Post-Apocalypse TV

[nacho]

Did you talk to Missus RC about The Last Ship? She still claims to want to watch it.

I had no idea she was in such danger or else, yes, I would have sat her down and talked to her about it.

[RottingCorpse]

Can't you see the signs?! This is a cry for help!

[nacho]

I can list 100 shows she should watch before she devotes even 15 minutes to The Last Ship.

[nacho]

Y meets The Walking Dead starring "WAAAAAALLLLT!!!" Actually...you can't go wrong.

[nacho]

The stranded in the ocean episode has been done so many times, and was so generic, I forgot if I was watching an episode of The Last Ship or an episode of any other show in history.

The Russians are back. This really is like BSG -- the occasional, all-powerful enemy shows up to move an episode along, otherwise it's ship-board internal politics punctuated by various survival-oriented disasters (need water, need to find a home, need resources, need to learn to live together, etc.)

[nacho]

I love how Last Ship alternates between "there's no one left in the world" and "a vaccine will save the world." Sometimes this happens in the same sentence.

"See -- so anyone who gets the virus will die within 48 hours. And that's why it's so important for us to find the vaccine."  Um...six months after the outbreak, one month after your last contact with any organized government or group.

But then we see infected people -- like two episodes ago -- who seem to be existing as sort of lepers and outcasts. Which isn't how any superflu would ever work, but okay...

I also like that the Russian ship receives catastrophic damage every time we encounter it, and yet they seem to be just fine when next we see them.

Oh, and I love that patient zero's experiment makes no sense at all, killed "four billion people," and he's angry when people call him a monster. His argument is, for the most part, I'm not the monster, you're the monster!

Meanwhile, on The Strain... Flashbacks to concentration camps are much more exciting than the actual present day story, which is about how people don't believe in vampires even when they're attacked by them.

[nacho]

Last Ship update!

Bonus points for finally having a moment back in post-apocalypse America as the captain's idiot wife gets herself infected because I guess she has lost all sense of sight and smell and doesn't notice the horrible corpse sprawled out in the radio shop.

But that's okay because we have "not only a vaccine, but a cure" back on the ship. The doc needs to test the cure on humans and, instead of redshirts, all the people who volunteer are the most vital members of the crew -- the chief, who says testing the cure is the purpose god put him on Earth and "everyone's dispensable" (he's the only person who can hold the crew together), the chief engineer who not only received a major gunshot wound two episodes ago, but when she was laid up with that wound we realized that she's the only capable engineer on the ship and they desperately need her, and then the main radio guy and the maverick from Guantanamo. The doctor fails to realize that she needs to account for the human gene in the virus (which...what?) even though she knows all about the human gene in the virus and can't stop talking about it and it was a huge reveal in the last episode and recapped for this episode. Her shoddy doctoring is largely intended to kill a black person who WAS a redshirt. But that's okay, sci-fi racial stereotypes are fine as long as you have that one black guy who has an NCO position and doesn't die.

Next week is the finale. The preview shows the ship docking and tons of people pouring out to greet them even though there's a highly virile plague that's laid waste to 90% of the population.

[nacho]

Now that the apocalypse is happening, The Strain is fun. It sure took a few eye-rolling episodes to warm up, though.

I still have some complaints:

1) Lack of Nazi flashbacks. We got a little tiny taste, but the book explored Setrakian's backstory in loving detail, and it was the only awesome part of the book. It also did that great thing the Nazis always do -- it made the main vampire lieutenant horrifically evil by association because he was the commandant. In lieu of telling his Nazi past, they've chosen to paint his evilness by making him a slightly homosexual vampire obsessed with torturing his victims in ways that don't make a lick of sense in the story (the people he slowly feeds off of are not infected even though a bite always means infection?)

2) What kind of worked in the book -- a diverse cast of characters slowly discovering the truth and gathering around the beacon that was Setrakian -- does not work on TV.

3) The eclipse -- which the whole goddamned book built up to, and the show has been jabbering about all season -- only lasts for one scene and only features a couple of vampire attacks that are tame compared to all the other drama-attacks so far. The idea that the eclipse is the tipping point for the infection isn't even mentioned, and where we got to hear Setrakian's thoughts in the book, we don't here... But they've done the show as if we did know his thoughts in a moment that's weirdly too loyal to the books.

So, yeah...it's a waste of time.

[nacho]

The end of season one of The Last Ship... A painful experience!  The finale copied an episode of the Survivors reboot (right down to some of the same names) and, yet, it was so rushed and annoying it was barely entertaining. It's like they went back and re-shot it with days to spare when they got renewed for a second season.

Ah well... Next summer -- the pain continues!

[nacho]

The Strain finally got awesome. The secret? Nazis and vampire hunters.

[nacho]

Z Nation hits on Friday!

In Z Nation, three years have passed since the zombie virus has gutted the country, and a team of everyday heroes must transport the only known survivor of the plague from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood. Although the antibodies he carries are the world's last, best hope for a vaccine, he hides a dark secret that threatens them all. With humankind's survival at stake, the ragtag band embarks on a journey of survival across three thousand miles of rusted-out post-apocalyptic America.

Meanwhile, on The Strain, the characters spent most of last night's episode discussing and mourning the death of THE FUCKING GUY WHO SINGLE-HANDEDLY DESTROYED HUMANITY BY BETRAYING HIS FRIENDS!!

Ahem...

In other news, I was overjoyed not to have to watch Falling Skies as well.

[nacho]

Couldn't even make it through half of Z Nation.

[nacho]

So the whole apocalypse begins with a widely reported outage of the internet and cell service. We're reminded of this in the recap. And then we open up episode ten and a character is able to make calls, and two characters talk about coordinating their search with text messages...a search for someone whose location was found by finding an Apple computer, getting onto the wi-fi, and using the internet.

Okay...maybe the writers forgot or never watched the first 10 episodes, right? Maybe they just hired a person off the street to write this episode.

Except...the episode is about trying to get the internet back on! And the heated scene on that topic seems kind of absurd when their two buddies are in the next room surfing the net and making phone calls.

"How do we restore the internet?!?!?!?!"

Um...well, go into the bedroom, I guess.

But, okay. Seriously. This episode was all about finally getting to the eye worm scene, and the whole hour was written around that one moment.

[nacho]

Top moments from The Strain's finale:

1) "We need to wait for backup!"

Oh...okay. Would that be the 8 year old boy who doesn't know this is happening? The old man with the weak heart? The reluctant daughter who's recently become unhinged? Or...are you in a different TV show?

2) "Dynamite is a common exterminator tool."

I think that was a joke... But it wasn't delivered like a joke.

3) I may be bad, but I feel good

I no longer understand the Stoneheart guy's motivation. I need to understand it because his subplot is so ridiculous I can barely watch it without laughing my head off.

4) The disused speakeasy access tunnels that are in perfect condition

5) The seven -- yes, I counted -- potential fatal blows against the Master that were delayed to deliver a quip. The last of these saw the Master writhing in daylight, powerless, with the sword at his throat.   

[nacho]

12 Monkeys on Friday!