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If you're looking for bad CGI, Grimm fits. Paranormal buddy-cop who solves murders committed by fairy-tale creatures that resemble computer-generated furries.
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May 28, 2014 03:52
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Under the Dome. The concept is classic socially-conscious sci-fi: One day a giant invisible forcefield appears out of nowhere and traps the residents of a small town and cuts them off from the outside world. It's a great premise that you could use for everything from straightforward allegory to deeply human character studies, and it even has a decent novel for source material that juggled both. Instead the show was dumber than a box of rocks and completely dropped the ball in every possible respect. And it was one of the highest-rated shows of the summer 
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May 28, 2014 06:04
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Oraculum Animi posted:Warehouse 13. It's got a more supernatural thing going for it but it's on the Scyfy channel and they use zappy guns and lots of historically based gadgets. Historically-based gadgets such as Barack Obama's basketball.
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May 28, 2014 10:54
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If you want an example of a show that took a nosedive, Lexx. The first season was amazing, the second was hit-or-miss, the third plodded and rambled, and the fourth was loving embarrassing.
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Jun 7, 2014 11:57
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SwissCM posted:Helix. It's some of the worst television ever produced. Do it.
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Jun 7, 2014 19:18
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Lost Girl probably fits. It's more fantasy then Sci Fi, but it's awful so there's that.
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Jun 7, 2014 20:45
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Andromeda had a plot written out that got thrown away when Kevin Sorbo got creative control and rewrote his character to be God, so that's where the badness comes in. It was pretty good before that. And Seven Days was peak 90s scifi, you shut up 
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Jun 7, 2014 22:26
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Toast Museum posted:I haven't seen the original, but the remake of V is loving godawful. The ending made it entirely worth it. Pure "gently caress ALL YOU ALL, WE'RE OUT!" mayham. Everyone loving dies and the world is totally screwed. Even the most hatable characters in the whole show got brutally murdered. I almost wish it got a 2nd season to see how the hell they'd write themselves out of that ending, which was pretty much 210% alien victory. Seriously if anyone suffered through ANY of V, watch the final episode. It was a show that went out with both fingers extended and screaming a "gently caress you" to everyone involved with it. It's glorious.
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Jun 8, 2014 00:51
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Arrgytehpirate posted:Lost Girl probably fits. It's more fantasy then Sci Fi, but it's awful so there's that. Lost Girl embraces it's terribleness and is better for it, but only up to a certain point where the writers just lose track of their own plots and shoehorn stuff in left and right. The first 2 seasons were pretty good by Canadian sci-fi standards. Luigi Thirty posted:Andromeda had a plot written out that got thrown away when Kevin Sorbo got creative control and rewrote his character to be God, so that's where the badness comes in. It was pretty good before that. That was really weird. The entire show its "I'm a semi-normal human captain and I'm trying to bring back the rule of law to the 3 galaxies" then all of a sudden "I'm a member of a god-like race and destiny has chosen me"
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Jun 8, 2014 02:22
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pentyne posted:That was really weird. The entire show its "I'm a semi-normal human captain and I'm trying to bring back the rule of law to the 3 galaxies" then all of a sudden "I'm a member of a god-like race and destiny has chosen me" Is there an example of that trope EVER working in sci-fi? It pissed me right the hell off about the Riddick character coming from Pitch Black, too, before the other reasons to laugh. Made it silly out of the gate.
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Jun 8, 2014 03:05
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Arrow is silly, but I wouldn't call it bad. It's actually a perfectly competent super hero narrative with low production values. However, the fight choreography is really solid, and the plot is well done popcorn cinema type stuff. The acting isn't even bad, all things considered. edit: Sorry, I totally missed modern. For a real suggestion that fits the request, Hemlock Grove starts out promising, and then in the final 2/3rds of the season becomes infuriatingly stupid. It's a Netflix original. sector_corrector fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 03:12
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pentyne posted:Lost Girl embraces it's terribleness and is better for it, but only up to a certain point where the writers just lose track of their own plots and shoehorn stuff in left and right. The first 2 seasons were pretty good by Canadian sci-fi standards. It was one of the shows based on Gene Roddenberry's notes, this one about a lone starship trying to rebuild the Federation hundreds of years later or something. Then Kevin Sorbo got his hands on it and he's a god and she's literally a star and it gets real stupid real fast.
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Jun 8, 2014 04:27
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I remember Andromeda as having a mostly terrible (and incredibly cheesy) first season that started to get interesting towards the end, the start of the second season developing various long-term plot threads and becoming genuinely watchable... then the whole thing falling apart in the space of a couple of episodes as Kevin Sorbo took full control and removed anyone and anything that wasn't about how brilliant Kevin Sorbo And he also gave Rommie that appalling blue wig.
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Jun 8, 2014 12:46
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Luigi Thirty posted:It was one of the shows based on Gene Roddenberry's notes, this one about a lone starship trying to rebuild the Federation hundreds of years later or something. Then Kevin Sorbo got his hands on it and he's a god and she's literally a star and it gets real stupid real fast. That fifth season 
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Jun 8, 2014 15:52
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Does Eureka count here? That show got loving terrible after the second season or so.
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Jun 9, 2014 15:02
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I've got a mission to try and watch every space-opera show ever written. I'm pretty close to done with a few minor points. 1) Voyager: gently caress me that show is painful. 2) Andromeda. God drat it. Its just so loving cheesy that whatever good might be in there its just wrecked by Sorbo being Sorbo. The most middle-class loving space show ever written. but.... 3) Worst sci fi ever made was Crusade, the Babylon 5 spin-off. Galling because Bab-5 may well be one of the BEST sci-fi ever made, or at least in the top 5. Crusade was a loving disaster. I still love space-opera, but god drat it, sometimes its an abusive relationship.
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Jun 9, 2014 16:00
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Continuum is not at all a bad show. The first season is serviceable, the second, is decent shading to good, and the third is completely mindblowing right out of the gate. Whoever recommended Continuum, Orphan Black and Arrow as "bad shows" has to be loving with you.
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Jun 9, 2014 16:26
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duck monster posted:I've got a mission to try and watch every space-opera show ever written. I think that's unfair to Crusade. Large chunks of the first season of B5 aren't exactly stellar stuff, and it takes a good long while for the actors to feel comfortable in their roles. Crusade could've been something special, especially if the planned arc had had a chance to properly start up. Considering all the backstage shenanigans, it's something of a surprise it was even made. Now, stuff like the Lost Tales? Indefensible.
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Jun 10, 2014 11:11
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Gynovore posted:If you want an example of a show that took a nosedive, Lexx. The first season was amazing, the second was hit-or-miss, the third plodded and rambled, and the fourth was loving embarrassing. Lexx is the worst show I've ever watched.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:10
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tekz posted:Lexx is the worst show I've ever watched. Did you watch the first season? I thought that was incredible.
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Jun 13, 2014 06:31
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Woden posted:Fringe, everyone on the team is super awesome and the bestest ever at what they do and the science hand wavy stuff is hilariously bad. You take this back now or I'll loving cut you  . Continuum takes a bit to get started but is actually quite good. As for bad? Falling skies, V, defiance, season 1 of Revolution. Helix is so bad it's almost swinging back around to so bad that it's good. Terra Nova was also awful. Arrow isn't really scifi but it's very good considering budget, it's on the CW, etc. Stephen Amell and Manu Bennett make for amazing tv. Season 1 of Stargate universe was pretty awful but there are a few good episodes around. Season two the show finally finds it's feet right before it was cancelled with extreme prejudice. Edit: we'll done by the way, this thread might start a TVIV nerd war. That was your goal wasn't it? HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 07:59
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:I think that's unfair to Crusade. Large chunks of the first season of B5 aren't exactly stellar stuff, and it takes a good long while for the actors to feel comfortable in their roles. Crusade could've been something special, especially if the planned arc had had a chance to properly start up. Considering all the backstage shenanigans, it's something of a surprise it was even made. JMS was so embarrassed by Lost Tales he swore to never do anything B5 again with the proper funding. Except he did Legend of the Rangers, which was really, really terrible, with pretty good funding and gave us martial arts ship to ship combat. At least we got G'Kar one last time before Andrea Katsulas died. It wasn't a bad idea, set single stories around each main cast member with a focus on the story and writing, but the studio wanted it done on the cheap. JMS should've just done it with comics books rather then allow such abysmal poo poo to get made. HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:Season 1 of Stargate universe was pretty awful but there are a few good episodes around. Season two the show finally finds it's feet right before it was cancelled with extreme prejudice. SG:U was trying so loving hard to be the next Battlestar Galactica it suffered from being inconsistent wrt the Stargate source material. pentyne fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Jun 13, 2014 |
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Jun 13, 2014 12:31
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Primeval is non stop awesome. Make it number one to watch. have to watch the spin off after it.
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Jun 13, 2014 13:42
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pentyne posted:
The first season of Universe was just way too bland and mediocre to qualify as really bad scifi. It had a couple of really bad episodes, but for the most part it was just kind of boring and occasionally angsty. It's still a shame that show got cancelled just as it was finding its feet near the end of the second season.
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Jun 13, 2014 15:19
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Continuum, Orphan Black, and Fringe are three of the best sci-fi shows of the last 20 years, so I really don't understand how they're even being mentioned here. Is it that they aren't super serious all the time? Not everything has to have the same tone as Battlestar Galactica.
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Jun 13, 2014 15:25
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I liked Terra Nova and Helix. They were genuinely funny shows to watch and the SA thread for Terra Nova was especially hilarious whenever something ridiculous happened, which was every couple of minutes. I would've watched a second season of Terra Nova. Wasn't a fan of Continuum but I didn't get past the first season. It was just boring and lacked the comedy factor that these other bad shows have, I could see it turning out decent though. And no idea why Arrow or Fringe are being mentioned here at all. Blazing Ownager posted:The ending made it entirely worth it. Really? I can't remember where I stopped but that almost sounds like watching. I do need a replacement for Helix...
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Jun 13, 2014 15:49
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pentyne posted:JMS was so embarrassed by Lost Tales he swore to never do anything B5 again with the proper funding. Except he did Legend of the Rangers, which was really, really terrible, with pretty good funding and gave us martial arts ship to ship combat. At least we got G'Kar one last time before Andrea Katsulas died. Lost Tales was the most recent production of B5's franchise. Legend of the Rangers pre-dates it by quite a few years. Thus, he didn't break it with LotR because he didn't make that promise yet.
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Jun 13, 2014 16:24
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Seaquest absolutely has to be on this list. It so desperately wanted to be Star Trek underwater that in the last season it went through some kind of loving wormhole and went to a space ocean. Bonus: the kid with the talking dolphin committed suicide.
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Jun 13, 2014 16:33
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Heroes is kind of a weird beast. It starts out with an interesting pilot, then things get bad, then it gets really good and then BAM back to shitville before it's cancellation. Characters include a Texas cheerleader who spends a great deal of time whining about how much it sucks being physically indestructible because she's a masochist and being indestructible kind of takes the fun out of jumping in front of trains or something. Said whining is considered valid for some reason. Also a Japanese Otaku who only references American pop culture because A. The writers don't actually know anything about anime or Japanese Nerd culture and/or b. the producers didn't think the audience would get any such references. Probably the latter given that his abilities are similar to the villain of a very popular Manga series and for a good portion of the first season uses a comic book as a guide like another of the same series.
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Jun 15, 2014 04:06
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IRQ posted:Seaquest absolutely has to be on this list. It so desperately wanted to be Star Trek underwater that in the last season it went through some kind of loving wormhole and went to a space ocean. The show went off the rails when the producers/network demanded that the show drop the environmental aspect that was a major part of season 1 and focus on action/drama, which ended up killing it. Roy Schieder was excited about the show when he got the casting call and jumped on it because of the focus on sea ecology and environmentalism, but season 2 was nothing but time warps, undersea dragons, robots, and other cliche poo poo. Then season 3 dropped that and focused on the growing world conflicts etc. Calling it Star Trek underwater is a disservice, its basically 3 completely separate premises for each season and such a chaotic mess at times that it was doomed really early on. Season 1 was actually pretty good, and season 3 showed some promise of becoming a good show before it was cancelled, but season 2 is just wacky sci-fi hijinks. David D. Davidson posted:Heroes is kind of a weird beast. After Heroes season 1 there was nowhere to go but down, and ho boy did they go down. Season 1 was some of the best television on at the time, all the best episodes of the series are in season 1, and then season 2 limped out with convoluted time travel plots while contradicting season 1 stuff. Season 3 was this weird "villains" thing they kept pushing but showed some promise, and season 4 was the mercy kill the show desperately needed.
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Jun 15, 2014 05:14
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pentyne posted:Season 1 was actually pretty good, and season 3 showed some promise of becoming a good show before it was cancelled, but season 2 is just wacky sci-fi hijinks. But yeah Seaquest got dicked over hard by meddling network executives. What was Spielberg's role anyway? He kinda went on a TV producing spree, but did he do anything besides sign off on an initial premise and collect checks? I would think that if he'd been actually involved he could have thrown his weight around as Steven Spielberg, America's Most Beloved Film Director to push back against "hey let's do a western themed episode! with Australians!  "
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Jun 15, 2014 06:09
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pentyne posted:After Heroes season 1 there was nowhere to go but down, and ho boy did they go down. Season 1 was some of the best television on at the time, all the best episodes of the series are in season 1, and then season 2 limped out with convoluted time travel plots while contradicting season 1 stuff. Season 3 was this weird "villains" thing they kept pushing but showed some promise, and season 4 was the mercy kill the show desperately needed. You need to watch more television. S1 was ok, with a few eps that were a bit better, but overall it was pretty average. Certainly not some of the best television of all time.
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Jun 15, 2014 06:13
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David D. Davidson posted:Heroes is kind of a weird beast. Hell, I should have thought of Heroes as an example of a show that went downhill. Season 1 was as good as television gets; great premise, top-notch writing and acting, great SFX and production. Season two meandered from one plot to another and wasn't as sharp. Season three was just plain bad, with stupid time travel stuff that didn't even make sense. I didn't even know there was a fourth season until last year, I had thrown up my hands halfway through three. To be fair, the Hollywood writers' strike was going on, so you can't totally blame the creators.
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Jun 15, 2014 06:56
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Gynovore posted:
I've never really understood this argument. The season was poor, meandering and anti-climactic before the strike happened (Hiro's lackadaisical misadventures in medieval Japan, The Maya Boo-Hoo-Hoo Chronicles, Peter goes to Ireland, the DL dealio, ect) and continued to be after. If anything, the Writers Strike saved us from an even longer season.
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Jun 15, 2014 07:41
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:You need to watch more television. S1 was ok, with a few eps that were a bit better, but overall it was pretty average. Certainly not some of the best television of all time. "at the time" It's nowhere near all time best, but season 1 had so much going for it and there was nothing like it on TV.
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Jun 15, 2014 08:37
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How has no one said Falling Skies yet? The world has been taken over by aliens and a rag tag group of humans are trying to survive and take back the Earth. The whole thing tries to go with this American revolution metaphor where the aliens are the British but it doesn't really work. It's mostly notable for all of the characters being basically mentally challenged. V was mentioned before. It was a terrible show but great TV. The characters in V make everyone in falling skies look like tactical geniuses. A lot of people hated it but I really liked Flash Forward. Everyone in the world passes out at the same time for like 5 minutes. While they're out they see a vision the same point 6 months in the future. Everyone's visions line up and it quickly becomes obvious that the visions are real. The main problem was that it quickly diverts away from the interesting stuff where all these different characters try to decide how to live their lives now, into a conspiracy where they try to find out who caused the whole thing and why.
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Jun 15, 2014 10:46
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I've recently gone through Falling Skies again and it is a solid show. It had a few hiccups, but the characters are likeable and somewhat believable and the special effects are pretty good. I haven't seen Farscape mentioned yet. It's the king of bad/great tv sci-fi. Some of the characters are loving hilarious. But it's got a killer back story. Primeval is a show that just shouldn't work. But dinosaurs in modern day England is just to drat good. Hannah Spearritt too....  I wish i hadn't seen these shows so i could watch them again,
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Jun 15, 2014 11:16
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Rocksicles posted:I haven't seen Farscape mentioned yet. This has absolutely no place in the bad sci fi shows thread.
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Jun 15, 2014 11:39
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Rocksicles posted:I've recently gone through Falling Skies again and it is a solid show. It had a few hiccups, but the characters are likeable and somewhat believable and the special effects are pretty good. You sure you're not getting Falling Skies and Farscape mixed up?
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Jun 15, 2014 13:14
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Yeah, Farscape is mostly good-to-exellent with a few turd episodes here and there, and it goes downhill somewhat in the last season as they face cancellation and budget cuts. The show makes heavy use of practical effects (Jim Henson puppets, tons of makeup and crazy costumes) instead of CGI which actually has made it age quite well visually. I guess it's bad in that it's low-budget and doesn't take itself particularly seriously, but I'd definitely put it in the top 5 sci-fi series since ~2000. All of the characters are pretty incredible.
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Jun 15, 2014 15:28
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