Small Talk: a.k.a. 'The Meet Market'

[Souris]

1 hour ago, ParadoxLost said:

I don't remember a bunch Voyager from the first time around.  I remember liking Tom Paris and B'Elanna and basically giving it up out of irritation with Seven of Nine.

But I was looking through lists of worse episodes of TV shows ever.  I came across one for Voyager.  I didn't remember it, so I watched it.

It was the salamander episode

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where Paris and Janeway evolve into salamander and procreate

and it was fantastic.  I laughed...so hard.

IIRC that episode may have been the exact turnoff point for me. It was sooooooooooo bad. Epically bad. I also liked Tom and  B'Elanna. They really did go overboard with Seven of Nine. Kind of like Once with Regina.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Souris

[Rumsy4]

I have only watched The Next Generation of the original Star Trek, and I don’t remember a single thing other than me having a crush on Spock. hehehe

[KingOfHearts]

I liked Seven of Nine, but I agree that they overdid it with her. The show was sinking, so they focused hard on the one thing that was actually alright. I really hate what they did to her character in the final season and the pairing the writers slapped her with. (Hint: It made no sense and it was tacked on last minute.)

[Shanna Marie]

On 2/9/2018 at 6:04 PM, KingOfHearts said:

Deep Space Nine has a similar structure to OUAT, being a scifi/fantasy serialized drama with an ensemble cast. Of course, it was more episodic, but OUAT could have afforded to be the same.

I think DS9 got more serialized later in the run, but they had a nice balance of arc stories and one-off episodes that focused more on the characters and that allowed them to delve into the emotional and character issues brought up in the arc episodes. They even had a somewhat similar situation to Once, with the station being like a small town, it was somewhat isolated, and the wormhole was like a portal. I guess the difference is that DS9 wasn't entirely cut off, and it was part of a greater universe, so while they were at war with the Klingons or the Dominion, there were weeks when the war was happening elsewhere with other Federation forces and they could do an episode about life on the station, with the arc as an emotional subplot. And then the next week, our crew would be back involved in the war. With the way Storybrooke is set up, once the villains are there, they're there, and there's no one outside Storybrooke to deal with them, so our heroes look silly if they're not focused on the current threat all the time.

On 2/9/2018 at 8:56 PM, KingOfHearts said:

I liked Seven of Nine, but I agree that they overdid it with her. The show was sinking, so they focused hard on the one thing that was actually alright.

When they first announced the character, before there were even pictures of her, the way they described her in the news release led to someone on Usenet writing a lovely parody to the tune of "Be Our Guest," only it was "We've got breasts!"

[Souris]

I am currently in deep to my Olympics obsession!

[jhlipton]

I plan, at some point, to take advantage of the free week of CBS "All Access" and binge Discovery.  I've heard tht it's pretty good.  Of course, those reviews came from Babylon 5 fans, so...

On 2/9/2018 at 12:29 PM, Shanna Marie said:

That was why I gave up on The Expanse. I didn't enjoy spending time with those people. They were all jerks, to some extent, and their universe struck me as very bleak.

My take on The Expanse is that the Universe is bleak, so the crew of the Roci has to do all they can to make it less bleak.  Amos may seem like a psychopath or sociopath, but he has a clear-cut sense of loyalty and even a sense of humor. 

I love the depth of the politics and the jockeying between Earth, Mars and the Belt. 

Edited February 12, 2018 by jhlipton

[RadioGirl27]

Hi!! It's been a long time, I know.

On 9/2/2018 at 12:06 AM, Souris said:

I'm almost done with my binging of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.

I love Miss Fisher! It's so wonderful. I hope they finally do the film.

I don't watch many shows really, just Stranger Things, the X-Files, Timeless, the new Star Trek and NCIS LA (don't judge me, I love Eric Christian Olsen). I'm thinking about giving The Gifted a try, and waiting for Netflix Spain to premiere The Alienist.

[Souris]

A Valentine for the forum.

 

[ParadoxLost]

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 3:18 AM, jhlipton said:

I plan, at some point, to take advantage of the free week of CBS "All Access" and binge Discovery.  I've heard tht it's pretty good.  Of course, those reviews came from Babylon 5 fans, so...

What's wrong with Babylon 5?

[Shanna Marie]

2 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

What's wrong with Babylon 5?

I found their fans a wee bit obsessive and obnoxious. You'd think from hearing them that the show was utterly original and invented all the tropes. Shakespeare traveled forward through time to steal ideas from the all-holy JMS. I thought it was an okay show, but not nearly as good as the fans seemed to think. I felt like it was actually kind of hurt by the much-vaunted "five-year plan" because while it was nice that there was a plot and a plan, TV is a collaborative medium, so once a script is written, it's given life by actors, directors, costumers, designers, etc., and sometimes the way a script is interpreted might bring up new ideas or send things in a different direction. There are things like cast chemistry that might give new ideas or change plans. But with B5, the plan was rigid, and even though there seemed to be other possibilities struggling to break free, it was like JMS was forcing things to stick to his original plan instead of going with the way things played out on the screen. As the show went on, I felt like that made things come across as very wooden.

I have a personal experience with a fairly typical B5 fan that sums it all up. During the time the show was on, I was doing PR for tech companies, and there was a big trade show at the convention center downtown, and I had a few clients there. The station for the rail line that goes downtown to the convention center was near my office, which was in the tech corridor, and at that time it was the end of the line, so the train would sit there for a while between arriving and departing. The train was full of people in company booth uniforms heading to the trade show, and a rather cute guy sat next to me. We had about 15 minutes before the train left, and then it was about half an hour to the convention center, and we chatted the whole time. We were really hitting it off, and as we got off the train at the convention center, we exchanged business cards and said we ought to get together again sometime. As we walked into the convention center, the subject of TV came up. He asked if I watched Babylon 5, and I said I did, but I had to admit I liked the characters of Deep Space Nine better. It was just an offhand remark. At that point, we had to go our separate ways. When I got an e-mail from him the next day, it wasn't anything like you'd have expected, like "It was nice meeting you, want to get together for coffee/a drink?" It was more along the lines of "Please explain exactly what your problem with Babylon 5 is and how can you possibly not think it's the best show ever?" Mind you, I said I watched it and I even liked it. He had a problem with the fact that it wasn't my favorite. Needless to say, we did not get that coffee/drink/whatever. This is why nerds don't get nice things.

[ParadoxLost]

@Shanna Marie   I liked Bablyon 5 better than Deep Space Nine, so we shall have to learn to co-exist :)P

Now I admit, I have never been able to watch the first season.  The couple episodes I saw felt kind of dour.  I tried it again when Sheridan took over the station (because I loved Scarecrow and Mrs. King way too much when I was a kid, my young self still sighs over their love). 

The whole thing seemed to have lightened up with some character transformations, in Delenn and G'Kar particularly, and Sheridan's attitude and his staff's reaction to it.  I just thoroughly enjoyed all the characters and especially loved that they used all combinations of them.  It was actually a relief to have a show that had a story to tell and wasn't making the whole thing up as it went along.  But it would be best to have something in the middle.

JMS did leave himself outs when he was forced to use them and I thought the story they ended up telling with Sheridan was better than what had been planned with Sinclair (although the circumstances behind that were sad).   And I thought "the One" was a clever idea that was at least adapted for that circumstance if not invented as a result.

I do agree that there were some things I wish they hadn't done that were in service of the 5 yr plan.  Consigning Mr Garibaldi to a story line with no other regulars was irritating because he was best in the ensemble; and JMS didn't find a different way to tell the Mars story or find a way to excise it.

The show suffered a bit because of the perpetual threat of cancellation and the actual demise of their network.  They basically wrapped the five year plan in four and the fifth season became a kind of lackluster epilogue.

I always complained about parts of B5, but overall I loved it and I was passionate about it and the characters.  Deep Space Nine, I watched and found pretty forgettable.

Edited February 16, 2018 by ParadoxLost

[jhlipton]

53 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I found their fans a wee bit obsessive and obnoxious.

There was that but I kept hearing "You have to watch this!!!!"  So I did and didn't like it, so "Oh, you have to start with Season 2".  I watched an episode or two, but watching Moe of the Three Stooges in bleh stories didn't do a thing for me!

[Shanna Marie]

20 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

I liked Bablyon 5 better than Deep Space Nine, so we shall have to learn to co-exist :)P

I won't reject all further social interaction until you recant your heresy. :-) That was the weird thing. I'd never encountered anything that extreme in fandom, of someone being that angry at someone they otherwise had hit it off well with and had a lot in common with just because of the ranking of favorite shows. It wasn't even like I was a reality TV fan and he liked science fiction. We liked the same things and just ranked them differently.

20 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Now I admit, I have never been able to watch the first season.  The couple episodes I saw felt kind of dour.  I tried it again when Sheridan took over the station (because I loved Scarecrow and Mrs. King way too much when I was a kid, my young self still sighs over their love). 

I tried the first season, turned it off about halfway through the second episode because it was just so bad. Then I went to a convention where JMS and Claudia Christian were appearing, and went to a writing workshop there led by JMS. They showed the first episode of season 2 at the convention, and I had the same Scarecrow and Mrs. King reaction and watched it from there. I think I dropped off watching, though, after the rather lame way they ended the Shadow War and after Ivanova left.

In other news, I now have my TV situation settled. I was thinking about getting DirecTV Now during the rest of the TV season so I could get ABC and the stuff I watch on cable. Well, I got an offer today for $10 a month for the first three months, which was the amount of time I need. I'm hoping the series finale is May 11 because the deal ends on May 16 and I'll be out of town May 18. I guess in that case I'll have to get the Amazon instant video episode when I get home or hope I don't have anything scheduled that night. As low as the ratings have been, I wouldn't be surprised if they burn off episodes to end earlier in May so they can put in other shows during the rest of May sweeps.

[ParadoxLost]

3 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I tried the first season, turned it off about halfway through the second episode because it was just so bad. Then I went to a convention where JMS and Claudia Christian were appearing, and went to a writing workshop there led by JMS. They showed the first episode of season 2 at the convention, and I had the same Scarecrow and Mrs. King reaction and watched it from there. I think I dropped off watching, though, after the rather lame way they ended the Shadow War and after Ivanova left.

I made it to the end of the Earth war and the season 4 finale.  I watched a couple episodes of season 5 but it was kind of wrapped up and all the characters had been scattered to other corners of the universe in their own stories.  I loved the ensemble and it was broken.  I only own the S2-4 DVDs.

Now that I think on it, I only get really involved in damaged shows.  I like my shows to have flaws or wasted potential because I like to dissect how to make them better.  That's how I tend to engage.  Shows, like the Good Place, that are really well done are fun to watch but its hard for me to spend much time taking about them.  You can compliment it and point out a few clever things, but there isn't much more to talk about.  Even speculation isn't very interesting when the show comes up with stuff that is better than the viewers come up with.

This probably explains why I like Seaquest DSV as much as I did when I was younger.  If I knew of places like this when it was on, I probably would have never gotten any homework done. The submarine went to outer space. Outer. Space.

[jhlipton]

On 2/16/2018 at 4:45 PM, ParadoxLost said:

Shows, like the Good Place, that are really well done are fun to watch but its hard for me to spend much time taking about them

I can help with that.  These people are in "the Bad Place" because of their "sins" on Earth?

Tahani was psychologically abused by her mother and sister, and treated like garbage by everyone around her.  She tried to compensate by doing good, but because she was doing it "for the wrong reasons" (trying to find just a little self-esteem), she's as evil as Eleanor.  Puhhhhease!

Same goes for Chidi (And Jianyu to a lesser extent).

[Rumsy4]

26 minutes ago, jhlipton said:

She tried to compensate by doing good, but because she was doing it "for the wrong reasons" (trying to find just a little self-esteem), she's as evil as Eleanor. 

She's vain as hell and a total snob. Reason's aren't excuses. ;-) However, I get your drift, and it seems that the Show is building up to an overhaul of sorts.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Rumsy4

[jhlipton]

21 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

She's vain as hell and a total snob. Reason's aren't excuses. ;-) However, I get your drift, and it seems that the Show is building up to an overhaul of sorts.

I watched about half of the first season and a later episode about her life and death.  Her "Good Place" personality was completely different from her "Real Life" one (unlike Eleanor).  If she was vain on Earth, it was just trying get anyone to acknowledge her.  (The interview showed that NO ONE thought she mattered in the leadt.)  So is Tahani being punished for who the PTB turned her into?

I suppose I could try watching it wirh my "morality filter" turned off and with the outlook that whoever is really in charge is a first-class a**hole.

But why would I want to watch a show like that, when I can get a lot of the same "beats" from Brooklyn 99, where everyone is nice to each other (except -- blech -- Gina)?

[Rumsy4]

I don't specifically remember how the first half of season 1 portrayed her--I haven't rewatched the older episodes, but I guess I don't see how Tahani's sad backstory excuses any of her shitty behavior. I don't agree with the moral philosophy of the Show's Universe, but as I said before, that doesn't stop me from enjoying shows that are at least internally consistent and well-written (and seem to know where they're going). I'm not saying you should catch up--I usually give up shows I don't enjoy. However, I don't think you have a complete picture of the Show's premise as you haven't seen all the episodes.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Shanna Marie]

AAHHHH spoilers! I'm only midway through season one of "The Good Place."

[Camera One]

I haven't watched it at all, but I hope to at some point due to all the buzz here.  It's hard to get a hold of a series on network television if one didn't start watching from the start.

[Shanna Marie]

10 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I haven't watched it at all, but I hope to at some point due to all the buzz here.  It's hard to get a hold of a series on network television if one didn't start watching from the start.

I'm getting the season one DVDs from the library, but they split up the set, so that disc one and disc two are separate checkouts, and I have disc 2 requested, but it hasn't come to my branch for pickup yet. It looks like all of season 2 is available on demand.

[Rumsy4]

25 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

AAHHHH spoilers! I'm only midway through season one of "The Good Place."

Oops! Sorry. At least I didn’t spoil Snape kills ..., eh? 

19 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I haven't watched it at all, but I hope to at some point due to all the buzz here.  It's hard to get a hold of a series on network television if one didn't start watching from the start.

S1 is on netflix. That’s how I caught up. Luckily, NBC leaves episodes online for a couple of weeks after it airs, and I usually watch the day after it airs. 

[ParadoxLost]

Let's not spoil it for @Shanna Marie and @Camera One.  The Good Place is better not spoiled.

I've been reading through pilots in hopes of seeing something that might take OUAT's place.  I find that I am more a CW viewer than anything.  I kind of need to grow up.  But they have shows with descriptions like two women who work in a pizza place are recruited to become space cops when an alien spaceship crashes.  Also, I may get a chance to re-live my Roswell rage from childhood.  They can't possibly recreate that BTS nightmare, so it almost has to be better than the shit show it became the first time around.

But the creative team for Limitless got a summer show picked up.  I am looking forward to that just because I loved Limitless.

[Camera One]

Darn, I can't find it at my local library.  The Canadian network that has the rights only has 2 episodes of Season 2 on demand.  I don't have Netflix, unfortunately.  I guess I'll have to wait.

Maybe I should start to PVR shows *just in case*, though there's only so much space!

[jhlipton]

7 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

I don't think you have a complete picture of the Show's premise as you haven't seen all the episodes.

Between what I've seen and what I've read, I have an idea of what's going on.  No thanks.

5 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

Let's not spoil it for @Shanna Marie and @Camera One.  The Good Place is better not

Spoiler

spoiled

.

I find that I am more a CW viewer than anything.  I kind of need to grow up.

CW has some of the best shows, and more diversity than the networks -- They have a black woman and a Muslim woman on Legends of Tomorrow, and somehow the universe didn't explode. 

[Shanna Marie]

Legends of Tomorrow has become one of my favorites. I started watching almost entirely for Arthur Darvill (because Rory on Doctor Who is one of my favorite characters ever) because I don't follow any of the other CW superhero shows and don't really even like any superhero stuff, bailed midway through season one, but then heard good things about season two, and I think they really course corrected. I think it helps that they now (unlike what seemed to be happening in season one) don't take themselves too seriously, and they do such crazy stuff that I can't predict where they're going. Even though Arthur Darvill is now only occasionally recurring, I still have so much fun watching.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I'm really looking forward to this show coming back next week and might even have scheduled my weekend activities around it. It's even possible that I've started planning my menu for my personal viewing party (though I do that for anything I watch on Friday nights -- I like to make a kind of event out of it to kick off the weekend and cook some kind of fun dinner).

[Camera One]

22 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I'm really looking forward to this show coming back next week and might even have scheduled my weekend activities around it. It's even possible that I've started planning my menu for my personal viewing party (though I do that for anything I watch on Friday nights -- I like to make a kind of event out of it to kick off the weekend and cook some kind of fun dinner).

I'm looking forward to it too.  To me, the show has become a great way to get my mind off a week of typical work troubles, and to have a few laughs and analytical discussions about the latest hair-brained plot.

[KingOfHearts]

51 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I'm looking forward to it too.  To me, the show has become a great way to get my mind off a week of typical work troubles, and to have a few laughs and analytical discussions about the latest hair-brained plot.

We're all excited here in the Coven!

[Camera One]

Next Friday's Coven meeting, BYOCH.

(That is Bring Your Own Coat Hanger).

[KingOfHearts]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

Next Friday's Coven meeting, BYOCH.

(That is Bring Your Own Coat Hanger).

Ugh. I have to go to Granny's with my parents that night. #SoLame #HateLasagna

[Camera One]

I'm in the Pacific Time Zone with all my Coat Hangers, and I feel like I'm being shut out of The Secret Garden.  Now I know how Regina felt when she was excluded.

Edited March 3, 2018 by Camera One

[ParadoxLost]

@Camera One.  I'm in the Eastern time zone.  I was the first to post in the Secret Garden and no one else did for like 30-45 minutes.  It felt like no one wanted to eat my lasagna and my garlic toast is soggy from tears.

I kind of feel like we might need live episode posting to avoid the forum dying before the season ends. 

[Rumsy4]

5 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

I kind of feel like we might need live episode posting to avoid the forum dying before the season ends. 

We may need to get the rewatch started before this season ends.

[KingOfHearts]

I remember when there were a dozen posts or so before 30 minutes. Many of them were posted by people who didn't even participate in non-episode threads. Nowadays, it's mostly just us in the Coven continuing the nasty habit of over-analyzing a train wreck. We're in no hurry either, lol. (I would have posted sooner if I didn't have something going on immediately after the show.)

Edited March 3, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

I was out Wednesday and Thursday nights, so I had to catch up on this week's episode of The Magicians, and I decided to do that while the TV was on, so I was late posting. I figured that by the time that was over, there would be plenty of posts to respond to.

Some week, I'm going to have to do lasagna for my Friday-night dinner. It's just that it's such a hassle and then there are so many leftovers. Maybe I'll get wild and crazy and get Stouffer's instead of cooking.

[Rumsy4]

Should we start planning the rewatch at some point? I just think if we wait to begin rewatch after the season's over, there'll only be five of us active in the board. lol

Edited March 3, 2018 by Rumsy4

[daxx]

I forgot it was on until it was over, watched it on the DVR but didn’t have anything to say really.

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Should we start planning the rewatch at some point? I just think if we wait to begin rewatch after the season's over, there'll only be five of us active in the board. lol

 

How often do we want to do each episode? I'd like to be able to discuss them individually, ideally. I think some of them will warrant more discussion than others.

Edited March 3, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

10 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

How often do we want to do each episode? I'd like to be able to discuss them individually, ideally. I think some of them will warrant more discussion than others.

I think we will not be able to keep a rewatch going for years. Around two episodes a week would be doable. I think we may be able to plan in such a way that we could rewatch/discuss related episodes together. 

[KingOfHearts]

15 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

I think we will not be able to keep a rewatch going for years. Around two episodes a week would be doable. I think we may be able to plan in such a way that we could rewatch/discuss related episodes together. 

According to my math, that would give us enough to work with every week for 1.5~ years.

[KingOfHearts]

I wrote up a proposed week plan for the grand rewatch. I put it in a pastebin since it's so long. Tell me what you think! It's 78 weeks in length.

https://pastebin.com/iVvXpicx

[Rumsy4]

That looks reasonable. Thanks for putting it together, @KingOfHearts. Looking at the list of Season 6 episodes depresses me, but maybe when we reach that point, I might feel like rewatching those episodes. I have one quibble. The Bear King should have had its own week ;-). 

[KingOfHearts]

2 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

That looks reasonable. Thanks for putting it together, @KingOfHearts. Looking at the list of Season 6 episodes depresses me, but maybe when we reach that point, I might feel like rewatching those episodes. I have one quibble. The Bear King should have had its own week ;-). 

I think I'll swap The Bear King and The Last Rites, so that the other gets the solo week.

Edit: Here's the updated version. https://pastebin.com/fMivmFcX

Edited March 7, 2018 by KingOfHearts

[Rumsy4]

27 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

I think I'll swap The Bear King and The Last Rites, so that the other gets the solo week.

Edit: Here's the updated version. https://pastebin.com/fMivmFcX

 

OMG no.  Forget I said anything!! :-p

Edited March 7, 2018 by Rumsy4

[Camera One]

31 minutes ago, Rumsy4 said:

Looking at the list of Season 6 episodes depresses me

What about Weeks 68-78?  
Thanks for doing this, @KingOfHearts

"The Bear King" is a pretty good stand-alone episode.  Too bad it wasn't two hours.  :D

[KingOfHearts]

Oh gosh, I thought @Rumsy4 was serious. I agree with @Camera One that it's a good stand-alone episode, as it has nothing to do with everything else. I actually think it's underrated, even for being a Merida-centric.

[Rumsy4]

3 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

Oh gosh, I thought @Rumsy4 was serious. 

We've taken to being tongue in cheek a lot these days, it's sometimes hard to tell when one is really serious. Occasionally, I get confused if @Camera One's A&E snippets and episode teasers are real or not. lol 

[KingOfHearts]

I've been interested in writing since a young age. I enjoy plotting, building characters, and outlining. What perturbs me are the "dailies" - describing things, orchestrating individual scenes, and writing correctly. (I don't mean using proper grammar, but obeying all the rules that come with novel prose, like not using certain words or other taboos.) It's probably a matter of sitting down and just writing, saving the mistake fixing for the editing later. Like A&E, I get a lot of good ideas, but it's the execution that usually gets me.

[Camera One]

I'm not good with either coming up with plot ideas, nor writing individual scenes.  I can rewrite something that someone else has written, or use existing characters but I find it difficult to come up with my own characters or story.  Too bad we can't all write like Henry.  Good night, and complete story with illustrations when you wake up.  

[Rumsy4]

I started by writing "missing pieces" kind of stories for fanfic (for Jane Austen's works, originally)--gaps I wanted to fill, get behind character motivations, continuations, etc.. Then, I moved to canon divergence. My first canon divergence was for Harry Potter (and incidentally, the only fic I wrote for that fandom). It's only with OUAT and Captain Swan that I have diverged into both reading and writing all sorts of genres. The Show's very concept lends itself to that sort of flexibility. Of course, my dream is to one day write an original fic, but I'm not sure it will happen any time soon. I will need to get a lot better at writing for that, and I just don't have the time to focus on it. Maybe after retirement? lol I do think that writing fanfic serves as a good stepping point, as it has for many others. 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Rumsy4