Tuesday TV Touchbase: Star Trek:Picard and Batwoman

My wife Andrea and I like to watch TV.  To quote Less Nessman from WKRP In Cincinatti, TV "makes life simple somehow."  

For this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase, I'm going to look at two shows did not make life less simple at all. 

Star Trek Picard
Last week's episode "Stardust City Rag" opens with the most brutal opening I've ever seen in anything, especially a Star Trek TV series. 

In a flashback to 13 years ago, a young man in a Starfleet uniform is being dissected while he's still alive including a really gross and bloody extraction of his eyeball which really plays into every single fear and neuroses I have and it wasn't doing anything good for Andrea either. Damn, this is freaking brutal! 

Seven of Nine shows up to put a stop to things but she's too late. The young man in a Starfleet uniform, brutalized by his intense torture and quivering in pain can only die and the only mercy Seven can provide is to kill him.  This is getting darker still.

Oh but the knife hasn't been twisted enough, has it? The young man in a Starfleet uniform is Icheb who like Seven was recovered by Voyager from the Borg Collective and restored to a more human state. Icheb was like a son to Seven and she just had to kill him.  

Seven of Nine is pissed off. 

And so am I. Damn it! 

The rest of the episode has a funny caper bit in the middle where Rios is dressed like a pimp from the 1970s and Picard  with an eye patch and an absurdly bad French accent pull a con to rescue Bruce Maddox from Freecloud. The scheme to save Maddox also puts Seven right in front of Bjayzl, the woman responsibly for Icheb's torture and she phasers her to death. 

Then gets darker still. 

Back on the ship, Bruce Maddox is in really bad shape from the torture he endured but he's in the medical bay for treatment. When left alone with Bruce, Dr. Agnes Jurati kills him!

WHAT THE HELL???

Batwoman
Having two Beth Kanes from two different universes in one universe is not a good thing.  The bad Beth, the murderous psycho Alice, and the good Beth, the one who did not turn into the murderous psycho Alice, are both dying and the clock is ticking. If one dies, the other lives. But if nothing is done within in a certain time frame, both will die.

It seems Mary, Kate's step-sister, has the answer. When Alice poisoned Mary and her mother Catherine, Alice gave Mary an antidote that serves as cure-all. The cure-all in Mary's blood can help sustain one of the two Beths past the time frame.  

After giving the good Beth the cure-all, Kate goes to Alice to stay with her until she dies.  

But then stuff that has nothing to do with this does down to screw it all up. 

Seems Mouse's dad is back in the picture and he's pissed off that Alice has led Mouse astray from his father. So dear old dad goes off to kill Alice. 

He shoots the wrong Beth Kane.  

And Alice, now the lone Beth Kane on this Earth, does not die. 

WHAT THE HELL???

So if you thought Alice was already pissed off and crazy because of her lot in life, her pissed off crazy is off the charts now with the knowledge that Kate was going to let her die. 

Andrea asked, "Why do I watch this crazy show?" I told her she doesn't have to but she said she's invested now. 

She sounds like a comic book fan now. 

You know, sometimes Less Nessman from WKRP In Cincinatti is right. If you settle in for Wheel of Fortune or TBS's ubiquitous reruns of Big Bang Theory, " TV makes life simple somehow."  

And then there are TV shows that dare to not make life simple at all. 

Next week, I'll play catch up with Supergirl and her 100th episode.