The Rings Of Power Season Two Overview: Why Did It Have To Be Gandalf?

Summary

The Rings are back and now everyone is getting in on the action.

So as many of you know I have an up and down relationship with this show, I hated it to begin with then softened and now am growing to dislike it again. By no means, however, do I think this is a terrible show there are some moments of greatness scattered here and there about the place. I just think that this season ran with a lot of the worse aspects of the first season leading it to a doomed fate.

So firstly the shipping, the series does not want to be a serious representation of Tolkien’s work, it appears to want to try and bring in teen girls with a thirst trap as Amazon never learnt the age old lesson that is teen girls don’t watch The Lord Of The Rings related material for the most part. The shipping is annoying and it was one of the things I called out and worried about in my predictions post a few months back. Not only is Sauron, Charlie Vickers, and Galadriel, Morfydd Clarke, but also seemingly Sauron and Celebrimbor, Charles Edwards, just out of nowhere. It kills time and it drags on.

Couple that with the over stuffed cast and you have a real problem. I admire the show for trying to do a lot to flesh out its world but often times this results in things being skipped over, happening off screen, or not being given the proper time to develop. Nowhere is this felt more so then in the sub plot with the Harfoots. Things just seem to occur in a disjointed and odd way and we don’t spend enough time with the characters to actually get to know them let alone like them. Moreover, the Gandalf reveal at the end made me groan, it was so incredibly needless.

Finally we have to talk about the costumes and just how cheap everything looks. Take for example the rings themselves, they look like costume jewellery in the worst way and stick out for just how bad they are, it makes no sense with how much money Amazon sunk into this show

Pros.

It has a good start

It has some strong moments

It is better than the first season

Cons.

The shipping

It has too many characters

The cheapness

2.5/5

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Time Bandits Season One Overview: Scraping The Bottom Of The Nostalgia Well

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Another classic of yesteryear is vandalised.

I am a big fan of Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement however, this was unnecessary and doomed from the start. I am going to say something revolutionary right now so hold onto your hats, not everything needs to be remade and brought back for audiences of today to watch you can just watch older media.

I think part of the doom of this show was that it was not a well-known IP outside of some diehards, and the good will around Waititi after his breakthrough into Hollywood has fully waned. It also is coming out in a time where people need things to hit immediately and can’t give a show a two season run to see if it can find an audience, it either performs well immediately or it dies, that is the way of things now.

Moreover, the addition of modern day elements, race and gender flipping characters, is going to create enemies from the off and again is needless. Why not create new characters within the Time Bandits story and make those roles diverse why does it need to be handled like this?

Finally, and I get no joy from saying this what were they thinking casting Lisa Kudrow? She has not been relevant in about ten years and hasn’t been popular in a mainstream sense in over twenty. I like The Comeback but even I have to say that she was the wrong person for this role.

Overall, a needless remake of a beloved classic. Stop it.

1/5

Pros.

There are a couple (and I mean 1 or 2) good moments

Cons.

It wastes the cast

Kudrow is miscast

It doesn’t have the spirit of the original

It feels soulless

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Agatha Episode One and Two Review: Disney And Its Need To Push Sexual Themes Onto Kids

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Agatha, Kathryn Hahn, tries to get her mojo back.

The marketing for this show was awful, rather than treat it as a show in its own right or talk about how it is going to advance the MCU we instead got lots of comments about how gay the show is, as though that is some mark of quality and that gay shows cannot be bad no matter what. It is silly.

With that in mind I went into the first two episodes expecting the preaching to start from the off, however, the message was not laid on as thick as I was expecting it to be, and if you can ignore the red carpet stuff then the show is perfectly fine. During its first two episodes it never really justified why it needs to exist, is it just because people liked the song, or that she is vaguely Wanda, Elizabeth Olsen, related? As it stands now it is a forgettable side piece of MCU content that you can skip.

The only major thing I had an issue with was the nude scene. So there is a scene in these opening episodes where Agatha is nude and as she is she is being checked out by a little girl. Once again we come back to Disney and its odd relationship with pushing sex onto kids, the kid could have just been innocently playing and not done anything however the big smile on their face and how they struggle against their father as he tries to cover their eyes shows that she wants to look. Again had it been an older teen then that’s one thing but this was a younger kid and it just feels like Disney living up to their horrible reputation for this sort of thing.

Overall, it is fine with some questionable moments, especially the one with the kid.

2/5

Pros.

It is mind numbing

Aubrey Plaza is good in it

Cons.

The weird child thing

It doesn’t need to exist

It is slow

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What If Season 2 Overview

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

What If is back and boy is it a downgrade.

So before we get into the overview lets talk about the basic conceit of the show. It is what if stories based on films in the MCU, it is not new stories that have no basis in the films at all. Yet this season introduces us to a character that has never been in a film or tv show before and centres a whole episode around her.

Moreover, it continues to use characters like Captain Carter, Haley Atwell, and evil but reformed Doctor Strange, Benidict Cumberbatch, rather than focus on new films or tv shows from the MCU. I have no issues with Carter or Strange but I find that I want to watch one off episodes not recurring narratives, that I thought was against the conceit.

I think this show started out with good ideas for what if stories and then slowly over time lost its way, like the wider MCU, and became boring and predictable and not at all like the wacky and out there what ifs we had all been expecting it to be.

Overall, I don’t think we need a season 3

2/5

Some good moments

It is watchable

Cons.

It introduces new characters and breaks the conceit

It is boring

It is repetitive

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Batman The Caped Crusader: The Life And Times Of Oswalda Cobblepot

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Batman the much cancelled series finally finds a home, that it then proceeds to stink up.

So, as someone who enjoyed many Batman tv series as a kid particularly The Brave And The Bold I was excited for the idea of a new Batman series to get stuck into. However, little did I know that this series was made by the franchise destroyer himself J.J Abrams. After WBD didn’t want the series and sold it off there should have been red flags, but I was like maybe there was a good reason for it and the series is still good, but no.

Upon turning the show on the first thing that hits you is that this is made for modern audiences. We see every ethnicity, gender, ability level and what not on screen in the first episode and it only goes more over the top from there. There is nothing wrong with diversity when it is done for a reason or with a point in mind, particularly if it is organic to the show, but here it is clearly just ticking boxes in order to try and get as much virtue signalling as possible, it is tokenistic. The worst example of this is Oswalda Cobblepot, Batman has a long history of female villains why not feature one of them instead of forcing in a gender swap for no good reason. At times it felt like Abrams and co wanted to flip off the fans as much as possible

We also, perhaps in some sick homage to Snyder, have a scene wherein Batman is holding a gun, this to me and many fans just highlights how this series has no respect for the character or his lore, it is just more low grade slop wrapped in a Batman colouring.

Overall, if you want a new Batman the Animated Series this is not it.

1/5

Pros.

The animation was okay

Cons.

It doesn’t understand Batman

The series as a whole has a terrible pace

It doesn’t make sense at times

The tokenism and gender/race swaps

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X-Men 97: A Blast From The Past

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

When scraping the bottom of the barrel what is there to do but move on to the next decade.

At first when I saw Disney were resurrecting this old and beloved series I thought to myself this would be little more than a cynical effort in brand exploitation. However, upon watching it I found there to be a lot of elements to like, in many senses this series felt like an X-Men comic book come to life. A number of iconic X-Men moments where depicted in the series for the first time and they were done justice to.

Personally the nostalgia factor was not there during my time with the show as whilst I grew up on X-Men cartoons for me it was Evolution that was my go to X-Men fix.

Something that hampered my enjoyment of the show was how it would jump around in structure, in one episode we would follow the main team but in the next a side story. To me this felt disjointed and often killed excitement I may have had between episodes.

Another thing that somewhat affected the series for me was its allegiance to current year identity politics. We had characters that were non binary, and I am no Morph expert but I do not believe the character was called this in the comics as this is a modern term. As such I believe it was included to tick a box which is the cheapest and laziest form of representation. The series also focuses heavily on the characters feelings towards Wolverine which as a side character this felt odd. The Scott and Jean relationship of which is central to the X-Men lore got less screen time and plot consideration, this could only be done in a tokenistic effort to show diversity on to appease bluehead people online.

Overall, whilst it was nice to see classic X-Men moments on the screen for the first time it was undercut by a need to appease identity politics and the structural issues with the episodes which I found jarring.

3/5

Pros.

Classic moments

A number of good action set pieces

Some fun to be hard

Cons.

Identity politics

Odd pacing and structure

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The Acolyte Episode 8: The Novice Osha Kills Jedi Master Sol With Ease, Let That Sink In

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

We finally see the back of the worst show in Star Wars history.

Lets see what does this finale have to offer, well firstly it bastardises Darth Plaguise making him some random cave dwelling ghoul and also manages to force Yoda in at the end in one final lore break. It makes no sense as if Yoda had learned about all of this he would have behaved differently in the prequels.

Leslye Headland’s self-insert wife returns here and continues her struggle to act, she reveals that the wannabe Sith was actually her apprentice. A twist everyone saw coming. I think the issue with her character is just that the acting is so bad it is distracting. This is why you should only put your girlfriend in your films if she can act.

Osha, Amandla Stenberg, snapping and killing the Jedi when she has always been the good one of the twins makes very little sense as does her later decision to wipe Mae’s memory. It is one of those things that you can feel them doing to try and set up conflict for a second season, which thanks to poor viewing figures is never coming.

Overall, thank God it is over

0.5/5

Pros.

It is not offensive

Cons

It ruins Plaguise

It makes no sense

It is super obvious

Amandla can’t act

It continues to break the lore

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The Acolyte Episode 7: Saving Children From A Cult Somehow Makes You The Bad Guy

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

We finally get to see how the coven of witches died.

My apologies for the lateness of this review it took me a minute to mull over the maddening content that we were presented with in this episode.

I’ll open this by saying that this show thinks it has something deep to say about morality it does not. It thinks that by having a patriarchal group like the Jedi, if we just ignore Carrie Anne Moss’ character, smashing up a matriarchal coven that it says something interesting or new about gender politics, it doesn’t.

A lot of Acolyte stans coming out of this episode have said that the Jedi are evil, this is dumb and reductive. They have such a bias that oh this coven of darksiders cannot be evil because they are women and a minority, and Mae and Osha, Amandla Stenberg, is the main character and so her perspective has to be right. Mae started the fire that killed the coven when they were all passed out, the coven wanted to kill the Jedi the moment they arrived, the only member of the coven that the Jedi killed was using a dark side power and so was deemed a threat. Again the stans go see he’s evil she did nothing wrong, the analogy of the police shooting first as they think someone is going to pull a gun on them has been used repeatedly, whereas in reality he was just defending himself against a perceived threat as anyone would do. Moreover, he shows regret for his actions.

To me this episode was lazy as how much new footage did we really get? I’ll answer for you, not a lot. Most of it was repurposed from the previous episode that covered this moment. To me this just reeks of trying to save money in the budget, you could go oh well they showed a new perspective of the Jedi being bad, but did they? Again I would say the previous episode on this topic already implied that, but the audience is too simple to be able to handle that so they had to physically show it.

There are no mysteries in this show as you know where everything is going. Let me take a moment to predict the next episode for you, Mae and her Jedi chaperone will decide its time to go and save Osha, there it will be revealed that the Sith has her on the verge of turning but they will arrive just in time. The Jedi will die fighting the Sith and then Mae will try to kill the Sith to save her sister, as she does that it will be revealed he is not the master, and the horned witch, one of their mothers, will be the real master and then the three of them will have a heart to heart and realise it wasn’t her fault, the horned mother will let go of her anger and the mother and her daughters will walk off together into the sunset.

Finally, the idea that a Jedi cannot handle a 7 week placement on a planet and so goes mad out of a desire to go home is laughable in terms of character motivations, but at this point I expect nothing less

1/5

Pros.

Some very funny moments this week

Cons.

The character motivations

The logic

Trying to make a group of darksiders into misunderstood heroes

Mae was the one who really killed the coven

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Velma Season 2 Overview: Please God Let It Stay Dead

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Scooby Doo franchise is once again vandalised.

There is nothing that can be said about this show that hasn’t already been said. This show is the most clear cut example of a film or tv show that hates its IP, not only is this a self-insert for Mindy Kaling, the woman who joked about how she had forced a man to kiss her which is sexual harassment, but it just hates the Scooby Doo brand.

Velma, voiced by Kailing, could only be more annoying if she did everything in a high pitch squeaky voice, she is hateful towards men, towards women, toward anyone that is not like her. Honestly in real life she would be the villain, despite her saying on the show she’s so progressive she is actually really horrible and judgemental to everyone around her, the show thinks it can get around this by going oh but we acknowledge she’s a bad person so its fine. Nope having horrible unlikeable characters is all on the writers.

They pull out all the cards to make this edgy, with the sex and the violence but they need to realise the reason other adult animations can get away with that sort of thing is because people care about the characters, no one cares about Velma. I was honestly surprised there wasn’t a scene of Velma having sexual relations with the well-known great dane, but hey Warner Brothers Discovery said she can’t have the dog appear in the show. The fact I expected to see that shows you just how low and gutter trash this show is, it will do anything for a cheap shock laugh.

They also made Scrappy Doo the villain of the season, which because of how the show is made him the hero of the season instead, which is an odd feeling when it comes to Scrappy, but hey ho. Velma dies in the final battle so hopefully she and the series never come back.

Overall, just as bad as the first season but now a little bit extra stale.

0/5

Pros.

None, this was a few hours of my life I’ll never get back

Cons.

Kailing

It is not funny

It hates the IP

It is frequently gross for no rhyme or reason

Velma is an awful person

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The Acolyte Episode 6: Appealing To Less Than 30% Of Your Audience

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Remember folks the male gaze is wrong and to be called out yet a scene made for the female gaze is terrific and wonderful, a double standard everyone.

I apologise for having this review out a few days late, I have been away and so have been using my reserve for reviews, but fear not I have returned and now here is my thoughts on the latest episode.

You can tell this episode was co-written by Leslye Headland as it is one of the weakest of the whole season. Firstly you have the very obvious thirst scene designed to appeal to those less than 30 percent of female fans and small segment of the LGBTQ+ community, which again reflects my comment in the summary.

Secondly, you have the fact that the Jedi suspect Sol, Lee Jung-jae, as being the one behind the massacre which makes no sense, can they not sense things in the force, can some of them not read force echoes? Are you meaning to tell me that in the entire battlefield not a single item had a force echo attached to it which will show who the killer was. Once again we see the Jedi being portrayed as dullards. The whole point of this show seems to be to have the space cops, as the show wants you to think of them being the bad guys, the Jedi are incompetent they are evil and no doubt they just killed all the space witches for the hell of it. The social commentary is so thick that it blocks out all light or sense of sanity a viewer might have.

Thirdly a perhaps most cynically of all you have the helmet moment and the reference to Darth Vader. Now I have seen some people try to excuse this by saying its foreshadowing, foreshadowing what exactly how one of the twins becomes Darth Vader? No, nor is it foreshadowing how that twin will fall to the dark side as they will both be grey Jedis at the end of the show. They can’t be Sith as to have a non-white person as a villain would be incredibly problematic in this day and age, and they won’t be full Jedis as that would make them space police and you can’t have that either as everyone is supposed to hate the police now. So grey jedis or morally ambiguous force users they will be. The reference to Vader is simply more desperate pandering to try and hit you with the member berries in order to care more

Overall, boring, dumb, creepy and cheap.

0.5/5

Pros.

At least it’s almost over

Cons.

The thirst scene and the female gaze, the hypocrisy and the creepiness of it

The Darth Vader moment

The Jedi are bad okay

It is just not Star Wars

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