Back in Black

Black Lightning is back, and still as mysterious as ever about Gambi's past at "the agency" where apparently he knew Lady Eve. Meanwhile Anissa took more steps in her hero's journey and even rescued her mother from thugs. Unfortunately, then her father arrived, didn't recognize her, and fought her before realizing that she had powers too. Lynn and Jeff took her someplace (maybe wherever Lynn's living) to recover, and she woke up to discover that her dad is Black Lightning. Also, the Syonide character finally talked, which is a relief; I really hated the unnatural affectation of her standing around near Tobias, having no lines whatsoever. It didn't make her a more creepy assassin; it looked stupid and a way to cheap out on developing her character.

Meanwhile Lucifer continues to be boring regarding the Cain storyline and the love triangle. So he's going to try bringing Abel back to life, huh? How does that reverse the original murder or the curse? So stupid. Well, some new midseason shows are finally going to arrive in March, so I'll see if there's anything good among them.

Early Voting

Early voting has begun for the March primaries. I won't get a chance to go until Friday and need more time to read up on candidates anyway. There have been many political TV ads lately, and I've seen campaign signs posted next to local roads.

As for the big ticket races like Texas Senator and Governor, I try to have hope that Democrats can win this time, but I still worry. It's also why I'm cautious about getting my hopes up for gun control. Since the school shooting on Valentine's Day, I thought that we'd just go through the same cycle of inaction again. However, the surviving students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been courageous examples of speaking out for change. Keep up the resistance and the shaming of NRA-bought politicians! I hope their March on Washington will be a success and that we can get something done this time. Unlike the Vegas shooting where everybody talked about banning bump stocks for a while, but never got around to it.

Please let something change this time. I don't want to have to keep waiting for the next election. At least Mueller indicted a whole lot of Russians lately. Hope there will be more to come.

Happy Lunar New Year

I finally got to see Black Panther this weekend, and enjoyed it a lot. So many great female characters, and so much depth to the villain's motivations. The only parts I didn't really like were during the battle with the different Wakandan factions fighting each other and the fight on the maglev train track. They just seemed to go on too long with too much chaos. Otherwise it was great, and I enjoyed so many people celebrating the cultural moment. I hope Disney's upcoming Mulan remake will be similarly well done, with no whitewashing.

I saw that Jeffrey Tambor got officially fired from Transparent. I really hate that he keeps claiming he's a victim of a "politicized atmosphere." Even though the investigation took three months, presumably enough time to confirm allegations, people still defensively whine about "rush to judgment" and "witch hunts" ruining men's lives. This wasn't an instant firing after a "misunderstanding"; this was a decision based on multiple people coming forward. I'm very disappointed in Tambor.

Still haven't heard much about Arrested Development season 5, which has already been shot. I hope they don't keep up the stupid "George got female hormones" storyline because it was already misguided and icky in itself, and will be even worse after this scandal. And frankly I don't care that much about Tambor's character getting an independent storyline from the rest of the family. I'm more concerned that Tony Wonder will return to resolve his relationship with Gob.

Private Eyes

There's a new show on ION called Private Eyes starring Jason Priestley and Cindy Sampson. Actually, they just bought the rights to air it in America; it's Canadian made. So far it's pretty good, light and fun like Castle used to be before it turned horrendously bad and melodromatic. However they keep making reference to Matt Shade's ex-manager screwing him out of money when he was a professional hockey player, and Matt has said more than once that he'd like to get revenge on him. I hope this not a warning sign that they're going to turn this into a quest like the conspiracy shit about the murder of Beckett's mother on Castle. Maybe it'll be bearable and dealt with quickly like Nate's season 1 quest against the insurance company on Leverage. Private Eyes at least looks like it will deal with a variety of cases instead of murder every damn time like Elementary did. Hopefully that will keep it fresh for a while.

Meanwhile, I also saw an episode online of a new British Chinese show called Wok that was pretty funny. Sort of offbeat and fun like Fresh Off the Boat. It's cool seeing them act/speak in a way that's both Asian and yet very British, like I've seen on whiter British sitcoms. I don't know if there will be anymore episodes available besides this pilot episode. Maybe we'll eventually be able to buy DVDs stateside, or else I'll just buy something PAL-formatted, since I have a PAL player.

I've read that Michelle Yeoh eventually came back to Star Trek Discovery, playing the mirror universe Empress Georgiou. I'm glad that she knew all along about the twist, and that she didn't willingly agree to be on the show just to be killed off almost immediately. At first, when we didn't know, I was cheesed off that we were getting a bait-and-switch, promising an Asian captain only to be replaced by the boring white male captain again. I'm still not sure I'll pay to watch the show, but it's nice to know the showrunners knew better than to waste Michelle Yeoh.

Not Worth It

So, the Olympics have started. I still don't care about the sports, and only sorta wonder if this temporary Korean unity thing will last after the Olympics have ended. It would be nice if North and South Korea could make moves toward peace, though I don't know how likely that would be. In the meantime I'm just annoyed that the TV coverage is gonna dominate for over two weeks.

Plus, Supergirl's gonna be on hiatus, and Lucifer is still keeping around the pointless Cain character even though he's still boring as hell. Why can't Amendiel have his powers back instead of just hanging around being his brother's keeper? TV is so disappointing lately, with the exception of Black Lightning, which isn't perfect, but at least is ambitious. I still can't figure out Gambi, though.

No good movies out yet. The reviews for Peter Rabbit are decidedly mixed, so I don't know if the smarmy slapstick antics are bearable enough for me to try to see Sam Neill in what is probably a very small part. Not worth it, I think. Guess I'll have to spend my excess time trying out recipes in my new Crockpot.