Topic: Rate the last TV show you've seen

[ThePerm]

I've learned not to trust TJ Spike's opinion on anything, his tastes work differently than other peoples, but it probably gives him a unique perspective.

[Plugabugz]

True Blood. I watched the first episode and thought its too much sex. I watched the second and right beyond the credits was more of it. Where's the story arc?

[vudu]

Where's the story arc?

In my pants

[Halbred]

Justice League Unlimited season 1:

Good stuff. Highlights:

1) Hawkgirl's redemption
2) Wonder Woman gets turned into a pig--Batman sings to save her
3) Black Canary generally
4) Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Superman, and Batman as kids

Great series, but not quite as good as the original Justice League series. The music, for one thing, is now hard rock and it sucks.

[broodwars]

Justice League Unlimited season 1:

Good stuff. Highlights:

1) Hawkgirl's redemption
2) Wonder Woman gets turned into a pig--Batman sings to save her
3) Black Canary generally
4) Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Superman, and Batman as kids

Great series, but not quite as good as the original Justice League series. The music, for one thing, is now hard rock and it sucks.

*starts chuckling, knowing that Halbred hasn't seen the Cadmus arc yet (including Batman Beyond references crossovers FTW!), which is among the most awesome things done in any DC: AU show.*
 
Personally, I didn't think Justice League was all that good of a show until its second season (and then Unlimited).  The way the show was structured just didn't work for me, nor some of the ho-hum scripts and iffy lighting the show suffered from for a while until they fixed their issues with the overseas animators.

[Halbred]

They're hinting at Cadmus, though: Power Girl Galaena, those cloned superhero kids, Joker's card-themed villains, and sending a Kryptonite nuke to take out Superman and Doomsday. That's the last episode I saw, actually, and Batman was telling Superman and Wonder Woman that the Cadmus people are right to be afraid of them, what with the dimension gun and the giant freaking laser in space.

[broodwars]

They're hinting at Cadmus, though: Power Girl Galaena, those cloned superhero kids, Joker's card-themed villains, and sending a Kryptonite nuke to take out Superman and Doomsday. That's the last episode I saw, actually, and Batman was telling Superman and Wonder Woman that the Cadmus people are right to be afraid of them, what with the dimension gun and the giant freaking laser in space.

Yeah, that's the beginning of the arc, anyway (and it's "Galatea", btw.  ^_- ).  Joker's card-themed goons are a reference to Batman Beyond's Royal Flush Gang as well.
 
btw, how are you liking the Jeffrey Combs-voiced "The Question"?  IMO, he comes close in Unlimited to almost being more awesome than Batman, and that's tough to do.

[Halbred]

Yeah, that dude's insane. He needs to be in every episode.

I also like that The Doctor (from Voyager) is the voice of the gold Android dude.

[Caliban]

I also like that The Doctor (from Voyager) is the voice of the gold Android dude.

Robert Picardo.

[Halbred]

Yup, that guy. It was driving me crazy, too. But it was a certain word or phrase where I was suddenly like "THE DOCTOR!"

[ThePerm]

Louie 9/10 su ch a great show, it was an instant hit with me

[broodwars]

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Episodes 14-26 - (Viewed via recent "Season 1, Part 2" Blu Ray) - Wow, talk about the total opposite of the first set.  As a big fan of the first series, I was skeptical that this series would actually live up to the hype the manga nuts threw out.  Well, it turns out that after an incredibly rough first 13 episodes getting the show to the big breaking point with the first series at warp speed...yeah, it really did.  This was just an awesome volume, where there's just major event after major event, awesome (and often gruesome) animated sequence after awesome animated sequence.  What's nice, though, is that this series doesn't really feel like it's replacing the first series, as it's doing very much its own thing.  There are some things about the plot I care more for in the first series, and others in this series.

That said, I do have to scratch my head a bit at one of the major inclusions in this series that wasn't in the first: the characters from the land of Xing (who are so totally not based on the Chinese, I assure you.    ).  While they can be amusing and Ling makes for a nice change in giving Ed someone besides Alphonse to talk to, they really don't do all that much (at least in this volume).  One of them even has a panda bear the size of a stuffed animal that rides on her shoulder, which feels kind of out of place in this show.  I can't say I care much for this version of Scar, either, and this show tends to rely on the "wacky" comedy a bit too much.  Still, this is definitely an awesome volume and highly recommended.  Man, the wait for the next set is going to be long.   

[Halbred]

Yup. Gotta rent that now.

[Plugabugz]

Where's the story arc?

In my pants

And thats why i cannot go there!

[oohhboy]

Human Target

Oh my Giddy Aunt, what can I say about this. Seen the first two episodes and if nothing else I have to say that they really need to hire some real technical advisors and stop making **** up out of the writers collective arses.

Now the premise of the show is solid. Bodyguard gets one time high risk clients to protect with a small background team. The Bodyguard himself has a less that stellar past to be revealed as the show goes on. Unfortunately they got Mark Valley for the lead and I don't think that he is quite charismatic enough for the role.

However, actors are the least of their concerns. The writers just make **** up. Episode one is based on a train. Not something I know a lot about but even I know no sane engineer would allow the brakes on a bullet train to be enable without cutting power let alone let them overheat to the point where they fly out of their mountings in a fine display of "I told you so". The fact they can't cut power to slow the train even with the designer on board is just weak no matter how nice looking said designer is.

But damn it episode two is based on a plane. I am a fucking pilot and I bloody well know you can't fucking do that. The whole episode is full of "You can't fucking do that" and "That's not how is fucking works". Not sure what what altitude that were flying, but **** your flying on a commercial jet. The air is two thin up there for fire without pressurisation or oxygen source. The fire is in an unpressurised part of the aircraft started by a bullet piercing for what I can tell the reserve tank of bleed air used to pressurise the aircraft blowing air on some sparking wires cut by the Threat to force the a diversion. Except literally everything down there except for the fuel is inflammable. It has been that way for decades.

Stuff that all that. Smoke gets to the cockpit and this airline is so **** as to have both pilots oxygen masks fail. Out they come and our hero has to take the controls. Assuming the fire takes hold, our hero figures that they need to blow the fire out. Correct... If the fire was on the outside of the aircraft which our hero correctly figures isn't. He speeds the aircraft up to force more air, which actually does the opposite since none of the openings of the plane are in to the airflow. He decides to pop open the gear doors to allow more air and cranks up the pressurisation, where he finally takes the correct action by referring to the flight manual for all the wrong reasons like looking at the entire section devoted to an onboard fire. Doors open and surprise, not enough air.

So reasoning that the upper portion of the plane, because of air pressure would force more air through the plane decides that the rational thing to do is to fly upside down. Beside been wrong some more, I actually have no problem with them flying the plane upside down. Sort of. Most planes can fly upside down without needing to be designed to. The problem is fuel flow which isn't designed for inverted flight. So most panes will fly until the lines run dry. Lets ignore the fuel issue because the writers do something even more stupid. They crash the onboard computer because the plane is upside down. The computer locks the controls out which is designed to be overridden with a switch when said computer is said to have crashed.

So out comes our principal with a technobabble solution of routing the flight control software through their laptop. They get the software through the plane's manufacture's private network via the use of magic hacks. So they have to hop down to the unpressurised portion of the plane to hook the computer up. They reason it's cold down there and gear up. They forget there isn't enough air there for tem to breath. They don't care, so it isn't an issue. Quick patch work and a fight later with a revealing fact about our hero they land, some hint hint wink wink security speak goes down end of show.

The most harlious thing about all this is that our hero is still wearing the jacket that he used to protect himself from the cold all the way to the hand off at the end of the episode.

The rule of cool can't cover all these glaring mistakes. At this point it's just taking the piss. The character interactions are paper thin. The scipt is ok, the premise is solid. But the package is a block of **** wrapped in gold.

Rated

"Do not watch"

[BlackNMild2k1]

I like that show. It's meant to be exciting, not realistic, and most people that watch the show wouldn't know how that stuff works nor care.

You want mindless fun & action, then Human Target is a surprisingly decent show that provides both. You want intelligent realism that isn't based off a comic book, then you should probably look elsewhere.

[oohhboy]

I like that show. It's meant to be exciting, not realistic, and most people that watch the show wouldn't know how that stuff works nor care.

You want mindless fun & action, then Human Target is a surprisingly decent show that provides both. You want intelligent realism that isn't based off a comic book, then you should probably look elsewhere.

I want to like the show and as I said the premise is good. The fights is pretty well shot and pretty well choreographed. They open up the episode pretty well by setting up the mystery of who is the threat for the episode or in the case of the second episode not only don't they know who the threat is, but they don't know who the principal is.

The problem is that the danger is so contrived. They have these potentially interesting characters with less than pure pasts saving people in badass ways. The problem is that it's so badass it's stupid. The writers must take every technical situation to it's most EXTREME.

There is no reason why you can have mindless fun and action with clever use of Macgyvery elements that make sense. Any other way is just plain lazy and shows they haven't done any homework.

If I want big, dumb and stupid, I would go watch Commando and that is an excellent movie. It's doesn't hide the fact it's stupid. **** blows up and the good guys go home. Fat Australian eats a pipe through and extra hole.

Human Target is nothing like that. You already have an external threat with each episode which provides more than enough reason for everyone to use a lot of violence. There is no need to add a death trap to it. The Threat should be more than enough. If they can work the show more towards that I don't see why this show can't continue.

Look at Shoot Them Up. An insane movie where all the protagonist's problems are solved with guns. Mindless fun and action, but it makes sense within his world. Human target is set in our world with no allusions to anything else.

I assume you have watch far more episodes than I have, does the show move away from moving death traps or death traps in general?

[BlackNMild2k1]

I've seen them all and I agree that the show could be better, but it is based off a comic book and the show creates it problems based off the solutions it would like to use. Is it lazy? sure, is it fun to watch though if you don't really think about it? sure.

Lots of cool action scenes with questionable science behind most things that happen, but still fun.

Does it get away from the death trap scenario? not really.
There is always a situation that gets jacked up on roids and taken to the extreme, but that's just to keep the audience's attention.
This was a mid season show that was fighting for ratings so you have to take that into account. It's lucky to have found an audience and finished it's whole first run then get picked up for a second season.


Think of it as popcorn TV.

[oohhboy]

Fringe is popcorn TV. You know what every they do in the episode it's going to be fucked up and they never try to sell it to you in any other way.

Until you told me, I never knew HT was based off a comic book. That makes it worse since you aren't told. There is a line that says "Developed for TV" which is pretty meaningless.

Christ, just looked up the source material and man they were digging deep. Quite frankly they should have just went all out and just straight up used it's comic roots fully by using the DC universe, not ours. I would watch the heck out of the original premise.

What wasted potential.

[broodwars]

I've been in the mood for something a little retro lately, so I've been rewatching my DVD of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest.  While the animation is fairly average for 90s TV animation (and the CG animation is even worse than the first season of Reboot), overall I still really enjoy the writing in this series.  It's still refreshing to watch an adventure series where there is consequence: people die in these stories, and they often die on-screen.  The show also still has one of the most amazingly epic intros of any show I've ever seen.  Thing is, watching this 13-episode DVD set always makes me angry, just as it does whenever I watch my Animaniacs or Gargoyles sets.  Why?  Because these are all series that their respective companies abandoned on DVD and didn't finish (Gargoyles especially hurts).  Right now, I'm downloading the remaining episodes of Jonny Quest just so I can see them again.  I shouldn't have to do that, and I don't want to do that.  I bought that first DVD set, and I would have bought all the others.  But because sales of the first set were apparently low, I'm stuck with an incomplete series.      What happened to Animaniacs is especially head-scratching, because all the sets sold well yet we still don't have volume 4.

Maybe we'll luck out someday and remastered versions of these series will get released again.  I know WB is putting together an On-Demand service for burning DVDs for specific series like The Pirates of Dark Water on command, but the DVD-Rs they use have major compatibility issues.

[Halbred]

A lot people don't like it, but my wife and I love "'Til Death." We're both annoyed that seasons 3 and 4 haven't been released yet. Same story with "The New Adventures of Old Christine." I don't understand why some networks just don't bother releasing the entire show.

Brood, I'm assuming you've seen "Venture Bros."

[broodwars]

A lot people don't like it, but my wife and I love "'Til Death." We're both annoyed that seasons 3 and 4 haven't been released yet. Same story with "The New Adventures of Old Christine." I don't understand why some networks just don't bother releasing the entire show.

Brood, I'm assuming you've seen "Venture Bros."

Yeah, I've seen Venture Bros. and I don't much care for it.  It just features too much of that "hilarious" "Adult Swim"-type humor for my tastes, which is a general problem I have with most Adult Swim shows.

[TJ Spyke]

I like a few Adult Swim cartoons: The Boondocks, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, sometimes Robot Chicken. The rest I don't care for.

Hal, I agree with you. I like traditional sitcoms, so 'Til Death was right up my alley. I really liked the story arc in the final season with Doug becoming paranoid and thinking he was in a sitcom. Characters breaking the fourth wall is entertaining, and I liked how he pointed out that his wife looked different but no one noticed (they had four different actresses play his wife over the four seasons of the show; one played her seasons 1 & 2, another did season 3, one did the first half of season 4 and another did the last half).

[Halbred]

We saw that episode on a lark. It was great.

[ThePerm]

its kidna funny to think, and i haven't watched the show, but a character believing they are on a sitcom....thats pretty interesting ,and unless they talk directly to you then they technically aren't breaking the 4th wall, unless there's a 5th wall. In which the character realizes the cameras are there, and then we see the camera and set for what it is. There's a Fresh Prince episode with that.