TV's Vast Wasteland

[InsaneCommander]

If it actually gets made, which doesn't sound too likely.

 

And really, who could they get to play Khan after Montalban? Not like Rinkydink Pumpkinpatch worked out too well, albeit that was largely the script and JJ wanting to make Star Wars fault instead of his but following on from such an iconic performance certainly didn't help. I can't think of anyone who I'd be confident in doing it well.

 

I can't think of anyone too.

 

At this rate they may end up like Sony, that wanted to make an Aunt May movie...

[Guard Dog]

Has anyone watched the Jodie whats-her-name Doctor Who? From what I'm reading she has pissed off all the fans of there series and now is leaving. 

 

The last episode I watched had Sylvester McCoy in it so it's been a while. 

[SonicMage117]

Ohhh... What happened? Is it something like the Ruby Rose thing? I haven't seen it or anything but I'm still curious. Time to search on youtube

[Zoraptor]

Has anyone watched the Jodie whats-her-name Doctor Who? From what I'm reading she has pissed off all the fans of there series and now is leaving.

 

She's fine, perhaps a bit derivative of previous nu Doctors as she seems to be trying to impersonate Tennant half the time. I'd imagine the plot and scripting often being SJW bingo annoys some people, but most of the episodes have been OK overall. But she has too many companions and no episodes are near being classic picks so far- then again, also no farting green Mr Blobby aliens doing Benny Hill chases either.

 

It's also 100% rumour that she's leaving, there's nothing concrete- but I wouldn't be overly surprised if she did leave since Doctor Who definitely is a disproportionately big commitment, and not for everyone.

[213374U]

If it actually gets made, which doesn't sound too likely.

 

And really, who could they get to play Khan after Montalban? Not like Rinkydink Pumpkinpatch worked out too well, albeit that was largely the script and JJ wanting to make Star Wars fault instead of his but following on from such an iconic performance certainly didn't help. I can't think of anyone who I'd be confident in doing it well.

 

Failing an actual Sikh (or Indian, sadly I can't name any), I remember reading that Javier Bardem could be a good fit. He's got the intimidating presence, and he can also be smarmy and slimy as needed, as in Skyfall.

 

That was a few years ago, though. If they are going for a recently stranded Khan, they'd probably be better served by finding a younger actor.

[majestic]

She's fine, perhaps a bit derivative of previous nu Doctors as she seems to be trying to impersonate Tennant half the time. I'd imagine the plot and scripting often being SJW bingo annoys some people, but most of the episodes have been OK overall. But she has too many companions and no episodes are near being classic picks so far- then again, also no farting green Mr Blobby aliens doing Benny Hill chases either.

 

It's also 100% rumour that she's leaving, there's nothing concrete- but I wouldn't be overly surprised if she did leave since Doctor Who definitely is a disproportionately big commitment, and not for everyone.

 

As far as the rumors go I'd be fine with Chibnall leaving the showrunning to someone else but I'd like to see Whittaker's Doctor being allowed to grow into her own instead of being a Matt Smith derivative with bewbies. I expected more from the show - The Master's change at least had an impact and Missy was fun to watch playing off the Doctor.

 

It might not have been the best idea to remove Bill Potts from the show along with Capaldi. Not that I liked her that much (although at last season's point, anything is better than Clara "The Wesley" Oswald) but she could have had some interesting interactions with the new Doctor. But now all the companions are new - and I agree, too many! - and the Doctor is new and all the enemies will be new.

 

There's nothing and no one for the Doctor to play off after the change. Why bother, then? Sure it maybe makes for the feminist message of gender not making any difference by having the show continue just as before without even acknowledging the change past the first epsiode but does it make for interesting storytelling? Ah, hell no.

Edited November 25, 2018 by majestic

[Blarghagh]

Eh, fem!Who isn't so bad. Try watching that new Charmed show. My wife grew up on the original so she wanted to watch this one. It's horrible, but I amused myself by imagining how some of our less progressive members would respond.

[Bartimaeus]

Last time I wrote in this thread, I complimented and recommended the new Hilda show on Netflix while disclaiming that I'm not really a big fan of this new wave of kids-cartoons-that-also-somehow-have-adult-audiences like Steven Universe and Adventure Time. I watched Hilda with somebody else at the time and we both loved it (see avatar), which inspired us to go looking for and give a few other seemingly similar shows a first or second try. Our first option was giving Steven Universe a shot, and we didn't really care for it, which made us go to Gravity Falls. We gave it about six episodes before we wanted to blow our brains out (it was probably five more episodes than we should've given it, but we've been trying to let shows get a running start before we dismiss them), which made us check out a couple of other shows before going back to Steven Universe and happening to land on an actually good episode, and a week and a half later, we've binged five entire seasons worth and it turns out, it's actually a pretty darned good show. Problem was, each season seems to have just a few episodes where we were forced to wonder if actual aliens took over the writing department of the show to make episodes that were just...bizarre and not very good. But besides that, it's actually a perfectly nice and lovable show that just gets better over time (season 1 in particular is a little rougher than season 2 and beyond). Now I'm kind of depressed that we went through it so fast and there's nothing left...until December when it returns for just a few episodes, anyways. I hate it when that happens.

 

...also if anybody here watches these kinds of shows (which I'm not sure that they do), feel free to give other recommendations

Edited November 27, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

That happened to the wife and me about two weeks back with Steven Universe. We had seen a handful of episodes and couldn't get into it, but we decided to give it another try and binged the entire thing in a few days.

 

If you enjoyed Steven Universe, try Star vs. The Forces of Evil, you might enjoy that too.

 

Edit: Also, the new Duck Tales is quite good and is showing signs of building into a larger plot.

 

Edit edit: Also also, the miniseries 'Over The Garden Wall' is pretty great but a little creepier than those.

[Bartimaeus]

It was brutal. It's a show that you just have to keep giving a shot until it suddenly clicks. I credit Pearl for being the bridge into liking the show - Steven and Amethyst are just so bloody obnoxious to start with, while Garnet initially comes across as such a non-character...until they're not, and suddenly you start understanding and loving the whole lot of them, flaws and all - and the additional Gems that start getting introduced are also somehow all great (I particularly love Peridot), too. But that initial learning period is just so brutal - especially because in the first season, too much time is spent on the much weaker human characters (Sadie and to a lesser degree Lars...and Steven's dad, of course, being the only real exceptions E: AND CONNIE JEEZE).

 

Uh, actually, Star was one of the other shows that we tried after Gravity Falls. I think we gave it two episodes worth before we decided we did not want to have a repeat of Gravity Falls. Does it get...better? So much of it just seemed like, "wow, random things happen LOL!!!" (which is also what every waking moment of Gravity Falls felt like, which we'd decidedly had more than enough of - it starts to feel like an assault on your senses after a while). If it gets better from that, we can give it another try...

Edited November 27, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

Yeah, the first couple of episodes of Star are bizarre. It does get better and unfolds into its own story, though it does stay somewhat hyperactive. For the record, we also couldn't get into Gravity Falls.

 

Yeah, Steven Universe is just so binge-inducing. An almost perfect blend of twists, turns and happy feelings. Peridot is my spirit animal. Hoping Blue Diamond gets a song in the upcoming eps, because Lisa Hannigan is an angel.

[Bartimaeus]

Well, we can only give it another shot...I pray you're right, because I'm not particularly enamored of the idea of seeing anymore of that floating decapitated unicorn party animal (harr harr) that made me want to harm myself, .

 

Hah. Yeah, getting some actual professional singers as voice actors and actresses really paid off for this show. They knew what they were doing.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

Haha, yeah Pony Head is by far my least favourite part of the show but even she becomes better.

[Amentep]

I personally loved GRAVITY FALLS.  in fact I'd be hard pressed to think of an episode I disliked.

 

Maybe it helps to have grown up fascinated with myths and legends of monsters and mysteries of the unexplained?

[Blarghagh]

I didn't dislike it, it just didn't grab me enough to keep watching. I plan to give it another try some day.

 

You'll love the new Duck Tales Amentep, it's the same creative team.

[Bartimaeus]

I personally loved GRAVITY FALLS.  in fact I'd be hard pressed to think of an episode I disliked.

 

Maybe it helps to have grown up fascinated with myths and legends of monsters and mysteries of the unexplained?

 

Everything just seemed so "random" and/or mean-spirited. We watched one of the "better"-rated episodes of season 1 as our "last resort" for the show, which was about Mabel trying to win a pig and Dipper trying to win a girl's heart over some other random boy. It's not a particularly interesting setup, but with good writing, you can make it work...except some character with a time travel device suddenly appears and we just keep re-doing the same scenes over and over in an attempt to create the perfect day for both of them? Both of our protagonists are acting like horrible petulant children most of the episode (and never mind all the awful attempted manipulation on the part of Dipper towards the girl whose heart he's trying to win)? Random, unexplained things just keep happening over and over? Episode ends with everything still going exactly how they wanted it to (despite it being completely undeserved), while the boy that was trying to hang out with the girl Dipper liked gets pointed and laughed at - literally - by everyone for no real discernible reason, when he'd done absolutely nothing wrong to anybody other than incidentally (i.e. through no fault of his own) get in the way of our protagonist...which the boy didn't even know he was doing? It all just felt...so gross, contrived, and incomprehensible. It was causing my brain to shutdown.

 

We wanted to like it - we really, really wanted to...but it was a complete no-go. We were actually rather horrified by how bad it was, and it was a big part in us giving Steven Universe another try, since at no point did SU feel like anything approaching that (e: and indeed, there is actually a time travel device in one of the early SU episodes, but it's handled so radically differently and so much more sensibly that that was like the perfect delineator illustrating the difference between the two shows).

Edited November 27, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

You don't need to justify not liking it - not everything is to everyone's taste. 
 
IMO with respect to the episode you mention, Dipper is still a kid and doesn't understand how to actually relate to Wendy (who he thinks is cool and as an almost 13 year old wants to have what he thinks would be a relationship with her) and he sees her hanging out with her then boyfriend and how he's bad for her (he's introduced and in a few episodes before this) and definitely selfishly trying to get her to like him over her boyfriend of the time.  Its part of his story arc IMO that 

he ultimately accepts not just that he can't manipulate, plan or finagle his way into a teenage relationship, but that he ultimately realizes he's not right for Wendy beyond being her friend as well.  And Wendy realizes her then boyfriend isn't right for her to boot and he ends up being happier seeing another girl after the break up, eventually.

 
Mabel and Dipper being at odds is part of their sibling relationship and it changing over the summer is also an important part of the show.
 
The time travel guy is in several other shows after this, but a lot of things seem random in the show that come back later as the mysteries of Gravity Falls are unraveled.

 

But that's how I see it - I was totally invested in the show though.

[Guard Dog]

I started watching Man in the High Castle on Amazon. It's pretty good. Only a passing similarity to the book, but pretty good by itself. 

[InsaneCommander]

I started watching Man in the High Castle on Amazon. It's pretty good. Only a passing similarity to the book, but pretty good by itself. 

 

It gets better in the second season. I still haven't checked the third.

 

It's disturbing when you notice that people can have pretty normal lives in there. All that is necessary is for them to be of the "right" ethnicity and be ok with swastikas and Hitler pictures everywhere...

[Orogun01]

I cancelled my Netflix, but I do have a recommendation...

 

I loved Netflix's cgi rendition of White Fang.

The animation looks fine, I vividly recall the book since it was one of my first books ever and something tells me that there is a politically correct subtext to this adaptation. I guess they can't help themselves.

[Gromnir]

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Tale]

Had a free weekend of HBO and ended up binging Westworld Season 2. Loved it enough that I'm struggling to find something else to catch my attention.

 

Hulu had a deal on Cybermonday for a year at .99 a month. Maybe I should make use of that.

[InsaneCommander]

Daredevil is cancelled.

 

Unbelievable. That also means once they air the new episodes of Jessica Jones, it is cancelled as well.

 

Also:

 

Cowboy Bebop Live-Action Series Coming to Netflix.

[Zoraptor]

Far from unbelievable, it's pretty clear that all the Marvel shows are done on Netflix now that Disney is doing a streaming service as that needs content and Netflix is its biggest direct competitor by far.

[Orogun01]

Daredevil is cancelled.

 

Unbelievable. That also means once they air the new episodes of Jessica Jones, it is cancelled as well.

 

Also:

 

Cowboy Bebop Live-Action Series Coming to Netflix.