ketose

The thing that turns me off on any show is when "prophesy says" something because it completely eliminates world building. The 100 kind of got to that point, especially when they never answered why Becca's magic chip popped out the code immediately. She's also deus of machina as she created everything advanced before the show went to Bardo. It's amazing that a show like The 100 managed to get to 100 episodes on the CW. It's also funny how hard and fast it broke away from the original YA novels. Those books focus on Clarke and Bellamy on Earth, where the series is like The Walking Dead, going from place to place, destroying everyone and trying to find a new home.

Stargate survived for years as basically an anthology, where each planet represented an aspect of humanity given a different set of conditions. The mythology came later, and it was generally well written. Also, there was good character development.

This is what sucks about a lot of scifi / fantasy lately, and I'll leave out examples because they'll be a huge fight. Writers seem to think that because it's not "real" they can write *anything* they want. But the constraints are having to MAKE SENSE. It's easy in the real world, because everyone knows the rules. In fantasy, you have to make an effort to be true to your universe. One example from a good show is Continuum (starring Richard Harmon). They did a show about time travel, but they only traveled 5 times in the series and constructed a set of rules and consequences that made sense. The other problem is that unless you're doing a complete laser light show of a series, most people follow a scifi series for character development. This was also lacking in The 100, where the plot had far too much of a role in defining people's motivations. Ironically, with so few humans left, a majority may actually have been ready for the Last War / Test. I would have been interested in the aliens putting 6 or so characters on trial (Cadogan, Clarke, Raven, Octavia, Murphy, Shitheda) and using that to make a decision. Becca's biography has been retconned beyond all recognition, so who knows why she does anything. These aliens also don't do much research as they were surprised by everything about humans after they transacted.

Hey, wait. Clarke never ascended. They could just clone her and continue the human race. I see no drawbacks to this plan. Also, I would have preferred if only Murphy came back (because Emori was gone) then shot Clarke to death because she's a giant pain in the ass.

So, the "aliens" are not God, but they set up a bunch of "stargates" throughout the universe (they mentioned 48 billion light years, which is the approximate radius of the observable universe). Then they built in a code to take beings to the bonus round. How do you get the code? Who knows? Becca got it through dumb luck and then realized she was not going to get the right answer. So, some fun questions JR can't answer: How many people can take the test? It seems like anyone was able to jump in the sphere. Was Clarke trying to stop the test? Did she think Bill was going to fail or did she just want to see him bleed out? Was Bill going to pass the test? It seemed like he really believed in humanity. It's kind of horrific that the aliens would let any moron with the address book make the decision of taking the test. And the outcome of transcendence or total destruction is pretty unenlightened. At least there are only a few hundred humans left. What's the scale of this collective? There are like 2 trillion GALAXIES in the known universe. They're probably testing every minute.

And that's what rips off Stargate. People could ascend, but it would cut them off from the people who died and went to the afterlife. So, it ends up being this endless purgatory where you're a ball of energy. I think Stargate had a whole population ascend in one episode. Star Trek Lower Decks made fun of this idea a few weeks ago when a crew member actually went to a higher plane of existence, in terrible pain and terror.

So, this season's budget went to music rights, apparently. I was going to watch this later and skip the commercials, but the recorder cut off and I had to watch the last 15 minutes live. It seems like I didn't miss any "plot." I guess Clarke decided to pull the trigger instead of the lever. At least Octavia said Bellamy was right. The ending was some Lost with some more Stargate to boot.

Telling you might be a spoiler. In fact, the entire series takes place in that same desert because they never got out. :P Actually, the producers have claimed that STD and STP are trying to draw an audience that isn't part of the previous fan base. This strategy is dubious because the original CBS airing 3 years ago garnered a rating of 1.7, while this time it got 0.1 in the middle of a semi-lockdown. It should be interesting to see how poorly the show is received in completely unaired installments.

Almost there. Just have to make it through one more hour. Actually, 42 minutes because I won;t be watching it live. Why is it so bad to live in Sanctum? I thought they had the bug shield most of the time. And apparently Earth is now okay after 250 years instead of 120? Maybe Monty should have woke a couple people up every 50 years or so to check instead of going to some mystery planet. I assume they're going to do some mind drive thing and put Madi into some other body. Either that, or Clarke becomes an ascended being and just fixes Madi.

The show came out in the early 90's, so the resolution is going to be broadcast quality, which has something like 1/6 of the pixels of a standard HD show now. Plus, the color depth is not as good. I have some old stuff on VHS where the reception was less than perfect and there's "snow" in the screen. I remember when I first watched HD and was amazed at how much sharper it was.

I have good luck with the CW app on Roku. It probably works for other streaming devices as well.

It was interesting when Homelander saw all those memes about him because even with his power, he couldn't really stop the people who were being mean to him on the internet, especially since he seems to not be all that hip with the technology these days. It did make me think of an episode of "iZombie." Steven Weber played an evil CEO who picked a negative tweet at random, did some internet magic and the next day there was video of the kid who wrote it dead from an "accident." Homelander is homicidal, but it's all about control. When Becca or Starlight basically told him they weren't afraid of him killing them (or were prepared for death) he was kind of left with fewer options.

But Starlight's help could have gotten her in more trouble than doing nothing. In this world, (much like the real one) overpowered authority figures can create a backlash from the criminals who portray themselves as victims from someone who beats them instead of incarcerating them. Ironically, Homelander can rip a guy's heart out and watch the life go out of his eyes as long as there are no witnesses and Vought can cover it up.

I think the name Stormfront was kind of clever, since she's basically X-Men's Storm in terms of powers, and a storm front is a real weather condition. But then, it also fits for obvious reasons. The dumbest supe name for me is a tie between The Deep and Homelander, but I wouldn't tell Homelander that. Billy Joel's "You're Only Human" would have been one of those heavy rotation videos back in the days of MTV. I can see why Hughie would have been drawn to it. Fun fact: Mythbusters' Adam Savage is the nerdy friend drowning at the beach in the video.

The good thing about that trick is that it wasn't bulletproofed to keep Penn and Teller from knowing what the trick was. It was basically a slight of hand surrounding the skill of ripping a phone book in half. I'm pretty sure Penn knew that he made the wrong guess, but multiple guesses and instant replays are not part of the show. Some of the tricks now have magicians making 52 videos of them holding up a card and indexing every possibility. This guy just literally held up any old page and lied about the numbers.

The binge watching thing started when Netflix mostly streamed a limited number of reruns and people could catch up or have something to do on a lazy weekend. It's kind of a poor model to spend a lot of money producing a show and have people watch a whole season in two days and complain for another 51 weeks about when the next one starts. Netflix still does the full series release most of the time because it's their brand and they have more content overall. What sucks for me is that I signed up for a free month of Amazon Prime and I'll only be able to make it to episode 5 before it runs out.

I'm not really as invested in the characters on the show, and I like the scifi / Stargate stuff (although too little, too late). My take is that Bellamy does believe in aliens and their devices. They seemed to tell him that the war / test is coming. If that's the case, Cadogan is the Shepard in that he's trying to get everyone to the point of the final battle. In terms of Bob Morley, this is probably the best outcome. He got to do a whole episode featuring him and he gets to have a big death scene in an episode where nothing else really important seems to happen. Of course, for a plot-driven show, the plots are also terrible. The confrontation between Bill and Shitheda was lame. The insects killed like 2 people. The catching up stuff just points out how convoluted the stories are this season. I'm also leaning toward "judgement day" being focused on Clarke and she will restore humanity by flipping a big switch that will accidentally kill Raven in the process.

The extras on Amazon say yes.

There's a thin line for Homelander. If he kills Vought executives, he'd probably lose his contract and be outright labeled as a villain. The closest thing Homelander has to love is adoration, and Vought is the company that covers up his crimes so he can still be adored by the public. He probably wouldn't have killed Stillwell, except that Butcher provided the opportunity to be the killer instead of Homelander.

In the 80's I remember those David Copperfield specials where he made giant objects disappear. It's big and showy, but the "trick" is mundane for magicians. The stuff that Teller does that are legit original tricks aren't necessary all that big. Probably after 7 seasons, there's just not that much out there. While P&T love debunking, fooling them has got to be maybe a once a season proposition unless they give the performers some leeway.

90% of the quick change act was stuff she had on other other stuff. The technique is better than the old David and Danya act where I first saw quick changes. The stuff that was moving definitely could have been done by someone in the box with wires. I think maybe Penn and Teller just wanted her for their Vegas act. Then again, I'm not a magician and I can't explain every part of the act. One of the funny things about the CW is that I'll see magicians like Hans Klok about 3 times on "Masters of Illusion" before I see them on Fool Us.

Realistically, Homelander doesn't get put into situations were he fails. As he was going to the cockpit, he thought he could fix the situation. When he left, he probably didn't want to get into a fight with the passengers where he would use his laser vision and blow up the plane in mid-air that could be detected by radar or the black box. Lying is second nature to these people.

The Amazon extras in the episode (I watch it on my PC) explains how dolphins are pansexual and engage in recreational sex. It seemed like the Deep was the one not interested. Butcher definitely has a prejudice against supes of all kind. On the other hand, they are barely accountable for their actions, both by virtue of their powers making them unable to be policed and the corporate protection of Vought. Power corrupts, but it corrupts the supes to different extents. Homelander is probably not like Superman. Whatever allows him to fly might not let him hold up a plane. Plus, the idea that a superhero could hold onto a plane enough to push it without ripping through the hull pretty much goes against physics. Homelander knew that he was careless and saving one or two kids who would be witnesses could prove that superheroes shouldn't run military missions and hurt his boss's plans.

At the beginning, Butcher was telling Hughie almost nothing. He certainly didn't tell Hughie the bug he planted was a ruse to get one of the supe enforcers out in the open. Butcher also isn't one to tell the story of his wife right off the bat, especially when Homelander doesn't do any of the reckless things other supes do, it makes it harder to believe. I think it's good writing because it advances characters instead of plot. The CIA thing probably has more to do with the Director than anything else. She wants Butcher out there investigating the supes because she can't do it officially. I very much doubt if she just had a vial of Compound V she could take it to the lab. That stuff is a trillion dollar secret. I'm sure whatever scientific resource analyzed it either has a Vought mole working there or some hero worshipper who would take it to the Seven. Also, Homelander is overpowered and crazy. Trying to take him in or taking down Vought could very well be a suicide mission. She was willing to give Butcher the budget. However, Butcher either wants Homelander in a jail cell or murdered and if the CIA won't do the former, he'll do the latter.

There is literally a movie called "Transmorphers: Fall of Man" You get get really close to the line.