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Mycelia Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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What TV SHOWS are you watching?

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03 Jan 2018 22:29 #260149 by stoic

Black Barney wrote: Was Jane Badler Diana? I had a crush on her too.


Yes. That's her.


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03 Jan 2018 22:49 - 03 Jan 2018 22:50 #260151 by Michael Barnes
I make references to V all the time and people are like “huh”?

For example, Black Barney is sort of like the Canadian version of Willie.

Man, I friggin’ loved V and V: The Final Battle. I remember seeing the commercia for the first one at my grandma’s house and thinking “whoa that looks awesome”.

I still think The reveal of Robin’s babies is one of the best moments in television history.

I only watched a little of the reboot, it was nowhere near as good because it didn’t have that John Carpenter-ish tone to it.
Last edit: 03 Jan 2018 22:50 by Michael Barnes.
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03 Jan 2018 23:30 #260154 by SebastianBludd
V freaked me out as a kid and I was too scared to watch it. I watched part of an episode about a dozen years later and all I can remember is some woman in a flesh-toned body suit in some sort of agony booth and Marc Singer constantly "dodging" laser blasts a fraction of a second too late where it ended up looking silly. I'd still watch it but I usually forget it exists.

This summer my family and I were flying into Providence on our way to Cape Cod and I saw a guy who looked a lot like Marc Singer in first class. It turns out that it was him and he'd flown in for the V reunion at ComiConn (the others were Frank Ashmore, Richard Herd and Greta Blackburn). I tried to explain who he was to my wife but she'd seen neither V nor Beastmaster so she was unimpressed.

I'm almost done with Punisher and it's gotten really good. They've done a really good job in updating the character and moving on from his roots in 70's-era vigilantism without losing the essence of the character. I was also pleasantly surprised at how well they fleshed out the supporting characters, even though it should be noted that it came at the expense of pace which was nearly glacial in some of the early episodes. I also wish he spent more time in his skull body armor but those are quibbles. Highly recommended.

My kids really liked The Office - we watched the entire series in about a month - but have gotten tired of rewatching episodes, so recently we started Parks & Recreation. I never watched it when it first aired because I wrote it off as an Office knockoff but it's much better than that. The supporting cast isn't as funny - I can't stand Aubrey Plaza - but Amy Poehler is really good (though she's more of a straight man in this show), Aziz Ansari is tolerable in a love-to-hate-him sort of way (and he's my five year-old daughter's favorite character) and Nick Offerman and Chris Pratt are both amazing.
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04 Jan 2018 08:20 - 04 Jan 2018 08:26 #260163 by repoman
Watched an Amazon Prime exclusive which I'm beginning to think means "made by the BBC", called The Last Post. A show about British Military Police in Aden, a city on the south side of the Saudi Arabian peninsula that was a refinery and port for oil, in the mid to late sixties right at the end of the empire. I've always been intrigued by British colonialism, how it came to be and the long term consequences of it. It's a very foggy issue in our day and age because it is nigh impossible to find an objective take on it. Sort of like trying to find an objective take on Vietnam in US history.

Anyway, the show deals with the personalities at this British Army post. The show is well put together and if you are a fan of deep and well drawn characters then you will like this show. Probably the best in that regard I've seen in a long time. It's remarkably even handed in it's portrayal of both the British and the Arabs. Both being shown to be neither all angels or all devils. The show's production values are pretty high and it looks good.

I'm not sure I liked it though. The action parts are never quite satisfying. I suppose that is done on purpose and reflects the impotence these guys felt in their impossible situation. That's not to say there isn't suspense and tension because there is but it sometimes goes on and on and becomes grueling. Maybe that's by design as well.

The season was only six episodes long and it was a fascinating show on a time and subject not often covered.




P.S.Yes that's one of the main characters in the red dress. Yes she is super good looking but she is totally reprehensible...until she isn't...see that's what the show does...makes you hate/love a character until you don't.
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04 Jan 2018 08:40 - 04 Jan 2018 08:42 #260167 by Black Barney
Oh Remember the V episode with the prison camp surrounded by a moat of sand that was patrolled by some creature similar to Khans pet in Wrath of Khan?

Yeah I remember the woman in the flesh covered booth getting brainwashed too. That show really hit me on many levels as a kid. When Mark Singer is debating on giving up Martin as he’s being tortured by a staple gun that électricutes him repeatedly.

I’ll never forget the sound of the lasers in that show. It stays with you.

Michael Ironsides was badass in that show. Was Robert England Willie? Gah, can’t believe that’s who I’m supposed to be.

ER did a prank and used the alien baby prop as a joke in that episode where dr Greene loses the mother during delivery
Last edit: 04 Jan 2018 08:42 by Black Barney.

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04 Jan 2018 13:39 #260197 by RobertB
Back when V was on in the 80's, I was a lot pickier about plot holes. I couldn't get past the notion that these aliens passed all that water out in space, to land on Earth and take the water from here. And that thing where Marc Singer grabbed his upper arm when shooting his alien pistol was just silly. However, you can put me on that 'crush on Diana' list.
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04 Jan 2018 15:35 #260219 by Black Barney
wasn't the water thing just one of the things they wanted? Weren't they shipping a bunch of bodies back too?

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08 Jan 2018 12:24 #260511 by Shellhead
I am now about halfway through season three of Game of Thrones. It's been about a decade since the last time I re-read Storm of Swords, but I fondly remember it as the best of the five published books in the series. So I have high expectations for this season. So far, I have been mildly disappointed, because the pacing is a bit slow and good material is being left out.

When converting 800+ page books into 10-episode seasons of television, it is understandable that not everything will survive the translation process. But the cumulative effect of slimming down the story has left some characters and storylines emaciated or even just gone. For example, I imagine that viewers must find Ser Davos the Onion Knight boring and insignificant, but he was one of my favorite characters in the books. Even Robb Stark has gotten scant screentime, though he was reasonably impressive while scolding Edmure Tully about his strategic errors. What's worse is that the trimming has left some room for additional slow-paced scenes that add nothing to the story but perhaps flesh out the relationships of certain characters. And some great minor characters have gone completely missing, like Fat Belwas or the Brave Companions. This tv show is good for people who don't like to read, but I feel sorry for show fans who are missing out on so much from the books. Pretty much anything that a person might like about the show (aside from the nudity) is available in greater quantity and quality in the books, though the same could be said about their least favorite things from the show.

Another ongoing disappointment is the weak casting of many characters. As a former bard, Mance Rayder should have been more charming, but they deleted that aspect of the character, which also deleted Jon Snow's excellent excuse for joining the wildlings. Ser Davos is a super-generic old guy with zero screen presence. Shae is homely. I realize that there is a finite supply of actors in the UK, but the show could have maybe recruited even more actors from abroad.
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08 Jan 2018 12:57 #260513 by Gary Sax
^I wholeheartedly agree with your second paragraph especially that it isn't due to like bad showrunning but just impossible constraints (until the most recent season, I don't think it's any good). They made sensible decisions, but I think they missed some key stuff that was good in the necessary transition to short visual form.

By contrast, I think the casting has largely been excellent, so there I disagree. I think it's all down to how little room the minor characters have to breath. When they decide to focus on a minor character with the appropriate time, they almost always do them justice---see Oberyn Martell who gets decent screen time.

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08 Jan 2018 14:52 - 08 Jan 2018 14:53 #260532 by Black Barney
The casting of the main characters has been incredible. It's the side characters where the casting has been spotty at times. Ed Sheeran is the easiest thing to knock but there are many.

Shellhead, if it makes you feel better, the screenwriting of Game of Thrones was not done for the fan of the book. It was completely done for television and for new comers to the series. It's not like Peter Jackson trying to do Lord of the Rings justice by being as true to the source material as possible. So if you can come away from it from that angle, it helps you enjoy the show for what it is. Excellent television. That's all.


Speaking of Game of Thrones, i saw Robb Stark on some show last night and it was impossible to take that actor seriously at all in the role. He was totally Robb Stark to me.
Last edit: 08 Jan 2018 14:53 by Black Barney.

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10 Jan 2018 18:17 #260662 by Black Barney
Watched some Next Gen yesterday when I went home feeling ill

Just my luck it’s the stupid Wesley episode with the displaced North American native people. They keep calling them Indians in the show which really dated the show for me. I then started thinking and wondering how no sci fi property has been able to forecast political correctness at all. Would have been cool to watch a show referring to some group of people using a term we are totally unfamiliar with. « I wonder why they are calling them that...? »

Sociology science fiction would be a cool thing to try and write for. Making a black or female captain isn’t enough

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10 Jan 2018 18:24 #260665 by Shellhead
I don't know if I could watch Next Generation anymore. I watched quite a bit of it back when it was new, but those first two seasons were so bad that they kept me from regularly watching the show. Then I did see most of the later/better seasons, thanks to syndicated re-runs in the late '90s. But when I look back on Star Trek, the original series had this strange and adventurous feel to the episodes, while watching Next Gen often feels like sitting at a meeting with a bunch of middle management types earnestly discussing changes to the HR manual.

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10 Jan 2018 18:27 #260667 by Michael Barnes
I find myself oddly intrigued by the new, morally repellent and lascivious Devilman: Crybaby anime that Netflix has produced. I've always loved Go Nagai's style but other than bits and pieces (and lots of Mazinger) I've never caught much of the older Devilman.

The story is really just kind of typical anime stuff- teens getting caught up in supernatural nonsense, loser guy winds up hosting a demon and so forth- and there is TONS of rather crude sex and violence that makes me feel almost ashamed to be watching it in a way that I haven't felt since maybe seeing Urotsukidoji in the theater 25 years ago or whatever it was.

But here is what I find compelling about it. The art style is REALLY interesting. It is NOT your typical anime fare. It's really more Ralph Bakshi. So it is all fleshy and rubbery and 1970s psychedelic. The demon transformations are insane- bodies with no boundaries or limitations, a complete dissolution of physiology and structure- far more extreme than Parasyte or some of the other body horror-focused anime. So I'm sort of ho-hum about the story itself (although it has some interesting and progressive LGBT subtexts underneath the near-porn), but I love the way it looks.

I'm really kind of surprised that Netflix is producing this, because it does hover pretty close to hentai. I doubt I'll watch any more of it, but it is worth watching to see the art style.

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10 Jan 2018 19:46 #260675 by hotseatgames
I watched the first episode of that. Not for me.

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10 Jan 2018 19:48 #260676 by Michael Barnes
I really don’t think it’s for me either but I was really surprised that it looked more like some seedy 1978 X-rated cartoon than anime.

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