Killjoys: Lead actress is stunning, but doesn't look like she has the physical build of someone who can do what her character does. I liked the first episode just fine, but I don't expect the location and FX budget to keep up with this episode. Some mildly interesting world building. Will probably continue to watch.
Defiance episode 7 was not disappointing. If the show had more consistent character writing, I think Datak's request to die on a Shaming Rack would have been tied in to his apparent religious conversion while imprisoned. Still, it makes sense even without exposition. Stahma, who I know we're all supposed to hate, gets some comeuppance this episode via the Drow daughter, but she's clearly more of a survivor than anyone else on the show, Nolan included, so I expect she'll be the last person alive when the show eventually has its final episode.
The Strain. Started watching because iTunes had the first episode of season 1 and season 2 available for free. I liked the pilot quite a bit! I am honestly torn if I should watch this or just listen to the audiobooks; it's about the same level of doomed, sensational, suspenseful entertainment either way. The idea of combining a contagious outbreak with traditional vampire lore is interesting, though I'm mostly not hopeful how they'll eventually choose to tie it all together:
WORMS ARE THE CARRIER OF THE HEMOPHAGE URGE, BUT WORMS NEED DIRT, SO THERE IS DIRT IN THE COFFIN.
DUE TO HEAVY RAINS, WORMS ARE FRIGHTENED OF WATER, WHICH IS WHY VAMPIRES CAN'T CROSS RUNNING WATER.
et al.
All the other sensory notes, like the buzzing in the ears and the smell of ammonia -- I enjoy that immersiveness.
The casting is uneven. The old pawn shop owner is awesome. The un-aging nazi is chilling. The two latino brothers are both good. But both the CDC leads in the show are oddly not compelling; the guy looks like he walked off Young and the Restless, and his partner has no chemistry with him. Maybe they just need to grow into their characters more.
