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

[Keyrock]

Pete Hutter is my favorite character overall, just a delightful comedy villain, but he doesn't appear in every episode. Lord Bowler is my favorite series regular.

[Totally not Gorgon]

Neil Breen eating tuna out of a can while driving.

 

 

[ShadySands]

How many non-working laptops are in the car with him? That's what inquiring minds want to know.

[Keyrock]

When you are the world's greatest hacker exposing the elite's dirty secrets, you don't have time to stop to eat your can of tuna.

Neil has at least 3 cell phones and 4 non-working laptops with him at all times.

[InsaneCommander]

12 hours ago, Lexx said:

Personally I never liked Q. Hated the whole idea of some impossible supernatural guy being able to boss you around at any time. It's like internet trolls but you can't get away with just closing the browser.

Perfect definition of Q. Imagine being his target...

 

7 hours ago, Keyrock said:

They didn't COMPLETELY hate the first episode. Massive emphasis on "completely". They still spent 80% of the show burying Picard.

I thought it was interesting that, for once, it was Rich dragging Mike back to torture him and not the other way around. 

Yes, I unintentionally gave the wrong impression there. If you watch their video, it is clear how much problem they had with it.

 

9 hours ago, majestic said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Apparently Q has created a special new timeline for the main characters, because everyone from the show is there, even though they were on separate ships at the end of the first episode. Every main character is his Prime Universe self.

I wonder if that's going to be the storyline for the entire season, because unlike the Discover mirror universe episodes, this isn't goofy, campy fun, but deadly serious and utterly cringeworthy. It's also not the mirror universe, of course, or even a mirror universe, but just a branched timeline. Imagine of the Brotherhood of Nod and the Federation from Starship Troopers had a bastard child without any fun, camp or satire, and here you are. Ugh.

Well, Picard 2.02 doesn't sound good. Maybe I'll rewatch RLM's video instead. It is pure gold.

[Zoraptor]

Wow, I'd completely forgotten wotsit from The Newsroom and one of the 3 Musketeers were even in Picard- and literally cannot remember anything at all that they did in S1. The other three I'd at least have been able to recognise and vaguely remember after a bit of thought- android, drunk, Kai Leng impersonator.

[Raithe]

Got my digital link to In Search of Tomorrow and started watching it.

Dang. Five hours of 80's sci-fi documentary.  Going year by year with occasional intercuts of related aspects. An assortment of writers, directors, actors, etc. talking about their times, influences, related films.  

Only watched a bit over an hour of it so far, there's nothing been too deep and revealing, but a lot of light background and nostalgia building all the connections between things. Enjoying it so far, worth a viewing.

 

 

[Keyrock]

Brisco County - EP5 Brisco in Jalisco

Brisco and Socrates journey down to Mexico seeking a stolen shipment of guns.

This episode features the return of Dixie Cousins, as well as my boy Pete. Despite a hint that Bly might be involved, this wound up being a side quest episode. Interestingly, they explain why Pete is alive here (gut shot), which makes me wonder if this was originally intended to air before EP2. They also very much ship Brisco and Dixie, something that could have potentially blossomed in later seasons. Alas, we'll never know.

This was the least comedic episode so far and the first without Bowler. Still, it was a thoroughly enjoyable adventure and any episode with my boy Pete is alright in my book.

[Amentep]

TNG - "Masks"

Who let an 'Original Series' script into TNG? 

This was a fun episode, one that would have easily fit into the 60s series (or more likely, the animated series). The right mix of cosmic mystery for me in this.

[Keyrock]

6 minutes ago, Amentep said:

TNG - "Masks"

Who let an 'Original Series' script into TNG? 

This was a fun episode, one that would have easily fit into the 60s series (or more likely, the animated series). The right mix of cosmic mystery for me in this.

What season was this? Season 1 had a number of episodes that felt TOS-esque.

[Amentep]

49 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

What season was this? Season 1 had a number of episodes that felt TOS-esque.

Season 7. 

Edit: to be fair, I think the Gothic romance episode could have easily been a TOS episode too...

[uuuhhii]

the rookie s04e17

another documentary episode

these are really interesting to watch

maybe they will do one every season

[Gfted1]

The Peacemaker. Im kinda surprised, Im only 3 episodes in but Im loving it. It literally makes me lol.

[kirottu]

Picard season 2 episode 3

Episode that boldly asks "what if everyone was stupid".

[kirottu]

...and another thing. I feel like this push to Picard to have some deep dark secret he was running away from is the very sign the writers don't understand Star Trek of any SCIFI. You don't need a dark secret to want to captain a spaceship and explore the mysteries of creation. That in itself is enough. It has always been enough.

[majestic]

Well, Prime gets that trash only on Fridays, but good to know I can look forward to more greatness.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Picard's dark secret should be that he doesn't actually like earl grey.

[Lexx]

Well he's like 80+ years old and apparently still has mommy issues, so.... I really dunno.

Watched First Contact again last weekend, and man, it's so much better than the new garbage.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Lexx

[ShadySands]

IIRC he's 96

Trash writers write trash. Good to know it got worse quickly so I don't have to waste time watching it, I only have to waste time reading every single word you guys write about it.

[Hurlshort]

On 3/14/2022 at 7:18 AM, Gfted1 said:

The Peacemaker. Im kinda surprised, Im only 3 episodes in but Im loving it. It literally makes me lol.

I enjoyed the whole season. Eagly is the best sidekick ever. 

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, kirottu said:

...and another thing. I feel like this push to Picard to have some deep dark secret he was running away from is the very sign the writers don't understand Star Trek of any SCIFI. You don't need a dark secret to want to captain a spaceship and explore the mysteries of creation. That in itself is enough. It has always been enough.

I think this is less about the Picard writers specifically and more the fact that modern shows only want to have anti-heroes, so they go through conniptions to retro-fit (retrograde?) characters who aren't heroes to be anti-heroes (CF: Snyder's Superman, for example or Luke in Star Wars modern sequels)

2 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

Picard's dark secret should be that he doesn't actually like earl grey.

TNG WAS A LIE!!!!!!!!!!123testingtesting123mikecheck

[Keyrock]

I think the problem is that the character Jean-Luc Picard is far too outdated. The show writers need to update Picard and make them an ethnically mixed, androgynous, pansexual, time-traveling, undead, semi-biological semi-synthetic, shape-shifting ethereal being that birthed itself during a quantum fluctuation in a parallel reality. Obviously.

/hides

[Lexx]

Now you just reminded me that they killed him just to revive him as an android who ... is pretty much 1:1 like a human. What even was the point in doing that.

[ShadySands]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

The show writers need to update Picard and make them an ethnically mixed, androgynous, pansexual, time-traveling, undead, semi-biological semi-synthetic, shape-shifting ethereal being that birthed itself during a quantum fluctuation in a parallel reality.

They already did most of this in TOS and the rest in TNG. Obviously, most of it was not done to Picard but some of it was (looking at you, Locutus) but it's all been done better before.

I agree with whoever it was, maybe majestic, that said the problem isn't that characters are diverse but rather that there's not much else to them than what makes them different. It's that same shallowness that kind of permeates all of nuDrek.

Edited March 17, 2022 by ShadySands

[Zoraptor]

Watched Midnight Mass and Sweet Tooth on Netflix.

Sweet Tooth was better than I expected really and overall pretty good. Very weird 'feel' to it though, the whole premise shouts Young Adult, but the content really isn't. Decidedly ropey CGI/ prosthetics at times, but after what high budget WoT I'm not sure there's too much scope for criticism. Also ends on a cliffhanger, which I'm not overly keen on. Took me approximately 5 minutes to work out that it was filmed in New Zealand too; obvious McSuburbs, Auckland Hospital, beautiful establishing shot of Wyoming was recognisably Beech Forest. And of course the bevvy of ex Shortland Street actors in bit parts (including the obligatory bad/ variable american accidents [accents and I was sorely tempted to leave that typo as was], and a few who'd been told not to bother even trying).

Midnight Mass was excellent for the first 6 episodes, but rather fell down at the end. The acting was very good, as was the scripting; and the episodes were long but felt short which is always a good sign.

Spoiler

Probably the first big problem is the same one you get on The Walking Dead. It's a zombie vampire guys- has literally no one ever heard of one? It's... hard to accept that anyone could be 'fooled' by that, even if they really wanted it to be true. You obviously aren't mind controlled or whatever, you have a choice. Which leads on to...

The second big problem was only having one true 'bad guy' (well, gal, since it's Bev) apart from the vampire. Murder and eat your neighbours, but hey, you can go out singing a hymn like everything's OK. Give your congregation demon blood and murder one of them and get a touching tête à tête with your illicit girlfriend. Pity they didn't all come to the conclusion that they were wrong a bit earlier, eh? Then again, if that happens there's no plot so meh. But it also means there's a big problem with Bev, who is portrayed as a sort of Nurse Ratched figure but ends up going too far really, as if they had to make sure she was all bad in a cartoon way- out of all the people who did bad things she's the only bad person? I'm not at all keen on a theme that implies that self delusion is an excuse for murdering people. Especially when the realisation only comes when it's obvious they can't get to the mainland and keep feeding rather than before.

I'm also not that keen on the schlock horror 'everybody dies (good guys die in sequence)' elements of the ending. OK, two people didn't, but that in itself is a trope, as is the big bad just about plausibly escaping, in case you want a sequel. It had largely avoided the pointless tropes before that.

OTOH the set up to get to the last episode is really, really good. Believable characters, good scripting and acting, and things like Riley on the boat was very well done (and indeed, he and Erin getting each others' 'what happens at death'; though that was made a bit too obvious for me personally I know a lot of people would have needed the obviousness). The sort of trudging depression and hopelessness of the island made an excellent setting too.

Oh well, ending a series like that well is always the hardest part, and it was still a very good watch overall.

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I think the problem is that the character Jean-Luc Picard is far too outdated. The show writers need to update Picard and make them an ethnically mixed, androgynous, pansexual, time-traveling, undead, semi-biological semi-synthetic, shape-shifting ethereal being that birthed itself during a quantum fluctuation in a parallel reality. Obviously.

Eh, that would be plagiarising Doctor Who.

(And I'm not even sure whether I'm making a joke or serious there)

Edited March 17, 2022 by Zoraptor