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Current TV Boxset Addiction

Started by radiator, 20 November, 2012, 02:23:29 PM

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HdE

I've been doggedly persevering with 'Alias'. For which I deserve a medal... and have been somewhat rewarded.

Seasons 3 and 4 of this show are guff. utter guff. There's loads of dull-witted plotting and some atrociously leaden writing. Thankfully, season 5 - which I had to be cajoled into watching - has seen the show blossom into ACTUAL entertainment.

I still have the uncomfortable feeling that I got from 'Lost', where the writers are basically making big chunks of this up as they go along, and there are some plot elements that feel like they're not ultimately going to go anywhere. But at least the pace has picked up. Elodie Bouchez and Rachel Nichols certainly make the show a good deal more watchable. For me, at least. ;)
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Professor Bear

The Starlost, a Harlan Ellison-created sci-fi series from the 1970s about a man, a woman, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Kier Dullea wandering around an ark ship 800 years in the future visiting "bio domes" that contain various cultures and trying to figure out how to steer the now-crewless ship away from a collision with a star despite being Amish types who can barely read English and keep thinking things like lightbulbs and carpets are devil magic.  Reminds me of Blake's 7 but with lower production values, less action, and either the greatest or worstest mustache in television history.  It is not great, to be honest, and I can see why Ellison took his name off this one, but it reminds me of those daffy mid-80s kids' dramas and distracts me nicely.

Also Flash Gordon, the 2007 tv series that everyone hated.  It is not that terrible, it's just really cheap and the name Flash Gordon does it more harm than good as it'd make a fine low-budget tv series if it was called anything else and people stopped saying they wanted to see terrible model rockets in it or dudes in fake wings or something.  It's not brain science by a long shot, but about a dozen episodes in and it's created a consistent mythology for itself to the point that it's developed an overall arc story that does - as I recall - actually go somewhere and then resolves itself for the not-really-a-cliffhanger finale.  It's a fun show, but its greatest objective problems are the name and the fact that it is accessible and inoffensive when most sci-fi tries very, very hard to be alienating, cliquey and exclusive.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: Professor James T Bear on 04 September, 2013, 10:09:05 PM
It is not great, to be honest, and I can see why Ellison took his name off this one

Any projects that are shit he takes his name off but any that are good he sues to have his name put on (The Terminator). He's a card.

radiator

I keep trying to watch season 4 of Community, but I just can't get through it. 10 minutes into an episode my attention just starts to wander. I don't know how much of my apathy towards it is just my prejudice though.

Tiplodocus

Quote from: HdE on 04 September, 2013, 05:26:33 PM
I've been doggedly persevering with 'Alias'. For which I deserve a medal... and have been somewhat rewarded.

Seasons 3 and 4 of this show are guff. utter guff. There's loads of dull-witted plotting and some atrociously leaden writing. Thankfully, season 5 - which I had to be cajoled into watching - has seen the show blossom into ACTUAL entertainment.

We stalled about half way through Season 2. It was aces but somehow it just dropped off the watch list.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

HdE

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 04 September, 2013, 11:57:44 PM
We stalled about half way through Season 2. It was aces but somehow it just dropped off the watch list.

I think one of the show's biggess problems is that it's badly weighed down with filler and takes an age to ever get anywhere. Ironically, it's around the mid-point of season 2 that things start to pick up.

There's fun to be had with Alias. It's just that there's nowhere near five season' worth of it. How a show like this gets that kind of run, while Firefly gets canned after 13 episodes... egh.
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Spikes

Quote from: Professor James T Bear on 04 September, 2013, 10:09:05 PM
The Starlost, a Harlan Ellison-created sci-fi series from the 1970s about a man, a woman, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Kier Dullea wandering around an ark ship 800 years in the future visiting "bio domes" that contain various cultures and trying to figure out how to steer the now-crewless ship away from a collision with a star despite being Amish types who can barely read English and keep thinking things like lightbulbs and carpets are devil magic.  Reminds me of Blake's 7 but with lower production values, less action, and either the greatest or worstest mustache in television history.  It is not great, to be honest, and I can see why Ellison took his name off this one, but it reminds me of those daffy mid-80s kids' dramas and distracts me nicely.

Never come across this before - as far as i can recall. But checking it out on YouTube, it does look to be utter tosh. But gloriously so! Keen to watch some more, now.

von Boom

Quote from: Professor James T Bear on 04 September, 2013, 10:09:05 PM
The Starlost, a Harlan Ellison-created sci-fi series from the 1970s about a man, a woman, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Kier Dullea wandering around an ark ship 800 years in the future visiting "bio domes" that contain various cultures and trying to figure out how to steer the now-crewless ship away from a collision with a star despite being Amish types who can barely read English and keep thinking things like lightbulbs and carpets are devil magic.  Reminds me of Blake's 7 but with lower production values, less action, and either the greatest or worstest mustache in television history.  It is not great, to be honest, and I can see why Ellison took his name off this one, but it reminds me of those daffy mid-80s kids' dramas and distracts me nicely.

I remember Starlost. They used the same ship model (Valley Forge) as in the Bruce Dern film Silent Running.

shaolin_monkey

Quote from: von Boom on 12 September, 2013, 05:22:28 PM
Quote from: Professor James T Bear on 04 September, 2013, 10:09:05 PM
The Starlost, a Harlan Ellison-created sci-fi series from the 1970s about a man, a woman, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Kier Dullea wandering around an ark ship 800 years in the future visiting "bio domes" that contain various cultures and trying to figure out how to steer the now-crewless ship away from a collision with a star despite being Amish types who can barely read English and keep thinking things like lightbulbs and carpets are devil magic.  Reminds me of Blake's 7 but with lower production values, less action, and either the greatest or worstest mustache in television history.  It is not great, to be honest, and I can see why Ellison took his name off this one, but it reminds me of those daffy mid-80s kids' dramas and distracts me nicely.

I remember Starlost. They used the same ship model (Valley Forge) as in the Bruce Dern film Silent Running.


I don't mean to derail, but Last Exit to Nowhere are discontinuing their Valley Forge design, and are selling the remaining stock at a reduced price:

http://www.lastexittonowhere.com/shop/product/valley-forge-slim-fit-t-shirt/

Professor Bear

Starsky and Hutch - complete horseshit, and I can't help myself but watch it.  It's like two grown men making a tv show for their kids so they won't have to watch those awful cop shows currently on tv with all their drug taking and "eff this" and bare ladies everywhere.  The soundtrack is fantastic, though, and I can see why it's been the go-to for three generations of pornographers whenever a young woman (or man, or combination thereof) needs one or more orifice filled onscreen by obliging handymen.  I remember people giving off when the remake movie was shot as a comedy, but based on this, I am not sure how they expected anything else.
Exo Squad is the tops.  A hand-drawn animated toy advertisement from the early 90s - at least I assume there were toys somewhere in the mix given the bright and colourful designs for the characters and technology on display - and though the animation lacks the sophistication of Asian counterparts then or now, the storyline makes up for it, being a serial narrative (rather than episodic standalone stories) set across several years of interplanetary war between humanity and its genetically-engineered slave race the Neo Sapiens, created to terraform Mars before a failed uprising aimed at their emancipation left them hated, brutalised and openly treated like shit even 50 years later.  Right from the off, humanity has it coming, and sure enough their oppressed slaves oblige with a war of genocide that sees Earth, Mars and Venus conquered, millions of humans too frail to work as slaves fired into the sun, and the Earth fleet destroyed - and rather than this being the rallying point for the main characters, things just keep getting worse.  It's like there was a mid-80s Marvel comic based on a toy line and someone went ahead and animated it in its entirety - gruesome, unjust and final deaths of characters included.  It's great fun, and even though I know it's an unfinished story (cancelled in the third season), I can't stop watching.

Mardroid

I'm working my way through the Planet of the Apes box-set at the moment. (The original movies.)

I just finished Beneath the Planet of the Apes last night. A good, slightly strange, sequel. And what a strange [spoiler]downbeat[/spoiler] ending!* Not to mention that rather odd voice-over.


I find the acting style a little cheesy and expositiony in these films, but they're still highly enjoyable. I was particularly struck by the slow pace of the first film when compared to many modern films. Or even the sequel for that matter.

Incidentally, this is not my first time watching these films. I've seen them all at some point. It's been a little while since I've watched them all though, and I only bought the box-set relatively recently.

*Don't highlight the spoiler bit bellow if you haven't seen the ending of Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I know that should go without saying, I just want  you to know it's a big spoiler.

I've often wondered, and I'm still not clear, if [spoiler]Taylor's triggering of the Doomsday Bomb at the end was accidental (i.e he falls and his arm happens to be stretched out) , or if he just thought 'drokk it' (or words to that effect) and intentionally triggered it making himself the biggest multi-murderer of all time. (Although he probably saw it as a blessing on the human race considering the state they were in.) By the expression on his face and the way he falls, it could be either way.[/spoiler]

Greg M.

One of the most nihilistic films ever made. As for what Taylor does, I think it's on purpose. I've always felt sorry for Nova in that film - she gets treated appallingly from start to finish.

Richmond Clements

Quote from: Greg M. on 18 September, 2013, 08:42:49 PM
One of the most nihilistic films ever made. As for what Taylor does, I think it's on purpose. I've always felt sorry for Nova in that film - she gets treated appallingly from start to finish.

Indeed. There's stuff that they would never get away with now: like in the first film with Taylor laughing at the American flag.

Mardroid

Quote from: Greg M. on 18 September, 2013, 08:42:49 PM
One of the most nihilistic films ever made. As for what Taylor does, I think it's on purpose.

I think you're probably right. One of the things that struck me in the first film in particular is that, despite being the hero of the story, he isn't a particularly nice chap. This goading of one of the other astronauts at the start for example. And what he states to his mates when confronted by the primitive humans "If they're all like this, we could be running the whole planet in a year." (Or words to that effect.) Not so different from the apes he despises later then.

Not that he is just like that. He does show a moral centre too, as is clear in his little speech in the 'captain's log' at the start, and his whole reason for leaving earth in the first place - despair with humanity.

QuoteI've always felt sorry for Nova in that film - she gets treated appallingly from start to finish.

Yes, [spoiler]although it's largely under the control of others. Not that that makes her any less mistreated. There is something rather uncomfortable in the way Brent attacks her, under the mutant control though, kissing and hurting her at the same time. You sort of get the impression he isn't just being controlled as if by remote, but that the mutants are amplifying his own base desires, if that makes sense. Not that I'm suggesting he would ever willingly act in that way.[/spoiler]

Goaty