The TV and Streaming Thread: Where is Ricky Gervais when you need him???

[Lexx]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I was very confused for a minute here, because I thought I watched like half of the first season of Reacher like a year or two back...but apparently, I believed Jack Reacher and Jack Ryan were the same thing. I mean, I think they basically are, but technically, they are distinct properties.

Wow, so this is what confused the hell out of me. In the last few years have been so many Jacks, who all kinda are the same?? Now it makes sense...

[Amentep]

Jack Reacher is the really tall one, apparently (if the comments about the Tom Cruise Reacher films are anything to go by).

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, Amentep said:

Jack Reacher is the really tall one, apparently (if the comments about the Tom Cruise Reacher films are anything to go by).

the guy who current plays ryan is one inch taller than the guy who plays reacher.

we didn't particular like the cruise movie (the internet tells us there were a second installment which we never saw) but the movie jack reacher were less comical... though the tv version don't seem to be going for camp. am thinking you need be a fan o' the books, or you must loathe tom cruise to prefer the current amazon tv iteration.

...

the new jack reacher series is not our cup o' tea, and is yet another amazon series we won't be watching after trying to get through the initial offering. is one o' those not uncommon eye-roll worthy shows where the cops are incompetent and do not follow any kinda law as practiced in any jurisdiction in the US, and the show is stacked with improbable people in impossible situations while a moody sherlock holmes punches his way to justice.

HA! Good Fun!

[Hurlshort]

34 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

 

the new jack reacher series is not our cup o' tea, and is yet another amazon series we won't be watching after trying to get through the initial offering. is one o' those not uncommon eye-roll worthy shows where the cops are incompetent and do not follow any kinda law as practiced in any jurisdiction in the US, and the show is stacked with improbable people in impossible situations while a moody sherlock holmes punches his way to justice.

HA! Good Fun!

None of this is wrong, and yet it is also why I enjoyed it.

It reminds me of the string of fun USA comedy/drama shows we were getting awhile back like Burn Notice, Psych, and Monk. Everything ties up neatly with a bow at the end of it all and there are some good laughs. The books are campy and I'd say the new show is as well.

[Raithe]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

is one o' those not uncommon eye-roll worthy shows where the cops are incompetent and do not follow any kinda law as practiced in any jurisdiction in the US, and the show is stacked with improbable people in impossible situations while a moody sherlock holmes punches his way to justice.

That is pretty much the entire book series the show is based on in a nutshell.

 

And to be fair, Psych and Burn Notice played the tongue-in-cheek camp for all it was worth, intentionally so.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Raithe

[Gfted1]

I watched about half of the first episode before I got distracted. Reacher looks like a muscular Dexter!

[Gromnir]

45 minutes ago, Raithe said:

 

 

And to be fair, Psych and Burn Notice played the tongue-in-cheek camp for all it was worth, intentionally so.

agreed. the thing is, we got folks in this thread seeing amazon's jack reacher and jack ryan as clones.  

am thinking jack reacher would work better if it were animated, then you could go full archer or venture brothers level with the silliness and audiences would recognize jack reacher is having more in common with brock sampson than dr. ryan.

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

We watched Willow on Disney+ and some new Aziz Ansari stand up on Netflix.

I like

[Lexx]

Started watching Reacher yesterday because of you people. Made it to the 2nd episode and so far I like it. Had to lol about the police woman who clearly had the hots for Reacher from the very first minute. And it was played up in episode 2 even more. Can't really blame her, tho, it's basically the real-life JoJo muscle chad gym god meme.

 

12 hours ago, Gromnir said:

agreed. the thing is, we got folks in this thread seeing amazon's jack reacher and jack ryan as clones. 

Only because I never saw Reacher before. Only the advertisements and names and stuff, and it just looked all the same. Same reason for why I didn't watch the Tom movie .. it just looked like another Mission Impossible to me, so had 0 interest in it.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Lexx

[Raithe]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

Only because I never saw Reacher before. Only the advertisements and names and stuff, and it just looked all the same. Same reason for why I didn't watch the Tom movie .. it just looked like another Mission Impossible to me, so had 0 interest in it.

It can be summed up as former special forces MP retired and living off the grid keeps finding himself in troublesome situations.  Whenever a law enforcement official asks him what his military career was like, you invariably get the variation of "my job was the same as yours. But every suspect for every crime was a highly trained killer."

[LadyCrimson]

Doom at Your Service, via Viki

I like kdramas that have a fantasy flair. Not the dragons and castles type of fantasy but the mysterious god beings in human world type fantasy. So this seemed up my alley. It's gloomy and dark but also darkly funny. The scene editing feels a little janky at times tho. It's been interesting to note that kdramas as a whole seem to getting darker and less quirkily "wholesome" or light fairy tale in tone, style...not that there isn't still the fluff and silliness, but much like in the US media, the overall mood landscape has altered I think.

Edited February 8, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

Finished Reacher. The ending was a bit mhm, but still good all in all.

[InsaneCommander]

First images of the characters in the LotR tv show.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

17 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

First images of the characters in the LotR tv show.

Given the track record of Amazon series, I'm not enthusiastic about this show. I guess we'll see in half a year.

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, KP the Torque Dork said:

Given the track record of Amazon series, I'm not enthusiastic about this show. I guess we'll see in half a year.

The saddest thing is that WoT had good ratings.

[Hurlshort]

I've enjoyed a fair amount of the Amazon content. The Boys and Goliath are two of the better series in my watch list. I enjoyed Carnival Row. They saved The Expanse. Jack Ryan had a decent first season. The Man in High Castle had some good moments. Honestly I'd say it is a pretty good deal considering I also get free shipping out of it.

[majestic]

It is February 10th, 2022 and Star Dreck: Venal Disease is back from its mid-season hiatus. Before I once again torture my brain, eyes and ears with whatever Alex Kurtzman cooked up this time, I need to point out that Discovery has been renewed for a fifth season. We're living in a world where Dark Matter is cancelled in favor of keeping Killjoys, and a show like Star Trek Discovery, even after being pullled from worldwide distribution through Netflix, still rakes in enough viewership to apparently justify the costs for a fifth season.

Please, vote Trump, and make sure that we're not doing anything to stop climate change. The sooner the world burns, the better off we all are. Remember when the 20th Century tagline was "better dead than red"? Yep. Better dead than endless waves of trash from CBS.

Well, here goes nothing.

Star Trek: Discovery, Season 4, Episode 8: "All In"

Friendly reminder for those who might be new or need a recap, this season is easily the Dumb and Dumberer of Star Trek. If at any point in the past twenty years you thought that the movies and the series of the Star Trek franchise were clearly becoming so bad that they couldn't possibly get any worse - how does it feel to be wrong? Season four of this show breaks all records. Writing, set design, costume design, sound engineering and direction are terrible. Cheesy mid-90ies FMV games were better in every appreciable way.

In this season the Federation is fighting the greatest threat to its existence in the history of ever. A hundred and some change years after a giant dilithium detonation wave destroyed all active warp engines across known space in an instance. Yes, an anomaly that so far knocked one planet out of orbit, destroyed a space station and killed an asteroid colony after evacuation is considered to be of greater impact than something that instantly destroyed the entire galaxy's economic basis, causing massive upheaval and societal changes. But halt, it gets worse.

Spoiler

The most stupidest thing about this anomaly is, though, that it even exists. It's a mobile proto-wormhole that was presumably made to act as a giant invasion stargate by a species so advanced it can create artificial wormwholes that can travel instantly halfway across the galaxy with a jump drive system similar to Discovery's. Just to let that sink in. There's an unknown species out there capable of building giant artificial control devices to create wormholes. Devices that are capabale of travelling instantly from one place to the other so they can generte wormholes to instantly travel from one point to the other.

Is Casey Hudson involved in this show?

I'm watching this shice on 2x the regular playback speed, reading subtitles as it zips by. It's the only way to stay sane. Episode opens, as per usual, with a recap, helpfully reminding us that the anomaly (DMA from now on) destroyed Book's home world and that Discovery's computer system "Zora" is now fully sentient. I already repressed the memory of that particular bit of horrible writing. *sigh*

We pick up where we left off, Book has stolen McKay's prototype spore drive and the weapon he designed to destroy the DMA. The Federation president decides that Discovery isn't going to search for the only other ship in the galaxy with a spore drive because the captain's boyfriend made off with the prototype one. Instead, they'll try to catch them when buying the black market materials needed for the weapon. Discovery is going to jump around looking for clues about the creators of the DMA.

Yeah, so, Madame President, why not make Saru captain of the only ship capable of keeping up with the stolen prototype? Because Burnham's the main character? Great. 5 minutes in, this is just as stupid as it was when it went on hiatus. Michael looks pissed. I also decided the shots game is too much work, so we're dropping it. Once Madam President is gone, Levi Shur agrees that she's out of her mind and gives Burnham a covert mission to track down Booker and make it look like she's following her orders.

Book and Michael head to this guy:

Look at me getting into my clothes with that head, part two.

Some bad blood between him and Booker, because we need something out of the dusty tome of black market tropes. Haz conveniently runs a casino and neither Michael nor Book have enough money to buy the black market <technobabble> element to build the weapon to destroy the DMA. Oh my, this is going to end up with Michael and Book playing poker against each other. All in. Title drop! Booyah. Maybe it's going to be Owosekun, because she tagged along for some reason or another.

Counsellor Gay and Mr. Spore Drive are having a talk, because Counsellor Gay is losing it over his failure to provide enough emotional support for Book so he doesn't go off on a life of crime and buying black market goods. How did that guy ever pass med school? Professional detatchment is a thing, and knowing that you can't save everyone. Book runs into Michael and helpfully reminds her that he lead a life as smuggler, liar, cheat and criminal, so she shouldn't be so surprised that he took off doing what he believes is the better course of action than the one that was decided on.

Michael could do with stopping for a moment and considering that, because she does that all the time. The difference is that the script tells Michael she's right, and Book is wrong. In response to Will Cruz' rant, Bug-Eyed Spore Drive Uncanny Valley human tells him that he gets that, and that he's still beating himself up about how terrible he was with Zora.

Wow, I was wrong, apparently Book and Michael are not going to play poker, it's even dumber. Owosekun is going to fight in a martial arts tournament. No rules, just the first to go down loses. In one corner, there's an angry black guy, and in the other corner, an equally... angry black woman. The odds are two to one. Very much to my surprise, to be honest, the guy just picks up Owosekun and smashes her to the ground. What? That's the first sensible thing that happened in this season. Of course an experienced fighter with twice the muscle mass is going to win easily in a cramped ring.

Guess we might still get the poker game. Or not, rematch two ends with Owosekun beaten. She insists she can do this, Michael bets all their money on her at 45:1 odds. *sigh*

Owosekun beats him up a little, then casually does a headscissors takedown. Money! Yay! There's a changeling in the casino that transforms into a freaking tribble, then bolts across the floor and it caught by Book who is trying to earn money and a favor by finding cheaters in the casino. That's great.  They both end up trying to buy the stuff from Haz, but he wants to solve the problem of who to give it to by playing a round of poker.

So yeah, turns out my prediction was still correct, huh? We're finally going all in. Get it? There are also two other potential buyers, so Book and Michael sort of team up to get those two out first. Book wins and takes off with the isolynium. One with a funky high tech tracker attached to that Michael put there, because she knew she was going to lose. Meanwhile, Stamets is done with some analysis, and it turns out that the DMA is a giant mining ship going places where some rare trace element that has the power to power increadibly powerful somethings. McKay and Book are on their way not to destroy an invasion stargate that makes no sense, but to take out a ressource gathering ship.

However, things get even worse, by the looks of it. I'm not sure if that is intentional or not, but according to Michael they're looking for boronite. Now, that's a reference to a Voyager episode of yore, and can only mean one thing...

DUNN DUNN DUNN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

Yeah, so that was... well, this isn't ever going to be good, but at least the brain peeling awfulness of before the season break was tuned down a little. It's no longer brain peeling, just mind boggling. Gotta appreciate the small things, yes, indeed. There is, of course, every chance that playing this at twice the speed just makes it easier to glance over the issues, but it beats spending twice as long watching an episode.

[InsaneCommander]

40 minutes ago, majestic said:

Star Dreck: Venal Disease

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Please, vote Trump, and make sure that we're not doing anything to stop climate change. The sooner the world burns, the better off we all are.

Well I've got some good news for you, nobody is doing anything sufficient for climate change and it is consistently worse than predicted.

The bad news is that Star Drek: Venereal Disease (which is just a figment of your imagination) will have run at least two more seasons as well as the likely spinoff Star Drecks (which again, doesn't exist), leaving you with hundreds of hours of (imaginary) horrible sci-fi before you slowly starve to death or get thrown into a camp.

Fun fun fun.

I think @InsaneCommander had it right with DIO posting, cause one line of that unspoilered summary made me want to reject my humanity.

[Gromnir]

6 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

I've enjoyed a fair amount of the Amazon content. The Boys and Goliath are two of the better series in my watch list. I enjoyed Carnival Row. They saved The Expanse. Jack Ryan had a decent first season. The Man in High Castle had some good moments. Honestly I'd say it is a pretty good deal considering I also get free shipping out of it.

the prime video folks built up considerable goodwill with us after our viewing o' fleabag. admitted were a co-production with bbc, but is unlikely we woulda' seen w/o amazon contribution. 

the law were so bad in goliath that it were distracting for us in spite o' excellent performances. ordinary we ignore terrible law in tv shows, but were too much for us with goliath, which is a shame, 'cause again, the show offered noteworthy performances from competent actors. 

the boys and jack ryan were decent. man in the high castle started well and then rushed to a terrible ending, but that don't change the quality episodes there were initial. we lost interest in the expanse by the time it hit amazon-- the more the show focused on alien bs, the more we became bored. regardless, is more than a couple amazon shows we do not regret viewing, though recent has seen a dry spell. 

we have also enjoyed a few amazon original movies.

prime video is also where am most likely to be able to see danny kaye, cary grant and spencer tracy movies.... though is rare we get any o' the good burt lancaster films, which is curious.

am not sure we would keep prime video w/o the shipping benefits, but we do not regret the money spent.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[the_dog_days]

7 hours ago, Sarex said:

The saddest thing is that WoT had good ratings.

WOT has lots of bots that gave good rating. If you take out the 5 stars from all the bots and all the 1 stars from disgruntled fans you'll get a real score of very meh.

[BruceVC]

Im watching several new entertaining shows that include

 

• Lie with me : An Australian drama about a women who suspects her husband is having an affair and she suffers from mental problems, it sounds boring but its worthwhile especially with the nanny being a real hottie 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_With_Me_(2021_TV_series) 

 

• The Gilded  Age 

A historical drama from the creators of Downton Abbey. Its set in the US from 1880 in NY and if you like  the opulence and decadence of the creation of wealth from this time this is for you 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gilded_Age_(TV_series) 

 

• Tell me your secrets 

This is an unusual one, the girlfriend of a predatory serial killer is released from jail and starts a new life in " witness protection " program but the families of the victims of her boyfriend want to find their missing family members and they hire an ex-rapist who is skilled at lying to find her. Very disturbing and interesting especially when the protagonist may have not been unaware  of her serial killer boyfriends actions and may have been involved in the murders and disappearances of victims 
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Me_Your_Secrets 

[Raithe]

Did the binge of the Book of Boba Fett. Some interesting elements, some nice expansion. But my god, for the history of Boba Fett the lack of tactical awareness and actual underworld street smarts they have him showing is  kind of shocking.

[Malcador]

43 minutes ago, Raithe said:

Did the binge of the Book of Boba Fett. Some interesting elements, some nice expansion. But my god, for the history of Boba Fett the lack of tactical awareness and actual underworld street smarts they have him showing is  kind of shocking.

Like what ?

[Raithe]

42 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Like what ?

He takes over by creating a new crime syndicate of...  himself and Fennec?  At no point does he actually spend any time preparing henchmen in advance, and even when he does, it's basically three people and a gang of late teens, early tween Mods. He knows the enemy are likely to try manipulating the other crime families, but the moment they all say "of course, we'll stay neutral, let you do all the fighting, and enjoy the fine life after the war" and doesn't do any checking of what they're actually up to from that point on.  Apart from walking around rather than being carried on a litter, he does nothing to actually gain the hearts and minds of the locals beyond talking about it.

He applies none of his hunter / killer skills for pretty much any gunfight he gets in. In fact, he tends to come across as fairly unskilled with guns but only great with a gaffi stick in melee. Or he mostly uses a blaster to hit people with rather than shoot them. He never tends to use the environment, just walk out into the open.

I mean, to be fair, Star Wars in general is fairly terrible with showing small unit tactics or even large group tactics in any meaningful way. They tend towards the "mass everybody together and run towards the enemy while wildly shooting". But still, when we've had decades of "the deadly bounty hunter" in comics, novels, and other media where he usually manages to outsmart the enemy as much as outfight them..   This pretty much played into the guy who gets randomly hit in the rocket pack, bounced off the hull of a vessel and dropped into a sarlaac pit with a concussion.