On-Season Week 15 (+ Midseason Previews)

WEEK 15

Now we come to Week 15, and the only show we have to review this week is Incorporated. It's had a bit of a drop in ratings recently (despite maintaining a cleverly balanced plot), but whether that is because of the festive timing or a simple decline is too early to tell. And similarly, we won't discern much from any ratings it garners this week either - but expect another decline. And then, if we're lucky, it will tick back up in the New Year.
   Elsewhere, I preview the three shows I'm definitely adding to the roundup in the New Year (A.P.B., Making History and Powerless), ponder adding a fourth (The Walking Dead) and offer renewal predictions for all 4 of those shows plus Incorporated.
   So let's get stuck in.

Incorporated - 1x05 "Profit Loss"

"Ben improvises to stop Roger from finding out even more about his past."

There's a lot of good stuff in this episode, and some weird stuff as well. The weird includes torturer Julian turning around and offering advice to Laura, daughter of his boss Elizabeth, although I suppose he can't be 100% one thing. Still, he's not been in the show much since the first 2 episodes, so it's a good thing that he is now getting some more airtime.
   But the best part was following Ben and Roger's game of cat-and-mouse. After the cliffhanger ending where Roger set up a meeting with Elena, he used almost every method - including physical violence - to get her to talk about Ben, but having suffered at the hands of many johns in the past Elena was unmoved by his corkscrew torture. Ben's attempts to rescue Elena there and then fail, so he takes to ensuring that Roger cannot reveal him to Spiga - by killing him. It's a shame the writers went down that story path (I mean, of course Roger was going to end up dead, but so early on? Whether it works or not remains to be seen.)
   In flashbacks, we discovered that after Elena's initial refusal to become a Spiga sex slave, she agreed on the condition that the payments would get her father released from the debtor's prison, while the Spiga exec who manipulated her into accepting the job was revealed to have been the person behind the arson attack on Elena's little café business. And the plot thickens.
   Also, props to the writers for the hilarious offhand remark about sending Roger's body to the "Mexican wall". We'll expect it built by 2074 then.

   VIEWERS: 0.464m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.12
   (Predicted ticks down over Christmas - but will it rise again? I hope so!)

VERDICT: The bubbling battle between Ben and Roger reached a critical point; Elena finally got some major screen time. But where does the show pick up from here? 8/10

MID-SEASON PREVIEWS + RENEWAL PREDICTIONS

With every major show off-air over Christmas week, this seems an appropriate time to have a quick look at the shows I'm bringing into the fold: what are they about, what days do they air, what network are they on and will they make it past their debut seasons?

INCORPORATED

If you've been reading these roundups, you've already got a general idea of what Incorporated is about, so I don't need to go over it here. Since the season is halfway through already, the ratings so far give me a bit of a leg-up on whether I think it will be renewed or cancelled. And given the general low figures Syfy pulls in, and given that Incorporated is nestled right in the middle of all its other shows with a current average demo share of 0.15, I think it seems a fair bet to suggest it will be coming back. RENEWED

A.P.B. (debuts 6-Feb-17 on FOX)

Has anyone seen Pure Genius on CBS? It's a new medical drama based around a high-tech hospital that uses a combination of cutting-edge medicine and technology to save lives. A.P.B. is the police drama version of that. Hopefully, it will sprinkle a little sparkle into the clogged-up genre.

   Police dramas are bread-and-butter for the big networks. They all have a few of them and they're generally successful. (Check CBS, which is practically 90% cop drama.) The good news for A.P.B. is it has been placed in Lucifer's Monday at 8pm slot. Lucifer has been doing solidly, if not spectacularly, in its second season, so A.P.B. should carry on and do fine, if audiences take to the premise better than they did to Pure Genius. It also has a strong cast, with Justin Kirk, Ernie Hudson and Natalie Martinez in main roles.

   The bad news for A.P.B. is it's on FOX, whose haywire attitude to show performance is ridiculously hard to predict. Even a show like Terra Nova on FOX - which was quoted as being profitable for the network - didn't make it past season 1 (and let's not forget the shitstorm that went down with Firefly), yet shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Lucifer remain with much lower ratings (not that I'm complaining). Just like before, I'm going to hedge my bets and shoot for CANCELLED, even though I'm hoping for the opposite.

   Here's the trailer.

MAKING HISTORY (debuts ? on FOX)

"You're messing around with the history of the world so you can have a girlfriend!"

That's a quote from the Making History trailer - and it quite perfectly sums up what the show is all about. Deadbeat computer science professor Dan has built a time travel machine in his garage using a duffel bag, and goes back to the time of the American Revolution where he begins a romantic relationship with Deborah Revere (daughter of Paul Revere). But it becomes apparent all of his trips to the past are messing with history, and so he enlists his friend and history professor Chris to help him deal with these problems.

   Phil Lord and Chris Miller will co-executive produce the show (they're the comedy minds behind Brooklyn Nine-Nine); Adam Pally (Happy Endings), Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl) and Yassir Lester play our 3 main characters Dan, Deborah and Chris respectively.

   There's no premiere date yet for Making History (but we do know it will air Sundays at 8.30pm). That might be a problem in itself but it has bigger ones. First of all it's on FOX, and while eventually FOX have to renew something, I always like to just err on the side of caution and predict CANCELLED because of that. Also, its episode order has been reduced from the usual 13 to 9, to accommodate FOX's schedule. How FOX views the show is important, so whether that episode order cut is an innocent act because of scheduling issues or because Making History was the most expendable show to cut episodes from is something else that would be instrumental in helping to determine the show's fate - but I won't ever know the true answer to that. So I repeat, simply for necessity, CANCELLED.

   But here's the trailer, if you want to check it out.

POWERLESS (debuts 2-Feb-17 on NBC)

If you're all about superheroes, here's a new take on the world they inhabit. Powerless focuses on an insurance company that aims to help the innocent bystanders, the civilians who suffer because of the superheroes' and supervillains' costly antics. It debuts on NBC on February 2nd, with an expected 13-episode season.
   Not convinced? The cast list itself should be a great sell: Vanessa Hudgens, Alan Tudyk, Danny Pudi, Ron Funches, Christina Kirk and Kate Micucci. There are some big names there, some from the sci-fi world and some from the comedy world, so on top of a great cast there's also a clear balance in experience.
   Powerless seems to be getting positive responses from the media, and the superhero world is one that is growing in TV, so this could go either way: either it will be a ratings hit or an incredible flop. Given the casting and a fun premise (which gives non-superhero fans like me a way to look in on a world I generally don't care for), I'm hoping for the latter.
   Still not convinced? Here's the trailer. Excuse the low quality ... and the Russian subtitles ...

As for its chances of being renewed ... I think there's a very strong chance actually. It's been put in a nice, early 8.30pm slot, up against CBS comedy The Great Indoors, The CW's Supernatural and ABC's Grey's Anatomy. Heavy hitters for Thursday, especially the latter two long-running dramas, but there's something about the premise that I think will draw people in; add a nice, early timeslot and an all-star cast and I think NBC has, well, if not a hit then a very good show. RENEWED.

THE WALKING DEAD (continues sometime February 2017 on AMC)

A potential late admission, I'm currently undecided whether to add this to the roundup or not. The Walking Dead represents a sharp step away in tone from the rest of the shows on this roundup. Unless you've been living under a rock you know it's based around a post-apocalyptic world riddled with zombies ("walkers") and a great many human threats. I haven't caught up to the current point yet (which is the middle of season 7), so as much of an update as I can give on where the show is right now is that our main characters have two bases - the Alexandria Safe Zone and the Hilltop Colony - and are in the middle of a war with the season's big bad Negan, leader of a blackmailing scavenger group called the Saviours, who has so far killed at least 4 main characters to make his point.

   The ensemble cast list is too huge to list completely, but includes the now star figures of Andrew Lincoln as leader Rick Grimes, Lauren Cohan as Maggie, Melissa McBride as nutjob Carol, Norman Reedus as fan favourite redneck Daryl and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan.

   The dilemma I have with The Walking Dead is that it is just full of inconsistencies, bad writing and poor character development. That's been a recurring feature since the new showrunner Scott M. Gimple took over after season 3, and since then there's only really been flashes of brilliance among general okayishness. (Gimple has largely yet to figure out that the best character development and the best plotlines come when our characters have a base of operations, not when they have individual bloody episodes on the middle of the bloody road doing nothing but scavenge more empty bloody houses.) My concern is that I would simply be pointing out the same flaws every episode, since they are rather hard to overlook.

   But for as bad as the writing can be (one shocking example being the random collapsing of a watchtower outside the Alexandria walls that caused a walker overload in season 6 for no reason other than the next episode was the midseason finale), the show is unbelievably addictive. The show's unpredictability helps with that; a widely spread cast allows for different plot arcs, different focuses and different threats - and lots of sudden, graphic deaths. Plus, the huge ensemble means there's a ton of characters to like (or dislike).

   My viewpoint could change. I'm midway through the back half of season 6, so by February I will have caught up to the middle of season 7. I think I'll decide around then and I'll let you all know in due course.

   As for The Walking Dead's renewal chances, it's already renewed for season 8 on AMC, and given that it still has the best TV ratings by a huge margin it won't be dying out anytime soon. It will hit season 10 easily.

LAST WEEK'S ROUNDUP: On-Season Week 14

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

Final thoughts

There's not much to say this week in truth. Incorporated was the only show to air, and its ratings have potentially suffered because of that. I think I've made some good picks for the mid-season, so hopefully you'll enjoy these upcoming shows alongside me. Next week we have seven shows: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Bull, Conviction, Hawaii Five-0, Incorporated, MacGyver and Scorpion, so pop by to see how they returned!

Thanks for reading everyone, Happy New Year and I'll see everyone in 2017!

Sam