The TV and Streaming thread Series 3

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

The one where one of the great seven Youma is inside the fat cat that's been hitting on Luna (because the other evil pet episode is near the end of Sailor Moon R, and wowsers that would be a quick binge on your part)?

No, the early one where a snake monster is selling the chanelas. The way their eyes would shoot beams or the full body glow just cracked me up.

The only real problem I have with the show is how (so far) they reused all of the transformations and attacks in a really obvious way. It makes sense given what they were working with in the 90s, but it's still lame to be watching now. It's a minor thing though and I still enjoy the show.

[majestic]

3 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

No, the early one where a snake monster is selling the chanelas. The way their eyes would shoot beams or the full body glow just cracked me up.

The only real problem I have with the show is how (so far) they reused all of the transformations and attacks in a really obvious way. It makes sense given what they were working with in the 90s, but it's still lame to be watching now. It's a minor thing though and I still enjoy the show.

Yeah, I just edited that in. Figured it out myself just a couple of minutes ago.

The, uhm, stock footage thing is going to get worse. Where I'm right now (at the end of the third season) Sailor Moon has to go through two seperate transformation sequences and a 30 second attack move to defeat enemies.

But to be honest they're so ridiculous that they're fun to watch regardless. I'll just put that in spoilers because, eh... 's not much of a spoiler (except for the really obvious), but it makes the post unneccesarily large.
 

Spoiler

 

RAINBOW MOON HEARTACHE!

The wand she's using there is called the Rod of Love and appears early in the third season because Mamoru and Usagi love each other so much. The episode is aptly named The Rod of Love is born! It's just one of the things that I love about this show, it's perfectly innocent for the original target audience but a riot for older viewers. I mean... that HAD to be intentional, right? Right? That's not something that's a happy accident like trees in a Bob Ross painting.

 

 

[Amentep]

Okay, so I'm rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation for the first time since it aired in first run and I've gotten to Season 5.

I think this may be the season that I stopped watching regularly and just caught episodes here and there afterwards.   Now true confession, I'm an original series Star Trek fan so while I have fond memories of the better TNG shows, it isn't my touchstone of Trekkiness and has always had things that I didn't like about it. YMMV.

The season started concluding the "Redemption" cliffhanger, and it wasn't a bad conclusion to that story, and "Darmok" and "Ensign Ro" tried some interesting things, even if I'm not sure they worked 100%.

"Disaster" was awful, particularly the part where everyone - including Troi - is surprised she's the next in line for bridge command.  Surely this was mentioned at some point prior to people agreeing to these positions?  And instead of giving Troi a chance to rise to the occasion, she's shown as a weak and indecisive leader. How can someone who is so inept at decision making be a counselor?  Certainly she has to have some insight, logic, training in problem solving that could have been used?  And putting Picard with the kids seemed like an excuse to have the viewer sit through Picard being uncomfortable with kids.

"The Game" is a bit better.  It doesn't work, entirely, IMO, but its an improvement.  To be honest I can't remember what I didn't think worked, something about the last minute plan, but still I enjoyed it.

"Unification" shows that not even Leonard Nimoy as Spock can improve everything.  First off what a sad send-off of Sarek that his death scene doesn't exist on screen.  And second, pretty much everyone involved in the mission (including Spock) had to be stupid not to see what the Romulans were up to.

"A Matter of Time" has Matt Frewer in it which is a plus.  And it was a good idea, its just that fell flat in the end.

Then we get "New Ground", "Hero Worship" and "Violations".  

In "New Ground" we see Worf uncomfortable as a father.  This is a good idea, and an interesting position for the character.  But the scenes themselves make no sense.  Why would Worf need to physically enroll his kid into classes on the Enterprise?  Is there like 3 or 4 schools being run on the ship that the kid has to be accepted to?  The teachers don't seem to have made any accommodation to try to understand Klingons, but surely this is SOP for a ship with multiple cultures/alien races on it?  Sure you could argue that it was short notice, but it didn't seem like they didn't even try.  What was Alexander's obsession with the creature in the class about?  Its like the scenes happen, but there isn't an internal logic to the story that allowed me to get into the plot.  The plot was an excuse to have Worf and Alexander bicker, but there's not ultimate point or revelatory moment for the characters, I felt.

And yet the episode worked better than "Hero Worship".  First, the school in "New Ground" is miles above what is presented in "Hero Worship".  Here the school seems to be a classroom to teach banality.  The teacher seems to have no real desire to integrate Timothy in his class, and Troi's suggestions of how to help the boy don't ring true, and seems to exist solely to serve the plot - namely to fob the boy off on Data.  Which could work, but the episode takes a story of a boy experiencing, processing and recovering from trauma into an episode about Data's awkwardness of having to deal with the boy.  I understand the appeal as everyone likes Data, but even if you wanted Data to be impactful of the story, the focal point of this story is the kid.  its like telling Don Quixote from the perspective of the windmill.  Thus the resolution of the story is for Data, not the kid, which undercuts the premise of the episode.

And finally there's "Violations", an episode that wants to bring up the subject of rape.  It doesn't want to actually delve into the subject; you're not going to see a motivation as to why the psychic attacker is doing what they do; nor are you going to understand why they pick the memories they do or anything close to a motivation.  You're also not going to see how their actions relates with their family, friends, co-workers, larger society or anything.  Nor are you going to see how the victims cope with the trauma that has been inflicted to them.  Nope, this episode is perfectly content to bring the subject up and stop there.

I hope the back half of the season makes up for this.  Looking at the titles, I'm pretty sure there are at least 2 episodes I liked and 1 I disliked in the back half, the rest I'm blank on without spoiling the episodes.  And I hope we don't see episodes where Riker, La Forge, O'Brien, Ro, Crusher, et al, are forced to deal with a kid for an episode.  Did the producers get to season 5 and think - "Hey, lets create a bunch of scenarios where one of the cast has to deal with a kid! It'll be great!".  Surely the production - even if they wanted to make these stories and thought they were worth doing in the same season - should have realized that having 3 episodes within 7 involving the major cast being put into uncomfortable mentorship roles with kids was a little much?  You've got 26 episodes this season to spread that out!

[majestic]

Boy are you going to have fun with seasons 6 and 7... especially 7. That one's often bad, even for fans of the show.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

But to be honest they're so ridiculous that they're fun to watch regardless

It does remind me of watching Digimon as a kid where they would play 30 sec evolution clips every show. There was one instance of like 5 minutes of evolutions that's pretty hilarious in hindsight. It's fun but it just gets repetitive, especially because it seems to be Usagi's only way to win fights.

[majestic]

4 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

It does remind me of watching Digimon as a kid where they would play 30 sec evolution clips every show. There was one instance of like 5 minutes of evolutions that's pretty hilarious in hindsight. It's fun but it just gets repetitive, especially because it seems to be Usagi's only way to win fights.

It is, the show only lets others defeat the enemies for dramatic effect. That happens a veritable... handful of times.

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by majestic
Holy crap the emojis are case sensitive? What the hell...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

52 minutes ago, majestic said:

It is, the show only lets others defeat the enemies for dramatic effect. That happens a veritable... handful of times.

 

That's disappointing but not surprising. As is emojis being case sensitive.

Oh yeah, I also finished up the Boondocks. It dropped off at the last season and I think that's explained by Aaron McGruder not being involved. Still it's a good show and blows stuff like South Park out of the water. 

[HoonDing]

They used to show Sailor Moons together with Captain Tsubasa and Dragonball, where it took like 20 episodes to finish one match/fight. It was refreshing.

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Amentep said:

 "Darmok" .. tried some interesting things, even if I'm not sure they worked 100%.

Zoraptor, his ire irrationally raised. But seriously, Darmok benefits hugely from at least one rewatch, since you can tell what the aliens are saying.

And kind of pertinent to other discussions, but Darmok has gained particular relevance now since it can be seen as an analogue to meme communication. If you said "Anakin, with the ground lower" "Drake, his approval gained" "Dexter, an unexpected maternal based accusation" etc just about everyone would know exactly what pictures were meant and what was meant to be communicated by them.

[Amentep]

I actually like Darmok a good bit, but I feel like it got hurt by the length of the story.  There's no reason Dalthon had to kidnap Picard (IMO) as a first strategem as opposed to saying something in their way of speaking to indicated going to the planet surface and then teleporting down to the planet surface and, if Picard did not follow, beaming up, and repeating.  Or using shuttlecraft and using the time to get to the planet to try and get them to understand the need to meet planetside.

It seemed like a desperate ploy, and I didn't understand why they started with that. Would have made a great cliffhanger for a two-part episode, if they needed to go that route.

I'm also unsure (and maybe a rewatch would make me sure) if Dalthon knew the monster was on the world or not, which seems like a big oversight if they didn't know, and curious strategy if they did.

Still there is a lot to like and Paul Winfield was pretty much good in anything, even under layers of make-up.

[Zoraptor]

Now I'm going to have to watch the episode again.

(I'm certain that the whole reason for kidnapping Picard was to try to mirror the 'Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra' situation/ metaphor of two 'enemies' uniting against a common foe and eventually succeeding per 'Darmok and Jalad on the Ocean' but I can't remember how much of that was stated and how much implied/ metaphored in the episode)

[Amentep]

I thought Darmok and Jalal got there separately in ship wrecks, but I may have missed that explanation...

[Zoraptor]

OK so I rewatched Darmok. Pre-emptive pardon asked the quote formattings which will inevitably break at some point...

Quote

There's no reason Dalthon had to kidnap Picard (IMO) as a first strategem as opposed to saying something in their way of speaking to indicated going to the planet surface and then teleporting down to the planet surface and, if Picard did not follow, beaming up, and repeating.

It wasn't the first strategy, the first strategy was whatever passes for the standard diplomatic approach in Tamarian*, as they ran through a bunch of metaphors while everyone got progressively more frustrated- and which they mentioned had been tried and failed 7 times before. Then Dathon states 'Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra' to his 2ic after an argument, presumably similar to the one Riker and Picard would have if Picard suggested something similar.

*--DATHON [on viewscreen]: Rai and Jiri at Lungha. Rai of Lowani. Lowani under two moons. Jiri of Ubaya. Ubaya of crossed roads at Lungha. Lungha, her sky grey. Rai and Jiri at Lungha.

Rai and Jiri would be analogous to Darmok and Jalad, but a metaphor for a more 'normal' diplomatic meeting. Presumption yes, but I'd say it's a fairly safe one.

Quote

I'm also unsure (and maybe a rewatch would make me sure) if Dalthon knew the monster was on the world or not, which seems like a big oversight if they didn't know, and curious strategy if they did.

Definitely did, it's as explicitly confirmed as you could get with a metaphorical language and Picard asks Dathon the same question* after he's been injured. The story is that Darmok and Jalad did arrive separately, but that isn't really important; the important part of the metaphor is "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" "The beast at Tanagra" "Darmok and Jalad on the ocean" ie co-operation to defeat a common foe followed by them becoming if not friends at least continuing to co-operate to get off the island.

*--PICARD: You hoped this would happen, didn't you? You knew there was a dangerous creature on this planet and you knew from the tale of Darmok that a danger shared might sometimes bring two people together. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. You and me, here, at El-Adrel.
--DATHON: Kira at Bashi. Temba, his arms wide.

[Amentep]

Thanks. I'll have to rewatch it, it seems.

[InsaneCommander]

Spoilers for The Expanse 5E09 below. Things are gonna get interesting for Drummer.

Spoiler

https://twitter.com/ExpanseOnPrime/status/1354081666256388096

Edit: it is a short promo for today's episode.

Edited January 26, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[Lexx]

I think it's quite obvious what is going to happen.

[majestic]

I finished watching Sailor Moon S (also known as Season 3).

Prior to this rewatch I thought I began watching Sailor Moon in the summer of '97 when it moved away from a TV station that I barely paid attention to and changed from a  weekly to a daily schedule, and that it was Sailor Moon R's Doom Tree arc that got me started. Turns out that was wrong, I'm pretty sure I started watching Sailor Moon some time after Sailor Mars joined, not with the Doom Tree arc. I'm not sure if the team was complete already. It might have been after episode 24, i.e. after Jupiter joins, but before Venus. Not that it really matters.

What does matter though is that the TV station aired Sailor Moon, R and S in one go, with daily showings and an immediate re-run afterwards, and Sailor Moon Super S, which I'm about to start soon coming a year later then. So there was a major time gap in between seasons.

What also matters in this context is that Sailor Moon S is, by far and large, the best of the seasons, and to make matters worse, the follow up Super S is easily the weakest. Now this doesn't say much because even in re-watching the show, having seen it all and being done with 127 (in words: one hundred and twenty seven) episodes the worst you get is an episode that's complete filler where a Chibi-Usa befriends a pliosaur, or one where she befriends a boy, or tries to, at least. Even those aren't bad.

They're fun to watch and unlike, say, an episode of Deep Space Nine like Move Along Home or Let He Who Is Without Sin... or any Star Trek TNG episode where Wesley shows up they never tempt one to simply skip them. Even when its bad Sailor Moon just ends up being less good.

Assuming one can get over it being anime. I know people who can't, and I get it. I tried a golly lot of times to actually get into South Park, but even though I find it generally amusing, I can't get over that art style. Or maybe the art style is just an excuse to not enjoy something that on a more rational level I know I should like but simply don't. I watched the entirety of BoJack Horseman in spite of loathing how it looks.

However Sailor Moon can be an anime that even viewers who generally don't like anime can enjoy (exhibit A, our very own Bartimaeus here). The way the people are drawn is of course typical for Japanese animation, but the art style, directions and the characters involved are noticably different, at least from other animes of the time. Presumably that was in part a reason why the show became so popular later on, a fact that 15 year old me both hated and enjoyed with a passion. It meant losing a part of nerd counter culture to mainstream, but it also meant being able to interact with fans world wide online. Something Sailor Moon shared with X-Files, another mainstay of my adolescence.

But I remember Super S having a few questionable story lines / beats.

Spoiler

Like Chibi-Usa's romance with a winged unicorn (no really, I'm not making this up) and all the rapey sexual abuse subtext of the villains - Super S is the reason why you sometimes see Sailor Moon signs carried at protests against sexual violence.

Main TL;DR from the wall of text here: I'm not sure I should immediately jump into Super S. I'll probably ignore my own advice and just go for it, but it would probably be better to let it rest for a while. On the other hand now that I've done almost a 180 on Chibi-Usa maybe... just maybe. *pulls out discs*

Anyway, there are many reason why I think S is the best season, but mostly it was just really well written and directed, and I don't mean well written for an anime show about junior high girls in sailor suits fighting monsters. It's well written... period. Even more so when you think about how the writing team of what amounts to a low budget and mostly ridiculous anime adaptation in the 90ies managed to do here, create a plot driven by characters where actions take place and things happen because the characters involved are what they are, not what the plot dictates them to be. Yes, I'm looking at you Game of Thrones and Star Trek Picard...

Plus the new Sailor Senshi get awesome theme songs:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

When I was a kid I remember seeing Sailor Moon advertised on toonami, but I never watched it and had no idea of what it was. I didn't get cable until I was a teenager, and all the anime I got was rented at the Blockbuster (I accidentally stumbled into the last part of Berserk that way, which is probably not the best thing for a kid to watch) and I was more drawn into Evangelion or b-movies. I did end up watching Sailor Moon the way all semi-ners american teenagers watched anime back in the aughts, which I won't mention for potential legal reasons. I don't remember Sailor Moon very well, which is par for me up till my early 20s, but I remember liking it better than Dragon Ball Z (and whatever came after). It's nice to come back to it with close to fresh eyes and I'm having a blast so far. I'd recommend it over hatewatching nuTrek or Doctor Who or whatever beloved franchise got animated into a mockery of what it once was, a vampire that feeds off your nostalgia to prop up a show that would fail on its own merits, most of the audience half-mesmerized into tuning in every week to an hour of cringe.

I'm drinking a lot so excuse the wall of text. Lmao.

 

[Bartimaeus]

RE art styles: I have the same issue/make the same kind of excuse. Art style shouldn't matter. It shouldn't. It should not! It has no bearing on writing, characters, themes, or anything else important. But so often when I'm considering a new show (or game: note that I almost exclusively play smaller, shorter indie games, often 2D - lots of different art styles), that's what I'm looking at first. I don't have to love it (especially not immediately - I certainly didn't for Sailor Moon or Evangelion or...Steven Universe or plenty of others), but I do have to at least not immediately hate it. There's a certain level of prognostication involved when talking about art styles - your example of South Park and Bojack Horseman are good, because their art style very well matches their show's personality. They might not be the style I want (or can even tolerate), but they make perfect sense for what they're representing. I'm very much of the opinion that while you can't *always* judge a book by its cover...with art styles, I think you at least usually can, because the art style in the vast majority of cases will be intentionally married to the kind of media that it is, giving you a decent feel for how the media will operate as a whole. And if it's not a good marriage, then it's probably not going to be great to begin with - outside of rare exceptions (particularly ones that are deliberately designed to mislead, like...say, Doki Doki Literature Club or something). So when media presents to me its art style, I tend to believe that it is representing itself well - for better, for worse.

Of course, I'm not the most familiar with anime styles in particular, so it's been more difficult for me to prognosticate from just a glance. I decided to give Sailor Moon a try because I accidentally landed on this video from a only semi-related video a friend sent me:

...and it somehow appealed to me enough that I decided to give it a try. I don't know why, I really don't, since this just by itself is just nonsense that meant absolutely nothing to me and I shouldn't have gotten anything out of it, but somehow I did. Also, I'm a moron because this was the first video I ever saw of Sailor Moon and it still took me like a third to maybe half of the first season for me to consciously realize that Mamoru must be Tuxedo Mask - I'm not saying I didn't have suspicions before that, but that was when I was like "ok, yeah it has to be him". I blame it on the show making me laugh too hard to think straight.

I think I once read that the art style of Sailor Moon is the strange minimalistic result of an absolute shoestring budget with terrible deadlines that they gave the show, thinking it would only be a one-off one-season thing as air filler for whatever Japanese channel it debuted on. I'm just glad they didn't screw around with the art style after it actually became a success. I can't say the same for SM Crystal - that art style is straight-up revolting for me, .

[Bartimaeus]

Also, Kaine, I have a friend on Steam that uses literally your exact avatar, has a drinking problem, is incredibly cynical, and is disappointed by everything. His name even starts with a K - it's very weird and disconcerting. He hates anime (although I think he watched and enjoyed Death Note), though, so you can't be the same people.

(e): @majestic This Ami episode...

Spoiler

...was much better than the other one. Seeing Tuxedo Mask summarily get the crap beat out of him after appearing was hilarious (and Usagi using self-hatred to defeat the illusions was...an interesting and great writing choice), and it was just a better episode overall vs. the earlier Ami-focused episode.

(e): Wait, why did I spoiler it? You and Kaine have already seen this...

Edited January 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Lexx]

Well I think art style is very important.

One reason why I hate many animes is that I just loath this maid style stuff. Or this typical anime hair, you know. Over the last year I've watched *a lot* anime stuff. Like, really, feels like I am morphing into a weeb thanks to the Obsidian forums. And this only started because I've watched an anime that was *not* looking like your typical lazy and generic anime (it was Your Name, by the way. Probably the highpoint of all of anime. I keep searching for more like that, but I just can't get it anymore. This is how late-stage drug addicts must feel).

Oh man, and there is more that I hate:

- I hate anime with this ecchi stuff. Basically sexual scenes which are 110% censored. I'm here like, man, either show something or just skip this bs.

- I hate harem anime. One dude and a group of girls who all are kinda into the dude, but the dude is constantly dodging all advances. Ugh.

- I hate how every anime seemingly needs at least one child character. Bonus points if this child character appears in harem animes, because then it will always be sexualized in some form. Of course it is always tame stuff, but you just know what the intend is.

 

Anyways ... long story short, I find it very hard to find enjoyable animes Maybe I should check out Sailor Moon.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Lexx

[Bartimaeus]

what the hell kind of ****ed up **** are you watching man

-person who has watched almost no anime

Edited January 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Lexx]

Just the popular stuff on Netflix.

Btw. "Erased" was very good. Watched it twice even. It is drawn in a more realistic style with none of the usual anime tropes. Really wish there would be more like that.

I checked the wiki and it turns out Erased was released *after* Life is Strange. I'm pretty sure that game served as inspiration.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Lexx

[Bartimaeus]

8 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Just the popular stuff on Netflix.

Btw. "Erased" was very good. Watched it twice even. It is drawn in a more realistic style with none of the usual anime tropes. Really wish there would be more like that.

I checked the wiki and it turns out Erased was released *after* Life is Strange. I'm pretty sure that game served as inspiration.

Oh yeah, I've actually tried out a few animes on Netflix, like...Kakegurui, some weird antiquity/demon-hunting one, that Castlevania one...but I usually only last 5 minutes before I realize "oh yeah, anime is absolute garbage, whoopsie" and turn it off. Prognostication at work.

(e): And that's not even mentioning My Hero Academia, which I super wanted to like because I read about a bunch of the characters in advance and convinced myself it was going to be decent, and it ended up being the absolute worst.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[uuuhhii]

give up black sails after 2 episode when it first come out

heard it was very good after season one

hope can get into it this time