The TV and Streaming Thread: Pilot Week

[InsaneCommander]

The Boys 3.8

Another fantastic episode, better than Herogasm I think.

Spoiler

Butcher attacking Soldier Boy didn't make much sense. He didn't seem to have lost his mind so he should have considered just grabbing Ryan and getting the hell out of there.

 

[ShadySands]

Everything Everywhere All at Once, my wife and I both liked it. It also was good seeing Data/Short Round again.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

38 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Everything Everywhere All at Once, my wife and I both liked it. It also was good seeing Data/Short Round again.

What about Raccoonatouile?

@InsaneCommander

Tbh I was a little disappointed with the finale of the Boys.

Ryan's heel turn into lil' Homelander came out of nowhere. I get that he'd be pissed with Butcher for being an **** to him, but iirc he HATES Homelander. And the evil smile at the end, come on yall.

Same with Billy, the dude willing to cross any line to get Homelander suddenly pulling back because of Ryan just doesn't fit too well. In my opinion, killing off Homelander and that driving Ryan off the deep end would have worked better.

Otherwise, I think it works fine. Much better than last season.

Edited July 10, 2022 by KP wants Blue Velvet

[InsaneCommander]

3 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

@InsaneCommander

Tbh I was a little disappointed with the finale of the Boys.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Ryan's heel turn into lil' Homelander came out of nowhere. I get that he'd be pissed with Butcher for being an **** to him, but iirc he HATES Homelander. And the evil smile at the end, come on yall.

Same with Billy, the dude willing to cross any line to get Homelander suddenly pulling back because of Ryan just doesn't fit too well. In my opinion, killing off Homelander and that driving Ryan off the deep end would have worked better.

Otherwise, I think it works fine. Much better than last season.

 

Yes, that didn't make much sense. They could have shown how that character developed during the season, but even doing it, maybe it would still be forced.

[uuuhhii]

On 7/9/2022 at 5:09 AM, InsaneCommander said:

The Boys 3.8

Another fantastic episode, better than Herogasm I think.

  Hide contents

Butcher attacking Soldier Boy didn't make much sense. He didn't seem to have lost his mind so he should have considered just grabbing Ryan and getting the hell out of there.

 

just throw out of the building would make more sense

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Everything Everywhere All at Once, my wife and I both liked it. It also was good seeing Data/Short Round again.

I watched it again, and I think I liked it even more. It's a really...cathartic movie, at least for me. Beneath the veil of silliness is a simple but powerful message that hurts so bad but also just fundamentally feels good, in a way that a lot of other movies try but almost universally utterly fail to achieve. Without the themes and characters shining so brightly for me, I probably wouldn't go for the silly action or mad-hat style of narrative, but since they do, it's okay.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

16 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Yes, that didn't make much sense. They could have shown how that character developed during the season, but even doing it, maybe it would still be forced.

It really jumps out of left field and took the wind out of the finale. Which is a shame, because the rest of it makes sense.

Spoiler

I mean, Butcher not wanting to get Hughie involved is one thing and I guess they're trying to connect Ryan to that, but it feels like they'd at least have him take a swing at Homelander instead of (briefly) teaming up with him to stop Soldier Boy.

 

12 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I watched it again, and I think I liked it even more. It's a really...cathartic movie, at least for me. Beneath the veil of silliness is a simple but powerful message that hurts so bad but also just fundamentally feels good, in a way that a lot of other movies try but almost universally utterly fail to achieve. Without the themes and characters shining so brightly for me, I probably wouldn't go for the silly action or mad-hat style of narrative, but since they do, it's okay.

[Gfted1]

Wait a minute, I just watched the fight clip on YouTube...Butcher has eye lasers now?! That escalated quickly since last I watched the show on S1!

[InsaneCommander]

14 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

just throw out of the building would make more sense

A valid strategy, considering how it ended.

 

58 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Wait a minute, I just watched the fight clip on YouTube...Butcher has eye lasers now?! That escalated quickly since last I watched the show on S1!

 

Spoiler

It's "temp compound V".

 

[Raithe]

Might amuse a few people to notice this is around:

Rosenbaum and Welling doing a watch the series and discuss each episode...

[Chairchucker]

Just finished Ms Marvel.

 

The show took a couple episodes to really get going for me, but once it did I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some obvious nods to Kamala's original powers from the comic book that might make those who are annoyed about the change of powers slightly less annoyed. The finale in particular was quite strong, IMO.

 

I'm not entirely the target demographic, (except that I'm in the demographic of 'unabashed MCU fan who will watch absolutely anything and everything they release connected to it for the rest of my life') so younger fans, and fans from Asian immigrant backgrounds, might get even more out of it than I did.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Chairchucker

[Amentep]

 

[InsaneCommander]

The Orville 3.7

Funniest episode this season.

Spoiler

The end was predictable. Of course the procedure wouldn't work for Isaac. It would have been interesting to see him with emotions, but his comment about Burke's inferior intellect is exactly why he should stay the same. He is funnier this way.

 

[majestic]

Catching up on stuff: Stranger Things IV.

I've pretty much binged the episodes. If there's one largely negative thing I can say regardless of anything that happens is that the episodes are definitely too long. Please structure your episodes better next time. There's also no need to make the final episode of the season into a 2:20 movie with actual acts. With that said, there's a part of me that is hypercritical about Everything Everywhere All at Once (well that pun went better in my head than it came out here), however, if there's something I love, and it continues and just spins its wheel, or it becomes terrible, it takes a long, long time for me to change opinions. 

Like back when the third season of Andromeda aired, I watched the episodes and read the complaints online, and I disagreed. 15 years later on a rewatch, I joined in. Season three is bad, and the series never recovered from that. Now, Stranger Things IV is probably not bad, because if nothing else, the episodes are impeccably shot, the CGI could be a tad better, but it's all right for a streaming series, and the actors are still great - even the new additions.

That said, it was definitely running too long. Large parts of El's storyline could have been shortened, and it never contained characters I really like, outside of El herself perhaps. I have no idea why Will was even on the show, doing nothing but looking awkward, the same with Jonathan. The entire Russian storyline is ludicrous and useless, just like in season three. Everything else though was not entirely what I expected from the trailer, but it was entertaining enough for me to not really care that all of this feels tacked onto the world building (basically what you get when you a have a self-contained first season with an order of YOU'RE MAKING US OODLES OF MONEY, CONTINUE! afterwards).

If they had cut the Russian plot a little and reduced El's self-discovery to a tighter, more streamlined part of the season the time could have been spent on, dunno, resolving some issues that are just dangling open because even with all the time they had for the season, it's kind of a mess where so much is left unfinished. That just goes way beyond having sequel hooks. It also up and abandons a lot that happens in the first two episodes. What gives?

Spoiler

Nothing ever comes out of Angela being a part of the series, for instance. I mean, other than me yelling 'hit her again' at the screen when Angela accidentially ran into the skates El was carrying. And a disappointed "I was hoping for a skull fracture, not just a concussion" after the EMTs show up.

Typing up all this just to state that I'm not blind to the faults. I still loved watching every episode. It wasn't what I expected from the trailer, which looked much more goofy than it actually turned out to be. So this isn't the Stephen King / Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors crossover that I wanted it to be. Maybe 15 years down the line, I'll rewatch and eventually even stop at the second season. That's still a ways off. A long, long ways off. So for now... yeah. Still enjoyed this a whole lot and don't regret spending the time on it.

Anyways, guess continuing the Boys is up next. Still on early season two.

Edited July 16, 2022 by majestic

[Lexx]

Just finished the Boys season. Not sure what to think of it ... a lot happened but at the same time nothing at all. This was 8 hours of content that probably could have been cut down to 4 hours max. Annoying, tbh.

[uuuhhii]

 

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

Just finished the Boys season. Not sure what to think of it ... a lot happened but at the same time nothing at all. This was 8 hours of content that probably could have been cut down to 4 hours max. Annoying, tbh.

a lot of netflix show have similar problem

every season are bloated and also feels like set up for the next

like umbrella academy season 3

 

[Zoraptor]

To be fair to The Boys that's a description of maybe 90% of TV in general. It's amazing how many short 'premium' series end up feeling padded just as much as a 22 episode season on CW or whatever. It can get really weird too, Wheel of Time felt padded yet objectively clearly needed more time- from better writers though.

Have to say, as someone who hasn't watched Boys S3 most of the commentary around it does not sound overly good for someone who was already rolling their eyes at the contrivance of not having Homelander just kill everyone in S2. From a mechanistic pov you know why, because it can only happen once and after that the main premise of the series is gone...

My personal peeve about subscription shows is how many are obviously focus grouped into having constant cliffhanger endings to get engagement up. It's like watching things out of phase, with the last five minutes of the previous episode tacked onto the next. 'All of us are dead' (may be slightly wrong, Korean zombie show on Netflix) had this to an almost parody degree.

[Lexx]

I just remembered something else about this season .... wtf happened to Starlight's face. It took me a long time to realize that something weird is going on here. Went to google to see if it's just me, but lots of folks noticed. Looks like she had some stuff done and now she looks 10 years older or something.

33 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

It's like watching things out of phase, with the last five minutes of the previous episode tacked onto the next. 'All of us are dead' (may be slightly wrong, Korean zombie show on Netflix) had this to an almost parody degree.

That's why I was only able to binge watch this season and other shows. Those weekly releases just infuriate and annoy the hell out of me. If you binge watch those shows you'll never really notice this.

/Edit: And the season ending sucked too. It made no damn sense. Now there will be yet another season of "how do we stop him??? " ....

Edited July 17, 2022 by Lexx

[Amentep]

GROUNDED tv show in development

[Lexx]

Huh, didn't expect something like that. Especially considering Grounded on steam only has around 2k active players.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The IP must flow.

[Zoraptor]

Orville S3e7

Another good episode, but has a similar problem(s) to the rest of the season so far, just to a greater degree.

Spoiler

(1) Big reset button at end (2) too many plot threads making it feel unfocused and leading on from that (3) probably just too long. #3 is pretty surprising to me, but this episode in particular really felt unfocused and, to be frank, rather self indulgent. As if they felt they had to add plots just to give the cast something to do or were using ideas they knew weren't capable of being A plots but wanted to use anyway. The A (and B) plots of Isaac and the background/ flashbacks were potentially a lot better* without the constant distractions; the C and D plots of reverse Moclans and the perils of physical relationships with people with super human strength would probably have benefited from more time spent on one and dropping the other. Guess at least they didn't use them as A plots though.

*definitely the best part(s) of the episode though anyway. The plot did feel rather derivative of probably three or four Data centric TNG eps (plus 'I, Borg', if that doesn't count as Data centric), though that was almost certainly both deliberate and unavoidable given the obvious similarities between Isaac and Data. It was also one of the stronger narrative threads in TNG, so a good one to take inspiration from.

Overall this season has felt a bit underwhelming but I'm pretty sure that's because Orville is in the reverse position to SNW, ie I was expecting a lot so there's just a lot more scope to be disappointed vs was expecting nothing so there was a lot of scope to be pleasantly surprised.

[InsaneCommander]

The Orville 3.8

Another episode I liked a lot. It advanced one of the main plots and had many good moments, despite still having all the (minor imo) problems in this season. The episode was about 80 minutes long. Not sure if they could have made it shorter this time, with all that happened, but it did feel like it could have been shorter.

Big spoilers below.
 

Spoiler

The Moclan situation finally went too far and they are now out of the Union. Allowing Kelly to be an inspector in the female colony after she and Ed arranged for Topa's surgery makes no sense. The Moclan inspector must have known who she was. But ok, he probably didn't care since he had other plans. Klyden coming back was good. The whole situation must have had some effect on the Moclan population and you would expect that the girl's father would be among those who would question their culture.

Funny that with the colony under the Union's protection, it looked like a happy end, but it will probably be much more difficult to rescue the females now, assuming the one-eyed torturer died, which didn't seem the case. If he lived and didn't suffer too much neurological damage, he will probably remember the information he got from Topa and Heveena's contact on Moclan is done.

Two episodes to go and it is not that hard to predict what will happen. I can't see all this build up not having any consequences this season. Another war with the Kaylons seems inevitable, there is no way they aren't checking on their enemies (they kind of showed signs of that during the season, right?) so they will want to take advantage of the weakened Union.

Or will the spider aliens come back? I don't think there is time to further develop them, unless they come as unexpected allies against the Kaylon or just show up to take advantage of the situation. With 5 factions now, who knows what will happen.

 

[Zoraptor]

Only bit they really could have cut was the very start, and the obligatory 20/21st century pop culture reference.

Orville s3e8- liked this one just about unreservedly.
 

Spoiler

Yeah, Dolly Parton felt a bit of a self indulgent 20/ 21st century reference and not really necessary but I guess she had been used before. And if I was being tortured by a one eyed Moclan I'd probably admit eventually to liking Dolly Parton too.

This time no complaints on length from me though, while some of the others felt like an overlong single episode this one felt a lot more like a double episode watched back to back. Bullet finally bitten on the Moclans leaving (well, being ejected from) the notFederation... and yeah, very much does have to be said that the Moclan delegation had a point about how they were treated. While there's a narrative imperative for the Orville constantly being in the Moclan's faces- without it you don't see the story- having them constantly being involved is more than a tad inflammatory and very, very easy to see as an absolutely deliberate insult.

I'd imagine Heveena's contact got warned in time. You'd have to suspect that someone on the Orville was willing to send a message, or she had some way to send a panic code (which doesn't have to be encrypted or sent via a specific frequency, since if it's sent the cover is blown anyway).

Keeping Chad Coleman out of the opening credits was good, always hate it when something gets spoiled by knowing which actor plays which character, and it certainly wasn't clear that Klyden would react that way given how the previous Moclan episode ended.

Not really sure whether they've got enough time to do another war with the Kaylon well, but maybe so if they're also long episodes. You'd certainly hope that they aren't finishing on a cliffhanger given the questions over whether there will be a S4 anytime soon/ at all. Given a lot of episodes have been indirectly (and directly) about the Kaylon you'd have to expect them to be dealt with though and that is the obvious Big Bad.

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Zoraptor

[Sarex]

So WoT has been renewed for season 3 even before s2 came out.