Last web series/tv show seen — Page 9

Watched last weeks "Smallville."

This show is TERRIBLY written. Plots make no sense, character motivation is totally arbitrary and inconsistent, Superman came to the realization that Clark Kent needed to be his disguise... and the next week came to the same dramatic realization, almost word for word. Terrible.

Last weeks episode tried to be zany comedy but failed miserably. I'm watching this show because of inertia from the last ten years, and it's almost over.

They've also gotten into this "movie rip off" mode. They did an episode that was EXACTLY like "The Game" a "Matrix" episode, and this week was a "The Hangover" pastiche.

A little bit of old school STAR TREK.

Don't forget that Darabont fired the majority of the Season 1 writing staff, and hired a new set of writers for Season 2.  Much like what happened with Buffy, and Season 2 of that show was much improved over the first.

Just re-watched the television version of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy in one sitting (the radio version is still my favorite incarnation but the television version is a real laugh and knocks spots of the awful film).

Personally, I prefer Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the towel and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the old text-only adventure game over Hitchhiker's Guide the the Galaxy TV adaption. It is really hard to say which is my preferred method of experiencing the series, a tight match between the original radio show and the full unabridged audio book read by Douglas Adams himself. The guy just has this really great way of reading his own work that is hard not to love. 

And to bring things back on topic (because I am such a rebel), finally after many years of being told I should, I have begun watching the first season of the new Doctor Who series. I guess it is okay, but as someone who has never seen anything Doctor Who before and has no attachments to it, it has a really high cheese factor and is obvious it was really made to appeal to kids falling somewhere in the 10-17 demograph. The Aliens of London/World War Three two parter was immensely painful to watch with all of its infantile fart gags, not to mention the intentionally over the top goofy looking alien villians. When I was twelve I may very well have loved this show, but I really don't think it is something I could get into in adulthood. Glad I gave it a shot though.

I definitely prefer the original two radio shows over any of the books.

Basically, in order of favorite to least favorite (edited after listening to all the radio shows again):

1. 1978 Radio Show ("Primary Phase")
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979 book)
3. 2004 Radio Show ("Tertiary Phase")
4. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980 book)
5. Life, the Universe and Everything (1982 book)
6. 1979/1980 Radio Show ("Secondary Phase")
7. 1981 TV Show
8. 2005 Radio Show ("Quintessential Phase")
9. 2005 Radio Show ("Quandary Phase")
10. Mostly Harmless (1992 book)
11. And Another Thing... (2008 non-Adams book)
12. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984 book)
13. ?
14. ?
15. ?
16. ?
17. ?
18. ?
19. ?
20. ?
21. ?
22. ?
23. ?
24. ?
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005 film)

What the movie got right:

- Martin Freeman as Arthur
- Sam Rockwell as Zaphod
- Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin
- Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast

What the movie got wrong:

- Basically everything else

Watched "Spartacus" the show on DVD.

Lotta boobs. And I didn't care for "300" the first time. But at least it has boobs.

ChainsawAsh said:

What the movie got right:

- Martin Freeman as Arthur
- Sam Rockwell as Zaphod
- Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin
- Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast

What the movie got wrong:

- Basically everything else

I'd agree with just about every word of that except for Sam Rockwell as Zaphod. Wasn't really Sam Rockwell in the role I didn't like, I suppose he did a fine job, but it was the execution of the character that I absolutely couldn't stand.

Come to think of it, I didn't really care for the look of Marvin either, but I thought Rickman as his voice was spot on.

CP3S said:

The Aliens of London/World War Three two parter was immensely painful to watch with all of its infantile fart gags, not to mention the intentionally over the top goofy looking alien villians.

As someone who has watched the show for as long as I can remember it is one of a long line of low points.

Doctor Who can be like the little girl with the little curl.

Of the 2005 series the only stories that made me feel like I was watching the show I remembered were The Unquiet Dead, Dalek and The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.

Russell T was a great producer but really shouldn't be allowed to write for fantasy/science fiction shows as all notions of internal story logic and restraint 99.999% of the time go out of the window.

His writing strong suit boils down to the creation of nice character vignettes which is why the only remarkable stories he wrote (and he wrote most of them from 2005-2009 even some of those credited to other writers) were stories like Midnight and Turn Left which were entirely character centred.

A series which has across every possible medium has been going with the same continuity for almost half a century is bound to have periods of duffness.

This is true of the whole history of the thing but it's got a large share of truly great stories and the central concept is so ripe with potential that when it the gap between islands of greatness widens it can be very frustrating.

While there were a few stories last year that were on the weak side I find the feel of the show has improved since the handing of the torch from Davies to Moffat.

The thing I can't forgive Davies for was setting the contemporary stories in an alternate world which can't (even with a wide stretch of the imagination) pass for the 'real' world.

The fear generated from the idea from being suffocated by plastic daffodils is difficult to translate in a story set on a planet where everyone knows about aliens.

CP3S said:

 

 

And to bring things back on topic (because I am such a rebel), finally after many years of being told I should, I have begun watching the first season of the new Doctor Who series. I guess it is okay, but as someone who has never seen anything Doctor Who before and has no attachments to it, it has a really high cheese factor and is obvious it was really made to appeal to kids falling somewhere in the 10-17 demograph. The Aliens of London/World War Three two parter was immensely painful to watch with all of its infantile fart gags, not to mention the intentionally over the top goofy looking alien villians. When I was twelve I may very well have loved this show, but I really don't think it is something I could get into in adulthood. Glad I gave it a shot though.

It gets much better after Dalek.  The cheese factor is still there, but it drops off significantly with Matt Smith's Doctor (current season).

Trust me when I say that Aliens of London/World War Three is the cheesiest episode of the revived series, with the possible exceptions of Love & Monsters and The Unicorn and the Wasp.

I urge you to finish Series 1.  If you don't want to watch all of it, then please watch these episodes before you give up:

- Dalek (somewhat cheesy, but much less cheesy than almost any other Dalek episode)
- Father's Day
- The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (my all-time favorite DW episode[s], VERY low on cheese)

Dalek (while not as weird and nasty as the audio drama Jubilee which it's largely pulled from) cleverly turned every joke about the cosmic pepperpots on their head.

Sadly not a single televised Dalek story since has even remotely approached the impact of that story.

They are now even more of a joke than they were before the show went off the air.

Some of the best Doctor Who stories are audio dramas like Spare Parts which is genuinely creepy and icky stuff or The Kingmaker which is side splittingly funny.

Just had a tablespoon of AVGN.