The TV and Streaming Thread: Now up for syndication...

[Sarex]

On 11/21/2021 at 12:31 AM, Lexx said:

I mean, do we care about the others?

Point.

[Zoraptor]

Finished up The Expanse S5 which I suspended right at the start of the year when my free primevideo sub ran out. Overall, it was okay in the end but nowhere near as good as earlier seasons. The biggest feeling I'm left with though is that it really should have been better.
 

Spoiler

The worst aspect was the Naomi family drama. I know what they were trying to do with it, but it sucked all the oxygen out of the season, shall we say. It's not like the scripting was bad, or the acting; there's just only so much Space Koresh gaslighting and unblinking staring you can take before it heads into sledgehammer territory. Then it shifted to Naomi trying to 'fix' the ship. Which was fine, but they spent a lot of time on something that was ultimately 'solved' by her doing space semaphore after ejecting herself despite the very large amount of time dedicated to her trying to manipulate the message. It ended up feeling like padding (or an attempt to keep budgets low? Can't be a cheap series to make, but it looked cheaper with Amazon's cash than it did when it was international distributors/ SyFy). I know that whatever they'd shown of the asteroids' effect on earth would likely be disappointing- no matter the expense and it probably would be expensive- but there wasn't really much in the way of even trying unfortunately.

The rest suffered rather from narrative imperative. Not a book reader, not read any spoilers, but the chances of Holden and pals actually getting killed off was... not large, so there was very little actual tension as to whether Drummer would swap sides or not. Same with Amos and Clarissa really. Running towards an escape ship shedding red shirts was done a lot better in S1 with the Donnager, and Amos' old crew must be completely incompetent allowing 50 (certainly seemed like it) security mooks to sneak up on them like that. Then there's the Alex situation which I guess was handled about as well as it could be in the circumstances. Some pretty obvious post shoot alterations to the party scenes where Alex is obviously meant to be in the random empty laz-e-boy and has been removed.

The hook for S6 was fine though, and did its job. Bit of a digression, but I'll never understand the hyper conservative types who think that Sparta was a great example that should be emulated. Ossified conservatives who bred themselves out of existence, managed to be both national traitors and gross hypocrites by allying with the Persians and enslaving their fellow greeks, got pwned by a bunch of flamboyantly gay Thebans (while like all ancient greeks largely being homosexual themselves, something conservatives love to ignore) and was reduced to an utter irrelevance for the last 180 years of their independent existence. But you aren't really meant to sympathise with Minor Officer Hannibal Reporter Lady or Admiral Dust Motes so who cares.

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by Zoraptor

[Hurlshort]

Ok, I sat down and gave WoT a bit more of my time. Episode 2 was a lot better. I like what they did with Nynaeve's story. The empty city was beautiful. The Aiel was interesting and Thom is well played so far. It still has a long way to go, but it is watchable. 

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, Hurlsnot said:

Ok, I sat down and gave WoT a bit more of my time. Episode 2 was a lot better. I like what they did with Nynaeve's story. The empty city was beautiful. The Aiel was interesting and Thom is well played so far. It still has a long way to go, but it is watchable. 

I gave up after the first episode and began a reread of the books. Halfway through The Eye of the World.

[Raithe]

4 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

I gave up after the first episode and began a reread of the books. Halfway through The Eye of the World.

The first episode pacing is a bit off to me.  Episodes 2 and 3 do seem smoother and work better.

[Vaeliorin]

5 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

I gave up after the first episode and began a reread of the books. Halfway through The Eye of the World.

I got halfway through the first episode and had to pause it, and when I got back, I just couldn't turn it back on.  Halfway through the first episode and every single thing was wrong.  How?  Just...how?

[Sarex]

17 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

I got halfway through the first episode and had to pause it, and when I got back, I just couldn't turn it back on.  Halfway through the first episode and every single thing was wrong.  How?  Just...how?

Too much content for too few episodes. They want to hit the story queues fast and so they need to introduce and progress the characters faster. Maybe it will be good for someone who hasn't read the books.

[Gfted1]

I cant remember much from the books. What was already wrong halfway through the first episode?

[Raithe]

22 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

I cant remember much from the books. What was already wrong halfway through the first episode?

https://winteriscoming.net/2021/11/22/the-wheel-of-time-boss-explains-big-change-perrin/

But yes, it's a mix of they've aged the characters up so that the audience skew it as a "young adult show" and not watch it.

Which means some shifts to adapt to characters being 18-20 rather than 16 or so.  They've compressed a couple of side characters into one, they've made Mat more grim with a darker family life, and a few other areas.

[the_dog_days]

They also have all the characters except Morriane, Lan, and Rand farther alone in their arc, which is awkward 'cause Rand's the only one who acts as young as he was in the books but he gets a sex scene. Let me know if I'm the only one who found that weird.

[Zoraptor]

Dunno what the point of that even was, somehow managed to be tepid and cringey (much like Moiraine and Lan's bath). You're told they're all ~20 a couple of times in dialogue.

And that really is the problem with the 1st episode, so many of those changes took up time but weren't needed. Yeah, Egwene going for an involuntary swim is a metaphor for channeling saidar. Book readers don't need that though, and watchers don't have the context to 'get' it. Same with the 'rumours of 4 ta'veren'* line. Book readers go wtf? because that's contextually a stupid rumour while watchers go wtf? because they have no idea what ta'veren even is.

*

Spoiler

Thematically having Egwene be ta'veren is a bad idea too. The problem with Mat/ Rand/ Perrin's achievements is that they're largely driven by the plot engine of being ta'veren so not entirely their own. In contrast Egwene's achievements are her own. It lessens her achievements and actually makes her less special if she has the same helping hand the boys did and she does/ achieves things because the pattern needs her to. And that's without the thematic difficulties introduced by her potentially being a female dragon and without the risk of madness.

 

[ShadySands]

 

[Raithe]

 

[InsaneCommander]

3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Dunno what the point of that even was, somehow managed to be tepid and cringey (much like Moiraine and Lan's bath). You're told they're all ~20 a couple of times in dialogue.

And that really is the problem with the 1st episode, so many of those changes took up time but weren't needed. Yeah, Egwene going for an involuntary swim is a metaphor for channeling saidar. Book readers don't need that though, and watchers don't have the context to 'get' it. Same with the 'rumours of 4 ta'veren'* line. Book readers go wtf? because that's contextually a stupid rumour while watchers go wtf? because they have no idea what ta'veren even is.

*

  Hide contents

Thematically having Egwene be ta'veren is a bad idea too. The problem with Mat/ Rand/ Perrin's achievements is that they're largely driven by the plot engine of being ta'veren so not entirely their own. In contrast Egwene's achievements are her own. It lessens her achievements and actually makes her less special if she has the same helping hand the boys did and she does/ achieves things because the pattern needs her to. And that's without the thematic difficulties introduced by her potentially being a female dragon and without the risk of madness.

 

Well said. They removed things from the book and wasted time with stuff that is not necessary. I hope they realise that and don't do it later.

I'm also disappointed that (big spoilers below)

Spoiler

Moirane didn't comment on Bela being healed of her exhaustion and that Rand broke that door, kind of making it obvious he can channel. Why hide/remove the Bela comment and imply Egwene could be a Dragon just to have Rand do that in the same day?

 

[Vaeliorin]

12 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

I cant remember much from the books. What was already wrong halfway through the first episode?

Most of it.  Depending on how pedantic I wanted to be, I could go on a pages long rant, including architectural errors.

Granted, I've read the first book at least 14 times (and probably more like 20) since I reread the whole series every time a new book came out.

It's not like I would be asking for a scene for scene copy of the books, but they could have at least kept the feel (the raucousness of the Winespring inn in the show was completely wrong) and the significant plot points from the books (such as Rand/Mat/etc. seeing the Myrdraal before the attack.)

[Raithe]

‘The Wheel Of Time’ Makes Strong Debut As Amazon Prime Video Doubles Down On Genre With ‘Mass Effect’ Adaptation & Prepares To Usher In ‘LOTR’ – Deadline

[Hurlshort]

4 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

Most of it.  Depending on how pedantic I wanted to be, I could go on a pages long rant, including architectural errors.

Granted, I've read the first book at least 14 times (and probably more like 20) since I reread the whole series every time a new book came out.

It's not like I would be asking for a scene for scene copy of the books, but they could have at least kept the feel (the raucousness of the Winespring inn in the show was completely wrong) and the significant plot points from the books (such as Rand/Mat/etc. seeing the Myrdraal before the attack.)

Two Rivers as a whole was just not well done for me. My gut reaction was, "Why the heck is Egwene's innkeeper dad skinny?" I also wish they'd foreshadowed a bit with the Myrdraal. Honestly it was all really rushed. Perrin's wife is supposed to be part of this whole similar age friend group. But she isn't at the inn when the group first gets together, and then she is dead, and they keep referencing her like she was a pivotal person in their lives. Matt robs some local girl that beat him at dice? There is almost no conversation about the heron marked sword Rand gets from his dad. 

Anyways, took me a few days to get over the bad beginning, but episode 2 was better. It is salvageable, I hope.

[Hurlshort]

Oh, I loved Cowboy Bebop. No idea if it was like the source material, but the first episode was fun.

[Bartimaeus]

11 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

female dragon

For a few moments there, I wondered if I had forgotten the entirety of the Wheel of TIme and what it was about, because I could not for the life of me remember there being any dragons in Wheel of Time, much less how my favorite character from the books could possibly be one. It took me a few moments to remember...well, you know, the Dragon. On a side-note, according to some Wheel of Time wiki I just looked at, there apparently already existed a counterpart term for a female Dragon, which is "Amaresu", .

Edited November 24, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, I mentioned Amaresu a few pages back. She's only mentioned twice in the books in relation to being a Hero of the Horn, it's meta from Jordan that has her as the female Dragon equivalent.

[uuuhhii]

 

7 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

Oh, I loved Cowboy Bebop. No idea if it was like the source material, but the first episode was fun.

makeup are a little over the top

but good first few episode otherwise

[LadyCrimson]

Strangely, sometimes I still sorta miss it. Not the anthem/varied images. But snorting awake to that tone.  Or static snow.

 

[Malcador]

This is one funny just for the blaring notice to turn your TV off

 

[Maedhros]

I had really low expectations with Wheel of Time, and that helped. It's a mess, but I think it's the kind of show that will get better with time. The actors are doing fine, but everyone else need to step up their game.

I hope they get some more talented people to do the effects, editing and costumes among other things in season 2. It looks expensive, yet somehow still really bad despite the beautiful locations. Too shiny, colorful and clean. The music is also dissapointingly dull.

[Zoraptor]

6 minutes ago, Maedhros said:

Too shiny, colorful and clean.

Except, ironically, for the Tinkers who really should be colourful but are instead more dull and restrained than the books.