I looked forward to the Rings of Power. A show set in the second age of Middle Earth? There is so much potential. Other than the history textbook outline of the Akallabeth, there’s basically nothing set in stone. There are some characters who are described being kings of regions, founding lordships over thousands of years, but for most of it the second age is a blank sheet where you could make any story you’d want. As long as it doesn’t contradict those historical outlines in the Akallabeth.
I don’t exactly remember how I ran into The Expanse, but I ended up watching it. At this point I’m a few episodes into season 2 and I’m not exactly sure I want to see the rest.
Every review and opinion of the show mentions how the actors are horrible and the writing is great – I must have terrible taste because I am much more irritated by the story itself than by any of the actors.
A while ago I read about Black Mirror on Boing Boing, and even though i have a huge backlog of series i watched before (sitcoms, Misfits etc), i decided to give it a try. You should as well.
So many people online-around me went on and on about how awesome and great and so on the british series called Misfits is, i gave in to the temptation and checked it. Must say it really is.
Been watching Doctor Who (from the 2005 season) for a while now and it’s disturbing how inconsistent they can be at times with the rules of time travel in a series centered around time travel.
If a human goes back in time and saves someone who died, that creates a time paradox, with strange creatures appearing, the TARDIS becoming an ordinary wooden box and so on (cf. episode 1×08 Father’s Day). But if a time lord goes back in time, and saves people whose death had a significant impact on history, then nothing happens, except for a few words changing in future newspaper articles (cf. episode 4×16 Waters of Mars). Decide if changing the past creates a time paradox or just changes the future.
Also, why is the Doctor surprised at every single alien appearing in town, claiming “this shouldn’t be happening” or something along those lines, when he’s seen the future (damn, he was remembering the articles about the Mars expedition in the aforementioned episode), he strangely doesn’t know anything about events that concern him.
I bought Pocky today, a nine-pack again, and i ate five of them after my late lunch. Then as i opened the fridge, the tempter came to me and whispered in my ear: eat all the remaining too!
So far i managed to withstand. I should put on some Neal Morse albums to play to support me.
Well, i would, were i not watching Dr Who. It’s so fifties. Also, makes me realize how i love the british accent. I’m at episode 3 of the first season from 2005, and it’s overloading me.
I started watching Universe right after i finished Atlantis, but it’s way too different. Not that i’d drop it, that would take a bit more. But even fifteen or so years ago, when Neon Genesis Evangelion was made, it was common sense that if you made a series with lots of mental problems and depression, you need to counterbalance that every now and then with some kick-ass action or no one will watch it. Apparently the makers of Stargate Universe think otherwise. Onboard the Destiny, everyone sulks, occasionally gets a conscience swap home, and that’s it. Maybe once every fifteen episodes something happens. Where by something i mean something different than the local heavy guy clashing with someone.
It’s boring. Okay the makers wanted to focus much more on character personalities and mental progress, but at the price of any story? Like any at all? You can’t make a story of people locked in a starship without something happening. Not through n+1 seasons where n≥0. If you don’t have any better idea at least let them go off-world for a change. Or make an arbitrary system of the ship brake down so that they can fix it. Make something happen. Okay that the people are going crazy with idleness onboard, but if you go on like this, it’ll drive the watchers crazy too. And that’s no good.
Don’t worry, i wasn’t lost or dead, neither was i abducted, though i did spent most of my free time in the Pegasus galaxy. Anyone familiar with that phrase? Yeah, i’ve been watching Stargate Atlantis. I started it when i was supposed to, at the end of the seventh season of Stargate SG-1. But i didn’t keep up—i know i was supposed to watch it parallel with the last three SG-1 seasons, but i didn’t. At least this way i got more… continuity.
In its five seasons Atlantis had much less space for the predictable episodes that were so typical to SG-1 after a few seasons. Much less, but of course they were still there. The story overall is much simpler, with “just” one race as the great enemy and a few minor powers who mostly only cause trouble. In the five seasons, there was only one clip show episode, somewhere in the last season (thus near the finale), so it’s forgivable.
The characters were well designed and the crossovers with SG-1 made it really feel like a part of the already constructed Stargate world in my head, although there were hardly any episodes in the Milky Way galaxy.
True, significant parts of the story won’t make much sense to someone who haven’t seen SG-1, but the main storyline events will. Now on to Universe.
Today i ended up doing practically nothing except for translating the fourth episode of Shiki and watching Stargate Atlantis. And more Stargate Atlantis. Reminds me of the insane streaks i had of SG-1, when i sat down in the morning and watched like two seasons non-stop until late night. I get that feeling again, that oh, just one more, and this is good. For most of the first season, i didn’t feel that… i don’t know if it has something with school starting again, or just the episodes are getting better and better—though of course after watching all ten seasons of SG-1, two of the Stargate movies (don’t feel like watching continuum, somehow these alternate reality stories in Stargate tend to be… lame—except the exceptions) and a season of Atlantis, as of now, i pretty much developed an ability to foretell the story of an episode. From the title, from the first five minutes, from focus of certain characters, after this much often it gets obvious. When it’s yet interesting, that’s when i get glued to the screen for hours. Many hours. Like now.
I’ve heard about this new british series remake of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary stories of the legendary (consultant) detective, Sherlock Holmes. I loved the novels, so i decided to give it a try. It’s great.
It’s set in the current London, although in a world where Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson and Inspector Lestrade are not famous figures from a crime novel but real people of pretty much the same life as their literary counterparts. The story of the three episodes are loosely based on the original novels, of course adapted to the modern world with smartphones, snipers, memory sticks and stuff. And of course Dr Watson isn’t writing short novels about their adventures, he’s blogging about them.
The scenery is London, for most of the time. Whenever the sky is visible, it and everything near the horizon are blurred. The occasional writings on screen (text messages, thoughts etc) remind me very much of Hustle. One more similarity is that the music of the opening sequence is… strange. I don’t really like it. The only other problem with the series is that it’s only three episodes. After i watched the third today, i started looking for the fourth, but apparently there’s none. Whaaat?!
I want more!
