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 insaniak wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

I can't remember the actor's name who played Rick, but much like the actress who played Maggie, leaving the show to pursue other acting avenues didn't seem to pay off...

He didn't leave to pursue other gigs. He left because he had a young family he wanted to spend more time with.

Oh... Huh.

That changes my views then. Thanks for the course correction!

Short Sharp Shocks Vol 2

Well, we’re off to a fun start with two examples of “Quiz Crime”, 1943 short films, no doubt shown as part of a wider cinema billing.

Here, our host one DI Frost, invites the audience to play detective, spotting the clues to find whodunnit.

Being only a few minutes long, and at least for the first one, there only being three characters (DI Frost, The Deceased, And The Other Person And So Only Possible Culprit), these are still fun, as you’re challenged to spot the crucial evidence (such as the victim being left handed, his supper being laid out for a left handed gent, and the landlord wot definitely doned it claiming to have never actually met the deceased).

Granted I doubt that would stand up in court like, but they’re fun little movies, and fascinating relics of wider lost media.

The Three Children is an early Public Safety film, warning parents of the danger of letting your kids go unattended in the street, the three presenting the children killed on the roads every day. It’s pretty effective, and quite different in tone and target than the ones I grew up with, which were far more about scaring children off from doing silly things (like playing on railways, mucking about in electricity substations and that). Again, a fascinating little slice of British cinematic history.

King of the Hill REBORN

Did you like King of the Hill? Here's more King of the Hill. It's still got the heart. The characters are still lovable little midwesterners. The references to pop culture and trends are still endearing and funny even if the show is never quite 'laugh out loud.'

Highlights imo really are just Bobby's entire deal being Bobby. Hank and Peggy kind of come off as 'Boomers' in such a heartfelt and honest way, but the show never quite does anything really clever with them. But seeing Bobby as an adult, making his own way in the world, and being his endearing enthusiastic and 'that boy just ain't right' self is maybe the greatest highlight of the revival season. Peggy is still Peggy and Dale remains a very funny character even if the noticeable change in the voice actor is a bit jarring (he performs great, he's just clearly got a different voice).

Except for Episode 5, which has what may be the funniest joke in the entire series as the very premise of its A plot.

Point of Order: King of the Hill is not Midwesterners. Pretty sure they are Texans, which is a whole different breed than Midwesterners.

That is all.

 Easy E wrote:
Point of Order: King of the Hill is not Midwesterners. Pretty sure they are Texans, which is a whole different breed than Midwesterners.

That is all.

There's parts of Texas that aren't particularly distinguishable from the rest of the Mid-West and I'd say the show falls fairly roundly into that broad area, even if the literal setting is in Texas somewhere within comfortable driving distance of Dallas.

Continuing my SG-1 rewatch, and on to Season 7.

And I’ve realised something that makes the setting really work.

The God’uld, being power hungry nutters determined to high technology for themselves inherently limit their effectiveness by refusing to use what we might consider modern techniques for mining. Instead, they stick to slave labour.

Given their prior dominance (outside of the Asgard Protected Worlds) this worked for them.

But then….us grubby little thieving tech monkies figured out the Stargate, rustled some important jimmies, and suddenly? They had a foe they weren’t prepared for.

Not only did the SG team scuttle about the Galaxy, inflicting losses on Goa’uld forces and frankly, stealing absolutely anything that wasn’t nailed down/vital to a planets safety from the Goa’uld. And so in a few short years, we outpaced them, striking right in their complacency.

And claiming to be Gods kind of limited their responses. After all, a God does not know fear. A God doesn’t need to change tactics and strategy just because a relative handful of gits are starting to smash up their toys.

They’re a wonderfully stagnant race. One so use to having it all their own way, they struggled in the face of a dynamic new foe. And as the Tau’ri racked up their successes? So spread the Jaffa Rebellion, only adding to the system lord’s troubles.


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Space, Above and Beyond

One of those sci-fie shows of the 90’s which sadly fell through the cracks. Probably because being another show on the Fox Network, one of the Fox Execs woke up one morning, realised it wasn’t The Simpsons, and so arranged for it to be killed off.

Which is a shame, because there’s an awful lot to like here. In terms of show style and atmosphere, I’d say it straddles both eras of BSG. It had the slightly silly melodrama of the original BSG, but the concerted attempt at some kind of military realism of the BSG reboot.

Airing 1995-1996 for one of an originally five intended series, it’s still one of my favourite sci-fi shows ever.

Possibly too bold in its vision and just a few years ahead of its time.

Definitely worth obtaining on home media if you like your sci-fi.


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Holy crap it’s the same Drill Instructor as him from out of off of Platoon!

Ah man! So many nice little touches here and there on this show. For instance? Pilot has to eject.

The whole cockpit assembly then becomes a life raft. Once on the ground? It’s covered with camo netting.

Hawkins, our Invitro “Tank” character, where the umbilical cord connected at the base of his neck, modified the padding on his helmet to accommodate the nub.

The landing craft being akin to portable bunkers and not just “now you’re planetside, leg it”.

The effects do look a bit dated to modern eyes, with a lack of fine detailing. But for mid budget mid 90’s tv CGI? It’s a superior example.

The sets are physical, and like BSG and the Tau’ri Ships of SG-1? Not especially sci-fi. Oh there are futuristic touches here and there. But it’s still bulkheads, rivets and narrow corridors, which all helps with the realism.

This could be divisive but bear with me. Lately, we've got into Clarkson's Farm. If you're not aware of it, in a nutshell former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson starts running his farm in the Cotswolds and films the results.

Now, I know Jeremy Clarkson is a fairly Marmite sort of a character. And there are definite displays of his Top Gear persona (probably didn't need to spend a fortune on an enormous Lamborghini tractor for instance) and his, well, boorishness. BUT - he has definitely mellowed in recent years, and his genuine enthusiasm is infectious.

The show also gives a deep insight into the plight of the modern british farmer - covering issues like the staggering costs of basically everything farming-related, the endless regulations they have to follow, the loss of EU subsidies following Brexit, the struggle of farmers to diversify to actually turn a profit in the face of painfully strict and labyrinthine rules and restrictions from local government, how random things like the weather being alternatively too wet, too dry or too hot can ruin your crop and your income for the year, the scourge of TB for cattle farmers, and so on.

As something of a spoiler, in their first year of operation they make a grand profit of about £140. It really makes you wonder how any farmer that doesn't have the bank balance of a successful TV presenter, and the backing of Amazon, can stay in business.

Overall it's made me feel a hell of a lot more sympathetic towards our farmers, who previously I probably largely only considered as a pain in the backside to get stuck behind on a country road. Also, Clarkson's assistant Caleb is amazing, he takes no gak whatsoever and is wonderful to watch.

Check it out, even if you're not a Clarkson fan. You might be surprised. Has probably put me off moving to the Cotswolds though - they seem to be stuck in the 1930s.

He’s done well out that tax fiddle.

But I still refuse to watch that twonk.

Yeah, absolutely get where you're coming from!

Huh. Another reference lost on us on the other side of the Atlantic.

Time for Wikipedia to fill in the blanks....


☆☆☆

In other news.

I've finished Seasons 3 & 4 of Captain Janeway, Destroyer of Worlds and Selfish Cow Extraordinaire.

Once again it's the Doctor that gets good episodes, like dealing with the death of a child in a holographic family.

Kes – on the other hand – is little more than window dressing and a plot device. With the same level of respect as a psychic dog.

"Do you detect the invisible aliens? You do? You're such a good crewman, aren't you?"

The Maquis debacle of seasons past has turned into something of a joke. Almost a shared tale of getting drunk together and doing a crime, but no one really got hurt, so its all OK now.

The lost opportunities in storytelling continues in Voyager.

I would love if they allowed someone to explain that Voyager's computer files had been corrupted.

So when an event that happened almost scene for scene in a previous Star Trek TNG episode, the viewers could at least watch it and say, "They obviously don't remember when this happened to the Enterprise and they have no way of looking it up."

...And then there's the Borg.



What the absolute feth is this? How do you take the most frightening group from Trek and bend them over a barrel and say, "If the Borg can't assimilate something, they can't figure out how to defeat it."

What nonsense is that Captain Janeway? Thankfully you are there to save the Borg from the Vorlons Species 8742! Yep, your plot armour is cheat code level strong.

Gotta doom countless worlds to assimilation, because you gotta shave a couple years off your trek back home.

(I had a fantasy that Star Trek Picard would start off with Picard sitting in a Penal Colony after he murdered Janeway after reading what she did in the Delta Quadrant.)

Thankfully, the Borg and Voyager can work together! Yep. Much like Starfleet and the Maquis, old foes can get together!

Sure the Borg have tried to assimilate Earth. Sure, Picard killed the Borg Queen. But now, everything's hunkydory. Garrrrrrr!

Why did no one try and stop me from watching this garbage? This is your fault! You did this to me!

I didn't even mention the God awful Q-Junior stuff, or the Dinosaur people with super-technology who fled earth!

People said, "The show gets better!"


I say, "Are you saying that there were one or two good episodes in a season as opposed to zero good episodes as being better?"

"Maybe. But Seven of Nine is hot," they say.

Jeri Ryan's attractiveness notwithstanding- I am not looking forward to Seven wrestling the Rock in a future episode.

But hey, at least it can't get any worse...

Ohhh! Little bit of politics!

My sympathy for Clarkson is absolute zero. When he was a mouthy tv presenter of a car show then he was tolerable in his box, but unfortunately, the boxes do touch and he is a man of influence. He openly confessed the farm was a tax dodge because of the way the legislation for farmland was crafted. I have absolutely no desire to watch his show.

As for farmers in general.... it depends on the issue and depends on the farmer.

Yeah the farm was absolutely bought primarily as a way of avoiding paying inheritance tax on some of his wealth, as you say he has openly admitted this. I would say calling it a tax dodge or a tax fiddle is a little disingenuous though - I am not a financial advisor but as I understand it, it is just as legitimate a means of avoiding paying tax on wealth as, say, saving money in an ISA.

Regardless of the origins though, he is clearly now enthusiastic about working his farm, and genuinely sympathetic to the issues of the modern farmer. If nothing else he's just not that good an actor to fake it!

Not going to try to change the mind of anyone who genuinely hates Clarkson - but, for anyone open to having their mind changed, this may well be the programme to do it. I've personally swung from loving to disliking to had enough - but I am liking how he is coming across in this.

I've always enjoyed his fooling around and generally approach it like "Last of the Summer Wine" at least when it was the trio.


Also I'd say that the other thing it highlights about how well he's done with the show is that we really don't have an equivalent that talks from the farmers side. Countryfile is "supposed" to be it but they've always come across as catering to the very "london/urban" view. There's a sort of sanitised feel to it all.



Also lets face it whilst Clarkson is 100% buying a farm for financially sensible reasons; it doesn't ignore the fact that inheritance tax hitting farmers is going to impact all the smaller scale farmers who are not backed by a big firm or have major other revenue sources. If anything it makes farming even more likely to end up like that because your smaller scale farmer who is dedicated to just farming won't have the money to pay for all the death duties. So the only option will be to sell the whole farm or bits of it; which means more opportunity for big firms to invest and buy up larger and larger mega-farm setups.

We won't feel that hit now, but give it a decade or two and we'll likely see a whole swathe of smaller farming generations close up all the faster than they already are under all the other pressures and equipment/feed/material costs.

Buy a farm (or other low turnover business) in order to dodge taxes is one of the oldest tricks in the book!

At least, he is actually using his tax dodge to try and do something and employ others as well. I see many folks buy up buildings and purposely leave them vacant to claim the losses. I also people with Businesses expense everything they touch through said Business even stuff that has no business being part of their business, like their huge pavement princess that has a small decal with their business name on it.

Tax dodging by buying a business is weak sauce, but in the world of tax dodges that is the easy button. You only have to show profit 1 year out of 7 or so and any sod can manipulate their expenses to make a few hundred dollars once in 7 years!

It's a bit more specific than that in the UK - as I understand it, farm land was exempted from inheritance tax, so that working farms could be passed down within the family without having to be broken up to pay the tax bill. This has led to a number of people buying tracts of farm land as an investment. James Dyson (of the Dyson vacuum cleaners etc) is another well known example.

Inheritance tax is applied at a much lower level in the UK than in the US, it looks like you guys have to be properly rich before it affects you. When my parents go, for instance, my brother and I will probably need to pay the tax man somewhere upwards of half a million quid...

Yeah, inheritance tax is a scunner.

For a married couple, leaving their domicile to children (birthed or adopted), you’ve a shared threshold of £1,000,000.00.

Whomever passes first, if they don’t breach their personal threshold of £325,000 (£500,000 if property left to kids), any remainder is added to their surviving spouse’s allowance/threshold.

It was originally intended only to hit the wealthiest, but with one thing and another it hasn’t kept pace with middle classes, especially where property is concerned.

There are ways round it (leave land/property in trust is one), but a sudden change in the law will always catch an unlucky few flat footed and with a bigger than expected tax bill.

It’d also arguable that those who Land Banked to dodge tax drove up the value of farmland, and so are also partially responsible for farmers getting hit in the short term. Greenbelt land can’t be freely built on, so it’s comparatively low valued compared to towns and brownfields. Until someone finds tax dodging value and suddenly there’s a market Just Wanting A Little Bit.

Anyways, little bit of politics but commented without judgement.

I’ve not been Ben Elton, goodnight ladies and gentlemen.


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Alien Earth tomorrow! First two episodes on Disney+ in the UK.

Alien Earth

I’m six minutes in. If absolutely nothing else? Aesthetic has been nailed! And we get a little exposition about The Company, and its competitors.


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Oh wow! There’s Ade Edmonson! Didn’t know he was in this.


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And it’s right up there with Romulus.

Rejoice, Dakkanauts! For in the past year, the Alien franchise has been well and truly resurrected, full of vim, vigour and genuinely interesting, incredibly well made.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Alien Earth

I’m six minutes in. If absolutely nothing else? Aesthetic has been nailed! And we get a little exposition about The Company, and its competitors.


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Oh wow! There’s Ade Edmonson! Didn’t know he was in this.


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And it’s right up there with Romulus.

Rejoice, Dakkanauts! For in the past year, the Alien franchise has been well and truly resurrected, full of vim, vigour and genuinely interesting, incredibly well made.

Good to hear (read?). I'll be putting it on my watch list.

Both episodes watched, and it’s terrific.

 insaniak wrote:

So now I've been back through JJ season 1, DD season 2, and Luke Cage season 1, and two episodes into Iron Fist and... Oy...

The first time through, Iron Fist was... Ok. Not excellent, but enjoyable enough, and I liked Danny as a character.

But this time around, coming into it straight off the back of the other shows without a pause really highlights how much worse it is than the others. Of particular note are the Himalayan flashback and meditation scenes that appear to be shot in front of matte paintings, and the significantly lower effort put into the script and making the characters seem like actual, real people. If this was a standalone series, it would be ok as a comic book adaption, because that's exactly what it feels like - These are very 2-dimensional comic book characters in live action.

As a part of the Defenders stable, though, it really doesn't fit with the rest of the shows.

So, done with Iron Fist S1, and just finished Defenders...

The 'surprise twist' in the middle of Iron Fist still annoys me as much as it did the first time, on account of having practically no set up and making no sense with the entire first half of the series. Other than that, some characters did at least get some growth (Ward in particular remains annoying, but does at least progress beyond his initial 2-dimensional self). Harold remains the most comic-booky villain in the entire Netflix-Marvel stable.

Defenders is... a show that happened. They were aiming for spectacle but didn't really reach it. And it still irks me beyond belief that despite drawing from 4 separate superhero shows, the only characters in any sort of costume are Daredevil and Elektra. Because, no, a colour-coded hoody doesn't count.

On the plus side, with Defenders out of the way, that would mean it's time to move on to the Punisher!

i enjoyed Elektra in the Netflix-Marvel-verse.

Finally got around to watching Mr inbetween which despite finishing 4 years ago wasn't really advertised much to me.

Has a very authentically Australian tone and presented in a very realistic way.

Kind of like breaking bad or the wire. Darkly humourous in some places in a very Australian way in that we don't take many things that seriously.

Would recommend if you like that kind of thing.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans

A rewatch as we approach the 10 Year Anniversary. remember being young? I member. We're getting the Urdr-Hunt movie later this year compiling all the animated scenes from the mobile game and fleshing them out into a feature length film so I decided to watch the series once more.

And I still love this series so much, even with its warts.

IBO is imo still the most artistically complex series in the franchise. A story with so much to say about so many things if you bother to tease them out of the purposefully un-anime-like way the story avoids internal monologues as much as possible, often doesn't explicitly explain its characters, and is willing to do the hard thing like killing off its heroes in heart-wrenching ways.

IMO people who didn't get this story or its ending committed a cardinal mistake of misunderstanding what the show is. They walked in reading the series as Mobile Suit Gundam: Red Dawn but what they were really watching was Mobile Suit Gundam: Beasts of No Nation taken almost literally in the case of Mikazuki and his wolfish tendencies. It's a series that both deconstructs shonen anime heroism while reconstructing why we love that goofy thing in the first place. It's a story about the glory and folly of loyalty, the complexity of family and group identity, a harshly given moral aesop that even the best things in life don't last forever and asks 'are they worth it' while boldly saying 'yes they are.' And most of all its a story about tragic beauty of childhood and the callous and self-serving abuse of youth.

A fething doctoral thesis could be written on this show and probably run out of pages to talk about everything you could chose to talk about in it.

And of course, Gundam Barbatos remains one of the most visually pleasing Gundams in the entire franchise, complete with a big ass mace and a demon motif that slaps literally and metaphorically to the backdrop of a soundtrack that is 10x better than it ever needed to be.

10/10. Maybe the most underappreciated Gundam show.

Chucky S3

Gleefully grotesque, with its tongue so far in its cheek it can taste the wallpaper.

Brad Dourif and Jennifer Tilly have a great time terrorising people,

Well worth a watch if you’ve enjoyed the movies.

I am also a big fan of Iron Blooded Orphans.

It was pretty good. Not my favorite Gundam series (my avatar should be a clue to my favorite ).

Soooooo Gundam, eh?

Something I feel like I should be into. But mostly I can only get it on Crunchyroll. Got fingers burned there trying to watch One Piece, only to find it was subs only, and subbed well out of sequence.

However UK Netflix has Requiem for Vengence and Hathaway.

Are they any good? Will I get a fair impression of the property from those two?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Soooooo Gundam, eh?

Something I feel like I should be into. But mostly I can only get it on Crunchyroll. Got fingers burned there trying to watch One Piece, only to find it was subs only, and subbed well out of sequence.

However UK Netflix has Requiem for Vengence and Hathaway.

Are they any good? Will I get a fair impression of the property from those two?

Did you get a fair impression of Star Trek from Discovery and Section 31?

Go watch the series O8th MS Team.

It's the Vietnam War with Gundams. And it asks questions about killing and loyalty that other series don't touch on.

That bad, huh?