Welcome back to Boomb Tube! Here, we will be catching you up on the week in comics TV, both through micro-reviews, as well as links to our full-length TV reviews. We also tend to review series that are dropped all at once weekly so there are a few ‘older’ shows mixed in for good measure. Are we missing your favorite show? Let us know in the comments!
Doctor Who – “Wild Blue Yonder” (2023 Specials E2, BBC One/Disney+)
Read our full review by Kate Kosturski.
Pluto – “Episode 7” (E7, Netflix)
Read our full review by Elias Rosner.
Quantum Leap – “A Kind of Magic” (S2E7, NBC)
After the first season of the reboot established that Ben can leap outside of his lifetime, unlike Sam, Quantum Leap hasn’t leaned as much into that as they maybe should, because it opens up the series to such new places that the original simply couldn’t go. Now, those places may also be more expensive to shoot, which is why we’ll likely never see Ben swashbuckling on the open seas or in feudal Japan, but when we get a trip back to Puritanical Massachusetts, it’s a fun change of pace for the series.
Unfortunately, this episode also fell back on some lazy habits that the second season has, more or less avoided. Ben is a very good leaper in many ways, but in this episode makes dozens of rookie mistakes of language, tone, and science that he’s usually smart enough to side-step. One could argue that the distance of the leap threw him for a loop, but that’s not true.
This episode also felt like it was a 30 minute show trying to stretch into a 44 minute one, based mostly on how repetitive all the beats were. The reboot has added a sense of urgency to the leaps that leads to multiple points where it seems like everything is solved and then bam!, it all falls apart, but this episode telegraphed all of those pretty conspicuously. It also gave the ‘home team’ the same basic bit to do multiple times, and in silly ways. Specifically Ian, who has been portrayed as slightly ridiculous but impossibly intelligent, turns into a full on idiot for half the episode, acting out of character for no real reason.
However, the hit rate for this series is still robust, and even though the episode fell a little flat, it worked out (in a more than clunky fashion) some of the HQ issues and positioned the show for an interesting episode next week in Egypt. So maybe there will be some more exoticism in the back half of this season after all. – Brian Salvatore
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off – “Ramona Rents a Video” (E3, Netflix)
In case you missed it, read our full review by James Dowling.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off – “Whatever” (E4, Netflix)
Read our full review by James Dowling.
