omero-omero Reviews

Elementary: Bella (2014) Season 3, Episode 4

From a drop of water... One could deduce the depth of Bella's ocean.

[9/10 · 17 November 2022]

Bella is beautiful, deep, creepy, complicated. There are indeed a few instances of artistic license occurring here and there, mainly related to some technicalities as exposed in several other reviews and especially in the goofs section. However, Sherlock's attention is immediately attracted by the significant dilemma that Bella represents. A mind. A truly different kind of mind. Sherlock's interest, in this case, is triggered by the potential that Bella truly represents. A deductive mind that from a single drop of water can infer the existence of an ocean even when never having "seen" one in his life, in Sherlock's own words earlier on in the show. In this respect, I value very much the apparent non conclusive ending. It is quite the opposite of non conclusive. Bonus points for one irrelevant character implicitly being put on an airplane and another not so irrelevant being introduced, one character that indeed represents the original and sole spirit of what a hacker truly is.

Once more: Bella is Beautiful.

Elementary: Poison Pen (2013) Season 2, Episode 4

More reveals about Sherlock's past is always a Good Thing(TM)

[9/10 · 14 November 2022]

The story unfolds in a rather plain procedural way, with leads appearing and dissolving as required to keep up the interest of the viewer. What is really interesting is that more and more facets of Sherlock's troubled personality are emerging, especially his penchant to explore unconventional romantic relationships as early as his puberty.

There are more reasons to consider this an above average installment of the series, like Detective Bell immediately commenting about Joan's behaving and sounding more and more like her mentor, in a clear acknowledgment of her observation skills, adding maybe a subtle note of jealousy.

Definitely worth watching.

Elementary: We Are Everyone (2013) Season 2, Episode 3

Lack in originality is slightly compensated by a few twists

[8/10 · 14 November 2022]

Albeit still a decent episode, the plot incorporates a few too many elements ripped straight from the headlines in real life events of the period and also relies on several, often abused, urban misconceptions and stereotypes. Besides, I could let slip when your supposedly "best friend" tries a rescue mission once, but when said "best friend" repeatedly keeps pulling off such kind of ambushe, I would considering an abrupt interruption of contacts, or at least start to distance myself from the interference. It makes for good comedic moments in other kind of shows, but Joan certainly is in no need of help when she was really interested in dating out others. One twist I did like was how, at the end of the chase, the "true" personality of the hunted man was eventually revealed.

Once more, Sherlock/Miller does not disappoint.

Fringe: Black Blotter (2012) Season 5, Episode 9

The stuff that (oneiric) trips are made of...

[9/10 · 3 November 2022]

This, in short, is one of the very best Fringe installments.

Yet another superlative performance of the whole cast involved, including the resurfacing of old acquaintances that may or may not be real memories, fictional figments of imagination, effects of altered timelines in combination with of all those things and Black Blotter.

Of course the stage belongs to Mr. Noble that once again manages to take the portrayal of an unhinged mind with multiple (dazed and confused, if you allow me) personalities up to eleven. Being Walter is a very demanding role, and Mr. Noble nails it perfectly.

Kicks the story forward to the unavoidable collapse of the events, in a quantum mechanic's way rather than in a relativistic one.

Fringe: Brown Betty (2010) Season 2, Episode 20

Excellent!

[9/10 · 29 October 2022]

After all, how could an episode that starts with Roundabout by YES in background while that unhinged pinball machine inside Walter's mind is running on high gear, powered with Chronic Supernova mixed with some other "stuff" be anything but excellent?!

By Walter's own word, in this story nothing is what it seems. Besides, its filled with lots of funny moments, emotions, references and foreshadowing.

Even Gene The Cow gives one her best performances!

Someone has completely missed the whole point of this writing/acting exercise and defaulted to label it a filler or, more simplistically a musical. I, for one, am not a fan of the musical genre but in this case even those parts are absolutely enjoyable. And one must be able to read in between the lines before reductively call this a filler episode. Its far from being either.

The final scene is a *WHAM* one too.

BRAVO!

Fringe: Of Human Action (2009) Season 2, Episode 7

An unpleasant episode, on so many levels...

[1/10 · 28 October 2022]

It is a real pain to watch the whole ordeal happening like in a B-movie style splatter script, clearly devised by the writers to confuse the audience with a continuous barrage of twists and red herrings fanned out. Even when each one of the actors are convincing in their performance, most of the main characters appear to chime a cracked bell note. Almost no advancement is made in any aspects of the main arcs, a bowl of noodles with some strong spices thrown in for good measure. A Massive Dinamic entanglement of differently colored strings, none of which make any sense at all.

Even Tyler makes no sense at all, when after mind-controlling everyone on his path for fun and selfish fullfilment, he just walks away without even considering tipping the only one person had him interested, even for a very brief moment. *SIGH*

Person of Interest: 6,741 (2016) Season 5, Episode 4

Oops... They did it again.

[1/10 · 10 October 2022]

There are only 10 episodes in the whole run of the show that I dislike: the one titled IF-THEN-ELSE, and this.

It is a pun intended, of course, aimed precisely at those persons out there that understands binary.

More binary analogies?

Good news: One Machine team character is finally back on the scenes.

Bad news: Samaritan is trying to make one Machine team character flip over to his side.

The reasons I dislike this episode are not at all related to the artistic performances of the actors, which are impeccable and even excellent, but to the scripting of the story line, that immediately breaks apart after minutes into the episode, dissipating whatever "suspension of disbelief" impulses have survived that far.

While it is understandable why the cheap logic/heuristic trick used in IF-THEN-ELSE to temporarily put offline (standby) one interesting character, reusing the same trick to bring it back is ... Lack of originality.

Person of Interest: If-Then-Else (2015) Season 4, Episode 11

One of the very few badly scripted episodes

[1/10 · 9 October 2022]

It takes only a few minutes for one to realize that it all revolves around one of those repetitive trial+error scenarios where the plot does not advance much until the very end of the story.

A story based on so many misconceptions about what a computer, a computer program is and what instead an artificial intelligence is (not necessarily related to computers in modern times).

Brute force, even when supported by a very extended library of documented games of Chess paired with fictional processing capabilities is very much unlike what The Machine has represented being so far.

The Machine in its early stages of the iterations caused by Harold teaching methods would have been curious to learn other strategy board games, like Go or Shogi. Chess is popular, but there are more games that attract curious minds.

The Machine has shown the ability to evolve and has shown intuition. It has manifested skills for survival and self-preservation.

On the opposite Samaritan has not gone through all those steps. It lacks the necessary depth, the development history, his drives (pun intended, those were not really drives but tapes).

Albeit If-Then-Else is a good first watch, in retrospective is one of the worst and one could just skim through it until the last few minutes.

It is a cheap trick to also make one of the main characters exit the scene... For a while (another popular construct in programming). O7.

The Blacklist: The Bear Mask (2022) Season 9, Episode 19

Great acting does not make up for the badly scripted episode

[1/10 · 2 October 2022]

Albeit the acting by all involved actors in the episode is above average, the plot does not even survive the wear and tear barely a minute into the story.

A drug induced state of mind and the obvious consequences can never and never will manage to keep the viewers interest, not mention the immense effort that would be required for the necessary suspension of disbelief after the initial scene plays out.

Alas, consecutive badly scripted episodes, with trite and recycled plots, only reek of carrion.

It saddens me to have endured watching this one episode for its whole run time, still hoping to catch a glimpse of those shocking reveals that made the show such a great and entertaining experience in the past.

No more.

The Blacklist: Laszlo Jankowics (No. 180) (2022) Season 9, Episode 18

A lame continuity error.

[1/10 · 2 October 2022]

Technically it is not spoiler that Mr. Kaplan corpse was clearly shown, five seasons back, floating on the water after she suddenly decides to jump off of a bridge a moment later that Raymond has declined to pull the trigger (once again) to put an end to her life.

That was Season 4, Episode 22.

It is a blatant continuity error made by the writers to come up with such an imposing story line twist. That "corpse was never found" subterfuge makes no sense at all.

Raymond, for one, would never forget seeing the corpse of Mr. Kaplan floating on the waters of that river, not to mention the many FBI agents that were there, on that same bridge at the same time, when those events unfolded.

Even the most memory impaired watcher of the show would remember that scene. After all, Mr. Kaplan was a truly memorable character and a very much missed one.

Its One Bad Episode. Period.

Castle: Reckoning (2015) Season 7, Episode 15

How predictable - Part II

[7/10 · 14 September 2022]

It has some good adrenaline moments, but the only interest kept alive in the audience is, at this point, all centered on how will the main characters manage to achieve that Reckoning, hinted in the very title of the episode.

Slightly better than the previous episode, yet the plot still evolves in a too much railroaded course.

At least here the good guys are (finally) shown to actually do something to contrast the bad guys moves, instead of being always outclassed by the villains who are always a step ahead in ways too unrealistic to accept, even with some effort at suspension of disbelief.

A few key moments involve bare fingers feats that even The Bionic Woman would have had troubles accomplishing.

Even if worth watching, this episode only delivers a long overdue conclusion to a story arc the show did not need anymore.

Castle: Resurrection (2015) Season 7, Episode 14

How predictable

[6/10 · 13 September 2022]

Comes to mind "Quo usque tandem *omissis* abutere patientia nostra" the very moment one of the earlier antagonists is implicated in the episode. Then an even older acquaintance appears on screen and all doubts are removed.

The latin phrase roughly translates to: For how long more are you going to abuse our patience...

The title of the episode itself leads to the obvious conclusion

The efforts made by the cast are decent enough to keep the episode interesting, however the plot is rather weak, with the villains smirks and all the clues already there.

No one in the audience should get fooled by the cheap twists and red herrings at this point into the show.

It is not a terrible episode, it is... Predictable.

Castle: Cops & Robbers (2011) Season 4, Episode 7

Alchemic or Chemistry

[10/10 · 8 September 2022]

Might start as the usual filler episode, the mix is more alchemy than chemistry. The ingredients are the tension building up, the situation seen in so many other occurrences in a closed room scenario, the decisions that have to be made in order to resolve the stalemate, plus the comedic little spruces of what makes chemistry a science and alchemy a more subtle variant.

One might prefer one concept over the other.

This episode is fun to watch even from the point of view of the casual onlooker. Especially because of the acting and the various twists in the plot.

Besides, the scenario is quite realistic in itself and well handled overall, considering a spoiler free review.

Castle: The Double Down (2009) Season 2, Episode 2

One of the funniest episodes ever

[9/10 · 4 September 2022]

With the addition of new interesting characters too, which are quite "believable" given the genre.

Punch lines along with some expressions are truly remarkable.

Albeit the plot is not so original, the execution of the script and the performance of all the actors involved is excellent.

Since this is going to be a spoiler free review, one will have to watch very closely how the main cast characters dynamics evolves throughout the whole ordeal.

It is even scientifically accurate for the part that reveals the key to solve the case. No, not the part about applying electrodes to fishes to read their brains! That was obviously Castle being himself.

Zoo: The Walls of Jericho (2016) Season 2, Episode 4

The Cusp

[7/10 · 1 September 2022]

Then afterwards, events gets more and more confusing to follow. Not explicitly in a negative way, however this episode marks a precise point under several definitions.

I am unsure this episode qualifies as a cusp or a bifurcation. I prefer the former to the latter because of perspective and simplicity.

My interpretation is that a point in the path of the show is reached when it becomes necessary to introduce changes that have a potential to become new paths in the story thread line.

At the tip of a cusp, you want to keep your balance.

At the start of a bifurcation, you need to make a choice.

On hindsight, it is quite clear why this episode can be considered either a cusp or a bifurcation.

Stargate Universe: Visitation (2010) Season 2, Episode 9

This gift was sent to you...

[5/10 · 14 August 2022]

Courtesy of some almighty aliens that can spawn a stellar system in the middle of nowhere (in space) comprising at least one idyllic planet, find your current position in the vast universe and instantly deliver you a fully refurbished to brand new out-of-factory conditions vessel, along with some ... Returnees.

The pragmatic leader, immediately express his enthusiasm at the opportunity of seizing the suddenly appeared vessel.

The mad scientist does not buy a single word coming out from one of the returnees.

Then the whole episode starts to fall apart.

One might start wondering who those almighty aliens (with a generous heart of gold) truly are.

And what stuff where they passing each other along, to get that high.

Stargate Universe: Cloverdale (2010) Season 2, Episode 5

It is so bad... To be almost good. Almost...

[5/10 · 14 August 2022]

The scenario resembles a classic B-movie within a B-Movie. What is happening to Chloe is pretty obvious by now and the plot twists proposed to build up tension and suspense only manage to break the suspension of disbelief. The actors still manage to play out their roles decently, however the final verdict is that the whole episode is mediocre, at best.

Only worth watching the very first time or when one has time to waste.

Stargate Universe: Awakening (2010) Season 2, Episode 3

When the tiles of the puzzle begin to make sense... Crucial.

[9/10 · 13 August 2022]

This is one crucial episode.

A few answers to some lingering questions, awakening more and more questions.

The language barrier problem is somewhat properly addressed again since long.

Brilliant script, well acted by all characters, tense and interesting development.

Stargate: Atlantis: The Shrine (2008) Season 5, Episode 6

Albeit not so original... This is quite one outstanding episode.

[10/10 · 8 August 2022]

The whole cast, this time around, gives such an intense performance that it is impossible not to just give in and acknowledge that knot, that emotional clutch... Like riding a pendulum.

It is a very intense episode and if not the very best, it is certainly one of the top three in the whole franchise.

Special mention goes to David Hewlett, a truly inspired performance.

P. S.: Please remember to lay some flowers for Algernon.

Stargate: Atlantis: Trio (2008) Season 4, Episode 16

Yet Another Worth Nothing ... (YAWN) Episode

[1/10 · 6 August 2022]

Closed room scenario with much bickering and squabbling among the main characters, acting out of character and mostly forgetting they have brains. Dr. Keller explaining an ages old drinking game that neither Dr. MacKay nor Samantha Carter (both acclaimed physic scientists) can figure out in nanoseconds?

Writers forgot to have brains too.

Nonsense.

Stargate: Atlantis: Irresistible (2006) Season 3, Episode 3

When it was intended as a comedy...

[1/10 · 1 August 2022]

Then it failed, miserably.

Mr. Lascivious got stuff and surreptitiously manages to infiltrate Atlantis.

That would be an interesting plot, but instead gets elaborated along in a disturbing, awkward sequence of events, lame jokes and stereotypes.

All in all, this episode can be skipped altogether, unless one is a fan of that kind of actor that mostly portrays obnoxious characters.

Stargate: Atlantis: Grace Under Pressure (2005) Season 2, Episode 14

A good one worth (re)watching

[9/10 · 30 July 2022]

Although some inaccuracies about how submersible crafts fare under pressure and some physic laws details involved, the character development in this episode is remarkable not only for McKay, the apparent protagonist.

It is quite every one else but McKay that saves him, including hallucinations and alien whales.

Stargate SG-1: 200 (2006) Season 10, Episode 6

Wastehole X-Treme

[1/10 · 22 July 2022]

This episode is a monumental waste of time to watch.

Even considering it being a parody, a collection of in-jokes, in the end it fails to deliver anything, eliciting solely a blank stare in dibelief.

Lone Wolf and Cub (1973–1976)

A masterpiece in storytelling

[10/10 · 10 April 2021]

Compares to other works of art where the story is the core.

Perfect.

Forever (2014–2015)

A long story... Cut short.

[10/10 · 8 April 2021]

I do not know why, yet this is one of those shows I will keep (re)watching again and again.

Forever!