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Reviews
Alias (2001)
A great show facing big problems during its run
Let me state my general opinion on Alias first: I pretty much love the show. Also, I'm not going much into depth but scratch on the problems I think they had while still having a great show. So, check it out, you'll probably know within the first few episodes if this is your type of show or not. Trust me, though, there is quite a bit of mythology coming up along the run (similar to Fringe and Person of Interest, who both started slow on that aspect).
In my opinion, Season 1 & 2 were pretty much perfect in every aspect. While Season 3 felt a bit slowed down and struggling a little with how to move forward, Season 4A was a bit disappointment.
A big plot point was dropped and kind of retconned between Seasons 3 and 4 - and it's the network's interference that almost killed the show. Not only did they make the writers go almost completely procedural in the first half on the season - no, the network also decided to air episodes COMPLETELY out of order, which lead to incredible inconsistent characterization. Do yourself a favor and research the production order of Season 4 and watch it in that exact order. It improves it a lot. Still, 4A has some nice procedural episodes but really lacks the overall story. They kind of salvaged it in 4B and in my opinion, Season 5 was nice, even though for some reason the core mythology was banned a little - again.
This is actually today's textbook on why networks have to give writers the freedom to keep a show a show serialized if they intent to and not to try to make it a little more mainstream.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend Alias. Others will disagree, but for me it was one of the most enjoyable TV rides I've watched.
Person of Interest: Control-Alt-Delete (2015)
Fresh, different, opening a new chapter
The trilogy is over - and the result is pretty impressive. While Ep. 4.10 was slow-paced with a lot of nice set-up, 4.11 turned out as the best episode so far. POI's trilogy is a must-watch.
Since this is a spoiler free review, I'm having trouble describing why I enjoyed the episode but I'll give my best.
To me, 4.12 was fully satisfying. "Control-Alt-Delete" indicated where this episode was going and they did it well. I'm not going into detail here - but they worked on some spots in their universe that needed attention while continuing the big plot that drives this trilogy. There's a lot to discover in the details, dialog and character expressions.
If you were expecting an episode in 3.10 The Devil's Share style, you might be a little disappointed. It is more like in 2.16 Relevance style, which I personally enjoyed very much. If you open your mind and like it when they change narrative for a while, you'll probably end up loving it (especially if you have and had so many burning questions about the many plot threads going on - they're finally fleshing out this world in the Samaritan era. It's actually pretty disturbing in a positive way).
To sum it up, this episode ended the trilogy in an intriguing way and prepared the board for the rest of the season. As always, they had an especially nice "final scene".
Person of Interest remains incredibly strong in all areas and I'm definitely looking forward to Episode 4.13 on February 3rd 2015.
Person of Interest: If-Then-Else (2015)
The best episode so far
Outstanding episode. Others have summarized it pretty well. Very thoughtful and creative, great flashbacks and details. The final scene was heartbreaking and beautifully done, as were all special effects. We now have way more insight into how The Machine works. Root and Shaw were very sweet - Shaw always tries to pretend she doesn't care but you can just see it's not as simple as that. Or, as little Genrika said in Episode 3.05 "It's not that you don't have feelings. It's just like the volume is turned way down, like the sound of an old tape. The voices are there, you just have to listen." My favorite POI episode.
I just wanted to add something - to the reviewer who said the show was ruined because "We are not into unnatural relationships. Two girls kissing is gross." ---- Are you serious? 'Bad code', as Root would say.
Supernatural: Fan Fiction (2014)
Better than it seemed - has its issues
I need to admit, when I watched the first previews of the episode, I thought this would be the most awful thing to watch - ever. While I was watching the episode, I started to enjoy it but in my opinion the episode had its flaws.
I know how many people loved it, but I found it annoying when they were trying to put a fandom thing/ line / joke in every single line. I love references but at some point it started to annoy me because they were just trying too hard. Plus, I felt they left the "old" fandom identity out too much, but I'll come back to that in a sec.
Also, I thought they put way too much focus on the shipping section. I know, many fans are rather focused on this, but I found this to be a big negative aspect. A reference? OK. But imo, it was too much when Sam started discussing ship names...
So, this episode was supposed to be a love letter to the fans, but I think it's more like a letter to a specific group of fans - the younger, mostly female, girls on tumblr, who have kind of become a big "force" in the fandom. I am not a part of that, so all the presents to them (or the focus in general, like making the whole musical cast highschool girls) didn't really work for me.
The monster of the week was very weak. She even did the evil-monologue-thing and didn't have anything that stood out. Not more than a plot device.
To sum it up, this episode was watchable and a bit better than average, but the best episode ever? Imo, never. Meta episodes like The French Mistake handled it much better and we had much better "silly" episodes as well (my favorite: Changing Channels). Supernatural also has brilliant darker episodes, too. So I wouldn't ever count this episode into the top list. It just didn't have in it that got to me.
Oh, before I forgot, I liked how they named their own Post-Kripke-plots worst fanfic ever. ;) But I sure hope the brothers won't ignore their brother Adam's fate in hell - you know, being for like how many hundreds of years down there in tortue? I though Sam would connect to that, since he spent only a fraction of time down there and look how it affected him. I think it's totally OOC for them to ignore that, but that's not my main issue with the ep.
6 out of 10 seems like a fair rating to me.
PS. Please don't mind my writing mistakes, English is not my mother tongue.