S01.E01: Countdown

[AnimeMania]

Unsettling events put a group of brilliant friends on edge as a mystery unravels with origins tracing back to China during the Cultural Revolution.

Premiere Date: March 21, 2024    Netflix    

[Helena Dax]

This looks pretty cool, I honestly thought D&D would show titties just because, but they didn't. The special effects were cool too. Can't say if people who haven't read the books will like it, but the story deserves a good TV show, so I hope it'll be a success. Can't wait to see more of the video-game. 

[astrohip]

I thought it was an excellent start. Has me completely hooked.

I have not read the books.

[PurpleTentacle]

Well the physics professor at the beginning kinda did it to himself.

"Are you suggesting god exists?"
"Science has given no evidence either way."

How about you tell the actual scientific truth, if you love science so much that you'd die for it: "Science has given no evidence for the existence of god, therefore I must conclude that he doesn't exist." Because scientifically god doesn't exist. If you think god exists, that's faith, not science.

-

"According to our experiments, all of our theories are wrong. All of them. All of the physics of the past 60 years is wrong. Science is broken."

Ugh, what a load of horseshit. If all of the physics of the past 60 years was wrong, I couldn't type this because we wouldn't have computers. The Wendelstein 7-X wouldn't exist, because we wouldn't understand Plasmaphysics. Etc.

There currently is a crisis in cosmoology. Meaning we don't really understand how the universe works and why it is how it is. But that doesn't mean that our theories about physics in general are wrong.

Even if particle accelerators would output completely unexpected results, that wouldn't change anything about our understanding of at least most of physics.

I can't express how annoyed I am with this kind of bullshit. I thought this was trying to sell itself as hard scifi? So far it has been the softest of soft scifi.

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"A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so."

What dumbass would believe that? He is supposed to be a smart scientist? He should know that when variables change outcomes change. Science isn't the same as it was when Einstein said that. Today you are pretty much over 30 once you finish your education in any scientific field.

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Filming location: A mono culture tree plantation with trees that are clearly less than a 100 years old.

Dialouge: "Yeah this tree was totes between three and four hundred years old! Also look at all this destruction [of this totes naturally grown primeval forest]!"

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SSRIs, Benzos and Amphetamins. Somebody has half a pharmacy in their medicine cabinet.

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So was the sky really blinking or was that just whoever (probably aliens) messing with the minds of people, like they put the countdowns in scientists heads? Because the first would most certainly mean the universe is a simulation. But the second one would mean they did that for all of humanity for no reason? Why?

At least this is intriguing.

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I'm certainly interested how this will turn out. It was very well shot and acted. But everything reddit bros, who fawn over this, like it's the second coming, told me about it, made me roll my eyes. Not direct spoiler, but I guess you could infer something from it:

Spoiler

The dark forest is just the most pedestrian and unlikely solution to the fermi paradox I've ever heard and I think the author of these books has lived under a crushing authoritarian regime for too long if he thinks advanced aliens would behave like that. Yet all the reddit bros think it's deep and revolutionary, when it's just a dumb old hat, that is as old as the fermi paradox itself.

But maybe I'm wrong and they are right. Maybe this is amazing. So I'll try to keep an open mind, even though so far it's not easy...

So far this whole thing seems like the epitome of "I think I am very smart (while I'm really not) and super smug about it!". No wonder dumb and dumber were drawn to it...

[Paloma]

I haven't read the books and wasn't sure I'd be interested in this show because the descriptions emphasized physics, which I know next to nothing about. Also, I like sci-fi but not particularly hard, or technical, sci-fi. But the first episode was intriguing, not so much for the scientific questions as for the human drama. I'm especially interested in the story of the daughter of the professor who was killed in that horrific opening scene. (As an aside, I was especially upset by this scene because I don't see the "Cultural Revolution" as just a historical event in China; hatred of and threats against scientists, medical professionals, and educators in the US have escalated in recent years, though for different reasons.)

The scenes at the logging camp seemed unrealistic--would they really have let the prisoners/workers have unsupervised free time to sit and eat lunch and chat with others? Also, who was the guy who gave her the book Silent Spring? He said something indicating he was a reporter, but it wasn't clear if he was also a prisoner. And did he turn her in for having the book? He was standing behind the guards who arrested her.

So the purpose of the Chinese dish seemed to be communication with aliens. Are the countdowns also a message from aliens? And is each person who sees a countdown seeing the same numbers, or does each person have a different countdown? I'd be interested in an aliens story, but there also are suggestions that this has something to do with religious faith and belief in God--and if that becomes a prominent part, it will lose me.

[shrewd.buddha]

22 hours ago, Paloma said:

So the purpose of the Chinese dish seemed to be communication with aliens.

That seemed like an odd choice for for a Communist controlled government who killed college professors for being imperialists and spreading knowledge. 
Interstellar communication and travel require advanced intelligence and science - by humans and aliens: not exactly things that seemed to be valued.

Whenever a series ends the first episode with a preview of "things that will happen during this season", it makes me think they are worried that people might not be excited enough to continue. (We skipped the preview spoilers)
Our household will continue, but it may have more to do with knowledge of - and hype - of the book. This first episode was well made, but I wouldn't describe it as riveting. 

[Paloma]

1 hour ago, shrewd.buddha said:

That seemed like an odd choice for for a Communist controlled government who killed college professors for being imperialists and spreading knowledge. 
Interstellar communication and travel require advanced intelligence and science - by humans and aliens: not exactly things that seemed to be valued.

I agree, it didn't make sense. Not saying this project didn't happen (I don't know if the Chinese actually made any attempts at interstellar communication in that era), but if that's an important goal you need physicists and other scientists.

1 hour ago, shrewd.buddha said:

Whenever a series ends the first episode with a preview of "things that will happen during this season", it makes me think they are worried that people might not be excited enough to continue. (We skipped the preview spoilers)

We wanted to skip the preview spoilers but didn't FF fast enough to miss the first shocking scene. It's annoying when shows do that.

[Rickster]

Given the hype for this series, I thought the first episode sort of dull and disappointing. I’m about halfway through the second and don’t think it improves. Did not see the previews.

[iMonrey]

On 3/23/2024 at 8:14 AM, Rickster said:

Given the hype for this series, I thought the first episode sort of dull and disappointing. I’m about halfway through the second and don’t think it improves. Did not see the previews.

Right there with you. I've read you have to stick it out until after the third episode. Not a great sign. I found it a bit of a struggle to get through the first episode. I saw the previews and it's intriguing enough but I'm already sensing I'm maybe not the audience for this.

[Zaffy]

I found the first episode a bit frustrating and most of the characters annoying. Thinking about it, the less annoying character was the lady that killed herself at the beginning and that only because of her very limited screen time.
They are trying way too hard to shove everything down our throats and make it feel significant and mysterious, like the investigator who talks too much without really saying anything. Basically that was the whole first episode, too much trouble for nothing.
Let's see how this will go.

[aghst]

I haven’t read the books but the description of this story made it sound like a cool, soulless tale or one that fails to connect emotionally, kind of like Westworld.

It’s striking how much the short opening credits look and sound like the WW opening credits, probably done by the same people perhaps.

The scene of the young daughter witnessing her father’s execution is right out of Game of Thrones.  I thought cool, this could be the Arya Stark moment.

But this character would turn into a vengeful, smug, misanthropic figure, not eliciting the sympathy that Arya does, because the viewers witness her journey over several seasons whereas in this, Ye Wenjie revels herself as just as embittered and awful as the young woman who murdered her father.

Traitors to their own species, that’s quite the ambitious goal for evil villains.

[jacehan]

On 3/23/2024 at 7:43 AM, shrewd.buddha said:

That seemed like an odd choice for for a Communist controlled government who killed college professors for being imperialists and spreading knowledge. 
Interstellar communication and travel require advanced intelligence and science - by humans and aliens: not exactly things that seemed to be valued.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say they were killed for spreading knowledge- rather, idealogy comes first, and if the facts don’t match the idealogy, the facts must be propaganda. Given this, it actually makes sense that they would reach out to find the “real” facts from another source in the universe.

[Ottis]

On 3/23/2024 at 9:14 AM, Rickster said:

Given the hype for this series, I thought the first episode sort of dull and disappointing. I’m about halfway through the second and don’t think it improves. Did not see the previews.

Part of the reason is, all the Western characters are annoyingly precocious and self-aware. Me, me, me, all the time. Except for the older people, who die. Maybe they, too, can’t stand the other characters.

As a result, I don't care if all of them die in whatever the countdown is for.

As for the overall mystery, it seems like antiintellectuals have found a way to make everyone else dumber. We face enough of that IRL.

I’ll give it a couple of eps.

An add after finishing this ep: Yhe storytelling got silly at the end. It would have been far better if only the two whiny scientists saw the winking and not the whole world. They could have gone to bed and watched the news the next morning. Also, an “enemy.” I hope it isn’t aliens, but instead is some sort of time traveling human source wanting to change human development. Aliens are boring within this science construct.  

Edited April 6 by Ottis

[Morrigan2575]

On 3/21/2024 at 3:59 PM, Helena Dax said:

This looks pretty cool, I honestly thought D&D would show titties just because, but they didn't

I had no idea what this show was about but, I read this as Dungeons and Dragons and was confused when I watched the first episode and, couldn't understand why they weren't playing DnD. 😁

It makes sense that this was made by GoT show runners because it had a few GoT actors.

The first episode has me interested. I don't know enough about physics or science to say what does or doesn't make sense.  The characters are interesting and I'm curious as to the character dynamics/relationships

[Affogato]

I had trouble caring. May try again later. 

[eelpout]

I fear this is going to fall into the category of 52 minutes of padded minor plot forwarding, followed by 2 minutes of "something shocking" to get one to go to the next episode. 

I'll give it a couple more hours. then probably give up and add the books to the list.