Random TV Show Thoughts

[Totenkindly]

Lost's biggest problem was that they were uncomfortable leaving elements that would have been better off un named and unexplained.

Well, generally, they did not answer things they should have, they tried to answer things they shouldn't have, and the whole sideways flash of Season 6 to culminate the show did not work -- it all ended up feeling pointless, yet took up 50% of the season... and the Man in Black explanation / tie-in's didn't really work either.

That being said, the directing and acting was typically decent, the island camera work was nice, and Giacchino's scoring provided both gravitas and sweetness. I typically get immediately choked up now anytime I hear any of the quieter passages he scored for the show. And at least it came full circle.

Lost: Damon Lindelof on the Original 3-Season Plan and Ending the Series

Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof explains his original three-season plan for the show and how they negotiated the endpoint for the series with ABC.

collider.com

Basically you can blame execs for the messy 4-6 seasons and even how long it dragged out. Can you imagine 10?

Lindleof gets dragged thru the mud alot. But he proved he can do this kind of show when he did The Leftovers and then the Watchman spinoff.

I find From becomes more like Lost with every episode. Still enjoying it but hope the writers don't go too far down the rabbit hole of "we'll just introduce this whole new thing completely out of left field" every time the survivors appear to be getting a grip on things. They appear to be going down that road so far.

Watched the first three episodes now. Yeah, it does remind me of Lost tonally in some ways.

There's a few decent actors among the no-names (like that woman in charge of the Colony house). Some of the lines still occasionally ring silly, but some are better especially if tied to the plotting. I liked Frank's sub-arc. The kid annoys me. Perrineau is of course solid.

Jade was annoying AF, both before he was misunderstanding the town and even now he's flipped. I hope he doesn't remain annoying.

THe plot points so far have been more interesting than some of the social drama, as like I said some of the dialogue is a little weak. But I'm motivated to finish the season. It leaaves AP at end of week.

 

[SensEye]

Watched the first three episodes now. Yeah, it does remind me of Lost tonally in some ways.

It gets a bit more that way as things proceed. Strange voices on the radio are heard, some folks venture off into the forest over night to see what they can learn, strange lights are seen, super strange stuff starts to happen, all that jazz.

 

[Totenkindly]

It gets a bit more that way as things proceed. Strange voices on the radio are heard, some folks venture off into the forest over night to see what they can learn, strange lights are seen, super strange stuff starts to happen, all that jazz.

Now they aren't even trying to hide it.

Episode 4 starts with a guy announcing, "Previously, on From," and then a quick flashback cold open that just felt and sounded like Lost. Lol.

Edit: i was feeling like e4 was better dialog. Yup, someone else wrote it (e1-3 were by the showrunner). And this writer also wrote some of the early Lost episodes.

Also, the series composer: "Chris Tilton (born June 9, 1979 in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States) is an American soundtrack composer and has helped compose several television, film and video game scores. He has collaborated with Michael Giacchino and J. J. Abrams on several of his projects. " edit: it's even more apparent by e6. The music cues and the scene cuts are right out of Lost.


EDIT: Finished Episode 7. Kevin gets the Douchebag of the Year award. This show does have more blood in it than Lost did, I'll say that. I think it's also ironic Sara's as nutty as a granola bar but everyone trusts her because she acts sweet, whereas Victor acts fairly kooky and earns a lot of animosity but he's pretty much harmless.

I'm still out on how I feel about Jade. At least he admitted he sucks with people, and even then, "I never knew how to act, being so much smarter than everyone else!" gawd.

 

[Totenkindly]

Finished Season 1 of Los -- I mean, "From" -- last evening.

My thoughts are the show is

(1) very watchable and addictive... decent episode lengths, there's enough going on to hold attention

(2) very much modeled look and feel on Lost as it goes (music cues, breaks, cuts, opening summary of past episodes), it's really obvious they have folks who worked on Lost, worked WITH people who worked on Lost, and/or are consciously trying to emulate Lost

(3) a puzzle box style show, however I'm uneasy with how quickly new mysterious things are being tossed into the show without any apparent way they can be connected, it feels kind of scattershot and while eerie/intriguing are NOT some of the best parts of Lost to emulate, and

(4) is only a shadow of one of Lost's main strengths, which was the character arcs -- even Season 1 of Lost made you really care about most of the main cast (and/or hate them). From is not holding a candle to this; I really don't much care about any of them much, because I don't really know much about any of them before they came to town, they still seem like pieces in a large puzzle being assembled. I wish they would do more with the characterization. But Lost did have a LOT more episodes to do character work with, admittedly.

I am definitely watching Season 2 when/if I get access to it. Basically though I would like this show more if it would dig more into the characters, and also ease up a bit on the crazy shit and focus on resolving some questions. There is almost too much going on. Frankly, too, the reason people loved Lost was because we loved almost all the characters. We cared (or hated) Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Charlier, Sayid, Juliette, Ben, Hugo, so many of them. I loved them, honestly, I still feel things just by mentioning their names. I don't really care about any of these characters even a third that much, although I have a few I like. You win a place in people's hearts by making them feel like they truly know people in your show, but we barely know anything about these folks.

 

[SensEye]

(3) a puzzle box style show, however I'm uneasy with how quickly new mysterious things are being tossed into the show without any apparent way they can be connected, it feels kind of scattershot and while eerie/intriguing are NOT some of the best parts of Lost to emulate, and

Couldn't agree more. This is my main concern with this show. I feel a show like this needs a well defined 5-7 season story arc where the characters eventually get out, and possibly some sort of plausible explanation for what is going on is delivered (although given the strangeness of events one might just have to chalk the whole thing up to the supernatural).

Right now, it seems they are going on a season by season basis, with the plan being, if we get renewed for another year, we'll just cook up some more weirdness out of nowhere.

Anyhow, bad news on the character front in season two, as a whole busload (literally) of newbies show up. As you might expect, half of them are culled right away due to their skepticism, but there are still 20 or so newcomers who you can't even recall their names wandering around, although two or three of them take on more substantial roles.

Never the less, still interesting enough for me to keep watching, but they need to tighten things up a bit soon.

 

[Totenkindly]

Secret Invasion e2 had some actual teeth. For once, I actually felt like I was watching something more on par with Phase 1-3 MCU. It also managed to be a little edgy without screaming, "OH LOOK AT HOW EDGY WE ARE" or being edgy in a way that turned off viewers.

Rhodey is in this episode and is kind of badass. You can tell he learned a lot dealing with that asshat Thunderball Ross during the blip years.

I'm hoping it continues on this road of improvement.

My only quibble this episode is (I'd have to rewatch) a logical thing -- there's a door that opens outward with a bar across it from the inside. Later someone blows the hinges from the outside to open the door and it falls outward. The bar should have still be holding it in place, since the bar was on the inside. Durrrr.

Also, I felt like the actress playing Hill's mother didn't really deliver the lines properly, or they weren't quite written right. They didn't really know what they wanted to do with that scene and it's just like random bits and pieces from all the other similar scenes I've seen in films and shows in the past.

I'm really liking Emilia Clarke in this, although she hasn't done a ton yet. It's really great that she had a wig for GoT because it totally disassociates her from that show and you're not constantly thinking of her as Khaleesi.

 

[Totenkindly]

So I watched the first three seasons of RWBY (anime show by Roosterteeth, who also did Red & Blue) in the last day or two. There are nine seasons, and I own 5-6 of them on Bluray, but I had never really committed to really plowing through them.

Season 1 = 16 episodes, each about 5-12 minutes long.
Season 2 = 12 episodes, each about 12-15 minutes
Season 3 = 12 episodes, each about 14-16 minutes

It's kind of good to binge each season as a movie since it typically tells another chapter of an ongoing story.

They do a lot of world-building; their magic/power system is pretty thought out and developed. Season 1, you meet the four leads, each is a kind of archetypical personality, but there's quirkier anime-style comedy mixed in and they're a little more cliche.

Season 2, the characters start to deepen and become more nuanced, so it's really great to see character arcs and personalities deepening.

Season 3, everything goes to hell. It's like The Empire Strikes Back chapter and it ends on some dark notes. It feels very much to me how the last Harry Potter film and the battle of Hogwarts would have been like if Valdemort had either won or reached a semi-stalemate rather than losing.

I am usually not emotionally engaged to anime as a form because it typically doesn't emotionally hit me (I've even tried to get into Ghibli and just don't emotionally resonante with that either), but Season 3 of this show really killed me. I'm gonna be hurting over this for awhile, after becoming attached to the characters. Not everyone makes it out, and in true form, sometimes it's the best of them all who are too true to bail and end up bearing the brunt of it. (I also didn't have my discs with me, so I was streaming it off unlicensed episodes on YouTube, and there were some in Season 3 I couldn't find -- so I had to watch one of the many 'reaction' videos, where streamers are filming themselves reacting to the show while putting the actual show in a portion of the stream... you can watch the episodes while watching these people's reactions... and there's some stuff that reminds me a lot of GoT and the Mountain/Viper quality of viewer response to the last four episodes of the season. It's nuts.)

The showrunner died unexpectedly during the production of Season 3 (although I am very sure they had the scripts mapped out, he got a writing credit), and that probably also factors into things.

Anyway, it's a pretty cool show if you get through the first season when its tone is still solidifying. It was designed as a web-stream cartoon, so they tried to get fluid animation while keeping the data size down as much as possible, and the characters all move so fluidly. Later seasons, the backgrounds are much better as they allow larger data streams. But the character movement has always been great, and the fight sequences (of which there are a lot, as they're in a training school) are really thought out and really cool. Also the character and weapon design is awesome. And yes, the four leads are all girls, but there's quite a number of guys too in this show. I'm pretty enamored with it. The stakes are high, the threats are real, and you never know where the plot or the character arc is going to turn, for good or bad. Real heroism.

 

[Totenkindly]

FInished Season 7 of RWBY today. Just two more seasons to go.

It's interesting to watch the character development and even the more concrete things like costume changes over time. I think some of the costuming has been good, other times the character designs have gone towards the worse (like when they moved Weiss away from her ice blue/purple w/ red accent costumes, recognizable profile, and long flowing ponytail, and I'm not really a fan of Blake's haircut in Season 7) -- basically the characters have established shape profiles and color keys and shouldn't really be shying away from them -- although I think the most prevalent problem is when they give Ruby a tunic that is the same color as her skin. It's really bizarre, at times they've changed her skin tone from white to something more human, and then they stupidly change her undershirt/sleeves tunic to match so you can't tell what's a shirt and what's her skin.

I think it's really ironic that it's like the first anime show I really feel emotionally attached to -- and earlier in the week I realized there's a big controversy apparently as to whether it's "true anime"... and it's one of the few anime labeled shows that is American in origin. So that is probably why I connect with it so well. I really don't feel much emotion when I've seen other anime.

Anyway, the story is pretty decent as well as the world-building. I'm still in shock over the end of Season 3 and I don't think I'll ever get over it. It is lingering and will probably always linger. What I love is that they spend time following emotional character arcs and don't just ignore something. When Yang suffers a horrible loss at the end of Season 3, it ends up affecting her for seasons afterwards so that she at times still second-guesses herself and is no longer 100% confident in her abilities despite working through some of the PTSD. The impact of another big loss continues to resonate with the characters ever onwards -- painful and overwhelming at first, but eventually grief becomes mixed with hope and perseverance... but the grief never totally leaves and sometimes returns like a crashing wave. It is so much like a loss I suffered when a coworker I was close to died a few years ago; I am now to the point sometimes I don't think about her for awhile (because I'm not even in the same setting where we knew each other any more) but then someone will mention her and I will just sag momentarily as I remember again... but then also feel motivated to live life to the fullest and honor her memory. It's just very real to me. And the show handles this other loss similar.

Anyway, the world-building and unfolding mysteries are pretty wonderful, the animation still looks decent, and it's got a few creepy villains + one villain I utterly despise and experience great pleasure when she doesn't get her way. I will always hate her, even as they humanize her a bit. It makes me even more angry with her, tbh. The good guys also sometimes don't know what to do, aren't capable of doing it, and/or become tarnished in understandable ways or fight amongst themselves because they each have different means to a supposed good end. (For example, is it worth sacrificing innocent lives to do something that might be strategically better to win the larger war against evil? if we lose the war, everyone loses; but how can you just abandon people who need you and still believe you are fighting for something good?)

I would finally be remiss to not mention the music, which is just really enjoyable and high energy - -kind of a blend of progressive pop, hard rock, jazz, and other orchestral stuff occasionally thrown into the mix. Jeff Williams retired from music after Season 8 and left his daughter Casey (who did a lot of the vocals for earlier seasons) work on music with her progressive metal band, which was a good thing because Jeff's Season 8 music was feeling kind of repetitive.... but he had a really great run and really branded the show. I am having a lot of fun just running the music as background when working or grinding stuff in WoW.

EDIT: Finished Seasons 8 and 9 (all episodes) over the last few days. Season 8 was a real drag for much of it -- basically all the heroes are bickering for two thirds of the season, while there's also a focus on some villain backstory (one I didn't really WANT to see, her backstory is even more depressing than her current behavior), and the other supporting cast of "heroes" are all really negative too. It just felt really crappy to watch for much of it. In the last four episodes of Season 8, finally there was some actual heroism in the face of darkness and it became more meaningful, but it was a rather soul-crushing season and even when the heroes win something, they lose more than they gain.

Which is why Season 9 was such a relief -- an emotional palate cleanser. SOme of the main protagonists get lost in a land based on Lewis Carroll's work (I was expecting it to be pretty derivative, but much of it was inventive), and it was a slower more meditative pace, new problems to solve, no longer worrying about the world being overrun, and the heroes are all basically resetting/ recalibrating themselves. It was like it ramped up from a plot-based anime good vs evil story into grappling with the confusion and frustration of existence in general, Ruby Rose does a lot of soul searching and has to turn really negative before she can find herself again... but not in a way that feels bad, just honest. it's some of what I have felt in life as an adult when my expectations have been run into the ground, and I think it is what every adult goes through in life. Along with that, the music and animation were just spectacular for this setting, and there's finally some more backstory both on Ruby's mom but also the Brother Gods from whom the current battle between Ozma and Salem stems. I'm glad they recalibrated and took a breather.

 

[Totenkindly]

I have decided that the MCU has lost the ability to actually tell emotionally engaging stories. In fact, they just don't have a lot of good storytellers anymore.

Good stories aren't just a blow-by-blow description of plot. They typically involve generating high stakes among characters you want to see succeed, or generating moral ambiguity with characters you want to despise, or simply making you care about their stories and telling the story in a way that generates suspense of some kind.

Secret Invasion is not bad. But it's not really must-see either. It's kind of a perfunctory plot-driven property that is put together fairly well, with solid cast, and even some nice solid snappy lines... but damn if they don't know how to tell a story properly.

Consider "The Winter Soldier" -- there's a lot of driving elements there, one being "which character can we even trust?" It isn't even clear whether Black Widow is on the level or dependable, at first, and then there's the shattering reality of one major character's death early in the film -- unexpected -- and handled in a way that works whether or not it ever got taken back. Most importantly, you have the Winter Soldier, who seems to be Cap's par or BETTER, and who the hell is this guy? He's terrifying, competent, deadly, and when you find out who he is, it's an earth-shattering revelation for both the audience AND for the lead characters and is shot purposefully to emphasize that. Just like a "holy shit" moment. It ties back to emotions that have been enduring from the first film.

Now look at Secret Invasion. They killed off one long-time protagonist in Episode 1, and either it's bad because no one gave a shit OR it's bad because if the character comes back, it doesn't really matter either. Now in Episode 3 (last week's episode) they kill off another prominent character, but no one would believe that death would stick because of the actress' prominence and also the entire Internet immediately figured out what happened because they didn't really take pains to make it interesting.

They could have made this interesting. They could have had this character lie low and/or be disguised, and then pop up later unexpectedly at a crucial moment, while leaving bread crumbs as to whether her dad believed she was alive or dead. Like CREATE A MYSTERY ABOUT IT. look at the impact of that absence and/or death on the other characters. etc

What did the writers do? The shittiest, laziest thing possible: In the first two minutes of the new episode, they immediately filled in the blanks and show you what the character did to prevent themselves from dying and then immediately revealing they are not dead. Like wtf? There is no loss, no mystery -- like why fucking care about anything MCU is doing anymore? Like a great Nolan film once said, "The secret impresses NO ONE. The trick you use it for is EVERYTHING."

Good stories generate tension with conflict and/or mystery, and this show doesn't trust its audience or its story enough to allow mystery to exist and focus on the emotional impact of this mystery.

There's actually a bit later in Episode 4 between Fury and his wife (long story) that actually is really great -- but it's about 5 minutes long, and they didn't do any real ground work for it earlier in the series! That scene should have had a LOT MORE BUILD-UP so that this moment actually has impact. It's like they had a great idea for the scene, then were just too damn lazy to invest time to lead up to it and set up resonance, and just threw in the scene itself.

Again, leading to: These guys no longer know how to actually tell engrossing stories. it's all like laying pipe to them.

Edit: apparently someone else had the same feels I did after episode 4.

TV cliffhangers are a lost art

www.polygon.com

 

[The Cat]

I have decided that the MCU has lost the ability to actually tell emotionally engaging stories. In fact, they just don't have a lot of good storytellers anymore.

Good stories aren't just a blow-by-blow description of plot. They typically involve generating high stakes among characters you want to see succeed, or generating moral ambiguity with characters you want to despise, or simply making you care about their stories and telling the story in a way that generates suspense of some kind.

Secret Invasion is not bad. But it's not really must-see either. It's kind of a perfunctory plot-driven property that is put together fairly well, with solid cast, and even some nice solid snappy lines... but damn if they don't know how to tell a story properly.

Consider "The Winter Soldier" -- there's a lot of driving elements there, one being "which character can we even trust?" It isn't even clear whether Black Widow is on the level or dependable, at first, and then there's the shattering reality of one major character's death early in the film -- unexpected -- and handled in a way that works whether or not it ever got taken back. Most importantly, you have the Winter Soldier, who seems to be Cap's par or BETTER, and who the hell is this guy? He's terrifying, competent, deadly, and when you find out who he is, it's an earth-shattering revelation for both the audience AND for the lead characters and is shot purposefully to emphasize that. Just like a "holy shit" moment. It ties back to emotions that have been enduring from the first film.

Now look at Secret Invasion. They killed off one long-time protagonist in Episode 1, and either it's bad because no one gave a shit OR it's bad because if the character comes back, it doesn't really matter either. Now in Episode 3 (last week's episode) they kill off another prominent character, but no one would believe that death would stick because of the actress' prominence and also the entire Internet immediately figured out what happened because they didn't really take pains to make it interesting.

They could have made this interesting. They could have had this character lie low and/or be disguised, and then pop up later unexpectedly at a crucial moment, while leaving bread crumbs as to whether her dad believed she was alive or dead. Like CREATE A MYSTERY ABOUT IT. look at the impact of that absence and/or death on the other characters. etc

What did the writers do? The shittiest, laziest thing possible: In the first two minutes of the new episode, they immediately filled in the blanks and show you what the character did to prevent themselves from dying and then immediately revealing they are not dead. Like wtf? There is no loss, no mystery -- like why fucking care about anything MCU is doing anymore? Like a great Nolan film once said, "The secret impresses NO ONE. The trick you use it for is EVERYTHING."

Good stories generate tension with conflict and/or mystery, and this show doesn't trust its audience or its story enough to allow mystery to exist and focus on the emotional impact of this mystery.

There's actually a bit later in Episode 4 between Fury and his wife (long story) that actually is really great -- but it's about 5 minutes long, and they didn't do any real ground work for it earlier in the series! That scene should have had a LOT MORE BUILD-UP so that this moment actually has impact. It's like they had a great idea for the scene, then were just too damn lazy to invest time to lead up to it and set up resonance, and just threw in the scene itself.

Again, leading to: These guys no longer know how to actually tell engrossing stories. it's all like laying pipe to them.

I think of these more and more seeing marvel these days

​

 

[Totenkindly]

I think of these more and more seeing marvel these days

​

Way to make me want to vomit just by seeing the still video image.
I'm not watching that, lol -- I'm already in agreement.

 

[The Cat]

Way to make me want to vomit just by seeing the still video image.
I'm not watching that, lol -- I'm already in agreement.

I dont enjoy the still images either. they've got the bug eyes.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think of these more and more seeing marvel these days

​

Why the Alita Battle Angel eyes?

 

[The Cat]

Why the Alita Battle Angel eyes?

I don't know. It's maddening I didnt click on them for a long time because the eyes were creepy, but they came up in my autoplay while i was house cleaning one day and the content struck me as pretty funny.
i think they must do it to try to avoid copyright strikes.

 

[Totenkindly]

Am I the only person not excited they are doing another Alita Battle Angel film or show?

The idea was great, but uggh the script was SO awful. I can't sit through it twice. I'm kinda pissed it was so bad.

 

[The Cat]

Am I the only person not excited they are doing another Alita Battle Angel film or show?

The idea was great, but uggh the script was SO awful. I can't sit through it twice. I'm kinda pissed it was so bad.

Nope. Ive been there with a few things these last many years.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Am I the only person not excited they are doing another Alita Battle Angel film or show?

The idea was great, but uggh the script was SO awful. I can't sit through it twice. I'm kinda pissed it was so bad.

No. I never saw the original movie because I never thought I could get used to the eye thing. When I think about it, I think I probably would have actually watched it if she had normal eyes. I don't think it's that hard to convince me of a cyberpunk epic.

 

[Totenkindly]

No. I never saw the original movie because I never thought I could get used to the eye thing. When I think about it, I think I probably would have actually watched it if she had normal eyes. I don't think it's that hard to convince me of a cyberpunk epic.

Yeah, that is one of the problems. I'm okay with quirky stuff, but her eyes really did turn me off. Still, it was the wooden acting and dialogue that really killed me.

This movie could have been amazing if they had a writer actually work on the script. The action sequences weren't bad.

 

[Saturnal Snowqueen]

Did anyone actually have the name Rerun, or was it just some running gag in the 70s? I actually really like the name-

Also, Dee from What's Happening!! is savage

 

[Totenkindly]

Did anyone actually have the name Rerun, or was it just some running gag in the 70s? I actually really like the name-

Also, Dee from What's Happening!! is savage

Wow, those are blasts from the past!!

I don't think I've ever heard of Rerun used outside the show.

Edit: lol I forgot -- Rerun is also Lucy and Linus' little brother in "Peanuts"