The Fangirly Diary of a Geek Girl: Heroing on the TV
THURSDAY
So, here’s the The Avengers: Age Of Ultron teaser that lucky bastards got to watch at the SDCC. It doesn’t show anything but Ultron’s robotic mug but, as you can realize by the screaming fans, it’s a big deal! That’s Phase Two main movie, yo!
Talking about another other Joss Whedon project for Marvel, here’s a list of “Connections, Easter Eggs, Plot-Points” from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to MCU and Marvel comicbooks! But not everyone liked it though, and we have Jim Steranko, creator of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., saying the show needs “to be much tougher, much stranger, much edgier to reach its potential”… We do agree it needs more Nick Fury.
Talking about comicbook TV series, besides Gotham, DC wants to make a Constantine TV show! I expect this new incarnation of the supernatural detective is closer to the comicbooks than the Keanu Reeves movie. Also, what does that mean to the Guillermo del Toro’ Justice League Dark movie? (Then again, I’m still wondering about that about the future The Flash series and the Justice League movie.)
Back to Marvel, they have announced a new She-Hulk comic series. I like She-Hulk and I hope it doesn’t get cancelled after a few arcs… again. At least series writer Charles Soule seems positive and enthusiastic!
She-Hulk has always been a title where weird, cool things can happen. She is a strong — very strong — female character, and comics absolutely cannot have too many of those. There’s no reason Jennifer Walters can’t be iconic, and we’re going to do what we can to make that happen.
And we have two new Thor: The Dark World posters! Malekith and Heimdall look damn good! Actually, isn’t it weird that the best posters are for the supporting characters? As much as I love Thor and Loki, their posters weren’t the greatest, except for the one with Loki sitting on stairs. And we shall not talk about the official Thor: The Dark World posters that either look like Iron Man 3 or just seem to want to put every single character there. Nope.
FRIDAY
Hiddles likes Loki and Amora, The Enchantress’ twisted relationship and “even pitched it to Kevin Feige”. I am OK with that. I hope we get it on Thor 3… but I also want Surtur. Wait! We could have it all! Surtur in Thor 3 and the Loki solo movie… but with Amora! Loki and Amora screw the MCU! Yay!
Hiddles also talks about how much he loves Much Ado About Nothing, which makes me happy because I love it too. And he wants to be Benedick, Make it happen, movie powers that be!
I saw Joss Whedon’s film most recently. I grew up on Kenneth Branagh’s film. I’ve seen amazing productions on stage in London. I saw Simon Russell Beale play Benedick and it was hilarious, at the National Theatre with Zoë Wanamaker. David Tennant did it with Catherine Tate playing Beatrice. I’ve seen it set in ’30s Italy. I’ve seen it set in contemporary Los Angeles. I’ve seen it set 400 years ago. It never fails to delight. It just leaves people with a very, very happy feeling in their heart, I think.
Benedict Cumberbatch will appear once again on The Graham Norton show! Of course, this is the new Graham Norton show so… anyway! The important thing is that Harrison Ford will also be there, and if Graham did his homework, he will bring up this gem~
Also, did you know they were going to do a TV series based on Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo? If you did, why didn’t you tell me! Anyway, Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton will be on the ten-episode series on FX.
And finally, here’s a long and nice interview with Elementary‘s executive producer Rob Doherty apropos of the second season premiere… which was awesome, BTW. They talk about their take on Mycroft, the changes on Holmes and Watson’s relationship, and the Irene Adler/Moriarty reveal from last season.
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And that it’s for the week. Before I go, let me tell you there were a lot of birthdays this week! So Happy Birthday to Stephen King, Billie Piper, Tom Felton, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Anthony Mackie, Pedro Almodóvar, Will Smith, Mark Hamill and Gwyneth Paltrow!
I really like Fuller’s comments on Hannibal’s fanbase and Steranko’s comments on Agents of SHIELD.
ok I need to talk about SHIELD: Both the lead guy (Ward) and Skye are bugging me, although I might not mind them in smaller supporting roles. It would have been cool to have Mike (J. August Richards) as our gateway lead character instead and more focus on May. I hope FitzSimmons will have more to do than be quirky science nerds, especially since Iain de Caestecker made a character I usually wouldn’t like into someone I did on The Fades. Also, I can’t wait until Ruth Negga starts appearing in episode 4.
also: “cool stories that have script problems” SO TRUE ABOUT STUFF INVOLVING LINDELOF. so much potential and then logic goes inside out.
@Diandra Rodriguez, Oh Bryan Fuller~ He’s just so cute to the fans :D And I’m glad he straight up said there won’t be rape stories in Hannibal so yay!
Now on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. … while Ward didn’t bother me as much… omg Skye is so not my cup of tea. She’s just there being all quirky for the sake of it. And I can already tell they are going to focus on her and I don’t wanna. I want more Agent May though. So much! I do have to mentally prepare myself for the next episode when they supponsedly go to Peru. I’m just learning to love Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and they already throw me a blow like this. Please don’t make awfully incorrect references about my country xD
@mirella, yeah, that was a great decision. I think one reason Fuller can do stories about death is because he has some kind of respect for pretty much everyone in his stories, from villains to victims. You can see different aspects of how they live/lived.
aw man, I hope they don’t misrepresent Peru or any other non-USA place. Except Canada haha they can have maple leaves and Mounties everywhere. Yeah, I can’t tell from one episode if it’s the writing or Skye’s actress that’s trying too hard or both. Then some people say, “how can you not like a fellow geek character?” or “she isn’t just some white girl because the actress is half-Chinese” and I’m like those weren’t the problems. Ward’s story bores me but his actor seems to have good comic timing for like two instances.
@Diandra Rodriguez, maybe is just experience. The actress seems to have a very green CV and will get better with time.
@Diandra Rodriguez, Ward annoyed me the most. Skye being quirky is something that comes within Whedon’s territory. Skye has potential to be fleshed out better. But Ward seems meh to me.
While the ratings for AOS seems like good news, I thought it could have had a bigger audience considering its Avengers and Marvel links, but USA loves NCIS (?) a lot. But then again, AOS ain’t about the superheroes, so it might be a turn off for casual viewers.
And considering I’m breaking my “no network dramas” rule for AOS, I might give Hannibal a shot.
@Rodrigo, what annoyed me was that all this time was taken to obviously set up Ward as the lead character, with spy skills equal to Romanoff! (Black Widow) while he didn’t earn as much interest as was given. Then again, he wasn’t as much of an interest void as Paul on Orphan Black, my current standard for least interesting person on an otherwise engaging show.
I was actually somewhat surprised that a genre show that didn’t have the usual procedural link (ex: I haven’t seen Sleepy Hollow but look at its ratings) did as well, even with the Marvel ties. Then again, it is a pilot and there’s usually some drop-off afterward. SHIELD also seems to be set up as an episodic/problem-solving show that might expand into character-serial storytelling. I just hope it keeps its core theme of more-or-less ordinary people amongst the extraordinary.
As for Hannibal, I’d say that for most people, episode 6 is when the story really kicks into gear. I don’t have many spoilers in my review here (http://www.yam-mag.com/reviews/tv-reviews/hannibal-season-1/), so you can read through and see if it is worth a shot. It definitely doesn’t have the same “look” as network shows, since the production is outside the NBC studios.
@Diandra Rodriguez, I’ll top Paul from Orphan Black with Betty Draper from Mad Men circa Season 1-3 or Nicholas Brody’s family from Homeland. :P
The thing with my tv viewing is that when it comes to drama series, I refuse to watch network-made ones on principle. Part of it is me being kind of snobbish with this, part is the length. The latter part should get me critixcized since I sat through 3 and a half seasons of Glee, but I consider that show under the Comedy category in spite of it being a dramedy (?) and lasting 1 hour per episode.
I really wanted to see Hannibal because of Mads and Dancy, but when I noticed it was on NBC, I was pissed and ignored it. Same with Agents of Shield, I really wanted that to be under HBO instead of ABC. But for Joss Whedon I have broken some of my rules and I ended giving the pilot a shot and will most likely sit through the entire season. But Ward needs to be fixed or die.