Pindrop

Or just humidity, it is not as if the air is dry when it is not raining.

Just pretend it isn't the rain or it will snap your disbelief in every single scene.

To be honest I though this was a superb piece of screen-writing and ensemble acting.

Yes, it is a very lazy way of creating conflict; but then this show did also rely on a lot of plot-induced stupidity. It is an issue I have with a lot of US committee writing; the shows always feel like the result of an algorithm and they all fundamentally hit the same beats, just some take a lazier route there than others, and psycho antagonist is about the laziest.

I have always considered Toby Stephens an incredibly underrated actor. It is good to see him here. I am not sure if it is the character or the performance, or a bit of both, but I might be the only person here slightly underwhelmed by Parker Posey (although it was mentioned in another thread). I mentioned this in another thread, but part of the problem with this character archetype is that you will always compare poorly to James Callis in BSG, which was just the perfect level of pathos and ham to be believable, compelling and hilarious.

Yes, this was the episode where I started eye-rolling at the tropes a little, and then the tropes just kept coming in the subsequent episodes; a scattergun of them, it could make a good drinking game.

Agreed, there were potentially interesting aspects to this character, for example the cowardice, fear of having misdeeds uncovered and over-riding sense of self-preservation, but they threw that away as a motivation and just made her, as you say, a rando-psycho. As an example, in sci-fi, Gaius Baltar was a much more nuanced (and hilarious) version of this character.

The mother came a hairs breadth away from saying “Get away from her you bitch” in the robot show down.

This series started strongly but descended into tropes to the point where each episode's plot was predictable from the first five minutes in the latter half of the series. However, it was a strong cast (mostly) and reminded me of early The Walking Dead or McCarthy’s The Road at times, which is a good thing. A couple of issues; firstly as someone said earlier, the moustache twirling villains in front of the aquarium was unintentionally hilarious. Secondly the central premise of the show bothered me, I just found it incredibly distracting that rain was so easily avoided, I mean things like grass and trees and buildings tend to stay wet for a while but the moment the rain finished they were all running around outside with careless abandon, and humidity is presumably not a thing in this world. The final reveal/ explanation was also baffling, and I mean baffling in terms of the writers picking the worst of all the options open to them. Those final villain scenes felt incredibly trashy, I was reminded of the Resident Evil movies.

I just found this on Netflix, and I am happy this thread is here, because Chrisopher Meloni makes this show. With the wrong cast I could imagine it being terrible, but he is excellent.

Nothing makes sense; I don’t understand most of the character motivations, in fact I don’t even know who half of these characters are anymore, and not just Liv on her brain of the week. The parts of this show that work are the parts that worked in Season 1, particularly Ravi, Clive and Blaine, and potentially Liv, Major and Peyton if the writers would allow them to occupy one consistent character for more than five minutes. The parts of this show that don’t work are everything they’ve added to it, Liv becoming subsumed by the brain of the week, the wall, the zombie militia, the smuggling. All of these elements are so confused that the writers are forced to have characters act out-of-character just to move the plot forward; for example, the various sides the characters have chosen make little sense from a character perspective, rather they are plot driven to artificially create conflict between the main characters as the series progresses, but it feels manipulative and unreal. It has become a nonsensical cluster fuck of random occurrences and confused motivations, which is not helped by the fact it is now two very different shows fighting each other.

This weeks wacky brain was the final straw though: - Firstly, I am British, and that ridiculously clipped American version of British (for which Richard Curtis must also share the blame) never fails to be irritating. Secondly, writing pseudo/ mock Shakespeare has always struck me as the worst form of juvenilia. It is always cringe-inducing. It’s as if the writing staff had the week off and handed duties over to the intern, who was a High school English student. Thirdly, where/what even is the character of Liv anymore? Tabula rasa. The brain of the week was already try-hard this season, but this one felt amateurish.

I turned it off, the brain of the week was just too much.

Great. Exactly this. Noone has chemistry with Chloe because she has become a plot device with no more personality than any other mcguffin, be it an inanimate object or otherwise. The Lucifer/Cain (b)romance was so much more believable and entertaining than either of their relationships with Chloe. Your second point: Lucifer was also a far more interesting character in season 1 because he had threat and was morally gray. Now he has become this strange fish-out-of-water bumbling but harmless buffoon, which was a horrible direction to take him.

For some reason Liv is able to switch her brain on and off as the plot requires it this episode. As usual, the core cast are fun, they bounce well off each other and the script can be sharp. I fear that I will be saying it every episode from here on in, but the moment we enter a zombie militia/ wall scene, all levity drains from the show as well as my ability to suspend disbelief and it just feels like a slog. Essentially Clive and Ravi keep me returning; the only two characters I really enjoy this season and even Liv's brain-of-the-week antics are bearable when played against these two characters.

If you have to have a love triangle plot, as these shows invariably do, there was an interesting premise at the core of this, it is just a shame it all felt so rushed that none of it rang true. Why Chloe Anti-charisma gets so much attention I will never understand; we are constantly told how special she is, but we are only every shown a one-dimensional tedious, disapproving straight-man; she has become a plot device around which the antics of the other characters can revolve, and nothing more. On a positive note, all of the supernatural characters actually got some of their threat back, which is long over due. Even Amanediel was enjoyably casually dismissive of humans in his brief appearance. As usual there are too many characters and too many B-plots, which just gives the impression of scenes being shoe-horned in to remind you that certain characters still exist.

I enjoyed it- well cast, nicely paced and intriguing. The robot has the potential to become a little of a deus ex machina, which I hope they avoid. In another show (or if handled differently) issues like the instantly freezing water would have snapped credibility, but it worked for me here.

I said in the episode where zombies were revealed last season that the show had jumped the shark. It was so obviously a bad decision and one that would screw over the fun, episodic procedural format (essentially the core of the show). It was so dumb, so so dumb!

Dam, the WHO and countless other agencies would be working on a cure, and that one (whether fully functional or not) has already been created means the show should be over now.

The moment I saw the musical number at the start of the episode, I thought, "I really can't do this" and turned it off until another time.

It now feels like two different shows fighting each other. I wish they would just retcon the entire wall/zombie militia crap and get back to the parts that work.

The episodic procedural has always worked for me, and the main cast (since season 1) are as fun as ever, but I think the overall story arc of zombies getting exposed was a mistake, and it feels like a weight around the neck of this show, dragging it down.

This is the first episode I haven’t bothered watching, because:- The inconsistent scheduling over the last few weeks. Too many characters and too many B, C and Z plots that are of no interest to me. The scitzophrenic nature of Lucifer’s character. When he is on form he is great, but when the writing is off he is awful. Other characters are also regularly acting out of character, which is a sign of desperation from the writers. The yawning chasm of anti-fun, anti-levity and anti-charisma that is Chloe. I think I might be done with the show.

I found this the cheapest, laziest form of nostalgia TV; the entire script revolves around people naming things that existed in the 90's, and that is it. It is obnoxious. Also, if I ever hear the Alanis Morrissette "ironic" comedy set-piece from another show/comedian/drunkard in the pub, I am likely to scream- it had become a trope 20 years ago (and no this show does not get a pass because it is set in the 90's).

This show suffers from the same issue as the new Star Trek films, the new Star Wars films, the new Ghostbusters, and many other modern remakes: - Essentially they think that nostalgia is enough alone; that naming things people recognise from their youth somehow exempts them from actually understanding what made the original versions so compelling.