On-Season Week 3

WEEK 3

Last week's average rating was a 7.8 (down from premiere week's 8.1), but that figure was diluted by the introduction of three more shows. This week we have FOUR shows premiering, and of the 13 shows we will follow until the mid-season ones kick off and join us (we have twelve so far; our thirteenth, Pure Genius, doesn't debut until 27th October), only Bull drops out this week, so don't be surprised if this week's average rating drops even more. With that busy schedule in mind, I'll try to condense my analyses as much as possible (and probably fail). But less of that - let's get going!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - 4x03 "Coral Palms Pt. 3"

"Jimmy Figgis comes to Coral Palms to kill Jake and Holt. The Nine-Nine detectives arrive against Captain Stentley's orders to help arrest him."

The third and final part of the fourth season's opening arc concluded, as expected, with the arrest of mafia boss Jimmy Figgis. But it took jumping through some hoops to get there. Jake and Holt, presumed escaped prisoners by Coral Palms police, had their faces splashed across TV and thus had to run from a number of venues; Holt received a leg wound that incapacitated him for Figgis's arrest; and the Nine-Nine's ambush went to pot when Figgis held Jake at gunpoint.

Holt (to Gina): 'BOOST MY BOTTOM! BOOST IT!'

   However, it all came together in the funniest episode of the series yet. Among Jake's childish squeamishness, Jake and Amy's inability to reconnect after being apart from each other for so long, Rosa accidentally reading Figgis a raunchy love letter instead of a threat (see quote of the week), and Hitchcock asserting that "college girls" were the best part of Florida, we had the best line of them all: Holt, determined to help arrest Figgis despite his leg injury, being pushed by Gina into the truck (see image).

   There were a few surprises here too. I hadn't expected to see the Coral Palms Sheriff or the meth-addicted prisoner again but they made superb cameos, and the episode, as packed as it was, was oddly short at less than 21 minutes (compared to a usual 23-24). The show did, in the end, miss the opportunity for Stentley's slowness to pair with Hitchcock and Scully's own combined idiocy, and that's a criminal oversight. However, the cliffhanger in which Stentley punishes the team by banishing them all to the night shift perfectly sets up the show for the New Girl crossover next week.

   VIEWERS: 2.40m (B99 keeps registering stable ratings. There's a long way to go but the signs are promising)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.0 (Levels out with the previous two episodes. Stability all around)

VERDICT: B99 writers need to look at what they did here and emulate it more often. The humour was precise, the guest stars were utilised perfectly and the plot, packed into a shorter-than-usual timeframe, felt decidedly tight and full. 8.5/10

Code Black - 2x02 "Life and Limb"

"A school bus crash floods Memorial with injured kids, including the captain of the American football team who loses a leg when new intern Charlotte doesn't perform a thorough examination. Meanwhile, Mike Leighton shows signs of potential purposeful movement, and another intern, Dr. Noah Dixon, struggles to adapt to the hectic climate."

Code Black hasn't really changed its format from premiere to sophomore episode: once again the new interns took centre stage as our main characters, especially Malaya and Angus (the latter getting little beyond sitting at his comatose brother's bedside), fell by the wayside. It also followed the same episode structure: a rip-roaring start that eventually subsided, although the drop in tempo admittedly wasn't as substantial as in the premiere. Really, the only thing that changed was the patients.

   Eric Roberts, who we've just seen play Jimmy Figgis in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, dropped in as Savetti's alcoholic dad and didn't really play much of a part; Willis's army connections came in useful for the American football captain who had lost his leg; and Camryn Manheim (of the late Person of Interest), also guest starred as the wife of the driver who crashed into the school bus. And in the most simplistic episode-to-episode plot reversal, the interns, instead of saving a more senior doctor's mistake, today made a severe error of their own. 

   VIEWERS: 5.87m (series low overnights. Says it all)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.0 (Nearly 3/10ths lower than season one's average; now even the demo share is looking awful)

VERDICT: The focus is currently too heavily directed at all the wrong characters, which is making it hard to care about the plotlines they create. The guest stars, however, are top draw - and Mama and Daddy's banter is back! 7/10

Conviction - 1x01 "Pilot"

"Hayes Morrison is blackmailed into heading the new Conviction Integrity Unit. Their first case is that of Odell Dwyer, who was charged with murdering his girlfriend eight years ago."

Conviction had a very pilot-esque pilot. Much like MacGyver and Bull, the two other new shows on this list so far, its premiere was very "sell the premise" more than anything else. The introduction sequence, which chopped between Hayes talking to District Attorney Conner Wallace in her prison cell, and Wallace announcing to the press the CIU's creation, was much too hard to keep up with and felt very rushed.

   However, the rest of it was excellent. Getting people out instead of putting them in jail is a great premise, and seeing an investigation in reverse felt very novel. The investigation itself was slick, natural and even provided the necessary reminder that not everyone in law enforcement was going to get along with the CIU.

   But the show needed to have a great character set to come together, and each of them has a unique perspective on their job - there's Sam, who had been promised Hayes' job before being betrayed; Frankie, a gay forensic analyst convinced of the good in everyone; Tessa, with a dark secret about her identity; and Maxine, the ex-cop there to protect good cops' reputations. With that, you have a set of full, well-rounded characters topped off with Hayley Atwell's Hayes Morrison, a dynamic (some people have so far said "bitchy") lead who is yet to shrug off her rich brat persona.

   VIEWERS: 5.17m (Looks like it will struggle in Castle's old 10pm Monday slot; lost out to NBC's Timeless)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.9 (Again, battered by Timeless. A troubling start)

VERDICT: The character personalities are so brilliant and diverse here, more so than on most other shows, that the bad ratings are worrying me already. But as for the premiere itself: top, top draw beyond its rushed introduction. 8.5/10

Elementary - 5x01 "Folie a Deux"

"The famed Bensonhurst Bomber returns after six years - but his target area has drastically altered. The timings between the two bombing sprees suspiciously match a couple of ex-cons recently released from prison."

"The most consistently intelligent and well-acted of the broadcast network crime dramas…”- New York Times on Elementary

The Elementary writers prove once again why they are among the best in the business. Not only did they give me a near heart attack when an unsuspecting citizen, picking up a football which had rolled off the park onto the pavement, suddenly blew up, but they turned the shocking murder into one of the cleverest plots I've seen in a long while. Every detail was inch-perfect.

   It didn't make sense their suspect in the original bombings, a construction worker named Nathan Resor, would wait 13 months after his release to start bombing again if he was the Bensonhurst Bomber - but that timeframe was considerably shortened if the bomber was in fact the friend he met in prison, who was released after Resor. Were they working in tandem now? If so, which one is the original bomber and who is the student? As it transpires, they weren't in fact working together: Resor hired his old friend, Fielder - the actual Bensonhurst Bomber - to blow up things in an area named Flushing, in order to scare off a rival company vying for the building contract of a multi-million dollar entertainment complex. The new bombings were not about compulsion, as Fielder's original ones were, they were monetarily motivated. But the depiction of a compulsive bomber was organic, and the often forgotten argument from suspects that they don't need an alibi if they're innocent (all right, Resor wasn't, but that argument is rarely made in TV anyway), actually made the interrogation more interesting.

   I'm a little sceptical about the direction Joan Watson may be taken - after the Kitty Winters calamity in season 3 we certainly don't want her and Sherlock splitting up again - but the point of the argument (that her wonder-lust waned on a five-yearly basis) was accurate. Also supreme was the new character of Shinwell - a shady ex-con Joan saved years ago when she was a surgeon - and the trivia, which included references to Ted Kazinsky, and a study about how chewing gum can improve focus for short periods of time.

   VIEWERS: 6.33m (Beats out the overnights for all but two of the 24 episodes the previous season. Superb)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.8 (However, this miniscule figure being barely above the 0.7 that typically dooms shows means TV By The Numbers is worried, which means I'm worried too.)

VERDICT: Although not written as a high-octane premiere it was one of the best so far (and there have been many superb premiere episodes). Discounting the silly inclusion of Sherlock touching a man in the middle of being tased and somehow not getting electrocuted himself, this might even count as one of the best Elementary episodes period. 9.5/10

Hawaii Five-0 - 7x03 "He Moho Hou / New Player"

"A DEA agent is just one of two bodies dropped at a farmhouse, but while one seems to have been killed by whoever parachuted into the area, the DEA agent fell from 10,000 feet. Meanwhile, Kono's friend calls for her assistance and Alice Brown discovers new information about the serial killer plaguing Hawaii."

WHAT'S. IN. THE. BAG? That was the question dominating 7x03's promo clip, and for my scepticism I actually was surprised by what was inside it. The bag itself had been left behind by the cartel bigwig (who had killed the DEA agent and the farmhand) when he fled from Five-0. He was then captured by a cartel hit team who offered to trade Frontera (the bigwig) for the bag. At the trade-off, McGarrett reveals wads of cash to the hit team, who promptly hand over Frontera. But what is actually inside the bag?

   Five-0 officer Kono Kalakaua, who jumps out and shoots dead the hit team. Fair play, writing team. While I expected something generic, I was truly surprised with this one.

   Meanwhile, season 7's theme of reflection and introspection continued with a focus on Kono's past: a friend of hers, Rosie Valera, a surfing champion and ex-army officer who lost her legs to a roadside IED, called her from jail after committing a minor offence. Kono took her to Kamekona's shrimp truck and they reminisced, until Kono released Rosie didn't have a home. She tried to convince her to let her family and friends help, but eventually settled for giving Rosie something she hadn't had in over a decade: a chance to surf. I liked the poignancy of this one, and it was a well-balanced subplot considering there was also the main murder and the serial killer arc to deal with.

   In the latter, profiler Alice Brown wakes up to a dead body in her bed, presumably put there by the serial-killer-killing-serial-killer - which has shifted my suspicions away from her for now. As has finding a book on medieval chess in the office of the psychiatrist who dealt with the officer that investigated the three dead serial killers. The game is still afoot and getting more impressive and dangerous by the episode, and this time the storylines that surrounded its advancement were gripping and surprising.

   VIEWERS: 9.62m (Equals last week, and still has barely dropped since the premiere. Shiny.)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.3 (Statistically average, continually stable.)

VERDICT: Kono's friend's storyline and the continuation of the serial killer arc were both excellent and shocking. The writing overall had more twists than usual, which made it a far better episode than it deserved to be. 8.5/10

Lucifer - 2x02 "Liar, Liar, Slutty Dress On Fire"

"Lucifer distrusts his mother despite her attempts to reconcile. However, the dead body she chose to inhabit was supposed to have been at the latest crime scene."

A great, funny episode, and an improvement on the premiere; Tricia Helfer is already looking like a great addition to the cast. Lucifer's mother arrived on Earth with no understanding of how owning a physical form worked, so for now she's a great source of punchlines and sexiness. However, the hatred Mazikeen has for her, and the fact that despite their reconciliation Lucifer will eventually be forced to follow through his promise to God to bring her back to Hell, will provide a lot of the conflict in later episodes.

   Unfortunately, while "Liar, Liar, Slutty Dress On Fire" was an improvement on Lucifer's season two premiere, it was actually a rather disjointed episode. Detective Chloe Decker didn't even make an appearance until a quarter of an hour had passed because Lucifer's mum monopolised the screen time. That's only natural given her character's build-up, but it was a risk on the part of the writers to accentuate Lucifer's egotistical padding around town investigating his own insecurities rather than focus on the murder. I think they just about pulled it off, however.

   The murder plot itself centred around the recently murdered head of a law firm, whose death by screwdriver to the neck matched the MO of a cartel dealer. Lucifer's mum, searching for a physical form to occupy, brought the woman's body back to life and caused havoc as she got to grips with the Earth, leaving Chloe to presume she simply survived the attack. Meanwhile, the bodies of a man and chambermaid at the hotel meant there were still two murders to investigate, and the discovery that the dealer was long-dead led police back to the law firm, and a lawyer who chose the cartel dealer's MO to avoid suspicion. A simple but challenging enough murder slotted around the chaos caused by Lucifer's mum in her centric introductory episode.

   VIEWERS: 3.67m (Quite a long way below its premiere episode, but that won't be a worry for now.)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.1 (Likewise, a couple of points dropped from premiere to second episode won't be troubling unless the trend continues)

VERDICT: The whole premise of Lucifer - that he helps LAPD investigate murders - was pushed to the side to introduce Mummy dearest. It worked for now, but the writers will need to strike a better balance in the future. 8/10

MacGyver - 1x03 "Awl"

"Mac, Jack and Riley travel to LaBuan, Malaysia, to retrieve the moneyman for a terrorist organisation named Division 77."

MacGyver gets better and better every episode. Today there was enough emotional resonance built around Jack talking to his father's grave and Mac's (as yet unspecified) issues with his own dad to satisfy, whilst being able to focus solely on the mission in between.

Phoenix Foundation prep to retrieve Ralph Kastrati

   That mission, to retrieve D77's moneyman Ralph Kastrati, goes pear-shaped at every turn, but every situation that goes pear-shaped requires an on-the-fly invention of MacGyver's to see that everyone makes it out alive. Including Kastrati, who is shot through the chest early on. His condition deteriorates as the episode goes on, to the point that Mac eventually decides he has to induce death using blood pressure meds to lower Kastrati's heart rate, in order to fool D77 into thinking he is dead and no longer a threat, before reviving him with an adrenaline-glucose antidote.

   "Awl" is a funny, informative 40 minutes and probably the most coherent of MacGyver's first three episodes. Although there is no mention of Nikki there didn't need to be, and the opening scene, where Jack and Mac are running through a burning building to the tune of "Disco Inferno" and the lyrics "burn, baby, burn", was brilliant, and a superb lead-in to the emotional father scenes.

   VIEWERS: 8.17m (That's 2.5m dropped since the premiere. A fair decrease, but this needs to stabilise and quickly.)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.1 (Crucially, MacGyver has so far lost over 1/3 of its demo share, and it's in a lovely 8pm slot. Nooooooot good.)

VERDICT: Coherent, decisive, simple and utilises the off-the-cuff inventions the MacGyver franchise is styled upon.  8.5/10

NCIS: Los Angeles - 8x03 "The Queen's Gambit"

"OSP investigate an abduction case when a Marine kidnaps a man outside a mosque; Hetty awaits action against her in Washington and Deeks gets some bad news about Kensi."

"The Queen's Gambit", so named for Hetty's sacrifice in the previous episode, was just what it needed to be: an improvement, even if that improvement was minimal. The main plot of the episode, in which a Marine kidnaps a man to draw out his cousin, who was offering casting calls for acting jobs overseas and then drugging and trafficking the girls instead, evolved nicely, and lent itself to a bit of kick-assery from Nell, usually found in the Ops centre in front of a computer. Nell makes a nice bit-part field agent, and Renee Smith is going to have some fun while Ruah's character Kensi is in the ICU.

   Speaking of which, I struggle to take Kensi's injuries seriously: though her condition deteriorated, the show has no intention of writing Kensi out completely, so it's only a matter of time before the near-permanent physical damage caused by the helicopter crash will be reversed and everything will be OK. I can't help but feel this "dynamic storyline" for Kensi and Deeks wasn't worth the hype. Props, however, to Eric Christian Olsen for his sensitive portrayal of Deeks' fragile emotional state.

   Meanwhile, Hetty does the business in Washington. Duggan's mistake in bringing her back to his superiors saw him humiliated when she was released by SECNAV (the Secretary of the Navy) almost instantly. With Hetty on her way home the team can get back to business, but she has set a timer by offering her resignation in 6 months if the the real mole isn't uncovered, which means what should have been done in the premiere will hopefully just suffer a slight delay.

   VIEWERS: 11.52m (A 2m jump upwards from the premiere's overnights. NCIS LA is making one hell of a case for itself in a slot everyone claimed would be its death knell)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.5 (Equals the premiere. Just above average in overnights will bring it well into safety when the +3's are taken into account)

VERDICT: A slight improvement on the premiere, and lots of kick-ass Nell. Sam and Callen's banter always lights up a scene. 7/10

Quantico - 2x02 "Lipstick"

"At The Farm, the trainees learn surveillance and anti-surveillance techniques. In the present day, Alex tries to contact Miranda and the terrorists block Raina's attempts to identify them."

I've read some interviews with Quantico producers about how it was far easier for them to learn details about the CIA than the FBI, and in the second episode of Quantico's second season that immense research paid off in the clever ways the terrorists acted. Holding over a thousand people hostage in Federal Plaza, in a huge open-windowed building, the hostages were used as a huge line of human shields - but not only that, the line was cycled in and out so the terrorists could slip out of their disguises and hide in plain sight among the returning hostages. Raina tried to identify the terrorists by marking their wrists, only for her to return after her cycle to find that everyone had been marked in the same way. I thought all of this was terrific, and a fantastic early obstacle to both the characters and the viewers.

   Meanwhile, Alex tried to get contact to Miranda to let her know she was inside Federal Plaza. The guard she was helping sacrificed himself so Alex could achieve that goal - only for a cliffhanger ending to reveal Miranda alerted the terrorists to Alex's location. A giant, unimaginable cliffhanger at the end of a decent episode - one that throws everything we knew about Miranda out of the window.

   Worth mentioning is the fact that Nimah and Shelby became Ryan and Alex's handlers for their undercover job in the CIA (so my prediction they would have little effect on that half of the storyline was incredibly off-base) and this episode's training at The Farm, how to surveil without being seen and avoid being surveilled themselves, was written in a fun and intriguing manner (although the original scene where Alex easily identifies four of her five tails was rather naff. Hard not to miss your tails if they're wearing big hats, coats and dark sunglasses and staring at you from the middle of the opposite street.)

   VIEWERS: 3.57m (Barely down from the premiere; stability will help if it can last)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.0 (Matches the premiere; still lower than season one)

VERDICT: Despite the writing hiccup with the surveillance drill, "Lipstick" offered just as much as the premiere. Trainees at The Farm are growing on me, and hell if that cliffhanger wasn't stunning. 7.5/10

Scorpion - 3x01 "Civil War" & 3x02 "More Civil War"

"Hackers demonstrate their abilities when they take control of two F-130 fighter planes, before cyberjacking destroyers at strategic points around the country. Finally, they shut down nuclear silos, leaving America defenceless."

Of just two two-part premieres this season, Scorpion's is definitely the better. Not only does it follow a simple, escalating storyline straight across two episodes rather than have two logical follow-on plots, but that escalation allowed for the stakes to rise again and again across a packed 80 minutes.

   It was high-octane, as from the get-go there was either a critical national threat to contend with, or our team of geniuses trying to deal with their failing relationships. Quintis (Toby Curtis and Happy Quinn) is slightly more on than Waige (Walter and Paige) which, with Paige's interest in Tim unfortunately overspilling into season 3, is currently definitely off. But Toby's attempts to uncover Happy's husband's name, and Walter's horrific methods of separating Paige and Tim, made for entertaining sidelines to the overall storyline - and some typically ill-timed one-liners.

   The biggest niggle I had was Sly's capture by Bulgarian gangsters: it was way too convenient for my liking that one of the boss's henchmen would be skimming from him, a realisation which gave Sly time to escape. Because beyond that, the premiere was pretty much flawless.

   VIEWERS: 8.30m (Adjusted down nearly 10% from first to final ratings, but still solid)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.5 (Similarly, Scorpion lost 3/10ths of a point in final adjustments to 1.5, a less shiny figure)

VERDICT: Thrilling, witty and full of MacGyver-esque solutions to impossible problems. A great premiere that sets the tone for the season to come. 8.5/10

Westworld - 1x01 "The Original"

"One of the Hosts malfunctions and slaughters a number of others. Westworld staff try to figure out why the malfunction occurred, whilst a number of Newcomers live out violent and tawdry fantasies with bandits and prostitutes."

There's so much to say about Westworld's premiere - and yet so little to say. So much happened over the course of the 70 minutes - and yet so little happened. We were introduced to a lot of the rules of the world - ie the Hosts cannot harm the Newcomers (the rich people paying to roam this fake world cannot be hurt by its fake inhabitants) - and shown multiple scenarios of the innumerable loop narratives that the Hosts are programmed to follow. Meanwhile, the director of Westworld, Robert Ford (played by the incredible Anthony Hopkins), has been adapting some of the Hosts' code to make them even more lifelike, and the update has inadvertently caused one to malfunction and kill other Hosts. At the end of the episode, the glitch was written off by Ford as fragments of the Host's former personalities, but the final scene shows us that that is not all that is going wrong.

The Westworld map

   I've given my thoughts numerous times on the effectiveness of the 40-minute broadcast network format compared to hour-long formats, and Westworld doesn't have me wavering from that viewpoint. The premiere was slow - part of which stems from the premiere settling the audience into the loop narrative world of the Hosts, and the gradual realisation of an issue with Ford's update - when it could have been a little better paced, but when the ante was upped there was blood galore and the plot had a number of decent twists to keep us in suspense. The graphics were also stupendous.

   I can't finish this analysis without mentioning the unbelievable acting, mostly of those actors and actresses who played Hosts. For a human to act well enough to sell to the audience they are robots is deserving of serious credit. Evan Rachel Wood, in her portrayal of Dolores Abernathy, was especially remarkable.

   VIEWERS: 1.963m (Adding HBO Go and HBO Now [which HBO does], it's overnights rise to 3.3m, comparable to True Detective's premiere. Alone, these compare closely with Game of Thrones back in the day. An instant hit)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.8 (I don't know how representative this is of HBO shows, but it bested everything else HBO that night and was only behind two other cable shows: Big Bang Theory and Fear the Walking Dead. Must be brilliant)

VERDICT: Over-long and without a valid excuse or reason; the lazy 70 minutes did nothing more than set up a concept that could have been more effectively condensed into a broadcast timeframe. However, there is bags of potential from all angles: the acting, the graphics, the writing and of course the incredible crew. But the episode itself? 6.5/10

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Rosa Diaz: "Hey Figgis. My fiancé Adrian Pimento said when I caught you I should read you this letter. 'I wanna lick the skin off your body, baby.' Oh, that side's for me. 'I wanna rip the skin off your body, Jimmy'."

LAST WEEK'S ROUNDUP: On-Season Week 2

NEXT WEEK'S ROUNDUP: On-Season Week 4

Final thoughts

It was odd seeing Eric Roberts go from mafia boss in Brooklyn Nine-Nine to alcoholic, money-grabbing deadbeat dad in Code Black, and he was more believable in the latter role. In terms of TV performance, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is barely registering a differential in that 8pm Tuesday slot, whilst Code Black at 10pm Wednesday is starting to suffer. The 9.5 I gave Elementary's season 5 premiere makes it my highest-rated episode so far, but it's actual performance is concerning, as is MacGyver's and Conviction's. Meanwhile, Lucifer, Hawaii Five-0 and Quantico are all performing steadily, Scorpion's two-part premiere did well enough but its real test begins next week when it first starts to air at 10pm, and Westworld offered a very slow but well-performing debut. NCIS LA was the only show that displayed improved ratings, shooting up 2m from its premiere.

Next week, three shows take a break: Quantico, NCIS LA and Elementary, the latter of which has done a Lucifer and taken a week off after its premiere. Bull comes back in, so hopefully it will pick up from where it left off and secure CBS it's usual Tuesday demolition.

Thank you all for reading and I'll see you next time!

Sam