The TV and Streaming thread Series 3

[ShadySands]

If you're still going strong in the first season then I'd stick with it. If you can enjoy it for what it is then I think that's a good thing. I tried to do that but I still kept wanting it to be something that I don't think it can be so I had to stop watching.

I did finally watch Lower Decks and I absolutely agree that it is the most "Star Trek" of YellCryPunch nuTrek but I'd describe it as a less good animated Orville 

[Hurlshort]

I feel like there has not been enough news about Orville. It is great. How can we end up with a million seasons of American Dad, but only 2 of Orville?

[majestic]

2 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Thanks to all of you commenting on ST:Discovery. I'm currently watching the first season, as it is airing on the regular CBS channel, and indeed can already see what you all are talking about. Makes me wonder if it is worth my valuable time to invest it in this show if nothing improves in later episodes.

As ridiculous as that may sound, season one has the longest run of decent episodes of the series. Overall it was still terrible, but it's the clearly the season with the best value so far.

As long as you enjoy the mirror universe.

 

Season two makes Battlestar Galactica's final half of season three and season four look positively glorious and the current one is... uhm... yeah. It's occasionally okay. Somewhere between the first and second, but incredibly uneven.

[Amentep]

42 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

I feel like there has not been enough news about Orville. It is great. How can we end up with a million seasons of American Dad, but only 2 of Orville?

Filming on the third season has been held up due to the pandemic.  I think they were (or are or will be) resuming filming this month. 

 

[majestic]

Hahahahaha. Star Dreck Discovery time!

This time we deal with some of Booker's family issues, his home planet and Prissy McMoustache Osyraa who does her best to be all threatening and grrrrrrrrrrr and brrrrrrrrrr and terrifying. So boss lady is seen executing her incompetent nephew in the most hilarious moustache twirling manner possible (she feeds him to her pet) then she comes up with a plan to get her hands on Booker by withholding pest repellent from Booker's home planet.

Apparently the Emerald Chain is the only source of VANDAL in the galaxy.

Anyway, Discovery jumps Book and Burnham to <insert planet name I don't want to look up here, something like Keijwisjousn> (neither of which ever even think for a moment that this could be a trap laid by Osyraa, which anyone with half a brain could see coming) and stays around to be a neutral Federation observer, hoping to make McMoustache be a little more open to diplomatic solutions. You know, show the flag and all that. Of course she shows up in heavy cruiser and is suitably unimpressed with Discovery.

Hilarity ensures and McMoustache begins bombing the planet where the impact of the bombardement randomly does nothing even if it's right behind you or causes a shockwave that causes everyone to fly from their feet whenever it is convenient to do so, i.e. everyone tumbles and falls the moment Michael and Book are surrounded by the baddies.

Saru is itching to intercede but has clear orders to not engage the Emerald Chain because the Federtion really can't deal with a direct conflict at the time. Luckily First Officer Ensign Tilly comes up with the perfect plan: Have a pilot of Discovery go rogue and attack the cruiser with Book's ship to give Michael more time to do something or other down on the planet (they conveniently lost track of them due to the planetary defense fields and don't even know what - if anything - she's up to, but they need to give her more time to do whatever it is).

Detmer goes to fly Booker's ship against a heavy cruiser. The Andorian who lost his both his "antenna" knows a weak spot, so he joins her. Yes it was hilarious when Michael said millennia to a single millennium but this isn't funny any more. It's either antennas, or less pedestrian, antennae. In fact I'd say that antennas is out for Star Trek as antennae is the accepted plural form referring to feelers.

Well anyway, in a scene that may as well be reused footage from Poe's attack on the dreadnought in The Last Jedi, we get a flashback to Star Trek: Insurrection where Riker flew the Enterprise with a joystick. Detmer goes manual control and takes out the cruisers weapon system and causes some hull damage. The cruiser hails Discovery and Saru offers her assistance because, hey, her ship is damaged.

Green Osyraa McMoustache states in no uncertain terms that the Federation just declared war on the Emerald Chain. How shocking, she saw right through Tilly's ploy there. How... unexpected. Instead of trying to salvage the situation by intercepting the Emerald Chain flagship (which is now completely hapless) they just let her fly way.

Then Burnham comes up with a way to save the planet they've been fighting over in a minute and a half, Booker and his estranged brother (but not really biological brother) hold hands and sing Kumbaya to make strange blue flying locsts from leftover Avatar CGI shots go back to Pandora where they came from.

Oh, and yeah, there's this minor C-ish sideplot where Culbert is trying to figure out what is wrong with Georgiou, and Adira tells Stamets that she wants to be called they. They (well Stamets and Adira) also analyse the SB-19 data to find out that the Burn originated from a weird nebula that is singing the same melody that played on the Seed Vault ship - the same melody Adira is playing on her, errr, sorry, their cello. There's also a coded message coming from the nebula that is apparently from a Federation starship. Okay.

Stamets works Adira so hard she falls asleep on the job, then Culbert and Stamets have a little discussion about Adira while she's sleeping in front of them (but of course she's awake). The two of them have some dialogue that is choke full of pronouns. The writers apparently tried very, very hard to come up with as much theys and thems as possible in four lines of dialogue and it really shows. It's wooden, forced and terribly acted. Stamets and Culbert look as if they're close to resounding laughter with how bad the dialogue is, smirking like idiots and putting an emphasis on every they and them they say to a point where it sounds utterly unnatural. No, not unnatural in the way orthodox fundamentalists think LGBTQ people are but unnatural as in severly breaking the conversational flow.

If the intention was to show how picking pronouns for yourself makes talking harder then congratulations Discovery writing crew, you have succeeded. If the intention was to get more understanding for trans people then... please stop. If you can't direct the actors you have that are playing a gay couple to not make a mockery of it just leave it alone. Sheesh.

Edited December 5, 2020 by majestic
Lots of typos. Still some left I guess...

[Lexx]

So after watching the latest Mandalorian episode I'm wondering .... will it ever be possible to take Stormtroopers seriously? It's like they are a joke and made a joke on purpose. Why does the imperium even deploy them if they are so god damn useless? Like, how incompetent needs the enemy to be in order for sending Stormtroopers against them will give you any value?

They can't hit anything with their rifles, they can't hit anything with a damn laser gatling, they can't even hit anything with a god damn mortar and its splash damage, and on top of that they fall down dead if something touches them on the shoulder.

It's driving me mad.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Lexx

[majestic]

The "haha stormtroopers" parts of The Mandalorian continue to be bad, and the prospect of getting another episode with Bill Burr doesn't exactly make me happy. That prison break episode was easily last season's worst.

[213374U]

The whole franchise takes a dark turn if you consider the possibility that the "heroes" may just be murdering hapless cosplayers rather than the elite shock troops that they quite obviously are not...

[LadyCrimson]

Hubby and I watched the first two episodes of "James May: Oh Cook!" via Prime.

We were laughing in the first minute. What a fun, often amusing take on the cooking show.   That's James may for ya.  If you haven't already, stream it!

[IndiraLightfoot]

I agree. I've also watched every episode of James May - Our Man in Japan - and I laughed a lot. Among many things, I recall a tourist guide robot, not to mention James helping himself on a super-luxurous train ride.

Edited December 6, 2020 by IndiraLightfoot

[Guard Dog]

Like this post only if you get the TV show reference:

[Amentep]

"Just between you and me, I'm really excited about the Ring Dings and the Pepsi"

[Guard Dog]

It's better than anything you're going to get in a bakery!

[Gfted1]

On 12/5/2020 at 5:31 PM, Lexx said:

So after watching the latest Mandalorian episode I'm wondering .... will it ever be possible to take Stormtroopers seriously? It's like they are a joke and made a joke on purpose. Why does the imperium even deploy them if they are so god damn useless? Like, how incompetent needs the enemy to be in order for sending Stormtroopers against them will give you any value?

They can't hit anything with their rifles, they can't hit anything with a damn laser gatling, they can't even hit anything with a god damn mortar and its splash damage, and on top of that they fall down dead if something touches them on the shoulder.

It's driving me mad.

I thought their ineptitude was a long running Easter egg. No?

[Malcador]

On 12/5/2020 at 6:31 PM, Lexx said:

So after watching the latest Mandalorian episode I'm wondering .... will it ever be possible to take Stormtroopers seriously? It's like they are a joke and made a joke on purpose. Why does the imperium even deploy them if they are so god damn useless? Like, how incompetent needs the enemy to be in order for sending Stormtroopers against them will give you any value?

They can't hit anything with their rifles, they can't hit anything with a damn laser gatling, they can't even hit anything with a god damn mortar and its splash damage, and on top of that they fall down dead if something touches them on the shoulder.

It's driving me mad.

Side effect of shooting at people with plot armor.  Should have more good guy redshirts that can get offed.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Malcador

[Raithe]

Not a tv show per se, but I stumbled on "Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown" on Amazon Prime.

Robin Atkin Downes narrating an examination of H.P. Lovecrafts life and writing, with a lot of support from a group such as Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, Guillermo del Toro, Stuart Gordon, Caitlin Kiernan, John Carpenter and a few others. 

Nothing too in-depth if you already know your Lovecraft, and possibly too shallow if you know nothing it sort of hits a middle line of exploring / explaining individual works, but it has the benefits of interesting people talking about something that interests them.

 

[Hurlshort]

With all the buzz about Cyberpunk 2066, I decided to watch Johnny Mnemonic. I had no idea how close to reality this movie is. The year is 2021, there is a a global pandemic, and Big Pharma rules the world.

This crazy guy just boosted his memory implant from 80 GB to 160 GB. That might be enough to download Cyberpunk 2066. Unfortunately his courier load is 320 GB. Yikes! 

[uuuhhii]

On 12/5/2020 at 2:06 AM, Hurlshot said:

I feel like there has not been enough news about Orville. It is great. How can we end up with a million seasons of American Dad, but only 2 of Orville?

been a long time since season 2 ended

will there be a season 3?

[ShadySands]

[Lexx]

I felt season 2 was a bit weaker than the 1st one. Hope the 3rd will pick it up again. In any case, it'll be so much better than anything Star Trek we're getting nowadays.

[Amentep]

 

[Zoraptor]

A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one: Hayden Christiansen is going to reprise his role of Darth Vader in the forthcoming Kenobi miniseries.

[HoonDing]

It's Christensen bro

I know because I recently saw a movie starring him and Nic Cage as Templars in China or somesuch.

[majestic]

This epsiode of Discovery was glorious.

I mean if you ignore the B-plot with the distress signal from the Federation starship out and the reason why Georgiou is "sick" - because she doesn't belong in this time. Yeah, sure, whatever. Other Trek shows toyed with the idea as well but usually came up with some quantum signature or other thingy instead of... stuff that doesn't fit inside the Trek canon. Anyway... uhm. The Kelvin Timeline has now been official moved to "parallel universe" territory. Not sure since when timelines spawn parellel universes in 'Trek, but who gives a damn.

All hail Her Most Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Qo'noS, Regina Andor, Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius!

Also maybe turn down the lens flares? Geez film crew, geez.

Just like in season 1, everything set in the mirror universe is great. The writers are having much more fun than coming up with "Star Trek" and the actors positively revel in the glory of Shatnarian overacting. The transition scene was fun too, but set in the regular 'Trek verse so it was pretty awful from an in-universe standpoint. It reminded me of Anubis talking to Daniel Jackson in Limbo at the end of Stargate SG-1 season eight. Fitting in the Stargate setting, less so in Star Trek.

It just shows that Discovery is dragged down by being attached to Star Trek. And unlike with Star Trek: Picard, the show could probably stand on its own without the name.

Maybe... just maybe stop spending money on trying to make this Star Trek and contact GW, make a TV show about the Imperium of Man, yes? Please?

[Hurlshort]

Wait...

Is this a crossover show?