Reviews

If you're really bored, I also reviewed the season 2 finale episode, with an equally long rant. If you're involved in this show and somewhat masochistic, go read that first and enjoy the flogging. Or if you're like me and occasionally like to feel vindicated that you weren't the only one pausing the episode to yell at the TV, you probably don't want to be reminded of how bad season 2's finale was. Either way, I think it's safe to say I am not a fan of how this show has started leaning toward the unrealistic superdrama nonsense, and am hoping season 3 gets back to the quality of season 1 and most of season 2.

After the events of the season 2 finale unfolded, many of us were left wondering what the big reveal would be in season 3. Surely, after all, Nolan couldn't possibly be that dumb -- it just didn't fit within the context of the character we'd watched grow and develop as a rookie officer over the first two seasons.

The absurdity is apparent even within this episode's dialogue, as several of his colleagues consider him "the best of us" and other similarly high praise as Nolan being, in essence, a straight arrow. Given the way this show has presented LAPD as earnest and competent, it seems very far-fetched that the best officer their training produced would be so inept as to commit all the grievous mistakes these writers try passing off as believable behavior. I get that he's not the youngest guy ever, but the character isn't in his seventies -- even my old flip phone had a "record memo" feature on it, and smart phones have been around for over a decade. It's hard to believe anyone, let alone a police officer, would enter into a conversation with the intention of getting a confession, without using his phone's built-in recording capability. I would actually imagine even if a cop was coloring outside the lines as Nolan was in this situation, he would still wear a wire. Also, it's incomprehensible that the corrupt cop would have spilled all his secrets, also assuming Nolan wasn't recording the conversation. The story is only believable if the show is actually set in the 1960s or some equally distant past where compact recording devices didn't exist -- either one cop forgets to record, or the other cop forgets to check, but it's just implausible to believe both, especially considering the corrupt cop is supposedly very clever.

There are a bunch of other "hot mess" writing issues with this episode, for example why the two officers visiting the prison (to obtain surveillance recordings) decide to stop by and visit their favorite prisoner-of-the-week, even though they had every reason to expect that visit would result in her poking at their wounds. Maybe they were there to pick up the videos and also interview the prisoner, in which case maybe the problem was with the editors mistakenly removing the sergeant's line where he instructs them to do that. Maybe I didn't hear it right, but it sure sounded like that little visit was unnecessary. Also, maybe I'm being overly critical here, but she really seems to have a fancy jail cell. Maybe she's in a federal penitentiary.

This show was great when it focused on actual community police work, with realistic plots and criminals. Now that this storyline has wrapped up, hopefully we can get back to reality and enjoy a solid cop show that represents police issues, gives everyone an example of how policing *should* work, problems people have with police interactions, bad practices from cops who mean well but bend the rules, and all the other things that make for great compelling stories, without all this nonsense of serial killers and corrupt cops being busted by rookies still in training. (That, or maybe change the show title to "Super-Boo Saves The Day")

It's clearly hard as #*%^! to write great TV consistently. But I'd rather wait a little while between seasons if it meant better writing. Tasty food delivered late is always better than hot garbage delivered on time.

So, you're investigating a crooked cop, and he invites you over so he can confess. You show up wearing body armor, sure that makes sense, but you don't think he'll have anything to say that's worth recording. Yup... wait, hang on, you don't also wear a wire? Or even just have your phone in your shirt pocket recording the conversation? Maybe you shouldn't be a cop. Or at a minimum, maybe you shouldn't write for a show that is about cops.

What a hot garbage season finale. Hopefully series finale.

Aside from the overkill iPhone product placement, episode 5 is really well done. At this point, I think it's fair to say the show has established that every time you think you've got a handle on "where the writers are coming from", they throw in another perspective or another character development detail that makes you think maybe there won't be any prototypical "hero" character in this narrative at all. Kinda like life. It's nice to see a well-told story that doesn't try to show you a particular perspective, which seems all too common in 21st century TV shows. Rather, this show seems to be setting itself up to continue painting a narrative in ever-subtler shades of grey that make up the everyday reality most of us live in. How refreshing.

Is it just me, or does it seem like so many sci-fi writers can never get the time travel right?

It was a fun episode all in all, but like so many other good sci-fi shows, the insane time travel stuff always gets me down. Still, was kinda cool to see them play around in a more Star Wars-ish universe for a while. I especially liked the detachable robot heads, pretty hard to compete with that.

But, the time travel stuff just killed me... I mean, obviously what we know in reality is mostly theoretical, but quantum mechanics dictates that every possible timeline can/does exist. So when you go back in time, you immediately branch off into a unique timeline from the original, and you don't just disappear. (Think "ivy", not "rope".)

Seriously, I was willing to suspend disbelief and just tell myself we're following the alternate universe where Kelly went back in time and remembers the future, but then the doc just has to go and vanish. What?! Did the protein or whatever she injected Kelly with also disappear? (Would stand to reason, after all, the device on her head disappeared.) Does that mean she can remember again? Why wouldn't she say no the second time around?

Come to think of it, that does leave one interesting possibility for season 3 -- what if Kelly actually still remembered everything from her trip to the future, but with the doc popping back into her timeline and looking so rough, she realized it must be important to set things right, which is why she says yes when Ed calls. Pretty sure that wasn't their intention, but now that I think about it, that would've been a lot cleaner than the ending they wrote.

Seriously though, folks... there isn't "the timeline". It's more like a fractal pattern. You'd think sci-fi writers would get that. Hellloooo, multiverse anyone? Wasn't that a Family Guy episode, Road to the Multiverse? Hrm.

I enjoyed this episode, right up until the point our heroes discover the true cause of their predicament. For the rest of the episode, I just kept thinking up more reasons why the entire concept was absurd. (Spoilers below.)

They could've simply said "these people were born under different stars," problem solved.

They might've pointed out that these officers were born on different planets, which have different calendars, meaning different birthdays than this particular planet's "next week".

Plus, what was up with the very short month? I know time was supposed to have elapsed between the two announcements the leader gave about whatever current astrological sign they were in, but it wasn't handled well. Seemed like maybe a day or two had passed, now I'm finding myself wondering how long these folks have been hanging out by this planet. Are we supposed to believe they sat idly by for a whole month, then just suddenly decided to start shooting people because... what, Kelly gets emotionally unstable around babies? Surely that's not right. So why did they all of a sudden take such violent action? Wouldn't they consider it more useful to not reinforce the prejudices these people seem to hold? How would acting violent prove their cause? Seemed way too irrational for me to believe Kelly would behave that way, just doesn't fit with what we already know about the character.

It's like they just really wanted to tell a story about this kooky astrology planet, but failed to let the plot flow naturally once they established the basic idea.

Could've still been a good episode if, instead, they focused on how Ed manages to navigate the cultural divide and come up with some compelling argument that makes these people change their viewpoint. Where was the scene where they tried explaining the black hole? Why was their first move to deceive the planet? And if that was as extreme of a solution as it seems, at least throw in a scene toward the end hinting at the hell they're going to catch for how poorly it was handled. At least hint at some call to the admirals Ed's not looking forward to. Something.

The more I think about it, the more bummed I am that a little more time wasn't taken on the plot. This really could've been a fun episode that played with our own human preconceptions/biases and left us feeling a little better about our own situation. I mean, it's not like there's a shortage of crazy around us these days, plenty of material to draw from. Just felt like there could've been a lot more to this episode than what we got.