TV reviews

A complete archive of The Medium is Not Enough’s reviews of TV programmes since 2005

Runaways Season 2
US TV

Boxset Monday: Marvel’s Runaways (season 2) (US: Hulu; UK: Syfy)

7 January 2019 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the US: Available on Hulu
In the UK: Wednesdays, 9pm, Syfy

With Marvel superhero shows now spread far and wide across the US programming spectrum, ABC, Fox, Netflix, Freeform and FX all carrying at least one show apiece, it was easy to predict that Marvel’s Runaways might be different to people’s expectations, as each service needs to distinguish itself from the others. The question was how.

Airing on streaming service Hulu, it has a relatively simple premise: a bunch of California school kids discover that their parents are supervillains who sacrifice young runaways in a weird sci-fi ritual; said kids then have to stop their parents’ nefarious without letting on that they know their secret. Luckily, the kids turn out to have all manner of powers: one’s an engineering genius who designs a special pair of weaponised gloves; another has a pet dinosaur that obeys her commands; a third seems to be a floaty light angel; a fourth has super strength; a fifth has a staff that gives her magic witch powers; and the sixth… is good with computers.

So far, so seemingly predictable. However, in the hands of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (The OC, Gossip Girl), season one of this Hulu drama was a more surprising affair, designed to appeal to both kids and their parents. The show effectively played off the two generations against one another, both on-screen and within the audience.

The kids’ storylines showed off their black and white, developing morality, while love affairs aplenty, gay and straight, were soapy and simple, full of fierce, childish emotions and minor slights becoming major incidents.

Meanwhile, the parents in the audience could enjoy the more nuanced storyline of the adults. In a minor stroke of casting genius, many of the adults were played by stars of TV shows older viewers would have watched in the early 2000s, including James Marsters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Julian McMahon from Charmed, Annie Wersching from 24, and Kevin Wiseman from Alias. Here, relationships are complicated, true love does die, people marry for other reasons, and transgressions can be overlooked, while supervillainy may be caused by degenerative brain diseases, traumatic childhoods, blackmail, progressive compromises or simply a desire to protect your kids.

Basically, adulthood.

Runaways - season 2

Runaways – season two

When we left our teenage rebels at the end of season one, they had finally defied their parents to run away after the stealthy cold war had become a hot war. What would become on them as they went out into the world on their own? Would they survive? What would their parents do? And what would they do to their parents?

Unfortunately, as we learned with both The OC and Gossip Girl before, Schwartz and Savage can do a great first season, but tend to lose their way in their second season – and Marvel’s Runaways is no different.

Continue reading “Boxset Monday: Marvel’s Runaways (season 2) (US: Hulu; UK: Syfy)”

Champaign ILL
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Champaign ILL, Timeless and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

21 December 2018 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! Yes, just before TMINE goes off on its week-and-a-half-long Christmas break, I thought I’d leave you with one final present – a second WHYBW! Yes, it’s a Christmas miracle.

Travelers

This week’s reviews

There was a decent release of new boxsets this week, but season 3 of Travelers was the only thing I managed to both watch and review, as I was away at a wedding last weekend. I do hope to catch up with season 2 of 4 Blocks, the rest of Plan Cœur and a few other shows at some point, but I’m not 100% sure that’ll be over the Christmas break, seeing as I’m not a member of the Royle Family. But we’ll see.

There’s also some good stuff out today on Netflix, including The Protector, so I might end up watching something surprising. And Hulu’s just boxsetted the entire second season of Marvel’s Runaways, so I’ll probably watch at least a few episodes of that before we’re reunited in 2019.

Plus Syfy (US) has just released a preview of the first episode of Deadly Class, so I’ll have that to talk about when I get back. It’s US only, but it’s here, if you want to watch it, too, and can:

The Timeless finale
The Timeless finale

New shows

But that doesn’t mean I’ve watched nothing else but Travelers. YouTube Premium’s Chicago ILL came out recently and I’ll be talking about that after the jump. Oddly, this year, US TV has been taking a leaf out of UK TV’s book and has given us some Christmas specials. Timeless came back for a feature-length conclusion and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina also gave us a suitably festive tale of cannibalism and ritual sacrifice for the solstice. Praise Satan. We can talk about that after the jump, too.

Happy Together

And the regulars… sorry, regular…

Most shows have already had their mid-season finales, but there are a few stragglers left. Frustratingly, Titans‘s final episode is tonight, so that’ll have to wait until 2019 before I talk about the final arrival of Batman to the programme. That means, I’ll be talking about Happy Together… and that’s it. Huh.

And no, I’ve still not watched the final two episodes of Doctor Who.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Champaign ILL, Timeless and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”

Travelers - Season 3
Streaming TV

Boxset Friday: Travelers (season 3) (Netflix)

21 December 2018 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

Available on Netflix

I foresee a future where ultimately, only Netflix makes TV. All TV you want to watch will be on Netflix and that will be the only TV you get to watch.

How can we stop this? More importantly, should we stop this or is the alternative future so much worse?

Gosh, what a smooth segue into this review of season 3 of Travelers. You barely noticed the bump, did you?

When Travelers started, it was a surprisingly decent, low-key Canadian series on that country’s Showcase channel. Yes, it had some funding from Netflix, but as the show’s star and producer Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) pointed out when interviewed at the time, it was still a show that was proudly Canadian and “Canadian first”. Sure, the rest of the world would get to watch it on Netflix sooner or later, but everyone in Canada would get the chance to watch it first.

However, here we are hitting season 3 and it’s now Netflix-only. No initial Canadian airing first any more. Netflix has assimilated Travelers and made it a true original, rather than a ‘Netflix Original’.

Soon, all TV will be like this. But should this future be avoided? Is season 3 of Travelers any different or worse from the previous two seasons?

Travelers - season 3

Well traveled

Season 3 of Travelers picks up where the previous season left off, more or less. There’s a bit of a time jump but not a huge one and the gaps are filled in pretty quickly.

If you recall, when last we left Travelers, our gang of time travellers had been outed by the very first of their number, Traveler 001: they had been forced to confess to camera that their consciousnesses had been sent back in time by an AI called ‘The Director’ to replace those of present day people who were about to die, in order to prevent the terrible future they’d all come from. Yes, they themselves were about to do what they’d tried to avoid for two seasons and expose their mission to the world – and their new, present-day loved ones. What would happen next, could they stop it and how would it affect their mission? And how would being on Netflix affect the storytelling?

Well, there’s more swearing…

Spoilers after this trailer and the jump.

Continue reading “Boxset Friday: Travelers (season 3) (Netflix)”

Happy on Syfy
Streaming TV

It’s that moment you’ve all been waiting for: it’s the TMINE Top N programmes of 2018!

19 December 2018 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

As usual at this time of year, TMINE is busily packing its bags to get ready for its annual Christmas break. We’re not there yet, though, as everything will continue until Friday. 

But barring minor miracles, unless it turns out Chicago ILL, Dogs of Berlin or Tideland have been cruelly overlooked, there’ll be no shows that are both new and excellent for me to review this year, which means I can at last unveil this year’s TMINE’s Top N programmes, where N is a positive integer that I’ve more or less picked at random each year. This year, N=14, you’ll be excited to hear. Can you guess what they are?

There’s certainly been some interesting new arrivals, whose presence in the Top N you’ll probably have been able to predict in advance – I’ve certainly dropped a few hints throughout the year. But there’s a few surprises in there, I think.

As always, a caveat: I’ve not watched every TV programme broadcast or acquired in the UK this year and I barely watched any live TV, so there are almost certainly some good shows that that I’ve left off the list. There’s also a show or two that got made ages ago but which never made it to the UK or my viewing queue until this year, so it’s entirely possible some quite oldies have made it onto the 2018 list. And, of course, there are a few shows that started well but I’ve not finished yet, so aren’t eligible for the list (honourable mention to the likes of Plan Cœur, for example)

So best not to think of this as the definitive “Best new TV shows from around the world of 2018″, so much as just the top “TMINE would recommend to a friend shows of the ones I’ve watched in 2018”.

As always, too, feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments, on your own blog or on the TMINE Facebook page. Just for reference, here are previous years’ Top Ns:

And now, to the top N…

Continue reading “It’s that moment you’ve all been waiting for: it’s the TMINE Top N programmes of 2018!”

Elseworlds Flash
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Arrowverse crossover, Counterpart and Fortitude

17 December 2018 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

Oops. Friday was busier than expected, which means last week lost out on having a WHYBW altogether. Sorry about that.

Still, here it is. As promised last time, I did manage to watch the first three episodes of Netflix’s Plan Cœur (The Hookup Plan), but I’ve yet to tuck into Dogs of Berlin.

Fortitude Season 3

Fortitude

I also made a start on the third, final season of Sky Atlantic’s Fortitude. However, since that’s gone both full-on horror and also become quite silly, with vampiric Californians doing live trepanning to achieve eternal youth, I decided to give up on it about three-quarters through the first episode – at the point when Detective Dan starts hugging and chatting to dead bodies, in fact.

I know it’s only four episodes long, so I might tune in for the final episode at some point, but The Killing Times is doing episodic reviews and since I’d rather not actually watch wasps stinging people’s eyeballs and ‘stabby shamanic sex’, I might just read those instead of watching it.

The Shape of Things To Come

With Christmas nearly upon us, most shows are winding up for the holidays, but last Thursday and Friday saw the unleashing of the third season of Travelers on Netflix, the second season of 4 Blocks on Amazon and the Christmas special of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty for me to chat about this week – perhaps for another WHYBW. I’m already up to the third episode of Travelers, so that’s promising at least. Boxset Thursday, anyone?

Counterpart also made its return last Sunday, so I’ll be chatting about the first two episodes of that after the jump, as well.

Counterpart season 2

And the regulars…

Also after the jump are my thoughts on the latest episodes of the few remaining regulars: Black Lightning, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Happy Together, Magnum P.I. and Titans. I watched the second half of the first season of Nightflyers, so I’ll chat about that, too. And since the schedules were a little light last week, I thought I’d tune in for the annual crossover of a few of TMINE’s old regulars – Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl, which took a trip to some Elseworlds. More about that after the jump, too.

But no, I’ve still not watched Doctor Who. Maybe over Christmas.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Arrowverse crossover, Counterpart and Fortitude”