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

Iron Fist

Just finished the first episode. Not much happening yet, seems like it is rather derivative starting from the opening credits sequence that's nicked from Daredevil. My topmost thought is, that how clueless Danny seems to be. First, he shows up in New York and everyone thinks he's dead, so nobody believes him. Did it not occur to him once when he was walking over from China or wherever that this might happen, and he should have thought of some story in advance? Ok, maybe he got caught off guard because it was his childhood friends instead of their father who was the CEO, and he was flustered when meeting them. But after that he had a whole day to think what to say to Joy, and the best he can come up with is "hey, it's me". Not "ask me anything only Danny would know" or tell some anecdote from their childhood that would convince her? Aargh.
 
Danny is comic relief of the fish-out-of-water variety, and yes, he is naive and kind of clueless. It's part of his charm.

I've watched two episodes so far and I'm enjoying it. So far I have no idea why the critics panned it like that. It's a bit slower-paced, but at least it feels different from the other Marvel-Netflix shows.
 
The criticisms I've seen is that the story is no longer fresh. Spoiled rich kid is snatched out of his pampered life, then learns martial arts somewhere in the Far East, and comes back to clean up his old town and somehow find redemption. Rather familiar superhero origin story.

Note, I've yet to watch any episodes, but I plan to.
 
Underseer said:
Danny is comic relief of the fish-out-of-water variety, and yes, he is naive and kind of clueless. It's part of his charm.

I've watched two episodes so far and I'm enjoying it. So far I have no idea why the critics panned it like that. It's a bit slower-paced, but at least it feels different from the other Marvel-Netflix shows.
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The idiocy in the first episode wasn't that charming, but I'm glad they dropped that "nobody believe who I am" crap soon enough. I wish they had used more budget on the Kun Lun flashbacks, I would have liked to see more of his training rather than just being told about it.

Halfway through binging it now. So far, Joy's character seems a bit cliched, and ward who started off as a dick is shaping up to be one of the most interesting characters. I hope the build-up pays off in the end.
 
Game of Thrones: I love it (especially given this season's smackdown on religious fanatics)


Looks like faith can't move Mountains after all.
 
Jayjay said:
Underseer said:
Danny is comic relief of the fish-out-of-water variety, and yes, he is naive and kind of clueless. It's part of his charm.

I've watched two episodes so far and I'm enjoying it. So far I have no idea why the critics panned it like that. It's a bit slower-paced, but at least it feels different from the other Marvel-Netflix shows.
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The idiocy in the first episode wasn't that charming, but I'm glad they dropped that "nobody believe who I am" crap soon enough. I wish they had used more budget on the Kun Lun flashbacks, I would have liked to see more of his training rather than just being told about it.

Halfway through binging it now. So far, Joy's character seems a bit cliched, and ward who started off as a dick is shaping up to be one of the most interesting characters. I hope the build-up pays off in the end.
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I'm just thankful they're not shying away from talking about how the 1% treats everyone else. Glad they went out of their way to make Joy, Ward, and Harold at least somewhat sympathetic without pulling any punches on the 1% thing.

And the most interesting character so far for me is Colleen, but then I'm not familiar with her from the comics, so this is my introduction to her.

(I'm at episode five or so)
 
Just finished episode 10 (out of 13) of Iron Fist.

First, there seems to be a lot of references and homages to martial arts movies from the 1970s, but I'm really not that familiar with those films. For instance, there was a door guard who was an obvious reference to Drunken Master by Jackie Chan. Further, the sense of peace in the show seems to mimic that of a 1970s martial arts movie. Perhaps someone more familiar without this type of film can shed more light on this aspect, but the whole show feels like a love letter to old martial arts movies.

This is definitely the weakest of the four Marvel-Netflix movies (for example, the martial arts is not as good as Daredevil, which is unfortunate given the subject matter), but I still don't understand why it got savaged by the critics like it did.

Get to see a lot more of Madame Gao, and she is as interesting and mysterious and infuriating and scary as ever.

The Hand as an organization is more complicated than ever, which is interesting.

I find the Meechum family tragic and sympathetic, yet monstrous at the same time.

I don't want to say much more for fear of spoiling it.
 
Regarding the "fish out of water" thing, a lot of shows and movies, including Iron Fist, muck it up by having the characters not be clueless about the kidn of things that they should be clueless about. For example, driving a car. Ninja master or not, it's not believable that Danny learned to drive as well as navigate New York traffic when he was ten sitting on his father's lap.
 
Jayjay said:
Regarding the "fish out of water" thing, a lot of shows and movies, including Iron Fist, muck it up by having the characters not be clueless about the kidn of things that they should be clueless about. For example, driving a car. Ninja master or not, it's not believable that Danny learned to drive as well as navigate New York traffic when he was ten sitting on his father's lap.
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I have to agree with you there, even if he did get some experience as a child.

I just finished watching the whole season. My previous comments stand. It's the weakest of the Marvel-Netflix shows, but not as bad as the critics said. The martial arts we weaker than Daredevil (which is a shame), but on the plus side was much more political than Daredevil. I strongly suspect that if I were more familiar with 1970s martial arts movies, I would have liked it better.

7.5 out of 10
 
12 Monkeys
1/2

Based on a time travel movie which makes it clear history can't be changed, and in the first episode they make it clear that history can be changed. And then inconsistently history does not seem to change anyway. There are a bunch of time travel shows about changing the past, why not have at least one where the characters just think they can change things, but nothing changes?
 
Yes Jayjay time-travel shows are really failing. I Watch Timeless because I liked the first episode. The Hindernburg thing I thought was cool. I don't go out of my way to watch it. A half dozen time-travel shows could take a good direction but nah they won't. Outlander could be really good. So could 12 Monkeys, if they kill off 70% of the cast. They already set an end date for that show tho. Time-travel is a good trait in other shows that aren't exclusively about time travel. It is a trait in dozens of shows but still no new rules like yours seen yet.

The inescapable loop of the cinema 12 Monkeys somewhat means that he is thinking the whole thing because there isn't an escape, and he isn't sure that his timeline is all that time is. The Movie excuses any atrocity the show commits because it is a 9/10 type of time-travel movie. No complaints about the movie.

The show is cramped, terribly directed and the bond between the characters is undetectable. It is the apocalypse, but Cohl/Cole should at least have some acting skill? Aaron Stanford is NOT good at this, and his bromance partner Acevedo looks like he is in the middle of a stroke in every scene. Schull is too beautiful for television and it throws the whole show off. She looks way too made up. Why is her Barbie blonde hair so perfect after her body has been torn apart and reassembled in another century? She lives a tough apocalypse life in a moldering bunker yet she has a secret makeup room over by the sump pump? Lots of things don't fit in the show. Especially the time-travel rules. Butchered.
 
Twin Star Exorcists 5 /10

Kiddie crap. Mediocre kiddie crap with action and bad romance. In fact, it's as if a bad romance novel meant for middle school girls had a bastard love child with a shonen manga meant for teen boys. Mildly appealing if you turn your brain off and can handle a lot of cliches.

On the plus side it has more than the usual 13 episodes of most anime, so the story actually goes somewhere and plot threads actually get resolved instead of being a big tease used to entice you into buying the manga.
 
another1 said:
Yes Jayjay time-travel shows are really failing. I Watch Timeless because I liked the first episode. The Hindernburg thing I thought was cool. I don't go out of my way to watch it. A half dozen time-travel shows could take a good direction but nah they won't. Outlander could be really good. So could 12 Monkeys, if they kill off 70% of the cast. They already set an end date for that show tho. Time-travel is a good trait in other shows that aren't exclusively about time travel. It is a trait in dozens of shows but still no new rules like yours seen yet.

The inescapable loop of the cinema 12 Monkeys somewhat means that he is thinking the whole thing because there isn't an escape, and he isn't sure that his timeline is all that time is. The Movie excuses any atrocity the show commits because it is a 9/10 type of time-travel movie. No complaints about the movie.

The show is cramped, terribly directed and the bond between the characters is undetectable. It is the apocalypse, but Cohl/Cole should at least have some acting skill? Aaron Stanford is NOT good at this, and his bromance partner Acevedo looks like he is in the middle of a stroke in every scene. Schull is too beautiful for television and it throws the whole show off. She looks way too made up. Why is her Barbie blonde hair so perfect after her body has been torn apart and reassembled in another century? She lives a tough apocalypse life in a moldering bunker yet she has a secret makeup room over by the sump pump? Lots of things don't fit in the show. Especially the time-travel rules. Butchered.
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But a show about time travel can't be about time travel. It has to be about something else, and the time travel has to be used to show that. The 12 Monkey film is about technology, technophobia and man's seemingly inherent drive to want to destroy itself. The time travel was necessary to show and contrast the future with today. Even the mistaken time travel to the trenches of WWI was meaningful. Since that's perhaps the lowest point of human civilisation. It acts to argue that perhaps the bioterrorists have a point.

But the TV series is about time travel. That makes it completely uninteresting. Since nothing is permanent, nothing matters. It's not used to contrast anything, or make s point. It's all about twists. Twists that don't matter in the long run.

It's very hard to make time travel work. The best uses of it is where it's just glossed over. Like Terminator, where it's made clear that it makes no sense and the film maker doesn't care. So we focus on other stuff than trying to figure out the logic of it. Or Back to the Future where it's all just elaborate set ups to punchlines for jokes. So we are fine with that it doesn't make sense. Or Star Trek where it's obviously about them trying to save money. So they borrow the set of another production for that episode. It becomes charming, because it's so convoluted.
 
The best time travel TV show I've seen was Continuum. They make very few mistakes with the time travel.
 
One Punch Man 6.5 / 10

Noooooo! This should have been right up my alley! It lampoons superhero stuff. It lampoons Western and Japanese superhero tropes. It's absurd. The protagonist is an idiot. By all rights I should like this, but I mostly got a big "meh" out of it. I've only seen a few episodes so far. Does it get better? Everyone was raving about this show.

I guess humor is really subjective.
 
Shadowy Man said:
The best time travel TV show I've seen was Continuum. They make very few mistakes with the time travel.
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Continuum was another show I really wanted to like, but didn't, and I don't know why. The protagonist is a good person fighting for a bad cause, the antagonists are bad people fighting for a noble cause. It's thoughtful sci-fi, but I just couldn't get into it and eventually stopped watching.
 
Timeless is awful time travel show.

Idiots travel back in time and they only thing they think to check are their clothes.

They take a black man along with them, even though having a black guy around and a woman traveling alone during early parts of history is either suspect or an aberration worthy of notice.

They travel to WW2 Germany and Revolutionary America and don't take someone who can speak the language and they don't try to speak as the locals do.

The woman is a brittle, Puritan-esque, high stress type.

The UNBELIEVABLY good looking Army Ranger guy (besides not being able to take on 3 guys with single shot muskets) is worthless and only there to eventually 'relax' the stiff woman with love and sex.

The black guy has a good part - actually maneuvering the time machine. He should stay with the machine and not go off on his own as he is wont to do.

They all have emotional problems and I can't believe they're anyone's first pick to go on such missions. OK, they were rushed for the first part. In the meantime their HQ should be training more competent and stable people to take over, but of course, they don't.

Dumb dumb dumb.
 
Trying to watch Legion and curiously not liking it. At all. It feels lie a psychodrama, which is fine enough, but none of the this is actually about an alt reality created by Marvel brought to the screen feeling came through. Three episoes lter n it stil lfeels mre like the guy has paranoid pchyzophrenia than he is mutant.
 
Underseer said:
Shadowy Man said:
The best time travel TV show I've seen was Continuum. They make very few mistakes with the time travel.
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Continuum was another show I really wanted to like, but didn't, and I don't know why. The protagonist is a good person fighting for a bad cause, the antagonists are bad people fighting for a noble cause. It's thoughtful sci-fi, but I just couldn't get into it and eventually stopped watching.
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Oh, it's not without its failings. But as far as the logical mechanics of the time travel, I've never seen better.
 
Shadowy Man said:
Underseer said:
Continuum was another show I really wanted to like, but didn't, and I don't know why. The protagonist is a good person fighting for a bad cause, the antagonists are bad people fighting for a noble cause. It's thoughtful sci-fi, but I just couldn't get into it and eventually stopped watching.
Click to expand...

Oh, it's not without its failings. But as far as the logical mechanics of the time travel, I've never seen better.
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Ahem.

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