Orphan Black Review – “The Weight of this Combination”

Kyle’s Review

I can’t say enough nice things about Orphan Black. The previous two season were excellent (writing, acting, directing, and general awesomeness) and I keep waiting for the show to fall off. That didn’t happen with its third season debut episode “The Weight of this Combination” and it could have given how last season ended. Orphan Black’s second season ended with a microphone drop of sorts, introducing a series of male clones that could’ve upset the show’s balance.

I say balance because Tatiana Maslany is brilliant as the female clones and that was a lot for Ari Millen to live up to. He’s done an admirable job so far but the show hasn’t gotten away from what made it great the previous two season: Maslany.

It’s criminal that she hasn’t been nominated for an Emmy but Sci Fi shows typically don’t receive love come award season. Malany will play one clone, pretending to be another clone, and she nails it. She doesn’t portray Rachel in the scenes where Sarah infiltrates DYAD, she portrays Sarah pretending to Rachel. It’s just off enough, in the manner of how Sarah would be off when playing Rachel, so that other characters that know Rachel well can tell that she isn’t who she claims to be and close enough to fool characters who may not have been in contact with Rachel that much—and the best part is that the fans are in on it the whole time.

The plot is a tangled mess at this point – you’ll have to catch up with seasons one and two before watching this episode – but if you can binge watch this show in order to watch Orphan Black’s third season, I highly recommend it. It’s the best Sci Fi TV show on air and I’m going to stop waiting for the show to slip.

Verdict:

Orphan Black is the best Sci Fi TV show, period. You owe it to yourself to watch “The Weight of this Combination.” The opening sequence alone is a great one: we get to see the perfect world of one of the show’s least understood characters, Helena.

Arrow Review – “The Fallen”

Kyle’s Review

I’ll give Arrow this, they are fully committed to the Ra’s Al Ghul arc. I’m still not sure if the Ra’s Al Ghul arc’s a good or bad thing but it’s something very few other shows would try, so that makes it interesting.

Still, there are a lot of incongruities with this episode. How does Thea know that Merlyn’s her father but doesn’t know that Ollie’s alive? How can Ollie go to the ends of the earth to bring back his sister from the dead and then leave his sister in less than a minute to have steamy extended cable sex with Felicity that’s cut short by a flashback? Who thought that Felicity’s idea to smuggle Ollie out of Nanda Parbat was a good idea? That had to be the most laughable moment this season.

Despite all that, the acting was good. Stephen Amell has perfected his wounded face – I just hope they don’t over use it like Laurel’s doe eyes – and his farewells to his team were genuine. I liked him calling Diggle his “brother” and “the best man he’s ever known.” That’s right, Ollie. Never forget your first and best friend.

Merlyn was less of a tool and more fatherly this week but his whole premise of the Lazarus Pit changing a person at their core didn’t pan out. Besides ten seconds of rage, Thea was more confused than anything else. Once she returned to Starling, she was back to the normal Thea, so I don’t see why Merlyn would object to a Lazarus bath or why the gang hasn’t thought to do the same for Sara.

As for Matt Nable as Ra’s, he’s done an adequate job. I think most fans were upset with Arrow casting a Brit as Ra’s because they thought that Brit would’ve been Liam Neeson reprising his Batman Begins role. Nable has enough screen presence to pull off the role but he does come off as Neeson portraying Ra’s instead of a different Ra’s. I also liked Ra’s’s offhand remark about his other children. Could he be referring to Talia and Dusan al Ghul?

The flashbacks disappointed again this week. They don’t add anything to the present day arc that we didn’t already know and this week’s flashbacks continued the trend of not explaining Maseo’s thought process behind making Ollie the new Ra’s. He had to know about the prophecy.

We know that Team Arrow won’t take Ollie’s absence lying down but what does Ollie’s new position mean to his heroic career? Ollie has the League at his disposal but I don’t think they’ll help him play the Good Samaritan.

Verdict:

An interesting but confusing episode of Arrow, “The Fallen” gave a strong blueprint for the season’s finale. I just hope it’s a finale that ties everything together.

No, we have no Arrow secrets today.

Sorry, there’s no Arrow secrets page this week because there weren’t too many secrets this week besides the aforementioned Lazarus Pit making its first real appearance and Ollie joining the League — for now — but we’ll leave you with one tidbit. Remember how Arrow gets branded at the end of this week’s episode?

Well, the arrowhead during Arrow’s opening sequence has changed every year and usually, that’s for aesthetics (except for the Cupid episode) but this year, Arrow’s arrowhead has hinted at this moment.

That had to hurt, Ollie.

The Flash Secrets: April 24, 2015

Who is The Everyman?

In the DC Comics Universe, Hannibal Bates is the shape-shifting villain, The Everyman, created by Lex Luthor. He has shifted into Luthor and the Blue Beetle in the past but his most heinous act had to be when he became Green Arrow and went as far as marrying Black Canary. It took an arrow to the neck on the two love birds’ wedding night to stop the two from consummating the marriage.

Now, take that above wedding scenario and add the fact that The Everyman can’t take your form by simply touching someone in the comics; he had to eat a small portion of them.

Gross.

Hi there, Starling City

Cisco and Joe met up with Detective Lance in Starling City this week and there were a lot of references to what’s going on in that show. I won’t go into the quality of those references but it’s a good sign that The Flash and Arrow don’t mind crossing over with various characters. I hope this is a sign of things to come.

Welcome to Coast City

Barry made a long trek for pizza this week. He ordered a pie from Hal Jordan’s home time of Coast City. We’ve discussed Coast City in the past – so I won’t go into too much detail here – but the biggest and worst thing to have ever happened in Coast City has to be the super villain Mongul destroying the city in the nineties. Even though Coastal City’s numbers increased to over two million, Nekron – during the Blackest Night arc – chose Coast City as the location of his ascension. He raised Coast City’s dead and it took Earth’s heroes and the Lantern Corps to defeat Nekron, restoring the city to order—for the most part.

Canary Cry

Cisco converted the sonic device Sara had used in Arrow into a necklace. This modification should make the device look and function closer to Black Canary’s sonic scream. In the comics, she’s usually a metahuman but they have used technology to mimic this effect. And for those comic purists, most Black Canary costumes include a choker similar to the one Cisco gave Sara, so Arrow might be adopting a more traditional look for the Canary.

Abnormal sonic frequency

Hunh? Cisco delivers another piece of vibration-powered tech. Could he be closer to becoming Vibe?

What the Frak?

Leave to Cisco to drop another geek pop cultural reference like a Battlestar Galactica exclamation. Take that, you frakking toasters.

If you missed our Flash “Who is Harrison Wells?” review, here’s a link to the review. Enjoy.

The Flash Review – “Who Is Harrison Wells?”

Jim’s Review

This week’s Flash wasn’t quite the return to form I was hoping for. The villain of the week had a lot of potential, but unfortunately, their decision to make everyone so slow-witted this episode drained the potential tension from the shape-shifting enemy angle.

Iris was given a reason to back off her pouty routine, but the damage is done there. It was a little weird having her and Laurel on screen in the same episode, and realizing Laurel has competition for most obnoxious female character.

The biggest nuisance of the week–by far–having a bunch of supposed geniuses know that a shape-shifting metahuman is on the loose, seeing familiar faces acting abnormally, then not making the connection until it was too late. It was just more laziness on the part of the writers’ room.

Speaking of laziness, we had more than a slight dose of sloppy, expositional dialogue this week. Detectives West and Lance having their heart-to-heart felt out of character for each of them, and sort of a desperate attempt to remind us of the current subplot in Arrow.

The show was spared by its ending. The shape-shifter story was a clumsy attempt at a parallel story line, but it helped move Harrison Wells’ story forward, and that’s been overdue. Seeing Barry, Caitlin and Cisco at the end made this a worthwhile episode.

The show still needs to find its footing again, but the build toward the home-stretch of the season looks promising.

Kyle’s Take

I want to disagree with most of Jim’s review but I can’t.

The Flash has never done as good of a job of building a parallel story line as past seasons of the Arrow, so it’s not surprising that the shape-shifter story didn’t sync with the Wells arc. This is where recurring villains could help. I’m not saying that The Flash must have nothing but ongoing arcs but if some of their villains (besides Wells and Captain Cold) showed up three to five times in a season, it’d make a more compelling story. The Pied Piper would’ve played off the gang’s misgivings about Wells better in this episode (as would his sonic tech, since Cisco uses similar tech for Black Canary).

Speaking of Laurel, I’m not sure the writers of The Flash/Arrow can write a good female character and it gets worse when the female in question doesn’t have powers or training. Does anyone else remember the Huntress or Sarah’s bevy of hambone lines like “Pain and I came to an understanding a long time ago?” Ugh.

Iris may or may not be likeable but her one outburst doesn’t compare with years of poor Laurel writing. Laurel slept with Ollie after he cheated on her with her sister and she blamed him for her sister’s death. Who does that? For two seasons, Laurel and Sarah played Ollie like a game of pinball: they were the flippers, slapping Ollie’s ball. That’s so wretched that it’s sub-Kardashian.

I also don’t buy the father-to-father talk for West and Lance – that exchange felt like an out-of-body experience for the two characters – and I’m concerned about the ending. Yes, it was cool from a fanboy stance, but after the gloss wore off, I was left scratching my head.

I’m not digging how Team Arrow imploded and their writers’ clumsiness of a partial series reboot, and I can see The Flash getting to that point faster than Arrow. I agree that the gang has to discover that Wells is Reverse-Flash – or else they’re stupid and Barry’s flash to the past doesn’t make as much sense – but they aren’t as strong of a team as Team Arrow. What happens now? Wells funds their team. He owns their headquarters. Is this happening so fast that the continuance of Barry’s heroic exploits at this level are far-fetched if they confront Wells? I fear that The Flash may use time-travel as a story-saving panacea in the manner that Arrow looks poised to use people coming back from the dead.

Verdict:

An interesting episode that doesn’t balance two parallel storylines, but the ending will generate buzz and that’s what an effective ending does.

Not enough Flash for you? Speed off to our Flash secrets page.

iZombie Review – “Virtual Reality Bites”

Kyle’s Review

The other shoe fell during this week’s “Virtual Reality Bites” and it looks like Liv is in a relationship with another zombie. I liked how the creative team took their time to introduce romance to the story before this week and let us get accustomed to the possibility but they fast forward through a few steps.

I get that Mr. Hunk Zombie with a British accent is one of a few dating options for Liv but I could’ve used a few more weeks leading up to them as soulmates. Okay, they didn’t use the term soulmate but it was implied and the fact that these two zombies, who were overly cautious up to this week, are jumping into a relationship doesn’t track. But despite the romance story faltering, there were plenty of other good ongoing arcs.

I like the zombie underground, meat market – iZombie has played this card well – but I wonder how long they can keep Liv and Blaine apart. Major investigating the missing street kids and coming up with Blaine will force iZombie to revisit Liv’s distrust of him but this should shake the zombie community’s tree. Liv and Zombie Hunk think they’re two of the few undead in town but that should change.

The only constant will be the weekly mysteries. This week’s mystery worked better than last week’s, but fell a little flat when compared with the ones at the beginning of the season. It felt more like a typical police procedural, complete with a gotcha moment at the end, but it was satisfying enough. Let’s hope that the ongoing story arcs and the one introduced at the end of this episode (I won’t spoil it; I swear) will lead iZombie in new and exciting directions.

Verdict:

iZombie delivered the promised zombie romance in this week’s “Virtual Reality Bites” but the zombie underground remains the more interesting arc and it may have some company.

Powers Review – “Level 13”

Kyle’s Review

Powers managed to keep me off-balance this week. I liked the use of Pulp Fiction jump cuts: six days ago became two hours ago and then three days ago and then back again. I couldn’t keep up with what happened when – and that was problematic at times – but I knew what Walker wanted and questioned if he was playing Johnny Royalle or his fellow cops or both. Walker chose the latter and that was good but the twist ending was great.

The ending marked the official closing of to the Simons arc and – unfortunately – the Calista one started anew. After the events of “Level 13,” Calista doesn’t have purpose in the world of Powers. Maybe she’ll find her powers and that’ll be something but for now, Krispin is far more interesting.

Walker fails to comfort Krispin and to avenge the death of Krispin’s mother. Walker’s moral grayness accentuates Krispin’s idea that there are no heroes or villains in this world, but while Krispin insists that all powers are a sham, the truth is that they aren’t so much a sham as they are humans with powers. There’s a reason the comic and the show aren’t called “Heroes”—besides the obvious copyright infringement.

“Level 13” stands out from the other episodes of Powers because they had few special effects – What’s with that terrible CGI? – and the script was written by the comic’s creator, Brian Michael Bendis. BMB doesn’t always hit homeruns but Powers is one of his better works and this episode captured its frenetic pace, while showcasing the tone of the source material. I won’t spoil the ending for you here but it’s great and should lead to a satisfying finale.

Verdict:

Just when I thought all hope was lost for the series, Powers delivered its best episode so far. This week’s “Level 13” cranked the series to thirteen in time for its finale.

Batman vs Robin

Jim’s Review

If you’re like me, DC has been consistently disappointing you with their live-action films. That hasn’t been quite as true with their animated releases, however. Some of those have actually been downright impressive, with Under the Red Hood and Justice League: Doomed being the big standouts.

Batman vs Robin is the follow up to Son of Batman, which, if I’m being honest, was a huge let-down. Batman vs Robin does a bit better. It starts strong, and it uses some of the more iconic images from Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Court of the Owls story arc.

The move loses steam well before the end however, as the larger plot is sloppily revealed and pushed along with little to get it to make sense. I think the biggest crimes of the movie are two-fold. First, Batman is too easily duped by Damian. This is a mark of poor writing. They want to make Damian look formidable, so they try to achieve it by making another character comparatively foolish. Secondarily, and this may be the bigger one, the film needed to be far more careful in depicting the fight scenes with Dollmaker’s minions, then with Damian. Essentially, we see Batman fight children, and that is almost as unnerving as the fact that he very nearly loses. We understand Robin is no ordinary kid, but he is a kid, and no amount of intellect or acrobatic prowess can compensate for seeing Batman dropping an elbow on a 10-year-old’s spine.

If you’ve enjoyed some of DC’s more recent animated works, you’ll probably want to give this a look. Don’t come expecting to get an adaptation of Court of Owls, or Morrison’s Batman Inc. work, because while there are some borrowed elements, this is very different. My best advice is rent it, don’t buy it.

Arrow Secrets: April 17, 2015

Deathbolt

How did Jake Simmons become a metahuman? Looks like Cisco and Ray have some research to do. In the DC Comics Universe, Simmons’ plane was hit by lightning and a meteor. He was found in a crater by the Ultra-Humanite and became the mad scientist’s guinea pig. The Ultra-Humanite charged Simmons with electrical shocks, which eventually turned him into a living battery, a “Deathbolt.”

The Ultra-Humanite

Should the Jake Simmons arc run this direction, we could see Superman’s original nemesis and the first comic book recurring super-villain, the Ultra-Humanite, make his first appearance on screen. Originally, the Ultra-Humanite was a super genius that could transfer his mind into other bodies. This useful skill made him an enemy to the Justice Society and later the Justice League.

But DC’s New 52 recast the Ultra-Humanite as a prisoner of the Phantom Zone—that’s the mirror prison General Zod and his cronies were banished to in Superman 2 for folks who don’t follow the comics—and he feeds off of other’s fear. If Arrow/The Flash uses this new storyline, we may not see the Ultra-Humanite and I’d be sad if that was the case. The Ultra-Humanite has had some killer battles with Gorilla Grodd in addition to the heroes in both shows.

Welcome to Opal City

Another DC Comics Universe city received a name drop in Arrow this week. This time the little port town of Opal City that’s been the home to Starman, the Black Condor, and the Elongated Man had Jake Simmons pass through it recently. The big question is whether or not his visit was for business or pleasure. Simmons doesn’t strike me as the fun-lovin’ type.

Gantner and Yount

Deathbolt committed some of his crimes at a street corner that sounds like a shout out to a couple of star baseball players from the 80’s. Jim Gantner and Robin Yount who, along with Paul Molitor, made up one of the best infields in the MLB during the 80’s. I don’t know if Arrow has a Brewers fan in their writer’s room or if this was either an 80’s reference or a Milwaukee one. I’d imagine it’s the later.

If you saw our DC Universe Cities map a few months ago, you’d know that Arrow has made some references to Starling City being in Wisconsin. If Starling named a couple of streets after Brewers, that’d be another Wisconsin reference.

In case you missed it, or you need another look, here’s a link to our DC Universe Cities Map.

Supermax

We had a lot of scenes with Roy fighting his way through a super-maximum security prison and that could be a tip of the hat to a former, planned Green Arrow movie called Supermax. In Supermax, Green Arrow was unjustly imprisoned and had to fight his way out of a super-maximum security prison. The movie hoped to cash in on the success of the Smallville regular Green Arrow. Instead, DC and the CW produced Arrow.

I think they made the right decision.

The Illusion of Death

You’ve gotta love Merlyn’s magic bag o’ trickery. Roy joins the ranks of people who seemed to have died on the Arrow only to not die. He’s in good company since Oliver, Sarah, Merlyn, Slade Wilson and most likely Thea have faked death or died and came back to life.

4116 Dixon Canyon

Could Arrow be paying homage to 90’s Green Arrow scribe Chuck Dixon? Given the show’s track record, I’d say yes.

Did you happen to miss our Arrow review? If you did, here’s a link to it. Enjoy.

Arrow Review – “Broken Arrow”

Jim’s Review

If you’re following Arrow this season, you probably know that enjoying an episode requires suspension of disbelief. Most books, TV shows, movies etc…require that to some degree, and Arrow is no different. With Roy claiming to be the masked vigilante who rescued him on a live TV broadcast, the show is pushing disbelief a little far, but if you can make that leap, this is a satisfying episode.

We had a villain of the week, and that brought about a team-up with Ray/The Atom, and that felt a lot like prepping for the upcoming spin-off. It wasn’t a bad story, it just wasn’t enough to really grab my attention this week. The real strength of Arrow at this point is the heat from Ra’s al Ghul. That’s really what’s providing the show with the thrust that Deathstroke gave last season, and that’s why I think Arrow is gaining steam as the season moves to a finish.

If there’s one thing I absolutely have to take the Arrow writers’ room to task over, it’s their tendency to find an angle, then play it entirely too hard. I feel like Captain Lance has been that angle the last couple weeks. I get that he’s a grieving father, and that’s cause enough to forgive a lot of his outbursts and his clouded judgment, but they’ve played it so hard that Lance is now unlikeable in my eyes. He’s become too much of a hypocrite, too spiteful, and while the show seems to be acknowledging that internally with the chief of police apparently questioning Lance’s investigation of Oliver, it’s going to be a difficult–if not an impossible thing for his character to rebound from.

All things considered, this was a decent episode. I’ll try and keep it spoiler-free, and just say some major things happened. Roy’s story felt a little rushed, and the reason given for deceiving Ollie wasn’t at all satisfactory. It was clear they just wanted to fake-out the audience. Thea’s twist at the end had a lot more potential, but the trailer for the next episode sloppily gave away a spoiler there.

After a slow and inconsistent start to the season, I’m gaining a little faith that season 3 will finish strong.

Kyle’s Take

This week’s episode of Arrow, “Broken Arrow,” wasn’t as bad as I had feared—they didn’t go the Spartacus route, so I didn’t have to change my underpants—but it wasn’t satisfying either. My suspension of disbelief has been stretched wafer thin.

The Roy storyline wasn’t a little rushed, it was me after two bowls of bran cereal, three cups of coffee, and five doses of X-Lax. Team Arrow has wanted to get Roy off the set since the beginning of the season and they’ve accomplished that. But Roy’s story felt down right regular, when placed beside Captain Lance’s.

I’ve never seen a character, like Captain Lance, start out hunting a vigilante, then joining his crusade, and then start hunting the vigilante again. While I wouldn’t be surprised if Lance switches back (he has a way of doing that), it’d take Sarah coming back from the grave—and it looks like that could be arranged.

Whenever you introduce the Lazarus Pit, you always have a chance of characters coming back to life willy nilly. And here we go. Since Arrow already spoiled this one for us, I’ll go ahead and explain what happened in the trailer. Thea’s pierced gut won’t keep her dead for long. She gets a Lazarus Pit bath, goes crazy, and Ollie will have to spend some time in Nanda Parbat to talk her down from the ledge. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Sarah receives a similar spa treatment. If this happens, Captain Lance will either accept Ollie for bringing his daughter back to life or spend years trying to talk some sense into a zombiefied Sarah.

The villain of the week could have set up the impending spin-off in more ways than one. We got more Atom and he should see more action in the spin-off, but we also got a hint of another villain. No, not Jake Simmons’ Deathbolt, but the one who turned Simmons into Deathbolt. In the comic, Deathbolt was the lab rat of the Ultra-Humanite. You could confuse the Ultra-Humanite with Grodd. He’s an ape-like mad scientist and one of Superman’s first villains. He’s been a fixture in Action Comics before Lex, and that could cause problems with the whole “we can’t mention Superman” rule the CW has, if they go the Ultra-Humanite route. We’ll have to see.

Getting back to the Ra’s Al Ghul arc, Arrow has something to build on for the season finale, but like The Flash introducing a time travel element, I’m not sure how much will stick, now that Arrow has the Lazarus Pit. Perhaps, not even Sarah’s death sticks.

Verdict:

Arrow’s “Broken Arrow” was one of the stronger episodes this season but we’ll have to see if anything was ventured or gained this week. Only time and the Lazarus Pits will tell.

Dig deeper with Arrow by checking out our secrets page.

The Flash Secrets: April 17, 2015

Queen Bee?

More than one name was dropped for this week’s villain, played by Emily Kinney. She was more consistently called Queen Bee and even called herself that at one point, but Queen Bee is the leader of HIVE and she may or may not be Brainiac’s daughter. The CW has a thing against mentioning Supes (or his major villains), so that might be why Queen Bee shares talents and a surname with another DC Comics Universe villain.

The Bug-Eyed Bandit?

Cisco and Caitlin’s gaff at Brie Larvan was more than an off-the-cuff remark. The Bug-Eyed Bandit exists in the DC Comics Universe but he’s a guy named Bertram Larvan and he makes more than robotic bees. He’s tinkered around with mechanized beetles, mites, and spiders. Why did Brie have to focus on bees if she wasn’t the Queen Bee from the comics?

Tina McGee

Amanda Pays returned for the second time this season as Tina McGee. She originated the character in the 90’s Flash TV series. Yay. Reunited and it feels so goo-ah-ood.

Bees. Why did it have to be bees?

Cisco dropped another geekly quote this week. This time, he paid homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark with his play on Indy’s classic line, “Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?”

Look! Up in the sky!

Another classic line by The Flash crew but this one’s a Superman reference. Hey, didn’t Brandon Routh play Superman? Yep, he did. Oh, that’s a Superman reference. Someone slap the CW with a fly swatter.

What is it with billionaires being superheroes?

Yeah, right. What’s up with that? Oh, wait. Was that a peripheral reference to Batman or just one about Ollie? I’m going with the former, so I can put The Flash on notice for an unintentional Batman line and the logical end to all of the CW’s “No Superman/No Batman/No Wonder Woman” non-sense.

I’m “The Atom.”

Did Ray do a shrinking thing with his hands when he said that? Could that be the start of something special in a small package? I hope so. At any rate, we saw Ray in full Atom gear, so that’s something.

Bill or Jill Carlyle

One of Queen Bee’s victims was named Bill Carlyle but there’s a Jill Carlyle in the DCU, too. She’s the Crimson Avenger and we might see her at some point. Wasn’t there supposed to be a hard-nosed female crime fighter in the upcoming spin-off show? Here’s looking at you, Crimson Avenger.

We have the technology…

I think Ray undervalued himself when he dropped this iconic line from the $6 Million Dollar Man. Didn’t we just call him a billionaire a few points ago? Still, you’ve gotta love this tongue in cheek reference.

I’ve never had a nemesis before…

Okay, Felicity. Are you forgetting Clock King, Shrapnel, and your ex-boyfriend? Yeah, I thought so. Sure, you don’t have a Rogue’s Gallery like Batman (oh no, yet another Batman reference), but, girl, you have your share of baddies.

Vibe?

Emily Donn, one of The Flash’s contributing writers, pointed out that the first time Cisco died, he was vibrated to death. In this week’s episode, he’s vibrated to life. Is the writing team getting too heavy handed with the Vibe references or are we seeing what will transform Cisco into Vibe?

I don’t know but Cisco can take a bee for me anytime.

In case you missed our Flash review, make a bee-line to it here.