Pindrop

I have been re-watching TNG on Netflix. The major glaring difference between the two shows is in the command structures. In TNG, the command structure is fairly flat and collaborative, with every senior crew member offering advice and information, allowing Picard to come to an informed decision, or defer to someone else's when they have a better understanding. In STD the command structure is hierarchical and combative, with no stock given to the advice of underlings and most relationships between senior crew members being polarised and defined by conflict. It feels very reflective of the societal and political changes in the real world between the two shows. I would like to see a return to the TNG command structure, with a competent leader who recognises that they are only as effective as the sum of the people they work with. The second major difference is that TNG actually explored philosophical questions, interesting scientific phenomena, diplomacy and cultural clashes and the wonder of physical and intellectual exploration; whereas STD is more interested in shooting things and explosions. I would also like a return to TNG on this front.

I stopped watching long before Neegan arrived, and the reason... Rick Grimes. What began as a compelling and well-portrayed character became a tedious, circular, sub-soap opera lurch from one existential crisis to the next. Actually the decline of Rick’s character is largely representative of the show as a whole.

Yes, his apparent character arc seems to have been driven entirely by self-pity since losing his hand. I don't really see that as a noble motive, quite the opposite. But since you have not watched beyond season 4, you should probably be warned that consistent characterisation does not really exist in the later seasons, particularly in the most recent season where half the characters are entirely unrecognisable from one scene to the next.

Yeah, they kinda hand-waved that with the Netflix montage at the start of the first episode. In terms of my comment, I meant both the various blackmailed students agreeing to cooperate with the turdburglar, and the various students/staff/police cooperating with the film-makers. Both seasons rely upon people revealing things they simply would not reveal, whether through human-nature, or because their job would strictly prohibit them from doing so. A policeman would not reveal the details of an ongoing investigation. A school secretary would not reveal the details of a student's calendar... etc, etc ...

Just watched it all, and my thoughts below: - This season was as fun as the last. As with the last season the manner in which events unfold stretches credibility, and relied on excessive coincidence and cooperation from people who simply would not be so cooperative. As with last season, there were also moments of hammy acting. The characters and the subtlety of the hardships suffered and privileges each of them enjoyed were nuanced and well-written (where they could have easily been dumb and reductive), and this elevated the show above the premise. I had two issues with this season (apart from the unlikeliness of the central crime noted by @Miles above), the first is that the culprits were the obvious, and only feasible, suspects from the early episodes, and the wild-goose chases and red herrings were so clearly flagged as such that they never provided a convincing alternative. The second issue was that the final reveal felt as if it were lifted straight from Black Mirror: Shut Up and Dance, only Black Mirror did it with much more poignancy, wit, pathos and in a far shorter running time. The voice over at the end also felt entirely unnecessary and tacked-on, and even undercut some of the nuance and subtlety in the earlier episodes.

Imagine for a moment that an Iphone grew legs and used them to kick you in the shins repeatedly. I think that would be a good episode!

All characters: Oh God, just watched the first two episodes of Paradise PD. Are we done now? Is the adult cartoon genre saturated? Are literal shit jokes for 20 minutes funny as an adult? Can this derivative shit please fuck off?

Hello, I am moving in with you, thanks

Ok, if I had a hot gay mate, I would think, fuck it, I have enough gay in me that we can have fun, but in shows, they always act like Santa is judging them, and Santa is gay!

Yes, Lisa was unbearable, and to return to Peter Griffin being an arsehole, she directly spawned Meg and the years of abuse that followed.

You think? The show was certainly set up with Bart as the main character, but around season 3 Homer moved up to A plots as regularly. I only watched religiously up until Season 8 (when the rot set in), but from the later episodes I have seen it seems to have become The Homer Show. In fact, most of the strongest episodes I can think of had a Homer A plot.

I can't blame Marge's character for it though. Marge was always relegated to the straight-man role, against Homer's buffoonery. When the comic runs out of material, the straight-man has very little to riff off.

This one certainly will be controversial: Rick from Rick and Morty. There is something at the core of his character that feels like an author-surrogate, and that part of the character I find intensely smug and self-satisfied, and above all he is the ultimate Hipster- so desperate is he to be subversive at all times. I noticed it in Season 3, but I am finding him increasingly cringe-inducing and try-hard, or dare I say it, somewhat of a juvenile edgelord.

The Misunderstanding (often the low point of Act 2/3 in RomComs but also seen in many soaps and teen dramas). Features: - The misunderstanding would always take 30 seconds to resolve if those involved actually bothered to converse. In order to prevent the misunderstanding being discovered; either, a) huge contrivances of plot are required, or, b) the characters must behave like astonishingly unreasonable arseholes; the sort of people, who in real life, you would cut out of your social circle instantly for treating you with such contempt, disdain and disrespect. Yet all is eventually explained, forgiven and forgotten despite the unpleasant behaviour of one or all involved, rather than being a thorn of distrust in the side of the relationship, or a seething ball of resentment.

Potentially controversial but: Homer Simpson for the last 20 years and/or Peter Griffin over the last 15 years. Both characters were caring and carefree, had heart, warmth, wit and pathos and were very amusing, long ago. Now Homer has become a dumb and toothless shadow of his former self and Peter has become a spiteful, violent arsehole with no redeeming features; they are like humour vacuums who suck all fun from any room they play in. Both shows desperately need to be cancelled.

I watched this out of intrigue as a result of the bad press and the allegations of fat-shaming, particularly on Twitter; so I guess the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity is still somewhat true. Addressing the controversy, people really need some sense of perspective these days; a dark comedy on Netflix (whether it misfires or not) is not something to spend your time and energy on. I know a show that should call them to action, it is called the news and it portrays real human suffering. Anyway, I would not be here without the controversy. I only wish the show was slightly more capable of defending itself; it is tonally inconsistent and structurally incoherent, most of the jokes fall flat and the characters seem more 2-dimensional caricatures. It just missed on almost every level for me, and the absence of any subtlety or nuance in favour of broadly drawn situations, characterisation and motivations left it open to some of the allegations it received. It is frustrating because there was a fun, subversive show hiding somewhere in there, struggling to get out.

What about Pheobe? She should have been under 24 hour care, she was single digit IQ.

My summation: - It appears that Chris Hardwick was in a mutually destructive relationship. He received an accusation of nothing illegal; but it appears he might have been an ahole within the relationship. Former partners defended him and were attacked because... why? He was sacked because... why? He was reinstated. What the hell is going on? I sometimes wonder if this is just the hypocritical moral absolutism of Twitterers desperately searching for endorphins.

I have never watched his show. I watched in shock as he was dismissed as a result of an x-girlfriend. It was insane. I am glad common sense prevailed.

Yes, the 70’s were better, but there was also the mobile phone episode with Captain James T Kirk (I forget it’s name) from the 80s/90s period. Shatner is .... always fun.... to watch.

For a show that actually has some subtlety and nuance, I felt the social commentary was a little too on the nose in the Debbie/Ruth scene. It would have been more effective if they had dialled it back to a resigned "oh shit", rather than speechifying.

I've worked as an expert witness in civil cases occasionally as part of my job. It is odd, because you are paid by one party, but you sign a statement expressing that you are working impartially for the court. The main reason you do so is that your reputation and professional status are on the line if you fail to do so, and yes, your opinion may be detrimental to the party who engaged you. I should add that it does prevent one party frivolously engaging an "expert witness" to steel-man a weak position, and as a result saves cost and time.

I probably explained my point badly. Attacking the credibility of the prosecution's expert witnesses, their methodology and their stated version of events were all on the nose, and identified a potential miscarriage and major flaws in the system. The problem is that (as I understand it, and unlike Britain where expert witnesses are non-partisan), you can essentially pay a shill to say whatever you want them to say in the US justice system (I may be wrong here though, happy to be corrected). As such we had the slap-stick comedy version of events where people kept falling up and down stairs then slipping in their own blood and repeatedly landing head first against the wall, which frankly belonged in a Naked Gun movie (ahem, probably a bad choice of film). The flipping of the burden of proof came where, having concocted this version of events, the documentary then posited that the prosecution failed to disprove it. They may as well have said that the prosecution failed to disprove there is a teapot in orbit around the sun for its relevance. The fact is that the prosecution, in the mind of the jurors, did prove their version beyond reasonable doubt, they are not then required to disprove every possible alternative, however remote. I tend to err towards Occam's Razor. That said, if evidence was incorrectly gathered and that was central to their case, then it points towards a potential miscarriage. The issue I have here is that the documentary overstated the significance of the questionable evidence, and completely failed to mention other evidence that strongly indicated MP's guilt.

I am fairly convinced of his guilt, despite the flaws in the prosecution case. Firstly the documentary was clearly cherry-picking the positive (from MP's perspective) and filtering out the negative, which led me to read a little more around the case and the evidence that was skimmed over or hand-waved. Secondly, the entire case for the defence rested upon stretching the definition of reasonable doubt to its broadest extreme and flipping the burden of proof disingenuously; they were essentially saying "you can't prove a negative, therefore innocent" (or for example "we're asserting that fairies did it aided by the spaghetti monster, and the prosecution must prove us wrong in order for reasonable doubt to disappear") and by that logic every criminal would be on the streets.

I enjoyed that aspect. What intrigued me was that for an utterly partisan and biased documentary, they failed so incredibly to demonstrate innocence (or non-guilt), or even to make MP a sympathetic character. I enjoyed the insight into the mind of a narcissist, who probably also leans heavily towards psychopathy. It certainly demonstrates why the defence did not want to put MP on the stand.