I finally finished Battlestar Galactica so SPOILER ALERT.
I mostly liked the way the show ended, and I really liked the whole last season. I didn't have a problem with Starbuck coming back to life, but I did have a problem with her just disappearing. Things resurrected throughout the show, right? But after all they've been through, and after their in the way spouses are gone, why cop out on the happy ending for Kara and Lee? So she died already why can't she still live happily ever after like the Cylons do?
I thought having Earth turn out to be burned out was cool and unexpected, and led to some cool dark twists. Don't get me wrong, I felt sad for Dee and Geda, but I thought both their ends made for interesting tv.
I thought that the "angels" appearing at the end was kind of cheesy, but I didn't have a problem with them being some sort of higher power messengers. After all, the basic premise of te show is that humans and Cylons can create life, and that life can download its way to immortality. Why then is it so hard to accept something that created humans and Cylons? It wouldn't even need to be "god" in the sense we think about it in the real world; just an older, more evolved form of life. And although the angels showing up at the end was cheesy, it set up the last sequence with our robots, and the Jimi version of Watchtower, which I thought that rocked as a way to end the show.
I suspect I'm a bit different with regard to sci-fi in general though than some of the people who were disappointed in the ending. Somebody said about Firefly that it was "just entertaining"; for me entertaining is the best that I expect from tv, unless it's a documentary. I like to be entertained, and I thought that last season was entertaining as hell. I prefer Star Wars to Star Trek; I've only watched a handful of episodes of any versions of Start Trek, and I even like the new Star Wars movies. Hell, I even liked the Clone Wars cartoon movie!
I'd like to watch some Doctor Who, but I have absolutely no idea where to start. I'm probably not going to get through it all in this lifetime. Any suggestions for a good entry point?
I prefer Star Wars to Star Trek; I've only watched a handful of episodes of any versions of Start Trek, and I even like the new Star Wars movies. Hell, I even liked the Clone Wars cartoon movie!
If you liked Galactica so much, I don't know why you wouldn't like Deep Space Nine. Ronald Moore, who created the BSG relaunch, was a producer and writer for DS9. He did a lot to shape the Dominion War arc. (Indeed, some have suggested that Moore was validating DS9 and criticizing the banality of Voyager through BSG by focusing so much on complex political and spiritual issues.)
Speaking of DS9, or at least Colm Meaney, has anyone watched Hell on Wheels? It deals with the unresolved aggression of the Civil War against the backdrop of the building of the transcontinental railroad.
@amclark2 - that's a tall order, like one plateful at a big buffet. Season 1 - Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler - good a place to start as any. Rose Tyler is still my favorite Companion. Season 2 begins with the Doctor regenerating as David Tennant for Seasons 2, 3 and 4 and many specials - my favorite Doctor. Rose leaves at the end of Season 2. Matt Smith takes over as the Doctor for Seasons 5, 6 and 7. Amelia Pond (played by Karen Gillan) is the new companion to the new Doctor starting Season Five and I enjoyed them together very much. That's a fine lot of help, huh? Anything with Daleks or Cybermen - the coolest villians - would be worth watching. If I had to go with 2 linked episodes as a trial I would say the last two episodes of Season 2 are a good bet, or the last two of Season 4 - "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" but those will be fraught with spoilers for going back to the earlier seasons.
@BT - started Hell On Wheels during original broadcast but dropped out after about 6 episodes, not because it was bad but crowded schedule. Might like to start up again - interesting characters.
Thanks BT; I will check it out. I think my post may have come off a little more asshole-ish than I meant; I didn't mean to hate on Star Trek; I was just feeling defensive because I liked the end of BsG. Plus very irritable because of work related reasons.
'
Just watched Avengers with my wife; loved it! Spoiler: but best part was Hulk playing rag doll with Loki. Followed closely by good Hulk punching Thor for no apparent reason.
I think my post may have come off a little more asshole-ish than I meant
I didn't think so at all.
I will check it out.
If there's one episode that will sell you on the series (as a BSG fan), it would be In The Pale Moonlight. It's considered one of the three best episodes of the series, but also the least "Roddenberry-esque" episode of the entire franchise.
BigD - Christopher Eccleston was born in 1964; so I take it you suggest starting with the new series (2005 on) rather than the old (1963 on) - that was my major question...
haha, Hatewatch. That would be King & Maxwell for me. The dialog is so bad, it's funny. Even my husband noticed it. It's kind of retro, like 40s Sam Spade stuff. And then, oh my word. Every show is a case King & Maxwell take on for free just because they're a PI team with hearts of gold. They helped this autistic hacker guy in the first episode & now he joins them in working for free also, and there is at least one scene every episode showing him typing really fast on a keyboard and a huge monitor showing him a bazillion windows all at once & he gets the address, the phone number, the bank account, the evildoer's GPS location, or whatever he needs to hack in about 8 seconds. It really is hilarious.
The hacker guy kept looking vaguely familiar and google finally settled it - he previously played Opie in Sons of Anarchy.
We're strongly considering adding Amazon Prime as a complementary service to our Netflix stream. Is it even worth it? I just looked briefly through Amazon Prime listings, and not seeing a ton of differentiation. Here's what I noticed:
1. For TV, Amazon Prime offers Downton Abbey, Sons of Anarchy, Justified (and perhaps other FX shows, too). But I'm not seeing a hell of a lot of differentiation beyond that.
2. Movie choices seem a bit better on Amazon, but that could just be a result of my random searches, and were I to do a more scientific side-by-side comparison, perhaps that's not how it would shake out.
For any of you who have both (or have Prime, but are aware of what's on Netflix), is there any huge reason that I should be adding Prime to our services that, perhaps, I'm overlooking?
I watched the available episodes of The Bridge, and I enjoyed them. Bichir does a great job, and I love the odd couple feel of the cast. I wish that the mood were quirky, rather than dark. It seems that there is some hesitation to let the episodes be too funny. I was less intrigued by the take on transnationalism. It seems that the producers want the viewers to be surprised that in spite of the supposed deep divide between the two countries, people cross the border regularly as part of the local daily life. I also wonder where the Tejanos are: will the only Mexicans shown be the ones who cross the border?
so I take it you suggest starting with the new series (2005 on) rather than the old (1963 on) - that was my major question...
Yeah, completely - I have been looking in on the retrospective on previous Doctors they've been running on BBC America since I've never seen any. They are available as what is called Classic Doctor Who on the streaming services. They seem a bit quaint/dated so I have them on the back burner. For whatever reason when you look up the modern 2005-on Doctor Who they refer to the Seasons by number with Chris E. being Season 1 and so on, the latest having been Season 7, and I would start with them.
@jonahpwll - there isn't a lot of difference between the two, and I don't think I'd add Amazon Prime just for the Video content. I already had it when I got the Roku so it's just gravy. The Netflix catalog seems much deeper. Amazon streaming has a tendency to freeze or drop out more often than Netflix too. Prime has some things before Netflix - some movies, BBC content - but they also show some titles on a limited basis for free, often by the time I get back to them they are no longer free - leasing arrangement I suppose. If I could only keep one it would be Netflix easily.
I would echo to just start with the newer series (2005). I've had a few die hard Dr. Who fans sit down and show me a few very early Dr. Who, they were okay, but fairly slow going and dated. Maybe I'll get into that more, but the newer series does fine on its own, even though it seems written with a strong knowledge of the early Drs.
Re: Tejanos - They made a point of showing that the receptionist at the El Paso PD was of Mexican descent, but doesn't even speak Spanish. Beyond that, though, I guess it's just the people who work on the ranch (and appear to live there as well).
Kargatron - thanks for pointing out Upstream Color; I hadn't realized that was the new Shane Carruth. I love Primer; maybe liked this one more. Needs a few more watches.
Can anyone do better than google on this? I am trying to track down a snatch of dialog (from a movie? From TV?) used in a piece of music that I am reviewing. It goes like this:
(2 male voices)
you, you know this place.
Yes.
And you watched and you said nothing.
This is where I became the master.
Until now.
I would guess from intonation that it's not that recent.
Any chance you can load the voices up somewhere (or point to a place where they already exist)? It might be helpful to hear the voices even if the words by themselves don't sound familiar.
@Kargatron, many thanks for pointing me to Upstream Color, which I now finished. Best thing I have seen in a long time. First film since No Country for Old Men that left me (a) feeling as if I had just watched literature, and (b) feeling like going straight back to the beginning as soon as it finished. I could imagine getting sucked into a lot of watches of this (reading some of the discussion online I noticed someone claimed to have written almost 5000 words on the first 15 minutes after half a dozen views.) Remarkable piece of film making. Awesome soundtrack too.
Glad to hear it, Gp. I was thrilled to find that my fear that Carruth might be a one-trick-pony (from Primer) was unfounded. He's scored a very significant 2/2, and I count myself a fan.
Btw, pay attention to the credits, there's actually a nice little plot hint in there with "The Sampled". Also, note Carruth's polymathic roles: writer/director/actor/camera/oh-and-score-too.
New episodes of Breaking Bad just popped up on Netflix. I'll be catching up shortly.
By the by, I don't know how widespread this joke is... I only recently saw a tweet that gave the joke...
...But, apparently the Canadian version of Breaking Bad is really boring. Walter White gets brain cancer, and because of Canada's national health care system, his treatment is covered and he doesn't have to sell drugs to cover the costs. The first and only season of the show wraps up with him in remission and back teaching science at the high school.
I didn't word it as well as the tweet, but it really made me chuckle. Twitter is so good for cleverness like that.
I tried watching the first episode of the new season of Breaking Bad. I got five minutes in, and then just stopped. I was okay with him buying the gun at Denny's. Also, no problem with him clearing out the evidence from his house. But after listening to his kid recap the whole thing about how last season ended, and then his wife giving him the silent treatment, I just stopped.
I am so sick of Walter and his annoying family. I found myself wanting to hit the fast forward button. Instead, I switched it over to West Wing.
I'll try again later, but I have a feeling that I'm done with that show. It's always been just a little too irritating for me to have watched it as long as I have. I think the long interval leading up to my being able to watch the new season on Netflix pretty much drained me of all patience I had for the show. I was able to free myself of the show's hooks, so to speak.
1. The Bridge - I'll need to look out for that. We watched the Danish version with subtitles, and it was great. Sky, over here, have got The Tunnel coming up in the autumn, based on the same idea but set in the middle of the Channel Tunnel
2. Torchwood. Yes, lots of links to Dr Who. We enjoyed the earlier series much more than the last. That was a joint production with a US company, mainly set in USA. We felt it did not come off that well, but I'd be interested to hear how those of you in the US think about it.
3. Dr Who - the place to start really is the beginning of the modern era with the Christopher Eccleston series, as any other entry point will be difficult. The 50th anniversary of the series is this November, and I did watch the very first programme as a 13 year old! Episodes are generally 40 minutes long with 10 per series, generally, plus the odd longer Christmas special. The anniversary programme in November promises to be a spectacular, with several old Doctors coming back for the programme.
Somebody mentioned Prime Suspect, so my wife and I tried it out. We got through the first hour and a half and then realized why they lingered on some scenes for seemingly unnecessary periods of time (a complaint my wife had made); it doesn't end withe the first episode! I'll be honest; we weren't that into it, but we sort of begrudgingly started the next part, because we gotta find out whodunit. So we watched about half of the next segment, and called it a night, then the next day Netflix had yanked the whole series!
So now we've been watching Orange is the New Black; we love it. Jonah; I don't recommend it for you though; there's probably too many leaps and bounds of believability. But I think it's very enjoyable, well written, directed and acted, dark humor, without getting like Oz dark (which I never watched but heard about).
Also we've been watching and loving Endeavor on PBS; that one probably already did the rounds in UK? It's not on Netflix yet, but if you have a roku, you can get the PBS channel and watch it there. PBS channel is cool to have too because it has Nova and Nature episodes.
I totally forgot we had that PBS channel. I loaded it up, but never went back to check it out more than a cursory examination (my wife is totally into the Nova stuff).
Comments
yukyuk
I mostly liked the way the show ended, and I really liked the whole last season. I didn't have a problem with Starbuck coming back to life, but I did have a problem with her just disappearing. Things resurrected throughout the show, right? But after all they've been through, and after their in the way spouses are gone, why cop out on the happy ending for Kara and Lee? So she died already why can't she still live happily ever after like the Cylons do?
I thought having Earth turn out to be burned out was cool and unexpected, and led to some cool dark twists. Don't get me wrong, I felt sad for Dee and Geda, but I thought both their ends made for interesting tv.
I thought that the "angels" appearing at the end was kind of cheesy, but I didn't have a problem with them being some sort of higher power messengers. After all, the basic premise of te show is that humans and Cylons can create life, and that life can download its way to immortality. Why then is it so hard to accept something that created humans and Cylons? It wouldn't even need to be "god" in the sense we think about it in the real world; just an older, more evolved form of life. And although the angels showing up at the end was cheesy, it set up the last sequence with our robots, and the Jimi version of Watchtower, which I thought that rocked as a way to end the show.
I suspect I'm a bit different with regard to sci-fi in general though than some of the people who were disappointed in the ending. Somebody said about Firefly that it was "just entertaining"; for me entertaining is the best that I expect from tv, unless it's a documentary. I like to be entertained, and I thought that last season was entertaining as hell. I prefer Star Wars to Star Trek; I've only watched a handful of episodes of any versions of Start Trek, and I even like the new Star Wars movies. Hell, I even liked the Clone Wars cartoon movie!
So there you have it.
Speaking of DS9, or at least Colm Meaney, has anyone watched Hell on Wheels? It deals with the unresolved aggression of the Civil War against the backdrop of the building of the transcontinental railroad.
@BT - started Hell On Wheels during original broadcast but dropped out after about 6 episodes, not because it was bad but crowded schedule. Might like to start up again - interesting characters.
'
Just watched Avengers with my wife; loved it! Spoiler: but best part was Hulk playing rag doll with Loki. Followed closely by good Hulk punching Thor for no apparent reason.
If there's one episode that will sell you on the series (as a BSG fan), it would be In The Pale Moonlight. It's considered one of the three best episodes of the series, but also the least "Roddenberry-esque" episode of the entire franchise.
The hacker guy kept looking vaguely familiar and google finally settled it - he previously played Opie in Sons of Anarchy.
1. For TV, Amazon Prime offers Downton Abbey, Sons of Anarchy, Justified (and perhaps other FX shows, too). But I'm not seeing a hell of a lot of differentiation beyond that.
2. Movie choices seem a bit better on Amazon, but that could just be a result of my random searches, and were I to do a more scientific side-by-side comparison, perhaps that's not how it would shake out.
For any of you who have both (or have Prime, but are aware of what's on Netflix), is there any huge reason that I should be adding Prime to our services that, perhaps, I'm overlooking?
@jonahpwll - there isn't a lot of difference between the two, and I don't think I'd add Amazon Prime just for the Video content. I already had it when I got the Roku so it's just gravy. The Netflix catalog seems much deeper. Amazon streaming has a tendency to freeze or drop out more often than Netflix too. Prime has some things before Netflix - some movies, BBC content - but they also show some titles on a limited basis for free, often by the time I get back to them they are no longer free - leasing arrangement I suppose. If I could only keep one it would be Netflix easily.
Craig
(2 male voices)
you, you know this place.
Yes.
And you watched and you said nothing.
This is where I became the master.
Until now.
I would guess from intonation that it's not that recent.
Any chance you can load the voices up somewhere (or point to a place where they already exist)? It might be helpful to hear the voices even if the words by themselves don't sound familiar.
Btw, pay attention to the credits, there's actually a nice little plot hint in there with "The Sampled". Also, note Carruth's polymathic roles: writer/director/actor/camera/oh-and-score-too.
By the by, I don't know how widespread this joke is... I only recently saw a tweet that gave the joke...
...But, apparently the Canadian version of Breaking Bad is really boring. Walter White gets brain cancer, and because of Canada's national health care system, his treatment is covered and he doesn't have to sell drugs to cover the costs. The first and only season of the show wraps up with him in remission and back teaching science at the high school.
I didn't word it as well as the tweet, but it really made me chuckle. Twitter is so good for cleverness like that.
Americans, "Broadchurch" is about to start in the US - a superior crime mystery and highly recommended.
I am so sick of Walter and his annoying family. I found myself wanting to hit the fast forward button. Instead, I switched it over to West Wing.
I'll try again later, but I have a feeling that I'm done with that show. It's always been just a little too irritating for me to have watched it as long as I have. I think the long interval leading up to my being able to watch the new season on Netflix pretty much drained me of all patience I had for the show. I was able to free myself of the show's hooks, so to speak.
Good riddance, I say.
1. The Bridge - I'll need to look out for that. We watched the Danish version with subtitles, and it was great. Sky, over here, have got The Tunnel coming up in the autumn, based on the same idea but set in the middle of the Channel Tunnel
2. Torchwood. Yes, lots of links to Dr Who. We enjoyed the earlier series much more than the last. That was a joint production with a US company, mainly set in USA. We felt it did not come off that well, but I'd be interested to hear how those of you in the US think about it.
3. Dr Who - the place to start really is the beginning of the modern era with the Christopher Eccleston series, as any other entry point will be difficult. The 50th anniversary of the series is this November, and I did watch the very first programme as a 13 year old! Episodes are generally 40 minutes long with 10 per series, generally, plus the odd longer Christmas special. The anniversary programme in November promises to be a spectacular, with several old Doctors coming back for the programme.
So now we've been watching Orange is the New Black; we love it. Jonah; I don't recommend it for you though; there's probably too many leaps and bounds of believability. But I think it's very enjoyable, well written, directed and acted, dark humor, without getting like Oz dark (which I never watched but heard about).
Also we've been watching and loving Endeavor on PBS; that one probably already did the rounds in UK? It's not on Netflix yet, but if you have a roku, you can get the PBS channel and watch it there. PBS channel is cool to have too because it has Nova and Nature episodes.
Cheers.