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Agreed. How can they count that as effectively a season finale, a glorified music video.

 Flinty wrote:
Agreed. How can they count that as effectively a season finale, a glorified music video.

When the season was first released, it was the opener which I think was an even worse placement.

The Recruit on Netflix.

I watched the first episode randomly, expecting nothing. Thought it was pretty good, surprisingly so. Now I am close to finishing the first season and what an excellent show it is! Watching the main character navigate his first days at the CIA with chutzpah and resourcefulness, whether it's foreign agents trying to kill him or unlikable collegues stealing his copying machine paper.. Great dialogue, smart characters, interesting relationships. A pleasure to watch.

Star Trek: Voyager .

Ugh. Season 1 is even worse than I remember. There was so much promise. So many setups. So many missed opportunities.

Cool, the Maquis are our friends now. Tuvok was an undercover agent with the Maquis? They seem to be okay with this information...

Oh, another Kazon episode! Yay! Another one!

The Kazon showing up a lot did at least make sense, it was just let down by them not being particularly interesting as antagonists. It was nice when they finally made it out of Kazon territory.

And, yeah, the whole setup with the combined crews should have led to an ongoing narrative to and they just sort of glossed over it with just the occasional episode to remind us it was a thing. The first casualty of the studio's insistence on a largely standalone episode format instead of an ongoing narrative.

Definitely a waste opportunity.

Happens I’m currently watching BSG, like, right now. And Voyager could’ve gone a similar route.

With its fancy new tech in bio-neural gel packs, there’s reason for it to survive the trip to the Caretaker in space worthy order. From there, find out there’s a bunch of other, stranded Alpha Quadrant ships and crews. With nothing else for it, and following negotiation a flotilla is arranged, with the bio-neural tech adapted and shared, leading us to a ragtag fleet of Alpha Quadrant ships of differing eras trying to get home.

Mix up the crews for greater trust and interdependence, and of course reason for tensions. See the various approaches of species tested, especially if you’re brave enough for Starfleet to not Always Be Right.

Or as has been proposed before? Make it a Generational Voyage, with ships falling ever further into disrepair due to lack of proper spacedock style maintenance.

Alas, it was not really the era for it, and instead we got Captain Inconsistent and her crew of abject dullards.

Which, as ever, is not a criticism of the cast, but of the writers.

Cyel wrote:
The Recruit on Netflix.

I watched the first episode randomly, expecting nothing. Thought it was pretty good, surprisingly so. Now I am close to finishing the first season and what an excellent show it is! Watching the main character navigate his first days at the CIA with chutzpah and resourcefulness, whether it's foreign agents trying to kill him or unlikable collegues stealing his copying machine paper.. Great dialogue, smart characters, interesting relationships. A pleasure to watch.

It's a genuinely good show. I was definitely surprised when I watched it. Sad that it got cancelled as it set up a solid season 3. I think it was the better of the two between it and The Night Agent but apparently they felt they could only keep one and went Night Agent.

 Hulksmash wrote:


It's a genuinely good show. I was definitely surprised when I watched it. Sad that it got cancelled as it set up a solid season 3. I think it was the better of the two between it and The Night Agent but apparently they felt they could only keep one and went Night Agent.

Oh, that's a bummer :( maybe they'll reconsider, although, most likely, they won't.

We are mid season 4 of Futurama and burning out. Bender has become really unlikeable over a short span of episodes. It took Homer 8 or 9 years to become an irredeemable jerkass.

The jokes that land are fewer and farther between, and all the characters have become flanderized psychopaths to facilitate them.


Time to start Andor, I guess.

#Andorsogoooooooood

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
We are mid season 4 of Futurama and burning out. Bender has become really unlikeable over a short span of episodes. It took Homer 8 or 9 years to become an irredeemable jerkass.

The jokes that land are fewer and farther between, and all the characters have become flanderized psychopaths to facilitate them.


Time to start Andor, I guess.

Was Season 4 after they got shut down and then restarted? Cause yeah that season honestly feels rough, esp cause a lot of the episodes feel like the creators just showing a middle finger to the producers/managers from the first network where they were cancelled. I also noticed that after that point the long running story aspect that they had going kind of fell to the side. It becomes a minor subplot to "theme of the week" and those themes became a bit more outlandish.

My recollection is it never quite recaptures the charm of the early seasons but it DOES get better

Season 4 is the last of the original run and contains a lot of the most iconic episodes (Jurassic Bark, Why of Fry, The Sting, Where No Fan Has Gone Before).

Season 5 is the direct to DVD movies that got re-edited into episodes and Season 6 is the relaunched series where they had a few too many episodes that tried to be topical in a really hamfisted way with things like the eyePhone episode that felt dated before they were new.

I do agree that overall the series tends to find itself. It's also one of those things where over time every episode gets held up against the handful of truly exceptional episodes from the past, even though the original run has its share of duds too.

Yeah, I want to finish out season 4 for the remaining great episodes, especially Jurassic Bark. Unfortunately, we just had a run of episodes through a Pharaoh to Remember that we’re just not fun.

Futurama started losing me when they retconned Jurassic Bark. Still has its moments after season four but it just wasn't the same.

Finished Star Wars-Space Goonies and wow, really enjoyed it. The kids are halfway decent (though having the fat kid be a literal elephant was a bit much) and Jude Law carries his part.

Might check out Star Trek-Space Goonies the Animated Series next.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
Futurama started losing me when they retconned Jurassic Bark. Still has its moments after season four but it just wasn't the same.

They?

WHAT?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Futurama started losing me when they retconned Jurassic Bark. Still has its moments after season four but it just wasn't the same.

They?

WHAT?

Some time travel and multiverse stuff.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Finished Star Wars-Space Goonies and wow, really enjoyed it. The kids are halfway decent (though having the fat kid be a literal elephant was a bit much) and Jude Law carries his part.

Might check out Star Trek-Space Goonies the Animated Series next.

Funny. It never occurred to me that Neel was playing the part of the fat kid.

I think they did a good job, aside from him being an elephant, of staying away from the usual stereotypical fat jokes.

 insaniak wrote:
I think they did a good job, aside from him being an elephant, of staying away from the usual stereotypical fat jokes.

There were a few bits, mostly at the Spa Planet that were a bit "after school special". Neel complains he can't climb well because he doesn't have long spider legs like you do. Some other bits that took it up to the line of "We are all special in our own way group hug" but never does. So I liked it. Sometimes it is possible to say something and be subtle.

Most of all? They’re recognisably kids. Foolhardy, but genuinely pretty wily and smart. Brave, but not in a silly fearless way, the overcoming your fears way.

Avenue Five (HBO)

Gilligan's Island meets Star Trek Voyager IN SPACE!

It's THE FUTURE! and we have space cruise ships. But when the Avenue Five is knocked off course an 8 week trip around the solar system turns into 8 years.

The Captain is played by House, Neelix plays the 30th man to walk on Mars, there's an insane billionaire, an executive whose face is so botoxed she can't smile, the engineer who is the only one who knows how to fly the ship, and Rav's hair which should get its own spin off.

Only lasted 2 seasons due to Covid/steaming fatigue/whatever and the science is doggy at best, but it's fun and the cast make it work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_5

Avenue 5 had some really hilarious moments. The space funerals were a particular highlight.

Zany British Time Traveler Season 436 (Jio Hotstar)

What did I just watch?

OK I liked the start with Planet MissBelindaChandra, and some of the others, and Ncuti Gatwa has tons of charisma... And I really liked the Goblin King story that kicked this off but...

I mean...

You do a Eurovision parody and don't actually finish one song?

The climax is the Doctor vs a Giant CGI Skeleton which he takes care of by zapping it with a gun that has the power of 10 billion supernovas? Because one thing the Doctor is known for is shooting people with huge guns.

And the emotional climax hinges on a character we only met in the last two episodes?

Clumsy, forced, random, they really need a new show runner.

The finale was a real disappointment. Another villain from the classic era, steeped in lore, dismissed in seconds. A great new Rani gone after less than what? 15 minutes screen time. The reason for the regeneration seemly tacked on, unconnected to the rest of the series. There was no reason for Rose Noble to be at UNIT HQ except to tick a box...

The latest Private Eye magazine's TV section was focused on Doctor Who where 'Remote Controller' pointed out the average age of a Doctor Who viewer is 50! Food for thought to someone.

Also, I’m pretty sure Omega, last time we saw him during Peter Davison’s era had the slight problem, continued over from the Three Doctors of now being made from negative energy.

And please RTD. Please stop killing off all the Timelords off screen. It adds nothing.

And didn't we find out in Matt Smith's finale that Galifrey is in fact totally fine and OK and everyone's alive? Just hidden somewhere in the multiverse.

Or was that resolved? I did miss a few seasons when the Wonder Twins were born.

And Time Lords are sterile? Way, way back wasn't one of the companions the First Doctor's daughter or granddaughter?

I suppose I could google these things, but why?

#pastcaring

Honestly the more I look at the plots they use the more I think one problem with modern Who is Marvel/DC. It constantly feels like they are getting the same writers/influenced by the same kind of plots as superheros. Which results in the same kinds of problems - lots of needs to soft-reboot everything because they saved the universe last week.

Standard RTD.

If memory serves, Timelord is a title. All Timelords are Gallifreyan, but not all Gallifreyan’s are Timelords.

The sterile thing is just bloody stupid. Especially given The Doctor and The Master were at school together, and are far from the eldest or youngest Timelords. Romana for instance was either 124 or 140 when she first started travelling with the Doctor., compared to his declared “around 750”.

I’ll always appreciate and be thankful RTD brought it back, but he really needs to be keep under a close guard.

Also, why not use the Jennyrator from that early season? Take a sample, rearrange the DNA a smidge, kick out a new member of that species, genetically distinct from the donor. Gosh, that would’ve been a handy thing to mention to the Rani, wouldn’t it?

And RTD wrote that!

Jenny (who in real life is both the Doctor's daughter AND the Doctor's wife, time travel is complicated) seems a natural for this plot twist if they run with it.

Her one episode was fun and she is Dr Who royalty after all.

Maybe next season?

If there is a next season?

Tales from the Darkside

Back to the big boxed set. As with any weekly anthology there are hits, and there are misses. But for my tastes it’s the right balance of Hits.