What I Watch on TV: The (non-premium) Cable Channels: USA

This time I talk about what I watch on the standard cable TV channels. Unless I'm forgetting a show at the moment, which is entirely possible because I am beginning to write this post at 4:10 AM and some shows are currently on hiatus, I only watch four standard cable channels -- AMC, FX, SYFY, and USA. I'll cover them in reverse alphabetical order, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Today...

USA: On the USA network, I watch Colony, Shooter, and Mr. Robot.

  
Colony, in my opinion, is one of the best shows on television right now -- well, not "right now" because it's on hiatus, but you know what I mean.


In the near-future, extraterrestrials have invaded Earth and erected huge walls around our cities, dividing the country into "blocs," but they apparently remain in orbit while the Colony Transitional Authority, made up of human collaborators, acts as a sort of occupying military force. Citizens who make trouble can be sent off to "the factory." Alien drones patrol the skies and are programmed to kill under certain circumstances.

The Bowman family lives in the Los Angeles bloc.Will Bowman works for the Authority, but is sympathetic to the inevitable Resistance. His wife, Katie, becomes involved with the Resistance.


So far, two seasons have aired. I thought the first season was pretty good, but not necessarily great. The second season, though, was much better. This show has been really good. If what I've written here makes you think that you might enjoy this show, check it out. I don't think that you'll be disappointed.

 

Shooter is based on the Mark Wahlberg movie of the same name. A highly-decorated veteran sniper, Bob Lee Swagger, is coaxed back into action by his former commanding officer to try to thwart a plot to kill the president. Naturally, things don't go well, and Swagger is accused of being the trigger-man. The show follows Swagger as he goes on the run to try to clear his name.

This is a good show with a good plot twist or three along the way. If you generally like this kind of story, then you'll like this show. There's nothing necessarily new and different about it, but what they do, they do fairly well.

What can I say about Mr. Robot? This show is...different. Elliot Alderson is a computer programmer who works as a cyber-security engineer, and boy, does he have issues. He suffers from social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and who knows what else. He is recruited by what Wikipedia refers to as an "insurrectionary anarchist" who goes by the name of Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) to join a group of hackers who plan to erase all debts by attacking E Corp., a huge megacorporation.

When I first heard about this show, I found myself wondering how anyone could make a show about computer hackers going after a corporation and make it interesting. Then I watched it. I was completely surprised by how good and how different it is. Season 2, in my opinion, was not as good as season 1, but I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with season 3.

What I Watch on TV: The Broadcast Networks, UPDATE

I mentioned in my blog entry a few days ago that NBC had cancelled Timeless. I am very pleased to have discovered that the powers that be at that network have changed their minds and UN-cancelled it! Timeless has been picked up for a 10-episode second season, scheduled to air in the summer, or perhaps the spring, of 2018. Personally, I would like to see a full 20+ episode second season, but 10 is certainly better than 0!

The first season of Timeless follows the adventures of history professor Lucy Preston, scientist Rufus Carlin, and soldier Wyatt Logan as they attempt to stop Garcia Flynn, who has stolen a secret time machine, which he plans to use to travel back in time and change past events to affect an organization known as Rittenhouse. Our three heroes use the stolen machine's prototype to follow Flynn back to several important historical events in their attempts to stop him, but must be careful not to change history themselves.

During their adventures, our heroes became involved in the destruction of the Hindenburg, the assassination of President Lincoln, the Alamo, Watergate, the Apollo 11 mission, and met U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, who is widely believed to be the "real" Lone Ranger and the inspiration for the fictional character of the same name..just to name a few! They also learn that changing events of the past can have serious repercussions on the present.

I thoroughly enjoyed this fun, family-friendly, adventure series and am very pleased that NBC has had a change of heart. I hope that after the second season begins to air, its ratings will warrant an order of enough additional episodes to make the second season a full one.  

What I Watch on TV: The Broadcast Networks (Change of Approach)

As this post's title suggests, I'm changing my approach to this series of posts. Otherwise, it could take months for me to finish. Instead of writing about one show at a time, which I originally intended to do (except for the MARVEL and DC universes) I'm breaking this series into four simple sections -- broadcast networks, cable networks, premium cable networks, and Netflix. First up, broadcast.

CBS: This is the easiest network for me to cover. I don't watch anything on CBS.

ABC: This is the second easiest network for me to cover. I used to watch Last Man Standing, a sitcom starring Tim Allen, and MARVEL's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which I wrote about when I wrote about the MARVEL Cinematic/TV Universe. However, ABC just cancelled Last Man Standing, despite the fact that it was getting great ratings. Why? It appears as though the show was cancelled because Tim Allen was recently publicly critical of the network's obvious liberal bias. So, ABC cancelled his show and I cancelled ABC. I no longer watch anything on ABC.

NBC: On NBC I watch(ed) Taken and Timeless, but NBC just cancelled Timeless, which annoys me. I really enjoyed that show.

Taken is a show that bears virtually no resemblance to the movie series that inspired it. In fact, I originally suspected that the producers created their own original show and then bought the rights to use the "Taken" name just to draw viewers. It turns out that I was misTAKEN about that, though, as I discovered when I looked it up online for this post that this show is supposed to be an origin story. I just tuned in because I liked the movies that inspired it.


In Taken... "A young Bryan Mills must fight to overcome personal tragedy and exact revenge on those responsible [for it] in this modern-day origin story to the 'Taken" film trilogy. Still reeling from the devastating murder of his younger sister, Mills is quickly recruited by Christina Hart -- the leader of a covert CIA operation -- to work on her team. The job awakens a very particular -- and very dangerous -- set of skills in the former Green Beret. As Mills struggles to heal, he finds himself growing closer to Asha, his sister's friend." --- Google.

FOX: On Fox I watch 24:Legacy, which recently wrapped its first season, and Gotham, which I wrote about previously when I covered the DC television universe.

I was not always a fan of 24. If I remember correctly, that show was in its fourth season before I ever saw an episode, and then I only watched it because a friend of mine recommended it. I started watching from the beginning on DVDs and became hooked on it. It wasn't always realistic -- sometimes it seemed as though Jack Bauer was the only agent in all of the CTU who could come up with a plan and make it work -- and sometimes what occurred within the one hour of real time that each episode was allotted could not possibly have "really" occurred within that one hour, but it was great fun. When 24 ended its run after EIGHT seasons, I knew that I was going to miss it.

Then, along came 24: Legacy. I was happy to see the show returning in some form, but could it possibly be as good as the original without Keifer Sutherland's  Jack Bauer? The short answer turned out to be, yes. Corey Hawkins' Sergeant Eric Carter was, obviously, a different character, but he was also an interesting one, and Hawkins was able to carry the show every bit as well as Sutherland carried the original. In short, I liked it as much as I like the original. In fact, the only complaint that I have is that it "cheated" by its first season lasting for only 12 episodes. It zipped through the second twelve hours to the end of the 24-hour period near the end of the twelfth episode.

CW: On CW I watch The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and (until very recently) Supergirl, all of which I previously wrote about, and Frequency, which is currently on hiatus.

Frequency is based on the 2000 film of the same name. "In 2016, NYPD Detective Raimy Sullivan discovers that she is able to speak to her deceased father Frank Sullivan in 1996 via his old ham radio. Her attempts to save his life trigger the "butterfly effect," changing the present in unforeseen ways. To fix the damage, she must work with her father across time to solve a decades-old murder case." --- Wikipedia.

Anyone who's read my Solfleet novels knows that I like a good time-travel story. While no one actually travels through time in this series -- they only talk to one other through time -- the effects that those communications have on the world, the aforementioned "butterfly effect," make for a very interesting story.

What I Watch on TV: The Expanse

So, with DC and MARVEL having been covered, what else do I watch? Here's one.

The Expanse is probably the only really good hard science fiction program on television right now. Based on a series of novels written by (pseudonym) James S. A. Corey, The Expanse takes place something like 300 years in the future, when Earth is controlled by a United Nations government, Mars has been colonized and become a "nation" independent of Earth, and the asteroid belt has been colonized and become a rather dependent independent "nation." Earth and Mars each have their own military forces and appear to be on the verge of war with one another, and if war were to break out, the belt would likely be caught in the proverbial middle.

I'm not going to write about the story here, as I don't want to spoil anything for those who watch it or may watch it in the future. Instead, I'll just write about a few observations that I have made that have impressed me about thew show.

First, there are the ship designs. Rather than sleek-looking starships or massive battlestars, neither of which I have any problems with, the people of The Expanse travel through space in relatively smaller and more "realistically" designed vessels that use chemical propulsion engines and thrusters, do not have artificial gravity, and completely and properly ignore the science of aerodynamics, which does not apply in space. As much as I like starships and battlestars, it is nice to see a more "realistic" science fiction series.

Second, there are the differences in language. Over the roughly three centuries between our present reality and the time during which this series takes place, Terrans, Martians, and Belters have all developed their own forms of what was once a single English language. Not only would that likely happen in reality, but in many cases it also helps viewers to know immediately from where a particular character comes.

Third, there is the grittiness. One well known and often subconsciously accepted aspect of Star Trek is that it was always clean. The starships' interiors were clean. The main characters were always clean-cut. Their uniforms were always clean. That is not always the case in this show. Some characters have strange tastes in hairstyles. While the government leaders and military officers usually look their best, other recurring characters often get their hands dirty. They drink, they fight, they whore around, they hook up with shipmates, etcetera. They are like...real people, with real problems, real personality quirks, real issues.

I wrote above that I wasn't going to talk about the story, but I will say this. At the core of the story there is a real science-fictiony event -- an event that started out very subtly and has grown in importance as the series progresses, allowing the viewer to discover things as the characters discovered them.

If you like good, solid, science fiction, I highly recommend this show.