What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Joebot wrote: I would argue that Vikings is the Ameritrashiest show on TV right now (the previous champ was obviously Spartacus), and I mean that in all the best ways possible. I love that show. The production values are very impressive considering this airs on the History Channel, not HBO. Season 4 starts up next week, and I'm very excited. Season 3 was entertaining, but a bit uneven. Ragnar fighting the French was awesome, but all the other plot lines dragged. They need to figure out some better storylines for the "back home" scenes while Ragnar's off kicking ass somewhere.

I will see your Vikings and raise you a Black Sails. I do love Vikings though, even though an archeology major friend from Sweden destroyed it (and to a lesser extent, The Last Kingdom) on grossly incorrect/stupid costuming. Painted wool mail not even the main problem. Would have been cheaper to fake realistic Danish garb than what they have gone with apparently.

JEM wrote:

Joebot wrote: I would argue that Vikings is the Ameritrashiest show on TV right now (the previous champ was obviously Spartacus), and I mean that in all the best ways possible. I love that show. The production values are very impressive considering this airs on the History Channel, not HBO. Season 4 starts up next week, and I'm very excited. Season 3 was entertaining, but a bit uneven. Ragnar fighting the French was awesome, but all the other plot lines dragged. They need to figure out some better storylines for the "back home" scenes while Ragnar's off kicking ass somewhere.

I will see your Vikings and raise you a Black Sails. I do love Vikings though, even though an archeology major friend from Sweden destroyed it (and to a lesser extent, The Last Kingdom) on grossly incorrect/stupid costuming. Painted wool mail not even the main problem. Would have been cheaper to fake realistic Danish garb than what they have gone with apparently.

Network executives understand that they are doing these shows for entertainment purposes, not educational purposes.

Sure, but why make vikings look like a biker gang when it's cheaper even to make them look legit?

JEM wrote: I will see your Vikings and raise you a Black Sails. I do love Vikings though, even though an archeology major friend from Sweden destroyed it (and to a lesser extent, The Last Kingdom) on grossly incorrect/stupid costuming. Painted wool mail not even the main problem. Would have been cheaper to fake realistic Danish garb than what they have gone with apparently.

What?!? Next you're going to tell me that Hagar the Horrible was historically inaccurate!!

I watched the first season of Black Sails. It was okay. It reminded me a lot of Deadwood, but without nearly as strong of a cast. I remember being very frustrated by how much time they spent on land. This is a pirate show! Go fuck some shit up!

I've been watching Better Caul Saul on Netflix. I dig it. It's not as a relentlessly grim and bleak as Breaking Bad. And it's goddamned funny sometimes. The inventor guy with the talking toilet?!? That had me in tears.

Yeah if only there was some TV channel with a bias to History, they might show a show eh.

Black Sails improved 600% in second season.

Joebot wrote: I've been watching Better Call Saul on Netflix. I dig it. It's not as a relentlessly grim and bleak as Breaking Bad. And it's goddamned funny sometimes. The inventor guy with the talking toilet?!? That had me in tears.

I watched the first 5 episodes of Better Call Saul and gave up on it. I found it meandering and not all that compelling beyond Odenkirk's performance. When I saw that Season 2 is premiering soon I bit the bullet and watched the second half of the season and holy shit the last 5 episodes are so much better than the first 5. "5-0" was great (Mike's backstory) and the last two were flat-out amazing and have me so pumped for Season 2.

I finally caught up with The Expanse the other day, binge watching episodes 1-6.



The show turned out to be quite different from what I'd expected and I really enjoyed its cheesy melodrama and its world-building. My single favourite moment was when the crew turned the ice trawler Canterbury- you could really feel the heavy metal physics of changing that huge object's bi-iig vector in deep space.

The 100 - Definitely going downhill. I didn't think at the beginning of the season I'd want more Jaha scenes, but I'll gladly take him over the boring tribal stuff. Also, the new grounder-hating leader is like a walking cliche and makes everything too predictable.

Black Sails - This show gets better every season. Teach is fantastic and I really liked the episode where Flint's crew was starving.

HBO's Vinyl: a record-exec in 1973 dealing with German investors, radio magnates, A&R hacks... haunted by an old deal that went bad, trying to stay sober, and trying to find the next big thing, discovering the New York Dolls and the birth of glam/punk in a crumbling club. Directed by Scorsese (complete with his usual coke and cash) and produced and co-written by Mick Jagger. It's a pretty good start for the series. I liked a lot of it, and Andrew Dice Clay has one of the best performances as a sleazy radio guy, especially in his later scene. From the musician standpoint, it's a bit of a caricature, but as it's from the point of view of the execs, that's kind of fitting, I suppose.

While looking through the movie selection at the library, I randomly came across episodes 4-6 of the first season of Space: 1999. As a lad, I was a fan of the show, but this was the first time that I've seen the show in nearly 40 years. There wasn't much sci-fi on tv back then, aside from syndicated re-runs of Star Trek.

The special effects were weak, even compared to Star Trek episodes from nearly a decade earlier. The stories were okay and the acting was adequate, but the characters were pretty flat compared to the Star Trek bridge crew. The set design was okay, giving the moonbase a distinctive look, with a style somewhere between Apple and Ikea. I like the soundtrack, which initially falls somewhere between 2001 and Mission Impossible, until this cheesy little keyboard starts doing a little euro disco melody. The end credits revert to 2001/Mission Impossible, with brass and kettle drums and classical awesomeness.

The science of the show is maddening. On the one hand, they handle some of the space stuff well. There is no sound in space, which is something that too many sci-fi shows have botched. When crew members traverse the lunar landscape, they are properly hopping about like there is reduced gravity. The space suits look realistic, and the VTOL shuttles seem plausible. Even the pace of the show often seems plausible, with less action and more talking, plus occasionally the longish countdown scene. But the initial premise of the moon getting knocked out of Earth orbit and rapidly travelling across the universe is rubbish. The required amount of force would have ruined the base and possibly even shattered the moon. And they would be unable to go anywhere in their ships without being left behind by the rapidly hurtling moon. The three episodes that I recently watched only make vague references to life support systems, but I assume that there are big hydroponic gardens somewhere within the base to feed all these people.