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pentyne posted:So, for the list Yeah this is the problem I have. Basically Walter flip flops between hyper capable in a panic or a blubbering mess when required, but is also the voice of reason to the rest of his team (or Paige is if he suddenly breaks down so she can have lines in the script). Happy is boring; I don't even hate the actress/her voice but she doesn't really provide her expertise into much of anything, except once ever in the pilot. She's also the least fleshed out of all of them. Human Calculator is the only consistent one of the bunch because at least he is almost always a blubbering mess when he has to do something outside his comfort zone. He's also not really fleshed out but at least he's consistent. The psych dude they try to pass off as sympathetic (like at the end of the second episode when his ex calls him back) but he is pretty much an rear end in a top hat through and through. I guess he is supposed to double as a grifter or something? Let's not get started on the fact that they all have an expertise and none of them use it 4 out of 5 times, because Walter is the computer genius so he just does computer things to make the plot continue. Because computers.
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Oct 13, 2014 20:30
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 18:28 |
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pentyne posted:5 minutes in and I can't make it another second. Obviously I know your suggestions are utter hilarity and would result in complete poo poo but it's if the writers didn't think of it or because REAL WALTER O'BRIEN decided no one except him gets more than their 15 minutes, I don't know what. I mean, it's pretty basic story design and character development if they at least had a single episode where one of the main characters had some emotional attachment to the case at hand, but I guess the show would rather suggest they are inhuman robots incapable of empathy and sympathy and just vomit out pure logic as the plot dictates. I mean, there were a few times I thought they were gonna actually do it, but the show seemed to just step back from it and either wash their hands of it or just do it completely half-heartedly and made it feel dishonest or have no real payoff. Also I guess cause it wasn't a government job they were on there was a bit of a tone change to be a little more light at times, which was probably for the better. Bruceski posted:So Happy is a "mechanical prodigy" what is that supposed to mean? Her accomplishments seem to be using a welding torch, repairing a motorcycle and knowing it's stupid to shoot a keypad lock. "I can't see any reason I'll ever need a crossbow again"? I can think of a lot of uses for a crossbow or its parts in various gadgetry and I barely know how a toaster works, those various high-tension/high-stress parts are handy.
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Oct 14, 2014 08:16
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JAMOOOL posted:Wait, that was one of the BETTER episodes? No, that's pretty much it. I mean, no one ever really seriously gave a show like Leverage any poo poo about some of their asspulls for the plot, because it was fun to watch the cast do cool heists and they were all fun to watch. And frankly I really care so little about the how someone gets a clue or gets out of predicament in most cases if they can make up for it elsewhere. Obviously the better written stuff doesn't miss a beat either way but basically no one on the cast is particularly fun to watch because they all seem like variations on Dr. Sheldon Cooper anyway. I'm pretty close to dropping it because I don't think it's really going anywhere with anything in any aspect of the show.
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Oct 14, 2014 17:44
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Sheldon works better because it's a sitcom but I feel like they missed the point and decided to make them all behave like Sheldon would, because hey nerds have trouble interacting with people, right?
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Oct 14, 2014 18:11
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There are much worse shows out there than this that break a lot more basic TV rules than even Scorpion could ever even aspire to do - yes, that's a compliment and probably the only nice thing I will say about this show. It's pretty much middling TV for most intents and purposes and probably just pisses off internet nerds more but otherwise probably wholly inoffensive otherwise to everyone else and just good enough that it isn't utter poo poo. There are literally worse shows out there that do things actually much worse than Scorpion. Trust me, there is nothing a whole lot wrong in the actual construction of the show despite it never being a show that will ever amount to much except "it exists" and "it obviously doesn't represents nerds right at all" and then people who gravitate to internet message boards will forget it even exists after a while. That being said, it's not even worth hate-watching here at all. And I've hate-watched all of Dexter and the most of Glee up to season 5 and those are probably something you'd rather spend your hate-watching time on. First off, if you strip away the impossible technobabble/logistics/fake nerd talk/whatever, it pretty much is just any other procedural and I don't ever see it ever amounting to much, but at least the dumb technical poo poo they make up at the end of the day is at least internally consistent enough with it's own dumb logic that no one outside of internet message board posters will really question it beyond the basic premise of "why are they even doing that at all when IRL, X, Y or Z would've already been done?" Secondly there really has to be some behind-the-scenes poo poo from IRL Walter O'Brien and how he probably has some say over the stories because if you look up who probably runs the show, it's probably not him. It's probably not Kurtzman/Orci (who are probably hands off and just collect cheques) either and even with all the poo poo people give them, they at least have a better standard than what I've seen, so the last and obvious choice is the creator and probably the actual day-to-day EP Nick Santora - IMDB his credits and see how much writing he's done - he either has a lot of dirt on people or I don't know. One other issue I have is if you're going to have a "team", you kinda want to showcase them instead of leaving everything to basically being constantly secondary characters that solely revolve around Walter. I mean, go ahead and do it if you want, but (I don't want to say lazy writing) it's probably not going to win anyone over seeing as the cases-of-the-week aren't going to work out to be technical accomplishments in any sense of the word. I'll be nice again and say the pilot was actually done right at the very least - yes, we all know what they all did in the pilot is utter bullshit, but let's be fair here, at least they all did show off their poo poo with the time they were given vs. the 4 following episodes where it's been minimal at least. Again, let's quote: pentyne posted:So, for the list Look at that list again, because Walter is probably the only one who's fleshed out at any bit and the rest are one- or two-note characters, despite the fact they occasionally get enough screentime, except they're there to just explain something to someone who doesn't understand something in nerdspeak immediately. And Walter's history only pops up briefly in that episode with the guy with an infected daughter and is any momentum is dropped after that [because nerds can't express themselves] (there isn't any lazy writing because at least his sister shows up, Paige talks to him about it that episode, but any real arc just falls flat). Actually, let me take a second with that episode, because it showed hints of what the other team members backstories or skeletons in their closets but those even fall flat or just get shotgunned out and fail to really connect. -Sylvester has some fun moments in that episode (scared of germs but has to go through a biohazard room) but the money thing at the end was weird (nothing specific about why he's funny around money except he just is) and hasn't been mined at all otherwise but at least he's fun to watch -Happy is finally defined as having anger issues but they never come up BUT has that line about how she doesn't trust people over tools juxtaposed with her tool breaking at the end which is smart BUT there's no pathos there so that's that and she's still filler in the team since her expertise is never brought up -Toby has the ex-wife and gambling issues and has that phonecall from her at the end but seemed like empty payoff for nothing since it never comes up except at the start then at the end -and Paige is there for her son and seems like the only consistent one among them with Cabe (regular people, right?) but right now they mostly exist because of the show's premise more than anything. In the end these don't really do anything except show these 2-dimensional characters as nothing more than 2-dimensional and don't do anything with them except remind us about them at the end because the attempt to make it seem like they are more than that fall flat with nothing concrete to expound on. At least TBBT tries to make the audience empathize with the cast (despite it being a sitcom and having the biggest sperg in Sheldon Cooper) and shows they are just like ordinary people who want to aspire to be better and connect with other people (I mean everyone except Raj have partners now more or less) and be happy. No one in Scorpion really has anything to convince us they are just people who just happen to be super smart or are trying to be better people most of the time (because apparently they are better off being lost in their poo poo unless you nag them out of their mind palace). I'm sure they fleshed out the rest of Scorpion's characters FOR REAL somewhere in the show's bible but there hasn't been any of it show. Again, simplest way to do this would be to just have a case that for one reason or another hits home for one of the team and they are the protagonist of the episode - or rather the one who strives the hardest to make sure they solve whatever job they have. Except they don't and I think that's pretty much a waste of time and it's all on Walter to rally the team at the eleventh hour (and their Walter-centric episode fell flat there anyway). Because at least they would be perfect opportunities to showcase that teammate, their expertise, a chance to show their personal demons/issues/past and watch them overcome them and become better people. If that's not there then I'm pretty sure I'm just going to clock out eventually. I mean the freaking Vegas episode was practically supposed to be Toby's episode - and I'm not going to try to suggest how I would've written it at all - but the issues I had with it were that he wasn't really that central of a character to it even after Walter got arrested (since they all try to pay his bail, Toby fucks up the gambling anyway, Walter ends up getting the big final vital clue and Toby is just captured and that just plays itself out anyway as a passive character), and nothing else about him ever really comes up except we learn he's a fuckup while gambling and we already knew that and nothing really else. This week's episode with the former Scorpion member was played kind of safe because in the end Walter's decision was RIGHT ALL ALONG anyway despite the other guy's POV making Walter seem like a bad guy and the dude ends up being the mustache twirling villain who masterminded dumb poo poo just to prove a point that he's supposed to be better than everyone else. It had a few good points like Walter struggling with the team and the actual team not reduced to being distracted spergy idiots during an emergency (so we can get through the plot already). Cabe's thing about being trapped and exposed to radiation kinda fell flat for me even though Robert Patrick can bring some gravitas because it was him kissing his daughter's photo, unsure of his fate, immediately followed by him washing up on beach and tipping his imaginary hat at some ladies in bikinis as he walks out of the water (which was amusing enough at least). And don't get me started on them trying to pair Happy and Toby - mostly because the former probably has trust issues (she trusts tools more than people, but it's not really expanded on despite it being easy drama to mine) and Toby is still not entirely over his ex-wife (because he keeps calling her trying to make up for it and all that poo poo and it's never really explored so in a way he can't get over it and move on), and that's just probably the basics, anyway (not gonna editorialize on if the actors could pull it off convincingly or not). Or it could all happen and a mess and fallout could come out of it, but I also don't trust they'd go in that direction ever or handle it properly.  TL;DR - I swear I'm not getting too angry, but that's my stupid 2 cents on this dumb show. I mean, maybe I'm being unreasonable but my argument is that if your plots are going to be dumb as poo poo at least make the main characters interesting, and Scorpion is failing at that. I mean, I'm looking at the first 10 or so episodes of Leverage's first season (synopses on Wikipedia, alright?) but at least they seem to have a bunch of character-focused episodes there already, if not covered them all at least once.
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Oct 26, 2014 08:17
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pentyne posted:The show is regularly shedding viewers, by episode 10 they might be in the ratings range where cancellation is on the table. CBS gave it a full season pickup, actually. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/10/27/cbs-gives-full-season-orders-to-scorpion-madam-secretary-ncis-new-orleans-stalker/320228/ CBS hands that poo poo out like candy though, even loving Stalker gets one.
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Oct 28, 2014 00:41
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Josh Lyman posted:I skipped last week's episode with the nuclear reactor but for some reason, I watched this week's episode with the art theft. I didn't particularly like the framing device with the psych mostly because it just involved scenes with all the other team members basically worshiping Walter in an episode already centered on Walter trying to be a better person (which they did fairly well by the end imo). And you already spent like 5 episodes with everyone worshiping Walter already. We get it, Walter O'Brien.
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Oct 30, 2014 21:33
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uublog posted:Well if you made a tv show about yourself, wouldn't you have everyone else
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Oct 31, 2014 00:36
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you all the time? 
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 18:28 |
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I refuse to believe RL Walter O'Brien doesn't exert a great degree of creative control on the show because conceivably the only other person in actual charge of creative decisions is this guy and while his pedigree isn't sterling silver, there's plenty enough there to tell me there's no way he's the one cocking it up.
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Nov 3, 2014 23:26
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