Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)

[Gordon_4]

Agatha Christie’s Poirot - 9/10 overall.

David Suchet’s famous long form portrayal of the Belgian detective has long been the definitive version thereof. Plus like lots of British long runners there’s a fun game of spot the future famous person. There are times though when the suspension of disbelief of people putting up with Poirot’s eccentricities gets broken. There’s one episode where he’s brought on to help find the Prime Minister who has been kidnapped and he’s doing his usual act of keeping people in the dark. I can accept Japp of the Yard indulging him, but not the officers of MI5 and the Military Intelligence services. Them NOT dragging him into an alley and giving him a flogging to make him get to the bloody point could only be literary contrivance.

With that said, I’m curious which others Kenneth intends to adapt. Orient Express has the famous twist and isolated location, Death on the Nile has a similar closed location and takes place during a party so the costuming and set guys get to go whole hog. But most of them are pretty cut and dried, boilerplate murder mysteries or acts of theft/fraud/blackmail. Like they’re fine on well funded television but I can’t imagine any of the others I’ve seen so far making exciting cinema viewing.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Yeah, but in the context of TNG itself, and in the context of its first two seasons? Even casting aside what I know of Rodenberry's guidelines and beliefs (e.g. crew wasn't allowed to have interpersonal conflicts), how we see life on the Enterprise seems to be indicative of everything else. For instance, it's not an actual Starfleet conspiracy, it's those worms. Those 20th/21st century stasis people, asking about money? "Barbarians!" Picard delivering his speech to Q in the pilot? "OMG, humanity's so awesome!" Maybe it's toned down after the first two seasons, but I wouldn't know. But as is, Lower Decks is a 180, far as I can tell. It's not just showing the lowly underbelly of a Starfleet ship, the entire bridge crew aren't much better, nor is anyone else in Starfleet. If anything, it kind of has more in common with Futurama ("even in the 31st century, humans are idiots,") more than TNG ("in the 24th century, mankind has evolved").

Well I'd say it's part of the deconstructionist humour of Lower Decks with even Bridge officers being exaggerations of the traits of those seen on Star Trek series normally.

 

[Breakdown]

Yeah, but in the context of TNG itself, and in the context of its first two seasons? Even casting aside what I know of Rodenberry's guidelines and beliefs (e.g. crew wasn't allowed to have interpersonal conflicts), how we see life on the Enterprise seems to be indicative of everything else. For instance, it's not an actual Starfleet conspiracy, it's those worms. Those 20th/21st century stasis people, asking about money? "Barbarians!" Picard delivering his speech to Q in the pilot? "OMG, humanity's so awesome!" Maybe it's toned down after the first two seasons, but I wouldn't know. But as is, Lower Decks is a 180, far as I can tell. It's not just showing the lowly underbelly of a Starfleet ship, the entire bridge crew aren't much better, nor is anyone else in Starfleet. If anything, it kind of has more in common with Futurama ("even in the 31st century, humans are idiots,") more than TNG ("in the 24th century, mankind has evolved").

Yeah that kind of attitude does get toned down as TNG goes on. It's season 3 where it really finds its footing. I wouldn't bother rewatching any episodes from the first two seasons aside from the Borg episode and Measure of a Man.

I've never watched Lower Decks though. The first season of Discovery was enough to kill Star Trek for me.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Upload - Season 1 - 7-8/10

Really solid show about a world where you can be uploaded digitally before you die and basically live forever. Black Mirror has ventured into very very same-y territory so the show isn't too original in its ideas. The 2 leads have good chemistry and the show works as pretty decent social commentary, a bit too on the nose at times. Stuff like Upload and Black Mirror keep showing how bad going down a certain path will be yet people are still embracing such social techs that are just moving us further down that road. The show also has a decent amount of fun with the concept and some pretty funny jokes/sight gags about virtual worlds / video games. And tons of microtransactions obviously.

 

[Gordon_4]

Yeah that kind of attitude does get toned down as TNG goes on. It's season 3 where it really finds its footing. I wouldn't bother rewatching any episodes from the first two seasons aside from the Borg episode and Measure of a Man.

I've never watched Lower Decks though. The first season of Discovery was enough to kill Star Trek for me.

I think there’s a couple of other good episodes in Season 2. Pen Pals and the Emmisary are both ones I enjoy. Nothing amazing, but good.

 

[Agema]

With that said, I’m curious which others Kenneth intends to adapt. Orient Express has the famous twist and isolated location, Death on the Nile has a similar closed location and takes place during a party so the costuming and set guys get to go whole hog. But most of them are pretty cut and dried, boilerplate murder mysteries or acts of theft/fraud/blackmail. Like they’re fine on well funded television but I can’t imagine any of the others I’ve seen so far making exciting cinema viewing.

That's sort of the thing though: the ones done again, and again, and again, and focused on for the particular big splash productions, are the classics and best. Unless there's a very successful series going to support them, no-one's going to stump up tens of millions on the minnows.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

It's still funny to me how hundreds of thousands of people will watch this animation, but maybe only a few thousand will actually participate in whatever this trailer was made for.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that it's weird that in post-Astartes world, some animators still portray space marines (and a Primarch no less) as slow lumbering forklifts. Also, would have expected Horus to have a voice with more gravitas.

 

[gorfias]

The Problem with Jon Stewart Season 1 Episode 8: Racism on Apple TV.
It could have been worse.
Obviously, very political for this thread but it is good TV and food for thought. And a few joke really land well.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Watched the first episode of Halo.

What a slog. I can already feel everything they wanna do with this show, and very few of it is good. Which sucks, because I'm not a fan of the games but quite enjoy the universe. A TV show would have been right up my alley, but this isn't it.

The action is all over the place. Some bursts of alright choreography mixed with in with awful looking Covenant CGI. Characterization is the same, John is more of a person here (he actually cracks a joke, who would have thought), but everyone else feels like a stereotype. Halsey the mad scientist type, Miranda Keyes the idealistic upstart, Keyes the government lapdog. It's definitely a different direction, but not one I find very interesting. It's funny that the media say this wants to be the Mandalorian so badly, when they show fails really hard at one thing the Mandalorian did really well.

One big nitpick I have is that they take Blue Team, rename them Silver Team, then further rename the members with stupid sci-fi gibberish (from Kelly to Kai, Fred to Vannok or some shit) while the Chief is still named John. What a pointless and random thing to change.

 

[Worgen]

The Expanse full series. Finally finished season 1-6 in one go. The series starts out really really strong and ends pretty strong. The final couple seasons certainly have a bit of trouble with pacing, especially season 6, but I think its cause they wanted to cram a lot of story into not enough episodes. Then again, the series has always had issues with its wars, like they look cool, but we never are given a real time frame for how long they go on for, so they could be going on for a week or a year, its just hard to tell and like most things they don't really think much about fleet tactics. That is something else that season 6 suffers from, having the main cast becoming 'jacks of all trades'. The series kinda suffered from that a bit but it was really amplified in season 6. Its still a really interesting story, just had more gripes then the other seasons.

 

[Agema]

The Expanse full series. Finally finished season 1-6 in one go. The series starts out really really strong and ends pretty strong. The final couple seasons certainly have a bit of trouble with pacing, especially season 6, but I think its cause they wanted to cram a lot of story into not enough episodes. Then again, the series has always had issues with its wars, like they look cool, but we never are given a real time frame for how long they go on for, so they could be going on for a week or a year, its just hard to tell and like most things they don't really think much about fleet tactics. That is something else that season 6 suffers from, having the main cast becoming 'jacks of all trades'. The series kinda suffered from that a bit but it was really amplified in season 6. Its still a really interesting story, just had more gripes then the other seasons.

I think one of my main problems is that whenever the military appear, they're a hopeless bunch of rabble. The Belters I get, they're amateurs. But the Earth and Mars militaries sem to disintegrate the minute they are under pressure, unable to follow orders and turning on each other like a cliche of embattled survivors in a horror movie.

 

[Chimpzy]

Halo

My favorite bit was when Commander Shepard was requested at the Skillian Response Center. As far as the rest goes, it was pretty meh. Not terrible, but not good either. Also, why no Halo theme on the intro? Needs a little recut maybe, but it imo works better than what they went with.

 

[Worgen]

I think one of my main problems is that whenever the military appear, they're a hopeless bunch of rabble. The Belters I get, they're amateurs. But the Earth and Mars militaries sem to disintegrate the minute they are under pressure, unable to follow orders and turning on each other like a cliche of embattled survivors in a horror movie.

They really do lean too much on that, its like no one gets any training. There were a lot of weird back ground details like that that were weird and annoying.

 

[Agema]

They really do lean too much on that, its like no one gets any training. There were a lot of weird back ground details like that that were weird and annoying.

It's just how hack writers ramp up tension lazily: conflict and irrationality. They're arguing and sounding urgent, right? Surely that's going to make sure the audience knows exciting stuff is happening.

 

[Worgen]

It's just how hack writers ramp up tension lazily: conflict and irrationality. They're arguing and sounding urgent, right? Surely that's going to make sure the audience knows exciting stuff is happening.

I don't know about that, at least in relation to The Expanse series. I feel like more of it is stuff they wanted to include from the book but didn't have time to fully flesh out. As I said, the early series took its time and was willing to play with things, but as it went on I get the feeling they were feeling the lack of time more and more.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Yeesh. Pretty bizarre not to at least have the guns be practical effects in the show (even human weapons are made with CGI sometimes).

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Watching the Oscars. Will Smith just walked on stage and punched Chris Rock after joking about Jada's hair.

 

[Gordon_4]

Watching the Oscars. Will Smith just walked on stage and punched Chris Rock after joking about Jada's hair.

On the one hand, probably an overreaction. On the other hand, smack talking someone else's wife on national television is a pretty big dick move.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

On the one hand, probably an overreaction. On the other hand, smack talking someone else's wife on national television is a pretty big dick move.

Dude, the show opened with the hosts making fun of Lebron's hair and how JK Simmons looks like an old fart. Nobody went up to smack Amy Schumer for it.

 

[Gordon_4]

Dude, the show opened with the hosts making fun of Lebron's hair and how JK Simmons looks like an old fart. Nobody went up to smack Amy Schumer for it.

More's the pity.

EDIT: No, that's an unworthy statement but I'll leave it for honest clarity. I figure some people can take a roast better than others. Lebron and Simmons clearly have the shoulders for it. I do understand Smith being shitty about it since his wife has a medical condition that causes her baldness and we humans can and do act irrationally when something someone says hurts someone we care about against someone we don't.