2017-18 TV Season Recap, Part One

Previous TV Season Recaps – (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17)

2017-18 TV Season Recap - Part 2 (South Park, Roseanne, Evil Genius, Orville, Riverdale) | Part Three (Glow, Arrested Development, Luke Cage)

Greetings and welcome to my annual TV season recap! Enjoy as I ramble on about nearly a dozen of the TV shows I attempted to keep up with throughout the television year. Please check out the links above for past installments of my TV recaps. I am splitting this year’s installment into two parts for now. Part one here will feature my breakdowns of the six shows based on comic books I followed while part two will feature everything else! In a few months like last year I will add a bonus part covering three or four more shows I plan to binge throughout the summer. Enough with the intro, let us get onto the year of television that was 2017-18.

Gotham – I have no idea where to begin on the fourth season of Gotham. Like I mentioned in past annual recaps, since season two Gotham went kind of bonkers and dove deep bringing in a wide array of vintage Batman villains. A lot of them you may have seen from prior cartoons and films, while many others are getting their on-screen debut in Gotham. Plenty of past recurring villains return along with some new ones to keep me on my toes for each episode. The primary villains this season after Gordon and Harvey put away early filler head villain ‘The Pyg’ in a enjoyable several episode arc early in the season are Ra’s al Ghul and the Jerome/Jeremiah brothers that many of us know better as The Joker, even though the show does not officially label them as such. Gordon’s old love interests Barb and Lee both get some sadistic twists this season with Barb getting some unexpected powers as she clashes with Ra’s and Lee becoming a crime lord of sorts when she teams up with The Riddler and becomes known as the ‘Queen of the Narrows.’

I will nitpick a little bit because season three ended with a tease of Bruce donning his first set of the classic caped crusader costume as he sought out vigilante justice. The fourth season quickly backtracks away from that within a couple episodes as Bruce realizes he is in over his head after some early failures and he winds up going on a depressing party binge for several episodes and betraying the love-able Alfred to go out and party before finally coming to his senses. That said I am amazed at how Gotham managed to juggle its mammoth ensemble cast with almost something to do for every character this season. On almost any other show I would be irate for the lame explanations for characters cheating death and constantly coming back. I can get on board with the unbelievable returns in Gotham due to how off the rails the show has become by this point. Only way a person stays dead in Gotham is via bazooka. I was disheartened to see FOX announce that Bruce Wayne’s version of Smallville will come to an end with this fall’s fifth season being the last, and being only a half season at that. At least that gives the writers several episodes to wrap up this insanely awesome Batman project. Grade: A-

Arrow – Season six of The Arrow means it is time to rejoice since there are no longer any more flashback periphery story arcs. Since Oliver is now the mayor of Star City, that means there are numerous enemies constantly trying to frame him and remove him from office, and while they are at it continue the laughable annual trend of trying to expose Oliver as the Green Arrow. The season gets a little messy with the core of Team Arrow splitting up for more than half the season and constantly being at odds with each other while the primary antagonists have some surprising twists of their own. I will give my supporting character MVP this season to Quentin Lance as the only one who stood loyal to Oliver through thick and thin this season while nearly the rest of the entire cast was at odds with Olly at one point or another this season.

That is saying a ton too as Quentin has his own season-spanning arc where he encounters another Earth’s version of his daughter, Laurel and never gives up on her despite her sinister ways and it seems like a laughably lost cause from the get go, but Quentin’s resilience and perseverance paid off after many weeks of effort in a way I was not anticipating. Arrow featured a dramatic season finale which will surely have profound changes for the series going into next season. There were a few missteps during the course of this season, but it managed to find its footing by the end and got me back on board again. Grade: B+

The Flash – I hate to see this trend, but the fourth season of The Flash continues the downward trajectory of the series after an underwhelming third season. The problem here is with the season-spanning villain Clifford DeVoe, aka, The Thinker. Thinker is after the unique energy force from a group of metas that got their powers on a mysterious explosion on a bus. So the whole season sees Team Flash try to track down each ‘bus meta’ one-by-one, but only consistently fail to protect them and see them fall victim to having their life force harvested by The Thinker. Most of these battles that play out are depressing to watch to see the Flash regularly disposed of with ease. One of the bus metas, Ralph, winds up joining Team Flash, but his forced humor is cringe-inducing and his run on the show went far longer than it had any right to be. The only reason this managed to stay above the ‘D’ range is because the series continues one of its positive trends of a great Christmas party scene and an awesome wedding between Barry and Iris that was at the core of a fun four-part crossover event with all four CW DC shows. Grade:C-

Legends of Tomorrow – Legends of Tomorrow was the surprise hit of the DC Arrow-verse this year. Its first two seasons were decent with their fair share of highs and lows, but ultimately suffered with a huge cast that stretched episodes thin to cram everyone in. The team on Legends got it right for season three by dialing back the cast a little (which means some heartbreaking moments this season) and somehow achieving the impossible by making Steel marginally less of a dope and even having an episode he excelled in what was my favorite episode of the season with its take on the classic film, Groundhog’s Day. CW must have had a serious makeover to the writer staff this season because at first I grimaced when they added the insufferable Wally West from Flash to the Legends team halfway through the season, but his personality surprisingly meshed well with the team and he blended right in! Sarah Lance is also coming into her own now as the group leader, and the intentionally campy-yet-amazing Damien Darhk and his daughter are the perfect season-long foils for the legends. A throwaway gag in a midseason episode in the form of a cuddly stuffed animal called, Beebo, returns in a memorable way for a surprisingly awesome season finale! Having its season not as padded out and several episodes shorter compared to the other CW DC shows also significantly helps. Grade: A-

Jessica Jones – The second season of JJ on Netflix was a surprise step down from its unforgettable debut season. It is still one of the stronger Marvel Netflix series, and a big step up from Defenders and Iron Fist. The second season starts out strong with Jess meeting some new neighborhood characters setting up the season and the affable Malcom stepping up his role as Jessica’s assistant. After a few episodes things start to gradually unravel though with Trish relapsing and her arc slowly evolving from curious to cringe-worthy by the end of the season. Jeri’s periphery arc is also frustratingly inconclusive and vague and seems to be there for more shock than substance. The season shapes up midway through when Jones reconnects with figures from her past that the show does not paint in a bright light. Jessica Jones does not seem to care to drive home the destination point of this season and I could not help but feel the undertones from the cast this season in their body language read something like, “you are not going to particularly care how this season wraps up, it is just going to be there.” And that is exactly what happened, with the show doubling down on new characters this season that are not fun to root for or against and are essentially a nonfactor by the end of the season.

One last nagging point I have to touch on is Jess is her usual badass self most of this season threatening to rip people’s spines out for not divulging her info. However, at a couple crisis points this season she uncharacteristically gets pouty when it comes time to walk past the metaphorical ‘line’ she bemoans “I’m not a killer” before offing some painfully stereotypical antagonizing prison guard in one of the low points of the season. The second season feels like a wash by the end to wipeout all the good momentum established in the first half, including an awesome prequel episode set several years before the first season that wound up as one of the season’s few saving graces combined with a few other strong early episodes to prevent this from hitting the C range. Grade: B-

The Punisher - If you know me, I am a huge Punisher mark, so this summary is admittedly a bit biased. Season two of Daredevil was a great introduction of the character, but Punisher’s own self-titled Netflix exclusive series dives deep into his psyche. As expected, a lot about his origin is constantly referenced throughout for the impetus for him going on his crusade. The PMC group Punisher squares off against is a formidable foe for Frank to go to war with, and I also thought the producers managed to walk that fine line for a secondary villain this season who is a middle east veteran suffering from PTSD who gradually loses before taking matters into his own hands. Rest assured there is plenty of action in each episode, and easily more than any of the other Marvel Netflix series.

They still sprinkle in a good back story for some breathing room, and Franks does not waste a word of his intentional limited dialogue as every word he speaks means business. The person Frank interacts with for his tech-backup is a good sidekick, but not worthy of the Micro name as the Netflix version veers off in some significant ways than how he was portrayed in the comics, but they capture the core of Micro’s role providing tech support for Frank. Micro’s family played a little more into the overall plot than I thought they would, but by the end of the season I thought they all earned their spot on the show and I was invested in their arc. As a die-hard Punisher fan this is a near-flawless portrayal of him, and this debut season easily surpasses all prior on-screen representations of him and I loving the tease for the villain they have in store for Frank in season two. Grade: A

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5