Television Reviews

Shōgun – Ladies of the Willow World

  • Title: Shōgun – Ladies of the Willow World
  • IMDb: link

Shōgun - Ladies of the Willow World

While much of “Ladies of the Willow World” takes place in Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), including the title which derives from Mariko (Anna Sawai) setting up John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) with another prostitute, in terms of events moving the larger story forward we must look to Osaka. Here we see the impact of Ochiba No Kata’s (Fumi Nikaidô) return in pushing Ishido (Takehiro Hira) to act bolder with the Regents beginning with replacing Toranaga’s open seat with a flunky and then murdering Lord Sugiyama (Toshi Toda) after the Regent refuses to go along with his plans.

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Point of No Return

  • Title: Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Point of No Return
  • wiki: link

Star Wars: The Bad Batch - Point of No Return

As the show inches ever closer to the series finale, the Imperials find on Pabu leading our heroes attempting to hide and keep Omega (Michelle Ang) safe. The episode is mainly focused on the Bad Batch being overwhelmed and Omega choosing to let herself be captured rather than let any further harm come to her friends. The makeshift plan includes Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker) getting a tracker on the ship before it leaves the planet, but in failing to do so the Bad Batch now have no ship and no way to track Omega who is heading right back to the hidden base on Tantiss where her only help may come from the potentially more sympathetic Emerie Karr (Keisha Castle-Hughes).

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Identity Crisis

  • Title: Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Identity Crisis
  • wiki: link

Star Wars: The Bad Batch - Identity Crisis

“Identity Crisis” takes the focus off the clones and returns it to the Empire’s secret laboratory on Tantiss where Emerie Karr (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is read into the truth of Project Necromancer (confirming events which you likely surmised quite a long time ago). Other than confirming the evil manipulations of the Empire in kidnapping children and turning them into lab rats, which is hardly new ground, there’s not much of note in the episode other than another fan friendly cameo from another Star Wars: The Clone Wars recurring character. Emerie gets a close look at the “subjects” in these experiments, and a better understanding of who she his working for, although that doesn’t stop her from continuing to perform her duties.

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Alex Rider – Lab

  • Title: Alex Rider – Lab
  • IMDb: link

Alex Rider - Lab

After his remarkable escape, the Widow (Sofia Helin) leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for Alex (Otto Farrant) to follow back to the scientist and a tanker docked at the nearby harbor. After sneaking onboard, Alex witnesses a standoff between the scientist and the henchman Nile (Jason Wong) which doesn’t turn out all that well for the scientist. However, he does offer Alex the opportunity to have all his questions answered leading to an explosive cliffhanger ending.

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Will Trent – Capt. Duke Wagner’s Daughter

  • Title: Will Trent – Capt. Duke Wagner’s Daughter
  • IMDb: link

Will Trent - Capt. Duke Wagner's Daughter

My only real complaint about “Capt. Duke Wagner’s Daughter” is this feels like a longer arc that was condensed into a single episode and, as a result, feels a bit constrained. A little more time to breathe could have led to one of the show’s best arcs. After seeing a couple of extremely fleeting suggestive hints that someone is coming after Wagner (Sonja Sohn) we get an episode that brings that story to the forefront, delves into troubled secrets in her past, reveals a nasty piece of work in Chuck Murray (Michael Papajohn), explains his motives, tease the end of Wagner’s career, ends the threat, and wraps up everything in time for the closing credits without much fallout other than a bit of a tiff between Wanger and Faith (Iantha Richardson).

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