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

Wait....isn't that the exact plot of Arrow?
Jayjay said:
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.
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I believe that is exactly the feel they were going for.
TSwizzle said:
Stranger Things; It's an ok supernatural drama but I'm not getting all excited about it. It contains a lot of elements cobbled from other movies like E.T., Close Encounters of a Third Kind spring to mind. I've watched three episodes, I'm not sure I will be able to stick with it. The soundtrack is nice and the young actors are really good.
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DrZoidberg said:
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.
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A show strictly about time-travel is impossible unless you strap a go-pro onto an actual time traveler, yeah. Breaking Bad made meth work so anything is possible. Bryan Cranston as John Titor then. Just keep Jesse away from the time machine because he screws everything up.

Primer would be a good movie to create a show from. Could be more of a spy deal, where you gotta spy on yourself to get back to the machine. Or just killing your present self and replacing it in every episode would be a nice Time Crimes touch.
 
Oh, one stupid thing I forgot to mention about the otherwise forgettable Twin Star Excorcists:

One type of antagonist is the Basara, who have asymmetrical eyes, which makes them look like an anime interpretation of a Bill Sienkiewicz character. That part genuinely made me grin.

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Just finished episode 7 of Legion, and it's still damn good. Better than the comic books.


It's confirmed in episode 7. The yellow-eyed demon is in fact Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King.

By the way, kudos to the show for creating the most terrifying version of the Shadow King ever. That guy is pure nightmare fuel.



For those who forgot, Legion takes the "unreliable narrator" storytelling device and goes one step further. Because of the main character's incredible superpowers, not only is the main character an unreliable narrator, but reality itself is also unreliable. Neither you nor the protagonist really knows what is real and what isn't.

The show runners have really been having fun with that aspect of the story. This time we were treated to a short segment that mimicked old time black and white silent films, and self-animated chalkboard doodles. Little by little we are finding out that some things are real and some things are not real, but the show still has fun keeping the audience fairly confused, and the confusion is delicious.

My guesses so far:


The mental hospital was originally a real place his sister sent David to, but what we've seen in the show are either his memories of the place, or an imaginary construct inside David's mind created by the Shadow King to house and control the other personalities.

The Lenny in David's head is clearly an incarnation of the Shadow King, but was there ever a real Lenny? If not, who got embedded in the wall in episode one?

The Angry Boy is probably a construct created by the Shadow King to control David.

The dog exists only in David's memories and is an incarnation of the Shadow King, which is why the dog's name was King.



Do Oliver and Sydney relate to anything in the comic books? They don't ring a bell with me. If not, they're both interesting characters. Anyway, Legion is in my opinion the best comic book TV show ever. When the comic book movie/TV show phenomenon started, I never dreamed I would see the day when this obscure corner of the comic book world would be appreciated by mainstream audiences. It's a really bizarre take on the unreliable narrator thing.

But what do I know? I never imagined mainstream audiences would go for Rocket and Groot or Deadpool.
 
I just realized that my two previous posts are related. One of the few things I liked about Twin Star Exorcists is that some of the character designs remind me of Bill Sienkiewicz, and the David Haller character was co-created by Bill Sienkiewicz.

Not surprising as he is one of my favorite comic book artists. No one captures the feeling of madness quite like him.
 
Underground 6/10

Hot slave girl and her supporting cast escape to freedom to a bewildering selection of songs selected for the musical score.

Battlestar Galactica (2004) 4/10 Episodes 1-6

I'm trying. I told myself to avoid my pet peeve of nit-picking but I find myself giving a lot of license to the wanton and willful ignorance of portraying any semblance to a disciplined, structured military unit. This is beyond the pale. But, season one is bought and paid for and there is an invisible hot cylon raisin smuggler giving Baltar a hard-on in the middle of the passageway all by his lonesome, which is kind of funny, so I'll at least finish the season. Seriously, I see there is a good underlying story so I'll soldier on. I read the positive reviews and understand why people are attracted to the story but for my part, I fell out on drawing parallels to the human condition in my twenties. I'm here for the entertainment.
Episode six has the crew wondering how they are to identify the cylon human impersonators. Hint: One of them was the crew member walking down the ladder backwards like someone's 170 lb. mother on visit ship day. And in what military is the enlisted Master-at-Arms also the JAG? I know they are kind of short-handed but given their other glaring omissions, I don't think that was the assumption I was supposed to make. And don't even get me started on the lieutenant questioning the MAA's positional authority in the hangar bay. Who would expect him to know better?
It may be my thick-headedness, but why is this a continuation story that struggles so to be a continuation story? Twice now I've found myself starting a new episode wondering if I forgot to finish the last. Episode three with the need for water and the prisoner uprising? So now I'm assuming that they did get their water and we now have a ship in the group controlled by prisoners? Did I get up and go to the kitchen? Seriously, the tenuous link from one episode to the next reminds me of Sunday school when the Sunday school teacher would be reading a story and I'm totally getting in to it but it's time to go home and then next week rolls around and I'm anxious to find out what happens next and she's on to something else completely different. WTF lady.

Hap and Leonard

I'm just in to episode two, but this looks promising. Stars James Purefoy, Mark Anthony in HBO's Rome and one of my favorite actors, Michael Kenneth Williams, Omar in HBO's The Wire. And on to the set walks Christina Hendricks, doing God's work. Yeah. This is shaping up nicely.
 
Playball40 said:
Wait....isn't that the exact plot of Arrow?
Jayjay said:
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.
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No, obviously not, don't be ridiculous. Green Arrow uses his green arrows, and Iron Fist uses his iron fists. Completely different things.
 
Erased 12 Episode anime, 9/10. Not technically a unique premise given that time travel to change the past has been done before, but from minute one till the end, could not stop watching it all unfold.
 
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 also about halfway through it and the whole series is worth it just to see Jessica Henwick. I could watch a series of her reading from the phone book or folding her laundry and I'd be happy. :love:
 
Just finished watching "Hip Hop Evolution" on Netflix.


Four episodes. The first two are like Hip Hop 101. A really comprehensive look into the roots of the genre in the 70s, including how people like Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc pioneered the art of mixing records to create new music.

The second two episodes were less interesting because they covered a lot of ground I already knew, but on the whole the series was well done.

I'd give it a 6.5/10.
 
Just finished the last episode of season one of Legion.

Holy shit, but I'm really happy with this interpretation of the character. The ending was a little predictable, which is surprising given that nothing else about this season was, but still, it was amazing.
 
The Expanse 9/10

I binge watched the first season of The Expanse last weekend, and holy shit was it good. An intelligent, well thought out Science Fiction series on SyFy? Who would have thought something like that could exist? Although they certainly condense space travel to unrealistic time frames, they do get a lot of things right, like showing turn-around deceleration burns. The plot, acting, and effects are all superb. The only problem I really had with it was likely due to my binge watching the entire season in one weekend. In several instances they reuse entire scenes from previous episodes to remind the viewer of what happened before, and they do this with no warning that you are watching an entirely reused scene. This would be okay if you are watching it weekly over a few months, but it becomes a bit tedious when binging on Amazon. In one case, they do it at the very beginning of an episode, and I backed out and restarted the episode just to make sure I had not selected the wrong episode. It's a minor gripe, but I would have preferred that they start the episodes with kind of a "this is what happened before" synopsis instead of going this route. That way I could just fast forward and know that I wasn't missing anything, while weekly viewers, or viewers who had missed an episode or two would still be caught up.
 
Game of Thrones (Season One) - Started this series over again. There are a lot of hints about future things that I missed. Apparently some winter thing 'is coming'.

4 of 4
 
KeepTalking said:
The Expanse 9/10

I binge watched the first season of The Expanse last weekend, and holy shit was it good. An intelligent, well thought out Science Fiction series on SyFy? Who would have thought something like that could exist? Although they certainly condense space travel to unrealistic time frames, they do get a lot of things right, like showing turn-around deceleration burns. The plot, acting, and effects are all superb. The only problem I really had with it was likely due to my binge watching the entire season in one weekend. In several instances they reuse entire scenes from previous episodes to remind the viewer of what happened before, and they do this with no warning that you are watching an entirely reused scene. This would be okay if you are watching it weekly over a few months, but it becomes a bit tedious when binging on Amazon. In one case, they do it at the very beginning of an episode, and I backed out and restarted the episode just to make sure I had not selected the wrong episode. It's a minor gripe, but I would have preferred that they start the episodes with kind of a "this is what happened before" synopsis instead of going this route. That way I could just fast forward and know that I wasn't missing anything, while weekly viewers, or viewers who had missed an episode or two would still be caught up.
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odd, this must be something on amazon specifically, because they don't do this on the weekly airing of the show - there is a "previously on..." segment and then it just goes to the episode.
 
KeepTalking said:
The Expanse 9/10

I binge watched the first season of The Expanse last weekend, and holy shit was it good. An intelligent, well thought out Science Fiction series on SyFy? Who would have thought something like that could exist? Although they certainly condense space travel to unrealistic time frames, they do get a lot of things right, like showing turn-around deceleration burns.
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Too bad it is completely unrealistic to have humans living on Ceres the way they do, what with a surface gravity 1/6th of that of the Moon (which is already 1/6th of that of the Earth). The central premise is therefore flawed, even if they get some of the mechanics of spaceflight correct.
 
Shadowy Man said:
KeepTalking said:
The Expanse 9/10

I binge watched the first season of The Expanse last weekend, and holy shit was it good. An intelligent, well thought out Science Fiction series on SyFy? Who would have thought something like that could exist? Although they certainly condense space travel to unrealistic time frames, they do get a lot of things right, like showing turn-around deceleration burns.
Click to expand...

Too bad it is completely unrealistic to have humans living on Ceres the way they do, what with a surface gravity 1/6th of that of the Moon (which is already 1/6th of that of the Earth). The central premise is therefore flawed, even if they get some of the mechanics of spaceflight correct.
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except for the part where it isn't flawed, it's just the limitations of budgets and special effects.

in the books the series is based on space dwelling humans have diverged anatomically from planetary humans, having longer and thinner limbs and a changed internal structure to adapt to the lower gravity.
it's unrealistic to expect a TV show to radically alter the physical appearance of every character that lives in space, so... there is a point at which being nit picky comes up against a wall of practicality.
 
prideandfall said:
Shadowy Man said:
Too bad it is completely unrealistic to have humans living on Ceres the way they do, what with a surface gravity 1/6th of that of the Moon (which is already 1/6th of that of the Earth). The central premise is therefore flawed, even if they get some of the mechanics of spaceflight correct.
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except for the part where it isn't flawed, it's just the limitations of budgets and special effects.

in the books the series is based on space dwelling humans have diverged anatomically from planetary humans, having longer and thinner limbs and a changed internal structure to adapt to the lower gravity.
it's unrealistic to expect a TV show to radically alter the physical appearance of every character that lives in space, so... there is a point at which being nit picky comes up against a wall of practicality.
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Maybe the books flesh it out more, on how they expect to have humans living on Ceres. If they are fully adapted to the low gravity it would seem they'd have trouble dealing with any other planet. Like going to Mars and expecting to walk around on a planet with over 10 times the surface gravity. Think about how low the gravity is on Ceres. If you dropped a pencil from one meter up, it would take almost three seconds to hit the floor. People wouldn't walk so much as bound.
 
prideandfall said:
KeepTalking said:
The Expanse 9/10

I binge watched the first season of The Expanse last weekend, and holy shit was it good. An intelligent, well thought out Science Fiction series on SyFy? Who would have thought something like that could exist? Although they certainly condense space travel to unrealistic time frames, they do get a lot of things right, like showing turn-around deceleration burns. The plot, acting, and effects are all superb. The only problem I really had with it was likely due to my binge watching the entire season in one weekend. In several instances they reuse entire scenes from previous episodes to remind the viewer of what happened before, and they do this with no warning that you are watching an entirely reused scene. This would be okay if you are watching it weekly over a few months, but it becomes a bit tedious when binging on Amazon. In one case, they do it at the very beginning of an episode, and I backed out and restarted the episode just to make sure I had not selected the wrong episode. It's a minor gripe, but I would have preferred that they start the episodes with kind of a "this is what happened before" synopsis instead of going this route. That way I could just fast forward and know that I wasn't missing anything, while weekly viewers, or viewers who had missed an episode or two would still be caught up.
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odd, this must be something on amazon specifically, because they don't do this on the weekly airing of the show - there is a "previously on..." segment and then it just goes to the episode.
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I think with Amazon and Netflix, if you just let it roll from one episode to the next, the "previously on" segment is skipped (perhaps this is just the way my nVidia Shield handles it). The time or two when I took a break between episodes, I am pretty sure I saw them run that segment. Even given that, however, there are at least two scenes that are replayed entirely in the show. One of them is the scene on Ceres where Jane figures out the trajectories of the various ships, and how they relate to one another. This rehashed scene was close to the beginning of an episode, and I think they had another brief scene just before it, but it still made me think that I had somehow queued up the wrong episode. I don't remember the other scene specifically, but I remember thinking, "WTF, they are doing this again?"
 
Shadowy Man said:
prideandfall said:
except for the part where it isn't flawed, it's just the limitations of budgets and special effects.

in the books the series is based on space dwelling humans have diverged anatomically from planetary humans, having longer and thinner limbs and a changed internal structure to adapt to the lower gravity.
it's unrealistic to expect a TV show to radically alter the physical appearance of every character that lives in space, so... there is a point at which being nit picky comes up against a wall of practicality.
Click to expand...

Maybe the books flesh it out more, on how they expect to have humans living on Ceres. If they are fully adapted to the low gravity it would seem they'd have trouble dealing with any other planet. Like going to Mars and expecting to walk around on a planet with over 10 times the surface gravity. Think about how low the gravity is on Ceres. If you dropped a pencil from one meter up, it would take almost three seconds to hit the floor. People wouldn't walk so much as bound.
Click to expand...

They certainly do show that Ceres is a low gravity environment. The birds on Ceres only flap their wings occasionally to stay aloft, when people are pouring liquids they pour at an angle rather than straight down, and IIRC when people are walking around they use magnetic boots to keep them from bounding.
 
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