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Syd
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 7:42 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
The Librarians is sort of what National Treasure might be if it involved magical artifacts and had half a brain. Only half, mind you, but that's half a brain more than National Treasure had. Our quintet/quartet (the numbers vary) are in training to collect magical artifacts to keep them from misuse, and their adversaries are the the Serpent Brotherhood led by David Thewlis. Bob Newhart is their spiritual (literally) guardian, John Larroquette is their teacher, and Rebecca Romijn is their guardian. Lindy Booth is fetching as a mathematician with synesthesia and a bit of clairvoyance. Noah Wyle was in the premiere as The Librarian and I believe will be a continuing guest, but Romijn seems to be in charge, which is fine by me.


Last edited by Syd on Sat Dec 20, 2014 12:09 am; edited 1 time in total

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carrobin
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:32 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
I watched the first "Librarian" and enjoyed seeing Newhart and Jane Curtin, but the knockoff Indiana Jones stuff that followed didn't keep me interested. I wish I had looked in when John Larroquette's episode was on--maybe I'll catch him next time around.

Meanwhile I'm still annoyed by "White Collar," which disappeared for a while and then came back unannounced, still opposite "Gracechurch," which means I had to wait till it was repeated at midnight, and dozed off just before the end. I guess I'll have to go back and watch episodes on the Internet.
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bartist
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:55 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Not surprised that the tv-movie series was spun into a regular tv series. SyFy's mediocre "Warehouse 13" cried out for somebody to take the theme and do better job of it. I saw one of the Librarian tv movies - if the show maintains that quality, then it should be a good antidote to Warehouse 13 ennui. Actually, the first Librn. movie predated W13, so they should probably sue SyFy given how direct a ripoff W13 is.

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bartist
Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 2:50 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Watched the first 2 episodes of season 1, or season 27, depending on which canon you follow, of Dr. Who. This the series revival that began in 2005, with Christopher Eccleston as the 9th regeneration of the planet-less Time Lord. Quite imaginative, with witty social commentary and amusingly outlandish predicaments.

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Syd
Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:11 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
carrobin wrote:
I watched the first "Librarian" and enjoyed seeing Newhart and Jane Curtin, but the knockoff Indiana Jones stuff that followed didn't keep me interested. I wish I had looked in when John Larroquette's episode was on--maybe I'll catch him next time around.

Meanwhile I'm still annoyed by "White Collar," which disappeared for a while and then came back unannounced, still opposite "Gracechurch," which means I had to wait till it was repeated at midnight, and dozed off just before the end. I guess I'll have to go back and watch episodes on the Internet.


John Larroquette's in all episodes, except maybe the first.

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Syd
Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 12:18 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I'm watching a bit of one of the Librarian movies, and it's not all that good. I like "The Librarians" a lot better, and hope we get a second season eventually.

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bartist
Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 12:59 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Has anyone here seen Torchwood. It's a spinoff that's been described as "Dr. Who for grownups."

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carrobin
Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 3:09 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
"Torchwood" is interesting, but it's more serious-minded than "Doctor Who" and has a steady we-have-to-save-the-Earth theme that I found a bit tiring after a while. (Although Captain Jack's romantic interest in other men did give it a different spin sometimes.)
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bartist
Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:53 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Thanks, Carro. I expect most anything would be more serious-minded than DW, if they were trying to pull in the older part of the demographic. I will have a look.

Saw a couple DW from early 70s, with John Pertwee, a dandified Dr. and given to a rather low key wit. The plots were pretty cheesy, and the sound f/x and incidental music amusing.

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bartist
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:13 pm Reply with quote
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Saw a couple eps of "Torchwood" and liked it - more to my taste than Dr. Who, certainly more adult in terms of foul language, sexual situations, moral exploration, and so on. And I have an instant crush on Eve Myles, the Welsh hottie who plays Gwen. I thought she looked familiar and realized I had seen her, as the mortician's assistant, in "The Unquiet Dead" episode of Dr. Who.

I think this was cleverly played off of, in the 2nd episode, when Gwen causes the release of some kind of sentient gas creature from a fallen meteorite and says, all wide-eyed, "what could possilbly be dangerous about a little bit of gas?" Those who have seen the Dr. Who episode mentioned, may recall that the mortician and his assistant find their business overrun by creatures composed of blue gas, and need assistance from the Doctor and an initially skeptical Charles Dickens.

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Syd
Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:04 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I'm still trying to figure out how Juliette becoming a sort-of-hexenbeist is a problem on Grimm, or why she hasn't mentioned it to Rosalee. This show has no end of idiot plots.

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bartist
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:19 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I bailed last fall. But I miss Monroe and Rosalee.

Torchwood, season 1 and 2, is fun and has interesting characters. Cardiff makes a good backdrop for all the weirdness. Season 3, a 5-part miniseries, wasn't as good IMO, shackled to an absurd plot about aliens who get high sniffing Earth children and demand 10% of the planet's child population. And the recurring gimmick of Captain Jack's immortality is really overused.

Then comes Season 4, and the Welsh production merges with U.S. tv, with Yank characters and settings and....definitely not an improvement. Though it's good to see Bill pullman working, even if he's playing a murdering paedophile.

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bartist
Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 1:22 pm Reply with quote
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Actually, watching more of season 4 of Torchwood last night, Pullman seemed to be phoning it in....the script doesn't offer him much chance to get his slimy character beyond a mere caricature who parlays his "I'm so sorry" breakdown on tv into some kind of celebrity. The show is trying to make some satirical point about pop media and its assortment of publicity whores, but it's pretty clumsy.

The American CIA folk who have teamed up with the Welshmen are also pretty one-dimensional.

The last season, in case anyone is still reading, is a modern take on the Myth of Tithonus who, if you can still remember those Greek myths, you will recall wanted eternal life and was given it, with the catch that he would still keep aging and suffer injuries. So Tithonus grows incredibly wrinkled and feeble and eventually shrinks down into a cicada. Well, enough about this....I really hope Torchwood can launch another season, if only to get past this one and not have it be the last gasp.

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Syd
Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 3:16 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
bartist wrote:
I bailed last fall. But I miss Monroe and Rosalee.


To be clear, the idiot plot is that she doesn't tell the people who can help her with it; I rather like having Juliette be a hexenbiest although she doesn't like the idea. The writers perpetually have characters who really need to know about wesen being kept in the dark and think they're going mad.


Last edited by Syd on Sat Feb 07, 2015 8:51 pm; edited 1 time in total

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Syd
Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 8:51 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
Okay, NOW Juliette sees the advantages of being a hexenbiest. That was fun.

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