Better Than Wolves Forum

jorgebonafe wrote: FC, I started watching Supernatural on Netflix a few months ago. I watched like 8 or 9 episodes, and the whole "monster of the week" thing annoyed me so much I couldn't watch anymore. What do you think about that? Does the series change at all on the following seasons? Everyone seem to like it, but so far it's just not my thing....

As time goes on, they keep upping the ante on it and it becomes more of a continuous plot kinda thing. The occasional one off monster appears, but it tends to be much more of a book of revelations kinda cataclysmic thingy. I have no idea how far in that begins to happen though, as I've been watching the thing as episodes come out almost since the beginning. If you ever watched X-Files back in the day, it's kinda like that: you've got one off episodes and plot advancing ones, and the number of the latter increases as the years go by.

If you aren't enjoying it at the start though, not sure if I'd recommend sticking with it. Looking at a list of episodes, I think the big stuff only starts happening towards the end of season 2, and even then, I think it begins in slow drips.

Stormweaver wrote:I'd love to know what it was that made SG:U get canned so early. I thought it was great, and I can barely stand to watch TV these days.

My theory is that they alienated their existing fan base. I used to watching a bit of the other Stargate series, but I was never hardcore into them, so when I started watching Universe, I didn't really have any expectations and wound up loving it. For existing fans though, I think the total lack of the campiness from the others may have turned them off, because it really has next to nothing to do with the rest of them. Meanwhile, people that didn't like that camp had given up on Stargate years before, so were unlikely to try a new one.

But yeah, it was fucking awesome. IMO, right up there with the Battelstar reboot as the best in modern scifi.

Oh! I just remembered a good one: Black Mirror. It's a series of one-off stories in a limited run, but for dark scifi, they really rock:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Ah, in that case I might keep it up. It wasn't that bad as it was, I was just worried that it stayed like that forever. Watching 10 seasons of single isolated episodes would drive me insane :P

FlowerChild wrote:... True Blood... on my own... hated Xena...

Got another one, Sanctuary. I enjoyed that one whole it lasted. Decent number of seasons for it.

FlowerChild wrote:Oh! I just remembered a good one: Black Mirror. It's a series of one-off stories in a limited run, but for dark scifi, they really rock:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I made the mistake of watching "The Entire History of You" after a rough breakup. Ouch.

Definitely seconded, Black Mirror is incredible imo. I think they've actually got another season in the works, with 12 episodes rather than the 3 for the first couple seasons.

Stormweaver wrote:I'd love to know what it was that made SG:U get canned so early. I thought it was great, and I can barely stand to watch TV these days.

A deadly cocktail of being (Somewhat) different from it's predecessors, meddling with timeslots, MGM going bankrupt, being a more expensive series, groups of fans being morons, poor announcement timing and finally, the profitable DVD market collapsing.

Basically, SGA was cancelled and SGU announced immediately after which made many SGA fans resent SGU. The first half of s1 was also extremely different from anything before, which quickly turned away fans. The tone re-adjusted but it was too late. Many saw it as Stargate: 90210 based upon some of the descriptions (Literally "darker and edgier"). MGM's situation, SGA's situation and the DVD market change resulted in behind-the-scenes trouble. Stargate had also lost it's favorable after-WWE friday slot late-SGA and switched schedules for SGU twice.

Gonna throw my 2 cents in on "The Expanse." The show takes some liberties with a lot of things, but goddamn if it isn't true to the books, which I absolutely love. Anyone remember how close the first season of GoT was to the books? It's better than that. I just pray they don't dilute it by cutting out the patois among other things to appeal to critics. If they still true then next season, and everything after ought to be fantastic, and definitely better than the first.

The one thing they stray from the books in more than anything else is orbital mechanics, but that is likely mostly because they have to shove quite a few detailed scenes into a couple of minutes in order to keep the plot moving. For anyone who hasn't read the books though, orbital mechanics isn't *that* big of an issue in this universe due to a miraculous fusion drive that the author(s) (James S A Corey is a pen name for two authors) intentionally refuse to explain to maintain its more gritty and realistic perspective. The more significant factors for space flight in The Expanse are G-shock, G-strain, and maximum acceleration of a ship. Fuel is only rarely a limiting factor.

I'm excited for next season, quite a few things will be clarified, and the plot is incredibly unique. I don't think I can identify a trope the end of the first book comes close to fitting. Leviathan Wakes is an absolutely awesome read if anyone is remotely interested in it. As a space opera it sits up there with Revelation Space IMHO.

Anyone here watches Lucifer? It's not Sci fi, but I mention because I just watched the latest episode and the ending gave me huge BSG nostalgic feelings, for reasons I won't spoil...
Anyway, it's an entertaining series, even with all the cheesiness :P