The "what are you watching" thread

The Dutch Ghost

The Dutch Ghost

Grouchy old man of NMA
Moderator
NMA Newsposter
Hello all,

We didn't seem to have a thread about what people are currently watching thread so I decided to make one.
If there is such a thread already I will merge this later with that one.

I am currently re-watching an old cartoon called Exo Squad, one of those cartoons that initially seemed to have be made to push toys. But I have to say that it holds up very well regarding storylines and characters. The plot is about a future war between mankind and an artificial species called the Neo Sapiens which was originally created as a labor force to assist with colonizing the inner planets, it handles themes like slavery, genetic engineering, racism.
Some refer to it as the American anime.

Next to that I am also watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine, having decided to finally give the entire series a chance after I only watched bits and pieces of it during the series' original run years ago.
It is much better than I originally recall, maybe because my taste is a bit more developed, or I am just hungry for any Trek that isn't NuTrek (made by Kurtzman and Secret Hideout)

Once I am finished with Exo Squad I am going to give "For all mankind" another try.
 
Haha.

I am going to start 11/22/63 in a couple days. I've heard good things about it and I loved the book.

I've been wanting to watch Heathcliff too. I like old cartoons.
 
I just finished Exo Squad, that was a fun cartoon series. Too bad it ended on a cliffhanger, I would love to see the series continue with the new threat that was introduced in the final episode as well as the spin off series the producers wanted to make.

Currently I am finishing the old D&D cartoon which I also started several weeks ago. Then its back to DSN.
 
Me and my gal tried watching the Finnish series "Konflikti", but it was an absolute slog for three episodes that just served nothingburgers. So we gave up. Not sure what to watch now though...
 
Resardiv said:
Me and my gal tried watching the Finnish series "Konflikti", but it was an absolute slog for three episodes that just served nothingburgers. So we gave up. Not sure what to watch now though...
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What are you into? Maybe the people here can help.
 
I am currently watching the words on pages in a book called Jurassic Park.
iz gud
Very different from the movie even just 46 pages in.
 
At the moment I'm re-watching (for maybe the third or fourth time?) the classic Star Trek run of TOS through to Voyager, including the movies. Just finished The Wrath of Khan today, and it's still an amazing movie.
 
Anaphylaxis said:
At the moment I'm re-watching (for maybe the third or fourth time?) the classic Star Trek run of TOS through to Voyager, including the movies. Just finished The Wrath of Khan today, and it's still an amazing movie.
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I think Wrath of Khan is a good movie but also that it is sort of 'overrated'. Overrated as in that several Trek movies tried to emulate it which I found very disappointing as it feels that writers couldn't come up with ideas for an original story or think the only good Trek movie is one that tries to mimic WoK.

What do you think about the series Star Trek Enterprise as you did not mention that one.
My personal favorite season is season 4 as that one felt like a prequel to the Original Series, even if it was a bit fan wank-ish sometimes.
 
Just watched “Turbo Kid”, post-apocalyptic movie from 2015. It’s kind of silly and cheesy but I liked it. It’s pretty much Mad Max but they ride bicycles instead of motorcycles/cars. Takes place in 1997 and everything is pretty 80s, especially the music. Extremely and hilariously violent. It’s got some sci fi too. I think Fallout fans in particular would appreciate it. Just don’t go in expecting it to be serious, or even particularly funny (the violence was the funniest part to me).

Oh, and Michael Ironside is the bad guy, so that’s a plus.
 
I've been watching a lot of King of the Hill lately. I love that show and I'm looking forward to the revival. Although, I gotta say, I don't know if it will live up to expectations.
 
King of the Hill is also one of the series I still need to watch. I caught an episode occasionally when it still aired but it has been quite some time.

So season 7 and those after are considered the weaker entries in the series?
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
King of the Hill is also one of the series I still need to watch. I caught an episode occasionally when it still aired but it has been quite some time.

So season 7 and those after are considered the weaker entries in the series?
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Season 7 is still pretty good (“Vision Quest” is one of my favorites) and even Season 8 has some good episodes, but overall I’d say the show starts gradually going downhill after Season 5. But that’s just my opinion.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
I think Wrath of Khan is a good movie but also that it is sort of 'overrated'. Overrated as in that several Trek movies tried to emulate it which I found very disappointing as it feels that writers couldn't come up with ideas for an original story or think the only good Trek movie is one that tries to mimic WoK.
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I think that sort of effect is mostly with the TNG movies, First Contact especially. The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home do feel thematically different to The Wrath of Khan, at least in my opinion.
The Dutch Ghost said:
What do you think about the series Star Trek Enterprise as you did not mention that one.
My personal favorite season is season 4 as that one felt like a prequel to the Original Series, even if it was a bit fan wank-ish sometimes.
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I'm still debating on whether or not I'll watch it. I probably will just because once I finish Voyager I'll feel bound to at least see through the B&B Era. Personally my feelings on it are basically the same as my feelings on Voyager: Wasted opportunity. It could've really pushed boundaries on storytelling while hitting the beats of Trek, like expanding the world and the "backstory" of the Races and the founding of the Federation while still doing the good "planet-of-the-week" stories. I feel like it took them two seasons to find their footing, and even the third season - which in my opinion was good - felt weak with all of the Time War bullshit. Season 4 was honestly very good, really its first - and only - solid season.

It's just a shame it took them so long to figure it out.
 
Anaphylaxis said:
I think that sort of effect is mostly with the TNG movies, First Contact especially. The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home do feel thematically different to The Wrath of Khan, at least in my opinion.
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Oh I didn't mean the Original Series movies. Rather the TNG movies such as Nemesis, and the Abrams movies who all features antagonists who wants revenge and some kind of super weapon. Its too obvious that they tried to copy the formula of WoK, but lacking the knowledge what made WoK work.

Anaphylaxis said:
Personally my feelings on it are basically the same as my feelings on Voyager: Wasted opportunity.
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I thought Voyager was okay but it definitely could have been better. For me the best Seasons were 4 and 5 which I think Voyager peaked but after that the show steadily declined such as the overuse of the Borg.
The show could have done with more continuity and serialized story telling like they did on Deep Space Nine.

Anaphylaxis said:
It could've really pushed boundaries on storytelling while hitting the beats of Trek, like expanding the world and the "backstory" of the Races and the founding of the Federation while still doing the good "planet-of-the-week" stories.
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Agreed, but from the start I knew we wouldn't get such a show because of the people producing it. Only later did I hear that B & B wanted the show to have started on Earth and it taking time before the Enterprise would be launched, but the higher executives wanted another TNG style show.
Or so Braga said. I am not sure who I should believe in this regard.

Even if it had started out like B & B planned it doesn't mean that Enterprise would have been the prequel we expected it to be to the original series as I feel the original series was a bit looked down upon for being somewhat silly and camp. Enterprise tried more to be a prequel to TNG.

Looking back Trek should have taken a break after Voyager like Berman wanted and not immediately be followed up by a new series, but the higher ups wanted a new show for UPC.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Oh I didn't mean the Original Series movies. Rather the TNG movies such as Nemesis, and the Abrams movies who all features antagonists who wants revenge and some kind of super weapon. Its too obvious that they tried to copy the formula of WoK, but lacking the knowledge what made WoK work.
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Oh, then in that case definitely, although some of TNG's faults is that Patrick Stewart leveraged his appearances being contingent on getting to be the action hero. One of the worst examples of an actor totally misunderstanding the character. You can see this also deeply affected Picard, although that show is unsalvageable for a lot of reasons.

Abrams literally remade The Wrath of Khan (Into Darkness) and it was the worst of his trilogy.
The Dutch Ghost said:
I thought Voyager was okay but it definitely could have been better. For me the best Seasons were 4 and 5 which I think Voyager peaked but after that the show steadily declined such as the overuse of the Borg.
The show could have done with more continuity and serialized story telling like they did on Deep Space Nine.
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It's clear that some of the writing team wanted to take the show in a more serialized manner like Battlestar Galactica but lacked the instinct to see it through. I suspect it also had to do with network pressure, as DS9 was a heavily serialized (as much as Star Trek at the time COULD be serialized) show and I think they wanted something more episodic to balance it out. In the end it negatively impacted the show as it limited their ability to tell stories without falling back on the Borg or something to keep the stakes high.
The Dutch Ghost said:
Agreed, but from the start I knew we wouldn't get such a show because of the people producing it. Only later did I hear that B & B wanted the show to have started on Earth and it taking time before the Enterprise would be launched, but the higher executives wanted another TNG style show.
Or so Braga said. I am not sure who I should believe in this regard.

Even if it had started out like B & B planned it doesn't mean that Enterprise would have been the prequel we expected it to be to the original series as I feel the original series was a bit looked down upon for being somewhat silly and camp. Enterprise tried more to be a prequel to TNG.

Looking back Trek should have taken a break after Voyager like Berman wanted and not immediately be followed up by a new series, but the higher ups wanted a new show for UPC.
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I'm suspect about anything Berman and Braga say about this shit. They fucked the dog so bad that Star Trek died and had to be resurrected as a shuffling zombie by Abrams and later Kurtzman. Most of the blame, in my opinion, for why Star Trek is in the gutter is because of them and their inability to balance out network demands. The network didn't force them to write plodding useless garbage in the first two seasons of Enterprise, and I doubt it was some executive's idea to do a fucking Time War plot arc. That's got B&B written all over that.

I think doing a prequel series was a huge misstep, but I can't really fault them for wanting to switch up the setting since the "TNG era" had become a bit convoluted to anyone who wasn't paying attention. I would've done a soft-prequel set in between the TOS Movies and TNG, as a bridge between the two series.

For what it's worth, I think the actors and individual characters - Scott Bakula/Archer, Jolene Blalock/T'Pol, and whoever played Trip - were amazing and did great work with what they were given. Bakula gets a lot of shit for Archer but I think he was a good Captain, better than Mulgrew and Janeway in any case.
 
Anaphylaxis said:
You can see this also deeply affected Picard, although that show is unsalvageable for a lot of reasons.
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I see you are also not a fan of Picard. Some people swear by season 3 but I just find it long nostalgia milking.
It may be better than the previous two seasons but that doesn't make it good Star Trek.
What I found one of the problems is that a story that could be told in two or three episodes is dragged out into a full season.
There are ST fans that wanted Matalas to do a Star Trek Legacy series that would build on the ending of Picard season 3 but I honestly do not consider Matalas the 'savior' of Star Trek as these people make him out to be.

Anaphylaxis said:
and I doubt it was some executive's idea to do a fucking Time War plot arc. That's got B&B written all over that.
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I heard there was a reason for the whole Temporal War stuff but it has been a while since I read the interview with Braga in which it was mentioned.
But I agree that it was an in general pointless storyline that went nowhere.
And yeah I saw it as something Braga made up as he had a great fondness for time travel stuff.

Anaphylaxis said:
I think doing a prequel series was a huge misstep
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Well a prequel series could have worked, but I just felt the the producers didn't have the right mindset for it. You would have to be really nerdish about the facts and details from the background lore to pull it off and I didn't see B & B as being such Trek nerds.
Some may say that that would make Trek too much niche and not appealing to a greater audience, but if you do a prequel to established series the primary interested party are going to be the hardcore fans who expect stories about the founding of the Federation and the Romulan wars.

Wanting to make Trek appeal to the larger audience is in my opinion one of the problems with Abrams, Kurtzman, and Paramount. They are so focused on this goal that they series they produce are in general so average and non Trek (I can't judge the cartoons as I don't watch Lower Decks and I have only watched parts of Prodigy), that its painful and disappointing to be a Trek fan.
Okay my rant is over.

I feel very conflicted about trying to appeal to the masses vs trying to appeal to the fans. I feel it is the same as with Bethesda's Fallout.
Why be a fan when everything you care about is such as lore and canon can be changed on a whim by people who only cared for a select few parts in the original productions.
 
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