Oh, NO ONE misses the bloat of the Marvel Netflix shows.   But this show had the opposite problem-- it was frustratingly unfocused and dealt with sideplots that were completely unnecessary (Oh, you bet I’m looking at you, Madripoor).  It refused to dig too deeply into any one of its themes/plots and ended up…

They absolutely should have cast him. He’s not on a series or anything right now... why not go for the cameo? 

I still feel like it could’ve benefitted from a couple of extra episodes, just so that they could fill in more of the Flag Smasher and Sharon Carter’s relative backstories. The audience never really got any first-hand understanding of why the Flag-Smashers became so radicalized, or how Sharon Carter went full villain.…

I’m so excited for this series!

I agree, it’s hard to pull of genre-mixing, at least in such a narrow window. Not all flavors blend, and the story-structures of a mystery differ from an adventure.

I think the show struggled when it veered away from straight adventure and into mystery, though. It’s a regular problem with serial dramas when they feel like they have to carefully ration out critical, high order information over multiple shows so that viewers don’t really understand until the end.

This. As it seems that Marvel seems to have learned its lesson from the Netflix series that 12-13 episodes is way too long for a superhero drama.

I’ll say this about cheesy earnestness: thank fucking God. We’ve had decades of troubled superheros, deconstructed superheroes, grimdark superheroes. We can’t even have a fun, uplifting Superman. So I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see some idealistic, heart-on-the-sleeve earnestness for a change. That was…

That accent was not Irish. South of England, but vague enough that I wouldn’t want to assign it to a particular area. Lots of Ws in place of Ls.

Cap needs to give a speech. Cap gave a hell of a speech. A little on the long side, especially since you could see the Senator try to leave at least once, but you know damn well I was into it. Half-way through it totally clicked. He got into his groove. Just like the opening action sequence completely clicked for me…

The Karli/Sam scene is just so puzzling because what possibly suggests that he’s wearing a high-tech suit that isn’t bulletproof? Sam as the Falcon gets shot at pretty constantly! The greater tension is that he’s only nigh invulnerable in the suit and every bit the same symbol outside of it. Karli won’t be the first…

I mean this in the best way possible: I thought this was just about the cheesiest, most earnest thing the MCU has ever done. And like all of Sam’s hero moments, it was a well-earned cheesy earnestness.

Yeah, this does appear to be an article in search of a problem... 

The show’s argument, on the other hand, is that John didn’t really become a bad Captain America until he killed a man with the shield in broad daylight.

Am I the only one who isn’t into the whole Frances McDormand thing?  Just one of those actors that I never got.  Stanley Tucci comes to mind as well.

Me skimming the opening paragraph: Harley Quinn... oh, like Kevin Smith’s daughter. Wait, what was the last name? *scrolls up* Oh. Wait, if Kevin Smith’s daughter is old enough to be playing teenagers on TV, then she’s definitely not a teenager herself... *googles “Harley Quinn Smith”* My god, she’s 21.

The Good Place always had a problem with its characters trying to morally philosophize as though they were in a vacuum while acting like everything was an engineering challenge. If that sounds like an abstract criticism, well... okay, fair enough. But I contend it had a significant negative impact on the show’s…

How ‘twee' is this? Schur’s shows, esp P&R and The Good Place, sometimes get just a little too cuddly, warm-hearted and nice for me (The Office and B99 can too but generally strike a better balance). Since he’s co-creating with new people and dealing with more grounded subject matter I’m hoping it softens that…

The only other show I watch that’s got Indigenous characters is Resident Alien, which I really liked, but has gotten very little attention here (even when there was a newswire about Alice Wetterlund, it failed to mention the show she’s currently on).  Early on in Resident Alien there seemed to be space being made for…

The sound design for the bear - that shuddering, unheimlich mutant growl mixed with human wails - alone should have netted this film an Oscar nomination.