Minority Report Review: “Pilot”

Kyle’s Review

I didn’t know what to expect with Minority Report: a TV series set after the events of the movie of the same name, based on a Phillip K. Dick short story. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the short story or movie, I’ll give you the cliff notes version here. Disregard the next paragraph if you’re already familiar with the story.

Children, born of junkies of a future drug, are given therapy and it turns out that the chemical cocktail running through their veins gives the kids precognition. This precognition is limited to future murders within a 100 mile radius of the children’s location and thus Precrime is born. Precrime would bust murders before they killed and everything worked well until one man was setup for a murder and the director of Precrime was revealed as a fraud. Precrime was disbanded and the children, now adults, were sent to live out their days on a farm in the middle of nowhere.

One of the precogs (one of the three children, now adults, who have precognition) can’t take solitude anymore. The precog Dash returns to Washington DC to use his abilities to stop crime before it begins. Unfortunately, Dash is one of the twin precogs, so he only possesses half the precognitive powers: Dash sees what happens, while his twin Arthur knows the names. That’s the setup for the Minority Report TV series and it’s a pretty interesting one. But I find it convenient that the one twin who can see the crimes, but not the names, is the one swinging into action. Arthur, Dash’s twin who can pull names, has turned sleazy and adds a twist to the precog dynamic, and Agatha, the strongest of the precogs and the focus of the movie, would’ve had too many powers and the episodes would’ve wrapped up without a hitch. Like I said, it’s convenient.

Minority Report’s visuals are phenomenal. The special and practical effects capture the feel of the film, but the acting and goofy dialogue exchanges leave a lot to be desired. Minority Report did have some ah moments. I wondered what Wilmer Valderama (Fez from That 70s Show) was up to. At one point, Dash was watching an advertisement for The Simpsons’ 75^th anniversary. Lord, I hope The Simpsons doesn’t last that long; the original cast couldn’t still be on the show 50 years in the future. Anyway, Minority Report has plenty of Easter Eggs. I just wished it had more substance. Before the show premiered, I wondered if there was any more story left to tell. It appears as if the Minority Report TV show is scrapping the little it can.

Perhaps it’s because I watched Blindspot on the same night, but I can’t help but compare Minority Report to Blindspot. Both shows suffer some of the same flaws (flat writing and acting), but Jaimie Alexander’s performance in Blindspot places her show ahead of Minority Report.

Verdict:

Minority Report is visually stunning and it has as many Easter Eggs as a Marvel movie, but I may not be watching it for long. It needs to show that there’s more to it than a heavy dose of nostalgia.

The Awesomes Review: “Awesomes for Hire”

Kyle’s Review

Mr. Awesome pulled the trigger on his evil plan and The Awesomes got kicked into high gear this week. That was until government bureaucracy got in the way, which is often the case. We’ll get back to the episode’s review in a bit – and there’s plenty of tasty bits in “Awesomes for Hire” – but I have to share a couple of things that tickled my funny bone within the first three minutes of air time.

Jokes of the week: “A surprise earthquake ruined Jenga-Con.” “I never heard so many people scream ‘Jenga’ at once. It was deafening.” I love Jenga-Con and Muscleman’s subscription to Unicorn Detective: a cop show featuring a unicorn that solves murders in the My Little Pony universe. Those two jokes in “Awesomes for Hire” got me chuckling early and often.

Prock’s dad, Mr. Awesome, got the team kicked out of Awesome Mountain, so Prock runs to his momma with his tail between his legs—looks like Impresario isn’t the only one with Mother issues. Prock’s mom is a best-selling author of the 1970s book Super Dummies. It’s safe to say that she doesn’t approve of Prock’s super hero profession.

The rest of the episode bounced between Mr. Awesome trying to disband the government’s Superhero Agency, Mr. Awesome assembling a new Awesomes team and Perfectman regretting that Prock’s team left headquarters, and Prock’s mother trying to understand her son’s desire to fight crime (or play superhero) with the help of her psychiatrist, second husband. In short, plenty of new threads were introduced in “Awesomes for Hire,” enough to fuel The Awesomes until the end, when everything gets tied together.

Other great nuggets from this week’s episode:

Gadget Gal is outed as a hoarder
After realizing she has a problem, Gadget Gal sells her junk and gets rick
Prock’s mom is a little too involved in Prock and Livewire’s relationship
Don’t overlook the small crimes: supervillains may be behind your kid’s stolen bike
Beware the Super Bike; cyclists are tired of sharing the road

Verdict:

“Awesomes for Hire” is another great addition to The Awesome’s third season. This season’s main story arc is more cohesive and we aren’t inundated with too many new characters.

The Awesomes Review: “Les Miserawesomes”

Kyle’s Review

It was inevitable that The Awesomes would roll out a musical episode – I don’t know of too many comedies that don’t try at least one episode of that ilk – and “Les Miserawesomes” worked within the confines of current story arc. Paris was left in ruins, so Mr. Perfect and Impresario hopped the pond for clean-up detail.

We still have Mr. Awesome pulling the strings (not much happened with his story but that’s to be expected this early in the season) and he uses The Belgian Waffler as this week’s instrument. I can’t say that I cared for the singing; some of the cast don’t own the voices to pull off a “Les Mis” parody. But I guess a good voice isn’t a prerequisite for a musical spoof and it was nice to watch a musical episode tone down Gadget Gal: she gets on my nerves at times. She still sneaked in a couple of jabs at French frogs.

I also liked how Madame Hunchback played into this episode. She may play a larger role as the season progresses and that’s fine with me. Anything that either complicates Impresario’s relationship with his mother or shifts his narrative away from his unhealthy mother/son relationship is fine by me. The Awesomes’ third season is going off without a hitch. My only concern is that Sumo has been missing from these first three episodes. Hopefully, The Awesomes will bring him into the fold soon.

Verdict:

“Les Miserawesomes” was an inevitable musical spoof but The Awesomes pulled it off well enough. This week’s episode was another solid one.

The Awesomes Review: “Villain-Tine’s Day”

Kyle’s Review

Love is in the air. It’s Valentine’s Day in the middle of September. Seriously? Someone needs to hand The Awesomes a calendar. Mr. Awesome begins his plan to undermine the current Awesomes. I love how he had to google “How to be Evil.” I won’t lie. I had to google that search term, too. I don’t plan to do anything with the knowledge. I just wanted to know what Google would bring me.

Anyway, “Villain-Tine’s Day” is another enjoyable Awesomes episode. Prock and Livewire’s relationship gets put to the test as does Impresario’s young love with Madame Hunchback. I don’t know how he’ll balance his lady love with his momma. I had actually forgotten he had hooked up with Madame Hunchback, so it was nice to see a callback from season two.

I can’t say much more without spoiling the entire episode but The Awesomes has started an ongoing gag of Muscle Man falling in love with odd things, and Mr. Awesome’s plan is going off without a hitch. The one person who knows he’s turned evil, the villain turned hero Doctor Malocchio, has forgotten his mission of warning The Awesomes. He’s on his own journey that’s sure to take some bizarre turns.

Verdict: “Villain-Tine’s Day” builds on a solid beginning to The Awesomes’ third season. We only have eight more episodes left, so bring on the running gags. We can take them.

The Awesomes Review: “Seaman’s Revenge”

Kyle’s Review

The Awesomes’ return marked the beginning of Fall TV, and “Seaman’s Revenge” was a great way to kick off things. The overarching story for The Awesomes’ third season will be Prock’s superhero dad Mr. Awesome turning to the dark side. We didn’t get a lot of face time with the man who gifted The Awesomes with his surname but we saw enough to get that story rolling. The majority of this episode revolved around another former Awesome, Seaman, and let the endless fish and semen puns commence.

We did that on porpoise. You got to keep Seaman’s skin wet; I hate it when Seaman gets dry. Don’t be shellfish. When Seaman wasn’t on my back, Seaman was in my face. Yeah. This episode, guest starring SNL alum Andy Samberg as Seaman, runs those puns into the ground. Many of the jokes land but some stank like three day old fish. Okay, that’s our last pun—maybe.

It’s difficult to avoid spoilers, while discussing “Seaman’s Revenge,” but I’ll try to scale back the spoilers. I lied; there’s another something fishy. The gang gets captured for an underwater Land World amusement park, and cue the ubiquitous Black Fish-like documentary. The only team member not behind glass is the dense Muscle Man, who ditched the team to get with a mermaid. This isn’t your usual mermaid: her bottom is human and she has a fish head. The Awesomes reference that combination of mermaid as making more sense, anatomically speaking. I takes Muscle Man watching the entire documentary to figure out that his team needs his help.

Everything turns out okay in the end and we’re left with a great lead in to The Awesomes’ second episode. I don’t want to give away anything else prematurely – oh, another Seaman reference; that one was totally by accident – but let’s just say I have high hopes for this season.

Verdict: The Awesomes’ third season looks to have a more cohesive story arc, which is a great thing. As the trailers alluded, we should see reoccurring themes of heroes turned villains and vice versa. “Seaman’s Revenge” was a great kick off to the Fall TV season.

2015 Fall TV Shows

The fall shows are coming. The fall shows are coming.

We don’t have too many TV free weeks left before getting slapped in the face with some fresh programming, and if there was one thing JK Geekly kept up with on a regular basis last season, it was our coverage of our favorite geek chic shows.

We’ll break down the upcoming programming, and we may even mention some shows we’ll review, but there’s no way we can keep up with everything on this list. Can we?

TV on Sundays

Bob’s Burgers

Will we cover it? We covered Bob’s Burgers last year and there’s no way we won’t do so this season.

Claim to geekdom. Two words and a letter: H Jon Benjamin. Fine, Bob’s Burgers may not be the engine for Benjamin’s humor as Archer (Benjamin plays the straight man half the time), but the rest of the cast is stellar and it’s a fun show.

TV on Mondays

Minority Report

Will we cover it? We’ll give it a go, but it might go downhill fast.

Claim to geekdom. It’s the TV show based on the movie, which was based on a Phillip K. Dick short story. I don’t know how much story is left to tell after the events of the Minority Report movie, but I’m sure this TV show will squeeze as much juice as it can. Can I get at least 1/3 of a cup?

Supergirl

Will we cover it? Aren’t we contractually obligated with covering comic book TV shows?

Claim to geekdom. Supergirl is Superman’s cousin, but the DC TV universe can’t mention Superman. How does that work? We also get the second most popular female character in the DCU. Hunh? Where’s Wonder Woman?

Blindspot

Will we cover it? The show stars Jaimie Alexander (Lady Sif from the Marvel cinematic universe) so there’s a good chance.

Claim to geekdom. Jaimie Alexander. Also, the premise of a Jane Doe waking up with tattoos, all over her body, that may lead to a killer’s identity is kind of neat. Blindspot isn’t our usual fare, but we’ll give it a chance. Three shows on Monday? Yikes!

TV on Tuesdays

The Muppets

Will we cover it? It’s the Muppets, so yes.

Claim to geekdom. They’re the Muppets, Jim Henson’s puppet love children. The new Muppet show will target the folks who grew up with the original Muppet Show—like yours truly—but they’re changing the format with a little reality TV show twist. I’m excited. I just hope I can get over some of the wrong-sounding Muppets.

Agents of SHIELD

Will we cover it? I got caught up with the show, so probably.

Claim to geekdom. For better or for worse it’s tied to the Marvel cinematic universe. Plus, I’m interested in seeing Agent Simmons contract full-blown symbiote. That blob waiting for Simmons, carefully selecting her, before it swallowed her can’t be coincidence—neither can the timing of Spidey’s inclusion in the MCU.

The Flash

Will we cover it? Heck yeah.

Claim to geekdom. Barry Allen is the fastest man alive. He zips around Central City in his patented red and yellow jumpsuit. The TV show The Flash just happens to be one of the best comic book TV shows going. I can’t wait for season two.

iZombie

Will we cover it? Its first season did enough to keep my interest, so yeah.

Claim to geekdom. iZombie is yet another CW adaptation of a DC comic—they do a good job with those. The titular character, Liv Moore, is a crime-fighting zombie who works at the local morgue. It’s an outrageous premise but the show has legs—so far.

Scream Queens

Will we cover it? Five shows on Tuesday? Are you kidding me? In all seriousness, we won’t be able to follow all of these shows, and Scream Queens is the most likely one to get axed.

Claim to geekdom. It’s the love child of Glee and American Horror Story. There’ll be a lot of familiar faces as Ryan Murphy tends to use a lot of the same actors, but something tells me that Scream Queens won’t have the same appeal as Glee, the first two years, and it can’t possibly be as dark as AHS because it’s on a major network. Still, I’ll give it a try.

TV on Wednesdays

Arrow

Will we cover it? Um, yeah. It’s been grandfathered in by now.

Claim to geekdom. Arrow is the show that started the modern DC TV universe. The quality wasn’t as good last year as it was in years past, but the third season played like we might get a soft reset to the series. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but we’ll find out in September.

TV on Thursdays

Heroes Reborn

Will we cover it? Maybe. I can’t help but think of an old adage. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Claim to geekdom. The original Heroes got people excited about superhero/comic book TV shows, but it suffered from the properties of half-life: each subsequent season was half as good as the season that preceded it until everyone stopped caring.

TV on Fridays

Grimm

Will we cover it? We covered it last year and we’ll do it again.

Claim to geekdom. Fairy tales are real and their denizens live among us. It’s up to Nick, a Grimm, to police these otherworldly beings. Grimm’s last season had its peaks and valleys but it ended in an interesting place. Juliette can’t be dead. Can she?

TV on Saturdays

There are no shows on day seven. I’m serious. That wasn’t just a Monty Python reference; we really don’t have any geeky shows to cover on Saturday.

Steaming TV

The Awesomes

Will we cover it? We did last year, so we will again.

Claim to geekdom. The Awesomes features the vocal talents of SNL alums and pokes fun at all those super heroes who dominate popular culture. Last season was a good one overall, and we were left with a cliffhanger.

The Man in the High Castle

Will we cover it? Oh yes. If we’re giving Minority Report a glance, we have to review The Man in the High Castle.

Claim to geekdom. It’s another adaption of a Phillip K. Dick story but it’s the one no one thought would ever happen, brought to us by the guy who made Blade Runner. This one of my most anticipated new shows this upcoming season.

Jessica Jones

Will we cover it? We will in some capacity.

Claim to geekdom. Jessica Jones is the second leg of the Netflix/Marvel Defenders saga. It’s difficult to review each individual episode but I’m watching it for sure and I can’t wait for the stories to converge. Defenders might be the Avengers for the folks suffering from Marvel cinematic universe fatigue.

TV Note

But that’s not all. You may have noticed some glaring omissions: the CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, Fox’s Lucifer (based loosely off of Neil Gaiman’s character from Sandman), ABC’s Agent Carter, and Netflix’s Defenders. All of these shows premiere sometime in 2016, so we’ll have to wait a little while longer.

iZombie Review – “Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat”

Kyle’s Review

Sorry but I’ve fallen behind again with Geekly posts, because I’m working on my book and hope to be done before the end of the summer. We’ll see. Anyway, iZombie had another interesting episode with “Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat.” Evan Moore, Liv’s brother, finally joins the Brain Café waiting staff, so that’ll link Liv to Blaine even more than she already is. Matters get worse with Major, who finds himself on the wrong side of the Brain Café—not that there’s a right side to the Brain Café.

The cured rat failed as a zombie panacea but it was too good to be true. If Dr. Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) solved the zombie epidemic, the series wouldn’t last long and iZombie’s already renewed for another season. Frankly, I think the rat cure was iZombie’s exit strategy for the first season if they had gotten canceled. Regardless, we can put this storyline to rest – for the moment – and concentrate on the growing zombie drama.

Congratulations, Liv. You created your own zombie and he was the focus of this week’s mystery. It was only a matter of time until Liv got tangled into Seattle’s increasing death-rate and iZombie handled it well. Things got tied in a neat bow fast and the aftermath resulted in Liv getting outed as a zombie to her bestie, Peyton. We’ll have to see where this goes but with all the other threads converging for a big showdown with Blaine next week, iZombie’s primed for a thrilling finale.

Orphan Black Review: “Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate”

Kyle’s Review

I’ve been behind on the site for the last couple of days but hopefully, I’ll get back into the swing of things with my TV reviews—I’m only covering two shows at the moment.

Getting back to one of the two show’s I’m still covering, Orphan Black had an odd combination of characters in this week’s “Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate.” Up until this week, we haven’t seen too much of Cosima and Alison together. If you’ve been watching the show for a while, you’ll know that these two were introduced during the same episode and they’ve known each other longer than any other set of female clones, but they haven’t shared too much airtime since their first couple of episodes, and there might be a reason for that: Cosima and Alison are so different that they don’t play well together.

Cosima drives the Dyad-Top Side story and figures heavily in the clones falling like flies (because of a flaw in their design that makes them deathly ill) arc, while Alison exists separate from any other clone, because she’s the comic relief. The only clone Alison meshes well with is Sarah, but Sarah and Helena are stuck in Mexico—we’ll get back to them in a bit. You can’t even say that Alison and Cosima have much time together in “Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate” as Felix juggles the two of them at a political rally – you can’t have too many people catching a glimpse of the two clones – and when we see the two together, it undercuts the severity of Cosima’s storyline and forces deeper meaning in Alison’s arc. Usually, I’m okay with shaking things up but Cosima’s coughing up a lung, dying, and we’re making light of that, while this was the first episode of Alison’s harsh mom, so it’s difficult to get behind Alison’s need to please her mother. In fact, I’m still not sure she’s that interested in pleasing her mother because of how the episode ended. Unfortunately, most of the plottiness of this episode revolves around Cosima and Alison, but the good thing is that the other arcs worked well.

I would’ve liked to have seen more of Sarah and Helena as they reunited with Mrs. S. For those of you following the show, you’re aware that Mrs. S sold Helena out to the Castor Project, so this isn’t the happiest of reunions. We see just enough of Helena and Mrs. S talking out their differences, or rather punching out their differences, to know that this was a lengthy process of acceptance.

The other major arc had Scott, Cosima’s assistant, figuring out Duncan’s strange language (that holds the key to curing the sick clones) with Rachel. Yes, we have a Rachel sighting, and that’s a good thing. I’m still not sure if the Castor Project (who was absent in this episode) makes a good antagonist because we don’t know anything about them. We know plenty about Rachel. We know what motivates her, which makes me question why she’s helping Scott. That’s more interesting than a faceless government agency that we know nothing about.

Orphan Black’s “Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate” could’ve used less Cosima and Alison and more of anyone else, but it’s still a solid episode.

iZombie Review – “Astroburger”

Kyle’s Review

iZombie took another step forward this week with “Astroburger.” It was only a matter of time before a brain tainted with a mental illness found its way through Liv’s lips. The results were delightful unpredictability and as a result, “Astroburger” was the most light-hearted episode of iZombie to date, showcasing the source material’s penchant for quirky humor.

The majority of the show’s absurdity radiated from Liv’s episodes, you’ve gotta love a talking potato chip mascot, but the same things that jumped out as odd turn out to have some basis in this week’s mystery’s solution. You couldn’t trust anything in this episode, since we see the show through Liv’s eyes, but everything Liv experiences comes into play. iZombie does a wonderful job of weaving the real with the unreal. I know I’m talking in generalities but that’s because I don’t want to provide any spoilers. I won’t spoil any of the mystery’s hijinks, but I will reveal some ongoing storyline spoilers.

The story arc that tied Major into the rest of the show’s plot threads dried up, so he has to find out that zombies exist. He does in “Astroburger,” and the results aren’t good for Liv. Dr. Chakrabarti, Liv’s boss, may have found a cure for zombism and that brings Blaine by the lab/morgue. Okay, the cure and the fact that the zombie police Lieutenant informed Blaine that Liv might know more about the zombie underworld than she lets on brought Blaine to Liv’s home base.

Things are coming to a head for iZombie’s first season. We should get some resolution to the zombie cure, or lack thereof because I don’t see a cure for this disease in the offing any time soon, and the zombie underworld should come into focus too. iZombie has had an up and down season but it’s headed to a nice place with “Astroburger.”

Orphan Black Review – “Certain Agony of the Battlefield”

Kyle’s Review

Normally, Orphan Black waits until the season finale to give us a shocking twist and pull several threads together but they didn’t waste time this year with “Certain Agony of the Battlefield.” Unlike the previous week, this week’s Orphan Black juggled the various clones well and even managed to bring back a couple of forgotten clones: Beth (from season one) appeared in flashbacks, while Rachel made her first show in three weeks.

Rachel may know more than people give her credit. I won’t say what she knows, but it intrigues Cosima and that could tie those two clones together—and that’s a good thing. But it might not be too good of a thing that Cosima’s new girlfriend may not be as much of a secret from Delphine as she’d like. That could, and should, come back to bite Cosima. We saw enough of Alison and Donnie for a nice breath of comic relief, while the two fertile clones, Sarah and Helena, continued their escape from the Castor encampment and that’s where we get the twist.

This next bit is a spoiler, so consider yourself warned: Paul dies. Yes, the some-times love interest for the first two seasons passed away as a result of treachery. Apparently, the military knows about the male clone’s defects and the disease they spread if they have intercourse with women, and they’re okay with it. Paul tries to stop the amoral experiments, frees Sarah, and Momma shots him for his troubles. I don’t know if this cements Momma as the full-fledged villain for the third season (you could say that the military is the true culprit and she’s just a lackey), but her killing Paul puts her in the neighborhood.

We had a couple more good developments: Felix shows some grit, and the male clones had some range. “Certain Agony of the Battlefield” may be the turning point for Orphan Black’s third season. I just hope the show didn’t peak too soon—we still have another four episodes.