Category Archives: Highlights of the Week

Highlights of the last week’s entertainment.

Head-scratching Existence of Extant

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Extant, the new CBS futuristic scifi thriller starring Halle Berry, opened with a sleek but rather head-scratching  premiere Wednesday night.  In the opener, an astronaut returns home after 13 months alone in space, to reunite with her husband and their android son, who is her husband’s R&D project.

Most women would not just be puzzled, but would be legitimately freaked out if they returned pregnant from a space mission in which she wasn’t in contact with any other human beings. Molly Woods (Halle Berry) is shaken, but not as disturbed as is warranted. Later, we discover that while on her mission, she experienced what she assumed to be a hallucination of a former lover/husband being on her spacecraft with her, and when she saw the security footing of herself making out with no one at all, she deleted that embarrassing site from the craft’s system. Obviously, something bizarre happened. Cue the suspenseful sound effects! Or not, because it just wasn’t all that riveting.

Along with the mystery of Halle Berry’s space-bound immaculate/creepy/science project impregnation, the story follows the emerging and creepy patterns of behavior exhibited the young AI son Molly and John are kind of raising as a real boy. If they’re going for a Damien from The Omen kind of vibe for the kid, nailed it! That aspect is admittedly chilling, though it still doesn’t inspire that edge of your seat sensation.

A more coherent tie between the two plot drivers of the AI child and mystery baby would help to bring the story together for a more satisfying block of entertainment.

If it gets some legs under itself and improves in pacing and storytelling cohesion, the potential is enormous. But unless that happens soon, the existence of this series and how it landed a huge talent such as Halle Berry, could remain a boggling mystery.

 

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By HodgePodge
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Clonetastic Orphan Black S2 Finale

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Beware of Spoilers Ahead!

Orphan Black aired its action-packed season 2 finale tonight, and it was not short on surprises and twists.

The episode picked up with Kira having been kidnapped by Rachel, and  Sarah surrendering herself as a bargain for Kira’s safety. Naturally, things didn’t go as Sarah hoped, and Rachel seemed to have no intention of releasing Kira. Siobhan and the rest of the Clone Club had to devise their own way to free both Sarah and Kira, while also doing what they could for Cosima, whose health was noticeably deteriorating.

The scene with clone sisters all safe and sound for the time being, and dancing together, was both a cinematic and emotional high point in the episode.

The twists that continued right until the last frame were all surprising without being ridiculous, and the cliffhanger leaves the viewers with just the right amount of anticipation for a new season and the right amount of the urge to scream, “I want it NOW!”

Always a good sign in a finale.

Well played, Orphan Black. Well played!

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By HodgePodge
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Bizarre But Fitting End to Fargo

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(Beware: Spoilers Ahead For the Finale)

Fargo wrapped up its ten-episode run on FX last night with with a tense, often gruesome hour and a half time slot. As bizarre as all previous episodes, the finale was also a real nail biter.

A very pregnant Molly wrestled with how involved to get in solving what was essentially her case, seeing that nobody else made the connections and stayed on it the way she did. Gus, watching her wrestle with it and fearing for her life, finally overcame his own fears with regard to Malvo and really stepped up.

The relationship between Greta and her newly anointed grandfather, Lou (Keith Carradine), was a satisfying thread to the family that Gus and Molly weaved throughout the series.  The jeopardy the family faced created the bulk of the tension in the episode.  The question of Lester’s survival provided not so much tension, but real curiosity, and at times, of course, the viewers were very much ready for his survival to be nonexistent.

The end to Malvo was a surprise and rather satisfying. The end to Lester was likely a little disappointing to those hoping for something more vicious.

The final moments, despite constituting a happy end for the Solverson-Grimly family, nonetheless felt a little somber. Fitting, since there wasn’t much joy in what they’d all experienced, just an end to the carnage.

(And no, it has not escaped our noticed that the brilliant law enforcement officer is named Solverson and the somewhat gloomy Gus is named Grimly. The psychotic, bad guy killer Malvo was equally subtle. Well played, Fargo. Well played.)

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By HodgePodge
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Orphan Black Amazing Weirdness

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This show continues to be utterly weird and completely amazing. Season 2, episode 9 aired last night, June 14th, on BBCA. Last week saw the introduction of transgender clone Tony, and this week saw jaw-dropping developments with Helena.

In a show that naturally and effortlessly demonstrates the power of women, it was a risk to go into the territory of subjugating women for the purposes of essentially making them breeding stock. But the risk paid off as two of the women being abused took cringe-worthy and deliciously satisfying revenge.

The sight of an abuser in stirrups has to be a highlight for many, many women out there, and no further explanation why is really necessary.

Just one more episode in the season remains, and audiences should expect shock, twists and more generally amazing weirdness to feature heavily.

See the complete list of episodes here (but be careful of spoilers):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Orphan_Black_episodes

Check out the show’s official BBCA page here:
http://www.bbcamerica.com/orphan-black/

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By HodgePodge
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