7th Station ~TV, movies, games~

[Nayoko-Kihara]

I think I might be dropping "Legion" from my viewing schedule next time. I know it lost my attention once or twice in the first season, but it still left and overall positive impression by the end. This season it felt like I was forcing myself through the majority just for the sake of completing it.

[Celedam]

"iZombie" is ending after one more season as well. I was sad about when I first heard, but I also haven't enjoyed it as much since

Spoiler: show

the zombie thing became public + military zone, now complete with a cult!

I end up fast forwarding through chunks of episodes these days (or just letting them roll in the background while I read), so even though I was initially sad now I'm just hoping it'll be replaced with something that will be as enjoyable as the first couple of seasons were.

I just finished catching up on Netflix. (It's nice that Netflix gets CW shows immediately after their seasons end. Hulu lost the CW contract, and CW's own website is unusable.) And I gotta say, I enjoyed it…

Spoiler: show

I liked that it moved away from the murder-of-the-week formula and leaned into the real story of the increasingly imminent zombie apocalypse. It's still a CW show, of course, with all of the limitations that implies. But it scratches the same itch that Battlestar Galactica did, re: "This is the end of the world and we're just pretending to be a civilization." I look forward to the final season, because I genuinely want Liv to have a happy ending.

If I have one complaint, however, it's that there should be more visible effects of the blockade/siege on New Seattle. The U.S. might guarantee shipments of essential supplies to keep the city operating, but there should be shortages of non-essentials and a black market for more than just brains. Also, with Liv, Major, and Peyton pretty much running the city together, when and how will they address the fact that Fillmore-Graves was keeping the population of New Seattle as human shields? Will the humans now be free to leave the city, assuming the U.S. clears them to do so? Or will Major be forced to continue Chase Graves' policies because he was fundamentally right all along?

If the show is smart, that's what the final season will be about. Until Ravi discovers the yes-this-is-finally-it-and-we-can-produce-as-much-as-we-need cure, of course.

[Zunu]

iZombie:

Spoiler: show

Funny that you say it scratches a BSG itch. For me, it scratches a Psych itch. I can't really take it seriously because the characters are all so ridiculous, but at the same time, they're likeable and I get caught up in the immediate dangers they face.

Legion:

Spoiler: show

I agree that the story wasn't as strong as the first. In particular, it destroyed David's character by turning him into a quasi-rapist, just so they could construct a narrative where he's the villain and his victim is the hero. But I don't see Syd as a hero. We're supposed to believe she was (before the rape) justified in killing David because he wasn't 100% honest with her? Because she "saw" him wailing on some bad guys and enjoying it? That unbrainwashing Syd was unforgivable? That they suddenly trusted the Shadow King well enough to just let him walk off scot free? None of that made sense to me, except from the perspective that they were all still under SK's thrall. But that still won't give David an "out" when it comes to the rape (or sex under false pretenses) issue. The audience still needs someone to root for and right now I'm not sure who that is, from my perspective.

The Flash:

Spoiler: show

When the narrative can only advance through an ongoing series of unrealistically bad decisions, that's weak writing. I like the actors but the writers are ruining the show with pisspoor storylines. I also think it's not strictly necessary to have one season-long Big Bad.

Killjoys:
No spoilers but seeing Hannah John-Kamen ("Dutch") in Ready Player One just made realize that I miss this show, in all it's glorious B-level Canadian SF glory.

Speaking of Ready Player One:

Spoiler: show

I could never get past the first chapter of the book so I hope it's better than the movie was. I was knocked right out of my suspension of disbelief every time a character would refer to a GenX cultural reference as if it happened in their own childhood. And outside of the Oasis itself, the future seemed to have zero in the way of culture that accumulated past 1990 or so. I can get a few nods to the past, but they were talking about what would've been 40-50 year old memes as if they were still trendy. That's not SF, that's drippy nostalgia dressed up in "tech." Also, were we supposed to have any sympathy, at all, for Wade's underdeveloped aunt and her loser boyfriend? Because I couldn't care in the slightest when their building blew up. They felt less like real characters than the Iron Giant avatar in the Oasis. And, yawn, "super-hot-girl has a blemish which doesn't detract in the slightest from her beauty" trope?

[Celedam]

Ready Player One

Spoiler: show

I haven't read the book nor seen the movie, but as I understand it, the creator of the OASIS was a child of the '80s and obsessed with '80s pop culture, so when the OASIS grew to dominate the world, the creator's obsession became the players' obsession.

We are then supposed to believe that by the time of the story of Ready Player One, everyone is so locked into the OASIS that creativity and intellectual diversity have atrophied and the entire world is declining into a never-ending depression. Thus, no new pop culture.

Me, I don't buy it. Real-world history has shown that walled gardens on the Internet last only 8–10 years before users become restless and move on to other things. But that's what makes it science fantasy, I guess.

Of course, the creator of the OASIS was a representation of the author of the book, and it's really the author's obsession that is on display. When you think about it for more than two minutes, the whole thing seems like a silly little vanity project that was never meant to go as far as it did, but the book dropped at just the right time to be on the leading edge of the current wave of '80s nostalgia

[Celedam]

So this finally happened…



https://people.com/tv/kit-harington-rose-leslie-married-wedding-photos/

[Zunu]

Guess he knew something after all -- how to bend the knee

[Celedam]

I've watched through Episode 8 of My Hero Academia, and I'm not really enjoying it so far. I don't see why it's gotten so much hype as the next big thing after Attack on Titan and One Punch Man. Can anyone who's watched more of it tell me if/when it gets better?

[Shabranikuduu]

I'd give it till the end of the first season to see if you like it or not since there's a pretty big event in the last few episodes. If you still don't like it by then, I'd give up. I don't quite know how to phrase it because I don't want to sound like I don't like it, but basically if you didn't enjoy the last few episodes, I don't think you'll ever like it. I'm surprised to see it compared to Attack on Titan and One Punch Man. It's a pretty generic shounen but it uses the "generic"ness well which is why it's popular. It's definitely not the next AOT or OPM.

[Celedam]

^ As suggested, I finished the first season (i.e., through Episode 13).

It was okay, but I'm not interested in another two seasons / fifty episodes of the same. Not when there are sooooo many other things in my entertainment backlog. I can see the appeal of a show that combines superhero action with classroom comedy, but this show doesn't do either particularly well.

It's a pretty generic shounen but it uses the "generic"ness well which is why it's popular.

This, so much.

Ah well, moving on. Assassination Classroom looks more promising.

[Amped]