Welcome to the TV Gazette! This week, I have some thoughts on Arrow and cover the latest episode of Survivor. Here we go…
Arrow lightens up in a hurry
What we have seen from the fourth season of Arrow has been quite a departure from the previous years. The opening scenes of the first episode were delightful, as Oliver and Felicity were comfortably ensconced in their suburban life. We saw a fake-out of Oliver running in a green hoodie instead of his green superhero suit, and later on, a re-imagining of his iconic line:
Oliver and Felicity return very soon to resume their crime-fighting, of course, but this is a somewhat different show from past seasons. The show is eager to prove that too, having Starling City change its name to Star City and making Oliver the Green Arrow to bring it in line with the comics. It’s a refreshing evolution of a show that had been overshadowed by The Flash‘s great debut season, and the rest of this season looks to be shaping up nicely: Neal McDonough is always a joy to watch as a villainous antagonist, and the teaser flash-forward of the death of someone close to Oliver is intriguing indeed.
Survivor: Second Chance – “What’s the Beef?”
This week was another enjoyable episode of Survivor. Angkor’s annihilation continues as they are sent to tribal council yet again, even after a false dawn when they win a reward challenge. The reward challenge itself was literally an individual challenge between three macho men (Andrew, Jeremy and Terry), and it was for a Survivor BBQ set. Angkor’s win here probably hurt them too, as you would think that gorging on food suddenly after a few days of starvation would wreak havoc on their bodies’ rhythm. They would go on to horribly lose the immunity challenge, looking shattered in the process.
However, things heated up before the vote as Woo and Jeff, the two leading candidates for the boot, frantically tried to solicit support from their tribemates. Jeff had already been banged up by the immunity challenge and was nursing a toe injury, while Woo was Abi-Maria’s target because he had voted for her twice. It was a clear choice between the two in the end, as even Abi-Maria knew that Woo’s physicality would be more useful than Jeff’s presence for the tribe’s sake. Angkor is looking really down and out, and I’m not sure that they can turn things around — I’m afraid they have fallen so far behind their competitors in terms of strength and morale that it’ll be almost impossible to avoid losing again. But never rule out the impossible on Survivor, so we’ll see.
The back page
Thanks for reading the Gazette! It’s been a really hectic week as I just started work, so I was forced to shorten things a fair bit. Also, I’ll be covering Survivor here from now on to save time instead of the lengthy recaps I did every week.
- The Knick‘s Steven Soderbergh is a force behind his camera — check out this profile by Vulture for a fascinating look at his method.
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