[Aptorian]

Malankazooie, on 02 May 2021 - 07:48 PM, said:

Abyss, on 02 May 2021 - 03:37 AM, said:

Malankazooie, on 01 May 2021 - 08:23 AM, said:

Lost. Is it worth checking out?

Yes. YMMV at points, but when it's good, it's very good, and when it's bad it's still entertaining.

...unless you're the kind of viewer who requires everything explained in detail and cannot abide unresolved mysteries, in which case avoid.

The unresolved mystery approach can be annoying. Especially, like TWD was notorious for doing, if they drop clues or tease something and nothing ever comes from it. Lazy, unimaginative writers do that, in my opinion, especially the new crop who have convinced themselves they are being clever and believe the audience will love never knowing, and embrace the - "what was that was all about?". It's a way to fill up an hour if you don't have anything else. Now if there is a payoff, and hopefully not four seasons later, then I'm okay with it.

There's a bit of that in terms of the overall nature of the stranded passengers predicament but Lost is oftentimes the opposite of that. Lost does a lot of crazy stuff and didn't mind getting crazier and crazier. Tons of stuff will happen in an episode or season but a lot of it will feel like something made up on the spot instead of s part of a 6 season plan.

[Abyss]

Aptorian, on 03 May 2021 - 04:20 AM, said:

Malankazooie, on 02 May 2021 - 07:48 PM, said:

Abyss, on 02 May 2021 - 03:37 AM, said:

Malankazooie, on 01 May 2021 - 08:23 AM, said:

Lost. Is it worth checking out?

Yes. YMMV at points, but when it's good, it's very good, and when it's bad it's still entertaining.

...unless you're the kind of viewer who requires everything explained in detail and cannot abide unresolved mysteries, in which case avoid.

The unresolved mystery approach can be annoying. Especially, like TWD was notorious for doing, if they drop clues or tease something and nothing ever comes from it. Lazy, unimaginative writers do that, in my opinion, especially the new crop who have convinced themselves they are being clever and believe the audience will love never knowing, and embrace the - "what was that was all about?". It's a way to fill up an hour if you don't have anything else. Now if there is a payoff, and hopefully not four seasons later, then I'm okay with it.

There's a bit of that in terms of the overall nature of the stranded passengers predicament but Lost is oftentimes the opposite of that. Lost does a lot of crazy stuff and didn't mind getting crazier and crazier. Tons of stuff will happen in an episode or season but a lot of it will feel like something made up on the spot instead of s part of a 6 season plan.

Accurate in terms of the wider story. The important parts are resolved. Obviously not everyone loved every resolution. Moi, i found the end satisfying, but hey, i love Malazan for the same reason that there are always piles of semi-dead gods, mysterious ruins, lost races, and generally weird shit that's just part of the scenery and will never ever get more expanation than what we read at the time.

LOST is divisive, in part, because those bits led viewers to speculate and come up with their own stories and never know if they were right and people used to nice tidy start mystery resolution end tv 101 packaging lost their brainzez over it. It's also divisive because it IS obvious there are things they threw in never to explain and because parts of the story were s good and the characters so well done and their stories so cleverly interwoven and the overall mystery so engaging it left people raging over not getting every answer. I get it. I just have better things to get ragey about than Matthew Fox's tattoos and what the dog ate.

[Aptorian]

I'm still mad about the final revelation about the smoke monster.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 03 May 2021 - 06:50 AM, said:

Aptorian, on 03 May 2021 - 04:20 AM, said:

Malankazooie, on 02 May 2021 - 07:48 PM, said:

Abyss, on 02 May 2021 - 03:37 AM, said:

Malankazooie, on 01 May 2021 - 08:23 AM, said:

Lost. Is it worth checking out?

Yes. YMMV at points, but when it's good, it's very good, and when it's bad it's still entertaining.

...unless you're the kind of viewer who requires everything explained in detail and cannot abide unresolved mysteries, in which case avoid.

The unresolved mystery approach can be annoying. Especially, like TWD was notorious for doing, if they drop clues or tease something and nothing ever comes from it. Lazy, unimaginative writers do that, in my opinion, especially the new crop who have convinced themselves they are being clever and believe the audience will love never knowing, and embrace the - "what was that was all about?". It's a way to fill up an hour if you don't have anything else. Now if there is a payoff, and hopefully not four seasons later, then I'm okay with it.

There's a bit of that in terms of the overall nature of the stranded passengers predicament but Lost is oftentimes the opposite of that. Lost does a lot of crazy stuff and didn't mind getting crazier and crazier. Tons of stuff will happen in an episode or season but a lot of it will feel like something made up on the spot instead of s part of a 6 season plan.

Accurate in terms of the wider story. The important parts are resolved. Obviously not everyone loved every resolution. Moi, i found the end satisfying, but hey, i love Malazan for the same reason that there are always piles of semi-dead gods, mysterious ruins, lost races, and generally weird shit that's just part of the scenery and will never ever get more expanation than what we read at the time.

LOST is divisive, in part, because those bits led viewers to speculate and come up with their own stories and never know if they were right and people used to nice tidy start mystery resolution end tv 101 packaging lost their brainzez over it. It's also divisive because it IS obvious there are things they threw in never to explain and because parts of the story were s good and the characters so well done and their stories so cleverly interwoven and the overall mystery so engaging it left people raging over not getting every answer. I get it. I just have better things to get ragey about than Matthew Fox's tattoos and what the dog ate.

There are two kinds of people who watch(ed) LOST.

1. People who enjoyed the characters, and the journey.
2. People who tuned in for the mysteries, and weird shit.

In the end, LOST is and was about the characters and their journey's first and foremost. So the people who only tuned in for the mysteries and weird shit, were left either hanging (but only on a few things, like the ships wheel), found the answers to the mysteries unsatisfactory, or missed them altogether (seriously, there is a cottage industry of people on YouTube who watched, but missed a TONNE of the supplied answers).

Add in some other things to the mix. The writers strike hit in the second season and screwed up things, and two of the main actors whose plot lines had only JUST started (Michelle Rodriguez, and Cynthia Watros) got busted for DUI in Hawaii and were both booted from the show, ending those plot lines very prematurely (Watros plot line tied directly to Hurley and the mental asylum, for example)....So Season 2, which should have done a bunch of heavy lifting for the longevity of the narrative arc of the show is one of the worst seasons of the show with dropped plotlines and readjustment around the writers strike and whatnot.

There is also a sect of people who misunderstand the "flashes" in the final season:

Spoiler

It was not purgatory as so many people claim. They were flash "sideways" and show Desmond (who connects to the time stream past/present/future because of his "constant" Penny) dropping through time of the lives of the people who were at one point on the island, and helping to guide them to the "church" so that everyone who went through what they went through, regardless of when they died in their lives (be it after the island or not) would be able to meet up in the "church/waiting room" to move on to the next thing (the afterlife) together. Led into that life by a guy named Christian Shepherd.

I was #1, someone who enjoyed the journey and the characters most, so I love LOST start to finish and I had less than no issues with the ending. Is it perfect? Nah. Is it one of the best shows to ever be on TV? Yes. Most Episodic week-to-week narrative arc storytelling TV shows spawned from LOST. So many other shows owe it a debt for that alone.

Aptorian, on 03 May 2021 - 06:58 AM, said:

I'm still mad about the final revelation about the smoke monster.

Spoiler

See, I liked it. These two immortal brothers stuck in this place (almost Caine and Abel allegories) and told they had to protect its "light", and one went all the way bad and tried to get off the island (threatening the whole world) so Jacob threw him into the "light" well....which changed him and turned him into the smoke monster...and tied him to the light as well and trapped him on the island indefinitely.

I think that's pretty poetic.

It's also why the new Protectors of the island and the light are Ben Linus and Hurley...two people who went through a LOT of shit, but are ultimately good people who won't disagree and won't end up fated to be like Jacob and the Man in Black.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 03 May 2021 - 12:21 PM

[Aptorian]

About the smoke monster:

Spoiler

I didn't want the smoke monster to be anything significant.

I just wanted it to be a weird phenomenon. Like a machine made out of a cloud of nanoparticles from the future trapped on the island, like the polar bear. Or some kind of super natural defense mechanism of the island, like a scientist put a dog collar on a thunder cloud.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 03 May 2021 - 01:13 PM

[Aptorian]

I finished Season 1 of X-files and I'm around episode 3 of season 2.

I think the first season starts to get better towards the end. Like they were trying to figure out what the show was about and how to tell that story. But part of how they learn that is by telling the same damn story again and again.

I swear, I think 6-8 episodes out of 24 are about people dying and coming back to to haunt people, protect people, reincarnating to protect and haunt people, etc. There's even a space ghost in one episode. There's a lot of spirituality in the first season. Mulder being haunted by his missing sister. Scully being haunted by her dead father, etc.

I was surprised at how explicit the show is about showing the monsters and aliens. I seemed to remember that there was a lot more uncertainty, unexplainable phenomena, etc. Mulder finding and losing proof and Scully not witnessing things and not believing for that reason. But that's not the case at all. Like there's alien encounters all over the first season and plenty of monsters seen first hand. And Scully sees much of it. Hell she steals an alien fetus at one point. She's still pretty sceptical though.

There's a lot of classic stuff that builds up between season 1 and 2 that I'd forgot or remembered being spread out over many seasons. Deepthroat being replaced by Mr. X. Those Alien hybrid people who bleed poison gas. People hunting those hybrids. And the Lone Gunmen showed up! I loved that crazy trio.

[Tiste Simeon]

I've never seen X-Files and my wife suggested we could watch it now it's on Disney+ is it going to about me, having not had any of the nostalgia factor?

[Aptorian]

I'm watching X-files because of Disney+ as well!

I don't know if it will grab you. It's such a 90s cultural touch stone that I don't know how to separate it from my 90s nostalgia I have.

Like I mentioned above the start of the season is ROUGH. It's not great TV by modern standards. But on the other hand I don't think there's any other show out there quite like X-files - Except maybe Fringe. Which is basically just X-files with the Sci-fi button turned all the way up to weird on a bigger budget.

But X-files has a special mix of 90s before the internet and smart phones thing going on. It's creepy and weird in ways that are just great. Eerie music. Everything always happens at night. People are really stupid about how not to handle a monster attack. I think what really sells the show is if you can put yourself in the mindset of a TV-viewer in an age where you couldn't google stuff and weird government conspiracy stuff was really popular in a post-cold war era.

Maybe the show will grab you because you don't know all the stuff that gets revealed later on. Like the cigarette smoking man. The nature of the alien cover up. Mulder's family history, etc. It's sort of like getting into Malazan. There's some freaky stuff to learn.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 03 May 2021 - 03:08 PM

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 03 May 2021 - 02:54 PM, said:

I've never seen X-Files and my wife suggested we could watch it now it's on Disney+ is it going to about me, having not had any of the nostalgia factor?

The finale of Season 1 (THE ERLENMEYER FLASK) is a really good indicator of whether or not you'll like the show overall, they'd really started to hit their stride at that point. But you gotta do 24 eps before you get to it, so it will be an investment.

[Aptorian]

X-files season 2, episode 4.

Oooh damn, Mulder just got a new partner. Named Alex Krychek! I'd forgotten all about this.

[Tiste Simeon]

Thanks both I'll have a chat with Mrs Tiste and see what we think. Going through Castle still so got some time to decide.

[Malankazooie]

Is Heroes worth checking out? I jumped in on the last season and it was pretty wretched, to be honest. I think I bailed out after about the fifth episode, and don't recall what was going on. I sorta remember reading reviews at the time that said the last season strayed far away from what made the early seasons good.

Heroes though, I believe, is another one of those "clever" shows that has you sleuthing down paths, and pondering the possibilities and outcomes, only to never pay off. Is that the case?

[Tiste Simeon]

1st season was one of the best I've ever seen. Then the writers strike happened and the quality went downhill very quickly as they tried to work around it.

I never finished it.

[Abyss]

Malankazooie, on 04 May 2021 - 04:50 PM, said:

Is Heroes worth checking out? I jumped in on the last season and it was pretty wretched, to be honest. I think I bailed out after about the fifth episode, and don't recall what was going on. I sorta remember reading reviews at the time that said the last season strayed far away from what made the early seasons good.

Heroes though, I believe, is another one of those "clever" shows that has you sleuthing down paths, and pondering the possibilities and outcomes, only to never pay off. Is that the case?

Tiste Simeon, on 04 May 2021 - 09:16 PM, said:

1st season was one of the best I've ever seen. Then the writers strike happened and the quality went downhill very quickly as they tried to work around it.

I never finished it.

1st season is great, ends a bit weak but ok enough.
2nd season not bad, not great. Some great moments. Weak because they try to give every character in a huge cast their own arc and almost never tie any of it together, but some of the arcs are good.
3rd season flails wildly like a blind prehistoric mammoth trying to snatch a banana from a particularly sadistic chimpanzee dusted in cayenne pepper.
4th season never happened. NEVER.
REBORN also never happened.

[Slow Ben]

Abyss, on 04 May 2021 - 10:02 PM, said:

Malankazooie, on 04 May 2021 - 04:50 PM, said:

Is Heroes worth checking out? I jumped in on the last season and it was pretty wretched, to be honest. I think I bailed out after about the fifth episode, and don't recall what was going on. I sorta remember reading reviews at the time that said the last season strayed far away from what made the early seasons good.

Heroes though, I believe, is another one of those "clever" shows that has you sleuthing down paths, and pondering the possibilities and outcomes, only to never pay off. Is that the case?

Tiste Simeon, on 04 May 2021 - 09:16 PM, said:

1st season was one of the best I've ever seen. Then the writers strike happened and the quality went downhill very quickly as they tried to work around it.

I never finished it.

1st season is great, ends a bit weak but ok enough.
2nd season not bad, not great. Some great moments. Weak because they try to give every character in a huge cast their own arc and almost never tie any of it together, but some of the arcs are good.
3rd season flails wildly like a blind prehistoric mammoth trying to snatch a banana from a particularly sadistic chimpanzee dusted in cayenne pepper.
4th season never happened. NEVER.
REBORN also never happened.

This is 100% accurate. I stopped with 2 episodes to go in the season that never happened and have no desire to ever go back.

[Macros]

Fucking hell

I don't binge watch but I couldn't stop myself

ted Lasso

god damnit I thought it would be a cringy office faux football doc.

It is not.

it has buckets of heart and fuck you I did not cry

you cried

Jason Sudeikis just fuckin owns in the close ups of life

[Slow Ben]

Macros, on 05 May 2021 - 01:41 AM, said:

Fucking hell

I don't binge watch but I couldn't stop myself

ted Lasso

god damnit I thought it would be a cringy office faux football doc.

It is not.

it has buckets of heart and fuck you I did not cry

you cried

Jason Sudeikis just fuckin owns in the close ups of life

I keep friggin hearing this. Gonna have to find time to get it in.

[Malankazooie]

https://forum.malaza...ost__p__1434680

"How many countries are in this country?"

"Four."

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Tiste Simeon, on 04 May 2021 - 09:16 PM, said:

1st season was one of the best I've ever seen. Then the writers strike happened and the quality went downhill very quickly as they tried to work around it.

I never finished it.

Yep, agreed. I think I gave up early series 3, but remember really enjoying the first series.

[Tattersail_]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 05 May 2021 - 07:17 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 04 May 2021 - 09:16 PM, said:

1st season was one of the best I've ever seen. Then the writers strike happened and the quality went downhill very quickly as they tried to work around it.

I never finished it.

Yep, agreed. I think I gave up early series 3, but remember really enjoying the first series.

Without scrolling up are you talking about Heroes?

That show had the best first season, and it could have been the best show on TV ever.