teen wolf

Here's some thoughs on Star Trek: Picard season 3, Teen Wolf - The Movie and The Pact.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 3 (the final season)

I'm loving 7of9's arc through the series - she's been looking for a place to belong ever since Voyager returned to Earth, but nothing is right for her. I do love seeing her in Starfleet uniform, but the Starfleet rules and regulations are chafing against her personal sense of right and wrong and even her identity.

In the first episode when Picard and Riker waltz up to Titan and Captain Shaw and try to deceive him and Shaw basically keeps going "Nope. Nope. Nope. Not fooled by your bullshit. I'm going to do exactly what Starfleet ordered me to do no matter how much you old has-beens would like me to go against my orders." I loved that scene and hooted with laughter it was so funny.

I can't stand that they're using the music from the TOS films for season 3 - everytime the music swells I'm brought out of the story and reminded that "wrong people! wrong era! for this music".

Everytime the story switches to Raffi and her terrorist plot, it grinds to a halt and I have to fight the urge to speed forward the video to the interesting story line. I have zero interest in this terrorist plot or Raffi's personal struggles being a ex-druggie undercover or her family troubles. Whose bright idea was it to put a druggie undercover as a drug user, anyway?! This is a really, really boring!

All that said, I'm enjoying season 3 a lot, but I have to admit a lot of it is because Jeri Ryan is so great and 7of9's arc is touching and interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing all the TNG characters and learning what they've been doing since the movies!

Teen Wolf: The Movie

This one didn't feel like a movie, but a two-parter tv episode which was just shown as a movie. I enjoyed it, but noticed that I had forgotten so much about the nogitsune and the character relationships that I felt like googling things while watching it.

The story wasn't Oscar worthy (but certainly better than seasons 4-6 as far as I'm concerned) but I very much enjoyed seeing Derek, Scott, Sheriff Stilinski, Lydia, Parrish, Argent, Allison, Jackson and Melissa again! The story was grounded enough in what came before that it didn't feel contrived or unbelievable to me, or rehashing the old either which are things I feared going in, knowing Crystal Reed was in it. I wasn't bored at any point even though it's a long movie: 2 hours 20 minutes. I was entertained and enjoyed spending time in this world again :)

I'd missed these characters more than I realized, and I'm glad the movie was based more on the seasons 1-3 than the later seasons - I did watch the whole series, but didn't much enjoy it after season 3. Loved seeing Derek again (he's always been my favorite, along with Allison) but when on Earth did he get Eli and who is Eli's mother??? Scott said that it's been 15 years since Allison's death, and someone said that Eli is 15 years old, so Eli should've been around the last few seasons of the tv series. But on the other hand, as far as I remember, Derek kept disappearing and re-appearing randomly after season 3, so I guess we only saw a small part of his life in those seasons. I didn't like Derek's fate in the movie and I'm just going to ignore it - not canon as far as I'm concerned! On the other hand, nobody stays dead in this show so it isn't written in the stone.

I didn't recognize Liam at all at first - both the character and the actor, and then when I did remember him, I didn't recognize the actor at all; I was certain he was played by a new actor but apparently not. I do remember Mr. Harris very well (he's one of my favorites from the first two seasons) but not his original fate, and didn't recognize the actor at all; was also convinced that he was played by another new actor but also apparently wasn't.

But ugh: at least 32 year old Scott getting together with like 17 year old Allison and everybody apparently being okay with it! Admittedly, her being dead for 15 years muddles things, but I got the impression that she's for all intents and purposes resurrected the same age and person as when she died. In any case, Scott has 15 more years of lived life experience and maturity (hopefully!) than her and it makes all the difference when she died at like 17 and he didn't and instead went on to live for another 15 years and is now over 30 years old. No matter how much he is still supposedly in love with her.

I haven't seen Holland Roden in anything besides Teen Wolf but I thought she'd improved her acting a lot! I was just sad to see that TPTB had put Lydia in a totally office-inappropriate costume for that scene taking place in her work. Bare skin cleavage all the way to her waist and the skirt much too short for office! Sad and ridiculous. I think Lydia has more sense of style than do that! Especially because it wouldn't have taken much to make that outfit appropriate for office.

The Coach hadn't changed/aged at all! So funny considering all the other characters had clearly aged or at least change in some small way!

The Pact

Series 1 was was well done but not that original. Series 2 two was great! Rakie Ayola was the only actor returning, but played a completely different character than in series 1. It was weird but she was good in S1 but amazing in S2. The second series story was very mysterious, slowly unfolding and revealing things as episodes went by and the final reveal for me, was truly surprising even though I had thought of like a dozen different scenarios of what was what. For once I couldn't guess it :D

There's no word yet, but I'd love there to be series 3 of The Pact, again with only Rakie Ayola returning and again playing a yet another completely different character!