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

[Tom Sawyer]

Supergirl - Season 3 - 5/10

I really liked the first two seasons of this show, but the third one just kind of dropped off of a cliff. Mostly because she spends most of the time moping around in a funk because her boyfriend left - way to be a fucking feminist icon whom young women can look towards for inspiration, BTW. The writers seems to have missed the main message from the DCEU movies, namely that nobody likes a whiny, emo Kryptonian. After the eighth or ninth "Woe is me, I'll never love again!" scene, they really needed to have her put on her big girl pants and move on. In the Injustice series, when Superman lost Lois Lane, he flipped out and became a fascist dictator who crushed the entire planet under his iron fist - not the most emotionally stable choice, of course, but at least he had agency and his actions and decisions moved the storyline forward instead of how they did it with Supergirl who just passively stands there and lets the story happen around her while she cries.

The villain also sucked. They had an evil Kryptonian whom they did an offshoot of the Superman origin story for, but that just highlighted how they're ripping off their own intellectual property with the B-listers. Then her powers made no sense. She was a regular human until she hit adulthood. Why? Because. Kryptonite doesn't really affect her. Why? Because. Supergirl loses her powers when they wander off to a place with a blue sun but the bad guy stays just as strong. Why? Because. If she's supposed to be some kind of special super Kryptonian who doesn't have the race's weaknesses, that's fine, but toss in a line or two of dialogue to explain that instead of just having her be different than the rest of them for reasons.

Basically, it was a lot of lazy writing and bad choices in direction.

 

[Jayjay]

Daredevil Season 3

After the sub-standard Iron Fist season and cancellation, I was worried that Netflix might be pulling the plug from all of its series by producing cheap final seasons and milking the properties for what they are worth before Disney gets its own streaming platform up and running. Fortunately, I was wrong. If Daredevil is done on a lower budget than earlier seasons, it doesn't show. It's full 13 episodes, a lot of fighting and action, and I actually think the new suit is an upgrade design-wise. I only regret that we didn't get to see Bullseye in his own costume, or doing even more trick shooting, but you can't have everything I suppose. Kingpin was already a good villain in season 1 (though I personally didn't like him at the time that much), but he really steps up the game in season 3 and manages to be almost as intimidating as Purple Man from Jessica Jones. Unlike season 2, that was more about the Punisher and Hand than the titular character, this season is all about Daredevil and his little helpers, Foggy and Karen. And Kingpin really puts them through the grinder, as a good villain should.

9 or 10/10

 

[Patooka]

To continue with with comic book theme DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

I enjoyed season 1, season 2 was pretty how's it going. At some point in season 3, the writers ran out of fucks to give and it has become a delightful, "just go with it" romp I haven't seen since Red Dwarf. The final fight scene of last season had me laugh out loud at the absurdity, and the first episode of season 4 doesn't disappoint (This is going to affect our ratings at the Time Bereau but we still have a few dedicated fans). I honestly think everyone who works on the show enjoy every minute and it comes through on the presentation.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

The Rookie 7/10 but IMDB gives it an 8.2

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7587890/

 

[KeepTalking]

To continue with with comic book theme DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

I enjoyed season 1, season 2 was pretty how's it going. At some point in season 3, the writers ran out of fucks to give and it has become a delightful, "just go with it" romp I haven't seen since Red Dwarf. The final fight scene of last season had me laugh out loud at the absurdity, and the first episode of season 4 doesn't disappoint (This is going to affect our ratings at the Time Bereau but we still have a few dedicated fans). I honestly think everyone who works on the show enjoy every minute and it comes through on the presentation.

The first episode of season 4 continues with fun and insanity of it all. This show really shouldn't be anywhere near as good as it is, for a variety of reasons, but it is currently my favorite of the Arrowverse shows, having surpassed The Flash for me in the last couple of seasons.

 

[marc]

Supergirl is doing good this season. The storyline is of spreading anti-alien bigotry, which supergirl didn’t really believe until facing some underground message boards/chat rooms/email groups. Tonight’s episode was very interesting as it showed the radicalization of one of the groups leaders. He started out as an ok history professor, embarrassed by his father’s bigotry. But then his father’s steel company couldn’t compete with the alien alloy company, and he refused to modernize. Other unfortunate events followed that he chose to blame on aliens, and you can see the making of a terrorist.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Supergirl is doing good this season. The storyline is of spreading anti-alien bigotry, which supergirl didn’t really believe until facing some underground message boards/chat rooms/email groups. Tonight’s episode was very interesting as it showed the radicalization of one of the groups leaders. He started out as an ok history professor, embarrassed by his father’s bigotry. But then his father’s steel company couldn’t compete with the alien alloy company, and he refused to modernize. Other unfortunate events followed that he chose to blame on aliens, and you can see the making of a terrorist.

Ya, I posted my review above about half way through season three. It did pick up more towards the end and they started having fun with the show and the character again. It's good to see they've kept that up into the next season.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The Good Place - 9/10

Frigging hilarious show. The basic premise is that this lady dies and ends up in Heaven. She really doesn't deserve to be there, though, and only got in due to an administrative screw up by a rookie angel. All the selfish acts she does start to mess the place up, so she enlists the help of this ethics professor whom she met there to help her to act like a good and moral person so that she doesn't get found out and tossed down into Hell. I'm just laughing my ass off constantly during every episode. I can't recommend this one enough.


Spoiler alert:

Show

The twist at the end of season one is one of the best twists I've seen in a while.

 

[Toni]

God Friended Me

We watched the first episode of this new show and enjoyed it well enough. I'd like to see more television that touches on ethics, religion and philosophy (like The Good Place) so gave this a go. My only real complaint is that they grounded his atheism in the death of his mother, playing into the "angry at God" stereotype of an atheist. I'm hopeful future episodes show that only as the spur that sent him into research which in turn lead him to atheism.

In just the first episode there was very little actual atheist argumentation presented while there was a good amount of theistic apologetics represented so we'll see how this goes. I do like, however, that they portrayed the main character as just a basically good person living his life.

I’m seeing this one, too. My daughter was interested. She like supernatural stuff. The people stories are entertaining, if predictable, but I, too, was put off by the “angry at god = atheist” trope. Plus the monologue, “ I don’t believe in god, but then this happened.” They need an actual atheist on te script team, pronto! He keeps saying things that don’t mesh with a guy who studieed hard in his deconversion and has a podcast about it. And the “oh look, a sign” stuff is like a blugeon.

So, I may watch one more if my daughter keeps liking it. Maybe it will be a good opportunity for me to explain furth what makes me atheist. She does like to talk about that stuff and learn.

Why would they want an actual atheist on the script team? It's obvious that they want to appeal to people who would rather not deal with reality. I think they should portray all atheists as kitten-eating demons with horns and fangs.

I think they are writing the show as a feel good/reach across the great divide between theists and atheists kind of show. It's not cynical and frankly, I really appreciate that. I've had plenty of selfish, self serving self centered characters on shows and plenty of crime and superheroes and all that jazz. I'm....not interested in more. I don't see this as a show that will go beyond a couple of seasons and I'm good with that.

It's pretty clear that they are writing the show as the protagonist as someone who is agnostic/in denial of his belief in god, rather than as the atheist he claims to be. That said, I find the cast appealing and really enjoy the premise of people coming together to help strangers randomly. It's a feel good kind of show, not a rational kind of show. And I accept it for what it is.

 

[blastula]

^I watched a couple episodes, and it is annoying how atheism is presented as a moral failing and that it must only be a reaction to some personal tragedy. In the first episode, his former professor asks, "what happened to you?" Theism is the choice of the wise and decent. On the other hand, the show has so far taken a neutral position on existence of god, facebook God is presented as potentially an elite hacker, rather than supernatural.

Otherwise, the editing on the show was weird. The beginning of the first episode, I thought it was showing previews of the show, the way it suddenly cut from one scene to another, like a music video. I don't watch much network drama, maybe this is standard now. The bright white hue to everything is odd as well.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Gossip Girl - 6/10

A show about a group of rich kids at an elite private school on New York's upper east side and this one poor kid from Brooklyn who gets in on a scholarship. Then there's this blogger (Gossip Girl) who has a website recording all the things that they do ... in a sense. Half the time when Gossip Girl is talking about things, it's what's being posted on the blog and everyone is aware of it. The other half of the time, it's just general background narration about the show and not something which is put on the blog and there's absolutely no fucking consistency regarding which one they're doing in any given five minute period. It got pretty annoying.

The concept of the show also made sense in the first few seasons when they were in high school, but then they all went to university and then ... either graduated university or just stopped going (I'm not sure which - university suddenly stopped being a plot point and they all quickly had jobs and there wasn't an indication of whether this was a time jump or they all just dropped out and had their rich daddies give them work in the family companies). I think the writers just got bored of writing about university.

Despite all the nonsensicalness, it was generally a well written show with interesting characters and interesting relationships amongst them. Worth watching so long as you're good with shrugging off all the plot holes and forgetting about them as quickly as everyone on the show does.

Spoiler Alert:

Show

I did like the concept of Dan turning out to be Gossip Girl and his using it to write his way into a society which would have never of otherwise accepted him as a member of it. I do wish that they'd come up with the idea that he was actually Gossip Girl earlier in the show's lifespan and informed their writers about that, so that they could have avoided the fact that it makes absolutely no sense that he's actually Gossip Girl and his being it end up directly contradicting numerous plot points throughout the series.

 

[Goodchild]

I think they are writing the show as a feel good/reach across the great divide between theists and atheists kind of show. It's not cynical and frankly, I really appreciate that.

We've been really enjoying it so far and I feel it does make my wife (a believer, though not strenously so) even more sympathetic to the atheist position. She already knows that atheists are just like everybody else just from my own example and she likes seeing it in a show as well, so that's good

I do still hope at some point that they include the fact that leaving religion and coming to an atheistic worldview typically involves a lot of research and questioning ... far more than just "why did this happen? I'm angry!".

 

[Underseer]

Why would they want an actual atheist on the script team? It's obvious that they want to appeal to people who would rather not deal with reality. I think they should portray all atheists as kitten-eating demons with horns and fangs.

I think they are writing the show as a feel good/reach across the great divide between theists and atheists kind of show. It's not cynical and frankly, I really appreciate that. I've had plenty of selfish, self serving self centered characters on shows and plenty of crime and superheroes and all that jazz. I'm....not interested in more. I don't see this as a show that will go beyond a couple of seasons and I'm good with that.

It's pretty clear that they are writing the show as the protagonist as someone who is agnostic/in denial of his belief in god, rather than as the atheist he claims to be. That said, I find the cast appealing and really enjoy the premise of people coming together to help strangers randomly. It's a feel good kind of show, not a rational kind of show. And I accept it for what it is.

If they present atheism as a moral failing, they aren't trying to reach across any divide. If they try to do it in a nice way, then they're just being passive-aggressive about what they're doing.

 

[Goodchild]

If they present atheism as a moral failing, they aren't trying to reach across any divide. If they try to do it in a nice way, then they're just being passive-aggressive about what they're doing.

They're not presenting it as a moral failing as a judgment of the show itself but rather as a judgment of the main characters father, who is a minister. The show portrays Miles as a very normal person with aspirations anyone can identify with, except that he's an exceptionally good person who cares about others ... more than he even initially thinks he does. The most recent episode examined how he behaves when the "God account" is removed from his life and it shows that he still wants to help people whether there's a God motivating him or not, IMO a very important concept to get across to theists who view atheists with suspicion.

It feels, to me, like the show is handling atheism in a similar way that Will & Grace handled gay-ness in it's earlier seasons ... gingerly and sometimes abstractly while still getting the important point across that people are just people no matter how different they may seem. It wasn't until after gay marriage became the norm and being LGBT became less of a scandal that Will & Grace became able, in it's revival, to tackle gay issues straightforwardly and openly. I imagine it will be the same with atheism.

 

[Underseer]

If they present atheism as a moral failing, they aren't trying to reach across any divide. If they try to do it in a nice way, then they're just being passive-aggressive about what they're doing.

They're not presenting it as a moral failing as a judgment of the show itself but rather as a judgment of the main characters father, who is a minister. [ent]hellip[/ent]

Oh come on, you know darned well that every theist watching that show will see that as a commentary on atheism itself, and it is hard to imagine that the writers did not intend that reaction.

 

[TSwizzle]

The Bodyguard, 8/10; Six part series on Netflix about a PPO (Personal Protection Officer) assigned to the British Home Secretary. A complicated and convoluted conspiracy unfolds around him after the home secretary is killed in a bombing. Lots of twists, turns and red herrings thrown in but very watchable.

 

[Ford]

Adam Ruins Everything. The web series is now on Netflix. Only got through 2 episodes so far. Might not stick with it. The host is super annoying. That's his shtick, but the show doesn't do anything to counter that shtick, so the whole show becomes super annoying. 3/10

 

[Tom Sawyer]

House of Cards - 5/10

The new season of House of Cards really doesn't live up to the previous ones. Say what you will about the personal life of Rapey McRaperson, the man had screen presence and flair. He brought passion and commitment to his role and kept the audience engaged. The Ice Queen persona of Princess Bride's character worked well as a supporting character to what Rapey was doing, but having her as the central figure just makes the whole thing monotonous. Halfway through the season, I really couldn't tell you what was going on because it was hard to stay focused and then when the twists start happening, they're not all that exciting because you have no real investment in the characters or storylines.

I think that all of the info about Rapey came out late in the process of producing this season and they needed to write him out quickly and didn't have the time to properly come up with plots which completely excluded his character and everything was just kind of truncated and half done as a result. Now that they know where they stand, hopefully they can come up with something better for the next season and add a few characters who bring life and energy to their performances.

 

[Opoponax]

Adam Ruins Everything. The web series is now on Netflix. Only got through 2 episodes so far. Might not stick with it. The host is super annoying. That's his shtick, but the show doesn't do anything to counter that shtick, so the whole show becomes super annoying. 3/10

He's also wrong about a lot of stuff, or doesn't bother to include things that contradict his assertions. Also, a lot of it has to do with stuff that's already well known. I liked his Youtube format when I first ran across it, but yes, he becomes annoying--and wrong.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Adam Ruins Everything. The web series is now on Netflix. Only got through 2 episodes so far. Might not stick with it. The host is super annoying. That's his shtick, but the show doesn't do anything to counter that shtick, so the whole show becomes super annoying. 3/10

He's also wrong about a lot of stuff, or doesn't bother to include things that contradict his assertions. Also, a lot of it has to do with stuff that's already well known. I liked his Youtube format when I first ran across it, but yes, he becomes annoying--and wrong.

Like Penn & Teller's Bullshit. I still like these kinds of shows. TV will always be edgier than necessary. it's the format.