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Aesop Poprock posted:Dexter doesn’t make sense as a character because his entire thing is supposed to be that he can’t feel normal emotions but half the show is about how he feels normal emotions He's the Dracula from Van Helsing who screamed about how he has no emotions and that makes him sooooo sad. Dexter, the show, died when the show runners decided that Dexter, the character, would never get caught or pay for his crimes* and that this sadistic serial killer who has uncontrollable urges to kill and dismembers his victims was actually the good guy and not just the protagonist. * beyond becoming a lumberjack.
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Jul 10, 2018 13:33
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duck trucker posted:He never eats people and what makes Doakes such a good foil for Dexter is he's the only one that notices that something about Dexter is hosed up but nobody believes him. And then they kill him in Season 2. It went downhill from there, basically, John Lithgow notwithstanding.
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Jul 10, 2018 13:44
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Absurd Alhazred posted:And then they kill him in Season 2. It went downhill from there, basically, John Lithgow notwithstanding. Yeah, I"m glad that I never watched anything past season 2 of Dexter.
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Jul 10, 2018 13:45
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Safeword posted:I can't get over how awful Agents of SHIELD is. Poorly lit, grey concrete corridors double for everything, and even with all the fuzzy filters and terrible lighting the CGI and costumes are still terrible. They do a LOT with their budget each season. Time is also a factor when ABC orders 30 episodes per year. It's still "TV level CGI" most of the time, though, yeah. The space ships last season looked drat good, though.
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Jul 10, 2018 13:54
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Aesop Poprock posted:Dexter doesn’t make sense as a character because his entire thing is supposed to be that he can’t feel normal emotions but half the show is about how he feels normal emotions I only saw the first few seasons but at that point it felt that he didn't understand himself as much as he thought he did. Might have changed though.
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Jul 10, 2018 14:59
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Absurd Alhazred posted:And then they kill him in Season 2. It went downhill from there, basically, John Lithgow notwithstanding. Yeah I can't disagree. Up to 5 I'll say it varies from alright to good back to alright then starts going down hard from 6 on. They tried to make Laguirta the new Doakes who suspects something's up with Dexter but it just didn't work. Edit: Doctor Spaceman posted:I only saw the first few seasons but at that point it felt that he didn't understand himself as much as he thought he did. Might have changed though. They tried to play with the idea that Dexter really wasn't a psychopath but only thought he was cause his adopted Dad kept telling him he was one as a child. But they really didn't know what to do with it. It can all come down to Scott Buck. He became showrunner from 6 on. His work since Dexter was Iron Fist and Inhumans, which were both terrible as well. duck trucker has a new favorite as of 15:12 on Jul 10, 2018 |
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Jul 10, 2018 15:05
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Aesop Poprock posted:Dexter doesn’t make sense as a character because his entire thing is supposed to be that he can’t feel normal emotions but half the show is about how he feels normal emotions Even from the beginning I think this is called into question. And I think it’s deliberate, but like someone said they just never do anything with it.
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Jul 10, 2018 16:10
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Megillah Gorilla posted:Dexter, the show, died when the show runners decided that Dexter, the character, would never get caught or pay for his crimes* Yea this was the major problem, the only "realistic" way to end the show is with him either dead or in prison and they didn't want to do either of those options so we got pure insanity instead. I'm still blown away by Dexter just whisking away Deb from the hospital and taking her to his boat, they have loving security and poo poo to prevent exactly that kind of thing!
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Jul 10, 2018 16:53
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Am I the only one who thought the John Lithgow character was boring and silly? Granted, I wasn't a regular Dexter-watcher before his arc, but still.
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Jul 10, 2018 17:17
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Iron Crowned posted:Yeah, I"m glad that I never watched anything past season 2 of Dexter. I mean, people aren't making a joke when they say season 4 is the best by a longshot. I don't even think 5 was that bad (though it was a long time ago since I've watched this show) but it suffered in a big way from just not having John Lithgow around anymore. I also seem to remember liking season 3, though it never gets brought up in these conversations. Dexter introduces Jimmy Smits to the wild world of Killing People and he gets too into it.
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Jul 10, 2018 17:22
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S2 was my favorite at the time because I loved the cat and mouse game Dexter keeps playing with the investigator but John Lithgow stole the show on S4. I didn't feel like watching anymore after that, which I guess was a good decision?
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Jul 10, 2018 17:32
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Dexter brought up a lot of interesting ideas and never followed through. Wasnt there a brief point when he thought Rita's daughter might have been like him? Then it's never mentioned again.
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Jul 10, 2018 17:33
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That's the problem with kid characters, the actors age out too fast. On the other hand, at least the TV show spared us what the books wound up doing with Astor...
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Jul 10, 2018 17:38
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While I heard Season 4 was good, I am fine with ending on the first episode of that season since I didn't have Showtime (previous seasons on dvd) and the first episode of season 4 was free on I think Netflix or Comcast so I watched that and never bothered to watch it again.
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Jul 10, 2018 17:39
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Not Operator posted:Dexter brought up a lot of interesting ideas and never followed through. Wasnt there a brief point when he thought Rita's daughter might have been like him? Then it's never mentioned again. That's from a plot point in the books that they obviously decided to drop. A plot in which he trains Rita's kids to be murderers. Because the demon tells him to.
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Jul 10, 2018 18:59
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Sounds better than what we got.
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Jul 10, 2018 19:21
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Aesop Poprock posted:Dexter doesn’t make sense as a character because his entire thing is supposed to be that he can’t feel normal emotions but half the show is about how he feels normal emotions
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Jul 10, 2018 19:44
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Well, yeah. Tiggum's post is also good.
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Jul 10, 2018 19:45
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WampaLord posted:Yea this was the major problem, the only "realistic" way to end the show is with him either dead or in prison and they didn't want to do either of those options so we got pure insanity instead. It's not that they didn't want to do those ending but that Showtime told the producers of Dexter that they couldn't do anything that would permanently end the story and they had to leave it open for a possible revival/spin off.
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Jul 10, 2018 22:12
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Thranguy posted:That's the problem with kid characters, the actors age out too fast. On the other hand, at least the TV show spared us what the books wound up doing with Astor... Fine I'll ask: what did they do with Astor in the books?
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Jul 10, 2018 22:50
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Gaunab posted:Fine I'll ask: what did they do with Astor in the books? She grew up happily, changed her name to Elizabeth, and got a job as an actuary for an insurance company. Boring I know.
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Jul 10, 2018 23:13
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Gaunab posted:Fine I'll ask: what did they do with Astor in the books? She seduced a pedophile actor in an attempt to start a show business career. (And later killed him iirc to save Dexter after he had killed Rita and the actress Dex had been planning to run off with. This is the second to last book; the last one starts with Dexter facing charges for pretty much every crime mentioned above.)
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Jul 10, 2018 23:30
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Wow, usually you need to be a mormon and/or named Brian Herbert to write sequels that are that aggressively bad.
Volcott has a new favorite as of 23:52 on Jul 10, 2018 |
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Jul 10, 2018 23:49
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The Bloop posted:They do a LOT with their budget each season. Time is also a factor when ABC orders 30 episodes per year. It's still "TV level CGI" most of the time, though, yeah. The space ships last season looked drat good, though. I feel like the episode count being much lower next season will actually help them a lot if the budget didn't get cut proportionally.
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Jul 11, 2018 01:44
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Cut the budget and the number of episodes by half.
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Jul 11, 2018 02:49
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Thranguy posted:That's the problem with kid characters, the actors age out too fast. On the other hand, at least the TV show spared us what the books wound up doing with Astor... Reminded of how Deep Space Nine cast a very short adult to play Nog (a Ferengi teenager, and they're already short on average) and an actual teenager to play Jake, and a few seasons later Jake is one of the tallest characters on the show while Nog becomes Starfleet's tiniest cadet. (and in one potential future, captain) Frasier seemed to do it right with Frederick being a tertiary character living with his mother most of the time so he only showed up when relevant. (and was recast at some point, believably so given he's a growing child)
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Jul 11, 2018 05:33
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YeahTubaMike posted:Am I the only one who thought the John Lithgow character was boring and silly? Granted, I wasn't a regular Dexter-watcher before his arc, but still. It was definitely an overrated season. Lithgow was entertaining but a lot of the overarching story was garbage. IIRC they sussed each other out about midway into the season so the rest was an increasingly contrived cat and mouse game to spin wheels until the (admittedly shocking) final scene. Show should've ended after that. Laterite has a new favorite as of 08:45 on Jul 11, 2018 |
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Jul 11, 2018 08:38
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Laterite posted:It was definitely an overrated season. Lithgow was entertaining but a lot of the overarching story was garbage. IIRC they sussed each other out about midway into the season so the rest was an increasingly contrived cat and mouse game to spin wheels until the (admittedly shocking) final scene. Show should've ended after that. You don't RC. Dexter sussed out Trinity quite early, but didn't want to kill him - at least not immediately - because he wanted to know how Trinity maintained the cover of a successful family image while still being a practicing psychopath.
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Jul 11, 2018 14:47
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Tiggum posted:That's the problem with Data from Star Trek. Or as Bender from Futurama put it, "as a robot, I can't feel human emotions, and sometimes that makes me sad." I always felt like that was somewhat deliberate. As a sapient being, Data could feel emotions. They weren't human emotions though, so he couldn't even recognize them as emotions. He was too obsessed with being human, and having human emotions. They would even highlight this sometimes, such as when he was tapping his fingers nervously in the episode narrated by his logs, while the narration says "Man, if I was human I'd sure be nervous good thing I'm not!". Or when he does some weird involved science explanation of how he can be fond of Riker without calling it an emotion and Riker's like "Yeah, I like you too buddy".
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Jul 11, 2018 16:58
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Araenna posted:I always felt like that was somewhat deliberate. As a sapient being, Data could feel emotions. They weren't human emotions though, so he couldn't even recognize them as emotions. He was too obsessed with being human, and having human emotions. They would even highlight this sometimes, such as when he was tapping his fingers nervously in the episode narrated by his logs, while the narration says "Man, if I was human I'd sure be nervous good thing I'm not!". Or when he does some weird involved science explanation of how he can be fond of Riker without calling it an emotion and Riker's like "Yeah, I like you too buddy". This is basically the whole point of The Measure of a Man. Data has emotions, and the autonomy to act on them, just not in a sense that we recognize it immediately as human emotion. He's sentimental, selfish, nervous, and they even bring up that he's been intimate with a crew member.
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Jul 11, 2018 17:33
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SpacePig posted:This is basically the whole point of The Measure of a Man. Data has emotions, and the autonomy to act on them, just not in a sense that we recognize it immediately as human emotion. He's sentimental, selfish, nervous, and they even bring up that he's been intimate with a crew member. Not that don't disagree with your premise, but he boned out of curiosity (And also out of space madness once) and that itself isn't evidence of emotionality per se. I totally agree that he has emotions, though. The end of The Most Toys is pretty telling, for example.
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Jul 11, 2018 17:54
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The Bloop posted:Not that don't disagree with your premise, but he boned out of curiosity (And also out of space madness once) and that itself isn't evidence of emotionality per se. It's not just the boning, it's how he behaved about it after - keeping a memento of Tasha and not wanting to talk about it out of respect for her, and also the fact that he referred to it as "we were...intimate.", you can see on the judge's face she's completely blindsided by this. I love that episode so much.
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Jul 11, 2018 17:59
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The best Data moment was when he built himself a daughter. Picard was like "the gently caress, dude? Get permission for that sort of thing." Data just calmly said "i don't recall other members of the crew requiring your permission to reproduce." Data was an interesting character especially before the emotion chip. Did he really actually feel anything or was he just emulating emotions because it had a good response? If memory serves he was programmed to be curious so did he genuinely want to understand human emotions or we he just a machine doing what he was told?
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Jul 11, 2018 18:00
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Yeah, it really sucked when Data installed his emotion chip.
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Jul 11, 2018 18:04
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Jj abram’s spock was alway mad
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Jul 11, 2018 18:52
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The Bloop posted:Not that don't disagree with your premise, but he boned out of curiosity (And also out of space madness once) and that itself isn't evidence of emotionality per se. I get what you're saying, but I would say that the curiosity itself is an emotion, and the points that purple death ray made are what points to it ultimately being an intimate experience for him. ToxicSlurpee posted:Data was an interesting character especially before the emotion chip. Did he really actually feel anything or was he just emulating emotions because it had a good response? If memory serves he was programmed to be curious so did he genuinely want to understand human emotions or we he just a machine doing what he was told? This is what sort of weirded me out about the Q episode where he ends it by letting Data laugh. Data experiencing the act of laughter is different from actually feeling that something is funny and laughing in response. I think Data's "lack of emotion" is often presented as more of a "lack of emotional response", which makes it sort of hard to argue one way or the other. But I think that episodes that focus primarily on Data and are careful about how they're portraying things tend to be a bit closer to what the intended truth is.
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Jul 11, 2018 19:10
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I agree that curiosity could be an emotion. Also I agree that he always had many emotions, they were just alien
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Jul 11, 2018 19:19
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The best Data moment was when he built himself a daughter. Picard was like "the gently caress, dude? Get permission for that sort of thing." Data just calmly said "i don't recall other members of the crew requiring your permission to reproduce." I liked Picard's followup to this which was basically "ok fair point, but given the situation of you being literally (almost) the only one of your species and no one else being able to create androids, perhaps you should have thought of the overarching ramifications"
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Jul 11, 2018 19:51
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Dexter was weird because as a show it kept HAVING actual good ideas (I mean good in a schlocky way) and then abandoning them Dexter gets a girlfriend who k paws he’s a killer and is cool with it? Neat dynamic, but - oh, they wrote her out Dexter was made a monster by his dad? Okay that could - oh, never mentioned again But in the final season; Dexter has a younger serial killer he’s training, an adoptive mother figure who thinks murder is good an encourages it and a serial killer gf and gently caress they’re just a no murder family riding in the car together and - oh, they’re all dead within two episodes. Okay. Dexter basically was a show that thought the only interesting thing that could ever possibly happen was have Dexter fight another serial killer and I think 5/7 seasons that is the exact plot
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Jul 11, 2018 20:00
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Calico Heart posted:Dexter was weird because as a show it kept HAVING actual good ideas (I mean good in a schlocky way) and then abandoning them I’ve only made it through Dexter once, but the stubborn refusal to change the status quo is pretty much my strongest impression of the show. Dexter had to juggle taking care of his family, working his crime scene job, serial killing, and dealing with that season’s major antagonist. They would tease things like maybe he’s not a sociopath, maybe he’ll find someone who accepts what he does, maybe someone will find out about him, but they always hit the reset button by season’s end so they could come out and do the same poo poo next year. Even the end of season 4, which everyone hailed as this major game changer, was basically just a way for them to keep Dexter doing what he was doing. They had written themselves into a corner with Dexter’s marriage and couldn’t figure out convenient excuses to keep him out late, so they just killed her and replaced her with a series of girlfriends and babysitters (lol). There were a lot of interesting places the show could have gone, but I think Showtime was concerned that it would kill the golden goose, so they just keep things mostly the same for 8 years. And then demanded that it end in such a way that they could immediately go back to the formula in the future if needed. Since this is the “TV episodes that did not age well” thread, I do want to say I think Dexter will age even worse than it already has. It seems like the economy of television has changed, and a long running show that everyone got sick of is way less valuable than a beloved show with a shorter run, since you can sell the streaming rights over and over again (or offer it yourself on your own streaming platform). I’m sure HBO has made a ton of money off people hearing people great things about The Wire years after it went off the air and paying $15 for HBO Now to watch it. Meanwhile, I don’t think anyone is paying that for Showtime Anytime to see how Dexter ended.
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