This week has been all about endings. The most impressive was the
Arrow (Sky One) second season finale which had Oliver and his crew facing off against Slade Wilson and his army of indestructible goons, fighting for the future of Starling City.
Cracking stuff as we've come to expect with some interesting set-ups for the third season.
I can't believe I struggled to get into this show when it first started. I now can't imagine my viewing landscape without it and hope it gets a 10 year run like the inferior
Smallville managed.
We've already got
The Flash spin-off to look forward to, but the finale reminded me that what we really needed to see was a
Suicide Squad spin-off. A rotating cast of supervillains and anti-heroes tackling dangerous, off-the-book missions for the American government sounds great - and it could draw from both the
Arrow and
The Flash gallery of rogues.
And talking of anti-heroes:
From Dusk Till Dawn wrapped up its 10-episode first season on Netflix this week. While paying lip-service to the original movie, the show had built up its own mythology, expanding and extrapolating what we knew from the film.
For the most part the additional backstory worked, but the last couple of episodes felt weak in comparison to the show's strong middle run. Once the Gecko brothers - and their hostages and assorted hangers-on - got into the maze under the Titty Twister things went a bit sideways. What started as an interesting
Dungeons & Dragons-style diversion quickly fell into a cheesy "supernatural challenges cooked up from your own memories" routine.
This was a disappointing turn of events and the stronger elements remained with the goings-on in the "real world", rather than the illusory robbery the Gecko's were tasked with pulling off.
There was also the strange tonal change towards the end of the season in that suddenly everyone was dropping F-bombs, where the language up to about episode seven or eight was very mainstream. As if by magic, someone suddenly remembered that the source material was peppered with profanity so it was probably a good idea to inject some into the show... along with gonzo amounts of gore.
Like the film, the show also suffered from inconsistencies in what the vampires (
which weren't really vampires, of course) could actually do, what their weaknesses were etc
That said,
From Dusk Till Dawn held my interest enough to make me interested in where it goes next as it will now be heading into completely uncharted waters.
Next week, we bid an emotional farewell to one of my favourite shows:
Warehouse 13. It still beggars belief that SyFy continues crap like
Lost Girl and
Continuum, but has decided to call it a day on this unique show.
Here's a trailer for the last ever episode, followed by a three-minute (
musical) preview clip:
Then we finish things off with some final interviews with the cast: