylistically identical to Konosuba‘s, but in content it’s quite different with a much greater focus on JRPG parody than sex/ecchi. Meanwhile it also has a Goblin Slayer-like stoically single-minded main character and splashes of similar gory drama.

    The combination never comes across as forced, with the one seamlessly blending into the other.

    After that somewhat surprising success story, it seemed like a good idea to try another series (strike while the iron’s hot and all that). Which is where Hataage! Kemono Michi comes in. Also a comedic isekai with a… monomaniac central character the two seemed like they might complement one another. And despite this being more ecchi-centric they actually do. There’s no genre shifts here though; it’s pure comedy.

    As a sidenote: I didn’t realize these two aired at the same time when deciding what to watch after Shinchou Yuusha. It’s strange that shows with such a similar theme (and I’m not talking about them both being isekai) got scheduled in the same season.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8301

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in 2019 - Autumn Anime Related and tagged

  • WITCHBLADE & HOMELAND

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    The turn of the century TV adaptation of the comicbook series Witchblade begins with a movie. Being almost entirely an action-drama (there’s some supernatural mystery in there as well), it suffers rather severely from the fact that the action scenes are mostly ridiculous. More than anything they bring to mind a super sentai series… making it prohibitively difficult to take the drama seriously.

    Homeland is also a TV series, one which thankfully doesn’t appear to suffer from unintentional comedy (just frontloaded gratuitous nudity). The first season is a combination of thriller and familial drama which comes across something like “Hex: The Early Years”. On the face of things that shouldn’t have been much of a problem, but the early ‘fuck people’s privacy!’ theme is taken to Stalker-ish extremes and almost ends up a deal-killer.

    The second season is a continuation of the first, following a timeskip, which slows things down with more of a focus on secret-agenty behavior and personal trauma. The third picks up shortly after and amps up the personal drama quite a bit. At this juncture the re-occurring psychiatric issues subplot (and accompanying mental institution committals) becomes actively aggravating. It also happens to be the point the series starts focusing a hell of a lot more on Saul than Carrie.

    Season 4 is something of a soft reboot which makes the odd choice to replace the adultery-related drama with childcare drama only to almost immediately drop the topic completely, while also going well out of its way to shoehorn in more psychiatric issues. Seriously… what the fuck? And if that weren’t bad enough, the 5th season (picking up two years after S4’s conclusion) goes completely off the rails.

    It’s strange… the show makes so many odd choices and sends so many conflicting signals that it’s tough to get a read on it. The early seasons are both good and bad. Regardless, if you do decide to give it a chance, you should definitely stop watching at the end of S4 (if you can make it that far). Maybe go watch Jormungand after for the Hex/Bookman parallels.

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged

  • PSYCHO-PASS | Sinners of the System & Season 3

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    The three Sinners of the System movies are a mixed bag. Being theoretically set a few months after the first Psycho-Pass movie, in practice only the third actually functions like a sequel.

    The first is a side-story that completely overhauls Mika’s personality (for the better) and feels like it should be a prequel to the second season. It’s also not very good. The second is mostly a prequel flashback to the first season (framed by a few ‘modern day’ scenes set before the previous movie) focused on one of the S2 enforcers. This movie is quite good. And then there’s the 3rd movie, which…. Well, it’s sort of required watching if you plan to follow-up with Season 3, yet it comes across nothing like a Psycho-Pass work.

    That third season begins after a multi-year timeskip, and quite a number of things have changed: Mika underwent another personality overhaul, Japan has relaxed its isolationist stance, Sibyl is gearing up to reveal its presence to the masses, Akane is off the team, and there are three new enforcers and two new inspectors. The old team is still around, just in a notably different role. It’s surprisingly good (clearly meant to be a return to Season 1 sensibilities) but suffers both from a number of unexplained developments and having Arata be so ludicrously overpowered. It also ends on a cliffhanger…

    …resolved by a ‘movie’ follow-up. This bloated conclusion takes the concept of “homage” far too far. It apparently wanted to recapture the magic of the mid-series Season 1 climax, but instead stumbles time and again with both questionable action scenes and by just flat-out dragging things out for too long.

    In the end it’s tough to recommend watching any of these besides the 2nd SS movie: The first is a pointless sidestory, the third lacks any Psycho-Pass sensibility, S3 requires having seen that third SS movie, and First Inspector is just plain tedious.

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in 2019 - Autumn 2019 - Winter 2020 - Winter Anime Related and tagged

  • TRUE DETECTIVE

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    I’ve heard quite a number of good things about True Detective‘s premiere season, and the first 4.5 episodes absolutely live up to the hype. However… once it abandons the past narrative to focus on a current day case, alluded to by the interview framing device, it deteriorates quite quickly. Genre-wise it’s a mix of thrillerish dramatic elements combined with familial/relationship drama and a bit of action here and there, all of which fit together remarkably well.

    The second season switches up the cast, location, and structure; no framing gimmicks here (though there is a time skip). The genre composition remains more or less the same while the character personalities/goals are quite different and it has more of an ensemble cast sort of thing going on. Overall I’d say this season ends up significantly better than the first. Oh sure it starts out shaky and a bit difficult to follow, which can be damning if compared directly to the first season’s beginning, but the connection between the pre- and post-timeskip plotlines is far stronger and the work as a whole is noticeably more consistent.

    The third season goes back to the style and structure of the first in pretty much every way (no, adding a second interview timeline does not count as an innovation), even directly referencing it. Why? Why would you retread old ground like this? Was all the criticism of the second season really so influential or did the creator simply run out of ideas? Just re-watch the first season rather than bother with this pointless rehash.

    In summary: The first is good, the second is great, and the third is a waste of time (unless you like shows featuring alzheimer’s sufferers I guess).

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged

  • COP CRAFT & Kyokou Suiri: In/Spectre

    Posted on by Offkorn 1 Comment

    After seeing a comment that made it sound like Red Data Girl, and noticing the rather large disconnect between the early (edgy) and current (goofy) promotional imagery, I decided to finally get around to watching In/Spectre… and I’m undecided on whether it was a mistake or not. While the beginning is enjoyable, the remaining two-thirds to 50% is for the most part pretty boring and/or distractingly implausible. Rather than an engaging mystery/thriller, exciting action series, or amusing romantic comedy it just ends up something like the second coming of Kyoukai no Kanata.

    Cop Craft on the other hand I didn’t have any particularly strong desire to see, but the ‘odd couple’ relationship angle seemed like it might complement the previous series. It did not. Rather, it reminded me rather acutely of why I mostly stopped watching Anime in the first place. While the series has a lot of ideas and messages to impart, some of them even pretty good, it never manages to sell any of them. Stuff is just sort of thrown at the wall and then forgotten an episode or two later.

    What’s interesting is that both of these series (despite their source material having been written 11 and 9 years ago, respectively) seem tailor-made for current events. In the former’s case you have the central theme of using lies and ‘questions’ to obfuscate and/or distract from the truth, while in the latter you have democracy being boiled down to ‘not choosing which one is good, just which one is better’ and corrupt police. So in the end these two series did end up complimenting one another… just not in the way I had expected.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8301

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in 2019 - Summer 2020 - Winter 2023 - Winter Anime Related and tagged

  • Batman & Lucifer

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    The Batman prequel Gotham starts off remarkably good, basically a crime drama with some action elements and a moderate streak of eccentricity, but as it progresses events become increasingly unhinged. So while there are a few good bits in the second season (the third is garbage), ultimately I can’t recommend watching beyond the first.

    I specifically avoided watching The Dark Knight Rises when it was released mainly due to a review that said it was more a Bruce Wayne movie than a Batman movie. That review ended up being spot on. More problematic though is Bane; why does he sound like an English aristocrat? His voice is beyond disconcerting. Overall I’d say Batman vs. Superman tells this sort of ‘aging Batman’ story far more competently, with a far more believable villain, and a much bigger payoff.

    Lucifer meanwhile turned out to be a hybrid of buddy cop police procedural and urban fantasy familial drama. In quite a few ways it’s reminiscent of Castle, and so far it’s the only DC TV series I’ve seen that manages to avoid deteriorating over time: What you get in the first episode is what you get in the 40th.

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged

  • ARROW – Seasons 4-8

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    Let’s just get the remaining Arrow seasons out of the way all at once:

      Season 4 – Fantasy elements take center stage this season. Both the present and past main villains are sorcerers, there’s a couple Constantine cameos, a bit more Lazarus Pool fuckery, and a crossover special heavy with Egyptian mythology. It’s not very good… and whomever thought that airing halves of a plot-driven crossover event in different series was a good idea should’ve been fired. Also: Netspeak should never, ever be spoken aloud.

      Season 5 – This season introduces a (mostly) new team, trades the boardroom for the mayor’s office, and retreads some of the same ground the first season covered adversary-wise. The fantasy elements are gone, which is a positive, but the new team is worse than the old and once again we have orphaned cross-over episodes (two this time, one featuring a brief creepily perky Supergirl appearance).

      Season 6 – Hey, remember that annoying secret identity drama from the first season? Guess what? That just so happens to be the central focus here. The series really should’ve just ended after the first season.

      Season 7 – Events here don’t start off very Arrow-like at all. Lot of focus on the police, FBI, and prison side of things… not so much the vigilante side. If this is what you wanted to do, why not just go work on one of the quadrillion existing police procedurals floating around instead? While it does gets more Arrow-y toward the halfway point, it does so in the bad arbitrary way that’s been par for the course in recent seasons and doesn’t drop the police-side perspective until the last quarter or so.

      Season 8 – This is more like a miniseries than a proper season. With less than half the length it mainly focuses on a single extremely comicbook plotline (alongside continued flash-forwards and an episode to wrap up the Guild of Assassins subplot). It’s amazing how they could so thoroughly squander the opportunity to finally tell a concise, focused story.

    Well, that was an impressive waste of time. On the positive side of things, at least the crossover episodes cured me of any desire to check out Supergirl or Batwoman (never had any plans of watching Flash).

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged

  • ARROW – Season 3

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    Arrow’s third season starts off decent enough. Rather than unfocused it instead comes across as… unhurried? It knows what it wants to do and does it without any particular fanfare or expository explanations.

    While preferable to the ‘pick ideas out of a hat’ methodology the second season had going on, I can’t say the end result is particularly engaging since ‘what it wants to do’ is explicitly contradict its own core premise. Not only is Oliver now ‘poor’ (though functionally there’s no difference) but he was no longer trapped on a island for 5 years; the survivalism flashbacks get replaced by secret agent flashbacks. What’s even the point of this retcon? What does it add besides extreme incredulity? Then there’s the last quarter.

    The League of Assassins plotline is dumb. Real dumb. So of course the show has to focus on it 100% for the climax while tossing in some fantasy elements (which appear to become more pronounced in later seasons) and bizarre character behavior. Just because a work is inspired by a comic doesn’t mean it’s required to feature the same sort of nonsense plot developments and schizophrenic characterizations endemic to the medium.

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged

  • ARROW – Season 2

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    This season picks up from where the first left off following a short time skip.

    It’s nowhere near as focused and mostly just comes across as a random assortment of ideas thrown at a wall: Arbitrary resurrections, sudden sci-fi elements (though some might consider those a positive considering the series didn’t start off very superhero-like), some questionable costume choices, and the appearance of a ninja army (not quite as bad as Daredevil‘s, but still pretty bad).

    I’m generally not one to mourn a loss of realism, but here that was in a sense the show’s defining trait. The corporate elements don’t work well either. As for positives… well, I guess Laurel’s arc is solid enough and I’m certainly not sad to see the (apparent) end of Thea’s questionable romance.

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged