What television shows are you watching?

[Ferocitus]

Sneaky Pete was awful. I hate watched the last three or four episodes just to see the train wreck unfurl. It started great and I was really into it but about half way through it started to come off the rails. The finale was especially atrocious.

I confess that I only watched the 1st three and then faded out when
my family watched the remaining episodes of the season.
I was more interested in seeing actors from two other series I really
liked - The Wire and The Americans.

 

[civvver]

Nothing spectacular on at the moment...

Discovery - Excruciatingly awful.
The Orville - Ok. Certainly better than all Star Treks combined.
Sneaky Pete - Good with a great cast.
Electric Dreams - Ditto.
Fear the Walking Dead - Ok. Will improve if they shoot the mother in the head.

What season of fear the walking dead? Cus the latest one is unwatchable, I gave up after three episodes. There have been very few tv series available over streaming which I didn't finish the season. Fear was one of them, into the bad lands another offhand.

I am trying to get into the second season of Preacher but it's just not grabbing me. The first one started out a lot better. It was quirky and weird, but very intriguing and had a certain charm. This one is just... strange. There is a mystery going on but I'm not that invested in it really. And the characters just aren't as funny/charming as the first season. I hope it gets better fast or I might bail again. I'm only 2.5 episodes in so there's hope.

Thanks for the 411 on sneaky pete, now I don't feel bad leaving that way in my backlog.

 

[Ferocitus]

What season of fear the walking dead? Cus the latest one is unwatchable, I gave up after three episodes.

I agree that the first half of the current season was awful.
I've enjoyed the latest three after the mid-season break.
These are desperate times though!

The intro to the 1st one after the return, with Nick Cave moaning
"Death is Only the Beginning", was a highlight.
Alexanda Savior's MTME was quite good too.

Shame the rest of her stuff is crap because she has a good voice.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I just started season 5 of The Americans on Amazon. At this point, I think this show has whatever audience it's going to get. If you haven't been watching this show, you don't want to start with season 5; and if you have been watching, you don't need me to tell you to. Anyway, I really liked the first episode. I wished they'd spent more time with Elizabeth and Paige. The cut away from that scene was jarring. otoh, I liked the excessively-long digging scene; they pushed it past the "wtf?" stage and on into entertainingly strange.

 

[cardgame]

I started watching Ozark on Monday night and have almost finished the first season. Fantastic show so far.

 

[Synobun]

Finished the Canadian version of Dragons' Den. Sucks because it was wonderful binge material. I'm not sure I'll switch over to the American Shark Tank since it's not on Netflix.

TV season is finally starting. I generally don't watch most of the ongoing shows though until they're right up against their finales. Exceptions include Brooklyn Nine Nine (latest season sucks) and shows that I read reaction threads of. Right now that's just Star Wars Rebels (starting next week) and The Walking Dead (starting... next week as well? I think?).

I'm trying to decide if I should do a total rewatch of Battle Star Galactica or start a new show. While I deliberate that, the last season of Supernatural got added to Netflix so I'm gonna go through that in anticipation of the new season that just started.

I watch a lot of television...

 

[Disgustipated]

Discovery - Excruciatingly awful.

Hmm, I was actually thinking of paying the fee to watch this. Maybe not. The AngryJoeshow actually gives this show high marks. But I'm beginning not to trust him anymore. I think it's clear at this point he's being paid off by game companies and producers. At the very least, the perks he's getting influences his reviews.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, I've been enjoying Discovery, but I only have to pay for Netflix.

 

[Ferocitus]

Hmm, I was actually thinking of paying the fee to watch this. Maybe not. The AngryJoeshow actually gives this show high marks. But I'm beginning not to trust him anymore. I think it's clear at this point he's being paid off by game companies and producers. At the very least, the perks he's getting influences his reviews.

You'd have to pay me to watch that junk again, but then I think all ST is crap.
I've watched them all from TOS to Discovery because others in my house are
also scifi fanatics.
My wife and son turned off before the end of last week's episode.
Put it this way - it's even worse than Dr Who, which is about as low-grade
as you can get in scifi.

 

[Perfection]

Hmm, I was actually thinking of paying the fee to watch this. Maybe not. The AngryJoeshow actually gives this show high marks. But I'm beginning not to trust him anymore. I think it's clear at this point he's being paid off by game companies and producers. At the very least, the perks he's getting influences his reviews.

I'd say it's worth checking out and would encourage you to give it a try if you like Star Trek.

Star Trek series take a while to get going. The danger with Star Trek is that people get turned off by the first season or two and they miss out when it starts getting really good. Enterprise's first and second seasons weren't that good, its third season was a lot better and the fourth season was genuinely great (minus the abysmal final episode).

With Discovery, we really can't tell how good it will be overall, but in my opinion it shows a fair bit of potential.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I can also recommend Discovery. Haven't seen all episodes released so far, but what I saw, I overall liked. The trek-fan in me whines a bit over the consistency, but he most of all loves watching a new trek-series. And the dude who just enjoys shows in me thinks that Discovery looks so far very fresh and entertaining. Well the Klingons seem a bit cookie-cutter (okay, yes, what else is new), a bit too eagerly set up as BAD GUYS without much imagination but rather just superficial style, but what that means is to be determined. And there are other problems comings to mind, but they are vastly over-shadowed by the good I saw.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I'm enjoying discovery too, though:

(Spoilered for revealing content. Don't read if you're not caught up on last week's episode).

Spoiler :

A promising character was recently killed off who could have provided a good foil for the protagonist, as well as an interesting situation for the Captain. This was alluded to before the character's death

Good effects, half decent acting, and a relatively interesting concept. I'll give it 7/10. It could be better, but it could be very much worse.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Yeah, Discovery is pretty good. Not great, some room for improvement, but it's definitely not bad and not even close to as terrible as some people would have you believe.
I mean, some of the complaints are just nuts. "The Klingons are too cheesy". How could anyone who ever watched Trek complain that the Klingons are too cheesy ? Cheesy is their middle name.

I'm also watching The Deuce which I can recommend for lovers of The Wire and pr0n, but like with every HBO show you need some patience with the plot development.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I've started to watch through the original Star Trek again.

 

[Ferocitus]

I've started to watch through the original Star Trek again.

You're in for some real treats again!

 

[Broken_Erika]

You're in for some real treats again!
View attachment 478961

A Horny Gorilla?

 

[tjs282]

Just started watching The Expanse on Netflix the other day.

Not bad, nice to see some proper(ish) sci-fi that wasn't already a major franchise, or reboot thereof. I do like that they're trying to follow at least some hard sci-fi conventions, like the Belters being badly affected by Earth's gravity, and characters suddenly going into freefall when the engines cut out; it's just a pity the showrunners didn't have the guts to carry that through to 2001-level 'no sound in vacuum' as well, rather than settling for the StarWars-style pew-pew. (I did also roll my eyes a bit at the Trek-style "staggering around on the bridge of a multi-megatonne capital ship, when it takes a torpedo-hit".)

Only thing is, I realised about 10 minutes into the first ep that I'd (coincidentally) just read the book that it's based on (Leviathan Wakes) during this year's summer holiday: I'd found it on the hotel bookshelf and devoured it while sitting on the beach (also read Fred Pohl's Gateway -- at last -- and its sequel, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon). So for me the series is maybe not a suspenseful as it should have been (plus, my wife keeps asking me what's going to happen next!). OTOH, some of the dialogue is coming through so inaudible/distorted that knowing what the characters are supposed to be talking about is probably an advantage...

 

[EgonSpengler]

Just started watching The Expanse on Netflix the other day.

Not bad, nice to see some proper(ish) sci-fi that wasn't already a major franchise, or reboot thereof. I do like that they're trying to follow at least some hard sci-fi conventions, like the Belters being badly affected by Earth's gravity, and characters suddenly going into freefall when the engines cut out; it's just a pity the showrunners didn't have the guts to carry that through to 2001-level 'no sound in vacuum' as well, rather than settling for the StarWars-style pew-pew. (I did also roll my eyes a bit at the Trek-style "staggering around on the bridge of a multi-megatonne capital ship, when it takes a torpedo-hit".)

Only thing is, I realised about 10 minutes into the first ep that I'd (coincidentally) just read the book that it's based on (Leviathan Wakes) during this year's summer holiday: I'd found it on the hotel bookshelf and devoured it while sitting on the beach (also read Fred Pohl's Gateway -- at last -- and its sequel, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon). So for me the series is maybe not a suspenseful as it should have been (plus, my wife keeps asking me what's going to happen next!). OTOH, some of the dialogue is coming through so inaudible/distorted that knowing what the characters are supposed to be talking about is probably an advantage...

There were a couple of small, visual details in the show that I don't remember being spelled explicitly out in the books, that suggested to me the tv show creators were thinking about the visuals and not merely adapting the text. For instance, on Ceres, the bird flaps its wings less frequently than a bird on Earth does, because the gravity's lower, and the airlocks to the ships in the dockyard are in the floor, rather than the wall, because Ceres generates artificial gravity by spinning. The "floor" on a spinning asteroid like Ceres is outward, towards the outside, not downwards towards the center, as it is on a planetary body large enough to generate real gravity. Similarly, spaceships in The Expanse generate artificial gravity by thrust, so the ceiling of a spaceship is also it's forward direction of travel. Spaceships aren't built like ocean-going ships (which are narrow on the horizontal axis), they're more like buildings (which are narrow on the vertical axis).

 

[Terxpahseyton]

"The Klingons are too cheesy". How could anyone who ever watched Trek complain that the Klingons are too cheesy ? Cheesy is their middle name.

True. However, I so far get the impression that in Discovery they are reduced to a cheesy plot-device, while in TNG and its sequels they had - cheesy - value on their own right. I believe the former makes the cheesiness stand out more. It isn't mitigated by it being the setting for an actually interesting story, but instead the setting IS the story.
Star Trek had some interesting villain civilizations.
The Borg - Triumph of technology (and collective efficiency thinking) over men
The Cardassians - Totalitarianism
The Dominion: Peace by domination, lead by a "superior" race
That Multi-Race-Civilization from Enterprise who think they are only defending themselves was also a nice idea.

The Discovery Klingons seem like a step back. If the story is going to evolve around them, they should have made them more interesting, not less but cooler.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

The Discovery Klingons seem like a step back. If the story is going to evolve around them, they should have made them more interesting, not less but cooler.

I would expect them to be a bit of a step back. Apparently, Discovery takes place ten years before the events of Captain Kirk and ST:TOS, so it makes a bit of sense that the Klingons aren't quite as evolved as they were in ST:TNG and later flavours of Star Trek. Also, the Klingons are sort of finding their way around to being a unified society, and unity seems to be tenuous at best. I think they will grow and evolve as the series progresses.

And if I remember my Trek history, the time frame that Discovery takes place in includes the Romulan war. I can't wait to see what they do with that.