The TV and Streaming Thread: Pilot Week

[ShadySands]

14 hours ago, Lexx said:

Speaking of The Orville, season 3 is to be released in june.

There's been a lot of rumors that it's also the last season

[Bartimaeus]

Mike's speech towards the end of the Picard episode 6/7/8/9 video about the show basically being the dead body in Stand by Me was pretty sad.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[kirottu]

27 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Mike's speech towards the end of the Picard episode 6/7/8/9 about the show basically being the dead body of Stand by Me was pretty sad.

But his Picard like monologue at 35 minutes was hilarious.

I do feel sorry for Mike. He obviously really loved Star Trek.

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, ShadySands said:

There's been a lot of rumors that it's also the last season

The Orville cast has been released from their contracts. Sadly that's about as close to confirmation it's the last season as you can get short of an official announcement. MacFarlane and Grimes supposedly have a new series for NBC/ Universal already as well.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, kirottu said:

But his Picard like monologue at 35 minutes was hilarious.

I do feel sorry for Mike. He obviously really loved Star Trek.

SHUT UP WESLEY, SHUT UP.

I love watching Mike and Rich talk about Star Trek (in any form), but I'm finding myself having bursts of aggression whenever they show these interviews with Wesley. How about someone holds up a mirror to you, you ridiculous corporate shill f*ckface?

Go to you happy place. Calm down. Happy place. Happy thoughts. Time to pick sunflowers.

 

[Guard Dog]

18 hours ago, Amentep said:

Batwoman ran two seasons after the change when the lead left due to mounting injuries...is that failure now? 

How many seasons should it have ran to be considered a success? 

Oh and the cancellation surely has nothing to do with the impending sale of the network who is cutting their renewals this year and everything to do with the replacement of a 'white gay woman' with a 'black gay woman' 2 years ago... 

People really get into a twist over what happens in comic books they don't even read!

[Amentep]

5 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

People really get into a twist over what happens in comic books they don't even read!

Reminds me of the flap when they made a new Batwoman and she was presented as an out lesbian in the first place.

Never mind that the original Batwoman had been killed off in the late 1979 in a comic few of the objectors probably read (and had probably never read an appearance of the original character).  Never mind that all of time and space was rewritten for the "DC Universe" multiple times since that event.  And never mind the fact that disingenuous types tried to fan outrage by confusing the public by implying it was the much more popular and well-known Batgirl that was being 'made gay" which if you were familiar with the original Batwoman you'd know wasn't the case.

And after all that fuss, Grant Morrison goes and  restores the original Batwoman 5 years after the debut of the new Batwoman because comics often have multiple versions of the same character running around and anyone who read comics knew the original Batwoman could come back at any time. 

[Keyrock]

7 hours ago, kirottu said:

But his Picard like monologue at 35 minutes was hilarious.

The combimation of the wistful way he spoke and the moody manipulative music was perfect. On a surface level it gives you the impression that you are listening to something deep, important, and profound. In actuality, it's 100% gobbledygook. Tremendous.

Side note: Gobbledygook is a great word. It's right up there with cromulent, shenanigans, dungarees, and brouhaha.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Keyrock

[Lexx]

When gobbledygook was used in Fallout New Vegas' Honest Hearts, people said it is racist.

[Keyrock]

4 minutes ago, Lexx said:

When gobbledygook was used in Fallout New Vegas' Honest Hearts, people said it is racist.

Wait, what? Seriously? Why!?

[Lexx]

It was a dialog option for the player in the final dialog with Salt-Upon-Wounds and I guess some thought it was a racist remark. Can't really remember the details to it, but it was kinda lol at the time.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Lexx

[Amentep]

The latter half of the word is a derogatory slur for people of Far Eastern and Oceanian descent.  Etymology suggests that wasn't intentional, necessarily, as it seems an attempt to imitate the sound of a turkey in its original use.

[Keyrock]

If there's ever been any sort of racial connotation to "gobbledygook" I am not aware of it. As far as I know, it's a fun way to say "candy-coated nonsense" and nothing else. 

Edit: I didn't even think about splitting the word up. I'm going to chalk it up to coincidence.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Keyrock

[Amentep]

 

[teknoman2]

On 5/2/2022 at 8:28 PM, Amentep said:

Batwoman ran two seasons after the change when the lead left due to mounting injuries...is that failure now? 

How many seasons should it have ran to be considered a success? 

Oh and the cancellation surely has nothing to do with the impending sale of the network who is cutting their renewals this year and everything to do with the replacement of a 'white gay woman' with a 'black gay woman' 2 years ago... 

by making shows like that they ran out of money. the problem with the show was not the "black gay woman", it was the complete lack of brains on the writing team who couldn't put a coherent sequence of events together or write a believable character to save their lives

Edited May 3, 2022 by teknoman2

[Amentep]

11 minutes ago, teknoman2 said:

by making shows like that they ran out of money. the problem with the show was not the "black gay woman", it was the complete lack of brains on the writing team who couldn't put a coherent sequence of events together or write a believable character to save their lives

...okay...?

I was responding to a post which seemed to imply Batwoman was a failure because of its black lesbian lead. And again, what does success look like if a show with a three season run is a failure? 5 seasons? 10? Only shows that rival Simpsons, Gunsmoke, NCIS and Doctor Who for longevity?

This is different thing to whether it was an artistic failure based on the quality of the production itself.

As an aside, most shows are cancelled because of finances; usually after the 5th season contracts are up and only hugely popular shows can continue to make money when the cast contracts come up for renegotiation. Batwoman wasn't there yet, but CBS and Warners are looking to sell the CW and are cutting series orders to reduce obligations of the new owners when a deal is struck. Batwoman and Legends were very vulnerable (as was Flash, really).

[ShadySands]

On 5/2/2022 at 4:23 PM, Hurlsnot said:

Wesley Snipes could use the money and still looks fit, so I'm bummed he isn't still in the MCU in some fashion.

After My Name is Dolemite and Coming 2 America, I'm sad he's not in more stuff

[Gfted1]

^Have you seen True Story on Netflix?

[Chilloutman]

6 hours ago, Amentep said:

...okay...?

I was responding to a post which seemed to imply Batwoman was a failure because of its black lesbian lead. And again, what does success look like if a show with a three season run is a failure? 5 seasons? 10? Only shows that rival Simpsons, Gunsmoke, NCIS and Doctor Who for longevity?

This is different thing to whether it was an artistic failure based on the quality of the production itself.

As an aside, most shows are cancelled because of finances; usually after the 5th season contracts are up and only hugely popular shows can continue to make money when the cast contracts come up for renegotiation. Batwoman wasn't there yet, but CBS and Warners are looking to sell the CW and are cutting series orders to reduce obligations of the new owners when a deal is struck. Batwoman and Legends were very vulnerable (as was Flash, really).

No it was failure because as pointed above it was trash and its only selling pitch was: 'look we have black lesbian woman doing this! so progressive!'

and success usually is measured by either financial success or at least by popularity. This was was failure on all fronts

[teknoman2]

10 hours ago, Amentep said:

...okay...?

I was responding to a post which seemed to imply Batwoman was a failure because of its black lesbian lead. And again, what does success look like if a show with a three season run is a failure? 5 seasons? 10? Only shows that rival Simpsons, Gunsmoke, NCIS and Doctor Who for longevity?

This is different thing to whether it was an artistic failure based on the quality of the production itself.

As an aside, most shows are cancelled because of finances; usually after the 5th season contracts are up and only hugely popular shows can continue to make money when the cast contracts come up for renegotiation. Batwoman wasn't there yet, but CBS and Warners are looking to sell the CW and are cutting series orders to reduce obligations of the new owners when a deal is struck. Batwoman and Legends were very vulnerable (as was Flash, really).

The number of seasons is not a measure of success. In fact in this case the money they wasted on making these 3 seasons of a totally unpopular and unprofitable show is part of what led them to this financial situation. The creators of this show were much more interested in ticking all the items in their ideological checklist than making an interesting story and the result was a show that lost money for the studio but they kept coming up with excuses to keep the show going until the studio ran out of money.

[Amentep]

old thread:

 

[Amentep]

I've moved the Batwoman discussion here from the funny thread since it was getting increasingly long in a thread it was off-topic to.

6 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

No it was failure because as pointed above it was trash and its only selling pitch was: 'look we have black lesbian woman doing this! so progressive!'

and success usually is measured by either financial success or at least by popularity. This was was failure on all fronts

The show pitch was an adaption of the comics Batwoman character, about Kate Kane an ex-soldier who, pulling herself from the wreckage she'd made of her life, decided to don a costume like her cousin Bruce.  She is a lesbian in the comics, and this was transferred to the show.

After the first season, the original star left the show.  And so they brought in a new actress, who happened to be black, to take up the mantle of Batwoman as a new character (not a recasting of Kate).  I don't see how that is 'progressive' signaling, unless you think swapping a white lesbian character and actress for a black lesbian character and actress is somehow a giant progressive move?  YMMV, I guess.

CW shows are hard to quantify for 'financial' reasons, as unlike the major networks they don't make most of their money back through their overnight ratings.  For example, this season there were 7 shows that, in the 18-49 demo, had lower ratings than Batwoman - and they're all fellow CW shows.  It was tied in this demo with 2 other CW shows.  In overall ratings, it had better ratings than 8 other shows, all CW shows.  It still was cancelled though, when some of those lower rated shows were not.

1 hour ago, teknoman2 said:

The number of seasons is not a measure of success. In fact in this case the money they wasted on making these 3 seasons of a totally unpopular and unprofitable show is part of what led them to this financial situation. The creators of this show were much more interested in ticking all the items in their ideological checklist than making an interesting story and the result was a show that lost money for the studio but they kept coming up with excuses to keep the show going until the studio ran out of money.

If you mean the pending sale of the CW, that's because CBS and WB are divesting themselves of majority shares in the company (the report on the proposal with Nexstar indicates both will remain minority owners of CW if Nexstar buys The CW and its owned & operated local stations).  Both have been re-organized recently, and WB in particular is cutting productions - like cancelling all of their TBS shows.  Both are turning their focusing on their bigger streaming plans (Paramount+, HBO Max); continuing to operate the CW doesn't make sense anymore to either partner.  I don't see this situation as a sudden change to CW's operation caused by funneling money into producing Batwoman, and CBS and WB wanting to keep a finger in the pie (presumably to reap back money for shows produced for The CW), indicates it wasn't the financial black hole that its critics have claimed it to be.

The CW was always operated by different metrics for what kept their shows rolling - it wasn't profitable before the Arrowverse started, much less before Batwoman started. They usually made their money in other markets or venues. Dynasty, for example, was sold internationally to so many places that it was profitable before it ever aired an episode on the CW (and it has worse rating than Batwoman).  Riverdale - which has been renewed - had less overall ratings than Dynasty (but better 18-49 demo ratings).  You can't judge the success of CW shows the same way you can for ABC, CBS, NBC or FOX shows.

If you want to argue that the quality of the show (writing, direction, acting, editing, production design, whatever) was poor, I'll not argue with you.  I never watched Batwoman and the trailers made it seem less interesting than the other Arrowverse shows - and I'm not a huge fan of the Arrowverse anyhow.  So I can't comment on Batwoman's artistic merits.  But the Arrowverse has its fans, and running 3 seasons means that CW was getting something from it regardless of the actual artistic qualities of the show.

I'm sure that's less interesting of a story than 'get woke, go broke', but its probably closer to the truth, IMO.  If you feel otherwise, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Chairchucker]

You have to remember that in movies and TV, there are two sexualities, straight, and POLITICAL

And two ethnicities, white and POLITICAL

 

Anyway. I just watched the season finale of Moon Knight and it was really good imo. Pretty excited to see more of

Spoiler

Layla as what the internet tells me is a hero called Scarlet Scarab who I've never heard of before but whatevs, this iteration looks pretty dope. Also more of Oscar Isaac being pretty amazing I guess.

 

[Malcador]

 

[ShadySands]

19 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

^Have you seen True Story on Netflix?

Nope, my wife saw the trailer and said hard pass. Is it good?