Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Halo

I made it to episode 3 of season 2 as up until this point there seemed the be enough to keep me going. But before I was half way through this viewing I decided I'd had enough, because the episode had descended into the normal sort of "who gives a crap" pyjama super hero drama
TV that is the dull witted staple of modern day viewing.

What had started out as distinct had very quickly become mundane. Why do producers succumb to this mediocrity?

The most recent thing I have seen Jerry O'Connell in is in ads for online Gotcha games.

 Easy E wrote:
The most recent thing I have seen Jerry O'Connell in is in ads for online Gotcha games.

And Star Trek: Below Decks! You Monster!

He's no Joel McHale but the man is still a treasure!

Do you see him in Below Decks, or just hear him? Never watched the show.

God bless Joel McHale!

 Hulksmash wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The most recent thing I have seen Jerry O'Connell in is in ads for online Gotcha games.

And Star Trek: Below Decks! You Monster!

He's no Joel McHale but the man is still a treasure!

Lower Decks*

Watching Batman The Animated Series. Not on DVD, but on Prime, which is bloody typical, isn’t it!

Anyways. Such an amazing series. As I wibbled about before, it’s a near perfect animated adaptation of a comic book. Arguably the best we’ve ever had. And for persons of my vintage, it felt like the medium was maturing with me.

As a kid it was He-Man, Transformers, Galaxy Rangers et al. Proper toy advert cartoons. Simple moral tales where the bad guys are just bad, and the good guys are Very Good.

Then came this. Which had the chutzpah to show some villains as if not exactly sympathetic, but understandable. Like Victor Fries.

Whilst I’m not going to pretend it’s high drama, it was more focussed on the drama and the characters that what I’d seen before. And at the age of 12 when it came out? I was probably just the right age to really appreciate that, giving me an organic progression in my viewing tastes.

And hey, no annoying sidekick pet or robot! The voice acting is superb, showing nuance. And just as the aesthetic of the show gave it a timeless quality, the scripts steering clear of slang and hip terms only adds to that. It sounds like a Radio Drama, which really suits the overall tone.

If you’re all wonky in the head and have somehow managed to never see this? Get it watched. It’s completely kid friendly, without being childish.

Re-watching Battlestar Galactica. I'm in the middle of season 2 right now. It's been a good ride. I really enjoy the cast of this show.

The live action Avatar: The Last Airbender series has dropped on Netflix.

First episode is good. A lot more grown up than the cartoon and a massive improvement on the live action film.

So far I’ve enjoyed it well enough.

 warhead01 wrote:
Re-watching Battlestar Galactica. I'm in the middle of season 2 right now. It's been a good ride. I really enjoy the cast of this show.

Original or re-boot?

 Easy E wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
Re-watching Battlestar Galactica. I'm in the middle of season 2 right now. It's been a good ride. I really enjoy the cast of this show.

Original or re-boot?

The reboot from 04'.

I never really got to watch much of the original. We had the first few episodes on tape at one point but other than that I'd only seen a random episode here and there over the years. I recall being unhappy with the character recasting at first but the show was solid. Of course what kid wouldn't have liked og Starbuck. Dirk Benedict played that part and after watching the A-team I wonder if he was just playing himself. I recall being upset that Starbuck was going to be a woman in the "new series", at the time. Honestly thought I like the newer version of Starbuck. I also see both series as their own thing so there isn't a lot of need for comparison. Both shows hit a number of similar beats as one would expect. Weirdly I would give yet another reboot a try even though I am not really one for reboots but even that would hit the "all of this has happened before". So if the writing was decent and to the point it could be worth the trouble.

The Pegasus has just showed up. Not one of my favorite bits of the story. But it's been a few years.

Sliders, S3

And here comes the rapid loss of quality. Historically, Fox cancelled it at this point, and it was later picked up by SyFy.

I can say it being axed surprised me. What started out as an interesting premise put to interesting stories, has become an interesting premise utterly squandered on deeply uninteresting stories with squalid, cheap-and-unconvincing-even-for-its-era CGI monsters.

I’ll see this season out, but doubt I’ll be back for season 4.

Aash wrote:
The live action Avatar: The Last Airbender series has dropped on Netflix.

First episode is good. A lot more grown up than the cartoon and a massive improvement on the live action film.

So far I’ve enjoyed it well enough.

I have rebounded hard from that one. It's... well, it's better than the film, and that's about it. I wouldn't say it's any more mature than the original series either. It's just louder about wanting to be.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sliders, S3

And here comes the rapid loss of quality.

From Wikipedia

... there was a significant shift in creative direction of the series with the third season, with the Fox network desiring it to be a more action-oriented show than thought-provoking...

So as usual, the network is the one that killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

Shogun

First two episodes up on D+ in the UK.

Loving it so far! As ever I can’t and won’t comment on its historical accuracy, but I’m really digging this.

Our Flag Means Death

Comedy/romance set in the golden age of piracy. Bored wealthy landowner Stede Bonnet abandons his family to become a pirate. Ends up meeting, sailing with, and falling for Blackbeard. Some surprisingly big names for a pretty niche comedy series (Taika Waititi is great as Blackbeard), the romance side is nicely done, and comedy-wise ranges from slightly awkward to roaring-with-laughter hilarious. It grows on you. Well worth watching.

House of Ninjas (2024, Netflix)

Not my usual thing lately, but it looked interesting and I ended up watching the whole 8 episodes over a few days. Pretty fun comedy-action-family drama about a somewhat dysfunctional family of shinobi (don't call them ninjas!). They are "retired" but get pulled back into action by a nation altering conspiracy/terror attack and financial constraints. Combat could of been a bit better (its sometimes too fast/busy or dark) and aspects of Japanese culture are so alien to me that I had trouble getting into it at times but it was still enjoyable. I give it a 7/10.

It sets up nicely for a second season and I'll check that one out.

Justice League Unlimited on Netflix - Does American cartooning get better than this? No. No it does not. Wonder Pig alone is worth the price of admission.

Echo 3:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet but this is a pretty well done kidnapping/thriller rescue show on AppleTV. It's not amazing but the characters are well done and believable. And it's got Luke Evans

Essentially Luke Evan's sister gets grabbed while working in Colombia. Evan's is a hostage team operator (Delta?) and Evan's sister's husband is on his team. It sounds better than I'm describing and it's so far (only thru part 1) more suspense/drama than action but it's really well done.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Justice League Unlimited on Netflix - Does American cartooning get better than this? No. No it does not. Wonder Pig alone is worth the price of admission.

How does it compare to Batman the Animated Series though?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Justice League Unlimited on Netflix - Does American cartooning get better than this? No. No it does not. Wonder Pig alone is worth the price of admission.

How does it compare to Batman the Animated Series though?

Batman the Animated Series is definitely superior, but the Justice League Series was also just a straight up continuation of BAS.

The old DCAU was some of the best stuff in the 90s and early 00s;

-Batman: the Animated Series (and The New Batman Adventures)
-Superman: the Animated Series
-Batman Beyond
-Static Shock
-The Zeta Project
-Justice League
-Justice League Unlimited

All of these are good. Zeta Project is kind of the red-headed step child, but it wasn't so bad as much as it was just different as a spinoff of a spinoff (Batman Beyond). Static Shock is maybe the most kiddy of the bunch but not too kiddy imo.

I never really got into Static Shock. I wasn’t at all familiar with the character, so always assumed it was a “me too!” type thing pretending to be part of the general comic book thing.

I should probably give it a fair whirl some day.

The first two seasons of Justice League weren't great, but with JLU they had carde blanche use any DC character, so out of no where you get episodes centered around Hawk and Dove, the 7 Soldiers of Victory, or Jonah Hex.

It doesn't always work, no force on Earth will ever convince me to care about Warlord, but when it works it is gold.

Anyway...

Arrested Development

Why was I not informed of this show sooner? Only seen the pilot but wow.

Furies

Dubbed french show on Netflix. Idea that essentially an agreed killer, known as the fury, keeps the peace between several rival crime bosses in Paris. It's ok. It starts out decently strong but descends quickly into silly levels of plot armor till we get to the finally where physics don't exist. Overall it was ok. Not sure I'd watch a second season of it and it obviously set itself up for one.

Shogun

I took the chance and watched the first three episodes. I am really enjoying this new version.

Discount Tom Hardy has been a lot better than I'd expected in the role of Blackthorn.

Over all I am enjoying the cast so far.

 Henry wrote:
Halo

I made it to episode 3 of season 2 as up until this point there seemed the be enough to keep me going. But before I was half way through this viewing I decided I'd had enough, because the episode had descended into the normal sort of "who gives a crap" pyjama super hero drama
TV that is the dull witted staple of modern day viewing.

What had started out as distinct had very quickly become mundane. Why do producers succumb to this mediocrity?

Just on the new episode.

I know very literal about Halo as a thing. But this series is boring. Spartans are meant to be super soldiers, yet here there’s nothing super about them. I’ve no idea if the story is loyal to the games. But if it is? I’m left wondering why it’s held in such high regard.

 warhead01 wrote:
Shogun

I took the chance and watched the first three episodes. I am really enjoying this new version.

Discount Tom Hardy has been a lot better than I'd expected in the role of Blackthorn.

Over all I am enjoying the cast so far.

Can I safely assume that Shogun is not suitable for Kyoto Secunda and her Clone Sister Kyoto Secunda Prime (age 11)?

Erm…possibly?

It’s heavy going, with lots of subtitles. But whilst there is sword based violence, it’s not buckets of the red stuff flying around.

However, there is a scene in episode one which might give nightmares. The others not so much, so far.

I say give it a watch yourself first, just the first episode, and decide from there.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just on the new episode.

I know very literal about Halo as a thing. But this series is boring.

I don't know anything about it either, but loyalty to the source or not, I'll watch anything that's interesting. I decided to give one more episode a go and it truly is a hopeless show.

I've been thinking about this and have come to a personal opinion that a good TV show will blend plot, character, action and filler.
Plot is pretty obvious and there should be a continuous advancement. Character needs to be either development or revelation. Action can be anything which gives us an emotional jolt - it could be explosions or tension, comedy or sadness. And good filler should be scene setting. And a really good show should attempt to blend these so we get multiple strands at the same time.

Halo doesn't blend anything. This is the action sequence, now this is the character sequence, oh dear we haven't moved the plot for 45 minutes so we'll give you a 30 second plot dump. And the filler is just bland filler, totally unnecessary scene setting for a scene that is already set. And what are supposed to be character moments are mostly bad filler too, neither developing nor revealing anything about the characters.

There was a scene in one episode where two characters are looking for an escape from a building where they can hear explosions going on and they stop their escape to have an expositional conversation that doesn't tell us anything about their relationship that we don't already know and was utterly inappropriate for the situation.

Season 2 is really, really, really bad TV.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
Shogun

I took the chance and watched the first three episodes. I am really enjoying this new version.

Discount Tom Hardy has been a lot better than I'd expected in the role of Blackthorn.

Over all I am enjoying the cast so far.

Can I safely assume that Shogun is not suitable for Kyoto Secunda and her Clone Sister Kyoto Secunda Prime (age 11)?

It is a little graphic. I think so of it would be lost on the young but the flip side is it could scar them for life. I really couldn't say so best preview it yourself first.
I was thinking about the first casual decapitation which is quick and given next to not thought by the sword swinger.
from memory there's 2 or 3 killings in Ep 1 one, on screen, and a small massacre of some guards and hired killers in Ep 2 followed by a battle in Ep 3 .


I'm not a good measuring stick for this sort of thing I grew up watching Conan and Starwars back to back 4 times a week for I'm not sure how many years. Conan was always more frequent than Starwars. If that tells you anything about me.

Jujutsu Kaisen

I waited a long time to jump on this and watch. Wanted enough episodes to binge after all the hype and...

Hot damn.

If you're not an anime or shonen battle fan, this anime will not change your mind but if you already are dear god is this just pure jet fuel. And in contrast to a lot of stuff, it's a series with a lot of serious emotional beats between its humor, very distinct characters many of whom seem to purposefully take anime character stereotypes and spin them off into interesting new directions, and just fantastic action sequences. A complete lack of fear to not only punch its audience in the feels when it will feel the most but punch twice.

It's been a while since I've seen a mainstream battle series where every battle legitimately feels like lives on are on the line.

In a lot of ways the series is an inverse of Naruto, sharing many of the same initial plot beats but going in different directions with all of them to create something that feels really familiar but also very fresh.

Fantastic series.