So did anyone else give [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton_%28TV_series%29]this one[/url] a try last night? I had my doubts going into it being that this is a SyFy show and at least that network's unfortunate reputation for mediocrity didn't disappoint.
I'll give the folks who created Krypton an 'A' for effort given the apparent low-budget look of the show. The sets, costumes and special effects were adequate but the story itself just seemed like a "paint-by-numbers" affair. It's clear it really, really wants to set itself up as a sort of Game of Thrones on Krypton (they even have Ian McElhinney playing a role) all while the main guy, Seg-El, is doing his best to channel Chris Pine's version of "rebel Kirk".
I might give this one a few more episodes just to see if it ventures off into something unexpectedly interesting. But otherwise I still have like a dozen other shows I've fallen way behind on so I might have to give up on this one pretty quick.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I got a few minutes into the pilot episode until I saw a guy in a hoodie and jeans wearing a Detroit Tigers ballcap... I actually shut if off at that point. But then I opened it back up and a few minutes later realized it was intentional. This should be fun.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Yeah apparently that guy is this show's version of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Strange]Adam Strange[/url], a silver-age comic book character that I think I sort of heard about decades ago but honestly wasn't completely familiar with. I ended up skimming the character's wiki page just to find out what the deal was.
I'll probably give the show a few more tries. One review I read suggested this show is going to take a few eps to "warm up" so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Just watched it. I think it's going to be interesting, possibly as Wash defined it.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
.
Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
I downloaded and watched it yesterday.
I wouldn't say it was "mediocre" per se. Some of the aspects of it looked reasonably well done, in terms of setting up future developments. And to be fair, even Farscape wasn't all that incredibly awesome in its pilot episode, and Farscape didn't REALLY start hitting its stride until episodes 6-8 with stories like PK Tech Girl and so on.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and it's hard to present an entire foreign/alien culture in LESS THAN AN HOUR of screen time.
I thought they did a decent job of setting up the dynamic where you have the oligarchs "living in the sky above" while the "rankless" are consigned to the slums below in the Bubble City structure. The name dropping they did during the course of the show was ... interesting ... with El, Vex and Zodd all being explicitly mentioned, and if you're watching closely you can see the house emblems for each as well. The guild system looked an awful lot like a caste system, with the scene in the generation chamber emphasizing that point of pre-destination from before birth really dropping the hammer on the sort of "captive breeding program" going on among the ranked citizens. And the "tyranny of spiritual belief" saying what can and can't be known or believed certainly has plenty of parallels in our own human history to draw upon for inspiration. You then marry that with what amounts to a Theocracy with the power to define Patriotism/Treason and all sorts of things start crawling out of the woodwork for possible story angles.
To be fair, when the Big Bad™ is some sort of "tyranny" that has co-opted practically every arm of government and decision making, there aren't a whole lot of options to choose from when it comes to deciding what your "hero" character is going to be like that you'll be setting up to oppose that tyranny. Almost by definition they're going to have to be a "rebel" of some sort, and since we're talking about a superhero genre that hero is going to have to be a Pretty Boy in some form or fashion. Put those things together, make the guy young(ish) and you basically wind up with Chris Pine's "rebel Kirk" as being one of the examples of that kind of character (mainly because Chris did such a good job of doing it).
If anything, I look at this first episode as merely being the prologue to what we're going to find out in episodes 2-6 about what's going on. My one regret about the setup is that I think it's leaning just a little too heavily on the foreshadowing of what I'll call the [b]Temporal Cold War[/b] angle of there being a puppetmaster behind the scenes pulling the strings in an effort to AVERT a possible outcome. That didn't work out all that well on Enterprise, and Star Trek Online didn't handle the storytelling aspect of it any better ... so it remains to be seen if this iteration with Krypton will be any better.
I noticed that too, almost immediately, and my reaction was ... whiskey tango foxtrot ... in the sense that the guy's an OBVIOUS anachronism (in the sense that he clearly should NOT be there, dressed like that). So like you, Huckleberry, at first I thought that someone on the production staff had made a mistake (somehow) in allowing this character on screen, dressed like he was. However, unlike you, I didn't stop watching ... and so when the reveal came, I was like, "okay, that was clever" because what we'd seen was something that was MEANT to trigger a response in the audience (because we, the audience, "know things" that the characters in the show DON'T) that would not correspond to the reactions of the other parties inside the show. So when you finally realize what's going on with this [b]One Of These Guys Is Not Like The Others™[/b] you have more of an "Aha! I knew it!" moment, rather than a feeling of disappointment. I thought the show somewhat skillfully manipulated the setup for that to take place.
The one thing that I don't care for in the setup for all of this is the [b]You Are The Chosen One[/b] message being delivered to Seg-El, where the whole point is to make sure that he "hooks up with the right girl" so that his future spools out in a way that produces Kal-El ... Superman. That sort of telegraphed "you have a destiny to fulfill" messaging is being delivered in a way that's a bit heavy handed, complete with a counterpart to the Back To The Future "photographic fakery" of stuff changing "now" in response to events that are unfolding in the story's present, so as to create a sands falling through the hourglass kind of time limit for doing what needs to be done to keep the future (and thus the House of El) on course to produce Kal-El (Superman) and Kara Zor-El (Supergirl) two generations hence from when the story is taking place.
The one thing about this show that I am absolutely confident about though is that if Supergirl wasn't the success that it has been, this show would almost certainly not be getting made. Krypton really does feel like it's trying to cash in on the "fluttering cape" of Supergirl being as popular as it is by showing us what life on Krypton was like Before The Fall ... which is honestly a space that Supergirl as a TV show can't explore all that well or thoroughly (kinda hard when Krypton is space rubble and history!). I certainly don't [i]resent[/i] that about Krypton, as a show, but I do find it an interesting notion for why the show was green lit to be put into production.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
All I can say is that after the first episode of Farscape I was genuinely, unreservedly excited to want to see the next episode. Basically Farscape managed to "hook" me from the very first episode. Frankly Krypton didn't.
At this point I'm still willing to give Krypton a few more tries just because I know some shows seriously need several episodes to get all their cylinders firing. But like I implied some shows -don't- need that much time. It's not an ideal situation at the very least.
David S. Goyer implied in an interview that the major motivation for doing this new Krypton show came about from the initial work he did on the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel_%28film%29]Man of Steel[/url] movie. He claimed he really wanted (during the movie) to establish a good basis for Kal-El being an "alien refugee" from another world and thus we got a very good roughly 15 minutes at the beginning of that movie to help re-establish the whole Krypton background story.
I mention all this to drive home an unfortunate point: The roughly 15 minutes of Kryptonian backstory we got in Man of Steel was vastly, vastly superior to the entire -hour- of the pilot of Krypton. And I don't say that just because the movie had a multi-million dollar budget. I say that because those few movie minutes were simply much more dramatically gripping and informative about many of the very same things you mentioned about what Krypton -tried- to cover (i.e. the strict caste system, questions of pre-destination, tyranny of spiritual belief, the patriot/treason dynamic, etc.).
Basically the "coolness" that was strongly established in Man of Steel's vision of the planet Krypton was watered down to some pale, listless imitation of itself in the Krypton TV show. When comparing the two side-by-side Krypton disappointed me.
Pretty much the very things you "regret" about the Krypton pilot here serve to fuel my fear that the next few episodes aren't going to be enough save it from falling into the same narrative traps of those other shows. Time will tell of course.
I'm sure the current success of Supergirl probably played a role in encouraging the "suits" of SyFy to green-light what amounts to another "Superman show without Superman in it". I also suspect the success of shows like Game of Thrones, Westworld, and even "JJ Trek" as well as the other DC shows like Arrow and Flash have played a role as well. I just hope Krypton manages to pull off something unexpected to assuage my fears. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Granted ... but then again Farscape was a completely NEW universe that we didn't know anything about (anything...). Krypton doesn't have that kind of "new car smell" to it as a franchise.
Ah ...
I didn't watch Man of Steel, so I didn't have that competition of "which version was better" going on for me. I was just taking Krypton on based on its own merits, rather than comparing it to something that had already been done better (as you say). Still, in this case the proof in the pudding is going to come out in episodes 2-6.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I think I managed to find four youtube vids which, taken together, captures the entire "Krypton sequence" from the Man of Steel movie. Turns out it's more like 20 minutes long. I'd invite you to watch these to see how they compare/contrast to the Krypton TV show. It's interesting how a person's impressions of certain shows can be affected by previous material they've seen and it looks like we have that precise situation going on here. Enjoy:
[youtube=400x300]bVJqJvuCa5g[/youtube]
[youtube=400x300]qe8Fds7UWyY[/youtube]
[youtube=400x300]jQn8mNbizdg[/youtube]
[youtube=400x300]m0N8mN_0xlw[/youtube]
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Okay, watched them.
I'd point out that these scenes really aren't all that much different from the opening of Superman in 1978 with Christopher Reeves ... except for the Man of Steel version involving a lot more explosions, a lot more on screen murders, a coup attempt by General Zodd (who didn't become a character until the Superman II movie years later), and so on. The ONE element that's added to the Man of Steel version of events is the Codex that Zodd wanted so badly.
Aside from that, all that 20 minutes tells me is that the rulers/legislators of Krypton were out of resources and tapped the planet's core, which doomed them all. Zodd tried to take over at the last minute, and failed. Jor-El sent his infant son off "to the stars" so that Kal-El might live beyond the death of Krypton. All of this is basically covering the events of the "final hour" of Krypton's existence as a habitable planet.
And NONE of that information is relevant to the story that the series Krypton is going to be telling ... aside from knowing that Seg-El is "destined" to be the father of Jor-El, who will be the father of Kal-El, who will become Superman on Earth. Basically, the story that the show Krypton is trying to tell is TWO GENERATIONS prior to the events you've referenced. Krypton will be covering a different era of history. The stakes in the "present" are different (political, rather than existential), with a backdrop of a future that "ought to be" versus a future that "might not be" ... which is a very different kind of story to tell. It's literally the difference between a pre-apocalypse story versus one where the apocalypse came, and wasn't stopped.
As far as the presentation of the "world" of Krypton in these two renditions, the one in the Man of Steel postulates a high tech society living on an otherwise habitable world. The one in Krypton postulates "bubbles" of high tech civilization living on what is an otherwise INhospitable world, where it's rather easy to imagine that long term survival outside the protection of the technologies of the city bubble(s) simply isn't possible for a large population (individuals might be a different matter, but not for an entire civilization). And already, we can see in Krypton the stratification of society, the HAVES versus the HAVE NOTS, and are looking at the beginnings of a story where maintaining control over what people KNOW and are "allowed" to THINK in order to maintain their (literally) lofty positions in society is at stake. This is a VERY different "world" from what was being shown in those clips in Man of Steel.
And here's the thing ... those 20 minutes tell you what you need to know about Krypton AT THE END. They don't give you much at all about what the place was like BEFORE THE END CAME for them all. If anything, the Man of Steel version basically blames the Kryptonites for dooming themselves through their own unwise actions, resulting in an existential failure of their planet being able to sustain a habitable biosphere. That's a very different [b]and much simpler[/b] story to tell than what the series Krypton is teeing up to show us. There's a huge difference between stories that start with "here's how it all ended" and stories that are trying to tell you "here's how it all began" ... especially in the sheer quantity of information and grounding in the subject matter required to tell those two stories. Hitler shooting himself in the bunker is a quick read of a single day. Seeing everything unfolding from the assassination of an Archduke through the end of WWI, the interwar years, and then all the way through WWII in order to reach that day in the bunker ... is a VERY different story.
So having watched Krypton episode 1 and these four clips you've provided, I think you're making a very big mistake here, Lothic. The [i]purpose[/i] behind each of these presentations is QUITE different. The Man of Steel is for all intents and purposes a quickie synopsis of what kicked everything off in the story of Superman. It doesn't need to BUILD a world ... it only needs to show the END of one. Krypton has a very different job to do, and as I'm sure you'll agree ... it's a lot easier to destroy, than to create. There's also a huge difference between the movie format and an episodic television format, and holding one to account for the time pressure and pacing needed in the other, would be a mistake.
So the irony here is that of the two choices, at the moment I'm liking what Krypton did (and presumably is doing) more than what you've shown me with these clips from Man of Steel. If anything, the Man of Steel (re)telling of events is the paint by numbers of events that are pretty much "locked in" and well known already, since they're established DC canon lore. By contrast, Krypton is "threatening" to deviate from that established lore in some form or fashion, and it's that deviation that is merely ONE of the threats that the main character of Seg-El is going to be confronting in the series. So on that basis alone I'm more interested in seeing where Krypton is going to "go" with its stories. In other words, Krypton is threatening to break new ground on its way to reaching ground that has already been well plowed. We have the satisfaction of knowing where things are MEANT to go, but we have no idea of how the story is going to get there (and at what cost along the way).
Does that make any sense?
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well at least I'll thank you for spending the time watching the clips.
But somehow it makes sense that you'd try to lecture me about the obvious point that these two "stories" are about two different moments in Kryptonian history. Did you really have to write me a novel to try to convince me of that? I'm not making a "mistake" about this as you so blithely accuse me of - you were the one that missed the point here. I never implied that these two things were going to be covering the EXACT same events or that the narratives were not going to be serving two uniquely different purposes (one an opener for a series versus the backstory for a movie).
I simply feel that the 20 minutes of Kryptoian material in Man of Steel handled the job of providing a "general snapshot" of what Krypton was supposed to be like far more effectively and compellingly than the TV show on SyFy. Sadly even typing that last sentence almost goes without saying... I could have just said "a new show on SyFy" and conveyed the same sentiment of expected disappointment.
If David S. Goyer had had the chance to create a TV series about Krypton (even a show centered around Seg-El and not Kal-El) based on the way he showed Kypton in Man of Steel instead of the way he did in Krypton I would have been much, much more enthusiastic about it. Oh I have no doubt that watching the "story of Hitler" unfold from his time as a corporal in WWI to the Bunker scene may prove to be a more fully expansive story than just seeing the last few minutes of the "Bunker scene" (to reuse your Hitler analogy) but I'm still saying that the overall style/presentation of the former was simply superior to the latter.
TBH, I pretty much left watching Man of Steel a few years ago wishing the ENTIRE movie could have been set in the Krypton sequence of the movie (since the remainder of the movie when Kal-El was shown as an adult was really 'eh' at best) and to this day I still want to see an entire movie like that. Perhaps (admittedly) I was hoping Krypton was going to be that "extended" version of the movie I wanted to see. Sadly it wasn't.
I generally have nothing against "prequel" type stories. For example I liked Rogue One even though we already pretty much knew how it was going to end based on the famous quote from Star Wars IV that sparked the entire idea for the movie in the first place: "Many Bothans died to bring us this information..." Likewise we generally already know how this new Krypton TV show is going to end: We know Seg-El can't die until he procreates (else there's no Kal-El) and we know that the "dramatic twist" of becoming caste-less is also going to be corrected at some point. So sure they might toss in a bunch of extra tidbids along the way to spice things up but essentially the fate of this show is already set in stone. I'm not knocking the show for the "nest" it's created for itself but I will simply warn you that it's going to be very easy for this show to get super-boring super-quick unless they are very skillful at breaking that so-called "new ground" you were talking about. I'm just not holding my breath for that until I see some evidence for it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Just to clarify something.
Many Bothans died to bring the rebels information on the Death Star 2. The line was said in Return if the Jedi, not in A New Hope. Which is why they're not in Rogue One.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
And that's the key point. One was trying to show a mere snapshot of backstory, while the other is setting a world in motion for an extended period of time.
So you were primed for disappointment from the get so and are "sorry" that you were disappointed by Krypton.
That may be true ... but that's wishful thinking at this point. You're basically complaining that a new show isn't what YOU wanted it to be, so you're disappointed in it. I'm honestly having a hard time seeing how you'd be able to take Krypton on its own terms as its own creative entity, rather than falling back on the "but it's not THIS!" rationale that it's not something it wasn't even intended to be.
In other words, I think your own (entirely too lofty) expectations are getting in the way of being able to appreciate much of anything about Krypton.
And here's the admission of unrealistic expectations. You wanted Krypton to be something that it never had a hope of being ... an extension of [i]someone else's vision[/i] when that someone else wasn't involved in the project. If that isn't a prejudice tainting your reaction to Krypton, we're going to have a rather marked difference of opinion over what a prejudice really is. Rather than appreciating Krypton for what it IS, and what it's attempting to do, you're focusing on all the things that it ISN'T (and never could have been, nor really should have been) to justify your disappointment in it.
I get the feeling that this is something of a rehash of the argument(s) we've had over Supergirl's costume and age for her show. Since Supergirl's costume (and age) didn't live up to the EXACT specifications of your expectations (or should I say, live in the BOX of the specifics of your expectations) you had plenty of negative things to say about Supergirl as a series and generally behaved like the failure to meet YOUR expectations put the show's creators in the wrong.
Forgive me for thinking that's a little arrogant on your part ... and now you're doing it again here with Krypton. In other words, I'm seeing a pattern here in your complaints, Lothic.
You may not be "knocking the show" ... but you sure do come across as biased and negative, which is functionally the same thing.
You're also making a very BIG assumption, and then assuming that because you know THAT you know everything you need to know. If that isn't putting arrogance on a pedestal, I'm not entirely sure what would be considered arrogant. You have literally PRE-judged the show already, and are just going through the motions of trying to make it look like you're interested in being fair to the show on its own terms and on its own merits, while making it clear and obvious that that's not really your agenda. Your repeated statements to the effect of "SyFy didn't fail to disappoint" make that emphasis of biased perspective loud and clear.
You wanted an extension of Man of Steel's opening ... and you didn't get it ... so you're disappointed.
I submit to you that your expectations, in this case, are what are getting in your way of being able to appreciate what is actually being done. You want what WASN'T done more than what IS being done ... and the responsibility for that "failure" is on you, Lothic, not on the show itself. If Krypton had marketed and billed itself as being somehow "tied" to the opening of Man of Steel (specifically!) then you'd have a leg to stand on, but since they haven't and it's not, you don't. If they had consulted with you on how the show should be done and then went in a different direction from that then you'd have a leg to stand on, but since I'm pretty sure that they didn't, you don't.
In other words ... I think you might (perhaps, possibly) be able to enjoy Krypton [i]if you can get over your own expectations[/i] for the show ... but since I sincerely doubt you can do that, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen. It's also perfectly possible that Krypton will wind up being a giant mess, kind of like what Tim Kring's Heroes turned out to be after the first season, and if it does I'll be right there with you denouncing it for turning into that kind of a fiasco. But I'm going to withhold judgement on that until I see what the show's creators actually DO, rather than denounce them in advance and then expect them to prove me wrong (knowing the whole time that admitting error in such a case is not in my own interests).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Adam Strange is the sci-fi comic version of John Carter. Interestingly in the original version he could only travel to one planet. Wherein he would arrive just in time to save his love interest. Repeatedly. Good lord she got into more dire situations than Lois Lane ever did!
I'm guessing that subsequent reboots have changed his imitatations and he can now go whereever he likes?
The irony of my mistake on this is that it further highlights just how relatively lazy it was for Lucas to give us yet -another- Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
Apparently according to [url=https://www.inafarawaygalaxy.com/2014/02/mon-mothma-quotes-return-jedi.html]this article[/url] "People have also confused this line with the delivery of the Death Star plans in A New Hope. Those silly Bothans!"
Thus it could be said that not only did Lucas recycle the basic Death Star idea but he even recycled the idea that a "lot of people had to die to bring us information" about each of those Death Stars. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Basically I'm disappointed Krypton is turning out to be a relatively lame show -despite- my unrealistic expectations and reputation for supposed arrogance about these things.
As I promised I gave Krypton another chance last night. Oh well.
Perhaps you can wake me up when the multi-faced rip off of the Lord Marshal from [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Riddick]The Chronicles of Riddick[/url] turns out to be Brainiac...
P.S. #NoBlackTightsForSupergirl
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
[img]http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pvponlinenew/img/comic/2002/02/pvp20020221.gif[/img]
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Episode 2 didn't feature a whole lot of "ooh, nifty" in it, aside from maybe Zodd's formal challenge of [s]Klingon Honor[/s] her section commander, but I'm willing to forgive that on the grounds that a lot of stuff is still getting "set up" so to speak for when the avalanche gets started. At least they called out the "never ask for mercy" as a point of continuity, and let "mom" show that while she IS tough as nails she isn't an unfeeling automaton. And the warning that "it only gets harder from here" merely reinforces what we can already safely assume about the culture.
Speaking of culture, they're really going out of their way to make it darn obvious that the Rankless are an underclass, and that the security forces view them as little more than targets to practice their skills on. That Zodd is standing against that kind of broad brush oppression is welcome, and she's actually talking sense in that if the security people go in indiscriminately guns blazing the results will ultimately be counterproductive. That's "anti-terrorism 101" at this point in (our) world history. If you just kill them all and let Rau sort them out, more will rise in the place of the fallen, and the cycle will simply continue. Mass slaughter is not the answer, and it looks like Zodd is trying to make The Powers That Be understand that. For me, that was the real development in this particular episode, that she's trying to steer things from "inside" the system, while Seg is out there doing whatever he's doing "outside" the system of governance.
I really enjoyed the whole "you can keep your Vex" scene and thought that was done in a nicely dramatic fashion. But then seeing the fallout from that after Seg left the room ... that was even better.
We got to learn a smidgen more about Adam Strange in this one, but really not a whole lot, and the "oddity" of his attire actually became a minor character development plot point, so even that detail wasn't wasted. I loved hearing the Kryptonian take on a baseball cap.
I'll grant you, Lothic, that Seg was mostly brooding and emo in this episode, which overall didn't do his character a whole lot of good ... but at the same time, he's starting to see the pieces falling into place from what Adam Strange has been telling him in a way that's adding up, even though everything Adam's telling him sounds off the walls bonkers. And then that cliffhanger (of sorts) telling you that playtime is over kids.
It may not be absolutely riveting television, but I wouldn't say it stinks on ice. On balance I feel like the show is hitting more marks than it's missing, but it's not all hits with no misses. I'll keep watching, just to see where things go for a while so as to give the show a chance. I gave Discovery about 9 episodes worth of time to impress me, and I feel like Discovery was CONSISTENTLY worse (much much MUCH worse) than Krypton has been so far. After 9 episodes I just gave up on Discovery because I really DIDN'T CARE about ANYTHING in the show, and I felt like it was an insult to the intelligence of every Star Trek fan in existence. Roddenberry's vision of the future Discovery was NOT. So I'm never going to care about Discovery no matter what it does. That bridge is burned. I'm nowhere NEAR that level of discontent with Krypton, so I'll keep following it.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well to put things in perspective I've only managed to force myself to watch like the first 5 or 6 eps of Discovery and I currently think it was a -better- show than Krypton has been. For the record I did -not- pay for those Discovery eps via the CBS streaming service and I'm happy I didn't - I do my best to avoid paying for crappy products whenever I can.
For me it's not that I was just hoping for some kind of "continuation" of the level of quality of Kryptonian content first shown in the Man of Steel movie. I first heard about this SyFy TV show maybe six months ago and more than anything else I was simply hoping to get a "good show" out of this that could reasonably stand on its own. Was that really too much to ask for?
For what it's worth I've still got Krypton programmed on our TiVo so I might bother to give it one more chance. Ironically because I dislike it it'll probably last 10+ seasons - that's how these things usually seem to go.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'll spare you the trouble. You're not missing anything GOOD by ditching Discovery.
Conversely, I'm of the opinion that The Orville is the modern day successor series to the Star Trek universe, since it strikes the right "tone" despite being an entirely unrelated universe. I honestly really enjoyed every single episode of The Orville's first season, and they actually took on some pretty weighty topics in those stories, without taking the easy way out on them.
But you're certainly right that Krypton has not been ... impressive ... thus far. What remains to be seen is if it ever will be.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Yeah I think I stopped just prior to them playing the "Mirror Universe" card. I love Star Trek's Mirror Universe but it's sadly revealing that they already had to go there after just a few episodes. It's like they were tacitly acknowledging the "Main Universe" they were trying to establish for Discovery sucked so hard they had no alternative but to throw a Hail Mary with the Mirror Universe.
Basically Discovery was another "long awaited disappointment" to me in as much as I heard about the show well over a year before it started. I think I've previously mentioned how I've been a life long fan of Star Trek so like you the hot-mess that is Discovery was almost crushing to me. It saddens me to think there might be a Star Trek series out there that I don't want to watch. At this point I only wish the folks at [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Continues]Star Trek Continues[/url] were going to produce more episodes.
Yes I completely agree that The Orville definitely made the relative failure of Discovery much easier to deal with. As you say every episode was enjoyable and I'm super happy they gave MacFarlane another season at the very least. Much like Galaxy Quest was a better Star Trek movie than some of the -actual- Star Trek movies The Orville has already produced some better episodes than a good number of -actual- Star Trek shows.
I've read some negative reviews of the show where the reviewers were obviously expecting it to be more of a full spoof/comedy based show. I've also read ones where they've overtly accused MacFarlane of "ripping off" Star Trek without seeming to realize the whole point of the show was to be (in CoT terms) a "spiritual successor" to Star Trek. It's as if no one was made aware that MacFarlane has been a life long Star Trek fan and basically always wanted to create a homage show just like this.
Ironically considering how I just criticized Discovery for already playing its Mirror Universe card I'm actually looking forward to when MacFarlane whips out a Mirror Orville Universe show. Something like that would probably be amazing. ;)
As I've tried to convey I really -wanted- to like Krypton. I didn't go into it wanting it to suck... unfortunately it just seems to be trying real hard to do so. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Orville was so good and we only got 12 episodes for the first season :(
I read somewhere that we were going to get 13 episodes in the first season but they decided to slip the 13th episode into the second season. It's supposed to be a follow-up episode to the one about Bortus and Klyden's child. IIRC, they are going to pull some classic old-school time shifting and have the kid aged up to like 8 years old. I think they'll just explain it that Moclans grow up super-fast.
Again it's sad that a non-Star Trek show is closer to being a "spiritual successor" to Star Trek than an actual Star Trek show. I suppose we should just consider ourselves lucky we currently have the alternative no matter the source.
[youtube=450x300]wKoufHlodDY[/youtube]
Latchcomb for the win! ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I thought that the distinguished white-bearded man was Seg-El, rather than his grandfather. He reminded me of Barristan Selmy (RAWR)! What a pleasant surprise that he actually *is* Barristan Selmy!
*purrs loudly and proudly*
[center][color=purple][size=16][b][I][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78N2SP6JFaI]Just a cat from another star![/url][/I][/b][/size][/color][/center]
Thought it was so much better than a spiritual successor :)
The latchcomb episode, I was watching with my dad and I was all "OMG! They're playing hot potato and it's going to hurt him! I just know it!" And it happened :)
The episode with Gordon lost his leg, I was all "Isaac is either going to take his leg or his privates!" He took the leg :)
Next episode, right as he got stabbed in the leg, "I was Awww, that's his new leg." then he says "This was a new leg!" and I laughed and loved seeing them keep the continuity from previous episodes :)
The "practical joke" plotline in its entirety...
[youtube=500x350]01HMXioj_ZU[/youtube]
Sometimes the simple things are the best. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I watched the first episode, but I think that's it for me. This may sound weird, but it just felt too Superman centric. I thought it would have been interesting to see Kryptonians dealing with Krypton problems in the years leading up to the destruction of their planet. The time traveling aspect and the references to future superman like the fortress of solitude just killed my interest.
But to be fair I kinda feel the same way about Gotham. I find Bruce to be the least interesting part of that show. I thought it would be better to focus on Gordon trying to keep the city in order under a corrupt police department and a growing number of super villains.
I hear what you're saying with this. Part of what makes a prequel story interesting is that it ought to cover independent material that technically shouldn't revolve around having -anything- directly to do with the characters or situation that the story is trying to be a prequel of. For instance we all saw how the Star Wars prequel trilogy helped establish how Luke and Leia were born but those movies (rightly) didn't have anything to do with Luke and Leia themselves because they were mostly showing us what took place long -before- Luke and Leia even existed.
So with Krypton almost literally everyone watching it is already starting off with the vague background premise that "Superman is an alien that comes from Krypton" so we didn't really need the time travel bit telling his grandfather (Seg-El) that he needs to set things in motion to save a character that for him doesn't even exist yet. We (the audience) [b]already[/b] know Kal-El is going to be born and eventually save everybody - tell us how things led to his existence "naturally" from the point of view of people who don't yet know how great Superman will be. [i]That[/i] would have been a fascinating show.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I can't speak of Krypton, but as for Gotham. Have to disagree. I love this Bruce. I love this Selena. The only part of the show I haven't cared for so far, has been Ivy.
Okay, just watched episode 3 and ... man is this show taking its time doing setup. That said, I honestly appreciate the fact that they aren't "rushing" through the events, as if they're in a hurry to meet some sort of production schedule.
The body horror/creep factor of this particular episode was more a matter of letting your imagination run wild with possibilities, rather than overtly showing it off in excellent lighting. That way the terror of it was more psychological than anything else. Still, I thought that was a good choice to make.
Irony of ironies, I'm finding Seg's side of the story a lot less interesting than what's going on with Lyta-Zodd and her [s]Klingon[/s] promotion situation. The overtones of suspicions of terrorism among a disrespected "occupied" population, and the strong parallels with police brutality and extrajudicial killing (more commonly known as lynching in America) really carried a lot more weight than I was expecting in this one. Even worse, Lyta-Zodd "does the right thing" and is promptly hated for doing it. To paraphase someone who's been in the national news in just the past week ... "It shouldn't be this hard to serve your City."
And MAN, is the sense of Creeping Doom™ starting to bleed into everything on this show. I can honestly say that even when there's supposedly "good news" for our main characters, it comes with a radioactive strontium lining. This is making it clearer that the thematic of the show is less about "winning" in the superheroic sense, so much as it is about simply surviving the oncoming storm.
And holy crap ... that [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring]Red Herring[/url] that hung over absolutely EVERYTHING in this episode!
I won't go so far as to say this this episode, or even the ones before it, are unequivocably "good" episodes or stories, because individually they aren't all that remarkable in isolation. However, in aggregate, they are starting to set things in motion that has that total harbinger of DOOM feeling to it that follows being told, in no uncertain terms ... [b]"You Are Not Prepared."[/b] ... and in this case the threat comes from an Outside that almost no one knows about or even knows enough to begin looking for, because everyone in Kandor City is only looking inwards, not outwards. So things aren't looking that great for the series pulling off an upset and becoming an unequivocably good show at this point, especially since the first series of Krypton is only going to last 10 episodes (and we're already down 3). The one thing I will say about Krypton is that even though the story being told [i]relates to[/i] Kal-El and Superman and the whole associated mythos, they really aren't relying on those factors specifically to drive the story. Yes, Kal-El is the McGuffin for why we care at all about any of these people ... but Kal-El isn't going to show up and save them from themselves. Episode 3 took things a lot more into the "you need to save yourselves" lane of the story, rather than leaving it up to being a "you need to save the future" style of storytelling.
So, overall, enough to hold my interest for episode 4 (but not by a massive amount), and I'm really more watching for Lyta-Zodd at this point than I am for watching Seg-El, but that need not be a permanent condition. It's just that at the moment I'm finding her character more compelling, noble and conflicted than I'm finding his, hence my interest in her over him.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Eh, I already forgot to watch it last night... I guess we'll see if I get back to it.
But at least your talk about finding the "non-superman" oriented characters more interesting seems to dovetail what got mentioned earlier about how prequels might be better off if they didn't necessarily focus so much on the "main characters" as much as developing the circumstances that eventually -produces- the main characters.
As to what Brand X said about this topic the Gotham prequel is set only like 10 or 20 years before "Batman" so naturally the young Bruce Wayne is more likely to be involved whereas I think Krypton is supposed to be like 200 years before "Superman" so it would have made more sense if he didn't really have -any- direct significance to that show.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I actually wonder if they planned to use him this much, or if he just turned out to be that good. :)
Given how down on the show you've been so far, your best option is to probably wait for the first season to finish airing and then get an opinion on whether or not you ought to binge watch it later.
For reference, the "Disintegrating Cape" didn't even show up at all in episode 3, because there are more important and pressing problems occurring in the here and "now" of the show. Yeah, the failure to sire the line that produces Kal-El years from now is the McGuffin to attract attention (and continuity) with other established DC lore, but that's not The Big Bad™ that Our Heroes need to be dealing with just yet.
The events taking place on Krypton are approximately 2 centuries prior to the story of Superman on Earth.
That said, there's an intermingling of the timelines going on (re: Adam Strange, from the FUTURE) such that there is at least some linkage going on, but all of that is happening via a locked trap door at this point (Adam's on Krypton and he's having a hard time leaving, as we got to see in episode 3).
So the significance is decidedly indirect and more a matter of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon rather than any sort of heavy hand of DESTINY or anything like that. To use a phrase known to Doctor Who fans ... [b]Time Can Be Rewritten[/b] ... and that is merely ONE of the threats weaving its way through the arc of stories right now.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Here's my essential problem with the "time travel via Adam Strange" element of the show: Why didn't he just time travel back a bit further and somehow help Val-El from being disgraced/killed? I know the "simple answer" to that would probably be "maybe Adam Strange couldn't do that for reason X, Y or Z" but frankly I would suspect a huge amount of the "drama/turmoil" of the show could have been spared/avoided.
I know what I just said might be considered "nitpicking" at this point but trust me when I say I don't usually bother to nitpick -good- shows even when they probably deserve to be nitpicked just as much... #NoBlackTightsForSupergirl ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Well, in the Krypton story (and this was verified on screen in episode 3 rather explicitly), Adam Strange arrived via Zeta Beam. According to the lore, the Zeta Beam is basically an interplanetary transmat beam [i]that Adam Strange does not have control of[/i], but which he can predict when and where it will intersect with a planet so as to go to and leave from that planet. So he can know when and where the Zeta Beam will strike, giving him a window in/out to pass through, but it's not something that he can direct or "summon" ... so it doesn't work on a principle of "Scotty, beam me up!"
And just as an added note of "hey, something's wrong..." Adam noted in episode 3 that not only can he tell when and where the Zeta Beam will open the window for him to leave Krypton but ... something's not right, because the Zeta Beam hasn't been coming back to hit Krypton again (so he can leave) since he arrived. The story doesn't in any way dwell on this moment (it's literally less than 30 seconds of screen time), but the implications that it carries are mildly enormous. Practical upshot is that, for right now (or at least, for episodes 1-4), Adam Strange is "stuck" on Krypton with no way to get off the rock, and he's starting to get a little worried about that. The way he talks about it sounds like there should have been more Zeta Beam opportunities, but they haven't happened like he's been expecting them to. At the moment he's somewhat baffled by this, but the foreshadowing, when seen in context, ought to be rather worrisome (for Adam Strange). Basically his "ride" has gone AWOL, and he doesn't know why.
Now, given that the Zeta Beam isn't something that Adam Strange can control or otherwise summon into existence on demand, it's entirely possible (although quite unstated at this point in the story) that the reason why he's here on Krypton "now" is simply because ... that's where (and more importantly, when) the Zeta Beam sent him, and Adam Strange didn't get a choice or a vote in the matter for a better temporal window. The Zeta Beam went to the here and now, so that's why he's in the here and now, rather than the here and back then (which would have been SO much more convenient, all things considered).
Does that make any sense?
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Exactly like I said there was probably going to be a "reason" they had to cook up for why he couldn't have saved everyone a lot of trouble and just time travelled back a bit earlier. You basically just confirmed more or less what I figured they would do with that by making the Adam Strange time/space travel thing unreliable and/or not 100% under his full control. Nice and convenient but still a relatively flimsy plot point to rest the entire premise of the show on. We'll probably just find out that Brainaic somehow just destroyed the planet (Rann) that the Zeta Beam thing originated from. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
You're overlooking the fact that the "reason" I just explained wasn't something that was just baldly stated, flat out, as being THE REASON™ complete with flashing neon lights and arrows pointing at it. It's not something the audience has been bludgeoned with. Instead, it's something that has to be inferred (like I have, obviously), and while all the hints for it are there, you do need to be paying attention (and know what they mean) in order for that hypothetical to make any sense whatsoever.
So congratulations, Lothic! You're a know-it-all who can't enjoy this show because (by definition) you already know everything you need to know about it, in perpetuity! You can now just stop watching and put this thread on ignore, safe and secure in your knowledge that there is nothing new under the red Kryptonian sun.
Or you could dismount from your high horse and pull your nose out of the stratosphere where you've left it. Your choice.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Oh please, let's not get too worked up about this. Turns out I did decide to watch the third episode last night and as always I really -wanted- to enjoy it.
Unfortunately it's all still really coming off fairly predictably and completely "un-nuanced" to me like perhaps something a relatively clever 12 year old might have produced as a fan-fic. As I've said from the beginning it's clearly trying real hard to be "edgy and deep" but it really only possesses a very thin veneer of those things.
I get that you've been trying real hard to do your best to paint this show in the best possible light and I'll be super-honest here - I think the only reason I watched it again last night is that your "cheerleading" for the show almost has me intrigued enough to wonder what I'm "missing" here and/or if I'm simply not watching the same show you're watching. *shrugs*
At this point based on what little I've learned about the backstory of Adam Strange I'm starting to wonder if a show based on him alone (using the actor who's playing him on Krypton) might not have been a better thing for SyFy to have tried. It could have been a sort of sci-fi spacetime traveling version of young Indiana Jones - basically a better TV version of the John Carter movie Disney tried a few years ago.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Just watched episode 6 ... and FINALLY, at long last, [i]some[/i] answers are starting to leak out of this series. Even up through episode 5, NEW FACTIONS and "players on the board" involved in current events were being added. It was starting to reach the point of wanting to ask "how much do we NOT know about what we know?" concerning the show. Episode 6 took the landmine that we KNEW was there ... and pressed down on it, while we were watching. However, it does feel like, as of episode 6, that we've gotten enough "world building" done as to finally be able to see the scale and shape of the chessboard that all of this is taking place on, and now it's time for the individual pieces on that board to start making their respective moves. In other words, it feels like it took 6 episodes to get everything set up "just so" in order for the wrecking ball to break its chain and start snowballing downhill from here. In some ways, that's kind of remarkable (that it's taken this long) to get all that set up done ... but having watched it all, it kinda sorta needed that amount of (time)space to familiarize us all with everything that's going on in a way that wouldn't feel ... rushed. As matters stand at this point in the story, the unfolding of events has a much more "organic" feel to it, rather than being something that's being "forced" along by producers who don't want to spend film time on stuff.
That said, the show definitely has a goodly amount of "teething troubles" with respect to introducing all of its characters, their backstories (there are plenty) and their respective motivations. The other thing that's especially notable is the feeling that [i]there are no "real heroes" in this show[/i] ... and I mean that in the sort of 4 color Superman superheroic comic book-y sense of being (super)heroic. None of these characters are superpowered (except possibly Brainiac, but that's "tech" in his case) and even among the Sagitarii it's mainly milspec gear and training that allows them to do what they do (just like you'd expect of professional soldiers). So the tech level of the world of Krypton, or more specifically, the city of Kandor on Krypton, is higher than what we'd see with modern day (201x) Earth ... but aside from that we're dealing with a collection of people living through the days of the PRE-apocalypse, burdened with the knowledge that if they Get It Wrong™ that complete and utter disaster will follow in its wake.
For me, that particular insight concerning the genre choice of what they're doing with Krypton is rather important. This is a CHARACTER driven show with an ensemble cast of characters who are living through a PRE-apocalypse time, where basically [b]NO ONE[/b] is a "hero" of the Superman variety. Even weirder, many of the characters are rather unlikable ... but many of their character flaws and faults are functions of their situations, circumstances and history, so their being the way they are is understandable, as opposed to being somewhat arbitrary. In that respect, the show has invested the necessary time in character development such that even the characters you don't "like" or feel personal resonance with come off as being believable, under the circumstances. They've even played the "I don't have all the answers!" card more than once, to conclusively prove that these people are struggling to do the best they can with imperfect information in situations that they were not prepared for.
No less an authority on writing good stories than the "Great Maker" [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski]Joe Michael Straczynski[/url] somewhat famously said that the job of the writer is to introduce your characters in Act 1, drive them up a tree in Act 2, and then start throwing rocks at them in Act 3 ... all so as to see what your characters will do when faced with adversity (one of the wellsprings of good drama).
It feels like with episode 6, Krypton might finally be getting around to reaching the end of the Act 1 phase of introducing new characters so as to finally get on with moving into Act 2 of the storytelling, where they start getting driven up a tree (metaphorically speaking).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Thanks for updating us on where this series is going. Unfortunately I've already missed the last two episodes [b]and[/b] Archer just started back up last night so with my relatively limited time in the evenings Archer will be taking the clear priority for my viewing time.
For what it's worth I'll be interested to see if Krypton gets picked up for a second season - if it does I might catch up with it later this summer.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'm not saying that Krypton is "Must See TV!" or anything even approximating that level of support. If your time to watch television (even torrented downloads of shows) is limited, then go ahead and ditch Krypton for higher priorities. It's a fair point to say that the show has "struggled" to find its footing, both narratively and thematically speaking, in part owing to the size of its ensemble cast and the sheer number of "irons in the fire" that the story has to deal with (there's almost more subplots afoot by now than there have been episodes) ... up to and including the problem of "unreliable information sources" for what the characters in the show know, as well as what the audience "knows" about what's going on. So it's a lot more complex a story than I'd assumed going in from episode 1.
Suffice it to say, this isn't a story about the Big Blue Schoolboy that most Superman stories typically wind up devolving into. For one thing, Kal-El isn't here ... and he won't be able to "save us" from ourselves in this one.
One thing which I do like about the show is that the ... jeopardy ... that the characters find themselves in is essentially cascading ... and it's only growing. But the growth of that sense of Impending DOOM™ is on a slow buildup, rather than a fast one, and I honestly think that the show is doing a decent job of letting that sense of "quicksand" under everyone's feet about the future play out over time in a way that enhances the story without forcing it. It's a tricky thing to manage, but I think they've pulled it off in this one, if you can bear to keep watching long enough.
This is NOT an episodic show. There is a STRONG arc of continuity between all of the stories, and they do need to be watching in order and in the right sequence. Also, ironically, I think that Krypton would be better to binge watch over an afternoon/evening, Netflix style, so as to keep all the continuity threads "fresh" between episodes because it's really all one BIG story with episode breaks functioning more as intermissions than as any sort of cloture on what's been happening. In that sense, I think that watching the show continuously would be a lot better than watching it week by week.
Seg-El continues to not be my favorite character in the show (that's still Lyta-Zodd for me), but they have managed in the last few episodes to keep the whole [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue]Mary Sue[/url] phenomenon largely at bay (in ways that I won't detail so as to avoid SPOILERS for anyone who hasn't been watching the show). Considering that I was someone worried early on that Seg-El might wind up being a Mary Sue of a character, it was reassuring to find out that no, he isn't (nor was he ever meant to be).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Just finished watching episode 7 and ... boom ... headshot (and no, that's not a spoiler, it's a metaphorical for the plot twist that just happened). Finally, at long last, it really does feel like this rollercoaster is ready to start gathering speed as everything starts going downhill (the way that rollercoasters do in order to become exciting, so this is a positive rather than a negative).
While watching this episode, the wisdom of Ambassador Kosh to Babylon 5 comes to mind ...
[youtube]g1GF4Gnb-D0[/youtube]
... and honestly, I can also hear Harrison Ford mumbling "I dunno how we're gonna get outta this one" when the credits for the episode roll. And that's simply because, given what's going on, the shifting alliances, the imperfect understandings of the situation, the imbalance of resources available ... all of it ... I REALLY don't know how "our heroes" in this show are going to escape the inevitable, nor do I even know if it would be a good thing for them to even succeed.
And in that respect, I think the show's creators have actually managed to do something somewhat clever, even if it took them a long time to get their ducks in a row in order to pull it off. Because Krypton, as a show, is managing to take almost everything we (as an audience) "know" about Krypton ... and is using the assumptions built into that knowledge against us. What you thought was obvious and clear cut is turning out to be something of a funhouse mirror house of misdirection and deceptive reflections. This is not a "hero" story. Like I said before, it's a PRE-apocalyptic story, where the Monster Is Coming™ and the long shadow that monster is casting over everything is enough to blot out the Kryptonian Sun.
The other thing I'll say about the series is that up to this point it has been really really GOOD about being consistent with its own internal continuity, and that is now (as of episode 7) starting to pay off in SPADES. And even better yet, just about every single time you get an answer to a question, that answer yields new questions about what's really going on, and if anyone will be able to stop it (or even nudge it aside). In that respect, having watched through to this point I'd have to say that it's a series that starts off SLOW ... but the building action it has done through the first 6 hours of screen time has not been wasted. It's definitely building towards SOMETHING, and astonishingly enough, at this point I have no idea what that might be ... in part because even the shape of the future timeline is in flux in this series, with the removal of Kal-El from history being one of the explicit possible outcomes. ANYTHING could happen here.
Oh and something happened in episode 6 that made the whole "blood on the house of El symbol" that you see in the opening WAY MORE OMINOUS in meaning than I'd been lending credence to being possible.
So, long story short(er) ... I think this show is finally starting to hit its stride, except that like Roland in Bill Cosby's "rollercoaster" routine, there is a decidedly terrifying sense of "[url=https://youtu.be/Npim9KqdXqg?t=344]Hey man, we done run outta tracks![/url]" in terms of knowing where this is all going to be going. And as bad as things are now, it looks like there's still plenty of room for them to get worse ... much, much worse ... because there are no "saints" in this one. There aren't even "heroes" in the comic book sense. You've got imperfect people standing on the edge of the abyss, looking over the edge ... and the abyss is staring back into them ... and no one ... no one ... is "safe" in this. No one. Not even Seg-El.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Hehe, how do you respond to that last line by their "head priest"? They certainly did have their work complicated by that revelation!
Transmogrification, eh?
Shhh! No spoilers, please! Some people reading this thread might want to watch the show later on.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
So I just finished watching Episode 10 of Krypton.
[img]https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/beautiful-woman-horrified-expression-young-blond-looking-camera-her-eyes-wide-open-shock-44114172.jpg[/img]
Not only was that [i]Not What I Was Expecting[/i] ... but the implications for the future are even more terrifying (in multiple ways) than what we learned in Episode 1.
Lin and I have a rating scale for these kinds of things.
The shit hits the fan.
Flaming shit clogs up the fan.
Shoveling flaming elephant dung into a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Pegasus]Harrier engine[/url].
[i]We're going to need a bigger fan ...[/i]
Episode 10 yielded "we're going to need a bigger fan" levels of ... "oh crap" ... and I mean that in a positive/interesting sense than in a negative/lousy show sense. Within the confines of what the show budget let them do, I think the show runners did about as good of a job as could be (reasonably) expected of them. I won't say more because anything else would be [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13S58aQw7wA]Spoilers[/url], but I think that Krypton, as a series has managed to accomplish something rather clever. And best of all, I have a hard time knowing where the show might go from here. I have suspicions, of course, but I don't have certainty.
So for anyone who has been following this thread, I will say that I think Krypton is a worthwhile show to watch, but not something you'll need to prioritize as being something that needs to be seen immediately. And as I said before, I think that this show will actually benefit from binge watching, where you don't have a wait a week between episodes, because there are a LOT of character developments and plot threads to keep track of, including some pretty big stuff that has been sitting there from the very beginning (although it might not exactly be in plain sight). However, if you do watch Krypton, be fully aware that [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun]Chekhov's Gun[/url] is "loaded" in this show. The turning point for everything happens around episodes 6-8 when it starts to sink in that things are going to get ... REALLY BAD ... in the sense of driving the characters up trees and throwing rocks at them (which is what you really need for good drama anyway). So if you only watch 1-2 episodes, you'll miss all the good stuff the show has to offer ... because this is a [i]slow motion disaster[/i] in which the setting is the PRE-apocalyptic period, and NO ONE has clean hands.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well I just read they renewed this sucker for another season to premiere next year. Guess I have roughly a year to binge the last 5 eps of this thing. I'm still looking for the right kind of drugs to help me survive watching the last handful of eps of Star Trek Discovery at some point. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The only drugs I an think of that would allow me to sit through any Discovery episode would probably affect my ability to recall any of it in detail. Which would be a blessing IMO. That is not the Trek that I remember in any way shape or form, either TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager or any of the movies (even the Chris Pine ones, which I kinda like). sadly, it managed to get renewed? Ima just gonna weep in that corner over there.
Saw E10 of Krypton today, and, yeah, WOW!
Don't.
Just don't.
Discovery has [i]no redeeming features[/i] as a Star Trek franchise ... mainly because it isn't anything a Roddenberry fan would recognize.
Discovery is just an insult to your intelligence. Full stop. End of conversation. End of line.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well on the opposite end of the sci-fi "goodness" spectrum I just saw (literally news today) that Amazon Video saved [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_%28TV_series%29]The Expanse[/url] from cancellation. Turns out stupid SyFy was busy at work cancelling one of their best shows... yet again. They probably didn't like it because it had too much of that... what do you call it... sci-fi stuff in it. *sigh*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I had no care to watch Discovery, before it came out and just heard what they were doing.
But, I am curious, how you compare Discovery with the new movies.
Discovery definitely has the "look and feel" of the recent "JJTrek" movies, even down to the gratuitous lens flares. But even though the show might heavily remind you of the movies the movies themselves are like Shakespeare compared to general dreck Discovery has become.
It's really hard to summarize exactly what's wrong with Discovery - almost everything really except for perhaps the CGI special effects. The writing is lazy, the characters are mostly cookie-cutter boring that inspire no desire to care for them, and let's not even get into the lack of continuity control.
To be absolutely honest I didn't mind James Frain's portrayal of Sarek but he's basically only a minor character in the show so there's no way he could have saved it by himself. I was really hoping Rainn Wilson's version of Harry Mudd would be fun but he sort of fell flat trying to be all "dark and edgy" instead of "mercurial".
I think I've mentioned on this forum that I've seen pretty much the entire Star Trek film and TV show franchise (the exception being maybe 30 or 40 eps of Voyager I still haven't bothered to watch yet) and out of ALL of that it turns out that Star Trek Discovery was the first Star Trek show that I found [b]viscerally painful[/b] to watch. As I've semi-joked about I seriously can't bring myself to watch the most recent 5 or 6 eps of the show... it's that bad.
The truly sad part is that I've heard they are going to have the Discovery crew meet up with the Enterprise under Capt. Pike in the second season of the show. Gods I can only imagine how they are going to ruin that scenario... :(
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Take everything BAD about JJ Trek, distill it down to a hateful core of awfulness, shun EVERYTHING that made people love Star Trek in the first place (and second, and third, and fourth) ... and then try and make it "edgy" ... and belly flop into the pool while taking a dump on the memories people had of the Star Trek vision of the future.
It's both a cash grab, and a wild flailing attempt by CBS to hold onto the rights to their piece of the franchise.
Discovery has NO redeeming qualities to it. NONE.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Dang... and here I thought I was an expert on "shitting all over something" lol.
But yes to be perfectly clear Discovery was in fact "super-suckie" on many, many levels. Even when they got to use the word "fuck" uncensored (during one of the episodes that ran on the CBS Online streaming service) they didn't use it to make some kind of dramatically appropriate point - they basically just had a couple of the characters say "fuck" and then practically giggle about it like they were a bunch of 8 year-olds who just learned a new curse word. It was simply pathetic all round.
Again I'm just dreading how stupid this crew's encounter with Pike's Enterprise is going to be. I've always sort of had a desire to see more of the early exploits of the Enterprise but in the hands of the people running Discovery it's likely to end up being a sad mess.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Well, when Professor X said fuck in Logan, I felt it to be just like that!
I was never going to pay for ANOTHER streaming service, but it just didn't look good. Like they were, I guess, trying to be edgy.
I say that as someone who wants to hear modern music in ST (seriously, what was up with the love of classical? My guess is...it was free to use :p). Give me Beastie Boys. Give me some pop. Some metal. Enough with everyone loving classical.
One of the things I loved about Paris was his love for roughly modern times stuff :)
Data saying "Oh shit" was for giggles, right? Because it made me laugh and I loved it :)
Seriously don't pay for the CBS streaming service just to watch Discovery. They don't deserve to make money for this drivel. There are easy enough ways to watch the show without paying for it regardless - you can take that from a person who has absolutely no problem paying for content when the content is actually worth paying for.
Weirdly enough I sort of like Discovery's opening title sequence. Go figure. The theme music is basically "adequate". It's more-or-less a remix of several of the previous shows and movies without being particularly remarkable in and of itself. In a nutshell it's Star Trek [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzak]Musak[/url].
But yeah the whole "stupid use of swear words" thing in Discovery was just that, stupid. It seriously reminded me of that classic South Park episode where they were finally able to say the word "shit" on air and they just started saying it just to say it. Except in Discovery's case it was the word "fuck" and after saying it twice the characters seriously reacted as if they were silly kids "getting away with cursing". It wasn't even handled in a cutely endearing way - it was sloppy and hamfisted.
Maybe one way to sum up the writing of Discovery is that it's like what a 10 year old's fan-fic version of Star Trek would be like if that 10 year old had only seen roughly half of one of the new movies. The show sort of reminds the viewer of the new movies but since the kid has absolutely no sense of professional story telling or knowledge of the rich canon of Star Trek lore it all just comes off like a crappy generic space-based show that has nothing of the substance or quality of any Star Trek before it. Discovery makes things like Voyager, Enterprise or even Star Trek V look masterful by comparison which is an impressive feat of "suckitude" by anyone's measure.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Don't get started.
I want those hours of my life back that were wasted on Discovery.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]