The Idiot Box: TV Season 2011/2012

[VisualStatic]

Luther is back, tonight on BBC America

[Crafty_Pat]

Walking Dead Season 2 trailer 2: Yeah baby!

[Krensky]

Not really a 2011/2012 series, but Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct (think TJ Hooker in space, and I mean that in a good way) is available on Netflix streaming as of a month or two ago.

I've found it entertaining, with a certain amount of nostalgia in the visual effects, most of which are better then I remember as the norm for the mid 1990s.

[Crafty_Pat]

So the Doctor Who finale was strong. Not stellar, but strong, and boy was there a lot to love...

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I'm particularly pleased there are still questions to be answered, including that wonderful one posed in the series' finale moment. I for one am not ready to let this particular arc go.

[Desertpuma]

Looks like Playboy Club was the first one to get the axe which is a shame because it was doing everything right but the ratings.

It really deserves to get picked up by a cable network and done right. USA, FX, or even TNT could do it right. I'm thinking USA only because of the number of shows that they are letting go would be an ideal place for it.

[Mister Andersen]

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Maybe because I'm an old hand at Doctor Who and temporal shenanigans but to me it was always blindingly obvious that it would all hinge on the usual quantum get-out-of-gaol card of the event only having to be seen to have happened the way history recorded, and we'd get a straight fake-out rather than the usual timey-wimey shenanigans.

Because the whole point of the arc was winding the Doctor's rep in from the excesses of Tennant's 'Lonely God' and the previous season's "I'm the Doctor. Basically, run" back to the point where he is once again simply a mad man in a box. And DC basically did this with the setting's superhacker Oracle at the beginning of the year by faking her death (yes, yet another example of Moffat repeating story beats :p).

Of course, that good idea is utterly fucked over by the Doctor getting the help of the Tesselector's crew to pull off the con. That's 400 odd people -- any of whom could be subsequently compromised by the Silence -- in on the secret he couldn't even clue his best friends into because it would destroy all of Time and Space if the truth got out.

If you really wanted the Doctor to be one step ahead, he would have used the abandoned Tesselector and rigged it to run with just him working it.

[ThunderMonkey]

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Maybe because I'm an old hand at Doctor Who and temporal shenanigans but to me it was always blindingly obvious that it would all hinge on the usual quantum get-out-of-gaol card of the event only having to be seen to have happened the way history recorded, and we'd get a straight fake-out rather than the usual timey-wimey shenanigans.

Because the whole point of the arc was winding the Doctor's rep in from the excesses of Tennant's 'Lonely God' and the previous season's "I'm the Doctor. Basically, run" back to the point where he is once again simply a mad man in a box. And DC basically did this with the setting's superhacker Oracle at the beginning of the year by faking her death (yes, yet another example of Moffat repeating story beats :p).

Of course, that good idea is utterly fucked over by the Doctor getting the help of the Tesselector's crew to pull off the con. That's 400 odd people -- any of whom could be subsequently compromised by the Silence -- in on the secret he couldn't even clue his best friends into because it would destroy all of Time and Space if the truth got out.

If you really wanted the Doctor to be one step ahead, he would have used the abandoned Tesselector and rigged it to run with just him working it.

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Yeah, while the episode was good. It wasn't one of the best and certainly could have been better. I would have thought that the Doctor would have used a doppelgänger from episode 5 and 6 from this season as a stand-in for his "execution".

[Soulcatcher]

(click to show/hide)

Maybe because I'm an old hand at Doctor Who and temporal shenanigans but to me it was always blindingly obvious that it would all hinge on the usual quantum get-out-of-gaol card of the event only having to be seen to have happened the way history recorded, and we'd get a straight fake-out rather than the usual timey-wimey shenanigans.

Because the whole point of the arc was winding the Doctor's rep in from the excesses of Tennant's 'Lonely God' and the previous season's "I'm the Doctor. Basically, run" back to the point where he is once again simply a mad man in a box. And DC basically did this with the setting's superhacker Oracle at the beginning of the year by faking her death (yes, yet another example of Moffat repeating story beats :p).

Of course, that good idea is utterly fucked over by the Doctor getting the help of the Tesselector's crew to pull off the con. That's 400 odd people -- any of whom could be subsequently compromised by the Silence -- in on the secret he couldn't even clue his best friends into because it would destroy all of Time and Space if the truth got out.

If you really wanted the Doctor to be one step ahead, he would have used the abandoned Tesselector and rigged it to run with just him working it.

(click to show/hide)

Yeah, while the episode was good. It wasn't one of the best and certainly could have been better. I would have thought that the Doctor would have used a doppelgänger from episode 5 and 6 from this season as a stand-in for his "execution".

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But wouldn't that dissolve back into the Flesh when it died?  Also, given that ended with the gangers being treated as people, it seems unlikely he would have sacrificed one of them to save his life.

[Mister Andersen]

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Those gangers seemed something of a special case I think, with it being more of a case that the Flesh had the potential to become sentient then sapient due to over use, rather than that being its default state.

I was predicting the use of the flesh because Moffat just isn't a subtle man and has a bad habit of going for the dreadfully obvious when everyone is hoping he'll do something clever. Using the Tess was, I admit, clever but like the swap out of Captain Adam for Hawk with the reveal of Monach's ID in Infinite Crisis because someone guessed the truth, I think Moffat sacrificed fantastic potential.

Just picture the whole back half of the season with the Doctor being Flesh and how much more sense it would then make for him to be facing situations where regeneration wasn't an available option. River giving up her regenerative cycle then isn't just a means to make her human but it's also now a means of making the Flesh Doctor a Time Lord. Come the end of the season, the Doctor dies but we're left not knowing which is which; even the Doctor himself doesn't know. It restores a sense of ambiguity about the character without restorting to this bullshit 'oldest question in the universe you've been running from all your life' nonsense.

[ThunderMonkey]

(click to show/hide)

Those gangers seemed something of a special case I think, with it being more of a case that the Flesh had the potential to become sentient then sapient due to over use, rather than that being its default state.

I was predicting the use of the flesh because Moffat just isn't a subtle man and has a bad habit of going for the dreadfully obvious when everyone is hoping he'll do something clever. Using the Tess was, I admit, clever but like the swap out of Captain Adam for Hawk with the reveal of Monach's ID in Infinite Crisis because someone guessed the truth, I think Moffat sacrificed fantastic potential.

Just picture the whole back half of the season with the Doctor being Flesh and how much more sense it would then make for him to be facing situations where regeneration wasn't an available option. River giving up her regenerative cycle then isn't just a means to make her human but it's also now a means of making the Flesh Doctor a Time Lord. Come the end of the season, the Doctor dies but we're left not knowing which is which; even the Doctor himself doesn't know. It restores a sense of ambiguity about the character without resorting to this bullshit 'oldest question in the universe you've been running from all your life' nonsense.

Totally.

[Mister Andersen]

Just saw the first two episodes of J. J. Abrams's latest, Person of Interest and I havd to say that I like it alot. High concept, tightly scripted, well acted with some  good chemistry between the leads (Jim Caviezel and the always watchable Michael Emerson). It also makes for an awesome campaign premise.

[Sletchman]

Just saw the first two episodes of J. J. Abrams's latest, Person of Interest and I havd to say that I like it alot. High concept, tightly scripted, well acted with some  good chemistry between the leads (Jim Caviezel and the always watchable Michael Emerson). It also makes for an awesome campaign premise.

I just watched the first 3, and was about the post the exact same thing.  I've digged the core idea as a campaign premise since seeing Minority Report (I know it's not the same thing, but I'm sure you get what I mean).

[Sletchman]

Just watched episode 3 of The Fades and figured I should encourage everyone else to watch it, it's really extremely good.  I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned here actually.  Here's a Trailer.

[Mister Andersen]

So that was the final ever ep of SGU and, it would seem, Stargate generally.

While I like the character notes it hit, it really really didn't need to end on the cliffhanger it did. Hell, ending seasons on cliffhangers should be a shooting offence.

[Desertpuma]

Only if they knew the series was going to end .... I think they ended the Stargate franchise they way they did as a sign they were hoping to resurrect it once MGM got back on its feet. But generally, if shows know they are going to end for good, the cliffhanger is bad form.