2017-18 TV Season Recap: Part Three - Bonus Summer TV Edition

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

2017-18 TV Season Recap Part One (Gotham, Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Jessica Jones, Punisher)
2017-18 TV Season Recap Part Two (South Park, Roseanne, Evil Genius, Orville, Riverdale)

Greetings and welcome to my summer TV blog recap! Like last year I am back with a bonus addendum to my 2017-18 TV Season recaps (links above!). It seems more and more shows are getting dropped in Netflix throughout the summer so it gives me some entertainment to indulge until the onslaught of comic book licensed shows from CW and FOX hit in the fall. I only was able to make time for three shows throughout the summer, so let us make haste to my thoughts on them below.

Glow - The ‘Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling’ return to Netflix for a second season after the runaway success of its debut last year. Like its first season, GLOW comes up with new behind-the-scenes storylines and characters inspired by the roster of the actual GLOW promotion that existed in the mid-to-late 1980s. The show focuses on Ruth Wilder and Debbie Eagan as the main stars as GLOW, or as they are known by their character names ‘Liberty Belle’ & ‘Zoya the Destroya.’ Watching their polarizing relationship develop in and out of the ring was intriguing throughout the entire binge-friendly season that consisted of just ten, half hour long episodes. Eagan has a moment when facing Wilder in a main event match on GLOW when their legit past squabbles get to her head too much in the middle of a match and she winds up legit hurting Wilder that leads to a heated confrontation between the two at the hospital.

Bash and Sam are killer as the two lovable scumbag promoters. Both have excellent periphery arcs with the GLOW ladies and both are great at making me root and jeer for them many times throughout the season. The wrestling fan in me was stoked to see a bigger emphasis on the actual wrestling this season. Most episodes features a match or two being taped for the latest episode of GLOW, and one of the bigger arcs for the season is the future of the show is at stake and there is a lot of buildup for the season finale of GLOW where all the ladies bring their best efforts to the ring in order to save the show. Grade: A-

Arrested Development - I was a huge fan of the first three seasons of this show on FOX, and was excited for its return on Netflix after several years of it being off air in 2013. That changed when I saw the first episode of season four and did not watch another one once I realized each episode was going to focus on a small amount of characters because of the limited availability of the star-studded cast. I was then surprised to learn earlier this year that series creator Ron Howard painstakingly ‘remixed’ and re-released season four shortly before the first half of season five launched on Netflix earlier this year. The ‘remix’ is Howard re-ordering scenes from multiple episodes to give the illusion that the entire cast was there for each episode. Somehow, Ron did a masterful job at pulling it off and it resulted in a more enjoyable season. Highlights include the love/hate relationship between Gob and Tony Wonder, Michael & George Michael both chasing the same woman, Tobias’s love for the unreleased Fantastic Four film from the 90s, Lindsay’s devout-caring for people with face-blindness and the demise of a boy-band due to Gob’s neglect to his bee colony.

Netflix released the first half of season five earlier this year, with the second half set to release by the end of 2018. Even though there are five years between the release of seasons four and five, season five picks right up where four left off. That made me glad I held out for the unexpected and awesome ‘remix’ version of the far more watchable season four to jump in and watch seasons four and five back-to-back. Season five deals with the fallout of the Cinco de Quatro season four finale and it seems like every member of the Bluth family is facing jail time at one point or another due to their terrible deeds throughout the series. Lindsay is now trying to run for congress, the banana stand is revealed to have a tragic fate, Buster has a stint in the military that goes about as well as expected and Gob gets addicted to ‘forget-me-nows’ and even forces them on Michael at one point. Everything culminates in an unforgettable 2nd of July parade headlined by a tear-jerker of a magic act.
Grade: B

Luke Cage - What a big letdown from its debut season. The balance is 100% out of whack for the second season. There are too many scenes of people shooting Cage at point blank range and Cage just absorbing it in a gratuitous moment every episode. Only one time does someone shoot for his head, and when they do, they miss! Almost all the characters that had demises in the first season are replaced with far inferior versions the second season (Tilda, Comanche & D-Dub are painful to endure). Simone Missick is horribly casted as Misty Knight. I thought no one could eclipse Jennifer Garner with her ridiculous overacting facials, but Misty brings it in the worst ways all season long. To top it off, they give her a bionic-arm and have her teaming up with Luke in fight scenes that I could not buy into whatsoever.

I could have done with half the musical montages throughout the season, they were effective initially, but were played out halfway through the season and overstayed their welcome by tempting me to fast forward through them every time. Shades was a stellar supporting character last season, and they bump him into a main player in season two and he cannot pull off that big of a role. Mariah is a tremendous foil and has a couple powerful exchanges with other characters, and the introduction of Bushmaster was another interesting new villain for Cage to duel with. Part of me wanted to let this season slide with a D, but there are far too many gut-wrenching moments each episode to sit through that it is too much to overcome, so Luke Cage, season two winds up as one of the first individual seasons I rate with a…..
Grade: F

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
2017-18 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns 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