Tag: metamaiden

Travelers Season 2: Review, Analysis and Speculation

~ Metacrone ~ 14 Comments

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Updated 7/18/18- What/Who Is the Director, Really?

We made it through another season! Season 2 of Travelers had its ups and downs. Whereas I would have given season 1 an A+, I’d only give this season a B+. There were improvements in some areas. The female characters weren’t treated with as much misogyny, and the show had some stellar cinematography. The cast continued to be amazing, and the new additions kept up the quality. The production values of the show look and sound great, especially considering the size of their budget. It’s the writing that needs to be given more attention next season.

We learned intriguing new aspects of the mythology, but we also went around in circles, repeating the same kernels of information over and over, rather than continuing to reveal more about life in the future and how time travel works. The showrunners say that they don’t intend to have the series physically go to the future because the travelers are trapped in the 21st, but that’s a cop out.

They can still give us a clear picture of the environment and culture that the characters are coming from, explain the Director clearly, and give sensible explanations for their theories of time travel and consciousness transfer, then stick to those rules. Otherwise, the show runs the risk of retconning and contradicting itself every time they think up a new storyline, which is death to serious science fiction.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 12: 001 Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 7 Comments

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This episode ends another season of Travelers, and mirrors season 1 episode 5, Room 101, with the team’s friends and loved ones being held hostage and abused this time. The companions receive more humane physical treatment from Vincent/001 than the travelers did, but he’s out to destroy their relationships and peace of mind. That way he can make a quick escape while the travelers are distracted with the crisis he’s created. We’ll have to wait for season 3 to find out if 001/Vincent’s plan allows him to get away with hiding in plain sight, and if the companions can forgive the travelers for lying to them.

The cold open consists of a videotape recorded by MacLaren at ops in which he confesses to being a traveler:

“Seven months ago my consciousness was sent from the distant future into the body of Special Agent Grant MacLaren, moments before he would historically have died in the line of duty. Since then I have assumed his life, his work, his marriage, pretending to be a man very different than myself. In truth, I am traveler 3468, one of thousands of travelers around the world who have come from a time when life is all but wiped out, to save humanity. To change the path. I know how that must sound, especially to you, Kat, but it’s true.”

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 11: Simon Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

 

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This episode we delve further into Simon’s back story and his research with Vincent. We also find out a little more about what Vincent is up to in the present. The travelers search for Vincent with Simon’s help, and things come to a head in their personal lives. MacLaren brings Dr Perrow in on a plan to capture Vincent.

We start the episode at the 2012 gala where original MacLaren and Kat met Vincent, which Vincent mentioned to traveler MacLaren when Mac questioned Vincent. It’s a silent auction, and Kat tells Grant that there’s no way football tickets are worth that much. But it’s for the children!! He runs into Vincent as he steps away to get them another drink.

Vincent stops to chat with Kat, assuming she means that she endowed a research chair when she says that she donated a chair to the auction. Still socially awkward after 11 years in the 21st. Kat explains that she means a literal chair, which doesn’t have any bids yet, so they take a walk over to look at it.

As they approach, Vincent is mesmerized by the series of Simon’s drawings displayed next to Kat’s lovely chair. She informs him that the drawings were done by a patient at the hospital. Visibly moved by the sight of his lost home and people, Vincent buys all of them.

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Metawitches Guidelines for Spotting Misogyny vs Female Equality in Entertainment and Media

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment
Jane The Virgin –“Chapter Four — Image JAV104A_155 — Pictured (L-R): Andrea Navedo as Xo, Gina Rodriguez as Jane and Ivonne Coll as Alba — Photo: Danny Feld/The CW — © 2014 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

This is the basic list of questions we ask ourselves while consuming media to help us determine if we’re seeing women being treated fairly or not. It’s not a yes or no checklist, or an easy, one sentence test, like the Bechdel test. But then, Alison Bechdel never meant for her test to become a widely used standardized instrument. This test requires some thinking about what you’re viewing. Misogyny is often subtle, and it’s pervasive. It’s easy to miss with one, casual viewing, but the message still gets into our heads and affects us.

That’s why these are guidelines, rather than a test. Some of these answers will be subjective, and reasonable people can disagree. We’re talking about art and the interpretation of art, after all. It also takes practice to start seeing things like camera angles and positioning, rather than letting it fly by. Hardly any of us can always spot gaslighting, especially when it’s being done by the writers and producers instead of the characters. These guidelines are just aspects of entertainment to keep in mind while viewing, to become more aware of what you’re seeing.

I (Metacrone) started working on this list in the late 80s, and it’s slowly grown. It’s still a work in progress, just like the entertainment industry. There are very few works that would pass every question with flying colors. Figure out how much you can live with watching, and the level that makes you take action. It’s okay to just watch and enjoy the show sometimes without feeling guilty, too. But, the more you can recognize the issues with entertainment and speak out, even if it’s only to one person, the more of an effect we all have on the entertainment industry.

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Travelers Season 2 Episode 8: Traveler 0027 Recap

~ Metacrone

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This episode is a big one for the season and the series, with the trial and vindication of Grace/0027, the rushed discovery of the real traitor programmer, the dismantling of the quantum frame (for real this time, it appears), and our first peek at the face of God the Director, through the almost forgotten super secret two-way communication that Ellis made possible.

It’s a lot to pack into one episode, so let’s get started.

The episode begins with the Faction on vacation in the country, taking full advantage of the opportunities now available to them in the 21st century. The team is observing the rebels and their lakeside cabin hideout, while Phillip uses some fancy new software to establish TELLs for the two guards who are easily visible. As they’re overwritten to become travelers, a third rebel comes around the corner, ready to shoot, so that one has to be killed instead of overwritten. MacLaren sends the two new travelers into the cabin, where they force the three rebels who are eating lunch to surrender. Why fight when it would make you spill your delicious 21st century soup?

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Merry Christmas from Metawitches!

~ Metacrone

 

In Denver

~ Metacrone

WaitressCircle

One Day More…

 

 

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 6: Josh Is Irrelevant Recap

~ Metacrone

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Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen! Rebecca was given a “definitive” “diagnosis” in this episode. If you know anything about the diagnosis, and if you’ve read anything written by me before, you might be able to guess how I feel about borderline personality disorder.

Let’s get on with the recap, while I try to hold Metamaiden back from turning this post into one long rant about the horrors of the borderline personality disorder diagnosis and the ways it’s overdiagnosed in women, and used to control us, especially when you disagree with your elderly psychiatrist, who probably shouldn’t even be practicing anymore, as evidenced by the fact that he prescribes one medication after another that’s contraindicated for your serious chronic illness and gets defensive when you refuse to take those medications**; or your middle-aged male psychologist who decides that your near death experiences due to your illness aren’t trauma, they’re just white girl problems, while being completely sympathetic to your brother’s trauma from watching you suffer; or your middle-aged female counselor who tries to diagnose you when you’re a teenager despite that being expressly excluded in the definitions of the diagnosis.

There was a very good reason why Rebecca didn’t like what she found on the internet when she looked up her diagnosis. It’s the “my doctor doesn’t like me and thinks I’m difficult to work with because I’m a woman who questions them” diagnosis.*

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 4: Josh’s Girlfriend Is Crazy Recap

~ Metacrone

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In this episode, Rebecca’s breakdown progresses to the point that it requires a shrub costume and narration by Josh Groban. That’s right. Bex has progressed from Dream Ghosts in season 1, to Santa Ana winds in season 2, to an actual award winning singer narrating her spiraling fantasies in season 3. And a former Mormon missionary/King of England stops by to encourage her Swimfan fantasy movie spoof. It’s an exciting week in Rebecca’s head. In her life, things aren’t so great.

Gaston Nathaniel has been proving his manliness by holding up Rebecca, Officer and a Gentleman-style, in front of her door, all week. He keeps holding her through the first part of Paula’s impromptu, barely organized intervention. Once he figures out that this is serious and going to last a while, he puts her down and tries to figure out exactly what’s going on.

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Stranger Things Season 2 Chapter Nine: The Gate Recap

~ Metacrone

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We’ve finally reached the end of season 2. This episode is the pay off for the Duffers’ series and season long promises, like #Justice for Barb, Mike and El at the Snow Ball, the reason Billy exists (haha, just kidding), closing the gate to the Upside Down, and ending Will’s demon Mind Flayer possession. Let’s see how it all goes down.

We pick up at the moment we left off, probably because there would have been a fan riot if they hadn’t. Fans are mad enough that El was kept separate from the rest of the cast for 8 out of 9 episodes.

El and Mike throw themselves into each other’s arms, just like you’d expect, and hold on for dear life. After a minute, Mike pulls back to tell El that he never gave up on her. He called her every night. Every night for… El finishes his sentence, “353 days. I heard.”

Mike asks why she didn’t respond and let him know that she was there and okay. Hopper jumps in to tell Mike that he was the one who wouldn’t let El answer. El and Hopper hug hello and ask each other where they’ve been. Neither answers. There will be some long catch up conversations, eventually.

Mike hits Hopper and is furious with him for hiding El away from everyone for a year. Hopper drags Mike to a bedroom for a semblance of privacy to argue in. Pretty sure everyone in the house is going to hear it anyway, accidentally or accidentally on purpose.

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