Topic: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm glad Preacher is back.  It's a relief from the relentless oppression of The Handmaid's Tale.  I've got 2 more episodes of that to trudge through.  It's an odd series.  The movie had a sort of optimistic ending and encapsulated an escape from one situation to freedom. 

The TV series is more of a "not without my daughter" "activist in your face" "sisterhood can be powerful or notso much" endless chain of whatever sadistic poo the scriptwriters can come up with this season.  It makes me wonder what the appeal can be.  I find it terribly sad because it so realistically depicts the current state of affairs.  It demonstrates repeatedly that the worst misogynists are women.

[6pairsofshoes]

A few observations about the perversity of casting on Handmaid's Tale.

1)  Main character, June, fighting against the oppression of a cult like takeover of the US is a real life Scientologist.
2)  One character, who is high in the male hierarchy ruling Gilead, plays a cop in Law & Order Special Victims Unit.  The irony here is that his L&O character regularly fights to put rapists and perverts behind bars.  In Handmaid's Tale, he's a serial rapist -- one that is sanctioned by the state in the interests of giving certain privileged families unfettered access to fertile females, the Handmaids of the title.

[6pairsofshoes]

Sweetbitter is reasonably entertaining for a restaurant based soap opera.

Just saw the first episode of Glow.  Starving actress finds employment in the theatrics of televised female wrestling.  Lots of '80's hair, costumes and music.  It seems sort of lame.  But I'll watch one more episode to see if it improves.

Tried SG and couldn't get past the Alien Ra reps with their oddball weapons that resembled a long flattened bellows that somehow gets power and glows before sending shock waves at people.  My sister dated a drunk guy once who gave me a hard time for suggesting that human beings may actually have constructed the Giza pyramids. 

[8ullfrog]

Staff weapon. Contained plasma blasts. Nasty way to go. One fun thing, they occasionally pull the power source out of those suckers, and they look like the old style Christmas lights... filled with tritium.  I mean, in show it's "naquadah".  But hey, if you can't get past the camp, you can't get past the camp.

Honestly, the entire first season is essentially outer limits with a budget. Season 2 is "All the planets they go to were a bad idea" and Season 3 introduces us to alternate alternate realities. (In addition to the stargate, they discover a device called a "quantum mirror" that lets you jump to alternate universes.) (The general bless'ed HATES the quantum mirror, and he's got a right to. In the first alternate reality, he's only a colonel, and in the second he is murdered horribly.)

They must have done something right, the original series made it 10 seasons, to be knocked off for the new hotness, Battlestar Galactica.

Which is doubly funny because SG-1 knocked the existing "Farscape" series out of rotation. So Farscape eventually got it's revenge.

Also, Ra died in the movie. Opening of SG-1 you're dealing with Apophis. Who looks like my Uncle's ex boyfriend.

Shame you don't like Jaffa, they get some primo moments throughout the series. Teal'c is of course, the best.

This joke comes from a not exactly funny episode, the ATF is standing off with a suicide cult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwnfBrpdIpc

different episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDVe7Hwr2YM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8EDzVK-2nw

Sadly, I was not able to find a compilation of Bratac calling General Hammond, who commands the stargate base "Hammond of Texas". It's a sign of true respect, but always made me chuckle.

[6pairsofshoes]

I continued watching episode 1 of SG 1 last night.

Camp does not begin to describe it.  The same guy who has made a career of being an ineffective general is on the show.  The plump bald guy, you know the one.  He's in everything.  Hardest working man in show business.  His sole job as an actor is to play roles of clueless dorky guy in authority who bosses people around who must tolerate his officiousness as they all clearly know better.  Don S. Davis.  That's him.  Sadly, he died at the relatively young age of 65 in 2008.  The show must have worn him out.  He was on Twin Peaks, too.  Aptly cast there as well.  He appears to have been a real US Army Captain at one time.  I suspect he had a sense of humor.

Then there's some bizarre body invasion stuff going on with the people with X incisions on their abdomens and weird dark haired woman with the discriminating crab thing coming out and deciding that the pretty blonde wouldn't do.  So I guess they offed her?  Of course they steal beautiful wife of resident archaeologist with wire rim glasses and the young man, her son?  The fine specimen.  Of course the Yul Brynner clones are up to no good and want to steal your women and toothsome young men to have crabs invade them for nefarious purposes.

It's also comical that guys who have firearms that are clearly of zero effectiveness against the souped up plasma weapons fire them anyway.  Nice.  I did like the Kleenex transmission.  Funny.

[8ullfrog]

The tissues are a callback to the movie, and also a signal not to shoot them.

The scene where Shar'e is implanted with a goauld was forced on the production by SHOWTIME. They wanted to sex the show up, and THAT was the direction they decided to go with it.

The snake like goauld are similar to buffyverse vampires. Once you have one stuck in you, you're out of the drivers seat, and the snake is in.
Next time you see her, pause the show and look at her hat, it's a funny joke from the costume designer.

On the DVD special features, Don S. Davis talks about getting his showbiz start as a body double on MacGyver.

His last role was a reprisal of General Hammond for a stargate movie.

He tends to be on the ball in most episodes, and frequently calls on the main team's BS. I think I already mentioned he REALLY HATES the Quantum Mirror.

The MP5 SMG actually did have that flaw where the 9 mm round failed to penetrate vehicles, so there is some ricochet, but the Jaffa do tend to die if the soldier concentrates enough fire on them.

The planet from the original film, Abydos is used by the Goauld for two purposes - breeding attractive hosts, and mining space metals for their spaceships and staff weapons.

I found a picture of the power cell

http://www.stargate-sg1-solutions.com/wiki/File:216_liquid_naquadah_staff.jpg

[6pairsofshoes]

It looks like bubble lights from a Christmas tree.

Damn.  I just log into amazon prime and let this bizarre show play while I do other things.  It's mindless entertainment.  And yeah, those goau'ld crabby things are just odd.  I expect that you need some kind of annoying crustacean looking thing to make them creepy.  They remind me of the slugs from The Puppet Masters.

And shooting with automatic rifles at some superior alien force that has weapons that are the equivalent to a rocket launcher against a slingshot is  a popular trope that goes all the way back to Godzilla.  No matter what the threat, we use the weapons we have, even if doing so causes more harm to us than not using them.  As for Don S. Davis, I'm sure he's just playing along and following direction.  I just think his character could seem more intelligent and nuanced.  As he appears here, he comes across as some kind of paper pusher, not a decorated warrior with experience.  There's a good deal of missed opportunity with such supporting actors.  But everyone's a critic, right/

[8ullfrog]

He gets more to do as the show goes on.

[aelthric]

I am finding these days that I keep going back on old series because most of the new ones are either crap or are cancelled too soon.

I loved "Happy" then found they killed it after 2 series what a damned shame.

I liked "The Boys" and while it hit my interest I am sure they will let it go so far then cancel like they have done with so many other shows.

One stupid show I will welcome a cancellation notice on is "Another Life" it really is on par with that other stupid piece of garbage (That was cancelled YEEEHAA) "Scorpion".

So right now I am left watching old series (Including the old OLD 1960's "UFO" series with Ed Bishop) Inspector Morse (1980's - 90's) and an assortment of other less interesting series including the Cadfael series' with Derek Jacobi that although good for their time are really showing their age.

[8ullfrog]

I think the longevity of Scorpion was that it cost almost nothing to make. No one actually believes the bloated creators claims.

I am happy that quite a few series I despised the existence of are now cancelled.

Nick Sax was nuts on Happy! I believe that was the first time I heard "golly" on non pay television.

Still not sure why you're calling Goauld crabs, they're pretty snakelike. There's some actual eel that looks just like them, but the image I downloaded is p3fefxfvewsfsef.jpg, not the actual name, which I set when I downloaded it. bless'ed android.

[6pairsofshoes]

Season 3 of Handmaid's Tale ends on an encouraging note.  The show has been renewed for a 4th season.  Resistance takes time.

[8ullfrog]

Seriously, resistance movement, scientology, like does she not get it, either way?

[6pairsofshoes]

Seriously, resistance movement, scientology, like does she not get it, either way?

Yeah.  What is it they say about consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds?  One wonders how such a talented actress can't get it.  There's always hope.  It was nice to see some bad guys get their comeuppance, though.

[christ]

Just noticed that Jordan's "Wheel of Time" is nearing TV - it will be interesting to see what everyone in this newly feminist world of ours makes of the a'dam.

I (a creature from an earlier time, when men were men, women were women and there weren't any other genders - sorry ael!) hated the concept of the thing, and cringed that there was a mind that could even conceive of it, let alone make it an integral part of the story.

Without too many spoilers, in the WoT universe women rule the world, as they have the magic, but the a'dam allows one woman to totally dominate another in ways too obscene to relate.

It will be interesting to see if they manage to dodge this issue, or someone morph it into something acceptable in the woke #metoo world that we currently inhabit.

[6pairsofshoes]

Jeff Bezos seems to have decent tastes in SF and Fantasy, so I am holding out hopes that this will be an interesting series.  I read all of the Expanse books a few years ago, and perhaps I can look at the first of these novels as I'm often looking for decent science fiction to read.

I read the Ancillary trilogy by Ann Leckie, and there's considerable flexibility re gender and related pronouns in those books.  They're not bad, although there's plenty of other books that are better.  Tired now, so I'll sign off.  And I'm not setting an alarm.