[Tiste Simeon]

NEEEEEER- I mean hey thanks for the breakdown I've got prime I might check out Picard (though is that a bad place to start?)

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Tiste Simeon, on 01 August 2025 - 09:38 AM, said:

NEEEEEER- I mean hey thanks for the breakdown I've got prime I might check out Picard (though is that a bad place to start?)

Guilty!

I think it definitely lands better after TNG - it's heavily tied in with a lot of visiting recurring characters. It's a mixed bag to begin with - but the final series in particular is absolutely a love letter to TNG and wouldn't work at all without it.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 01 August 2025 - 10:54 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Tiste Simeon, on 01 August 2025 - 09:38 AM, said:

NEEEEEER- I mean hey thanks for the breakdown I've got prime I might check out Picard (though is that a bad place to start?)

You'd still be giving money to Paramount.

It would be more ethical to find a way to watch it that wouldn't...

[Edit: on second thought, perhaps Amazon just buys the rights to a show from Paramount for a specific time period in advance, instead of paying Paramount on the basis of views. In that case, they use viewership numbers during that period to decide whether to also buy the rights for a subsequent period (it's a bit like neuron activation... neurons either fire or they don't, no partial activation). But in terms of expected value you're effectively giving money to Paramount... ghostly fractions of future possible money (that investors will pay real money now for---like Schrodinger's fractional quantum ghosts of the future... (because the great thing about analogies is that they let us explain things we don't understand fully enough in terms of things we understand even less!---like reality, beyond our heuristic wells...).]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 August 2025 - 12:33 PM

[Abyss]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 01 August 2025 - 10:54 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 01 August 2025 - 09:38 AM, said:

NEEEEEER- I mean hey thanks for the breakdown I've got prime I might check out Picard (though is that a bad place to start?)

Guilty!

I think it definitely lands better after TNG - it's heavily tied in with a lot of visiting recurring characters. It's a mixed bag to begin with - but the final series in particular is absolutely a love letter to TNG and wouldn't work at all without it.

I'd go one further and say to appreciate Picard you need TNG (Including the movies) and Voyager. Not a deep dive, following any credible 'best of' list would cover you.

[Briar King]

Have not watched much “tv” other then Weather Channel, News and attempting to get caught up on past Live PD v2 so I can start watching the live broadcast each weekend again. I got a long way to go being on S2 ep 56. Holy shit it’s going to take some time.

I did spend 5 hours a day for 2 days to go through Mobland S1. It’s fun and dark. It’s no Sopranos but it has potential.

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 22 April 2025 - 12:41 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 22 April 2025 - 11:17 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 21 April 2025 - 07:48 PM, said:

Apple TV

Any other "must watch" shows while I have it?

ACAPULCO, it's got similar "Good, wholesome, hopeful" TV vibes to Lasso. Entertaining all the way through.

Never heard of it but I'll add it to the list!

Heads up, I thought this show ended with the last episode of S3...but the other day I got Apple TV again after not having it for a few months and lo and behold they are 3 eps into a 4th season...so more for the content wheel.

[Tsundoku]

Watching S02E02 of Wednesday, I found this quite droll:

Attached File(s)

•  wednesday captain.jpg (23.03K)
  Number of downloads: 0

[QuickTidal]

Watched Episode 1 & 2 of ALIEN EARTH (both of which dropped on D+ last night), and as a fan of this franchise all I can say is wow. Blowing open the lore, but also touchstoning the originals (the Maginot feels like the Nostromo inside uniforms, design, tech layout ect.) while also giving us a masterclass in shots and blocking, an exquisite score…the opening apes ALIEN (obvs), but about halfway through you get some ALIENS with the S&R team from Prodigy inside the Maginot wreckage (also the Maginot? As in the Maginot line; is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Nazi Germany and force them to move around the fortifications….that can’t be a coincidence) and then some Romulus too…the rest of my comments will be in bullet point and spoilered for ease of reading/discussing:

Spoiler

1. I LOVE that the ship that crashes is W/Y but it crashes in the domain of the Prodigy corp, owned by a teen trillionaire CEO Boy Kavalier (Peter Pan obvs)….in which he’s called salvaging rights. Love that right off the hop we are dealing with how the world is divided between corporations.
2. Kersh is a wild card. A synth who SEEMS to work for Kavalier/Prodigy, but in quieter moments has a sort of “We are our own thing” with Wendy…so I can see that coming to a head.
3. LOVE Wendy and the Lost Boys being formerly ill young kids in mentality, but having to deal with being in durable adult synth bodies…they all play it very well. The best moment was when Wendy shares the info about her brother but says it’s a secret and the lost boy she tells IMMEDIATELY blabs.
4. Did I mention that the score is IMMACULATE? Jeff Russo outdid himself.
5. The Cinematography, for a TV show, even a prestige one, is evocative as hell….at moments aping every film in the franchise.
6. The short interaction between Boy Kavalier, and Yutani herself is perfect. She stands, impeccably dressed, in a sterile but expensive and beautiful and clearly expensive floor to ceiling windowed room high up in a building, the city behind her…he’s literally got a tablet and is rolling about in a grungier backdrop, at one point holding it with his feet, or propping it beside him in bed…the juxtaposition is…chefs kiss.
7. Kirsh has the cherriest line in the first two eps…as the Lost boys and he are headed down part of the Maginot in ep 2…”Fear is for animals and you are not animals”
8. I love that they didn’t draw out Wendy reuniting with her brother. They very much could have. But then of course he gets attacked by the xeno…

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 13 August 2025 - 01:09 PM

[Briar King]

Alien Earth esp 1-2 were ok. Much better than the latest movies. I liked they are adding some things that are in these 30+yr old Steven Perry books I’m reading into it like the various Companies. Also I liked how deadly the Xeno was instead of the old slow monster movie way tech forces it to be in old movies. It’s body count was probably higher in ep 2 then in A1-4 combined.

Onboard for now.

[worry]

Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical (on Apple TV) -- this was pretty good, though not top tier. It has a good if overly-familiar plot, it maintains the Peanuts tone, it updates the animation style pretty tastefully, and the songs are quite good.

It is a little weird (for Peanuts) that it's a musical in the spontaneous singing kind of way, as opposed to like A Charlie Brown Christmas where the songs are in-world. It's also a little thin overall because of this. Like it's only 40 minutes and has quite a few songs, so it's pretty much all plot-moving & songs without room for the slice-of-life vignettes that make Peanuts so special. Almost everyone is here, but nobody really gets major screen time aside from Charlie Brown, Sally, and Snoopy/Woodstock. The crisis also gets wrapped up pretty simply, but oh well. These are cons, but all kind of mild ones.