The TV and Streaming Thread: US Writers/Actors Strike Edition

[Hurlshort]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

 

 

I don't really remember most of the stuff they listed from Rogue One. I'm sure they were in there at some point, it's just not what I came away with. C3PO and R2D2 were in it? I think Vader was at the end? 

The memorable parts were Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn going back and forth. Forest Whitaker playing a terrorist. Alan Tudyk as an assassin droid (HK-47 fan service?) Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang were also a treat. 

So yeah, it feels like this RLM video is a better fit for all the SW other stuff, but I get that they need to keep the lights on. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Star Trek: Discovery s1

It doesn't have the episodic highs of individual TOS or TNG and didn't stick with things long enough to compete with DS9, all things considered it's like any number of CW shows with a premium channel level of freedom to curse and show....weird lizard people Klingon nips. Not particularly impressive and feels both too short and too long.

[CopingMarlinsFan]

8 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

feels both too short and too long.

I noticed this tends to be an issue in many a show nowadays.

[majestic]

The Boys Season 4: Satire Is Over

So, the first three episodes are out, and one thing I took away from this is that, in the five years the season ran so far, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket in such a way that The Boys stopped being satire and is now just a pale reflection of actual events, just with superheroes. Still pretty entertaining, but then... I was one of the two people on the planet who thought season two was better than season three, so take my opinion with an unhealthy dose of sodium chloride.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

The Boys Season 4: Satire Is Over

So, the first three episodes are out, and one thing I took away from this is that, in the five years the season ran so far, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket in such a way that The Boys stopped being satire and is now just a pale reflection of actual events, just with superheroes. Still pretty entertaining, but then... I was one of the two people on the planet who thought season two was better than season three, so take my opinion with an unhealthy dose of sodium chloride.

Unfortunately you're not wrong, The Boys very much stopped being satire and just being depiction (with superheroes) a while ago. Perhaps the most unrealistic thing is that the feds are trying to put a stop to supe nonsense...though that can largely be explained as business interests from the existing military industrial complex (as it was in the comics).

But it is a good show and so far is holding up. I think it is how adaptations should be done, in the sense that the material is adapted both for the format and to update references, because hot damn does the Vought Cinematic Universe as the big superhero thing made by Vought hit closer to home than Vought comic books would.

[majestic]

Discovery Season 5, Episode 2: Under The Twin Moons

No huge post this time around, the episode was surprisingly undumb (if somewhat uninspired), or maybe the season opener lobotomized me. Well, there was one dumb thing:

Spoiler

Captain Goblinface from last episode being asked to retire over his mistake in that episode. Feels a little strange to end the distinguished carreer of a highly decorated officer like that, but that's what you get for giving the Federation president some lip. They're also making a highly stupid TOS vs. TNG allusion, or at least I think they did, where Captain Goblinface is Kirk and Michael is Picard. The times, they are a-changing.

To make it somewhat dumber, he then accepts a second chance by Michael and joins the Discovery crew as first officer.

 

[rjshae]

First three seasons of The Boys is on Freevee now, for those who don't have Prime. It is a pretty twisted series.

[CopingMarlinsFan]

9 hours ago, rjshae said:

It is a pretty twisted series.

It's Garth Ennis who did Preacher and has expressed contempt for superheroes so... yes. He also lived during The Troubles so I can grasp why he is the way he is although I don't like his views.

[Raithe]

I think the most amusing thing about The Boys at the moment is that they are apparently getting review bombed where a chunk of the fan demographic have suddenly realised it was satire pointing at them. Supposedly it took them this long to grok that it was satire, and that Homelander wasn't the hero...

The show's creator in a recent interview made a comment :  “Some people think Homelander is the hero. What do you say to that? The show’s many things. Subtle isn’t one of them.” “If that’s the message you’re getting, I just throw up my hands.”

[Lexx]

Isn't this exactly the same they said with the last season? Feels like I'm having a deja vu.

[uuuhhii]

or the season 2

some viewer was supporting stormfront

[Zoraptor]

While there are no doubt a few people who think Homelander is the good guy I suspect Amazon Marketing regularly embiggens their number and effect. They know Homelander is a massive draw for the show, and that sort of controversy will get people wanting to see what he's done now to garner such a reaction.

[majestic]

The Boys, season four, episode four: We're On A Road To Nowhere (and going pretty hard!)

The episode certainly was a banger, but not in the good way. The plot of the episode was a disjointed mess that looks like they let the creative team of Star Trek: Into Darkness write four episodes, film them without second takes and then edit them into one episode's worth of runtime. Things happen with no prior setup, a lot of things just happen off-screen that would have been much better if actually shown and characters make decisions because the plot demands it, not because they make sense, the worst of which was Butcher getting Frenchie to do something instead of doing it himself, which he had ample of time and opportunity to do while standing right next to the objective (before going back to Frenchie) because one of the plot points of the episode needs Frenchie to be hurt by a supe.

Spoiler

Frenchie is the victim of this a lot in this season, there is also the utterly unnecessary tension between him and Kimiko over secrets they both keep. Guys, it's two seasons too late for that.

So, uhm, yeah. There's also this wholly unnecessary attempt at giving Homelander a tragic backstory to explain why he's so messed up.

It was still fun to watch if only for the performance of the cast, but it sure is beginning to drift into the territory where my suspension of disbelief is begining to come apart at the seams, not just having a few frayed edges (like, well, the ultimate problem the series had ever since the end of season one, i.e. why doesn't Homelander just kill everyone; for which there actually is an explanation attempt in this episode).

Edited June 22 by majestic

[Zoraptor]

Is the tragic Homelander backstory different from the one they gave him in S1? That really was all the explanation needed for him.

On 6/20/2024 at 9:02 AM, majestic said:

Discovery Season 5, Episode 2: Under The Twin Moons

No huge post this time around, the episode was surprisingly undumb (if somewhat uninspired), or maybe the season opener lobotomized me.

It's probably rate as a decent TNG S1 episode, which isn't a bad rating for Discovery. You're certainly not going to be thinking about it for years to come but it was OK. Ironically, the TNG episode they're using for the framing is one you kind of did think about for years, because it was one of those episodes that should have had major consequences but didn't like warp drives degrading subspace or whatever it was. My main gripe with the Discovery ep was the mandatory shoehorned action sequence; drone technology has gone backwards massively since today if that's the best they could do and the whole scenario was over contrived to get them into that situation. At least that is a major issue in all Treks though.

I kind of presume they aren't going for a Kirk/ Picard comparison with their new command pairing but something a lot closer, ie giving Burnham a taste of what commanding her was like to her superiors...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

8 hours ago, majestic said:

The Boys, season four, episode four: We're On A Road To Nowhere (and going pretty hard!)

The episode certainly was a banger, but not in the good way. The plot of the episode was a disjointed mess that looks like they let the creative team of Star Trek: Into Darkness write four episodes, film them without second takes and then edit them into one episode's worth of runtime. Things happen with no prior setup, a lot of things just happen off-screen that would have been much better if actually shown and characters make decisions because the plot demands it, not because they make sense, the worst of which was Butcher getting Frenchie to do something instead of doing it himself, which he had ample of time and opportunity to do while standing right next to the objective (before going back to Frenchie) because one of the plot points of the episode needs Frenchie to be hurt by a supe.

  Reveal hidden contents

Frenchie is the victim of this a lot in this season, there is also the utterly unnecessary tension between him and Kimiko over secrets they both keep. Guys, it's two seasons too late for that.

So, uhm, yeah. There's also this wholly unnecessary attempt at giving Homelander a tragic backstory to explain why he's so messed up.

It was still fun to watch if only for the performance of the cast, but it sure is beginning to drift into the territory where my suspension of disbelief is begining to come apart at the seams, not just having a few frayed edges (like, well, the ultimate problem the series had ever since the end of season one, i.e. why doesn't Homelander just kill everyone; for which there actually is an explanation attempt in this episode).

Definitely one of the sloppier episodes.

The big one for me is Annie beating the **** out of Firecracker in front of a live audience for revealing she had an off-screen abortion. It's just very forced, comically so. For the life of me I can not see that this is what would send Annie over the edge, it's just plot induced stupidity.

I will say Firecracker being a pedophile is another one of those things that is just real life. Despite calling anyone who doesn't want to kill the gays groomers, a frightening number of Christian conservatives and other kinds of reactionaries have charges or accusations of sexual abuse of minors. Many such cases.

It was dumb that Butcher sent Frenchie in, no doubt. Butcher clearly has no problem doing B&E on his own and it seems like they just wanted Frenchie to get hurt so he could have drama with his bf....whose family he murdered. I dunno, I think maybe Frenchie should be killed off at this point because he just doesn't do anything but look very sad.

Homelander going home was better because Anthony Starr can chew that scenery. But there's only so long we can see him have a slow descent into madness without him actually hitting rock bottom. Should have lifted powering up the boys from the comics tbh

[majestic]

10 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Is the tragic Homelander backstory different from the one they gave him in S1? That really was all the explanation needed for him.

Not different, just greatly expanded, including various forms of fun torture and mental conditioning. Probably should have said expanded tragic backstory. The scene itself is great because Homelander can just chew the scenery like @PK htiw klaw eriF said (supplemented by great performances and direction for everyone involved). There's a certain irony in that Homelander's upbringing was designed to implement a certain level of control over what they perceived to be a monster, only to create the monster they were afraid of in the process. Now don't get me wrong, it's a fine idea, but it really feels out of place in the fourth season.

It is something that should have come up after Homelander just lets everyone on the plane die in the first season, and then use Becca and his son as the focal point of his spiralling out of Vought's control - which is something that worked well enough without the expanded backstory anyway. As it stands, it is a good scene in a really sloppy episode, and that's just the best way to describe episode four as a whole, and perhaps some elements that led up to it. Sloppy.

The season suffers from a similar problem as Star Trek: Picard's first season. The authors wanted to make it salient to <current year issue> just a little bit too much. While everything about and with Firecracker (who is basically an amalgamation of RageAfterStorm and a variety of similar alt-right female YouTubers) is perfectly salient, it also introduces a new element that needs time and attention in a season that should primarily focus on wrapping the story up. It clearly takes away time the creative team would have needed to come up with more organic ways to move the plot where they want it to go.

Edited June 23 by majestic

[BruceVC]

I am watching  S2 of House of the Dragon and as predicted its good but after watching S1 I read the book Fire and Blood which is what the TV series is based on

And books are always superior than what you can create on the screen. I doubt the TV series will follow the book completely but already I can see some similarities like how the rat catcher and gold cloak killed the prince so the TV series will  probably follow the book around who dies and who lives and how they die

Anyway, it means the excitement of not knowing  is ruined for me but I will continue to watch the series because certain things are unique 

[majestic]

Well, it reads The Acolyte - re:View, but it is a little like part one of the Star Wars Holiday Special re:View. They talk about everything else but The Acolyte. Well, almost. They talk about the show for 10 minutes or so.

Speaking of The Acoltye, the show continues to be mostly uninteresting, flat and boring (and Qimir had better turn out to be the titular Acolyte, if he's really Mae's master then the entire creative team needs to be detained). Mike and Rich got it right, the show is pretty bland mostly because 90% of the characters are cardboard cutouts, and it would not change a bit even if all the actors were white heterosexual men. They also really have a point in critics being utterly unhelpful by giving all these shows and movies a pass or even praising them for nothing but being inclusive, even if they are complete garbage, something I've complained about for a while now. It is actively hurting their cause.

Spoiler

There's also this utterly dumb plot point that Osha and Mae were created by the force, just like Anakin. Anakin being the Force Jesus was already dumb in the prequels, who had the glorious idea to approve that for The Acolyte?

The incels in the comments are pretty funny though, calling them paid Disney shills. Must have been a rough year for them, first they finally realize The Boys is satire and Homelander isn't a misunderstood hero but the villain, and then they have to watch Mike and Rich making fun of them.

[Bartimaeus]

It's not that much about The Acolyte specifically (they say it's basically maybe alright but not great and certainly not worth all the controversy), but it's nonetheless a really good discussion on how insane everything has gotten, on all sides, except for the people who just want to enjoy something decent. Diversity and representation are both good, but they're not necessarily appropriate or needed for everything all the time every time. It's also not going to make any material difference in how good or bad something is, no matter how much we're told something either is great by those who want it or is terrible by those who hate it. I hope we can eventually get past all of this and reach a happy medium where people feel like they're being represented well enough without it feeling like over-compensation for the past but also without the constant culture wars.

On a side-note, why is Wil Wheaton the most punchable interviewer any time I see the stupid bastard? Gosh. Mike talks about how if you turn something on and you don't like it, you can just turn it off, but I really don't see an easy way to tell RLM to stop putting Wil Wheaton in their Star Trek/Wars videos. Bah, humbug.

Edited Wednesday at 11:07 PM by Bartimaeus
basically basically

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Star Trek: Picard s1 episodes 1-3

......who thot it was a good idea to have Patrick Stewart doing action sequences? It's just weird to see all these action sequences while Jean-Luc either stands around or hides behind furniture.

Other than that the show is.....hollow. The Federation and Starfleet not being as wholesome as they project is not breaking new ground but it just feels underdeveloped here. Who are the 16 species that threatened to leave if the Romulans got aid/refugee status, and why the Romulans but not the Klingons or Carassians that make the Federation go isolationist? What does a ban on synthetic life actually mean? It feels like they decided on a new status quo but didn't really fill in how that got to be a status quo. Not a problem per se, but when a big part of the show is Picard being disillusioned with Starfleet you'd hope that would get a bit more thought put into it than "somehow, Palpatine has returned".

Gen V s1

Honestly better than I thought. The dichotomy between God U as a place to train supes as celebrities and as experiments to make them more....super or control/neutralize/pivot-to-video them explains why supes irl are almost uniformly awful. It's a good exploration of how Vought creates and maintains their ecosystems of Supes in a way that the main series doesn't.

Also the puppet sequences are great.

7 hours ago, majestic said:

The incels in the comments are pretty funny though, calling them paid Disney shills. Must have been a rough year for them, first they finally realize The Boys is satire and Homelander isn't a misunderstood hero but the villain, and then they have to watch Mike and Rich making fun of them.

Look bullying is bad and everything but if anyone needs bullying it's grown men who unironically use the term **** carousel while getting mad at scifi for having characters who aren't white gigachads. Not ought of some idea that it will give them character growth, but as a straight up I don't like them on a personal level.

[majestic]

On 6/26/2024 at 4:51 PM, majestic said:

(and Qimir had better turn out to be the titular Acolyte, if he's really Mae's master then the entire creative team needs to be detained).

*sigh*

[majestic]

Anyway, double post time. Just watched episode 5 of The Boys, season 4.

Flying the sheep is the new jumping the shark.

[Fionavar]

I am (re)watching Babylon 5 since I got the Bluray port. Story remains amazing ... the port not so much :?

[Amentep]

 

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

18 hours ago, majestic said:

Anyway, double post time. Just watched episode 5 of The Boys, season 4.

Flying the sheep is the new jumping the shark.

The Boys has jumped the shark quite a lot and honestly I'm fine with it, silly camp is good and should be done more instead of the hyperseiousness that is just boring as ****.

The other part of the episode, well one of the other parts, hit a bit close to home and left me feeling pretty bummed because I could very well be in a similar position as Hughie was soon. The V52 expo was completely on point though, "it's been a year since my last film, so time for a reboot" is much less satricitical than it should be.