Choices

"Please forgive him. He only drinks to forget."

I remember a time when I used to watch every even vaguely scifi show going. For the rest of the week I'd read in the evenings.

Babylon 5 was a revolution: TV space opera that wasn't Star Trek! The X-Files spearheaded the rise of 'cult TV' to become a sufficiently broad church as to outnumber all of the non-cult shows and usher in the ingenuous catchall term 'genre programming', as if mainstream programming didn't have a genre at all.

But the world has changed since 1990, and as the percentage of space remaining on my Sky box plunges towards single digits once again and with Amazon Prime's offerings lagging - the excellent Mr Robot and diverting Into the Badland unfinished, and The Man in the High Castle not yet begun - it's time to face the facts: I can't watch everything, and that means that hard choices - well, choices anyway - have to be made.

The main Japanese character in this series is actually called 'Katana Girl'.
There's an aspect of not trying here.

The X-Files revival didn't make it past the first episode for me, and I'll remind you that I'm still watching The Shannara Chronicles. In a similar vein, it seems likely that I won't be going back to Heroes Reborn, although I've not yet deleted it. Much like The X-Files, I think my problem is that I didn't see the last series of Heroes - I basically got fucked off with them killing off characters I liked in order to focus on the amazing Peter, the unsinkable Sylar and the latest incarnation of interchangeable hot blonde - and I simply can't be bothered to go back and catch up on the backstory that I'm missing. Also, despite the removal of my major bugbears from the series, they're still killing off characters I like.

Channel 4's Humans was a tougher call, but it had got to the point that I wasn't going to have anything new to say about it. If I get a chance I may binge it as a box set, but for now it's on the back burner. True Detective season 2 is looking like going the same way - it's as nasty as Season 1, but nowhere near as compelling - although I still hope to get back to Dominion at some point.

I figure if I want American fascists, I'll go to The Man in the High Castle.

More recently, I've decided that I'm still watching Blindspot, but not reviewing it (as with The Blacklist and Elementary I'm not sure I have enough to say, but may do a write up for the season once I finish.) New series Colony failed to grab me; likewise event miniseries 11 22 63, largely because JFK is almost as spent a time travel focus as Hitler, but without the comforting moral absolutism conferred by Nazis. It is my contention that literally everyone in Dallas on that day was a time traveler, probably including JFK who had to be cloned and taken back to replace his original self after he died from temporal wear and tear. 11 22 63 is also based on a Stephen King story, and I've never really been into King's work.

'But wait,' I hear you say. 'Are these things really worse than The Shannara Chronicles or Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands?' Probably not, but I find them less entertaining, and less fun to write about. I personally feel that this is a sure sign of a golden age of entertainment - that we no longer feel pressured to watch things just because they're good.

I leave you with this thought: In Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End - which I only recently read after the broadcast of the event adaptation - a character bewails the fact that in the Golden Age of Humanity, people are so indolent that they are watching anything up to three hours of television per day.

Legends of Tomorrow - 'Left Behind'

True love means never having to say you're an immortal hawk goddess.

'Left Behind' opens with a recap of the end of last episode, including Chronos' latest attack on the Waverider and the ship's unexpected departure from 1958 without Sara, Kendra or Ray. This time, however, we get to see Stein and Jax merge to join the fight, and Chronos nab Snart and light out on the jumpship, leaving the ship plunging through time.

In 1958, Ray maintains the hope that the team will return by building a time beacon. Sara goes off to find herself, and Ray and Kendra settle down as an unmarried interacial couple in the late 50s, which is apparently much easier now that it's not the focus of the episode. Ray teaches maths to William Gates Snr and Kendra becmoes a librarian, but on their second anniversary, just as they are about to destroy Ray's beacon, the Waverider returns. Kendra is relieved, but Ray is actually a bit put out by how quickly she abandons the life they built together in 1960.

The team sets out to find Sara and Snart, in that order, and soon realise that Sara has gone back to where she will someday have once belonged: Nanda Parbat and the League of Assassins, which fortunately were the subject of Rip's doctoral thesis.

Elsewhen, Chronos reveals to Snart that he took him for revenge, as he is in fact Mick Roary. After Snart did not kill him, the Time Masters found him, half-starved and almost completely mad. They took him to the Vanishing Point, where in the absence of time he spent lifetimes being rebuilt and retrained as Chronos. He plans to return to Central City and travel progressively back in time to murder Lisa Snart in front of her brother over and over again in reversing temporal order. It is clear that he is somewhat off the res at this point.

Canary vs. Hawk

The Team go to Nanda Parbat, but Sara turns on them. Rip thinks this is temporal slippage: Spend too long in a given time and you start to forget that you aren't a part of it. Kendra reveals that something similar was happening to her and that she was losing her past lives and ability to 'hawk out'.

Faced with execution, Rip challenges Ra's al Ghul to trial by combat. Ra's names Sara his champion and Rip names Kendra, figuring that this will remind Sara of their past training and bring out her humanity again. It works, but the fight is interrupted by Chronos, who takes out dozens of League assassins before the team persuade Ra's to let them loose. They smack down Chronos, but Snart stumbles in - having frozen his own hand off to get loose - and asks them not to kill Roary.

Ra's releases Sara, and the team decide to try to rehabilitate Roary, freeing him from the Time Masters' conditioning and restoring him to the selfish, greedy douchecanoe who tried to sell them out to a pirate crew. I sense a flaw in this plan, but what the hell, eh?

The course is then set for the start of the Savage world domination train: 2147 and the Cordo Maltese of the Balkans; DC's go-to fictional Eastern European republic, Kasnia.

12 Monkeys - 'Year of the Monkey'

One of the drawbacks of being up to date with the series again is the relative paucity of screen shots, so instead enjoy this rather sexy promo image hinting that some of our cast may get to splinter into the 20s or thereabouts.

The gritty SyFy 'adaptation' of 12 Monkeys returns to our screens, beginning with a welcome recap of Season 1, given that it's been a while - a full year - since Season 1 finished airing and that I lost the end of the last episode to a recording fault.

We pick up in 2016, with the Army of the 12 Monkeys pursuing Ramse, determined that he must die to 'close the circle' and validate the Witness's predictions. Ramse and Cole are fighting back tenaciously. The Witness's future knowledge remains a powerful advantage, but a chance remark by Olivia tips them off that actually it is not prescience giving them away, but a tracker implanted in Ramse's neck. They call on an ex-Markridge researcher (played by Brendan 'Mr Bates' Coyle) to remove it, but he tries to betray them and gets shot for his troubles (I think; it as off screen, so maybe Cole is even more changed than we thought.) Despite their ongoing divergence of goals - as Ramse puts it, he is for the future, Cole is for the past - they decide to stick together and the Ramse reveals that the doctor let slip that the virus is set to be released in New York by Jennifer Goynes at the Chinese New Year.

Cut to Jennifer at a speed dating event, encouraging one of her partners to shoot her and save the world.

Presumably this bit of bone is to be reunited with its older self as a token of
the Messenger's origin.

In 2043, the Twelve, calling themselves Messengers, tell Jones to send them back in time to coordinates kept secret from her. She sabotages the first splinter, killing one of the messengers by sending only part of him through time. I'm not sure, but I've a feeling that it might have been the same parts that remained of the precursor corpse. This leads the head Messenger to threaten to kill Cassandra. Jones and Cassie are both willing for her to die, but the West VII tech gets the machine fixed instead.

Cassie persuades Deacon that she can save him from his progressive Wilson's disease and gets him onside. He grabs her guard while she stabs him, despite her obvious horror at the act, and they let in the rest of the West VII and Marcus to take back the facility. The remaining Messengers are killed, but half have already been Splintered to wherever they are going.

In New York, Ramse gets cold-cocked by someone, but Cole corners Jennifer on a roof. She asks him to stop her, but he refuses to shoot, telling her that she doesn't have to release the virus. There is no fate, he insists, laying out what I suspect will be the theme of the season. This is a choice; there is always a choice. He is cornered in turn by members of the Army, but they are killed by Cassie, reappeared from the future as a stone cold badass and here to assassinate Jennifer like Cole assassinated her father. Cole however puts himself in front of Jennifer and tells Cassie exactly what he told Jennifer: You don't have to do this. It's a choice.

I really like this series. I was a bit iffy about it at first, but just look at those pictures. I'm theorising in the captions instead of snarking. Now, I really hope they can keep this rolling, because Season 1's almost closed loop was really good, and in particular everything that had gone before was made better once it was finished, so they've got a lot to live up to now. 'Year of the Monkey' is a solid beginning, however, and promises more intriguing puzzles to come.

Gotham - 'This Ball of Mud and Meanness' and 'Mad Grey Dawn'

"For identification purposes, I am not Harley Quinn."

In Arkham Asylum, the Penguin is facing his nightmares in a series of virtual reality therapies, while Hugo Strange looks on and is super creepy.

Bruce sets out to find Matches Malone, beginning with a man named Cupcake who runs an underground fighting ring. When Bruce jumps on Alfred's style, Cupcake offers the information for $50,000 and a fight with Alfred, who takes him down through sheer tenacity, imparting an explicit lesson to his charge: "To beat a big man, all you need to do is outlast him."

Damn this kid has grown.

Cupcake points them to Jerry, a Harley Quinn-looking Lori Petty, who runs and sings at a retro, Maniax-themed punk club called the Celestial Garden, which is not a sentence I ever expected to write. With Alfred laid up in bed, Bruce goes to Jerry, who despite claiming to be a friend of Matches tells Bruce 'the childish hand of fate' where to find him. With Gordon on his trail, Bruce goes to Matches' apartment under the guise of wanting to hire him, then questions him about the murder of his parents. Malone won't say who hired him, that code being all the decency he has left, and essentially begs Bruce to kill him and remove the burden of crimes unpunished.

Make no mistake; this scene, as Bruce realises that his quarry is not a monster, just a man, and that revenge is truly the most worthless of causes, is a tour de force; one of the best in the series and a huge escalation from David Mazouz's early work as the boy billionaire. As he sets the gun down and walks away, you can really start to see that this kid could be Batman.

"Riddle me this..."

We end up with Nygma looking askance at Jim's frankly half-arsed pursuit of Miss Kringle's disappearance - prompted by Lee - Penguin declared sane and released from Arkham to live as a good and normal person, and Bruce leaving Wayne Manor to live on the streets with Selina for a time, deciding that he needs to fight injustice where it lives, and that means knowing those places, not looking on them from afar and on high.

In 'Mad Grey Dawn', Nygma sets out to settle his Gordon problem. An anonymous report reopens the Galavan case, and at the same time a riddling bomber marking his work with a question mark begins to stalk the city. With considerable style, Nygma acquires an officer's signature and a weapon with Gordon's prints on it, and then guides him into a trap which ends with Barnes arresting Gordon as a cop killer. And he goes to Blackgate for it, without a reprieve in sight.

Despite this, Gordon is still about the least interesting thing in what was once his show, as the all-new Bruce Wayne gets roped into a scheme to steal cash from mob mushroom farmers working for Butch Gilzene's nephew. We get a reappearance by creepy Ivy Pepper, the gang's shroom cultivator, and a chance for Bruce to put his lessons to use, letting Sonny Gilzene whale on him until he starts to wear out. Also interesting is that when Sonny blindly insults Bruce's parents, this hits Selina's berserk button.

Paul Reubens? Did we wander into a Burton movie?*

Meanwhile, old Penguin is out and about and visiting old friends. He first drops in on Butch and Tabitha. The latter wants to kill him, but Butch insists that an eye for an eye has been served, although he does allow that some punishment may be in order. Later, coated in tar and feathers ('They talked about killing me, so... this was actually pretty nice of them, considering,') he shows at Nygma's house mid planning session, only to be asked to leave because 'the new you is kind of freaking me out.'

It is a Burton movie!

Thus the Penguin wanders to his mother's grave, where he encounters a dapper man laying flowers, who turns out to be - dun dun duh! - his father! Son of Edna's old employers, he invites his newfound son back to the family pile to meet his new family. A happy ending at last! Perhaps Hugo Strange was right and good things do come to good people.

Or, more likely, Strange is a creepy monster who manufactures semi-human weapons in the basement of his ghoulish sanitarium and Penguin's new family are a collection of terrifying, bloodless social parasites.

Oh, and Barbara wakes up. My joy be unconstrained.

All in all, the 'Wrath of the Villains' sub-season benefits greatly from the absence of Theo Galavan and an increased focus on the revitalised Bruce Wayne subplot and, in general, the many, many characters who are more interesting than Jim Gordon. Will prison give Gordon the edge that he's been lacking (as well as serving as just punishment for the murder that he did commit, at least until he is acquitted of the one that he didn't)? I doubt it, but at least the rest is looking good.

* I don't know why I associate him with Burton; I think he as only in the one.

Person of Interest - 'Skip' and 'Search and Destroy'

Later, he hooks up with his ex-therapist. For most people, this would be a big
day of sexy lady kissage. For John Reese, this is a Tuesday.

Okay, ladies, gents and AIs, it's another Person of Interest double bill, and we're going to get arc-y again.

In 'Skip', Reese and Fusco tackle the number of the week, a sexy, sassy bounty hunter named Frankie who is aiming to bring in her brother's killer... or to bring him down. The case brings them into contact with recent PoI Harper, who is fixing the skip a new passport and apparently taking orders from the Machine.

Meanwhile, Harold is putting the plan he set up in Hong Kong into play, intending to activate a Trojan horse he embedded in the algorithms that Samaritan is planning to buy from software designer Beth Bridges. His plan is interrupted when Beth becomes a number, and Harold realises that Root is planning to kill her, against the Machine's instructions, in order to prevent the Trojan being traced back to Professor Whistler. She is unwilling to lose another friend after Shaw, but reckons without Harold's equal stubbornness as he drinks the poison she was preparing for Beth and refuses treatment until she agrees to let Beth live. Instead, she trashes Beth's work and blames it on Whistler in order to protect Harold.

Of particular interest is that when Harold is pleading with Root not to kill Beth, he drops his usual insistence on calling her 'Miss Groves', and simply calls her Root.

They part on bad terms, but Root is back in 'Search and Destroy', stealing a briefcase from a courier.

Goth Root.

The number of the week is a tech billionaire whose life has been released onto the web thanks to hacker activity, but with certain changes to show that he has embezzled from his company and overspent on his R&D project. It becomes clear that Sulaiman Khan believes that his downfall, including a targeted attack on his assets during the Wall Street flash crash, is the work of a malevolent AI, as indeed it is. Samaritan is reaching out to remove an obstacle, basically to prove that it doesn't need the meatware.

Ultimately, Khan is nabbed by Samaritan's goons and shot by Greer, but before that his investigations into the oddities at his company reveal that his antivirus software and biochip research are being coopted by Samaritan for creating new tracker implants and for seeking out traces of the Machine's activity.

Penny Dreadful - 'Memento Mori', 'And Hell Itself My Only Foe' and 'And They Were Enemies'

The Man.

So, just a quick zip through the last three episodes of Season 2 of Penny Dreadful ahead of its return for a new run next month (by which I mean next week.)

'John Clare' gets mad with Frankenstein, while Lily starts acting oddly. She gets into a fight with Clare in which she lapses into Oirish and babbles a lot, dropping in somewhere that she wants to live forever and rule the world. Naturally then, she's going to go and see Dorian Gray again. Meanwhile Dorian's lover finds his hidden portrait. She declares her love for him anyway and he poisons her, because he's a dick.

It's been a tough day.

Lyle does a face turn and explains the whole mystical shebang: Two brothers rebelled against God and were banished; one to Earth to be the Master Vampire, the other to Hell to be the Devil. Both seek for the Mother of Monsters (but not Lady Gaga) to restore their power and assail the gates of Heaven itself, plunge the world into a second darkness, unlimited rice pudding etc, etc.

Sir Malcolm is afflicted by enchantment and tries to kill Frankenstein, who has made a pretty good shot of that himself with his drug addiction, but Sembene pushes him into a shuttered up ballroom and shouts at him to 'know yourself'. Which he does, and immediately goes after Evelyn Poole single handed for rewenge.

He gets captured.

"I love what you've done with the place."

The remaining team summon Ives and Chandler back from their retreat to mount a rescue mission, but Chandler warns against a night raid since a) the Nightcomers are more powerful then and, b) reasons. Vanessa agrees, but then goes off alone (since that always works so well,) while Chandler is getting a creepy, bad magic booty call from Hekaty-poo, who tells him he is destined to stand at the right hand of Lucifer and she is so into that.

Thus the attack is on for the night of the full moon.

Sembene promises not to let Chandler hurt anyone else. They have a touching bonding moment and god damnit they're going to kill Sembene, aren't they!

They raid goes off poifectly: Sir Malcolm and Frankenstein are tormented by the ghosts of their mistakes, Lyle gets Mirakuru lifted by a Nightcomer and Chandler and Sembene are locked in a stairwell as the moon rises. Sembene insists that Chandler not kill himself, because he is chosen by God, and Chandler wolfs out and kills him.

"Ladies."

Vanessa confronts Evelyn and gets chatted up by Lucifer, working through the vent dummy of Vanessa herself, which fair play is creepy as fuck*. He calls her 'Amaunet', harping back to that Egyptian link from Season 1, which would also make him Amun, the Hidden One; probably not quite the same one as in Sleepy Hollow, although you never can tell. After all, if Sleepy Hollow and Bones share a continuity, practically anything is possible. Despite a bit of the old Black Mercy where Lucifer offers her a happy, normal life with Chandler in exchange for her soul when she dies. She tells the Devil to spin on it and crushes the dummy's face.

That's right, Chandler. Fluttershy is disappointed in you.

Evelyn tries to murder Vanessa, and Hekaty-poo releases Chandler, presumably hoping to dispose of her mother and Vanessa in a twofer. He rips out Evelyn's throat, but stays his hand from killing Ives. Oh well done, Chandler; and where was that spark of humanity when you were eating Sembene's throat? Oh, I know, I know, he wuvs her, but frankly having basically confessed that Sembene was a true friend and one of the few he had ever known... In My Little Pony that would have counted for something**.

Frankenstein tries to get Lily to come home and she laughs him off, so he shoots her and Gray. This does not go well, but they leave him alive because he's contacted for Season 3/to wallow in his own failure.

Season 3's big bad: The White Tie Supremacists.

Clare is betrayed by the blind girl who seemed to like him and locked up to be an attraction at the waxwork's new freak show. After brooding for a bit, he rips the doors off his cage, kills the showman and his wife and sneaks past the blind daughter, leaving her to find the bodies.

Sir Malcolm takes Sembene back to Africa. Chandler turns himself in to be hanged, but instead is deported back to America. Vanessa goes off to brood somewhere. This is the kind of misery you can end on when you're confident of a third season.

Penny Dreadful season 2 remains a sordid, weirdly sex negative confection, but is a massive improvement over Season 1. Once more, Vanessa's backstory provided the most interesting single episode, but the arc plot was better and more coherent and the Nigthcomers less head scratchy than the vampires who apparently sleep at night and their inexhaustible supply of blonde goths. And hey, Dorian Gray is finally involved in the actual plot. On the downside, they pulled an Agents of SHIELD on us and killed Sembene. My cynical side expects him to be replaced with a chirpy, cockney soldier.

* And in this show, fuck is always creepy on some level.
** You know you're a dad when you find yourself comparing everything to My Little Pony.

The Flash - 'Flash versus Zoom*'

Secret origins.

We begin with the secret origins of Zoom who, as Hunter Zolomon of Earth-2, witnessed the murder of his mother at his father's hand, before being remanded to the custody of the St Backstory's Home for Children in Need of a Tragic Past, where not a single fuck is given.

In the now, the tachyon-enhanced Barry decides that he is ready to face Zoom, despite Harry's continued warnings that this is a bad idea. Zoom has nothing he reminds Barry. Zoom cares about no-one, but will hurt absolutely anyone and everyone that Barry or any of his friends care about to get what he wants: Barry's Speed Force. Naturally, Barry decides to go ahead with his plan anyway, for he is Barry, plan-maker extraordinaire.

"Well, that went well."

Central to the plan is Cisco, whose Vibe powers control interdimensional energy and thus permit him to control the breaches. Barry talks Cisco down from his fear that he will become like Reverb and the path is opened for the confrontation of the century (or at least the season... well, this half of the season.) Tipping the balance, Caitlin drops the name Hunter Zolomon, which allows Harry to identify 'Jay' as the troubled orphan and later serial killer.

Using pictures of his parents to disorient him, Barry owns Zoom in the fight, gets the Boot on him and immediately locks him in the Pipeline... no, wait, he talks to him until Zoom goes all black eyed evil, declares that 'you can't lock up the darkness', busts loose and kidnaps Wally West. 'The Flash's speed for Wally,' he demands, because they can't resist a little metatextual irony.

With no means of getting Wally back from a foe that he has already bested in combat once (admittedly the whole parent trap thing wouldn't work again,) Barry agrees to the trade. Zoom releases Wally and Team Flash... go through with the exchange. Seriously; there is not one iota of an attempt to box clever, to pull a fast one or anything.

"Man! What a rush!"

In a chatty mood, Zoom explains that 'Jay' was a temporal relict; if I am reading this right, a past version of himself that he persuaded to be murdered if necessary. I have literally no idea how killing him didn't erase Zoom from history, unless Jay was a future version who... No; I have no idea. I'm completely lost on this one. Apparently Barry wouldn't believe who the man in the iron mask is if Zoom told him, so that's a mystery for another time. Oh, and he pretended to be a hero in order to give people hope and then take it away, because he's crazy.

Anyhugh, he gets supercharged and kidnaps Caitlin. I'm sure someone will try to convince Barry that this isn't his fall, but actually... Yeah, totally his fault.

So, the important lesson of the week is 'do not let Barry make plans'. Secondary, but still important, is 'box first, then sermonise', always assuming that they are committed to live capture, which frankly has been hit or miss this season, with several villains straight up murdered or at least allowed to die by Team Flash.

Next week, episode one of CSI: Central City, I guess.

* And not, as my Sky Box insisted, 'Venus Zoom'. Seriously, I've been wracking my brain trying to work that one out and expecting like, a guest appearance from Earth-2 Cupid or something.

Game of Thrones - 'The Red Woman'

"Prepare yourselves, everypony. Winter is coming."*

Oh yes, everybody's favourite cavalcade of oversexed, blood-soaked, baby-murdering, head-popping, wedding massacring, dubiously consenting fantasy politics is back, for the first season that moves the plot ahead of the books (which would of course mean more to me if I had read them**.)

Jon Snow was dead, to begin with, and despite pathological fan speculation looks set to remain so, with the lovely Kit Harrington apparently retaining his mop just to play a great looking corpse. Well, actually he looks like death, which is apt. Stabbed up by the officers of the Night's Watch, the late Lord Commander is found by his remaining particular buddies and Ser Davos Seaworth, who retreat with Ghost the direwolf into a small room, surrounded by the treacherous officers, their only hopes a message sent to someone else who owes Jon Snow their lives (I'm guessing the Wildlings, but they're keeping us in suspense) and the titular Red Woman.

"Well, this is an improvement."

Ever so slightly further south, Roose Bolton's plans are unraveling, the death of Stannis Baratheon as nothing compared to the loss of Sansa, which threatens their control of the North and so leaves them vulnerable to the wrath of the Lannisters over the very wedding that Ramsey has so royally bollocksed with his rapiness. It's almost as if pointless cruelty weren't an effective motivator, but if that were the case surely fewer people in Westeros would use it?

"Well, look at this. Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does
that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, m'lady!"
"Ain't we just."

Sansa and Theon flee through the snows and are almost caught by Ramsey's hounds, but Brienne and Pod arrive to violently save the day, and for the former to swear in as Sansa's first knight.

That's the first blood for the episode; it's not the last by a very long stretch.

Jaime Lannister returns home with his daughter's body, scotching my last hope that someone involved in the whole Dorne business wasn't a complete idiot. Seriously, it was so bloody obvious and yet... But perhaps that's my father/daughter issues talking again.

The Sand Snakes: Still looking like refugees from an even more exploitative
series.

Jaime and Cersei reaffirm their 'fuck the world' policy. Meanwhile, the High Sparrow moves into the 'good septon' phase of Queen Margaery's interrogation and the Sand Snakes launch a coup with their patented blend of violence and fanservice, murdering the Prince and his son in order to take control of Dorne in the name of the people, who are apparently hacked off with the lack of bloody revenge being pointed Lannisterward.

"I'm going to walk the earth, like Kane in Kung Fu."

Tyrion and Varys take an incognito tour of Mereen and learn that things are getting bad. The Sons of the Harpy are organised, and the Red Priests are whipping up the faithful to fight in the name of the Lord of Light and the Mother of Dragons. Honestly, I think this scene is really just there to keep Tyrion in the episode.

Jorah and Daario track Daenerys to the site where she was captured by the dothraaki and discuss unrequited love. We then cut to Daenerys being taken to the Khal and threatened with all kinds of sexual violence (yay) before establishing her status as a Khal's widow and thus untouchable, but destined to a life in the Vaes Dothrak home for widowed Khaleesi.

"I'm going to walk the earth, like Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury."

In Braavos, Arya Stark is out on the streets, blind and begging. The waif from the temple rocks up, gives her a stick and tells her to fight. Arya gets her arse kicked and the Waif swaggers off with jaunty promise to return tomorrow.

So, what does 'The Red Woman' bring to the table? The Dornish coup was kind of inevitable given the inability of anyone involved to recognise that a group of passionate, highly-motivated psychopaths wouldn't just roll over and play nice. I wish I could be interested, but the gratuitous sexy-sadism of the Sand Snakes just smacks of trying too hard. Vaes Dothrak is kind of new and Maisie Williams and Peter Dinklage are always worth the price of admission.

Just to prove that we don't always fall back on sexy.

In fairness, the cast is generally excellent. There are a few wobbles in the cast members who don't have English as a first language, and most of them are probably great in Spanish or Dutch, as it goes. The problems of the series, such as they are, are in its increasing dependence on sensation. The Sand Snakes are a low point, with their combination of gratuitous fanservice and giggling psychopathic bloodlust, but the dothraaki idiom of continual sexualisation and objectification is frankly a grind. I think it's telling that many of my favourite characters are the least sexualised: Arya, Brienne, Davos, Tyrion (yes, Tyrion has sex, but isn't sexualised.)

* Actual line from My Little Pony.
** Normally I read a lot, but there's only so many times people can tell you what an awesome turn around the Red Wedding is before it robs you of all desire to read it.

Supergirl - 'Bizarro'

Because she's worth it.

This week, we saw Max Lord's plans come to fruition, as he finally achieved his ambition of being pinned to a desk by one of the Danvers sisters; I do not think it was all that he expected.

Yeah, to quote Alex, Lord is a creep. Bad enough that he's creating a Supergirl clone to undo her good PR, but his relationship with the quasi-Kryptonian whom Cat Grant dubs 'Bizarro' is creepy as shit. Never trust anyone who creates a perky blonde clone and makes her call him 'My Lord'; this is clone creeper 101, right up there with cloning people who won't have sex with you so that you can have sex with their clones. Still, for anyone who has been watching the series, this is old news, even if they aren't comics fans holding a grudge for Ted Kord.

Lord's clone comes gunning for Supergirl, having been conditioned to believe that she is bad. While everyone at the DEO knows that Lord is behind it, Hank is reluctant to go after him without cast iron proof, because if mishandled such a move on a prominent industrialist could see him thrown out and the DEO handed over to Lord's fellow xenophobe, Sam Lane. Hank and Alex want to destroy Bizarro, but Kara sees more to her; a soul inside her. "She's me; she just talks like Cookie Monster."

Blowing hot and cold.

An attempt on Bizarro with a Kryptonite bullet leaves her disfigured and supercharged, and while the DEO works up an anti-Kryptonite and Kara fails spectacularly to hold down a normal relationship with Cat's son Adam, Bizarro is sent after the people Kara loves (see above re. Max Lord: Creep,) kidnapping James Olsen.

Alex 'arrests' Lord (for certain values of arrest usually reserved for Guantanamo package tours) and Kara and Alex bring down Bizarro. At Kara's insistence she is brought in alive and Hank restores her to a coma until something can be done for her.

'For the Man Who Has Everything'

Lord is put in a cell where he threatens Kara and Alex's mother, because he's a dick. Then Kara goes home and is jumped by a Black Mercy. Next episode is called 'For the Girl Who Has Everything', so we know where that's going to be going, whether from the comics or from Justice League. Based on the source material, I'm anticipating more heartrending puppy eyes and probably another terrifying burst of rage in the fifth act, both of which Benoist does beautifully, so that's all to the good, and perhaps a glimpse at what Supergirl could be if she went off the handle.

The Shannara Chronicles - 'Safehold'

"San Francisco. I was born there."

Our heroes have reached Safehold, which turns out to be the underground areas of the former San Francisco. With the Golden Gate bridge just a couple of pylons and a memory, Amberle suggests they make like the Jam, which Wil is a complete wet blanket about (it might be flooded, there could be trolls, it's dark and the might be spiders, and what if I get bats in my perfect silken locks?) until he realises that the ancient roadsign above the tunnel entrance explicitly dubs it 'Safehold', or at least 'Saf Old', which is just less catchy all around.

"Geddit!"

Back in Arborlon, the death of Cephalo has freed up an over-40s speaking slot, allowing Councillor Sourface to bitch off at Ander for not letting her be queen. Knowing that a coup is in the offing, Ander sends Captain Twofer - whose actual name is Diana, it turns out - to secure his alliance with Slanter and the gnomes in order to establish his regal chops. Meanwhile, Allanon trains Bandon, who gets possessed/influenced by the Dagda Mor again, tries to kill various people and goes homicidal just in time to prevent his relationship with Catania going past PG-13.

Magic sepsis!

In the tunnels of Safehold, our heroes have to clamber along pipes above a cave full of sleeping trolls. Wil drops the Elfstones, but that's a mere distraction. The important thing is that Eretria loses her jacket, so that we can see her tattoo magically expand into a subway map to guide them to the Bloodfire.

The Bloodfire itself is guarded by a couple of freaky floating women who spin in circles and try to turn the questers against each other with their cunning psychological machinations (by which I mean ham-fisted schoolyard bullying.)

Duh-na-nana-na-nah. B-b-bad to the bone.

Councillor Sourface has Ander thrown in chokey and announces her glorious five year plan to... I don't even know. Anyway, Gnomes arrive and the coup is off, as everyone is impressed that Ander has secured alliance with their ancient foes.

Never mind Ander; I'm impressed Slanter has managed to persuade his people, rather than being thrown in an institution for Stockholm Syndrome sufferers when he suddenly turns up after a decade being all 'yeah, elves are okay, or at least better than demons.' Also, someone suggests that the numbers for the army of the free runs into the hundreds of thousands and I laughed so hard I nearly burst, because I'm not convinced that there are that many people in the entire Four Lands.

Make a little birdhouse from your soul.

In Safehold, Eretria gets cut and it turns out her blood unlocks the Bloodfire. Wil Elfstones the floaty chicks (are they demons then?) and Amberle stands in the fire. The flames go out, Amberle is gone and Eretria collapses. I'm actually almost sorry this wasn't the season finale.

As our epic quest along the west coast, through uncharted lands occupied mostly by people that our heroes know in some way draws to a close, and as the ultimate battle of good vs evil shapes up with literally dozens on each side, The Shannara Chronicles continues to be bedeviled by the same fundamental failings. It has no sense of scale, and very few of its characters really have room to be. Councillor Sourface literally had no lines prior to this episode. We never got to see Slanter persuading his people to trust him, let alone to trust Ander. Instead, our love triangle is arsing about, watching the last Star Trek clip and hanging from ceiling pipes.

Season 1 wraps up next week with 'Ellcrys'. I'd worry about what I'll snark at now, but Channel 5 is already promising me magical schools and humping spell books in 'The Magicians', so I imagine I'll get by.

Limitless - 'This is Your Brian on Drugs'

Oh man, it's Riley!

As we hit what would be the mid-season finale of Limitless if we were doing that in this country, shit once more gets real.

After a brief slice of life insight into the lives of Mike and Ike, Brian's handlers fall foul of a pharmaceutical raid gone bad at the undercover NZT pick up. Ike is shot, and a Canadian gang looking to steal oxycodone for street sale have instead got away with hundreds of doses of NZT, and the Bureau needs to get it back before they realise what they have.

Brian works out where the fleeing Canadian will have to pass, and arranges for Rebecca and Casey to lead the interception, realising too late that there is tension between Rebecca and her boyfriend. The NZT is retrieved, but Rebecca decides that she needs to end it with Casey, by unhappy chance doing so by text just as Casey is read in on the NZT experiment because 80 of the pills have gone missing.

We flash back and discover that Casey's SWAT team took the pills, and that prior to receiving the text, he had been working out how to return them. Stung, however, he pends to peer pressure and the team go on an NZT bender which ends with one of them killing another when his NZT accelerated mind realises that his teammate is sleeping with this wife.

From here, things spiral. Brian realises that Casey is on NZT, but Casey realises that Brian realises and takes him and Rebecca hostage. They try to break out of the building, but Brian is able to alert Boyle, who takes out the SWAT team, ending in a standoff with Casey in which Brian shoots Casey dead, despite Brian's insistance that he can find a better way out.

It's another episode which exposes Brian to death and erodes a little more of his happy fun guy persona. It's interesting to see that Casey's NZT doppelganger dresses the same as him, where as 'pill Brian' is typically distinct.

Also of note, one of Casey's SWAT guys is Marc Blucas, much-reviled as the Yoko of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Legends of Tomorrow - 'Night of the Hawk'

Aww yeah.

With Savage forewarned of the team's existence as of the 1970s, Rip follows clues in the Acheron's database to small town America in 1958, an idyllic time of cool cars, good neighbours, casual workaday racism and marauding hawk-mutants.

We open in-period, with a group of drag-racing kids encountering a glowing meteor and meteor aficionado Vandal Savage. There follow a series of slasher attacks which draw the team's attention and they show up with an actual plan. Oh yes, no random side missions this week; no scenes of people sitting around retaining series regular billing. It's not quite a heist, but we do at least have a team mission.

"While I have been working hard, you have been seducing 

that young woman."

"Not seducing; liberating. With an option on seducing."

Stein nets a job at the local asylum, with Sara as his faithful nurse, complete with little white hat and enough withering scorn to make Lady Bracknell think twice. He looks into the files of violent patients, while she hooks up with another nurse. Sara sees helping anyone look beyond the blinkered attitudes of their era to be a good thing, although Stein worries - not unreasonably - that it might be unfair to let her think that she is going to find other people like Sara in the 1950s.

This is part and parcel of the episode's overall deconstruction of the nostalgia for the 50s; something that Stein shares in, although Jax and Sara are oddly immune.

"You must admit, it is an idyllic time."
"Sure. If you're white."
"And a man. And straight."

Jax is detailed to get to know the girlfriend of one of three missing teenagers (a slightly risky proposition given that she is white and he isn't.)

Meanwhile, Snart and Hunter (sadly not attorneys at law) front as FBI agents to question the local sheriff, who rather tellingly insists that the violent shredding deaths of local residents are not the work of a serial murder, but rather a series of bizarre accidents. Their role is brief, but glorious, as they swagger in all trenchcoats and fedoras and sneering DC attitude. Love it.

Nighthawks at the Diner.

Jax raises eyebrows by sitting at the counter and teaches a 50s gal to dip fries in her shake (no, actually; I'm not being crude.) He sees off the designated racists by staring them down and takes the girl out for a drive to, you know, hold hands and ask questions about her missing friends. Stein rather touchingly warns Jax to beware of the racists.

In the part of the plot I found least interesting, Ray and Kendra also experience racism when they pose as newlyweds and everyone assumes that she's the help. They soon meet the neighbours, Dr and Mrs Knox. She's a housewife; he's an immortal warlord conducting immoral experiments at the asylum, and also makes a mean tuna surprise casserole.

And, lest we forget, a total creeper.

Out in lover's lane, Jax gets Lorraine McFly'ed, but the date is interrupted by mutant hawk men. The girl (man, I feel bad forgetting the names of the passing love interests here, but in my defence I can't remember the boys' names either,) is injured, but when Jax tries to get her to hospital the Sheriff stops them and kidnaps him, delivering him to Savage to be injected with Nth metal and mutated into a hawk beast.

Stein and Sara find the girl and take her to the Waverider, where they identify a mutagen and start engineering an antidote.

Ray swipes the Amen dagger from 'Knox's' man cave and Kendra decides she's going to solo Savage. Because that fits in with the Arrowverse's history of Great Plans (TM). It goes horribly wrong and Savage releases his subjects, then escapes when Ray blasts him out the window. Snart has a shot to kill hawk-Jax, but doesn't, which after they capture him and use the antidote resolves his lingering suspicions of Snart over the death of Roary.

They say goodbye to the friends they've made and it's off to the next PSYCH! Chronos attacks and blows a hole in the hull. Rip, Snart, Jax and Stein head for the Jumpship, apparently completely outmatched (in part because Firestorm's power would rip the ship apart,) and Ray, Kendra and Sara see the Waverider lift off without them.

With 'Night of the Hawk', the show nails its ensemble problem, but all is not rosy. Obviously, Savage has to keep escaping for at least another six or seven episodes (allowing that the last two might involve fixing a paradox caused by his defeat,) but it's managed here by deliberately choosing a bad strategy. Kendra is capable, but none of the team can solo Savage, that's why there's a team. It's not clear why they didn't have Sara and Ray go in to knock him down and hold him while - let us not forget this requirement - Kendra recites a poem?

Also, what is up with the hawkness? They got onto the idea that Che'ara was some sort of hawk goddess earlier, but here it is apparently a mutagenic side effect of certain kinds of Nth metal exposure. I'd assumed it was linked to Horus in some way, but who knows.

Person of Interest - 'Blunt' and 'Karma'

Working lunch.

In 'Blunt', PoI of the week Harper appears to be a college student working in a legal marijuana store, but it quickly becomes apparent that she is a chameleon con artist and half-Robin Hood (she steals from the rich, or specifically from the rich and criminal.) Unfortunately, her latest mark is Dominic, and a flippant attitude is unlikely to be enough to protect her from the Brotherhood, who are branching out into almost legitimate security.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of Harper. She's annoyingly cocky and espouses a self-interested philosophy at odds with our heroes, but I get the feeling the show wants me to like her; which I don't. I think if we saw more significantly a realisation that the Brotherhood was something more dangerous than the crooks she has played with before, even a flicker of real humility, I might, but it's not there.

Scene of the week: Reese and Harold bid Harper farewell. She obvious-pickpocket-hugs Harold as they part and then Reese points out that she took Harold's watch. Harold looks, then responds: "That's all right; I stole her ring."

As part of the war no Samaritan, Root creates a killer app to recruit unsuspecting Machine assets, which she sells to a company owned by former PoI Caleb Phipps. Phipps also offers her a job as part of a project team, which she accepts. As in other recent episodes, there is also a reference to a former PoI providing a medical marijuana prescription for Reese, indicating that with their diminished resources the team increasingly relies on the fact that they have made friends.

"We need to talk."

Then in 'Karma' we hit pure PoI of the week territory in the first time in who knows how long, and also go back to serious flashback territory. In the now, Harold clashes with Reese and Fusco when their PoI, a trauma counsellor who uses elaborate schemes to frame the people who hurt his patients, sets out for revenge against the man convicted of his wife's murder, but who has always protested his innocence.

At the same time, Reese is getting closer to opening up to Iris, eventually beginning to tell her about... Whatshername; the blonde who was super important in Season 1. I'd actually almost forgotten about her since his pain started to be all about Carter and then Shaw.

In flashback, we see the recently crippled Harold trying to blow up Alicia Corwin in revenge for Nathan's murder, and the Machine trying to talk him out of it, despite not yet having a voice.

Season 4 continues to be an emotional wringer, although the absence of direct Samaritan involvement lets the pressure ease a little, and it's interesting how odd it feels to go back to Number of the Week after all this time.

The Flash - 'Flash Back'

"You want to do what now?"

Unable to crack the vital speed equation which will allow him to run faster (and, I note, ignoring the implications of Caitlin's research that his running technique might need work,) Barry is inspired by a chance comment from Wally to seek help from the one person who does know how to enhance the speed force without soul-destroying, body-dissolving drugs: Eobard Thawne; not by reading his journals or quizzing Gideon, but by travelling back in time and pretending to be himself for long enough to get the solution to the equation.

To quote Harry Wells, for all his flaws fast becoming my favourite character: "Your plan is asinine."

Still, when has Barry ever let a little thing like common sense, contrary advice or the blatant and repeated evidence of his own shortcomings as a strategic thinker get in his way? Caitlin whips up a dose of six hour Flash-tranquiliser and off he runs to the time when the team were fighting Hartley 'Pied Piper' Rathaway.

It's that man again.

Things go wrong from the off, as a hideous 'Zombie Flash' appears and throws him out of the Speed Force too early in the episode. Barry then has a punch up with his younger self before delivering the knock out draft and then taking down Rathaway himself. Committed to not altering the timeline, he doesn't warn Cisco and Caitlin of Rathaway's explosive cochlear implants... oh wait, he does exactly that, and then proceeds to oh-so casually drop a near-complete speed equation into a conversation with 'Wells'.

And then Zombie Flash pops out of Barry's crime board at the CCPD, calling Barry away from his discussion and bringing him face to face with Eddie Thawne. On returning to his conversation, Wells knocks Barry out and quizzes him about the future, since he knows that the Zombie Flash is a Time Wraith, a peril of time travel which Barry is too inexperienced to avoid. Wells suggests that they protect the web of time, although from its actions it seems more like they just go crazy over the scent of time travelling speedster.

This is not good.

Hartley manages to overload his gloves and drive off a Wraith attack with a sound burst, but then younger Barry shows up and in total fairness the scene is priceless. Caitlin denies mixing a Micky Finn to knock out pastBarry, while Cisco goes into a metaphysical fugue over whether the idea for the revised Flash logo was original or self-creating now that he's seen it before devising it.

Thawne gives Barry the secret of tachyon enhancement on a flash drive for the time vault's computer system and sends him home with the Wraith in hot pursuit, leaving Cisco and Caitlin a year to work out how to stop it. Having screwed up that part of the timeline, he also tells Cisco that Hartley knows where Ronnie is, returning to find Hartley himself waiting to zap the Wraith, whatever changed having made him a decent guy and honorary science bro.

Barry also brings back a recording he made and claims to have 'found' of Eddie explaining just what he feels for Iris, to help her move on with her life.

'Flash Back' is a decent episode, but brings up once more Barry's near-total inability to stick to simple, common sense rules. "Don't get involved with your doppelganger," Harry warns in 'Welcome to Earth-2'. Does kidnapping yourself, making out with your alternate's wife and getting his father in law killed count as 'involved'? Here, he can't resist shoving his oar in when Hartley is captured, potentially scotching the recovery and stabilisation of Firestorm, and the fact that so few things go wrong as a result of his actions is a miracle. And what is it with him and abducting his alternate selves?

Overall then, this is a fun glimpse back at what was, with some added character notes for Iris in particular. Tom Cavanagh also gets to revert to his former role for a while, once more expertly mixing his pride in his team with his ultimate and overriding goal of regaining his full connection to the Speed Force and getting home. While it has fun with time travel, by introducing the Time Wraith, the episode is clearly looking to ensure that Barry doesn't get to confident, leaving that sort of thing to Legends of Tomorrow.

Arrow - 'Unchained', 'Sons of the Father' and 'Code of Silence'

I don't know if they kept a Roy-tailored suit around just in case he happened to
come back while Thea was incapacitated, or if he let the shoulders back out.

Team Arrow pursue a burglar stealing high-tech components, only to discover that the thief is Roy Harper. During one pursuit, Thea has a dizzy spell and Malcolm Merlin pops up to tell us that the thwarted bloodlust is now killing her.

The team fake-kill Roy in order to get him away from a remote-control master who has a camera contact in his eye and proof that he is a) Roy Harper, b) alive and c) not the late Arrow. They then go head to head with the Calculator, a villainous hacktivist set to deliver a brute force attack on the city's digital infrastructure, crippling vital services and killing thousands. Felicity goes head to head with her opposite number while the rest of the team take out the physical threat.

Awkward.

Away from her keyboard, Curtis talks Felicity into ignoring the board and presenting Palmer Tech's new power cell superbattery herself. It's a welcome return for Curtis, who also manages to not be completely hammered when attacked by Roy and even throws his prototype t-sphere at him. Felicity's presentation goes down a storm with the audience, including a man we know to be the Calculator, and whom Felicity recognises as her father.

In Nanda Parbat, Nyssa takes advantage of Malcolm's absence to start a coup, and retrieves something called the Lotus from Tatsu Yamashiro. At the end of the episode 'Unchained' she offers the Lotus, a cure for the bloodlust, to Oliver in exchange for the head of Malcolm Merlin.

In 'Sons of the Father', Felicity Snr. reveals his secret identity, having identified Felicity as Overwatch, and claims that they aren't that different. He considers himself a vigilante of sorts, and swears up and down that he wasn't actually going to kill thousands of people. He wants to get to know her, but fails her test when she shows him her R&D room and he tries to hack the servers.

Once a douchebag...

Oliver negotiates a compromise: The Lotus for the demon's head ring. Malcolm is dismissive of the very existence of the Lotus, so Oliver secures a sample. Once it works, Malcolm agrees to the exchange, then ambushes Nyssa instead. By this point, pretty much everyone is telling Oliver to kill Malcolm and have done with it, but he's not willing to take away Thea's father, even if he is a dick. Malcolm of course claims that he is being responsible and that Nyssa in control of the League would be a disaster.

Rather than have a League civil war fought out in the streets of Star City, Oliver arranges a trial by combat. Nyssa is not good enough to beat Malcolm, but as her husband Oliver steps in to fight for her, defeating Malcolm, cutting off his hand and taking the ring. Nyssa then disbands the League and Malcolm swears worse than death revenge before running off to tell Darhk about William (Oliver's son, whom he has apparently been seeing loads of off screen.)

Arrow does The West Wing.

In 'Code of Silence', Oliver faces a key debate against his surprise opponent in the Mayoral race: Mrs Darhk (although for political reasons she goes by Adams.)

Darhk brings in a demolitions crew - a quirky miniboss squad who specialise in precision demolitions and offensive use of tools - to take out Quentin Lance and then bring down the Debate, killing everyone but Adams. Team Arrow thwart the attack with help from Quentin and Oliver owns the debate, Adams apparently having neglected any prep beyond practicing her 'shell-shocked face.'

Donna Smoake breaks up with Lance when he tries to protect her by distancing himself while people are dropping buildings on him, but realises that he's just trying to keep her safe. Oliver and Felicity have an engagement party and Curtis gives Felicity a bio-chip which could allow her to walk. Unfortunately, Malcolm, Darhk and now Thea know about William, which means that that lie is about to blow up in Oliver's face. Even if it doesn't, William's mum has apparently sent him on an evil exchange trip and he'll be staying with those nice Darhks for a while.

In Flashbacksville, Oliver hallucinated Shado who gave him a real rock, confessed to killing whatsherface's brother, set himself to freeing the other slaves, and killed Conklin as a show of faith.

Once more, Arrow attempts to build tension by perpetuating the spent trope of superheroes with secrets. Thea actually tells Oliver that he's right to keep William a secret from Felicity because of the risk of William being used against Oliver, which when you think about it is basically saying that she considers Felicity a security leak. It's bollocks and done to build for a conflict later in the season, and it's getting pretty tiring. I'd like the generally excellent DCTVU to find a new tune, please.