What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Disgustipater wrote: I just finished the first season of Star Trek: Voyager and so far I am enjoying it.

I’m glad to finally hear someone else say this. It has a soft spot in my heart as the only Star Trek I saw in its entirety. A family friend would tape it and share with us while it was still airing. Janeway, Seven and the Doctor are really good, but Tom, Harry, Tuvok and B’Elanna are under appreciated in the history of Trek ensembles.

I did see a lot of Next Generation in reruns but was a little young for it and got impatient with the diplomacy and waiting for photon torpedos to start flying.

I have a cable channel that replays one episode from each of the first 5 treks for 5 hours most days. Voyager was the show that I watched fully during broadcast so I’ll sometimes jump to that channel during the appropriate time. I have been disappointed by the poor resolution and it’s almost as if they are working to make it look bad.

charlest wrote: On another note, I'm really enjoying Masters of the Air.

It is very much the WWII TV show equivalent of comfort food. Every character is exactly who you think they are, every action scene goes exactly how you think it will, every motivation is exactly how it unfolds. It is exceedingly easy to watch, but very little of it sticks in my brain, it just slides right off, like 1950's TV. Band of Brothers always seemed to have memorable scenes with at least somewhat complex characters, whereas MotA is sorta like if Trump voters wrote TV. No nuance. Predictable.

Alright, it's not THAT bad, but hopefully you get where I'm going here.

Watched the first episode of Amazon's Fallout, as I'll take a look at anything that's post-apoc. I never played the games (either video or the later board) but anything that gives me Gamma World vibes will get at least a bit of interest. The first one was... OK. Nothing thrilling. There was a good demonstration of the Vaults and the Surface people and at least a couple good leads into the next episode that are comprised of the operating mysteries of life in the post-nuclear world. It's probably much more interesting to people who played the games, but I guess I don't have anything to be disappointed by, either. We'll see.

I watched the first episode and will echo what you said. I'm not fan of the game universe as the 50's aesthetic with robots isn't relatable pre-apocalpyse. I haven't jumped to the next episode. But I expect to watch at some point.

I enjoyed the first episode of Fallout. I was late to the party for the original Fallout, picking up my used copy at Goodwill, and only got partway through the game before finding my non-combatant character was in over his head. I never played any of the sequels, but I recognize the heavy knight armor from the cover art for one of the sequels. I used to be really into post-apocalypse stuff back in the late '70s/early '80s, when Cold War anxiety was high.

It's great to see Ella Purnell playing a lead role here, because she was great in Yellowjackets. And Walter Goggins looks like he is having fun. I think his ghoul character is supposed to be that cowboy actor from the opening scene, even though that was played by a different actor. Just a hunch. The production values are nice, and I enjoyed the mid-century modern stylings of the Vault. The show is pretty dark and violent, so I doubt the woman that I'm seeing is going to watch it with me. Then again, she's a fan of House of the Dragon and Games of Thrones, so maybe.

Every once in a while I remember they cancelled The Peripheral and it still bums me out.

Shellhead wrote: It's great to see Ella Purnell playing a lead role here, because she was great in Yellowjackets. And Walter Goggins looks like he is having fun. I think his ghoul character is supposed to be that cowboy actor from the opening scene, even though that was played by a different actor.

The cowboy in the opening scene was in fact Walton Goggins. I just watched the first episode. I liked it and will watch more, but I have always been a fan of Fallout. I've played every game except for Fallout 76, and I barely touched Fallout 4. Fallout 2 is one of my favorite RPGs of all time.

I was not expecting such a high level of violence. This show definitely chose the Bloody Mess perk.

Fallout - I enjoyed it more than Last of Us but expect I'll be in the minority there. And far less than Silo, which is probably a better comparison. Still, as I said above, I find the world to be too odd pre-apoc for the post-apoc sets to have much impact. The bloody violence doesn't bother me but always seems like it belongs to a different show. Gratuitous, I guess would be the word. I was surprised how much J Nolan wrapped up by the end, as the show felt like a puzzlebox at times. Wasn't expecting the little brother to jump to my favorite character, either. Brotherhood of Steel, on the other hand, was boring shit. Overall, I'll give it a strong 7.

I think they wisely chose to end the season such that if Amazon doesn’t pick it up for another season, nothing too big is left unresolved. Yet if they get picked up, they’ve got storylines they can pursue with existing characters.

I labored through Beacon 23 (netflix I think?) so none of ya'll need to. Basic premise is solid, there is a kind of lighthouse at the edge of known space that stumbles across an alien(?) artifact thingie. Pirates ensue. Has a decent production value, solid actors (Leda Heady of 300, Dredd, and Game of Thrones fame is the headliner), but WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW is it the worst of prestige TV in that it has almost no plot forward motion, focuses almost exclusively on intercharacter dialogue and drama to the exclusion of any wonder, exploration, or direct action. It has a jumping timeline structure which ought to work well but alas, it just sets up the very first scenes and nothing really comes together. After 8 episodes nothing has actually happened.

The show claims to be based off the books by Hugh Howley (of Silo fame) and that guy, if nothing else, knows how to keep the plot moving, ties stuff together in clever ways, and EVERYTHING has a pay off. So WTF happened here? I had to go read synopses of the Beacon 23 books and, not surprising I guess, the TV show carries over only the name and the most crude worldbuilding aspects, every character and the entire plot is new. Why buy that IP if you are gonna dump it all, especially for a far inferior version that should have launched giant red flags over the stagnant plot.

jason10mm wrote: Why buy that IP if you are gonna dump it all, especially for a far inferior version that should have launched giant red flags over the stagnant plot.

I see that you watched The Witcher as well.

I keep trying and failing to finish Doom Patrol. Wonderful casting and good character development, but the show slid from wild creativity into a stagnant pace somewhere in season three and never recovered. I like these characters so much that I am going to finish the show no matter how disappointing it gets. With two episodes left, the writers have no choice but to make some things happen and wrap it up.

I hindsight, I think that the writers leaned too hard into the dysfunctionality of the characters. In the early seasons, the characters alternated between saving the world and struggling to handle normal daily tasks. Later in the show, the characters often wallowed in dysfunction for an entire episode, which really fails to advance the story. Good for character development, but what good is character development when there is no story? The other problem with Doom Patrol was that the writers fell in love with Michelle Gomez, who was playing the villain Madame Rouge. They rehabilitated the character and even made her team leader. And maybe that could have worked, as Gomez has a peculiar charm, but it coincided with the stagnation of the pacing.

Sounds like Doom Patrol falls into the trap a lot of modern shows do. One the one hand they want a heavily serialized plot, making a season one really long story. On the other hand they want a quirky cast of characters for an ensemble show, regardless if this character driven focus clashes HORRIBLY with the serialized nature of the show since it just turns into endless cycles of dysfunction.

Classic shows were primarily episodic ensembles with clear characters that played well off each other and any character development, if it happened at all, was slow over the seasons. The characters reacted to situations, they rarely were the ones to go out and initiate anything. Think of The X-files, how many YEARS of that show did it take for Mulder to work out stuff about his sister for for Scully to wrestle with her faith? Any lore was dribbled out, usually in the first and last eps of a season. BUT, and this is the key, Mulder and Scully were COMPATIBLE characters that allowed them to participate in episodic one off adventures where their personalities each helped the episode.

Compare that to today where we would have a 10 ep season of Mulder and Scully being terrible people, tons of nonsense flashbacks about exactly why they are terrible people now, no real growth, just endless circular relationships, and the "plot" such as it is, would just get lip service in favor of Scully have yet ANOTHER crisis of faith or whatever.

TV show writing is fundamentally broken because modern writers don't understand the purpose of character in service to the story and just can't help but vomit up all sorts of dysfunction on screen.

jason10mm wrote: TV show writing is fundamentally broken because modern writers don't understand the purpose of character in service to the story and just can't help but vomit up all sorts of dysfunction on screen.

I assume that tv writer rooms tend to skew young, and both Millennials and especially Gen Z seem obsessed with trauma and mental illness.