What's on the idiot box?

[Fiach]

I don't get why nobody seems to write about P.K. **** tv show Electric Dreams. I've just watched the first two episodes and it was really good. Shouldn't there be like... way more talk about it on the internet?

The average reviews aren't really great here, PKD stuff is hard to pull off visually imo BR would be the exception rather than the rule, I'll check it out though, cheers!

[Raithe]

In part, it was produced by Channel 4 in the UK. Which might explain why it hasn't had a large media hype up to raise awareness.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mLR1IlTeqs

[Hiro Protagonist]

I'm waiting for all the episodes to come out and then I'll binge watch it. From what I'm hearing, some of the episodes have been either average or good.

[ShadySands]

I don't like that it's on a streaming service but they are releasing episodes like a regular show. Netflix has my brain wired to thinking streaming means bingeable.

 

I finally watched the first episode and I liked it even though I agree with pretty much all of the criticisms leveled against it.

Edited September 29, 2017 by ShadySands

[Lexx]

Yes, it's not perfect, but I liked it quite a lot anyway. Somewhat reminded me a lot of the old Outer Limits, which I liked as well.

[Fiach]

Ozark

 

I suppose it would be like Breaking Bad, from a money laundering perspective.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5071412/

 

https://youtu.be/5hAXVqrljbs

[injurai]

Been rewatching Arrested Development, I'm not ready for a serious Jason. Is Ozark good?

[Fiach]

Been rewatching Arrested Development, I'm not ready for a serious Jason. Is Ozark good?

Basically it's like B/Bad, insofar as it's about a civilian family, out of their depth, getting inadvertently involved with the Mexican cartel, when they become money launderers for the cartel, they have to move to Ozark and set up a new life and launder 500kk for the cartel.

 

It's quite violent, produced and directed by Bateman. I like it, YMMV

[majestic]

So apparently First Officer is a rank in Starfleet rather than a position a commissioned officer holds.

 

 

And Starfleet/Captain Malfoy is secretly developing fungoid transwarp gateway technology that is based on the theory of panspermia, and when an experiment goes south near the Klingon border and the engineer in charge of the research project asks the very valid question why top secret research is being done within range of Klingon raiding parties he gets chewed out that "there's a war on!".

 

 

I wish I was making that up. Who writes these scripts?

 

Now that this is out of the way I'll freely admit that I liked this episode much more than the first two, but I think it should be its own show with its own lore. This isn't Star Trek and slapping the Star Trek label on it and having it play out in the Star Trek universe isn't an asset, it's a detriment.

[Fiach]

 

So, right, Discovery.

 

Not sure where to put it yet. It was better than what I expected (then again I expected Into Darkness levels of bad) - except for the Klingons. And there I thought Into Darkness' Blingons were terrible.

 

So, a few observations:

• Trek can be good with wartime stories as we saw in Deep Space 9. Of that there was little in the two episodes so far, but it's too early to tell at any rate.
• The Klingons suck. Everything about them sucks. Their ships, their clothes, even their way of talking. What the hell?
• I get why the new Klingons are essentially religious fanatics as enemies for the Federation. The Klingons of old were Soviet stand-ins, now it's holy war. That might actually not be so bad... if this weren't...
• ...a prequel. Seriously, the Soviets turned into religious fanatics?
• Anyone remember the TNG episode where some Klingon religious weirdos cloned Khaless and the Empire's reaction to it was initially "burn it with fire" and Worf convinced them to use the clone for political means?
• God I hate prequels.
• So fancy hologram communication on pre-Kirk old Starfleet ships?
• It's a prequel.
• Let's make up Kelpiens, why not. Enterprise made up crap all the time.
• Vulcan subspace telepathy...
• Did I mention that prequels suck?
• Gromnir has it right, Rihanna is the worst first officer ever (I know it's not Rihanna).

Looking forward to see Captain Malfoy in action. Gonna be interesting to see how much that weird me out.

 

In terms of rating I'd put it above Broken Bow but below every other Star Trek pilot so far. *sigh*

Thanks for the insights, I was looking forward to this, but now, not so much, cheers!

On the whole I pretty much enjoyed this, yes I had to park along of star trek opinions I had, but I can see how they had a dilemma of tarting it up for a new modern audience , but try not to alienate TOS fans. It was fun seeing the old communicators again.

[Gfted1]

The Orville

 

Started out crap but has gotten better with every episode, imo.

 

Ghosted

 

Meh.

[Zoraptor]

The Orville is pretty good, and I was fully prepared to hate it. Pretty derivative, though derivative of things that worked, and some of the humour (and the space combat last ep) feels like there was a Fox Exec looking over their shoulders to make sure a quota was maintained but otherwise even their stunt casting has been on point. It feels more like TNG than anything including Trek has since.

 

Haven't seen Star Trek Discovery yet but I have seen a million and one jokes about its acronym.

[Gorgon]

I like new edgy Star Trek, Reminds me of Mass Effect.  Lots of intense personal drama. It bears no relation to any of the old formula, but time kinda ran out for the old formula anyway.  When people say it's not very Star Trek they are probably right. 

 

The main character is not very likable though, which is a problem since it's not about the crew anymore.  We'll see. 

[ManifestedISO]

sorry, I can't help it, it's a sickness, selective, cruel ... the letters 'STD' form an initialism, whereas initials forming a spoken word (NASA) constitute an acronym.

 

 

Lucifer premiere was fine, a little cheeky, needs more demon. In case Maze did show up for the last half ... switched over midway to re-brief last season's Super G finale ahead of Monday's premiere. 

[ShadySands]

sorry, I can't help it, it's a sickness, selective, cruel ... the letters 'STD' form an initialism, whereas initials forming a spoken word (NASA) constitute an acronym.

 

 

Lucifer premiere was fine, a little cheeky, needs more demon. In case Maze did show up for the last half ... switched over midway to re-brief last season's Super G finale ahead of Monday's premiere. 

She didn't show

 

Not sure I like the setup for this new bad guy. If he is indeed responsible for Lucifer's new groove I hope they have a good explanation for it.

[Gfted1]

So Im walking by my TV yesterday and I hear: *bang*bang*bang* "Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

 

I gotta watch The Godfather one of these days.

[Gorgon]

So you are one of those weirdos who have never seen The Godfather or The Wire and whose duty it is to be constantly reminded of this particular failing of their life.  

[Gfted1]

So you are one of those weirdos who have never seen The Godfather or The Wire and whose duty it is to be constantly reminded of this particular failing of their life.  

 

And then some! Ive also never seen: Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Its a Wonderful Life, Citizen Cane, etc. *runs*

[algroth]

So you are one of those weirdos who have never seen The Godfather or The Wire and whose duty it is to be constantly reminded of this particular failing of their life.  

 

Well, at least it's something that can be easily remedied. I'm also pretty slow on watching TV shows so I still haven't seen The Wire.

[Amentep]

 

So you are one of those weirdos who have never seen The Godfather or The Wire and whose duty it is to be constantly reminded of this particular failing of their life.  

 

And then some! Ive also never seen: Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Its a Wonderful Life, Citizen Cane, etc. *runs*

 

 

"Kane"

[Gorgon]

 

So you are one of those weirdos who have never seen The Godfather or The Wire and whose duty it is to be constantly reminded of this particular failing of their life.  

 

And then some! Ive also never seen: Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Its a Wonderful Life, Citizen Cane, etc. *runs*

 

They made me sit through those in film class when i was a kid. They're all terrible. 

 

Well, Casablanca isn't terrible. It's kinda charming actually, but the rest.  Don't bother. 

[ShadySands]

I've only seen Casablanca from that list

 

The others just never appealed to me

[Gromnir]

 

 

So you are one of those weirdos who have never seen The Godfather or The Wire and whose duty it is to be constantly reminded of this particular failing of their life.  

 

And then some! Ive also never seen: Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Its a Wonderful Life, Citizen Cane, etc. *runs*

 

They made me sit through those in film class when i was a kid. They're all terrible. 

 

Well, Casablanca isn't terrible. It's kinda charming actually, but the rest.  Don't bother. 

 

it's a wonderful life is schmaltzy even by capra standards. vivien leigh is an actress we like to look at, but have never much appreciated her save in small doses, and gone with the wind is seeming interminable. casablanca is not even making our top five humphrey bogart films, so we can't put it on any kinda best film list. 

 

citizen kane, however, is an awe inspiring movie on multiple levels. is kinda a bc/ad moment.  as far as filmmaking is concerned, citizen kane is the equivalent o' the invention o' the transistor.   before kane, movies was something, and after kane they were something else. kane introduced technical and narrative film techniques which any modern movie viewer will tend to miss as stuff such as montage and deep focus is staples in 2017.  am only able to imagine what it were like for a 1940s craftsman o' movie making to be seeing citizen kane for the first time.  sure, the acting in kane is beyond reproach but, particular given modern tastes, the storytelling is competent w/o being genuine evocative. the making of kane is actual more compelling than the story o' kane. am having a hard time recommending kane to casual fans o' cinema.  even so, for the film fan, and for the film industry itself, kane changed everything.  deserves the recognition it garners. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited October 4, 2017 by Gromnir

[Blarghagh]

Yeah, I hated watching all of those but seriously mad props to Citizen Kane for kicking record-the-theatre-play to the curb and basically inventing the modern visual storytelling methods for film as a medium. I don't have to enjoy something to respect it.

[Hurlshort]

North by Northwest is worth seeing though. It holds up.