When Merlin talks about the “Summer Kingdom” his tone and imagery are not so
different than Ronald Reagan’s vision of a “shining city on a hill.” However,
to realize such lofty ambitions, the men of Britain must fight—and many will
likely fall in battle. However, if they submit to the Saxons now, all their
dreams of independent dignity will surely die. They are not quite ready, but
the battle must be joined anyway in “The Last True Bard,” the first season
finale of creator Jeremy Boreing’s Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin (based
on Stephen R. Lawhead’s novels) which premieres today on Daily Wire+.
Even
though Merlin returns from the North with King Custennin’s reinforcements, King
Aureliius’s army is still badly outnumbered. However, desperate times call for
desperate battle strategies. Uther and Custennin devise a high-risk plan that
could work, but the battle chief would feel more confident if Merlin led their
armies—even though a resulting victory would likely elevate him to the throne
of Britain’s new High King, rather than his brother, Aurelius. However, this is
exactly the kind of temptation Merlin has struggled to resist.
There
will be no avoiding the bloodshed in “The Last True Bard,” so fittingly, the
final episode is helmed by action movie specialist Jesse V. Johnson. Things
will truly get Medieval. Yet, the
highlight might be Merlin’s inspirational song, which is too haunting to compare
to a pre-game pep talk. It is hard to describe, but it might be the best staged
scene of the first season.
The
finale also drops a small but significant revelation that completely changes viewers’
understanding of many previous scenes—yet it makes perfect sense in the context
of the show. The season closer also faithfully reflects the spiritual
dimensions of Lawhead’s novels by emphasizing not all conflicts are physical in
nature. Tantalizingly, it also leaves viewers wanting more with a massively
Arthurian tease for the next anticipated season.
What kind of person gets obsessed with true crime? Perhaps a murderer might
take a “professional” interest. Detective-turned-crime-solving consultant Tess
Avery is rather disappointed to discover her online visual guide, Sunny Patel,
is in fact a fugitive wanted for murder. However, Patel’s agoraphobia is still
real. That means if the “real killer” come looking for her, it could mean real
trouble in “Razor’s Edge,” the season finale of Sight Unseen, which airs
tomorrow on CW.
Honestly,
making Patel a murderer would be a movie plot twist. A Canadian network television
show is unlikely to play that game with a character viewers have presumably
invested nine weeks in already. Nevertheless, Avery is suspicious and understandably
ticked off. However, she is also a bit angry with herself for hooking up with
her former partner, Jake Campbell, right when she was starting to commit to
Matt Alleyne, her childhood friend and long-suffering IT consultant.
To
rub Patel’s nose in her deception, Avery forces her to remotely revisit the
scene of her alleged crime. However, episode writer Karen Troubetzkoy never
seriously invites viewers to suspect Patel’s guilt. Instead, episode director
Bruce McDonald (who helmed the mind-bending zombie film, Pontypool) builds
towards a clever role reversal climax, wherein Avery and Alleyne try to guide
Patel through a crisis, using the tech designed to help the sight-impaired detective.
When it launched in November, Apple’s Monsterverse series could feel
confident it compared favorably with Legendary’s most recent, underwhelming
film, Godzilla vs. Kong. However, the stakes suddenly started rising
when Godzilla Minus One became a surprise breakout hit, largely redefining
the entire kaiju genre for millions of Americans. Today, loyal viewers learn
whether their investment on Monarch: Legacy of Monsters concludes its
first season when “Beyond Logic” premieres today on Apple TV+.
During
the mayhem of episode six, Cate Randa was sucked into an in-between
Monsterverse dimension along with Lee Shaw. That would be the older, Kurt
Russell Lee Shaw, not the younger Lee Shaw played by Wyatt Russell in
flashbacks. It turns out there is a reason why Shaw looks so spry for a
nonagenarian. Time runs much slower in the realm of monsters, so several
decades passed in our world while Shaw was lost in the monster-realm.
Shaw
wants to limit the time Randa and her friend May will lose in the in-between
dimension. However, they need to attract a titan to open the portal. That they
do—a little too successfully.
Episode
nine is probably the slowest installment of the season, because it is built
around the series’ angstiest and least action-oriented flashbacks. However, the
conclusion obviously was deliberately intended to deliver everything fans were hoping
for. There is a big climatic battle of the “titans,” featuring the granddaddy
of them all and what looks like a name-brand kaiju who also co-starred in Legendary’s
Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It also features a truly massive monster
cameo.
For a time travel show, Quantum Leap has been remarkably unconcerned
with time paradoxes, until now. To make up for it, the season finale literally
turns back the clock, leaping whole-heartedly into potential butterfly effects
and time distortions. Dr. Ben Song is still trying to save his fiancée, Addison
Augustine, but he will jeopardize the space-time continuum to do so in “Judgment
Day,” which premieres tonight on NBC.
Everybody
could be in very big trouble, because Song is about to leap into the future—and
it does not look good. He cannot stay long, for technical reasons, but future
Ian Wright has something important to tell him. Unfortunately, Song isn’t sure
he gets it. Initially, the next leap should be easier, since he is familiar
with his new host—himself. However, changing things will create paradoxes,
since he would remember the original timeline. Nevertheless, he might just do
so anyway.
Some
of this season’s lesser episodes almost forgot about the time travel making
each leap possible, focusing instead on social justice lectures or some pleasant
but small stakes family drama. With “Judgment Day,” they compensate for lost
opportunities. It also involves the full regular cast and the recurring Janis
Calavicci and Richard Martinez (a.k.a. “Leaper X”), all of whom have key roles
to play.
This
episode was written by series story editor Margarita Matthews as was “Leap, Die, Repeat,” which was the only previous episode to really tackle time
paradoxes and it that case, time loops. They are definitely the two episodes of
the first season that most directly explore the theoretical dangers of time
travel. “Judgment Day” is also the only episode to have action in more than two
time periods.
