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Thread: teevee sucks

  1. #901
    ARQ - Somewhat derivative and featuring Made-for-TV level of acting but I liked it nevertheless. The scene with the ring of petrified stuff kinda felt like a huge plot-hole but I'm sure there's some way to make that part of the story make sense, sort of.

    Spectral - requires active suspension of disbelief and a vow to not groan out loud more than once every ten minutes, but otherwise decent scifi action.

    Battle: LA - seen it before but it still manages to entertain in a strange way. It's like the scifi movie equivalent of a late-night hamburger or pizza.

    Van Helsing - Canadian show picked up by Netflix. Surprisingly watchable.

    Only got through a few eps of Designated Survivor before giving up, but I might give it another go in a while.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  2. #902
    If you didn't like the first few episodes, you're probably just not going to like it. I think it's been getting weaker since the early episodes. Or maybe it's just me - it's a high tension series, and I'm enjoying those types of series less and less as I get older.

  3. #903
    I've been watching Ascension on Netflix this week. I really like the premise and the execution is certainly interesting. There are some issues - the characters are sometimes not as well fleshed-out as they could be, and there are a lot of suspension of disbelief problems (again the closed system issue I harp on in other posts on e.g. the Silo books or The Martian) but overall I really like the 'feel' of it as well as the concepts. Kinda disappointed they aren't doing another season/miniseries. If you have Netflix, I'd definitely recommend it.
    "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)

  4. #904
    Having misremembered this thread I decided to give The Expanse a go. We're seven episodes in and loving it so far, flaws and all. Solid production. I'd been avoiding it because of the dark aesthetic and because of Shohreh Aghdashloo but we were hooked before the end of the first episode.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  5. #905
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    I tried but gave up on the expanse after 1,5 episode. I guess it's just not for me. Don't particularly like what I saw of the Young Pope either.
    Congratulations America

  6. #906
    Finally got around to seeing Westworld. I expected a gorgeous but over-produced and ultimately underwhelming show but, having seen it from start to finish in two nights, I can say without reservation that it was exceptional. I imagine it's what you might get if someone created an AI based on John Milton and then let that AI collaborate with Tad Williams on a sequel/prequel to Otherland.

    Excellent casting with stellar performances by most of the main cast as well as solid performances from all but one of the secondary cast. Tightly plotted but primarily character-driven. I was glad they mostly resisted the temptation to dwell too long on overt philosophical discussions that are best saved for actual books about philosophy of mind.

    The show was little too focused on the central tragedy that holds all the characters in its grip, and a little too keen on playing up the world's griminess for effect, but rarely to the point of being distracting. Wrt writing and direction my only complaint is that the show's frequently dreamlike atmosphere leads to a sometimes frustrating lack of variation in tension in some episodes.

    The first three episodes were cool but made me think my initially low expectations were appropriate. Gorgeous but kinda hollow. But from episode 4 onwards each episode was better than the previous.

    Due to a mistake, I saw the first ten or so minutes of the final episode before starting the series, and, rather than spoiling everything I think it increased my enjoyment tenfold.

    There are many "NO WAI! He didn't...!!!" moments but also a few "No wai, I'm not buying it" moments, esp. in Maeve's arc. For the most part the latter serve the story well so I wasn't too bothered by them.

    While watching the show I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something incredibly familiar about the show's style and feel. Turns out it was the touch of Jonathan Nolan and Ramin Djawadi I'd recognized, from Person of Interest. This discovery made me squee I can't get the Sweetwater theme out of my head.

    Anyway, fucking fantastic show, warmly recommended. Many will hate the ending. I loved it.
    Last edited by Aimless; 01-22-2017 at 06:33 PM.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  7. #907
    Yeh my sister has been trying to get me to watch it.

    Think i'll get the boxset and try to convince the other half to try it. Traditionally not her sorta show but almost certainly mine.
    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    It's actually the original French billion, which is bi-million, which is a million to the power of 2. We adopted the word, and then they changed it, presumably as revenge for Crecy and Agincourt, and then the treasonous Americans adopted the new French usage and spread it all over the world. And now we have to use it.

    And that's Why I'm Voting Leave.

  8. #908
    Just finished season 2 of The Affair.

    The dual-perspective approach worked as well as it did in the first season, where each show comprises much the same scenes repeated twice, but from the differing perspectives of two different people.

    Pretty good. It's clear that there were 2 seasons planned from the start, as references made in the first are explained in the second.

    Season 3 is being made, but its clear this hasn't been planned. However, they managed three big twists in the final episode, with a cliffhanger at the end.
    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    It's actually the original French billion, which is bi-million, which is a million to the power of 2. We adopted the word, and then they changed it, presumably as revenge for Crecy and Agincourt, and then the treasonous Americans adopted the new French usage and spread it all over the world. And now we have to use it.

    And that's Why I'm Voting Leave.

  9. #909
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timbuk2 View Post
    Yeh my sister has been trying to get me to watch it.

    Think i'll get the boxset and try to convince the other half to try it. Traditionally not her sorta show but almost certainly mine.
    Your post made me realize how fast things change; I used to buy box-sets and DVD's. But nowadays I consider those I have already as just so much clutter (I've started to give them away to whoever will take them). If I want to see something I'd rather consider a (temporary) streaming subscription than get something I actually have to store somewhere in my house.
    Congratulations America

  10. #910
    Season 3 of The Affair is airing now. It's different.

    I'm still enjoying it, but, well, you'll see.
    We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.

  11. #911
    Quote Originally Posted by Timbuk2 View Post
    Yeh my sister has been trying to get me to watch it.

    Think i'll get the boxset and try to convince the other half to try it. Traditionally not her sorta show but almost certainly mine.
    Apart from the gore and the gratuitious nudity I think it can be expected to have an uncommonly broad appeal in spite of its genre. It does, however, feature some supremely distasteful characters.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  12. #912
    I'm really enjoying Travelers.
    The Rules
    Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
    Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
    Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)

  13. #913
    The Expanse continues to be enjoyable and well made, but not brilliant.
    When the sky above us fell
    We descended into hell
    Into kingdom come

  14. #914
    Let sleeping tigers lie Khendraja'aro's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    The Expanse continues to be enjoyable and well made, but not brilliant.
    I could live with that if I hadn't have to wait to see season 2.
    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?

  15. #915
    I'm not too keen on the new Martian grunts but other than that yeah
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  16. #916
    Everyone knows the leader grunt will learn a Valuable Lesson about maybe not being so keen on war all the time.








    Spoiler:
    I liked how the bad guys were revealed to have a not entirely stupid motive, rather than the standard evil corporation 'do something farcically dangerous for no obvious short term profit and no board would ever sign off on, then kill people to cover it up' story, rather than, e.g. using loop holes in labour laws to get out of paying employees for sick leave or something then deploy armies of laws and brought politicians to cover it up, like actual, real evil corporations do. A pleasant surprise. But otherwise the plot is entirely standard, lacks the sophistication of story telling and character of something like Game of Thrones or even Battlestar Galactica before it went to shit. Excellent setting, though.
    Last edited by Steely Glint; 02-05-2017 at 08:24 PM.
    When the sky above us fell
    We descended into hell
    Into kingdom come

  17. #917
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    If you didn't like the first few episodes, you're probably just not going to like it. I think it's been getting weaker since the early episodes. Or maybe it's just me - it's a high tension series, and I'm enjoying those types of series less and less as I get older.
    The more it moved along the more improbable it became I think. I simply gave up after about 5 episodes.
    Congratulations America

  18. #918
    Is anyone watching Legion? First episode was pretty good.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  19. #919
    Walking Dead, Dexter, Hell on Wheels, Blacklist, Salem...

  20. #920
    Season 2 of Magicians has been a little disappointing so far. It feels like the show's no longer run by people who get it. The dialogue is worse, the editing is much worse, something feels off about the direction. Climactic scenes get little build-up and fizz out in an extremely unsatisfying manner. They just toss in random and pretty discordant cursing, dick-jokes etc. Still enjoying the world of the show but kinda disappointed.

    Season 2 of Expanse is still enjoyable but remains worse than the first season. Much of the tension and excitement is still missing, perhaps due to the change in setting and due to some of the main characters coming together rather than doing their own things. Tycho isn't as exciting as Ceres, for example. The creole doesn't feel as natural. The Martian marines are still extremely annoying, mostly due to bad acting (with the exception of the guy from Dirk Gently) and bad writing. Even so, I have a feeling things are picking up. I liked the attack on the base. The interrogation of the Spanish guy was really fun and I'm looking forward to what's in store for the Nauvoo the crew of the Rocinante continues to deliver.

    Spoiler:
    Miller and Alex are still my favourite characters, but I have to admit the portrayal of Amos is just pitch perfect. I like the antagonists, for the most part. Also good to see Chrisjen and Fred not being total idiots.


    Season 3 of Chef's Table is out and it's kinda like a box of luxury pralines. You're not going to like all of the episodes but they're all very well-made. The first episode was very nice. The episode with Ivan Orkin was a little disappointing. The problems with annoyingly superficial anglo-American takes delivered by a bunch of hipsters remain and are more annoying than in previous seasons but everything else makes up for it. I feel like they'd do better to build on the approach from the French series.

    Currently going through Abstract. It's fun and incredibly stylish. At times a little too much focus on style. The designers themselves are pretty cool. Not nearly as obnoxious as I'd feared... so far

    We're working our way through season 1 of Killjoys, very slowly. It's kinda fun. I like the actors, and I think the universe has potential, but the music is just so shit that it's actually disruptive.

    Legion is on the list, haven't gotten around to it yet.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  21. #921
    Two episodes in, Legion has potential. Hard to write a more detailed review for now, though. At the very least, it's never boring and gives the viewer a reason to tune in for the next episode (unlike Jessica Jones).
    Hope is the denial of reality

  22. #922
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is awesome. That is all.
    "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)

  23. #923
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Two episodes in, Legion has potential. Hard to write a more detailed review for now, though. At the very least, it's never boring and gives the viewer a reason to tune in for the next episode (unlike Jessica Jones).
    Five episodes in, and I like the series. I'm liking the style, and the direction and camera work is unique for a television series.

  24. #924
    Yep, just when it starts to get too weird, they return to the real world. Good pacing. They might end up with a villain problem after this season, but we could worry about that later.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  25. #925
    Iron Fist started out pretty strong. I'm only two and a half episodes in, so too early to judge the entire series, but I'm glad they avoided the missteps of Luke Cage - I had to force myself through the early episodes there. Hopefully the show can keep it's momentum and stay interesting.

    Spoiler:
    I hope Carrie-Anne Moss becomes a major player in this story. She only got a cameo in LC, and I think her plot was one of the weak points of JJ, even if it did almost redeem itself with its conclusion.


    Through ep 5 edit: It starts going to a very meh place after the start.
    Spoiler:
    It's like they just ditched the novel parts that they had when they started, and now it just seems like a poor-man's Daredevil
    Last edited by Wraith; 03-18-2017 at 02:45 PM.

  26. #926
    Legion is getting increasingly weird.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  27. #927
    Finished Iron Fist. It's better than Luke Cage was, but not as good as Daredevil or Jessica Jones. It suffers from the same dragging elements that every Defenders series except Daredevil had, though in this case it didn't feel like the story was being padded out to meet the episode count requirements; the dragging parts here were necessary to move the story forward, they were just poorly done. It also had some tonal and characterization inconsistincies that were a bit odd, and occasional clunky dialog - particularly anything that happened with the homeless guy who seemed to be just a walking excuse for exposition.


    I've heard some criticism about the fight scenes, but honestly I didn't think they were bad. Above par for the genre, even. They just weren't as good as Daredevil's fight scenes, but Daredevil set such an insanely high bar there that it should have been expected.


    Spoiler:
    So tonal inconsistencies: the show couldn't seem to decide whether it was a dark and series drama, or classic martial arts show. The fight with the drunken master is one of the best examples of this, everything's dark and serious leading up to it, then the fight happens. It was a bit jarring, but that particular fight can be forgiven because it was so fun. I think the show would have been better off if it had leaned into it's martial arts film heritage, and did the whole thing like one of the old Jackie Chan films. They didn't need to try to be dark and gritty just to match the other Defenders, and it didn't really work well for this series.

    The protagonist also had some inconsistent characterization. He started out as a naïve hippy, then turned into a idealistic man-child, and then just dropped the idealism. He worked best as a naïve hippy. The whole thing might have worked if there were some better character development, but there wasn't. If they wanted to go through with that characterization, I would have liked to see the idealism burned out of him a bit more. They had a good setup to do so with all the corporate shenanigans, but they passed on the opportunity and instead decide to treat Danny's simplistic view of the world as correct; they should have used the opportunity to show that things were a lot more complicated than he saw things, and that you can't just give away drugs and take responsibility for everyone who stops by with a sad story and expect things to work out right. They even seemed to be starting to go in this direction as the board pointed out that they already had plans in place to make sure that everyone who needed the drugs was going to get them, and that the factory being blamed for a few local incidents of cancer was in full compliance with the EPA and all the inspections turned up nothing wrong with it. They just needed to follow through and show the problems that Danny's meddling caused - losing funding for the development of new drugs for other diseases, a sudden influx of people trying to get some of those sweet sympathy settlements, maybe even finding an actual cause for the cancer cases somewhere else in the thousands of businesses on Staten Island, or even just pointing out that 15 cancer cases in a population of half a million isn't actually that unusual.

    Finally, Claire seems to be a weirdness magnet. I'm glad they actually had Madame Gao point it out.


    Overall, I'm being pretty critical again, but it's still worth the watch. You just have to power through the hump in the early-middle. I'm kinda hoping Netflix rethinks Luke Cage season 2 and just makes Heroes for Hire instead, though. They were the two weakest Defenders series, but they might be able to do a better job maintaining momentum and keeping things varied and interesting with Rand and Cage playing off each other.

  28. #928
    How many different private investigators/lawyers do you need in the same TV universe?
    Hope is the denial of reality

  29. #929
    I'm about halfway through Iron Fist and, although I'm enjoying it more than Luke Cage, I just can't get over the sloppy execution.

    80% of the actors are mediocre or outright bad. Characterization of several of the main characters is extremely clumsy, both due to poor writing as well as poor acting (this is esp. true of Danny and Colleen--see eg. Colleen's ridiculous and out-of-character smiles and giggles). Jessica Stroup's acting reminds me of Kristen Stewart and Keanu Reeves but lacks their range and depth and sincerity. As with JJ and LC, the secondary antagonists are far more compelling than the protagonists. Both Ward and "Frank" make the most of their occasionally comically villainous dialogue. Even minor characters like the people at Birch, Joy's assistant, Frank's computer-guy etc. outdo eg. Danny and Joy. I enjoyed seeing Hogarth again. Claire, not so much.

    Danny starts off being exactly as annoying as you'd expect a home-schooled, bullied, idealistic 15-y-o kid to be after years of abuse, thousands of concussions and the guidance of others who've suffered thousands of concussions. I was kinda okay with that, the homeless hipster thing sorta worked. I could even stomach the extremely lazy writing during the boardroom scenes. Like everything else in the show it was a bit on the nose, but it felt like a comic book thing. What I'm having a lot more difficulty with is that, behind Danny's character, I'm sensing the wish-fulfillment of an army of dumb millennial slackers with motivational problems and "unrealized potential". Or perhaps the very noticeable self-insertion of just one such dummy. This may partly be due to his dumb face. His character lacks cohesion. The weird clueless adolescent hipster monk schtick works for him. When he's the 15-y-o traumatized and abused orphan trying to connect, it works. But then they try to make him intense, mysterious, sexy, smart, dangerous, funny, righteous and every other conceivable awesome or cool adjective known to man and it turns into a mess. Every time they have him acting superior to eg. Colleen or Joy it makes me retch.

    I've been kinda disappointed with the fight-scenes so far. Movements are slow and strikes don't seem to connect properly. The choreography is uninteresting. There's no real tension in Danny's fights, several of which look and feel like watching amateur interpretive dance with wires, or the shameful kung-fu training re-enactments of a teenage boy, performed in secret in his room in front of a mirror. Compared to DD and Arrow, these scenes are embarrassing, and I hope they improve as the show progresses.

    With all that said, I've actually been positively surprised by the show so far. I didn't expect to be able to get through the first episode, but I've found every episode reasonably compelling. As Wraith mentioned, there isn't as much filler or quite as many scenes as in LC that you just want to skip. They really should have embraced the martial arts genre as well as added more humor--it would have made some of the show's greatest deficiencies less noticeable. Anyway, er, you should totally watch it.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  30. #930
    There was some awkward wire-work in some of the fight scenes, but I think really they should have just leaned into it. Gone full on Crouching Tiger and made all the martial arts crazy and unrealistic and fun, even mix in some Jackie Chan style comedic fighting. It would have kept people from comparing it to DD so much, and that's not a comparison they ever could have won.

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