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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The Serene Squall (2022)
CBS needs to give up the Star Trek franchise
So far the best they've done within the last 4-5 years is mediocre- and the worst they've done is abominable. STD was a dumpster fire of bad writing and even worse acting. The characters in Picard were all forgettable and poorly acted with the sole exception of returning ST legends..
And Now we have SNW. Full episodes about coddling Uhura, only decently written when the focus is hijinx and actors like Jesse James Keitel not being able to deliver a single line. I literally had to stop watching on this episode because Jesse James Keitel is mentally incapable of opening her mouth all of the way to speak her lines. I mean I'd never seen her in anythign before and she is *bad.*
It's like CBS goes out of its way to hire people who can't act and writers that can't write. They even manage to make a space battle boring: *Ship gets shot* *Crew talks about it and their feelings for five minutes* *repeat*.
Whenever a new Star Trek show comes out I'm hopeful, but so far SNW, like STD and Picard, is a cinematic armpit due to a combination of bad writing and acting. CBS is just too stupidly run to to the Star Trek franchise justice.
From (2022)
Full of holes, rough acting, milqetoast characters.
Follows many protagonists like Lost did, but filled with extremely basic and unlikable characters. The acting is 20% decent and 80% garbage. They literally live in a town with monsters and talismans and deputy buddy rolls his eyes like it's a highschool play the moment someone tells him something that sounds weird. And the 'main family' the parents are the most cardboard, boring characters in the whole show. The writing goes all over the place like Lost did, except the comedy is pretty flat and the drama is straight up tedious. I mean they never stop talking or overreacting to every little thing, I genuinely want 95% of them to get eaten by the monsters.
Has an exotic setting like Lost did, but the people who claim to have "adapted" to life in the town always live like it's their first day. They don't really seem to use the resources available to do/build things or properly protect themselves and they all try to live 'normal' like they're not in a nightmare town. I mean it takes like 2 minutes to nail a window shut and it's worth your whole family's life, no one would ever not do that and go get drunk instead. Also they just straight up don't nail the windows shut anyway or take proper precautions for anything and they act normal about it. Basically every single person in that town is an idiot, which tells me the writer is an idiot: They had the bartender explain Schrodinger's cat to a quantum computer specialist, that's like peak TV 'trying-to-sound-smart' stupidity.
This show kinda reminds me of the crappy parts of Walking Dead, how they never actually adapt or innovate and always act like it's their first day in the apocalypse. Also reminds me of the bad parts of Lost, how it's largely very generic human drama any robot could have thought up with fake intrigue peppered in too often. Remember how in Lost the statue had three toes and they even used that as a cliffhanger and then in the end it meant absolutely nothing? Same guys. Honestly this show sucks.
The Midnight Gospel (2020)
Mediocre Podcast
It's basically a podcast with colourful-albeit pointless, animation. The talks don't really correlate to the situations and the subjects they cover are boring by actual podcast standards. Perfectly normal people speculating on the things everyone speculates on all of the time, deep by shallow standards.
If you like bright colours and can be fully entertained by the novelty of people talking calmly in situations where they shouldn't: then by all means waste your time on this hot Netflix garbage.
Watchmen (2019)
Flawed but decent
It's decent. The acting is good, the writing is so-so.
The music is done in a really poor way: What you hear in the first episode or two is what you're going to hear in the rest of the series, over and over and over. I can get giving a character a specific theme but usually they mix it up a bit situationally. Watchmen doesn't do that. Be prepared to hear Lacrimosa and half a dozen other classics a dozen times each and only feel the effect of each once.
The plot is also decent, but there are a lot of *really* slow episodes. Not great considering there's only 9 episodes. The main character ends up (imo) being kind of generic while the ancillary characters shine, (like Jeremy Irons as Viedt.)
That being said the production quality of the visuals and pretty much everything else is really good. They were just weird/cheap about the music. Definitely could have used more content, less drawing out of stuff and more Jeremy Irons.
Night on Earth (2020)
Crank your gamma
Sure it's about night, but there were a lot of scenes where I could barely see a thing without turning up the screen's brightness. Also not the best narration, kind of sounds like an episode of "How It's Made".
Plenty of great nature shots over all, but it's no "Planet Earth".
Glass (2019)
M. Night Sham
19 years after Unbreakable and M. Night still has no idea what a comic book is. This unfamiliarity makes listening to 'Mr. Glass' talk about such things in detail *very* painful. It's like hearing a grandparent confidently spew senseless technobabble, actually no- it's much much worse. The vibe you'll get from this movie is that M. Night Shyamalan has only ever seen comic books from a distance, perhaps in a museum.
American Gods (2017)
Sex, Gore, CGI and 'Murica
Would be 90% better if Hollywood didn't have all 5 fingers in it. The main plot is intriguing, but 70% of every episode is a mix of flashy CGI, pointless sex scenes, gory slow-mo overkill and ham-fisted foreshadowing. It's no wonder this shows 8+ ratings only come from 18-29 year olds in the U.S.
EVE Online (2003)
Essentially unchanged since 2003
Played for 11 years, tried going back this year. Not happening.
At it's core it's still a dated real-time spreadsheet simulator. It's 'hardcore' ship loss mechanics equate to players blowing up each others playtime.
Example: I and 10 other people blow up some guy's marauder, he now has to farm for days to weeks for a new one. This wouldn't be a problem if the combat in eve was fun- but it really isn't.
In 2003 this game had tons of promise so I stuck with it. Unfortunately at every opportunity for change CCP caved to the louder, toxic parts of their fanbase and kept the game the same. This is why they got bought.
Explained (2018)
If you don't know anything, this show is for you.
If you're even semi familiar with any of the subjects that this show covers then don't expect to find any new information.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
I can't even
I really wanted to like this show but wow, just wow. It's as if the characters took lessons in how *not* to act. Highschool plays have more emotion. The main character has Vulcan roots and displays more emotional range than any other character. The rest of the crew talk like they're just trying to get their script done- and it's not some little thing either, it's seriously noticeable. At first I thought "Oh they must be infected with spores or they're androids or something," but nope.
On top of that the show is fairly drawn out and includes a *lot* of subtitled Klingon dialogue. The Klingons, oh boy! I thought JJ ruined them by making them the faceless, reptilian looking killables in his movies, but they're just as bad in this. They've been redone, again and they look and sound *awful*. They didn't need it, fans loved them: They're Klingons for Kahless sake!
Sadly the Klingons are cannon fodder once more. Their best warriors struggling to beat any human character in melee. Their chosen guardians tripping on their Bat'Leths, fatally impaling themselves. Also their voices get annoying, it's like listening to a bunch of slow-talkers with cue balls in their mouths speak Latin.
Really did want to like this show, but I can't. I just can't- I mean "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lambs Cry"? Does "Death Spare Not the Tiger" as well?
The Flash: Duet (2017)
Possibly the worst episode of anything ever.
I normally enjoy this show for its almost unbearable camp and hilariously beef-headed writing, (frozen laser beams anyone?). This episode, however, is pure garbage. It's bad enough when they try to keep their worst shows afloat by having terrible crossovers, but this episode had almost nothing to do with anything and was a total waste of time.
Wayward Pines (2015)
FOX, need I say more?
I had hoped Wayward Pines would fill my need for an eerie suspense/sci-fi thriller, but was almost insultingly disappointed. Even the dialogue is cliché.
The protagonist is a red-blooded American, 'John Everyman' with all the forced personality of a typical FOX network character. The Townspeople have a similarly forced sense of mystery. It's as if each one was directed to "act like you're acting" before immediately spraining their acting muscles. For all their effort they just come off as apathetic or lazy.
The writing leaves much to be desired. If you're one of those film buffs who can accurately predict what will happen next when you watch a good show or movie then watching Wayward Pines will be like taking an uncomfortable nap. However, if you're easily amused and can admit that- You may like this show.