TV Heartbeat! Game of Thrones finale! David Tennant and Misha Collins! Sound Off on Walking Dead season 4!

New and Notable Noooo! Say it isn’t so! Yes, it’s the season finale for Game of Thrones! Entitled “The Children,” the finale shifts its focus to Bran, Dany and Tyrion to round out season four. (Let’s see dragons! Dragons!)

For folks going through David Tennant withdrawal (until Gracepoint airs on Fox in the fall), check out Masterpiece on PBS this week for MYSTERY!: The Escape Artist. No, this isn’t a movie about Harry Houdini.

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David Tennant stars as a brilliant lawyer with a perfect track record of getting his clients off the hook. But what happens when he gets a psycho off the hook? Yeah, the results are not good. This an enjoyable 2-part movie has a cast that includes recent Tony Award winner Sophie Okonedo, Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Victor Von Doom in the upcoming Fantastic Four re-boot), Ashley Jensen (Extras) and Kate Dickie (bat-shit crazy Aunt Lysa from Game of Thrones).

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To fill in the summer vacuum, USA and TNT are launching several of their summer series including Suits, Graceland, Rizzoli & Isles and Perception.

For their fourth season, Gabriel Macht and Patrick J Adams will have some additional company as Suits adds Neal McDonough as an SEC investigator in a reoccurring role.

Suits

Mike Warren will return to Graceland after a cartel puts a hit on him. Upon his return, he’ll find that things aren’t exactly the same at the house.

Graceland

Over on TNT (who no longer “knows drama” and prefers to say “Boom” in an ominous voice – not loving the new slogan TNT!), Rizzoli & Isles returns with a gruesome start to the season when a jogger is murdered because the thief wants to steal her baby.

R and I

On Perception, Daniel’s idyllic life in Paris is disrupted when the FBI ask him to consult on a case.

Perception

On the lighter side, internet fave/Supernatural angel Misha Collins goes improv with a guest stint on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Tonight: The 100 season finale (CW), Suits premiere (USA), Graceland premiere (USA)
Friday: Vice season finale (HBO)
Saturday: In the Flesh season finale (BBC America)
Sunday: Game of Thrones season finale (HBO), MYSTERY!: The Escape Artist (PBS)
Monday: Misha Collins on Whose Line is It Anyway? (The CW), Switched at Birth premiere (ABC Family)
Tuesday: Rizzoli & Isles premiere (TNT), Perception premiere (TNT)

Health check Fox just cancelled the show Us and Them. Never heard of it? It’s not a surprise since it never aired! The show starring Alexis Bledel, Jason Ritter, Michael Ian Black, Jane Kaczmarek and Kurt Fuller had stopped production midway through the season, but Fox is officially giving up on the show and will be dumping it. Ouch!

Us and Them

But it’s not all bad news! ABC Family has renewed Pretty Little Liars for an additional two season so we’ll be seeing much more of the girls for years to come.

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Sound Off Over the past season, TV Heartbeat has tracked the health of shows to let you know if your favorite shows were healthy or on their death bed. Now that some of them have completed their season, we want to examine the quality of the shows to see if we still love them as much as ever or if they will dropping off of the our watch list.

Case in point: The Walking Dead finished its fourth season with their largest audience ever — despite having a mediocre season. The latest showrunner, Scott M. Gimple, amped up the zombie budget with more gruesome kills and splatters, but forgot to develop the characters like his predecessors Frank Darabont and Glen Mazzara. Yeah, this revolving door of showrunners hasn’t been good for the quality of the show, but the ratings continue to grow so AMC probably doesn’t care.

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First off, this season was pretty aimless. There were clear goals for the final episode in each half season, but it felt like a lot of filler in between. Instead of having short story arcs or developing characters or relationships, there were fractured little intrigues punctuated with zombie kills. Busy work until the big presentation.

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But even when we built to the big climax (The prison is invaded! They got to Terminus!), it was a relief to get there, but I kept feeling “So what? That’s it?” Maybe it was because I was hoping the previous 7 episodes would pay off, but it just didn’t for me. Especially the season ending so I feel pretty cheated and am not exactly waiting on the edge of my seat for season 5.

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That’s probably because the characters were stagnant this season. Carl had an amazing arc last season – moving from a kid to a potential leader, making hard decisions, becoming more of the parent to his dad who was grieving. They take that amazing development and transform him this year into a sullen kid in search of snacks. Really?

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And without his best friend, his wife, his mentors and having a brat for a kid, Rick was bland. He was lost all season and it was hard to root for him, or frankly, even care about what happens to him. Thankfully it seems like he’s waking up for season 5 – at least I hope he is.

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Carol was missing for half the season, Glenn was wussier than ever (what happened to his evolution?), Daryl had a smaller role this season…definitely some wasted opportunities here.

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Sure, there were some good moments, but the show lacked a greater vision or purpose so the good times were few and far between.

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Hopefully the plotline of Abraham will give the show more focus and urgency and hope…

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Now I know some will definitely argue with me and I’m not saying the show is terrible. It’s just that the previous seasons were so much better (thank you Frank Darabont!) and this season, well, I’d qualify the show as just average. How average? I downgraded it to watching the replays or on demand, but not live. Never a good sign.

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Still, I’m optimistic that they will figure out what didn’t work this season and fix it. Let’s give Rick a backbone now that the band is back together. Let’s see some of the relationships core to the show develop when they’re in the same room together (Glenn and Maggie, Carol and Daryl). Let’s see how the group reacts when there’s a tangible Big Bad for them to combat. Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see!

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Season 1: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Season 2: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Season 3: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Season 4: ♥ ♥ ♥

What do you guys think? How did this season rate? What do you want to see next season?

Next week: Game of Thrones

Stay tuned!

Comment below or email me at Erica@MikeTheFanboy.com
For more adventures, follow me on twitter: @Cambear

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Comments(2)
  1. Randi June 11, 2014
  2. The Lovely Erica June 11, 2014

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