TV shows are awesome

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Onslaught Six
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by Onslaught Six »

andersonh1 wrote:Yeah, it's horribly dated with the steetwise kids and their stilted street-lingo breakdancing outside of a dance club secretly run by Starscream and Soundwave.
I loved when we would take stuff like this and update it awesomely. Like when Ravage took Rumble and Frenzy to a club in the Alternators RPG, and talked to this crazy cyborg guy who was running illegal dragraces or something. And Rumble and Frenzy were hitting on chicks. Awesome.
I don't think I'd ever heard Soundwave laugh before... that's just cool.
I think he does it a few times in the show, actually.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Justice League Unlimited season 1

I bought this on DVD a few weeks back, having missed just about every episode when it was on CN, so the season was new for me. Best Buy had it for $37.99, which seemed a bit steep, but Wal-mart had it for $19.96. It was well worth the purchase. What a great series!

It's interesting to me that the overall story arc, that of the Justice League versus Cadmus, is all based off a second-season Justice League episode (that thankfully I have seen) concerning an alternate universe version of the League that went bad and took over. Several developments in the series go back to things that happened in the Superman animated series. While it's great that JLU builds on what came before, it could lose some more casual viewers who aren't familiar with every animated episode. On the other hand, my wife and I didn't have any trouble following the story, even when we hadn't seen the episode in question, so I suppose the overall backstory is explained well enough.

Does JLU appeal to the casual viewer? My wife, who normally just indulges me with my superhero cartoons, actually enjoyed the show quite a bit and said on several occasions "Let's watch the next episode and see how this turns out."

Cool stuff from the season that jumps out at me:
- "For the Man Who Has Everything" gets adapted nicely into an animated episode. This is the pre-crisis story where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman go up against Mongul in the Fortress of Solitude. I think Alan Moore even enjoyed it.
- Wonder Woman flirting with Batman... that's just fun.
- Wildcat/Ted Grant gets an episode focused on him. That's just awesome. So where were the other Justice Society members? A few get cameos here and there, like Dr. Mid-Nite, Stargirl and Atom-Smasher, but I'd love to have seen some more spotlight episodes on the old guys.
- So many characters get background cameos, even if they rarely or never get speaking roles. The Justice League as a literal army of 50+ characters is something I'm not sure we've seen before.
- the Question is just awesome. A paranoid consipracy nut, who is a private detective, voiced by Weyoun from Deep Space Nine!
- Booster Gold and Mister Miracle both get great spotlight episodes.
- I love the final episode where the Flash just trashes Luthor/Braniac by finally cutting loose and running at top speed. I kept complaining in the first season of JL that the Flash was never as fast as he should be. He makes up for that several times during JLU.

This is just a great show. Very enjoyable if you're a fan of any of DC's major characters. Or even some minor ones.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

I've got several TV seasons/series on DVD lately, two at Christmas and one that I bought myself last week. A few thoughts:

Doctor Who, series 5:
It's been nice to actually watch this on TV rather than streaming on the computer, which is how I watched it when it was first broadcast back in the spring. Matt Smith is the best Doctor since Tom Baker, and the writing has improved considerably since Steven Moffat took over from RTD. The plots are more interesting, and there are actual resolutions rather than giant, unexplained magical plot devices that win the day. And the new TARDIS interior looks great.

Superman TAS: the complete series
I missed this series almost entirely when it first aired. I'd been checking out the DVDs from my local library lately, but still hadn't seen more than about a third of the episodes. Then I got the set for Christmas, all 50 something episodes in one box, and I've enjoyed watching the show from beginning to end. Superman's a little less powerful than he should be, in my opinion, but I understand the reason for making him that way. The writing is generally quite good, and it's good to see Superman portrayed as a thinker as well as muscle. Quite a downer ending to the series though, even if Justice League did make good use of that series ending.

The Greatest American Hero, complete series
I've just started this set. I've only seen a few episodes, waaaaay back in the day. I remember very little about them, so this will be almost brand new for me. The cast makes this show what it is. William Katt is pretty good as the title character, but Robert Culp and Connie Sellica threaten to upstage him. If you've never seen this show, it feels very much like the A-Team in terms of action and villains, only instead of the crack commando squad of Vietnam vets, you've got a guy who has a super hero suit that aliens gave him that he can't control, because he lost the instruction manual. But that's what makes the whole thing fun to watch.

I love TV on DVD. Tried watching some actual TV the other day, and all the commercials like to drove me crazy. I'm not used to them any more! :lol:
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Time to resurrect an old thread for an old tv show. I found the first 16 episodes of The Lone Ranger on DVD for $5 yesterday. I used to love this show when I was a kid, and even then it was an ancient program. The episodes themselves are from 1949. No one can ever seem to update this character successfully, and I've often thought that it's because people are just too cynical. No one thinks an audience will buy a noble character like the Lone Ranger, who has such a strong ethical streak and belief in justice, and who refuses to kill. And of course, there always has to be some modern spin on Tonto.

And there's no doubt that the acting style and florid narration really date this show. I'd love to see a straight, down the line update with no changes other than modern naturalistic acting and perhaps some tonal changes or revisions where the logic of the story doesn't quite hold up. But taken as a product of its time, this is still an entertaining series and a good story. I love how Reid/The Ranger's face is never clearly shown, even before he adopts the mask and persona. I love the (probably unintentional) humor in the way Tonto is the idea man. "You the last one alive. You lone ranger." "Yes, Tonto. I'll be the Lone Ranger." "Him beautiful horse, all silver-white." "Yes, and that's what I'll call him: Silver!"

Parts of the story I had forgotten: Tonto and the Ranger knew each other already because the Ranger had saved Tonto's life when both were young men after some hostile Indians had attacked Tonto's village and killed his family. Tonto named him kimosabe then, meaning "trusty scout". And there's a third man in on the Ranger's secret identiy, a man who works the old family silver mine for the Ranger's silver bullets.

In a lot of ways, the Ranger is a super-hero story, set in the old west. He wears a mask, he has a sidekick and a secret identity, and a tragic origin story (his brother and the rest of his Texas Ranger unit are killed leaving him the sole survivor). The ranger's improbable aiming skills and refusal to kill would be right at home with Batman or Green Arrow (ok, with GA we can leave off the refusal to kill). His vow to bring a hundred criminals to justice for every ranger killed isn't all that different from Batman's vow to war against all criminals. It's little wonder the show appealed to me as a kid and even now. It fits right in with the type of comic book escapism I enjoy.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by Tigermegatron »

While,I don't watch that many TV shows these days,I did have a few favorites in the past,that I thought were Awesome. here's the top list below:

1- Gilliagan's Island.
2- Star Trek the Next Generation.
3- The HoneyMooners
4- Family matters
5- bewitched
6- Who's the boss.
7- Charles in Charge
8- The big bang theory.
9- Married with Children
10- The Sopranos
11- Three's company
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Anyone watching Arrow? I've watched an episode or two due to my brother's recommendation and because I've been enjoying the Flash quite a bit. They play Green Arrow like he's Batman, but it works fairly well. I need to go back and catch up on old seasons, but it looks like it isn't a kid friendly show, so I don't know when I'd be able to watch it.

Any opinions on Arrow?
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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I hear that it's good, but I have yet to actually see it. DC's TV universe hasn't usually grabbed me very much. Especially with a trend of shows that take place before the heroes become heroes. I never saw Smallville and I haven't been interested in Gotham either. I lose interest in the Flash (and speedster heroes in general) because the premise is just unrealistic to me. There's only so fast that a person can run. And it's like that for a reason. If the Flash were a real person he'd have ran himself straight into something already, killing himself instantly. I've run faster than I can and tried to stop in that state. I crashed into an office chair and a window and permanently damaged my knee. And I wasn't running anywhere near as fast as the Flash or other speedsters do. So seeing the Flash run at super speed and stop on a dime and knowing that can't happen completely takes me out of the narrative.
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Shockwave wrote:I hear that it's good, but I have yet to actually see it. DC's TV universe hasn't usually grabbed me very much. Especially with a trend of shows that take place before the heroes become heroes. I never saw Smallville and I haven't been interested in Gotham either. I lose interest in the Flash (and speedster heroes in general) because the premise is just unrealistic to me. There's only so fast that a person can run. And it's like that for a reason. If the Flash were a real person he'd have ran himself straight into something already, killing himself instantly. I've run faster than I can and tried to stop in that state. I crashed into an office chair and a window and permanently damaged my knee. And I wasn't running anywhere near as fast as the Flash or other speedsters do. So seeing the Flash run at super speed and stop on a dime and knowing that can't happen completely takes me out of the narrative.
Yeah, any sort of superhero fiction is going to require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. Some concepts require more than others! I've done the whole "try to stop while going full speed" thing recently. Was racing my 10 year old daughter, and my stupid 43 year old self pulled a calf muscle, tried to stop on a dime, and took a fall on to the pavement, fortunately escaping without much more than a few nasty scrapes. I'm not likely to try that again. :lol:

I never got into Smallville either. I'm not quite sure why, given how much I like Superman. I guess the few episodes I tried to watch just didn't do much for me.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

I tried getting into Smallville a few times. It seemed to me they had a problem with dragging everything out. So much of the time I'd stop watching either because I was bored with it or I'd get frustrated at the lengths they'd go to make Clark be Superman, only to hold off on actually making him Superman because that's how they wanted to end the series. Still, despite not being able to stick with it, I thought they had some great episodes. I haven't seen Arrow, or Gotham but I have seen an episode of Flash which I thought was pretty good. Looks like they're taking the effort to somewhat explain and explore his powers. They covered why he can't get drunk due to his hyper metabolism in the episode I saw.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by 138 Scourge »

You know, guys, I got run over by a truck one time. It dragged me underneath it, and I was dragged a little over a hundred feet before it stopped. It did not bounce harmlessly off of me, and there was considerably more damage to my bones than to the truck. So Superman is clearly bullshit.
Dominic wrote: too many people likely would have enjoyed it as....well a house-elf gang-bang.
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