TV & streaming thread

[ShadySands]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

Shady you and I would agree DS9 was the high water mark for Trek. It was never so good before or after. But didn't you just watch that last episode and think WTF? 

It was a great ride. Too bad it crashed on the landing. It sours the whole thing. 

Maybe they're just trying to out-Lost Lost.  I never watched that show either but I've heard the ending kinda ruined the whole thing for a lot of people.

I actually still haven't seen any of season 8 but I don't care so much that I've been reading all the spoilers here. It might be like True Blood for me where I don't even bother with the final season.

Edited May 13, 2019 by ShadySands

[Zoraptor]

21 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Episode 8.4:

 

  Hide contents

 

If she can destroy all the scorpions in KL and Euron's fleet, why not do it when Rhaegal died? And why kill the citizens? If she wanted to be feared, go to the Red Keep, kill Cersei and burn the Lannister soldiers after they surrender and are gathered outside without weapons.

Mad is one thing, but stupid is another.

 

 

 

At this point I think we just have to accept that logic in the finer points of the plot has gone out the door. The whole thing reminds me of the scene in The Walking Dead where the Big Bads all file out onto a stage to talk with the good guys and at the end the good guys shoot... the windows above their heads instead of just shooting the bad guys directly. Because, if they did the sensible and logical thing that story line would be over, much as it would be if Dany had just curbstomped Cersei in King's Landing on day one or if Cersei murdered them all at one of their meetings. They could have solved the specific ballista issue easiest by making it not be an issue in the first place and killing off Rhaegal with some logic; as it was they'd written themselves into a corner but they could still have solved that by having Dany attack the fleet at night, have her get Drogon to drop rocks to destroy them, whatever.

And, of course, Qyburn is presented as a genius- but he made anti dragon ballistae instead of anti dragon trebuchet. What a doofus.

Dany burning the city is victim of the plot being too condensed. They really needed to show the effect the loss of or betrayal by trusted advisors had on her, it can be inferred as a consequence but it really needed to be shown better. She is a narcissist though, and for them anything they choose to do is by definition the right thing, since it's them doing it; and as above, she's probably thinking that if she'd only done that day 1 a lot of the people she actually cares about- instead of caring about because it's part of her 'liberator' self image- plus at least one more dragon would still be alive.

[InsaneCommander]

30 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

yeah she was stupid from day one and never actually done anything, she always stumble upton people who done **** for her. On other hand that 180 switch from breaker of chains to butcher of innocent because someone touched here lesbian lover while millions are dying around her was tad too much. I mean I would be all for her to go mad, but it needed like 3 more series to get to that point

Yes, they needed more time to set that up. But if she is stupid, then why was she smart enough to hide her true plans like this:

And this (go to 1:00):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXGBZ1s5k9Q

 

[Chilloutman]

4 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Yes, they needed more time to set that up. But if she is stupid, then why was she smart enough to hide her true plans like this:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

And this (go to 1:00):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXGBZ1s5k9Q 

 

 

She was not planning to get full mad king for sure, but she lost Ser Friendzone and Lady Google translate. She now SUFFER! again, once they tun out of the books, they were unable to keep it interesting with character arcs, it goes full holywood.

[ShadySands]

Same problem STD has with the plot driving the characters instead of the other way around. Really sounds like the season needs more episodes but that's something I've been on kick about lately.

[Guard Dog]

I like American Horror Story's concept. Every season is a self contained storyline and every year is a new one. But I've only seen the first two seasons. So far they haven't screwed it up. It's not must see TV or anything but it's a tolerable time waster

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

Same problem STD has with the plot driving the characters instead of the other way around. Really sounds like the season needs more episodes but that's something I've been on kick about lately.

I'd have to disagree about STD needing more episodes, I think it had enough time it just didn't use it well. There was enough time to, say, develop Airian or whatever cyborg lady's name was gradually in S2 prior to the episode she died in but they crammed the development into that ep instead. Whether through bad planning or bad writing is kind of moot, point is that more time would not help if the fundamentals of plotting and characterisation are poor, you'd just get more poor plotting and characterisation. Having said that though, side character development was better than S1, by far, overall, but they failed at it when they most needed it.

Plot driving the characters was definitely a big problem in STD though, and in similar fashion to GoT.

OTOH, I think GoT probably did need more 'physical' episodes, but maybe not more running time. Part of its problem IMO is that everything happened too quickly, in real time. I was not a fan of all the 'X talks to Y' for the sake of it that made up a lot of two episodes as I found it gratuitous fanservice, so streamlining some of that for more time on significant plot developments later could have solved some problems; and if they'd cut the 80 minute episodes and had maybe 2 extra weeks season length the pacing would have felt far better measured and it would have given people more time to adjust to some of the more... abrupt plotting elements.

[Lexx]

What probably annoys me the most is that most of the issues I have with the episodes could easily get fixed without having to extremely alter the storyline. Just like it was mentioned before- have her attack the ships at night in the last episode, BAM it doesn't feel that nonlogical anymore. In the one before, let the scorpions on the ship be hidden under a blanked or whatever and unwrap them once the dragons are very close, BAM now we explained why she didn't took the ships seriously. When Jon & Crew were in the icy north, stuck on that small hill surrounded by water -> make the hill bigger, let them put up a tent or two with a tiny fire and BAM now it feels like they weren't stuck there for 10 minutes while blacksmith was running back to the wall, raven was flying to Dany and Dany came with a dragon to pick them up.

There's so many scenes like that which could have been fixed with just adding a few more details. For some reason they chose not to do this, though.

[Blarghagh]

8 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

yeah she was stupid from day one and never actually done anything, she always stumble upton people who done **** for her. On other hand that 180 switch from breaker of chains to butcher of innocent because someone touched here lesbian lover while millions are dying around her was tad too much. I mean I would be all for her to go mad, but it needed like 3 more series to get to that point

Nah, they could have fixed this with one simple change. Move Rheagal's death to the siege of King's Landing and boom, fully explained. Instead it just seems like bells gave her the willies.

[Guard Dog]

6 hours ago, Lexx said:

What probably annoys me the most is that most of the issues I have with the episodes could easily get fixed without having to extremely alter the storyline. Just like it was mentioned before- have her attack the ships at night in the last episode, BAM it doesn't feel that nonlogical anymore. In the one before, let the scorpions on the ship be hidden under a blanked or whatever and unwrap them once the dragons are very close, BAM now we explained why she didn't took the ships seriously. When Jon & Crew were in the icy north, stuck on that small hill surrounded by water -> make the hill bigger, let them put up a tent or two with a tiny fire and BAM now it feels like they weren't stuck there for 10 minutes while blacksmith was running back to the wall, raven was flying to Dany and Dany came with a dragon to pick them up.

There's so many scenes like that which could have been fixed with just adding a few more details. For some reason they chose not to do this, though.

I likes all those ideas. TN's too. Why didn't they do this? I guess they figured they were too big to fail. People are naturally lazy when there is no incentive not to be.

[Malcador]

Why did they have to do the ending in just six episodes ? 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

26 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Why did they have to do the ending in just six episodes ? 

To make viewers watch 30 extra minutes of drawn out battles and unintriguing political intrigue in certain episodes. 

[Malcador]

Dragons have infinite ammo, it seems.

[InsaneCommander]

Checking the Math: The Big Event from Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 4 is Just as Impossible as You Think

[misterjimmy]

'Star Wars' movie in 2022 will come from 'Game of Thrones' creators

Disney should hire better writer, not these two.

[majestic]

On 5/13/2019 at 11:51 PM, ShadySands said:

Maybe they're just trying to out-Lost Lost.  I never watched that show either but I've heard the ending kinda ruined the whole thing for a lot of people.

I actually still haven't seen any of season 8 but I don't care so much that I've been reading all the spoilers here. It might be like True Blood for me where I don't even bother with the final season.

I know I'm repeating myself but that last season of Lost (the ending just explained what was going on throughout the season) wasn't bad in the sense that they abandoned or messed up everything that made the show good up until that point or that the quality of the episodes were bad while seriously upping the production values to gloss over like what we're getting now with Game of Thrones. The ending of Lost just never answered any of the interesting mysteries that were left in a satifactory manner as everything was simply magic in the same way that "God did it" was the explanation of everything that happened in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.

Lost suffered from the Chris Carter Effect(tm) paired with a serious helping of Jar Jar Abram's usual modus operandi of setting interesting mysteries up with no idea how to resolve them in a satisfying manner. By the end it was impossible to attempt it anyway.

Not going to put this into spoiler tags, just skip the paragraph if you ever want to watch Lost.

The show was  centered around certain religious ideas like the concept of the Buddhist Dharma and featured a depiction of the dharmachakra that was literally used to steer the island (it makes sense in context - kind of) while the logo of the DHARMA Research Initiative that had built research stations across the Island (which turned out to be the Well of Souls and the origin of all life, borrowing heavily from a lot of religions) was pretty much a Chinese Bagua.

The final season spent roughly half of the screen time with the main characters in what looked like an alternate reality which was eventually revealed to be a form of purgatorial afterlife where they all met again due to the events of the show having forged a deep connection between them waiting until they're read to pass on to nirvana or rebirth or heaven, take your pick.

That's what people got upset about for some reason. Somewhere I once read a complaint that the ending is completely impossible to understand unless one has studied "2000 years worth of gnostic mythology". Complete hyperbole, but not being ignorant about religions beyond Christianity (and knowing that them Mooslims are evul) does help. Le sigh.

There might be an overlap between people who disliked the ending of Lost and people who disliked the ending of King's The Dark Tower series. Heh.

Edited May 15, 2019 by majestic
Forgot a few things... like a jab at the ignorance of the average TV audience.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, misterjimmy said:

'Star Wars' movie in 2022 will come from 'Game of Thrones' creators

Disney should hire better writer, not these two.

They could have hired the actual GoT creator I guess, though I doubt Martin would have been available.

On the evidence of GoT Benioff and Weiss would be near perfect for adapting someone else's works- KOTOR, the 1st Zahn trilogy, whatever- but yeah, can't have much confidence if they're doing an original movie series after their post book work on GoT.

[LadyCrimson]

"Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" (what an awkward title) on Netflix

Zac Efron as Ted Bundy is surprisingly effective. With the hair he looks very much like him and he emulates Ted from those interview vids quite well. Certainly more than Marc Harmon ever did. But the film plays like a Lifetime/TV movie of the week from mostly Ted's girlfriend pov. The latter half  with the trial is better but overall a good cast wasted. Malvovich is great as always. Weirdest thing was seeing the kid from Sixth Sense after so many years. Only the eyes makes him recognizable.

[InsaneCommander]

7 hours ago, misterjimmy said:

'Star Wars' movie in 2022 will come from 'Game of Thrones' creators

Disney should hire better writer, not these two.

If it is bad, and I think it will be, I'll remember this:

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, majestic said:

I know I'm repeating myself but that last season of Lost (the ending just explained what was going on throughout the season) wasn't bad in the sense that they abandoned or messed up everything that made the show good up until that point or that the quality of the episodes were bad while seriously upping the production values to gloss over like what we're getting now with Game of Thrones. The ending of Lost just never answered any of the interesting mysteries that were left in a satifactory manner as everything was simply magic in the same way that "God did it" was the explanation of everything that happened in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.

Lost suffered from the Chris Carter Effect(tm) paired with a serious helping of Jar Jar Abram's usual modus operandi of setting interesting mysteries up with no idea how to resolve them in a satisfying manner. By the end it was impossible to attempt it anyway.

Not going to put this into spoiler tags, just skip the paragraph if you ever want to watch Lost.

The show was  centered around certain religious ideas like the concept of the Buddhist Dharma and featured a depiction of the dharmachakra that was literally used to steer the island (it makes sense in context - kind of) while the logo of the DHARMA Research Initiative that had built research stations across the Island (which turned out to be the Well of Souls and the origin of all life, borrowing heavily from a lot of religions) was pretty much a Chinese Bagua.

The final season spent roughly half of the screen time with the main characters in what looked like an alternate reality which was eventually revealed to be a form of purgatorial afterlife where they all met again due to the events of the show having forged a deep connection between them waiting until they're read to pass on to nirvana or rebirth or heaven, take your pick.

That's what people got upset about for some reason. Somewhere I once read a complaint that the ending is completely impossible to understand unless one has studied "2000 years worth of gnostic mythology". Complete hyperbole, but not being ignorant about religions beyond Christianity (and knowing that them Mooslims are evul) does help. Le sigh.

There might be an overlap between people who disliked the ending of Lost and people who disliked the ending of King's The Dark Tower series. Heh.

I loved Lost and even though it was a little confusing it did " make sense "  as much as it could

As you mentioned the whole point of the Island was to protect the Well of Souls and the plane had to  basically crash to find a new keeper of the Well through a series of trials and tribulations . What I did find inconsistent was the the "black smoke\monster " who I thought they rushed to explain, it ended up being Jacobs brother who was trapped on the Island and was desperate to leave but wasn't allowed to...why couldnt he leave ?( so he was thrown into the Well but so what ? )

Check out this summary of the final season on Wikipedia 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_(TV_series)

 

[bugarup]

I loved Lost and after its finale I started measuring suckitude of finales in Losts. The ending of KOTOR2, the ghastly thing that made me go and whine to my RL non-gamer friends, would be, like, about 8 miliLosts. That's how awful Lost's ending was. 

[Amentep]

The ending of Lost made me lose all of my interest in the series.  Even discounting the creators continual instance that they weren't really dead (except in the last season, where they were, apparently), I didn't feel the show ended very well.  And its not that they didn't answer any of the interesting questions they had created (although they didn't), but the character stuff that they seemed to want to add closure too didn't work at all, IMO.

[injurai]

I loved lost all the way up through season 5. It was season 6 that really disappointed. Though some characters at least had satisfying endings, Hurley, Desmond, Rose & her husband. The final shot (not scene) of the show was super powerful to me. Sayyid and Claire were among the worst characters that last season. Yeesh.

[BruceVC]

On 5/13/2019 at 10:29 PM, Raithe said:

Realised Lucifer Season 4 was now out on Netflix and managed to catch the first couple of episodes.

Looks like they've done a very focused 10 episode season, so not expecting random filler episodes, but it also seems that Netflix is enjoying the fact that it's not Fox, and can push the boundaries a little more.

I am considering watching this series, I havent watched any episodes. How would you guys rate it, without spoiling the story what is good\bad about it ?

[Gfted1]

I haven't watched the 4th season on Netflix yet but the first 3 seasons were "alright", imo. Not to spoil anything, but I eventually was having a harder and harder time reconciling that Lucifer was so goddamn stupid about understanding humanity when hes literally been around since BEFORE humanity.