Today I review the Virtuality pilor over at Tor.com.

I liked it. It’s not the best thing that ever happened to TV, but it was certainly good enough for a one-season series. (Can we just talk about how American TV could really benefit from a British model of limited-run series? Good. Glad we had this talk.)

My favorite part of the show is Roger. Roger the psychologist who is also the reality-show producer and sees absolutely no conflict of interest with that.

He’s actually portrayed very well and by the end of the pilot seemed nicely torn between making good TV and keeping people from going insane. However, I don’t care about that. I care about the fact that he is in charge of both those things at the same time, which is the best thing in the WORLD.

If it was accidental, thumbs up for the laughs. If it was on purpose, seirously, thumbs up. Bonus points for the scene where Manny and Val come to complain about how they’re being portrayed, and we see the show being edited together RIGHT IN ROGER’S OFFICE. I might never stop laughing.

[Previous episodes of The Catherine Cookson Experience here.]

This week, the CCE delivers my biggest letdown so far: Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root, stars of the Persuasion (best Austen adaptation ever), team up again!

And man, they suck.

Welcome to The Man Who Cried, which is about a good-looking dude (Ciaran Hinds: well cast, casting person) who keeps tripping and falling into ladies, which disgusts him, just disgusts him. Why won’t these women stop getting with him, damn? He spends four hours being emo about how he just wants to be Left Alone with some other woman than the one he’s with at the moment. (Doesn’t matter which woman he’s with; he wants a new one.)

Vital Stats:

Era: 1930s, just before WWII
Heroine: Ciaran Hinds.
Siblings that require looking-after: His ten-year-old kiddo.
Illegitimate (Self or sibling): He begets one! Nice job, Ciaran.
Asshole Father?: Yeah, Ciaran.
Romantic interest(s): Every woman on the planet.
Bairnsketballs: Yup…CIARAN.
Fistfights: Largely nonviolent, except for ladies lunging at Ciaran and attempting to climb him like a tree.
Assaults: See above. SIT DOWN, LADIES.

“Even the CREDITS are crying, you guys.”
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Star Trek shirts at Hot Topic.

Oh, suddenly it’s cool to like Star Trek?

You know what? You kids get off my lawn or I’ll choke you with some two-year-old butterscotch candies, okay? I liked Star Trek before you were born, damn.*

* People who were born after I started watching Star Trek can now buy cigarettes. Fact.

My recap of last weekend’s Kings is up at Tor.com, and I turned up the snark, because this show, for all its promise, has made the same missteps so repeatedly that I can no longer pretend it was just part of a growing narrative.

Firstly, David and Michelle. Apart, they’re boring. Together, they’re a level of boring that’s equivalent to a concussion. And it’s not enough that they’re infesting the present – they infested the flashbacks!

Worst of all, the flashback had Michelle almost die, AND THEN GETS BETTER.

Wrong, show. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Don’t tease me with something so great when I already know it doesn’t come true.

The only good thing about that entire subplot was watching two more kickass women run things: Queen Rose, and DEATH. HELL YES, SAFFRON BURROWS. YOU GET IT, GIRL. (Sorry, I’m always just so excited for her when she’s not in a movie about sharks.)

Also, as someone who routinely drops exposition three-quarters of the way through the story, these flashbacks still made me cringe, not because they introduced new information, but because the crux of why Silas is reacting to David the way he is lies in these flashbacks, which means that everything else he’s done about David for seven episodes is a song-and-dance routine that stems from a reveal that’s not even necessary, since we saw in the pilot that God favored David to be king. It’s not as if Silas is suddenly like, “Oh, shit, THAT guy?”

Though he should be, because holy mother, THAT guy?

My recap of last weekend’s Kings is up at Tor.com, and I turned up the snark, because this show, for all its promise, has made the same missteps so repeatedly that I can no longer pretend it was just part of a growing narrative.

Firstly, David and Michelle. Apart, they’re boring. Together, they’re a level of boring that’s equivalent to a concussion. And it’s not enough that they’re infesting the present – they infested the flashbacks!

Worst of all, the flashback had Michelle almost die, AND THEN GETS BETTER.

Wrong, show. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Don’t tease me with something so great when I already know it doesn’t come true.

The only good thing about that entire subplot was watching two more kickass women run things: Queen Rose, and DEATH. HELL YES, SAFFRON BURROWS. YOU GET IT, GIRL. (Sorry, I’m always just so excited for her when she’s not in a movie about sharks.)

Also, as someone who routinely drops exposition three-quarters of the way through the story, these flashbacks still made me cringe, not because they introduced new information, but because the crux of why Silas is reacting to David the way he is lies in these flashbacks, which means that everything else he’s done about David for seven episodes is a song-and-dance routine that stems from a reveal that’s not even necessary, since we saw in the pilot that God favored David to be king. It’s not as if Silas is suddenly like, “Oh, shit, THAT guy?”

Though he should be, because holy mother, THAT guy?