TV Series or Show You're Watching

I started watching 3 Body Problem, but so far I am not impressed. The story is so-so: they seem to have greatly simplified it (of course) and are heavily emphasising the injustices of the Asian system right from the start to ramp up the emotion. They have also made sure all the young women happen to be extremely beautiful, and the characters even comment on it! I'm not saying that couldn't happen but how come the guys are all just average joes at best? This is a pet peeve of mine and you see it all through tv and cinema but here it is particularly noticeable because these women are supposed to be top scientists in their fields but the producers also want us to believe they could be top models too. It's like a makeup commercial with all the pouting and posturing when either of the female leads is on screen. I'll watch the second episode but it feels like this one might not go anywhere special..
 
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I just finished watching the TV series Manhattan courtesy of the Kanopy App and my local library. It’s a fictionalized account of the events of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos New Mexico. Although most of the characters and events are changed to make things dramatic, the show does try to address some of the real concerns and real issues that occurred during the development of the atomic bomb.

While the race to build the bomb is going on, the show delves into the personal lives of the scientists, and their families. There was a lot of personal and family drama in the real Manhattan Project, and this show certainly doesn’t skimp on that either. It also touches on the misogyny and racism of the time. Over its two seasons it holds your attention and draws you in. Overall, I recommend it, so long as one understands it is not entirely historically accurate.
 
I watched a few more episodes of 3 Body Problem and I have to say it has picked up. The strength of the plot is keeping me watching in spite of the uneven script and acting - what on earth made them decide to cast British comedians in so many of the minor roles? Anyway, the effects are pretty good and I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle the fleet of approaching ships appearing in the sky...
 
Ive been watching Dexter: Original Sin & it is pretty good. If you liked the early seasons of the original series I think you would like this. I thought they did a good job casting the old cast with younger versions of themselves. It is on Paramount Plus or Showtime.
 
Raf said:
Finished the first season of, "The Originals". 1000 year old Vampires battle Werewolves & Witches for control of New Orleans. Talk about dysfunctional families. Only a 1000 years of it. Rather like a gory soap opera. It's an okay series though. Each season is 20-24 episodes. And there is 5 yrs worth. Ought to keep us busy for awhile. :)
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First season was pretty good. 2nd season is just more of the same. I'm not sure I can weather another 4 seasons of vampire / werewolf angst and drama though. DNF for me.
 
I made it to the season finale of 3 Body Problem. I ended up quite enjoying it despite the questionable acting and casting choices because the epic storyline is simply so good. Also, I am not generally a fan of computer visual effects as they are so totally ubiquitous in everyday life these days, in everything from adverts to computer games, but I thought the scene
with the ship and its passengers being sliced up by the nano fibres (something Cixin Liu must have borrowed from Iain Banks's Canal Dreams!)
was amongst the best digital effects I have ever seen. I really didn't enjoy the long parts set in the computer game world as it just seemed like an excuse to digitally render every kind of cliched fantasy and science fiction setting, and was all pretty irrelevant to the story. And how do the players manage to lift the silly virtual reality headsets off their heads if the game simulates all their bodily movements and feelings internally (so they don't walk about banging into things when they are playing)??

Disappointingly, they didn't get to the part where they spot the approaching fleet of alien star ships coming from light years away, as I was wondering how they would visualize this - but maybe this was actually a part of book 2, which I am now looking forward to watching when it arrives!

Right now I am wading through the first episodes of Lost - something I have never watched before - and I am sort of enjoying it so far. It would seem to suffer from similarly weighted casting choices that I complained about in 3 Body Problem. However, the very important difference with Lost is that the visual fluff is very much spread across the genders! It has an air of Star Trek TNG about it somehow, despite the 10-15 year age gap between the shows. I think it has dated quite badly but it seems fun.

(I also wanted to mention that I am concurrently re-watching Arrested Development, which may be my favourite US TV show of all time :) )
 
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Ropie said:
Right now I am wading through the first episodes of Lost - something I have never watched before - and I am sort of enjoying it so far. It would seem to suffer from similarly weighted casting choices that I complained about in 3 Body Problem. However, the very important difference with Lost is that the visual fluff is very much spread across the genders! It has an air of Star Trek TNG about it somehow, despite the 10-15 year age gap between the shows. I think it has dated quite badly but it seems fun.
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It starts well but loses its way later, IMO. Think I bailed at the end of Season 3, but one day I might try it again.
 
One found by accident. Blade Runner: Black Lotus is an anime series set in the world of Blade Runner but in 2032. Uses a lot of the settings of the Blade Runner movies, but is a new story, all replicants and outcasts.

The setting looks great, though the characters look less good as those in Ghost in the Shell. Story's not bad so far, either - 5 out of 13 25-minute episodes seen so far.

 
AtramentousFlux said:
There's the Chinese version:
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Sorry, missed this suggestion - I'll take a look!

Hobbit said:
It starts well but loses its way later, IMO. Think I bailed at the end of Season 3, but one day I might try it again.
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I was enjoying it until about episode 14 when the plot gets bogged down in very cliched background stories, when all we really want to know is why the heck there's a metal hatch in the forest floor! I skimmed over a few episodes then rejoined properly at episode 18 ("Numbers") which was really interesting and I'm enjoying it again now. The characters are really great, even the less prominent ones, and it's easy to see why people became so enthralled with this when it first came out (it completely passed me by, though!)
 
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Hobbit said:
One found by accident. Blade Runner: Black Lotus is an anime series set in the world of Blade Runner but in 2032. Uses a lot of the settings of the Blade Runner movies, but is a new story, all replicants and outcasts.

The setting looks great, though the characters look less good as those in Ghost in the Shell. Story's not bad so far, either - 5 out of 13 25-minute episodes seen so far.

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I watched that a while back, and found it interesting. The story was pretty original, and I thought pretty good. The animation of the characters was slightly less than ideal, as you noted.
 
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I’ve started watching A Discovery of Witches on Netflix, and is starting off pretty slow. The premise is that there are Demons, Vampires, and Witches who live undercover in the modern world. However, it seems that the magic is waning. Witches have been loosing power and vampires are unable to “sire” new fledglings. They are unsure how this can be reversed.

Diana Bishop is a PhD researcher and witch, but she doesn’t care for the latter part of her heritage. During her readings at Oxford, she discovered an ancient magical manuscript that all of the supernatural beings want to obtain. Many believe it holds the key to the origin of these mysteries. Dr. Bishop is protected from these beings by Matthew de Clermont, who is an ancient vampire and a biochemistry professor at Oxford. Romance ensues!

The series is pretty good British TV, with wonderful settings and many of our favorite British actors. The story is slow, but it’s got three seasons, so it has time to unfold. I rate it as watchable, and I’m hoping it gets better as it goes along.
 
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Finished Cobra Kai. Nicely done updating of the characters from various Karate Kid movies, with call backs to those movies and to the '80s more generally -- big fight scenes accompanied by power ballads, and the like. Does a good job of tapping into '80s optimism, but also of showing the potential bad consequences of big fight scenes without getting too bogged down in tragedy. There are, as with many '80s movies of this sort, big discrepancies between the consequences character actions have in movies and in real life, but that was part of the charm of those movies.

Back to watching the current season of Will Trent, which suffers in comparison because it has fewer round-house kicks.
 
Late to the party as ever, I just watched Squid Game seasons 1 & 2. The story is brutal and it was hard to watch at times, and the ending to S2 was a shock but undeniably this is an extremely well made show. It was also good to see some nice design playing a major part in a TV show for a change.
 
Prairie_Dog said:
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I’ve started watching A Discovery of Witches on Netflix, and is starting off pretty slow. The premise is that there are Demons, Vampires, and Witches who live undercover in the modern world. However, it seems that the magic is waning. Witches have been loosing power and vampires are unable to “sire” new fledglings. They are unsure how this can be reversed.

Diana Bishop is a PhD researcher and witch, but she doesn’t care for the latter part of her heritage. During her readings at Oxford, she discovered an ancient magical manuscript that all of the supernatural beings want to obtain. Many believe it holds the key to the origin of these mysteries. Dr. Bishop is protected from these beings by Matthew de Clermont, who is an ancient vampire and a biochemistry professor at Oxford. Romance ensues!

The series is pretty good British TV, with wonderful settings and many of our favorite British actors. The story is slow, but it’s got three seasons, so it has time to unfold. I rate it as watchable, and I’m hoping it gets better as it goes along.
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We liked this series quite a bit.
 
I'm almost done with season 2 of Lost. When I first started watching this I read a few reviews and someone said this was the "greatest television program of all time". At the time I scoffed, but I'm coming around to their point of view. I really couldn't fault season 2 - it had me laughing, crying (really blubbing) several times, and just enjoying every minute of this strange twisty mystery.
 
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