Team Michael has a serious leg up right now…
My latest Jane the Virgin review is up!
How is every single episode of Jane the Virgin a delight to watch, but also heartwrenchingly emotional? This week was no exception. As usual, it ran me through the gamut of emotions, from joy that Jane got into grad school, anger over everything related to Petra, relief that Rafael is telling the truth, confusion over being Team Rafael when Michael is also so wonderful, and the buckets of tears produced at Mateo’s baptism. Let’s swim through this sea of emotions together!
Click through for excellent section titles such as
*Mad props to my awesome Flarrow tag-team buddy Christelle for the subtitle. We are Flarrow. She’s The Flash, I’m Arrow and together we bring you these recaps. It’s our superpower.
The first thing I thought of when preparing for the Arrow portion of the crossover was how would they Flashify the title card? Instead of the arrowhead, we got a beautiful lightning bolt.
And so begins the Flash team’s adventure in Starling City! We’ve actually seen all of these characters here before. Barry, obviously in his debut last season, as well as Cisco and Caitlin when they briefly helped Felicity on a case also last season. But it’s our first time seeing them all together like this and It. Was. AMAZING!
[Read the actual recap: NOC RECAPS ARROW: A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN]
Phew! We did it! We survived the crossover and it was as awesome and epic (if not more so) than we could have dreamed or anticipated! Hopefully we get one at least once a season now (probably on the 8s) and some mini crossovers. Because while we may be getting a big budget Justice League movie, these boys have a league of their own right here on the small screen. (With what some say is better writing, action, and special effects than even the big movies have. Your mileage may vary, but I certainly enjoyed the last two episodes as much as I would a cinematic venture.)
I love writing about Arrow and can’t wait for the Fall finale next week that will certainly drive all us fans bananas with excitement and post ep-theories as to what will happen after hiatus.
Let’s chat about The Flash/Arrow. I can talk about them for hours. NOC Recaps Arrow: A League of Their Own | thenerdsofcolor.
After a bit of a broken TV, breaking news, work all day delay, my Castle review is up over on TV Overmind! Click through to check it out!
This episode was a great return to a standard episode, an episode that could be placed in any season. Though it was Espostio-centric, we also got to see a lot more Gates and Lanie (who we got to see in more than one scene over a dead body), more Tori–who some fans suspect could have had a thing with Espo had he not been so hung up over Lanie) and even Marissa, a new cop. It was a great episode to shine some light on lesser seen characters, while remaining true to the Castle formula. The mythology episodes and the romantic episodes are great, but it’s also nice when we can return to a typical case of the week and not slow things down.
I love that this episode had so many people of color as the focus, Esposito, Lanie, more Gates, and even Marissa the uniformed cop. It was great to see. More at: Castle Season 7 Episode 8 Review: “Kill Switch”.
This episode was so much fun and it’s great to see that the banter, the eye rolling, the magic of Castle and Beckett has remained even in what could have been an overly schmoopy, post-wedding bliss episode. But that’s not their style. This show really knows how to give character development while realizing that there are core truths to the characters that wouldn’t change, which gives the series both development and consistency; many other shows don’t know how to strike that balance. It gives me hope that now that they’re married, the show will still have somewhere to go. But as I’ve stated before, I wouldn’t be surprised if an end game was near. I didn’t think they could pull of this Old West honeymoon, but they wove it into the plot nicely and gave us many fun lines and moments.
I now write Flash and Arrow recaps for thenerdsofcolor.org. I’ll repost bits here, then link to the full thing, like I do with my Castle posts! Yay!
Arrow just keeps knowing it out of the park this season! This is the second Oliver-light episode of the season and it hits just as strong as a typical Ollie-centric episode does. Everyone’s been waiting for more information on everyone’s favorite (and I mean everyone) IT girl and we got loads of it tonight. From the appearance of Mama Smoak to Goth Felicity in the flashbacks (and a tease into her imagination — Dominique Ansel apparently didn’t think of cronuts first), we learned more about Felicity in this episode of Arrow than we have in the past three seasons. How cute is Diggle with the baby Sara Diglette? How petty was Oliver for dipping on Thea and leaving her door swinging open? How awesome was Oliver’s smooth save of that women from the car accident?
When Jane was 15, she had the perfect quinceanera, until her mother danced to Milkshake and embarrassed her in front of her “superfly” date. But Jane is determined to not let things affect her plan, and this baby won’t either. I’m sorry, I meant “milkshake.”
Jane doesn’t initially want to file a lawsuit, but by the end she accepts that things are really going to change in her life and that she should charge back at the things she can control. Jane didn’t think to look up Rafael and Petra before committing to her decision, so she Googles Raf and learns about his party boy past. She can see that he’s changed now, but as I said in my last review, he’s going to continue to deal with the consequences of his former lifestyle. But he and Jane begin to spark their chemistry, unknowingly in front of the watching eyes of Detective fiancé Michael. She and Raf share a moment in the OB-GYN examination room as well as at the hotel, being open and honest with each other in ways that their actual significant others don’t seem to get.
Now that the Fall 2014 TV season is approaching, I’m looking to do more with my blog and my tv writing career in general. I decided one way to foster that was to change the domain name here, so Constarstudiestv.wordpress.com is now ConStarWrites.TV!
Same banner, new words.
I’m excited for the domain change because it describes both aspects of what I want this blog–and my life–to be: writing for and writing about television. I hope to continue to post links to articles and write episode reviews and discuss issues of diversity both in front of and behind the camera–and who knows what else! I’m keeping my mind open for ways to expand my online writing presence.
So enjoy the quicker URL and come chat with me about TV. Either leave a comment here, or say hi over on Twitter.
I was wonderfully surprised by Cristela. It started off rough and I felt like my low expectations were being met during the first 20 seconds: Cristela walks in the room, her mother says something that’s not funny and the laugh track kicks in. It was a bad omen. I groaned aloud. I face palmed. But once it moved past forcing the first laugh, it legitimately made me crack up.
The character dynamics are on point; Cristela lives with her sister and brother-in-law, mother, and her niece (was there a nephew as well? I can’t remember). The mother was grumpy and old country, the brother-in-law hates Cristela, the sister is sexy and loves her family (clearly since she lets both her mother and her sister live in her house). Simple character traits that will define their relationships with each other and provide nice plotting.
Cristela, herself, is ambitious, but not easily so–it’s taken her six years so far to get through law school–but she’s in there and she’s not giving up. She likes sports (go Cowboys), makes friends with the adorable, inept Jewish fellow intern, and both stands up to but makes an effort to learn from her new (racist) boss. Which I hope they deal with a little better than they have so far, but they can’t squeeze everything into the pilot and most times in the world, you have to suck up people’s racism until you have the power to put them in their place–which she definitely doesn’t have yet.
The show is funny, so hopefully they don’t rely too much on forced laugh track gags like the very first one, and I think it has heart. Obviously it’s comparable to the George Lopez show, which I can’t remember well enough to really say if that’s going to help it or hinder it. The weakest part of the show was Gabriel Iglesias’ character—who seemed forced in because he’s a famous Latino comedian and who didn’t add anything to the show but weird sexual advances towards an uninterested Cristela. Hopefully they realize they don’t need his famous face.
Verdict:I was pleasantly surprised; I’m keeping it on my fall calendar.
I’m not sure how I feel about Black-ish. There are parts I really enjoyed and I think it had the humor it needed. I think Tracee Ellis Ross was fantastic and funny, and the kids on the show are super adorable. Plus, it’s a pilot, so there’s always room to grow and get stronger, but I’m not sure what I am supposed to take away from it. I think, and hope, that they’re building a show where the dad tries to make his family act stereotypically “black” but then realizes his family is black no matter how they act. They don’t have to conform to some stereotypical ideal of what black means. Because some of the “black” things he tried to make his son do were ridiculous and weren’t things that were even apart of his own culture, something I suppose they will touch on as well (the differences between being black and being African).
I do enjoy that there is a struggle and an uncomfortableness, because I struggle with the idea of being called “white” by my black family/friends or being called an “oreo.” I think it’s about people either adapting or sticking out and trying to find that balance and I think the show will explore that. I like the idea of the main character being in the wrong: every episode will deal with him trying to impose some sort of ideal on his family, then being forced to realize that they can balance the new aspects of themselves they like (field hockey for instance) with the things of “classic” black culture (there are Adidas track suits at the end of the episode that are literally in my cousin’s closet).
There were really funny moments, though I’m not sure how I feel about the voice over done by Anthony Anderson’s character. I suppose it flowed once the story picked up steam, but I wasn’t expecting it. Again, Tracee Ellis Ross was really great; I haven’t watched Girlfriends yet, so I’ve never seen her act in anything. I enjoyed her and the kids are cute and precocious, though only the oldest gets real character development.
There’s a lot of pressure on this show. It’s the only network black sitcom and if it fails, there might not be a call for more. And of course it has to follow in the footsteps of black family comedies like The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince, and Family Matters. There’s totally room to grow; but let’s not get over-ambitious and call it the Cosby Show of this millennium. I’m not ready to give it that high honor yet. Just in terms of character and writing, what I remember of the Cosby Show defined all the kids’ characterization and their relationships in a stronger way than this did; and no one will ever forget the “I brought you in this world, and I will take you out” line that, while stemming from Cosby’s stand-up, really made an impression on the series’ tone and potential.
Verdict:I will watch it regularly unless it disappoints. ::please don’t disappoint::
I was wonderfully surprised by Cristela. It started off rough and I felt like my low expectations were being met during the first 20 seconds: Cristela walks in the room, her mother says something that’s not funny and the laugh track kicks in. It was a bad omen. I groaned aloud. I face palmed. But once it moved past forcing the first laugh, it legitimately made me crack up.