Doctor Who S11E01 'The Woman Who Fell To Earth' discussion thread
So... New Doctor, new companions/friends, new showrunner, new composer. What did folks think? I'm going to leave my initial thoughts for a comment.
So... New Doctor, new companions/friends, new showrunner, new composer. What did folks think? I'm going to leave my initial thoughts for a comment.
The third season has just started and it's as funny as ever. If you've never heard of it before, here's the blurb from Wikipedia:
The series focuses on Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a woman who wakes up in the afterlife and is introduced by Michael (Ted Danson) to "The Good Place", a highly selective Heaven-like utopia he designed, as a reward for her righteous life. She realizes that she was sent there by mistake and must hide her morally imperfect behavior and try to become a better, more ethical person. William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil and Manny Jacinto co-star as other residents of "The Good Place", together with D'Arcy Carden as Janet, an artificial being helping the inhabitants.
The Good Place received positive reviews upon its debut and has since gained critical acclaim. It has been praised for its performances, writing, originality, setting and tone.
Seriously, give it a shot!
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Black Mirror Season 4 Episode 1 - USS Callister
Capt. Robert Daly presides over his crew with wisdom and courage. But a new recruit will soon discover nothing on this spaceship is what it seems.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
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Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 6 - Hated in the Nation
The death of a journalist at the centre of a social media firestorm leads a veteran detective and her tech-savvy apprentice to a chilling discovery.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
Has anyone else seen this show? It came out last October. I just saw it about a month ago, probably a little less. It has got to be one of the best thing I've seen all year. Top 3.
I love the entire theme, the atmosphere, how everything is done. The direction is incredible. And the actors are ridiculously good.
In the show the two main characters will narrate their thoughts as they are happening in the moment. There is brilliant joke where Alyssa is narrating her thoughts and she thinks something along the lines of, "If This were a movie we would probably be American." Because the show is set in Britain and she is thinking to herself, what if this is all a movie.
The show is a dark comedy. And it's just got this incredible motif for lack of a better word. Has anyone else seen it? What are your thoughts? I really like Alyssa's character. Just how she is so empathetic, and she thinks far enough into everything to weigh both sides in a way not a lot of people would do. She basically givea the benefit of the doubt and weighs both sides more than she should.
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Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 5 - Men Against Fire
After his first battle with an elusive enemy, a soldier begins experiencing unfamiliar sensations and strange technical glitches.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
So I've spent nearly the entire weekend watching Humans and I wanted to share what I think of it and maybe get some discussion going.
For those who are not familiar with it, the basic premise is an alternate reality present day where "synths" - robots that replaced humans in most menial tasks - are part of everyday life to the point of being a common household item. Within the first episode we learn that there are a handful of synths that are sentient - thinking, feeling individuals. The show explores the implications of that - how previously-servile machines becoming sentient would impact society. There are many parallels to contemporary issues around racism, xenophobia, fear, and I think the show does good job of handling the topic. It is a smart, well-written sci-fi drama.
So, did anyone else here watch it? What do you think of it?
PS: While the post itself doesn't have any spoilers, the comments do.
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Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 4 - San Junipero
In a seaside town in 1987, a shy young woman and an outgoing party girl strike up a powerful bond that seems to defy the laws of space and time.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
Needless to say I'm very excited and would definitely talk about it if others want to. That being said, r/BojackHorseman is still going strong so another thread over here may be redundant. Let's vote on this.
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Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 3 - Shut Up and Dance
After a virus infects his laptop, a teen faces a daunting choice: carry out orders delivered by text message, or risk having intimate secrets exposed.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
Needing a down weekend, the spouse and I settled in to watch TV, and discovered that Starz' series, Counterpart - spoiler warning, is one of the better series we've seen in quite a while, let alone among science fiction stories. Though The Expanse wins for sheer SFX pyrotechnics and breadth of technical scope, it's wonderful to sit in for a deep, thoughtful drama like Counterpart. The series focuses on character, story, world-building, plausible plotting, and avoidance of the usual alternate universe cliches. Counterpart is a genuine Cold War Noir spy thriller which happens to occur in a science-fictional setting, and the writers have managed to avoid or refresh the tropes of both genres in ways that ask interesting philosophical questions. It's quiet, slow, and meticulous in a way that most current television writing seems to have abandoned. There's tense action, but no primary colored-supersuits, no scary aliens, no gaudy laser beams, just... a split of history that leaves two distorted mirrors, reflecting each other.
J.K. Simmons' performances in the roles of Howard (Prime) and Howard (Alpha) are mesmerizing in a way that outmatches Tatiana Mazlany's Orphan Black characters. There's a slow unveiling of the respective parallel worlds' history, with continuing evolution and interplay of characters and relationships, which brings to mind the best of series like The Wire or The Americans.
To the extent that Counterpart borrows from literary canon, the most significant underlying influences are John LeCarre's find-the-mole games in the Smiley series, China Mieville's The City and the City, and Philip K. Dick (particularly, The Adjustment Team).
The really guilty pleasure, and the lightweight pressure relief from the grimdark of Peaky Blinders or Counterpart, was a spit-and-giggles Canadian production called Letterkenny. I didn't have high hopes, but the 22-minute episodes are exactly what my brain needed to get over the daily doses of blah.
The opening credits of each episode refer to the fictional rural Ontario town of Letterkenny as follows:
There are 5,000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems.
The plots are barely coat-hangers, with most of the comic tension spent on interactions among the Hicks (farm people), Skids (creative-but-disaffected Internet subculture wannabes), hockey players and Christians - a/k/a small-town tribes recognizable anywhere in North America. The portrayals are caricaturized enough to be both humorously offensive and humorously sympathetic simultaneously. [Could be some toxic racial/gender meta, but mostly, the treatment of women and minorities is in keeping with the setting.]
The banter, and the utter Spock-like deadpan of Wayne (the toughest guy in Letterkenny)'s Hick character are the stars of the show. Some people have complained that the rapid-fire use of heavy dialect in the dialogue is impenetrable; that actually helps with comic timing. When your brain catches up to what was actually said, it's like receiving a two-by-four between the eyes of funny. I've got a bit of home-team advantage in the midwestern North American dialects area, and usually get it on the first run, but it's good enough to re-watch happily if the spouse needs a do-over. Transcripts are available, but watch the show before looking.
We now have a new battery of in-jokes and gag lines to add to our secret spousal language - "Hard no.", "That's what I appreciates about ya", "...and he was never the same after that."
There's really nothing quite like Letterkenny, and it's exactly smart/dumb enough to make fantastic comedy. Two seven-episode seasons are currently available on Hulu.
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Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 2 - Playtest
An American traveler short on cash signs up to test a revolutionary new gaming system, only to discover the thrills are a little too real.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
The BBC announcement: It's about time...
Some discussion at Radio Times about the change of day: Doctor Who to move from Saturdays to Sundays for new era
Programming difficulties at the ABC in Australia: Doctor Who finally gets UK air date, throws ABC programming into spin
No spoilers, just a vague example.
A long time ago, I watched TRON: Uprising (2012). It's a really good Disney kids show that was unfortunately cancelled after one season or 19 episodes. It carries a rating of TV-Y7.
One thing that always really struck me about this show was that it's actually quite violent, but censored. We see gladiator fights where "people" are just smashed into little cubes signifying their death.
This is not at all a new concept, and I'm not saying we need absolute realism, but is there an imbalance to the amount of violence we show without "real" consequence? And in doing so, glorifying the action of violence itself?
We don't want to traumatize kids, but maybe we should, just a little. And for those saying that the age range for some shows are too young for them to understand, these shows have really adult concepts to begin with. In Voltron, for example, we're talking about galactic war, genocide, torture and misuse of good technologies turning them to weapons.
And though I posted in ~tv, in games especially when there's a violent action executed by the gamer. Games are rated a bit differently, and I'm not as familiar with children games, so hopefully another Tilderino will have more to add here.
Last night, the series finale of Adventure Time aired, and I thought we might want a thread to sort of decompress with. What did you all think?
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Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 1 - Nosedive
A woman desperate to boost her social media score hits the jackpot when she's invited to a swanky wedding. But the trip doesn't go as planned.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
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Black Mirror Season 2 Special - White Christmas
Three interconnected tales of technology run amok during the Christmas season are told by two men at a remote outpost in a frozen wilderness.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
Sorry (again) for being a bit late with this thread!
Love that it's not a retread of either Simpsons or Futurama. Need to watch more but I feel like critics are being way too hard on this.
From start to finish I found the show totally engrossing, tense, and mysterious. It was excellently shot and written, and the twists in episodes 7 and 8 were hard hitting, even if you had an idea that they were possible as early as episode 4 or 5. Plus, those post creditn scenes were haunting. What did you guys think?
I'm currently reading the book so please, no spoilers for the novel! TV show discussion only
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Black Mirror Season 2 Episode 3 - The Waldo Moment
A failed comedian who voices a popular cartoon bear named Waldo finds himself mixing in politics when TV executives want Waldo to run for office.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
Sorry (again) for being a bit late with this thread!
Hoooooly shit that last episode was insane. But even if you're not caught up, anybody here like the show? I'm a long time fan and it's one of my favorites.
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Black Mirror Season 2 Episode 2 - White Bear
Victoria wakes up and cannot remember anything about her life. Everyone she encounters refuses to communicate with her.
If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:
I'll go first.
I'm currently rewatching Veronica Mars right now and find myself really admiring many of her traits. She is witty, sarcastic, intelligent, and capable. I think what sets her apart from many other female protagonists is that she is not a martyr. If someone wrongs her, she will stand up for herself and in most cases get even. Her need to "get even" probably isn't actually a great personality trait, but I find it kind of refreshing.
Does anyone else wish they were more like a certain character on tv?