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

[Amentep]

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

A lot of productions are hiring intimacy consultants nowadays- it would be the least of this shows problems though, if even a fraction of the local rumours are true.

It's probably going to be fairly likely all productions will opt to have this position, as the consultant is supposed to make sure the actors and crew are all on the same page with what is being done and what is being filmed.

[InsaneCommander]

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

WoT doesn't really have sex scenes, to be fair to it. Its treatment of sex would be perfectly at home on some typical CW show like the Vampire Diaries, minus Lan's bum and some random bath bristols. Which makes you wonder why they bothered.

A lot of productions are hiring intimacy consultants nowadays- it would be the least of this shows problems though, if even a fraction of the local rumours are true.

It has an awful, albeit anecdotal, reputation locally. So much so that the local media had a fair bit of difficulty finding people who were upset about production moving to the UK. The distinct impression was that a lot of people didn't want New Zealand associated with it.

(the most generally applicable complaint was why Amazon would spend hundreds of millions of dollars piggybacking on successful books and movies, then hire showrunners who hated the source material...)

The showrunners/writer's only experience is... Star Trek: Into Darkness. And the Tolkien scholar abandoned the production. Sure, this is gonna be great!

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

The showrunners/writer's only experience is... Star Trek: Into Darkness. And the Tolkien scholar abandoned the production. Sure, this is gonna be great!

J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay worked on STAR TREK BEYOND, not INTO DARKNESS, and as I understand it had been script doctors for years, primarily. 

Other cause for concern besides parting with the Tolkein advisor is that Amazon apparently required extensive reshoots after the pilot was done as they changed their mind on a number of things.

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

..Amazon apparently required extensive reshoots after the pilot was done as they changed their mind on a number of things.

There at least they are potentially in good company- Game of Thrones also reshot much of its first episode (though by rumour at least, LotR was almost a total reshoot while a decent amount of the original GoT pilot got used), and replaced a cast member too at the same time as LotR also did.

[Gfted1]

Witcher S2E2. Damn, even better that the first episode! I wonder what the budget comparison is between Witcher and WoT because the results are night and day.

[Lexx]

I am in Episode 5 now and it is very captivating. Need to take a break, but I really want to watch the next episode... It's a good sign, I guess.

[Gromnir]

17 hours ago, Amentep said:

It's probably going to be fairly likely all productions will opt to have this position, as the consultant is supposed to make sure the actors and crew are all on the same page with what is being done and what is being filmed.

given the current legal climate, having some kinda insulation 'tween director/production and actors when filming sex scenes would be a reasonable safeguard and we would not be shocked if insures o' big budget films started demanding intimacy consultants or something analogous. 

HA! Good Fun!

[the_dog_days]

Wheel of Time season 1 ending leak

Spoiler

Mat gives Padan Fain the cursed dagger and Fain kills Loial. Waste of Time is officially over. It was dead when they decided to character assassinate a beloved character to get back at the actor (Mat).

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by the_dog_days

[Sarex]

4 minutes ago, the_dog_days said:

Wheel of Time season 1 ending leak

  Hide contents

Mat gives Padan Fain the cursed dagger and Fain kills Loial. Waste of Time is officially over. It was dead when they decided to character assassinate a beloved character to get back at the actor (Mat).

 

What?!?

[the_dog_days]

It came from a reddit leak but there were multiple leakers on different subreddits with slightly different information (which is why I think they were different people) but the above was confirmed by all of them.

[Sarex]

What a joke of a show if this turns out to be true.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Sarex

[Zoraptor]

I'm 99% sure that leak isn't completely true since the actor involved is filming in S2.

Spoiler

So, almost certainly injured, but not dead. With no Mat at Fal Dara they need someone else to act as motivation for Rand/ Perrin to follow Fain, and that would be Loial. Yet another kludge in a season full of them but not, er, the end of the world.

Honestly, in terms of immediate issues I'd be more concerned if Agelmar had the Horn of Valere the whole time as the leaks claim. There have been hints that people would hate what was done with him from before the season launched, so that seems pretty credible.

The biggest longer term issue is of course the effect on Mat's characterisation. The showrunners have obviously decided that the boys don't have enough character flaws in the books. I might agree with them, or at least agree that they'd be hard to show effectively on screen without the books' internal monologue, if they weren't so hamfisted about it. Given the 'who is the dragon' hook they wanted as a season long mystery they likely plan on having a will they/ won't they darkside turn for Perrin/ Mat as a long term thing.

 

[ShadySands]

 

[the_dog_days]

The boys had flaws in the books. If you want to argue their flaws aren't a detriment to them often enough, I could easily make the same argument about Egwene.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

I'm 99% sure that leak isn't completely true since the actor involved is filming in S2.

One of the leakers leaked each of the other 7 episodes with 100% accuracy.

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, the_dog_days said:

The boys had flaws in the books. If you want to argue their flaws aren't a detriment to them often enough, I could easily make the same argument about Egwene.

The issue with the flaws is... hmm. TV and books are different. I'll spoiler it to be safe, though there are no spoilers for anything unaired.
 

Spoiler

In the books you know from, say,  Perrin's pov that he's highly conflicted about violence and he has the hammer/ axe argument and human/ wolf throughout the series. The trouble for the TV show is that you know about that from Perrin's pov, which you cannot do well in TV; unless you have a LTT entity. That's why Machin Shin goes from from bloodthirsty psychotic to 'Nobody likes you, and your mum dresses you funny'; as it functions as internal monologue (functions as it badly, but). The solution to that should not be 'give him a wife he kills and a crush on Egwene' but I can see what they're trying for, at least. It's just so very ham fisted. Having said that, consider how stupid the median viewer likely is, then realise that half are even more stupid. Some people really need to be hit over the head with things.

The ironic thing is that they've done more or less the reverse for the girls. Nynaeve is way more 'likeable' than in the books and has none of her insecurity, and Egwene was the main focus for escaping the whitecloaks- an encounter which was Perrin's main character development in the books. Then the next two eps her contribution is being the apex of a love triangle. Ho hum.

My problem isn't so much what they're doing as it's probably necessary for the adaptation to a different media, but it very much is with how they're doing it.

As for the leaks, I wouldn't dispute their accuracy, just the interpretation

Spoiler

Loial's actor has definitely been around for S2 filming, and that certainly implies he isn't dead. I can't see how he'd be needed for flashbacks or similar which might otherwise explain it. The leakers may well think he's dead- maybe based on book knowledge of how the dagger functions- but that doesn't necessarily mean he is. At least one person got slashed by it in the book but didn't die, and Nynaeve could probably heal as well as Flinn(?), especially in TV continuity.

 

[InsaneCommander]

17 hours ago, Amentep said:

J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay worked on STAR TREK BEYOND, not INTO DARKNESS, and as I understand it had been script doctors for years, primarily.

Beyond is even worse.

Lack of experience doesn't mean it will be bad, but it is not a good sign and a strange choice. However, with all, things considered, I'm not optimistic.

Also, even if this is as successful as GoT was before its fall, it would still have costed far more so, in a way, it wouldn't really be worth it.

[InsaneCommander]

Since we are talking about TWoT leaks, here is the first look at the

Spoiler

Seanchan (and some other spoilery stuff for the last episode):

https://press.amazonstudios.com/us/en/photos

 

[majestic]

10 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Beyond is even worse.

I think Beyond still wins out over Into Darkness. It's even dumberer-er than Into Darkness, but at least it has a plot structure and makes sense for the most part, instead of being a random collection of cool scenes that were strung together with a tenous plot thread worked in as an afterthought. Or something. Still, could be worse. It could have Kurtzman, Orci and Goyer writing together. Now that would be a dream collaboration, huh?

[InsaneCommander]

9 minutes ago, majestic said:

Still, could be worse. It could have Kurtzman, Orci and Goyer writing together. Now that would be a dream collaboration, huh?

[Guard Dog]

So they are turning Mat into a bad guy? That would be a pretty bad move. Mat's book story was one of the best ones.  

[Zoraptor]

I think you have to have at least a little sympathy with the WoT showrunners when it comes to Mat. Some of the stupid decisions were entirely of their own making, but losing the actor must have stuffed things up too, and up to that point he made the best impression of the boys. We don't know if what apparently happens was the original plan or an attempt to rescue the plot, though you'd hope it was forced on them. He was also the most... opaque of the main characters in the early books, with his first pov chapter being a third of the way through book 3?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I think Beyond still wins out over Into Darkness. It's even dumberer-er than Into Darkness, but at least it has a plot structure and makes sense for the most part, instead of being a random collection of cool scenes that were strung together with a tenous plot thread worked in as an afterthought. Or something. Still, could be worse. It could have Kurtzman, Orci and Goyer writing together. Now that would be a dream collaboration, huh?

Only if Zack Snyder directs.

[kirottu]

I think Hawkeye is my favourite from all the Marvel Disney shows so far. Simply because it didn't devolve into some kind of giant CGI battle in the end.

[majestic]

Time for the weekly Discovery post.

This episode is, for some reason, 15 minutes shorter than the others. Halleluja, thanks for an early Christmas gift there, CBS. Helfpul reminder: Burnham crying counter is currently 1:4. I'm thinking about dropping it, because where's the fun in keeping track of a meme that no longer happens.

Spoiler

Anyway, the episode helpfully opens with a "Last time on..." segment and I managed to catch a shot of Stamets and Rodney McKay where Stamets looks like he's an actual bug eyed alien. People think our politicians are reptiloids, but it's really the actors, and they're not shape-shifting, they're hiding in plain sight.

Oh, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien! Just not an Englishman in New York. Well, actually... he is, considering who the song is about, but... never mind!

Burnham is creating a family tree like the one from the knicknack of last episode. Book wants to jump and explore outside of Federation space for clues while Michael wants to investigate the subspace rift left behind by the DMA jump. Once again the writers show their complete lack of understanding the sheer size of the galaxy. Book, where would you start looking and how quickly should that go?

Michael doesn't really listen to him, but she doesn't tell him how stupid the idea is either, but what would you expect from someone who said "a millennia" last season. Burnham is probably happy she got through the academy based purely on being Sarek's adopted child, like the worst nepotism hire ever. Michael meets Saru and at 2x the regular playback speed, the swaying motions of Abe Sapien's elongated extremities look hilarious. Saru is talking about encounters with similar anomalies before. One by the Enterprise, although he doesn't specify which one, and one by Voyager.

We're 930 years after around the time of TOS, and people are still referencing Voyager's discoveries and all that? Really? I mean, Saru must have gotten that from some database or another, because Voyager was launched to investigate the Badlands a hundred years after Discovery disappeared into the future. Yeah, so the writers are still name dropping things because why spend half a thought on anything.

Owosekun and Detmer are in the gym. Yeah, I lied when I said I don't remember their names, but that was for effect, so forgive me.

The computer called, let's head to the bridge!

Do you guys have a duty roster or something? Are you in the gym while you have bridge duty and now head back because something came up? What? Never mind, it doesn't matter.

The montage continues, all crew report to station, the computer says, and everyone stops doing recreational activities. Is nobody on the bridge right now? Sure, the computer can probably handle everything better than the crew anyway, but still, what the hell is this, and why did it make the cut? Adira is playing some board game with Gray and runs off, being totally excited. Saru said the crew is in high spirits. They're all probably high on some sort of spirit right now. Burnham, your crew has a drug problem.

Everyone's back on the brigde, and it still looks like a Wing Commander set from '93, except in HD.

Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning. Captain? Oh, no, I mean, into the negative space wedgie, engage!

Here, just in case you think I'm lying.

Good old times indeed.

Heh. They head into the anomaly rift thing and it's empty. A complete void with nothing in it, Adira thinks that's scientifically impossible because there's always something. Everyone conveniently forgot that the Voyager logs are still around, apparently. Saru quoted them earlier in the episode, now he's like "There's no metion of something like this in the records" but if the Voyager logs survived all the time, there should be.

Voyager encountered an enclosed subspace anomaly they helpfully dubbed "The Void" because there was nothing in there, and they later travelled through a 2500 light years wide area of space they called "The Void" too where... there was nothing. Makes you wonder. Writers, hello? Hello? Have you actually watched Voyager? Voyager wasn't good by any means much of its runtime, but it was still a damned sight better than this trash.

They launch one of their EVA drones from WALL-E, and it gets dissolved by space. Adira thinks subspace turned TOXIC, we go to RED ALERT and cue the intro!

Warning, video not for the faint of heart.

Disintegration field thing is moving towards the Discovery and Burnham orders a jump out after they realize that they can't navigate without any visible point of reference. At this point in time Janeway and her crew had a lot of this figured out already, but instead Gray is playing a game with Zora, the sentient computer entity on Discovery. They're talking about suddenly missing external sensor inputs because Discovery is now in sensory deprivation mode and it's bothering the computer.

Whee. Book will be the one jumping so Stamets can record data. 30 minutes left on the episode says this isn't going to work the way they want. Contact with the disintegration field is helpfully estimated to come about in 33 minutes. Eh, maybe they don't get out and this is the final episode. Wouldn't that be something? And oooooof course the jump drive doesn't work, why would it.

Book is finally losing it after an energy surge from the jump drive, and he starts to hallucinate, seeing his late father who dresses him down for not being "out there" and "hunting" whoever killed their planet. Yeah Book, off you go. Find some clues in the vastness of space. Discovery's hull integrity is compromised and an Ensign Redshirt or something is sucked out and since nobody thinks of their personal transporters, he's now pretty dead. Gray is crying. Well, maybe we'll start a Gray crying counter.

Gray does some technobabble and everyone now thinks they can get a signal out of the void and follow it as some sort of navigatonal beacon. Okay. Book is still hallucinating, and Stamets explains why they can't jump, but nothing of that makes sense, and watching at 2x playback speed sure doesn't help. Heh.

Oh. Uhm. They figure out that the DMA came from outside the galaxy because it passed the galactic barrier from TOS. They're all happy to have realized that the DMA is from outside the galaxy as if that helps them any. Guys, you do realize that this puts the point of origin to somewhere in the universe, right? Good luck finding a needle in a galaxy sized haystack. They tell the computer to create... eh. They're telling Discovery to use SONAR to... SONAR... so... so... I...

Guys, you do know you can't create an audible ping in space, right? Guys? Hello?

Now that I think about it, there's a scene like that too in the Wing Commander movie, where Paladin tells everyone to be quiet while a Kilrathi destroyer pings the area around an asteroid with their space sonar.

Wing Commander also very helpfully has gravity in space, so that's something else.

Push that wreckage off the deck! *plump*

Uhm. So they ping themselves a way out of the void, but it'll be too late, the shields won't hold and Discovery will heat up, so everyone is moving into the transporter buffer to survive being heated up. That's not such a bad idea, to be honest. Worked for Scotty too. Except I'm not really sure life support is more of an energy drain than keeping the transporter system active, but hey, that's a minor quibble. Full power to the shields. Michael puts on an EVA suit.

Wait a moment, they could turn off the transporter AND life support if everyone would put on an EVA suit. Do they only have like one or so lying around?

Super badass music underscores Michael walking down an empty hallway like a boss. Like A BOSS, really. This is so awesome.

My name's Ass. Bad Ass!

This is so intense. Discovery turns off the lights and plays the pinging sound of their SPACE SONAR while these really terrible looking sparks fall from each room's ceiling. Edge of your seat stuff here, really. Edge of your seat. Look, the computer is AFRAID and cannot focus.

That's probably Stamets' actual form.

Discovery's computer starts singing Stormy Weather, and its so bad Michael finally passes out and we fade to black. Fade in, Discovery is back in spacedock undergoing repairs and everyone is alive, except the redshirt from earlier. Too bad he didn't think of his personal transporter to save him. Really, these personal transporters were the dumbest idea they've had. All of this is a sea of bad ideas and terrible execution, but those things? Top contenders, really.

Book and Saru are having a heart-to-heart about wanting to MURDERDEATHKILL whoever made the DMA and the Ba'ul respectively, but it's about letting go of your anger before it turns you into DARTH BOOKER, or me, watching this...

Anyway, the episode ends with Burnham finishing her weird family tree, and the computer making one of her own. With images of all the crew. Awwww. It's over. Phew.

Burnham crying counter unchanged.

Edited December 24, 2021 by majestic