Westworld season >1
While watching season 1 as it was airing a friend bright up the two time periods theory and that the the Man in Black and William are the same.
I said I didn’t think it was true because It would remove the narrative anchor they had built the show around. There wouldn’t be any thing to keep audiences emotionally invested in the plots that are going on.
It turns out we were both right.
Oh yeah. One of the biggest falls from grace in TV imo.
I loved the 1st two seasons! Although season 1 was far better. Season 3 I have vague memories of and season 4 I gave up. They never should have left the park, that was the best bit.
Season 4 was almost as big a let down as game of thrones season 8. They did Maeve so damn dirty.
Not surprised. I totally gave it up. They should have just left it as a standalone one season only.
Star Trek Picard and Star Trek Discovery. There were a lot of good ideas, but the execution wasn’t there overall.
Picard lost me the moment they had a scene where a bunch of down on their luck blue collar workers were complaining about shitty rations and being forced to work on a holiday.
WHAT PART OF POST-SCARCITY LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNIST UTOPIA DID YOU INBRED FUCKING DOGSHIT FOR BRAINS MORONS NOT GRASP?
I swear to god, Picard is a Star Trek show written by people who have apparently never watched a single episode of Star Trek in their entire lives. Unbelievably poor grasp of the basic concepts of the setting, and of Roddenberry’s core thesis. And it’s not like you can’t make Star Trek grimy if you want to. Deep Space Nine did it frequently, playing with concepts of liberty vs security and so on. But the writers of Picard were just too lazy to engage with the core ideas of the setting and instead just wrote a bunch of generic, broadly science fiction filler and then slapped the Star Trek logo on it.
Discovery I feel more kindly towards, even though it was also terrible. It at least makes some kind of an effort to be Star Trek, which automatically puts it above Picard, but god that is such a low bar. It still has the same basic problem of being written by people who seem to be deeply embarassed about the idea of writing Star Trek. They had to go in and try to retcon in a bunch of crazy tech, rewrite huge parts of the setting, throw out everything about the Klingons and start from scratch, all out of some kind of weird hatred for the universe in which they were telling stories. Also, dear god it was just incredibly slow and dull. Some of the worse pacing I’ve ever seen.
Thank the lord almighty for Strange New Worlds. If you’re soured on all the new Trek and skipped it because you were worried about it being more of the same, holy fucking shit go watch it now! Strange New Worlds is perfect. It’s a Star Trek show written by people who absolutely adore Star Trek. It’s a love letter - a love anthem - to the original series. And it manages to somehow find an unearthly balance between being one of the most campy and fun takes on Star Trek, and one of the darkest and scariest. There’s a musical episode, and there’s an episode that’s basically “What if the plot of Aliens happened on the Enterprise?” and somehow both of them fit in the same show perfectly. Also, THE KLINGONS ARE FUN AGAIN! They’re loud and boisterous and drink blood wine and yell “Qapla” while they headbutt each other and it’s fucking great.
SNW is the breath of fresh air that restored my faith in the franchise.
I could have written your post word for word. That first season of Discovery with that crazy Klingon bullshit was so fucking ponderous. I never was a big fan of Klingons, and always felt they leaned a bit too heavy on them, but this was next level terrible. I forced myself through the first 2 seasons, and bailed a couple of episodes into the 3rd, and never looked back. Truly awful and boring.
I’m on the fence with Picard, but I have no desire to ever watch it again. It’s not among their best, coming in somewhere below Enterprise, and above Discovery.
Strange New Worlds is the real deal. Among the best of them all, like DS9 and NG great. I even love Voyager. SNW deserves to be in their company.
What good ideas? There were none.
Idk what it is about modern TV but it’s like it’s like everything made in the Streaming Era is like this. I have trouble putting my finger on it. Even good shows coming out right now like White Lotus seem like they’re a bit dumbed down compared to “prestige television” of the past. It’s also like the later seasons of Game of Thrones vs. the early seasons. I know a lot of that is running out of source material and having to rely on their own (bad) creativity but I do wonder if part of it is something to do with the format of streaming or maybe even the impact social media and smart phones have had on our attention spans. It’s like shows are designed with the fact that you’re going to be watching with a phone in your hand scrolling Instagram and only half paying attention in mind. Even Better Call Saul vs. Breaking Bad, it’s like everything is a comedy, nothing can be too serious, and everything is just a bit dumber. Idk.
Look at the number of producers. Everyone wants to give their input, which is usually the exact opposite of someone else’s.
I want them to dump all the current mythology and go back to the basic concept; 500 humans and aliens on a ship designed for research and military purposes. No Vulcans, or Klingons. No six foot tall aliens with five fingers and funny ears. Aliens that look alien.
STD was just garbage, too much pushing a METOoMOVEMENT, by S4, they decided that men were no longer needed in the LEAD casts. Picard definitely wouldve better if not for the low energy acting of the main characther, and the rest of the cast, plus writing too.
They both (Picard more than Discovery) used a nostalgia checkpoint to connect to previous media, rather than expanding those themes in meaningful ways.
Wow you managed to have a toxic opinion without just saying “discovery woke”. Congrats.
Foundation. It’s gorgeous, and the first episode is fairly close to the beginning of the book. It very quickly deviates from the source material in ways that totally undermine the themes of the book. It’s not necessarily a bad show, I just can’t enjoy it because it deviates so much.
I considered reading the books before the series came out, and I’m really glad that I did didn’t. As a result, I fully enjoyed the show.
I read the books like 20 years ago, so I basically remembered anything about it, and I’m also enjoying it. The best part of the show, the clone emperors aren’t even part of the books.
It’s funny, I did decide to read the books before watching the show. I’m about 6 episodes in and think it’s very good. I think they actually improved the books in many ways.
I don’t know if people just have a nostalgia for something they haven’t read in a long time (sorry not having a go at you!) or they genuinely like some really not-great aspects of the books that are a victim of their time.
The fact they changed a bunch of characters genders actually works - too many crusty old white (assuming) dudes that doesn’t work nowadays. Making Gaal a more rounded character to tell a story they apparently write in the book makes a lot more sense.
God I found foundation so frustrating to watch, the only characters I liked were the emperors. Everyone else was stupid and insufferable. Such a shame as the books are so so good
Halo. Wow, did that suck
Rings of Power.
I am going to caveat this with I know it has some fans, and if you enjoy this series more power to you, but I fucking hate it and that’s also fine.
I think it just twists the lore while being badly written regardless of source material, and often looking incredibly low rent despite having a stupidly high budget, while the cast is patchy, its like they saw the Hobbit films and decided that was moving in the right direction while LotR got it totally wrong. I think its sheer stubbornness that’s keeping this show running despite its return on views vs. budget at this point.
Halo.
Its completely out of character for Master Chief to face reveal and had a sex scene, neither is the worst thing with this show either. I get that actors do not like non face roles, see Pedro with Mandalorian, but it should be deal breaker for casting for such roles.
Halo was something that shouldn’t have happened, the writers admitted they wanted their own story unrelated to Halo.
They already have enough clout to be put in charge of a decent budget tv show, so their idea must have sucked something terrible if they can’t get it made without slapping a license onto it
Just make the damn thing you paid to make not your shitty show you can’t get anybody else to buy.
Outside the show, it’s not even known whether Spartan IIs have skin below the neck, let alone genitals. Things from Halo are just shoehorned into an unrelated story, which is thought by some to have started out as an adaptation of Mass Effect. Commander Shepherd definitely has skin and genitals in the games, and isn’t afraid to use them.
“I’m commander shepard, and halo is my favourite tv show on the citadel.”
Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if that turned out to be the case.
In a slight defense of Rings of Power, I don’t think the lore “problems” are really a big deal. It had to not follow the Silmarillion for legal reasons. As someone who hasn’t digested that “book” the lore parts seem ok. The problem is most the writing still sucks and has many problems that are more substantial than that’s not what Tolkien said in the book that can’t be named. Also the weirdly cheap appearance is totally accurate. I think there’s also a lot of merit to the rumors much of the writing and props were originally intended for a dragon age adaptation.
Lore is complicated as if you aren’t familiar with the letters, silmarillion and appendices to an insane degree, some things that look right are wrong, and some things that look wrong are actually right depending on what you count in cannon.
I think this sums it up for me as the only bits actuallyin the lore:
The existence of characters named Galadriel, Elrond, Durin, Sauron, Isildur, Elendil, Celebrimbor, some of the others
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The existence of Numenor and Middle-Earth and some of the places in it
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The existence of rings of power
The armour just highlights what I mean with its lazy approach to just about everything.
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American Gods
Oof. Yeah, that one really hits. Great start, then creative differences collapsed the whole endeavour and it just went to shit.
And it’s not like I can even recommend the book anymore given, well… y’know.
Just a fucking mountain of disappointments on disappointments.
Given what? What about the book?
Sexual misconduct allegations popped up around Neil Gaiman. I only say allegations as I don’t know if he’s officially been charged/convicted, but from the bit I’ve read when the news first broke, looks like the dude is seriously broken/done terrible things to vulnerable women. Really fucked up my perspective when trying to reread his work…
Wheel of Time.
Seconded. It was just such an enormous pile of shit from the first episode.
Edit: felt like it was worth mentioning that I’ve read all the books multiple times, and love them. I just hate what they did to the characters.
Third.
Latest season has been a massive improvement if you haven’t watched it.
Maybe in the future.
I’m kind of burned out in high fantasy TV for a while. Thanks for the info, though.
Try something completely different.
“Slow Horses” is about MI-5’s worst agents. Those who have screwed up in the field are sent to work on low priority garbage work until they retire or quit. Takes about one and a half episodes to hit its stride.
“Landman” is about a Texas oilman whose job is to manage everything from the drilling to getting the product to market. Billy Bob Thornton is a great anti-hero; divorced, alcoholic, in debt, and smarter than everyone else for all the good it does him.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Slow horses is great.
There was a time where content wasn’t so abundant, people watch TV on the TV and marketing mattered a bit more. Back then you didn’t have 2137 sci-fi shows to choose from so you watched what you could.
Take Terra Nova. Released late 2011, Spielberg as an executive producer. Dystopian future, time travel to the prehistoric era, hint some dinosaurs. Hype. It was cancelled almost immediately after the first season due to how disappointing it was.
I didn’t consider it disappointing, I considered it a decent starting point for better seasons.
I was born before we had a 5 minute tiktok attention span and if we weren’t blown away by the first episode that meant everything was obviously garbage.
Watch TNG season 1, one of the worst seasons of anything ever.
Lots of good series have a terrible first season. I don’t think this one was salvageable due to how shallow everything was though. It wasn’t bad necessarily, it was extremely mediocre with most of the world building consisting of adding mysteries writers didn’t know answers to. Most were just indifferent to it in the end, which something beyond disappointment.
Of course it was weak.
But there was plenty of room to fix it, they had barely started.
We need to stop killing things when they start because they aren’t the next game of thrones s1.
“We” aren’t doing any of it lmfao, stop blaming the populace for poor executive decision making lol.
NUTREK ended up being worst, from s1-season whatever, almost all of them were bad more or less the same plot as each other, did you notice, how kurtzman made them all had a big bad at the end, with no resolution in the next season, just dropped it because it was such a bad plot. SNW could be better with good actors. the animated series seems to rectify this a little bit.
True Blood. There was a lot of advertising for it before it aired and at the time I thought HBO could do no wrong. It was just too goofy. Most characters were some kind of supernatural being and when it’s that saturated, no character seems that special anymore.
Great intro though. That song and the intro visuals were top notch. But yeah, that show got real goofy real fast.
Stargate Universe
Gotta admit, I loved it. Hated to see it cancelled.
You didn’t like As The Universe Turns?
First episode got me hopeful, but the series dragged on. Forcing us to watch little webclips for lore and story bothered me.
When they they first introduced the stones I thought neet callback and good way to keep them from being completely isolated. By the third time they pulled them out I was thinking not this shit again.
I only watched about three episodes before I gave up on it.
everyone agreed SEASON 1 was bad, season 2 it was getting interested but it was cancelled long before the season began. apparently s3 would have much more of the mysterious aliens from the planet builders in it.
It had a bad start, but it became really good.
Maybe, if they ever repeat it, I’ll give it another go.
The Watch, Terry Pratchett “inspired” show. It disappointed me long before it even aired and made me angrily sad when it did.
It was very clear that they had no respect for the source material and just wanted to make their own show but this was the only way it was getting funded. Then to double down and insult the fan base was just beyond dumb.
The Netflix live-action Avatar remake.
The animated show is such a materpiece, but it’s still a kids show. There was potential to flesh out some of the more adult themes (war, romance) the show touches on in a way a kids show couldn’t. But other than that, they should have stuck very, very close to the original show.
Well, maybe I wasn’t “highly excited”, I was pretty sure they would screw it up.
But what I couldn’t have expected was just how badly they would screw it up. It took less then 5 minutes of watching to realise that the show will be bad (as they open with a prime example of “tell, don’t show”) and it really just went downhill from there. I think I dropped it on episode 4 and it took a lot of forcing myself to even get that far.
What’s really surprising is how once piece ended up being pretty good, after all the garbage adaptations.
Oda the writer of the comic had a lot of control and forced them to make changes and do reshoots.
https://screenrant.com/one-piece-netflix-show-reshoots-creator-explained/
That would explain it. One person that actually gave a shit or even knew the content.
I don’t follow anime at all, but I loved the live action One Piece.
It’s pretty amazing how out of touch Netflix can be
the news
I got to watch the movie 'Network" go from cutting edge satire to staid docudrama in real time.
@Skavau SUITS LA and thank you for asking!
There is a wanna be Harvey, several wanna be Donnas, no mike, no Louis Litt and definitely no woman badass enough to give Gina Torres any competition. I am 8 episodes in and don’t give a crap about any of the characters and no memorable courtroom scenes to speak of. Total Meh
Damn that sucks they couldn’t tap into the success of the 1st one, I enjoyed it until it got very “samey” in the storylines and foibles the law firm got into.
The more I watch Suits LA, the more I enjoy it. Yes, a lot of the characters are just copies of the main cast, but if you can ignore that it’s fun enough for a turn your brain off show.
Under The Dome.
It was an epic Stephen King novel, with a great story line, and a huge cast of interesting characters, including Big Jim Rennie, one of his best villains. King’s output is notoriously inconsistent, but occasionally he is really great, and this was one of those times.
I was so excited that they were bringing it out as a series, since it could never be captured in a single movie, or even a trilogy. Then they announced that Big Jim would be played by Dean Norris (Hank Schrader from Breaking Bad), which was PERFECT casting.
The show started well, with the dropping of The Dome rendered perfectly. Then it went off the rails so quickly that by the third episode, I was enormously pissed off. They i troduced weird new supernatural elements. I assume they were supernatural, because I stopped watching. The story was good enough, they didn’t need some hack network writer “fixing” it.
A huge lost opportunity. I hope someone takes another swing at it someday.
