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

[Tom Sawyer]

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

Spoiler alert - Winter is actually Ned Stark's pet name for his wife and the guy's just spending his time wandering around the kingdom bragging to everyone about his sexual prowess.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

3% - 7/10

A Netflix show from Brazil which is dubbed into English. It's about a dystopian future where every year, all the 20 year olds in society compete in a series of tests to see which 3% of them will get to go to some island where all the elites live and have a life outside of the hell hole they grew up in.

Not a Hunger Games type of competition, but they all compete in mental and logic tests to see which of them are the smartest and most clever. It's shockingly interesting.

 

[Shadowy Man]

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.

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.

I did notice the thing with the birds, and I know that they show the magnetic boots on the spaceships, but I can't specifically recall seeing them using those boots on Ceres. Maybe I just missed it. But didn't one of the Ceres guys go to Mars? Wouldn't have have major problems on Mars if he grew up on Ceres?

I know that they can't show what it would look like realistically, but I do wonder whether it's even realistic to have people living in that environment.

 

[Jayjay]

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.

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.

One of the things I like about expanse is that even though they have budgetary concerns which obviously make perfect realism impossible, they do these little things as a nod to the viewers. Another thing is that the space-born captive they had on Earth was a thin, weak man unable to even stand in Earth's gravity. Obviously they can't cast all the actors to look like this, but just having one of them to demonstrate the idea shows that they aren't just ignoring it.

 

[RavenSky]

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.

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.

Though they did a relatively decent job of showing exactly this point when Chrisjen Avasarala has the political prisoner hanging from an earth wall as torture.

 

[DolphinDynasty]

Watching "lost" episodes of The Atheist Experience that viewers had on VHS which they recently have been converting to support computer formats.

It's interesting to see how they used to have multiple guests that sometimes include family members and children of atheists even when not all of them held that position. One co-host who brought his wife and daughter was at the time married to a Wiccan.

It makes me curious as to the sort of conversations thy engage in when off--air.

They used to use sound effects, and overlay musical jokes, quotes and insults as responses even when a caller was still talking, and seemed food of listening to a "supposed" argument like interjecting Pascal's Wager, only for those older ACA members to ask to hang up before responding to the claim to show where and how they went wrong.

I'm quite glad they no longer do that to caller as it sounds so defensive and a bit cagey. Still interesting to see the changes and which work better and which ones they maybe did not need.

 

[Underseer]

Justice League versus Justice League Unlimited

I have a soft spot for DC stuff even though I'm a dedicated Marvel fan. When I watch a DC movie or TV show or read a DC comic, I feel like a tourist, peeking in on someone else's fantasy world, and that's what makes it kind of fun.

While DC movies are currently crap compared to Marvel movies, DC cartoons are much better than Marvel stuff.

Justice League Unlimited is one that I enjoy watching again and again just because it explores so many obscure corners of the DC universe, so it kind of enhances the "tourist effect" mentioned above. Oddly enough, while I enjoyed Justice League Unlimited a lot, I disliked its predecessor Justice League a lot, and so I gave up on watching it after just a few episodes.

I finally got bored enough and drunk enough (for several consecutive days) to go back and finish watching Justice League. I now realize the JLU is a direct sequel of JL. Same characters and everything. A whole bunch of stuff from JLU now makes more sense because I've seen the start of those plot threads, including the Thanagarian invasion. Heck, even the setting of Kasnia means more now that I've seen Wonder Woman party with the princess.

I still have a much lower opinion of JL. I dunno if it is actually worse, or if I just find it boring because it focuses exclusively on seven characters that I already know.

4/10, but I'll be watching it again, if only to watch it before JLU.

 

[Jayjay]

Helix
2 / 10 (where 10 is common cold and 1 is ebola)

SyFy series with zombies, soap opera and conspiracies on an arctic research station. This is just 13 episodes, no idea if there is going to be a second season, but boy is it a pain to watch and I basically do it in five minute clips because the plot, the characters and acting are so painstakingly bad that it makes me wish I had the deadly disease that they are trying to cure. Without giving away too much, the disease makes people zombies. Who are smart. And sometimes can be turned back to humans. And a nefarious corporation (that apparently is a secret corporation that nobody officially knows about, hence completely ignoring the point of being a corporation) who tries to use the virus to either kill everyone or make everyone into a zombie or maybe profit out of it somehow. I'm so fucking tired of the SyFy zombie fetish, that flying sharks are starting to seem like a good idea.

I'm giving it two points just because it's not even bad enough to watch ironically. If you like daytime soaps, but wish they had more zombies, this might be for you.

 

[credoconsolans]

Watching "lost" episodes of The Atheist Experience that viewers had on VHS which they recently have been converting to support computer formats.

It's interesting to see how they used to have multiple guests that sometimes include family members and children of atheists even when not all of them held that position. One co-host who brought his wife and daughter was at the time married to a Wiccan.

It makes me curious as to the sort of conversations thy engage in when off--air.

They used to use sound effects, and overlay musical jokes, quotes and insults as responses even when a caller was still talking, and seemed food of listening to a "supposed" argument like interjecting Pascal's Wager, only for those older ACA members to ask to hang up before responding to the claim to show where and how they went wrong.

I'm quite glad they no longer do that to caller as it sounds so defensive and a bit cagey. Still interesting to see the changes and which work better and which ones they maybe did not need.

They probably don't discuss religion. We had a member here once who had Wiccan parents. Religion was not a big topic. S/he said it was difficult to engage them because they just agreed with his atheist stance,

"Oh, you may be right."

Conversation ball rolls under the couch.

Pagans tend to be like that. Live and let live.

 

[beero1000]

Been getting into surrealist Leslie Nielsen type comedy. Airplane, Police squad! type shows, over-the-top, absurdist, non-sequitur humor. Not for everyone, but I'm liking it.

Man Seeking Woman - 9/10
Follows a 20-something and his friends/family as they deal with their problems. Let's just say they have vivid and active imaginations, and we get to see their daydreams play out instead of reality. The blind date is literally a troll, the ex's new boyfriend is Hitler. The 'Jewish mother' portrayal is fantastic. ETA: Just found out it was cancelled this month after 3 seasons.

In Memoriam:



Angie Tribeca - 8/10
Created by Steve Carell and his wife and modeled after Police Squad! spoof of police procedural type shows.

 

[DolphinDynasty]

Watching "lost" episodes of The Atheist Experience that viewers had on VHS which they recently have been converting to support computer formats.

It's interesting to see how they used to have multiple guests that sometimes include family members and children of atheists even when not all of them held that position. One co-host who brought his wife and daughter was at the time married to a Wiccan.

It makes me curious as to the sort of conversations thy engage in when off--air.

They used to use sound effects, and overlay musical jokes, quotes and insults as responses even when a caller was still talking, and seemed food of listening to a "supposed" argument like interjecting Pascal's Wager, only for those older ACA members to ask to hang up before responding to the claim to show where and how they went wrong.

I'm quite glad they no longer do that to caller as it sounds so defensive and a bit cagey. Still interesting to see the changes and which work better and which ones they maybe did not need.

They probably don't discuss religion. We had a member here once who had Wiccan parents. Religion was not a big topic. S/he said it was difficult to engage them because they just agreed with his atheist stance,

"Oh, you may be right."

Conversation ball rolls under the couch.

Pagans tend to be like that. Live and let live.

Well, no, I didn't think it would necessarily be about religion. It's such a subjective topic that even if they belonged to the same denomination, same holy house that they'd have different views on specific commands/dogmatic principles anyway. I would be curious to see what sorts of views and beliefs are in Wicca as a general kind of thing though. I've never met one an know only what are in snippets of recent history books as with like Druidism it is a really knew faith, unlike what I head from the one Wiccan I had a passing conversation with years ago.

She thought both those religion were sooo old that they somehow had more power and truth to them for being ancient when in fact Druidism was never fully organized until the 1950s as a faith with set tenants and rituals, only ever practiced parsely and by a few individuals with varying beliefs and ritualistic notions. Sam with Wicca, started in the '50s.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Iron Fist - 4/10

This was clearly the weakest of the Marvel offerings so far. Some parts of it worked out great. They were going for the 70s kung-fu movie vibe and the parts of it which did that did it well but those parts were just interspersed throughout the rest of the show which was dull and pointless. All the stuff with Rand Corporation and the Meachums should have been minor filler which fleshed out the world and the characters, but they somehow thought that an audience that wanted to watch a superhero martial arts show would be interested in drawn out boardroom politics. Also, those plotlines went nowhere. They were in the script to show how badly Danny didn't fit into the modern world he was trying to come back to, but they never really had much of a consequence and then just weren't mentioned anymore. The two aspects of the show never really meshed together at all.

Also, the bad guys were weak. Having resurrected guy be the main boss fight at the end of the season was just plain off. Sure, the concept of "Well, that guy's a superhero martial artist, but I have the ability to fire a pistol" is a legitimate strategy against Iron Fist, but it kind of undercuts the entire martial arts concept of what the show was about. It's like if you have Hydra agents just start firing at Captain America's feet so he can't block their bullets with his shield while he runs up and starts kicking them - it would be more realistic, but it screws up the whole "Captain America running up and kicking people" thing that the audience is paying to see. Additionally, the Hand is a boring criminal organization. I don't really know how you manage to make a secret cult of ninja assassins a yawn fest, but they pulled it off. Madame Gao also doesn't work on any level. There was one reviewer who described her as too enigmatic. It was fine in Daredevil when she was a minor character in the background doing shadowy and uncertain stuff which has a tangential relation to the plot, but when she's one of the main focuses of the season it's too much. Then she was replaced with the other shadowy and enigmatic Hand guy who did the exact same thing but was even weaker at it.

Most importantly, after watching the entire season, I really can't tell you why it was that Danny abandoned his vows and left the monastery to go to New York. It may have been mentioned in passing during one of the parts I was only half paying attention to, but there were three or four different reasons that came up over the course of the show but none of them really stood out as the initiating motivation to begin his journey. This is especially bad when it's directly contrasted with Colleen's story arc which was clear and straightforward and progressed logically throughout the season to come to a satisfying conclusion. How good the parts she was in makes the boardroom stuff that she was not involved with even more glaringly poor in comparison.

While there were parts I liked a lot, the negatives outweighed the positives with this and I kind of had to force myself to slog through it so that I'd be all up to date for when the Defenders comes out. If they'd cut out three or four episodes by removing most of the Rand Corp stuff and had that as background world building while focusing on the mystical and martial arts aspects and building up the villains into something more concrete, it would have been a quality show. As it is, however, it was a somewhat forgettable dud.

 

[Shadowy Man]

While there were parts I liked a lot, the negatives outweighed the positives with this and I kind of had to force myself to slog through it ...As it is, however, it was a somewhat forgettable dud.

Yeah... but Jessica Henwick!

 

[Tom Sawyer]

While there were parts I liked a lot, the negatives outweighed the positives with this and I kind of had to force myself to slog through it ...As it is, however, it was a somewhat forgettable dud.

Yeah... but Jessica Henwick!

Yes, and the parts with her were great. She was, however, only involved in half of the plot lines and the half was a complete dud. If they'd focused on her half and then fleshed that out by giving Gao and Bakuto some motivations instead of keeping their goals as mysterious somethings which will be revealed in later seasons, then they would have had a decent television show. Instead, there were entire episodes devoted to what should have been a minor B plot which you had to sit through before eventually getting around to something worth watching.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Yeah... but Jessica Henwick!

Yes, and the parts with her were great. She was, however, only involved in half of the plot lines and the half was a complete dud. If they'd focused on her half and then fleshed that out by giving Gao and Bakuto some motivations instead of keeping their goals as mysterious somethings which will be revealed in later seasons, then they would have had a decent television show. Instead, there were entire episodes devoted to what should have been a minor B plot which you had to sit through before eventually getting around to something worth watching.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that watching the show was tolerable because of Jessica Henwick. If they cut out all the Danny parts and replaced it with scenes as mundane as Jessica folding her laundry or doing other household chores, I'd have had no problem watching it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Agreed.

 

[Jayjay]

I liked th boardroom stuff and I wish there had been more of it. But I agree that Danny let his vows go a bit too easily, and Davos even more so. Like, if you're a monk who's made a vow of celibacy, are you really going to sleep with the first girl you meet in New York?

Show

If it's Jessica Henwick, quite probably. And who here hasn't lost their virginity to "the hand"?

 

[tantric]

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.

One of the things I like about expanse is that even though they have budgetary concerns which obviously make perfect realism impossible, they do these little things as a nod to the viewers. Another thing is that the space-born captive they had on Earth was a thin, weak man unable to even stand in Earth's gravity. Obviously they can't cast all the actors to look like this, but just having one of them to demonstrate the idea shows that they aren't just ignoring it.

ceres has been extensively tunneled and spun up to .3G. when they pour drinks on ceres, they pour slantwise due to Coriolis effect. you can see this in the show. now i suspect this is silly - once the force away from the center drastically exceeded the natural gravity, i'd think it would come to pieces.

what is unpardonably ridiculous is using ganymede as an agricultural station. plants don't need dirt to grow and they certainly don't need the poisonous regolith on ganymede. they also don't need the 10 rads per hour that ganymede gets from jupiter's radiation belts nor the cost of lifting them out of jupiter's gravity well.

 

[Shadowy Man]

ceres has been extensively tunneled and spun up to .3G. when they pour drinks on ceres, they pour slantwise due to Coriolis effect. you can see this in the show. now i suspect this is silly - once the force away from the center drastically exceeded the natural gravity, i'd think it would come to pieces.

They spin it up and live inside it with their feet to the outside? Why not just build a space station??

 

[Jayjay]

ceres has been extensively tunneled and spun up to .3G. when they pour drinks on ceres, they pour slantwise due to Coriolis effect. you can see this in the show. now i suspect this is silly - once the force away from the center drastically exceeded the natural gravity, i'd think it would come to pieces.

They spin it up and live inside it with their feet to the outside? Why not just build a space station??

Because Ceres was already there and it's easier and cheaper to occupy a big-ass asteroid than buidl a space station of the same size?