Monday morning quarterbacking so far

[jinasphinx]

Fall has arrived and with it the new TV season. The Man and I have picked up some new shows (and dropped one already):

• "Constantine" -- Loving Matt Ryan in it; he seems perfect. I like how episode 2 introduced an artist, so we have an excuse to look at drawings of Constantine. Not loving how they have him and the artist stand super-close to each other, I guess for some false suspense about "Will they kiss?" (It's a bit like the emotional looks Abbie and Ichabod give each other on "Sleepy Hollow".)


• "Scorpion" -- We dropped it after 3 episodes. Though the first episode was fun, the second one got on my last nerve (in addition to being a computer genius, Walter was also able to read gene sequences at a glance and know what they code for -- AAAGGGGH), and the third was just too little butter spread over too much bread.


• "Forever" -- This mash-up of (1) "Elementary"/"Sherlock" (British guy who is incredibly perceptive) with (2) "Castle" (female cop with fashion-model looks is paired with a non-cop male partner) and (3) "Sleepy Hollow" (British man out of time tries to navigate modern society) seems likely to be cancelled. Which is a shame only because Ioan Gruffudd's charisma carries the show so well.


• "Madam Secretary" -- I'm liking Téa Leoni in this role, better than Geena Davis or Sigourney Weaver (in previous iterations of floating the trial balloon). It's actually not just a trial-balloon show; I'm pretty sure it's also lifestyle porn for women who wish they could have a powerful career and a spouse with Jim Caviezel-type looks who is completely supportive and unthreatened by it (but manly, hence we have him doing a joint lock on a belligerent drunk in one episode and storming into a church full of righteous outrage in another). Plus beautiful house and kids, of course.

Also, we saw "John Wick" recently, and it was great fun. I felt like that movie should send notes to "Taken" on how a revenge flick should be done. Fun action scenes, great sets, non-crazy cinematography. My only nitpick would be that as I am now old and have never had great vision, I would prefer bright lighting. But I get that dark is probably de rigeur when you have a character known as Baba Yaga.