SF & F T.V. in 2016

[Jevon]

I loved the The Last Kingdom and was looking forward to season 2, but heard it got cancelled. :(

[Silvana]

I don't know where you heard it but the filming for the second series already started...

[Jevon]

That's great news. Looking forward to it. Guess my source is not as informed as I thought.

[[deleted user]]

US reminder: Space operas Dark Matter & Killjoys return to SyFy for season 2 this Friday.

[Bryan]

G33z3r wrote: "I want to throw some applause to "Person of Interest", which ran its season finale last week after five seasons. It's an interesting show because it started out with the marginal sci-fi aspect (a predictive artificial intelligence that monitored everything and each week tossed out a "number" that led to a simple crime investigation) and after a few seasons chasing organized crime/police corruption, transformed itself into a real sci-fi show about a surveillance state (eerily predicting some of Mr. Snowden's disclosures along the way.)"

This show, which I almost dropped in the beginning because of its early procedure nature, grew into one of my favorites.
What's more, they were able to close up most of the storylines and finish on a high note with the last half-season they got (I was very glad (view spoiler)[Fusco survived, because after Root's death I could not have taken my other favorite character's dying (hide spoiler)])

[[deleted user]]

Reminder that Mr. Robot 2nd season begins tomorrow, Wednesday, in US (on USA cable network.) I don't know whether one can really call it sci-fi, but it's a cool show for the computer geek crowd.

Meanwhile, SyFy canceled Hunters, their freshman alien invasion series that had me rooting for the aliens (because almost all the humans in this series are despicable.) So, the "season finale" that aired Monday is also the series finale. I guess the cliffhanger isn't too annoying.

SyFy renewed 12 Monkeys for a 3rd season.

[Jim]

G33z3r wrote: "US reminder: Space operas Dark Matter & Killjoys return to SyFy for season 2 this Friday."

Pretty good start, so far. I haven't gotten to the 2d episode of Killjoys yet, though.

We didn't like Mr. Robot for some reason. Can't recall what it was. With all the good shows, there could have been a conflict & we just liked something else a little better.

[Kivrin]

Jim wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "US reminder: Space operas Dark Matter & Killjoys return to SyFy for season 2 this Friday."

Pretty good start, so far. I haven't gotten to the 2d episode of Killjoys yet, though.."

I'm enjoying both Dark Matter and Killjoys this season. I look forward to Friday nights! Although I'm not happy about what Dark Matter did to one of my fave characters!

[Garyjn]

G33z3r wrote: "Reminder that Mr. Robot 2nd season begins tomorrow, ..."
Re-watched the last 3 episodes of season 1 yesterday, so I'm ready. The very last scene, where the E-Corp exec is in the club saying he knew who did the hack, I don't remember. Was that a recent add-on or maybe I thought the show was over and turned it off early. I should know better with all the mid-credits/post-credits scenes movies and TV throw at us these days.

[Jade]

I was wondering if Dark matter was any good; reading your comments I think I'll give it a go

[[deleted user]]

Netflix has a new original series out this month, "Stranger Things", and for some reason I got totally caught up in it, despite it being close to horror (which I usually hate), with a quite intentional flavor of E.T. and a bit of X-Files. It's one continuing story in 8 parts. (It has an actual ending.)

Let me just say I didn't set out to watch 7+ hours of TV streaming TV today.

[Rose]

G33z3r wrote: "Netflix has a new original series out this month, "Stranger Things", and for some reason I got totally caught up in it, despite it being close to horror (which I usually hate), ..."

I'm so glad I found someone else who watched this. I loved it but not one other person I know has even heard of it. I almost didn't watch it - I'm not a big Matthew Modine fan - but he was good cast as the evil Gov't scientist. Even Winona Ryder was good as crazy mom.

I've found a reference to Season Two but I've not found anything to say if it will be out soon or if Netflix is making everyone wait a full year for more. It's a long time for 8 episodes

[[deleted user]]

Rose wrote: "I'm not a big Matthew Modine fan - but he was good cast as the evil Gov't scientist. Even Winona Ryder was good as crazy mom...."

Even more impressive on the cast, the Stranger Things story depends on 4 pre-teen kids who do an amazing job, and the teens aren't bad, either.


Rose wrote: "I've found a reference to Season Two but I've not found anything to say if it will be out soon or if Netflix is making everyone wait a full year for more. It's a long time for 8 episodes
..."

They left the possibility of another season open (while still closing out the main story.) I think the kids in their eps 8 D&D game were cleverly teasing us about the open ends, too.

I was glad they wrapped up the major storyline, though. I was prepared to lose my equanimity if I finished episode 8 and it was "to be continued..."!

According to a Deadline article today, Netflix hasn't officially given a go to a 2nd season, though Deadline thinks it's very likely. OTOH,

[Rose]

G33z3r wrote: "...Netflix hasn't officially given a go to a 2nd season, though Deadline thinks it's very likely...."

YAY!! It has been renewed for another season
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/31/enterta...

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Walking Dead season 7 arrives next month. And season 6 is now available on Netflix!

[Jim]

We watched "Van Helsing" last night. It was OK & we'll give it another show. We only managed about 10 minutes of "McGuyver" before consigning it to the trash, though.

[Randy]

I liked Van Helsing, mostly. The more it went on, the less I liked the Van Helsing character herself.

I'm looking forward to Aftermath tonight!

[Kivrin]

Randy wrote: "I'm looking forward to Aftermath tonight!"

Watched last night. It was kind of a train wreck! Looked like the writers just threw in a plot point (loosely speaking) from every bad SyFy Saturday night movie! Won't be adding this to my OnePass.

[Mike]

Is anyone else watching Agents of SHIELD this season? I'm thinking that this show has jumped the shark. Jason O'Mara is overwhelmingly dull as the new Director. The new uber-security program designed to catch infiltration comes off like sacrificing the ideals that the good guys are fighting for in order to get victory. Phil Coulson being demoted from Director back to agent is being explained as allowing him to do what he does best, but it actually makes him seem ineffectual by reducing his authority. You can't just make your main star the boss for two full seasons, then knock him down to being one of the regular crew again and expect viewers to see him the same as the other crew.

And the entire Ghost Rider story is just plain silly. The character is badly acted, the plot with the ghosts makes no sense, and the stuff about the Devil totally fails to fit into the established MCU continuity for me. I didn't think it was possible to make a worse version of Ghost Rider than the Nicholas Cage movies... I was wrong.

[Randy]

Kivrin wrote: "Watched last night. It was kind of a train wreck! Looked like the writers just threw in a plot point (loosely speaking) from every bad SyFy Saturday night movie! Won't be adding this to my OnePass."

Where were the sharks and the alligators and the dinosaurs? I musta missed 'em. But otherwise, you're pretty accurate. I can't tell if it's a story about nature gone wild, asteroids and comets hitting the Earth, demons or space invaders, ...

Like a train wreck, I've just got to continue, just to see if they can somehow knit it all together into a meaningful story... :(

[Natalie]

Mike wrote: "Is anyone else watching Agents of SHIELD this season? I'm thinking that this show has jumped the shark."

Yeah... I started fading about halfway through last season. I'm glad I haven't watched this season. From the sound of it- it's just getting ridiculous.

[Jim]

I watched 3/4 of the first Agents of Shield this season. I haven't finished it yet & it's been several days. I wasn't all that thrilled with last season, either.

[[deleted user]]

Kivrin wrote: "Randy wrote: "I'm looking forward to Aftermath tonight!"
Watched last night. It was kind of a train wreck! Looked like the writers just threw in a plot point (loosely speaking) from every bad SyFy..."

Yeah, I couldn't get beyond the halfway point. Not sure if they were trying for parody and just forgot to put in the funny, or against all reason think they are making something serious.

[Mike]

The wife and I began watching The Leftovers last weekend. It's taking some time to develop. Part of what appealed to me was Christopher Eccleston's presence as Nine has always been my favorite Doctor. His American accent isn't great, but it's much better than David Tennant's American accent in just about anything.

[[deleted user]]

I'm surprised to discover I'm enjoying "The Good Place", a half-hour comedy. The afterlife is more an après vie for the really, really Good people. (There's a scoring system worth freeze-framing.:) Ted Danson is in charge of his first posthumous community design, but mistakes were made...

If you're interested in sampling it, NBC is running all 4 episodes so far tomorrow, Saturday.

[[deleted user]]

This week we have US premiers of Luke Cage (Netflix, binge anytime) Westworld (HBO, running all week), Timeless (NBC, Monday), and Frequency (CW, Wednesday). Flash & Arrow return to new episodes on CW as well.

[Randy]

Five episodes in to Luke Cage. I'm liking it, but the pace is so uneven. Glacial speed at times. It's probably got enough material for a good 2- or 3-hour movie.

[Natalie]

G33z3r wrote: "I'm surprised to discover I'm enjoying "The Good Place", a half-hour comedy. The afterlife is more an après vie for the really, really Good people."

The whole first episode made me laugh out loud. That probably means it will be cancelled. Anything I love tends to get cancelled. But I do love it so far.

[[deleted user]]

This week in the US, Falling Water debuts on USA Network Thursday, Something about getting into people's dreams. The promos have alternately left me thinking it might be interesting and it might be trash.

Channel Zero, an anthology sf/f show, debuts on SyFy.

And Supergirl (Monday), Legends of Tomorrow & Supernatural (both Thursday) all return with new episodes on the CW.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

October 23, 2016 - The Walking Dead! Negan! Lucille! What else needs to be said?

[[deleted user]]

Reminder to US folks that BBC-America premiers "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" tonight, inspired by the Douglas Adams book.

[Kivrin]

Randy wrote: "October 23, 2016 - The Walking Dead! Negan! Lucille! What else needs to be said?"

Tomorrow night! I can't wait, and yet I'm dreading it at the same time! Already know I won't be getting any sleep tomorrow night after it airs!

[Mike]

G33z3r wrote: "Reminder to US folks that BBC-America premiers "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" tonight, inspired by the Douglas Adams book."

This was enjoyable, although the divergence from the book was pretty significant.

[Mike]

I'm souring on the Walking Dead after this Sunday's episode. Spoilers:

(view spoiler)[Losing Glenn hurt like a punch to the gut. He's been my favorite character on the show since the very beginning, and I could have dealt with anyone else dying, even Daryl or Rick. (The wife was going to make me watch by myself if Daryl died.) I know this was how it happened in the comics, but the show has diverged from them before. But not just that... Jeffrey Dean Morgan is awful as Negan; I found David Morrisey a much more effective villain. The gore and torture in this episode were way overdone (the wife referred to it as gore porn and torture porn). The gore excess is the same trap that so many horror films, especially the slasher subgenre, fall into. Adding as much blood and guts as you possibly can does not equate to being scary by default. By the time this episode was done, I felt beaten down and broken myself for having slogged through till the end.

Just as bad has been how the negative feedback was received. The director made a statement defending the way everything was handled and basically saying that all the torture is okay. The fans that are backing him up seem to be behaving like internet trolls, bashing anyone who has a differing opinion. The wife posted a critical comment on a Facebook thread and some troll replied with nasty, uncalled for profanity directed at her personally, not at the points she made. So she's leaning towards quitting the show too. (hide spoiler)]

[Mike]

Meantime, I'm finding Timeless to be enjoyable once I stop nitpicking the history and the plot holes. I rather liked the Ian Fleming WWII episode last night.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Kivrin wrote: "Tomorrow night! I can't wait, and yet I'm dreading it at the same time! Already know I won't be getting any sleep tomorrow night after it airs!"

Yeah, that was brutal. Faithful to the comic but different at the same time. That's what I enjoy about the show - it finds a way to hit the same themes as the comic but does so in a different way that keeps it fresh for those of us who follow both versions.

[[deleted user]]

Reminder to US members, the National Geographic Channel, which is probably someplace on your cable box you've never been, begins its miniseries Mars (LGT youtube trailer), a fictional but presumably hard-SF story of first human flight to Mars.

[Jim]

Thanks, G33z3r. I've got it in the DVR.

[Michael]

Thanks for the heads up, and just in time since it starts tonight. I didn't know about this, but I just set my DVR.

[Rachel]

So is timeless worth it? I've got it all saved up on DVR but westworld and supernatural have taken precedence - and I think I'm deleting agents of shield and aftermath unwatched.....

[Mike]

Rachel wrote: "So is timeless worth it? I've got it all saved up on DVR but westworld and supernatural have taken precedence - and I think I'm deleting agents of shield and aftermath unwatched....."

It's okay for mindless, cheesy escapism so long as you turn your brain off and not nitpick over the historical details. The main issue I'm experiencing is that it's getting caught in about the same rut you'd expect from a show with an ongoing main villain (particularly when there aren't any ordinary villains-of-the-week). Good guys chase after the villain, ascertain the villain's evil plan and defeat it, but ultimately fail to kill and/or capture the villain... every single week.

Kind of like how the TV series version of War of the Worlds was.

[Bryan]

Mike wrote: "Rachel wrote: "So is timeless worth it? I've got it all saved up on DVR but westworld and supernatural have taken precedence - and I think I'm deleting agents of shield and aftermath unwatched........"

I'd agree with all of that. It's hardly essential viewing but it's light, decent tv with some fun moments. I'm expecting some validation that (view spoiler)[the villain is actually working for the greater good, (hide spoiler)] which would make it more interesting.
You have to wonder why they don't just go to any point in the villain's timeline (before they knew him) and kill him then, though.

[Mike]

Maybe they don't want to create a temporal paradox. Maybe they don't want to alter their own personal timelines with possible unforeseen consequences. And maybe it's due to the show's physics.

They said they can't send anyone back to a point where that person already exists. This could mean just that you can't meet yourself. Or it might mean that you can only time travel back to a point before your own birth... possibly even your own conception. The way it was worded in the show, I'm leaning towards something like this. And going back to before their own team was born to kill him might be too far back to avoid any nasty butterfly effects.

If that's the case, though, then the writers have been sloppy. Goran Visnijc (sp?), who plays the villain, was born in Sept. 1972, just a few months after this week's episode took place. And Matt Frewer, who plays the bad guys' pilot, was born in 1958. We don't know how far off the characters' ages are from real life, but that's cutting it close. (Frewer doesn't actually appear in the 1972 episode, but his role is such that I'm assuming he went back there with the villains and stayed off-screen.)

[Rachel]

Thanks guys - I'll put it in the 'junk food TV' category like supernatural Grimm or lost girl (versus westworld GoT the Expanse which I consider 'real')

[Randy]

Mike wrote: "They said they can't send anyone back to a point where that person already exists. This could mean just that you can't meet yourself."

What Rufus said in the first episode:

“You can’t go back to any time where you already exist, where you might meet a double of yourself. It is bad for the fabric of reality.”

And later:

...“tried it once. The pilot came back — but not all of him.”

But you're right. It wasn't clear whether they meant it was bad to go back to where you existed, or whether it was bad to meet yourself.

[Mike]

Meantime, has anyone noticed the Bill and Ted homage that Timeless has going on with the character names? The good guys consist of a Preston, a Logan, and a Rufus Carlin. Most excellent indeed.

[Bryan]

Randy wrote: "What Rufus said in the first episode:
“You can’t go back to any time where you already exist, where you might meet a double of yourself. It is bad for the fabric of reality.”

And later:
...“tried it once. The pilot came back — but not all of him.”

But you're right. It wasn't clear whether they meant it was bad to go back to where you existed, or whether it was bad to meet yourself.

I took it as meaning "you can't meet yourself", but if they can't go at all to when they were already born they could just go further back and kill the bad guy's mom, Terminator-style.
Given the changes they make to History in every episode, with the biggest yet (in the Alamo episode) being voluntary, they can't really draw the line there.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Mike wrote: "Meantime, has anyone noticed the Bill and Ted homage that Timeless has going on with the character names? The good guys consist of a Preston, a Logan, and a Rufus Carlin. Most excellent indeed."

Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.

[Silvana]

I tried to watch Dirk Gently. I quite enjoyed it but it was weird, even weirder than the book.

[Rose]

There's a new one on Netflix called 3%. It's English subtitled but not as annoying as you would think. The first season is 8 episodes and I'm halfway. I'm really liking it so far. I was wonder if anyone has seen it and what you think of it.