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

[marc]

Finished Lower Decks. That show was so very well balanced. Incredible stuff really. Meaningful, but not too meaningful. References galore, without it being too obvious. Silly and some times over the top, but not too much. Just a perfect balance.

Love that series. Did you see the crossover with Strange New Worlds?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I haven't started Strange New Worlds. I have a phobia about new Star Trek ventures since Voyager/Enterprise.

 

[marc]

I haven't started Strange New Worlds. I have a phobia about new Star Trek ventures since Voyager/Enterprise.

Voyager is the only Star Trek series I stopped watching. Just couldn't take it anymore. Enterprise was ok the first couple seasons, but I think it jumped the shark with the Vindi story line.

Strange New Worlds has actually been excellent! Loved the second season, including the crossover with Lower Decks.

 

[Swammerdami]

I just finished The Residence (2025). I liked it a lot, and approve of its 7.7 IMDB score. Wikipedia calls it "an American mystery comedy drama" but IMDB's "screwball whodunnit" is a better description. I don't know if a smart viewer would be able to guess the murderer's identity, but I don't do that even with most non-screwball whodunnits. Comedy is not my usual genre, but this was a very fun watch, full of zaniness -- somewhat TOO zany to qualify as "dark comedy" which IS one of my genres. (The title refers to The White House, POTUS's residence and venue for the murder.)

The acting was good. There were no big-name stars but I recognized the Gus Fring actor from Breaking Bad and two minor characters from The Wire. Al Franken played the Senator leading the investigation into the murder.

The lead role ("world's best detective") was played by Uzo Aduba, the actress that played Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" in Orange is the New Black. (Speaking of that series, I agree with Angry Floof that it is one of the very best series (though I'd avoid the last season or two). OITNB made the Academy of TV etc. change their rules: It was winning BOTH the best comedy AND the best drama awards!)

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

I just finished The Residence (2025). I liked it a lot, and approve of its 7.7 IMDB score. Wikipedia calls it "an American mystery comedy drama" but IMDB's "screwball whodunnit" is a better description. I don't know if a smart viewer would be able to guess the murderer's identity, but I don't do that even with most non-screwball whodunnits. Comedy is not my usual genre, but this was a very fun watch, full of zaniness -- somewhat TOO zany to qualify as "dark comedy" which IS one of my genres. (The title refers to The White House, POTUS's residence and venue for the murder.)

The acting was good. There were no big-name stars but I recognized the Gus Fring actor from Breaking Bad and two minor characters from The Wire. Al Franken played the Senator leading the investigation into the murder.

The lead role ("world's best detective") was played by Uzo Aduba, the actress that played Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" in Orange is the New Black. (Speaking of that series, I agree with Angry Floof that it is one of the very best series (though I'd avoid the last season or two). OITNB made the Academy of TV etc. change their rules: It was winning BOTH the best comedy AND the best drama awards!)

None of the “Shondaland” productions have hit the mark with me, but maybe I’ll try an episode or two.

 

[ZiprHead]

Watching the Stephanie Miller show on Free Speech TV. Her guest right now is Jo Jo From Jerz, a social media personality. She is absolutely gorgeous and I could fall in love with her in a heartbeat.

 

[Swammerdami]

None of the “Shondaland” productions have hit the mark with me, but maybe I’ll try an episode or two.

I'd never heard of them but just examined the list of Shondaland productions. I started two -- Grey's Anatomy and How to get away with Murder -- but quickly lost interest in both. Neither was anything like The Residence.

The Residence is quite silly, which may be a big turn-off. I enjoyed it despite that I normally dislike silliness. Think of the Monty Python crew doing a version of Murder on the Orient Express.

 

[unapologetic]

The Time Element. 1958 Written by Rod Serling


Good show. Precursor to 'Twilight Zone'.
One flaw: It misapplied the 'Grandfather Paradox'.
You can't do anything in the past that alters your timeline, or your memory of it.
Named 'Grandfather Paradox' because if you kill him, in his youth, you won't be born, or go back in time. Paradox.
If your younger self dies (because of your actions) your older self won't exist to go back in time and cause it. Paradox.
Acheving your goal in the past will eliminate your motive in the present, to go back. Paradox.

In the show it is stated that if you (your older self) dies in the past, you won't make the trip. Not paradox and not logical. (you will simply not return from your trip.) Serling should have known better. But still a god show. Anyhow, Serling, as wrighter, is god of any universe he creates and can make the rules of time travel in it. And most time travel stories ignore the Grandfather paradox, it's a plot killer.

 

[thebeave]

The Time Element. 1958 Written by Rod Serling


Good show. Precursor to 'Twilight Zone'.
One flaw: It misapplied the 'Grandfather Paradox'.
You can't do anything in the past that alters your timeline, or your memory of it.
Named 'Grandfather Paradox' because if you kill him, in his youth, you won't be born, or go back in time. Paradox.
If your younger self dies (because of your actions) your older self won't exist to go back in time and cause it. Paradox.
Acheving your goal in the past will eliminate your motive in the present, to go back. Paradox.

In the show it is stated that if you (your older self) dies in the past, you won't make the trip. Not paradox and not logical. (you will simply not return from your trip.) Serling should have known better. But still a god show. Anyhow, Serling, as wrighter, is god of any universe he creates and can make the rules of time travel in it. And most time travel stories ignore the Grandfather paradox, it's a plot killer.

I started to watch that, not expecting Desi Arnez to be host. I have to pause for a little while so I can stop laughing. I keep expecting to hear a "Loooocy...you got some e'splaining to do!". Sounds like a good show, though.

I don't think there's ever been a time travel (to the past) movie that has ever been truly logical and non-paradoxical. They can be a lot of fun if you just shut your brain off for a little while and enjoy the show.

 

[WAB]

The Time Element. 1958 Written by Rod Serling


Good show. Precursor to 'Twilight Zone'.
One flaw: It misapplied the 'Grandfather Paradox'.
You can't do anything in the past that alters your timeline, or your memory of it.
Named 'Grandfather Paradox' because if you kill him, in his youth, you won't be born, or go back in time. Paradox.
If your younger self dies (because of your actions) your older self won't exist to go back in time and cause it. Paradox.
Acheving your goal in the past will eliminate your motive in the present, to go back. Paradox.

In the show it is stated that if you (your older self) dies in the past, you won't make the trip. Not paradox and not logical. (you will simply not return from your trip.) Serling should have known better. But still a god show. Anyhow, Serling, as wrighter, is god of any universe he creates and can make the rules of time travel in it. And most time travel stories ignore the Grandfather paradox, it's a plot killer.

"Willing suspension of disbelief", a concept attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. To enjoy a bit of fantastical fiction you sometimes have to accept certain Illogical and/or irrational premises and contradictions. Classic example is the concept of the "living dead". Not that anyone doesn't know this.

 

[Swammerdami]

I don't think there's ever been a time travel (to the past) movie that has ever been truly logical and non-paradoxical. They can be a lot of fun if you just shut your brain off for a little while and enjoy the show.

I enjoy a few time-travel films (Deja Vu, Source Code, ???) whether the sci-fi is logical or not. Just now Google showed me "The 50 All-Time Best Time-Travel Films"; I hadn't even heard of a large majority of these. (The list includes Lucy, an enjoyable film from 2014 which I first watched just a few days ago and which does NOT involve time travel.)

 

[bilby]

The grandfather paradox only applies if we assume a single timeline. A 'Many worlds' interpretation renders that paradox null and void; I can go back in time and kill my grandfather, the only constraint is that in the timeline I started out in, I didn't succeed.

To take a more clichéd example, it is not impossible, in a many worlds multiverse, to go back and kill Hitler, preventing both WWII and the Holocaust; It is just futile.

Your "success" changes nothing for the victims, it just moves your personal perspective into a different timeline in which they didn't suffer. They are unavoidably still suffering in the original timeline from which you departed, because if they were not, your motive to go back and kill Hitler would never have arisen.

Indeed, in the many worlds multiverse, it is needless to worry about what choices occurred in the past, because all of them did. The holocaust was both perpetrated and prevented, each an infinite number of times.

Marty McFly seems to inhabit such a multiverse. He never succeeds in preventing any of the disasters he seeks to avoid; He just keeps swapping timelines until he finds one he likes, in which his parents did get married, so he does exist; Doc never gets killed by Libyan terrorists; Biff doesn't become the richest man in the world by betting on sports; etc., etc. Those other 'bad' timelines all must exist - because he saw them. He fixes his own world, but he achieves nothing for anyone else - they are all still suffering, but are somewhere else, out of sight and out of mind.

 

[ZiprHead]

(The list includes Lucy, an enjoyable film from 2014 which I first watched just a few days ago and which does NOT involve time travel.)

Yes, it does.

 

[unapologetic]

Biff doesn't become the richest man in the world by betting on sports;

It's funny (not) how much he resembles Rump.

it is not impossible, in a many worlds multiverse, to go back and kill Hitler,

Well it is impossible for ME. In a 'paradox' sense, Hitler is my grandfather.
My parents met during the war, while stationed in Washington. Without the war, I wouldn't exist.
I would guess, most of the world is in the same boat at this point.
A large bunch of people died, survived, moved around, had different jobs, met different people, had different mates ... than they would have otherwise, and had a baby boom. (and now grandkids)

it just moves your personal perspective into a different timeline

Does it? Without real time travel to test, what timeline will your perspective move to, or return to? Your original will be gone. Perhaps you could (or need to) just stay in the past. In a multiverse, there are also timelines where you didn't travel into the past. If you succeede and return, you may end up in one of those. So it would seem like no change (except there would be two of you).

We are at a point in history similar to 1939. No need for time travel to do what needs to be done.

 

[Patooka]

It's funny (not) how much he resembles Rump.

An argument could be made that considering he was literally a self made man, Biff is the antithesis to Trump. Still an arsehole though.

 

[bilby]

Biff doesn't become the richest man in the world by betting on sports;

It's funny (not) how much he resembles Rump.

it is not impossible, in a many worlds multiverse, to go back and kill Hitler,

Well it is impossible for ME. In a 'paradox' sense, Hitler is my grandfather.

Still not impossible. As I just described, in a many worlds multiverse, all possibilities have occurred, and changing "the past" is futile - because there is no "the past". You can change as many pasts as you like, there will still be infinite presents and futures, including the one where you decided to change the past, and then did so.

My parents met during the war, while stationed in Washington. Without the war, I wouldn't exist.
I would guess, most of the world is in the same boat at this point.
A large bunch of people died, survived, moved around, had different jobs, met different people, had different mates ... than they would have otherwise, and had a baby boom. (and now grandkids)

Sure, even tiny differences in the past lead to widely different presents. That's no problem for my model though, because infinity is big enough to contain them all.

it just moves your personal perspective into a different timeline

Does it? Without real time travel to test, what timeline will your perspective move to, or return to?

Well, it's a model. Other models are available, but this is one of those in which the grandfather paradox is resolved (or rather simply doesn't exist).

Your original will be gone. Perhaps you could (or need to) just stay in the past.

Perhaps. If you can find a mechanism to prevent movement forward in time, that would be an amazing breakthrough though. It's essentially impossible to stay in the past; All of the stuff you did there has knock-on effects into the future (as you yourself just pointed out - Hitler is dead, but his effects on the universe are still evident, and you are one of them).

In a multiverse, there are also timelines where you didn't travel into the past. If you succeede and return, you may end up in one of those. So it would seem like no change (except there would be two of you).

Maybe. There's no paradox in that, though.

We are at a point in history similar to 1939. No need for time travel to do what needs to be done.

Every point in history is such a point. Unintended consequences are a real thing, though.

There's a massive corpus of literature exploring this theme.

Steven Fry's Making History posits a world in which disposing of Hitler leads to a Nazi victory in WWII, as his place is taken by someone equally evil, but actually competent.

Flight 39, by Phillip P. Peters has the Allies win WWII by a negotiated peace in 1943, after Hitler's assassination. As a result, no atom bombs were developed until after the war, and the Cold War adversaries had no real examples of nuclear bombings of cities, to dissuade them from pressing the button and destroying the world. So they did just that.

Assassinations sometimes have the effects the assassins hope for; But they often don't. Killing Hitler seems like a no-brainer, but there are potential repercussions that could be even worse than what actually occurred - and the very real possibility that the upshot would be essentially no change at all.

Nazi Germany looks like it needed Hitler, but realistically, there were plenty of other top Nazis who might have done much the same things, had Hitler been removed. And they might well have done them more effectively. The focus on the centrality of Hitler himself is largely propaganda.

Get rid of an evil buffoon from the top job, and the risk is strong that an equally evil (but less buffoonish) person takes his place. Particularly if the removal involves an assassination, rather than due process such as an election, or an impeachment.

Assassinations create martyrs. And they lead to a groundswell of popular support for the ideals and political allies of the deceased.

 

[bilby]

It's funny (not) how much he resembles Rump.

An argument could be made that considering he was literally a self made man, Biff is the antithesis to Trump. Still an arsehole though.

Hardly "self-made"; His success was on the back of stealing information that he could never have obtained honestly. Still an arsehole though.

 

[thebeave]

Biff doesn't become the richest man in the world by betting on sports;

It's funny (not) how much he resembles Rump.

it is not impossible, in a many worlds multiverse, to go back and kill Hitler,

Well it is impossible for ME. In a 'paradox' sense, Hitler is my grandfather.

Still not impossible. As I just described, in a many worlds multiverse, all possibilities have occurred, and changing "the past" is futile - because there is no "the past". You can change as many pasts as you like, there will still be infinite presents and futures, including the one where you decided to change the past, and then did so.

My parents met during the war, while stationed in Washington. Without the war, I wouldn't exist.
I would guess, most of the world is in the same boat at this point.
A large bunch of people died, survived, moved around, had different jobs, met different people, had different mates ... than they would have otherwise, and had a baby boom. (and now grandkids)

Sure, even tiny differences in the past lead to widely different presents. That's no problem for my model though, because infinity is big enough to contain them all.

it just moves your personal perspective into a different timeline

Does it? Without real time travel to test, what timeline will your perspective move to, or return to?

Well, it's a model. Other models are available, but this is one of those in which the grandfather paradox is resolved (or rather simply doesn't exist).

Your original will be gone. Perhaps you could (or need to) just stay in the past.

Perhaps. If you can find a mechanism to prevent movement forward in time, that would be an amazing breakthrough though. It's essentially impossible to stay in the past; All of the stuff you did there has knock-on effects into the future (as you yourself just pointed out - Hitler is dead, but his effects on the universe are still evident, and you are one of them).

In a multiverse, there are also timelines where you didn't travel into the past. If you succeede and return, you may end up in one of those. So it would seem like no change (except there would be two of you).

Maybe. There's no paradox in that, though.

We are at a point in history similar to 1939. No need for time travel to do what needs to be done.

Every point in history is such a point. Unintended consequences are a real thing, though.

There's a massive corpus of literature exploring this theme.

Steven Fry's Making History posits a world in which disposing of Hitler leads to a Nazi victory in WWII, as his place is taken by someone equally evil, but actually competent.

Flight 39, by Phillip P. Peters has the Allies win WWII by a negotiated peace in 1943, after Hitler's assassination. As a result, no atom bombs were developed until after the war, and the Cold War adversaries had no real examples of nuclear bombings of cities, to dissuade them from pressing the button and destroying the world. So they did just that.

Assassinations sometimes have the effects the assassins hope for; But they often don't. Killing Hitler seems like a no-brainer, but there are potential repercussions that could be even worse than what actually occurred - and the very real possibility that the upshot would be essentially no change at all.

Nazi Germany looks like it needed Hitler, but realistically, there were plenty of other top Nazis who might have done much the same things, had Hitler been removed. And they might well have done them more effectively. The focus on the centrality of Hitler himself is largely propaganda.

Get rid of an evil buffoon from the top job, and the risk is strong that an equally evil (but less buffoonish) person takes his place. Particularly if the removal involves an assassination, rather than due process such as an election, or an impeachment.

Assassinations create martyrs. And they lead to a groundswell of popular support for the ideals and political allies of the deceased.

You forgot to mention Edith Keeler.

 

[bilby]

You forgot to mention Edith Keeler.

You're right. Delete "There's a massive corpus of literature exploring this theme", and replace with "There's a massive corpus of literature, TV, and film exploring this theme. Even Star Trek covered it".

 

[Politesse]