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The TV Thread
mac_d
Post subject: Re: The TV Thread
SDLRob wrote:
Just binged Defenders... very good watch. Paced very much like the rest of the shows, but it works in the 8 episodes...
Do I need to have watched Iron Fist and Luke Cage to enjoy it do you think? I watched all but one of the Luke Cage episodes and never got started with Iron Fist (loved DD and JJ).
huggybear
Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 11:29 pm
mac_d wrote:
Not really. I've seen 1 and a half seasons of Daredevil, about half of Luke Cage, all of Jessica Jones and two thirds of an episode of Iron Fist, but it makes sense(ish) to me. There's a bit of stuff that doesn't make sense, but nothing that takes away from the plot. It seems fairly self contained, and also there's a fair bit of exposition for the people who haven't watched any of the shows.
Basically have just sat on my fat pickle today watching Defenders. Pretty good. Not as good as Daredevil 1/2 or JJ. Not hard to follow the motivations and back stories for Luke Cage/Iron Fist so that was good. They do a good job of having a good evil villain plan without it being so big that you'd have to wonder why the Avengers, who exist in the universe, don't get called in which was good. If the villain plan was so over the top superhero style, that would have been an issue. Also tied in a few things from the other shows quite nicely.
One gripe I have:
Spoiler (click to show)
I am sure one of the trailers showed the Punisher. They did it in a way that made it seem to me that the Punisher would make an appearance. Given the trailer tye thing at the end, I guess it was just to show he'd have a show but it feels a little misleading. Perhaps I misunderstood the trailer. Honestly though, I spent the entire last episode expecting him to appear and was a quite let down at the end.
Is anyone else finding the pace in new GOT a bit too quick? It feels like they could do with some side storylines to break the show up a little more IMO, it's just jumping from Kings Landing to Winterfell to the Jon/Dany storylines.
I think they made a mistake going for 7 episodes, I'm all for quality over quantity but I feel that they could have padded this out to the usual 10 episodes with some filler which while not adding much to the story overall, could add some depth to the characters in their new situations. We didn't really need to see some of the torture stuff with Joffrey or Ramsay, the story would have made sense without it, but it added to the show because it made us dislike them that much more.
I'm being fussy but overall im still enjoying the show and staying up until ridiculous times to watch it when it plays for the first time, so it's obviously doing something right!
Also that whole mission beyond the wall is so ridiculous. (Even ignoring the fact that getting a white walker and showing it to Cersei doesn't make much sense to begin with).
Why after one of the gang dies after the bear attack did they not just tie him up and wait for him to turn? Why keep on going? I know there are a load of other plot holes but that one bugged me the most as it seemed the most obvious.
minchy
I thought that this season has been paced quickly too compared the last couple. I was wondering why they didn't make 2 10 episode seasons rather than a split 16 episode season. But watching season 1 again, that was paced really fast too.
I think it may just be because we are used to the pace for the past couple of seasons being fairly slow that it seems fast.
Although the journey from Winterfell to Dragon Stone (or even Kings Landing to Dragon Stone) is a fairly long way and they have kept doing it in the space of a few scenes in 1episode. Which does make you wonder what story lines have been missed out in that time.
With the whole catching a white walker thing, do they turn the same as modern zombies do? I thought there was some magic about it, not just being killed by a white walker.
Edit: Just on a side note to anyone who has read the books and not just watched the TV show like me. Does Ricon Stark actually have a purpose in the books as a character? He's not really needed at all in the TV show, him or shaggy dog.
There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live.
minchy wrote:
Not really so far. But then in the books there is
another living Targaryen heir
that is completely cut out of the show, so it's clear the show is winging it with regards to the plot.
huggybear wrote:
It's strongly believed that this is Tyrion though right? They could still include that in the show and in fact they have hinted at it with the scene of him setting the dragons free.
I must admit I am starting to think they've abandoned it though. I was convinced it was coming soon following the Jon & dragon interaction in episode 5, as that adds to the above mentioned Tryion scene in confirming that the dragons can sense Targaryen blood, but now that one of the dragons has been lost I'm sceptical. I figured it would be one dragon for each of the Targaryen's, like it was with a dire wolf for each of the Starks.
Black_Flag_11 wrote:
Nah, it was
Aegon Targaryen, Daenerys' older brother, who wasn't killed by Gregor Clegane, but switched with a low born baby by Varys beforehand, but he meets Tyrion before Tyrion meets Dany in Essos, which has only been alluded to once (They briefly mention the Golden Company in one of the episodes this season, who are the sellswords making up Aegon's army)
Ah ok, I need to catch up on my books, I did intend to read them but stopped somewhere in the 3rd/4th book IIRC. I've only seen the theory that Tyrion is a Targaryen.
What, no discussion about the last GoT?
What do you people think?
It was brilliant. Exactly what I thought it should have ended this season. Making it so much more worth it to wait for the next one.
We were betting if the blue dragon would be shooting flames or ice. It seems that it was blue flames, so everyone was happy I guess!
Also, is Jon Snow now sh@gging his aunt?
Lots of build up, very little real pay off.
I felt the payoff was OK but really it was just set up for the next season, to be fair I think the last episode normally is, the penultimate one tends to be the episode the season has been building up to.
Sure there was no big death (littlefinger is a big name but he has no real bearing on the main story at the moment), and the discovery that Jon is the rightful king was dropped an episode or two ago for those that picked up on it so that wasn't really a reveal. I think the destruction of the wall was a good place to end the season though.
I thought how they did the sex scene was an interesting choice too, was pretty funny having Bran's conversation talking about him being Targaryen over the top. "He's never been a b@$tard, he's the heir to the Iron Throne"... and balls deep in his auntie right now on screen.
Good to see GOT get back to its incestuous roots though, the Lannister one was getting boring
I get the feeling of no payoff.
I think the series has struggled a bit since they ran out of book material, although as I'm sure many people have mentioned - poor Game of Thrones is still far superior to anything else.
I think the poor pacing began in Season 6, where we had some truly bizarre ways of just throwing scenes at you. The Arya stabbing for one - just got stabbed, then on with the show. It all felt rushed.
I'm not one to jump on the fast travel bandwagon. I get the need for that, and I'm not going to split hairs around people suddenly showing up far away when we clearly have no idea how much time has passed anyway. But the big moments are lacking a little punch.
You used to have this fantastically paced show, all this build up, all this tension, all this emotional investment... and then it would stab you right in the gut. Now, there are some pretty significant and crazy things happening, but without the well-paced build up its all feeling a little bit more 'meh' than it should. My mind should have been more blown by what happened this season that it actually was.
Also someone above mentioned that they should have extended the 7 episodes to 10. I agree in theory, it could do with some more pacing - but I guess they've been left with no book material to write from, an increasingly expensive cast, contracts that they have to work within, and with more focus on the 'mythical' they've also got a much more expensive CGI bill to foot. HBO will only throw so much money at it, and the producers need to find a way to make that work as best they can. But as a viewer, f*ck the producers, find more money and give me my improved pacing!!
It's only the mid season finale, so you would expect it to be a set up episode rather than a climax anyway.
I was a little disappointed with it until the final scene scene with the Lanister's which did give a good indication of both characterisation and intent of the people involved. I'm guessing they're going to continue the Jon Snow origins reveal in the second half of the season some how.
With the lack of book material to work from, does anyone know how much input Martin has had with the story? I know with the Harry Potter films, Rowling had a lot of input and helped the screen writers include little bits to tie in with future story lines of books which weren't even written yet.
RachelM
Liar ITV1 - Great new short series to watch, six episodes but really gripping. One of them that leaves you guessing
I just watched Guy Martin doing a stint with the Williams pit crew. Really good and worth watching. Its on catch up.
Anyone else seen Star Trek Discovery yet? Any thoughts from anyone?
I'm of 2 minds really. I enjoyed it as show, but it almost didn't feel like star trek. I can't really put my finger on it as everything was great (other than the Klingon's all being bald). Hopefully they'll somehow go over how the Klingon's got to where they are in this show compared to where they were in Enterprise.
And I've just finished with Netflix's companion show 'After Trek' and my god that was a car crash! The presenter is annoying as hell, the people involved with the show they interviewed (with the possible exception of the supporting cast) all came across as not actually being Trekkies, just talking about it in the normal way US TV and Hollywood types talk about their work - with a load of publicity BS. It's also a bit annoying that they only hype their show and read out complementary tweets etc and don't actually have discussions between the crew and actual star trek fans about questions which I'd assume most trekkies want to ask about. But you can't really blame them for that, the show is there to promote their main show after all. Guess I'm gonna have to wade through 100's of YouTube videos to look at different views of the show, just a shame that all that is going to be opinionated and not discussions with the crew and cast.
Edit: As a side note, I loved the Lt Saur. Great character and well acted.
SDLRob
I saw it described as being character focussed rather than plot focussed.... which was why it felt a little slow...
I really liked it. Thought it looked amazing, the visuals were stunning and the characters were really intriguing. Hated the Hologram tech though
[Space for rent]
Netflix got the new Star Trek show. I quite like a bit of Star Trek. I don't much care for TOS, but like the TOS movies. I really liked TNG but don't rate the TNG movies. I liked Voyager, despite it's considerable flaws. DS9 was a brilliant show. Slow burn in it's first year but probably the best overall. Enterprise I didn't hate, and the last season actually started to get into being a good show. However, I'm not a huge fan of the JJ Abrams reboot universe which appears to be where this is set. This has some benefits. In the proper universe, you can't easily add in new and exciting aliens in a prequel. Plus we've seen most eras in that timeline. I guess this won't be a surprise to most people, but I didn't read any of the news on this show.
Collection of thoughts
1) It's nice to have some aliens that look a bit more alien.
2) The CGI, in the pilot at least, is pretty impressive.
3) I'm not a big fan of TV shows doing the thing where a foreign species or group will speak a foreign language and we have it subtitled. I know it's silly in WW2 movies when the Nazi's are speaking English but I honestly would rather have it in English. My hearing is a bit crap from years of loud gigs so I generally have subtitles on anyway so it's not that I have to read that bothers me.
4) Use of Sarek is cheap imo. Not everything has to always tie back to a "famous" character. Of course, it could well pay off.
5) I approve of the show opening with a 2 parter that is basically a TV movie.
6) Why is the main character called Michael?
7) The opening scene was stupid.
I'll keep watching, this wasn't at all enough to make up my mind either way.
Edit: The previous 2 posts popped up while I was writing this and watching the episodes. Coincidence? Probably, the show only aired last night.
1 little point, it is supposed to be set in the 'normal' star trek universe, not the the JJ Abrams alternative one. Although now you mention that, the basic story of the double episode has some surprising similarities to the first Star Trek reboot film!
And lol at your edit
I suspect they're going with a combination of ToS & JJ....
The main difference between the original star trek's and JJ's star trek 90210 is really just visuals, budget and a teeny tiny emphasis on the fiction over the science (York Town anyone?)!!! And with modern TV as it is, studios are more than willing to lay down some serious bucks for a good TV show so I'm really expecting this to look amazing.
(York Town was an amazing idea, but a bit far fetched is all I'm saying )
Alienturnedhuman
Ah, Star Trek Discovery. Better than I expected, but I set my expectations low after the reboot-not-a-reboot JJ-movies.
However, disregarding any arguments regarding visual continuity of starship design and the Klingon aesthetic - which is a huge can of worms certainly not relevant for a non Star Trek series, I think the excellent Twitter parody account summed up some of the bigger issues with the show with a couple of its tweets:
The problem was the show had a premise it needed to set up, and they dictated the character's actions based on that.
We needed to have a war with the Klingons.
We needed to have that war blamed on Michael.
We needed to have Michael lose her captain to the Klingons.
None of the actions actually made any sense.
The 24 Klingon houses turned up and said "why should we listen to you?"
Then blah blah blah, 2 minutes of talking and "ok, we're now listening to you"
Michael openly defies and argues her captain on the bridge, she is then ordered into the ready room - clearly to be given a bollocking, nerve pinches the captain, comes out - relieves Saro and claims the captain is now totally on board with her plan and no one questions it (except Saro)
Then, after escaping her prison cell, making it to the bridge she says:
* We mustn't destroy their ship
* We mustn't kill the main Klingon guy or he'll become a martyr
And then offers to go on the suicide mission to plant the bombs to destroy the ship.
And then goes on a suicide mission of which the only outcome is for her captain to die and then she shoots the klingon guy dead.
The second episode of the show was basically characters saying "we won't or shouldn't do this" and then doing it.
Buuuuuutttt...
This 2 hours was just meant to be character development. To set up the Klingon war, to provide Michael with a personal antagonist (the albino Klingon guy) and to have her an outcast and considered to be the catalyst that caused the war.
The show is called "Star Trek Discovery" and we haven't even seen the Discovery yet, let alone found out what the main direction of the show is. These two episodes were just to establish Michael, and episode 3 will be the start of the series as a whole.
We'll, I've watched episode 3 now, and whilst it may end up being an ok sci-fi show, it's not looking like it's going to be a good Star Trek show!
I still can't put my finger on it, but it just feels like it has been taken over by lefty Hollywood types and has their agenda is being thrust in our faces! I'm not per say against their views, but a TV show that no bearing on the modern world, really isn't the place to do this. It may be just me who sees it like this, but this alone annoyed me.
And as got characters in the show - I'm not a fan of the Michael character and really think they've the wrong actress to play her. Don't really like any of the main characters so far except Saru (and he started getting a bot annoying in the latest episode), and I'm not sure I like where the story is going either.
Anyway, cheered myself up by watching back to back the first 8 episodes of TNG season one and felt better after
thingy003
I tried Discovery but found the first episode to be a bit flat. Having said that though I have it on good authority that it comes into its own by episode 3 so I will go back to it.
The Orville seems to be more Trek than Trek so I will be continuing with that and would recommend it to all.
However the best scifi out there and in fact the best show I have watched in a long time (possibly eclipsing even GoT) if The Expanse. There are 2 season to watch on Netflix and the 3rd is just being finished. I don't want to give any plot away but this show is just amazing. The first season is a bit of a struggle at times as you need to have been paying attention to everything but it becomes much slicker by Season 2 and now I am going cold turkey waiting for Season 3. Fortunately I have the books to read.
thingy003 wrote:
I keep meaning to watch the Expanse. I also want to sit and watch Falling Skies which someone on here recommended to me ages ago - I think when it had only 1 season.
I'm split on Disco still. I need to see Episode 4 first and these things take a while to find their feet, but I'm not feeling the current way I think the plot is going with the travel tech but I think the war backdrop could be interesting. DS9 did Star Trek at war really well. Saru seems to have split people. He didn't bother me yet, and I think he's a cool looking character. For a guy with some rubber stuck to him, he looks pretty non-human. And Lucius Malfoy I think will fit the role they have for him as I see it.
And chances are that I'll finish the last season of How I Met Your Mother tonight and start again at episode 1 rather than watching any of these. I swear I basically pay Netflix for that show alone.
so I have persevered a bit with Star Trek Discovery and it is growing on me. I think that the first 2 episodes were a bit pointless and the basic story could have been imparted more effectively through flashback (although not to the extend that they used flashbacks in Arrow)
I am also watching season 2 of Lethal Weapon which I prefer to the films now and Season 2 of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I love the Dirk Gently show but this really is not going to be for many, if at all any, of you.
@ thingy003;
Lethal weapon has been a pretty good show thus far. The 2 leading characters portray the roles quite well.....
You might wanna check out the series "seal team" as well. It doesn't have the comic relief of lethal weapon but the action and attention to detail regarding the missions is executed very well....
Anyone watching gotham? The flash? Or arrow?
Anyone watching Stranger Things?
I love it. Music alone is just awesome.
Arrow has lost it's charm to me. Flash is still ok so far.
Lethal Weapon is weird, not hating it but not loving it either. I think I am too attached to Glover and Gibson.
I started the new McGyver and it is impossible to watch at times. If you thought that the old one was far fetched, some stuff of this new one are just way too much.
I also watched Zoo recently. It started greatly, but then veered off fast. Can't say that I will keep watching in the future.
I'm in the middle of stranger things season 2 now. Really awesome! Didn't think they could compete with the first season, but it's just as good. Really can't say enough good things about this show - the story, the characters, the writing, the actors, the directing, the cinematography.... Everything! It's close to a perfect show imo! Absolutely loving it.
Not loving it as much as the first season, but still ok. Read the spoiler when you finish it!
What role did Max have in the end? It felt like she didn't contribute at all. L just hated her and that was it. Can't see what she brought to the team, she was just another character.
Siao7 wrote:
I think Max adds a lot to the show, not so much what she does, more how she makes other characters act. Without her, Billy would not have been as good a real world antagonist and the whole Steve/Dustin relationship wouldn't have seemed as believable. She also helps to show the boys maturing differently to each other.
El is a difficult one, as I didn't like her much in the first series or this one, but I think who she is is played well. On a side note for the actress who plays her, she's a 13 year old girl, but seeing her in interviews on the 'beyond' shows, she is amazingly mature for her age and a very professional actress. I was utterly amazed hoe she was speaking about acting and her role.
Loved Marvel/Netflix' The Punisher TV show. Nailed it in my opinion. The standard of these Marvel/Netflix shows has been pretty good. Daredevil S2 and JJ S1 were the two season's I thought were absolute brilliant, with DD S1 being great then Defenders being good but left the true team up stuff a bit late imo and I didn't much care for Luke Cage or Iron Fist. I'd put Punisher near the top of the list. JJ was different to Punisher and DD in that I'm not sure how good it would have been without David Tennant just being amazing in it - I'm less confident in JJ S2 being all that grand compared to DD S3 which I have much more confidence in.
Anyway, I thought this had good pacing, had a good overall narrative, paid off well and was generally very entertaining and enjoyable to watch. Slightly more brutal and gorey than the other shows, but not by much. To sum up, if you liked Punisher in Daredevil S2, I think you'll enjoy this for sure. Haven't read any Punisher beyond maybe 1 or 2 stories so don't know how a diehard fan would see it, but I really enjoyed it.
Spoiler for some spoiler-y thoughts/nitpicky nonsense regarding the whole season and for DD too.
It really irked me that Masani's partner dies and she gets on the radio "Agent down" when a few of the other agents already got blasted. I know they were faceless agents and not ones we are supposed to really care about, but surely she would. This always bothers me in TV shows/movies.
It is perhaps a couple of episodes too long. I feel like I say this about most shows these days but I think you could have trimmed some fat and still told the story.
It was a bit obvious that Billy would be a baddie, though to be fair, I wouldn't have been shocked if they had made Curtis bad and Billy good. Again, when watching I had no idea of Billy Russo's comic book role.
The Punisher isn't a happy superhero saves the day character. But outwith very few scenes they made him a bit too much of a cold, emotionless dick overall. That said, I like that and think it makes sense. But as the driving force of the show, perhaps a little liberty could have been taken. In fairness, I think if they had made him noticably more likable or put in too many moments of levity I might have complained about that too.
Some of the way it intercut Frank's dreams/fantasies/psuedo-memories of his wife and kids into the show were just brilliant I thought.
Frank gets shot about a bajillionty times. I'm not ballistic expert but a few looked like short range hits with assault rifles. I was under the impression body armour isn't great against guns like that.
Frank gets ripped apart a few times, with major wounds. DD did this and had Matt be knackered for a while. Frank seems to wake up after the ordeals and be mostly fine. Seemed a bit silly, or the show did a poor job showing how much time had passed. Actually, I'm not sure if the 13 episodes occur over a week or a year.
Had some really cool shots, though still nothing Marvel/NEtflix have done rivals the long shot of Daredevil rescuing the kid at the start of S1. That long sequence of a fight was amazing. Not Tony Jaa in Warrior King crazy spectacular but very cool.
I seem to have somewhat given up on Star Trek: Disco for now anyway. I'd quite like to see it, if for no other reason than it is Star Trek... though I'm not at all sure I've seen all the TOS episodes actually. I'll probably binge my way through it once the whole season is up and see how I like it then. I'm really not a fan of watching one episode per week like the traditional TV routine would be anymore.
The final episode of Discovery (well the mid season finale) was by far and away the best episode of the season and it was also the most Star Trek like.
Jon bernthal absolutely nailed the Punisher role. The whole series was very well executed, glad that marvel took there time with this one and it paid off. The show has the right amount of gore to it with a hint of psychotic mayhem played by multiple characters.
The rogue soldier who feels betrayed by america, the cia agent whom is the reason why frank goes off the deep end and seeks his revenge.
The relationship between micro and frank was a wierd one but i liked how the chemistry between the. Worked. The relationship between frank and micro's family was an odd ball with them filling a bit a of that void frank has. They show cased alot of franks emotional side and made him look a bit too fragile at times imo.
Some good one liners "he beat me with my own leg man".. Curtis, "Your the missle, im the guiding system....... Well this is what happens when the missle goes off." -micro & frank. This line really proved to be there relationship and it was great to watch.
Agreed that frank was taking waaaay too many shots and instantly healing or carrying on as if to no effect. When compared to other series when DD, luke cage, iron fist all took damage they showed recovery time but the punisher just seemed to sleep it off.
CC78AMG
Stranger Things in my opinion is the best thing on Netflix and thats saying something. I just love everything the characters, the storyline, the mood of the 80's.
Anyone watch the tv show street outlaws???
For those who aren't familiar with the show it is a tv show about a street racing team in Oklahoma. They are the self proclaimed "fastest street racers in the country." They street race back halved american muscle cars in a 1/8th mile street race. They have a top 10 list of who's the fastest and they compete against eachother to climb up the ranks of their list... They also travel to other states and compete in out of town races.... Some pretty cool cars twin turbo & heavy nitrous setups.
https://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/street-outlaws/
Altered Carbon on Netflix.
Very much enjoyed this show. No real hassle following it and putting a few of the pieces together that they didn't have time to explain. Excellent cast. Likeable characters where they intended them to be likeable. Clearly had a solid budget behind it and at no point did I feel like they had to scrimp. A lot of sci-fi concepts I really like, though it made me wonder about another show I love that seems to have ripped a lot of it's cool ideas off from this (rather, the source novel). Overall, well built and didn't have that padded out feel that some Netflix shows have. This is 10 episodes rather than 13 but I'd rather get the 10 good, tight episodes rather than 13 that are a slog. Very much enjoyed this.
One spoiler for the show:
Kinda gutted it seems like if they do a S2 there will be a fresh cast for most characters. I really liked most of the core cast.
And then Netflix suggested The Expanse, which had been on my list for ages so I went for it. Currently finished S1 and a couple of S2 episodes.
Also gets a . Actually, I really like this show because it's - so far - pretty realistic and sticks to the rules pretty steadfastly. None of your Star Trek style technobabble shot a magic beam out of the deflector array stuff here (not having a go, I like ST). I find that kind of thing very appealing. I will say this, I don't think they handled the introduction of characters, themes and the status quo of that universe very well in the first episode. I feel like I struggled to keep up with who everyone was, where they were, what their goals were, who they were allied with etc. After the second or third episode, that was no longer an issue. Of course, that could be a me thing rather than a writing issue. And, even with that said I can see why they did it in such a way. This is much less flashy than Altered Carbon, but I've been very much enjoying this too. It's not
I'll probably finish up watch the Expanse by tomorrow evening as I have nothing much on this weekend. Not sure what I'll watch afterwards. Enjoying my current sci-fi binge but don't fancy much else on Netflix's sci-fi list.
Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:14 am
Yeah, Altered Carbon was good. Can't see a S2, it kind of had it's closure
I've heard a few people saying that the world they created in altered carbon was good, but that's where the positives stopped! A couple of people I know who've seen it said that the script writing and acting were awful. But I usually have similar taste in TV to mac_d, so I'll give it go based to the 2 recommendations above and see how it goes.