The missus has been re-watching the first season of 24 and I've been eavesdroppingdamn it was a good season. I <3 Palmer.
The missus has been re-watching the first season of 24 and I've been eavesdropping
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Watched through the new season of 24 recently, it was actually pretty good. Better than the series has been in a long time. Having only 12 episodes to fill lets them avoid all of those excessively silly plot twists they had to do to fit their gimmick.
Anyone here watch Continuum? I recently got into it on a friend's recommendation. It's obviously got its uneven bits, but I've generally enjoyed it. It almost seems, though, like they're running out of stories to tell. I thought the first season was really fresh and exciting with lots of fun moments; the second season was still strong because of their addressing interesting predestination/time loop issues (though the big 'reveal' wasn't such a surprise). I'd say the entire third season was a giant WTF, though, especially the cliffhanger at the end. I really hope it doesn't get cancelled so I get a chance to see how it pans out.
One thing that I find frustrating about watching these shows is that the writers often feel the need to add elaborations upon elaborations so that can stretch out additional seasons. It's really bad with the likes of Lost or Fringe, but also is pretty obvious in Continuum. What this often requires is twisting a character and their motivation into knots just to meet some absurd plot point, which I find very frustrating. What drives these shows is generally not the plot (though of course plot is important), but the chemistry between the characters. Messing with their motivations often results in subpar results just to eke out some additional narrative tension. (A recent binge-watch of mine, Chuck, is particularly guilty of this.) Perhaps I'm seeing it more now that I watch entire TV series at once on Netflix (I can blow through a 13-episode season every week or so by watching during breakfast and while doing chores) - spread out over a year, maybe it would be less obvious. But it just seems like lazy writing to me; if you're going to have a show with an overarching narrative structure (rather than an episodic format), then give the format the respect it deserves.
I also recently finished watching House in order rather than sporadically seeing an episode when it's on. That's a show that should have been cancelled several years before it was... and was only saved from utter obscurity by a truly stellar performance on the part of Hugh Laurie. That series finale seriously sucked, though - in fact the entire eighth season sucked.
That's why I like Babylon 5 so much - the script for 5 seasons existed from the beginning and they actually managed to stay true to it.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
7 Deadly Sins - I think I'll use the first one about Gluttony for my curriculum about dietary habits
(Just have to find some German subtitles first. Maybe I'll create them myself.)
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
I've actually enjoyed watching cable TV since channels like History (1 and 2), Bio, FYI and Food Network got in the game. Not sure I'd pay extra if they get too popular like Showtime or HBO did, but then I could use Netflix or YouTube. I don't mind watching shows taped five years ago, let alone sitcoms from the 70's, or movies filmed in the 40's.
We started Teen Wolf...it's a dirty guilty pleasure.
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It's over a decade old now but 8 Simple Rules (originally 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter) is on as a box-set on Sky and we've been watching it pretty much back to back I've the last couple of days. Very funny show, though it's quite different watching it now as a father to a daughter (thankfully many years from teen lol) than when it was first out originally.
Awkward though watching it whenever the father makes remarks to his daughters along the lines of "I won't be around forever" knowing that he died in real life and hence in the show. I never really watched it past his funeral in the original run, today got to the point he dies and they mourn him. Very sad, cried a bit at that.
Never noticed it before either but Bridget could be a teenage Penny (Big Bang Theory, same actress). The character in Big Bang especially early on is very similar.
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
I haven't watched that one....
But you know, there aren't words for how much I feel their should be rules for dating my teenage daughter (she's grown up to be pretty cute, too).
It makes me pretty happy that her first "boyfriend" is total geek, though.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Are you kidding? It's the geeks you need to watch out for, they're the worst. Regular boys are just regular horrible, but geeks have been molded by the deepest darkest demons of the internet.
Re. Wiggin's observations, I agree and I have noticed it too. I tell myself it's partly because of poor creative direction and occasional idiot writers. We haven't resumed watching Conitnuum yet, but probably will at some point. Not sure about Chuck and Supernatural. I keep meaning to check out Teen Wolf but I always forget
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I don't think it's possible to find not-geeks who like anime, though.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Exactly, and the line between "anime" and "what the fuck kinda horror was I just subjected to?" is thin and smudged
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I recommended it on here back during Season 2, but I agree that the third season wasn't as good. It felt tonally different from the first two seasons, and a lot of it felt like the writers weren't really sure where they were going with it. They also had characters pass around the stupid ball a bit to keep the plot going where they wanted, which always annoys me.
I believe the correct term is actually Idiot Ball.
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The Honourable Woman
Stars an excellent Maggie Gyllenhall.
An eight-part BBC drama, which just finished.
Story of Nessa Stein, head of the Stein Group, a large Israeli tech-company, which is in the process of rolling out fibre-optic across the West Bank.
Political intrigue, assassinations, espionage, corrupt manouverings, familial fallouts, betrayal, all against the backdrop of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Best teevee I've seen in a long time. Had us gripped from start to finish.
Catch it if you can.
I do not like the new Doctor. Maybe he needs time to grow into the role, or it was just the poor story of the new episode, but Capaldi seems to be trying to be as goofy as Matt Smith, but just isn't capable of pulling it off. I'm not sure this new Doctor is going to work unless they shift to more serious science fiction.
It had a couple of moments, we'll see.
On the other hand, pudding brain has become the new insult of choice in my house.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
The Bones kill off
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Haha, tonight I saw a show about people watching TV
Congratulations America
Yeah, Better Half and I had a big WTF on that.The Bones kill off
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Come on, the minute they showed the peppy terror bearing piglets you knew shit was gonna go down, these things are standardized.The Bones kill off
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Started watching 'The Strain' recently, a half-way decent adaptation of the original Dracula story with some x-filey additions.
Congratulations America
The books fall apart about shortly into the second title. You could tell immediately that they were written solely to be turned into a movie of some sort. Hopefully it does better on TV cause the concept was cool, but the execution was horrible.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
He's still not growing on me.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Hahaha
I'm still watching The Good Wife, it's fun.
But tonight, with a guest role played by Robert Sean Leonard:
Spoiler:
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Haven't seen the last episode yet, but he hasn't grown on me yet either. It also doesn't help that I never really liked Clara.
We've been catching up on White Collar. Still hella good and survived the infamous Season 3 syndrome
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Yeah, I keep hoping we're close to time for her to be replaced.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
So I'm watching the 4th season of Walking Dead now that it's out on Netflix, and this has been bothering me for a while. These are slow zombies, and the infection only spreads from bites or death, right? That means that a zombie outbreak is bound to burn itself out in a few years. Let's imagine that 0.1% of the global population escaped being zombified immediately, giving us a population of about 7 million humans vs. 1k times that many zombies (let's assume initial zombie losses to combat/destruction are limited). You might imagine that's on the high end for surviving humans, but let's think about the state of Georgia, where most of the show is set. Their initial population was about 10 million, so let's figure we're talking 10,000 live humans after the outbreak. Given the relatively large number of live humans our intrepid crew have encountered - certainly several hundred - it's not crazy to think this is a reasonable estimate. We could go further and suggest only a 0.01% survival, though (which is very conservative) and the same logic basically holds.
The problem is that zombie numbers are fundamentally limited. Their growth rate is initially exponential, yes, but in later stages of the epidemic it's very hard for zombies to find those last 0.1% of humans and zombify them, especially since there's been selection and learning on the part of the humans. We routinely see the average human killing several zombies a day - some kill dozens a day, others none, but in the end I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't at least one zombie kill per human. At that rate, zombies would be largely eradicated in 3 years. Even assuming a lower kill rate or a higher initial casualty rate, you're still not going to get an epidemic going much further than a few decades.
So what's all of the fuss about? A concerted effort by a group of organized humans could significantly thin the number of zombies within a year or two; as zombie numbers dropped, human casualties (already lowish) would continue to decrease as travel/scavenging/etc. became safer. The material needs of these humans wouldn't be that hard to meet - if you're sitting on the material possessions of a civilization that fed, clothed, and fueled 1k-fold more people, it's not hard to find what you need.
I buy into the argument that you could get wholesale slaughter and a general destruction of civilization in the early stages of an outbreak, even with 'slow' zombies - Brooks' thoughtful treatment of this in the Battle of Yonkers is a good way to imagine how policymakers would screw up until you had well-established outbreaks in every major city, which would cause chaos and further slaughter. But I don't understand the despair of the people living in the endgame. The supply of zombies is inherently limited - humans can breed, but zombies have to wait for an unattended human to die to increase their forces. They lack speed and cunning, and are easily thwarted by rudimentary fortifications... and their major advantages of firstly surprise, and secondly numbers, are steadily decreased as an outbreak proceeds. It's a pretty basic reality.
For that matter, you have to wonder at the use of conventional weaponry against zombies. Surely some remnants of the military must have survived, and it makes a lot of sense to use thermobaric weaponry against zombie herds. High explosive ordnance won't do much unless you hit their heads, but flames and powerful shockwaves would probably be very effective. You could take out hundreds or thousands of zombies at once.
I think I spend too much time thinking about this. But it's just such a fascinating thought exercise, and even though I've really appreciated the 'realism' (if you want to call it that) of the likes of Walking Dead, I just don't buy the apocalyptic tone.
Nah, you have a lot of company. I'll watch any new TV show, even if it's just to see the special effects using the latest technology....but the plot has to captivate me, to keep me watching. Vampires, zombies, witches, and aliens aren't new themes. Neither are "apocalyptic" events started by evil dictators. That's been going on for generations.
It's a relatively recent trend to be "entertained" by scary (or evil) things that are happening in real time.
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