The TV and Streaming Thread: Pilot Week

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Raithe said:

Frank Langella Blasts Cancel Culture and Netflix Firing: 'This Is Not American' (movieweb.com)

Yeah, it isn't American. Traditionally old men were allowed to grope young women with impunity. 

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, KP wants Blue Velvet said:

The Prime Directive is a product of that writing. I think that don't give cavemen tech weapons is one thing, but the refusal to make contact or help out is another. Perhaps it doesn't make as good storytelling, but it seems mean spirited to deny helpful technology to people that could really use it. I mean, if there was an alien organization like Starfleet irl that knew about out planet and didn't help us out with our apocalyptic predicament(s), they would be top tier ****.

In universe it's a product of human societal development and how it happened, and is (more or less*) justified. Star Trek's humans ended up in their 'enlightened' state after a whole lot of bad stuff happening with no one riding to the rescue. The argument is that you want the achievements and developments to be earned, or society doesn't keep up with them.

In series it's pretty much always been a crutch for the writing- 'why don't they solve this problem easily with technology? I know, they can't use the technology because of the Prime Directive! Sheer genius!'

*for all of ST being very progressive in many areas it's always had human exceptionalism on a massive scale. All the other civs in the galaxy and we need humans to make the nice peaceful federation (which is semi continuously in conflict with three empires because they're bad and not enlightened). Thinking the only way to get proper development is potentially via a WW3 like event showing how bad war is is... very human and has a lot of parallels with history. You can't really ever justify something as blanket as the Prime Directive though, it's far too narrow.

[Keyrock]

The Prime Directive, like any plot device, is only as good as its usage, and that falls squarely on the shoulders of the writer(s). Pretty much any plot device, even hilariously overused ones such as Deux Ex Machina, can be a useful tool if used sparingly and cleverly.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

7 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

In universe it's a product of human societal development and how it happened, and is (more or less*) justified. Star Trek's humans ended up in their 'enlightened' state after a whole lot of bad stuff happening with no one riding to the rescue. The argument is that you want the achievements and developments to be earned, or society doesn't keep up with them.

In series it's pretty much always been a crutch for the writing- 'why don't they solve this problem easily with technology? I know, they can't use the technology because of the Prime Directive! Sheer genius!'

I think it's pretty dumb in universe too. "We nuked the planet to **** and then pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps" seems a bit too optimistic, even by the standards of Trek. Sure some would earn achievements through that struggle, but a whole lot more would probably die. Using the irl earth as an example again, if there was an organization like the Federation out there I'd sure hope that they wouldn't let us all die to climate catastrophe or a nuclear holocaust to satisfy an ideological commitment that half of their captains end up breaking anyways.

[LadyCrimson]

I saw this:

 

....which of course meant I had to immediately sub/week free trial of PBS thru Prime ($2.99/month after that 7 days, or cancel) to see it, because, MISHA. (if you don't know, Castiel on Supernatural).
....as adorable as he is in interviews/fan conventions however, he's a bit socially awkward/hesitant re: being a host/asking questions/riffing. Could use more practice. Show focused a bit more on culture and the cook's personal and/or political history vs. the food itself.

Edited May 14, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Guard Dog]

This show is freaking FUNNY! Two thumbs up

Killing it

[Raithe]

The CW's 2022 Cancellations Because of Mergers and Streaming (gizmodo.com)

Some interesting points.

[InsaneCommander]

On 5/10/2022 at 7:25 PM, majestic said:

Back to my notes, I'll just put them in spoilers because they are:

  Hide contents

The, uhm, planet they go to managed to reverse engineer a matter/anti-matter reactor from observing Discovery's departure and the fight between Control and the Federation fleet in Discovery's second season. THEY GATHERED ENOUGH DATA TO REVERSE ENGINEER A REACTOR, What'sherface said. No, really. They looked at a space battle and reverse engineered an energy source from that, and proceeded to build a WARP BOMB because of COURSE we build a WARP BOMB. Hello guys, they maybe built an anti-matter bomb, but... never mind.

SNW episode 1:

Spoiler

That society was basically like ours. They probably developed the Warp reactor before a Fusion reactor. Sure, just point your telescopes up and you'll learn how to do it.

Thanks Kurtzman (and the writers, but I still blame Kurtzman), I was actually enjoying the episode, despite all the problems mentioned in this thread, but this was too much.

 

On 5/12/2022 at 7:12 PM, majestic said:

Strange New Worlds, episode two.

Wow, these people are in life and death situations and they crack jokes, don't pay attention to their surroundings, start touching things willy-nilly and simply start going on extended smalltalks IN THE MIDDLE OF A GOD DAMNED CRISIS THAT MAY AS WELL KILL THEM AND THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE THEY'RE TRYING TO SAVE.

What the hell is wrong with you? Are you Starfleet's finest, or are you lot stupid ass teenagers yapping about? Man, seriously, you make Scotty starting fights over insults to the Enterprise look professional, and the crew (and Scotty) got dressed down over it.

I'm still trying to understand why the security officer had to walk around to find out they were alone. What the hell happened to their sensors?

 

Anyway, this does look better than the other new ST, so I'll keep watching this. But here is my prediction for the end (spoilers for Picard S2E10):

Spoiler

Wesley and Jurati appear on Talos IV to heal and rescue Pike. Oh, Q also shows up and they all do a group hug.

 

[Amentep]

TNG "All Good Things..." A pretty fun episode, excepting the weird Riker-Worf thing. Didn't they settle that earlier (or implied it was settled)? But it also didn't seem very Riker anyhow. Also goof about the tachyon beam coming from three Enterprises when one was from the medical ship. 

Also interesting line from Q about Picard's future being exploring the nature of humanity since that seems like what they're trying to do with the Picard series in a way.

Watched episode 4 & 5 of season 1 of Picard. Some interesting stuff, but some poorly staged drama. Picard goes to Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine to pick up Romulan Space Ninja, then to Coruscant to try to get synth maker guy from the Hutts or something. Seven goes vengeance on the lady who killed Icheb and Raffi has one of the stupidest interactions with her long lost son I've ever seen. Who just tracks someone down and goes to meet them instead of...like....calling?

[majestic]

 

[Bartimaeus]

I have come away from this with a much worse opinion of Wil Wheaton, and my opinion of Wil Wheaton was already pretty bad.

[majestic]

I cried butterfly tears!

15 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I have come away from this with a much worse opinion of Wil Wheaton, and my opinion of Wil Wheaton was already pretty bad.

He's like a member of the Nerd Crew, except... unironically. He also had a cameo in the, uhm, final episode they didn't mention.

Edited May 15, 2022 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

 

I got 4 and a half minutes in and had to quit when they were talking about pollution shields and ocean purifying microbes and space fascists led by Data's great great grandpa.

This is somehow dumber than my non-existent expectations for the show. Let's see how the rest of the video goes.

[Keyrock]

52 minutes ago, majestic said:

I cried butterfly tears!

He's like a member of the Nerd Crew, except... unironically. He also had a cameo in the, uhm, final episode they didn't mention.

I miss The Nerd Crew. 

[Zoraptor]

I'm kind of interested in watching that just to see how bad Picard has been.

OTOH, nearly 39 minutes... that's nearly 39m more time than I really want to spend on Picard.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So I watched the whole video and now I have to learn to unwatch stuff. Leaving behind plot holes and half-baked supervillians and tone changes (at least half the show), the show just looks ****ing boring. Like somehow the CW made a trek-like drama series, but middle aged folks instead of thirty year old teenagers and no cop procedurals. 10 hours of cgi Reaper ripoffs would be more interesting than this stuff, which neither allows actors to act or really delivers anything beyond emotion bombs lobbed at the audience with poor setup. This is worse than I thought it was. I want to slam a road roller into the show. 

[ShadySands]

7 hours ago, Amentep said:

Also goof about the tachyon beam coming from three Enterprises when one was from the medical ship.

I thought something happens to the medical ship and they get rescued by Riker on the Enterprise.

[kirottu]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

I totally missed the fact borg queen had no reason to help Soong. Not only that but she should have worked against Soong. Otherwise the future where humans destroy Borgs becomes true. I guess there's just so much horrible writing in Picard, you're bound to miss some of it.

The video is fitting good bye to Kurtzman/Goldsman era Star Trek.

[the_dog_days]

I watched Disenchantment a few weeks ago. Pretty good blend of long term epic and social parody.

[Amentep]

8 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I thought something happens to the medical ship and they get rescued by Riker on the Enterprise.

They do, but the future tachyon beam is done by the Pasteur, not the Enterprise.  The Pasteur is still using their tachyon beam to 'find' the anomaly when the Klingons attack and disable it.  The Enterprise comes and rescues them just at the Pasteur is destroyed, then disables the Klingon ships and leaves the the area.  Picard has to convince Admiral Riker to go back to the system to investigate the beginning of the anti-time anomaly after Q makes him understand that the anomaly is moving backwards in time and that leads to the future Enterprise being back in the system and able to join its shields with the other two Enterprises to split the time/anti-time reaction and stop the anomaly.

[Gfted1]

 

[Amentep]

 

[uuuhhii]

really hope for season 4

sadly it seems unlikely

[Gfted1]

Firestarter  (2022)

I guess we made it around 45 minutes when I looked over at my wife and she was already slumped over sitting up in bed. Its laughably bad and thats coming from a fan of the original movie.

[Hurlshort]

Kids in the Hall is back and it is magnificent.