FTW vs. WTF: The TV Week in Review (April 26 – May 2)
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Marvel's TV.com's FTW vs. WTF, where we discuss everything related to Marvel on television and nothing else. Everything below has been pre-approved by our Marvel overlords, right down to the font. This week, Marvel would like to know what you liked and disliked on TV if you've seen Marvel's newest film, Avengers: Age of Ultron? If you have, did you like it or did you love it? If you have not yet seen it, Marvel would like us to remind you that you're breaking about 783 different laws. According to the terms and conditions you signed when Marvel took over the world, you really should have seen it by now.
As long as we've got you, though, here's everything we loved and hated on TV this week.
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't finished watching this week's new episodes (of Game of Thrones, Person of Interest, Nashville, etc.), we suggest that you hold off on reading this story until you do.
FTW:
Game of Thrones' Margaery wins the first battle against her queen mum-in-law
Behind the fake smiles and pleasantries, Margaery and Cersei engaged in a brutal war over King Tommen and power in King's Landing that was as powerful as the Battle of Blackwater. Backhanded compliments and underhanded maneuvers pulled Tommen into pieces, and in the end, it was Margaery who held the biggest part. Season 5 is off to a tremendous start, and it's because of awesome episodes like this one.
FTW:
Sterling Cooper & Partners tries one last coup, to spectacular failure
Mad Men's final season is increasingly becoming about the diminishing returns of doing the same thing over and over, and never was that more true than in this week's "Time & Life." When the news came down that McCann wanted to absorb the agency and move them out of the Time-Life building, Don and company tried to pull yet another agency-shifting caper that would keep them separate from their parent company via the small LA office. Unfortunately, all the research and schmoozing and last-second Don Draper sales pitches didn't do the trick, because eventually, what's coming is coming. In a season where Don and the partners have rarely been seen doing work, it's fitting that the final moments of this episode saw the rest of the SC&P employees panic and scoff at Don's "It's just the beginning" rhetoric. The end is near.
FTW:
Gotham is depraved... and it's awesome
The Ogre storyline has dominated the last several weeks of episodes, annoying us to no end with its transparent means-to-an-end narrative that made Jim Gordon panic about Leslie and made his coworkers hate him all over again. The resolution to that miserable story, however, made all the nonsense worth it, when a brainwashed Barbara led the killer to her WASP-y parents and Penguin sabotaged his own men to start a gang war. More of this and less of Baby Batman chasing conspiracies, pls!
FTW:
Nobody puts Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Skye in the corner
Kevin Tancharoen, brother of executive producer Maurissa Tancharoen (and the director of that super cool Mortal Kombat: Rebirth short film a few years back), directed the single-take action scene in "The Dirty Half Dozen." And in case it isn't obvious, Chloe Bennet did all of her own stunts. BOOYAH.
FTW:
Person of Interest holds robo-negotiations
With just two episodes left in the season, Person of Interest kicked into gear by packing "Asylum" with awesome story. The highlight was a tense standoff between the Machine and Samaritan, which played out on two separate screens and held the lives of Root and Finch in the balance. Showing itself to be an A.I. capable of compassion, the Machine gave itself up in order to save the lives of its human friends. Sure, the fate of the world is in jeopardy, but at least friendship ruled.
FTW:
WWE revives King of the Ring and realizes how to take advantage of its 24/7 streaming network
The WWE Network has been around for more than a year now, but in that time, the sports entertainment giant has rarely used the "all-access, all the time" nature of the streaming service to produce original content that fans NEED to watch. This week, something finally clicked for Vince McMahon and company, as WWE revived the popular King of the Ring tournament and aired the final two rounds as a live special for customers. The matches were rock-solid—topped off by a much-needed Bad News Barrett victory—but it's what the KotR represents that suggests WWE finally understands the potential of the Network.
FTW:
Elementary's Sherlock continues to reach out to others as Joan isolates them
After making Alfredo into a true blue friend last week, Sherlock reached out to Bell this week. This duo has been thriving this season—their team-up in "The Female of the Species" was great, right?—and "The Best Way Out Is Always Through" kept this up. Sherlock apologized for Joan perhaps subconsciously isolating those around her to mirror her own sense of isolation, when she revealed that Bell was dating an internal affairs cop. Sherlock's apology of "You, you deserve more," to Bell was filled with so much regret and sorrow that it pretty much gutted us. We appreciate that Elementary let them go out on a high note, flicking playing cards into the Stanley Cup while Sherlock offered to hook Bell up with his one his own lady friends.
FTWTF:
Syfy cancels Helix
It's really gone. We hated it. We loved it. We loved hating it, and we hated that we loved it. It all added up to a bonkers sci-fi series that we couldn't stop watching despite it falling into a hole it could never get out of in each of its seasons. Helix was unique in its presentation with unusual editing, camera tricks, and misfitting music, but if the series had spent just 10 percent of the effort it wasted on making itself weird on writing a sensible script instead, it could have been one of Syfy's better series.
FTWTF:
NBC tries the Netflix model with David Duchovny's Aquarius
Another week, another fascinating NBC decision. The Peacock announced that after the two-hour premiere of the David Duchovny-starring Charles Manson show Aquarius on May 28th, it will distribute the rest of the season online on NBC.com and on-demand for four weeks. On one hand, this move signals that the broadcast networks are desperate to find new ways to reach audiences, even if that means copying the increasingly-dominant Netflix. On the other hand, the stakes are pretty low here and very few people were probably going to care about Aquarius in the first place. Now we're talking about it, right? We're very intrigued to see how this works—and if any other broadcast network will follow suit.
FTWTF:
Mike's cunning Tribal Council play can't save Shirin, or this season of Survivor
Stop us if you're read this before: This season of Survivor is perpetually depressing. Wednesday's episode was yet another example of the show's editors forcefully underscoring the potential for a big move that would eliminate one of the increasingly awful people in the main six alliance, only for one of the likable few to get the boot. This time, Mike and Shirin tried to smoke out some dissension among the Sucky Six by threatening to use a Hidden Immunity Idol, and while the move certainly illustrated their point that the six isn't as strong as they seem, Shirin still got the boot. It's now the Sucky Six versus Mike, the clear producer favorite, and getting our hopes up that something miraculous might come of this hateful season would only set us up for yet another gut punch.
WTF:
Happyish makes us sad
Showtime did it again. And by it, we mean substitute profanity and vulgarity for comedy. The network's new comedy is a drag, throwing another disgruntled white male into a mid-life crisis for no reason other than to curse and give the camera the middle finger.
WTF:
Nashville's "beach" is almost Ringer-level bad
We never pass up an opportunity to remind the world of the greatest moment in cinematic history. Yes, we're obviously talking about the Ringer boat scene! Thankfully, Nashville's Jade St. John (still the best worst name ever) had a backyard that was so badly green-screened in "Time Changes Things," that it seemed like the perfect occasion to pull that video out to remind the world that WE CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU AND YOUR HORRIBLE EFFECTS. Come on, Nashville. You're not exactly better than this, but we expected better than this.
WTF:
NBC gets drunk and makes weird series pickups
NBC was the first broadcast network to announce series orders for the 2015-2016 season. Dick Wolf's Chicago Med spin-off was only a matter of time, and the world is apparently never going to stop trying to make Melissa George happen, but we expected a (little) bit better from super-producer Greg Berlanti. The man behind Everwood, Political Animals, Arrow, and The Flash has a new series called Blindspot, about a woman who wakes up naked in Times Square save for the intricate tattoo that covers her entire body. And get this: THE DIFFERENT TATTOOS CORRESPOND TO VARIOUS CRIMES THAT NEED SOLVING. Come on, Berlanti. Even The Mysteries of Laura sounded better than this.
What's on YOUR list of TV loves and hates this week? Once Upon a Time's road trip? The Flash finally unmasking Eobard Thawne? Grey's Anatomy's weird post-Derek time jump? Share your own FTWs and WTFs in the comments!
