Moments when a piece of entertainment completely rocked you.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Fri Dec 06, 2019 11:05 pm

With Star Wars 9: The Search for More Money coming out soon, I've got to ask everyone...

When was the last time you sat down to watch Spaceballs: The Movie? Or listened to Spaceballs: The Soundtrack? Posted Spaceballs: The Meme?

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Fri Dec 06, 2019 11:10 pm

The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:With Star Wars 9: The Search for More Money coming out soon, I've got to ask everyone...

When was the last time you sat down to watch Spaceballs: The Movie? Or listened to Spaceballs: The Soundtrack? Posted Spaceballs: The Meme?

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Dec 06, 2019 11:14 pm

I'm celebrating the release of all this new Star Wars by rewatching the entirety of TNG and DS9.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:48 am

Shrapnel wrote:I'm celebrating the release of all this new Star Wars by rewatching the entirety of TNG and DS9.

Both get off to a rocky start, but when those shows found their footing they hold up incredibly well.

-Username17

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Sat Dec 07, 2019 11:27 am

I agree with TNG, but I honestly can't see why people think DS9 is great.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Dec 07, 2019 2:28 pm

DS9 had continuity between episodes, something other Star Treks mostly lacked. That enabled better character development and even had a recurring villains and anti-heroes that could be around for more than a single episode. Those tend to be the bones behind why DS9 was my favorite.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sat Dec 07, 2019 3:39 pm

erik wrote:DS9 had continuity between episodes, something other Star Treks mostly lacked. That enabled better character development and even had a recurring villains and anti-heroes that could be around for more than a single episode. Those tend to be the bones behind why DS9 was my favorite.

Same here, but the last season was well... not great.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:13 pm

Leress wrote:
erik wrote:DS9 had continuity between episodes, something other Star Treks mostly lacked. That enabled better character development and even had a recurring villains and anti-heroes that could be around for more than a single episode. Those tend to be the bones behind why DS9 was my favorite.
Same here, but the last season was well... not great.

DS9's last season had three problems. 1) They make Dukat too sympathetic and needed to turn him into a supervillain. The entire pah wraith plotline could have been done away with at no loss. 2)They tried too hard to make Sisko special when he was already special by virtue of being the main character. The entire plotline where Sisko is half-prophet could have been done away with at no loss. 3)They killed Jadzia. My understanding of that one is that it was a communication issue. Terry Ferrell wanted to cut back her hours, somehow that was interpreted as quit, and the negotiations fell through. Ezri isn't a bad character, but the last season isn't a good time to develop a new charcter.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Dec 07, 2019 5:03 pm

You forgot 4) Vic Fontaine.

"Hey, I know we're closing out a big complicated story, but why don't we take a large chunk of our remaining screentime and just fill it with full-length old-timey pop music performances?"

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:04 pm

Yeah. I wasn’t happy at the last season(s?) don’t remember where it lost me exactly but the first several seasons were great and having more continuity than a planet of the week show was welcome.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:37 pm

Season 6 contains some of the best television ever. I would put "In the Pale Moonlight" up against pretty much any episode of prestige television from Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The Wire, you name it.

Season 7 is... hit and miss.

-Username17

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:42 pm

I've been on hold for season 5 of DS9 for over 2 years now. I've actually managed to start and get farther in TNG than I have in DS9. Weird, since I've really enjoyed DS9 so far. I really need to at least finish season 6 so I can start watching TOS...
Who am I kidding? I'll probably just rewatch Lexx again.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:17 am

The main problem with season 7, as I saw it, was that it tried to cram too many side-stories while attempting to finish off the whole Dominion War arc.

Did we really need more forays into the Mirror Universe? Not really, as fun as those episodes were. Was there more Vic Fontaine than necessary? Probably. Did we have the time to introduce a new host for Dax? Not with only one season. Was "Badda-bing Badda-Bang" a fun but ultimately pointless filler episode? Of course it was.

I did enjoy the introduction of Section 31, however, as the idea of Starfleet not being as squeaky-clean as we thought was interesting, and Sloan was a fun villain.

Overall, I liked it. Certainly there was nothing in it as a bad as "Course: Oblivion" from Voyager, because FUCK that episode.

(Although, other than that one episode, I actually rather like Voyager. Enterprise, too. So sue me.)

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:30 am

Shrapel, you actually liked the episode 'Threshold'?

EDIT:

https://www.startrek.com/news/rene-aube ... ucUvQnWuxA

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Dec 09, 2019 11:03 am

Big Bird is also dead now.

Let's celebrate the time Big Bird solved riddles in an Egyptian tomb to save the soul of a by trapped eternally in the nether realm.

-Username17

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:26 pm

And also refused an Egyptian god's judgement of the boy, and later got it overturned.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Dec 09, 2019 10:08 pm

Leress wrote:Shrapel, you actually liked the episode 'Threshold'?

EDIT:

https://www.startrek.com/news/rene-aube ... ucUvQnWuxA

I thought the concept of humans hyper-evolving into repto-fish was weird enough to be interesting. I mean, I don't think it's exactly BAFTA material, but it was still fun.

Also, I'm watching DS9 right this second ("The Alternate", to be precise), and it's making me sad. Rene was part of what made DS9 so great.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Tue Dec 10, 2019 5:51 am

My friend actually just got me to sit down and watch In the Pale Moonlight with him.
More like Deep State Nine, amirite?

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 8:51 am

Swamp Thing over on HBO has me hooked in episode one. The scene in the lab where they think they are doing science and then there's a monster was genuinely scary to me, and that does not happen often.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 4:12 pm

It's been my experience that DC tends to make really good television.

Is the show based on Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run? Because he made the character really compelling.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 5:09 pm

Shrapnel wrote:It's been my experience that DC tends to make really good television.

I can't remember if that's true or not. But overall, I'd say that Marvel just throws out so much media that even though they're over the odds on Sod's Law, you can find something to like. DC seems to go for quality over quantity instead, and will get bit if something fails.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 6:41 pm

It is genuinely true that DC's batting average on the small screen has been much better than Marvel's, and the reverse has been true on the large screen.

Arrowverse got fucking Kevin Conroy to be old Bruce Wayne and DCEU got Ben Afleck to shout about Martha. It's actually profoundly weird how much better the DC TV teams do than the DC Movie teams do. Like, Arrowverse got Brandon Routh to do Kingdom Come Superman and Man of Steel was... a thing that happened. And yet, the Arrowverse is filmed in Vancouver for pocket change, and the DCEU was a billion dollar tentpole motion picture franchise. What the shit?

Marvel is really the opposite. The movies are made with such precision that even placeholder films with nothing to say are fun and popular. On the TV side... gosh even the stuff I liked like Luke Cage has pacing problems so severe that I want to chew my leg off to escape.

-Username17

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:34 am

If you or anyone you know enjoys binging murder mysteries on Netflix, you owe it to yourself to see Knives Out in theaters. It was really, really good.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 2:02 am

Yay! I've been interested in seeing that!

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 3:07 am

FrankTrollman wrote:It is genuinely true that DC's batting average on the small screen has been much better than Marvel's, and the reverse has been true on the large screen.

Arrowverse got fucking Kevin Conroy to be old Bruce Wayne and DCEU got Ben Afleck to shout about Martha. It's actually profoundly weird how much better the DC TV teams do than the DC Movie teams do. Like, Arrowverse got Brandon Routh to do Kingdom Come Superman and Man of Steel was... a thing that happened. And yet, the Arrowverse is filmed in Vancouver for pocket change, and the DCEU was a billion dollar tentpole motion picture franchise. What the shit?

Marvel is really the opposite. The movies are made with such precision that even placeholder films with nothing to say are fun and popular. On the TV side... gosh even the stuff I liked like Luke Cage has pacing problems so severe that I want to chew my leg off to escape.

-Username17

It's fairly simple. Warner Bros has an established in-house DC television arm with decades of experience, while they were playing catchup on the movie front.
Marvel lacks experience on both fronts, but have focused on in-house movies up to this point while outsourcing television.

Warner Bros also has this incredibly toxic competitive atmosphere in which its different departments are enemies rather than allies and enforces a sharp divide between them, which has prevented an integrated DC multimedia universe and keeps the movies from using good stuff from television.