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Marvel’s Agent Carter

A Review by SideReel contributor Alex Elias

Agent Carter takes place in 1946 New York City during a time when women in-the-workforce were not held to the same expectations as men. Haley Atwell reprises her role as Agent Peggy Carter from the 2011 MARVEL blockbuster, Captain America: The First Avenger.
Distraught after losing Captain Steve Rogers to Ice and frustrated at having lost her coveted position of importance in the US army –where her skill and opinion were invaluable to Captain America—Agent Peggy Carter is returned to the mundane clerical work only befitting at the time of a woman at a New York City police precinct.

Licensed for an 8-episode miniseries format, Agent Carter has opted to take a serialized approach in which Agent Carter, along with the help of Mr. Jarvis (James D’arcy) work to clear the name of Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) who has been framed as an international terrorist without letting her male-coworkers know what she is up to. Carter is an extremely strong, active lead character. She chooses not to let the gender discrimination of the time hold her back from making a difference in the world and still she is not afraid to use her feminine wiles to manipulate men in the field.

With themes of “espionage” and “counter-terrorism” fans of the recently cancelled long-running USA series, Covert Affairs won’t have far to look for a replacement to their beloved female-lead fast-paced, action-packed spy thriller.
Agent Carter will be standing in for ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D in its off-season. There while there are bound to be many comparisons flying around because of this as well as Agent Carter being the next Movie-to-TV adaptation/comicbook-esque show to populate our TV schedules –try to put those comparisons on hold until you’ve seen the Pilot.

(A-) For Strong character development, excellent action choreography, good casting and an extremely solid pace for a 60 minute drama.

A compelling tale about two troubled youths, struggling to make their way out of unfortunate circumstances. Destiny,(AKA an oil rig explosion) pulls them together and bestows them with polar opposite abilities; allowing Dagger to see the hopes in people, and Cloak to see their fears. Also, she can conjure astral daggers and he can teleport - cause thats always fun.

The show features a fantastic soundtrack, Oliva holt (♥), very strong writing and rather interesting direction. It seems to see itself as edgy and gritty and stylized, only its not really. It makes for a good watch though. Similar shows; Impulse, Black Lightning, Runaways

This Review is based on the 2 hour pilot of "Time After Time" which aired 3/5/17 at 9:00 on abc.

When I first heard about Time After Time last year I was skeptical. The premise of HG Wells chasing Jack the Ripper throughout time sounded like a pretty forced story line. Later when I heard they had cast unknown's for the lead roles I was even more concerned. I do believe every actor should get their fair chance at success, but it is certainly a risk moving forward with a show on a major network with no recognizable cast members.

My concerns have been completely dissuaded and I happy extremely happy to announce that Time After Time was extremely enjoyable and a wonderful new addition to the family of Time Travel themed TV shows, in the company of 12 Monkeys, Legends of Tomorrow and Timeless.

It never gets old seeing a character from the past marvel at the wonders of modern day society - and the performances from Freddie Stroma (H.G) Wells and Josh Bowman (Jack the Ripper) were both so different, and yet just as convincing. They even included a scene where Wells was brought to tears as he saw the current state of the world on TV -- I thought this was a simple, yet extremely powerful scene. The series is not without its humor, but for the most part is extremely serious - far more so than Legends or Timeless. Jack the Ripper is a deranged and seriously dangerous individual and Wells, while slightly naive and idealistic has no qualms about the danger Jack presents to both women, and the timeline.

The pacing for the pilot moved along quite nicely, alloting just the right time for set up, important plot progression and character development while begging to weave in subplots that will expand as the show goes on. Unlike Timeless and Legends which are procedural shows with serial elements, Time After Time gave me the impression it would be serialized with procedural elements (that means each consecutive episode will be a continuation of the last, telling an overall story).

The look and feel of the show gave me some serious vibes from abc's Forever which I feel was cancelled way to soon before It really had a chance to shine. So I think fans of Forever, and Houdini & Doyle will be especially happy with this new series, and I hope the ratings reflect that.

This review is based on the Pilot episode of Powerless, which aired 2/2/2017.

Powerless has an extremely strong concept and a cast of characters full of potential and likability.
However ..... .... the script was a joke. I think the show could still be saved, theoretically, were latter episodes to be written by a completely different person, and the person who wrote the pilot be fired and find a day job. It was that bad. There wasn't a single funny or amusing bit in the entire 30 minute episode. I could see .... the wasted potential, and that was kind of funny, in a bad way. Its not a sitcom, its not work-based humor ... it doesnt seem to have any engine for generating laughs. Though by that logic, neither does the office which people seem to love for some reason. So ... I don't know. I'll probably watch more of Powerless with the hope that future episodes will better capitalize on the fantastic concept of the series. What a huge disappointment of a pilot though. Sound off in the comments!

Update: Episode 2 was even worse! That's all for me folks. What a shame. Alan Tudyk is so funny in Con Man. Why did they make all the characters in this show like hamsters running on wheels?

This review is based on the 2 hour premiere of "Good Behavior" which aired 11/15/16

After reading the synopsis for the show, Good Behavior sounds potentially interesting, but not terribly original. The former is true, but the latter is not. It is interesting, and original.

The show has a clear setup going for it which I think will work well for a procedural, and it's got a unique approach which we really haven't seen on TV since Dexter. The protagonists are anti-heroes. An ex con, conwoman, and a hired killer. After they become entangled, he continues to do his job, as she aids him. Together, they infiltrate, manipulate, grift, and ultimately kill. It's a well-paced high-stakes dangerous game if of life, death, and carnal desire.

Both characters are a lot more than what they do for a living, and although they are by no means good people, they are not without their morals. It's similar to Dexter in that respect, although the feel of the show is nothing like Dexter. It actually feels more like Leverage... the process they go through to isolate the victims feels similar to the plans they hatched on Leverage. Only, rather than helping people, they are killing them :)

Give it a shot!
A solid 4 star pilot.

Class very much feels like a part of the Doctor Who universe, and I think that will be a really important factor when people start the series. To be specific, the format feels very reminiscent of actual episodes of Doctor Who that took place on earth, where some creature or secret group threatened us at some point and the Doctor and a group of the best of us, or whomever was on the scene at the time, had to scramble to deal with it. Thats in a sense what class is. The doctor even makes a notable appearance in the pilot episode.

Class centers around a group of high-school students (of course who look way older than highschool students) who become inexplicably involved in a highly volatile situation involving the fate of the planet. It's fun, its goofy, and its very 'Whoviesque'.

Some problems I had with the pilot were an overwhelming amount of supernatural ridiculousness mixed in with what feels like deep and authentic character writing. That in a sense, is what Doctor Who is all about, however its gotten a lot better as it's gone along at avoiding being alltogether too cheesy, and Class, in its infancy has not - so it feels extremely corny right now. The 2nd episode however takes an extremely surprising and dark turn. In fact, elements of the follow up episode are some of the most gruesome and disgusting I've ever seen on TV -- and I've seen 4 seasons 4 Bones. So now we've got a whimsical, goofy, corny, super dark and disgusting high-school drama with well-written authentic characters... I think it needs to pick and choose the right elements of these, and leave behind the corny, because it didn't really work for me. But maybe it will work more for you. For me, the darkness of that 2nd episode, and the emotional depth of the writing juxtaposed to the super goofy monsters only served to highlight just how corny it actually is.

But all in all, It should be one hell of an adventure that I think every Whovian should at least check out for themselves.

This review is based on the pilot of "Timeless" which aired 10/3/16.

I am usually a huge advocate for extremely fast pacing, lots of action and keeping insignificant scenes to the absolute bare minimum. Knowing this about me, I still felt timeless was very rushed. Like designated survivor, a 2-hour pilot would have been better suited. One second, Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer) is learning about an actual time machine and a dangerous man who has stolen it, and in the next 45 seconds (literally) she's on another time machine going to stop him!! HOLD YOUR DAMN HORSES!!! There was very minimal character development and set up, and the show dove right in to going back in time and saving the world. Now GRANTED, this IS what we want to see from this show, and everything it did was smart, and fun, and exciting -- but it felt very sped up for a pilot, and seeing as how this review is based on the pilot, I can't give it 5 stars because of this rushed factor.

Now, criticism of the pacing aside, the pilot establishes that this is going to be a very fun show. First of all, we've got 3 characters who will be going back in time, and simply by having one of them be black they can create a lot of juicy drama, as was seen in the pilot. We've got the historian, the soldier, and the tech guy. They need to work together to complete their missions while making extremely minimal changes in history. The stakes are VERY high with this show, and its going to be one heck of a ride.

I've noticed that some fellow TV reviewers over on vox.com said that this show was "monumentally stupid" and really "dumbed down" the concept of time travel. I can't say I agree at all. I'd say rather, that while Timeless is a show about timetravel, it really isn't about time travel at all. 12 Monkeys is about time travel. They get into technicalities, concepts, and mind-blowing paradox theory. Timeless is simply using time-travel as a concept to have a high-stakes show where they save the world each week and can do so in exotic but well known historical settings. So the fact that we just have to accept there is a working time machine with no real explanation really just suits the theme of the show. I don't believe it makes it "monumentally stupid"

This review is based on the pilot of "Pitch" which aired 9/23/16

Pitch is a unique concept for a TV series. A drama about baseball. How does one define this in terms of genre? Is it just a "drama"? Or is it an "action" series, where the action is simply baseball instead of violence. Who knows. Time will tell. Honestly, I hope its the latter, because personally, as someone who doesn't give a unicorn's horn about baseball, I tend to like sports a lot more when I have specific people I want to root for, and thats essentially what Pitch is in a nutshell. It's giving you someone to root for.

I probably don't have to spell out for you the feminist nature of the series. It's ties with feminism are practically ingrained in the premise. But what I can say, is that Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury) is not the only female lead, and far from the only super strong badass female the show has to offer. Kylie's agent, Amelia Slater (Ali Larter) is pretty much the epitome of the badass female lead that both the feminist movement, and the male audience want.

Getting into the pilot specifically, it feels very movie-esque with its entrances, underdog story-vibe and set up, the thematic music selection, and the cut of fictionalized TV reports and Baseball coverage to authenticate the package. Its a show unlike any we've seen before, and If they can find interesting stories to give us, and not just have each episode relate to a different game in a baseball season and the only drama be that of friction between her and her teammates, I think we've got a real promising show her. Of course, the opposite could happen just as easily, and we could see a show about nothing but petty gender drama.

This Review is based on the pilot of "Shooter" which aired 11/16/2016

Shooter, based off the film by the same name starring Mark Wahlberg, is about a former military sniper, Bob-Lee Swagger who, in being hired to protect the president from a credible sniper based threat, is in turn framed for that very murder; The murder of the President of the United States. This is the premise of the show, and was the plot of the movie. We know its coming, however where we begin in the pilot, it hasn't happened yet - and in spite of knowing that it inevitably will come to pass, the episode was very enjoyable.

The hour before the setup was not filled with pointless family bonding scenes or flashbacks, but rather, developing an a cast of characters (ALL of whom are recognizable actors) who will be in some way integral to the investigation and pursuit of Bob. Now he must stay alive, and invisible as he tracks down both the real killer, and the corrupt officials responsible for framing him. Shooter is well-paced, far reaching, intense, and from what I can tell, well-written.

The pilot kept scenes like father-daughter time and military flashbacks to a bare minimum and focused on the plot. A lot happened in an hour, and I can't wait to find out what happens next week.

Also worth noting that Bob Lee's wife is played by Shantel VanSanten. You may remember her from The Messengers on CW, or a few guest appearances, The Flash, and Timeless. But if you're like me, you'll remember her because she's quite possibly one of the most gorgeous women on the planet. I hope this show does well, so that her career takes off and she gets herself a lead role! Go Shantel!

Update:
Shooter is unquestionably, hands down, the best show on TV. Better even than Designated Survivor. It's pretty much perfect. It's a must-watch.

This review is based on the pilot of "Aftermath" which aired 9/27/16

Ohhhhhhh boy. I honestly didn't think it was even possibly for a show to be quite the unoriginal. Its pretty insane, to be honest. If you could copyright an execution of a concept, this show would have like 30 lawsuits. So, its like a mashup of Z Nation, The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Dominion, Van Helsing, and Ash Vs. Evil Dead. Only, this show takes place from the perspective of a helpless family who can't fight back. So it's going to be an entire season of running around, and freaking out over every stupid thing they can throw at us.

Now, to be as fair as I can be. It wasn't completely terrible. It was mostly just overwhelmingly unoriginal, and very, very stupid, at parts. But it was not terrible. That being said .. I'm not sure I'm pretty sure I won't be watching this one next week. The only way I'll continue to watch this, is if nothing else is on Tuesdays, which I doubt will be the case for long.
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Just thought I'd give a heads up and say that Episode 2 wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It seems to be getting a little bit less stupid and more supernatural. Characters are developing backbones and personalities, and the emotions seem fairly authentic for the ridiculous circumstances. If you find Fear The Walking Dead to be the most boring trash on TV, maybe you'll find this one more exciting.

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Update as of episode 4:

Steadily improving. Pace better, characters better, more fun to watch, some interesting supernatural content -- but still very stupid and unoriginal. Moved up from 2 to 3 stars.