[S01.E11: 3 X 1]

3 hours ago, Gwen-Stacys said:

"The entire Xmen franchise is based on an idiot premise, at any moment one of the supposed super geniuses could hire a PR firm, unionise mutants and set up a colony somewhere on a small island chain or another planet/dimension/moon. They don't because writers constantly blow up those colonies in order to return to the status quo of the mutants hunted and persecuted so we can endure 60 years of the same plot recycled ad nauseum."

Actually, the point of The X-Men franchise was to mirror the civil rights movement of the 60s, with Professor X playing the part of MLK and Magneto as Malcolm X. When you look at the entire series from this perspective, it all makes sense. You have mutants that can pass for human (like the black folk that could pass for white) and those that can't (I.E. obviously black folk). The subject matter seems ad naseum bc it is ad naseum in real life.

But on topic of this episode, I actually enjoyed it. It was very much a table setting episode for what's going to happen in the season finale as well as the second season. The Mutants are going to be divided into two warring entities that are ultimately fighting for the same end game (just like the comics).

I'm well aware that mutants are supposed to mirror the civil rights movements of the 60's ... However;

A) It's a poor comparison, mutants typically don't trigger till puberty as opposed to black people who tend to start off black and in some cases lighten over time 
B) Mutants have god like powers that allow them to regularly destroy buildings, ignore basic physics and rip holes in space time
C) Mutants have access to superior technology that allows them to leave Earth whenever they'd like
D) The real life civil rights movement actually made significant progress over the last seven decades as demonstrated by the election of Obama and the reduction of 'racist' policies in the last 60 years while mutants have undergone a rinse repeat style of save the world, be hated, save the world, be hated and persecuted by the government for what the violent minority does. As demonstrated by the Civil War Saga where all mutants had to register and submit to government authority or be locked up in a hell dimension indefinitely without trial or due process. 

The premise is stupid because god like powers would allow some people to set up communes where they can be king/queen, like Xavier and his little militia group made up of brainwashed teenagers. 

[S01.E11: 3 X 1]

19 hours ago, sjohnson said:

The Mutant Underground has no end game. They just are going to hang out indefinitely. This is not drama. Action, action, action as the script saves them from the Sentinels, yes, but not drama. This is really undermining the Polaris character for me, because she should be making real choices about the pregnancy. Hollywood is too conservative to seriously allow the character the choice of abortion, but the idea that two mutants would of course be able to produce a healthy child is nonsense, especially if you grant the mutant premise. One body that produces magnetic fields has to be very different from a body that produces lasers. It's not quite dogs marrying cats, but the assumption that the child of course would be viable long term really relies on mutation being FX, rather than an attribute of the body.

The Struckers haven't decided what to do, so they at least have a meaningful choices to make, starting with, does a mutant listen to human (parents)? So for me they've always been more interesting.

The can of blood sharing looks stupid to me. The idea that sharing blood somehow means sharing powers strikes me as evidence the only science Hollywood writers know is homeopathy, which is not a science at all. 

As for this episode, the problem is that the Frosts don't even have a middle game. There isn't a glimmer of an idea as to how they will "stop" the superHound program, any more than there was about how they could stop the Hound program. Tear down one lab? The government builds more, secretly. Kill one scientist? The government hires an army to take up where Garrett Dillahunt left off. You don't stop a war by blowing up one base, or by killing one commander. To me, the fundamental silliness means that the cuckoos are just a waste, even though their shtick is momentarily amusing. 

The Mutant Underground is terrible; it's poorly funded, poorly supported and poorly organized, all they're doing is finding a hole and hoping the government doesn't find them while helping other mutants flee to 'safer' ground. They have only one major hub and it's overcrowded with refugees with no sign of relief.

The Struckers have been stuck in a stupid loop since the beginning, the parents keep thinking they can get the system to change while their children are being hunted and attacked every couple of days (I'm not clear on how much time has actually passed in the show so far). They are clueless, the children make token efforts at fighting but instead of learning how to harness their powers more effectively to better handle these frequent confrontations instead their mum has them doing Algebra.

The blood sharing is just mutant pseudo science, none of the powers make any sense if you think about it for longer than a few seconds.

As for the Frosts, we don't know what they're up to, they're devious amoral telepaths that do what they want whenever they want to in order to further their own agenda, even their boss/contact has no idea what they're up to, only whines when they do stuff after the fact. From what I can gather their short term goal is to recruit mutants, their middle goal is to take down the Hound programs and Sentinel service and if they're anything like Frost, their long term goals are probably to ensure that no one bothers them with giant robots and hybrid mutant attack dogs and or world domination.

The entire Xmen franchise is based on an idiot premise, at any moment one of the supposed super geniuses could hire a PR firm, unionise mutants and set up a colony somewhere on a small island chain or another planet/dimension/moon. They don't because writers constantly blow up those colonies in order to return to the status quo of the mutants hunted and persecuted so we can endure 60 years of the same plot recycled ad nauseum.

The Frosts could gather a handful of powerful mutants raid the Hound facility and use the 'manacles' to bind the strong the mutants together and create a hive mind controlled army of super mutants. 

They could do it with about ten mutants, Sage in the middle to process data, Warpath to add his enhanced senses and durability, the three cuckoos around them to organise the communication of the group and distract enemies, one of the mutants that can turn stuff invisible, The wonder twins to attack and defend, Lorna to use metal to create massive metal structures and last but not least Clarice to portal the small army around the place. With their powers combined it wouldn't be hard to take down humans with guns. They could even do so with minimal blood shed if they were so inclined.

Once they succeeded they could use this as a first step to an actual rebellion/revolution instead of running and hiding all the time.

Yes I overthink these things. 

[S01.E10: eXploited]

While we're complaining about representation, I'm upset about the lack of gay characters, not a single one, where's the hot ginger man ? 

With all the pacing issues, they should have shoe horned a gay romance subplot unnecessarily so that we'd all have a break from the capture, rescue motif.

[Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016) - General Discussion]

I didn't enjoy this season as much as the last season, I think the main reason was that I wasn't particularly invested in Wendimoor and didn't really think there was much in the way of stakes involved, it started with a prophecy about a boy being able to fix everything and involved a lot of stupid violent people being stupid and violent before the reset, the two families ended up killing each other because they were led by stupid people who wouldn't listen to reason and the knights who had no characterization at all. (Also if there's only two families there's got to be a lot of inbreeding if they hate each other)

I watched the last season repeatedly because I enjoyed the twisty plot and the character interactions. I doubt I'll rewatch this even once. 

I was more irritated that Ken became stupid rather than he turned to the dark side. He told Fredkin that these people were far too dangerous to interfere with and then he tries to stop Dirk from doing his thing in the last episode. It's not like Moloch was even functional at Blackwing so it's not like him leaving was even a big loss.

Also why were guys with swords and sling shots killing so many men with guns ? Were they wearing magic armor or something ? 

[S01.E09: outfoX]

8 hours ago, Finis Terre said:

They have a lot of mutants, but those mutants are reluctant to fight - it was already established in one of the early episodes when the core crew planned to recover Lorna.

Reed's consoling of the wife had zero effect on the safety of the mission. By then the four mutants were already captured. 

I don't think that all the mutants are reluctant to fight, there was the invisible guy that got shot last time that seemed to have no problem fighting to free Lorna, there was the teenagers that Lorna was training, there were the other half a dozen mutants they recently saved that could have at least played scout.

Johnny also said that the other mutants would be leading the assault against the lab but we never saw them.

As for Reed consoling his wife, I think you misunderstood me, I didn't mean at the end where she was freaking out and trying to save them with her awesome powers of whining but when they were supposed to be watching the cameras in the middle of the mission and they just got sidetracked with their conversation and started hugging and all I could think was shouldn't you be paying attention to your children?

Also attacking the sub station directly seemed weird, couldn't they have just taken down the power lines to the grid ? 

[S01.E09: outfoX]

Reed consoling Caitlin while he was supposed to watch the security cameras made me angry at the both of them.

There are like a hundred mutants hanging around that place and they decided to bring 4 mutants and 2 humans to take out the substation and didn't think to bring anyone else to play look out. Neither of the invisible guys were used. The main assault had 4 mutants and ... a hundred mutants hanging out somewhere else doing something off screen.

This show seemed to have such potential in the first few episodes but all the characters bounce from one stupidity to the next. 

[S01.E07: eXtreme measures]

I find myself so bored by the Strucker and so frustrated by the Mutant Underground conflict, the Struckers are alternately stupid, reckless or sanctimonious and the Mutant Underground is run haphazardly and with no apparent rhyme or reason. 

[S01.E06: got your siX]

Caitlin is so incredibly stupid at this point. She's constantly tossing out her opinion to the people who've been fighting for their lives for years and she's complaining that the kids shouldn't be training to use their powers because... they should have normal lives...

 

You can't have a normal life if you can't survive a run in with metal spiders or guys with guns.

At least Reed's opinions are based on previous experience with both sides whereas Caitlin just whines about some idealized version of reality where talking about problems somehow will resolve them. 

Until Lorna starts talking about how all humans are worthless I'm going to reserve judgement on her potential Magnetoness. 

Lorna and the Mutant Underground have shown incredible restraint. People with guns are frequently attacking them and instead of reacting with deadly force they go out of their way in order to preserve the lives of the people trying to capture or kill them. 

[S01.E03: Kandahar]

5 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

How would they make a version of the Punisher who isn't a psychopath? 

I don't think the comic book character is a psychopath, he's just more inclined to kill bad guys than the likes of the X-men who keeps their villains alive so that they can randomly and frequently changes sides on a dime for plot purposes. Just because he's a mass murderer doesn't mean he has to violently assault someone claiming to want to help him. The whole point of the Punisher is to punish bad guys with violence and death. In this he just seems to beat on anyone he feels like. He seems to lack any moral code or real convictions. It makes for a tiresome character. IMO

The whole tying someone naked to the chair and randomly beating them up as payback for releasing a video of soldiers murdering a cop after torture seems OTT, I could understand being unhappy with him for disrupting his life but the reaction seemed like gratuitous violence and nudity solely for the sake of violence and nudity. MMV

[S01.E03: Kandahar]

And this is the episode that made me dislike the main male and female character. Frank was a complete psychopath to the whistleblower guy and I couldn't stand the interim Directors attitude with asking her former partner if he spoke to his old boss like that considering that only a day? or two ago she was mouthing off to her boss. Self righteous and stupid the both of them. 

I thought this show might be entertaining, Punisher is one of the more interesting Marvel characters and this show has ruined him as far as I'm concerned. All this unnecessary violence just makes Frank look like an unhinged psychopath and I'm bloody sick of the dead wife flashbacks. 

[Season 1 Discussion]

I just started watching this show yesterday and I've yet to find a character I root for except maybe the chauffeur and the major domo/butler. 

Fallon is a red hot mess who is only propped up by others because she's a pretty girl who supposedly is really smart at energy, though we've seen little of that in the show since she spends most of the time getting drunk, fighting with her step mom and screwing the help when she's supposed to be working. 

Cristal is boring and terrible at her job which she only got because she slept with the boss, Sammi Jo wore out his welcome about the second time he was lounging around shirtless, Blake is mostly a push over when it comes to his kids, Steven is a self righteous sap who has terrible taste in men. 

I'm not sure why I watched these episodes other than I was bored but I doubt I'll be watching another episode because it's not interesting enough to wait around for the next episode. 

[S04.E06: Back from the Undead]

I'm really not feeling this season. Even 10 K isn't making this enjoyable any more. 

I'm slightly worried that once 10 k hits his magic number a zombie will kill him... 

[S01.E05: boXed in]

I found the solution to the bleeding artery kind of half baked. Wouldn't a bleeding artery be a problem even after you stitched up the incision? 

The Mutant Underground seem to have very few active members, they have a metal bender, a fire bender, a purple smoke psychic and a super tracker and a couple of invisible guys. Seems kind of bare bones for a underground network even with the addition of a telekinetic, a shielder and a teleporter. 

I wish they took fear guy along for the decoy mission, would have made more sense. They could have had him make a scene then have the invisible guy disappear him. 

Reed walking around with a guy who was denouncing him five minutes seemed like a really weird choice by management and Reed. 

[S02.E04: Chapter Four: Will the Wise]

3 hours ago, mmecorday said:

I would rather Demagorgon Jr. had eaten the turtle. The whole deal with Dustin and Dart made me think of a horrible movie called "Pod People" and thank you very much for THAT, show.

I assumed that Demagorgon Jr had already eaten the turtle because A) it's slow and would be easy to eat since it was last seen on the floor B) Jr had grown significantly since we'd last seen it and supernatural growth is usually aided by eating something large.  

Dustin got super attached to the pet he had for a couple of days, ignoring the other 2 pets in the house. Dustin is my least favorite of the children.

That shower scene was odd, as is Billy. I'm still waiting for the punchline or purpose behind his addition to the show. 

[S01.E04: eXit strategy]

This episode makes me really curious as to what will happen next episode. Now that the captured loved ones have been freed, will the family continue to stay with the Underground, will Andy and his sister get some training from any of the older more experienced mutants ? Will Reed be reprimanded for his attempt to sell out the Mutant Underground for leniency for his family? 

I found the flashbacks and the cartel storyline kind of weak and annoying.

I liked that the mutants actually showed off a little of what they can do, even though I found it irritating that Strong Guy didn't bother to carry off Pulse in order to save him/take him out of the enemy's hand. 

It's probably bad that the only names on this show I remember is Dreamer, Polaris, Andy and Reed. 

[S01.E03: eXodus]

12 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

If I thought the show was taking this attitude, I would stopped watching immediately. In the real world we have people who are persecuted for their religion and their race. When extremists on either side think there is no way to one day live together peacefully we end up with suicide bombers and genocide.  In the movies, Magneto was a terrorist (and genetic racist). He killed hundreds (thousands) of innocent people. When one of his most loyal followers lost her mutant powers (Mystique), he abandoned her. I never understood why Xavier kept allowing him to do that. 
(Fun fact : according to the movies, the guy who tortured Magneto and killed his parents in the concentration camp was also a mutant - - not a human.) 

In the movies, the future always end up with giant robots murdering mutants and humans because humans may eventually pop out mutant children. 

In the present of this show, they are sending killer robot spiders to murder any mutants and humans in the way whenever someone doesn't meekly submit to government capture. Once captured those mutants are collared and made defenseless against other human inmates who will happily beat them for the lols. Mutants are doomed regardless of how well they behave.

In reality, mutants would win because they have superpowers and their genes are far superior than those of the average human but because it's fiction, humanity has to create robots to try and counteract natural selection. 

Also it's far easier for the Xmen to maintain the moral high ground when they live in a mansion and the solution to most of their problems involve killing the 'bad mutants'. It's far harder to be morally righteous when you're separated from your loved ones, being chased by oppressive government institutions and have no money. 

Edited to add: When Andy wanted to 'rob' the bank, I assumed he was planning on ripping the ATM that was in the background from out of the wall, or just smashing it open from the inside. Were we supposed to assume he wanted to rob the vault or something ? through a bunch of bystanders ? Because I didn't get that impression at all. 

[S01.E03: eXodus]

8 minutes ago, shrewd.buddha said:

I could sympathize more if the kids were working to get to Canada or Mexico or some place they could live and work in peace. But if they are going to camp out on the outskirts of the city and steal all their needed supplies, they are going to be a threat to other people whether they are mutants or not. They would basically be a gang of outlaws, which people would justifiably come to fear.

I hope the show doesn't continue with the heavy-handed attitude that all mutants are victims and all normal humans are jerks. Andy was being bullied at school before anyone knew he was a mutant - - so it's sort of a cheat to start saying the normal looking mutants are being targeted for being different. Both humans and mutants can be  jerks.

I'm not 100% clear on the show's timeline but I think it's only been a few days since Andy's prom meltdown so the family is still holding out hope that they can be reunited with their lawyer dad/husband. The Mutant Underground is already being treated like a terrorist organisation despite having done nothing particularly violent for political purposes. So far all they're doing is the mutant equivalent of the underground rail road, getting people to places that suck less. As for stealing to survive, they haven't actually hurt anyone to get supplies so they're less of a threat and more of an inconvenience. 

I don't think the show has been making the case that humans suck and mutants are poor little victims. This episode we have a mind raping 'good guy' mutant and we had the Uncle and Cousin having generally positive interactions with the mutant siblings. I think they're doing a good job of showing how there's good and bad in both communities. 

[S01.E03: eXodus]

4 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

I lost sympathy for the family when the kid basically decided that it was okay to become bank robbers - but opted to just destroy property and steal money from parking meters. And the Mom just went along with it for the most part. Very bad parenting skills.
The mutants may be unfairly targeted, but now they are leaving behind a trail of crime and destruction. People are not going to care about treating them fairly if the mutants are burning down their houses and stealing things. 

I feel that if a government agency was hunting me down and trying to imprison and or kill me solely because of my potential for destruction, I wouldn't care about some minor property damage. As the saying goes "you might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb". At this point they're already on the run from homicidal agencies and their treatment isn't going to get better no matter how well behaved they are from now on. 

At this point Andy didn't hurt anyone even though with his power set he could have crushed every single one of those people in the mob. I'd say he's very far away from being an unrepentant criminal. 

That said I do wish the kids would use their down time more productively and get some training from Proudstar on how to use their powers more effectively. Telekinesis and Shielding could be an awesome combination if it wasn't pulled out randomly and incompetently. 

[S02.E13: Betrayal]

I don't care who shot Baz. I'm still hoping that Nikki develops an infection and dies during the hiatus. She makes everyone stupider when she's around. 

[S07.E07: The Dragon And The Wolf]

Viserion the Wight Dragon reminded me of Azula from Avatar with its blue fire, I'm guessing he was upgraded through death magic so that the fire is hotter than normal, so that it's 3000 degrees as opposed to the reddish flames that are only 900 degrees celsius. 

I liked that they reminded us all that "dragons aren't slaves" the same thing Dany told that slaver back before she had him roasted. Hopefully that's foreshadowing that the Night King will be burned by super blue fire once Viserion sees his mummy again. 

As soon as Sansa said treason I finished the sentence with Baelish before she had even uttered the word. I'm guessing that most of the Sansa/Arya arguments were real up until Sansa sought Littlefingers advice in this episode. Arya wanting to be Lady of Winterfell was ridiculous motivation.

I really wonder how Theon plans on rescuing Yara from Euron. A secret night time raid on the Iron Islands ? Chasing his fleet to wherever it's going ? 

Varys was disappointing this season. He didn't do much except whine that Dany burned a couple of nobles alive, apparently unconcerned with the thousands of people she burned prior to that. 

I did like Sansa's description of the Lords of the North as weathervanes, shifting to whichever way the wind was blowing. Apparently the rest of the North isn't that concerned with oaths as the Starks are.

I have no idea how the Unsullied managed to get to Kings Landing. Did they just march all the way there ? Did the Dothraki resupply them ? 

Oh well, I guess we'll find out what happens in a year or three. 

[S07.E06: Beyond the Wall]

I think the Night King's motives are obvious. He's an ambitious king, he sees a land south of his that is full of resources that he wants... The living, that he can turn into undead subjects that will never revolt and he's merely invading the territory in order to gain more subjects and in effect more power. 

If and when he takes over Westeros, he never has to worry about the long summer and pesky humans wandering around his territory again. 

And if he gets bored ruling for a thousand years over his newly enlarged kingdom, he can either have a long nap for a few centuries or get himself some boats and visit Essos. 

I was spoiled about dragon death by a facebook meme. If John had simply jumped on Drogo, the dragon could have left and they could have dealt with any of the stragglers while on dragon back, there was no real need to stay and fight off the incoming wave of zombies. I kept hoping he'd throw his sword at one of the White Walkers in a last ditch effort to lower the numbers of zombies around. 

Oh well I'm curious how well an undead dragon fights. 

[S07.E03: The Queen's Justice]

It would have been nice if Jon verbalised the threat more clearly than just saying the White Walkers were coming... Something along the lines of there's at least several White Walkers who can raise the dead who can only be killed by fire and they have an army of thousands. A single line that would convey more relevance than simply saying the threat is dire.

After all it's been 7? years and the White Walkers have done very little except attack an unknown (to Westerosi) Wildling settlement. He never bothered to mention fighting a wight in the Night's Watch or how effective the undead army was at killing. He's said very little of any value.

Yes I am very late to this party, I only started watching this season yesterday. 

[The Mist - General Discussion]

Well that was awful. I kept waiting for that paint shop to explode the mall but apparently they forgot that plot point in all the stupidity.

Does seem they are trying to get a second season with the 8 people who survived this nonsense being shown at the end.

I don't think anyone wants to watch a second season of this crap. At least Under the Dome had that kind of train wreck appeal, this was just bleh. I mostly watched to see if Adrian would have some fun gay sex with someone but the closest we got was watching Closet jock making out with him in the hospital bathroom. I guess it was for the best that Closet Jock stayed in the psych ward, though he probably won't survive the evil military using this town as the Mist's feeding ground.

Poor Jay, not only was he risking his life for his crazy girlfriend/sister repeatedly, the only reward he got for his efforts was a burnt hand, multiple bruises and sent to be killed by his dad only to die from being raped by a smoke monster. 

Netflix really does seem to have the most terrible selection. After Starstruck, Death note and now this, I'm worried every time I click on anything on Netflix. *sigh*

[The Mist - General Discussion]

On 8/20/2017 at 10:23 PM, ottoDbusdriver said:

ETA: How come anyone else goes into the Mist and imagines something that ends up killing them (and generally right quickly), but our main characters -- no matter how much they are exposed to the Mist -- always seem to get off scott-free.  Mia with her mom, Kevin with his dad, Alex and the dark manifestation that killed the little girl.  

Super plot armor, as opposed to gas masks which would make more sense if it was a pathogen of some sort. 

Everyone goes from apparently sane to homicidal really quickly in this town/show. 

I think Jay is the most likable person in this show, which is probably why he wanted Eve to put him out of his misery so he wouldn't have to put up with the stupidity any more. 

[The Mist - General Discussion]

Natalie's religion didn't take long before it started murdering the non believers. Like one day... I think, the timeline on this show is hard to fathom.

I'm assuming that Vic considered his banishment as a sign of the downhill nature of the group. 

Eve sucks, everyone sucks. Why am I still watching this abomination ?