/hob/ - Hobbies

I wish the people who made these things didn't feel the need to force niggers into every single program. I recently saw a commercial for a comedy middle ages show and I lost count of how many niggers and arabs were present in this show that was supposed to take place in 1200s or so Britain. It's really getting ridiculous.

>>51499
Was it made by BBC or something?

>>51500
probably, it starred that guy who played Harry Potter

>>51501
Yeah, it is their official policy that they have to meet diversity quotas in all their shows and staffing even if it makes no sense or is precedential to the final product.

It is like they forgot that quality always trumps quantity when it comes to representation.

theres also an American accent in it. Its like judging the historic accuracy of a Family Guy cutaway.

I partially understand why folks don't want modern politics in entertainment, I use it for escapism too. And politics I agree with can be just as distracting from the immersion as politics I don't.

But you have to understand that you anti-politics, anti-agenda people, are doing the very thing you're complaining about. You're making it impossible to just casually enjoy hobbies for the entertainment. Here we have a light TV hobby thread. And the 1st reply is about niggers, without even naming the show. And the other replies continuing that discussion.

Maybe creators do damage the escapism, but injecting modern issues into their work, but the people bitching about it scorch earth burn down any escapism in hobbies whatsoever.

>>51523
This is clearly a comedy. Also brits didn't develop the accent until the 1800s.

>>51524
What horrible calamity made them develop it?

>>51523
>You're making it impossible to just casually enjoy hobbies for the entertainment.
Are you serious?Creators turning shows into propaganda directly affects the actual entertainment product. Criticizing said perversion does not.
If third-party criticism destroys your ability to enjoy television I don't think that your hobby is actually watching television. You probably just like talking about it.

>>51499
that's pretty much why i just watch asian shows now

>>51528
Sadly I only know about the dramas and soap opera that my sister is into. Don't really know much about quality live action shows beyond that.

I'm looking forward to The New Pope. I re-watched the original twice and it's goddamn perfect pretty much.

Silicon Valley. This сomedy show has become my favorite. I've reviewed it at least three times.
Richard Hendricks, a 10x engineer at tech behemoth Hooli, leaves his job to build Pied Piper — a Silicon Valley startup whose USP is a super-efficient compression algorithm. His core team includes programmers Dinesh and Gilfoyle, both of whom think they’re the company’s CTO.
Erlich Bachman, whose house the team occupies, made his money by selling his startup, Aviato, and now posits himself as Pied Piper’s sales/business head. The team is also joined by the enigmatic Jared, who focuses on the undervalued aspects of organization and business.
Pied Piper attracts interest from eccentric VC Peter Gregory, and Monica, an associate at his firm, becomes a big advocate and mentor for the startup.
Gavin Belson, the spiteful head of Hooli, wants to build a competing product that will destroy Pied Piper. His flailing efforts are blown away when in the season finale, Richard’s heroics cause Pied Piper to overcome adversity and win TechCrunch Disrupt.

How do you even find stuff to watch, Netflix is shit, I don't have enough space on this device to torrent anything and I've heard people don't even do that anymore, I can't get KODI to work, I think the only solution is suicide

>>51737
Imdb and rotten tomatoes

>>51737
For many years I have used wikipedia to find new good media. I discover directors, production companies, actors/actresses I like and explore their filmographies. In the process of watching the material I take note of new artists to look at. Wikipedia makes it very easy to do so.

Is this an adult cartoon or a western anime? I guess it's both, but it wouldn't have been appropriate to post it in /jp/, so I guess I'll just post it here.

Anyway, I liked it. Good adaptation of the series, mostly. Certainly one of the better video game adaptations out there. Action is well animated & it has nice, lean pacing. Voice acting actually wasn't too bad either, although, maybe it was just me, but the sound design & FX seemed very muted & hushed. Almost like there were extra sound effects missing most of the time, or something. I was also pleasantly surprised that it actually had a decent/meaty story to tell and that it wasn't just a parade of pandering references & fan service to cover up its lack of substance.

Speaking of references though, it was certainly interesting seeing all of the ones they peppered into the show. Like that weird geometric shape that's in the background of the save rooms of Symphony of the Night being shown as the engine that moves Dracula's castle. I guess that's not really a reference, since that's just part of the actual universe, but the fact that they used the exact shape seemed like a bit of fan service in a small way. The fact that it turned briefly upside down as it was being hijacked by the magician lady, felt more akin to a proper reference I suppose. Also how some of the monsters they fight are bosses from the games themselves, like that tag team flying bat and spear wielding pterodactyl looking thing. Alucard turning into a wolf and Dracula busting out his signature attacks from the games was cool to see as well.

Watching this series actually made me kind of sad at how long it's been since I last played an actual Castlevania game. I didn't even recognize 'Bloody Tears' when it started playing (had to look it up afterwards, since it sounded only vaguely familiar), which just made me feel disappointed with myself. I really only caught the most obvious references to the video games, which also just made me feel like a lousy cunt. It was super weird finding out this show is based on Castlevania 3 and that Alucard was one of the selectable companions in that game. I always thought Symphony of the Night was his first game. Fuck, I can't even remember the plot of Symphony of the Night if I'm being honest, even though I've finished it like 3-6 times over the years. Only Castlevania games I've played/finished are Super Castlevania 4, Dracula X Chronicles, Aria of Sorrow, Harmony of Despair and both Lords of Shadows games, including that extra downloadable one.

Well, it'll be interesting to see how Season 3 turns out, given it's right around the corner. In some sense, I don't even feel like this show needed another season, since the fight & defeat of Dracula, along with the proceeding epilogue episode afterwards, tied things up pretty well, I thought.

Finished Bojack Horseman.
I think it was a pretty neat show, especially when it focused on titular character (didn't really like Diane, Todd, any comic relief. Princess Carolyne was alright), some episodes were really great and I could relate to half-assing everything. I didn't dislike the ending. I think they wrapped it up nicely for a cancelled show.

The only TV shows I've liked were Breaking Bad, Dexter, Twin Peaks and some episodes of Dark Mirror, I'm pretty sure all other shows are unwatchable normie shit like The Wire and The Sopranos and I can safely kill myself knowing that I've watched all good TV, any recommendations for me though

>>52077
Black Mirror*

>>52077
I know this post is like from a month ago but if you like breaking bad then you need to watch better call saul

>>52077
Better Call Saul

>>52077
Deadwood is pretty good

Can anyone recommend me good, thought-provoking television shows with no violence?

I have been racking my brain but i can't think of a single show that has no violence in it

A started a new series but then the violent imagery gave me nightmares

>>52306
jeopardy

Been watching Ozark, it's pretty good.

>>52799
oh hey, that's looks fun to watch, I'm pirating all 3 seasons now, thanks!

>>52802
Interesting, to me it sounded like a bunch of drivel that leads nowhere.

>>52803
It's a monologue. The function of a monologue is not to advance the plot, it's to provide depth to a character or exposition.

>>52306
Watch Daily Planet if you can find a site to stream up-to-date episodes. Good science and invention articles and footage

So what do you all think of the Picard series? Are the synthetics and romulans supposed to represent immigrants?

>>52808
It had potential but turned out horrible.
Much like all the other sci-fi stuff I loved when younger "current year" political agendas had to come in and shit on everything I like.
The genera is nearly dead to me at this point when it comes to TV shows.
While it wasn't quite as bad as discovery as far as quality it pissed me off a whole lot more because it seem to actively try to destroy literally everything that a fan of TNG could have liked.
It was made by a really nasty person who clearly has emotional problems. Someone who just wants to tear things down, to destroy them, but can't competently build anything anew or add anything of value.

This was really great. I stumbled across it by accident browsing my Amazon Prime account.
>Counterpart is an American science fiction thriller television series starring J. K. Simmons. It was created by Justin Marks and was first broadcast on the premium cable network Starz. The series ran for 20 episodes across two seasons.

Howard Silk, a gentle, quiet office worker, has been working for a Berlin-based United Nations agency, the Office of Interchange (OI), for thirty years; however, his rank is too low for him to be told what his work really involves, with him exchanging pre-scripted nonsensical messages. In fact, OI oversees a crossing point, below the OI headquarters, to a parallel Earth (the "Prime world"). The parallel Earth was created in 1987 during an experiment by East German scientists when only a scientist named Yanek was on-site. The original "Alpha world" Yanek meets his new "Prime world" counterpart, and they soon begin studying how the initially identical Earths start to exhibit subtle differences.

The differences become drastically more pronounced after 1996, when a deadly virus kills hundreds of millions in the Prime world. The virus is suspected of being purposefully delivered from the Alpha world, resulting in a tense Cold War state between the two worlds, with counterparts used as spies and sleeper agents. Silk's Alpha world continues to resemble ours, but the Prime world becomes quite different, with Howard Silk Prime being a ruthless and cold intelligence operator. Matters escalate during the series when a powerful rogue faction on Prime executes long simmering plans to get revenge on Alpha.

This was really funny and also unexpectedly moving at times. Kirsten Dunst and Ted Levine are especially good in this. There is also a very funny crab-like character in his early twenties who will do anything to be with Dunst's character, a mid thirties former beauty queen. The weird but nuanced and sympathetic dynamic between them is one of the best parts of the show. At times the show risks becoming glib and mean-spirited, just another smug portrayal of working class people by Hollywood. But the actors save it because they bring a lot of sensitivity and humanity to their roles.
>On Becoming a God in Central Florida is an American dark comedy television series.
Krystal Stubbs is a minimum-wage-earning water park employee in Greater Orlando who schemes her way up the ranks of Founders American Merchandise, a cultish, flag waving, multi-billion dollar multi-level marketing / pyramid scheme that drove her family to ruin.

>>52828
Why are these hollywood succubi turning to MLM and so interested in it?

>Gwyneth Paltrow
>Kirsten Dunst

Who's next?

>>52829
MLM?

>>52836
>MLM?
multi-level marketing / pyramid scheme
It is a scam business model that is bewildering that it hasn't been banned yet.

>>52826
this show cured my insomnia

I liked this historical drama based on the life of rocket scientist Jack Parsons. Unfortunately, it was canceled after just two seasons.

I can only recommend this to wizards who like slow-paced, methodically constructed shows. The first season focuses on the exciting early days of rocketry when its supporters worked tirelessly for it to become a respected and technically mature field. The second season switches gears a bit and is quite unsettling. Parsons and his wife get pulled deeper into the disturbing and debauched world of Los Angeles' occult scene. There were a lot of sex scenes, which felt trashy and gratuitous much of the time. But maybe they were pressured to add them, because the first season didn't get the attention it deserved.
>Strange Angel follows "Jack Parsons, a brilliant and ambitious blue-collar worker of 1930s Los Angeles who started as a janitor at a chemical factory but had fantastical dreams that led him to birth the unknown discipline of American rocketry. Along the way, he fell into a mysterious world that included sex magic rituals at night, and he became a disciple of occultist Aleister Crowley. Parsons used Crowley's teachings of self-actualization to support his unimaginable and unprecedented endeavor to the stars."

>>52972
If you knew about the man before going in you would know they actually held back quite a bit for the show.
Dude got DEEP into sex magic stuff and the swinger sex party lifestyle around that time depicted in season two.

>>52306

A favorite of mine and, while maybe not very thought provoking, it's a very comfy and interesting show to watch.

I enjoyed this quite a bit, even though it does get confusing at times. The lead actress said it helps to think of the series as a science fiction story rather than as a straight forward mystery. The plot can occasionally be hard to follow and key details are left open to a wide variety of interpretations, so this may frustrate some wizards. The soundtrack is also great.

I plan to also read the book and watch the film adaptation they did back in the '70s.
>Picnic at Hanging Rock is an Australian mystery romantic drama television miniseries.

>Hester Appleyard purchases an isolated mansion out in the Australian bush to transform into a school for young ladies - a few months later, Appleyard College is a success. On Valentine's Day, 1900, when students and staff go for a picnic to Hanging Rock, three of the school's star students and their governess mysteriously vanish. Their disappearance leaves a devastating impact on students, staff, their enigmatic and formidable headmistress and the township at large. Theories abound, secrets are exposed and hysteria sets in, until eventually, the lives of the characters unravel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock_(TV_series)

>>53251
This is my favorite song from the OST.
>Miranda (Morning) · Cezary Skubiszewski

Pretty cool miniseries from way back when based on that one English guy, whatever his name is, who became the first western samurai and was all buddy buddy with Tokugawa. Overall I enjoyed it, but I found the conclusion to be pretty anticlimactic and unsatisfying. The story also became really convoluted and a lot of plot threads seemed to go absolutely nowhere at all. Also, if you're not interested in the setting, than this show can certainly get to be boring. I personally found the setting to be pretty interesting, but there were times where the story moved so slow that it just started putting me to sleep and I even had to stop watching early one night just so I could have a nap. Besides that, almost all the characters were likable and I especially enjoyed seeing John Rhys Davies as Rodrigues and Toshiro Mifune as Toronaga/Tokugawa. The guy who played Alvito was also great too.

Can't say I expected it to end on such a surprisingly bleak note for the protagonist. You assume he'll eventually help Toronaga become Shogun by taking the black ship, but then ends up losing nearly everything and becoming nothing more than a mere pet with a few titles which Toronaga plans to keep stranded just so he can keep learning from him. To be honest, I still don't really understand why Toronaga was so against using Blackthorne's ship, since like Blackthrone said, it would've allowed Toronaga to have the Portuguese and the Spanish by the balls and easily allowed him to become Shogun. Also, what was with all those ninjas that attacked Osaka castle? To kill Mariko? But she was literally about to commit seppuku just earlier that day. If it was just to capture her, then why not just have one of Ishido's guards detain her? Why the ninjas? Also, wasn't Toronaga ordered to commit seppuku as well? Whatever happened to that? Well, like I said, none of it seemed to make much sense in the end which sucked. I also felt like way too much time was spent between Blackthorne and Mariko and their budding romance. I would've liked to see more from other characters like Alvito, Rodrigues, or Toronaga.

It was still a pretty cool show though and showcased Japanese society of that time in an immersive and authentic way. Almost all of the Japanese dialogue isn't even subbed, which was a deliberate choice to put the audience in the same place of helplessness of the main character. I can imagine that for anyone who actually already knows how to speak Japanese the experience of watching this would be enhanced a bit. For me, I only know a handful of words from watching anime for so many years, which, of course, certainly wasn't enough to actually know what anyone was talking about. Pretty neat though how the show actually makes an effort to teach the audience about the Japanese language at times, through the character of Mariko as she's charged with teaching Blackthrone how to understand it. Sorta made me depressed how I'll probably never learn how to speak Japanese, or really any other language for that matter, but oh well. Guess I'm just another lazy dumb dumb who can only be bothered to speak their native tongue, since learning others is too hard and also just feels pretty pointless for someone who's just a hermit like me. Consuming untranslated Japanese media is pretty much the only reason for learning Japanese for someone like me, which really isn't compelling enough of a reason unfortunately.

Devs. A mini-series. If you like the whole determinism/free will/Many worlds/Simulation thing this is for you. Great concept but ultimately ruined by the totally cliché ending. Spoilers ahead!




Why oh why must there always be a "i'm special i have free will character", fucking hate it!! It's like Westworld, there's no free will but Dolores switched at the ending of season 3: there is a choice but it's really hard!!" GODFUCKINGDAMMIT WHY BOTHER. Anyways, fuck it.

>>51538
New Pope was fucking horrible, absolutely waste of time. Young Pope is great though, sad they ruined all the characters with New Pope.

>>53513
>Why oh why must there always be a "i'm special i have free will character"
Because free will does exist. Determinism is just the Tyrant trying to convince himself that he is in complete control. Evidence to the contrary causes much tantrums and fits.

>>53515
>this this and that exist for real so we must fuck up a piece of fiction by inserting a boring tropey character for the nth time to solve out our story.

I'm trying to remember another post where someone completely failed to understand the most basic premise of what fiction is, but I guess this is the first time. oh well

>>53513
I read many interviews with the people involved in writing TV series and whatnot and many of them complain about the insane deadlines you have to write that stuff. I guess when you're under pressure your brain start to output the safe, out of the mill crap you've seen a million times before. Or they're just not imaginative, which happens a lot, too.

>>53516
>>53513
They add it so there's some manner of surprise to the story. There's no interest in a story that's predetermined. It's the same reason prophecies are awful in stories.

>>53516
You personally having an irrational aversion to a particular pattern of events does not make it bad.

>>53515
The freewillist thinks he's in control, not the determinist. It's the freewillist that freak out with the illusion, just look at religious people. I just hate determinism is always denied at the ending, it's like True Detective ending..the light is winning!!UGH

>>53517
Yeah i expected it but i'm done with shows like these. I'll only give DARK season 3 a shot, i'll bet it will have a happy ending too. So disappointed.

Heard this was supposed to be good, so I watched it. It was alright. Was made by the same guys who did 'The Wire', which most claim is the best TV show ever. I personally thought that The Wire was pretty damn boring, but I'll admit that I didn't really give it that much of a chance when I tried to give it a watch years ago. The premise of this particular show is a bit mundane and happens to be centered around a bunch of needless hullabaloo that took place back in the 80's/90's about about getting some low income housing built for poor minorities in Yonkers (what a bizarre and silly name for a city), which triggered all the local NIMBY boomers in the area that didn't want niggers moving in next to them, but it still managed to keep my attention for the most part. Oscar Issac and Alfred Molina are both quite good in this. The courtroom drama and politics are primarily the only interesting thing in the show. Everything else I didn't much care for, especially all the melodrama which revolves around the various minority families.

As an aside, I couldn't help, but cringe when Winona Ryder and Oscar Issac's characters are bemoaning how "dull" their lives are when they manage to lose re-election to their various positions. They basically pine for how special they felt and that they can't stand not being "in the middle of things". They even refer to votes as if they're representative of some sort of "love from the public", which they can't stand living without. Is this how these people actually feel? They're supposed to be civil servants for fuck's sake, not petite celebrities thirsty for attention. Oscar Issac's character was eaten alive by angry crowds, despised, spat upon, and even received bullets from people threatening to kill him and yet he still feels all depressed about losing his bid to be reelected for mayor just becuase he's not the one in the spotlight anymore. That's some grade A mental illness right there. Normals can be so damn crazy. Jesus christ.

I also don't really get how Nick Wasicsko was a "hero" in all this, as the title of the show implies. He wasn't pro-desegregation, just pro-compliance. In the end, he was just left with holding this enormous bag of shit and had no choice, but to see it through. If he could've filed for an appeal or stalled out the process for longer so as to save his own hide, I'm fairly certain that he would've and the show even makes a point of indicating his efforts in this regard of simply trying to save his own ass. Even Spallone, the loud mouthed anti-desegregation guy in the show, was ultimately forced to comply and feel the wrath of these same boomers that tore Nick apart. In the end, somebody had to take the heat for this thing and, unfortunately for him, it just so happened to be Nick. I don't see how that makes him a hero, but maybe other people have a different definition of the word that I'm not aware of.

Also, was the actual Nick Wasicsko involved in corruption? That would explain why he, blew his brains out at the end. In the show, it just seems as if he does it because his political career is finished and his reputation is ruined, mostly by having his name be driven through the muck through that tit for tat investigation near the end there. That doesn't seem like enough of a reason for him to shoot himself, though. Why didn't he just go and become a lawyer, or something? To me it makes more sense that the actual Nick Wasicsko killed himself out of fear that something might be uncovered about him, even though none ever was apparently? I don't know, maybe the reason really did just come down to how he couldn't take the shame and sense of defeat, I guess.

Tried to watch "Dracula" on Netflix. Immediately some sarcastic independent succubus nun starts acting like someone off of Buffy, not a 19th century religious succubus. Plus, she practically blasphemes, I guess to satisfy the fedoras in the audience who would boycott the show if they portrayed religion in a serious light. Annoying. Then "DID YOU HAVE SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH DRACULA????" Christ. I know that Dracula's supposed to represent forbidden lust and such but just flat-out stating it completely ruins the metaphorical power of the portrayal, just utterly missing the point. Then it cuts to the past and the guy's wife starts joking about cheating on him. What the hell? Why are the succubi in this show all sarcastic whores? I'm tired of how in modern urban fantasy every character has to be snarky and joking all the time. At this point it became clear that this series would be nothing but Marvel movie style propaganda, so I quit.

I liked "Penny Dreadful" quite a bit. The plot does get unwieldy at times, but the great acting and high production values always made it fun to watch.

Unfortunately, I found the new spin-off series to be disappointing and I quit watching after a few episodes. The writing is pretty bad and the way it treats race relations in 1930s Los Angeles is tedious and cartoonish. The only highlights for me were the great sets and seeing Natalie Dormer play four very different characters in the show.

>The title refers to the penny dreadfuls, a type of 19th-century British fiction publication with lurid and sensational subject matter. The series draws upon many public domain characters from 19th-century British and Irish Gothic fiction, including Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray; Mina Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, John Seward, Renfield, and Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula; Victor Frankenstein and his monster from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; and Henry Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Justine from Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue by the Marquis de Sade also appears.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Dreadful_(TV_series)
>Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is set nearly 50 years after the original series, during the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s. It takes place in 1938 Los Angeles, a time and place "deeply infused with Mexican-American folklore and social tension."[3] The characters are connected in a conflict between the Mexican folklore deity, Santa Muerte, the caretaker of the dead and guide to the great beyond, and her spiritual sister, the demoness Magda, who believes mankind is inherently evil and sets out to prove her point. Detective Tiago Vega and his partner, veteran Detective Lewis Michener, are tasked with a gruesome murder case and soon become embroiled in LA's history, as well as its present, as racial tensions, the looming threat of war, and Nazi conspiracies threaten to derail them at every turn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Dreadful:_City_of_Angels

>>53528
I had the misfortune of watching this dreck as well. Be glad you were wise enough to stop before the third episode where genderswap van helsing traps Dracula in a box and snarks at him for an hour. What else can one expect from Netflix?

>>53541
I liked the first sesson and was halfway through season two I think during the Frankenstein monster/immoral immortals arc but stopped watching tv altogether and never remembered to pick it back up.
Eventually I might catch up but have been busy lately.

I recently watched Midnight Gospel. Surprisingly, it was actually very good. I was expecting something structured like Adventure Time since Pendleton Ward worked on it, but it's actually basically just a set of podcast interviews set to the characters having a little adventure with the actors occasionally commenting on what's happening in the surroundings. Some of these animations were very enjoyable, my favorite one was the "existential prison" where a psycho killer is repeatedly killed until he reaches enlightenment. The interviews were a mixed bag but the animations were generally interesting enough to make up for it. Honestly it seemed like they were trying to copy Joe Rogan a bit. Or at least that's what the guy who was conducting the podcast reminded me of. My favorite interview was the fish guy who became a wizard in prison.
I've got to say that I was pretty disappointed with the last episode. It was just the guy interviewing his dying mom, and as we all know dying moms typically talk about boring stuff. I guess it would be poignant if you yourself have a dead mom or have death angst, but I have neither of these so it was just boring. The animation was pretty boring as well, except the very end.

4/5, would watch a season 2.

>>53582
The guy on JRE is always talking about some optimisitc god is all around us spiritual bullshit so the series doesn't seem appealing, if your worldview isn't based on the world being a horrible shithole, I'm not interested in your series m8.

>>53582
This utter drivel again…
Doing drugs and acting like they have discovered something new outside of their pretentious bubbles

I know this is an obscure request, but does anyone know of any television shows that make you feel like you are watching in a dark tunnel?
Not like Black Mirror as such, with all the fast shots and dramatisms, but more like bleak, lots of silence, some hushed dialogue.
Like, comfy, but in a way that hugs you tightly, almost stifling.
Maybe The Road would be the closest example, but like a mini-series or full length series of just some thing like that.

>>53613
I enjoyed this series, it was comfy to see them surviving in the arctic circle, and is not too over the top, though it does push it

>>53613
It's been ten years since I last watched it, but "Rubicon" might interest you. It immediately came to mind when I read your post. Unfortunately, it was canceled after one season.

>The series centers on an intelligence analyst working for the American Policy Institute (API) in New York City…[S]ome critics found the lack of action as smart and creative, as Tucker wrote: "Rubicon does it by creating an eerily quiet world in which small moments can generate great suspense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubicon_(TV_series)

>>53615
Thanks wizzo, i'll check it out

>>53582
I thought this was going to be an actual story-based cartoon.

Now it reminds me of Shorties watching shorties or Dr.Katz, where they set stand up to a cartoon.

>>53866
It's utter woke garbage made my pseudo-intellectuals who probably wore google glass and ride electric scooters

>>53871
What exactly about it is pseudo-intellectual?

>>53513
Imagine how fucking cool it would be if everything turned out as predicted - BAM, a statement, determinism BITCH. And everybody loose their shit and off themselves.

>>53873
Talking about drugs, god, the universe, quantum-physics, consciousness, all meme subjects of people that watch Joe Rogan podcast and think that makes them smart.
Instead of watching this 20min garbage, how about you sit through a 2 hour youtube seminar of a harvard physicist?
Exactly, you'd rather feel smart for 20mins than actually learn something.
>Hey bruh did you see that mindnight gospel epidode? Sooo cool and far out, yeeeah i totaly get it

>>53880
I'm a bit confused about what exactly you have a problem with. Do you think that it's impossible to present ideas about "drugs, god, the universe, quantum-physics, consciousness" in formats other than college lectures? Or do you think that only the intellectual elite has a right to discuss these things? You didn't bring up anything specific from the show so it's difficult to understand.

>>53881
I don't have to explain it, it's clear to anyone watching the show that it completely lacks nuance and is a lazy attempt to appear smart. There has been a trend lately to create 'wacky' animations that all rip from adventure time, RnM and the rest, yet they just do it so badly that it's worth calling out.
In the end it my opinion, so take it or leave it.

I didn't have any interest in the subject matter, but I always like Sam Rockwell's performances, so I gave this a shot. It was pretty good. I couldn't care less about Broadway, but I was still glued to the screen. The writing and pacing are nothing special, but the acting is really great. I liked the inside look into the dysfunctional lives of artists.
>Fosse/Verdon is an American biographical miniseries starring Sam Rockwell as director–choreographer Bob Fosse and Michelle Williams as actress and dancer Gwen Verdon. The series, which tells the story of the couple's troubled personal and professional relationship, is based on the biography Fosse by Sam Wasson.

>>53881
Because your talking about scientism vs science.

Get a grip. Shrooms are fun. They can give you some cool perspectives on things because of how they work on your brain.

But it’s so stupid to fetishize it the way you do. If a Harvard physicist takes shrooms, he might come up with a new theory or solve a nagging math problem he can’t figure out because he can approach it from a new angel.

But this is because he’s got all this studying under his belt.

Your goofy ass isn’t going to unlock any type of esoteric whatever.

You are, quite literally, just tripping.

>>54620
>But it’s so stupid to fetishize it the way you do
What? How am I fetishizing drugs?

>>51527
Ignore the normgroid, they're one of those "anti SJWs are the same as SJWs" type of radical centrist faggots that act like they're so edgy because they have no values or morals

>>53880
>>54620
I got a degree in astrophysics but still think I learnt than that from one LSD trip. And from art.

It is completely irrelevant that you're 'just tripping on drugs'. The experience occurs and changes your worldview regardless of the cause. These things are internal, it has nothing to do with solving a real world problem.

It's impossible to disagree with someone's internal experience and claim that they're wrong; if they say they experienced something extremely profound, then that is true to them. It doesnt make sense to call it an illusion.

>>54687
I think you should study more psychology and less astrophysics
>your internal perceptions of the world are true
Yeesh

>The series focuses on the origin story of famed defense lawyer Perry Mason. In 1932, Los Angeles is prospering while the rest of the U.S. is recovering from the grip of the Great Depression. Down-and-out private investigator Perry Mason is struggling with his trauma from The Great War and being divorced. He's hired for a sensational child kidnapping trial and his investigation portends major consequences for Mason, his client, and the city itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason_(2020_TV_series)
This was good, but not great. Matthew Rhys did a wonderful job as Perry Mason. It's nice to see him again, because he was the lead actor in one of my all time favorite shows, the Cold War espionage thriller "The Americans."

They clearly had a big budget, but something about the 1930s street scenes and sets felt lifeless and fake. The story never really pulled me in, but most of the performances were first class.

There's not a lot of progressive, politically correct messaging, but it's certainly still there in each and every episode. The finale tonight strongly suggests they plan to double down on race and feminism in season two.

>>54798
For a while when I was considering a law career, I liked the idea that Perry Mason was a lawyer who had adventures like a noir private detective. It romanticized law. So idk much about the topic, but kinda disappointing they took away the lawyer aspect, and made him just another private dick in this version

Well I'm finally taking the plunge. I'll be binge watching Star Trek Next Generation. I know nothing of ST, never watched a movie, not even a TV episode. I did some searching and apparently fans consider Next Generation to be the best iteration of the show. Here we go.

>>54909
Gene Roddenberry injects his communist utopia delusions into everything in TNG. Also he banned the writers from having interpersonal conflicts with the crew since he thought that everyone should always work together perfectly in his vision of the future. TNG only really gets good once you get to the seasons after Roddenberry had his stroke. It's really funny though that even a communist like Roddenberry looks like an right wing extremist when compared to the shallow shameless propaganda that is modern day Star Trek. I mean at least he believed in something.

All in all, Deep Space 9 is the best Star Trek show.

>>54909
The original is so boring i fell aslep

>>54910
I used to watch voyager I thought ds9 to be boring but whatever it's been 10 years since I last watched that show

A few days ago I found my old VHS recorder
Last time I used it was around 2014. That was the oldest date on anything I had saved on it.
I decided I will get rid of it. I never use it anyways and the tuner does not work anymore for the new broadcasting systems.

Those were the times. The stuff you wanted to see. You had to program your recorder for it and record it. There was no internet to download full hd torrents of all the stuff you wanted.

>>54909
I like the original the best

>>54909
My favorite without a doubt.
I enjoyed voyager too.

Wasn't a fan of Deep space 9 or the original show.

This is a spoiler free post. So I just finished watching the first season of Star Trek TNG. 26 episodes. I love it. Not knowing anything about Star Trek and going headfirst was the right idea. I had this vague idea that ST was about a bunch of guys in silly uniforms with people with silly rubber masks that we suppose to believe were aliens. Now I realize it's exactly that visually, but the dialogues is where everything is at. It's so smart at times, it has good, endearing characters and above everything else, it really makes you care for them. I really enjoy how optimistic it is, I understand now it really has a place in fiction history. It's so unbelievably refreshing to watch a show where they actually believe violence should be the last resort. The idea of humanity having improved beyond its old ways and achieved a higher standard towards life really makes you feel the Enterprise and its crew are from a future where we did something right. Pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, compassion, honor and so on. It's really a heartwarming view of the future, at least so far.

I like the fact that even when it's bad it's the good type of bad. There's always something interesting going on, even on bad episodes. Even on the purely space opera episodes I managed to have some fun. All the characters are interesting. They are mostly one dimensional characters; Tasha Yar is the head of security, who grow up in a shithole colony and had a tough upbringing, Worf is the Klingon warrior who has to adapt to human society, Data is an android curious about everything, La Forge is a blind guy who can see better than anyone else, Wesley is the annoying kid that knows better than everyone else, his Mother Dr. Crusher is the doctor with a romantic interest on Picard, Troi is the half Betazoid that can almost read thoughts and sense emotions, Riker is the good looking, all smiles commander, and the heart of the show captain Picard, who is there to make sure those higher 24th century new human standards humanity fought hard to achieve remains intact and operating in all their missions.

Those character they don't exactly grow (at least so far, I just watched season 1 of 7), and there's so much stuff that's silly and makes no sense (for example the prime directive) but it's always fun and the characters become really interesting to watching during all the crazy stuff that's throw at them. I've grown so fond of those characters that I began to develop strong expectations on how they should deal with the situations coming up and get angry when they go against their well established character traits, for example when commander Riker let's captain Picard go to a hostile planet or Picard being a moron and getting outsmarted by Wesley and so on.

So yeah, so far I'm really enjoying it. I have a lot more to say about it but I'll watch the rest of the seasons before that.
Here's a list of my top 5 favorite episodes from season 1 in no particular order.
1-Encounter at Farpoint - Shakespeare in space, also presentation of all the characters, a very nice start.
2-Where No One Has Gone Before - An insight on what is the universe on Star Trek and how it works. Plus we see some of the nature of the Enterprise itself.
3-When The Bough Breaks - The crew tries to help a civilization that can't have offspring anymore.
4-Hide and Q - The classic Temptation of Christ scenario, but in space.
Heart of Glory - Mr. Worf faces his primal instincts when the Enterprise rescues a group of Klingons.
5-Skin of Evil - A really interesting concept for a classical villain character.

>>54910
To me it's either an entertaining piece of fiction or not. So far I've been finding very entertaining.
>>54911
I read a lot of fans saying a lot of episodes from the old show was rather boring. I don't know, I feel like watching it now because there's a lot of references on TNG about the original series.
>>54918
I read a lot of reviews and opinions before picking up TNG and apparently it's a favorite among lots of fans. I'm very happy with the choice.


Season 2,3,4,5,6,7 here I come.

>>54948
Watching the original ruined Star Trek for me, so boring and old and crappy music also

>>54948
Finished the second season. 22 episodes this time. I think it's better than the first season, with a couple of episodes being really, really good. We get to explore more of all character's backstories and see more of the strange ST universe that oftentimes are just mirrors we can gaze at and see our own problems and difficulties thinly veiled in an alien rubber mask. It's more entertaining than you might think. Here's a list of my favorite episodes and a couple of my least favorite ones.
Where Silence Has Lease - The Enterprise encounters a very powerful entity eager to learn about humans, treating the crew like lab rats.
Elementary, Dear Data - I love this type of trope where fictional characters realize they're fictional. It's executed here with a lot of charm.
A Matter of Honor - A closer look at Klingons. This one is interesting to me specially because I knew nothing about Klingons and I know they're a huge piece of ST lore. Nice watch, a lot of screen time to Mr. Worf, an interesting character that doesn't get a lot of attention in many episodes.
The Measure of a Man - One of my favorites of this season. A courtroom drama where Picard has to challenge a rulling saying Mr. Data is starfleet propriety. A basic discussion about life, rights and slavery, done in charming ST fashion.
Pen Pals - Another favorite. After Data come in contact with a doomed alien species, the crew has to decide to save them and break prime directive, or let them be destroyed. Again, a discussion on friendship, loyalty and compassion, done in charming ST fashion.
Q Who - My favorite episode of Star Trek so far. Scary, intriguing alien life, Q and Picard in a battle of wits. Very, very, very good. Love it.
The Royale - It's funny because I was reading reviews of episodes when I finish a season and this one is particularly disliked by trekkies. Thing is I liked the premisse so much I don't even care about the rest. It's another one of those "man realizes he's stuck in a fictional universe" scenario that I like so much.


Now for a couple I really disliked it.
Manhunt - Troi's mother comes to the Enterprise and tries to have sex with Picard and then Riker. That's it. Awful.
Shades of Gray - Worst episode of TNG so far. Not even an episode, it's just clips of previous episodes presented as Riker's memories while he's in a coma fighting an alien infection in his brain. Abysmal.
Samaritan Snare - Riker suddenly becomes the stupidest humanoid in the galaxy, along with everyone else on the Enterprise, just so this plot could happen.

>>54988
Thanks wizzie, even thought i hated the original series (it was boring and shit) your reviews are comfy and give me hope that in a couple years when i rinse my memories of that abomination i can try again with TNG

>>54948
>there's so much stuff that's silly and makes no sense (for example the prime directive)
what are you talking about, it makes perfect sense, on the face of it and from the point of view of a peaceful galactic government not wanting another alien war

Just finished third season. It keeps getting better. Good episodes are the norm for third season, I'm impressed how much it improved from the first two. We get to see more of the human and klingon cultures, more of the Romulans, etc. Very emotionally charged episodes here, touching motherhood to war, to PTSD, to daydreaming. Here's a list of my favorites.

The Enemy - La Forge forms an unexpected partnership with a Romulan in order to survive.
The Defector - A Romulan defector goes to the Federation in order to stop a war.
Déjà Q - Star Trek comedy done right. Q is absolutely hilarious here.
The Offspring - One of my favorite episodes of this season. Data creates another android.
Sins of the Father - Worf has to goes back to the Klingon empire in order to face accusations against his father.
Tin Man - A weird form of life is found and only an reclusive betazoid psychic can talk to it.
Hollow Pursuits - A member of the Enterprise battles video game addiction (actually holodeck addiction but it's the same thing, almost) and his real life crumbles apart as he becomes more and more negligent towards his real world responsabilities.
The Best of Both Worlds - The Borg are back and holy shit what a great season finale!

>>54991
From the reviews I read, only a couple episodes of the first season are tos-like episodes, I think you'll enjoy TNG. I hope you watch it some of it soon so I can talk about it with you.

>>55027
It does makes sense. I would love that something like the prime directive was a thing back during the expansion of the Portuguese and the Spanish empires. Imagine letting the great mesoamerican civilizations like the Mayas or the Incas to evolve by themselves up to present day or at least until they could cross oceans by themselves. Growing up I was fascinated by the Incas and would imagine what they would be like if they were let on their own. I think that's what the writers had in mind when coming up with this idea. My problem with the prime directive is a little more on the practical side of things. They break it all the time. If you're reading my posts you know I'm no ST expert, all I ever watched was the first 3 seasons of The Next Generation.

The problem of PD's non-intervention is that the Federation don't actually follow it, or at least it has many possible interpretarions and nobody is ever punished for bending it however they see fit. Here's a list of episodes I seen so far that clearly breaks PD beyond reasonable doubt.
Too Short a Season - A starfleet officer gives Federation weapons for both sides of a conflict. His interpretation of the PD for this is that "by giving the same weapons to both sides he would still be giving both sides a winning chance thus respecting PD rules".
Symbiosis - Picard breaks PD here by saving a shipment of drugs that was about to get destroyed but then don't give them ship's parts they need to continue transportation of the drugs because by doing so he believes he's protecting PD when he already broke it when he saved the shipment in the first place.
Pen Pals - Enterprise saves an entire planet from destruction because Data made a friend with one of its inhabitants.
Who Watches the Watchers - The Federation has a team of scientists hidden inside a proto-vulcan planet in order to study them. They fuck up and reveal themselves. The Enterprise then goes in to meddle some more in order to unmeddle the meddling. Just a mess.

Nobody is actually punished for PD violations, at least I have not seen any reprisals against Picard or the Enterprise and Picard does report all of those things on his official logs which I assume someone is reading it. The main problem I think is that the Enterprise is more on the side of humanitarian aid than non-intervention. Every time Picard has to decide between not doing anything or helping, thus interfering, he always goes with helping. All his medical officers seem to go completely against PD if it will enable them to save lives. I would like to see the entry for humanitarian aid on the Prime Directive rulebook. I'm sure that entry alone would be volumes long.

Another problem I see is how advanced a culture needs to be for you to be allowed to contact and interact with? Sometimes it seems they only need to be aware that there are other life forms beyond their own planet (pen pals) other times not even when that planet has interplanetary spaceships you're supposed to intervene (Symbiosis). It's inconsistent, but that's expected given the fact there are so many writers behind each episode. They use different versions of the PD, going for whatever works for that episode. I'm not complaining of course, whatever works to a good plot works for me.

Finally, Enterprise has just too many functions that makes it almost impossible for them to follow non-intervention. One day they're carrying diplomatic missions, the other pure exploration, hauling cargo, transporting delegates, policing, scientific field work. In one episode, Tin Man, they find about this life form they know nothing about, but apparently rushing to contact it is not a PD violation, if it means beating the Romulans of contacting it first. Then the whole thing is justified when they save the alien from being destroyed by the Romulans, even though the alien itself wants to die. I really like the idea of the PD, it's just that it's really hard not to break it when you're obviously more on the side of a humanitarian services provider than a passive observer. Still, it's really interesting in theory. I would like to see the Enterprise letting a whole planet die of a plague under the guise of the PD and see how the characters react to it. So far they're always pushed into action by some last second technicality, which saves the crews from dealing with actual consequences of non-intervention. Maybe there is such an episode, we'll see.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying it. I love how optimistic ST is, I love how they present high ideals for humanity without looking obnoxious or imposing. Really well written most of the time.

>>55044
>Symbiosis
Ross made an episode on this

>>55045
This video explains it better than I could, thanks. Just one nitpick, at 12:15 he suggests that the extinction of an entire planet should qualify for intervention. At least based on what happens on Pen Pals, it does not qualify. Picard strongly implies they should not be saving Drema IV in that episode. They have a heated discussion about it and again, one of the medical officers openly argues against Prime Directive there. I think Med schools in the 24th century have a lot of professors who are openly against the PD on philosophical grounds and argue for humanitarian aid not be a violation of the PF or at least to be acceptable, which is not according to Picard, but it is according to both medical officers we see on the show, Pulaski and Crusher. Again, I would love to watch an episode that talks about this conflict on PD policy. It seems we have two sides, PD conservatives, who take non-intervention to an extreme, probably following its origins on Vulcan philosophy and policy, and effective altruists, who argue human technology should be used to aid all sentience life out there, except of course if they threaten peaceful coexistence.
I suspect there's an episode out there where extinction does qualify for intervention, I guess I'll know soon.

About Symbiosis, they still had a couple of space freighters left. That might have influenced Picard's decision to not give the parts for the ship, he knows they can still continue trade for at least a little while before everything described in the video happens.

One more thing I forgot to talk about on my season 2 and 3 posts. The guy playing Riker is so fat by season 2, I don't happened to him. He was probably on donut only diet in between seasons. They even gave him a beard to hide the double chin. He continues to inflate like a balloon on season 3, I wonder if he will be using an electric cart by the fifth season.

I just watched The Mandalorian. It was honestly great and I'm surprised a television series that is both modern and a part of Disney Star Wars turned out to be so enjoyable. Highly recommended if you like space westerns with stoic protagonist.

You guys made me curious enough to watch a few episodes of Star Trek NG. I'm not familiar with the franchise, but I'm kinda enjoying it, though I'm still getting used to its slower pace. I will also admit that I'm stupid and sometimes I can't follow the dialogues but I enjoyed the Justice episode where the eden people try to execute Wesley

>>55072
Keep watching wizzie, first and second season is weak compared to third season on, but watching the first two makes you care, making the later seasons even better. If you're enjoying those first episodes you'll love what's in store for you farther in.

>>55072
Also wiz, use spoilers, there are other wizzies out there who might want to watch it for themselves.

>>55083
Execution is more important than plot in Star Trek, spoilers don't really ruin the viewing experience.

>>55084
Using spoilers is the considerate thing to do when talking about plot points here on /hob/. It's possible not everyone agrees with your assessment on what is important on a ST story, specially considering how varied they are.

best (if only) trek wizard coming through

>>55086
I honestly don't know how anyone get anything done aboard the Enterprise when holodecks exist. Only bad part of it is that any commissioned officer can open the door from the outside. I bet they did that to discourage people to get too wild while using it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1-5 are the best seasons of The Star Trek Next Generation.
Seasons 6 & 7 are meh mostly with some exceptions like
season 6:Tapestry it is one of the best Picard episodes & it has one of the best Picard speeches(it's just one line)
season 7: All Good Things… the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation its an ok Picard episode but the last scene makes up for the the entire shit season 7.

Season 5 has is one of my favorite episodes like
The Inner Light:another great Picard episode,
The First Duty:A Wesley Crusher episode I like this one because as I had a personal experience similar to Wesley Crusher's situation in this episode(no one died but I could have got some jail time for my actions & I got away as my seniors helped me cover up my crimes)
Season 5 episode "I Borg" In my opinion this is the best episode of The Star Trek Next Generation,This should have been the conclusion of the Borg arc no more Borg episodes were needed after this (many people might disagree) because this episode is the exact opposite of the episode The Best of Both Worlds Picard resolves his personal conflict with the Borg & he resolves it without acts of violence,They prove that humanity has really evolved and that they are capable of peaceful coexistence even with the Borg as the Borg was Q's test to see if humanity had evolved or not. This episode also neutralizes the Borgs threat from the audience's perspective because we can no longer see them as an unstoppable force that has only one purpose because in this episode there true weakness is exposed that is: Resistance… is not futile

>>55086
doesnt he norm up in the end?

>>55097
no, if you're remembering the "Nth degree" episode he makes a pass on troi but he was basically possessed by an alien computer program that screwed with his personality, the rest of the barclay episodes in TNG and voyager didn't have anything romantic

I'm the other star trek wiz btw, watched em all like 3x over

actually looking forward to this

>>55087
People are only allotted a certain amount of time and most holodeck use must be scheduled well in advance.

Anyone seen Apple Original Ravens Banquet? It's a fun little show about video game devs.

What are guys watching that's currently airing?

Finished season 2 of The Boys and it was pretty disappointing compared to the first.
Currently following along with Fargo S4 and there's that familiar Fargo feel but I'm just not buying the characters, especially the whole wise negro act.

Still waiting for Billions S5 to finish airing. What's the point of getting to stay home if I can't even watch muh soap operas?

>>55646
Watched through Billions a few times, and S5 is an utter shitstain that is barely even coherent. Every 3rd sentence is some stupid obscure reference also. All of the characters have lost any sense of actual complexity and become walking caricatures.

Can't say I'm expecting anything different when it comes back.

>>55646
There are zero (0) good shows currently airing.

>>55965
Agreed. The last episode that aired was just a peak meme tier reference, like a parody of the actual show. Definitely dropped in quality since season 1.

>>55966
Managed to find a relatively obscure show called Warrior currently airing. Despite the generic name, it's a really good kung-fu drama set in the US after the Civil War. Initially I thought it was going to be some woke non-sense, but the racism isn't just added on top like in Fargo, but it's an actual deep part of the characters. The fights are pretty good and I'm really enjoying the soundtrack.

>>55967
Warrior sounds pretty cool.
I will have to check it out.

waiting for south park and the expanse

>>54798
I finished it last night, gotta say I really didn't like the ending, he got the succubus off the hook just with that dumb speech, come on.

>There's not a lot of progressive, politically correct messaging, but it's certainly still there in each and every episode
Yeah, they try harder and harder to make the husband look like the bad guy, while the wife who was having sex the kid's kidnapper was just a poor victim because misogyny.

I thought the show was ok but I won't bother with a new season.

>>55646
My favorite current show is Succession, just a drama centered around a family full of awful people

I'm kinda tired of American tv shows, lately I've been watching Dekalog, I really enjoy the atmosphere and setting. Also about to start Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980 not the 2020 version). Do you wizzies happen to know any other 80s/90s European dramas with the same kind of tone?

Can any one recommend me some non-pozzed science fiction or mystery series? I'm rewatching Monk yet again and I need something new. Don't mind how old it is as long as it's engaging.

>>56356
You could give "The Prisoner" a try, though it's not for everybody.
>Some of my readers may wonder why I have bothered so much about a television series. But film is art, and I would go so far as to say that it is the Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art. It is capable of profundity, and of moving us in a way that no other art form can. And The Prisoner is serious film, and perhaps the greatest television series ever made. Like a great work of literature, it rewards us with something new each time we return to it.

The Prisoner is a 1967 British avant-garde social science fiction television series about an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village, where his captors try to find out why he abruptly resigned from his job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner

>>56357
Good series but I was hoping for something a bit less oppressive in tone. I'm wanting escapism more than a hard series.

Thank you for the suggestion.

>>55966
Try Mythic Quest: Ravens Banquet.

>>51498
Was watching Space Force. But honestly it was barely funny. And by the third or fourth episode was becoming a chore to get through. Am also watching the new season of Shark Tank as it airs.

>>51498
I am rewatching 'Yes Minister' as well and it's a classic. Do recommend more British comedy shows guys.

Is Mando any good?

>>56411
The premise of the first season was alright. A trained supersoldier who follows a strict code of conduct is forced to hop from one system to the other, protecting a small creature that holds a mysterious power, having to shed off his old bounty hunter ways while learning about how working alone isn't always the best option, and gradually discovering the art of a long forgotten power that his cargo possesses. The first few episodes were like Kino No Tabi if you liked that premise, for lack of better comparison. It doesn't suffer from much of the flaws of NuWars and it actually acknowledges the oldschool Trade Federation / Techno Union assaults from The Clone Wars era instead of trying to retcon in new past adversaries. It's sympathetic to the Empire at times and also subtly paints the rebels as almost barbaric at times, much like with Saw Gerrera in Rogue One.

Unfortunately the ending of the first season suggests that the second part will be more of a group struggle, dispoving of the quiet comfy space travel instances shared by Mando and the creatuire (It's not actually Yoda despite plebs saying it's baby Yoda), but all in all it's a solid watch if you enjoyed the first 6 Star Wars films

I'm trying to get through episode two of Chernobyl, and I was already having trouble with the OC fictional female scientist character, but then she goes and says that the uranium hitting the water reservoirs could cause an, and I quote "2 - 4 megaton explosion". What the fuck? How could they let something like this into the show? That's tens of thousands of orders of magnitude off of what is actually possible. One hundred tons would be a high, VERY high estimate. Not two million.

Why did Hank say his name is Isaac Schrader? What purpose does changing only your first name serve?

>>57034
He said ASAC schrader as in assistant special agent

Sons of Anarchy good show, probably as close to a 10/10 as I can expect to see in my life, bare long so I'll just list some good shit about it
-an entirely good cast, usually I'm surprised if I watch something that gives me just a singular lead character that I am genuinely invested in, but even the minor characters in Sons get far more attention than expected, in the beginning Tig is just the hitman who follows orders and also a necrophile, on paper a largely forgettable soldier type, but by the end he's got as much of a character arc as the main character, even Jax's dumbass 5 year old son gets developed
-on a similar note, Gemma specifically, as a general rule I am excessively bored by female characters, as their characterisation can just be summed up by 'I love my husband', can count the number of actually interesting female characters on one hand, and Gemma's one of them, probably just gonna be bad for me in the long term, because in everything else I watch now I'm just going to be wondering if Gemma can be good why this one can't be
-everything matters, there aren't any throwaway encounters, there's nobody that gets introduced in one episode and forgotten immediately afterwards, the shit they do has an effect, even when it goes well there's always a blowback of some sort, which goes a long way in making me retain interest in all of the story, there's not really a bad part, when they had to go to Ireland I figured it was just going to be a get in get out situation, but they had all sorts of shit they had to unpack afterwards
-accordingly, the dialogue is meaningful, back in primary school you'd have to read a page long document and then answer a bunch of questions about it, but 90% of the stuff you read doesn't matter, that's how it feels with most shit out there, but in Sons there isn't really an instance where I felt like I just wanted them to get on it, the dialogue's actually meaningful, and honestly I just like listening to them negotiate business deals and that
-more or less from the get go there's a conflict between Clay, the gunboat diplomat old president, and Jax, the young VP who likes to avoid killing people if he can help it, over time Jax does more extreme shit but it was always proportional, I was kind of predicting that eventually Jax was just become Clay, because that's what happens in a story like that, but he didn't, he did some pretty mental shit, like gouging out Moses' eye and cutting his fingers in revenge for Bobby, but it was always proportional, only time he does it is because Clay was a retarded boomer who got him into deep shit, not saying it's a bad direction, just an observation
-yeah it's good

>>57226
Ye good show. I watched it a long time ago.
Crazy how Gemma killed Tara in that scene.

Check out mindhunters if you haven't watched that yet.

>>57034
So, Walt says that Hank's name is Hank and that the nazis should let him go because of that, and his offering. The nazis ask for Hank's opinion on this. By replying that his name is Isaac Schrader instead of Hank Schrader, he is telling the nazis, through biblical allusion, that he wishes to be sacrificed to God (his ideals) rather than to be saved.

The Witcher on Netflix.
Overall I liked it because it has a determinism message but all the scenes with Yennefer were really unnecessary

Just finished binging all 4 seasons of "La casa de papel". It's on Netflix and initially I was put off by the generic sounding name "Money Heist", but holy shit is it good. It's like the best part of every heist movie, condensed into a series with really intense scenarios each episode and great characters.

There's an English dub, but it's much better in original Spanish.

I just discovered S2 of mythic quest came out. I liked S1 because it focused on the gaming company but S2 is all about SJW horseshit and relationships between people in the company. Like holy shit, way to ruin a good show in a few episodes, goddamn.

>>57340
I actually really enjoyed them showing the training process or sorcerers/sorceresses. I hope season 2 shows the training of witchers.

just finished manhunt: unabomber. was pretty good. the ted scenes were very relatable.

https://youtu.be/CeRjSNShP7I

can someone tell me where this is from?

Re-watching Succession while the current series is airing. Literally every single character is a cunt in their own unique way, which I find kinda fun. The script feels very "politician speak". The character dialogue is heavily manipulative: "Yea, I think you made a good point, but", "I agree with you, but", "That's a good idea, but" etc.

If you're interested in a family scheming, backstabbing, playing social politics to try and gain power and influence in a global media company, I recommend it.

Just don't expect to actually like any of the characters.

>>59953
I like the way they talk, full of innuendos and zany comebacks. It has a really cool flow to it that I can't explain. Even something completely banal like "Going home for a shit, shower and a shave".

Compared to something like Billions, another show about rich people, the characters are scheming, manipulative, but a lot less cartoon-ish. They're not epic masterminds or talk casually in "wise" parables and metaphors, they're very flawed, insecure people that regularly backstab each other with no real thought put into it.

Is ETERNALS any good?

>>51498
It’s insane that that many new shows debut every year, and most of them don’t make it to a season 2.
I couldn’t get past an episode or two of Mythic Quest because it was too detached from what tech work is actually like. Maybe making games is different; I don’t know.
The Great was surprisingly good, but pretty vapid. It’s mostly carried by the acting and set design; if you have a soft spot for historical fiction or period dramas you’ll like it.
>>51525
IIRC it was developed by the upper classes to show they were superior to normal people.
>>52972
>cancelled after two seasons
Every time I REALLY like something rather than just finding it watchable, it gets cancelled. The Romanoffs was amazing (don’t start with the first episode if lefty politics bothers you), and it didn’t even get a second season. The last episode would have won awards if they’d added some filler and released it as a movie.

I just finished watching Star Trek TOS "Metamorphosis". Similar premise to a lot of different episodes, but as always, a great score and an interesting turn of events. The music was honestly my favorite part of the episode. So moving. The music is one of the reasons why I love TOS in the first place. It's surprisingly emotional. And of course, Cpt. Kirk always makes me appreciate him with his demands. I love the contrast between him and Picard. Picard is more of a diplomat and Kirk is much more keen on demanding. It's by far my favorite thing about him. He just does NOT take bullshit. On the other hand, that's a huge flaw of his. Thankfully, the show finally recognizes it when Bones points it out. I'm really glad he did too since I think Kirk can be a good diplomat as well. He's just too much of a soldier who sees lots of action to think of like one most of the times. The ending of the episode got the crew nowhere, but it was touching nonetheless. Things did not change from the beginning. In fact, I would say Kirk was saved by the bell in this episode.

Overall, good memorable episode. It's definitely one of the more memorable ones like the first episode of season 2 and the episode, "This Side Of Paradise", which is by far my favorite TOS episode to date. That one evokes thoughts of a simpler, happier, life.

I'm a GRRM fanboy and excited for this

>>62464
I'm still mad that this fatso can't finish his goddamn books.

>>62464
uhhh is this a new season for GOT? it says "new series"…

>>62474
prequel 200 years before

>>62464
Retarded consumer will consume this absolute trash LMAO

>>62464
I hear they're planning on shoehorning as many niggers into it as possible.

here's what i got, always looking for recommends.

>>62464
the first episode was decent

>>62464
feminist gaslighting soulless trash

he nailed the "Disgust for niggers" look

>>62618
*spunks in valyrian ……………. pussy*

Just finished Star Trek TOS. I was on the third season for a while, so it might be mostly about that. I gotta say, season 1 was pretty good, season 2 had some great episodes as well, and then season 3 was mediocre at best. Sure, there were mediocre episodes in all seasons, but I think it's most prevalent in season 3. By the time I was in the middle of season 3, I felt like I was missing out on other Star Trek series in a way. I felt like I was cheated a bit by watching it. Still, I think there were goodish episodes like "All Our Yesterdays", "Spectre of the Gun", "The Enterprise Incident", etc. Honestly, I think the series had a few good episodes per season while the others were okay. There were a lot of repeats of Romans, gangsters, etc. In fact, a lot of the plots in the series revolve around either some powerful entity, person, etc. get in the way of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk and co. manage to get captured in some way, and then they finally win. There's a lot of emphasis on the "powerful entity" part of it. When I saw "The Savage Curtain", where the episode was in the style of an arena instead of a powerful enemy, it was a bit refreshing, even if they did the same thing on "Gamesters of Triskelion". The formula was worn out by season 2. I'm very glad to be done with it. Season 2 also starts with a great episode too. It's where Spock actually shows emotion for the Captain's well being. A lot of the Romulan and Klingon episodes are good too. I loved those, and there were zero in the third season.

I guess I'm trying to say that the show was on the decline. The third season had the worst effects and plots. I'm just glad to be done with the series. I've been wanting to watch Deep Space Nine for a while, so now I can start it. I'm going to wait a bit on the animated series and movies probably. I really want something more modern. Like, something from the 90s, of course!

So I finally sat down to watch this. I remember when it came out, lots of people online loved to hate it. Never had an opinion about it myself because I never felt like watching it. Now I did watch about half of it and I can begin to form my own opinion on it. Besides, nobody cares about this show anymore, I don't think, so I think it's safe to post about it here without people getting too emotional about it.

First thing I notice is how it's already dated. There's not nearly enough video game and anime references for those guys to be considered nerds by today's standards. They're not even gaymers. They're mostly trekkies and DC fans but I'm not sure how many young people watch Star Trek these days, correct me if I'm wrong but that franchise relies mostly on older fans, pretty much like comic books. Sure, people watch the marvel movies but I think it's just older people who still read the comics. I don't know, but a lot of pop culture references in there felt like an old guy trying to write young.

As for the protagonists themselves, they really picked the crème de la crème nerds didn't they? 3 PHD astrophysicists and a NASA engineer. It's like if they made a TV series about gamers and the protagonists are perfected versions of Carmack, Pajitnov, Kojima and Gabe Newel. How can your average fatass DnD fan who can't even contain his tism in order to find a roleplaying group on roll20 identify with this shit? Incredibly sucessful protags with incredibly prospective careers and later on they're all in healthy relationships as well. Their social anxiety is very fragile, let's put it that way. Back when this was airing I remember a lot of self-professed nerds saying this was shit because those protagonists are fake nerds and the show is not at all how real nerd lives are. And I agree, but I also know this is fiction, and not trying to make an actual representation of nerds. Of course actual nerds have much different, worse lives than those fictional characters, but then again, the same can be said for the rest of humanity. And that's where I wanted to get at.

Those guys lives are perfect. It's literally all fun and games, all their concerns are superficial, all their problems are superficial, nothing bad ever happens, ever. It's Utopia Americana for zoomers. And honestly, that's not bad in itself. But the show do get repetitive rather quickly because of it. Yes, their lives are pretty good, they're all quirky and unique and they're nerds. But that's about it. The scope here is rather limited. I feel like half the jokes is about adults liking toys. I guess you can make that sound funny a couple of times but not all the time. I honestly don't have a favorite episode, all eps are so similar that in retrospect I don't even remember where one ends and another begins. I feel like this is Seinfield for kids. Situational comedy but very afraid to go a little darker. The darker they ever get is with Stuart, the comic book sales guy. But they straighten that guy's life eventually too and not by sending him to jail like Seinfield did.

Like the episodes, the characters are also unremarkable beyond their primary characteristic. Leonard is whiny, Sheldon is odd Holowitz is sarcastic, Rajesh is effeminate… and Indian. The succubi follow the same pattern. Again, this works fine but it's rather limited in scope. I think my favorite character is Amy, probably, it's the character that feels more like a person and not just a punch line, but that's just my impression.

And yet I'm still watching it, which is more I can say for a lot of series out there. The writing of this show is like white noise in many ways, because it's not bad enough to be annoying, you kind of just let it on and the pacing of it all is super fast, so it feels too agile to become an eyesore. Besides, like I said there is this 'life is good' optimism to it that you can pretend to believe while an episode is on. Not the worst feeling in the world.

I also read clothing brands would fight tooth and nail for the chance to have one of the main characters appear dressed with one of their products. Apparently A LOT of people bought shirts and belts just because they saw it on the show. This seems to indicate Big Bang Theory is particularly appealing to idiots, but then again, that in itself doesn't make a show a bad one.

All in all, decent pacing, very safe, harmless, a little bit of a milquetoast of a show. Doesn't challenge you on any level, it's like free candy. To me anyways because I downloaded all the seasons from a private tracker. I wouldn't buy discs of this like I did for Star Trek, Seinfield and The Twilight Zone, still, not the worst thing to ever come out of CBS. That would be Supergirl.

>>64687
You should watch Young Sheldon, it is the best show on the air about a boyhood autist genius, without any of the social geeks from BBT

And since he is a virgin at the start of BBT, it is contractually canonically guaranteed he must end the series without a gf

>>64687
If you don't think that show is terrible you must be one hell of a normie yourself.

>>64688
I tried but Iain Armitage is a god-awful actor, on top of that child actors give me the creeps. That's a personal thing but thanks, I appreciate your response.
>And since he is a virgin at the start of BBT, it is contractually canonically guaranteed he must end the series without a gf
I watch TV shows to forget I exist for 20 minutes at a time not to feel my virginity is represented in fiction, but yeah, I've seen wizzies complaining there's not enough virgins in fiction out there, so that's not bad. If they can stomach Armitage's acting that is.
>>64689
It's not terrible, it's a professionally put together situational comedy with enough self-awareness of its own shortcomings in plot and characters to have the perfect pacing. And the perfect pacing for that content is as fast as they can read the lines. It works well enough.
Why do you think it's terrible? Have you watched actual TV trainwrecks before for comparison? Try the last season of Ghost Whisperer or Are you there Chelsea, maybe you just think Big Bang Theory is terrible because you don't know how much worse television can be. It can be a lot worse, anon.

>>64690
>professionally
So, it's prefabricated rubbish to appeal to the masses and the hordes of fake geeks who wanted to feel part of the in-crowd and somehow that's a merit. Most of the stuff aimed at outcast is never "professional".
>television
Television must be the most normiefied medium there is and all its contents are aggressively produced and controlled for normies. That you compare this thing to other shows just as bad or worse means nothing.

The difference is the completely distorted version of what it means to be an outcast that this show came with, a soft, digestible, stupid and fake version. This caused the various outcast oriented communities that existed to be completely overrun by the new horde of idiots who saw this show and wanted to feel like they were part of the club without having any traits for it. The greedy companies saw this, and began to destroy and mold the hobbys to the tastes of the new wave of invaders. Eventually it wasn't the invading normies who were out of place, but the outcasts who were already there. They were gradually driven out of all their sites until they were reduced to a small group of refuges where there is hardly any activity.

There were more factors coming into this process, but series like that one were part of it.

>>64693
Things have changed since the HBO revolution of the 2000s and its imitators on AMC and FX, not to mention streaming, now TV is for serious classy artsy dramas while Movies are dumb pop corn action.

>>64694
just ignore >>64693 he clearly doesn't enjoy anything in life and calls everything remotely popular normie. Must be sad to be him. It's probably one of the dep suicide posters who complains endlessly.

>>64693
>The difference is the completely distorted version of what it means to be an outcast that this show came with, a soft, digestible, stupid and fake version.
Well, you guessed it, anon. It's fiction.
>This caused the various outcast oriented communities that existed to be completely overrun by the new horde of idiots
Yeah I read that a lot back in the day. Throughout the whole run of this show however not even once I saw an increase of Call Of Cthulhu players on Roll20, not did I see any significant increase of developers of YN fangames nor a bunch of new players wanting to try ss13. I did see an increase of scalpers on old video games and lego sets on ebay and a surge of people developing maps for old Doom, but I'm not sure it has anything to do with the show since they don't really mention old games, lego and doom all that much, if at all. That said, it's nice that we have a bunch of kids making new shit for Doom now, though I don't care that much anymore if I'm honest.

But what makes me curious is what outcast oriented communities can be reached and overrun by kids in bazinga shirts. None I know about got any increase in traffic, in fact SS13 and CoC could really use some of that. Care to tell me what communities got overrun because of this show? I'm curious because 9 out of 10 references in TBBT is either about capeshit movies which is not outcast oriented, Star Wars, which is not outcast oriented, comic books which were oriented to outcasts I suppose, during the 60s and 70s but are pop culture icons since at least the early 90s and comic book readership has only slowed over time anyway so it can't be that. They also mention social media sites like twitter and facebook, but again, not outcast oriented. Finally they talk about Star Trek a lot. I'm not a big fan of ST, I do enjoy TNG but that's about it. Maybe it's ST communities you're talking about? Ah, they also talk about LoTR a lot but what really made shit like The Rings of Power happen was the movie trilogy and Simon Tolkien, hardly anything to do with this sitcom, I think.

>>64700
>Well, you guessed it, anon. It's fiction.
Sad that you believe that all fiction must be like that, probably a result of expending too much time in a normie dominated medium like television.
>I saw an increase of Call Of Cthulhu
Wasn't that game jeopardized with a new version full of woke elements like most popular tabletop RPGs already have? Sounds exactly like an example of the cases mentioned above. Hobby gets filled with idiots, idiots take over, original fans leave and eventually the hobby dies. Impressive that you reached the conclusion that hobbies declining or dying is proof of said hobbies not being overrun previously.

>outcast oriented communities can be reached and overrun by kids in bazinga shirts
Except they weren't overrun by kids, but by powerful companies that wanted to make a profit on the new horde of fake geeks that wanted to join the new social club for them to hang-out, helped by manipulative people with sociopathic behaviour that thrives on highly social environments and usually took management or "speak-up" roles, supported usually be the normies themselves because they're easy prey to those sociopathic types.

>Star Wars, which is not outcast oriented
Star Wars WAS outcast oriented. Just because normies knew the name Star Wars and superficial things doesn't mean it wasn't a community largely dominated by outcasts who knew the history of its vast universe with dozens of novels, video games, animated series and the ever-growing lore that piled up year after year. It was one of the largest communities with a very high barrier to entry if you really wanted to be considered one of the proper fans. Sure there were the normies who knew a thing or two but that was never the real community of the series and the reason it survived for decades until it was eventually sold to Disney and a thing that had existed for so long is now dead. Proving once again that the invasion of the normies is followed by the death of the hobby.

>what really made shit like The Rings of Power happen was the movie trilogy and Simon Tolkien, hardly anything to do with this sitcom, I think.
The series was universally hated and despised by fans around the world, while the previous three trilogies were considered bad enough on their own.

Clearly you have no idea what you're even talking about. That's the problem with spending too much time with stupid sitcoms, you end up never having a real hobby.

Thoughts on a late 30s wizzie watching teen dramas like Degrassi?

>>62522
They probably did.
And those that DIDN'T get shoehorned were probably four eyed succubi that had convoluted requisites which the moment THEY weren't met (as though it was either of the two director's jobs) walked away before going all "oK, bUh-bYe".

>>64740
four eyes is only an insult for males. succubi with glasses are considered more attractive.

I gave up on Gotham the 1st ep of Season 2, after slugging it out through Season 1. Police procedural monster of the week with a few Bat mythos moments, just wasn't doing it for me.

Maybe I just missed the inflection point where Gotham started to take on an identity of its own.

just strange to see the weird directions it went in after I left, and its own lore and mythos it built up.

I caught clips of the last episode, and Riddler and Penguin looked just as goofy at the end as where they started.

>>54948
>>54988
>>55044
Over 2 years after finishing the third season I finally came back to watch the rest of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Just watched the last episode of the fourth season. What a nice show this is! It really feels coming back home, to wander the corridors of USS Enterprise again. The writing for this show is very good indeed. Human, all too human and alien rubber masks. It's silly, goofy, but it manages to play around with a lot of very interesting ideas and tropes, and it usually does it very well. The emphasis on diplomacy, mystery, exploration and technobabble instead of guns that go pew pew to zap aliens really makes Star Trek my favorite science fiction franchise, though I would say it's more like fantasy in space than anything to do with science but who cares. Let's talk about some of the episodes for season 4.

Here's my list of favorites to begin with:
The Best of Both Worlds part II
First Contact
The Nth Degree
The Drumhead
Redemption Part I

Season 4 has less outstanding episodes than season 3 imo but the quality of the mediocre ones improved. There's only two episodes I consider to be bad: Devil's Due and Qpid, but Qpid has a saving grace, the appearance of Q, played by the very excellent and hilarious John de Lancie, so just one that is actually bad.

It's funny, even the episodes focusing on love stories are interesting and give you nice ideas to think about. 'Half a Life' is about Troi's mother falling in love with an alien that has to return to his home planet to be euthanized. She's a pro-life and tries to convince the guy getting euthanized is dumb. 'The Host' has Dr. Crusher falling in love with a parasite! Actually she's attracted to the host and has to deal with the fact her lover is not exactly what she expected. 'In Theory' is an episode focusing on a succubus falling in love with Data, an android incapable of emotions. 'In Theory' is particularly entertaining because it focuses on Data, one of the better characters of the series. I don't really care for romance and love stories at all but they really managed to add some of that science fiction sauce in there to make them quite entertaining and interesting. Also I might add there are moments of genuine horror in this season, something you don't get in the previous ones.

'The Best of Both Worlds' is about the Borg again, so you know it's going to be good. 'First Contact' is a very heartfelt story about a planet getting contacted by aliens for the first time. In this case however, the aliens are the humans. It addresses issues like mass hysteria and tradition versus new ideas. 'The Drumhead' deals with a suspicion of sabotage aboard the Enterprise turning into a witch hunt, again, written in a very smart way: a tale about paranoia, unfair punishment and persecution.Ín 'Redemption' we get to explore more of the impending civil war in the Klingon Empire. A classic ST tale of the difficulties of implementing the prime-directive, its limitations and challenges.

And finally, probably the best episode of the first 4 seasons and possibly from the entire run of this show, 'The Nth Degree'. And what you know, it's about our friend Barclay (>>55086). I'm not giving any spoilers but basically he is hit by a flash from an alien probe and it starts affecting his intelligence… a lot. He turns into the smartest human ever born and then he decides to mess with the ship's computer and a lot of fascinating shenanigans happen. I was almost clapping by the end.

This season is also the last for Wesley Crusher, a particularly disliked TNG character. I also didn't like him in the first couple of seasons because he's the kid that breaks the other characters: better in engineering than LaForge, better at realizing security threats than Worf, outsmarts Picard, so on and so forth. I read an interview with one of the producers where he says Wesley was supposed to be a character to get kids into Star Trek (since he's a kid himself). Once he's an adult however, he's kind of just there. He can't be the main character when engineering shenanigans happen because that's La Forge's position so he just goes in and out of the bridge with nothing to add to the show. 'Final Mission' is the last episode he's part of and imo nothing of value is lost.

Speaking of Wesley, let me say a thing or two about the other characters. There are characters I really like: Picard, Data and Worf. Characters I'm neutral towards: Troi, Reiker, La Forge, and one I dislike: Beverly Crusher. I know nobody gives a shit about my opinion anyway so let me go on about this a little bit longer.

I never liked Dr. Crusher but I didn't dislike her from the beginning. She was at bottom of neutral for me but then they replaced her with Dr. Pulaski, I realized that I in fact didn't like Dr. Crusher at all. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, I'm sorry to say this but the actress playing Dr. Crusher can never, in a single scene, convince me she's a doctor. She always feels like she's pretending to be a doctor and call me crazy but I can see in her face she's unable to take the gadgets she uses in the show seriously. Every time she is treating a patient in critical condition, she fails to convey she's dealing with a potential casualty at her hands. When she's in danger, like in the episode 'Remember Me', not for a single scene she managed to convey to me she was in any actual danger.

The only episode I think she did a good job in was in 'The Host' where she falls in love with a huge bug. Maybe romance is her strong point. Now, Dr. Pulaski, here's a succubus I can believe to be a doctor. I guess most fans disagree with me since Crusher returns after just one season.

Another thing I wanted to comment on is how often the writers throw Deanna Troi under the bus. By now I lost count how many times we have a scene where an alien or person is very, very obviously angry, visibly angry. Then Picard or someone else asks for her expert opinion on the matter and she says something like "I sense he's very angry." Holy shit, no kidding counselor Troi, thanks! Really? Couldn't they come up with something actually psychic like "He's angry and will act on it." Or anything that is not just an obvious statement that any human with functioning eyes could tell. Having a character ridiculed by the writers also happens to La Forge a couple of times, in particular the episode 'Galaxy's Child' where he tries to arrange a date for himself. It's very cringy to watch, where he goes from a serious, self-contained brilliant engineer to a dense retard at the drop of a hat.

But here's the cool thing about Star Trek, even in its worst moments, it gives you food for thought. 5th season here I come.

So I just watched the first episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. I was curious about current ST so here we are. Honestly I was expecting to be awful but to my surprise it's not bad at all. I think I'll be commenting every single episode, why not. This post has spoilers, hide it if you want to watch it fresh and then come back. Here we go.

The first episode is a very safe and a well known ST trope: Two warring factions in an alien planet might destroy each other thanks to Starfleet accidentally showing them how to build world destroying bombs. OK. Also, they have to rescue some crew members captured by said aliens. OK. Now the Enterprise has to intervene. OK. The episode itself is nothing to write home about but it's actually very watchable. Most of the episode however is about introducing the characters, so let's talk about them, shall we?

Captain Pike. This guy is no Picard, nor he tries to be, which is good because he would not be able to pull it off. He doesn't look concerned about space and aliens, he looks concerned about having his eyebrowns waxed. This guy is a Kirk spawn but metrosexual because this is 2023. I really don't care very much about his personal drama (he knows exactly when he's going to die.) His hair cut is also completely ridiculous, it's one of those chicken's combs things but it's apparently very fashionable among people and by the reviews I read for the first episode he's a beloved character, so what do I know.

Spock. Yeah, I like this Spock, but then again, I never watched TOS so I don't have anything to compare it to. Regardless, it's a nice character and the guy playing it does a good job imo.

Una/Number One. She's just there so Pike can talk about his personal drama without it being a monologue. She was being held in captivity for this first episode, not much she could do anyways. I'm used to Number Ones being boring characters, Riker was also nearly useless in The Next Generation.

Christine Chapel. Assistant to the medical officer. It's fine, she's just there for now. But then I read the actress playing this character, Jess Bush, really likes bees. My grandfather was an apiarist and at one point I wanted to be one, too. So yeah, now I like this character a little bit better for completely unrelated reasons.

La'an Noonien-Singh/Chief of Security. A rogue type. Should be fired from the Enterprise, Starfleet is not a place for rogues, or at least not rogues higher than ensign. But Pike is something of a rogue himself so what do I know. I like her accent.

Nyota Uhura/Communications officer. She's nice I guess. She speaks 37 languages! And her parents were killed in a shuttle accident! And she's so humble! The show might be trying too hard for me to like her, I don't like when shows do that, we'll see how it goes.

Erica Ortegas/Pilot. She has a perpetual DreamWorks face https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DreamWorksFace and it's awful. She also has the chicken's comb haircut just like her captain but worse, the sides are completely bald. DreamWorks faces are annoying and I'm calling it right now, Ortegas and I will have the same problem I have with Dr. Crusher from TNG. This actress was not able to convince me for a single second she's an officer of any kind. An officer in a prep station at Arby's maybe, but not an officer in a ship in space. She also can't convince me she's in any real danger, the actress knows she's on a set in a studio somewhere and can't pretend she's anywhere else. BUT, it's too soon to tell, maybe the situation will improve, we'll see.

Dr. Joseph M'Benga. The medical officer onboard. It's hard to understand what the hell he's saying sometimes. Neutral so far.

Hemmer/Chief of Engineering. A blind alien with an attitude problem. Has the potential to be a cool character. We'll see.

And that's the crew. The first episode was just good enough to download the rest of the season. Let's do this.

Episode 2 (Children of the Comet) of Star Trek Strange New Worlds
This post contains spoilers.

So after we get to know all the characters in episode one it's time to throw them on the surface of a mysterious comet. I like some of the ideas here. A comet that is actually some sort of ship and whatever is inside likes to sing. That's goofy but good ST stuff right there. It's all fine and well, but the problem is this comet is on a course to collide with an inhabited planet. Now, Enterprise can't have that! Sure we have the prime directive that forbids the federation to intervene with the natural development of alien species, except in very specific cases: All the time. Can you imagine if the Federation was around back when the asteroid that formed the Chicxulub crater hit the earth? They would've saved the dinosaurs, preventing humans from ever come into being. Maybe we're unlucky they weren't around, so here we are.

Anyways, turns out this is an intelligent comet and it has an entourage too, an alien race called Shepherds. Yes, Shepherds. Star Trek. Now, those guys don't want the Enterprise messing around with the comet and are willing to destroy the Enterprise if they don't stop fiddling with it. After making a few bips and bops at the computer, the crew finds out the alien ship is faster, has superior fire power and its tech is superior, too. Oh-oh. Good thing it's the humans writing the script, so the Enterprise just do some evading maneuvers (Ortega has the DreamWorks dumb face all the way through, Jesus Christ) while the Shepherds can't get a good hit despite being faster, having better weapons and being RIGHT IN FRONT of the Enterprise. Ortega is that good. Thank God for that crooked smirk of hers.

This just gives enough time for Uhura and Spock to figure out if they sing to the comet it sings it back and it seems they can communicate! It's goofy, but it's good Star Trek. Seriously. Give it a try. But singing to the comet so it lights up inside is one thing, saying you need it to change course is a completely different matter. Time is running up however, so they put Spock inside a shuttle so he can shoot some resonance technononsense at the comet up close and change its course. And it works! Of course it does.

The Enterprise apologizes to the Shepherds and after a pretty please please they're allowed to part as friends. Good. But wait. As it turns out, the comet was already going to change course anyway. It can see into the future and it was counting on Spock to change its course before Spock changed its course. Nice, huh? And to wrap it all up, a huge ice chunk of the comet entered that planet's atmosphere during the maneuver, fundamentally changing the planet's weather, enabling the inhabitants to begin developing agriculture. A good and solid day for the prime directive and a nice Star Trek episode overall.

Episode 3 (Ghosts of Illyria) Star Trek Strange New Worlds
This post contains spoilers.

Alright, time to court martial a few characters. For this episode we have the Enterprise going to an Illyrian colony in order to investigate why the colonists disappeared. The Illyrians are an alien species that augment themselves genetically and like to play with their own genes. Genetic modification is a no-no in the Federation so they're barred entry and are treated as outcasts. An ion storm breaks out before Pike and Spock can leave the colony, so they have to find shelter and return later. The shelter they find is some sort of library, conveniently, so Spock can do some reading and figure out why the colonists are gone. They're not actually gone, they just turn into fire fairies (more of that ahead.)

Meanwhile, back on the ship, the people from the away team start to get sick. They become addicted to light and slowly begin to lose their minds. So in a way they're like moths. Some of them suffer third degree burns from standing too close to light sources on the ship. Fortunately Una can miraculously cure herself from this disease because, surprise surprise, she's an Illyrians herself and that means her genetic modifications can cure her of anything. Just in case you don't know why people call this science fiction instead of fantasy in space, well, this episode won't help with that any: this plot has more magic than Lord of the Rings, it's not even a low fantasy setting, more like a D&D session, really. I was waiting for Spock to pull out a healing potion from his breeches the whole time.

Then Pike and Spock get attacked by fire fairies (Illyrians that can fly and have their whole bodies made of fire because of genetic modifications. Sure, OK). But wait, they're not really attacked though, turns out they just want to help the human and the vulcan survive the storm. Cool. Back on the ship, everybody is getting sick, except Una of course. It's an epidemic. As Hemmer is running some diagnostics on the ship to figure out why this disease made it past the transportation filters, Dr. M'Benga looks really distressed, like he's hiding something… and he is.

He has his daughter on stasis inside the ship and that is using a considerable amount of energy. That somehow caused the filters to malfunction, which means the doctor here is responsible for this whole mess. The incompetence is astounding. Good thing we're just 3 episodes in and nobody can die yet, so everything is conveniently resolved. Pike and Spock manage to get back to the ship, Chapel manages to synthesize a cure from Una's plasma/blood/whatever and everything ends well.

In this episode it's revealed Una lied about her Illyrian background to get to Starfleet. Sure, I suppose it's a noble cause and she's a decent officer, but you know how it works. If you bend the rules, it breaks. You can't have that shit. You're fired Una. But wait. Captain Pike thinks the federation is unfair towards the Illyrians, so he decides to pretend Una didn't cheat her way to the Enterprise. Captain Rogue covering for her rogue first officer. Fine, fuck it.

There's more. Una, showing she really should be fired, hides the secret that it was Dr. M'Benga's fault they all the crew almost died and that he's hiding his sick daughter inside his office.

This crew doesn't make me feel I'm in a federation ship, it's a pirate shit pot. Average episode, some good moments there but not as good as the first two. Also, look at that picture. That's some nice quarters, isn't it?

Episode 4 (Memento Mori) Star Trek Strange New Worlds.
This post contains spoilers.

Just a brainless, unimaginative episode where space ants called Gorn attack the Enterprise and they use a black hole to escape. Going that close to a black hole would never work, not that it matters, the script is willing to fly very close to high fantasy territory. I would gladly excuse stuff like this if they were trying to pitch some interesting ideas while at it. Alas, it never happens. I like how Singh just straight up call the Gorn EVIL monsters. The characters know what's up, too. Maybe they should've gone inside the black hole just to check if the sword from King Arthur is in there somewhere. That would make it a cool episode at least.

Anyway, it's really silly how they're pairing up tragic backstories here. Nobody is allowed to have a normal upbringing. Nobody is allowed to have an unique tragic backstory, either. Spock's sister died? Singh's brother died too! Singh's parents died in a tragedy? Uhura's parents have to died in a tragedy, too! Is that the only way the writers can think to bond these characters? It's goofy and not the good goofy, either, more like lazy goofy.

if I wanted to watch something like this I would go for crap like Starship Troopers. Nothing to see here. Moving on.

Episode 5 (Spock Amok) Star Trek Strange New Worlds.
This post contains spoilers.

Well I suppose it had to happen sometime and here it is. Comedy Star Trek. You know, in TNG, when they did a comedic episode they would go with a parody of detective noir stories or Sherlock Holmes. Here they went with Freaky Friday. The episode is OK as a lighthearted ST episode but picking body swap as your plot A is kinda shitty. Couldn't come up with anything a little bit more sci-fi? I refuse to believe this is the best they could come up with. So anyway, yeah, Spock and his fiance T'Pring switch bodies after a Vulcan ritual they're doing to improve their relationship. Something goes wrong and now they have to spend the day with swapped bodies.

This feels a little too soon. I don't really care enough about these characters yet to follow them into their boring, civilian lives. Still it's watchable, just not that interesting. Spock and T'Pring has to attend to their duties while in a body swap. Dr. M'Benga goes fishing. Ehm, ok? Ortegas and Chapel discuss Chapel's relationship problem. I don't care. Una and La'an Singh remain on the ship and engage in harmless fun like shooting each other with phasers and play good cop bad cop on a couple of newbies. Fine. Finally, Hemmer is nowhere to be seen. What a pity. The only character I was actually interested to know how he spends his time outside Enterprise.

One harmless filler of an episode. One thing I can tell you however is that this show looks very expensive. And that's the half of the first season. Let's see what we have:
One above average episode (ep.1)
One good episode (ep.2)
One average episode (ep.3)
One bad episode (ep.4)
One bellow average episode (ep.5)
Would you look at that, it's hitting all marks. A perfectly mediocre, watchable show so far. But that's no cause to quit! Star Trek The Next Generation took 3 seasons to get really good! Maybe they're still finding their pace.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Episode 6 - Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach

This post contains spoilers.

The Enterprise pays a visit to Majalis, an alien planet as the population is about to celebrate the induction of a new First Servant. This First Servant happens to be nothing more than a boy. When the ship he's in is attacked by another small vessel, the enterprise tries to intervene (because, you now, the prime directive) and ends up getting shot at as well. As a response they shoot and destroy the vessel, and its burning carcass burns in the atmosphere. Because, you know, the prime directive. Anyways, with the boy safe aboard the Enterprise, Pike and the boy's entourage go to Majalis in order to have the ceremony performed.

At first I didn't quite like this episode. It started on the wrong foot for me because you have to endure the first quarter of it: a romance between Pike, his chicken comb hair and an alien servant for the boy soon to be First Servant, Alora. Since I'm coming to this show straight from The Next Generation where any sort of romantic relationships are extremely rare, SNW really tests my patience taking so much screen time to showcase the romantic lives of several members of the crew.

Once we're past that however, it does feel like classic Star Trek. Turns out this ceremony is not all happy songs and candy, but a sinister child sacrifice. Pike is appalled by this and tries to stop it, because, you know, the prime directive. Seriously, this crew just don't care about anything, they just do whatever the fuck they want and it kind of pisses me off. No respect for any of the federation procedures and laws. One can only wonder how they're allowed to wear Starfleet uniforms but whatever.

This sinister ceremony is revealed to the crew after Uhura translates a bunch of chips she shouldn't have, handed to her by Singh after she ILLEGALLY CONFISCATING them from the crash site in order to avoid filling the necessary forms. There you go, even our chief of security doesn't give a flying fuck about the law over here. Discommendations to everyone.

But here's why I like this one. The fact The Enterprise can't ultimately interfere (more than it has) and let the child be sacrificed in the end. And that's very Star Trek. If you're going to contact strange civilizations and strange new worlds, well, it's going to be strange. Your earth morals don't apply. Are you here to observe or to play God? This is the realization Pike has to go through. Their job is to observe and learn, not meddle.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Episode 7 - The Serene Squall

This post contains spoilers.

We're barely out of Spock Amok and already there's more cheese coming our way. It's much too soon to have another episode focusing on Spock's relationship and troubled identity but that's what The Serene Squall is, except it's worse since we already have Spock Amok two episodes ago. It's not an interesting outing. No interesting plot points, no interesting moments or dialogue, not even an interesting thought. Here's what's about: Space pirates and Spock kissing Chapel. What an uninteresting pile of trash. As if Freaky Friday on Spock Amok wasn't enough.

I watch Star Trek for the interesting sci-fi plots and involved political drama, the technobabble solutions and complications and the goofy aliens masks contrasting with intelligent dialogue. Well, there's none of that here. And don't you love an incompetent captain? Pike really outdoes himself this time.

After being called a boy scout (I don't know who would call this incompetent, rogue officer a boy scout but whatever) he decides to show his crew he doesn't play by the rules (we noticed!) and decides to go into dangerous territory, out of reach of backup to try to rescue some colonists, just because this one random person asks him to. So of course, despite several warnings from Spock about how stupid this is, he pilots the Enterprise into an asteroid belt where they can be easily ambushed. Not happy with just this amount of stupid, he decides to split up the party and have an away team to this derelict ship where colonists might be held hostage without properly scanning it for any enemies (or colonists) that might be inside. Also he'll lead the away team to prove he is in fact not a boy scout, but an idiot, instead.

Lo and behold, they immediately get caught by space pirates and the Enterprise is boarded, the crew on board surrendered. Conveniently we're never told how many people die on this, otherwise Pike would have to deal with it. This is supposed to be a swashbuckling episode with lots of cheese and comedy, but it's not a particularly good example of that, and then again, we're still dealing with all the cheese from Spock Amok. And what's up with this obsession with Spock's sex life? It's just ridiculous. I don't know if this is to attract a young viewership or what but Star Trek is not supposed to be Sex and the City in space, for crying out loud. Would this damn show try to focus more on the premise the title suggests? STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Jesus Christ.

The way the plot resolves itself here is barely worth mentioning. Pike decides to create a stir among the pirates by complaining about how bad the food is. I shit you not. This causes a mutiny and they're able to capture the pirate's ship and the Enterprise because the pirates on board are nice enough to surrender without a fight. I've seen more interesting plot resolutions from Scooby Doo. The actors are doing what they can to save this awful script and it's surprising how well they manage to make this watchable. Bravo indeed. Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Jess Bush do a particularly good job here.

And where the hell is Hemmer?

>>65040
Your skull needs to be crushed for posting retarded normalnigger trash show on wizardchan.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Episode 8 - The Elysian Kingdom

This post contains spoilers.

Anyone who watched Star Trek is familiar with this episode. It's the one everybody hates: the dress-up adventure, or ST LARPing. We have them on TNG, too, like Qpid, where the crew plays Robin Hood. Boy those sorts of episodes are bad and in here they're bad, too. It's concerning when you have only 10 episodes per season and 3 of them are just cheese with absolutely nothing sci-fi about it. More concerning is the fact this show is incapable of telling the difference between science-fiction and high fantasy. This is my biggest problem with SNW right now. I now expect Gandalf to pop up in his own ship shaped like a ring anytime now.

Here's the plot and see if you can spot where this SNW is confused about what science-fiction is: The Enterprise enters a mysterious nebula that turns out to be a Boltzmann brain. OK, so far so good. What would you build from this premise? Maybe this brain found a way to push beyond Event horizon? Maybe this brain traps the Enterprise like lab rats and that brings up some ethical conundrums? Maybe the Boltzmann brain has a collection of extinct intelligent species and is planning to preserve them once this universe hits heat death? Maybe it wants to preserve the Enterprise and the crew, too, and now they have to convince the brain to let them go and convince it humans want to avoid death, but maybe not at all costs. You know? Science-fiction. Dilemmas. The stuff ST is supposed to be good at. So what do you think they do here?

They make the Boltzmann brain turn the entire ship in a medieval fantasy LARP, of course. Dr. M'Benga plays the king looking for his missing daughter (the sickly child he keeps trapped in the buffer). It's as bad as it sounds. So the crew plays dress-up and it's so dull I can't imagine anyone caring about any of this. In the end, guess what? He finds his daughter. But wait, there's a problem. The Boltzmann brain is able to cure her, but not really. You see, this entity is able to keep her soul (very sci-fi!) intact and she'll never die. In what supposed to be a very emotional moment, the succubus chooses to stay behind with her new friend. This decision doesn't take her more than a few seconds. Good bye dad! The end.

Awful. There's only one redeeming thing in this whole episode and that is Hemmer. He and the doctor are the only ones unaffected by this LARP brainwashing because reasons. This was supposed to be M'Benga's spotlight for the season but Hemmer completely steals the show by playing the wizard with the powers of science (as if this show knew what science is.) So once again one of the actors has to save an awful script. It's not good when this happens several episodes in a row.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Episode 9 - All Those Who Wander

This post contains spoilers.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A rescue party is sent to re-establish contact to the crew of a space ship that is not responding to any calls. They find the derelict ship, and there's a little succubus who survived the massacre. Wondering around they finally figure out the creatures behind the killing: Evil aliens that spit acid at you. But that's not all, they can use other creatures as hosts to their eggs and once they're ready to hatch, they burst out from your chest cavity. Hm, where did I see this before..

This is what happens when the writers of a show are not smart and can't come up with any interesting ideas. They desperately ripoff whatever they can. This is a poor man's Aliens, and a shameless one at that. Not inspired by Aliens but straight out stolen Aliens. This might be the worst episode yet, even worse than The Elysian Kingdom and that was a bad one but at least they were trying. Here they just call the alien Gorn. That's the SNW treatment for ripoffs. Replace the names and you're good to go.

And now they killed Hemmer, the only character with the potential to be really interesting. Imo they could've killed any other character. You know what they could've done? Kill Spock instead. That would save us from more Chapel/Spock nonsense. Oh well, onwards to the final episode, I got this far.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Episode 10 - A Quality of Mercy

This post contains spoilers.

The whole "knowing exactly when I'll die" conundrum Pike is going through reach its logical conclusion in this episode. The choice of embracing his own death is made very easy for him now, when a Pike from the future appears and shows him a 'what if' scenario. If Pike saves himself, then Spock dies and a war with the Romulans becomes a certainty. Pike being a hero, however incompetent he is, can't allow that to happens just so he can live a few more years. Well, if you ask me that's pretty much wraps it up that loose end for captain Pike, pretty much the only thing we had going for this character. Sure we also have Una going to jail for being an Illyrian, so I guess that's what Pike will be going for next.

This is not a bad episode but maybe it's because half of this season was cheese pretty much. Meeting your future self from a different timeline is not exactly groundbreaking or anything, but at least this time the show actually tried. Anyways, by now it's very clear to me the problems of having a prequel. It is starting to feel very much this whole story is just catch up. Perhaps I should just go ahead and watch the original series. But I'll finish TNG for now.

I'll be checking the second season of SNW though. Why not? Torrents are free. I hope you've enjoyed the reviews. I'll be writing one soon for the TNG fifth season.

Been watching an old friend of mine. Good times were had whenever this was on during my younger years. It's on Amazon's Freevee if anyone wants to watch.

Anyone watched this? Just finished the first season of it and it's nice. Sometimes it tries to be smarter than it actually is but most of the episodes are entertaining. If you're into Star Trek this might be worth a watch. I'm getting the second season as I post this.

>>65318
im curious about the original japanese gameshow

Is anyone here into sci-fi shows at all? What are your favorites?

>>65342
I've yet to find the og show on the free streaming services out there. Perhaps it's time to sail the seven seas.

>>65346
I like Babylon 5

>>65350
Me too. I watched so much trek when I was a kid, B5 scratches that itch now

>>65350
>>65359
I'm going throuh The Orville right now after finishing ST:TNG, it's fun enough. I've heard a lot of good things about Babylon 5, I'll give it a try soon.
Here's a small list of shows I'm planing to watch in the near future, I'm curious to know if anyone watched any of these and what's your opinion on it if you did. Feel free to mention your favorite sci-fi show not on this list.
Babylon 5
Stargate SG-1
Battlestar Galactica
Red Dwarf

>>65350
https://screenrant.com/babylon-5-reboot-show-what-happened/

Allegedly there was supposed to be a reboot on The CW, but it looks like the Warner Bros Discovery merger put the kibosh on it.


Fucking Mergers…

>>65341
So I just finished watching all 3 seasons of The Orville. It's a nice little show but I think there are a couple of problems with it. The first season was much more humorous in nature and I feel it worked much better that way when you compare with the more serious turn it took in the second and specially third season. It works well when it's a spoof of ST:TNG but not so much when it tries to be TNG. The show starts to wear really thin the farther it gets from comedy and when it's not a comedy it becomes painfully obvious it's trying to be smarter than it is. Trying to be smarter than it is also happened from time to time in TNG (the episode "A Matter of Time" comes to mind) but in that show you had good dramatic actors to make it work even when the plot was kinda shitty. For the Orville you have this guy, pic related. Seth Macfarlene, the dicks and farts jokes cartoonist. This is the guy you send to handle delicate diplomatic missions with alien delegates? It works as a comedy but The Orville really doesn't want to be a comedy after the first season.

Imo, Seth wanting to be in front of the camera is the biggest problem with the show. He can't act to save his life. It's honestly embarrassing how bad he is compared to the rest of the cast and it's obvious the only reason he's there is because he's the creator of the show. He wasn't such a sore in the first season because of the lighthearted nature of the episodes but the more serious it gets, the more Macfarlene's presence makes the whole thing feels like a bad Star Trek LARP. Spoilers ahead.

While the show was more of a spoof and comedy, every character had a place but once it tries to be more serious the only thing they have to talk about is Moclan's misogyny and Kaylons wanting to destroy all biological life in the galaxy. And that's about it.
Even when they have a chance for more challenging drama they shy away from it. To give you an example, there's an episode where the Union ends their partnership with Moclus because Moclans are misogynists. This causes a severe problem because the Union is facing a two fronts war against Kaylons and Krill and basically find themselves completely defenseless without Moclans, as they're the single supplier of military grade weaponry for the Union's defense force. However the heroes never have to pay the price for their inability to compromise and diplomatic stupidity because 2 minutes after the Moclans walk out the door, human engineers come up with a super weapon that can kill all Kaylons anyways. Again, this works on a comedy but as a drama it's pathetic and simplistic and you start to roll your eyes a lot. Sure you expect the heroes to have plot armor but when every single decision the protagonists make is retarded and the universe has to constantly conspire to make them right, yeah, you start to roll your eyes a lot.

With all that said, The Orville does at least have something to say, and for that alone is much better than Star Trek Strange New Worlds, a show that effectively has nothing at all to say about anything. It's a show with substance, albeit limited and often with a misplaced tone. I think 3 seasons is a good enough size for it, though it could easily have ended after second season. If they renew The Orville, turning it back into a comedy again or replacing Seth Macfarlene for a more competent actor are the only things that would make me tune in for more. If not I think we saw pretty much everything there is to see here.


Anyway, I'll be watching Babylon 5 now.

>>65350
>>65359
>>65383
Alright anons I watched the first 3 episodes of Babylon 5 and holy shit there's way too much of opera in that space for my taste. There's so much buffoonery going on here with the aliens from Minbari's embassador Delenn wailings about soul eaters to Londo's hair, it's really putting me off.

Granted I'm only 3 episodes in but does it get more cerebral as it goes on? Is the story here really worth it?

>>65383
I don’t think it’s all mergers, Michael Straczynski has a Twitter where he occasionally talked about Babylon 5 and his publicity of the new series was very weird. He said he’d finished writing it and said the series would be filmed and on screens in the next year. Modern massive sci-fi project filmed and cgi done in under a year, his timelines and comments seem extremely hopeful. I don’t know how much I trust the information if he’s been the source.
On a side note, Straczynski had a patreon where he makes a few thousand a month. I thought it was nice he still had fans who wanted to learn from him.

>>65403
I'd tried to stick with it until the Shadows show up. They are really the seminal part of the show and give evil a deeper dimension than "they are just bad" like star wars, fantasy, and a lot of modern day media like to do.

>>65411
Thanks anon, I needed to hear that. Last night I deleted the episodes like an idiot and had to redownload again this morning after waking up. I'll stick to it this time. Are there other shows you like not on >>65371 that is sci-fi or space themed? I'm trying to build a small list of shows to binge for escapism.

>It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

I just started watching Babylon 5 and I like looking back after a while and reading my impressions of a show I'm watching for the first time. I figure this might be interesting for others to read as well and maybe it will even get you into watching it too, so I'll be reviewing every episode for now, let's see how far I get.

The first thing I want to say is that Babylon 5 is definitely not science fiction, but a space opera. There's enough magic in the first 5 episodes to be in equal standing to a D&D session and there's no particular effort to technobabble through any of the science of what we see and no real effort to clarify any of the technology involved to build the space station, the space ships, weapons, medical tools or how all aliens can breathe and live in the same space as humans or any other technicality, really. A science fiction show would love to explain those things to you, but no Babylon 5. The focus here are the political and ethical intricacies that entails having this space station filled with diplomats from different places and with different goals. It's also very theatrical and over the top at times, as one can safely assume by looking at the alien called Londo >>65412, believe or not that's an alien, a Centauri, if he appears like a farcical version of a bubbly Italian type from some XIX century opera that's just your impression, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

For the first 2 episodes I'll do a quick review on this post and then I'll try longer reviews for the third episode on. The first episode Midnight on the Firing Line is pretty much just an introduction of the main characters, let's go to them one by one.

Sinclair is the commander and the person in charge of the station. He's a war veteran and the tough guy with a bit of a death wish and probably an alcoholic. Despite that he's the one upholding the peace, or trying to.

Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova is sort of the chief of security except she's not, but most of the stuff she deals with ends up being about security related issues. She's the second in command after Sinclair and a sort of pessimist with a troubled past.

Security Chief Michael Garibaldi is the actual guy in charge of security. He's a light hearted version of Sinclair. Enjoys Daffy Duck and might be a womanizer. He also has the eggiest shaped head I've ever seen in my life, he's like the live version of Homer Simpson in that regard.

Delenn is the Minbari ambassador and for now that's pretty much it.

Dr. Stephen Franklin is the medical doctor for Babylon 5 and also a damn idiot, though this is only clear by episode 4.

Talia Winters is a human telepath. Humans use telepaths in order to facilitate diplomatic missions across different alien species.

Finally we have G'Kar and Londo Mollari the diplomats of warring states and their over the top discussions and fist fights set the tone for the first episode.

The second episode, Soul Hunter, is about an alien species that goes around collecting the souls of people who die. And right there you already know this is a space opera and not science fiction. Babylon 5 makes absolutely no attempt whatsoever to hide that fact and it doesn't actually care about science if the plot needs some myth and magic. It will go for those too, and this is just one example. Delenn is terrified by these guys which doesn't really prompt any strong reaction from the humans in charge, Sinclair, Garibaldi and Ivanova. It's weird because the Simbari are way ahead of humans in terms of scientific and technological development and if the guys that know more than you do about the universe happen to be terrified of these soul hunters guys, I would be a little more concerned than what the crew here is. But anyways, it's mostly an uneventful episode meant to give us a scope of Babylon's 5 universe and the types of characters that inhabit this universe.

And that's that, a rather low start and I almost quit twice but since this is such a praised show I decided to power through and one anon here said I should stick around until a particular villain shows up so I'll be going at least that far.

Needless to say, if you want to watch this show there are tons of torrents out there.

This post contains spoilers.

I confess episode 3, Born to the Purple, is the one that made me want to quit the show prematurely. It's this tale about old Londo falling in love with a young slave succubus. She pretends to love him but is actually trying to fetch some secret information from his computer in order to purchase her freedom and get rid of her master, Trakis. To be brutally honest I just didn't care at all about the slave (called Adira) trying to start a new life as a free succubus. We're inside a space station supposedly filled with strange alien life everywhere and this is the story you want to tell? I almost quit.

The only fun part of this episode is the apparently unending incompetence of Londo as a head of state. Honestly I wouldn't trust this guy to sell gum, much less deal in interplanetary politics. Fortunately Sinclair is there and he helps Londo to retrieve the sensitive data (a file containing dirt on Centauri powerful families, enough to destabilize the Centauri republic) and at the same time they manage to arrest Trakis and free Adira, who apparently really like Londo, just not enough to stay with him. She boards back to her home planet the minute she has the chance. Oh well, I'm sure he can find another baldy bimbo somewhere.

The B plot is there to expose more of Ivanova's tragic past. On episode 1 it's revealed her mom was a telepath just like Talia but she didn't want to register with the telepath club. That left her with two choices: telepath castration in the form of injections or prison. Ivanova's mom chooses the injections but that fucks her mind so badly she ends up committing suicide. And that's why Ivanova doesn't like telepaths (something hinted at on the first episode.)

Not happy with just one tragedy for Ivanova, we also have the fact her dad is now dying after a lifetime of not giving a shit about his own daughter. Actually he loves her but because Ivanova decided to follow a military career, something he's against, their relationship got strained. So Ivanova is making these illegal phone calls to earth in order to patch things up with her dad. Why she can't just contact him legally is a mystery. Poor Garibaldi on this episode is just running back and forth trying to discover who's making the illegal use of the network just to find out it's Ivanova all along. He listens to the conversation and decides to let it slide because he's a bit of an idiot that can't think properly when the issue involves an succubus he finds attractive. I would at least give Ivanova a reprimand on her record. She should know better.

This post contains spoilers for Babylon 5 season 1 episode 4.

It's a good thing this episode was a monster of the week type of thing. Here Sinclair gets to flex his morals a bit (racial supremacy is bad m'kay?) as well as showing some heroism. This was also the opportunity to show a little bit more of Dr. Franklin and his idiocy.

The whole thing begins when Dr. Franklin gets a visit from old friend and mentor, xenoarcheologist Dr. Hendricks. He wants Franklin's help to analyze hi-tech organic artifacts he found on a dead world. I just copied that sentence from the Babylon 5 wiki, it's easier that way. Anyway it turns out the artifacts are actual biological weapons that target any race without the specific DNA of its builders. Turns out they make a mistake and their bio weapon ends up killing everyone, including the ones they were suppose to protect.

This bio weapon is like a armor that binds itself with a host and then becomes a frightning and cool looking super soldier monster. It's up to Sinclair and Garibaldi to stop it from destroying Babylon 5 and, surprise surprise, they manage to do it. This is a fast paced, fun episode that has enough technobabble, fantasy, action and mystery and a very welcome palat cleanser from Londo and the baldy slave from last episode.

The reason I mentioned Dr. Franklin is an idiot is because of the comments he makes when talking to Dr. Hendricks. He's against Hendricks going around finding invaluable alien technology in other planets because he feels it's A WASTE OF TIME DOING SO when they should instead be working to come up with their own tech. How much of an idiot can you be to actually believe that? He's basically suggesting humans should waste time reinventing the wheel instead of learning from other more advanced aliens. What a god damned moronic statement that was. Besides, that's the whole point of the Babylon space station, so humans can learn from aliens. Jesus Christ, Franklin is an imbecile.

On a side note, many of the negative reviews I read on IMDB and elsewhere regarding Babylon 5 talks about the shitty special effects and bad CGI but I have to tell I find this show very good looking. I like the CGI and also the effects. The monster here looks pretty cool, too.

In order to not flood this thread I'll be posting 3 reviews at a time starting next episode.

This review contains spoilers for the episode The Parliament of Dream (S01E05)

In this episode, The Parliament of Dream, we witness a weeklong festival when humans and aliens demonstrate their religious beliefs on board of Babylon 5. Surprisingly (maybe not for the fans of the series that know better but it was surprising to me), the show doesn't really care at all about this opportunity to better flesh out the cultures of the various aliens races living in the station but instead use it as a background event for an attempt assassination on the life of ambassador G'Kar, Londo's rival.

Actually this assessment is not entirely fair because the episode is in fact an attempt to better flesh out G'Kar, the Narn ambassador, giving him some background story. Since G'Kar is a high rank politician, he has many enemies, one of them hates him so bad that on his deathbed he gave all his belongings to an assassin guild that promises to kill G'Kar. The agent he sends to Babylon 5 fails. The end. There's not much to see here, really, so far G'Kar is not that different from Londo: Over the top, silly, maybe not all that fit for his position. Granted, he's much more competent than Londo, he can actually show up on time and has a little more organized lifestyle but that's about it.

In the B plot, the only religious ceremony we see is that of the Minbari. They hit some drums and eat a cherry tomato. On the C plot we have Sinclair going out with his former girlfriend. Garibaldi is pretty much useless here going back and forth trying to find the assassin but he never gets anywhere. It's up to G'Kar and Na'Toth, G'Kar assistant, to get the job done. Overall an OK outing.

-

This review contains spoilers for the episode Mind War (S01E06)

This is a very good one as we get some grit of what the hell is actually going on back on Earth and it's not looking good.

As if Ivanova's tragic backstory with the Psi Corps wasn't enough of a sign, with this episode it seems clear the telepath club is bad news. They've been doing all sorts of experiments in order to increase their psychic powers and there's basically no one there to interfere or supervise their operations. How could there be? They can read your mind. Ivanova's comment "Who watches the watchers" sums the theme for this outing pretty well.

The main plot here is about one of Talia's professors, Ironheart, who has been the subject of some very successful experimentation and he's now an incredibly powerful telepath, in fact he's now post-human. He kills the main scientist behind the experiments and flees to Babylon 5 with PSI cops hot on his tail.

Honestly I wouldn't know who to trust here but I would be inclined to just let the PSI cops do their jobs. Sinclair on the other hand decides to get involved up to his eyeballs on the matter and helps Ironheart escape the PSI guys. Ironheart eventually transforms into a nebula and goes to space, saying "See you in a million years" which I guess confirms virtual immortality does exist in the world of Babylon 5.He also gives Talia telekinesis powers, a very rare gift (only 1 in 10k telepaths have it.)

This review contains spoilers for the episodes War Prayer (S01E07), And the Sky Full of Stars (S01E08) and Deathwalker (S01E09)

War Prayer
Human supremacists are terrorizing aliens on Babylon 5, stabbing and branding them. I didn't care much for this episode. As you can imagine, it's a very by the numbers episode with a very obvious message. Ivanova, Garibaldi and Sinclair find the bad guys behind the stabbings and arrest them, racism is bad, the end.

In the B plot we have Londo having to deal with a Centauri couple that wants to marry for love. According to Centauri tradition, marriage for love is more or less frowned upon and he keeps trying to make them see reason and marry for family connections and influence. In the end he gives up and lets them marry for love, the end.

Not much to see here except some Centauri marriage traditions.
=
And the Sky Full of Stars
Best episode so far. We finally get to know a little bit more about the Minbari war, a major event in the Babylon 5 universe. Basically Earth and the Minbari were at war and humans lost every single battle. When they were finally ready to invade and Earth stood defenseless, the Minbari simply turned their ships back home and surrendered. Nobody knows why.

Sinclair took part in an important battle but he didn't remember what happened there. Thanks to a secret organization looking to find out about the truth on why the Minbari surrender, they kidnap Sinclair in order to know what truly happened. During the interrogation, Sinclair remembers he was captured and taken to a Minbari ship. More importantly, he remembered Delenn was there.

This feels like the first episode we're getting more substance about this world and its history. A very nice episode.
=
Deathwalker
I feel like the show is finally getting really good. I quite liked this episode. The story is about a genocidal war criminal called Deathwalker. She's a bioweapon expert and has annihilated half a dozen different worlds. She happens to have developed an anti-aging serum and is now a pain in the neck for Sinclair. The aliens on board want her blood and demand she goes through trial on Babylon 5. Earth command however wants her in an Earth lab in order to finish developing the serum.

A compromise is reached where a delegation of Alien scientists will help with the serum and share in the discovery. All seems fine and well. Everything is arranged for Deathwalker to go to Earth and finish developing the anti-aging goo when a Vorlon ship goes through the jumpgate and fires at the ship Deathwalker is in, destroying her and her research. Kosh the Vorlon ambassador warns humans and the other aliens are not ready for immortality and leaves. Apparently there's not much anyone can do against his wishes.

Really good episode, excellent pacing, lots of mystery, political intrigue and an intelligent plot all around.

>>65371
Throw Farscape on that list, and its perverted version called Lexx. Some other comfy syndication sci-fi shows were Quantum Leap, the 1970s Hulk show, and the Highlander tv show.

>>65456
Reading your synopsis of the episodes I realised how loosely the first season is in setting everything up, especially if you are put off by the silliness of people like Londo. I haven't watched it in maybe 15 years so only really remember the grand story where the ambassadors and politics actually start mattering, As the other wiz said, probably around the shadows episode. That's what fans remember I imagine. I'd be a bit more open to the characters that seem stupid in the first series. I might watch it again.

Wow… Futurama is finally back again…zzzzz

I'm not sure as to why channels on live TV don't just show news 24/7 nowadays.

finally some wiz rep

at 1:30 they confirm he is a virgin in his 30s

and ancient greece for the masses

>>66320
Too many references to sex.

I don't think I would make it, brehs…

>>66400
well even most guys in the infantry aren't elite enough for 101

>>52077
>thinks the sopranos are bad
Opinion discarded

My hallucinations once again ruined what could've been a decent episode of my favorite MCU series thus far.

>>66449
>>66328
god damn i know i live under a rock, recent media and pop culture-wise, but i have never even heard of those shows before

>>66451
I wouldn't blame you.
They are exclusive to Disney's online streaming service so aren't advertised as much as broadcast shows.
So unless you make a effort to follow pop-culture stuff it's unlikely for you to come across marking materiel for them.

>>66452
i do fairly often watch pirate streaming websites and stuff though. i wonder if disney stuff is just removed fast so they dont bother with it

i had that experience trying to watch one of the guardians of the galaxy movies (i think the most recenty) a few weeks ago, almost 4 dozen different websites all had the stuff removed before i found one with a 480p version that was up

Not bad, I suppose.

I also watched V/H/S/94 which was also not bad.

>>66456
Maybe it's because I am usually late to the party but I don't think I have ever really had trouble watching Disney stuff on pirated streaming sites.

Maybe they do one wave of looking for stuff when stuff comes out then just give up after a month or two.

I don't like this show

It's too intentionally stupid for me

I hate it

I want it to die

I hope all the characters die

Including Lexy

Especially Lexy

I hope she gets brutally decapitated or something.

I watched The Idol because it was supposed to be super edgy and extremely controversial, even being pulled early due to causing so many complaints.

Unfortunately edgy and controversial doesn't equal interesting or entertaining. Show has really bad writing and is mostly boring. Turns out the main cause of the whining is feminist whining about skimpy outfits, sexual content, and many of the succubi being bad fucked up people. Thing is, such shit doesn't shock or stimulate me anymore as I ain't 12 or a pearl clucher.
So since a frequent flash of ass and bad succubi crying doesn't shock or entertain me all that's left is the strength of the writing and story telling on display, which in this case is super poor.
The Director/producer (Sam Levinson) is a hack. The visuals are the only thing decent about the show. Even the music, which takes up a large part of the show, is mostly shit, only getting to meh at best.

Seriously, Shows like Spartacus exist and are way edgier then this shit while also being entertaining. While it hasn't been confirmed it's almost certain that the Idol isn't getting a second season, nor does it deserve one. It's just boring and trashy.
I do not recommend.
1 out of 5.

>>66496
Even the visuals were ripped off from a well-known fashion photographer. Sam is a hack in all manners of the word.

>>64969
I finally finished watching the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The reason it took me 6 months to come back to this show after finishing the fourth season is a series of rather shitty episodes all in a row, starting with The Game, a plot about Wesley Crusher saving the Enterprise from video game brainwashing, two really boring episodes about Spock going to Romulus to become a teacher of cultural studies and an atrocious episode called A Matter Of Time where a time traveler goes around the ship stealing gadgets just to be caught in the end. Boring, uneventful, unimaginative episodes. By the time I was done with A Matter Of Time I had to quit for a while. Turns out 6 months is what I needed to try ST again.


Fortunately the next one on the list was New Ground, an episode focused on Worf and his son. It’s a character study episode with interesting consequences for Worf. It’s an intimate episode about parenting and loss. And they make great use of Troi here, which is very rare indeed. So I was happy enough to continue and finish this season. Then you have Hero Worship, a rather mediocre episode centered around Data. Not a good one but not terrible, either. After that we have an episode that is an allegory for rape and that was quite brutal. I wonder if they would be able to make something like that nowadays.

Several episodes in the second half of the fifth season are excellent. The First Duty is an excellent courtroom drama about a training accident that leaves one cadet dead. ‘I, Borg’ is a changing point to the whole Borg arc and possibly one of the better episodes of the entire show. Then we have The Inner Light that deals with mortality, not only individual mortality but the fact our entire civilization will inevitably disappear as well. Excellent acting and absolutely brutal implications for Picard.

And we finish it with Time’s Arrow, a cliffhanger episode centering around Data. It’s good to be back to the corridors of the Enterprise. And it’s very good indeed there are many episodes in this season to remind me why I like this show so much. On to the 6th season!

Here's my favorite episodes from 5th:
I, Borg
The Inner light
Ethics
The First Duty

And some I really disliked it:
The Game
A Matter of Time
Unification part I and II

This was actually surprisingly sorta' okay.

The CGI was a bit off-putting.

Then the characters started to actually call out the names of their attacks before attacking and that shit drove me nuts. One of the weirdest things I've ever seen them do in a live action adaptation of an anime.

They actually had real actors call out their attacks! AAAAAAHHHHH

But otherwise it was ok. Don't think I'll be watching the second season, though.

Started watching this recently.

It's surprisingly Satanic.

Like, literally. Satan appears to be THE villain and many of the characters worship him. Including the main character (for a time).

>>66727
does she have a cat at least

>>66728
Yes.

>>66729
Can he talk?

>>66730
Nope.

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/chilling-adventures-sabrina-salem-talk/

It was too expensive to do it well while keeping the serious/thriller vibe they were going for.

>>66731
Into the trash. Salem was the only good character. He needs his own show.

>>65394
>>65456
>>66588
Watch THE EXPANSE if you want a seious sci-fi show. I think it's on Amazon Prime now.

Finished watching the 6th season of Star Trek The Next Generation. I must admit by this point TNG has become something of a comfortable old blanket for me, or like a good old friend. I’m up for whatever he wants to talk about. Being a little more objective however, I think the 6th season is where it’s rather obvious there’s very little to talk about and show when it comes to the main characters. It’s clear by this point we have seen pretty much everything there’s to see of Picard, Data, Riker, Crusher, La Forge, Worf and Troi. This is particularly true of Picard, Data and Worf. Though there are still a few episodes here that managed to surprise me, more of that later.

As for the world itself, it also stagnates around this season. We’ll be dealing with the same aliens and villains over and over again. Klingons, Romulans, Ferengi, Borg, etc. This is not exactly bad but it’s quite a difference from the explosion of creativity we experience in the third and fourth season. The important thing though is that the show still manages to tell compelling stories. And even the bad episodes manage to have something interesting/weird going on.

The season opens up with the conclusion of Time’s Arrow, a rather interesting but ultimately lukewarm, inconsequential episode. We see Data dying but he comes back. We see how Picard and Guinan meet, but nothing about it has a real consequence, it felt a little bit like pointless exposition. And that’s how it goes for every plot point of this episode. Watchable but if you happen to not be invested in the series, this is not an episode you would care at all for it.

Next is Realm of Fear and I like this one because it’s a Barclay episode. It’s not nearly as good as the Nth Degree or other Barclay episodes but it’s nice to see him again. I’m quite fond of the character. But again it’s one of those if you don’t have an investment in the characters, it’s not an interesting outing.

Men of the People have Troi becoming a lunatic and it’s mostly about her friendship with Riker. Meh. Next is Relics, a throwback to the original series because Scotty comes aboard and has long talks about Picard and La Forge. Okaish.

Schisms is the first episode I really like this season. I don’t know what it is about TNG but when it decides to do horror, it tends to nail it. It’s that cerebral environment the show managed to create that really helps make the horror very effective. This is mostly a Riker episode. I don’t care much for Riker but it’s a really good one.

True Q is quite lame and the worst appearance of Q, probably in the entire show. Rascals is about Picard becoming a child and the only good part of it is when he reverses to his actual age, the first thing he does to check is touching his bald head. When he feels no hair in there he knows the procedure worked and gives that smile of relief. A nice touch. Also they throw Worf under the bus here and he’s overpowered by a Ferengi.

Fistfull of Data is one episode that you only care if the show became an old comfortable blanket for you. I enjoyed it but I can’t see anyone else liking this one. Next is The Quality of Life, a very lame Data episode, which is something because Data episodes are usually nice, but not this one.

Then we get a double episode called Chain of Command and fans really like this one but I don’t. It’s OK for what it is but the only good portion of it are the discussions Picard has with his torturer (this is the famous ‘There are four lights!’ episode) but the message here is same old same old and the only thing holding it together is Patrick Stward’s acting. But if you’re watching this show up to this one you’re already familiar with his tricks and it doesn’t feel all that special.

Next one is Ship in a Bottle and this one is really good indeed. Professor Moriarity is back and I love the trope of a fictional character realizing he’s just fictional and then having a melting down over his condition. Nice acting and ideas all around, though the decision Picard makes about Moriarty’s fate is preposterous and one of his brutal, immoral decisions I’ve ever seen him making in the entire run of the show. Coming from the guy who put the entire Federation in jeopardy for one Borg, it’s something.

The next two I really like. First one is Aquiel and this episode is consistently voted as one of the worst TNG episodes by fans. Not unusually one of the worst ST episodes ever. It’s about La Forge getting a girlfriend and the reason I really like this one is because it’s very clear La Forge suffers from Space Aspergers. Not only that but it’s very clear in this episode nobody on the Enterprise really gives a shit about La Forge.

When Data or Troi have a problem the ENTIRE ship will stop whatever it’s doing to help them out. When La Forge has a problem, well, nobody gives a shit. And the fans have the same attitude. All the time you see people complaining Riker doesn't get good episodes or how Troi is not well handled but nobody ever mentions the lack of La Forge episodes or the fact nobody gives a shit about him. Aquiel made me very sympathetic towards the character and that’s why I like it.

Face of the Enemy is the best Troi episode in the entire show and the plot is very tense and fun to follow. I always felt Troi could be more than just the succubus with the shitty outfit and here we see that is true.

Next one is Tapestry and this is the one I sensed Picard is completely spent as a character. The show just talks too much about him, there’s nothing left to say. And in here he’s quite out of character because he belittles EVERY SINGLE scientist in his ship when he prefer to fucking DIE than have a career as an astrophysist. Quite pathetic and quite a step down on the nice portrayal we see of him in The Inner Light, just a season ago.

The same thing happens with the double episode we get next called Birthright. It’s very clear there’s pretty much nothing to say about Worf. It’s about his dad again, and being Klingon and yada yada yada same old same old. I like Worf but there isn’t much left to explore about him after we see his side as a parent when Alexander goes to live with him. That pretty much closes his arc imo.
Then we get 3 Picard episodes that just cements the fact there’s not much left to be said about this guy. Starship Mine is one shitty episode where Picard plays John Mclane and boy what a silly idea that was. His main fight is with some lanky, fragile looking human female and he almost loses the fight. lol. Quite ridiculous all around. Then we have Lessons where Picard has a short relationship with his head scientist. Whatever, it doesn’t go anywhere.

The Chase is about the Enterprise finding out all the humanoid aliens come from the same ancestor and the fact that is treated like a secret is completely ridiculous. We already know this when humanoid aliens can have fertile offspring and feed on the same nutrients and look all pretty much the same. It was quite pointless to try to treat this as some sort of amazing revelation and the episode fails quite badly because of it.

Next we have a very good one called Frame of Mind and this is probably the very best Riker episode. I quite like the premise as well where the main character doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not. I guess I just really enjoy imposing some sort of mindfuckery on a character and how he reacts. This episode is exactly that and it’s very very good. A high point for this season.

Suspicions is about a Ferengi scientist and Crusher investigating a murder and I believe this is a particularly bad one because the actor playing Crusher is so god damn stiff. You know, it’s not enough to have great red hair in order to be an actor. You have to make us believe the situation you’re in is real. It’s so painfully obvious this is all happening in a studio somewhere when we focus on Crusher and here we focus on Crusher a lot.

Rightful Heir is about Worf again and this time is a lot better than Birthright. I enjoyed the approach to religious belief in this episode. A quite enjoyable hour of television. It’s the ST version of Christianity and I quite like it.

Next we have Second Chances and this one is quite a step down for Riker after we last saw him in Frame of Mind. I get the feeling this character really has no range at all, I don’t know if it’s how he’s written or how he’s performed. He’s just quick to anger for no good reason and comes off as a complete idiot unable to control his emotions. He’s like a monkey flinging poo in this one.

The next episode is Timescape and I like this one because it’s one, long, technobabble, verbose episode where we get the characters walk around trying to solve a mystery. A couple of very hilarious moments as well. One of my favorite TNG episodes. I read other ST shows are not so technobabbly as TNG and I find that quite saddening. I love this type of episode.

And finally we get a OKish but mostly pointless episode called Descent, about Data joining with his brother in order to create a small Borg army and bring down the federation. Yup, it’s another ‘Character X is getting brainwashed’ episode.

And that’s that. I feel somewhat sad knowing there’s only one season left. I tried watching another Trek series (Strange New Worlds) and didn’t care at all for it. It lacks the charm of TNG and I’m afraid this is going to be the case for the other ST shows. 7th season here I come.

>>66739
Thank you for the recommendation, I'll check it out.

https://youtu.be/jOAxchyLZ00?si=CIrHMHUebt3AmP_D

This is an occult show with a priest in a spanish town investigating demonic hauntings

I'm watching this right now and I'm enjoying it.

>>67106
Finished watching all seasons of this. I don't watch much TV but I sense there's a trend to these shows where you get a decent first and perhaps second season but third season on it starts to get worse and by the end it's just crap all the way through. I'm not sure why it happens. Maybe the writers have a number of good ideas they want to explore and then if it gets successful they're forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel to keep pumping episodes out long after they ran out of ideas. Southland is an example of that. Very good first 2 seasons and then it's all downhill from there. The only character they managed to keep consistent to the end was the female detective. The other ones they kept fucking it up like making Michael Cudlitz's character an idiot by the end. Oh well. I might watch True Detective now or maybe I'll finally sit down through The Sopranos, a show I've been interested in solely due to its constant use on the wageslave thread.

I have been watching a few old BBC shows,
>I Claudius
>Colditz
>Yes Minister
They are surprisingly good shows, a bit dated but they still hold up today in terms of writing and acting quality. They are all loosely based on real events/people, the early roman emperors, british prisoners during WW2, government employees, and they do a good job showing life and challenges during these times.

>>67151
If you want another good one from that time period try the Shogun miniseries. There is a new adaptation coming out soon that looks promising but the 1980 version is still a nice watch

Finished the newest season of True Detective. I should have stopped after 20 minutes of episode 1, but no I just had to go and watch all of them because I had literally nothing better to watch with my dinner each week.

It was very clearly made for millenial succubi. It's by FAR worse than the other 3 seasons.

>>67363
I LOVE the book, but I've yet to see the mini-series. always kept meaning too watch it.

The day has come. I finished watching every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wizchan is pretty much dead (especially hob) or rotten but I had to come back here and talk about this. I’ve been posting itt about TNG for 3 years now so I feel like I should bring it to closure. I won’t talk about every single episode this time, just a couple scattered thoughts.

All in all I could not be happier with the experience. Over the course of 3 years I went from being only vaguely aware and not at all interested in ST to having my humor and mental state significantly improved by watching TNG episodes, even the bad ones. In fact, the bad ones have a certain allure to them that's hard to explain. So instead of going on and on about the ending (it was great!) Instead I’ll make a top 5 ‘best worst’ TNG episodes. The ones that even though they’re shitty, they serve as mental comfort food. Here they are:

The Royale
Captain's Holiday
A Fistful of Datas
Realm of Fear
Aquiel

I feel like I had to make an extra effort to immerse myself in ST at the beginning but when it clicked around the end of second to third season the show became this oddly comforting experience. I think part of it is the enclosed space most of the show takes place in, being inside a spaceship floating around the vacuum of space for billions upon billions of miles. The uniforms, the replicator, the computer noises. The more I watched the more aspects of the show grew on me with homely tones to them. It’s going to be very hard, if not impossible, to enjoy another ST show as much as I enjoyed this TNG. It’s been a little while since I finished watching the seventh season (finished in Dec. last year) and I have only fond or boring memories of going through it. Anyway, I guess I’ll try to watch some more Babylon 5 now.

>>67566
You can't post on a board without mentioning how reluctantly you do so because you hate that board so much? Just about what we could expect from someone who binge watches crappy American TV to get his fill of achievement.

>>67566
TNG was what got me into sci-fi in the first place as a kid.
It's a good show and glad you enjoyed it.

>>67566
Dianna Troi was a mistake. Empaths were a mistake. I fucking hated every second that bitch was on the screen. Riker was also a shit character. Other than that it was quite good and enjoyable. I wish they would have done Star Trek Captain Worf. I always liked Worf. The stuff they did later in the series really fleshed out his character and I would have liked to see him as the lead. What we got after that was just disappointing. Janeway wasn't terrible, but just not very interesting as was the show itself. It was like TNG just watered down. Then Enterprise was just shit. I didn't get very far with that one. Couldn't force myself through it.

>>67574
Oh, and deep space 9 is good. Not as good as TNG but nearly.

>>67576
I never liked Deep space 9 but I did enjoy TNG and Voyager.

Part of the appeal of Star Trek to me is the exploration and adventure.
Sitting on a space station most of the time just didn't do it for me.