shrewd.buddha

"Your dad was trying to do the right thing ... but ended up activating a hundred killer robots. .. also, he was a bit too chatty and didn't feel like running that day.."

I am tired of the sci-fi trope which demands, for dramatic effect, everything must be blown up: space stations, planets, death stars, etc. ... as long as the precious humans are still breathing, nothing else matters .. What about the horses and chickens? Cows? Pigs? All the supplies needed for mining, distilling water, farming .. all the supplies that were onboard for the colony at Alpha Centauri ..? The entire show seems to be built around bouncing from one catastrophic crisis to another. Is there really an underlying or overarching story being told? - - or is it just episodic disasters with heavy-handed themes of family, friendship and embracing your special-ness? At one point Don jokes, while running, that there is never any time to deal with anything. And speaking of time and waste - - it was annoying when Scarecrow's handler human decided the time had come to make the ultimate sacrifice ... despite the fact that he had time to attempt a run back to the Jupiter. But no, best to use that time for giving farewell speeches to Will and Scarecrow. If only they had landed just a bit closer to their destination. And speaking of speeches.. Judy: "Should I give a speech?" Judy, you are you mother's child, pontification is in your blood. Go ahead, try not to give a speech.. Ever since the mutiny, Maureen seems to be the de facto captain of the Resolute. The decision to destroy the Resolute and send the children away felt very contrived - - whatever was necessary for the biggest emotional gut-punch. And they really drug out the departure of the children's ship. On the plus side, I will give the show credit for the joke about why would a ship have a self-destruct feature. And all the foreshadowing of Judy's bio-dad. Season 3 could be interesting ... but you know it will be messy and hamfisted.

So, Judy gets a message from her parents, telling her that they outside of the space station, left behind in maintenance pods... And Judy's reactions is basically, "Whatev ... I guess we kids are on our own now." I kept waiting for some scene where Judy would tell someone, anyone, that her parents had been 'thrown overboard', but no.. And Not Dr. Smith was on team Robinson for about half an episode - but then immediately goes back to anti-Robinson after John spoke harshly to her. One episode to go, but I have to say that getting through this season feels like an effort. Many of the 'dire situations' feel a bit forced and you can almost see the effort of the writers to pair up different characters for parallel crises to jump back and forth between. I am chalking it up to the notion that maybe the writers are aiming at more of a tween audience.

So the Robinsons just approach, dock, and merrily hop off their ship onto a space station before having any communication with said space station? This type of reckless behavior explains most of their problems. And TPTB are doubling down on Not Dr. Smith. We are supposed to believe that this Jessica Harris has the ability to hack the security system to switch identities, DNA profiles and erase any digital evidence? .. so that only the Robinsons will know the truth, yet have no proof? Ugh. If this were not a sci-fi show with high production values, I would be getting off the train at this point..

I have talked to a couple of people who said they gave up on the series mid-way and specifically sited Not!Dr.Smith as part of the reason. My viewing partner also talks about how this character makes the show difficult to watch. But now the show is stuck with this actor/character situation and it's difficult to see how they can really make it work. And as others have said - why continue calling her Dr. Smith? It would be different if the character had been played as mischievously disruptive, but no, she is a straight up murderous sociopath. Why would the parents let their children be alone with her? Why do we have do endure her constant droning monologues? Do the writers think the majority of views are really enjoying this? And Penny was perfectly okay with Will reading and 'publishing' her journal without her consent? Not likely. The show could benefit from toning down the "very special episode" aspect of the stories dealing with the children. However, I did appreciate when Maureen told John to consider what lives their children would have if they were forced to grow up without a larger society. She didn't specifically say 'incest', 'inbreeding', or 'sister wives' ... but I think we all got what she was implying ...

Season 4: It was nice to see the characters again. It seemed like a long, long time since season 3. Not sure that I like the cliffhanger ending for every single episode. What that a programming decision to promote binging? It got to the point that I started guessing where in the episode they would cut to black and roll credits... I would prefer to have some stories come to a satisfying close. At some point I realized that the Rocinante crew was not getting off that planet until the season was over. That's okay, I suppose .. tho it felt a bit padded out when the people planet-side and in orbit started solving their problems at the same time. Same with the Mars story line. It had some interesting parts, but it felt like waiting to see how much crap Bobbie had to go thru before taking the job Avasarala offered her at the beginning of the season. I was okay with Avasarala taking a bit of blow to her career and shown to have flaws. (But election politics is a bit nausea inducing, no matter the time frame.) All characters that are going to be around for a while should have some ups and downs. One thing that I'm still not clear on - where are the other 1300 'rings'? Are they in our galaxy? Or is there only the one ring in our solar system and the other rings are only visible after passing thru 'primary' ring? It seems hard to imagine that Earth could be policing the entrance to all those rings.

We watched it over 4 or 5 days - - it went pretty quickly and easily. However - I found it much less enjoyable than season one. In this season, Jack has already become jaded, bearded, grizzled and an expert at .. well, everything.. Also, Jack's girlfriend from season one disappeared without a trace or mention. Greer was the same type of dick he was in season 1, which fits and works for his character. But now Jack Ryan is the same type of dick, with no naivete or potential to grown and learn - - he is all grown up, no longer riding a bike, picking up strange women for one-nighters and has his brooding man-beard. The action was well done. But nothing was very subtle. El presidente turned out to be your typical evil villain who would cut his own brother's throat (we were sure there was going to be some type of twist there, but no..). Ryan's insta-love connection with spy-woman was also abrupt and lacked any visible chemistry. The episodes were easy to watch, but the writing has definitely gone downhill. I suppose that since the first season was considered a hit, the series will now get the "just churn 'em out" treatment.

Yes, Sophie lit a fuse, but Piety was a calculating, kidnapping, murdering, liver-stealing black-magic psychopath. They were worlds apart. And Phillo and Faerie girlfriend apparently dumped yet another dead body that no one has found yet. What was the point of Faerie girlfriend's attempted jail break via faked suicide? Incompetence? We were sure she had grabbed some keys or something in order to make a true escape, but .. nope. What are her street-smart talents supposed to be, exactly? The ability look disinterested at all times? And what a waste of 'magical' creatures. The most significant wielder of magic was a human: Piety. All the Fae 'people' were just stand-ins for minority race immigrants who get labelled with derogatory nicknames and confined to ghettos. Yes, the rising tide of nationalism is thing to be concerned about ... but this show is so ham-fisted in its approach that it feels lazy and off-putting. This show is basically a mockumetary. Side question: Do other countries that have different racial mixes than England (such as China, India, Nigeria ) have similar racial tensions and discrimination? Is there a country that is considered the gold standard for diversity representation? Can't say that I'm eager for more ... And I have seen news items that say the original creator has left the show and new showrunners have been brought on for season 2. Not a promising sign..

Racism, sexism, all forms of bigotry, fear mongering towards immigrants - and - the mandatory whore house. This felt like a swing-and-a-miss attempt to copy the look and feel of Game of Thrones (but with faeries). I was surprised they wrapped up the fae serial killer story line so quickly. Impressive visuals, but the acting felt overwrought and I wasn't buying what the lead actors were trying to sell .. especially their epic love for one another.

This episode had another one of those scenes where all the agents show up, guns drawn, at the suspect's work place. From a distance of half a block away, they make eye contact and yell "FBI!" - as if that would immobilize the suspect or protect any of the innocent people around him. Then the suspect, of course, runs - and *all* of the agents holster their guns and run after him. ... but he has plenty of distance and time to get to his vehicle and drive away (tho he is stopped). This SWAT-like approach appeared very poorly thought out and executed.

I am completely over television shows where co-workers constantly refer to one another as family ... but are always, constantly, surprised by every. single. thing. that comes up in one another's life. And they never, ever, tell one another anything of significance (until after the fact).

Just watched the finale and can now leave this show and its mind-numbing attacks on logic behind me. Most of the illogical has already been noted. These are the ones that bugged me (but I fear the rant could be endless): Giorgiou continually referring to the Control AI as 'Leland'. The excessive hand-to-hand combat with an AI entity that could not be harmed was bad enough. But Giorgiou kept making it seem as it she was working out some personal vendetta against someone who no longer existed: Leland was a victim of the AI - he's not there anymore. The Control AI being completely contained in Leland's body and the entire AI fleet shutting down when that body was destroyed. Why did the AI want to engage in mixed martial arts instead of infecting Discovery's computer systems to find the precious Sphere data? Serak, Amanda and Spock never mentioning Michael again would just make them seem weird. Michael grew up on Vulcan, graduated, joined Starfleet, served on two starships and was a major part of the Klingon war: this would have left all types of evidence behind and many different groups of people would remember her and her parents. And lastly, I don't get what the writers were attempting with the Red Signals: Starfleet witnessed seven signals and created a map of them. The Klingons saw one or more signals. Spock also created a map that was a near match to Startfleet's map. Maps show you where things are - they are not prophesies or predictions. After the appearance of the seven signals, another signal appears - but they never say that it matches a location on the map. They say they don't know where the signals will appear. So why does everyone think these are the same signals and there will be seven of them?!? Only Spock's dreams of seven signals could be interpreted as a prediction - actual sightings are not predictions. If you saw seven lights in the sky, you could point to where they were. If another light appeared in another location, wouldn't you say "Hey, there's another light similar to the seven I saw previously."? And did the writers realize that the signal at Terralysium would have had to occurred thousands of years before the incident ... because the light from the signal would have taken that long to reach our galaxy ... because light can only travel at the speed of light?

Basically, the above.. How can the writers forget the abilities of Discovery's spore drive when they overemphasized it at the beginning of the season? (It would take a warp drive ship hundreds of years to get there.) There was no reason they should have had a one hour time limit before Control arrived - - except for the fact that the plot demanded it. Another glaring plot hole: The Red Angel suit must be used by Burnham because of its DNA coding? They are building a suit from scratch. They are not using an existing suit. How can a personalized DNA security setting be part of the design in order for it to work?!? My phone has a fingerprint reader for security - but it was't built specifically for my fingerprint. Gah.. Why does Michael insist that going to the future in a one-way trip? It may be a one-way trip for the Discovery if the Sphere data cannot be detached. (And no one is worried that the Sphere data has taken control of Discovery.) But if Michael is going to be stuck because of the time travel suit's plot-convenient limitations, that's not an issue: with Discovery there, and all the other tech (because there is no evil AI), Michael can easily build another one-way time travel suit in just a few hours. She knows where to find more time stones. And really, why would anyone be so sure that Michael could never, ever figure out a way to return? The showrunners and writers seem to focus all their efforts on the emotional angst scenes of the show: the good-byes, deaths, funerals, trying to put Giorgiou in as many scenes as possible, having every guest star (but not crew members) give Stamets and Culber relationship advice, bringing Sarek and Amanda out of nowhere for good-byes... As others have said multiple times, the writing on this show falls far, far below the level of the other departments: special effects, set design, costuming, soundtrack, acting, etc.

The Red Angel and the Red Signals are not related? ..but the Red Angel gave Spock visions of the future. And from that Spock drew a map of the Red Signals.. (A map no one has bothered to use.) It does make sense now that Section 31 would be obsessed with finding the Red Angel since it was their project .. but the Red Signals are not the Red Angel, so ..? How did Michael not remember the Red Angel suit? From the flashbacks, it appeared that the suit was basically sitting in their living quarters - her Mom went straight from putting Michael in the closet to strapping into the suit. Michael would have seen most of what her parents were working on. And now we learn that Michael never saw the dead bodies of her parents. (?) It was very obvious that Leland did not answer Michael when she asked if her father was also still alive. Are they saving that for the next season where everything is again centered around Michael? Did the evil AI come from the future with Mommy Burnham or did it originate in the past? Is this like a Terminator situation where both parties are trying to change the past to help bring about their preferred future? And isn't Mommy Burnham only creating 804 alternative futures? (what I learned from Avengers: End Game - whatever happened cannot un-happen) Mommy Burnham seems to be trying to create a timeline where the evil AI does not kill all life - but is also watching Michael grow and saving her life occasionally? She will change the past to keep Michael alive, but she didn't bother to alter circumstances to stop Michael from instigating a war with the Klingons? A war that cost many, many lives ... just not Michael's life? Why say "I watched you die a hundred times" as if she was now focused on "the big picture"? She got trapped because she is still intervening to save Michael. Isn't Mommy Burnham supposed to save Michael by changing the past - not directly appearing and shooting her with healing(?) beams? Why didn't the Angel personally save young Michael from the Vulcan sand spider - why 'undo' Michael's death by going back to wake up baby Spock? Some consistency would be nice. STD is a visually impressive mess. It is as if the writers are trying to make every story element fit together whether it makes sense or not.

Watching STD takes a lot of effort: there is the normal sci-fi suspension of belief - and then there is the extra suspension of belief needed for STD's science and logic: Why would Stamets, working on the spore drive issue, need to work in the same room as Burnham and Spock? Why would Stamets' spore drive widget be connected to the power for the entire room? Isn't a mine field supposed to be dangerous because you can't see them? These mines looked pretty visible. Why wasn't Discovery firing on any of them? Why is Hugh still on Discovery? They are not on a five year mission or far from space stations. He should be on leave and under observation for PTSD. Are the Red Sphere, the Red Angel, the Evil AI running Section 31 and the computer virus from the time-altered-probe supposed to be connected? It all seems very convoluted. Another issue with Stamets: he was going to leave Discovery - but the entire ship, with the spinning saucer disks, is built around the spore drive, which is completely useless without Stamets. (To be fair, the spore drive is also useless whenever it interferes with the plot.) I was disappointed that STD only gave Ariam a backstory in the episode where she was killed off. Is that the only way we are going to find out more about the rest of the bridge crew? Surely they could spare us some of Burnham's repetitive childhood flashbacks to focus on some of the other crew members.

It is no surprise that the Red Angel - Starfleet's highest priority - is all about Michael in some way. Why did the Talosians need to bargain for Michael's memory of the 'irreparable' psychological damage done to Spock as a child? They had Spock's memory of it, so what's the difference? It was odd that Michael was apologizing for the incident as if some secret had been revealed - -but it was no secret to Spock. It appeared as if the Talosians' illusions are more than illusions if they can cause the transporters to function as if actual objects are being moved. If Vina's beautiful appearance is just an illusion, does that mean she actually feels old, disheveled and scarred? Not sure what will happen with Hugh and Stamets, but the trope of "lovers who can never be together" has been done to death on television. By some type of magic, Hugh's memories and personality have been transferred twice: once to the mycelial network and then to a freshly grown body back in our world. He is truly not the same person as before because the original Hugh died and was buried(?). I don't understand how 23rd century science can recreate memories from DNA and transfer memories from one body to another (Ash/Voq) - but for some reason cannot revive a body that has only been dead for a few minutes.

I actually expected someone to be killed on Discovery ... and everyone would be okay with having saved Tilly but losing a dozen or so red-shirts. The monologue-ing - by everyone - in this episode was very annoying. It makes them all sound like pretentious wannabe philosophers. Ash was just walking around in his stylish black outfit and black badge for everyone to see. Hugh was recreated from DNA scratch, so his scars are gone ... but he somehow retains his memories? Do the writers not understand how memories are created? And how did the mycelial transporter pod manage to give Hugh such a nice haircut?

This is bad .. we have only gotten to the 3rd episode of the season and I am already suffering from major Burnham burnout: The Red Signals are now Starfleet's primary priority. Who discovers the phenomenon is connected to her very own brother's childhood nightmares (by invasion of privacy)?: Michael. Who may be responsible for Spock's mental breakdown?: Michael. Who is Ash Tyler's secret girlfriend, causing L'Rell's leadership and the Klingon truce to be threatened?: Michael. When Tilly starts seeing a spore ghost, who is her best friend and roommate that initiates figuring out the cause?: Michael. Who does Amanda, Spock's mom, seek out to help with this reality's Search for Spock?: you know who. I like the actress, so it is a shame that the showrunners are so determined to force Burnham such to be an integral part of everything. In TOS, the character of Captain Kirk was certainly a scene hog, but he wasn't the actual cause of major events (like the Klingon war). Is L'Rell a completely different color than in season 1? She looks completely different to me. Starfleet's Section 31 has decided to put its trust in a cannibalistic, mass murdering, xenophobic displaced emperor - and an actual Klingon spy who had a forced human personality transplant? Those characters should have ended with season 1. It feels as if any excuse is acceptable to keep fan favorite actors.

Late to the game - we are binging now .. .. but yes, this episode had a lot of head-scratching decisions and a lot of 'magic' science. But the special effects are very impressive for a show on a streaming service. I did not understand why these people did not have electricity or realize that they had been transplanted. They came from a town and time on Earth where technology existed. They had electronics in the church basement. They would have some idea of astronomy. It is not as if they would have had to invent and develop these concepts from scratch. Why would Pike need to explain a transporter to a guy who understands and works with technology from our time? Did every transplanted person lose their memory of 21st century technology? Why did Pike want to turn off the colony's space beacon message, especially if he wasn't going to help? Were they not just like we are now - sending messages out into space to see if anyone else is out there? Why wouldn't the small number of people who knew the truth be allowed to leave? And more importantly, what part of this transplanted colony was part of the planet's natural order? These human transplants are going to displace and interfere with whatever species would have evolved on the planet. They are basically an invasive species that will eventually dominate and pollute an environment they were not supposed to have existed in. I also did not understand the over-emphasis on the church and the merging of all known religions. Was there a representative of every religion in the transplanted town? In contrast, it did not seem as if any other cultures or languages were merged. I felt bad for the guy who knew the truth, but was basically asked to maintain the current level of ignorance. His lot in life ts to be like Newton, Galileo and other intellectuals who were persecuted by religious leaders for pursuing scientific reasoning and contradicting their fiction.

Exactly. And Holden had seen the serial killer 'pleasure himself' with the shoes. Holden was correct in saying "it's not you", but he was wrong by not offering more of an explanation. The girlfriend was with him when he bought the shoes. Had she seen his interest in them and gotten the wrong impression? I wonder if anyone who has to investigate violent murder cases involving sex or fetishes gone too far ever manages to successfully compartmentalize that stuff.

Same here. This third season felt two-thirds less fun and had two-thirds less wrestling. I can see that most of the cast might not be willing or able to do the stunts - but maybe they could hire a few athletic actors (they do exist). The only dog-piles this season were the abundance of Issues with a capital 'I'. Season one was able to strike a better balance of realism and entertainment. Sam's ignorant sexism was appalling yet also amusing since he wasn't a total asshole. This season had bulimia, the holocaust , the killing fields, homophobia, motherhood vs career, hate crimes and more. Bash and Rhonda have a mutually beneficial partnership (she originally planned to marry a complete stranger). I hope they will eventually work things out and become friends. Was Bash's hair supposed to be a metaphor for how out of control his personal life was becoming? It ws pretty crazy by the end of the season. When Debbie offered Ruth the chance to direct, I expected Ruth to have an epiphany that writing and directing were her true calling. Guess not. Since we only see snippets of their lives it was hard to tell, but it seemed as if Ruth really wasn't pursing acting during her stay in Vegas. At least Sheila, her roommate, was taking acting classes. It sucks for Ruth, but you think she would have learned by now that Hollywood is a rigged game. And is Ruth supposed to be a bad actor, an unlucky actor, or a actor who chases the wrong parts?

I agree that some movies manage to hit the right balance of fun and substance: such as most of the Marvel movies. But for me, Star Wars doesn't feel fun anymore. It feels exhausting, controversial and divisive. Perhaps that is the result of overzealous and opposing fan bases. Maybe the overload of social media commentary is to blame. Every teaser trailer is followed by an avalanche of news articles and video commentaries. It actually feels like politics, not entertainment. This might be a minority opinion, but it happens to be mine: Star Wars comes with too much baggage now.

All this constant 'teasing' feels like 'baiting' to me - like a desperate attempt to create buzz and interest, even if it means courting controversy with things such as Dark Rey, the return of the Emperor, etc. Everything feels like some coordinated marketing ploy and it is turning me off. Almost every aspect of the movie is being teased and leaked: Luke's force ghost, the Knights of Ren, Palpatine, Princess Lei's involvement ... The entertainment news feeds are littered with such items every week. Ever since Star Wars became Disney-fied, everything about it feels like the result of corporate mandates and creation by committee. The idea of escapism appears to be lost on them. They seem to think Star Wars needs social relevance, popular actors and pop culture references. Can any great or satisfying story/movie emerge from a corporation whose main goal is maximum profit? The success of the first Star Wars movie was a fluke, not a calculated outcome. JJ Abrams is good at creating exciting premises, but not so good at conclusions, so I remain doubtful this movie can stick the landing. ..end rant..

Why only 9 episodes for season 2? That seemed odd and somewhat abrupt when I was expecting some followup to some of the stories. Mindhunter is a good show .. but a weird combination of true criminals and fictionalized FBI agents. Since we only get small glimpses of the characters and cases, many of them seem open to different interpretations. The Atlanta mothers, Tench's wife and son, Wendy's girlfriend, Holden's girlfriend - they all feel compromised by having just a few defining moments of screen time. Sometimes it is hard to tell if the showrunners have some method to their madness or if it is unintentional sloppiness that leads to misinterpretations by the audience.

I'm afraid this will be a "wait and see" movie for me. I would be happy if the reviews are positive but this franchise seems to have gone the way of Predator and Alien(s): failed attempts at recapturing former glory. I feel the Terminator story could continue in interesting ways but the movies can't let go of trying to bring back Schwarzenegger, so everything bogs down into a convoluted, timey-wimey inexplicable mess..