The TV Series discussion thread

13 reasons why

Half way through it, i like it, pretty sad in alot of moments

Well . . . I did finish Lost in Space, all the episodes

High production values all around. And for the most part no real problem with the acting. They did throw in one of the original theme songs to the reboot for some ambient music, however they chose the weaker version two, which should have been a hint.

But basically after all the eye candy what you have left is story. The framing story is nice, actually pretty good. But literally, as the saying goes; the devil is in the details. These two lines in either episode 9 or 10 says it all.

Maureen (mom). You killed my husband.
Dr. Smith (bad guy). You need to get over that so we can move on.

Just total dialogue nonsense throughout the series.

And the scene staging was just awful. When somebody needs to be with other people to get something done, they will be alone. When you need everyone quiet to get something done, there will be loud noise. When you need to get information across as quick as possible, they will wait. And when you need someone knocked out for 20 minutes they will only be knocked out for two.

All that stuff I mentioned was written, planned, and executed on purpose. It was like they were writing their stuff at the advent of television when there were no preconceptions about story and plot.

And then there is Doctor Smith.
In the original series they had an episode with talking vegetables. Human characters were dress as carrots and what nots. A couple of the series regulars could not stop laughing throughout the production and they were taken out of the script (with pay). And some of those that remained can be seen smirking in a lot of the scenes.
I wonder if people were guffawing when Doctor Smith was on screen in this reboot. . .

They simply made Doctor Smith too evil. If they get a season two, something is going to have to change. And in a big way.

My verdict. If you are a big fan of the original, go with low expectations, have your remote on hand to fast forward as applicable, enjoy the robot and other special effects . And although they don't spend much time, the over arching story, not much in the way of time .. 45 min total maybe out of 10 episodes, Is a huge improvement over the original series. The Lost in Space fanboys I know have been quiet for the past week. They might feel like I felt after the Invaders from Mars remake.

If you are new to Lost In Space, go to the wiki and read the episode recaps. Watch if they interest you and hope if they do a season 2, there will be big changes.

My personal one word review . . . Disappointed

I watched the first episode and it was horribly bad. I will never continue this show.

Watched the first episode of the new Westworld season. Seemed interesting enough, hoped that they might stray out of the theme park (gun toting May), but not yet at least. Finished The Terror which I quite njoyed, althought it wasn't really that fantastical (which was why I watched it originally). Just started the new season of The Expanse - it's quite entertaining so far. I regret nothaving read the books though - and I can't bring myself to read them now, having seen so much of the plot. I also feel that the production values/quality may have gone down slightly? Thing seems a bit less 'high-tech' in places, small things, like furnishings/equipment (normal LCD looking displays etc). But perhaps I'm imagining that. I did note that their viewership has steaily declined, so that might mean their budget was slashed?

booboo said:

Watched the first episode of the new Westworld season. Seemed interesting enough, hoped that they might stray out of the theme park (gun toting May), but not yet at least. Finished The Terror which I quite njoyed, althought it wasn't really that fantastical (which was why I watched it originally). Just started the new season of The Expanse - it's quite entertaining so far. I regret nothaving read the books though - and I can't bring myself to read them now, having seen so much of the plot. I also feel that the production values/quality may have gone down slightly? Thing seems a bit less 'high-tech' in places, small things, like furnishings/equipment (normal LCD looking displays etc). But perhaps I'm imagining that. I did note that their viewership has steaily declined, so that might mean their budget was slashed?

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I'm the opposite, I try to read the books after I watch the movie/series. That way I enjoy the story twice. When I've read the book before, I'm always thinking "bah the book did this better" or "they cut X from the book!" or "why did they change this from the book!" not giving the show/movie a real chance.

You forgot "this does not exist in the book" (example Jackson's Hobbit numerous fillers).

I always give a chance and sometimes a movie or series respect the book. Sometimes, like in case of the person I mention above, the filmed material is a pure insult towards the book and it's fans.
Sometimes however, the movie is different from the book but is changed because of using specific filming techniques, but the story critical character like Tom Bombadil is not removed and the movie turns to be awsome (example Verhoeven's Total Recall).

Westworld the second series has completely thrown me, I can usually see where these things are headed quite early, and in this case I don't. Last series there was some reveal about the samurai section of the park, and this time we have a hint about the Roman area, but will we ever see any more of these inhabitants? I quite enjoyed the episode and look forward to more, most science fiction today seems juvenile and simple, while this one is not.

I think with how I read, I always tend to have read the books before they even come close to being made for television or film. I've yet to see a book brought to either screen that surpasses the written version, but some of the British productions have come very close, like some of the police dramas they've done. Dances with Wolves remains the best novel to screen translation that I've seen so far.

I've finally caught up to Season 3 of The Expanse. It's now my Wednesday fix.

I lost all interest in Lost In Space when I realized that the entire 4th episode was going to be another dull, plodding linear path (despite the cloying use of flashbacks which don't add much besides more boredom) from point A to point B to rescue the nauseating Major Don West with nothing even vaguely interesting or surprising happening. At least something like the Walking Dead shows will throw in something unexpected and unusual every now and then, like the concept of The Vultures in that last Fear The Walking Dead episode.

Eye said:

Watched The Handmaid's tale. Daunting. Could not watch too many episodes in a row without keeping my mind occupied hindering me falling asleep.
Main character takes some stupid decisions every now and then, but the story is giving me shivers. Religious fanatics, arrgh. I strongly resent orthodoxy. Well, anyone assuming that just because s/he believes in a god s/he has the right to limit the freedom of others.

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We’re about halfway through Season 1 as of last night and are absolutely loving it ... or hating it ... um, we love watching it, but both the book and the show hit a little too many ‘current events’ themes

I love the pre/post contrasts, Elisabeth Moss really earned her Emmy! I love the way things are unfolded - we’re constantly asking ‘do we know why ... ‘ or ‘what happened’ and remember ‘no, we’ll just have to wait’.

Been too many years since I read the book, maybe do it on our upcoming holiday trip next month (to Barbados)

We're looking forward to series two of Handmaid's Tale, I believe we get it Sunday night. McMafia finished Monday night, and that was pretty good, I didn't think Norton could land a role equal or better than his Sidney Chambers role, but he did it with this show. Good modern day take about scummy crime on a continental scale.

Carnifex said:

We're looking forward to series two of Handmaid's Tale

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Me too as the first season was a masterpiece.
The problem is I don't think it'll air anywhere available to me currently so I'll have to wait till it's completed and later binge it somewhere (no I can't watch Hulu and I don't want to VPN it). On the other hand maybe it's better to wait and binge than watch an episode weekly.

I have to point on another exotic gem from Spain: La Peste.

Seville, 16th century. During a terrible plague epidemic, the corpses of several murdered people are found, as an omen of the end of the world. Seville was one of the main cities of the Western world. Known as the Great Babylon, it was home to people of all races, where fifty different languages were spoken, and all the gold from America arrived into its port. It was one of the smelliest, most beautiful cities in the world, and the setting for this unique, character- driven thriller.

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This slow burner with a twist doesn't lack of disturbing scenes and is not ashamed to point how humans are worse than animals.

Although the production was rich and visuals top notch, sadly it makes a few amateurish mistakes. For example the cast is different from what is described in the dialogue (should have been fixed within subtitles if spoken language had mistakes) and same beards style will make hard to differentiate people to those who have problems with face recognition (the very reason why some nonasian people don't watch asian production because they can't recognize who's who).
Then there are a bunch of boring filler scenes that don't lead anywhere but are there just to add required minutes to an episode - that time could have been used for a few neglected yet highly interesting side characters.

All that aside, the series is so good here's hope Warhorse will buy rights to make a game out of it!

Thanks for the tip. I love exotic gems. I love history, the more accurate the better I might add.

Well I can't vouch for maximum accuracy, for example it's suggested that the plague spread by reselling clothes from deceased while it should have been concentrated on rats (it does make a connection with rats later though and btw, series does show a rats killing fetch quest, sorry for this spoiler, haha), but one thing they did right. Everything is dirty. The dirt is so hardcore it's impossible to clean it ever - not only it's definetly accurate, it fits the series tone.

Margaret Atwood used to get into public polemics with Ursula K. LeGuin (who would destroy her with her logic) about how her Handmaiden's Tale wasn't science fiction.

Yea… Kinda codex wording…

Still I have to say something on it and "logic destruction".
What do I care who says if something is sci fi or is not sci fi. I say the first TV series season is a masterpiece. Since when masterpiece had to be of certain genre? Okay, some people won't have their opinion and have a different taste so they have to listen to "authorities" and follow trends, it's good for business as it sells Transformers movies and stuff. But I was never part of any herd so in this case I watched the show and, yea, as usual, a post about it went with IMO.

Also previously in this thread someone did ask if series are blindly following the book - they don't. I didn't read the book but some things mentioned in discussion are presented differently in series. Should I care what a bookwriter says about series based on the book? If I cared, I'd probably never play The Witcher 3 because the bookwriter hates what developers did to his "gem". He can hate it as much as he wants, the game is still a masterpiece. Again IMO.

It may not be the strongest example of science fiction fare, but in today's television it is pretty darn good, and holds up well against the book. No project is perfect, but this one is well worth watching, and no, that isn't an opinion, that is fact. Both worth watching and reading about.

joxer said:

Still I have to say something on it and "logic destruction".
What do I care who says if something is sci fi or is not sci fi.

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I think that the greater issue is that many authors who came out of the generation of Atwood or LeGuin have strong feelings about so-called ‘genre fiction’ because of how things were handled in the industry. Certainly Kurt Vonnegut felt that based on Player Piano and railed against how he was treated up until after Slaughterhouse Five.

Atwood came up as a poet and literary author, and moved in the 60s to areas more concerned with the human condition. She, like Vonnegut, wrote stories that involved things that were also common to those who embraced the SciFi label - but considered those as secondary to the human elements. Does it matter? Not to me, as joxer says … but evidently to Atwood.

Also - Atwood and LeGuin were lifelong friends, sure they would trade digs back and forth through the years, but when you read what each wrote about the other it was clear there was considerable mutual respect.

No one in the world can get a better rise/response/argument out of a person as can a good friend. Watching authors engaged in lively debates brings back some of the best memories of my life, a true friend knows where the buttons are and how to best activate them.

Removed some posts and parts of posts. We can do without this stuff.