Shadowhunters

    Yup.

We’re doing this.

Shadowhunters everyone. The TV series based on the Harry Potter fanfiction gone rogue known as the Mortal Instruments. Woo! Can you feel excitement in the air?

Yeah, I can’t either.

They could have at least gotten a better digital artist to do the poster. What’s that expression supposed to be anyway? Confusion or constipation?

But I digress.

Story is simple. Every single mythological creature you’ve ever heard of exists, and it lurks somewhere in the world. Just don’t hope to actually see anything other than the regular vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters. Oh and the occasional selkie… ahem elves I guess, according to the series. It’s mythology isn’t too fleshed out.

So to keep the world protected from the nasties, we have the shadowhunters, half angels who use glyphs to cast magic.

Our main heroine, Clarissa or Clary, discovers she’s a shadowhunter on her 18th birthday and after the subsequent disappearance of her mother, she embarks on a quest to retrieve her. A standard kind of plot. So where do the series go wrong other than the badly build (painted over) world?

Well it’s not made very well.

The acting is bad. Effects are passable. Choreography is non-existent, though battles are worth looking at just to see how our ladies run in heels. Dialogue is awkward, of course, and character relationships are not believable. Then again I didn’t expect better.

That said, it’s not as bad as I initially suspected. At the very least it has been licked to glossiness and the mannequins they’re trying to pass off as actors are dressed well. Leather clothing all around.

My general recommendation is a Pass. Unless you are the series most desperate fan and you see everything related to it through rose coloured glasses or want to have a good laugh, this will not entertain you.

But let’s go into detail and torture ourselves through episode one. Spoilers ahead.

We open on Justin Bieber Shadowhunter following an old asian man. The two of them briefly showcase their powers in a game of cat and mouse. One is a shapeshifter, and the other can move very fast and jump very high. Not bad, almost elegantly done to establish some of the rules of physics in the world. But that’s where the competence runs out.

One of the shadowhunter bumps into a girl and, surprise, she can see him. Shadowhunters glamour themselves invisible to muggle… I mean mundanes. And right off the bat we notice the plastic-doll acting. Luckily the title screen shows up to save us from that awkward disaster in the making.

We cut instead to eight hours earlier and the events leading up to the hunt and the encounter between our characters.

But rather than plunging into the exciting world of the hunters, we are glued to the doe-eyed lead as she scores an entry into an art college. And then we meet the friend-zone guy, the nerdy but hot best friend who will never get into those pants, ever.

The introductions don’t drag on and we’re swept to a crime scene where a woman is murdered. But no time to dwell on that either, it’s our girl’s birthday and she gets a very interesting gift from her mom. It’s essentially a magic wand. The fact they put a crystal on the top doesn’t change the fact it’s a magic wand.

Her mother also wants to tell her something important about their family, but young Clary is in a hurry and bounces off before she can say a word.

We flashback to it anyway. Ten years ago, her mother had her memory wiped to protect her from the monsters hunting them. But every time she tried to tell Clary, a random interruption stops her.

So now Clary is off to morally support her friend Simon at his music gig. Just about where the episode opened.

But right before we’re slammed with exposition when one of her friends underlines how “weird” it is not having any relatives other than her mom. I knew this was coming. The obligatory friends commenting on things that are none of their business. And yes, it feels forced and unnecessary.

We return to Bieber Shadowhunter and his band of merry friends, including Draco totally not Malfoy. But let’s pause for a moment and address an issue. What’s the deal with how they walk? It’s like prepubescent boys trying a tough guy walk but managing an ‘oh I just shat my pants.’ It’s weird and unnatural and I wish they’d cut it the hell out.

So we’re back to the encounter scene. Clary scolds him with her monotone, tiny voice and moves on, only to discover her friends didn’t actually see him and now think someone slipped something in her coffee.

Determined to find out what’s going on and prove to herself she’s not seeing things, Clary chases after him. Not a bad way to give her a motivation to follow actually.

Shortly after we are treated to a fight scene, and said scene is... kindly said, lacking. The choreography is minimal, the framing and cuts are boring, and there’s no dynamics or sense of urgency beyond a short lasso/hand to hand fight with the girl hunter. At some point Clary literally picks up a sword, holds it 90 degrees, and some random demon stabs himself on it. Yes, we’re down to that kind of choreography. And the room isn’t even crowded. It’s a large empty space. But look at me expecting the demons and hunters to actually know a thing or two about fighting.

So in the chaos, our damsel runs off home to her mom who tries to explain but yet again is interrupted. This time by a bunch of demons who followed Clary from the club. Her mother tells her to go to her cop boyfriend and pushes her into a portal.

The ensuing fight scene at the house is much better and the mum kicks all kinds of ass. But she knows she can’t win so she drinks some kind of a potion and falls into a deep slumber to keep the artefact everyone is looking for (the mortal cup) hidden.

We cut to Clary at the police station where she overhears a conversation that paints the cop in rather bad light. So she flees into the rain.

Meanwhile, our baddies teleport to Chernobyl, of all places, where the mastermind is raising an army of mutant demon things. Or at least trying to. He needs the cup to succeed. He’s also bald, though not lacking a nose so totally not Voldemort.

Without getting any help or calling the cops, Clary returns home and has a well deserved breakdown over the destruction of her house and the disappearance of her mother. But her crying doesn’t last long before she grabs a battle axe and goes to investigate. Yeah! Now we’re talking! You go girl!

But she’s ambushed by a shapeshifter and saved by our blandest of male leads. A supposedly romantic scene follows, though to me it seems more creepy and forced.

The two of them just don’t work, the acting is bad and the interactions feel off. Especially when he gets all close and personal for no reason. This kind of invasion of space is not natural among strangers. An instant out of nowhere forced “attraction,” with no buildup, no establishment, just bam and they are “interested” in each other. And this is where it all goes truly downhill.

She faints, he drags her to his cave… I mean the shadowhunter headquarters and explains what’s happening and who they are. None of it works narratively. It feels set up and badly acted. Also, if I were Clary and woke up to a guy burning sigils into my skin, I’d make sure to pick up one of those blades, hold it horizontally, and watch him stab himself on it.

So as the episode slowly slides into the mud, Simon finds her, sees Drako-not-Malfoy kill a guy, and we’re given an excellently symbolic scene with her in the middle and each guy offering a hand to pull her the opposite way. Cut to black, and this monstrosity is over. Finally.

    Yeah, it’s bad, but honestly I thought it would be worse. Still a pass. It’s a waste of a budget and perfectly good leather pants.

Dark Matter

This week  I wanted to review something good, so if that’s all you wanted to know, yes Dark Matter is good, go watch it.

The acting is decent, the effects and props believable, and the story intriguing. The premise is simple, a crew wakes up on a ship with no memory. Trying to work around their differences, the crew embarks on a journey to rediscover their pasts. What will they find? Do they want to remember? What happened to wipe their memories? And many more questions arise with every new discovery.

I’m glad to give this show my recommend. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a good new proper sci fi. And that’s about all I can say without treading too heavily into spoiler territory.

The series open with a two parter Pilot. Because that seems to be a thing with sci fi.

We’re in space, naturally, and a dark ship drifts across the stars. An alarm blares, waking it from its slumber. Life support is fading, the message says, and the systems enter emergency mode, bringing the crew out of stasis to deal with the mess. The only problem is, no one remembers anything.

They are alone, on a crippled ship, and they can’t remember who they are or how they got there.

So they do the only logical thing, band up and explore the ship in search of a clue. One by one they start discovering their corners and roles, the ship’s pilot, a weapon master, a gunman, the techy, the black guy, the good guy, and of course the android. (Zoie Palmer, the good doctor freshly out of Lost Girl.) And so we get all the tradition sci fi characters. But are they really that close to their stereotypes?

    The story moves on when the android is activated in attack mode and our crew works together to disable her and restore her programming. She is an integral part of the ship and can help them in repairs and the search for answers. If I have one complaint about the series, however, is how every single time something goes wrong, it starts with someone disabling the android. At some point it becomes laughable as people just walk up to her and poke her with a cattle prod. And bam, she’s down.

But moving on. The pilot/captain, played by Melissa O'Neil asks the android to access any possible data on the crew but the search comes out empty. Someone has deleted all information. Question is, was it one of them, or do they have a stowaway?    

And so the game of doubt begins, and continues nearly through the series, do they all not remember, or is someone playing them? The main suspect at the moment is number One, the man who woke up first. But leaving suspicion aside, the next move is to check the living quarters and wait for the droid to restore the ship.

As they explore, everyone is drawn to their little corners by instincts.

Meanwhile, the android explains that the ship was hit by meteorites, causing most of the damage and the emergency wake up. Several electrical systems are fried, disabling weapons but not the engines.

And things don’t remain silent for long as a new ship enters the system and heads for our heroes. Before any contact can be made, the ship fires at them.

The android helps them escape through evasive maneuvers  but tension rises among the crew. It is at this moment that the droid decides to share the data she has managed to salvage. She has recovered the original destination of the ship and sets them on the course. Estimated time of arrival 12 hours.

Again, things hardly manage to remain calm when the gunman, played by Anthony Lemke, decides to blast through a door that’s not meant to be opened. All he succeeds at is knocking himself out.

As there are ten hours to arrival, the captain orders them to pick a room and rest. And all the beds have shiny sheets and blankets. What’s up with sci fi shows and shiny blankets? At least the latex and fetishy costumes are kept to the bare minimum.

Soon they arrive at the destination, but no one on the planet responds to their hail. Down on the ground, they are met with some suspicion and very outdated weaponry. Turns out, it’s an independent colony that barely gets by on metal mining and now a big bad company wants to gobble them up. The settlers plan to defend their home, even if they know the evil henchmen leave no one alive. The gunman wishes them good luck, but One, who comes to represent the moral voice of the group, played by Marc Bendavid, had second thoughts about leaving them. Especially when he hears that they await a shipment of guns much like the ones they are ferrying.

The crew debates whether to help or not over lunch, and comes to a compromise decision to give them half the crates and keep the rest.

Before they can carry out the mission, the android recovers some shocking data. They are all criminals, and their ship, the Raza, is there to dispose of the settlements.

And thus ends episode one, and so far I must say this show… works for me. It’s well acted, well composed and well plotted. The settings and characters are believable and so is the technology.

The theme also works quite well and breaks up the initially established cliches and stereotypes. It makes us want to know more about the characters, what makes them different from their sci fi stereotypes. Most importantly it makes us question, are they the good guys? The bad guys? Who do they want to be, and if they could choose would they remember their criminal past or live a new life, starting from a blank page?

What is the value of a fresh start and will the universe let them have it?

Supergirl

In their endless TV race with Marvel, DC pooped out yet another show this time featuring the beloved Comic Book heroine, Super Girl. If you were waiting to see a badass heroine fighting crime and being awesome, don’t bother with the show.

On the other hand, if you like silly dialogue, characters who act like teenagers and dull plot lines, all buried under a thick layer of melted cheese, give it a go.

The main plot is about Superman’s cousin, young Kara (played by Melissa Benoist) struggling to balance her ordinary life and the desire to better the world through her super powers. Problem is, she’s not very good at either, so a long journey awaits her on the path to being a true heroine.

The acting is okay to mediocre. They don’t overact as much as in other DC shows, though the actors can be quite plastic-doll like. Especially in the more emotional scenes. Visual effects are passable and just like in other DC shows, the sound is unleveled with quiet dialogue followed by exploding music and sound effects.

That about sums it up. Another lazy DC production that promises more sparkle and glitter than actual content. I’d give it a pass.

    But let’s fly into spoiler territory and look at the Pilot episode.

It starts with a narration of the protagonist’s backstory.

And I’m already bored.

Though they did add some footage to make it more visual.

And we arrive at the first nitpick. Kara’s mother somehow knows that Earth’s sun would give her superpowers. How?

But no time to address that, the narration carries on. In this iteration of the story, Kara is sent to protect Kal-El. But things immediately go awry, her ship is knocked by a shockwave and she drifts into the phantom zone. For twenty years she remains frozen in time before finally crashing on Earth, where her cousin, now a grown up Superman, greets her.

Without explaining much, in fact we never see his face or hear him talk, he leaves her to some random folks and zooms off.

We jump several years into the future, where our ditzy character has an unspecified media job, bitchy and powerful boss, a friendzoned colleague and a potential love interest/the new guy at the company. And not to forget a sassy best friend/sister who shows up as Kara prepares for a date. We’ve never seen that set up before.

We are more told than shown that our protagonist is trying to blend in without using, or even understanding her powers. This constant denial frustrates her and she wants to use her powers, only she doesn’t.

Her date is a total jerk, asking her checklist questions and dumping her for a phone call. Because in this universe, no one wants to date gorgeous blondes.

But we don’t have time to dwell on it as the news conveniently show a plane experiencing troubles. It’s her sister’s, and Kara dashes to help.

She runs into the street where the plane conveniently passes over her, its engine on fire. Kara attempts to fly but she hasn’t done it for years so taking off isn’t smooth. For a whole two seconds anyway. Quite anticlimactic. She stumbles a few times and then flies perfectly.

Meanwhile, the plane’s engines are popping like popcorn. That must be the most unfortunate or ill maintained plane on the continent.

A very short action scene later, Kara safely lands the plane in the river. But, as usual, the media are divided and blame her for much of the destruction. Needlessly in this case considering the alternative: half a city on fire from a plane crash. I’ll put this reaction under ‘people being assholes for the sake of being assholes’.

Even though Kara just saved her life, her sister isn’t happy either. She quickly crosses the line between being worried and being ‘a bitch for the sake of being a bitch’ as she yells at her about exposing herself.

Despite the headlines, life continues as usual at Kara’s workplace.

With the added bonus of her boss obsessing with the new heroine. And then like no superhero ever, Kara tells her best friend the truth. Okay, points for that. Even if it’s for the selfish reason of needing a sidekick. Which he immediately agrees on, and even sews her a costume. And I feel that they should address the fact no one recognizes her without her glasses. Maybe? No? Okay. I’ll assume her face is so generic that people forget it two seconds after they see her.

Somewhere halfway in, we get our first bad guy: a man in a hat watching the TV report while digging a hole in the table with his nails. Turns out the plane was sabotaged to draw her out. Good on justifying that convenient breakdown though it raises the question of how they knew she was in that particular city. Or did they crash planes over every single city in the country until they got to hers?

So while the villains are organizing their forces and traveling to location, our girl takes on the city criminals with uplifting success.

She responds to yet another distress call but never makes it to location, as someone shoots her down with kryptonite darts. The bad guys have arrived.

Or have they?

Nope, it’s her sister. She brought the DEO, or Department of Extranormal Operations, an organization formed to monitor and protect from extraterrestrial threats. They carry Kara into their headquarters where the head Agent bursts into a narration about stupid aliens ruining everybody’s day.

So how do our humans react to the heroine finally growing into her cape when they are faced with dangerous alien threats beyond their skill and technology? With snarky scorn, telling her to get back to the kitchen- go serve them coffee.

Naturally, she isn’t happy about this treatment and storms off. They don’t stop her, even if the main agent guy keeps ranting about how dangerous she is.

Once again we’ve gone a full circle, it’s the next day and Kara goes to work as usual. Everything is calm until she hears she has been dubbed Supergirl. Why girl? Why not woman? This is obviously a grave offence that requires her to snap at her boss and nearly get herself fired.

Fortunately, the new guy/love interest saves her by crediting her a picture he took of Supergirl. So, are we going to address the whole no one recognizes her without her glasses thing now when they have a clear picture of her? No? Oookay.

Instead of thanking him for saving her job, Kara yells at him. Are all women, and most men, in this show PMSing?

Things pick up when she receives a sonic message from the bad guy and flies off to fight him. Ten seconds later, Supergirl gets her ass kicked.

She is saved by DEO and her sister who rather indiscriminately shoots missiles at the power plant where the aliens are fighting. Talk about possible collateral, the protector humans seem more destructive than the aliens.

And I need to address a minor issue. A few scenes ago her sister claimed to have been selected for her knowledge in molecular biology and alien physiology, so why is she in the field? Shouldn’t she be locked in a secure lab somewhere private? Who the hell gave her control of a military chopper? Does DEO personnel consisted of three agents, two of whom called in sick that day?

But let’s carry on.

In the aftermath of the battle, Kara contemplates on how she felt pain for the very first time in her life. Quite realistically, this makes her afraid. So our brave girl gives up, not surprising considering all the non-support she gets from everyone other than her boytoy. But her sister has a change of hearts and now insists that Kara fights. After a whole episode of bitching about using her powers, her sister’s sudden encouragement has no effect. For a whole three seconds before she hands Kara over an inspiring message from her mother.

She goes as far as to argue with her DEO boss. A debate that takes a whole thirty seconds until he agrees to work with Kara. An inspirational monologue later, the IT team conveniently gets a word of a bad guy attack.

How do they detect him you may ask? A satellite tracked the compound his axe is made of. Now I’m not sure science works quite like that but let’s assume they stole some miraculous tech from the aliens. Yet their weapons are limited to darts and chopper missiles.

Supergirl flies to confront the baddie and suddenly she can fight. Though someone could have taught her how to throw a real punch. She succeeds in destroying his axe and the fight is over. Even though he swept the floor with her without it earlier. Then, refusing to accept defeat, he kills himself. But not before foreshadowing a looming threat.

Kara returns with a victory, but the DEO director is back to grumbling about stupid aliens littering in his neighbourhood. Why can’t he just accept her for the asset she is?

But we’re not done with the episode yet. The next day at work, the new guy reveals he was sent by Superman to watch over her. Okay, now we’re done. And I must ask, how did she not get fired for skipping half a day of work? Does she really work beyond bringing her boss a coffee in the morning?

No matter, it’s over, and man was that boring.

Everything is a bit too convenient, too cookie cut out, it just doesn’t feel genuine or natural and the characters are hard to relate to beyond crappy everyday stuff. The personal conflicts are not well established either, and often characters react negatively for no good reason. Not even getting into the choreography of the fights and the believability of her punches...

So, as it’s often with DC, the show is pretty but shallow. The episode has ups and downs as it tries to do something decent, you can see the struggles for a clever and innovative story, but nevertheless always falls back to the well known cliches and lazy writing.

So if you like generic, comic book, pop series with the barest minimum of effort put in, give it a watch. For something better, and darker try Marvel’s Daredevil, Jessica Jones, or hell even Constantine.