Topic: TV WTF

[6pairsofshoes]

I think that a good series needs either a good source, or a good team of makers (or both, but I'm not sure that has ever occurred). And a defined ending*.

I think the primary problem with WoT is that it was written without real characters: most of the participants are cyphers designed to further the story in various ways. This makes bad TV.

GoT (or ASOIAF) is different: GRRM writes characters that are interesting, but it is dangerous to care about them, as he has a habit of killing them off. It makes for good TV, because they do stuff, and despite yourself you do care. Where GRRM stopped writing, the suits were clueless.

Dune 2 is way better than Dune 1, but between them they only cover the introduction to the Dune saga: In the first book (2 movies) the kid wins, but in the next book he becomes the monster: in the rest of the saga the author attempts (with limited success) to show how the "continual evil emperor cycle" is broken.

* this is the bit that rendered several potentially great shows into rubbish (Lost, Heroes, even X-Files - amongst thousands of others. Great ideas, great starts, sagging middles and no ending)

I'm afraid I never got to see any of those other shows.  Sounds like I shouldn't bother.  I'm still smarting from the lost hours of my life devoted to watching Earth: Final Conflict.  Now, I think it's better to catch up on my reading than risk the frustration of too much bad tv.

[6pairsofshoes]

That would be my recommendation. Unfortunately I get hooked by pilots and first series that appear to be good TV, with a promising hook. But nowadays I don't start watching a series - even the pilot - until Wikipedia tells me that the show has a successful conclusion.

Every now and then I'd tune into an episode of The X Files and it was universally grim.   To be honest, the Outer Limits (1960's version) was more effective as a show in a similar genre.  But my husband, who is in all other respects, a wonderful human being, just doesn't like SciFi or shows that tend toward the supernatural, so our prime time viewing is more limited, and I tend to watch this stuff alone, mostly late at night.  I never found any of the shows in your list especially compelling.  The Expanse was much more effective at introducing unexplained, or not well understood, odd remnants from a more advanced but defunct culture, but even those guys were at a loss as to how to end the books effectively.  They were well written and the series very good, but they decided to yank the plug without really finishing the books.  I guess it wasn't that much of a loss, but it was so well done that I was sad that it ended.

[christ]

Every now and then I'd tune into an episode of The X Files and it was universally grim.

I was brought up in a country where syndication was unheard of, so I only ever watch things from the start*: I don't dip in and out. In the UK, throughout my childhood, TV series were usually something like six episodes. This meant they were universally one episode "set-up", four and a half episodes of "journey", and the last half of an episode was "denouement". Nowadays the UK has followed the US lead in having a full season of 6-30 episodes ending on a cliff-hanger that will only be resolved if the series is renewed, so eventually there will be an unresolved cliffhanger (that normally has nothing to do with the series original premise, because of the twists and turns of each individual season). The X-Files is a classic of the form: it had monster of the week episodes (of varying quality) with an overarching arc that hooked viewers but never got resolved. After the first season it rapidly became "Bert & Doris investigate weird things" every week, and it lost the coherence of the story arc.

It took me a long time to break the habit of expecting the "traditional" form, but even now I still demand an ending a lá "The Fugitive" to be provided, that makes sense of the overarching story. If I don't get that, I can't abide the series (no matter how "good" the hook/ stories/ production values are.

... I watch TV independently of SWMBO (she is a soap opera addict), so fortunately I am not restricted to stuff she likes.

* the first time: thereafter I am happy to watch random episodes in any order, if I liked the show enough.