What's on the idiot box... Part 2

[Hiro Protagonist]

Finished the mythology episodes of all 9 seasons of the X-Files including the movies. Quite surprised how the story fits all together and flows from one episode to the next. Though, it really went downhill in Season 9.

 

Now reading the Season 10 comic and it's quite an interesting take on the story.

[BruceVC]

Guys there are 2 excellent documentaries that are on CNN at the moment. I would recommend watching both, you can always download what part of the series you may have missed

 

• The Cold War : a landmark documentary

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/02/world/the-cold-war-landmark-documentary/index.html

 

No need to explain this one, its 24 episodes of pure historical significance which we still discuss

 

• Journey of the Gay Athlete

http://video.search.yahoo.com/play;_ylt=A2KLqIRiIM5SrwUAjgr7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ--?p=CNN+Journey+of+the+Gay+Athlete&vid=b7a91bf7cafc5ef6a95b73966d81e10b&l=00%3A31&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVJ.414479419292%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZBn3lpecT8Q&tit=CNN+International+%26quot%3BJourney+Of+The+Gay+Athlete%26quot%3B+promo&c=0&sigr=11asj4211&sigt=11utt438j&age=0&fr=yfp-t-914&tt=b

 

This is a very relevant documentary that highlights the discrimination that gay athletes have suffered under and how things are changing.  Its happening this Saturday

[Walsingham]

 

The humor was great, I lol'd quite a few times. But I did feel the mystery portion was lost/unfocused. Not that I mind. I'm sure the next two episodes will focus on that more. The first eps. had a lot to do/settle/setup.

 

To be fair, the 2nd episode is more a mishmash of "small cases", some of which are connected. It's a time jumpey one with lots of flashback sequences.

 

 

Timey wimey jumpey?

 

*punches Raithe*

[Hiro Protagonist]

Been catching up on Firefly, the Serenity comic tie-in 'Those Left Behind',  and Serenity movie. The comic tie-in is a must read as you find out what happens to the two guys with hands of blue and why they don't appear in the movie. Also read the comics after the movie.

 

Also, been playing the pnp rpg Traveller for the last 8 months and I can see there's a lot of similarities. There's a rumour that Joss Whedon played this in College and based Firefly on Traveller. A lot of internet debates whether he did base it on Traveller. There's compelling (circumstantial) evidence this is the case which makes me appreciate the TV series/Movie even more.

[Raithe]

Been catching up on Firefly, the Serenity comic tie-in 'Those Left Behind',  and Serenity movie. The comic tie-in is a must read as you find out what happens to the two guys with hands of blue and why they don't appear in the movie. Also read the comics after the movie.

 

Also, been playing the pnp rpg Traveller for the last 8 months and I can see there's a lot of similarities. There's a rumour that Joss Whedon played this in College and based Firefly on Traveller. A lot of internet debates whether he did base it on Traveller. There's compelling (circumstantial) evidence this is the case which makes me appreciate the TV series/Movie even more.

 

You might want to look up "The Shepherd's Tale" for the backstory of Shepherd Book's life if you're working through the Firefly universe. Also of note, they're soon to be releasing Firefly season 2 as a comic, ala Buffy season 8.

[Hiro Protagonist]

You might want to look up "The Shepherd's Tale" for the backstory of Shepherd Book's life if you're working through the Firefly universe. Also of note, they're soon to be releasing Firefly season 2 as a comic, ala Buffy season 8.

 

Yep, great story. I have all the comics. This is how I watch/read Firefly and Serenity.

 

Firefly - TV Series (2002-2003)

Serenity - Those Left behind (3 issue mini-series comic) (Jul-Sep 2005) movie tie-in

Serenity - Movie (2005)

Serenity - Better Days (3 issue mini-series comic) (Mar-May 2008)

Serenity - The Other Half (2008) (short story in Dark Horse Presents)

Serenity - Float Out (1 issue comic) (Jun 2010)

Serenity - The Shepherd's Tale (2010)

Serenity - Downtime (Nov 2010)

Serenity - Firefly Class 03-K64 (Free Comic Book Day issue) (May 2012)

[rjshae]

I still still can't seem to get into Agents of Shield, and yet I can't stop watching it. What's up with that? Must be subliminal mind-control technology.

[Oerwinde]

At least Skye was useful in this one.

[Raithe]

So did anyone give Intelligence a try?

[LadyCrimson]

Still keeping up with Almost Human, at least via VoD. It still feels like a show that has a lot of promise but isn't quite there yet.

 

I haven't kept up with Agents of Shield or whatever it's called...maybe in another few weeks I'll try watching a couple more.

 

2nd episode of Sherlock was sorta the same as the first, with a lot of lol humor but no mystery. Well, there is a mystery, but it's almost incidental. Which is still fine, because of the main content/setting, but I hope they go back to being more about the problem solving. Is there just 3 episodes this series as well, or did they extend it to be more? Because if it's just 3, I'm a little confuddled what the 3rd/last one would do to feel like a closer.

[Hiro Protagonist]

So did anyone give Intelligence a try?

 

Yes, and aaahhh. It was like watching a b-grade movie. Very cliché. And it feels like you've seen all this before, especially with the actors who've played parts in previous TV shows. And halfway through the episode, you could tell what was going to happen at the end of the episode.

 

Basically:

 

We now know what happened when Sawyer got up to after the island. Of course this is just Sawyer with a chip in his head, his attitude is the same (Holloway produces this show)

Dr. Phlox from Star Trek and even some Rosalind Chao from Star Trek appears. He even comes across as Dr. Phlox from Star Trek.

We also have Marg Helgenberger who kept missing out on promotions in CSI getting a promotion to another US Government Department, running the Cyber Command Division.

We also find out where Red Riding Hood from Once Upon a Time went and why she hasn't been seen since in OUaT. The actress is quite good in this despite the script.

 

But it did pretty well in the U.S. 16.6 M viewers, not bad, against ABC's Killer women that did like 2M. Even though it's very B-Grade with the story and acting, I'll keep watching it.

[LadyCrimson]

Yes, and aaahhh. It was like watching a b-grade movie. Very cliché. And it feels like you've seen all this before, especially with the actors who've played parts in previous TV shows.

I find, as the years go on, that this is how I feel about 98% of TV and films, even when they're mega-popular with a zillion professional kudos and fans.

 

Sci-fi/fantasy seems to be particularly vulnerable to this "been there/cliche" syndrome. Maybe because it's harder to suspend disbelief and just accept common (and often fairly unavoidable) plot and character cliches and familiar actors in settings that already require a lot of suspension of disbelief.

 

I'd forgotten about this show ... I'll have to check it out now.

[LadyCrimson]

Ok, I watched Intelligence over lunch. I don't think it gave me a b-movie film feeling so much as a 90's sci-fi show feeling, only with better CGI sequences (when they try to show the "net-computer" brain working) and camera lenses.

 

I think the main problem - outside of the concept being rather 1-note gimmick - is the lead actor (or his chr) doesn't have much charisma, far as I'm concerned. Better than a stick of wood, but not by a whole lot. He's a handsome enough fella with some quirky lines to say, but doesn't engender much beyond that. By that I mean, for me, O'Neill *was* SG-1, (not to take away from the rest of the good SG-1 cast which bounced wonderfully off of him), and without him in a leading role it was never the same. That's missing in Intelligence. I did like the female bodyguard chr. tho.

 

And could improve as we get to know the chrs. more.

[Raithe]

Heh, I thought this was a nice article on some of the points it raised... (for those Doctor Who fans)

 

Tor - The Problem with River Song

 

 

With the Eleventh Doctor now passed into Whovian memory, it would seem that the Era of River Song has ended as well. And while it should be bittersweet, it is also honestly something of a relief.

 

Let me be clear—I happen to love River Song. Well, let me be clearer... I love what River Song might have been. And it’s telling that what she became is a symptom of everything that fans are lately bemoaning about Doctor Who.

 

 

The mysterious introduction to River Song in season four’s “Silence in the Library”/“Forests of the Dead” two-parter leaves a trail of clues that paints a fascinating picture of her relationship with the Doctor. We find out that she knows the Doctor intimately, that they might even be married, that he comes whenever she calls him, that she’s an archaeologist with a taste for adventure and her sexuality has more in common with Captain Jack Harkness than any other character on the series. (Remember, she states that Mr. Lux is the only remember of their expedition that she doesn’t fancy and that she’s dated androids before. Not too picky, then.) We know that her Doctor is a future incarnation, and it seems possible that she has bounced off of other versions as well, given her lack of surprise at running into Ten.

 

What makes River interesting is the fact that she is remote for the Doctor. Rather than living on the TARDIS, we learn that she is largely in charge of their time together; she calls the Doctor, he attends, they run off and enjoy the time. Then he deposits her back where she was. It was potential for the Doctor to have a relationship with a companion that was nearly angst-free. If River didn’t travel with him fulltime, there was no danger of losing her too quickly. The next time a note reached him on the psychic paper it could have been three days from the last trip for her, but decades for him.

 

In River’s introduction, she has all the power: she is the one who calls the Doctor, she is the one who scolds him when he’s being obstinate, she is the one who rallies the group and moves them along. In a telling move for the Davies era, it is she who grabs the Doctor’s hand when the first run together, not the other way around. She is taking him on as a companion in that first meeting. Ten is so moved by her near-death plea to preserve their time together, to never rewrite a word, that the loss of her hurts him as though he has known her for centuries. We’re left with the impression that she is one tough act to beat.

 

Then River returns.

 

And she’s still feisty and competent and one step ahead. But everything that makes her special, that recommended her from the get-go is stripped away from her step by step in the service of complex plotting. It starts with the revelation that she is in prison for a terrible crime—the murder of the Doctor. He’ll come when she calls, certainly, but only to free her from the tedium of a dark cell. So much for having a life of her own on the other side. To make things more involved, the Doctor finds out that River has a closer connection to him than he had anticipated; she’s the daughter of his current companions. And then she is kidnapped as an infant and brainwashed to kill him. So River essentially spends her formative years with an existence that orbits around the Time Lord. She has no ambitions of her own, no purpose beyond his destruction.

 

Once River realizes that killing the Doctor might be a mistake, she promptly gives up all of her regenerative energy to save his life. (You can’t really blame her for the choice; she’s just beginning to recover from her conditioned psychopathy and her parents essentially tell her to save him.) So she winks away thousands of years of her own future for a man she really doesn’t know, having no idea how that’s going to turn out for her. And then in order to get to know that man she saved better, she becomes an archaeologist... so she can find out everything possible about the Doctor.

 

Let me reiterate; River Song’s occupation as an archaeologist is retconned so that it’s all due to her obsession with a man who is nearly a stranger to her. Not because she adores history, or loves to explore, or needs to answer unanswerable questions. It’s because she doesn’t know her future boyfriend all that well, and textbooks are the easiest place to find him at the start.

 

Because outside forces still want her to do the job she was programmed for from birth, River is press-ganged to kill the Doctor once again. But rather than let that happen—she went to school to learn to love the guy, come on!—she decides that she’d rather destroy the universe than fulfill that function. But the universe has to be righted, so to appease her, the Doctor agrees to marry her.

 

So to put it another way, their marriage is not due to any sort of trust built or great romance between them. It is to mollify River the way one might a tantrum-throwing child. “Hey, if I put on a fake ceremony and agree to make you important to me, will you not let every living thing die? Thanks.” Didn’t River get her education in the 51st century? Isn’t is possible (or even likely) that 3000 years from now there will be passages and rights outside of the marriage that allow people to show their affection for and dedication to each other? But apparently being the Doctor’s wife is everything that she was ever hoping for, and she promptly puts the timeline right once they give their ‘I do’s.

 

In addition, River Song’s sexuality is practically never addressed again. Who knows about those liaisons that she claims in the future? They’re clearly irrelevant once her importance to the Doctor is established. Which isn’t to say that River Song’s sexuality ever needed to be important to her character—but establishing a person with a wide range of tastes in that regard and then proceeding to ignore those tastes once that person is in a heteronormative relationship… well, it sort of leaves a bad taste in the mouth. As though it was used in the first place to make her ever-so-intriguing and then discarded as soon as she finally had the man in her life.

 

River’s journey, while heartbreaking, exists as a simple countdown. When we first meet her, she is surprised to find that Ten doesn’t know her, and that lack of recognition is immediately painful. But once we get to the heart of that dilemma in Season 6, we learn that River has always existed in this odd limbo with the Doctor, waiting for the inevitable point in their history where he knows her less and less with each encounter. Her confusion in their first meeting no longer plays—it should have been resignation, perhaps, but not the shock that we see in the Library. Is she just acting, then? We know she is pretending through half of her time with Eleven and Amy because there are things she is not allowed to reveal for fear of confusing the whole timeline.

 

Everything that makes this character interesting and dynamic is pared down so she makes a good mystery, something to fit into Steven Moffat’s puzzle box universe. What’s distressing is that every time he explains a bit of her away, we’re left with the clarified image of a woman who is entirely defined by her relationship to one person, specifically to one man. And while the Doctor does clearly have feelings for River, they are not of the same caliber, not nearly so encompassing. So on top of all this, she’s putting all of her life’s energy (quite literally) into a person who doesn’t focus the same sort of passion on her. It diminishes River, makes her so much less than she seemed in the beginning, an adventurer with her own plans and dreams, someone who the Doctor had to respect and acquiesce to on occasion. Because Gallifrey forbid the Doctor ever has to answer to anyone other than himself.

 

And this is in keeping with many problems fans pick out as Steven Moffat continues building his own mythology with the show. The Weeping Angels, one of the most terrifying villains on television after a single appearance, have now been reduced to gimmicky pop-ups that barely hold up under scrutiny. They are meant to “kill you nicely,” but suddenly in Season 5, they have an army and will blow a hole in the universe. One of them is the Statue of Liberty, and can apparently amble through New York City without being seen by a single person. Angels are waiting in a forest to grab Clara in “The Time of the Doctor” because… just because. Because scary. Because danger. Danger that has nothing to do with the central plot of the episode.

 

The Silent arc is the same. Those besuited fellas desperately needed explaining. So in the twilight hour we get something to grab onto—Why are they working with an organization that wants to kill the Doctor? They were commandeered by a splinter sect of a religion that we’ve never heard of previously. A religion with a great deal of power that we’ve never seen before. A one-off, the same as the splinter sect that snapped the Silents up (because we only find out that Madame Kovarian and her cohorts are a religious lot in “A Good Man Goes to War” and it is never really brought up again). These ideas are not laid out ahead of time—they are decided in the moment, for whatever the plot needs to create a lot of explosions and heroism.

 

Take this example: The Pandorica will open and Silence will fall. Except then the Pandorica did open and there was no Silence, so now… Silence will fall when the Question is asked! Except it didn’t the first dozen times we were told that the Question was Doctor Who, so now… the Question comes on the Fields of Trenzalore, at the Fall of the Eleventh? These aren’t clues—they are morphing tag lines to keep people interested and guessing. But they have to shift every time the story shifts and no longer accommodates the same mystery.

The same as most details surrounding River Song’s entire character.

 

Which isn't to say that there are no affecting moments on the show where River is concerned—it’s quite the opposite, in fact. But those moments are not grounded in any sort of devotion to her continual development as a character. You see the frustration, don’t you? It’s easy to gloss over, to just watch and enjoy, but on more careful inspection you find that nothing means anything. Everything just gets written over for a bigger speech, more tears, another world/universe saved because the Doctor is brilliant and that’s what he does. And the Doctor is brilliant, but so are the people he loves. So are Amy and Rory, so is Craig, so were Sarah Jane and the Brigadier, Rose and Martha and Donna, so is Captain Jack Harness. So is River Song.

 

So was River Song. But she never quite showed us her real potential. We never got to see her date an android or excavate a lost civilization or save an entire species because the Doctor comes when she calls and no one else.

And that’s the woman I feel cheated out of knowing.

[Oerwinde]

 

 

The humor was great, I lol'd quite a few times. But I did feel the mystery portion was lost/unfocused. Not that I mind. I'm sure the next two episodes will focus on that more. The first eps. had a lot to do/settle/setup.

To be fair, the 2nd episode is more a mishmash of "small cases", some of which are connected. It's a time jumpey one with lots of flashback sequences.

I liked it, wife's response was essentially "if the season only has 3 episodes, why would they throw one away with a filler episode?"

[Raithe]

Because it's not a filler, it's an important arc for the characters.  Sure, it wasn't really about the crime or the murders. It was an episode that looked at the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

[ManifestedISO]

 

So did anyone give Intelligence a try?

 

Yes, and aaahhh. It was like watching a b-grade movie. Very cliché. And it feels like you've seen all this before, especially with the actors who've played parts in previous TV shows. And halfway through the episode, you could tell what was going to happen at the end of the episode.

 

Basically:

 

We now know what happened when Sawyer got up to after the island. Of course this is just Sawyer with a chip in his head, his attitude is the same (Holloway produces this show)

Dr. Phlox from Star Trek and even some Rosalind Chao from Star Trek appears. He even comes across as Dr. Phlox from Star Trek.

We also have Marg Helgenberger who kept missing out on promotions in CSI getting a promotion to another US Government Department, running the Cyber Command Division.

We also find out where Red Riding Hood from Once Upon a Time went and why she hasn't been seen since in OUaT. The actress is quite good in this despite the script.

 

But it did pretty well in the U.S. 16.6 M viewers, not bad, against ABC's Killer women that did like 2M. Even though it's very B-Grade with the story and acting, I'll keep watching it.

 

 

So that WAS Keiko ... 

[Zoraptor]

 

Heh, I thought this was a nice article on some of the points it raised... (for those Doctor Who fans)

 

Tor - The Problem with River Song

I'd take issue with some of those criticisms, though I think the heart of them is fair enough- Moffat's tenure has been a mass of good (theoretical) ideas with jumbled execution coupled to an almost Lucas like attraction for ideas whose main reason for existence is to be 'cool', even if they make no sense. Dr Song is not immune to that.

 

But, the show is Dr Who, not Dr Song. Yeah, we see Captain Jack trying to pick up anything with a pulse, but we don't need to see River do it. Nor do we really need more non 'heteronormative' relationships given Jack and the xeno lesbians are more than most shows ever have. All companions orbit the doctor, he is the title character. If it's Torchwood or SJA then they do not orbit the doctor since it's their show (even if he is a significant, unseen inspiration). Without a rewatch I'd be straining to be sure but my presumption was that River was hoping the Tennant doctor was actually a later incarnation, and she was hoping she'd still be relevant to him- in fact that's the only explanation that makes any sense given she's been in a linear timeline wrt to the Smith Doctor incarnation. Given the events in the xmas special we can understand why she'd hope for it, too.

 

But but, given that she was his wife you would expect it to be Alex Kingston showing up in the Xmas special rather than (or in addition to) Kieron Gillen, even if showing Amy did have the advantage of being a closed circle and avoiding the maudlin morass of Tennant's finale's end scenes.

 

Overall he's really critiquing Moffat rather than the treatment of any specific character.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

But but, given that she was his wife you would expect it to be Alex Kingston showing up in the Xmas special rather than (or in addition to) Kieron Gillen, even if showing Amy did have the advantage of being a closed circle and avoiding the maudlin morass of Tennant's finale's end scenes.

I thought Kieron Gillen was busy writing comics about Super-Nazis and 20ish LGBT superheroes?

 

I do agree with your point though. Moffat's Dr. Who didn't feel focused on The Doctor as much as the supporting characters and suffered from it.

[Oerwinde]

So WWE announced the WWE network starting up in February. 10 bucks a month gets you every pay-per-view (6 month commitment), which considering its around 50-60 bucks per PPV is a damned good deal, but it also gets you new original programming, as well as every past PPV from WWE, WCW, and ECW and old episodes of RAW and Smackdown. Essentially its WWE netflix.

 

I don't know how many WWE fans are on here, but if I didn't have trouble finishing one 3 hour episode of RAW every week, I would be all over this.

[LadyCrimson]

Because it's not a filler, it's an important arc for the characters.  Sure, it wasn't really about the crime or the murders. It was an episode that looked at the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

Fleshing out their personal relationship is fine, but the way they did it works better when you have a season of 13-24 episodes to work with. When you only have 4.5 hours it starts to feel more like extraneous fluff because it could be done a lot more succinctly then they've been doing it.

 

Edit: To repeat myself, it's not that it's not quite enjoyable, what they're doing. But when I watch something called Sherlock, I typically want to see the "great mind" pitted against some intriguing/mind-baffling mystery ... that which attracted me to the Sherlock stories/mythology. Not a humorous romp about relationships.

[Hiro Protagonist]

American Horror Story Coven. Watched the first 5 episodes and this is great. Angela Bassett looks amazing for her age and Kathy Bates just nails it. Hilarious when Kathy Bates is watching TV and Obama is on. Lies!!!!

[Volourn]

"So WWE announced the WWE network starting up in February. 10 bucks a month gets you every pay-per-view (6 month commitment), which considering its around 50-60 bucks per PPV is a damned good deal, but it also gets you new original programming, as well as every past PPV from WWE, WCW, and ECW and old episodes of RAW and Smackdown. Essentially its WWE netflix.

 

I don't know how many WWE fans are on here, but if I didn't have trouble finishing one 3 hour episode of RAW every week, I would be all over this."

 

10 years ago I would be all over this as I enjoyed wrestling. haven't watched it in years though. But, for any current wrestling fans, this is pretty much the definition of a mustbuy.

[Hurlshort]

I used to really enjoy that reality show where people competed for a spot on the WWE rosters.  It was interesting learning all the technical skills and watching them grow as athletes and performers.

[Labadal]

Watched 2 episodes of Boardwalk Empire. One of my favorite characters died. You died like a hero, not.