Nerd TV – What To Watch This Season

This is an excellent TV season for us nerds. I’m watching more shows this year than I have since Buffy and Angel aired. Today I’m going to rave about some of my favorite shows of this season, so read on and get ready to fire up your Tivo, streaming video or turn on the TV.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D – Season One

Featuring Phil Coulson and some other schmucks.

We’ve already talked about this show, but I just want to reiterate – watch this show. While convincing my mother to ditch NSCI or NSCI or NS: Law and Order or whatever terrible procedural she was watching during this timeslot (my mother will always prefer to watch her TV live, without the aid of streaming video or Tivo), I described Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D as ‘look, it’s pretty much Firefly in The Avengers universe with Agent Coulson instead of Mal.’ It’s got most of the hallmarks of a Joss Whedon show (without Eliza Dushku and her ‘acting,’ which ruined so much of Dollhouse for me) but tempered with references and mysteries from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And oh there are some great mysteries. Why doesn’t Agent May like to see combat despite being so ass-kickingly awesome at it? What’s up with The Rising Tide? Why is Tahiti such a ‘magical place?’ This show knows exactly how to grab you and make you want more, while telling self-contained stories. Watch it.

Once Upon a Time – Season Three

I guess there’s a lot of attractive people on this show, too. Like, a LOT.

After a recommendation from my mom (who’s taste ranges from ‘wow, awesome’ to ‘Mom did you just say we should watch something called ThanksKilling at Thanksgiving? Oh, it’s a slasher movie with a killer turkey?’) I watched an episode from season two of Once Upon a Time with her and was mostly confused as to what was going on. Robert Carlyle’s over-the-top portrayal of ‘The Dark One,’ (aka Rumple-fucking-stilskin, no seriously) grew on me. Before I knew what was going on, I binged on two full seasons over the course of a week or two during the summer. It’s addicting like when you eat too much candy. You can’t stop but oh god, you can’t feel your tongue any more thanks to all of the sugar, aaaaahg–

This show actually has a great premise – storybook characters are transported from their world, into our’s, forgetting themselves and starting new lives as humans in a never-changing town, thanks to a curse from the Evil Queen. There’s some strong shades of the comic book Fables here, but I think Fables has better writing. Once’s acting is passable and some of the actors are clearly having a great time with their roles (Regina, the Evil Queen, bounces from incredibly sympathetic to horribly malicious at the flip of a coin and her actress is having fun with that). The plot has gotten a little silly and more than a little frustrating in its desire to keep the main characters as far away from happy and together as possible (I think everybody’s had their memories, been in the same room and not been dead about once over the course of three seasons) but this season the show is really exploring the huge worlds they’ve done a great job in building with their stories-within-stories shtick from the previous two seasons. This year, the cast is (mostly, with a notable exception returning to the Enchanted Forest) going to Neverland to deal with the apparently super-terrifying Peter Pan (who feels like a child version of the Bastard of Bolton from Game of Thrones).

Once has gotten better over three seasons, but it still has moments of being terribly cheesy and seriously, some of the actors portraying super good guys (like Prince Charming and Snow White) need to stop acting like fairy tales and more like people, because it’s getting painful to watch them grasp at the only characterization of ‘always believe good triumphs!’ But if you can squint through some less-than-stellar acting and assorted silliness, Once is great to watch for interesting world building, soap opera plot twists and Robert Carlyle in leather pants and face paint.

I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite character, they are all amazing.

Parks and Recreation – Season Five

Parks and Rec has been tied with Community for my favorite comedy for a while now, and I’m sad to say this is probably the last season for both shows. Parks and Rec didn’t start out as strongly as Community did – the latter got excellent by the end of its first season and the former didn’t really hit its stride until its second season, but Parks and Rec has been going strong and pretty much without a misstep ever since.

This season hasn’t disappointed, with episodes already subtly mocking the meme-i-fied uber-manliness of Ron Swanson (he of ‘all the bacon and eggs you have’) and building up interesting plot arcs like irrepressible main character Leslie Knope’s long-time-coming frustration with her true love (sorry, Ben), her home city of Pawnee. While it’s a little frustrating as a viewer to watch Leslie’s hard-fought victory for city councilwoman to end in a bid for recall, it has been great (and often hilarious) to watch the caul slowly being pulled off her eyes that just maybe Pawnee isn’t the greatest city in the world. It’s been a great trip watching Leslie grow up over the years and I think season is really going to illustrate how far she’s come from the caricature that she started out in.

While we’re not sure if this will be the last season for the show, it is definitely the last season for Rashida Jones (Ann) and Rob Lowe (Chris), who have both said this is their last season. The plotline of Ann and Chris gearing up to be parents is a great one for the (going to be totally heartbreaking) send-off we can see coming.  Props also have to go to Chris Pratt (Andy) and Aubrey Plaza (April) for being completely awesome, and watching Chris Pratt be SO INCREDIBLY RIPPED just makes me even more excited for Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy in which he’s starring.

The Last Avatar: The Legend of Korra – Season Two

“Pst, Pabu, I heard some news…”

I’ve obviously gone on about how excited I was for Book 2 (Spirits) of Korra, and I’m glad to say that excitement was worth it. This season is great and I’m sad at the end of every episode because each episode seems to fly by so quickly. While Korra’s actions can sometimes be frustrating (Korra, you aren’t always wrong but you’re an asshole sometimes), it’s very believable when you take into account that she’s a teenager with a huge weight of responsibility and concern on her shoulders – she’s always believable. Some people have complained about the animation quality this season, which is done by a new studio (Madhouse, animators of some very well-known anime), but it’s rarely been jarring to me, and I think the backgrounds are some of the most gorgeous pieces of art we’ve seen in an Avatar series thus far. The voice acting is on-spot as always and the score is breath-taking – easily up to the par of Book 1, if not better for some tracks.

“…SURPRISE, PABU, WE GOT A NEW TIME! I think we’re shooting for a Primetime Emmy.”

A few plotlines duel for the spotlight this season – our main cast has split off.  Tenzin and his ridiculously awesome family are out on the feel-good retreat of the ages (which really touches on Aang’s family dynamics and the fact that maybe being the last airbender and Avatar doesn’t always make you the best dad) while Korra and the new gang deal with political and spiritual upheaval in the Northern and Southern Water Tribes – which ends up really dealing with Korra’s family dynamics, as the Chief of the Northern Water Tribe is her uncle. This season has a great subtle theme of family in all their good and bad aspects – Korra’s dad definitely deserves some of her teenage ire (not really all of it, because Korra being Korra, doesn’t do anything halfway) and Tenzin and his siblings have a realistic beef with each other, but family still pulls through; I love how the show is handling it so far. On top of all of the subtle themes we have another war brewing, a big problem with the Spirit World and Bolin’s impending stardom in short furry shorts. This is another must watch show, a show that gets better with every episode.

Other suggestions for shows to catch up on are Arrow, Sleepy Hollow, and Community (when it returns, likely post-holidays). Most of these shows are available on Hulu or their respective networks’ websites very shortly after airing live, so I really recommend doing some major TV bingeing and catching up to each show. This is a great TV season geekiness!