On-Season Week 7

WEEK 7

A 7.8 average dropped Week 6 back down again but hopefully that will rise again this week, because while Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Bull and Conviction won't appear, milestone episodes for Hawaii Five-0 (150th) and Elementary (100th) should perform well. Westworld reaches the halfway point of its ten-episode series and Pure Genius will need to improve on its premiere. Elsewhere, everything is business as usual - so let's just get straight to it.

Code Black - 2x05 "Landslide"

"Willis struggles to deal with the death of Charlotte and Savetti's dad returns to Angels."

Much like before, Code Black is trying to condense its plotlines. The only after-effects of Charlotte's death were a couple of tiny scenes of Willis staring at an old poster of her, and one intern who mentioned concern for his own safety in the hospital. There needed to be more, but once those bits were out of the way it was back to business as usual.

   And business as usual wasn't great. The landslide that kept sending patients to Angels wasn't really explained even if the patients were fairly decent stock; however, Savetti's dad, as uninteresting as he was before, surprised me with his return. And then he promptly died - with very little explanation. One minute he was fine and the next he was dead. At least Ben Hollingsworth's performance of Savetti's grief was incredible, the way he cried into Angus's shoulder that he was OK. But then, there's the timing: straight after Charlotte, whose own death has had no real effect on anyone, the writers then kill off Savetti's dad too?
   The further this second series goes, the less time it takes on any of its storylines - and that to me is a problem. It's already glossed over a number of plot points without really explaining any of them, and it's hard to continue to think of Code Black as a decent medical show anymore. The writers need to do something fast - but will they? I'm not so sure.

   VIEWERS: 4.44m
   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.7
   (CBS threw Code Black's latest episode to the wolves against the World Series amid two days of repeats. Of course it would fall to series lows and it doesn't say much for CBS's faith in the show.)

VERDICT: The plots get less explanation or focus the further this series advances. At least they killed off Savetti's dad, although they couldn't even get the timing of that right. 6/10

Elementary - 5x04 "Henny Penny the Sky Is Falling" - 100th episode

"A Wall Street investor is killed, but it transpires the motive for his murder was due to a paper that would discredit the current method of determining asteroid size."

This might have been Elementary's 100th episode but you wouldn't have known it, as the writers ignored the opportunity to show gratitude for the show's lengthy run by treating the milestone like any other day at the office. (And if this is how Elementary wants to thank CBS for its renewal to 100 episodes and beyond, then it can enjoy the payback in about eight months when CBS cancels it.)
   Of course, I don't want Elementary to get cancelled (even though it will), I'm simply very angry that the show didn't take the opportunity to make their 100th episode a standout episode of the entire series. I could have forgiven it if the episode had been a decent offering, but it was just one of those dull, uninspired episodes that every show invariably creates. It wasn't funny, there were no amazing guest stars and the murder itself was just a bit naff. In fact, the only part I enjoyed was Sherlock's point blank refusal to be given credit by an honourary committee for the work he had done alongside the NYPD: it was one of those subplots that tie up well when a character misunderstands normal human behaviour, which is Sherlock through and through. Beyond that, this episode really had nothing going for it, which is why I'm not even going to bother explaining the murder plot.

   VIEWERS: 4.98m (series low)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.6 (series low)

VERDICT: A bad episode looked worse because it failed to meet milestone expectations, but it didn't discredit itself too much to merit equalling Code Black's 5.5. So I'll give it a 6/10

Hawaii Five-0 - 7x07 "Ka makuahine a me ke keikikane / Mother and Son" - 150th episode

"Catherine Rollins returns with news that McGarrett's mum is in trouble, having tried to break into a CIA blacksite and free his half-brother's father, Yao Fat."

Another milestone missed, although at least Hawaii Five-0 tried. Catherine's return was the high point of the episode, while pretty much the rest of it was a low point. Everyone knows CIA blacksites are hidden out to sea, not in the middle of a capital city in a far-flung African country. That would have actually worked to make this a test, as the land-locked blacksite was much too easy for McGarrett, Catherine and Chin to break into and overpower. And much too easy to break out of.
   Even the hilarity at the beginning, where Grover had a dad scene and coerced his son into finding out if Danny's daughter Grace had a boyfriend, wasn't resolved properly (although I'm calling Grover's son to be the boyfriend revealed in a later episode).
   Overall, I think this episode missed the point. The writers wanted to use this milestone episode to wrap up the Doris/Wo Fat storyline that spread the first five seasons by breaking Wo Fat's father out of the CIA blacksite, but if that was the resolution they intended then it was no resolution at all. There was nothing explained about why this was happening now or why it was relevant or necessary, no callbacks to the Wo Fat storyline at all and it was horribly rushed. How this was meant to conclude a series-long mythology is utterly beyond me.

   VIEWERS: 9.38m (Won the night, and back up by a million)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.2 (Won the night.)

VERDICT: The writers gave it a go, but it was as pointless as trying to make a fish climb a tree. Although that's being rather generous: when a fish climbs a tree, you know the outcome. 6/10 purely for Catherine's return.

Lucifer - 2x06 "Monster"

"Lucifer struggles deal with killing Uriel. Amenadiel turns to his mum for comfort. While Chloe and Dan solve two identical murders with seemingly no connection, Maze babysits Trixie on Hallowe'en."

Meltdowns are always fun traumas to put characters through - they often show a darker, more intense side of said character - but like the rest of Lucifer his meltdown following his killing of brother Uriel it's just a bit understated. He's the Devil: he could surely do a little more than the typical drinking and shagging away his sorrows, even if his attempts at the latter horrifyingly (and entertainingly) occur at crime scenes on grieving bridesmaids.

Lucifer's real form

   Lucifer spends most of the episode searching for a way to cope with his guilt, while showing up and destabilising Chloe and Dan's investigation into the murder of a bride at her zombie-themed wedding - and later the husband of a food truck vendor. It transpires that these two victims had links to a double-blind medical study, and the murdering ex-army sniper's wife had died because she was given the placebo. Lucifer showed up and begged the sniper to kill him, but when he couldn't realised they were both searching for punishment. Lucifer finally went back to Dr. Martin, but when she finally cracked and told him she couldn't handle his lies about being the Devil, he finally revealed his true self to her. Somebody to believe Lucifer (beyond his family) is what this show needed, but before then we have to wonder just how Dr. Martin is going to react in the next episode.
   Elsewhere, Chloe and Maze's cohabiting hit early snags when Maze tried to set up a sex swing in their living room, but ended nicely when Maze took Chloe's daughter Trixie trick-or-treating, even showing half of her demon face (which Trixie found hilarious) and passing it off as a Hallowe'en costume. I think pitting Chloe and Maze together in the same house will add another dimension to both characters, and I already love Maze and Trixie's love/hate relationship.
   VIEWERS: 3.44m (Stable)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.9 (Series low and fractional, but not by much)

VERDICT: Funny and full of substance, but Lucifer's meltdown was underplayed and the murder wasn't overly gripping 7.5/10

Update: Lucifer's second season has been given a back nine order, extending the show from 13 to 22 episodes.

MacGyver - 1x07 "Can Opener"

"Mac goes in undercover at a supermax in order to break out a Mexican cartel boss and get him to reveal his base of operations."

Every show like MacGyver will do an undercover-in-prison episode at some point, but MacGyver seems to be getting all the TV trope episodes out of the way quite quickly. At least with "Can Opener", it was done right.
   The usual obstacles, such as Riley losing remote access to the prison security (a Riley-level hacker having upgraded the system the day Mac went in, which should have been a big focus given Riley's supposedly unrivalled skills), or Jack going undercover as a guard and then being distracted and unable to help, presented themselves, but they didn't throw too many spanners in the works. Mac was still capable of some creative breakout skills, including turning a combination of prison food, battery acid and water into a hydrogen explosion (very cool). When they broke out, the typical villain-betrays-the-guy-who-broke-him-out-of-prison trope reared its ugly head, but the strength of the episode made it an acceptable plot ... can I even call it a twist?
   Introductory cut-scenes continued, though shorter in "Can Opener", and Bozer finally added to a storyline of some worth when he helped Riley find a new place to live. He's now got 6 digits of her phone number for his good behaviour, so hopefully when he gets them all this cute hard-to-get storyline can evolve into a cute relationship.

   VIEWERS: 7.60m (The ship is steadying in viewers)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.1 (But more importantly the demo share is steady)

VERDICT: "Can Opener" didn't reinvent the break a bad guy of prison trope, but it did improve on it with inventive methods of escape. 8/10

NCIS: Los Angeles - 8x06 "Home Is Where The Heart Is"

"A Good Samaritan rescues a Lieutenant Commander from a home invasion, but his heroics set off a deadly chain of events."

NCIS LA is starting to find its feet story-wise. Daniela Ruah's pregnancy may have shunted her character sideways for a while - a long while if this episode's 4-6 month prediction on physical therapy is to be believed - but that and the booking of Bar Paly for a recurring role in her place has opened up the partnerships creatively: she's paired off with Callen, Nell and Deeks so far and it makes for interesting new dynamics. Even Kensi's recovery storyline is getting more interesting, as she struggles to literally find her feet and pushes away even Deeks - who in the course of such rejection had a seldom but heartfelt chat about priorities with Granger.

Sam rescues Shakeed's daughter

   There was no Hetty beyond mention of her continuing the search for the mole, but there wasn't room for it. Amid the Callen-Sam banter over American football tickets and Nell and Eric's burgeoning relationship, the main plot itself took up a lot of time. The Good Samaritan turned out to be an ex-Mossad agent in hiding, and in saving the Naval officer wound up on TV and was recognised by his old enemy who was now coming to kill him, by way of leveraging his daughter. Both were rescued, the daughter after a fun and frantic search through a yard of airtight barrels in which she had been hidden, and to top off the substance we were reminded about Callen's own experiences without a father when he suggested to Shakeed (the ex-Mossad agent) he go and be a father to his daughter. This is as twisty as these simplistic plots get, but it was all the better for it.

   VIEWERS: 9.78m (Hit by the World Series like everything else but not disastrous)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.2 (Season low but this will go back up when the baseball ends)

VERDICT: Unpredictable and without a murder became more unusual than ever. Heavy on substance that advanced everyone's plotlines. 8/10

Pure Genius - 1x02 "It's Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider Silk Surgery"

"Malik pushes to perform surgery on a young boy whose legs were crushed using spider silk, rather than opt for Brocket's suggestion of amputation. Meanwhile, James dredges up old family issues for a woman who is in desperate need of a new liver when he devises a way to fix her alcoholic father's. Wallace adjusts to being so far from his family."

Much like the majority of the other debuting shows on this roundup, Pure Genius has begun to find its footing after a premise-heavy, substance-light premiere. The advanced technological aspect of the show helps to bring an unseen feel to proceedings, with spider silk surgery to fix severely crushed legs and macrophage to rejuvenate an alcohol-damaged liver acting as this episode's focuses. But with this episode, there was much more character substance. That includes with the patients, and especially the latter plot, where the daughter and father's reunion is typically bitter - but one of the best acted versions of the trope I've seen.
   Onto the main characters: Wallace's struggles with adapting to life 2500 miles away from his family were evident and tugged at the heartstrings and James's failure to ask out Zoe Brocket continued in a painstaking manner as he believed to have spotted something growing between her and Dr. Malik Verlaine. And Malik is at this point the only realy dislikeable character; I understand people finding James's personality makes him a very punchable person, but I find Malik and the E-Hub the least interesting part of the show so far and Malik is set up to be the cockblocker - something I'm not fond of as I'm already a huge fan of James. There was no mention of James's G.S.S., so that's something I'm expecting in the next episode. I'd also like to see a bit more of Talaikha: her and Strauss have been underutilised so far, and in fact the latter has been rather non-existent.

   VIEWERS: 5.37m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.9
   (A drop below a 1.0 with only 5m viewers after just the second episode spells a quick demise for Pure Genius)

VERDICT: Much more compelling than the premiere, and also makes the workable kinks easy to spot. 8/10

Quantico - 2x05 "Kmforget"

"Trapped inside the crisis zone, Alex tries to escape an ambush. At The Farm, Owen instructs the recruits on how to manipulate crime scenes."

Never mind my earlier comment about NCIS LA being twisty: this was twisty. From the get-go. Will Olsen returned, apparently as Harry Doyle's unsuspecting boyfriend, before Miranda demanded Shelby bring him to her because he had the hacking skills to compete with Boyer, who had just committed suicide to stop the terrorists. And while Olsen told Shelby that Miranda was innocent, he gave Miranda a call to let her know he knew she was guilty but wanted in. Meanwhile, Alex was rescued from an ambush by Lydia, which left viewers reeling and wondering how she escaped.
   In the past, things were even more complicated. Doyle took centre stage by attempting to find out who Alex and Ryan were and why they were undercover; their attempts to have him thrown out of the CIA by framing him for a murder at a crime scene manipulation test backfired when he revealed he was already MI6 and it had been him bugging their room all along. Meanwhile, Owen used Léon to blackmail an old friend for information about how his name was leaked years ago.
   The whole episode was a mish-mash of top-quality drama. When everything seemed to be going one way, the rug was pulled out from underneath us and completely went the other. The drama is heightened right now to where it was this point last season - and yet there's less of a focus on the actual terrorism plot. That is impressive TV.

   VIEWERS: 2.43m (series low)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.6 (series low)

VERDICT: Stunning episode that opened up one of the more interesting recruits in Harry Doyle. The game is in some ways reset - but the game is still on. 9/10

Scorpion - 3x05 "Bat Poop Crazy"

"On Hallowe'en night, Scorpion must travel to a cave in Arizona to prevent a bout of White Nose Syndrome killing the local bat population. Happy is left home to look after Ralph."

When I realised the episode was actually going to be about bats, I snickered at the title. Good work, writers.

Sly deathly afraid of bats

   And it was pretty good. It wasn't one of Scorpion's best ever episodes, but it was a fun way to distract the audience from all the Hallowe'en stuff that spread a full 8 minutes at the end. Scorpion had to map the cave layout, rescue two zoologists infected with rabies and release a toxin that would cure the WNS. It was all achieved fairly simply, with the usual hiccups along the way including the accidental releasing of the toxin way too early, overly aggressive bats and Sly's germophobic nature frightening him at every turn. Happy staying behind left someone to monitor the cave mapping remotely, and also gave an excuse for her to practise her mothering skills by looking after sugar-hungry Ralph. There was no Tim (not even a mention until the end, but he'll be back next episode), and Happy and Walter's divorce lawyer turned up to continue verifying their marriage was indeed legitimate, only to discover a clue in the staged scene that suggested they were in fact lying.
   All in all, there's very little to criticise. It wasn't a waste of an episode, but it wasn't anything exceptional either. It just did its job adequately, and that's better than leaving an audience feeling shortchanged.

   VIEWERS: 7.14m (Stable around this 7m mark is a good position for the show)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.4 (A nice shoot upwards)

VERDICT: It came, we saw. There was no conquering, but that didn't matter. 7.5/10

Westworld - 1x05 "Contrapasso"

"The Man in Black kills Lawrence and continues his journey with Teddy in tow. Elsie discovers the Host who tried to kill her has a satellite relay built under his skin. Dolores, William and Logan reach an outlying city on their quest and meet El Lazo, who tasks them with retrieving nitroglycerine from a wagon. Ford visits the Man in Black."

Westworld's complexity and mythology deepens with every episode that passes, and at its halfway point the tension is starting to rise. A focus on the quests of the Man in Black and William, Logan and Dolores brought a lot of action and showed more to the world than the Sweetwater village that has been the main setting before now. The Man in Black continued on his quest, killing Lawrence and using his blood to transfuse the dying Teddy, but Ford, who entered the game to meet him later on, refused to block the Man in Black's quest to find the Maze - perhaps because Ford is curious as to his long-dead partner and co-founder Arnold's hidden messages. At least, I think that's what the scene meant. I found it hard to understand, but it was nonetheless a weighty scene.
   Elsewhere, William, Logan and Dolores met El Lazo, an associate of Slim, who transpired to be Lawrence. This potentially gives credence to something I'll mention later. But anyway, at this point I've kind of lost track of what William and Logan's actual mission is, and why they still have Dolores hanging on, but the nitroglycerine raid and the double crossing of ex-Confederate soldiers made for some spicy action, in the tensest episode yet.
   It's worth mentioning Elsie's search for answers as to why the Host glitched a while back and killed itself, and her realising it was being used to feed info out of the park sets up an unexpected and dark twist. There was also little of Bernard (whether that worked or not I don't know).
   A question I've been pondering the last couple of episodes was expanded today: if Dolores is so relevant to William and Logan's quest, then when/how was she continually removed from the game by Ford/Bernard without their noticing? When other Hosts have glitched so far, they have been removed without consequence, but this wouldn't be the case with Dolores. ScreenerTV posits that there are two Dolores's, and I think that would make perfect sense. So ... two Lawrences? ScreenerTV also recently posited that Bernard might be a robot, and his movement and mannerisms in his singular scene today certainly seemed static.
   VIEWERS: 1.485m (Hovering between here and 2m is solid)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.6 (Series low this week comparatively but not troubling)

VERDICT: Things are starting to hot up, but following the show is becoming more difficult. I'll have to knock a point off for that. 7/10

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

NCIS LA - Deeks: "So we're really doing this? Two dudes on a bench. Deeks and Granger. Greeks and ..."

LAST WEEK'S ROUNDUP: On-Season Week 6

NEXT WEEK'S ROUNDUP: (will be posted here when complete)

Final thoughts

This week, the World Series shot body blows to the shows in this roundup; some - like Bull, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Conviction - were smartly pulled from scheduling to avoid this.
   Both Elementary and Hawaii Five-0 underwhelmed with wildly unsatisfying and baffling milestone episodes, but that didn't affect the latter's ratings performance. Quantico, Code Black, Westworld and the aforementioned Elementary all hit series lows, with only Quantico really providing a decent episode of the four. Pure Genius was another ratings flop but its episode was surprisingly solid and substantive, MacGyver, Scorpion and Lucifer have largely stabilised, and NCIS LA was hit by the World Series but still did acceptably well.

Thanks for reading everyone, I'll see you all next time!

Sam