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< Television ~ Alternate Universes |
| carrobin |
 Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 10:43 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| And maybe that lesbian scene indicates the Samaritan guys' fantasies rather than Shaw's. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 12:39 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:23 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I'm catching up with The Magicians, which was running on Syfy around the second half-season of Lost Girl, but it wasn't till later that I caught on that it was actually good. However, I have Cox cable and internet, which allows me to stream it off Hulu. This is based on a series of popular novels by Lev Grossman that I had never heard of, and has two parallel threads, one of which concerns a bunch of students at Brakebills University, a college for magicians. The other concerns the people who were rejected or expelled by the University, who are forming a magical underground, which is more dangerous to themselves than other people. These are connected because our prime viewpoint characters in the two threads were best friends and a bit in love with each other.
Also, the boy who got into the University was addicted to fantasy novels, particularly to a children's series about a magical world named Fillory, which we quickly catch on isn't entirely fictional, and very dangerous (and definitely not for children).
This is a series that has been described as Harry Potter for adults--i.e., there's quite a bit of sex going on, as you might expect for kids this age--, and the tone is more like the later Potter novels, which get very serious. There are also strong influences of Narnia (and also The Neverending Story and Charles de Lint's The Little Country). It's got a good young cast, the weakest link of which, oddly, is our hero (played by Jason Ralph). His love interests (Stella Maeve and Olivia Taylor Dudley) are both sexy and good. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:37 pm |
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I forgot E. Nesbit among the influences. The Fillory books feature five siblings as in "The Five Children and It."
Episode 9 is one of the most disturbing hours of TV I've seen. I had it spoiled for me, but wow. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 12:41 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| The Magicians is back, and after the violent, twisty cliffhanger has gotten positively whimsical. I rewatched the first season skipping some of Julia's adventures, which get tedious to rewatch, but now the Beast has gotten a hobby of singing obsure, awful (and possibly non-existent) Broadway songs, while High King Eliot is having to explain the benefits of using organic fertilizer on crops. It looks to be an odd season. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2017 9:19 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:51 am |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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I saw it, was quite impressed, although how they're going to sustain tension after completing the novel's narrative contours in season 1 is anybody's guess, but Ms. Atwood's on board, so that bodes well. La Moss certainly went for the jugular -- although my preference is for the infinitely nuanced, even preternatural gradations of future Dame Claire Foy in either season of The Crown, but that's just me -- she was devastating in the final episode. It was also nice to see so many Orange is The New Black actresses getting juicy roles, for starters, and the look of the thing was downright creepy. For me, though, the biggest selling point was how eerily the whole of Gilead resembled what a lot of religiosos in the US might find perfectly acceptable, which is why I think it landed as strongly as it did with public and approvers. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:43 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Thanks, Inla, I avoid streaming services, so I've ordered Handmaids, which will come around March 13th. Agree about the resonance with the current religious Right ethos. Sci-fi is always a good way to talk about what's right now.
Do Lawrencians ever call their town "Larry" for short? It's weird how little time I've spent there, even though my family lived in Wichita until I was 11, and we went up to Topeka and KC frequently to visit grandparents. I like the downtown, or did when I was last passing through there in the early 00's. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2018 2:44 am |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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bartist, the actual local nickname is LFK, as in "Lawrence F***ing Kansas," and downtown is quite charming, Bedford Falls meets Westwood Village. I had no idea you had KS backstory. There it is. A propos of nothing, will be posting my thesis on The Crown eventually, if can only figure out in which sub-forum it belongs.
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2018 10:57 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Finally caught up with The Night Stalker, the made for t.v. movie that introduced Carl Kolchak. I've seen the episodes of the later short lived series over and over, but never got to see the original.
Have to say, I don't see the supposed drop in quality between the later series and this. If anything, the original comes as a disappointment, probably because I had my hopes up too high. It isn't bad. I'd argue the series has a better sense of mood, though, and I like that on it Kolchak takes the supernatural as a given rather than having to go through the process of "There can't be such a thing as...maybe there's such a thing as...there is such a thing as...nobody will believe me that there's such a thing as..."
Darren McGavin is, of course, great in the role he was born to play. He knew that character inside and out from the start. The supporting cast is fine, but I think they are somewhat bland (again, I think Simon Oakland was better on the series and more characterful than he is here). I'm a bit surprised this was the ratings smash it was. |
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-Topher |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2018 11:27 am |
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Location: Black Hills
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IIRC, Chris Carter invited McGavin to guest star on the X-Files, as a kind of hommage to the series which he says strongly influenced him to create the X-Files. I confess I've never actually watched TNS, which is a bit odd given that I was, for a time, an X-phile. Maybe will have a look now.
Sounds like Kolchak was more the prototype for Mulder than Scully, if he took the paranormal as a given. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 5:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I've now reached the point in Naruto which attempts to answer the question: if your revenge-obsessed* former teammate first takes up with your village's worst enemy, then joins new, even worse, enemies, attempts to murder a current devoted follower who loves him, attempts to murder all his former teammates (including you) and threatens to murder every single person in his own village, whether this former teammate is someone you want to be your husband because he's cute?
*His entire family except him and his elder brother was slaughtered by said elder brother. In other words, he has family issues. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 5:52 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Cute killers can be quite compelling. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2020 6:37 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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| "Travelers" is a Canadian SF series that takes the time to explore some unusual ideas about time and causality and (owing to the bizarre method used to travel in time) the nature of personal identity. Three seasons, all bingeable. Set in the Seattle area, but as usual shot in Vancouver. One of the characters is so "Canada nice" that some stretching may be required of Below 49ers. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2020 7:43 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Finally watching "Good Omens" and enjoying it very much. I knew about David Tennant and Martin Sheen, but I wasn't expecting a Miranda Richardson sighting. She plays Madame Tracy, Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell's landlady and, and a medium who doubles as a--eh--personal masseuse. She's having a lot of fun, as is most of the cast. Michael McKean is delightful as Shadwell. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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