TV Series (Opinions, Recommendations, Flaming, etc) ***BEWARE POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

[Nolder]

I’ve been seeing a lot of negative feedback for HOTD tonight. I think it can be summarized like this “Good episode, bad finale. We ended season 2 pretty much where we started: preparing for war.” I think people are mostly bothered by the fact that we have to wait two years between seasons. I think they kind of have a point.

 

I think the absolute biggest mistake they’ve made in this entire show so far was Daemons vision with glimpses of GOT. The one job this show really had was to tell a story in the same world without reminding the audience of GOT and the sh*tshow of how it ended. And that’s exactly what they just did. On the heels of an underwhelming finale for most viewers. They screwed up big time and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people just don’t come back in two years because they were reminded how it all ends anyway.

[PFSIKH]

3 hours ago, Nolder said:

I’ve been seeing a lot of negative feedback for HOTD tonight. I think it can be summarized like this “Good episode, bad finale. We ended season 2 pretty much where we started: preparing for war.” I think people are mostly bothered by the fact that we have to wait two years between seasons. I think they kind of have a point.

 

I think the absolute biggest mistake they’ve made in this entire show so far was Daemons vision with glimpses of GOT. The one job this show really had was to tell a story in the same world without reminding the audience of GOT and the sh*tshow of how it ended. And that’s exactly what they just did. On the heels of an underwhelming finale for most viewers. They screwed up big time and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people just don’t come back in two years because they were reminded how it all ends anyway.

My fear for season 3 is the march to war will meander through another 8 episodes.

To your point, we have to wait two years for the war.  Then what two or more years before we see the post war repercussions and how the story marches to GOT.

[Nolder]

18 minutes ago, PFSIKH said:

My fear for season 3 is the march to war will meander through another 8 episodes.

To your point, we have to wait two years for the war.  Then what two or more years before we see the post war repercussions and how the story marches to GOT.

I think so, yeah. I will say this though it might not be quite as bad as the wait between season 1 and 2. It’s my understanding that Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is going to air in 2025. So like Activision did with Black Ops and Modern Warfare Call of Duty games we are going to get two series which rotate every year so they’ll still have two years to work on each but you also still have content.

 

Granted I’m not really sure how well that’s going to go over with people. They are invested in THIS story right NOW. Even if you give them an entirely different story that’s still good I don’t know how much that will matter. I’ve heard the Dunk and Egg story is very good so I personally am not too bothered by the wait for HOTD but I wouldn’t blame anyone that is.

[Nolder]

I think the finale should have been maybe 20 minutes longer (or even an episode 9) and should have ended with Rhaenyra attempting to take Kings Landing and however that plays out. I don’t even think those events had to have a satisfying conclusion. They could still leave it on a cliffhanger of some sort. But I think we all feel like there was no payoff to the events this season and I think her return could have been that payoff and feel like the story actually inched forward. I guess that’s sort of assuming that Aemond is actually absent with Vhagar because I could understand them wanting to hold a fight like that for next season. Especially for budgetary reasons if nothing else. I’m pretty sure dragon CGI that looks this good is where a third or more of the budget goes.

[JiFtheOracle]

I cant even, what a waste of time.  Very disappointed.

[Jet_Engine1]

On 8/5/2024 at 8:27 AM, Nolder said:

I think so, yeah. I will say this though it might not be quite as bad as the wait between season 1 and 2. It’s my understanding that Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is going to air in 2025. So like Activision did with Black Ops and Modern Warfare Call of Duty games we are going to get two series which rotate every year so they’ll still have two years to work on each but you also still have content.

 

Granted I’m not really sure how well that’s going to go over with people. They are invested in THIS story right NOW. Even if you give them an entirely different story that’s still good I don’t know how much that will matter. I’ve heard the Dunk and Egg story is very good so I personally am not too bothered by the wait for HOTD but I wouldn’t blame anyone that is.

 

They were doing so good... and well, they seem to have hit some kind of wall as far as story progression. It's a microcosm of GOT, solid start, REALLY good middle, and a total burn-out so far. Now its TWO YEARS until we see what happens next? Hmm... we'll see if the audience shows back up.

 

As for AKOTSK, I'm actually looking more forward to that than I was HOTD, I actually only watched House of the Dragon this year, because I wasn't really interested initially. I like Season 1, but as I said, this season seemingly hit a wall a couple of Eps ago, and I HATE when characters do out of character things or make stupid decisions because the writers think they're being clever or something. 

 

Looking forward to Dunk and Egg, the stories were really good. Hope they don't f*** it up.

[#27TheDominator]

I have not been watching these shows, so I can say as an outsider. . . HOLY sh*t you guys sound like nerds!  I say that with confidence as a man who has been watching women's gymnastics for the last week.

[Warfish]

Finally getting around to watching "Masters of the Air", on AppleTV, about the 100th Bomb Group in WWII.

It's no "Band of Brothers", but it's been enjoyable so far a bit over halfway through.  And disturbing, as these shows always are, seeing what kids (mostly) had to go through in that war.  Horrific.

[PFSIKH]

On 8/5/2024 at 7:32 AM, Nolder said:

I think the finale should have been maybe 20 minutes longer (or even an episode 9) and should have ended with Rhaenyra attempting to take Kings Landing and however that plays out. I don’t even think those events had to have a satisfying conclusion. They could still leave it on a cliffhanger of some sort. But I think we all feel like there was no payoff to the events this season and I think her return could have been that payoff and feel like the story actually inched forward. I guess that’s sort of assuming that Aemond is actually absent with Vhagar because I could understand them wanting to hold a fight like that for next season. Especially for budgetary reasons if nothing else. I’m pretty sure dragon CGI that looks this good is where a third or more of the budget goes.

I agree.  

The more I reflect on the season.  What was presented (8 episodes) could have been half a season (5 episodes).  I did not read the books and do not know if there was a logical place to end a season 2.  So, conduct the war over the last five episodes.  Then we can watch the winner to devolve to where the dragons were the size of cats.

 

3 hours ago, #27TheDominator said:

I have not been watching these shows, so I can say as an outsider. . . HOLY sh*t you guys sound like nerds!  I say that with confidence as a man who has been watching women's gymnastics for the last week.

[Nolder]

 

17 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

I HATE when characters do out of character things or make stupid decisions because the writers think they're being clever or something. 

There was A LOT of that going around unfortunately. Rhayna looking for Sheep Stealer with no one looking for her and Alicents second meeting with Rhanyera just to name 2.

[PFSIKH]

4 hours ago, Nolder said:

 

There was A LOT of that going around unfortunately. Rhayna looking for Sheep Stealer with no one looking for her and Alicents second meeting with Rhanyera just to name 2.

The Rhayna story line I have less of a problem with.  Not her ghosting her group, but no one looking for her part.  Whether it is Nettles or her makes no difference to me.

I know part of Alicents character arch is her influence being minimalized.  Even then, no one is going to notice the Queen mother disappearing for a few days?  Plus, the need to secure travel to and from Dragonstone.  The one girl that passes rumors or even the white worm going to and from I can understand moving anonymously.  Alicent?  No.

[Nolder]

15 minutes ago, PFSIKH said:

The Rhayna story line I have less of a problem with.  Not her ghosting her group, but no one looking for her part.  Whether it is Nettles or her makes no difference to me.

I know part of Alicents character arch is her influence being minimalized.  Even then, no one is going to notice the Queen mother disappearing for a few days?  Plus, the need to secure travel to and from Dragonstone.  The one girl that passes rumors or even the white worm going to and from I can understand moving anonymously.  Alicent?  No.

Not to mention it’s a betrayal of her entire character up until this point. She’s basically a different version of Cersei. She loves her children to a fault even when she knows some of them are not very good people. What she just did was to sell out not only Aegon and Aemond but also potentially Darion I think his name is in Oldtown, Otto, her brother and Cole. I mean that’s just the people immediately connected to her that are going to die or at best have severe ramifications like being sent to the Wall. Then there’s still the issue of succession. Rhanyera has named Jace as her heir but he’s not a legitimate Targaryen so unless she changes who her heir is to one of the children she had with Daemon that’s still an issue that’s going to come up in a “real world”. People aren’t going to just let it go or forget about. So what does any of this really accomplish except to get Alicents kids killed? Yeah no, extremely dumb scene all because the writers want this duality thing going on between the two mothers and they were willing to break Alicents character and the logic of the show to bring her to Dragonstone to have this whole dumb conversation. I’m not too bothered that we didn’t get a big battle to end the season or that it’s shorter or any of that stuff it’s all kind of whatever to me but this one scene is Game of Thrones season 8 dumb and I hate it.

[bicketybam]

24 minutes ago, Nolder said:

So what does any of this really accomplish except to get Alicents kids killed?

You really don't need to know much about the book to figure out everyone is dying anyway. You are going to have dragons battling each other with them all getting whiped out. The dragons have riders. The chances the riders survive a battle is miniscule to none. Alicent knows all her kids that are involved in the actual fighting are f@cked anyway.

[Nolder]

16 minutes ago, bicketybam said:

You really don't need to know much about the book to figure out everyone is dying anyway. You are going to have dragons battling each other with them all getting whiped out. The dragons have riders. The chances the riders survive a battle is miniscule to none. Alicent knows all her kids that are involved in the actual fighting are f@cked anyway.

We the audience know that because it’s already written what the conclusion of the story is but also context from the fact that we know it’s a story for us to consume, meta basically. Alicent as a character does not know this. In fact there is no reason to think that the Greens have to lose or that Aemond and Darion are doomed just because they are dragon riders.

 

First of all as the show makes abundantly clear no single dragon except MAYBE Vermithor can take on Vhagar 1v1 so you’re going to need to commit 2-4 dragons just to keep her in check and if you DO have that fight there’s no guarantee who’s going to make it out alive. Maybe Vhagar dies and takes 3 dragons and their riders with her. Unless Rhanyrea sends untested dragon riders were now talking about Daemon or Jace or even Rhanyrea herself possibly being in that battle. Again, will they win a 3v1 or 4v1 or whatever? Probably, but who dies? Is Rhaenyra willing to sacrifice Jace or Daemon? Now let’s throw another variable what if somehow Helena is convinced to ride into battle with Dreamfyre? What if Darion is there as well? Now it’s a 3 versus whatever. Who wins that fight? Ulf and the others are untested maybe they flee in battle. This is all to say that a contest between dragons is not a certain outcome and Aemond is smart enough to avoid odds that don’t favor him as we’ve seen.

 

Secondly, there are other ways to win a war. Maybe Aemond continues attacking towns and houses loyal to Rhaenyra while promising amnesty if they agree to turn on her. Maybe they just hunker down in Kings Landing and defend it with dragons and scorpions and draw the conflict out into a stalemate as long as they can until the odds shift. Maybe Rhaenyra can win an outright dragon battle but can she win it over the skies of kings landing? Maybe they eventually somehow convince rhaenyra to broker a peace and they split the seven kingdoms.

 

Alicent isn’t portrayed as stupid she knows all this. The fight is not a forgone conclusion even if the odds have shifted to the Blacks favor. So agreeing to sacrifice her children is not only against her character it really just defies the logic of the situation. I think the writers really did a disservice to George’s work and to the fans with this one scene. I don’t know if any one individual is responsible but if there is one person who made this decision they should be fired from the show imo.

[bicketybam]

1 hour ago, Nolder said:

Alicent as a character does not know this. In fact there is no reason to think that the Greens have to lose or that Aemond and Darion are doomed just because they are dragon riders.

The Greens are badly out numbered when it comes to  dragons. And the only survivor so far of a dragon fight is Aegon and that was an absolute miracle. Helaena and Alys Rivers foretold what it to come of Aemond and Daemon. Alicent 100% knows that if this goes to an all out war with dragon/dragon rider vs dragon/dragon rider that everyone is screwed. 

Aegon is done, the guy can't even take a piss without screaming in pain. He can't walk. He has no future.

Aemon is on a crash course with death. She has to know this. He's emotional and irrational and is destined to get himself killed or badly maimed.

I think her hope by going there is to save her youngest son. I don't see that as far fetched.

[PFSIKH]

2 hours ago, Nolder said:

Not to mention it’s a betrayal of her entire character up until this point. She’s basically a different version of Cersei. She loves her children to a fault even when she knows some of them are not very good people. What she just did was to sell out not only Aegon and Aemond but also potentially Darion I think his name is in Oldtown, Otto, her brother and Cole. I mean that’s just the people immediately connected to her that are going to die or at best have severe ramifications like being sent to the Wall. Then there’s still the issue of succession. Rhanyera has named Jace as her heir but he’s not a legitimate Targaryen so unless she changes who her heir is to one of the children she had with Daemon that’s still an issue that’s going to come up in a “real world”. People aren’t going to just let it go or forget about. So what does any of this really accomplish except to get Alicents kids killed? Yeah no, extremely dumb scene all because the writers want this duality thing going on between the two mothers and they were willing to break Alicents character and the logic of the show to bring her to Dragonstone to have this whole dumb conversation. I’m not too bothered that we didn’t get a big battle to end the season or that it’s shorter or any of that stuff it’s all kind of whatever to me but this one scene is Game of Thrones season 8 dumb and I hate it.

Minus the incest.  Well, minus the incest so far.  Just guessing.

One season review I watched, painted a very different picture of Alicent.  She is a broken person.  In season 1 it is mentioned her mother is dead.  Otto then pimps his teenage daughter to further the position of the Hightower family.  She never really grew up.  Then started pumping out kids.  It is not she does not love her children; she does not love her children.  She does not really know how.  Aemond and Aegon are the way they are because she never nurtured them.  She pushed them forward to better the family.  

To Cersei's credit, while she held a similar agenda, "when you play the game of thrones; you win or you die".  Joffrey was a twat.  Tommen and her daughter appeared to be good kids. 

[bicketybam]

17 minutes ago, PFSIKH said:

Minus the incest.  Well, minus the incest so far.  Just guessing.

One season review I watched, painted a very different picture of Alicent.  She is a broken person.  In season 1 it is mentioned her mother is dead.  Otto then pimps his teenage daughter to further the position of the Hightower family.  She never really grew up.  Then started pumping out kids.  It is not she does not love her children; she does not love her children.  She does not really know how.  Aemond and Aegon are the way they are because she never nurtured them.  She pushed them forward to better the family.  

To Cersei's credit, while she held a similar agenda, "when you play the game of thrones; you win or you die".  Joffrey was a twat.  Tommen and her daughter appeared to be good kids. 

In the book, Alicent is 18 when she marries a 29 year old Viserys. In the show it seems like the age disparity was much bigger, no? At least he didn't marry that 12 year old Velaryon!

[PFSIKH]

1 hour ago, bicketybam said:

In the book, Alicent is 18 when she marries a 29 year old Viserys. In the show it seems like the age disparity was much bigger, no? At least he didn't marry that 12 year old Velaryon!

She was a teenager I believe.  He was old enough to have her bestie.  

[Bugg]

Very odd that "Game of Thrones" kept characters apart forever and stressed how far apart they were in distance. And in the last season, had an Indy 500 -type free for all to get everyone together. That felt lazy and then rushed. Is this gonna be the same thing? Distance isn't even a thing here because the 2 female leads are having coffee 2x a season, 

[Nolder]

On 8/9/2024 at 5:44 PM, Bugg said:

Very odd that "Game of Thrones" kept characters apart forever and stressed how far apart they were in distance. And in the last season, had an Indy 500 -type free for all to get everyone together. That felt lazy and then rushed. Is this gonna be the same thing? Distance isn't even a thing here because the 2 female leads are having coffee 2x a season, 

I think any character with a dragon is being given a sort of “free pass” on travel time. Luckily for this show, unlike Game of Thrones, most of the scenes and action take place in either Kings Landing or Dragonstone which are only about 100 miles apart depending on the route you take. So even though it’s dumb for a multitude of other reasons it is feasible to have the two female leads meet each other on relatively short notice.

[rangerous]

On 8/6/2024 at 10:51 AM, Warfish said:

Finally getting around to watching "Masters of the Air", on AppleTV, about the 100th Bomb Group in WWII.

It's no "Band of Brothers", but it's been enjoyable so far a bit over halfway through.  And disturbing, as these shows always are, seeing what kids (mostly) had to go through in that war.  Horrific.

Those guys had a very high loss rate.  Not too many reached the twenty five mission mark.  Lucky for them the luftwaffe was on its back heels when the missions were pushed to thirty five.  Some pundits/historians have the nerve to say the bombing wasn’t effective.  But it was , especially after long range escorts, and the damage forced the Germans to really disperse their manufacturing which led to all kinds of supply chain issues.

[rangerous]

Started to watch “ the continental”.  It’s supposed to be a precursor to the John wick series.  So far so good.  It’s only three episodes.  Also watched the latest season of “ mayor of Kingstown”.  Not bad but maybe more than a little unrealistic given how much reign Renners character is given to keep order.

[PFSIKH]

4 hours ago, rangerous said:

Started to watch “ the continental”.  It’s supposed to be a precursor to the John wick series.  So far so good.  It’s only three episodes.  Also watched the latest season of “ mayor of Kingstown”.  Not bad but maybe more than a little unrealistic given how much reign Renners character is given to keep order.

Yeah, a wee bit unrealistic.

I have enjoyed the show.  The last episode almost seemed to wrap things up to a degree if there is no 4th season.

[Jet_Engine1]

On 8/19/2024 at 3:05 PM, rangerous said:

Those guys had a very high loss rate.  Not too many reached the twenty five mission mark.  Lucky for them the luftwaffe was on its back heels when the missions were pushed to thirty five.  Some pundits/historians have the nerve to say the bombing wasn’t effective.  But it was , especially after long range escorts, and the damage forced the Germans to really disperse their manufacturing which led to all kinds of supply chain issues.

I started watching Masters of the Air but I just couldn't get into it for some reason... Same with The Pacific... 

[rangerous]

3 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

I started watching Masters of the Air but I just couldn't get into it for some reason... Same with The Pacific... 

I think it’s pretty hard to relate with something that took place over a pretty long time and over a large area.  I think my only beef is they only showed B17E models.  The F and Gs had chin turrets to help stave off frontal attacks.  Another point, that I learned only in the past decade, is that the B24 was produced in larger numbers than the 17 and was more widely used. It was also a somewhat better aircraft.  But the show is only about the 100th bomb group and they flew 17s.

[Nolder]

On 8/19/2024 at 12:10 PM, rangerous said:

Started to watch “ the continental”.  It’s supposed to be a precursor to the John wick series.  So far so good.  It’s only three episodes.  Also watched the latest season of “ mayor of Kingstown”.  Not bad but maybe more than a little unrealistic given how much reign Renners character is given to keep order.

I’ve been meaning to check out Mayor of Kingstown for awhile now. I think I’ll catch up on it when the new season of Tulsa King comes out. Glad to hear it’s not outright bad or anything. It always looked cool I just never put it on.

[rangerous]

11 hours ago, Nolder said:

I’ve been meaning to check out Mayor of Kingstown for awhile now. I think I’ll catch up on it when the new season of Tulsa King comes out. Glad to hear it’s not outright bad or anything. It always looked cool I just never put it on.

Tulsa king was pretty good.  Too bad the real action actors like Stallone and Arnold are getting old.  Mel Gibson is in the continental.

[PFSIKH]

2 hours ago, rangerous said:

Tulsa king was pretty good.  Too bad the real action actors like Stallone and Arnold are getting old.  Mel Gibson is in the continental.

It took me two tries to get into Tulsa King.  I did not feel it the first time around.  

As to your latter point, I think the cupboard is bare.  Once Tom Cruise gets off the Mission Impossible train, I wonder who is going to pick up the mantel?  Pratt?  Powell?  Even then, they are approaching 50 and 40 (within a few years).  It might be a genre that is dying.

 

[rangerous]

1 hour ago, PFSIKH said:

It took me two tries to get into Tulsa King.  I did not feel it the first time around.  

As to your latter point, I think the cupboard is bare.  Once Tom Cruise gets off the Mission Impossible train, I wonder who is going to pick up the mantel?  Pratt?  Powell?  Even then, they are approaching 50 and 40 (within a few years).  It might be a genre that is dying.

 

the guy i think is pretty good in action roles is liam hemsworth.  take a peek at the two extraction movies.  i also like jason statham but he's getting a little old.  keanu reeves was actually quite good in the john wick series so was tom hardy in mad max.  Gylenhall wasn't bad in roadhouse. i think they'll find some new guys, probably brits or australians to fill the action roles.

[Nolder]

12 hours ago, rangerous said:

Tulsa king was pretty good.  Too bad the real action actors like Stallone and Arnold are getting old.  Mel Gibson is in the continental.

Yeah I need to check that out as well.

9 hours ago, PFSIKH said:

It took me two tries to get into Tulsa King.  I did not feel it the first time around.  

As to your latter point, I think the cupboard is bare.  Once Tom Cruise gets off the Mission Impossible train, I wonder who is going to pick up the mantel?  Pratt?  Powell?  Even then, they are approaching 50 and 40 (within a few years).  It might be a genre that is dying.

 

There are a few guys that I think do ok as action stars (Pratt is acceptable but not great). But it’s definitely slim pickings for sure. Not to beat a dead horse for the millionth time but I think part of the reason the genre might be dying is Hollywood just doesn’t want to make these movies anymore. They despise the strong masculine straight white male dude bro types which is why I think the Halo tv show was so badly fumbled from casting to writing. Another genre that’s all but dead is the raunchy high school/college sexcapade. American Pie, Eurotrip, Van Wilder, Superbad, etc. Hollywood is on a very high horse and they’re strangling their own industry because of it. 

[PFSIKH]

16 hours ago, Nolder said:

There are a few guys that I think do ok as action stars (Pratt is acceptable but not great). But it’s definitely slim pickings for sure. Not to beat a dead horse for the millionth time but I think part of the reason the genre might be dying is Hollywood just doesn’t want to make these movies anymore. They despise the strong masculine straight white male dude bro types which is why I think the Halo tv show was so badly fumbled from casting to writing. Another genre that’s all but dead is the raunchy high school/college sexcapade. American Pie, Eurotrip, Van Wilder, Superbad, etc. Hollywood is on a very high horse and they’re strangling their own industry because of it. 

I totally agree.

I can see action movies dying after the last batch of action stars retire.  I go back to the Matt Damon on the podcast Hot Ones when he talked on the cost today of making movies.  Wick 4 cost 100 million to make.  Meaning they would have to make like 400 million to break even if I remember his math right. 

Hopefully, Hollyweird figures out "Republicans like movies to".

[Nolder]

7 hours ago, PFSIKH said:

I totally agree.

I can see action movies dying after the last batch of action stars retire.  I go back to the Matt Damon on the podcast Hot Ones when he talked on the cost today of making movies.  Wick 4 cost 100 million to make.  Meaning they would have to make like 400 million to break even if I remember his math right. 

Hopefully, Hollyweird figures out "Republicans like movies to".

Yeah I think a lot of people aren’t grasping how expensive these movies are to make which means you absolutely cannot afford to offend anyone if you can help it. It’s not just the cost of production either but also advertising and promotion. Like you said Wick 4 cost like $100M to make but to get back everything they put into it they need to make $400M back just to break even. I wish more directors would take a note from low budget horror films and try to do more with less. I don’t need 6 movies per year that are almost 3 hours of CGI and an ensemble cast of highly paid actors. Maybe one of those every other year or couple years apart would be fine and make them seem more special. How about just a $65M serial killer detective movie with some nobodies in the lead backed by a couple older big names like Kevin Bacon and Jennifer Connelly in supporting roles but with the name recognition to draw people in? I’d watch that. 

[PFSIKH]

So, I have been going back to watch 2004 Battlestar Galactica.

A couple of things have stood out.

One, the graphics/CGI over the last 20 years have come along way.  Probably state of the art at the time.

Two, why did the Cylons only make 12 models.    They should have made more.

Last and more a sign of the times.  The show took nine episodes (spread over two seasons) to advance one plotline.  Now, there were episodes that advanced other plotlines, but in today's climate it would have been about 30 minutes.

[doitny]

just got hooked on "From". season 1 is still on Amazon for a few days then its MGM plus. season 3 starts Sept 28.

same guys who created "Lost" did this and you will know why when you watch it.. 

 

[JetPotato]

On 8/26/2024 at 8:55 AM, PFSIKH said:

So, I have been going back to watch 2004 Battlestar Galactica.

A couple of things have stood out.

One, the graphics/CGI over the last 20 years have come along way.  Probably state of the art at the time.

Two, why did the Cylons only make 12 models.    They should have made more.

Last and more a sign of the times.  The show took nine episodes (spread over two seasons) to advance one plotline.  Now, there were episodes that advanced other plotlines, but in today's climate it would have been about 30 minutes.

So what would you say is the ideal soil pH for growing beets?