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TV Series Thread

Started by PickelledEggs, August 26, 2014, 06:28:36 PM

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Mr.Obvious

Episode 4 of the live action.

Jumping into original season 2 territory.
I respect that much, in and by itself. Always said, I don´t want a shot for shot retelling.
And yet...

There was a lot to like here. Most of which, the relationship between iroh and zuko and the fight scenes.
Especially liked the ´new´ zuko and iroh scenes.

But there were some misses too.
If you are not going to have kataang, you don´t really need the cave of two lovers. I like the hippies and all, but their inclusion wasn´t worth a basically timewaste. And while the badgermole looked cool and all, making it ´see´ emotions, didn't really click for me.
They see through earthbending, and yeah that is kind of a fundamental aspect. Especially for toph´s whole deal.

I saw two friends yesterday. They already watched the entire season. They too are big fans of the original. I asked them what they found of the new show and they asked me what I found so far.

We come to the term ´serviceable´.
And I stick by that for now.
Not as good as I had hoped.
Much, much better than I had feared.
Different enough to keep me watching.
But so different that while I am glad it might pull some people who would never watch the original otherwhise into the fray  I also find it sad to think this will be some people´s first introduction to the world of avatar.

And I find myself truly not minding so much that the story is different.
But I do notice I need to actively remind myself that the characters are different too. And that I can´t expect them to be characters I love so much.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Hydra009

#1591
In a complete lapse of judgment, I decided to watch The Walking Dead spinoff with Andrew Lincoln as Rick "Stuff 'N Thaangs" Grimes.

Not half bad.  Well shot, well paced, I dunno if the worldbuilding internal logic holds up (I'll get to that later), but decent action scenes, nice character motivations and character arcs (man I miss those).

Brass tacks: it looks good, interesting stuff happens, and people act like people.  Worth a watch.

What I don't like is that apparently vast parts of the US went virtually untouched by the Z-apocalypse and the reason is that the US military had a stupid scorched earth policy to fight the zombies (aka Operation Cobalt) that didn't work (hence the show) and the reason this part of the US is relatively unscathed is that a few people intentionally stopped that plan and spared the city.  Evidently the plan wasn't necessary (scorched earth is usually a desperation tactic, so the fact that it was unnecessary is a damning revelation with all sorts of implications) and the US military didn't make a second go at it before the government collapsed.  That's more than a little suspiciously fortuitous, imho.

Also, while I get the writer needing to create a sort of Expansion Zone - something new to show the viewers who had gotten used to the rustic life on the farm, it clashes with the plot and themes of the show.  For starters, it takes us away from most of the characters we've grown attached to.  Second, Rick is the main hero and his heroic task of rebuilding civilization and it kinda takes the wind out of his sails when there's already one ready to go (Alexandria was a bit like this as well, but it's small potatoes compared to this)  Third, it's pretty clear that the zombie apocalypse was so severe that almost all communities near the East Coast collapsed with only a scattering of people left.  Atlanta is a pretty big city and we haven't seen all that many Atlanta survivors, most of which we met in season 1.  We see less and less survivors in general as well.  Presumably, most of the surviving communities collapse within a few years.

So it's very, very odd for hundreds of thousands of people - spread all over the Midwest to Pacific Northwest - to miraculously have been spared that struggle.  What did they do differently?  Cause there's a lot more to it than just avoiding a scorched earth policy.  The sheer amount of food they go through alone...  The only way I can see this working is through a big barrier, preferably a natural barrier.  And while they do have some walls and a portion is protected by water, not all their territory is completely enclosed.  It's too large a territory to ever be completely enclosed.  And also far too spread out for the three cities to reliably come to each other's aid or even stay in touch, so the reason for the alliance in the first place is baffling.  There's just way too much going on that requires too much luck and logistics and industrial production for it to be plausible.  And while every Savior having an AK with unlimited rounds was equally implausible, even that wasn't as insane as this.

I guess they got me, because I find this stuff very compelling for some strange reason.

*Edit - I liked the second episode even more, though it was kinda a breather episode.