The TV Series discussion thread

I'm liking Shannara after 3 episodes. I do agree that adding silly romantic BS was one of my fears of the show being in MTV, but I'll keep watching.
I also just watched the premiere of DC Legends of Tomorrow, was a fun watch. And boy, what a cast, it's like a dream team of geekiness! I bet several of them will die or leave or something, too many recognizable actors in the group.
 
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The only reason the X-Files were any good to begin with as it was the beginning of TV shows

the only reason? err no

the acting in the original was perhaps average (if you want to argue it) but not utterly wooden like in this
the writing was a TON better
the scripts were a LOT better
the direction was better


but nice try to portrait this junk of a pilot episode as something good though

Also, I watched the shannara chronicles. Big fan of the first book, couldn't believe this show passed under my radar. My impressions after 3 episodes


+ great art direction
+ great costumes and makeup
+ impressive use of natural scenery combined with CGI
+ some solid leads (Manu Bennet)
- weak writing, weak acting overall
- questionable script
- ruined by teenage romantic BS
- music is absolutely HORRID
- series opening is a terrible hipsterish idea


but Ill watch just coz Gimli and Crixus

and Raiden!

This is a show made for teenage girls to get all excited about .What is this really saying about you.


No shit… you must be the Best television detective in 2016. If you weren't long overdue on your pills ,you'd actually read whole posts instead of prioritizing insults (weak attempts of) to cover your shit taste
 
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Wow, that Xfiles episode last night.....was it just me or was it a real stinker? I did like them using Manner's grave stone in the show, but I was really expecting a more stellar hour from the person that did the Clive Bruckman and Jose Chung episodes from years gone bye.
 
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Ok, now last nights' episode totally redeemed this run for me. I found the first three episodes to be quite weak, but what I saw last night gave me hope for the final two hours of the X-files.
 
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So has anyone been following the latest episodes of X-files? I just watched the finale and I have to admit that I wasn't very impressed. As an avid X-files fan, I wanted to like the new series (lol, I wanted to belive that Chris Carter still has it), but sadly I was dissapointed.

This whole thing had likely worked better if there had been one large story arc instead of cramming the entire mythology storyline into two episodes (My struggle part 1&2). I'd have prefered if all the episodes were actual mythology episodes linked to eachother (or atleast the majority of them).

Ofcourse there is more than the mere mythology stuff in X-files. However considering the short lenght of this season and the fact that x-files had just been re-opened, these separate stories felt totally out of place. The pilot was a rough start, but it had intresting ideas. Still for some reason Carter thought it would make sense to set aside the entire pilot plot line and just tell separate stories untill the season finale.

And right in the second episode we have Mulder and Scully already back at their old jobs without anyone bothering to explain in any way how this could be justified. Hasn't there been over a decade since they worked for the FBI? No matter the personal cost, they would be just willing to just jump in. Mulder & Scully were just ready take these new "monster of the week" x-files cases and forget the entire conspiracy thing. Ah, but better put logic aside for a moment.

I'm not saying these new monster of the week episodes are the worst x-files episodes out there, but the whole experience was kind of uninspiring because I expected Carter to deliver something fantastic after all these years. Re-opening x-files should have been done with a bang instead playing it so safe. Sparks of brilliance can be occasionally seen here and there, but over all Carter wasn't taking much risk..

When you have only six episodes to work with, I'm just struggling (thats my struggle :p) to understand why not use the limited air time more effectively and wisely. If he wanted to include monster of the week stuff, he needed more episodes. That way there would have been more room to develop these character arcs and better explore the new mythology stuff. The season finale definitely didn't feel right. It came acrosss quite rushed because Carter had to squeeze everything in 40 minutes.

1 "My Struggle" 6/10 Lets just say that it was a rough start. Intresting ideas, but the pacing needed more work. Plenty of akward dialog too.
2 "Founder's Mutation" 6.5/10 The chemistry between main characters got better. It was just weird that they left the whole back in the fbi thing unexplained. Skinner basicly throws them their badges and says go catch bad guys. Maybe the scenes regarding their return to FBI were cut.
3 "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster" 7.5/10 Although I said I wanted to have more mythology episodes, but on it's own this episode was actually quite brilliant. Actors were clearly having fun.
4 "Home Again" 7/10 A standard monster of the week episode. In a typical x-files fashion, the ending gave us more questions than answers. The other plot about Scully's mother forced characters to look back at their lives and rethink their choises regarding William. This was definitely something I had waited for.
5 "Babylon" 6/10 Many people seem to dislike Babylon and I can understand why. Introducing Angents Miller and Einstein for instance, what was the point of all that? Maybe Carter is writing some kind of spin off series starring these two? Linking a traditional terrorist plot to X-files mythos was a clever idea and Mulder's drug trip was really fun to watch, but thematically the episode was quite a mess. Was it supposed to be a funny episode or a serious episode? I can't say.
6 "My Struggle II 6/10. There was too much stuff crammed into 40 minutes. I don't even know what to say about the Mulder's visit to his old adversary. Why even bring him back? It makes the whole season 9 finale pointless. The way they explained how he survived was just silly. He is now like a cartoon villain who always comes back from the dead. And then to have Scully and Einstein creating a vaccine in the hospital just by themselves to save the world…
 
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There were a couple really good new X-Files episodes; overall, I was quite pleased… right up until last night's finale.

WTF. WTF is all I have to say. First, they crammed a 2-4 hour plot into 40 minutes… naturally, it felt contrived, cheesy, and disappointing. Secondly, after 15 years off the air, the way they ended the finale was a complete slap in the face. I'm just blown away by how casually the episode revealed this [rehashed] apocalyptic story and fails to resolve it - even introducing something entirely off the wall in the last five seconds. A shitty finale, even shittier for the fact that it came after such a long wait.

WTF!
 
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Out of the six episodes from this series, I only enjoyed two of them. All in all I was expecting much better, I thought the entire run this year was extremely weak. Quite disappointing.
 
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I'm not sure what did you expect - the whole thing is just a tease from Fox to check if people are interested for more. I didn't watch none of it yet, probably will sometime in the future.

Just remember that it's Fox. Same ones who killed Firefly, same ones who killed Almost Human and all similar shows that weren't stupid and god forbid they bless anything that is not enjoyable by an chimpanzee.
 
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I actually expected better from Chris Carter, but yes, this is indeed Fox, they killed Alien Nation a few years ago and that began my bitterness towards them. They also have just sheer ugly programing like that Simpsons garbage and reality tv, so I guess I should manage my expectations better. Too bad Carter didn't take the X-Files idea to another venue, like perhaps Netflix.
 
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Please don't put salt in the fresh wounds. X-files would have been amazing on netflix :)
 
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Watched the first episode of Agent Carter Season 2 yesterday. Liked it a lot just as I expected.

I love the setting.
 
Agent Carter is pretty damn good, comes the closest to the Netflix Marvel products for me. Should ABC ever can it, I hope Netflix would scoop it up and make it even more awesome.
 
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Totally hooked to the Shannara series. Can't get enough of the world and I actually like Allannon's character. I wish someone would make an open world Shannara game.
Watching the Magicians series as well. Very well done and I just noticed I have one of the books that I got for Christmas. Duh. I see a lot of the book takes place in Phillory so I'm watching to see if that happens on the series. Alice:biggrin:

Watched Supergirl up til now- I have the last 3 episodes on tap all recorded but I can't get back to it. Of course, still watching the Walking Dead.
 
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Totally hooked to the Shannara series. Can't get enough of the world and I actually like Allannon's character. I wish someone would make an open world Shannara game.

I've been watching that with the GF since the beginning. I have to say that, while I like it, I think it could have been so much more.

I love the blend of fantasy and post-apocalyptic settings, but the sometimes teenage-level dialogue and characters really bring it down for me. It's obviously being aimed at a younger demographic though.
 
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sometimes teenage-level dialogue and characters really bring it down for me. It's obviously being aimed at a younger demographic though.
Teenage or stupido level?
For such level anime should be used, not live shows.

Thanks for the warning, I'm definetly skipping it when I see it around.
 
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I'm watching a crime/mystery series from Iceland: "Trapped" (Ófærð in Icelandic). 10 episodes, taking place during winter in Seyðisfjörður, a small community on the east coast of the island. A fierce snow storm isolates the place from the rest of Iceland, so for most part of the series the local police must handle the events as they unfold on their own, with little support from the central police department in Reykjavik.

A body without head and extremities is found in the sea, as the ferry from Denmark approaches. It is believed that the victm was a passenger, and therefore that someone on the ferry is responsible. The ferry isn't allowed to leave until suspicions are cleared. Whether these suspicions prove to be true or not, there is certainly something fishy going on in the vessel of Denmark.

I like how the story develops, the setting and the overall mood of the series. No surprise (10 episodes) more deaths occur, more mysteries become evident and things start getting complicated. But not overwhelmingly complicated. I like that.

There is a tencency in modern crime stories to "enhance" the story with the personal lives and problems of the the investigators. Too often these aspects are given too much attention, IMO, and I don't like that. I stopped for instance watching the third season of the Swedish-Danish series, "Bron/Broen" (the bridge), as the portrayal of the autistic traits of Saga Noren, the Swedish investigator, became more and more dominant. Too bad, because otherwise I liked the series, I guess I'm too sensitive to these things.

Surely, in "Trapped", the chief of the local police department is divorced, he tends to be a bit grumpy, and there has been a few badly handled episodes in the past. But these things don't dominate, it remains in the background.

One additional aspect I like: The language. Icelandic is related to Norwegian, but we don't understand each other. The language is more like the Old Norse we spoke 800 years ago. But I do get a word or two, even a sentence now and then, so I listen carefully. But most of all it's the sound of spoken Icelandic that fascinates me. Thankfully we don't dub foreign movies/tv shows in Norway (except for children stuff). Dubbed versions pale in this respect.

Hereby recommended.

pibbur hver

"Furðu bleikr er þessu maðr" (Old Norse).
 
I've just been watching the new X-Files in brief snatches during cigarette breaks from Fallout 4 / ESO. :)

The bits I've seen have left me rather incredulous. They seemed so silly that I lost interest. Especially loved the part where Sully leaves the hospital and one-handedly gets rioters to stop what they are doing and go to the hospital. :)
 
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Heh, I watched episode 3, the one about the Were-Monster. I didn't like it at all, it was terrible in my eyes, story, acting … yeeech! Then I see that it's got very favourable reviews and scores, average on Rotten Tomatoes is 9.5/10.

It's just a curious and amusing observation. Usually I'm not that far from places like said tomato site. Bah… Grumpy old men!!! Oh Well…. :)

pibbur who watched a lot of X-files episodes in his younger days and liked them.
 
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