Television: Scorpion, "A Cyclone"

This show isn't perfect, but then few are. Like, Happy is clearly a pseudo-MacGyver, but does she really need to narrate what she's doing as if she's lecturing a science class? It would be one thing if people were asking, "So, wait, what are you doing?" and she answered by explaining. But then again, it would get pretty stupid if people were constantly asking Happy what she's doing. Maybe, just maybe, the writers should have faith in the audience and not feel the need to explain all the time?

Or maybe Happy could at least make it sound more like she's thinking aloud than lecturing.

And while I'm picking nits here, Cabe's dialogue is pretty wooden. I don't know if that's done to make him sound older, more crotchety, or just not as smart as the geniuses, but it only comes off as badly written.

And, yeah, the plotting and characterization is all pretty formulaic.

But on the whole I still really like this show. There's something about it that does harken back to older shows like The A-Team and MacGyver and such. The way the group splinters off then comes back together, and how utterly daft they looked when trying to "be cool" and not alert the suspect . . . Something about it is old-school television, and I sort of like that.

As for the internal conspiracy thing, and the political wrangling, well, ::shrug:: I'm sure the writers are meaning to build an arc while maintaining the episodic nature of the show, at least for a while—in order to draw in viewers, one can't build a mythology too quickly or it confuses the newcomers. (But I have to say, that intro? Awful. It's gotta go.) For the time being, the attempts at government conspiracy and tension aren't very interesting. Is the season aiming to end with Scorpion saving the president? And if so, will Jack Bauer be there, too?

By the way, I find it difficult to believe the guys didn't know Paige was standing right there when they were talking about her. Coming from a similar background, I can say at least one of those three is sensitive enough to his surroundings to know there's someone there. One, maybe two, might be so focused on the discussion to have tuned it out, but all three? (And really, when in public, there is almost no tuning out. It's all input.)

I realize the more I go on the more it sounds like I don't like the show. But as I've said, I do. I think it's kind of cute. It has the right number of characters so that no one is on screen long enough to get too annoying. For instance, Toby is fun, but if we got much more of him he'd just be obnoxious. It's a careful balance. And yet there's not so many characters that I can't keep track of them all, which is the problem I'm starting to have with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So far, for me, Scorpion is a win.