The TV and Streaming Thread: Series 5

[Amentep]

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21 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Raithe, you know how the  ancient laws and codes works of all things fantasy . If you claim to be  a fan of fantasy RPG then you always support everything and anything to do with AD&D and D&D

We all know this, its like saying " I like fantasy books " but you havent read Lord of Rings.  ( which I wasnt crazy about but I did read it and the Hobbit....I found these books to be a little boring in their style of English which I realize is old nowadays. I love George R R Martin and Steven Erikson  style of fantasy ) 

 

15 hours ago, majestic said:

You just have cast "Summon Gromnir" and he's going to tell you that Lord of the Rings isn't fantasy, it's mythology, which is what Tolkien was aiming for.

At any rate, I started watching Blacklist now that the 8th season's out on Netflix here. The plot has been getting ye olde Chris Carter kudzu treatment for several seasons now, but who cares. I could watch James Spader all day (somtimes I do! ).

 

 

13 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

The Empty Man, via HBO (it's on HBOMax too I think)

Has a long drawn out history that in short = bigger studio not knowing what to do with an experimental movie and kind of tossing it to the side (not even a DVD/blu-ray release given). The trailer makes it look like another Slender Man/Candy Man or some such type horror movie, and parts of it do kind of feel like that in a way. But the trailer is also very misleading ... I'm going to say I liked it quite a bit more than expected and while it's really long for its genre (2 hrs. 17 minutes) I wasn't annoyed by that. I don't think I'd cut very much out, maybe 5-8 minutes at most.

There are criticisms: may not be enough typical "horror" for those wanting such, could be seen as too slow/boring, and it's rather bleak in a mental way (vs. visceral horror) the film is split into three sections, with a very long past-prologue that is very different styled from the other two, and an ambiguous, multi-possible explanation ending (on purpose) that might leave some feeling confused/annoyed, or unsatisfied/burned (edit: or one could take it simply at face value I suppose).

That said, from the very start I found myself unable to stop watching. Maybe it's because of the way most of the shots were framed, and the pacing of the camera work, I found it visually interesting/hypnotic wanted to see more. The last few minutes did annoy me just a little bit, but then again, I kept thinking/analyzing the film long after. It's kind of a mild mind-you-know-what.

Could definitely see it becoming a cult horror/supernatural/psychological film. 

 

11 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Some of the stuff I've watched recently, mostly catching up on things I've missed but meant to see first time around.

Black Sails: Not finished, but it is a good semi historical pirate romp. As might be expected the pirates are pretty sanitised overall, and as with most things there are some interesting plotting decisions where things seem to happen just to set up or prolong the plot instead of being logical.

Black Summer: Fast zombie apocalypse from the makers of Z Nation but more serious, but I wasn't expecting much. Not at all bad overall as a park your brain action/ suspense watch, though again a lot of the set ups make very little sense (mostly, too many resources available for them to be fighting over. Why even bother threatening people and forcing them out of a 7/11 when you're going to take maybe 5% of the stuff there? Why chase a completely random car in your pickup instead of just looting some houses? etc etc).

Kingdom: Korean fast zombies (with political machinations). Probably has the most visceral take of those I've watched, and it being set with matchlock level military tech is interesting too. The only real problem is fairly minor, watching it with subtitles it was really difficult to know any of the characters' actual names instead of just their roles- with the exception of the nurse, because inept bureaucrat guy kept on following her around saying her name all the time. Pretty strong recommendation overall. As a side effect I now have a 'Korean TV' section on Netflix

The Fall: Very well acted and written. Knowing who the serial killer was from the start introduced some limitations, but then not knowing would have just introduced others. Probably a matter of binge watching rather than weekly episodic, but there were a fair few dropped threads too and not exactly light watching. I'm looking forward to seeing something a bit lighter so I was thinking of Happy Valley which sounds pretty upbeat- how could something with Curly's squeeze from Coro be anything other than a light hearted romp?

Barbarians: This one I found a bit disappointing. It's technically fine and obviously limited by budget in terms of scale, but I kind of expected a bit more from the story of Arminius especially with it being a bit of a founding myth for modern Germany. Despite watching this and Dark I don't have a 'German TV' section on Netflix.

Line of Duty (latest season): Clearly- and by a wide margin- the worst season, but simultaneously nowhere near as bad as some make out. I wonder if those surprised by the revelation of 'H' even bothered watching the previous season where the objective expectations for his role were spelt out and him being important was clearly scenario fulfillment from the AC12 team. It also seems very unlikely that they'd pay James Nesbitt just to use a photo of him. Series overall is very much worth watching for anyone who hasn't seen it, creator also did Bodyguard though that is a bit more set piece action.

  

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

" Summon Gromnir " , thats a good way of describing what triggers him around certain topics. I am going to start using it if you dont mind?

But I do appreciate his views and effort he puts into his posts even if I dont always agree with him, I am  a person who likes details and Gromnir is a details person and often includes links which matters to me when making posts in debates 

 

 

[InsaneCommander]

‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 2 Has Begun Filming, Still No Sight of Season One Trailer.

Actually, the trailer will come "before Summer's end".

[LadyCrimson]

Cosmic String via Netflix - well, I tried to watch it.  Didn't get too far.

At this point I'm rather convinced that I could - based on my super-extensive years of of "experience"  watching such films - write some low budget sci-fi or action-y/crime script and still get Bruce Willis to agree to sleepwalk through it.

[Amentep]

Chain of Command TNG

A good two parter; the strength of the story is the characters and their conflicts which have parallel conflicts of personality and will.

[ShadySands]

That's the one where Picard takes down Irenicus?

[Gromnir]

4 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

That's the one where Picard takes down Irenicus?

is the one where a bald madeleine stowe triumphs over sci-fi alan rickman, and riker plays at being heroic but it turns out that the captain bogomil was right all along and yet we somehow convenient ignore that part. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

The science behind “The Adama Manuver” on BSG

The short of it is there is none. This shows scientific advisor told the producers this would never work. Nothing about it works. But do it because it’s going to be cool! It was.

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

The science behind “The Adama Manuver” on BSG

The short of it is there is none. This shows scientific advisor told the producers this would never work. Nothing about it works. But do it because it’s going to be cool! It was.

bsg soundtrack were kinda in the same vein of, "do it because it's going to be cool." the adama maneuver music is storming new caprica. bagpipes and taiko drums? oh, and lets get a few o' the guys from oingo boingo to contribute.

kinda wish bsg had run outta money midway through the third season and had been canceled. an unceremonious and incomplete end woulda' been so much better than what we saw at end of season three and near entirety o' season four. if bsg had been cancelled, we could all lament 'bout what if instead o' cringing in remembrance o' what was. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

27 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

bsg soundtrack were kinda in the same vein of, "do it because it's going to be cool." the adama maneuver music is storming new caprica. bagpipes and taiko drums? oh, and lets get a few o' the guys from oingo boingo to contribute.

kinda wish bsg had run outta money midway through the third season and had been canceled. an unceremonious and incomplete end woulda' been so much better than what we saw at end of season three and near entirety o' season four. if bsg had been cancelled, we could all lament 'bout what if instead o' cringing in remembrance o' what was. 

HA! Good Fun!

I could say the exact same thing for Game of Thrones. Yeah the BSG ending was weak. But nowhere near as nonsensical as GOT season 7 & 8. But let’s face it it’s really hard for a TV show to stick the landing. In fact I can only think of a few that ever did. MASH and Cheers definitely did. I’ve never seen breaking bad. At least not anything past season one. I heard it ended pretty well.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

I’m curious, did everybody like the way the Star Trek shows ended? TNG the last episode aimed high but missed. But the last scene at the poker table was nice. DS9 went the other way. A good ending episode with a closing sequence that just fell short for me. Voyager was ok. A vanilla milkshake. Enterprise was a rushed mess because it was. 

[Raithe]

7 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

I’m curious, did everybody like the way the Star Trek shows ended? TNG the last episode aimed high but missed. But the last scene at the poker table was nice. DS9 went the other way. A good ending episode with a closing sequence that just fell short for me. Voyager was ok. A vanilla milkshake. Enterprise was a rushed mess because it was. 

I think the TNG final episode was one of those interesting cases of a finale that wasn't so much closing a series as being that reminder of what the show was about and and having that optimistic edge to what the future might bring.

DS9 was very much a wrap up character story lines and call an end to it all.

Voyager was just.. Voyager.

 

Hm, regardless of the spotty and awkward nature of the 5th season of Babylon 5, the end episode pretty much was great emotions. Technically it was shot at the end of Season 4 when they didn't know they'd get season 5 to wrap things up.

But still, that jump to twenty years on, and ending with that music (and the cameo of JMS literally turning off the lights)...

 

[Gromnir]

final episodes is a bit o' a pivot, though admitted we did feel a bit o' whiplash from the sudden race-to-the-bottom efforts following our bsg observations. whatever.

particular for episodic shows which lasted multiple seasons, wrap up everything in one or two episodes is a whole lot to demand from writers, directors and cast. has been more than a few best final episode posts in the tv threads o' this board... we has mentioned stuff such as barney miller and angel in the past, along with the genuine lol final moments o' the second newhart. 

as for star trek, am gonna observe how voyager is kinda unique in that not only were the finale representing one o' the better episodes o' the series (not much o' an accomplishment) with janeway going out like a boss, but it involved f'ing time travel paradoxes and we nevertheless did not complete hate it.

tng has picard and q as focus so can't be all bad, but f'ing time travel f'ing again? quit it. even so, while is hardly in our top ten o' tng episodes, as far as an episode which brings the show full circle and concludes satisfactorily w/o befouling the franchise with any sorta shame from inept final handling, we find not much fault with tng's finale, save to once again observe time travel is a cheap dodge, and have q explain that this particular anomaly ignores causality is hardly sufficient from our pov, but whatever, we just got through recognizing we were able to endure the time travel silliness for voyager, so will indulge an exasperated sigh and silent repeat the henry 5's "once more unto the breach" monologue.

is gonna be an unpopular observation, but we kinda see voyager and tng as being rough equivalent in terms o' decent finales for trek show endings.

the rest?

*groan*

ds9? how did ds9 end? oh, that's right--

Spoiler

oh, wait, we got wrong. not gollum and mount doom, but is instead the fire caves and a book which is s'posed to release sauron and the sisko and dukat end up both plummeting like gollum, but the sisko is deus ex'd by the prophets... or somesuch.

never much liked the wormhole alien stuff, in part 'cause o' time travel. however, the episode as a whole weren't awful save for the cringy fire cave stuff, but that were more than enough to smear the episode for us.

enterprise were so utter inconsistent. am not sure what we expected from a finale. better. we expected better even though were no reason to even hope for such. still, we will observe how enterprise ended superior to tos.

tos finale were bad. period. sorry. dr. lester (who the hell is dr. lester and why should we care?) tries to take over the ship, but... am not gonna get into this one further save to observe how when fans o' tng were perplexed by how terribad were episodes such as code of honor and angel one, the tos finale served as a reminder such were always possible with a gene roddenberry story and should not have surprised anybody. 

more than a few shows with excellent runs and superior final seasons nevertheless had weak finales. star trek shows had terrible finales save for voyager and tng. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps we didn't have reliable tv until the early 80s, so we never saw season two o' the cartoon. 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Gromnir

[Guard Dog]

Agree 100%. BSG fell flat with the “final five” business. Oh they were right here in front of us all along, ugh. All downhill from there.

And time travel is a crutch for weak writing. 
 

It wasn’t my intention to subvert the conversation with late run show writing failures. It is curious to me how many shows just can’t seem to “bring it in for a landing “ . I have long since lost interest in The Walking Dead. But I believe their finale is coming up. Curious to see if they can pull it off.
 

 

[Gromnir]

am thinking bsg is illustrative as to why so many american tv shows have poor finales

fib.

the show creators were making it up as they went along. they didn't have a plan any more than did the cylons. they added and subtracted and changed and their creation became increasingly unwieldy with plotlines which were as likely to bifurcate as dead-end. somehow gotta maintain tension for years and if part of the tension is based on a mysterious plan, how do you reveal protagonist progress w/o undermining the mysterious?

gotta multi year show with dozens o' episodes and fans who you has tried to keep satisfied even though many like the show for different reasons. 

great stuff, unless what you genuine enjoyed 'bout the show were the boomer bot's personal conflict or the President somehow keeping the fleet together in spite o' impossible odds and weekly (literal) catastrophes. you got fans o' the show who were all watching for different reasons, so as a writer you would make battle episodes and adama and roslin episodes and baltar and six episodes and etc. make worse, 'cause after a couple seasons as a writer for same show, it must have been tough to find new things to say 'bout characters. solution is to instead put those established characters in increasingly improbable situations to create drama. perhaps add new characters? how long can you keep that up w/o it looking contrived? but what happens when you get to the finale, which you had not genuine planned for, and you sudden realize you gottta try and make all your fans happy? you imagine the size o' the whiteboard you would need to diagram all plots and characters you has spent years developing and you discover your imagination can't reach so far. 

many bbc shows and a few o' the newer streaming offerings got an advantage when coming up with finales 'cause they got fewer episodes than the traditional broadcast tv multiyear offerings and they often (not always) got a planned duration, which is if anything likely to be shortened as 'posed to expanded. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps since am talking bsg, we noticed bear mcreary did the music for the he-man cartoon, which we were not previous interested in viewing. our opinion is kevin smith is a tool  and we were never particular interested in the he-man character which were created to sell leftover and repurposed conan action figures. low expectations. our understanding is the new cartoon isn't genuine 'bout he-man anyway, so maybe that helps? dunno. am nevertheless interested to see/hear what mccreary does for the cartoon given he is sorta a tim burton movie character come to life. 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Gromnir

[Lexx]

I liked the ending of BSG. Made it much sense? Not really, but it didn't matter to me at the time (and still doesn't).

[Keyrock]

So, I heard the news of the new Star Trek series Strange New Worlds. As someone who loves Star Trek and loathes Nu Trek with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, I was weary. Still, they said all the right things: It will be hopeful and optimistic, and it will be episodic, rather than a serial. Also, it will feature Captain Christopher Pike. I couldn't stomach Discovery long enough to get to Pike, but by most accounts Anson Mount as Captain Pike was either the best thing about Discovery or the only good thing about Discovery, depending on who you ask. I began to feel a tiny spark of hope, something I have not felt about my beloved series in a long time. I decided to do a bit of digging (read: I went to Wikipedia) and I discovered the horrible truth:

I'll never be happy again.

[ShadySands]

Yep, it's still the same writers, lead by Goldsman and Kurtzman, so I have no hope of it being good.

[majestic]

46 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Yep, it's still the same writers, lead by Goldsman and Kurtzman, so I have no hope of it being good.

Yeah, just what I wanted to post too. At this point in time, Goldsman is just as much an instant no as Kurtzman is. Both of them together just means it will be terribad, instead of just terrible.

[Gromnir]

admission: have seen 0 episodes of picard and only oneish of discovery.

what we saw o' discovery were less than entertaining, and so our plan were to wait a bit. wait made sense 'cause our working theory were that much like voyager or enterprise, as much as the shows were panned by fans, there would be at least a few fantastic must-see episodes. the thing is we keep waiting for our hardcore trek fan acquaintances to tell us they got to the good stuff. and so we wait and wait and continue to wait.

am personal a trek fan in the more limited sense we has seen every previous show and every episode with the previous stated exception o' season two of the cartoon. is a few trek episodes we can recollect which we would add to all-time best tv, regardless o' genre. converse, there is a whole lotta trek dreck too. 

we assumed our friends who is serious trek fans woulda' watched discovery and picard regardless o' quality, and that is exactly what has happened. less courageous, am unable to find the motivation to gird our self for an unpleasant or uninspired tv slog. if our trek acquaintances is gonna voluntarily forge ahead into fields we suspect is littered with mines, who are we to stop 'em, eh? the thing is, everywhere they step is mines. is no not-mines. thus our plan has been foiled by what we thought were improbable: trek shows which trek fans have difficulty saying anything positive 'bout?  what?

am no longer waiting for the next trek show or movie. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Hurlshort]

Stargate had a pretty solid progression and concluding story arc.

[Lexx]

Why do they allow Kurtzman to rape Star Trek so much. I don't understand this ... is ... is the problem actually us? Does everyone like the new Star Trek and it's just us few who hate it?

[Keyrock]

17 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Why do they allow Kurtzman to rape Star Trek so much. I don't understand this ... is ... is the problem actually us? Does everyone like the new Star Trek and it's just us few who hate it?

I suspect it might be us, we may be a dying breed. We're old weirdos that like a show where humanity evolved past its myriad of problems and people get along and work together. A show where, sure there'd be a shootout or fight once in a blue moon, but mostly it was about exploring and encountering weird phenomena and solving ethical dilemmas with wits, science, and diplomacy. I guess we just need to fall in line and enjoy Spock yelling and punching people and 10000 starships fighting 10000 other starships, like God intended.

[majestic]

8 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

Stargate had a pretty solid progression and concluding story arc.

SG1's final episode is called "Unending" because that's what it was, an un-ending. It resolved nothing of the ongoing storylines. 

Atlantis' final episode was a hastily cobbled together mess of ideas that were supposed to be developed over a full season, not one episode. 

Universe was cancelled on a cliffhanger.

Only SG1 got final straight to DVD films to deal with the storylines, and they were, while not bad, certainly not great. 

You'd have a point if SG1 ended with Season 7 or 8. But it didn't...

[Amentep]

4 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I suspect it might be us, we may be a dying breed. We're old weirdos that like a show where humanity evolved past its myriad of problems and people get along and work together. A show where, sure there'd be a shootout or fight once in a blue moon, but mostly it was about exploring and encountering weird phenomena and solving ethical dilemmas with wits, science, and diplomacy. I guess we just need to fall in line and enjoy Spock yelling and punching people and 10000 starships fighting 10000 other starships, like God intended.

Its funny, because I find the erosion of the 'ideal' of Star Trek to begin in TNG.  The producers hated that Rodenberry wouldn't allow the characters to squabble amid themselves (much as Ellison, two decades earlier, couldn't believe that humanity wouldn't still be doing drugs for recreation which caused the fallout over COTEOF), and while TNG may have only been a step away from Rodenberry's vision, by the time you get Voyager you can tell that the mixed crew of Starfleet and Maquis was designed so the producers could allow a reason for the crew to bicker amid themselves.  Enterprise, being set before Starfleet comes into being does similar.  Then JJ's reboot does away with the idea entirely, and the post JJReboot seems to fall in line with that.

Unfortunately most modern storytellers can't get past the present day to project themselves into a theoretically better tomorrow, IMO.  Plus all the people who want Star Trek to be Star Wars...

[Lexx]

Well, the crew fighting with each other isn't really what is putting me off of the new Trek. It's all the dumb schlock and non-sci-fi and quickly ****ted out storylines that make me question my sanity.