Current TV Boxset Addiction

[Colin YNWA]

Well now I'm all Amazoned up I can do this without having to put DVDs into a thing and to celebrate I've just finishing watching the first season of The Tick.

It was great. While it wasn't quite as madcap as I remember the comics being (I've not read them in a long time and alas sold by full Edlund set many years ago) it really got the tone pretty damn well. Fantastic fun.

Alas I've learnt that it only gets another season, mind I'll savour that.

Out of interest can anyone tell me is the 90s cartoon any good. There's a few complete sets of that for an okay price and I seem to recall the little bits I'd seen were pretty good?

[Gary James]

Out of interest can anyone tell me is the 90s cartoon any good. There's a few complete sets of that for an okay price and I seem to recall the little bits I'd seen were pretty good?

It has its moments, but there's a lot of filler in there as well. Best watched in short bursts rather than in one marathon session - after the fourth or fifth episode in a row I started to get restless. If you can ration yourself to one episode a week it works far, far better than it should.

Look around for the complete DVD set before you buy - I picked mine up for eight quid, so they're still out there in reasonable numbers.

[sheridan]

It was jarring to have the entire show thrown away for a shock ending at the time, and it still - even after so many shows have attempted similar "twists" - works magnificently.

Not sure I follow you on that one - if it hadn't had that shock ending then there still wouldn't have been any further series.

[Gary James]

Not sure I follow you on that one - if it hadn't had that shock ending then there still wouldn't have been any further series.

The perils of typing quickly without checking what I'm writing...

The series - arriving at it "fresh" in the 90s reruns - was a surprise in many regards. and the mature themes which peppered the episodes made it stand out despite looking rather threadbare in places. That final episode packed a far greater punch, therefore, due to its complete lack of dangling hooks being set up. Now, Farscape (poor, dear, lamented Farscape) tried something similar with its final episode, and had... Well, it wasn't as much of a gut-wrenching moment.

That the producers knew, in setting up the finale of Blakes 7, that there was no prospect of return to the small screen, they did something which would be unthinkable these days - there was no hope, after seeing the episode, that any novel, or comic strip (the Marvel monthly and the annuals), or whatever else¹ could possibly follow it without addressing what happened.

Could it have continued (in another medium) throughout the eighties? Possibly, but only as a diluted and pale imitation of the original. As much as I love the show, and believe that to the perfect ending (in keeping with the nihilistic statements peppered throughout the narrative to that point) it, alas, make anything coming after it feel completely redundant.

And, for the record, there isn't a single instance I can think of where a show has succeeded in topping it. Alias chickened out, The Lone Gunmen didn't even get to go out in style in their own show, Farscape weaseled out in its problematic mini-series, and everything else (the Buffyverse, in particular) seems to anticipate continuation in other media².

Blakes 7 is special, therefore, in having the balls to do what (at least a few) producers probably dream of being allowed to.

(and yes, I probably need a decent editor sitting beside me with a ruler, to whack me every so often when I'm unclear on things)

1. I still haven't got round to the audio adventures, and I'm apprehensive about how well they could tackle the events from the episode - I would rather have the Bolivian Army Ending as canon than any possibly pointless continuation for the sake of it.
2. Nope. Not reading the reboot. I get why they did it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. When a character is killed, there ought to be repercussions, and any reboot (however soft) always brings back dead characters without so much as a "they've been in the shower for the past year" nonsense.

[Mardroid]

Locke and Key

I enjoyed that a lot. Pretty faithful to the comics without being slavish to them. A good thing as I've read all the comics (aside from a one shot, I think) so the changes means not everything was spoiled.

Don't look at this until you've seen the end of the series, or just don't mind:
[spoiler]Kind of proud of myself for guessing a certain twist, which wasn't in the comics. Then there was yet another related twist which I never saw coming. Part of me wishes they'd stuck with a certain key being a gender changer like the comics, rather than what this version did,but then those twists wouldn't have occurred.[/spoiler]

I have a special love of the comics, so I wouldn't say I prefer this, but they're both good.

[The Legendary Shark]

I'm working my way through The West Wing for the first time in God knows. It's completely delusional statist propaganda fan w*nk poppycock, of course, but it's damned fine telly.

[Professor Bear]

West Wing is just Madam Secretary for blokes.  Change my mind.

The BBC Dracula.  I think people described this as "classic Moffat" and it was meant either as cynicism or flattery depending on where you fell down on the whole love/hate thing, but I think it also represents a paradigm for modern storytelling in that it's the same old stories we've been telling since the 19th century, just with arbitrary twists thrown in and maybe someone is a different race or gender now, but apart from that, nothing is objectively interesting and the best we can hope for is that what we're watching is well-made and doesn't annoy us trying to be self-aware.
My problem with this was that it was a bit too obviously pleased with itself in quite a few places, and the last episode was pretty shit - Dracula crossed time and the world itself just to find someone who was a shallow nihilist?  Well anyway, I've seen worse.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

My problem with this was that it was a bit too obviously pleased with itself in quite a few places...

Classic Moffat

[JamesC]

BBC Dracula was classic Moffat in the way that a steaming pile of dog excrement is classic Fido.

[repoman]

Miracle Workers s2.  The first series started poorly but got good.  S2 so far is excellent.  I've laughed out loud a lot.  Has the guy who played Harry Potter in it.

Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet.  US comedy with Mac from Always Sunny.  Set in a software dev company who are making an MMO.  Not hugely funny but quite watchable.

Trying to get into Deadwood but it is already a struggle.  Not hugely feeling it.

[Smith]

Dragon Prince. Its an okay fantasy series.

[karlos]

Altered Carbon S2

Feels seriously paired down from the bonkers first season, but it's still very solid stuff, even if, at the half way point, not much has happened.  [spoiler]And Poe's back![/spoiler]

Also, the anime spin-off film, Resleeved, is out this week as well!

[wedgeski]

On Netflix, currently strolling through Sabrina, which is very good but still weirdly not something I immediately feel the need to finish, and Lost in Space S2. I really like the latter. It's gorgeous, for a start. Then there's the old-school action-adventure, calamity-of-the-week vibe ... a nice throw-back in this age of unending TV meta-plots. And the feels are genuine (I'm thinking of E5 'Run' in particular). I feel it will run its course by the end of S3, but since they know they only have one more season, I'm hoping it'll make a good case for shorter, twice-as-bright-half-as-long TV.

[Colin YNWA]

Black Sails

Finally got around to this and thank goodness the good souls of this formum said you have to stick with it as it gets better as the first 4 or so episodes felt so by the numbers. It was as if the writers had gone through a check list of quality drama architypes. Luckily everyone was so charismatic, even if at times the performances weren't perfect that it flow along.

By the end it was still showing distinct signs of being a bit daft, but by heck it was compelling at the same time. From popular opiniion it gets better from here which is an exciting prospect.

[Jim_Campbell]

By the end it was still showing distinct signs of being a bit daft, but by heck it was compelling at the same time. From popular opiniion it gets better from here which is an exciting prospect.

It's great all the way through, but S2 is superb.