Holy fuck, @gorfias. Okay, I'm in it to win it. They can't leave me hanging like that. Jesus...
Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)
- Thread starter Hawki
- Start date
Watched the first episode of Star Trek: Picard and I'm not very into it. It makes me think of that Simpsons skit where they show the original Star Trek cast still doing the show in their 80's.
I keep looking to see where Picard left his walker, and Data was looking very bloated, must not have been getting very good maintenance. Apart from that, the world just didn't feel like Star Trek. It felt like 2020. Why is everybody carrying knives? I've never seen a knife in Star Trek outside of a Klingon's hands. It's dumb.
Also, why would the Romulans need the Federation's help evacuating Romulus? They have one of the most powerful militaries in the galaxy. They should have more than enough ships to handle an evacuation. Not to mention it was their bloody homeworld, there must have been countless civilian trading ships in the vicinity that could have been commandeered as well.
I keep looking to see where Picard left his walker, and Data was looking very bloated, must not have been getting very good maintenance. Apart from that, the world just didn't feel like Star Trek. It felt like 2020. Why is everybody carrying knives? I've never seen a knife in Star Trek outside of a Klingon's hands. It's dumb.
Also, why would the Romulans need the Federation's help evacuating Romulus? They have one of the most powerful militaries in the galaxy. They should have more than enough ships to handle an evacuation. Not to mention it was their bloody homeworld, there must have been countless civilian trading ships in the vicinity that could have been commandeered as well.
I watched the Thief, His Wife and the Canoe, a series based on the real life case of a man faking his own death in a canoeing accident to claim the life insurance.
On a surface level it's quite a comical concept, but it also captures the tragic side of the story in how this leaves his family devastated and turns his wife into a nervous wreck. The real life John Darwin must be a full on psychopath.
Great acting from Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan in the lead roles.
On a surface level it's quite a comical concept, but it also captures the tragic side of the story in how this leaves his family devastated and turns his wife into a nervous wreck. The real life John Darwin must be a full on psychopath.
Great acting from Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan in the lead roles.
Stargirl: Season 1 (4/5)
It's arguably ironic, coming from the weakest Arrowverse season I've ever seen (Flash season 7) to one of the best (if I had to guess, probably the #5 spot). And I know that Stargirl is only in the Arrowverse "technically" (if at all), but whatever the case, I'm including it as part of it. And if it isn't, then honestly, it doesn't invalidate any of what I can say about it, since the show is entirely self-contained.
Anyway, I'm actually going to structure this review by sections based on quality, as I think that's the best way to go about it. If you want an actual plot summary, look up Wikipedia.
So on that note:
It's arguably ironic, coming from the weakest Arrowverse season I've ever seen (Flash season 7) to one of the best (if I had to guess, probably the #5 spot). And I know that Stargirl is only in the Arrowverse "technically" (if at all), but whatever the case, I'm including it as part of it. And if it isn't, then honestly, it doesn't invalidate any of what I can say about it, since the show is entirely self-contained.
Anyway, I'm actually going to structure this review by sections based on quality, as I think that's the best way to go about it. If you want an actual plot summary, look up Wikipedia.
So on that note:
THE GOOD
-The writing is pretty good. At around 13 episodes, the season's tight. Lots of moments that ranged from making me laugh to getting me in "the feels."
-The characters are good as well, both the heroes and the villains. Mostly. I could name some exceptions, but mostly, they're just that - exceptions. Also, this is kind of a segway, but there's something really wholesome about the show that I like. There's a kind of..."goodness" in the characters (especially with Courtney/Stargirl and Pat/STRIPE) that while could be seen as cliche (and I'll be fair, you wouldn't be unjustified in saying so), honestly, it was really refreshing. I'm not saying every character has to be like this - there's clearly a place for moral ambiguity - but here, I liked it.
-The action's good. Really good. This honestly surprised me, since I wasn't sure how good action could be in a show like this (budget, for instance), but it's probably some of the best action I've seen in the Arrowverse shows overall. There's a great sense of movement and speed, and I don't know if it's like this in the comics, but turns out Stargirl is actually quite acrobatic, and the staff is used in all manner of creative ways. And the other characters are, for the most part, no slouches either.
-This is entirely subjective, but the setting of Blue Valley, Nevada, gives me a slice of small-town Americana. It's not really something that I've seen in ages. It might be cultural shifts, it might be because my tastes have changed, but it's kind of neat to go back. I can't really claim nostalgia in any real sense (I've visited the mainland US once, and that was almost entirely in San Francisco), but in terms of what's been put on screen? Kind of nice.
-The writing is pretty good. At around 13 episodes, the season's tight. Lots of moments that ranged from making me laugh to getting me in "the feels."
-The characters are good as well, both the heroes and the villains. Mostly. I could name some exceptions, but mostly, they're just that - exceptions. Also, this is kind of a segway, but there's something really wholesome about the show that I like. There's a kind of..."goodness" in the characters (especially with Courtney/Stargirl and Pat/STRIPE) that while could be seen as cliche (and I'll be fair, you wouldn't be unjustified in saying so), honestly, it was really refreshing. I'm not saying every character has to be like this - there's clearly a place for moral ambiguity - but here, I liked it.
-The action's good. Really good. This honestly surprised me, since I wasn't sure how good action could be in a show like this (budget, for instance), but it's probably some of the best action I've seen in the Arrowverse shows overall. There's a great sense of movement and speed, and I don't know if it's like this in the comics, but turns out Stargirl is actually quite acrobatic, and the staff is used in all manner of creative ways. And the other characters are, for the most part, no slouches either.
-This is entirely subjective, but the setting of Blue Valley, Nevada, gives me a slice of small-town Americana. It's not really something that I've seen in ages. It might be cultural shifts, it might be because my tastes have changed, but it's kind of neat to go back. I can't really claim nostalgia in any real sense (I've visited the mainland US once, and that was almost entirely in San Francisco), but in terms of what's been put on screen? Kind of nice.
THE MIXED BAG STUFF
-The show has a very mixed tone in regards to how it approaches the grittier side of things. On one hand, the show, on the surface, is pretty upbeat - brightly-clothed people fighting other brightly-clothed people, doing brightly-coloured things. However, there's moments of what you might call..."extreme grit," I guess. As in, people die. Not just protagonists and antagonists (though that happens), innocent bystanders as well, and, well, not always in the best way to go. I'm honestly not sure whether I should call this a pro or a con, because on one hand, these moments can be very powerful. Sometimes for the main characters (e.g. guilt over killing/over innocents being caught in the crossfire), sometimes for the secondary ones. For instance, a parent's child is killed accidently early on (said parent is actually one of the villains), and to see how both parents react to learning that their son is dead...honestly, it's powerful stuff. Not for the standards of the genre, I mean powerful, in general. So basically, you have these excellent moments of character writing, yet at the same time, there's tonal whiplash involved as well. It's whiplash that doesn't bother me personally, but I could see it bothering others.
-The clash in tone also extends to the antagonists. We have the "Injustice Society of America," but their overall goal is to actually help the country. Just, y'know, through mind control, and 25 million dead. Little things like that. I'm actually not complaining, I'm a general believer in the mantra "bad guys don't see themselves as bad guys," and while there's exceptions that I still enjoy, I think moral ambiguity does work here. However, the reason I'm listing this under "iffy" is that the tonal whiplash extends to the ISA as well. Some of the characters are given good material to work with (Icicle, Brainwave), since their actors can go around in their civilian forms, still convey menace, have emotional lows, etc. Others, like Sportsmaster and Huntress, are just goofballs. It's testmant to the show that Evil Casey Jones can still come off as a threat, but he's still Evil Casey Jones, and fighting with a baseball bat and using puck grenades at the end of the day. So on one hand, you have some really solid villains that have understandable, if basic motives, and solid acting performances throughout. On the other, you have goofball villains, and villains in-between. Like the above point, I wasn't really put off by this, but I could see someone being so.
-The worldbuilding is weird. The show explicitly takes place in 2020, whereas the deaths of the original Justice Society of America occurred ten years ago. So, in this universe, 2010 marked the end of the Golden Age of Heroes (the show's words, not mine). This is weird, because the iconography for said heroes is Golden Age or Silver Age, yet this is transplated to the 21st century. That's more of a quibble than anything else, but what really got to me is how...normal, this world is. If superheroes were flying around just ten years ago, then why is there nothing here to reflect that? It's not as if people don't know who these heroes were, but, well, where are the kids chatting about their heroes? Where's the history course on them? Where are the statues? I get that this is a quibble, but if your show has the conceit of a "Golden Age of Heroes," then shouldn't there be something to reflect that?
-The show has a very mixed tone in regards to how it approaches the grittier side of things. On one hand, the show, on the surface, is pretty upbeat - brightly-clothed people fighting other brightly-clothed people, doing brightly-coloured things. However, there's moments of what you might call..."extreme grit," I guess. As in, people die. Not just protagonists and antagonists (though that happens), innocent bystanders as well, and, well, not always in the best way to go. I'm honestly not sure whether I should call this a pro or a con, because on one hand, these moments can be very powerful. Sometimes for the main characters (e.g. guilt over killing/over innocents being caught in the crossfire), sometimes for the secondary ones. For instance, a parent's child is killed accidently early on (said parent is actually one of the villains), and to see how both parents react to learning that their son is dead...honestly, it's powerful stuff. Not for the standards of the genre, I mean powerful, in general. So basically, you have these excellent moments of character writing, yet at the same time, there's tonal whiplash involved as well. It's whiplash that doesn't bother me personally, but I could see it bothering others.
-The clash in tone also extends to the antagonists. We have the "Injustice Society of America," but their overall goal is to actually help the country. Just, y'know, through mind control, and 25 million dead. Little things like that. I'm actually not complaining, I'm a general believer in the mantra "bad guys don't see themselves as bad guys," and while there's exceptions that I still enjoy, I think moral ambiguity does work here. However, the reason I'm listing this under "iffy" is that the tonal whiplash extends to the ISA as well. Some of the characters are given good material to work with (Icicle, Brainwave), since their actors can go around in their civilian forms, still convey menace, have emotional lows, etc. Others, like Sportsmaster and Huntress, are just goofballs. It's testmant to the show that Evil Casey Jones can still come off as a threat, but he's still Evil Casey Jones, and fighting with a baseball bat and using puck grenades at the end of the day. So on one hand, you have some really solid villains that have understandable, if basic motives, and solid acting performances throughout. On the other, you have goofball villains, and villains in-between. Like the above point, I wasn't really put off by this, but I could see someone being so.
-The worldbuilding is weird. The show explicitly takes place in 2020, whereas the deaths of the original Justice Society of America occurred ten years ago. So, in this universe, 2010 marked the end of the Golden Age of Heroes (the show's words, not mine). This is weird, because the iconography for said heroes is Golden Age or Silver Age, yet this is transplated to the 21st century. That's more of a quibble than anything else, but what really got to me is how...normal, this world is. If superheroes were flying around just ten years ago, then why is there nothing here to reflect that? It's not as if people don't know who these heroes were, but, well, where are the kids chatting about their heroes? Where's the history course on them? Where are the statues? I get that this is a quibble, but if your show has the conceit of a "Golden Age of Heroes," then shouldn't there be something to reflect that?
THE BAD
None of these points are too bad, really, but the show has some glaring issues. Namely:
-Certain plot points are raised, but then discarded. For instance, the character of Yolanda confronts her family, with a conversation that can be paraphrased as "hey, can I be allowed outside these days, because I've been effectively grounded for three months?" followed by "no." Which is then followed by her...um, having the run of the town, as a civilian or hero either way? FFS, the kids Courtney recruits go into hiding with her family towards the end, but their own families apparently never bring it up. Or, alternatively, at the end, an ISA villain is killed in Courtney's house. What they did with the body, and why it was never traced back to them, is never explained, or even mentioned.
-Not all powers are created equal. We have Stargirl who's got, um, stargirl powers, Wild Cat (agility), Hour man (who can get super strength for one hour a day, and is useless the other 23 hours), and Beth, whose powers are...um...wearing goggles with an AI installed? Um, yeah. Hate to be that guy, but I think some members of this team are more important than others.
CONCLUSION
Despite gripes, show's pretty damn solid. Started watching season 2, and so far, the overall quality has been retained.
Neat stuff.
None of these points are too bad, really, but the show has some glaring issues. Namely:
-Certain plot points are raised, but then discarded. For instance, the character of Yolanda confronts her family, with a conversation that can be paraphrased as "hey, can I be allowed outside these days, because I've been effectively grounded for three months?" followed by "no." Which is then followed by her...um, having the run of the town, as a civilian or hero either way? FFS, the kids Courtney recruits go into hiding with her family towards the end, but their own families apparently never bring it up. Or, alternatively, at the end, an ISA villain is killed in Courtney's house. What they did with the body, and why it was never traced back to them, is never explained, or even mentioned.
-Not all powers are created equal. We have Stargirl who's got, um, stargirl powers, Wild Cat (agility), Hour man (who can get super strength for one hour a day, and is useless the other 23 hours), and Beth, whose powers are...um...wearing goggles with an AI installed? Um, yeah. Hate to be that guy, but I think some members of this team are more important than others.
CONCLUSION
Despite gripes, show's pretty damn solid. Started watching season 2, and so far, the overall quality has been retained.
Neat stuff.
I'm not sure the size of navies in Star Trek is ever really made clear, but Starfleet has I think under 10,000 ships, of which possibly only about 1000 warships. The Enterprise is very much a battleship equivalent right at the large end of ship size - most much smaller.
The Romulan Star Empire is vastly smaller than the Federation: however as a militaristic nation it punches above its weight militarily with a navy proportionally much larger compared to population. So, let's say it has 5000 starships. If each is capable of moving 1000 people on average, that's 5 million civilians movable per journey for the whole fleet. Romulus, as a highly developed homeworld around Earth size, may have a population of over 10 billion. So, each naval ship needs over 2,000 back and forth journeys to evaculate the population. Even with high warp speed, each journey would take days-weeks, depending how far the target system is. If they can evacuate 5 million a week, that's 250 million a year, up to a century to evacuate them all. Even with another ten times their naval capacity (support vessels, traders, etc.) it would potentially not be feasible within the time available.
So, yes, the Romulans might definitely need help. A lot of it.
* * *
What I do find hard to believe is that they only noticed their star would go supernova a few years beforehand. I think stars take a long, long time (in terms of our lifespans) to degrade to the point of supernova.
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OTOH, in ST:TNG the Romulans were set to conquer Vulcan with 3 ships, each carrying 5,000 Romulan soldiers. Sci-fi and maths parted company a long while ago, for the most part.
You are underestimating a few things. The Enterprise has a crew of 1000 (only about 10 are necessary to run the entirety of it's operations), it could hold many more for transport. You aren't factoring in civilian ships, which must surely outnumber military ones. And lastly you don't need to travel very far, since the supernova can only explode at less than the speed of light, and it seems like at warp 9 a ship can cover 10-15 light years in two days. It's probable there's a habitable world within 5 light years, so a day's journey.
Let's say 10 000 starships for a conservative estimate of military/civilian at a capacity of 10 000 refugees traveling 5 light years for a 2 day turn around time, is 100 trips or about 6 months for the entire population.
Oh if thats the worst bit of logical issue you've got with Picard, you might want to duck out while you're ahead lol. Not only that, you're not even to such deep engrossing thought out additions as the Roman Ninja Warrior Nuns (of which Picards adopted Romulan son is the sole male member. Also they kind of forget he was Picards adopted son later and transfer him to another parent figure for season 2 for some drama stirring).
Watching Outer Range on Amazon Prime. Bit slow paced so far. They kinda told us what's in the Black Box by end of episode 1. I'm on 3 now.
Eh. James Brolin is in it. He has a ranch. Someone is saying part of it is and always has been crossing into his land.
On the land in dispute is a giant hole. You can't see where it goes. Supernatural like.
Then there is some criminal intrigue. And Sci Fi.
I'll keep watching. 6.5/10 so far.
Eh. James Brolin is in it. He has a ranch. Someone is saying part of it is and always has been crossing into his land.
On the land in dispute is a giant hole. You can't see where it goes. Supernatural like.
Then there is some criminal intrigue. And Sci Fi.
I'll keep watching. 6.5/10 so far.
The Sweeney, season 1
Fuck me running. Allegedly a lot of the dialogue in this show was sourced by its writers eavesdropping on members of the real life Flying Squad in pubs around Scotland Yard. Like it’s good period police drama, and John Thaw plays Jack Reagan as a proper hard bastard. And if you squint your eyes you can even pretend George Carter is Dennis Waterman’s character on New Tricks during his heyday.
But boy, if what I’ve heard about the actual Flying Squad is true, Reagan and Carter aren’t even half the bastards their real life counter parts were.
Baller intro tune though.
Fuck me running. Allegedly a lot of the dialogue in this show was sourced by its writers eavesdropping on members of the real life Flying Squad in pubs around Scotland Yard. Like it’s good period police drama, and John Thaw plays Jack Reagan as a proper hard bastard. And if you squint your eyes you can even pretend George Carter is Dennis Waterman’s character on New Tricks during his heyday.
But boy, if what I’ve heard about the actual Flying Squad is true, Reagan and Carter aren’t even half the bastards their real life counter parts were.
Baller intro tune though.
Yes, but that's the Enterprise - a huge "battleship". The vast majority are much smaller: cruiser / destroyer / frigate size. For instance, in WW2, the Royal Navy had about 20-25 capital ships (battleships/carriers), 60 cruisers and 300-600 destroyers, to give us some idea of ratios of big to smaller ships. After that, there will have things like refuellers, science ships etc. most probably with very modest capacity to transport people. Again, here taking WW2 as an example, the US navy had about 7000 ships in the end, but only about 1000 were main combat ships. The majority were much smaller even than a destroyer (landing craft, minesweepers, patrol craft, etc.)
It is unlikely there is a habitable planet within 5 LY, and besides, multiple planets would be needed to drop that many refugees. The closest system to our sun is 4.2 LY, and the next closest is 6LY. Neither are likely to have a habitable planet. Nor, frankly, anything within 10LY: habitable planets will be extremely rare, even in a galaxy with terraforming. Warp speed is the cube of the number, so warp speed 9 is 9x9x9 = 729 times faster than light. Therefore, warp 9 will travel a light year in about half a day (=365/729). So, 10LY to a system and back is 10 days at warp 9. Plus time in impulse getting to and from the loading point, and time loading / disembarking.
I'm watching Dr Strange 2 on Tuesday but haven't seen any of the Disney Plus shows or the last Spiderman, what did I miss that matters to Multiverse?
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This is Star Trek, you can't go to a system without tripping over, not only habitable planets, but ones that have intelligent life, and pressures and atmospheres exactly like Earth. And really. They don't actually need a habitable planet. They just need somewhere do dump everyone until they can move them somewhere better. With replicators it shouldn't be a problem to give everybody a pressure suit and set up a bunch of air refill stations and whatever sort of future space tents they would need.
And you can do math all you like, but it's a canon fact that warp 9 can do 10 light years in 51 hours.
I would highly, HIGHLY suggest at least reading a recap of WandaVision, as I'm pretty sure that will play a major part into the plot of Dr. Strange 2, and I suspect No Way Home will come into play as well. Loki may also come into play, but only in terms of establishing the multiverse as a thing.
There is a multiverse now, Wanda is in a really bad place and is probably gonna be looking for the multiverse versions of her kids, and Dr Strange is a complete idiot who made quite a few mistakes in No Way Home and is going to be paying for them soon.