Land Of The Free And The Home Of #TheBrave #3weekroundup #NBC #review #recap

Land Of The Free And The Home Of #TheBrave #3weekroundup #NBC #review #recap

All pictures courtesy of NBC 

I am trying my darnedest to fly through these reviews of these new shows so that I can get back to my usual writing but they seem to come faster every year, and I also seem to need to say more about them every year. On deck today, we have NBC’s new military-themed show The Brave (#TheBrave). What the heck is this show about with such a pedantic and uncreative title you ask? And is this show made to last or will it crumble beneath the weight of great expectations? Let’s find out together.

NBC’s The Brave stars Anne Heche and Mark Vogel as leaders of a special forces command team. While Anne Heche’s character Patricia Campbell runs the intelligence and office unit of the team at a safe command center somewhere in the US, Mark Vogel’s character Adam Dalton is the leader of the boots-on-ground tactical field team that traverses the globe following orders on a myriad of different crimes that need a militaristic force to properly execute commands. His field team consists of Jaz Khan, a Middle Eastern-looking young woman who is a weapons and language specialist who speaks a few languages and is a sniper. During the first two missions in the first two episodes, she is seen wearing a traditional Muslim head garb for women but doesn’t do the same in the third episode. Next we have Joseph “McG” Mcguire who, to me, melts into the background and hasn’t been of any significance yet from what I can remember. Granted, I was doing another review while watching the first two episodes so I didn’t catch as many thorough details as I normally would, but he has just sorta been in the background. We also have Amir Al-Raisani who is the Muslim male that they have on the show. He has many talents, one of which is being a pickpocket and another of which is being able to slip in and out of any role. Also, with his presence, if you haven’t noticed most of the dirty work that will happen will most likely take place overseas in the many Islamic-run states in the Middle East and throughout all of Asia and Africa. Speaking of Africa, we finally have the black guy Ezekiel “Preach” Carter. It’s assumed by his nickname that he is the devout Christian of the group which could potentially set up a few really good scenes later in the season where he and the other Muslim team members have a philosophical and theological dialogue (don’t hold your breath). He is probably the biggest one on the team and, even though the team is made up of all field op specialists, can be considered the muscle.

Back in the office, we have Heche who is the command that coordinates with other agencies and gets her orders from the top. Next we have the newest team member Hannah Rivera who is one of the two main strategists. She is special because she just recently got off from field work and her own ops team. In episode three her background is explored more and we learn that she was previously stationed deep undercover in Mexico keeping tabs on a drug cartel. And finally we have Noah Morgenthau who is the other strategist and mainly does data analytics from what I’ve seen. We have also learned that he graduated top of his class from Quantico (or maybe it was some other intelligence agency academy. I say Quantico because, funny enough, the actor playing Noah, Tate Ellington, was one of the original cast members on the show Quantico) and keeps a low profile while trying to give the best scenario for each mission. He is a by-the-book type of guy. It should be known that both Hannah and Noah are on equal footing here and one does not outrank another just in case I made that confusing.

The Office Team

The crew’s first mission is to some Middle Eastern country where they must rescue a recently kidnapped American doctor who was working with Doctors Without Borders in a rundown village on the outskirts of some town. The woman was taken captive by her supposed driver while on her way to the airport to finally get back to the states after so long overseas. She is kidnapped and taken by a terrorist group that has yet to make any demands on the US government to get her back. So the team must not only figure out where she has been taken but also why she was taken in the first place.

As Heche’s team gathers intel from afar, utilizing drones and satellites from across the world to try to get a trace on where she might be, the ground team embarks on a mission to work the streets to find her. In conjunction with the “directors” back in HQ, the ground team discovers that some terrorist guy who freely roams the streets in this city but is a known bad guy on one of the many flagged lists that US intelligence outfits have, is actually part of the kidnapping. Or at least they operate off of such a theory. Using whatever covert ops skills they can, they follow him first through the streets of the city, keeping him in drone sights until he ducks into a covered street marketplace and the ground crew takes over. They didn’t want to tip their hand that he was being followed because they know that if he realizes someone is on him, he will call and most likely have the doctor murdered or moved. So while the Muslim woman and man are trying to blend into the marketplace patrons, their fearless team leader Adam Dalton gets in on the action as the white tourist looking at silks in the market.

Dalton is made, forcing the team to take the terrorist and change the plan on the fly. They decide to use Amir as a sort of bait hostage similar to what happened in the movie Inception with the “uncle Pete” character just after Sato got shot. Amir sits in the room trying to plead with the man for details because he supposedly doesn’t know what’s going on and why he’s been kidnapped but says that they keep mentioning this girl, this doctor. He then manages to escape and helps the terrorist escape in a well-played ruse. But when the man follows him out of the building, hops in the getaway car and puts something sharp to Amir’s neck, the team’s hope that the terrorist guy would lead them to the place where they have the kidnapped doctor starts to jiggle like an unstable Jenga tower.

Luckily the man blabs just in time for Jaz to snipe his brains out. After hearing that they took the doctor to a local hospital, the HQ team realizes that they didn’t kidnap the woman because they wanted a ransom for her, but because the bigger terrorist leader, some guy who is on the top ten list is actually sick and in need of a doctor to perform surgery. Holy crap, they could both save this doctor and take out one of the most ruthless terrorists in the world.

Well, the ground team concocts a plan that sees them sneaking into the hospital, isolating half of the guard soldiers for the big bad terrorist, beating them up and taking their uniforms to disguise themselves, and escorting the doctor lady out of the hospital after she successfully performed the surgery. Even better, they planted a remote detonating bomb on the big bad terrorist’s wife. Boom, go the terrorists.

The episode ends in a rather strange fashion with the team back stateside we’re assuming and at some beach. As they play and their boss back at HQ spies on them with a drone, a small truck makes its way onto the beach and detonates a bomb near the group. Why is this weird? Well, it leads into episode two which...

In episode two the conclusion of the first episode is only discussed in passing. It’s like in movies where they talk about some amazing action scene as opposed to showing it to you, generally because they didn’t have the budget for it. They literally say that some people died in the bombing and how crazy that was and that it happened two weeks ago and you’re like what? Hmph! Well that’s... strange. It felt like it was a cliffhanger to something amazing and then just got completely dropped the next episode.

Dalton and Preach (the black guy)

Anyway, episode two sees the crew going to rescue another person. This time, they must rescue an undercover CIA agent who had been compromised in the foreign country of Ukraine. The woman is bleeding and beaten and jogging around the city for most of the episode, trying to avoid the Ukraine government that doesn’t want her there. This is yet another job for Jaz.

At some point, even though the team does get to the CIA agent early on, they are ambushed and their transport out of the city is compromised. The agent is carried off by some Ukraine soldiers and manages to eventually escape into a women’s bathhouse. See, the person she was spying on/working for while undercover is so powerful that he has the military and local law enforcement under his control. But the bath houses are strictly for women and are supposed to be a refuge away from men. So the ground team sends in Jaz to find the woman in the bathhouse. The funny thing is that Amir, being the rather traditional Muslim he is, is very protective of the Muslim woman on the team (you bet they’re gonna have a romance later in the show) and knows that she has almost zero experience with undercover work like he does. He is worried for her and almost loses his grip when she gets stopped on the street by two Ukrainian soldiers. Luckily, the men dismiss her as not a traitor and more likely to shoot the escaped American than they are. They check out her butt and send her on her way.

Jaz gets into the bathhouse and finds the CIA agent. Meanwhile, the HQ team is trying to figure out a way to evac the ground team with the agent. As it turns out, Noah has personal ties to the agent—they were in the academy together and she was number two in their class behind him. Their current problem: the guy that the agent had been spying on has roving street sentries driving in tight patterns in the area where she was last seen around the bath house. They’re checking every vehicle and making sure she can’t escape. While HQ has a bead on all of the moving vehicles and relays that info to the ground team, Jaz and the agent move to the back of the bath house.

Dalton and Preach realize that they can bypass having their vehicle checked by procuring one of the guard vehicles. They beat up the guys inside, pull the vehicle to the back and make a smooth getaway from the bath house with the Agent and Jaz in-tow. Not cleared yet, they have to provide cover for the evac copter to land safely and long enough to get everyone loaded. Preach and McG go and set a big charge at an abandoned building while HQ coordinates the copter’s landing in a nearby empty yard. They play a game of watch-closely with the Ukrainians and detonate the building as cover for the helicopter landing in a different area. While everyone is distracted, the copter lands, loads and takes off into the night. Another day saved, another mission completed and no strange cliffhanger bomb at the end.

Episode three sees the team encounter an agent from Mexican intelligence that has been working in the drug cartel division for some time. He tells them that he has been following a drug kingpin for a very long time. One of the drug guys happens to be the same one that Hannah has a past with. He ordered her killed and beat her mercilessly, leaving scars all over her back. He is one of the biggest reasons she is no longer in the field. Well, as it turns out the drug lord is on the cusp of buying some illegal arms for his cartel. While the cartel guy is important (note: he’s not the top guy), the arms dealer is on the top ten list for illegal arms smuggling in the world. But no one can ever get the guy because he is so careful. As it turns out, the Mexican intelligence dude has been able to turn this arms dealer’s girlfriend. She’s supplied him with a wealth of information about how he operates but it still isn’t enough.

So, the plan is not to kill him or capture him but to use him to gain intel. The team hopes to bug him and track his movements so that they find his base of operations and are able to bring down his entire network of clients. Thinking it easy, their first plan is to bug his cellphone—a thousand-dollar custom job that is dipped in gold and all of this crazy crap. The point is that it is expensive. All they have to do is use Amir’s pickpocket skills to switch the phone out with their own dummy phone and voila, they have him. Unfortunately, as he is walking and right before Amir is about to switch the phones, the guy takes his real phone out and literally breaks his expensive phone in half and tosses it into a fountain like a penny into a wishing pond.

OK, new plan. They now have to contact the girlfriend and get her to help them get a bug into his necklace, the one thing he would never destroy because it has sentimental value to it. To do this, the ground team stages a robbery using intel from the girlfriend. She gives them info on their travel route for the next day and the team lies in wait. They have to switch plans slightly when the paranoid arms dealer confesses that he thought he saw Amir in two different places, following him. So, he orders that they turn around.

Well, the ground team still go through with the roadside heist, saying that they are taking his money from the recent arms deal with the drug lord which is really a guise to touch his necklace and plant the bug. The mission completed, the ground crew starts to go home but the arms dealer is still suspicious. His head of security tells him that his girlfriend was probably the one who betrayed them—intel that HQ gets from the bug that is in working condition. The dealer really loves the woman and reluctantly orders his security guy to kill her but not that very night, giving the team time to concoct a plan.

Back in HQ, Hannah and Noah get into a fight about whether to call the ground crew in the absence of their leader Patricia who has already left after another successful mission. Noah thinks the personal angle of this mission is effecting Hannah’s judgment because she sees the girlfriend as the informant she had while undercover who she couldn’t save. While Noah goes to look for their boss, Hannah breaks the chain of command and calls Dalton about the girlfriend.

The ground crew, after hearing that the girlfriend is in trouble, gets into a brief argument about what to do because if they go and rescue her then they sacrifice the bug and the arms dealer will go back into hiding and his clients will all disperse back into the underworld. But the Mexican intelligence officer is in love with the girlfriend and knows she will be killed, so he begs them to do something. Well, after much thought, Dalton concocts a plan. What they do is that they sneak the stolen money that they still had from their fake heist into the home of the drug dealer who had just bought the guns. Knowing that the arms dealer would soon come to close out the deal and shake hands, they also place Amir in the driveway on a bike, helmet off, to stare menacingly at the arms dealer as he arrives.

Naturally, the dealer and his head of security think that it wasn’t the girlfriend who was the traitor but the cartel guy who wanted the guns and wanted to keep the money for himself. The arms dealers goes in and kills the cartel guy and all of his people, bringing justice and an easing of mind to Hannah back at HQ, and saving the girlfriend’s life while keeping their bug intact. And there is yet again no strange bombing cliffhanger.

What’s my grade? I give this show a solid C+. Here’s the deal, I used to didn’t know why people said that TV wasn’t all that great and why movies and books were these phenomenal things, and that was even while I still loved all three of them. But now I understand: TV is more predictable and relies on this predictability “life is not like a box of chocolates” mentality to draw the viewer. After the past few years in which we saw some truly unique procedural ideas, this year networks fell back on the old tried and true standbys that see a lack of creativity returning to primetime. Don’t get me wrong, I see that this show has potential, especially if it finds its right audience and doesn’t get much competition from the similar CBS show Seal Team, but its very vanilla considering the other dramatic offerings on display for TV. Yes, it follows a small band of military special forces doing “God’s work” in foreign lands, but when boiled down to it, it is really nothing more than a case-a-week show where, each week, there will be clear-cut bad guys and good guys that are supposed to stop them. It’s basically almost every other cop drama ever made but with better tech and military might and ingenuity. Hell, the show is essentially Taken but with fatigues. Will it interest people who love military action? Sure. Everyone else? Eh!

I get it. This is the network’s patriotic reaction to the Midwest values that voters supposedly showed in last November’s election, but I’m not sure this appeals to Trump’s base quite like what they might like for it to. The amount of diversity on this show is astounding and judging by Trump’s “all sides” supporters, that’s not what everyone wants to see. Hell, there’s really only, like, two white people. Granted, they’re the two in charge, but still.

If the race thing and the fact that it is a ton of minorities doing the work to protect this country doesn’t bother you, then good. But unfortunately this show also doesn’t really supply that much in the way of mental stimulation or plot intrigue. It doesn’t even follow the recently most popular setup of a procedural that The Blacklist does so well by having a case a week in conjunction with an overall case that lingers throughout the season. I thought for a minute that the bomb at the end of the first episode might trigger something great and amazing, maybe a revenge plot thrown into the military actions or something different than what the trailers looked like, but nope. Nothing. Again, that final scene was so bizarre because it not only happened in a way that made it feel like a bold cliffhanger that suggested maybe they would kill one of their main players already, but it was not discussed in any great detail the next episode. Who did it? Why? How’d they know Dalton and his team were there? Was this a retaliation for killing the terrorist guy or just random? All good questions that have no answers. The only answer given is the worst one that we don’t want to hear as an audience: (paraphrased) “oh, we’re not gonna pursue revenge because that’s not our job. Our job is to follow orders from HQ. Their job is to figure out what happened.” And you’re all like, “What? Really? Dude, you’re gonna actually play goody two shoes. That’s no fun.” Sure, it may be closer to real life, but it’s also not that entertaining to not even see the characters give a single damn about it.

But I think the worst failing of the show is that it is almost character-less in its writing. OK, shameless plug here, if you read even one episode, the military episode of my episodic serial novel Extraordinary (that episode is titled “Fatigues” and is available on Amazon. Click “Extraordinary” at the end of this article), by the time you’ve finished the one episode, you should have a great understanding of exactly who the characters are or at least one aspect of their lives. I understand that this series is different because it has to do the case-a-week thing so it has to fit in a case, but my Extraordinary episodes are there to mimic the quick 60-minute format of drama shows. You should know something about these characters at the end of an hour.

Take for instance our leader Dalton. If you’ve seen the first three episodes, what do you know about him? How long has he been serving? When did he join the military? Why? Does he have a wife, spouse or girlfriend back stateside? Why did he become special forces? I bet that if you’ve been watching the episodes, you could only maybe answer half of those questions, if any. What’s sad is that the same goes for just about every other character on the show. You could ask the same about Patricia, Preach, Amir, Jaz or that other guy on the ground team. And yes while we know that Noah was top of his class and Hannah was “affected” by her in-field work, we still know little about their personalities and who they are outside of work. The action is great but the characters are all sort of robots, which, frankly gets tiring to watch after a while, especially when you know they are almost always going to win.

Should you be watching? Eh! Listen, if you like military-themed entertainment and are all about soldiers fighting against evil and stomping out the bad guys, then sure, this might be the show for you. But just know that this is definitely no American Sniper, no Quantico, no Homeland, no Tyrant, no any Middle Eastern, military or covert operations show that others have thought was really good. This show is closer to something that you probably can miss a few episodes of in a row because your schedule gets busy, and you won’t really miss much in the way of plot, nor will you feel bad for having missed it. Frankly, I’m not sure that this is even as good as the other military show Seal Team. Unfortunately, because I haven’t watched Seal Team yet, I can’t do a comparison of the two shows in this review so I can’t tell you which is better (they look like a carbon copy of each other). Look for a comparison in my Seal Team review in a few days. The Brave airs at 10pm on NBC Mondays.

What do you think? Have you heard of The Brave? If not, do you think you will check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Where do you think the show can improve? And who is your favorite character? And what did you think of the first episode’s bomb scene? Should they have done something cool with that plotwise or was it good the way it was? Let me know in the comments below.

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Why do you young people always think you’re so special? Huh? Well? You think you’re special?”

‘Well, I am in special ops so...”

P.S. Did I get some stuff incorrect on purpose in this review/recap? Yes, just to show how little this show entertained me. I didn’t care about the details in it because I was bored. I’ll try to come up with a better sign-off next time.

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Tried To Think Of A Smarter Headline But The Idea Was #Taken #NBC #3weekroundup

Tried To Think Of A Smarter Headline But The Idea Was #Taken #NBC #3weekroundup

All Pictures Courtesy of NBC

Another lame attempt from me to be kitsch-funny? You know what that means. It's time for another three-week roundup review of a new series. On deck today we have NBC's Taken. So, does the series based on the hit movie capture your fancy, or does it not have the skills to keep your attention? Read more to find out.

NBC's Taken (#Taken), as said, is based on the film franchise of the same name starring Liam Neeson and one of my many Hollywood crushes, Maggie Grace. While we sadly won't see Maggie, we do see a much younger Brian in this prequel series from Taken creator Luc Besson. Hoping to translate the driving verve of the film to the small screen, the show describes itself as “showing us just how Brian got those particular set of skills” used in the films to rescue his daughter and ex-wife before she was brutally murdered in the third installment. Oh, spoiler alert, I guess. Anyway, here we pick up with what looks like a thirty-something Bryan Mills played by Clive Standen. Starting almost immediately with the kick-assery, he is on a train with a younger girl who happens to be his sister. A man stares at his sister as she is beautiful but young. He says something to the guy to warn him off.

Suddenly, he sees two men enter their train car and knows they're up to no good. He whispers how she is supposed to do something that makes a distraction while he goes to check on this guy. If he yells her name she is supposed to get beneath the seats for protection. Note: women, children, and tough guys never follow instructions here. Never! Wimpy men will do it, though. But no woman, scared, strong or otherwise ever listens to the person who deals with dangerous people on the daily. And here it is no different. It's a cliché, but because it shows a woman's strength, it is acceptable. Naturally, the guys are bad, they try shooting her, Bryan kicks butt and saves everyone on the train by taking out the two guys. Everyone except his sister who is standing out in the center aisle while everyone else reacts in a panic. Bryan holds her dead body in his hand as the guy who had been staring at her hands Bryan the card she had been writing for their parents. Now that I think about it, I can't remember why she was writing the card, though I think it was for their anniversary.

Anyway, he already suspects that this was no random terrorist attack, a theory strengthened by the sudden appearance of a surveillance vehicle outside of his parents' house on the day of the funeral. He chases them away but they escape. He knows that he must then get as far from his parents as he can and goes back to his own home.

Meanwhile, a secret group is keeping watch over him. Run by Christina Hart played by Jennifer Beals, the group discovers that the people who posed as terrorists and shot Bryan's sister were associates of a very violent drug cartel boss that they've chased for the last few years. Instead of warning Bryan of this, they are willing to use him as bait to lure out the boss and take him alive. Why? Though they've had many chances to kill him, they need him alive because he is working with a conglomerate of other terrorist cells around the world and they need him to talk, otherwise they'll never find the other terrorists.

As soon as Bryan gets home, this secret group sends out a small team to keep watch over him, knowing that the big baddie terrorist they want has issued some thing about capturing Bryan or killing him. But our guy is too clever not to know this plan. He sits at home, in the dark, with guns in hand just waiting for some punks to show up so he can Dirty-Harry their asses. And they do, and he does. He shoots all of them, fatally killing one or two and badly wounding two more. He gets close enough to one of them to interrogate them face to face, and steal their phone. As it just so happens, that guy seems to be the leader of the group for a reason I'll tell you in a second. Bryan must get the heck out of there and quick as who knows more will come. Meanwhile, the secret group watching him searches his now-abandoned place and sees the dead guy in the back all so they can say this line: “Guy's got skills.” And we all grin and secretly whisper either to ourselves or fellow in-house viewer, “A particular set.”

Bryan escapes to a motel which is cool because the secret group can still track him by listening to his phone calls, but the terrorists/cartel baddies can't. Until Bryan calls one of the other guys associated with his past mission. See, the whole reason that our hero's sister was killed is because Bryan and a team of military officers raided a complex a few years back in order to save a journalist or CIA operative or somebody. The detail is only semi-important. What is important is that the cartel leader's son was in that complex and held a gun to the head of the guy Bryan and his team were there to save. Naturally, Bryan killed him and became a hero. Ever since then, the cartel boss has wanted revenge.

Back in the motel, Bryan dares call the guy they saved on that mission and tells him to take his daughter and leave now because they'll be coming for him. The guy argues a little about how he doesn't want to and Bryan says that some guys had come to his place and they'll definitely be coming for him. The guy says OK.

And then things turn because the next thing Bryan knows, that phone he stole from the meanie he killed is buzzing with a text from the guy he just called to warn. The text is about the man being stunned that Mills is still alive. Just to test that he isn't crazy, Bryan texts the saved journalist/CIA guy to find out where “Bryan Mills” is right now so they can go and take care of it. He gets a call back from the man he just warned where he tells the man where he is. The man then texts the baddie's phone the address. It doesn't take long for Mills to show up to the man's parking garage and bitch-slap him a few times, “You told Harpo to beat me? How long have you been working for them?” And the guy is all repentant and saying, you don't know what they said they'd do to my daughter.

Well, some more craziness happens which winds Mills up in a trap and knocked unconscious. He awakes to find himself dangling from a chain with his hands cuffed above his head, torture-style. In the center of a barn, he hangs as armed guards stand around him while a shadowy figure approaches. And this is when I realize that I've either been watching too much TV or this was an overly simple plot or both as I knew who the cartel boss was all along. See, I should've mentioned earlier that the boss was rarely ever seen full-frontal-face, so he could, in theory, walk around public without notice. However, I noticed him right away as he is a bit actor who has been in tons of projects both for the big and small screen. Hardly a star, you would recognize his face if you were paying attention in any meaningful capacity. By now, you've guessed my hint and know that the cartel guy who emerges from the shadows is the same guy Bryan saw eyeing his sister on the train.

Meanwhile, outside the barn, the secretive group is watching everything going on and Jennifer Beals' character has already put together a team to go in and take down the cartel guy. So while the big baddie is explaining how he wanted Bryan to feel the pain he felt by taking away someone special to him, a special forces team is moving in with precision. Before the baddie knows it, Bryan is off his chains, all of his lower-level men have been shot dead or taken out by other means, and Mills is knelt over him about to kill him. He laughs because Mills is the only one who doesn't know that they can't kill him because they need him to talk, remember. But Bryan Mills doesn't care because Bryan Mills is that guy. He tries killing him anyway and is shot by the special forces secretive group.

Part Of The Team

He awakes to a bed where Beals' character lords over him. Hardly a lethal shot, he'll be recovered from the flesh wound in a week or two. But she invites him to join their secret special group whose name they either didn't mention or I was too distracted writing something else to hear. All I know is that similar to Scandal's B6-13 or the MIB or MacGuyver, this team does some of the heaviest espionage and tactical lifting but the bigger, initialed agencies—CIA, FBI, NSA—take the credit. She says that he is a natural-born protector and he agrees and embarks on this new odyssey.

Episode two involves the not-so-mysterious death of a senator who collapses from a heart attack that is suddenly made mysterious by one of Beals' (yes, I'm just going to call her by her real name for the rest of the review) old CIA contacts. The woman is nervous and scared because she knows the secret, but she has to keep moving because whoever killed the senator is hunting her down, too. Inclined to believe her friend, Beals takes a clandestine meeting with her where Bryan is supposed to run sniper-cover, in case the situation gets out of hand and it is a trick. Things go awry when one of the operatives that had been following the woman shoots her dead and her last word is "fort."

Going off of that and off of the guy that Bryan took out and killed (he has a bad habit of killing dudes), they manage to trick two undercover spies posed as hospital staff into trying to kill Bryan, thinking he's the captured team member that will turn. But Bryan gets them and questions them and whatnot. They also talk to the dead woman's husband and he mentions something about fortunado which he thought was a restaurant. Going off that, they quickly solve the case that another political figure/business leader had the senator killed with some kind of new bio-weapon that they also inject him with and threaten to let him die unless he gives a full confession. Bryan has killed a lot of people and he gets a slap on the wrist for that before truly bonding with the rest of the team.

Episode three takes a current-day plot of terrorism and turns it on its head. A Muslim man on a national watch-list suddenly goes missing while playing soccer with his son one day. Believed to be radicalized, they expect a national threat, possibly in D.C., in no time at all. Bryan and the team hop to finding him, first going to visit the wife and child. The young boy is damaged by all of it as he now says he hates America because of the way they treat his father and how they took him. Meanwhile, the guy is actually strapped down with a bomb vest and is set to go off after a little while. But in luck, his son was recording himself doing his soccer moves and playing (for later study), and caught his father's kidnapping in the background. They not only have a license plate but a blurry picture of the guys that took him.

As it turns out, the guys that took the man are actually white nationalists; one of them was even an FBI hero who was hailed nationally for stopping a serial killer. In order to get him to tell them where they hid the Muslim man, they put him in a locked room with his captured serial killer. It's pretty cool. They get to the location but then have to figure out how they're going to defuse the bomb. So, the Muslim guy and Bryan start running around this building looking for a way to save this man. Bryan finally realizes that if they jump into water, it'll fry the circuits and the bomb will defuse. They get to a drain at the very bottom of the building and jump into the water and the day is saved and the people are saved and everything is OK. When Bryan returns to the man and his son, the son is reluctant to shake Bryan's hand but he does and gives him a child's “I'm sorry, mister” look that Dennis the Menace would occasionally give to Mr. Wilson. The boy's and his father's belief in America is now restored.

Meanwhile, Beals has gone to the doctor to discover that she has a grape-sized mass in her brain that could be cancer. She discovers that, in her empty life, she has no one to write down as the contact person for if she has to go into surgery. She goes to the husband/widower of her friend who got killed in episode two and they start to form a bond. It is unclear how much of a relationship, if any, they had prior to this. For me, something doesn't sit right about this man. Maybe he'll just be an innocuous love interest for her so that she isn't screwing some of the guys (and gals) under her command, or maybe he will end up being a traitor. Either way, it's intriguing.

What's my grade? I give it a B. As with most networks, it is another procedural, case-a-week format which does work here and leans credence to the character continuing to develop the particular set of skills. However, it can get boring and blend into the gamut of other cop/spy shows with similar premises. With Luc Besson there as producer, it does have a Taken-the-film feel to it while still maintaining a certain TV show lingo more common to viewers, but it does have its own style, too.

As far as characters go, you know everyone's motivations and Clive Standen is a worthy predecessor(?) to Liam Neeson's older, more grizzled character, but there is something missing here. Where Neeson had charm, Clive hasn't shown much yet. Yes, his sister's friend, a black woman who totally has the hots for him, does give him the opportunity to show some kind of charming oaf act that Neeson exhibited when around Lenore. However, during those scenes, you are more inclined to think of when or if she'll die to make room for Lenore who you know will some day soon make an appearance on the show.

Should you be watching? Die-hard fans of the Taken series won't be disappointed with this new, younger prequel even if their whole fascination with the film was seeing an older guy kicking butt. Standen displays the chiseled ire and curmudgeonliness of an older man and looks good doing it. However, if you are not a fan of the films or are a casual TV watcher and want more dramatic less-predictable fare, I would say you might find more engaging story elsewhere.

What do you think? Have you heard of Taken? If not, do you think you'll tune in now? If you have seen it, how do you feel? Is it a worthy addition to the Taken franchise, or in desperate need of re-tooling? And what do you think of that guy that Beals' character is talking to? As always, let me know in the comments below.

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Both season 1 and season 2 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 3 coming summer 2017. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary to premiere sometime this winter on Amazon and my blog. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Has Jack been kidnapped?”

'No, no, Jack's fine. You, on the other hand... I'm gonna have to stab you.'

P.S. You probably don't know what that comes from and are either racking your brain trying to figure out if it comes from TV, film, or a novel, or if I completely made it up just to mess with you. If you were Bryan Mills you'd already have the skills to figure that. Shame you're neither version of Bryan Mills. I'll think of a better, much more clever sign-off next time... or will I? Chances are good that I won't, but we'll see.

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A Spin-off Loaded With TV Veterans? I'm Down #BlacklistRedemption #3weekroundup #NBC

A Spin-off Loaded With TV Veterans? I'm Down #BlacklistRedemption #3weekroundup #NBC

All pictures courtesy of NBC 

Another new show means another review/recap of either the first full abbreviated season or the first three episodes. Take a wild guess of which category this one fits into. Today, we'll be looking at NBC's The BlackList Redemption. So, does this show live up to its suggested title and redeems the middling but still strong plot of The Black List, or is it already DOA and waiting for a double-tap just to make sure? Let's explore.

The Black List: Redemption is the much-talked-about spin-off of The Blacklist which stars the always in high form James Spader, and Megan Boone. In this new show which was set-up as a potential spin-off a year ago, Boone's Elizabeth Keene's husband Tom Keene is the star as he ventures back into his own world of espionage and danger around every corner. For those not in the know, Tom Keene (played by Ryan Eggold) was himself a spy originally put in Elizabeth's life to watch her. Through a few ups and downs and a few times trying to kill each other, they somehow found love with the real people beneath all of the lies. This espionage never quite bothered Tom as much as one would think, due to his upbringing. Though much of his childhood was shady, he did know that he had a mother and father at one point. Back on The Blacklist, he discovered that not only were his real mother and father still alive but that they were both working for this organization called Halcyon. When he found out all about his father, I don't know. But he did and now he sees that his father may need his help.

His father, played by Terry O'Quinn, is Howard Hargrave. Here, the Lost veteran is playing the conspiracy coot that thinks someone is out to get him. Only problem is that he may actually be right in this case. See, he was reported dead in a plane crash a few weeks ago. He faked his own death in order to make the people he thinks tried to kill him that he actually did die. And who does he think is trying to kill him? Susan Hargrave, his wife.

Susan Hargrave is played by another TV and film veteran Famke Janssen. Still looking hella sexy, she plays the widow-now-made-boss of Halcyon, her husband's company. They specialize in practically anything and everything that the government thinks is either too risky or that people who don't want government involvement to truly know about. In other words, they are mercenary spies for hire by any kind of organization, though they do mostly government black-ops stuff. Howard believes that Susan has wanted to overthrow him at the company for a while now and this was the perfect time for her to do just that. He also believes it goes deeper than just her. He doesn't trust her for many reasons and that drove a wedge in their relationship. Another reason they weren't close in the moments before Howard's faked death is that he, unlike her, had never given up on finding their long-lost son—Tom, but they knew him as a different name. Seldom common (usually its the reverse sexes), the father obsessed over finding their missing son who had run away or was kidnapped. At some point, Howard discovered Tom Keen was, in fact, his son. Again, I can't remember when he figures this out, but it's led to some very strange questions.

You Can't Tell Me She Doesn't Want To Jump Her Son's Bones. Granted, She Doesn't KNOW He's Her Son, But...

Continuing, Howard wants Tom to go undercover within the Halcyon organization (Susan already offered him a job last year and she does again) in order to figure out what Susan is really up to. For whatever reason, Tom agrees to do this. I say that with skepticism because Tom is a spy by trade, yet he seems too trusting of his long-lost father here, but I digress.

Tom agrees and goes on the first mission for Susan. A former CIA agent has recently been kidnapped by some ruthless international cartel guy. Very rich, the man has taken both her and her son and is interrogating her over something about other undercover agents and whatnot. They have to get the woman and her child back before she divulges anything of importance to the government.

Meeting the team, we finally sorta see why this show is called redemption. Along with Tom, who himself was a bad guy for a few seasons on The Blacklist, the team consists of other former baddies. We have Mr. Matias Solomon who, fans of The Blacklist will know, tried to kill both Elizabeth and Tom while Elizabeth was carrying her and Tom's baby, and in a church no less. Supa bad guy! We also have Nez Rowan who was also a woman on the run and committing some pretty serious crimes as the FBI chased her around The Blacklist territory. And finally, we have Dumont, the nerdy tech geek that all of these shows need to have him explain stuff and do all the gadgetry stuff. Rarely leaving to go into the field, there's been no talk about what he's done in his past, and I can't remember him making it on Red's Blacklist. With all of these criminals looking for redemption, they come together to do some of the toughest jobs in exchange for Halcyon keeping their butts out of jail and off the various intelligence agencies' radars. Essentially, think of the A-Team or the Expendables but with less buff guys, and seemingly more smarts.

Back to the cartel/terrorist guy, the group decides that the best way to the man is through his woman, a supermodel who takes a daily swim always at the same time in her indoor pool in her beau-bought apartment building (it's New York so it could be a townhouse, brownstone, full-building or a thousand other real estate terms). They bomb the pool, blow a hole in the floor, drain the pool directly beneath her and catch her in a net beneath. They knock her out, take her to an apartment where they put on a little charade that allows her to escape and call her terrifying boyfriend. In reality, they inserted a camera-contact into her eye, giving them video back to them of where she is going, not to mention tracking her movements.

The gangster brings his terrified girlfriend across the pond to a UK castle where he has the woman and child. The redemption gang go over there (usually, only three of them, though Susan goes sometimes) and sneaks through old tunnels that had been built to stave off and escape an attack by Napoleon. They get to the house right as the woman is blooding from her stomach and in bad need of medical attention. The rescuers of the woman and the rescuers of her little boy get split up during the brouhaha that winds up killing practically all the thugs, including the main guy. Tom takes her to the hospital where the doctors have found something strange about her X-rays. He steps out of the room for a second to hear about if they found her son or not. They have and he's safe, but she doesn't know that. As soon as Tom returns to the room, she is gone, escaped out the window to finish the task given to her by the gang guy.

Still believing the man has her son, she goes to her undercover safe house where her fellow undercover CIA agents are. That strange thing inside her? A bomb. She threatens to blow the place up if only to save her son.

Tom and Solomon

Tom, Solomon, and Nez all show up in the nick of time and prove to her that her son is OK. But the bomb still must be removed and nobody's a bomb expert in the room. Tom gingerly slips it out and snips the wires, saving everyone. The day is saved and the team has successfully completed its first mission. Susan goes to her husband's funeral and talks about how she is still in mourning. Tom goes to his father and listens to the man's paranoid rants about his mother and how he must keep close watch on her because she's up to no good.

Episode two gets even more personal for both Tom and Susan as they are now tasked with rescuing a journalist in some foreign country (I think it was one of the stans). Accused of being a US spy, he was arrested, taking to jail, beaten and forced to record a confession of his guilt, though he swears he is not a spy. Apparently, the ruler of the country is known for doing this kind of thing. It gets personal when Halcyon gets involved. The man's family contacts Susan directly, who takes the case for free as this boy and his family were friends with Susan, Howard, and Tom since the boys were little. In fact, this boy used to be Tom's best friend before he went missing. Though it isn't explored in great detail, Tom feels a certain way about this person from his past coming back into his life in need of rescue. So, they have to get into the country, get into the jail in which they are keeping the journalist and break him out.

Things go awry when they are in the jail and try breaking him out but a guard comes and calls his radio to signal the others. Pinned down in the kitchen, they are almost killed when they can't get the door to the exterior open and their tech guy can't hack the code from halfway around the world in time (what good is he if he can't do that? Seriously). Outside, Nez improvises and hooks a chain from a van to the door. They zoom off with a door rattling on the ground behind them.

To a safe place, the three spies gameplan over what to do next because the entire nation will be looking for them. All they need to do is to get to the embassy which is a few blocks over. They hope to wait until nightfall. But the journalist wants to go and get his research he left back at his apartment building, with a neighbor lady who doesn't know he hid it in her place. It's vital that he gets the story told. The group turns away for just a second and when they turn back he is gone, and you are left to wonder if they're going to do that particular trope every single episode as they were already battin' a thousand, two for two.

Journalist Guy Being Interrogated

The journalist does get his research but the others catch up with him and then the cops start to show and things get hectic. As they make a daring escape through the streets, bullets fly and riddle the cars. The journalist is hit and dies 20 feet inside of embassy lines. A failed mission, they get back to the U.S., and, as it turns out, the journalist was a spy. He was a real journalist being used as a CIA operative who had collected intel on possible war crimes within the country. He died a hero but no one, not even his parents can know about that. Susan does a little hitting on Tom as she has been doing for a while now and things get very creepy (this is how the show Taboo should've felt) as we know that Tom knows it's his mom and she doesn't, but he doesn't spurn her advances nearly hard enough, especially not for a married man. Sometimes, he has this “willing to risk it all” look on his face but it hasn't happened... yet. Strangely, there is actually a name for this, when one family member feels a romantic attraction to another long-lost family member. There have been a few cases in the news in recent years.

Episode three was the most interesting so far to me. The U.S. Government crashed a plane on purpose onto Russian soil (don't worry, the plane was full of pre-dead people dressed up to look like regular passengers. I'm also assuming the plane was either piloted by people who parachuted out or it was a drone). Why did they do this? Because they were trying to get as close as possible to a Russian black site that they haven't been able to map with satellite imaging. They think the Russians are hiding some kind of nuclear bomb threat. But what Keen discovers is that they're really hiding an entire make-believe American town named Independence (funny enough, there is an Independence, Ohio not too far from Cleveland and Akron, though I don't think this was the specific town they were spoofing). This serves as a testing/training ground for Russian sleeper agents to blend into American society more thoroughly. In the town, they must talk in only English, act like, sound like, look like Americans, and they must remain completely faithful to their cover stories given to them by the Russians. Right up Tom's alley, he slides into it easily, along with Nez. While Tom refuses to sex-down his “new wife” in the shower, Nez gets the go-ahead to graduate from the program and become a full-fledged spy on American soil.

But when Nez discovers that the identities given to everyone were of real American citizens and that they are to receive plastic surgery to look more like those citizens, she and Tom must escape and try to stop an imminent attack. One of the other graduates has already gone to America and killed his doppelganger. Now that he looks just like him, he is the new American. They determine that these Russian sleepers have a bomb attack planned to make America think that they've been attacked by their own people. Solomon, who stayed behind on US soil, has all three of the American would-bes shot in the head before they can detonate the bomb. The day is saved once more. But the most intriguing part comes at the end when Tom meets with his father and tells him of this secret mission. See, this case had been started by Howard before he faked his death. It was kept secret even from Susan. Why? Because Howard thinks Susan is from this program. That's right, after the death of their child, he thinks that Susan was somehow replaced with a phony who has been made to look and sound like her but isn't her. Now that is some top-level Mission Impossible type of shiznit. Even more, Susan just got info from a PI that Howard hired before his fake death. She now knows that their long-lost son is alive, and tells that straight to Tom, who still gives no reaction.

What's my grade? I give it a B. While the writing is OK, it doesn't quite have the allure or bite of The Blacklist, season one. Also, it's very limiting in its scope as far as world-building goes. In other words, it relies too heavily on you having to have already been a fan of The Blacklist franchise in order to get it. I've seen all the Blacklist episodes and still got confused on a few things. Worst of all, the characters seem watered down, which is similar to how the latest season of The Blacklist has felt. The hatred between Solomon and Tom should be palpable, but it isn't. Dude, this black guy literally tried ending your entire family multiple times. You should want to kill him every chance you get even if he is on your side now. While Famke is good, Terry O'Quinn is neutered, kept to the confines of a tiny apartment where he must live out his days as a presumed-dead crackpot. So far, we've only seen glimpses of him that haven't amounted to ten full minutes over the course of three episodes. And, as mentioned earlier, you don't know why Tom is so trusting of this man over and above his mother who wants to jump his bones. There has yet to be a good dilemma scene where he assesses both sides to see who is more believable as both have called the other crazy for believing (or not believing) their son's existence. It almost makes you question why Tom is in such demand from Susan in the first place as he doesn't seem to be that great of a spy (Elizabeth was fooled but it didn't take long after Red came into her life and she officially started as a field agent for them to be at each other's spy throats).

Should you be watching? If you're already a fan of the Blacklist, sure. It's a worthy supplementary series to The Blacklist while it is on its winter/spring hiatus. But if you aren't already a fan of The Blacklist, I can't see what this show might have to actually offer you. It's certainly not groundbreaking spycraft, so... I'd say maybe check it out one episode just for Famke and tech nerd Dumont, but otherwise, I probably wouldn't recommend it.

What do you think? Have you heard of NBC's The Blacklist: Redemption? If not, do you think you'll check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Was I too rough on it or is it in big trouble like Dembe is on The Blacklist? And who do you think is telling the truth, Susan or Howard? As always, let me know in the comments below.

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Both season 1 and season 2 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 3 coming summer 2017. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary to premiere sometime this winter on Amazon and my blog. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Is this where I find redemption?”

'No. But you can get two calzones for the price of one.'

“I'll take that, then.”

P.S. What? Calzones are delicious. Ad with malls across the U.S. Suffering, who knows if I'll ever be able to visit another Sbarro and get me a pepperoni and cheese-stuffed calzone. Mmm... Calzone! I'll think of a better sign-off next time.

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A Joyous Skip Down The Yellow-Brick Road This Ain't #EmeraldCity #Post-Mortem #Review

A Joyous Skip Down The Yellow-Brick Road This Ain't #EmeraldCity #Post-Mortem #Review #Recap

 

 

All pictures courtesy of NBC

Sigh! Well, this kinda thing seems to happen far too often these days, but at least we give them a chance, right? So, we've reached the mid-season/winter-season finale or spring-season premiere—hell, I don't know what networks are really doing with all these mid and full season finales—again. That means that outside of the awkward and clunky sentences like above (I promise you far better sentences in my books and other works, though, no promises!), we also are slated to get a new crop of mid-season replacement shows here to keep us busy with the TV watching and the obsessing and the complaining about how terrible networks treat their fans and their shows. Doesn't that sound like fun! Yahhh! (Howard Dean voice; hopefully my last political reference for this season ending in May). So, amongst all the new shows such as Taken, 24: Legacy, Training Day, blah blah blah, we had what could have been the crown jewel Emerald City (see what I did there?) that promised us one more heartfelt trip down that yellow-brick road. But did it reach the heights of that sparkling somewhere over the rainbow, or did it swirl and bluster and leave us to feel trapped under a house—er, in the house for the winter. Let's journey together to find out.

NBC's Emerald City (#EmeraldCity) starred Adria Arjona as Dorothy Gale, our whirlwinded-wanderer who only wants to find her way back home. I commend them both for making the character older (a shrewd move so it could have sexy parts) and for making the character Latina (something I hate when they do just to fill a minority quota or something, because if they make a white character non-white, they'll definitely start making non-white characters white). Adria was a pretty good choice looks-wise and did have a certain innocence quality to her as a grown woman that could make the viewer feel for her at times. However, much of that was undone and I'll tell you why later.

You know the story, or at least you think you do but let me clear up a few things for you here. Being an adult, Dorothy now is a nurse at a local hospital. While I am still a little shifty on this, I think she lived with her mother in a trailer, though she was also seen sleeping at her Aunt's farmhouse as would be familiar. In any case, during a big storm she must go to the trailer to check on her mom. Something crazy has happened there and the place looks out of sorts. As the storm comes, Dorothy goes back outside to find a cop holding her at gunpoint thinking that she did something suspicious. The cop's dog also gets involved. There's some action-y stuff that goes on and somehow Dorothy winds up in the cop's car along with the dog. Do we see a big whirlwind taking them into the sky? No. We see the wind surround the car, a few close-ups I guess for low-budget TV purposes (though it came on a major network, so...) and boom! The tornado spits her out into the great land where blue birds fly. Disclaimer: I saw not one blue bird in the entire series. Rather than the house landing on the witch, the car plows through her and, thusly, our story is born.

Take Our Land But You Shall Never Take Our Free--Oh, you're taking that too?

After this, Dorothy emerges from the car and some hairy, fat, Braveheart-looking dude finds her and is all, “You killed the Mistress of the East.” He takes her back to his village which you totally expect to be filled with Munchkins from the lollipop guild, but isn't, and you're suddenly feeling bad for all those little people actors and actresses in Hollywood, until you realize that this is a twist on everything.

Before I go further, let me inject a big disclaimer here as this will undoubtedly come up later. L. Frank Baum, as many know, originally wrote a full series of books surrounding Oz. They were, essentially, the Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter of his day and he worked his butt off to promote them. However, we all know that the most memorable two are The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz which were squished together to make the classic 1939 film version starring Judy Garland. There, however, were seven or nine books or more but I haven't the energy to properly research (I'm flogging myself for being too busy and too lazy). Each book detailed another part of Oz's story and all the goings-on in this mythical land. Well, there may be a reason why many of those stories never made it to the big screen or TV in a meaningful way, and why the original movie is so beloved.

Also, I mention this because while the books have been out for over 100 years, sad to say that I don't believe many people have read the series in its entirety, and most only remember the Judy Garland film and more recently the Sam Raimi-directed, James Franco-starring Oz the Great and Powerful. Therefore, certain characters that might first appear familiar to viewers really are not familiar at all. If you're only familiar with the film, you'll say that they changed a lot and probably not in a good way. Even if you're familiar with all the books you still might not find the show's interwoven stories reminiscent of what's on the page. But this is what they gave us so this is what we shall go with. From here on out, I will do most of my references through the lens of someone who expected to see a different telling of the familiar story as seen in the 1939 film and not the books, while peppering in some truths only the readers would know. Got it? Good.

Back to the non-little-people village of Braveheart wannabes. The fat guy hails her as a pseudo-hero for having killed the witch, then quickly half-turns on her because as he and everyone in this land knows, “Only a witch can kill a witch.” But she insists she isn't a witch so he takes her to some cave where there are a ton of witches trapped in a strange tar bog dying a slow death. He rambles needed exposition (always forgivable this early in a show or movie) telling her all about how this land is one of magic but magic is outlawed and it could've gotten her home. There are witches but they no longer do anything because the land is under rule of the great and powerful (wait for it)... Wizard of Oz. Ta-dah!

The Wizard and his Blue-Bonnet Servant Girls

And we're all like, “what?” Yes, we know the wizard doesn't really have powers from all the different iterations, save for that strange The Wiz live one where Queen Latifah looked like Benico Del Toro in Guardians of the Galaxy. Yet, somehow, he was able to (un)magically get these giant stone soldiers to move around the city and guard the lands from what was known as The Beast Forever, which the show totally shoots itself in the foot over at the end. Like a baby with an over-flowing poop-filled diaper who has been running around the entire house unchecked for 30 minutes, it's a mess! (Tangent: Did everyone see that video where the reporter is talking live and his kids come in and then his wife frantically runs in? #JoysofParenting). Now, for whatever reason he has outlawed the use of magic after thinking that it somehow led to or attracted the Beast Forever and the witches' magic proved useless during the attack. The tar pit with all the witches in it has some skinless red guy growing in a tree along with Fat Braveheart's wife who was put there for being a witch. Oddly, she was put their by a witch, the very one and the same that gave Dorothy such a headache in the film.

The Wizard is played by fan-favorite Vincent D'Onofrio who seems to have gained back every pound he lost when he trimmed down for that last Jurassic World film (not mad at him. Get yo' grub on, playa!). What does offend me is that outrageous wig that is so clearly a wig it deserves a spot in the hall of fame next to that cheap rug worn by Chevy Chase's uncle in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. No curtain behind which to hide, he's the frightened leader of Oz who rules with iron fist after having a pathetic life back home in Kansas. His back story: he was one of the four scientists working on a storm-cloud science machine. The grunt of the group, he saw to it that the machine they had to make storms (yes, you heard that right) didn't go out of control. It did and it sent him and two other female scientists to the land of Oz. When first he arrives he encounters Fat Braveheart and his wife. The guy's witchy woman does magic while he's teaching the kids science and he gets pug-faced and upset. But there are hints all over the place in this scene and throughout that foreshadow what really happened, so long as you're paying attention.

Also living in the city under his rule is the Wicked Witch of the West, or rather Mistress of the West, or more aptly, Crackhead Non-threatening Hoe-house Madam of the West. Harpo, who dis lady? Played by the eccentrically gorgeous Ana Ularu, West, as she is called, never lives up to any of the pictures we've all formed in our head of the Wicked Witch. She's not green yet, which, if this was supposed to be a prequel story, you can understand. But she also never comes off as all that menacing. The way her character is written and directed has her trying to be sly, but not devil-sly, so she never creeps you out like an oily snake. Her drug use and nagging to and about the Wizard unfortunately (and boy will this sound sexist) comes off more as a nagging wife, an Al and Peggy for a magical realm, rather than true hatred. She oddly does more helping of every pseudo-protagonist in the realm than hurting, and the only thing frightening about her is her lack of true sinister appetites.

As said, she runs a brothel frequented by the Wizard, yet supposedly hates his guts because he not only ordered no more magic, but has a stone soldier positioned over the witches' sacred temple in the center of town, ready to destroy it on command. She blames him for the destruction of so many witches and the fact that not her nor any of her sisters can bare children. He also was responsible, supposedly, for her mother's death. With him frequenting her sin den, it makes you wonder why she hasn't simply killed him already. There truly is nothing stopping her from doing that. Yes, the people, who hail him as hero would revolt but... uh... they don't have magic, so...? The only reason I could truly come up with for her living in the city and doing nothing to this man she truly hated was the one that the show either wasn't brave enough to do or never saw it as a possibility, which was that the two of them were, at some point, sleeping together and she still had feelings for him or something, or they loved to get high together. Again, why has she not killed this man and is living in the city alongside him? Why?

This fact and theory is made even more painfully obvious when, in the finale, she raises most of the witches in the tar bog in order to fight the Wizard and retake the kingdom, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Now that I think about it, all of my biggest disappointments with the show came from the witches. Glinda, the Good Witch was, in no way, shape or form a good witch. Played by veteran actress Joely Richardson of Nip/Tuck fame, if you ask me she is the real Wicked Witch. For starters, her crackhead sister is really only there to serve: serve the Wizard, semi-serve Glinda, service the men and women of the town with sexual deviance. Glinda, on the other hand, is her own woman. While she also gifts the Wizard with many orphaned servants that look like blue flying nuns, she also is the partial catalyst for one of the bigger secondary plots. She is also trying to kill the Wizard and reclaim witch dominance and has an actual plan to do it, as opposed to her sister who just lies about and luckily has a plan fall into her lap in the last two episodes of the 10-episode mini-run. More on Glinda and her wickedness later as I have to give you some plot and catch you up to her deception.

But Where the Brick At Dough?

Back to Dorothy, Fat Braveheart tells her that the Wizard could maybe get her home so she should go see him and follow this DIRT road that is covered over with the shed, yellow blossoms or pollen from poppy plants. Along the way she meets a man hanging up in a field crucifixion-style, tarred down and with a crow sitting atop him. Our “scarecrow,” or at least that is how viewers may see him, surprisingly has no memory of who he is, and has cuts and bruises all over him beneath the tar. Played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who, given the right part should make a fine leading man, the scarecrow, or Lucas, immediately bonds with Dorothy once she bothers to take him down from the cross. But as soon as they are each freed, the Wicked Witch of the West pops up to agitate. Surprise, she survived that car hit.

Which of these three women looks like she slays every day?

The best designed character on the show (we're talking, she slays like Beyonce), the Wicked Witch of the West is still alive and, as it turns out, she controls the weather with some ruby and gold gloves. Dorothy, who left the police car not only with a gun from the car but with the cop's dog who Fat Braveheart named Toto because that's the indigenous word for dog there, points her gun at the woman. The witch quickly takes it and wonders how it works and what it does. In the most ignant (not ignorant, because that word is too good for it), ignant (double ignants? Oh boy!) move I've seen so far this year, the witch turns the gun to herself and curiously pulls the trigger and blows her own brains out under Dorothy's direction. Thusly, a witch kills a witch. Then, Dorothy magically gets the golden gloves, which go invisible on her hands and only pop up through the serious at the most convenient times as Dorothy has no power over them for much of the series. Her and Lucas go merrily down the road to Oz to see the wizard for a new brain—er, his memory back, and to get home.

Finally, along the way they run into a house where is kept a boy locked away by magic. Way on the outskirts of the city, an old witch is keeping this young Indian (at least the actress looks Indian to me) boy trapped in a house whose door is a thicket of dead bushes that only opens at magic's command. Tip played by newcomer Jordan Loughran, has a friend outside of the house that runs to him and talks with him about escaping. Tip's friend, Jack played by Gerran Howell looks like a nervous lot whose background is mostly unknown, dubious at best. He plans to hack at the bushes to somehow free his friend, until Dorothy and Lucas come along.

The unfriendly witch keeping Tip prisoner caves to Dorothy and Lucas' pleas of help and food and all that jazz. She begrudgingly lets them into her house where they discover she is keeping Tip as prisoner. And, are you ready for this because here is where the story gets crazy, in an act of heroism, they beat the witch to death after trying to poison her. They all escape into the wild where Tip tells them of how the woman would constantly make her drink this strange elixir everyday which she thought made her weak or something as she looked small, thin and frail. Tip and Jack part ways with Dorothy and Lucas and are left on their own in the woods for the night.

Jack on the left and Tip on the right, being Just One of The Guys

Did you catch it? You reading closely? No, that subtle change in pronouns in the previous paragraph wasn't on accident. That's right, the very next morning, after Tip has not taken the elixir that the witch had given her, it is actually revealed that the elixir was a magic spell to keep her as a boy. Tip is actually a girl. Now, before some of you more conservative-thinking readers get up in arms about them “fitting a transgender message into the Wizard of Oz,” let me note that Tip and this storyline are actually part of the original books. However, unlike the books, while Tip does still want to be a boy and sets out on a journey to the wizard to try to reclaim her real body and not this fake girl body she was born with, this Tip seems more evil throughout the series. For starters, as soon as Jack sees her ample cleavage in the moonlight and starts thinking “how you doin'” (yes, that's a Joey reference. This whole story is nothing more than a twisted play on Friends) to his once male friend, she rages on him when he goes in for a kiss, and pushes him off a balcony where he plummets to a bloody fate. Fear not, however, for a white, lady scientist who works for the king of Ozman has the mechanical know-how to Bionic-Man his butt into a partial robot. At this point he could be the tin man or he could be another character in the book, but he does have a few times in which he rusts in the forest and is saved by the King's daughter who owns him like a slave and falls in love with him.

Got the characters? Good, because from there, it kind of slows into nothing much. Again, I know how difficult it is to keep a series going and make it interesting and move it along, but once you have the basics of the main characters, you are left too much time wondering why they're wandering for so long. Dorothy and Lucas encounter a young witch girl that can turn people to stone or make stone crumble. She gravitates to Lucas for reasons unknown until all three end up in the clutches (read: helping hands) of West who, instead of killing Dorothy for revenge against her dead sister takes all three into a strange dream state to help Lucas remember what happened. He remembers that he was part of the Wizard's guard, had been secretly smuggling young new witches for Glinda and had nearly slaughtered the guards that got in his way. West realizes that not only has Glinda been lying to her, but that their mother, the only witch that could ever birth a witch and who had given birth to over thousands of witches (total Holland Tunnel down there) is still alive. Now she's more pissed with even less of a plan as she still doesn't see her sister about joining a rebellion against the wizard.

Yeah, It's The Sexy Times!!

Dorothy escapes, so does Lucas. She sees the wizard but to kill him. He tells her that she has finally returned. Apparently, she was born there as her mother was one of the two female scientists that came with the Wizard when they transported in their strange weather machine. He'll help her so long as she goes to kill Glinda. She agrees, gives him the policeman's gun, and instead takes the little girl and Lucas to see Glinda in hopes of somehow stopping Glinda? I'm not sure what the plan really was there because it seemed like the Wizard expected the little girl to hug Glinda and turn her to stone and I'm like, “what? You're leaving this whole evil plan up to the power of a child's huge? Uh... OK.”

Not entirely true, he seeks to make guns and commissions the king to do it, but the king dies from the little girl who can turn people to stone right before her and Dorothy leave. Now, the King's daughter and owner of the tin man is queen. Her quirk: she wears hundreds of different expensive masks to hide her face from the world. Why? Is she ugly? No. As we find out later on the finale, she is actually a robot. The king's real daughter died long ago and the king wanted a robot of his daughter (because forget his wife and son) and commissioned the white scientist lady (the same who patched up Jack/Tin man) to make a mask for her to hide her never-aging face, to which I was like, Why not just make a new flesh-like face that showed some age? But whatevs!

This Little Girl was the Best Part of the Show

The Wizard wants to use those guns to kill the witches because he heard that she was killed by a gun, not knowing that she shot herself. It all becomes tedious and murky when Dorothy, Lucas and the little girl arrive to Glinda's and the good witch kisses the would-be scarecrow to break her own forgetfulness spell, and reveal that they were lovers, and he was transporting those little girls for her as he secretly worked on the rebellion. But once she realizes that Dorothy is in love with her man, Glinda orders that Lucas kill Dorothy because, you know, jealousy and stuff—all the trappings of a good witch. But Dorothy tries to kill her with some white sheets, escapes the white witch castle and is back on her way to Fat Braveheart's village after finally realizing something: The Wizard had no magic to move those stone warrior men throughout the kingdom, but Braveheart's wife did. So she wants him to help her get his wife from the tar pit because she thinks she can use the East witch's gloves to move the stone men again. Why? Shrugs.

Meanwhile, Tip, who has yet to come to grips with her feminine body gets sold to Glinda who will treat her as an orphan but doesn't know who she is nor that she is a witch. Instead, Tip chooses to work at West's brothel because she'll have freedom or some other existential crap. As maid to West, she frees Dorothy and blames it on the loyal head maid to West. Naturally, West believes the treacherous boy/girl newbie over the long-trusted servant and kills that woman in a scene that was supposed to make West seem more evil but only made her look gullible and made Tip look like a true evil genius.

It's a Mask, so... Yeah. Not Enough Magic For Talking Animals

After West and Tip witness the round-up of all little girls in the city and the persecution of them as possible witches, which includes a very stupid scene of West keeping a fiery young witch girl in a pit while whining about how cruel the Wizard is, a dagger comes from out of nowhere in the last two episodes. The dagger makes West realize that Tip is not only a witch but the long-lost daughter of the true King of Ozman who was slain long ago when she was a baby. All Tip can remember is seeing a lion slice into her parents. The lion was and currently serves as the head of the guard for the Wizard's army. West has Tip drink her dead sister's spirit to learn her magic spells and it kills her. Distraught, West then attempts suicide before Tip resurrects and feels no different. There's a short scene of Tip learning how to find the true essence of her new magical abilities and she turns back into a boy in the process—what she always wanted since escaping the house.

West gathers her some witches from the tar pit and seeks to take the city from the wizard with a now back-to-girl Tip who should be Queen of Oz. In luck, and to make her even less meaningful to this story, the Wizard isn't even in the city when West and Tip arrive with their witch hoard. It's a pretty easy battle.

For Perspective, the guard has the spear, and the rest is city

Instead, the wizard and his guard and the guard from the robot queen are all lined up in a field outside the city walls because Dorothy was able to get Fat Braveheart's wife to give her the spell to raise a statue—this only after Dorothy freed her from the pit and helped that skinless red man stuck in the tree who had been there longer than any of the witches and was still surviving. Back in the field, Dorothy confronts the wizard and just wants to go home as she had to defeat Lucas and leave him on a cross in some farmer's field somewhere after he tried to kill her as Glinda ordered. Glinda comes from out of nowhere and attacks with a literal swarm of witches, but the Wizard starts shooting them all, and howling something about using the guns to finally kill the Beast Forever, and you stop and are like, “Huh? Does he think that the witches are the actual Beast Forever? Did he never see the Beast Forever? How many times did this show make Baum roll over in his grave?”

Glinda calls him an idiot for thinking the witches were the Beast Forever and has all the bloodied witches rise again as she says, “Only a witch can kill a witch,” which was the BIGGEST RULE OF THE SHOW!!

Almost Forgot this picture of Jack After He is fixed by the Scientist Lady.

The Wizard and Dorothy escape back to his castle where he has promised to put her back into the restored weather machine that brought him, her mother and that other scientist there but they are interrupted when the same white lady scientist that fixed Jack/Tin man arrives and shoots the Wizard. Then it's revealed that this white lady is actually Dorothy's mom and not the minority woman that looks Latina just like Dorothy back in Kansas. Hm. Welp... OK, I guess ( and here you thought I was just being racist by mentioning her being white; yes, I know how interracial relationships work but it was a poor twist that came from nowhere and for no reason). She shoves the girl into the weather machine and says she'll return with her but doesn't because Pa Kent must die in a tornado, or um... My bad, I got my senseless plot twists about people living in Kansas mixed up. She stays because why not?

Dorothy returns to find that it has only been a few minutes—hour tops—since she's been gone and her other non-mother mother (the Latina or Native American woman) is still alive but bleeding in the storm cellar. She takes her to a hospital, sits with her aunt on the farm, sees her aunt's black-dark hands and looks out into the empty field. Now, at this point, I couldn't be bothered to try figuring out the black-fingered symbolism so if someone knows what this refers to, let me. But we do see Lucas suddenly standing behind her and a returned Toto who only appeared throughout the show at his convenience. We flash to Oz where we see that skinless red man putting on some skin that looked like clothes and morphing into the real Beast Forever and menacing all of the magical land with a bird-like shadow. And back to the farm where Marty McFly says to Dorothy, “We gotta go back, Doc! Back to the land of Oz!” Or... something like that.

Here's Those Perfunctory, Meaningless Gloves That Showed Up at Random and Served Little Purpose

What's my grade? I give it a C-. I know this 10-episode recap was lengthy but at times the show seemed to drag out more, if you can imagine. I can appreciate what the writers and creator/director Tarsem Singh tried doing, and I always try to give at least 50 points out of 100 for effort, but this didn't hit it for me. Straight out of the gate you got the mixture of fairy tale wonderment like that of ABC's Once Upon a Time, trying to blend with HBO's Game of Thrones to create a more adult-oriented story. The problem here is that too seldom are the characters made to be more than what you see. As said, everyone seemed evil at one point or another, which made it difficult to root for anyone. Instead of elevating a classic childhood movie dating back generations, it managed to rip all of the joy, excitement and wonderment from the material, while also not having a very poignant message to tell. If you're going to make something dark, make something that speaks to humanity about its experience. This was an adventure without fun and adventure.

No, this isn't the final image of the show, it's how I feel: both confused and a little tarred.

As I said, the characters are rather bland and none of them hit the marks you expect from them. The Wicked Witch ain't wicked; Tip comes off as bratty; because of his memory loss, Lucas not only has little personality but falls in love with Dorothy way too quickly (by the third episode their skipping around holding hands? What?); Glinda, though her intentions with the witches may be good, seems evil; The Wizard is definitely a bastard (though you can make the argument that he is closest to his original character). But worst of all is Dorothy. While I haven't seen Adria in anything else and I look forward to more of her work, here, she is given nothing to work with. The entire series she looks like Kristen Stewart in the Twilight series, no facial reactions whatsoever. Is she floored by this magical experience, left breathless at the performance of magic? Eh! I think it probably greatly came from the direction, because she travels through the series with an air of, “Oh, and then this happened,” that elicits nothing of the emotional matrix we should see her going through. So when she does kill, it only comes as a shock to fans who still see Dorothy through crystallized memories of Judy Garland's hopeful but dismayed film version. Emerald City's Dorothy comes off as flat as the pages in Baum's book.

Should you check it out? Eh! Wasn't going to mention this, however, this series had originally been scrapped by NBC back in 2014 or 15 and went through a development hell of its own before NBC caved and said they'd air it, but give it a crap time slot on Fridays at 9pm. Granted, it had the lead-in of Grimm, which had thrived at 9pm for two seasons and is now on its way out with its final season. This, was just OK. If you come to it as a fan of the Wizard of Oz films or come looking for a familiar story or even come looking for a bright fantasy, I suggest you look to Once Upon a Time. Emerald City tries to be Game of Thrones and doesn't quite hit the mark. It will, however, tide you over in the off-season of that show. Ultimately, I would say that unless you are a fan of darker interpretations of everything from your childhood, you can probably safely skip this one. Unless it surges in on-demand binge views on Hulu or cable, I doubt this'll make it to another season with its lackluster ratings.

What do you think? Did you see Emerald City? If not, do you think you'll check it out on demand (on both NBC.com, most cable providers, and Hulu)? If you did see it, do you agree with me? Did it do L. Frank Baum proud or did it miss the mark on many levels? And what did you think about the characters? Who was your favorite. While I hated West, I think I might actually have a crush on the actress. We live in confusing times. Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments below.

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or  the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Both season 1 and season 2 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 3 coming summer 2017. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series #Extraordinary to premiere sometime this winter on Amazon and my blog. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “You mean to tell me you couldn't fit in not one single song? What's wrong with you people.”

Image Belongs to Pink Floyd and the current holders of the Wizard of Oz 1939 rights.

  

P.S. Seriously, though, the frickin' Flash and Supergirl are going to have a musical episode but they couldn't fit in not one road song betwixt Dorothy and Lucas and the girl, not even a lullaby to the little girl. Sigh! At least they fit in that blink-and-miss-it reference to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Rainbow. I'll think of a better sign-off next time.

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