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TheOtherOne

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Posts posted by TheOtherOne

  1. I just fast forwarded through this one to see if it got any better.

    The ten-minute sex break in the middle of the case set to soft porn music? So stupid. Embarrassingly so.

    I'm glad that the main characters are already clued in that he's not really Keith (though I'm hoping for a twist--it would be more interesting now if he really was). But the fact that she only now got the baby hair to do a DNA test...and then PUT THE HAIR BACK and wasn't going to do the test until she saw her daughter taking measures to protect herself... What?!? Again, these are not the actions of an intelligent person. And now what...they're just going to have this person in their house who they don't believe while they run the tests?

    These people are just dumb.

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  2. 5 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

    Sam had sex with lots of women in the original. There was one episode where he leapt into a guy when he was literally naked in bed with a woman and Sam just rolled with it. And it turned out that she was the grown up version of the girl who was his daughter in the last episode, so I remember thinking it was kind of icky. But Sam was in love with her later that episode. He seemed to fall in love a lot.

    I think Ben will try and avoid it because he knows he is engaged to Addison and she is right there. In the original they had Sam not remember he was married and the wife being okay with that because she knew Sam would need to have sex as a leaper.

    I know. The people above are discussing exactly that. That episode is one that was mentioned, but Temptation Eyes is not, which is why I brought it up.

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  3. The show just doesn't work. The tone is all over the place in a way that's really jarring. The wacky NCIS-style inter-team joking and hijinks don't feel appropriate at all when someone's been beaten badly and their life is on the line. The elevator scene...just no. Not the time for this. I can put up with the ridiculous, nearly magic ways the police are able to find clues (ie, the glasses), but the wild tonal swings are too much. (And then a character we barely know gets emotional reunion with catatonic father! What?!)

    I mainly started watching this for Ryan Broussard, who I like in Only Murders in the Building. I may be biased, but he's the only character who isn't annoying so far (and I appreciate that the writers aren't making him a bad guy when he's the obvious third wheel in Jason and Nikki's inevitable reunion). Hopefully he winds up on a better show after this one, or gets more to do in OMITB season 3.

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  4. 18 hours ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

    I hope they don't.  I know it's a sitcom, but Sam and Jay took a risk allowing Eric to electrocute himself, and they actually lost, since he died.  Only because it is a sitcom was Thor able to revive him.  Wouldn't Sam and Jay have felt forever responsible for his death, along with Bela and Trevor?  It was irresponsible to let Eric do it, and they would be actual criminals if they convinced/allowed someone else to do it. 

    Did I miss something? Sam was possessed during that whole sequence and had no say in what was happening. It was Thor and Jay (and Bela) allowing Eric to electrocute himself, no? So there would have been no reason for Sam to feel responsible at all.

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  5. If it hasn't been answered yet, the reason Cecily wasn't in the opening credits is because she wasn't available to shoot anything for them since she's in Los Angeles doing the play (I suppose that is off-Broadway, but the actual off-Broadway production was earlier this year). Presumably they'll shoot her new credit shots when she returns to New York and rejoins the show.

    https://tvline.com/2022/10/01/snl-why-cecily-strong-missing-opening-credits-season-48-premiere/

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  6. 42 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

    I'm torn about the dual story. I like seeing what is happening back at home base, but I also think we could get richer stories about the people is leaping into/near with more time on them.

    Agreed. I liked this episode better than the first, and the future/present storyline was generally handled well and interesting enough...but I wish there was more of Ben in the past. That's where the best stuff is, and should be. The present stuff feels like a distraction at times.

    Still, even if I think this one lacks a lot of the charm of the original, which told interesting human stories and only needed its two leads to hold the audience's attention, I'm starting to accept it more on its own terms. It's definitely a modern, today's TV-style take on the material, for all that entails, and is doing a decent job of being that.

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  7. 1 hour ago, Sarah 103 said:

    The boxing episode is something that so many TV shows do, it isn't unique to Quantum Leap. It's sort of like two dates in one nights-it's a plotline that multiple series use and not something I associate with Quantum Leap. I'm pretty sure there's a whole page devoted to the boxing episode at TVTropes.com. (I won't post the link here because that website is one of the most addicting ever). 

    Well...yeah, lots of shows do boxing episodes. Have lots of shows done episodes where a character who has no idea how to box leaps into a boxer and has to be taught by a holographic observer to do so? (As Addison explicitly says in the promo, "I have 24 hours to teach Ben how to box!" Just like Al did for Sam. If they change it up and have Ben actually know how to box and derive the conflict elsewhere, that would at least be a fresh angle.) And while you might not associate it with Quantum Leap, scenes from that episode were prominently featured in the opening credits throughout the series' run, so plenty of us do.

    More important, Quantum Leap has a seemingly boundless concept--the writers can have him leap into any life, any person, or any profession that has ever existed--so personally I find it a bit disappointing that out of all the possibilities in the world, in the first few episodes they're already doing a concept the original did and in a very similar way. (Though to be fair, even the original did two baseball episodes.)

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  8. On 9/20/2022 at 11:12 AM, iMonrey said:

    I always thought the pilot of the original was a confusing mess, and if you didn't already understand the concept you would have been totally lost. So in comparison I thought they did a better job here. The original pilot started off with Sam waking up as someone else and the audience was just as baffled as he was. There was no present-day story or characters and Al was being very cagey about what info he could reveal to Sam. Also, Sam had no memory whatsoever, so that's consistent with Ben's amnesia in the new version's pilot.

    I agree; I loved the original show and have probably seen all the episodes at least several dozen times--except for the pilot, which I never cared for.

    I've read through the thread, but maybe I missed it. Did everyone already discuss how this wasn't the original pilot, but a new episode they shot to serve as the first episode? Back when it was announced they were shooting a new first episode, it was said Thor Freudenthal was directing it, and that's who was credited with this. I doubt he would have gotten full credit if he'd just done reshoots. (Helen Shaver directed the original pilot.) So part of me wonders if the original pilot functioned more like the original show's pilot, opening with Ben's first leap as both he and the audience discovers what's going on. This version definitely seemed like the antithesis of that--relentlessly expositional so the audience was introduced to the characters from the beginning before the leap, and pretty clunky because of it. If the third (or whatever) episode has Ben not knowing anything again and Addison reintroducing herself and the concept to him again, I guess we'll see how the pilot was originally intended to operate.

    Also, previews aren't spoilers, right? Because I have to say I'm not thrilled they're doing a boxing episode in their first season like the original did. It'll be interesting to see if they can really come up with new concepts and ideas for Ben to leap into so it doesn't feel like rehashes of the original.

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  9. 3 hours ago, possibilities said:

    The comparisons to the original version are confusing to me since I didn't see the original show. Who is Sam, or Magic or Al? 

    I don't even know the names of all the people in this new version at this point. 

    You don't need to have seen the original show since they were all explained in this very episode.

  10. Another from Vulture. Good read about the meaning of the Kim-Jesse scene.

    Better Call Saul’s Most Surprising Crossover Transcends Fan Service


    The whole thing is worth reading, and could quote it all, but the last several paragraphs are very well stated.

    Quote

    Better Call Saul has gotten much better at disguising any proclivity to overmythologizing, treating its characters as people with rich inner lives first and chess pieces second. Gus Fring’s (likely) last appearance in the Breaking Bad universe, for example, isn’t his meeting with Don Eladio and Hector, which closes the loop on Gus’s franchise-spanning story line. It’s a quiet, plotless scene of him making a genuine connection, human to human, before remembering what his life is and leaving the moment behind.

    Jesse’s appearance in “Waterworks” also highlights Better Call Saul’s maturity at this stage; he’s as much a guest star in Kim’s story as she is in his, both of them unaware of the fatefulness of this meeting. Standing there outside Saul Goodman’s office in 2004, they’re at completely different points in their intersecting trajectories: Kim has been through hell with Jimmy already, while Jesse is still years away from making a deal with the devil. (He’s met Walt but only as his chemistry teacher.) If Jesse went on to escape his waking nightmare and find a measure of peace, could Kim?

    Many of the recent debates about whether Better Call Saul has surpassed Breaking Bad in quality miss the point; these are two series that remain deeply in conversation with each other, in the final episodes more than ever. Tragedies from Better Call Saul are felt in Breaking Bad, while tragedies from Breaking Bad loop back around to inform Better Call Saul, reverberating forward and backward in time. It’s the type of storytelling that can be achieved only by these particular series working in concert, and that’s epitomized by just one short, crowd-pleasing conversation between two flawed people we care about deeply. The unlikely heroes of these stories are the characters who look at their pasts with clear eyes — who dare to see themselves for who they were and who they are, no matter how much it hurts.

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  11. 1 minute ago, Bannon said:

    If I misinterpreted them, it is only due to an assumption, which I prefer to not make, that Kim is a person who lacks agency. That assumption would make the entire story rather less interesting.

    The edit I was working on probably wouldn't help with that, because my question was going to be: if all the options available to you are shitty, how much are you choosing to be shitty? Lying to the widow to cover for your husband? A shitty thing to do. Letting your husband twist in the wind and be found out when you could speak up and save him (for a situation that started with something you did)? A shitty thing to do. Coming clean and implicating him and endangering his life? A shitty thing to do.

    I actually think that makes it more rather than less interesting. It's a complex situation where there is no good answer. I know you proposed the one you think is right, and if her actions would have no negative effect on anyone else, maybe it would be. But I think plenty would feel that betraying one's spouse by going to the authorities to make themselves feel better is also a shitty thing to do.

    Honestly, I think attempting to dismiss her as a shitty person (your term) makes the story a lot less interesting and reduces much of her complexity. If she's just a shitty person doing shitty things...that's not interesting. ShadowFacts proposes that she's a bad human being who recognizes that and is punishing herself accordingly, but would a bad human being punish herself? Human beings are flawed. Human beings make bad or wrong choices. Maybe she's not a good person or a shitty person. Maybe she's just...a person?

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  12. On 7/19/2022 at 5:58 PM, Bannon said:

    Kim had all sorts of choices. She could go to the Feds, and tell everything she knows, which is quite a bit, in return for witness protection (especially since she doesn't want to practice law anyways). The Feds don't know Lalo is dead; they'd see her eyewitness account of Lalo murdering Howard as being extremely valuable. She could tell them of a house where she was ordered to travel to, to kill someone who answered the door. That blows the cover that Gus has constructed as charitable businessman; why does a drug capo want the person who answers the door killed? Who is this Mike Ehrmantraut? Kim still has plenty of opportunity to do what is right. She just doesn't want to.

    This is a bit belated...but no. None of this was in any way an option for her. A woman who is willing to attempt to kill a complete stranger to save her husband's life isn't going to turn around and betray him to save her soul.

    Coming clean makes her a better person and a bad wife. Staying silent (and lying to Cheryl to save Jimmy) makes her a bad person and a good wife. I have no doubt which the fandom of this show and its predecessor would consider the worse sin.

    I kept coming back to this because of the comments about how cruel she was to Cheryl. Again, she was willing to kill someone to save him. Being mean to someone to save him? Pffft. That's nothing. Cheryl got off easy.

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  13. On 3/17/2022 at 5:53 PM, HeShallBMySquishy said:

    I do kind of feel sorry for Ehren Kruger for Scream 3, mainly due to the fact that he was brought in from some other movie (not too sure what that was) to flesh out Kevin Williamson's one-page treatment. And then Kruger wasn't even able to finish that, as the Weinsteins pulled him off Scream 3 and placed him on Reindeer Games. So that means two movies released in the same month where Kruger was listed as the sole screenwriter, despite him not writing either particular screenplay (and thus blamed for all the script problems).

    Probably not too relevant to this thread, but that isn't true about Reindeer Games. He wasn't placed on it; it was his spec script:

    https://variety.com/1998/film/news/scribe-kruger-dimension-playing-reindeer-games-1117481501/

    I remember reading it back in the day and the script was better than the movie, so he doesn't entirely deserve the blame, that's true.

    More relevantly, I finally saw the latest Scream. It was okay, though I agree the main thing I felt was sad about Dewey. Kind of glad Sidney can escape the franchise (hopefully with her life), no matter how it came about. I hope Cox stays away if they try killing off Gale.

    I admit I did find both villain deaths satisfying. But everything else about the movie was just...fine. Not terrible, but tired.

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  14. Even if I agreed that Penelope needs to be redeemed, that's kind of what Shonda's shows do, isn't it? Redeem women who are introduced as antagonists it initially seems the audience is supposed to hate? Addison the unfaithful wife who slept with our hero's best friend on Grey's. Mellie the scheming political wife who was introduced lying about having a miscarriage. Shonda likes complicated women, and women who don't behave the way they're "supposed" to, and I would expect that even in shows she didn't create.

     

     

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  15. 13 minutes ago, vb68 said:

    Update was good except I thought Kyle's character needed some work. the voice was was going out at some places.

     

    12 minutes ago, Galileo908 said:

    Kyle's character was just strange. It was weird to see him with muscles. Apparently he was a parody of an actual influencer?

    That was cut from last week's dress rehearsal. Considering they still couldn't get the voice completely right and the bit wasn't that great, it's too bad they didn't come up with something else.

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