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tori_reviewsLoki 1x01
Hmmm
I want to say I’m reserving judgement on this show until it has more time to get to its point, but…that’s kind of the problem. In some ways this is exactly something I wish more shows did, just letting characters talk through what’s going on with them and the world around them, but this just felt dragged out way too long. It doesn’t get to a point, and it goes nowhere in a fairly boring way.
On the other hand, I might have been a lot more into it if I didn’t hate what this show seems to stand for basically from moment one. Because the ‘holy timeline’ sets my hackles up. And it’s not as if I have faith in the MCU doing time travel anyway.
I won’t be surprised if the arc of this show is about taking down the Timekeepers. If it’s not, this show is already bad and I wish they would tell me so I don’t waste time on it. I will say that I have some hope that it will be, but kind of only because there’s ‘Multiverse of Madness’ as an upcoming project. If there wasn’t that, then I’d still say Timekeepers should be going down, because this whole concept is wrong and needs to be taken down, but I’d be less confident the writers know that.
And that’s not just a dig at Marvel, it’s a dig at a variety of time travel stories. This show may call it ‘the holy timeline’ but it’s not that different from the way other shows/stories treat time travel. As if there is a way the timeline is supposed to go (at least until the present, the future as far as the protagonists are concerned can be changed as much as they want). And I’ve gone on plenty of rants about how you have to have a good plan for doing any time travel stories, and I don’t trust that this show does.
I feel like I’m already losing my point about this. But I’m kind of getting to something like: maybe there is no free will in the universe, maybe everything we do is just physics all the way back to the Big Bang, but if the Avengers are ‘supposed’ to develop time travel, then the consequences of them doing so are just as ‘supposed’ to happen. If free will does matter, then why does the TVA get to decide what’s ‘real’ and what’s a branch?
Plus, there are plenty of other anomalies they would have created in that time travel mission; from Hydra doesn’t get the spear and fuck you Steve Rogers knows early that Bucky’s alive, to Thanos follows them to a different timeline where he and so several thousand others die and a couple just stay behind. Among that, I’m not sure how Loki is the more pressing anomaly to ‘put right.’
Speaking of fuck you Steve Rogers, if there’s only one timeline then I am going to just continue hating him. Endgame played it very loose with where he went and ended up, so I don’t know if this should be called a contradiction, but Steve should be just as much a variance as Loki. If he’s not then it means he really did do nothing to help over the years and therefore fuck you Steve Rogers.
Also, I have serious questions about why this is all so focused on Earth. The MCU understands that it’s bigger than Earth and yet this doesn’t seem to be aware of it. It bothers me.
For an episode so focused on two characters, I wish we got more development on the agent. We get Loki working through some issues, but it ends up feeling like catch up and there’s nothing else to consider about the characters. It might have been more interesting to take this character on a different arc from the main timeline one, and not just different things will happen to him but he’ll be a different person. But really they needed to give the other guy more to work with.
I did not need another show where I spend time debating the intricacies of time travel and the difficulties in writing it. I guess strap in, if we’re not killing these Timekeepers then I’m going to have plenty of room to rant about how immoral they are anyway.
Just kidding, you didn’t think I was going to pass up the opportunity to talk about SHIELD did you? Look, I’ve said it before and I might well again; all I really want from this show is to give me a place to grow my plot bunny about May getting the chance to beat Loki to a pulp. So it’s hard for me not to look at them bringing up Coulson as ‘and his wife is going to happily kill you for us.’ Even when I know better at this point than to expect them to acknowledge AoS in these big name shows, to my mind it’s sending up a flare that somehow Coulson is important to this plot, so we *could* get some AoS acknowledgements (it would be somewhat hysterical if this was how they justified the various other shows not quite fitting within the movie level timeline, or each other’s, and sometimes their own)
All around, I’m not really into this show yet, basically at all. I’m not disappointed enough to write it off, but I’m not sure I’ll commit to doing these reviews weekly. I might not even watch it weekly but catch up down the road. We’ll see what mood strikes me next.
Hmmm
I want to say I’m reserving judgement on this show until it has more time to get to its point, but…that’s kind of the problem. In some ways this is exactly something I wish more shows did, just letting characters talk through what’s going on with them and the world around them, but this just felt dragged out way too long. It doesn’t get to a point, and it goes nowhere in a fairly boring way.
On the other hand, I might have been a lot more into it if I didn’t hate what this show seems to stand for basically from moment one. Because the ‘holy timeline’ sets my hackles up. And it’s not as if I have faith in the MCU doing time travel anyway.
I won’t be surprised if the arc of this show is about taking down the Timekeepers. If it’s not, this show is already bad and I wish they would tell me so I don’t waste time on it. I will say that I have some hope that it will be, but kind of only because there’s ‘Multiverse of Madness’ as an upcoming project. If there wasn’t that, then I’d still say Timekeepers should be going down, because this whole concept is wrong and needs to be taken down, but I’d be less confident the writers know that.
And that’s not just a dig at Marvel, it’s a dig at a variety of time travel stories. This show may call it ‘the holy timeline’ but it’s not that different from the way other shows/stories treat time travel. As if there is a way the timeline is supposed to go (at least until the present, the future as far as the protagonists are concerned can be changed as much as they want). And I’ve gone on plenty of rants about how you have to have a good plan for doing any time travel stories, and I don’t trust that this show does.
I feel like I’m already losing my point about this. But I’m kind of getting to something like: maybe there is no free will in the universe, maybe everything we do is just physics all the way back to the Big Bang, but if the Avengers are ‘supposed’ to develop time travel, then the consequences of them doing so are just as ‘supposed’ to happen. If free will does matter, then why does the TVA get to decide what’s ‘real’ and what’s a branch?
Plus, there are plenty of other anomalies they would have created in that time travel mission; from Hydra doesn’t get the spear and fuck you Steve Rogers knows early that Bucky’s alive, to Thanos follows them to a different timeline where he and so several thousand others die and a couple just stay behind. Among that, I’m not sure how Loki is the more pressing anomaly to ‘put right.’
Speaking of fuck you Steve Rogers, if there’s only one timeline then I am going to just continue hating him. Endgame played it very loose with where he went and ended up, so I don’t know if this should be called a contradiction, but Steve should be just as much a variance as Loki. If he’s not then it means he really did do nothing to help over the years and therefore fuck you Steve Rogers.
Also, I have serious questions about why this is all so focused on Earth. The MCU understands that it’s bigger than Earth and yet this doesn’t seem to be aware of it. It bothers me.
For an episode so focused on two characters, I wish we got more development on the agent. We get Loki working through some issues, but it ends up feeling like catch up and there’s nothing else to consider about the characters. It might have been more interesting to take this character on a different arc from the main timeline one, and not just different things will happen to him but he’ll be a different person. But really they needed to give the other guy more to work with.
I did not need another show where I spend time debating the intricacies of time travel and the difficulties in writing it. I guess strap in, if we’re not killing these Timekeepers then I’m going to have plenty of room to rant about how immoral they are anyway.
Just kidding, you didn’t think I was going to pass up the opportunity to talk about SHIELD did you? Look, I’ve said it before and I might well again; all I really want from this show is to give me a place to grow my plot bunny about May getting the chance to beat Loki to a pulp. So it’s hard for me not to look at them bringing up Coulson as ‘and his wife is going to happily kill you for us.’ Even when I know better at this point than to expect them to acknowledge AoS in these big name shows, to my mind it’s sending up a flare that somehow Coulson is important to this plot, so we *could* get some AoS acknowledgements (it would be somewhat hysterical if this was how they justified the various other shows not quite fitting within the movie level timeline, or each other’s, and sometimes their own)
All around, I’m not really into this show yet, basically at all. I’m not disappointed enough to write it off, but I’m not sure I’ll commit to doing these reviews weekly. I might not even watch it weekly but catch up down the road. We’ll see what mood strikes me next.
