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What TV are you watching and how would you rate it? [Revive from FRDB]

Amigo! I totally disagree! I think that that the TV show is much better. At least the TV Reacher is far more convincing as Reacher than Tom Cruise. Have you read the books? TV show much more closely follows the books. Looking forward to season 2. I'd rate the TV series as a 8 out of 10.

How would you rate Reacher vs Bosch?
 
Amigo! I totally disagree! I think that that the TV show is much better. At least the TV Reacher is far more convincing as Reacher than Tom Cruise. Have you read the books? TV show much more closely follows the books. Looking forward to season 2. I'd rate the TV series as a 8 out of 10.

How would you rate Reacher vs Bosch?
To me, Reacher is 4/5; Bosch is 5/5. Love that show. First off, the book series is just great. Harry Bosch is my favorite detective. No one matters or everyone matters is his motto. Michael Connelly, the writer, is just a phenomenal writer. That carries over to the series. The TV series is very well written and directed, follows the books.
 
To me, Reacher is 4/5; Bosch is 5/5. Love that show. First off, the book series is just great. Harry Bosch is my favorite detective. No one matters or everyone matters is his motto. Michael Connelly, the writer, is just a phenomenal writer. That carries over to the series. The TV series is very well written and directed, follows the books.

I certainly agree that Bosch is better than Reacher, by quite a margin in my opinion. I suspect the Reacher books are really good but just don't translate as well to TV as Bosch does. Although the Tom Cruise Reacher I really enjoyed. I'm maybe biased for Bosch because it is set in Los Angeles and the filming is really good.
 
Haven't seen Bosch, but Reacher was more of a Mary Sue than what the internet accused that Star Wars chick of being. Also, I don't think there was a single episode where Reacher didn't headbutt someone.
 
The Last of Us

Too early to give a serious review. I did like the first episode, but I wasn't awestruck by it. It was fine and I do want to see what happens next. I also like that they're only releasing one episode per week. Still though, it'll be a year+ before season 2 so maybe I'll do what I did with Better Call Saul and just wait until the last season before I start watching this one.
 
The Last of Us

Too early to give a serious review. I did like the first episode, but I wasn't awestruck by it. It was fine and I do want to see what happens next. I also like that they're only releasing one episode per week. Still though, it'll be a year+ before season 2 so maybe I'll do what I did with Better Call Saul and just wait until the last season before I start watching this one.
For the life of me, I don't understand why it has to be alternate history. It's just an unnecessary complication to the story.
 
The Last of Us

Too early to give a serious review. I did like the first episode, but I wasn't awestruck by it. It was fine and I do want to see what happens next. I also like that they're only releasing one episode per week. Still though, it'll be a year+ before season 2 so maybe I'll do what I did with Better Call Saul and just wait until the last season before I start watching this one.
For the life of me, I don't understand why it has to be alternate history. It's just an unnecessary complication to the story.
I never played the game so I'm not at all familiar with its storyline. I assume it's a quest type of thing, so there'll be action, adventure, and twists.

Most movies (series?) derived from video games have been truly terrible, so hopefully this breaks that streak.

Question: how can there be alternate history if the "history" itself is fictional?
 
The Last of Us

Too early to give a serious review. I did like the first episode, but I wasn't awestruck by it. It was fine and I do want to see what happens next. I also like that they're only releasing one episode per week. Still though, it'll be a year+ before season 2 so maybe I'll do what I did with Better Call Saul and just wait until the last season before I start watching this one.
For the life of me, I don't understand why it has to be alternate history. It's just an unnecessary complication to the story.
I never played the game so I'm not at all familiar with its storyline. I assume it's a quest type of thing, so there'll be action, adventure, and twists.

Most movies (series?) derived from video games have been truly terrible, so hopefully this breaks that streak.

Question: how can there be alternate history if the "history" itself is fictional?
Think Leon meets The Walking Dead and that's pretty much the game. As to the alternate history part, the show outlines the apocalypse occurred in 2003. It's left me scratching my head as to why seeing as the game came out in 2013 and starts in a contemporary setting. It bugs me because it's just not needed and it drew my attention away from the plot. It would be like if someone did a Red Dead Redemption TV series (which I don't support), but insist it was set in the 1820s for some reason.
 
The Man In The High Castle, 6/10; Set in post WWII where it appears Japan and Germany won the war and divided the USA between them. There is a resistance movement against Japan and Germany and Germany seems to be trying to muscle out the Japanese. The man in the high castle distributes films depicting an alternative outcome of the war using what looks like authentic film footage. I'm almost finished season one but I doubt I will go any further. It can be quite good in places but for the most part it is pretty slow and has that "Lost" vibe about it, it will go down dead ends.
 
The Man In The High Castle, 6/10; Set in post WWII where it appears Japan and Germany won the war and divided the USA between them. There is a resistance movement against Japan and Germany and Germany seems to be trying to muscle out the Japanese. The man in the high castle distributes films depicting an alternative outcome of the war using what looks like authentic film footage. I'm almost finished season one but I doubt I will go any further. It can be quite good in places but for the most part it is pretty slow and has that "Lost" vibe about it, it will go down dead ends.
To me it wasn't the pacing. I can stand a slow burner that takes time to develop things properly. I just hated the protagonist. God, what an unlikeable POS she was.

I did finish the series though. I enjoyed it for the most part. But in one of the early episodes of the first season, there's a scene where it's strongly implied that the Nazis have set up concentration camps in the U.S. and are disposing of people in them. The show never takes that idea anywhere. It's been a few years, but IIRC (and I may not), that was it---never touched on again.
 
The Ark

A new Sci Fi channel series about colony ship heading to a new planet to colonize. The ship suffers a so far unexplained major malfunction and awakens what's left of the crew and passengers way too early. They are short on food and water and a murder occurs.

Not a bad story but the science is all too... wrong. They have the spinning habitats to simulate gravity but they also have areas that should not have gravity but do. The engines are running constantly which would not be necessary. And of course from outside the ship all kinds of sounds can be heard.

5/10
 
The Ark

A new Sci Fi channel series about colony ship heading to a new planet to colonize. The ship suffers a so far unexplained major malfunction and awakens what's left of the crew and passengers way too early. They are short on food and water and a murder occurs.

Not a bad story but the science is all too... wrong. They have the spinning habitats to simulate gravity but they also have areas that should not have gravity but do. The engines are running constantly which would not be necessary. And of course from outside the ship all kinds of sounds can be heard.

5/10
I recently read a book with a similar premise. The lead character starts to get genre savvy, and questions such things, to general ridicule from his bosses and family members


- but the big twist is that the spaceship never managed to leave Earth, and is still on the ground at its launch site in a post-apocalyptic world.



I don't recall the title or author right now, but I remember being impressed by the inversion of the usual sci-fi 'mistakes'.
 
The Ark

A new Sci Fi channel series about colony ship heading to a new planet to colonize. The ship suffers a so far unexplained major malfunction and awakens what's left of the crew and passengers way too early. They are short on food and water and a murder occurs.

Not a bad story but the science is all too... wrong. They have the spinning habitats to simulate gravity but they also have areas that should not have gravity but do. The engines are running constantly which would not be necessary. And of course from outside the ship all kinds of sounds can be heard.

5/10
I recently read a book with a similar premise. The lead character starts to get genre savvy, and questions such things, to general ridicule from his bosses and family members


- but the big twist is that the spaceship never managed to leave Earth, and is still on the ground at its launch site in a post-apocalyptic world.



I don't recall the title or author right now, but I remember being impressed by the inversion of the usual sci-fi 'mistakes'.
I seem to remember reading something like that too.
 
Of course the main reason why sci-fi spacecraft almost always have gravity throughout, is that the only alternatives are difficult and expensive special effects to depict microgravity in earthbound studios; Or clunky and unconvincing (but inexpensive) special effects that do more to ruin the willing suspension of disbelief than mere errors.

Ron Howard's excellent Apollo 13 was partly filmed using standard effects on the ground, with the actors suspended by wires and hydraulic platforms, and partly filmed in actual microgravity conditions on a 'Vomit Comet' parabolic aircraft. It's very effective, but the cost must have been eye watering. Certainly such effects are out of reach of a TV series budget.

A 15 parabola flight, giving five minutes of microgravity (in fifteen twenty second blocks), costs around $9,000 per person retail. Even with significant bulk purchase discounts, and a minimal camera and sound crew plus the actors, that's going to be pretty expensive. And that's before you factor in the cost of building and installing sets and filming equipment on the aircraft that can tolerate the ~2g loads during the climb and descent phases of each parabola.
 
The Ark

A new Sci Fi channel series about colony ship heading to a new planet to colonize. The ship suffers a so far unexplained major malfunction and awakens what's left of the crew and passengers way too early. They are short on food and water and a murder occurs.

Not a bad story but the science is all too... wrong. They have the spinning habitats to simulate gravity but they also have areas that should not have gravity but do. The engines are running constantly which would not be necessary. And of course from outside the ship all kinds of sounds can be heard.

5/10
I think everyone got spoiled with The Expanse. I try not to worry about the inconsistencies of sci-fi unless they are glaring. But the dialogue in The Ark was way too cringe for me, I switched off after the first 20 minutes of the first episode. I'm starting to wonder if my standards for character and dialogue are too high whilst my standards for special effects are too low. Paint your face green and stick drink straws in your ears and I'll believe you're an alien. But if every character acts like a one dimensional interchangeable sassy Joss Whedon character then I tune out.

Poker Face

Natasha Lyonne is Columbo. That's it. Nothing more or less, doesn't pretend to be more or less. Skip an episode, watch them out of order it really doesn't matter. Not bad but just..."there" as a show.
 
The Ark

A new Sci Fi channel series about colony ship heading to a new planet to colonize. The ship suffers a so far unexplained major malfunction and awakens what's left of the crew and passengers way too early. They are short on food and water and a murder occurs.

Not a bad story but the science is all too... wrong. They have the spinning habitats to simulate gravity but they also have areas that should not have gravity but do. The engines are running constantly which would not be necessary. And of course from outside the ship all kinds of sounds can be heard.

5/10
I think everyone got spoiled with The Expanse. I try not to worry about the inconsistencies of sci-fi unless they are glaring. But the dialogue in The Ark was way too cringe for me, I switched off after the first 20 minutes of the first episode. I'm starting to wonder if my standards for character and dialogue are too high whilst my standards for special effects are too low. Paint your face green and stick drink straws in your ears and I'll believe you're an alien. But if every character acts like a one dimensional interchangeable sassy Joss Whedon character then I tune out.

Poker Face

Natasha Lyonne is Columbo. That's it. Nothing more or less, doesn't pretend to be more or less. Skip an episode, watch them out of order it really doesn't matter. Not bad but just..."there" as a show.

The Expanse is such a great show! Agree regarding Poker Face. It's a good show. Lyonne is very good. But I tend to get bored with detective shows...
 
Yellowjackets

I've watched 4 episodes so far and apparently I'm entertained enough to keep watching.

Briefly, a high school girl's soccer team is on a plane trip to play in a game and it crashes. Bad things ensue. While this is the most interesting part of the show, it has its problems and only makes up a small fraction of what the viewer sees. Most of the things that take place immediately post-crash are flashbacks. The rest are the present-day adults coping quite poorly with the event that happened some 25 years earlier. Some of these storylines are true I just don't give a shit about that storylines. There's also... bah. I'll leave it that.

I recommend giving it a shot. It is good enough for that.
 
John Callahan's "Quads" on the YouTube.

He was the disabled cartoonist featured in the film "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot." Saw that movie a few years back on the Amazon Prime, and it was very good. What I didn't know is that Callahan had a short lived animated series filled with a cast of characters living with disability. It is brutal, absurdly politically incorrect, and (so far) brilliant. Funny. Painful. Callahan confronted stereotypes about disability in an unapologetic fashion, and the show pulled no punches.
 
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