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The ending of Watchmen is very similar to the Outer Limits episode "The Architects of Fear" (though I think Moore said it was a coincidence)- there, a bunch of people work to try to force world piece by faking an alien invasion, which involves turning one of their own into an alien monstrosity, but it all goes awry.
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Aug 23, 2017 05:32
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Exercising some level of parental authority to keep your daughter from getting hurt, with a respectful understanding between the two of you, all fine. But there can be a certain creepiness when fathers get way into protecting their daughters' virginity. There's a line.
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Oct 24, 2017 02:25
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The thing with The Simpsons is while it's definitely dropped in quality it's hard to categorically diagnose what happened. Like if you go to early episodes you can still find examples of Jerkass Homer or Flanders being too broad or anything else that's supposedly a marker of Where Things Went Wrong. Like there are differences between old and new but nothing that's definitive. Of course the real issue is it's been 25 some years and there haven't been any significant shifts in key creative personnel for years so nobody has any new ideas and so on.
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Oct 31, 2017 00:14
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Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:What makes it stranger is that Blakes 7 really had the same budget as the Tom Baker Doctor Who, so going from aliens to child molestation dystopia was one hell of a jump. Lower. Blakes 7 replaced a cop show and was required to have the same FX budget, which boiled down to like £50 an episode.
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Dec 25, 2017 16:45
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Season 1 of Bob's Burgers: In this episode Bob becomes the pimp of several transgendered sex workers. Do you get it? They're trans prostitutes. See? They're whores AND they're trans. AND BOB'S THEIR PIMP lol. Except that episode was an early sign of where the show was going because Bob is basically fine with that part. The family is pretty nonjudgmental about it and the trans prostitutes are portrayed fairly positively.
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Jan 9, 2018 22:49
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:I attempted to make a joke about how much the shows attitudes has flipped and those 2 episodes were the most direct points of comparison because they had the same subject matter. I guess it misfired, sorry. That episode actually is one of the better S1 episodes especially compared to Louise making absolutely sure Hugo understands the great piece of pedophile wordplay her dad cooked up in the pilot. Actually she's the one who puts up the "Child Molester Burger" bit. Really that, in the pilot, is the only really Family Guy-esque stuff in the show. They hadn't found their tone yet.
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Jan 11, 2018 03:10
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To the extent that there ever was a turning point for "kayfabe" (wrestling jargon for the illusion of it being all genuine competition), it was the steroid trials in the early 90s where, to get the government at least partially off his back, Vince McMahon admitted under oath that it was scripted. A lot of the late 90s boom in wrestling was people knowing the score, but tuning in anyway because of all the insane bullshit that was being done. (There were individual things that audiences weren't sure of- Mick Foley falling through the roof of a steel cage, etc.) Proper "kayfabe" back in the day was enforced pretty strictly- heroes and villains wouldn't travel together, etc.- but then it's also safe to say that some of the guys who would try to punch the local heel in the face were just complete loving assholes who wanted an easy excuse to be complete assholes. But yeah getting back to the point, the Chuck and Billy thing was an actual dodge by the WWE, they told GLAAD one thing but wrote another.
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Jan 22, 2018 21:24
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CommonShore posted:
For a long time the tradition in wrestling was that the babyfaces always followed the rules, while the heels would fight dirty, doing things like back rakes and closed fist punches and other things that are technically not allowed. Hogan, on the other hand, would do all those things, and the commentary would frame it as giving the bad guys their comeuppance since they'd done it or something similar in the past. His whole wrestling style was borrowed from the popular heel "Superstar" Billy Graham (no relation to the preacher), and he even was introduced by one promotion as a heel prior to joining the WWF, but audiences just liked him and cheered for him regardless. It's very America-in-the-80s, we're the good guys so we can do whatever we want. If you go back and watch his stuff from that era he often comes across as kind of a dick (as he apparently is IRL)- on the rare occasions he loses he makes a big deal about how he was screwed and generally tries to keep the focus on him. (Also interesting fact, his cameo as "Thunderlips" in Rocky III was done well in advance of Hulkamania and all that. In fact it probably helped because the WWF were able to get Mr. T in on the first Wrestlemania.)
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Jan 23, 2018 23:28
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Gorilla Salad posted:The original Twin Peaks is the first show I ever stopped watching because Lynch came out and said he had no plan for the show and was just making it up as he went along and throwing in any old crap if he thought it would look weird. But that method also gave us The Prisoner which is possibly the greatest TV show of all time. TV shows where the writers knew entirely what they were doing from beginning to end: ------------------
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Feb 22, 2018 10:36
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Volcott posted:Babylon 5. With outs in case any of the actors died or quit. Except they thought they would be cancelled at the end of S4 so they rushed their major storylines to completion, leaving Season 5 to be about some business with psychics I think (good last episode, though.) No plan survives contact with reality.
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Feb 22, 2018 20:44
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See this is an example of why having a plan and sticking to it is not always the best thing for a TV show. By the end of the series the showrunners should have realized "the mother is dead and it's really about getting Ted with Robin" no longer worked, for whatever reason. Similar example is a short lived show called Up All Night. The idea was Will Arnett and Christina Applegate as new parents (hence, up all night) but also she (or maybe both?) was involved in a TV show starring Maya Rudolph and that was funny and a source of laughs, and there was an assistant character named Missy who was quite funny. But for the second year they decided they'd drifted from the core premise, axed the show, axed Missy entirely (Rudolph still showed up now and again) and tried to be an entirely domestic sitcom. And it was boring. They should've stuck with what was working.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:20
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At its height I thought HIMYM might be a spiritual successor to Frasier. They burned through quite a bit of goodwill really.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:27
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The main thing is Marshall has never been with anyone but Lily, and (mostly, I forget this bit) she hasn't been with anyone but him. But the show has always had that traditionalist bent. Like it's modern in the sense that gay relationships are cool and premarital sex is no big deal but monogamy is the ultimate end goal, and even Barney eventually must succumb.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:34
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BioEnchanted posted:Been watching Hells Kitchen cause I never got around to it. The "storylines" are really obvious but at least they are fun to watch so the fake aspects don't matter to me as much but the one finalist who had that weird scene talking to the billboard definitely felt pre-written. I think the best dude on the show is Jean-Phillipe because he is a slow burn but when he does get mad it's hilarously understated. Especially with the finalist who after three months with the Maitre'D, still couldn't get his name right: Yeah the show is amusing though it quickly becomes obvious that these people are incompetent at the basics of cooking and/or hilariously overplayed caricatures.
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Feb 24, 2018 18:21
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Krispy Wafer posted:At one point the wizard pulls an aircraft carrier out of his hat and I’ve forever wondered why they never took advantage of that. The man himself is trash but Videodrome is one of the best movies ever made.
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Apr 8, 2018 23:20
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MrUnderbridge posted:The big problem with Space: Above and Beyond was that the writers had virtually no knowledge of previous SF (which they viewed as a good thing: "We'll have fresh ideas!") that led them into a million tropes that were old and hackneyed, and could have been avoided if they had read or even watched more SF. Pretty sure that's normal "The leads do the important things" TV logic. Actors aren't free.
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May 30, 2018 15:59
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MrUnderbridge posted:Walking patrol on a supposedly empty planet isn't exactly an important thing. Yeah but that's where the plot is going to happen, therefore it is the protagonists' job. This is the Star Trek thing. (Also House, M.D.)
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May 30, 2018 18:56
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The best part of Seaquest's goofy-rear end second season was Roy Scheider went public saying the show sucked now. Even filmed interviews and such, it was hilarious, he admitted he was only doing it because it was good money and a nice vacation. So of course he's gone by season 3 and they try to reboot it again.
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Jun 1, 2018 03:55
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I believe the Synthehol thing in Star Trek TNG was because Gene Roddenberry was a recovering alcoholic and didn't want to have his utopian characters drinking actual booze.
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Jun 5, 2018 15:39
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The sad part is Kaufman dying before he could ever show up at Wrestlemania.
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Jul 22, 2018 23:38
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A big part of becoming a wrestler is just learning how not to hurt yourself. It takes a while just to learn how to fall flat on your back- your body's reflexes are to stop yourself, but since the "story" calls for you to fall, and falling badly can really gently caress you up, the safe(st) thing is to spread out the impact as much as you can. Cardio's the other main thing, some guys look like they're sucking wind five minutes in and that's never good.
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Jul 24, 2018 03:56
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My experience of Sword Art Online was the first episode was okay, I guess, the second episode hinted at a lot of really interesting stuff that could happen as a society rallies around trying to free themselves by beating this game, and then the third episode ignored all that for a maudlin as gently caress story about a bunch of friends dying horribly so our protagonist could feel more angst. Then the fourth episode involved some small girl in her underwear and that's when I checked out. Like it's hard to judge on 3 1/2 episodes but it seemed like they kept introducing possible plot ideas and then dropping them completely.
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Aug 14, 2018 09:26
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purple death ray posted:They dubbed over the actors voice with Niles for the movie. I heard David Hyde Pierce thought it was stupid as the actor sounded almost the same & I think DHP didn't return to voice him in HellBoy 2 The story is, Pierce asked to listen to the original line readings so he'd have a baseline, and he was confused because Doug Jones' performance was perfectly fine and asked "Why am I here?" He tried to hew closely to Jones' readings, refused screen credit, didn't do any publicity. It was a stand up move.
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Oct 18, 2018 02:52
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This thread has some of the most drift of any non General Chat thread but I’m cool with that.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:26
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Cleretic posted:I remember when they started airing old Doctor Who episodes every weeknight in like, 2004-ish; shortly before the revival started. There was enough people watching it in my primary school that a club started forming, and it was a substantial club. Of kids watching black and white TV shows from the sixties! A while back Twitch did a marathon of almost every classic Who story (leaving out the ones that were incomplete and a few Dalek stories because of licensing.) It was really fun to watch some of this with a fresh audience, especially when everyone in chat was shouting at Ian and Barbara to just kiss already.
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Nov 4, 2018 17:39
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Captain Planet was written with the same kind of mentality as something like Transformers or He-Man, very condescending and simplistic even as it tried to tackle an important subject. And this wasn’t long before something like Batman TAS which raised the bar in terms of what “kids’ cartoons” were allowed to do. The early 90s environmentalist push is interesting in pop culture terms. It kinda misfired (and placed a lot of emphasis on “personal responsibility” as opposed to the carbon-dependent infrastructure of the modern economy) but there was at least the assumption that yes, pollution is a problem. Then came 1994 and the Republican Revolution and it’s been impossible to do anything since.
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Mar 17, 2019 03:04
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Inspector Gesicht posted:I appreciated Brittas change in personality. The worst role for any woman in comedy is the Kevin James' love-interest character who, despite being in a comedy, gets to tell no jokes and is completely disposable come the sequel. Britta being a hipster oddball who is a shallow soapbox-preaching know-it-all and is often the butt of the joke is what every comedy could have. I’ve heard the change was mostly because Gillian Jacobs is good at goofy comedy and the show runners figured that out and wrote to her strengths. Honestly I’m not fond of the term “Flanderization”, or rather its overuse- broad comedy is just as valid as the subtler stuff and it’s all about how a character fits with the dynamics of an ensemble. In the early days of a series writers aren’t always sure how everyone fits.
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Mar 23, 2019 00:36
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Cleretic posted:Hell, the Flanders' definitely became more engaging and interesting characters when they leaned into them being super-religious. Rod and Todd benefited more than Ned, though. I think part of the shift was, it became obvious that the Religious Right were really that far gone and just “a well meaning overzealous guy” was going too easy on them.
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Mar 23, 2019 01:13
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I mean the second episode of the US Office is Diversity Day which is maximum cringe but also kinda brilliant.
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Mar 26, 2019 01:51
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OutsideAngel posted:Also it beat out Hello Dolly. I mean Hello Dolly was also a MASSIVE flop that helped kill the traditional movie musical for a while.
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Mar 31, 2019 01:55
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Spalec posted:I forgot how terrible that Scorpion-Rock looked. Did they render it on a PS2? They were supposed to get live action footage of the Rock in some kind of harness in front of a green screen (granted this was 2001 so still the very early days of motion/performance capture), but he had a slight injury of some kind and needed to stay healthy because he was gonna be in the main event of Wrestlemania that year. And of course the movie had to open in May so they rushed it.
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Apr 14, 2019 09:07
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Crazy Ex Girlfriend starts with a character doing not good or wise things but digs into her motivations and issues, and it’s very empathetic. All of it is on Netflix now, it’s four seasons and worth the ride.
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Apr 22, 2019 00:10
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Frasier seems a bit mixed for the most part in that Frasier and even Niles seem like they might actually be pleasant to be around if they weren't trying so goddamn hard. I get the feeling people start going to their parties just to see how they go horribly wrong this time. Frasier benefits from the lead character being a bit self-aware about his issues- he's a pompous blowhard but he's constantly trying to do better and he has a good ethical sense, and as a psychiatrist he often turns the lens on himself. Many of the plots revolve around him being punished for his snobbery, but he's never completely far gone. (Indeed I'd argue all the characters have a bit of that nuance to them, which is what helps the show a lot.)
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Apr 22, 2019 07:28
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Heck after Ellen came out the episode where she actually kisses a girl had to air with a warning. Network Standards and Practices often are pretty conservative.
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Jun 9, 2019 18:55
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ToxicSlurpee posted:TNG's future was definitely not secure early on. Frakes grew a beard and then the show took off so people would sometimes joke that it was Riker's beard that saved it. I mean it was a hit in first run syndication from off the bat, it’s just that it was also a disaster behind the scenes.
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Jun 15, 2019 02:10
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Tony Phillips posted:And a big thumbs up to Bebe Neuwirth as well. Lilith was pretty much great every time she appeared. A question to anyone that might know. Frasier and Lilith were definitely shown arguing about things here and there in the show, but the divorce plot turn in the last season felt pretty sudden. Anyone know if this was written in due to Kelsey Grammar having lined up the Frasier spinoff by that time and the show knowing that he was supposed to be divorced by the time he got to Seattle? It was down to Bebe Neuwirth not wanting to be a series regular anymore- she's always been first and foremost focused on the stage (musical theater mostly), and of course since Frasier was going to film in Los Angeles she really couldn't do both that and Broadway at the same time. I was sad when they split, but the episodes of Frasier where Lilith shows up are consistently the best so it worked out in the end. They basically got her once per season and brought their A-game each time.
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Jul 9, 2019 19:54
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hard counter posted:what are droids in this analogy I mean Lucas specifically based them off the two peasants in The Hidden Fortress. (In at least one early draft they were human functionaries but he decided robots made a better analogy.)
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Sep 10, 2019 01:26
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I mean Star Wars itself has a whole cantina of weird creatures and the climax is a bunch of humans shooting at each other in spaceships, but also a Wookie roars
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Sep 10, 2019 01:37
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Serious discussion of police abolition tends to talk about it in a gradual sense- not just suddenly “there are no laws”, but reducing the number of situations in which armed officers are present. Not using people with guns to enforce traffic stops or turnstile jumping, not having them be the people sent out for wellness checks, etc. There’s a transition involved, the idea being you reduce the power and presence of the entity that the modern police force is.
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Feb 23, 2020 04:08
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:Turn on the sun! I always bring this one up when we talk about computer stuff on TV shows.
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May 17, 2020 08:48
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