Squee-cap - Glee Goes Hollywood

This week on Glee saw the return of Ms. Pillsbury, two dream sequences, and several kiss confessions. Are "kiss confessions" a thing? If they weren't before, they totally are now!

It was mash-up week at McKinley High, with the theme Film Music. The usual competition between the boys and the girls was turned up a notch, since the winners get to star in Artie's senior film project. But first a co-ed warm up - Blaine and Brittany dancing crazy to "Shout," which I guess was the show's 500th song? Whatevs.

Look at me! I'm dancing crazy!

 The boys went first, and killed with a mash-up of "Highway to the Danger Zone" and "Old Time Rock and Roll." The girls went next with a mash-up of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" and "Material Girl" - Unique (and to a lesser extent, Marley) kicked ass, but for me it didn't incorporate enough of "Material Girl." Was that just me? Anyway, it didn't even matter in the end because the winner was... everyone. Artie literally needed every single Glee kid for his film. *eye roll*

Meanwhile, Mr. Schuester is having trippy dreams about him and Ms. Pillsbury performing "You're All The World To Me" in one of those gravity-trick rooms (like that Lionel Richie video for "Dancing On The Ceiling" - look it up!). I guess that means he misses her, even though he doesn't really want to admit it. Finn tries to convince Mr. Schuester to put aside his butt hurt and go after Ms. Pillsbury - but he doesn't know where to find her. Finn and Artie end up tricking her parents into telling them where she is (her sister's house - how hard was that?).

Mr. Schuester shows up in her driveway, holding up a boom box and singing "In Your Eyes" a la Say Anything. Only one question remains... where did he even FIND a boom box? Do they still make those? ANYWAY, Ms. Pillsbury tells Mr. Schuester that she needs time to get reacquainted with him, and he agrees to "start over." Mr. Schuester thanks Finn for talking him into reconciling with Ms. Pillsbury - and Finn blurts out that he kissed her. Dun dun DUN! More on this drama next week.

Aforementioned boom box. Seriously, who still had one of these lying around?

Something I forgot in my previous recap - when Marley told Ryder that she knew he was planning her Valentine's Day, he kissed her. For some reason she confides in Kitty (or as I like to call her, Quinn 2.0) - so pretty soon everyone will know. Jake makes a romantic gestured copied out a movie that came out when he was an infant - "Unchained Melody" from Ghost. Marley spends half the time fantasizing about kissing Ryder, and the other half observing herself and Jake from across the room. Then she confesses, and he just walks out on her, leaving her sobbing and covered in clay. *sigh* Am I caring yet? Is this what it feels like to care about these people? Cause it feels a lot like NOT CARING AT ALL.

Up in New York, Santana is BITCH-TASTIC. Seriously, every line out of her mouth is more terrible, selfish, and hurtful than the next and I LOVE IT. Especially when she starts in on Brody (New Rachel's icky boyfriend) - from rooting around in all of their belongings, she found a pager and a wad of cash. She has drawn the conclusion that Brody is a drug dealer. Here I thought he was just a prostitute. And in a private moment (see, sometimes even bitches have tact) she corners Rachel about the pregnancy test - Rachel sobs, and they hug it out. That's cute and all, but Santana better not just be in NYC to drive What's Her Face's plot line. Don't make me go all Lima Heights all up in here!

Santana casts some EPIC side-eye. You have been warned. 

Saving the best for last... this episode contains a dream sequence with Kurt and Blaine pledging a love eternal via the duet, "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. You initially think that Blaine's dreaming about getting Kurt back, but NO! It's Kurt's dream - Santana calls him out for crying during what used to be "their song." Again with the bitch ex machina. Adam asks Kurt about it later, and he confesses that he is still in love with Blaine - hooray! Adam does not bow out gracefully, and seems intent on wooing Kurt's heart away. Hrm... Adam has not really done anything to incite my wrath (or really much at all), but I feel like I should want his hopes to die in a fiery explosion. You know, on principle. This will require further thought...

But What Does It All Mean? AHS Season Two Wrap Up

American Horror Story: Asylum was certainly more ambitious than the show’s first season, now retroactively re-titled American Horror Story: Murder House. The scope of the story was bigger, the production values higher and the characters murkier. And while I personally felt like it wasn’t nearly as scary as the inaugural outing (more on that in a minute), I do think that the show made all the right strides toward developing not only as a series, but also in terms of being taken more seriously than just a gimmick-y horror show that changes stories whenever it gets bored.

Um.. think you've got a little something in your eye there, Sister... nope, still there...

Certainly a major theme of the season was misogyny is all its ugly forms. The repeated number of rapes in this season would have been laughable if it wasn’t disturbing. Lana bore the brunt of most of the anger against women, but Sister Jude saw her fair share as well. And poor Shelly could not have been a clearer message if she was wearing a neon sign instead of the drab jumper and mutation make-up she spent most of her time in. It’s tempting to chalk most of that up to “the times they lived in” and try to remember that this was a period show for the majority of this season, but it felt like more than that was going on. Just like it could be tempting to unravel all these threads into some kind of statement about religion or the Catholic church’s oppression of minorities, women, homosexuals and anyone it didn’t agree with, but then the corroborating evidence never seemed to arrive.

Which may well be the main takeaway of the season – the subplots that never really plotted. When aliens first showed up at the beginning of the very first episode, I was honestly not surprised. AHS is a series that will throw literally anything to the wall to see if it sticks, so aliens were actually almost quaintly conventional. But what did they do? We never got what they were after and we never learned anything about them other than that they apparently had nothing better to do with their time than muck about with Kit’s life. Likewise, why did Arden’s Nazi past matter so much if we never got anything for it other than the parallels between the Nazi internment camps and the Asylum itself and returning theme of the inmates, including those woods zombies, as chattel in either case?

I was legitimately creeped out by the second episode “Tricks and Treats” when the possessed boy was brought to the asylum for an exorcism. Exorcisms and possession scare the daylights out of me (blame my Catholic upbringing) and when I saw that demon possession was going to a component of this season, everything clicked for me. The 1960s was probably the last great era of Catholicism in the United States and so to pair that timeframe with a demonic possession story seemed inspired to me. But then, that pesky little devil never really did anything other than get the best one-liners and generally make Sister May Eunice one of the most fun characters to watch. Much like the aliens, it felt a little like the demon’s heart just wasn’t really into this story.

It leads to the question of what really is horror, especially on a television series? True to promises made last summer before the season aired, this season was completely ghost-less, a remarkable turnabout from the parade of endlessly horny poltergeists in Murder House.  Asylum’s horror was much more rooted in how frightening average, normal people can be all on their own, which is probably why the alien and possession subplots fell so flat and why watching Lana’s transition from Intrepid Girl Reporter to rag doll abusee to eventual Living Moral Ambiguity Machine was so interesting. The entire question gets summarized nicely in the end of course, as Sister Jude not-so-subtly reminds the viewers of the very Nietzsche-esque message of the season - when you stare into madness, madness stares back at you. 

Is it a mirror? Is it a reflection? Is it an album cover?

A final takeaway, though an obvious one, is that Jessica Lange continues to rock every single scene she finds herself in. I don’t know if an established career actress can ever legitimately be said to be the breakout star of a show, but if that’s possible than that’s what Lange has done in two seasons. Her award-winning depiction of Constance the fading southern belle was every bit as memorable as the harsh, demented but ultimately sympathetic Sister Jude. Given enough time, American Horror Story may be able to run an effective season without Lange, but thankfully it doesn’t have to just yet.

Speaking of which, it’s never too early to ponder what we might see from season three, premiering in just a scant seven months. Here’s what we know so far:

First, several veterans will be returning for the next season including Lange, Francis Conroy (Old Moira, the Angel of Death), Sarah Paulson (Lana), Evan Peters (Kit, Tate), Lily Rabe (Sister Mary Eunice) and Taissa Farminga who played Violet in season one. Kathy Bates (Misery) has also been announced as a main character based on someone who was apparently real. As is now practice for the show, creator Ryan Murphy says that he has dropped a hint as to next season’s story and location in this year’s episode “The Name Game”. Given the jukebox playing “I’ve Put A Spell On You”, speculation is leaning strongly toward witches being a theme next season. Murphy has also said that he wants to get back to the “evil glamour” aspect of the show, which bodes well not only for Jessica Lange never having to wear a habit again, but also serves as a possible hint itself.

Call yourselves warned, people. You’ve got seven months to stitch together your Pillow of Fear in preparation.

Snowquester

Guess what I did with my snow day?

That's the DVR at 0%! When was the last time THAT happened? Probably when I first got the DVR a few years ago.

Thanks for closing, Federal government (even if the snow didn't end up sticking around these parts)! Is it wrong that I feel more a sense of accomplishment from this than I do from a full day at my usual job?

Since you people are spending your time reading a tv blog, I'm gonna guess that your answer is no. 

Glee three-cap

Today I will do a (heavily biased) squee-cap of the last THREE episodes of Glee. Buckle your seat belts, kiddies!

"Naked"

This episode focuses mostly on the kids of McKinley High - so I had a hard time caring. They decide to raise funds for Regionals by selling a "Boys of McKinley" calendar featuring all the fellas of the club in the altogether (with seasonal decorations covering their naughty bits, of course). Let's skip right by the part where this would NEVER be allowed in a public high school. Artie feels insecure about posing with his shirt off. Sam is still reeling from his dismal SAT scores, so he throws himself into the project - believing that his body is all he has to offer. In the end, Blaine convinces him that he's more than just pecs and, to show solidarity with Artie, Sam decides to pose fully clothed as well. Hoo-f***ing-ray. The younger kids get up to some romance hijinks via the Marley/Jake/Ryder love triangle. YAWN.

Up in New York, Rachel has an "opportunity" to star in someone else's senior thesis at NYADA. The catch - she has to do a topless scene. GROSS. Her disgusting boyfriend Brody almost has her convinced to do it, and she has a little dissociative identity disorder moment where she sings a duet with her former self. DOUBLE GROSS. Kurt calls her on her shit, telling her that New Rachel is like “slutty Barbie, asking misogynist Ken to move in with her." He calls in the Big Bitch Guns, Santana and Quinn, to convince her not to show her tatas for a freakin' STUDENT FILM. Rachel backs out at the last possible minute - of course.

"Divas" 

OK, this might be my favorite episode so far this season. In an effort to toughen up the Glee kids (and boy do they need it), Ms. Pillsbury and Finn decide to revive the Diva Off tradition made famous by Kurt and What's Her Face. Unique opens up with some STELLAR trash talk and steals the group number, "I'm A Diva" by Beyonce. Seriously, I love Unique SO MUCH. Sadly, that was the extent of her face time this episode. Whomp whomp.

Blaine proves that guys can be divas, too, by belting out Freddie Mercury's "Don't Stop Me Now." Tina is crushing on Blaine (um...what?) and ends up confessing her feelings for him while he's helping her pick out her diva song. Luckily for her, he's zonked out on cold medicine and doesn't hear her. So she applies vapor rub to his chest and cuddles him while he's sleeping. Aaaaand things just got weird. Tina decides to give up and wins the Diva Off by pouring her emotions into "Hung Up" by Madonna.

Santana makes an appearance as the "guest diva" - singing a song that is actually called "Nutbush City Limits" by Tina Turner. Nut bush. Gross. Her real intention is to break up Sam and Brittney, to which end she sings "Make No Mistake (She's Mine)" with Sam - kind of a weird "fight" song. Sue even offers to make her the next Cheerios coach. But Brittney eventually convinces her to move on with her life - so she moves on to New York City, to make the Kurt/Rachel timeline a little bit bitchier. Aww yessssss.

Speaking of What's Her Face, Kurt decides that Rachel's ego is getting out of control, and she needs to be taken down a few pegs. OMG PREACH. She ignores Kurt at school, surrounding herself with sycophantic hater gays, and allows her boyfriend to parade around the apartment naked. When Kurt confronts her, it comes out that he threw their first Diva Off (remember he didn't want to embarrass his dad by singing a "girl song") - which totally undermines Rachel's sense of self. Hooray! He then challenges her to NYADA's version of the Diva Off - Midnight Madness. They both sing "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables, and Kurt KICKS HER ASS. Well, he wins by a narrow margin. But still!

The problem is, Kurt is a good person. He feels conflicted about the win because he's been singing the Les Miserables score since he was little - the song was a random selection, it just happened to go in his favor. He then turns down the overtures of friendship from the hater gays, stands up for his new crew the Adams Apples, and makes nice with Rachel. She recognizes that she has been a f***ing nightmare, and they hug it out. Boo.

ULTRA MEGA BOMBSHELL OF THE EPISODE - Finn is helping Ms. Pillsbury with some wedding planning stuff, since Mr. Schuester is out of town. She has an OCD freak-out and, while trying to calm her down, he kisses her. WTF? TBC...

"I Do"

The long-awaited Valentine's Day wedding between Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury is finally here! And by long-awaited, I mean that I was sort of surprised it hadn't already happened. Finn tells Rachel about kissing Ms. Pillsbury, and What's Her Face immediately tries to make it about herself. Direct quote from Finn: "Not everything has to do with you." THANK YOU. They end up rekindling the old flame, but Rachel insists she is still with her douchey boyfriend Brody. Finn calls New Rachel on her "free love" liberal bullshit, to no effect.

Ms. Pillsbury has another OCD freak-out and ends up ditching the wedding. Sue walks down the aisle in a replica of her dress to tell Mr. Schuester that it's off. Was that really necessary? He's heartbroken, but lets the Glee kids use the reception as a reunion party/mating ritual.

So in hook-up news, Quinn and Santana have a one-off and Artie lands a bitchy girl who is also in a wheelchair. Ryder helps Jake with all of his Valentine's presents for Marley in a very Cyrano de Bergerac kind of way. Jake and Marley do NOT hook up, however - because that would mean that she was not the pure innocent girl that we are supposed to give two shits about. She knew that it was Ryder all along with the presents, but thinks that he's just helping Jake - doesn't realize that he loves her, even though they dated... See why I find it hard to care?

In other true-love news, Kurt and Blaine TOTES HOOK UP - Best. Wedding. Ever. They make out in the back of a car, sing the duet "I Just Can't Get Enough," slow dance together, and end up in a hotel room (bow chicka wow wow). Blaine wants Kurt back, but Kurt is hiding behind the fact that he's "seeing someone" - Adam of the Adams Apples. I haven't seen one Kurt/Adam smooch, though, so I'm a bit doubtful. Kurt also takes this opportunity to set Tina straight (no pun intended?) by telling her, "You're hagged out!" TRUTH TELLING.

Final scene: Rachel misses her period... could she be preggers? Oh wait, I DON'T CARE.

The Vikings: Let's Employ ALL the Skarsgards!

On Sunday night, the History Channel debuted its first two scripted tv series with The Vikings and The Bible. I only got around to watching The Vikings and was pretty impressed with the pilot episode. I apparently wasn't the only one; the ratings for the two shows were kind of epic, and the History Channel ended up beating the broadcast networks in the all important 18-49 demo AND posting the biggest cable premiere of the year. Put that in your zombie pipe and smoke it, The Walking Dead.

According to Wiki, the series is "inspired by the epic saga of Viking King Ragnar Lodbrok. One of the most popular Norse heroes, Ragnar was a great Viking commander and the scourge of France and England." Sidenote: I REALLY wish I could be the scourge of something. Maybe the scourge of chocolate truffles or naps or even my Netflix queue.  

"RAWR! I will watch the shit out of your instant queue!"

What was I saying? Oh, right! Ragnor! Ok, so when we first meet Ragnor he and his brother, Rollo, are tearing it up on the battlefield. See, they are awesome warriors. But Ragnor also has a pretty sweet family life--he's married to the uber-hot Lagertha who has some awesome fighting skillz of her own, and has two adorable moppet children.  In the first episode, Ragnor takes his son (who has recently come of age) to the annual gathering of Scandinavian warrior dudes where the King hammers out issues such as property ownership, renders judgment on peeps who have broken the "law," and decides where the warriors are going to rape and pillage for the spring season.*

But there's trouble in this non-specified Scandinavian paradise. Turns out Ragnor is of the mind that the warriors should head West for this year's fightin. Apparently, there are rumors of all kinds of treasure and ladies ripe for the picking out that way. But the King, Jaral Haraldson, (played by Irishman Gabriel Byrne) is all, "Ragnor, you are an idiot and if you threaten my power I will rip your head off, mkay?" So Ragnor decides to build his own ships, gather his own forces, and make his own way to the West along with his brother and their crazy ship-builder friend, Floki.

"Maybe we should go discover Canada while we're at it."

There's some other interesting stuff going on here, what with Rangor seeing Odin everywhere he goes, seeking out advice of soothsayers, and having a fondness for the latest scientific gadgets. The acting is universally good (and it even looks like they tried to hire mostly Scandinavian-looking people) and I found the political angle very very eeenteresting. I can't really comment on the accuracy of the period stuff: everyone looked appropriately grubby to me, but other than that I will have to leave it to the scholars.

I have read some criticisms of the dialogue and how it comes off as stilted due to a "trying to sound authentic to the period" type of thing, but here's my take. You're telling a story for a modern audience here and some allowances are going to have to be made. I think Spartacus is a great example of how you can craft period appropriate dialogue while still maintaining modern story techniques. Sure, the characters in The Vikings are quite, shall we say, plain-spoken, but it didn't come off as distracting, just different.

In sum, I thought The Vikings looked great and got off to an excellent start. I'm liking the characters and am genuinely curious as to where Ragnor's journey will take him. There are some good ideas here, and I would think a fair comparison would be to The Tudors or The Borgias (though toned down for basic cable). And it turns out, it's the same producers on all three shows, so that should give you some idea as to the look and feel of The Vikings.

 The Vikings airs Sundays at 10:00pm on The History Channel.

And honestly? How can you NOT watch a show where the lead character's name is Ragnor? I mean, come ON, people

*Actually, I hadn't even heard of The Bible until I saw the commercials during The Vikings...oops!

* On my travels through Iceland and Scandinavia last year, I actually heard a lot about this yearly gathering and in Iceland toured the area where it took place. During these scenes of the show, I was all knowledgeable, pointing at the screen and going, "oh! oh! This is a totally a thing that I heard about and then promptly forgot!"

Parade's End

I tried with the one, you guys, I really did. After all, it looks good on paper. A British Edwardian era costume drama (hello, Downton Abbey), Benedict Cumberbatch as the romantic lead, beautiful costumes and lush locales....

But oh my lord, this show is boring.

Benedict Cumberbatch is Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant but stodgy government statistician who is marrying Sylvia, a selfish and slutty socialite. The reason for the marriage isn't entirely clear--Sylvia is pregnant and not necessarily with Christopher's kid, but apparently they had a quickie in a train on the day they met so he's doing the honorable thing. Despite the fact that they clearly hate one another's guts.

Actually, the entire first hour is just Christopher being honorable and Sylvia being slutty.

"Hmm...what's on the schedule for today...oh, destroy one another's happiness. Same as yesterday then."

Basically, they both despise one other and Sylvia runs around on Christopher the entire time they are married,but he thinks divorcing her would be ungentlemanly. But then he falls in love with Valentine, a feisty suffragette. That's as far as I got (through the first hour of the five hour miniseries) before calling it quits. 

Cumberbatch could charm the pants off a rock, but Christopher is so dull and drippy that it's hard to root for him. I would get on Team Sylvia, but she's so whiny and sociopathic that even her flouting of Edwardian social norms isn't enough to get me on her side. The only one who seems to have any personality is Valentine, but I don't think I can take her pining for Christopher for 4 hours.

According to the BBC 2 website (the show airs here in the Colonies on HBO), Christopher gets sent off to the trenches in WWI so I am sure there is a lot of letter-writing and long looks towards the horizon coming in the later episodes. There's also a lot of "the times they are a-changing" type of discussions, but honestly, haven't we covered this ground before?

I am sure there is a market for these kind of slow-moving character-driven dramas, but I'll take the soap opera plots of Downton Abbey any day. I also prefer my costume dramas with a happy ending (ala Pride and Prejudice) and I honestly don't see how Parade's End is going to end well for any of these characters. But since they're all kind of miserable human beings, I just can't bring myself to care.

To make up for not liking the show, please enjoy this picture of Benedict Cumberbatch in a fetching hat, gazing soulfully into the distance. 

These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For

Hello, readers! Thought that the end of Downton Abbey's third season was the last you were going to see of Lady Gillian? Think again! She returns to give us her take on a very different show below.

One would think that a show featuring an MMA-style cage match except now with GIANT FREAKING ROBOTS would be entertaining as hell to watch. A pinnacle in the genre of televised bloodsport. But, nay. Syfy as somehow managed to fuck this one up.  Gentle readers, I give you the latest entry in the annals of pedestrian reality shows: Robot Combat League.

The douchbag is strong with this one.

Syfy, apparently out of ideas for movies based on carnivorous homicidal CGI animal amalgamations (CROCSHARK! COBRAGATOR! ANACONDAKITTEN!), has taken a good concept (ROBOTS BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER) and made it unwatchable, banal and boring. So boring, in fact, that I fell asleep.

First of all, the mood, background music and the tone of the show are all overly dramatic. This is coming from someone who watches Downton Abbey like it's my job. It's like they want to convince us that this is some serious shit getting real RIGHT NOW. Like Seal Team 6 Let's Kill Osama bin Laden Realness. IT'S FUCKING ROBOTS FIGHTING EACH OTHER. LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP.

My second issue is with the premise.  We are led to believe that this one overly intense robotics engineer built all of these robots all by his lonesome in his lab.  Yes, working alone day and night, fending off sleep, not pausing even to eat or drink, all alone in his underground robot-building lair (read: somebody's garage), Dr. Noonian Soong bravely sallied forth and built a bunch of semi-functional robots for a teevee show. Actually, I forget his actual name. Let's just call him Dr. Venture. I gotta call bullshit on all of this. Dr. Venture seems more like he came from Mad Scientist central casting than an actual robotics company. I don't think he is a real robotics engineer nor do I think he is a real person. Nor do I believe he built all those robots with his two bare hands. I honest to Pete think he's an actor.

Then there are the contestants. Oh, the contestants. Other reality shows like Face/Off, SyFy's makeup design show, become highly addictive because you get to know and like the contestants. You choose favorites based on their aesthetic, body of work, personality and how dedicated they are to their craft. They're mostly all people you'd like to have at a party. Some of them even have talent! And therein lies the problem - none of the contestants are people I'd want to hang with. They seem like people who spend their weekend at the gym, talking about how much they enjoyed The Secret and how they're now eating Paleo and juicing. No one has a sense of humor that I can detect, and if they do, maybe the producers told them not to let on. Because this is super serious what we're doing right here. Like we're making robots fight. In an arena that I can only assume is Kitchen Stadium.

Not even the addition of George Lucas's daughter (yes, his real, actual daughter) into the mix makes it palatable. She seems like one of the nicer contestants, but she's really only interesting insofar as…she's George Lucas's daughter. Apparently, she fights people for a living, so I'm not going to go negative on her. One of the only contestants with any real science cred is a guy who works building robots for NASA. Okay, thinks I to self, I can deal with a poor man's Grant Imahara. But, he's not likeable, either! You know that robot named Curiosity on Mars, he says in his intro. Yeah. I built that. No, no you didn't build that. Maybe you helped build that. You and like 50 other people.  YOU DID NOT FUCKING BUILD THAT.

Strange. That slogan worked so well for this guy.

Since Syfy is trying desperately to cash in on the success of the popular movie make-up competition Face/Off (now in its fourth season in two years), I can understand why they'd think a reality competition would be the logical choice to follow a high-rated lead-in. But, like with the now-defunct Hot Set, Syfy has fallen short again.

Robot Combat League follows the generic reality TV formula, and as a result, it's about as bland as one could expect. There's the usual facing the camera trash-talking of the other contestants. That happens on almost every reality show. But, on Face/Off, the commentary is actually helpful to understanding the process of creating whatever horrific undeadmonsterdemon is on tap for that week's challenge. Even on something like RuPaul's Drag Race, where trash-talking your competition is elevated to an art form, the queens still remain likeable. Even funny. Everyone in the confessional Robot Combat League just seems like an asshat.

Then there's the host. He makes Ryan Seacrest look like…someone you wouldn't mind watching host a reality competition show. Face/Off's host is Mackenzie Westmore. Whose dad is fucking Michael Westmore. Who did the make-up on Star Trek: TNG.  Worf! He made Worf! The host of this show is Just Some White Dude. And then there's the prize. It's $100,000 to the winner. And then what else?  You get to be crowned a professional smacktard?

Is it real or is it just a scene from William Gibson's fever-induced wet dreams? 

Overall, this show is like someone took the robots away from the nerds and gave them to all the jocks in gym class, except the nerdy father/daughter pair, who are out-testosteroned in the first match and are sent packing. It was no great surprise, considering they were robot-matched with what is probably the weakest robot of the bunch, a cute little droid named Crash. Crash is clearly not as sturdy as the competing bots. He (may I personify?)  looks like he was designed and built by the good folks at Play-Skool. Since the robots and their teams were all assigned by the production, I can't help but think that was deliberate. The robots don't even fight per se. They just kind of smack at each other with their little robot arms. There is so much overly dramatic build-up that it's not worth sticking around to see the actual fights. Possibly the show would be better-served by running 30 minutes instead of a full hour.

Maybe it would have been interesting if they'd taken a team of people who actually built the robots and then had them fight it out, instead of assembling the Generic Nonspecific League. Most of the contestants have never worked on or built a robot (except for maybe the girl with this somewhat mechanized and super annoying pink whirligig hair accessory). But, to gather all these random people to cage-fight a pre-fabricated machine that they learn to operate like some kind of bulky Wii controller is conceptually the same thing as bumper cars.

So, in sum, Robot Combat League doesn't really feature any actual combat; the contestants are, for the most part, too self-absorbed constitute a league; and there aren't really any robots. I guess we're supposed to think the contestants are accomplished, what with their Olympic appearances, MMA cred, six-pack abs and accompanying enormous egos and shitty attitudes, but their only real talent appears to be douchebaggery. Is this what Syfy offers us as a replacement for the (unjustly) canceled Alphas, starring Good Night and Good Luck's David Strathairn (he of the silver hair and soothing voice)?

I will say that some of the robots are kind of neat to look at, and they're pretty cleverly constructed. But, they can't really move independently of a human at the helm. They ain't no Data. Or C-3PO.  Or R2. Perhaps the show will get better once it gets its feet wet, and who knows? I might end up liking it and eating my words. Or maybe the robots will rise up and defeat their human slave masters. But, for right now, I don't think I will be tuning in too often.  I'll be restricting my SyFy viewing to shows that have earned my respect: Being Human, Lost Girl and Face/Off. Let's all hope that the upcoming series Defiance has more merit than this shite. 

So much potential. So much build-up. So much fail.