verushka70

Agreed -- right on the edge of good is the kind of winter I'd like. *crosses fingers*

Dirt did get weird, but I often can't resist psychologically dark/disturbing material so I stuck with it. It also got kind of irregularly/unpredictably surreal which I enjoy in movies/TV. (It's the former art/film student in me. Anything that throws a wrench into linear narrative, which I often find boring/predictable, typically grabs/keeps my attention.)

SLIGHT DIRT SPOILERS (in case you ever go back to it): part of the weirdness came from POV shifts to one of her reliable paparazzi photogs, who was off his meds. That probably accounted for at least some of the increasing weirdness. The fact that the person who noticed and helped was Lucy kind of softened her otherwise pretty hard-edged, unsympathetic character. END SLIGHT SPOILERS

Re: HG -- if you like it, you'll like S1-S2 best, and it'll still be there in January *g*. I'm no further in S3 than when I posted despite being home in pain and stiff/achy much of this weekend. I'll finish S3, just don't feel an urgent need. It is def not "must see TV" for me (unlike S1 and parts of S2). I'd actually rather finish Bojack Horseman.

I have Arrow in my queue but there are so many seasons to catch up on, I'm intimidated. I have not seen The Blacklist yet. Did you keep up with Blind Spot? or The Player? I haven't started watching either yet though tbh as previously mentioned, Blind Spot's ridiculous hype turned me off and The Player looked potentially quite silly though fun. I'm much more likely to try The Player sooner rather than later than Blind Spot, like, ever.

Started watching Gotham S1 via Netflix. I like the seedy, sleazy, corrupt Gotham angle, young Selena, stern/strict!Alfred (Sean Pertwee), and Jada Pinkett-Smith's Fish Mooney. OTOH it's been incredibly violent from jump in a way that makes me question how canonical the violence is (I'm truly not sure -- I never read the original comics). So I backburnered Gotham in favor of lighter material like Bojack and picking up HG again at least so I can finish it.

wrt Elementary S4 premiere... having seen it, I basically agree with/understand your position.
(NO SPOILERS - just general commentary)
There was nothing particularly compelling about the S4 premiere. It was mostly exposition/loose-end tie-ups/laying ground for S4 plots/arcs.

It also continued the most disappointing, growing trend of S3 -- predictability of foreground plot/villain/case-of-the-week. I knew the minute they introduced the character who did it, that he was the one who did it. That was maybe 15 minutes or less into the episode. Very disappointing. I wish I could say that the later crisis-related exchange and interplay between Sherlock and Joan was compelling, but it came too little and too late in the ep.

The writers' noncanonical obstruction of the partnership last season to artificially amp up tensions and inject conflict utterly backfired and basically broke the Holmes/Watson chemistry and partnership. (That stands to reason given how cynical and manipulative it was -- it rarely felt like authentic angst or conflict imo.)

It will take much more than tepid episodes like the S4 premiere (and more than just one or two eps) to repair that). More importantly, the S4 premiere didn't inspire any of the excitement, anticipation, or fannish investment/motivation of S1-S2 eps. It felt no different than the lukewarm post-Kitty eps of last season.

Sigh. I'll probably continue to watch it on Thursday nights if I have nothing better to do. It's become a sad waste of the collective talent of the actors.
:-(