Topic: The TV Show Thread

@nessisonett @RogerRoger
Critic reviews for Batwoman are mostly bull****. Even the ratings for the last episode after Crisis were a series low. The people championing it aren't the ones watching it, and the supposed target audience (because it obviously isn't comic/Arrowverse fans) aren't actually going to watch it other than to bark up on twitter to say how great it all is.

It's made with an eye firmly on virtue signalling instead of anything else. That goal could have been achieved by just making something good, or at least something as good as previous CW/DC shows that just happens to have a lesbian character front and center rather than just cobbling something together and writing dialogue for soundbites.

It really is awful. Hardly anything makes the slightest lick of sense and even trying to disengage your brain doesn't work when Kate is forever acting like sex pest to her married (to a man) ex, repeatedly letting the psychopathic murderous villain go free on purpose (only to kill some more), having ridiculously misogynistic encounters, beyond pathetic fight and action scenes, the worst supporting cast and characters ever put together, having zero tangible stakes, Kate taking over Wayne Enterprises (kinda, sorta, maybe, never explained) by virtue of saying she's Bruce's cousin, Kate being Batwoman and perfect at doing so instantly (apart from when the script requires some sort of awful decision making) and direction and edits making all of that markedly worse.

As I say, shame. Batwoman has been a great character in the comics, and really well rendered in some of the animated stuff. But this ain't the one.

Honestly. Tenner if you finish the whole season! 😂 #safebet

@RogerRoger early arrow and some of flash does tend to suffer from some poor writing, like characters sound the same as eachother, using the same dialogue. "And then I realised..." is a favourite line for them. I think arrow in particular suffered from a plot summary being spoken to different character before every advert break too (which is alot of summaries in 42 minutes!). Serious? I'm not sure, just a bit hammy. Some actors seem a bit insincere in their roles and Stephen Amell is particularly wooden in the first few seasons. I stayed with it because I knew that like Smallville that they would start introducing other DC characters and ultimately I came to love Arrow and all the characters in it especially most of the new characters that were introduced in the customary post 4 season switch up. It's just a bit like a soap opera. You know it's trash but you just love tuning in to see what your favourite characters are up to! I think arrowverse wiki has all the air dates for the episodes so it shouldn't be too hard to watch it in order and I would start with arrow because alot of later Arrow harks back to early seasons.

I tend to agree with @KalofKrypton on most of his points, Flash and Supergirl start off fun but become formulaic. It's usually to the detriment of a main character becoming mopey and unlikeable but every time Flash or Supergirl become miserable, I still tune in to see characters like Joe, J'onn, Alex, Maggie, Julian, Ralph, Nia etc because they are mostly fun to watch.

You are definitely spot on about Legends, I wasn't so bothered about Rip but Vandal Savage was woefully miscast. I also found Hawkman to be fairly unbearable but I think they realised what worked and ran with that and mostly dropped the baggage after the first season.

The jury is still out on Batwoman as I've yet to watch it, I suspect I will still love it even if it is trashy! I like her character in the books so...

Having said that, Titans is quite a departure from the books, not sure about Beast Boy eating that guy's heart when he was a lion in the cage and Kori's outfit and make up and characterization is just a bit ridiculous. However I still enjoyed the show, Dick Grayson, Hawk, Dove and Wonder Girl being stand out characters for me!

I love Black Lighting, not sure if it is just because it is more on the nose but I certainly felt more for the plight of black people in America than Luke Cage made me feel. Having said that Luke Cage season 2 was a massive step up from season 1 so I am gutted it got the can.

P.S. @RogerRoger the Gungans are fun especially the chief! I quite like Neelix but I prefer Phlox, I probably draw the line at Schumacher but Phonebooth was pretty good!
Edit: just googled his other films, Lost Boys, Number 23 and flatliners are pretty good too.

@LN78 Woah, you leave Pierce Brosnan out of this 😂😂

@ralphdibny ah I forgot about Titans. It has its moments, but they are few and far between. I think more than anything, it's just disappointing and tends to drag along.

@RogerRoger I'll take it in Neelix murder tributes!

@RogerRoger voyager took a good while to get good I think, it's probably my least favourite Trek but still has some of my favourite characters in it. I think maybe arrows repeated dialogue is a bit more inexcusable because it is to do with emotional self realisation rather than the matter at hand which the voyager super cut seems to be about.

I always wanted to make a super cut of Riker putting one foot up on the con with his crotch in Data's face. That always made me laugh.

@KALofKRYPTON I'm about half way through doom Patrol now and it is bloody good, a million times better than Titans. It's like a cross between runaways, legends of tomorrow and legion and it is the sum of all it's parts

@ralphdibny I saw some of Doom Patrol. It was good, but I just found Cyborg's budget look too distracting 😂
Have you finished season 2 of Titans?

Also, I assume you've seen this?

@KALofKRYPTON haha nah I haven't seen that, as a larger person I can relate to his unique ways of physically interacting with the world around him (and occasionally causing starships to explode as a result)

Cyborg does look weird, it's mainly the head piece not going all the way to the middle of his head and the way it pushes his scalp down on the top but leaves a gap between the scalp and the head piece at the back. I quite like the characterisation though, it's basically the opposite of the mopey Cyborg from the JL film. But it's not like he's the stand out character, the Doom Patrol steal the scene every second they are on screen.

Nah I haven't seen season 2 at all yet. Probably just going to watch them in the order they came out, so Swamp Thing next and Titans S2 after that. Fudge knows if they are all related but I'd watch them all anyway so it doesn't matter.

@ralphdibny It has something to do with a previous injury Frakes had I think.

Season 2 of Titans is no better really. There are a handful of brilliant scenes though, and
Natalie Gumede makes for a great Mercy.

I hope you enjoy Swamp Thing. Best DC TV show so far. I still can't really get why it got cancelled.

So after last week's really rather terrible plastics episode of Doctor Who, this week we get a slightly better mental health episode. It was still bursting with eye rolling moments, crap villains ultimately easily dispatched but certainly a better thing on the whole compared to last week.

Something I noticed about this week's episode, and thinking back, something true of a lot of 13's run in general, is that the show seems to have quite a problem with pacing and structure.
Episodes generally lack a traditional story act structure, and as a consequence of that - there's no determinate pacing at any point. Rather than the stories unfolding, things just happen as if they're being read out monotonously with no change in speed, inflection or emphasis.

The trailer for next week looks promising though.

@KALofKRYPTON I hope so too, I weren't sure if it was going to be good, I did read something about studio interference and the episode count being cut mid season. Ah well I guess I'll find out soon enough!

@ralphdibny It's a proper drama. Really nicely structured, produced, written and directed. The cast are all good too.

It's mostly a take on Alan Moore's run on the comics I think, truly criminal it was cut short. It was meant to have kicked off a Justice League Dark bunch of shows. I could totally get on board with Deadman, Zatana and Etrigan shows!

@KALofKRYPTON nice, even just a team based JL dark show would be awesome!

@LN78 Come on, that is completely uncalled for. There is absolutely no need to be so unpleasant to @RogerRoger. He's an ace guy, always respectful and is perfectly entitled to enjoy whatever films, games or TV programmes he pleases. If it makes him happy, so what? And if you happen to disagree with his views you can do so respectfully if you so desire, but being so nasty is not on. If it bothers you that much then perhaps you are the problem.

@LN78 Yeah it wasn't cool, maybe you should have just kept it brief and not gone into so much detail, as it came across as quite scathing. He is only being himself and not his fault you do not like the way he comes across on the forum. It is good that you've apologised but maybe bite your tongue the next time you feel the need to do something like that.

Anyone else here watch Vikings? I feel like season 6 has been a bit disappointing except for the last couple of episodes. And it could being great again or it could be a GoT season 8 from what I've heard about that.
That last episode for the mid-season finale really put things back in gear for now though.

I may've read the masked songer (I assume it's meant to be singer) as The Masked Snogger at first @Arugula. That would be quite a different show indeed!

... Wouldn't be surprised if it did exist though somewhere 😂

The Masked Singer is bizarre. It feels like a fake TV show you'd see in The Purge films or something.

@Ralizah I wish all shows like that would get purged. Not that I watch any of them, but I get annoyed at just hearing about them. And don't get me started on Gogglebox. For the life of me I do not understsnd the appeal of something like that.

@Arugula @Ralizah @JohnnyShoulder
I got roped into watching the “Masked Singer” season premiere after the Super Bowl and I quite enjoyed it. Then when I tried to watch the second episode I was already so over it and bored of the clowns on there (Jenny McCarthy looks great but you can only tolerate so much of that Dr Kim guy). I didn’t even make it to the end. Once you know the celebrities in the masks are washed up people desperately hanging on their precious fading notoriety to try to re-kickstart their dying careers, it’s less fun. Also, the show requires too much knowledge of pop culture icons and I just couldn’t relate.

I'm looking forward to the new season of Castlevania next month. First two seasons were a lot of fun.

@Jaz007
Watched all of Vikings except for the latest season, not started that one yet.

Anyone checked put The Expanse? Well worth a look if you love science fiction space drama. This has got great characters and plenty of excitement going on, but at the same time the physics and the science are really on point, far more than most.