The TV Series discussion thread

I did check out the second episode of Good Omens, still great and tasty! The only thing better than the two leads are the supporting actors, as I've always said, any show that puts Michael McKean on the roster will always get viewed by me!
 
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Better Call Saul, the sixth episode of the current series, and it only gets more enjoyable. While the title character, Jimmy/Saul might be the usual focal point, for me it's all about Kim, the choices she makes along the way and where she'll wind up at the end when all is said and done.
 
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Carnifex said:
Better Call Saul, the sixth episode of the current series, and it only gets more enjoyable. While the title character, Jimmy/Saul might be the usual focal point, for me it's all about Kim, the choices she makes along the way and where she'll wind up at the end when all is said and done.
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For me too. And it makes sense, because we don't know Kim's fate. We already know Jimmy's.

Then again, we kinda do. Not the specifics, but we know it won't be good.
 
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I dunno, for me as I've watched this show over the years, Kim's dilemma has become more important to me than most of what Jame/Saul is up to. And of course Nacho, Mike, and Lalo are also crucial players in the whole scheme of things. In a perfect universe, for me, Kim lives and is alive during the entire Breaking Bad run, somehow involved in the backround. We shall see how it all plays out!

And of course, what happens to Gene/James/Saul. I don't suspect Gene's ending will be a good one.
 
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henriquejr said:
I started to watch Netflix's Clark, a biography of the swedish criminal Clark Olofsson, whose crimes helped coin the term "Stockholm Syndrome". I'm still in the third chapter and the series has less action (and more comedy) than you'd expect. Not that I'm not enjoying it, because I am.

As the series advertises itself, it is "based on the truths and lies" from the real Olofsson's life.
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Sounds like my kind of thing, we plan to subscribe to netflix again for a couple of months when Borgen (Danish politics) series 4 arrives.

Currently enjoying the latest series of Beck (Swedish detectives) and also watching Derry Girls (Northern Ireland comedy) series 3.
 
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Third try watching Star Trek: Discovery, third time failing. I truly hate that show.

Started The Last Kingdom instead.

" In a perfect universe, for me, Kim lives and is alive during the entire Breaking Bad run, somehow involved in the backround. We shall see how it all plays out!"

That's just the thing… makes zero sense for her to never be acknowledged in Breaking Bad if she's still around, given her relationship to Jimmy/Saul. But we'll see.
 
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Yeah, ST: D and Discard are awful shows, I wouldn't waste your time with either of them. The newer Trek show, Strange New Worlds is a little less awful, yet still suffers from a couple of glaring things, mostly that no people in a quasi-military organization would act like most of the crew members you see. I'm not sure how it's possible to get what seems to me an easy thing so wrong, yet the people behind the shows seem talented at doing just that.
 
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Carnifex said:
The newer Trek show, Strange New Worlds is a little less awful, yet still suffers from a couple of glaring things, mostly that no people in a quasi-military organization would act like most of the crew members you see. I'm not sure how it's possible to get what seems to me an easy thing so wrong, yet the people behind the shows seem talented at doing just that.
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I didn't like pilot at all. It was more like a statement of intent than an actual story. The second episode was better. I remain hopeful.

As far as the crew members go, I'm fine with them not all being stiff-collared serious types cut from the same cloth. There have always been quirkier characters among Star Trek crews. Where I draw the line is when they can't perform their actual jobs. I'm guessing one of the Strange New Worlds crew members you had in mind when you wrote that sentence was Ortegas, but I couldn't care less about her haircut or the fact that she plays practical jokes provided she's a good helmsman, which she seems to be.

Tilly from Discovery, on the other hand is agonizing. There is no way someone like that would ever get through Starfleet Academy, no matter how smart she is.
 
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Yes, understand this: if these people couldn't function one hundred percent on a military vessel, they wouldn't be there. Full stop. Lots of other jobs available, every military needs plenty of clerks and whatnot, anyone with even slight cognitive issues would not make the cut to serve on a fleet ship. Military customs, respect, discipline, and other tenants have remained constant for centuries, they'd likely not change much within the next few hundred years.
 
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Carnifex said:
Military customs, respect, discipline, and other tenants have remained constant for centuries
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Dutch conscripts in the seventies
soldaten_hippies_1974.jpg
 
Is that you and Myrthos??!! :p :D
 
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Carnifex said:
Yes, understand this: if these people couldn't function one hundred percent on a military vessel, they wouldn't be there. Full stop.
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One small problem. Discovery is a science vessel, it's primary function is not militaristic! I would say the objective of the ship is Science -> Exploration -> Military. Starfleet isn't like a traditional military organisation is it?

The Enterprise is a Exploration starship as was Voyager. The only major plot related star trek ship that had a military purpose was the Defiant.

The first C in "NCC" stands for "Civil"! The Defiants designation was NX.

To be clear though - I do agree the new series are big step down from TNG/DS-9/Voyager. For me the problem lies in the characters and the sub-plots. Too much kiss-kiss and not enough sci-fi. And they seem to be full of characters that grate on your nerves for the wrong reasons. Neelix in Voyager was annoying as hell but it made sense!!!
 
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I've knocked out four episodes of Good Omens now, and it only seems to be getting better. I was truly concerned in the beginning that the quality might drop off, yet to date that's not the case. I'd say this is one show well worth checking out if you're looking for something intriguing to watch.
 
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I've been watching Quantum Leap this week. Talk about a blast from the past. It looks super low-budget by today's standards, but it usually manages to stay fairly interesting. I always thought it was a great show for its time.
 
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JDR13 said:
I've been watching Quantum Leap this week. Talk about a blast from the past. It looks super low-budget by today's standards, but it usually manages to stay fairly interesting. I always thought it was a great show for its time.
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I just finished a rewatch of that series a few weeks ago. I watched it when it aired, and I thought I had done a good job of catching all the episodes at that time. But I was amazed with the number of episodes that were new to me. Watching TV back then was a very different experience from now. I watched stuff I liked when I was home. But if I wasn't home when it aired...oh well, missed it.

Anyway, I made it through all five seasons. Enjoyed it as much as I did the first time. But I did not remember the finale at all.
 
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JDR13 said:
I've been watching Quantum Leap this week. Talk about a blast from the past. It looks super low-budget by today's standards, but it usually manages to stay fairly interesting. I always thought it was a great show for its time.
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That last episode, though, what a punch in that 'nads! It's sad that it never got a proper finish, esp. given its popularity.
 
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Yeah, how Quantum Leap ended will always make me reluctant to ever re-watch the show. I liked it while it aired, yet that ending, it just didn't work for me. And it never has, never will. It really needed a wrap-up film or something.
 
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So I was curious, after watching the most recent Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode, I was astonished that Dorothy Fontana is not given credit for the entire back story of this episode, up to an including the actual name of the race/species involved. I believe the novel, Vulcan's Glory, which I think came out in 1989, and is far superior to anything Star Trek has done in the past fourteen years on screen. The more I think about this the more outrageous this strikes me, can people actually steal someone else's work like this with zero consequences?

And make no damn mistake, while people will never remember the current Star Trek writers/hacks, Fontana is goddamn Star Trek royalty. Once again, I am thoroughly reminded why I despise these current so-called creative folk. These facts are no longer in dispute, if ever they were.
 
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Carnifex said:
So I was curious, after watching the most recent Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode, I was astonished that Dorothy Fontana is not given credit for the entire back story of this episode, up to an including the actual name of the race/species involved. I believe the novel, Vulcan's Glory, which I think came out in 1989, and is far superior to anything Star Trek has done in the past fourteen years on screen. The more I think about this the more outrageous this strikes me, can people actually steal someone else's work like this with zero consequences?
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I think that's a thing with Strange New Worlds (i.e., taking old storylines and not crediting anyone).
For example, the episode with the intelligent comet is taken from Do Comets Dream, a Star Trek novel written by Somtow Sucharitkul (a SF and Horror author I like, who also writes as S. P. Somtow).


He does a Facebook post about it here:
https://www.facebook.com/somtow/posts/10159611838168070
And if you don't want to log in to see it (I don't blame you!):
Somtow Sucharitkul said:
Yes, this is the plot of the new episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but it's also the plot of my 2001 Star Trek Novel, "Do Comets Dream?" which is itself vaguely adapted from a tale told in my Inquestor series, "The Comet That Cried for Its Mother", originally published in AMAZING.
I went in to the ST:TNG offices to pitch to them in the 1990s and I pitched this story. They looked at me and said, "Your idea is good, Somtow, but it's simply too imaginative for us."
No hard feelings. Instead, I pitched it to John Ordover at S&S, and they bought my story as a Star Trek novel instead.
It was not the most popular Star Trek novel — half the fans loved it and the other thought it was "simply horrible" — perhaps because they detected a faintly ironic tone about the storytelling, which is, after all, a major feature of my style.
So, lest you think I'm bitching about this, not at all. I think it's rather flattering. There's no question of "plagiarism" — when you work for them it's work-for-hire, so they own it anyway.
However, I was thinking that now that it seems to be okay to use ideas that were "too imaginative" 30 years ago, maybe they should consider hiring me. In my old age, it would be nice to write another Star Trek story before I croak. To quote a certain ex-President ... "Paramount - if you're listening -" Call my agent, Judy Coppage.
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