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

[Zoraptor]

I have to admit to liking the first season of Bridgerton despite manifestly not being its target audience. Probably helped that it was lockdown, and I had to find stuff that would entertain my mother as well as me for a change- and had already run out of scandi-esque crime dramas.

So far the only problem I have with S2 is that it seems like an almost point for point rehash of S1 (two episodes in) just with the bachelor and bachelorette's positions on marriage reversed. But yeah, it's definitely a sumptuous visual feast and the cast seems to be having enormous fun in a pantomime sort of way.

[Amentep]

 

[Amentep]

 

[Gromnir]

edit: irv pankey played on the rams ol as a left tackle for a decade, but for most o' that time he played opposite o' jackie slater (rt). is understandable few save hardcore rams fans recall his name.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Gromnir

[ShadySands]

Commercial for a new The Man Who Fell to Earth comes on and my wife says that seems like something we should watch... from the producer of Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard. 

 

[Amentep]

TNG "Firstborn" - possibly the best Alexander episode. But it sorta just...stops instead of having a real ending. 

Made me think re: ST: Discovery

Did Alexander use the Time Crystals from the monastery on Borath?

TNG "Bloodlines" - this was a weak episode. I liked the idea of doing a callback to the 1st season and Bok but the drama falls flat for the most part. The fact that it's ultimately a ruse from Bok makes it even more non-sensical. A better revenge idea with Bok would have made it more interesting. And how many relatives are going to come out of the woodwork this season?

DIS "Perpetual Infinity" - speaking of awkward drama, Burnham gets to meet her mom, but the meeting which should be the heart of the episode doesn't work. The side Story working out Leland has been taken over by Killer Bob Control works okay I guess. Perhaps I expected too much from the daughter-mom reunion.

DISC - "Through the Valley of Shadows" Pike goes through a metaphysical journey. I thought it was a solid episode.

The allusion to the destructive nature of the Time Crystals until they created a quasi-religious order to oversee them could also explain why Klingon culture became what it is, as the culture became such that honor would preclude use of the crystals.

Also, is the new ST shows essentially a new timeline (like the JJ movies)? Red Angel has, theoretically, altered the timeline via its activities.

[Gfted1]

The Batman I made it through the first two hours before I went to bed. Zoe Kravitz kills it as Catwoman and I had no idea that was Coln Farrell until just now when I looked up how to spell "Kravitz"! Hope to finish it later today.

[Amentep]

End of season 2 of DISCO.

I didn't hate it, but why do they have people stop in the middle of intense action to give lengthy monologs? At least Pike shut one down before it got started, but there were so, so many more. The writers really seem to enjoy belaboring a point.

Also the pernicious STAR WARS influence on modern Trek is no stronger felt than in the final battle where the Capital Ships of the Rebel Alliance Enterprise and  Discovery engage in battle with the Imperial Star Destroyers Control Section 31 Ships while the X-Wings and TIE fighters armed shuttles skirmish.

 

 

If demagnetising Control 'killed' it, why did they need to go into the future again? Also, wouldn't an EMP worked to destroy Control if the magneric chamber did?

 

[InsaneCommander]

Severance. Fascinating exploration of consciousness, identity and related topics. Dividing a person in two, one for personal life and another for work obviously won't end up well. Helly wouldn't have any of that right from the beginning.

This series is really well made, it looks good and weird. I saw someone saying a certain scene looked like something made by Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch together. The writing is good, nothing feels forced, which is not easy when you deal with the whole situation with the severed people.

I also liked the actors' performances, even if on small moments, like with John Turturro and Christopher Walken. Some scenes were hilarious. An office can be unpleasant, but when your whole existence is work (literally closing the elevator's door at 5 pm and it immediately opens at 8 am and you are right back at work), things can get a lot worse.

The first episodes were slower, but it got a lot more interesting in the end.

[LadyCrimson]

I randomly came across an episode of that Star Trek: Continues webseries. I had completely forgotten about it. I remember watching the first episode and sorta liking it, so I watched a few more episodes. Apparently there were ... 11 eventually made?

I still sorta like it - it definitely is more in line with ToS then any "new" Treks have been and the cast/sets all look pretty good. The plots aren't bad either. And yet it's still just a little too weird without the original cast. I'm still of the mind that if I want a brief nostalgic dose of original Trek, I'll just watch ... the original Trek. I guess I'm one of those that doesn't really feel a need for constant new stories in the same 'verse forever and ever. In fact usually most series/IP's run on way too long. Hence why I'm not a fanfic writer.

Edited April 24, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Russian Doll s2. It's very weird, perhaps even weirder than the first season. Strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a relatively short and well done show.

[kirottu]

23 hours ago, Amentep said:

  Reveal hidden contents

If demagnetising Control 'killed' it, why did they need to go into the future again? Also, wouldn't an EMP worked to destroy Control if the magneric chamber did?

Don't worry. These questions and more absolutely wont be answered on Discovery season 3.

[majestic]

Seems like I forgot to mention last week's Picard thing. This just keeps getting worse, and it keeps meandering around, and it'll probably rush its conclusion. There's like what, two episodes left, and several plot threads still open. There's no way they will converge into a cohesive finale. There might be one, but certainly not for Picard's writing team.

Edited April 25, 2022 by majestic

[Lexx]

I'm still waiting for RLM to talk about it. Maybe they are waiting for the final episode?

[Amentep]

43 minutes ago, kirottu said:

Don't worry. These questions and more absolutely wont be answered on Discovery season 3.

Follow through on ideas is one of the weaker things DISCO does.  If they spent less time trying to make these "hell yeah!" speech scenes and more time just dealing with the characters and their continuity, they may have time to follow-up on dealing with ideas or concepts that float by the wayside. 

[Zoraptor]

It's kind of funny, they managed to keep most of the issues with continuity and consistency that the more standalone episode Trek series had despite moving to a strongly serial format and having fewer episodes per season. It's understandable having some issues when you have to write 26(for TNG?) episodes over a year with lots of different writers and a very tight filming schedule; not so much when it's half that number. Makes it very obvious they had no proper planning going on*.

Case in point from S2: if you're going to have a tragic storyline about a bridge crew member it helps- a lot- if they've been, well, developed above more than a cardboard cutout or glorified extra outside that episode. Otherwise you end up with what we got, being told how important she was and how you should feel about it and how much the crew loved her rather seeing having seen it yourself. Sad thing is that much like a lot of Discovery it didn't need that much change to make it work a lot better. As it was the whole thing came across as nothing more than an excuse to up the angst scale to 11.

*or perhaps more accurately but more critically: deciding to write all the 'cool' scenes, and not knowing/ caring how to connect/ set them up properly and whether they made sense in context.

[Amentep]

I can't help but wonder how much the creative differences that caused Bryan Fuller to leave the show derailed the actual development of it, cascading through the seasons.  The first season isn't focused as all, it commits (IMO) the writing sin of starting at event 1 and not where the story starts (the story starts with Burnham coming to Discovery; the rest is 2 episodes of pointless prologue ("What's Past is Prologue" - yes, I know, throw the rotten fruits)).  For shorter seasons like they're doing, they should be taking much smaller bites of the pie.  But the first season is a plotting mess, and I think it negatively impacted season 2. 

I'd argue the first season wasted a lot of time with Klingon politics when that was never the point of the story, really.  As a result, Airiam gets no screen time and is "interesting looking crewmember #3 on the bridge" for the first season.  But even if they wanted to build up that character's tragedy they could have - but they'd needed to have slowed the pace down a good bit.  Which would have helped a number of character storylines for season 2, to be fair, like Tilly-Fungal May and Stamets-smothers-(not-really)-Culber or even Tyler-comes-back-and-awkwardly-reunites-with-Burnham which all just sort of become these brief and broad character bits which I'd rather have spent more time with developing rather than short-handing them in place of giving screen time to another monologue.

I feel kind of bad for the actors, as I think they're getting let down in the scripts a good bit with respect to character.  And its really weird seeing the main character's ostensibly main romantic relationship acting like an after thought. I like Tilly, Stamets, Culber, Jett, and Saru.  I even like Burnham even if her character is all over the place.  But they're not really getting a lot of character time.

Another set of questions that struck me about season 2 -

Spoiler

Why does Tyler decide to stay behind rather than stay with Burnham on DISCOVERY?  He's literally talked about how he thinks felt like he really didn't have a roll to play until Section 31 picked him up - but that group was totally demolished by Control.  So what is keeping him there? Burnham's already chastised him for sticking with them with their MO was sus.  So why not go to the future and try to rebuild a relationship with Burnham in a future where he'd have a clear slate?

Why does Georgiou leave for the future?  With Section 31 having cleaned house, it'd seem like an opportunity for her to build something for herself in the then and now rather than going to the future. I assume its because the producers want to develop her character into a less-Mirror Universe character; mitgate that background since they want a spin-off.  But that's a case of the production ignoring the character.  It probably should have been addressed more from a goal standpoint why she'd agree to join in (even a simple line of dialogue indicating it was payback from pulling her out of her impending death in the Mirror U whether delivered as truth or cover would have at least acknowledged it).

Why does Spock want to go to the future?  I get wanting to support Burnham, in a way, but it also felt like Spock was abandoning all the other connections he had for no clear reason from the character.

[majestic]

I had to look up who 'Airiam' was. To provide context for this achievement, not that long ago I got a call at work - a question about a record a colleague of mine created 7 years ago. From the creation date alone I could tell which customer requested it and remembered enough about the corresponding e-mail that I received in CC to find it through a keyword search.

[Amentep]

I don't think they say her name a whole lot in the show as it is, to be fair, and she only really gets one episode dedicated to her and an episode or two later she's gone.

[majestic]

12 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I don't think they say her name a whole lot in the show as it is, to be fair, and she only really gets one episode dedicated to her and an episode or two later she's gone.

I also could not recall anything about the crewmember I knew died in season two, other than the scene of her funeral being hilarious because everyone was acting so sad but for me, it was Tuesday...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The Haunting of Hill House. Very much a Mike Flannigan show. In many ways it felt much less scary and more surreal, which is fine with me, but the extended monologs really felt like they got in the way of the actors' performances and the supernatural events than they supported it. Which is a shame, because I thought the actors all did a fine job and that there were very unsettling moments.

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

I feel kind of bad for the actors, as I think they're getting let down in the scripts a good bit with respect to character. 

Yeah, personally I'd add that the Direction for them seems to be awful, too. The ones who did well with what they were given tended to be the more senior pros of the crew- Captain Malfoy, Pike, Georgiou, Saru. Most of the younger ones... I doubt they're all bad actors, but they consistently have a weird uncanny valley effect about them, like they've been CGIed in and their expressions animated by pre Gollum tech. It's so consistent that I don't think it's their fault, but the only younger actor who (mostly) escaped it was Tilly's.

Unfortunately there really isn't much point speculating on answers to the spoiler questions- I very much suspect you've already given far more thought to those characters than the writers did. And sadly, that's a literal statement, the whole thing was set up for the future skip (and potential spin offs) and who they as writers wanted on the crew.

[kirottu]

Picard season 2 episode 9

Spoiler

Borg being evil was only because Borg Queen was lonely. Jurati showed her the power of friendship and now she's good.

I just can't anymore. 

[majestic]

1 hour ago, kirottu said:

Picard season 2 episode 9

  Reveal hidden contents

Borg being evil was only because Borg Queen was lonely. Jurati showed her the power of friendship and now she's good.

I just can't anymore. 

I haven't watched the episode yet, but read the spoiler. I expected nothing, and yet, I was still disappointed. Unbelievable.

[Lexx]

Can't wait for the RLM review.