TV shows are awesome

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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What if...? episodes 1 and 2
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What if Peggy Carter got the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rodgers.... Honestly I wasn't all that impressed with this episode. There were some interesting differences, but it just didn't feel different enough to me. The plot still more or less follows the same plot as the first Captain America. Peggy is kept on the sidelines (albeit instead of being used for war propaganda, it's because of sexism) until she decides to fight without permission. Howard invents an Iron Man armor for Steve called the Hydra Stomper, and is powered by the Tesseract. Hydra eventually takes the Tesseract back to open a portal, unleashing a tentacle monster, which Peggy sacrifices herself to push back into the portal. She then finds herself in 2012 when the portal is reopened by Nick Fury.

What if T'Challa became Star Lord I really enjoyed. It's a completely different story, with T'Challa being kidnaped due to the incompetence of Yondu's crew and T'Challa, wanting to be an explorer, is excited to go with them to explore the universe. And unlike Peter Quill, T'Challa becomes an extremely popular and successful Star Lord. He's even managed to talk Thanos out of his plans to gather the Infinity Stones to commit genocide. Instead, Taneleer Tivan, The Collector, becomes the villain of the episode. There's a bit of a tease at the end with Ego approaching Peter back on Earth, which I have to wonder will factor into a future episode.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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"It's not genocide because it's random." - :lol: :lol:
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Sparky Prime
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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What if... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?

This episode is mainly a murder mystery plot. Prior to becoming Avengers, all the candidates in the Avengers initiative are mysteriously killed off one by one. I have to say, I didn't expect the identity of the murderer, at least until Black Widow figured it out. It was cool to see how many different MCU movies and characters they touched on that they were able to put a new twist on for this episode.
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I love that Loki gives the same speech he gave in the first Avengers movie. Yeah, good episode and they kept me guessing about the identity of the killer as well.
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"Superman and Lois" ended it's first season, and it was pretty good. I think the smaller episode count helped because we didn't get a lot of "filler" episodes, and everything contributed to the overall storyline. My complaints from early in the season about too much teen drama and not enough Superman were mitigated later in the season as the Superman-related storyline became much more prominent. So good show by the writers, and the actors are all well-cast and give good performances.

I hope they can keep it up. It seems like these CW DC shows usually have a couple of good seasons early on and then descend into mediocrity. Arrow lost me after season 3, and the Flash lost me after season 2. So did Legends of Tomorrow. I've never watched Supergirl. So hopefully we get at least another season or two of good stories out of Superman and Lois before things go downhill.

Stargirl season 2 started a few weeks back and I've only caught the first episode so far. I still love all of these golden age characters finally making it to live action in some form. I hope they can keep up the quality from the first season.
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What if... Dr. Strange lost his heart instead of his hands?

On the night of the fateful accident that mangled his hands, Dr. Strange in this story is instead accompanied by Christine Palmer. Strange appears to come out of the accident uninjured, but instead, Dr. Palmer is killed. Strange still learns the mystic arts, but this time as a means to bring Dr. Palmer back rather than to heal himself. Despite warnings against it, Strange spends centuries trying to prevent her death, but no matter what he does, she still somehow dies. Eventually the Ancient One arrives to tell him this is an event that is impossible for him to change, but Strange refuses to believe this to be true and continues to search for a way to save Dr. Palmer... This was a pretty interesting episode. Kind of reminds me of the 2002 "The Time Machine" movie, where the time traveler attempts to save his fiancé after her death during a mugging. She still dies no matter what he does to try to change these events. Eventually he traveled to the future to find out why he couldn't save her, only to be told he wouldn't have invented the time machine in the first place if she'd survived. In this episode, we see a character not only notice the Watcher for the first time, but even has a brief conversation with him. It's also the first episode where things decidedly do not have a happy ending. I was surprised where they ended it actually.
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Dr. Strange was Parallax in this episode. "I just need more power and I can make everything right!"

Good episode, best we've seen so far.
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What if... Zombies

In this universe, Hank rescues Janet from the quantum realm, but she's been infected with a virus that made her a zombie. Returning to normal size, the virus spreads quickly, especially after the Avengers attempt to contain the situation, only to be infected themselves. When Bruce is returned to Earth to warn them about Thanos, he finds New York empty. Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian arrive for the Time Stone, but are quickly killed by zombified heroes. Bruce is saved by Hope and an army of ants and is taken back to other survivors. Together they work on figuring out how to cure the virus.

I'm not really a fan of the zombie genre personally, but this wasn't a bad episode. The "cure" I felt was a bit weak of an explanation, but given what it turned out to be... I guess it makes some sense. I do wish they had given it a more definitive ending though, since they leave it on a cliffhanger. Oh, and we got our first direct mention of Uncle Ben.
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What if... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?

Pretty straightforward episode if you ask me... Rather than Tony being injured leading him to eventually become Iron Man, Killmonger instead saves him from the bomb. Killmonger reveals Obadiah's betrayal during a press conference, and then he and Stark begin designing a robot drone together. From there, It's slowly revealed Killmonger's true intentions are exactly the same as they were in the Black Panther movie and the whole thing was just his way to influence his way to the top of Wakanda. And once again, it basically leaves off on a cliffhanger. It was still a pretty good episode, but, I was hoping for more out of this episode...
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What if... Thor Were an Only Child?
Exactly as the title suggest, this episode revolves around the idea that Odin returned Loki to Laufey rather than raising him as his own son. As a result, Thor doesn't grow up with Loki's constant tricks to temper him and becomes a care free party prince. With his parents occupied, Thor throws a party on Earth, to SHIELD's chagrin.
Fun episode. Very much a standalone story, save for what happens in the very last scene, setting things up for the next episode...

What if... Ultron Won?
In this reality, Ultron was able to successfully download himself into Vision's body and enact his plans to wipe out the majority of humanity. When Thanos arrives to collect the mind stone from him, Ultron easily kills the mad titan and claims all the Infinity Stones for himself. After destroying many other worlds, Ultron eventually becomes aware of the Watcher. The Watcher contemplates breaking his vow not to interfere in order to help Black Widow and Hawkeye defeat Ultron. But before they get what they need, Ultron is able to break into the Watcher's realm.
So we're getting the set up for the season finale here, with Watcher having to contend with a version of Ultron in possession of all the Infinity Stones. It's a little odd hearing a voice so different from Paul Bettany coming from Vision. But it helps that he creates armor modeled after his previous Ultron body for himself. I liked watching Watcher freak out as he realizes Ultron is aware of him. Watcher is obviously someone who is not used to someone not only being aware of him, but being as if not more powerful, thanks to the Infinity Stones.
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