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Goddamnit. Got me in the first scene. The sun's coming up.
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Feb 12, 2019 08:42
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MikusR posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUGZ_R4T09c Finding it mildly annoying that the world is full of people with the systems and time to render these at high-def, but we're limited to buying a computer for one guy so he can maybe sorta do it. Send them over here, I'll do it for free.
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Feb 12, 2019 10:17
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Dirty posted:Finding it mildly annoying that the world is full of people with the systems and time to render these at high-def, but we're limited to buying a computer for one guy so he can maybe sorta do it. Send them over here, I'll do it for free. Is this a "WB doesn't give a poo poo about B5" thing?
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Feb 12, 2019 11:37
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McSpanky posted:Is this a "WB doesn't give a poo poo about B5" thing? It is exactly that.
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Feb 12, 2019 12:06
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McSpanky posted:Is this a "WB doesn't give a poo poo about B5" thing? Kind of. But also, from the bit I quoted, it's frustrating to know that the art assets are out there, and being passed around among a select few because they aren't supposed to be out there because I guess they belong to WB. So between those scene files, the botched DVD transfer, and the existing hi-res master JMS referred, we've had many options for seeing B5 VFX looking not-terrible. But the simplest way, just rerendering the existing files in Lightwave (which will load the old scene files mostly just fine) on the abundant levels of modern hardware that exist today can't be done, because the files are in the hands of a guy with a busted decade-old system. Of the few people out there who still use Lightwave (myself included) our systems that we already bought for doing this stuff would make absolute mincemeat of the rendering times for 90s-era scene files. Not to mention having the expertise to patch up any issues caused by Lightwave version changes, and make good use of newer anti-aliasing and motion blur settings. But instead, we gotta buy this guy a new computer so he can do it, one scene at a time. The B5 legacy continues to hang by a thread. It's just frustrating.
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Feb 12, 2019 12:25
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On the other hand, it's more hope than we had yesterday.
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Feb 12, 2019 13:45
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:On the other hand, it's more hope than we had yesterday. I guess. It seems to me like a great way to let something die out. The files have been around for a long time, but only with a few people, who only share them with a few people. That's not sustainable. The files are as good as lost as long as they only reside on the hard disks of people who mostly won't even admit they have them. It's time someone threw them on a torrent so they can be widely preserved. I'm tired of hearing that the files are "out there". It's meaningless. Just release them or delete them, otherwise they just exist to sustain decades of "maybe we'll get that HD remaster after all" dead-ends. One day the files really will be lost, but we'll never know it when it happens. Same situation with Deep Space 9. So I don't really see it as hope, just yet another person saying they've got the files too, with the added bonus of asking for money so that they can perhaps maybe render them.
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Feb 12, 2019 14:52
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Releasing them on a torrent is asking for a lawsuit
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Feb 12, 2019 16:07
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McSpanky posted:Is this a "WB doesn't give a poo poo about B5" thing? Worse: the PTEN thing was operated by a different arm of WB than normally handles TV stuff (the regular arm was working on the WB network), so the success of any PTEN show is a slap in the face of the executives who still run the TV side of things. Kung Fu and Time TRAX aren't successes, really, so B5 is the one threat. As a result, the corp as a whole wants to squeeze every penny from the show without making any additional investment or doing anything to raise its profile. Top decision-makers stood to lose power and influence if the show became the equivalent of Star Trek for Paramount (not that they've handled that property well in recent times).
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Feb 12, 2019 16:45
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Narsham posted:Top decision-makers stood to lose power and influence if the show became the equivalent of Star Trek for Paramount (not that they've handled that property well in recent times). Paramount's getting enough of that from being brutally owned by Seth McFarlane of all people as of late  .
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Feb 12, 2019 16:53
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Releasing them on a torrent is asking for a lawsuit It's almost as if the aims of copyright law are in direct opposition to the preservation of media. This sort of thing has happened in the videogame industry a few times too. Dedicated fans work for free to restore old media, and either a company takes their free work and publishes it officially, or it gets propagated in  . If people care about a piece of work, it'll get preserved no matter what the rightsholders demand. Just look at the Star Wars Holiday Special.
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Feb 12, 2019 17:44
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Releasing them on a torrent is asking for a lawsuit Possibly, but I doubt it. That assumes that: 1) WB would even notice 2) WB would really care enough. Some guy made upscaled "HD" versions of all 5 seasons and released them on a torrent, I think he's okay. That's potentially worth more than some art assets nobody cares about. 3) The original torrentor didn't take any precautions Easy for me to say, I know, I'm not taking a risk, and I can't think of any equivalent situations that would give me an idea how this would play out. But if WB don't even own the original files, how would they even know their files are out there? Who would even by looking? What's the difference between these and any other fan-made models doing the rounds?
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Feb 12, 2019 18:20
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I'll be pitching in to his donation with like a 100 euros because god drat it I do not think we will ever get a chance for any kind of restoration of this series. The high def renders look really drat good, I cannot let this slip away.
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Feb 12, 2019 18:52
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Dirty posted:I guess. It seems to me like a great way to let something die out. The files have been around for a long time, but only with a few people, who only share them with a few people. That's not sustainable. The files are as good as lost as long as they only reside on the hard disks of people who mostly won't even admit they have them. It's time someone threw them on a torrent so they can be widely preserved. I'm tired of hearing that the files are "out there". It's meaningless. Just release them or delete them, otherwise they just exist to sustain decades of "maybe we'll get that HD remaster after all" dead-ends. One day the files really will be lost, but we'll never know it when it happens. I didn't even know this was a thing, I thought they were actually lost. Now I see that multiple people have copies - even if it's a few, it's better than the zero I was aware of. Yeah, obviously a torrent would be ideal, and I kinda look askance at the guy asking for donations so he can be the one to render them. But I also can't really blame him.
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Feb 12, 2019 18:57
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Dirty posted:Kind of. But also, from the bit I quoted, it's frustrating to know that the art assets are out there, and being passed around among a select few because they aren't supposed to be out there because I guess they belong to WB. So between those scene files, the botched DVD transfer, and the existing hi-res master JMS referred, we've had many options for seeing B5 VFX looking not-terrible. Could modern computers render the scenes in real-time?
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Feb 12, 2019 19:04
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Given his current system someone just donating a mid range i5 machine to him would probably fit his needs really. I asked on facebook and he said that the highest he might accept the total would be ~1500$ as he does not see a need for anything past that hardware or software wise. EDIT: Besides he did not just ask for donations, he made really good accurate renders thus proving he can actually do this and only then asked people to pitch in.
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Feb 12, 2019 19:06
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Could modern computers render the scenes in real-time? Not quite, although I suspect many whole sequences could be done in a matter of minutes, maybe a frame every 2-10 seconds. Depends on resolution, render settings and the scene itself of course. TheCoach posted:Given his current system someone just donating a mid range i5 machine to him would probably fit his needs really. Yes - I'm not trying to cast aspersions, I'm frustrated because we have this absurd situation where there is an internet full of nerds like me who would willingly render all this out in short order, but the files are with someone who can't use them until he has a computer bought for him. And this is just the situation now. In a few years he could have vanished from the internet with 1/3rd of the series re-rendered, and we're left waiting for the next guy to admit he has the files. Which could be never. It seems needlessly eggs-in-one-basket, considering this is digital information that can be easily preserved. It's the nearest we're going to get to Babylon 5 looking decent, so I'd really like to see more steps taken than buying one guy one computer.
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Feb 12, 2019 19:31
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I thought one of the big issues wasn't the pure CGI scenes, but the composite scenes mixing live action and cgi? Do they have the scenes for those that can be re-rendered?
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Feb 12, 2019 19:37
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Burning_Monk posted:I thought one of the big issues wasn't the pure CGI scenes, but the composite scenes mixing live action and cgi? Do they have the scenes for those that can be re-rendered? Yes, it's possible we're stuck with those. It's not just question of re-rendering - things like PPG blasts were, I think, "painted on", so that's another level of post-production that would need doing. I doubt any source files exist for those, and if they were, I don't think they could be imported into anything current. Wall of text incoming. Basically, as I understand it, the issues are. - CGI, which, with the source files, could be re-rendered. It would in some ways look worse today in HD because TVs are much better and less forgiving, but I thought the B5 scrolls stuff mostly looked good enough. But if all or even most of the source files can be brought together, this is very doable. I think I still have a copy of Lightwave 5.5 lying around if Lightwave 8, 9, 10 or 11 caused too many problems. I'm still able to load my scene files from that time, (although some tweaking is needed in some cases). If the source files are in the hands of fans, this can be done without WB involvement. This is good because the CGI, one of the more unique things about the series, is the biggest casualty. The DVD transfers were done incorrectly, so there's currently no way to see the CGI looking as good as even when it was broadcast back in the 90s. The DVDs are actually worse than that when it comes to the CGI. The "unofficial" HD versions I mentioned earlier have fixed some of the DVD problems, FYI, so the CGI does look better there, if a little overprocessed. - Live action: I don't know the whole process here, but the DVDs used new widescreen transfers so the footage is mostly not bad, if a bit unrefined. Someone else could probably correct me or expand on this but, without retransferring all the live action, the DVDs are as good as we're going to get, and I think they are a slight improvement over what we got in the 90s. So making a cut of the live action with the new CGI might be possible with what's on the DVDs. - Mixed FX and live action: I don't think there's any good solution here. The DVDs used the same process for the CGI for these scenes, and they look mostly awful. There would have been all kinds of other processes used outside of rendering from Lightwave for these, so the only way to fix these up would be to get the original footage. Since I assume these shots were delivered with the FX already in place, it might be a bit of a hunt for these, I don't know, assuming WB would do that, which they definitely won't. So I think we're stuck with the DVD versions of these scenes. Even where some of the CGI could be rerendered (such as the starfury appearing at the window during Sheridan's inauguration), the live action portion would still look like rear end. So getting new renders of the old CGI would fix the first issue, which would then make it worth cleaning up the live action stuff as much as possible to edit together with it, leaving the last issue as just something we gotta accept, I think.
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Feb 12, 2019 22:32
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Neddy Seagoon posted:It is exactly that. JMS claimed on his twitter there is one specific WB executive who has a vendetta against all the PTEN shows like B5 and will not allow anything to be done with any of them, ever, for any reason. When that executive goes there is a possibility of movement. If JMS is right, anyway. And the reason he was trying to work on a feature film project is those rights he owns, so he can make a movie without WB's approval. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Feb 12, 2019 |
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Feb 12, 2019 23:19
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Grand Fromage posted:JMS claimed on his twitter there is one specific WB executive who has a vendetta against all the PTEN shows like B5 and will not allow anything to be done with any of them, ever, for any reason. When that executive goes there is a possibility of movement. If JMS is right, anyway. Who is this executive and what is his most treasured dream that we can make come true, in exchange for retiring? He can't be that young anymore, either. We're already 25+ years past the B5 pilot; if whoever this is was 40 then, he's at retirement age by now. Spend some time with your family, dude.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:06
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Jeramiah is a pretty good JMS show. It has Luke Perry and the Son from the Cosby show, who probably has a dark secret.
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Feb 13, 2019 03:56
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fist4jesus posted:Jeramiah is a pretty good JMS show. I 2nd this recommendation. a Really good post-apocalyptic show. a Shame it only got 2 seasons. It also has Sam Gamgee as regular on second season.
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Feb 13, 2019 07:35
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Son of Sam-I-Am posted:Who is this executive and what is his most treasured dream that we can make come true, in exchange for retiring? There's a surprising number of execs at WB who have been with the company since the early 90s; most of them arrived as VPs and moved up from there. If anybody wants to grant a large number of treasured dreams all at once, I wouldn't object. One can't discount the possibility that all the internal-political reasons for an exec to hate B5 must be mixed with JMS' unique ways of dealing with people. If I were a betting man, I'd look either to the people who were in marketing (who did little to help B5 and who may have been in communication with JMS to get offended) or whoever the exec was who harassed Pat Tallman (not that he has been identified).
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Feb 13, 2019 19:39
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Been showing this to my roommate, we're in the Earth Civil War. So far, he's predicted 95% of the pacing of the shadow war / vorlorns, spot on. But now we're on the Garibaldi arc and its gotten fun  Roommate thinks Garibaldi is going for the roundabout thuggish approach. Not a real betrayal, just getting Sheridan as bait to get Clark vulnerable, then shoot Clark in the face. Garibaldi saying something "I knew you wouldn't be able to do this Sheridan, but my way will work." What actually happens will be fun Continued: "Garibaldi is sneaky enough to develop a plan and get close enough, and then starts FLAILING WILDLY. Like, he'll do investigation of a drug cartel, then go in personally and without backup to start punching. So that's his plan with Clark, be sneaky and get close. Continued: "That was way more sophisticated than I expected, was that tooth a transmitter or recorder? ... Okay, so that's what Bester was doing when he was scanning him, that was a subtle personality hijack. I'm very impressed Bester could do that. And thats why this plan has nothing to do with Garibaldi's usually MO. I like that he didn't put in Bester's views, that he just emphasized Garibaldi's. Just hijacked intention and not central personality. Maan... Loel fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Feb 14, 2019 |
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Feb 14, 2019 07:56
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adhuin posted:a Shame it only got 2 seasons. I was sad about that at the time, and its a little rushed, but we did get a solid ending and final.
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Feb 14, 2019 18:05
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I love the whole Bester/Garibaldi storyline. It's so good.
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Feb 14, 2019 18:15
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fist4jesus posted:I was sad about that at the time, and its a little rushed, but we did get a solid ending and final. I love JMS but that seems to be a recurring theme. What the hell is he doing that that keeps happening to him?
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Feb 14, 2019 18:21
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Working in television.
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Feb 14, 2019 18:46
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Doctor Zero posted:I love JMS but that seems to be a recurring theme. Demanding full creative control, usually.
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Feb 14, 2019 19:10
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I blasted through the first half of season 5 hastily because it sucked. Intention clearly did not line up with execution for the Byron/telepaths stuff, which was most of episodes 1-11 (Except for episode 2, leading up to the moment when Londo apologizes to G'Kar, which made me  in the best possible way).Now that we're on the home stretch though, the show's hitting its peak for me.
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Feb 15, 2019 09:05
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last night i realised that I had somehow obtained the entirety of Babylon 5 possibly while drunk and watched a few eps of season 3 for the first time in years (I watched them all when they came out), and had the classic bab5 experience of watching it like a mid-quality space soap opera, dum de doo, then Londo starts remembering a dream of shadow ships flying over him on Centauri Prime and the camera zooms in real slow and suddenly you have to remind yourself to breathe babylong 5... is good...
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Feb 20, 2019 01:21
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Saw Rising Star again. Delenn can be so great, but also so blind. Lennier: "Did they tell you what Ivanova said at the end? All love is unrequited?" Delenn: "Yes, they told me. She's wrong, of course." Lennier: "Of course."
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Feb 26, 2019 16:10
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It didn't take much for me to get my now wife hooked on Star Trek, but Babylon 5 was always a tough nut to crack. I found out it was on Amazon so I rewatched it over the last month or so, sometimes she'd catch an episode or whatever, and I finally got her interested. It only took me 12 years. She watched The Gathering!
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Feb 27, 2019 07:12
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FISHMANPET posted:She watched The Gathering! Oh god, you monster! 
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Feb 27, 2019 07:32
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FISHMANPET posted:It didn't take much for me to get my now wife hooked on Star Trek, but Babylon 5 was always a tough nut to crack. I found out it was on Amazon so I rewatched it over the last month or so, sometimes she'd catch an episode or whatever, and I finally got her interested. It only took me 12 years. She watched The Gathering! I'm having the opposite problem; my girlfriend dove straight into Babylon 5 and Farscape at my suggestion, then we got through TOS, and then I figured TNG would be an easy sell. She can barely stand it because "Picard is just too competent."
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Feb 27, 2019 07:34
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Blindeye posted:I'm having the opposite problem; my girlfriend dove straight into Babylon 5 and Farscape at my suggestion, then we got through TOS, and then I figured TNG would be an easy sell. I know it's hip to hate it, but S1 of TNG is such a beautiful vision of the future: men in miniskirts, recitals for fun, poetry readings, and everyone is so well-balanced no one even thinks to use the holodeck as a sexbot for, like, four season!  I envy you all being able to get your spouses into B5...haven't cracked that nut yet, myself.
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Feb 27, 2019 07:40
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:I envy you all being able to get your spouses into B5...haven't cracked that nut yet, myself. I'm trying to think of how I managed this before. Mostly, I just brute-forced it, or made it quid-pro-quo, like-- okay, so you have this show you like that I've been lukewarm on. I have this show I like that you're lukewarm on. We'll have a night where I watch a couple episodes of your thing, and the night after that, you watch a couple of mine. How does that sound? Turns out I've kinda liked the things I thought I'd hate, and usually it gets overshadowed by B5 anyway, since the arc is pretty absorbing by the midpoint of S2. The season finale of S1 is the wake-up call that some poo poo's going on, but the real 'hook' for people who are wishy-washy definitely comes in later (such was the case with me, actually). That first 1 1/2 seasons are definitely a slog for the people who are resistant, though. Edit: Note that it helps if it's a series or whatever that your spouse/friend is actually excited about. My only rule about it was 'no anime.' Old Boot fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Feb 27, 2019 |
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Feb 27, 2019 08:03
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Blindeye posted:She can barely stand it because "Picard is just too competent." She's a good candidate for being a fan of The Orville. Captain Mercer is certainly no Picard, but it hits all the TNG notes.
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Feb 27, 2019 08:18
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mllaneza posted:She's a good candidate for being a fan of The Orville. Captain Mercer is certainly no Picard, but it hits all the TNG notes. To be fair, Mercer's perfectly competent too but it's a much more blue-collar "don't let the boss know how many mistakes were made/accidents happened to get it done" competent.
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Feb 27, 2019 11:52
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