Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Jun 26, 2019 21:02:29 GMT -5
Power Rangers: HyperforcePart 2 We Need Megazord Power! - As the Rangers rush to fix their ship, they find themselves contending with distractions by this period's big bad Lord Zedd, who sends Putties and a samurai monster to destroy them. The Rangers soon find themselves outgunned and must rely on a new group of Zords from the future to help win the battle. Vesper's Betrayal - The Hyperforce Rangers find themselves trapped in a parallel dimension where the Venjix computer virus has shut down Alpha and the ship, as well as corrupted most of the technology on this world. The Rangers then join a caravan trekking to the city of Corinth, and they decide to help the people in hopes of finding a way to get back into the time stream. But when enemy machines attack and kidnap most of the group, the Rangers help rescue them. But one Ranger's secret could prove fatal in this dimension. It's Boom Time - Marv, Eddie, Jack, and Chloe are taken prisoner by the machines, while the newly discovered android Vesper has her system corrupted and joins the machines as a general. The remaining Rangers are enslaved and imprisoned with Gem, the Gold RPM Ranger (Mike Ginn, reprising his role), who concocts a scheme to break out of prison and help the Rangers return their teammate back to normal. Okay, fine, I lied. I said I was going to take a break, but I found myself watching more. So sue me. I was actually watching episode five while I did the last Hyperforce write-up, and this coincided with my days off. Personal plans fell through and I decided to work on stuff at home, and I wound up watching the next two episodes while that was happening. The deeper Hyperforce goes and the more in sync with the game the players become, the more enjoyable it is. I'd say for the most part this group of episodes is more fun than the first group I watched, but the RPG story started spicing itself up too, so that might have had something to do with it. Overall I was more eager for this group to jump through the hurdles of the storyline now that certain aspects, such as powers and zords, have all been established and now they're venturing deeper into the scenarios the Game Master has concocted for them. Probably the last hour of episode six is probably the highlight of the entire series so far, because the Vesper plot twist sweeps in and takes all the players by surprise. Cristina "Vesper" Vee in villain mode is pretty delicious, as she embraces it and is brutal with her attacks on her teammates, as she drains all of their power attacks and uses them against them all in pretty much a single turn (she brings Andre AKA Eddie the Blue Ranger, down to 4 HP by the time she is done with him). The reactions by the other players on this turn of events really makes this episode, because you can tell they had no idea this was going to happen, and they rush to figure out what they could do next. Meghan AKA Chloe the Pink Ranger is the MVP of reactionary moments, and I always found my eyes drawn to her because she was the most animated. The highlight: When Andre/Eddie presents a gift that Cristina/Vesper gave to him a few episodes back to remind her of their friendship, and on Cristina's turn she rolls to destroy it, which prompts Meghan to give the biggest gasp I've heard her give yet, that pretty much screams "DON'T YOU DARE, YOU HEARTLESS BITCH!" The fact that the players are into this game to that much at this point adds a lot to it. The seventh episode doesn't quite live up as a follow-up to that sequence, which plays fairly straightforward by comparison, making me wonder if that was the height of the panicky gameplay I'll see in this series of games. RPM is one of the Ranger seasons I haven't seen, so I don't have much context for the setting, and Mike Ginn is a fun guest, but I have no real attachment to his Ranger character. The highlight of this episode is a point where (I think they confirmed someone hacked in and did this deliberately) a system error gave Mike over 12 million energy points, which he tries to spend before they can fix the error, as our gracious Game Master allows it. He and Meghan have a lot of fun rescuing their morphers with it. There is also a fun distraction roll early on where Marv vomits on Vesper, and the interplay between Peter and Cristina is fabulous. Okay, fine. I'm a little addicted to this dumb thing. I have to see what wacky things happen next. On to the next episode.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Jun 27, 2019 16:15:43 GMT -5
As someone who's never really been a big Power Rangers viewer it's always seemed like something to get, as you put it, addicted to. The pattern is a really great "canvas" for putting ongoing plot threads onto.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Jun 27, 2019 19:20:50 GMT -5
I think a lot of things need to fall into place in your personal taste to be "into" Power Rangers. Being a Toku fan of things like Ultraman or Godzilla is a starting point, then you have to be bitten by the superhero bug, then respond to that weird mixture of fantasy and sci-fi elements, and be resistent or at the very least be charmed by its cheesiness. I also believe that the show's innocence and simplistic world outlook is part of its appeal to its fans (which may or may not be the reason the brooding reboot movie didn't succeed, though I contend that its actually a pretty good movie).
I think Power Rangers was such a phenomenon when it fist started because it was so different than things that were on kids blocks at the time, and that its popularity dropped off so steeply so soon because it's cracks began to become more noticeable with the repeated footage, and it only started to alienate kids more in the second season with dreadful footage splicing and the new American Ranger footage was obviously garbage compared to the Japanese import stuff. But those fans who have that oddly specific taste stuck with it even into adulthood.
I could probably write a book on this.
As to plot threads, that has never really been Power Rangers' strong suit, because its stories have to be built arround existing action footage and most of the time the American filmmakers dump the Japanese storline and come up with their own. I hear Time Force is pretty close to Timeranger, but I haven't seen Timeranger so I can't comment.
Power Rangers probably could have such a rich mythos if they had the resources to do what they do in Japan and create their own show instead of adapting a separate one. I think that's why the recent comics and Hyperforce became so popular with Ranger fans, because they could tell stories without letting their centerpiece be something someone else did.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Jun 29, 2019 21:40:21 GMT -5
Power Rangers: HyperforcePart 3 Holiday Special Featuring Santa! - Marv, Eddie, Vesper, and Chloe are flung through time to the North Pole in 1985, where they have to help Santa contend with the Krampus for the fate of Christmas. Dr. Tommy Oliver Returns! - The Hyperforce Rangers travel to the year 2005 where they team up with legendary Power Ranger Tommy Oliver, currently the Black Dino Thunder Ranger (Jason David Frank, reprising his role), in hopes to prevent the Alliance from recruiting the help of supervillain Mesagog. But the Alliance has unleashed a monster that releases a pollen that causes people to become angry. Family - The Rangers capture Scorpina in 2005 and take her aboard their ship, where she escapes custody. The Rangers search every nook and cranny for the supervillain, but they each soon become haunted by important figures from both their past and their present. During these three episodes I found myself flashing back to high school drama class, specifically the best and worst of amateurish performances I had seen back in the day. The holiday episode is very top heavy dramatics, as it tries to re-enforce character relationships and have the players improvise dramatic scenes together. While I like both, poor Peter and Andre are both really, really bad at this. They're very clumsy, rush it a bit, and they look uncomfortable doing it. Cristina and Meghan, on the other hand, are very good, as they look a little invested in what they have to say and then they bounce off of each other's dialogue in fun ways.. I find myself convinced that Cristina has done some improv training, or is at the very least is familiar with the rules of improv. There is a point just before Meghan cuts her off and transitions into the main dramatic point of the scene that I'm sure they've been asked to perform where Cristina plants a topic seed, as she ponders whether she is immortal since she's an android, which I'm sure she was hoping would bloom into a humorous conversation. Meghan may also be familiar with the rules of improv, or it's just her personality, because she knows how to take an idea that Cristina presents and run with it, while Cristina helps her snowball it until it becomes both absurd and hilarious. Meghan can run with her own ideas too, but on this show her ideas usually involve burritos, unicorns, and rainbows, while Cristina seems to have a wider selection of topics to offer her, ensuring that Meghan's hyper energy is utilized to its maximum potential. Watching these two interact with each other is one of the biggest joys of watching this show. I'd also say that if Cristina and Meghan had some sort of podcast where they just spitball about whatever, I'd listen to every single episode. While I'm on the topic of Meghan, one thing I did not expect from her was that dramatic tragic past monologue in episode ten. Goddamn. Floating back to high school drama again, I can tell you I've seen my fair share of really garbage monologues in my day, so I can safely say that Meghan kills it. If she is just a YouTuber like my limited research suggests, she needs to be on a stage, because she has some talent. And it may be a low bar to stumble over, but that's probably the best acted scene in the history of Power Rangers, and I don't care that it came from a non-actor playing a tabletop RPG. Jesus Christ, I feel dirty talking about acting when I talk about this thing. But there you go. Anyway, this batch of episodes are a bit uneven. The holiday special just kind of lumbers most of the time, as for an hour it's an improv drama, as I mentioned before, and a fairly dull one when Cristina and Meghan aren't working their magic. Paul isn't present, which the YouTube comment section is due to surgery the day before filming. The Santa storyline has some fun elements, and game master Malika is pretty good at playing an elf. Santa sits in Paul's seat to help fight off the Krampus, which also has its moments, but the whole episode just feels flimsy and long. Probably the one Power Ranger fans were looking forward to was the addition of Jason David Frank to the game in episode nine, though if I'm being honest, he just drains joy from the room. He looks like he has no idea what he's doing there or what they want him to do, glancing around and thinking to himself "I'm stuck in a room rolling dice with a bunch of f***ing nerds." To be fair, episodes with a guest star have usually been the ones that I've responded to the least, but Jason is the weakest by far. Karen Ashley and Mike Ginn at least looked excited to be there, and Erin Cahill at least faked enthusiasm for something I have doubts she was interested in. Jason David Frank just looks like he wants to shoot himself. To the credit of the players, they seem to read the room and try to make his experience there as wacky as possible, as everyone dials their character quirks up to eleven (especially Cristina), and to Jason's credit he does seem to loosen up as they get more aloof, but when they just try to move the story along, he just drops like a stone. He tries to do his expository dialogue, but doesn't seem to understand nor care what any of it means. I also have a feeling that he doesn't remember a lot of the crap he did on Power Rangers, especially not Dino Thunder (hell, I even forget Dino Thunder most of the time). He also calls himself "doctor" a lot, even when asked what he does. I'm curious if he remembers what kind of doctor he is. Granted, it's been a while since I've watched an episode of Dino Thunder, but I'm pretty sure Tommy specialized in Paleontology. I'm not sure if I've ever met a Paleontologist who answers the question of "What do you do?" with "I'm a doctor." The tenth episode starts out with a really strong first half, as the camaraderie of the players is on fire during this one, as their riffs average pretty solid and they're constantly cracking each other up. Highlighting this is a moment where Cristina's Vesper character approaches Alpha 55 over his constant use of "aye-yi-yi!" and asks "Are you a Spanish..." then trails off, which is clearly a humorous tangent that she accidentally derailed because she didn't figure out the proper wording before she tried to execute it, but both the intent and the botching of it brings down the house, especially Paul, who is laughing so hard he's in tears. Cristina provides a minor save at the end, when the character of Marv disappears, and as everyone asks Alpha "Where's Marv?" she has Vesper ask "¿Dónde está Marvin?" Malika Lim is a trooper, because she plays along and responds to that question in Spanish. I also like the semi-haunted house storyline in this episode too. It's really solid stuff until about two thirds of the way in. Unfortunately the final fight with Primatar is drawn out and weakens the entire experience. It becomes clear early on that this is a fight that the game master won't let them win, and they just chip away for way too long before Malika decides it's time to pack it in and set up a cliffhanger that comes out of left field. This episode was pretty close to being an episode I'd recommend to other people and say "No, watch this, it's really fun" but then it becomes a drag. And as it ended with a thud, I feel almost as drained as I did when I finished the Jason David Frank episode. But if I have to keep going for one thing, it's to see more Cristina and Meghan interaction. I just gotta have it.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Jul 2, 2019 0:21:54 GMT -5
Power Rangers: HyperforcePart 4 A Ranger in King Arthur's Court - After Marv is kidnapped by the Alliance, Eddie, Vesper, Chloe, Jack, and Alpha find themselves trapped in the sixth century where they serve Lady Guinevere (guest player Allie Gonino) in a quest to save King Arthur from a dragon, as the Knights of the Round Table reveal themselves to be ancient Power Rangers. Save Marv - Marv discovers that his brother Joe is a Silver Time Force Ranger (guest player, and real life brother of Peter, Yoshi Sudarso, formerly the Dino Charge Blue Ranger), who infiltrates the Alliance ship to help free him. Meanwhile, the remaining Rangers race to rescue Marv and battle Primator once more. What Happened to Rita Repulsa? - While Vesper is "napping," Marv, Eddie, Chloe, and Jack respond to an anomaly in 2005, which turns out to be a portal sent by a powerful sorceress Mystic Mother, who evolved from the legendary villain Rita Repulsa. A while back I pondered the "origins" of this project and how it came to be. Recently this YouTube video popped up on my YouTube feed, and I found myself wondering why I should care about this woman's vlog account. But I noticed it featured some sort of interview with Peter Sudarso about Hyperforce, which means it probably appeared because I was watching Hyperforce on YouTube, so I checked it out because outside of Andre I hadn't heard anybody speak out about the project. This lady appears to be Peter's girlfriend or wife, and they casually talk about it while cuddling on the couch. It turns out Peter is an RPG gamer and helped develop the idea, including drawing out the Ranger designs. He also got Andre, Cristina, and Meghan involved, who are friends of his, while Paul was Saban's pull, because he's an RPG gamer himself. It takes some wading through about five minutes of talking about new accessories and shopping, but some of it is worth a listen. But sorry Peter, I don't think I'll be subscribing to your girlfriend's content. She seems nice though. Anyway, the commonality between these episodes are a few disappearing players. Peter is gone from episode eleven, due to story reasons, while Cristina disappears entirely from episode thirteen, and there wasn't a reason given in the comment section that I'm aware of. Considering how awkwardly she's dumped from the story, I would assume this wasn't supposed to be the case. It's a bit of a bummer, because that's the most "action lite" of the series so far (the only real Ranger scene is a flaming building which was shoehorned in) and it goes in a very character driven direction. Cristina usually helps drive the small character moments into something stronger than they should be, and her Vesper character is the most interesting of the group by a good margin. If they were going to do an episode like this, I would have preferred her to be present, though the episode itself comes off pretty well. The remaining players do step up in her absence and I enjoyed it more than I initially thought I would have. I especially liked that it shined more of a spotlight on Paul's Jack character, as Paul hasn't really done anything of importance on this show yet, though his charm has come through at several points. The King Arthur episode is kind of one of those things that make you go "Really?" when you read the title, but in execution I think I understood why it was made. Of all the episodes this one felt the most traditional fantasy RPG/Dungeons & Dragons, and it allows a break from the Ranger silliness for something that the people working on it feel more at home with. Guest roller Allie Gonino is a pretty fun addition, as she's certainly a more game step up from our normal guest stars (especially the last one they had). It even becomes evident that she knows next to nothing about RPGs because Cristina and Meghan are constantly whispering the rules to her, but she maintains character throughout and looks like she's having fun. And Paul's riff of "It's the Mystic Knights!" at the beginning was a deep cut that made me laugh harder than I should have. The Save Marv episode is the weakest, but still enjoyable. The Rangers' battle with Primator is less monotonous than it was a few episodes ago, while the Yoshi Sudarso reveal as Peter's brother in the RPG is a pretty epic moment, as he sneaks in and everyone cheers. I'm actually more familiar with Dino Charge than I am with most of the recent Ranger seasons because a few years ago I lived with a four year old girl who loved the show and watched every episode on Netflix repeatedly, so I recognized "that cave man guy" pretty fast. I had no clue his brother became a Power Ranger in the following Ninja Steel season. That's pretty cool. I really should step away from this show. But I'm probably not going to. I'm at the halfway point, why stop now?
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Jul 4, 2019 16:47:10 GMT -5
Agents of SHIELD
Season 6 - Part 1
Missing Pieces - One year after the death of Coulson, SHIELD is now under the leadership of Mack while Simmons and Daisy lead a team to look for the double of Fitz, who is in hibernation in space. Meanwhile on Earth, SHIELD has to contend with humans from a parallel world, and one of them looks just like Coulson.
Window of Opportunity - Coulson's double, Sarge, seeks to rob a jewelry store for crystals, which leads to a confrontation with SHIELD, led by May and Yo-Yo. Meanwhile, Fitz has been awakened from hibernation and he and Enoch are enslaved on cargo ship.
Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson - Fitz and Enoch arrive on planet Kitson, where their ship is stolen. Left with barely any money, the duo hit the casinos in an attempt to win the money they need. Simmons and Daisy's team track them to Kitson, where they get into their own scrapes.
Code Yellow - Sarge's group tries to kill Shaw, who has started a tech company in the past year. Mack leads SHIELD on an extraction mission to save Shaw, but go on the offensive once they learn Sarge is present.
Holy crap! I watched something that wasn't a streamed tabletop RPG based on a children's show? THIS IS AN ACTUAL TV SHOW! LORD HAVE MERCY!
I decided to catch up on some Marvel TV since Spider-Man came out this week. I'm not up to date with Jessica Jones and Punisher, but I don't have Netflix anymore so they'll have to wait (will likely renew next month for Disenchantment), while Runaways is more of a mood show and I'm waiting for it to just hit that right spot for me. Cloak & Dagger I'm in no hurry to watch any more of. So that leaves little Agents of SHIELD, that show that nobody watches but ABC renews anyway because Disney tells them to. I've liked most of this show though (some seasons are admittedly better than others), so I'm always anxious to see what the agents are up to. Plus I can't wait to see how they address the events of Infinity War and Endgame!
Oh...they don't...well okay then.
SHIELD sometimes had a habit of utilizing the MCU's timeline as an advantage, though now it's kind of a mess. The end of the previous season even acknowledged Thanos was on the move, though this season is supposedly a year later and technically half of all life should have been decimated by now (or "blipped," according to Spider-Man: Far from Home). SHIELD's reaction to these events would have been a wonderful storyline, though if they wanted to work around it and start a story five years later, I wouldn't have blamed them. But SHIELD chose it's own path, and it ultimately feels like the series that was born out of the movies is being disowned.*
*This isn't to say the events won't be addressed later in the show, but still...one year has passed? Ugh.
But if SHIELD can maintain a level of entertainment to it, I'll keep watching. Seasons three and four were some damn fine TV, and I'm fairly fond of that maligned first season as well. If I'm a little tempered with the show it's because I ran very hot and cold with the fifth season, which had high points, but I found mostly lackluster. I'm not sure if it was worse than the mostly boring second season, but I'd have to watch both again to come to that conclusion.
As I settled into the fact that SHIELD is paving its own path, I started enjoying SHIELD's groove again. So far this season is an improvement on the previous, with the teamwork quirks and action that I quite love shining. I'm enjoying the Sarge storyline and am intrigued about where it goes. The Fitz storyline I'm a little more cautious on, because the outer space scenario in the previous season ran very thin for me and I'm not really up for a continuation of it. That being said, the casino scenes in the third episode are a lot of fun. And wasted Simmons and Daisy are just too fun.
So yeah, I'm still on board the SHIELD train. Just keep it fun and I'll keep coming back.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Jul 7, 2019 11:45:11 GMT -5
Power Rangers: HyperforcePart 5 SPD Emergency - The Rangers travel to 2025 Newtech City to search for Joe, which has them working around the SPD jurisdiction as they try to maintain a cover story. Absorbtion - Joe is revealed to be undercover and working for a mutated mob boss Napoleon Wrench and the Hyperforce Rangers attempt to rescue him. After the chaos that erupts, the Hyperforce Rangers are then taken back to SPD headquarters, where they are interrogated, while Joe is stuck in danger as his cover is blown. Homecoming - The Hyperforce Rangers track the Alliance ship to 2027, where the Leader frees the evil A-Squad SPD Rangers, who the Hyperforce Rangers must battle and return to prison. Meanwhile, Joe's tracker has been detected on the Alliance ship and destroyed, and with no clue where the Alliance is heading, the Hyperforce Rangers return to 3017 and look for a direction, where they are welcomed with a Time Force graduation ceremony for their actions, making them official Time Force officers. Later, Vesper and Jack question her family about her origins, Marv and Joe have a brotherly talk, Eddie visits an "old friend," and Chloe struts around campus in her new Battlizer armor. The length of some of these is wearing me down, which is why I broke it up with a few episodes of Agents of SHIELD (as well as future blog posts for The Last Drive-In, which I am also working on). This show is an interesting novelty for me, but that novelty can wear out at times. A lot of that might have to do with the extensive battle rolls and chaotic stories in the SPD episodes, which were spinning my head (and hearing the Malika Lim try to be intimidating as a frog mutant was kind of a "yeesh, I should be doing something else" moment). I had more fun during the interrogation scenes in these episodes, in which our players were aloud to riff about as amusingly as possible. Andre has a great "Anthony Anderson in the first Transformers movie" moment where he spills the entire truth in one breath. He gets applause from everyone in the room. Meghan has some great workarounds during her scenes, while Cristina takes some pot shots at the fact that the interrogator, Anubis Cruger, is a giant blue dog. When the rollers cut loose, watching these stories becomes a lot of fun. The third episode of this group is mostly made up of character sequences like that, since it's primarily a character development episode that springboards a storyline involving Vesper's past for future episodes to explore. The players are into their characters enough at this point that they make it work, and I enjoyed it. Also, the one battle portion with the A-Squad is pretty solid. Maybe the SPD setting was just a hurdle, because there are moments that just trudge along in these episodes. That surprises me a bit, because I'm mostly okay with SPD as a Ranger show so I was looking forward to these episodes. Or maybe I'm just feeling that middle of a season bingewatch fatigue.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Aug 2, 2019 20:29:42 GMT -5
Agents of SHIELD
Season 6 - Part 2
The Other Thing - Sarge and his crew have kidnapped May, and he tries to persuade her with their side of the story, revealing themselves to be a group that travels through dimensions to stop a parasitic species called "the Shrike." May struggles with her personal vendetta against Sarge when faced with the opportunity to help them. Meanwhile, Fitz, Simmons, and Enoch are taken captive by Enoch's people, who wish to use Fitz and Simmons' knowledge of time travel as a means to save their homeworld.
Inescapable - Fitz and Simmons are finally reunited, but Atarah has trapped them in a mental simulation to get them to cooperate and "share minds." This proves to be easier said than done, as Fitz learns the truth about what happened to the version of him that SHIELD brought back from the future, and the duo combat their dark personas.
Toldja - May brings Sarge back to SHIELD for interrogation, where he proves somewhat uncooperative. But when SHIELD starts dealing with the Shrike up close, Mack begins to consider working with Sarge. Meanwhile, Fitz, Simmons, and Enoch teleport back to Kitson, where they are still wanted. Saved by the mercenary Izel, they are offered a ride back to Earth in exchange for their help.
A really good batch of SHIELD episodes, with Inescapable highlighting. I love it when a Whedon series starts playing with the format and doing mindgames with our tried and true characters, and Fitz and Simmons pretty much having an argument than manifests physically is very entertaining stuff.
I also liked The Other Thing, because I love me some May. The flashbacks to Tahiti in Coulson's final days were wonderful, and finding out Sarge's agenda was a treat. Toldja, by comparison, is a bit of a filler episode. It pretty much is just another episode where SHIELD doesn't trust Sarge and finds themselves needing to believe him, while returning to Kitson doesn't offer much new either. But I love seeing these characters interact, so Toldja does offer a little bit of pleasure.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 7, 2019 23:57:37 GMT -5
Mission: Impossible
Season 1 - Part 1
Pilot - United States espionage service Impossible Mission Force tasks a team led by Dan Briggs to infiltrate a Caribbean island under the rule of vicious dictator General Rio Dominguez to steal a pair of nuclear warheads. Master of disguise Rollin Hand impersonates the general, as the team interrogates him for the safe combination for the warheads.
Memory - Briggs enlists Joseph Beresh into his team, an actor with a photographic memory. They train him for a mission as an American agent named "Sparrow," have him captured by the Soviets, and tortured for information which will implicate a top Soviet official of treason. Meanwhile Briggs' team plots an escape plan for Baresh to ensure his safe return.
Operation Rogosh - A foreign agent named Rogosh who is plotting mass murder through biological warfare in Los Angeles is captured. Briggs and his team develop an elaborate plan to fool him into believing he has amnesia and it's actually three years later, as he's soon to be executed in his home country for being an American spy. They hope in his confusion he'll reveal the location of his weapons.
Old Man Out Part 1 - Briggs recruits his trapeze artist ex-girlfriend into his IMF team so they can pose as circus performers in an attempt to break a cardinal out of prison before his execution. Rollin is taken prisoner to locate him and break him out from the inside while the rest of the team use their cover to help execute the plan outside of the walls.
I've been more than a little disillusioned with TV shows lately. People obsess over the hot new show, and I just can't find it in my heart to care. I don't think I was built for the modern day "the entire series is one story" model, which can be fine, but an episode's individuality is what makes TV shows special. When I watch a Netflix show, episodes don't really have an identity. They blend together and don't feel like each has a beginning or an end. What's my favorite episode of Daredevil? I have no idea. I couldn't tell you which episode was which. If each episode isn't going to have individuality, then you might as well have made a movie, goddammit. There'd be less filler in your narrative, I'll tell you that much.
The modern binge model makes less sense to me the more I think about it. Binge watching TV shows was fun to me because each episode was different. You'd finish one little adventure, one little play, and then you'd be excited to see what the next one is. I could watch episodes of I Love Lucy or The Simpsons one minute and go straight to the next, with anticipation of the big laughs that await me. I'd go from one episode of Star Trek or The Fugitive from episode to episode, looking forward to the next crazy escapade. If the entire season is one story...where's the fun?
So I've been avoiding TV lately. I need to get back to SHIELD and Hyperforce, though stress has made it hard to concentrate (especially on the latter, when each episode is two and a half hours long). I've been hungry for a TV show to strike me with an urge. I've been wanting to deep dive into Mission: Impossible for a long time. I've seen individual episodes and always wanted to watch the series from top to bottom, so here I am!
Let's set the mood:
We start with the pre-MST favorite Peter Graves first season of the series, in which the leader of the team is Dan Briggs instead of Jim Phelps, played by Stephen Hill, who I guess was hard to work with and written out of the show without so much as a goodbye episode. Series mainstays Greg Morris and Peter Lupus are here, as well as fan favorites Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, so we can't say we don't have some beloved Mission cast.
The first three episodes are a joy, with compelling capers from top to bottom. I personally love Operation Rogosh, which is an interestingly convoluted plan of tricking some dude into thinking it's the future so he'll spill the beans on the present. Anybody who has seen Mission: Impossible - Fallout should be able to appreciate this episode, since this is the same basic premise twist they use in the opening twenty minutes of that movie.
By the time I get to Old Man Out, it's a little bit of a brick wall. I think the scenes with Landau are great in this episode, but this episode is so tediously padded because you can tell they had an episode that ran past an hour and they couldn't cut it down, so they decided to add stuff in and make it a two parter. There are so many scenes with a trapeze artist twirling on rope to repetitious organ music that the episode becomes grating after a while. And this is only part one! Yikes.
I just need to jump over part two and then hopefully it's uphill from there.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Sept 10, 2019 23:53:36 GMT -5
Mission: Impossible
Season 1 - Part 2
Old Man Out Part 2 - Briggs and Rollin are forced to improvise a new plan when the cardinal's execution is pushed up and he is moved to another cell. The IMF team must race against the clock as their circus begins to look more suspicious to the locals.
Odds on Evil - Briggs' team is tasked with preventing Prince Ivan Kostas the acquisition of weapons for an invasion. They concoct a casino caper to deprive Prince Kostas of his funds by rigging a roulette table and climaxing with Rollin challenging him to a game of Baccarat.
Wheels - A South American country election has been rigged to keep a hostile Nationalist dictator in power, and Briggs' team is sent there to tamper with the already tampered results into a more favorable direction.
The Ransom - A criminal has kidnapped the daughter of Dan Briggs' personal friend demanding an exchange between her and an informant in custody. Briggs assembles his IMF team to assure that no harm comes to the child and hopefully pull a fast one in the exchange.
Getting past Old Man Out makes a world of difference, because the second part is more of the same, a lot of organ music and padding. However, the padding in this particular episode includes a cat fight between Barbara Bain and special guest actress Mary Ann Mobley. There are worse ways to pad your episode out. Also padding the episode out is a big stunt sequence in which Rollin makes his escape by climbing down the side of a building, though you can clearly tell the stunt man is not Martin Landau in this sequence. Tom Cruise has spoiled me with his death wish insanity.
Odds on Evil jazzed me up after making it through that two part bore. It's Casino Royale, M:I style! While the casino games themselves lack tension because our IMF team are a group of big stinky cheaters, the structure of their caper is exciting to me. Unlike Bond, who is funded by his agency in his own little casino story, the team starts out with little money, so they build it up by fixing the roulette wheels with a little magnet gizmo, while trying to dodge casino suspicions. After making the money they need, their gambling ringer heads to the Baccarat table with Rollin and the mark, where he cleverly passes off all the winnings to Rollin in a losing streak. This sets up Rollin to challenge the Prince head to head in a few high stakes hands. I LOVE IT!
The last two of this batch aren't nearly as endearing to me as Odds on Evil, though their fairly solid on their own. Wheels has some problems, since at its core it's the story of a repressed nation that needs America to free it through democracy...by altering that country's own democracy to our benefit ('MERICA! flapjacks YEAH!). But there are some personal stories in the episode that I enjoy. Speaking of personal, The Ransom is the most personal episode so far, as it effects Briggs' own family and friends. The episode has some fun turns and is pretty successful. It's just not Odds on Evil fun.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Nov 10, 2019 20:32:37 GMT -5
Charlies Angels
Pilot Movie and Season 1 - Part 1
Charlie’s Angels - When a wealthy vineyard owner goes missing and is presumed dead, an investigative team headed by a mysterious man named Charlie sends his three lady PI’s on the case: Sabrina, Jill, and Kelly, as well as Charlie’s assistant Bosley. Kelly poses as the long lost heir to the fortune, and together the Angels devise a plan to trick the suspects into unearthing the body and exposing them as murderers.
Hellride - After a female stock car racer dies in a fiery wreck, foul play is suspected. Sabrina poses as a new driver on the track while Jill, Kelly, and Bosley do some snooping to find out what happened.
The Mexican Connection - When an airplane is hijacked and crashed, Charlie suspects a link to heroine smugglers in Mexico. The Angels infiltrate the suspect’s operation, with Jill getting close by posing as the suspect’s daughter’s swimming instructor, and search for a link between him and the drugs and, hopefully, find a way to get him to cross the border so they can arrest him.
Night of the Strangler - A fashion model is murdered by strangulation, but all the key suspects have alibis for the time of the murder. The victim bears a striking resemblance to Kelly, so Charlie and Bosley have Kelly and Jill pose as new models for the agency, hoping the similarity between Kelly and the victim may cause the killer to slip up.
Full disclosure, I have never seen the Charlie’s Angels TV show before. I had seen the original McG movie and I remember hating it. Since the new Charlie’s Angels movie was coming out, I watched that movie again and discovered that I was right for hating it. Whew boy, is that movie a stinker. Because I hate myself, I watched the sequel immediately afterward out of morbid curiosity, which I had never seen. I heard it was worse, but honestly…I can’t tell how. They’re both the same.
But I had never seen the show. I think my dislike of the movies threw me off, so it took me ages to actually give it a chance. I saw that the show was for free on the IMDB app, so I started working through episodes during my lunch break at work (after Mill Creek’s Spree service crapped out on me after two episodes of Ultra Q). I had far less strong impressions of the series than I did of the movies. It’s a fairly basic crime drama of the period (compared to McG’s films, which seem to be a poorly thought out parody fused within a flashy action movie). Maybe not too well written, but a lot of them were goofy like this, so I can’t dock too many points for that.
Charlie’s Angels is an interesting franchise in its aim. The series centers on three very beautiful women who count on being underestimated by men, but then it contradicts itself by turning men into the target audience. The men watching the show don’t care that the men are constantly made fools of or one-upped by the women who are one step ahead, they tune in because the ladies aren’t half bad to look at. So it’s a show that’s squarely in male gaze territory, but its about characters who use male gaze to their advantage. That’s some fourth wall crap right there.
But being male, if I were to comment on the male gaze aspects, I had always known Farrah Fawcett was pretty much THE sex symbol of the show, but I profess that my personal taste leans more toward her co-stars Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, but I’ve always had a thing for brunettes. Sexualization of the Angels themselves is actually surprisingly rare. They’ll put on a lovely outfit or a bikini, but the series does seem intent on letting them be more than “dem bewbs” and “dat ass” and the leads handle their roles with a lot of grace. The more objectified women are usually extras, often at the expense of innuendos by Charlie. I’m almost impressed with the show’s restraint in regards to its reputation, but it still does dig itself into a hole at times, because it’s clearly a show about “capable women” written by men, so it has to be a man’s idea of capable women, i.e. they look nice and kick a lot of ass.
As for the stories themselves, they don’t really stand out in the vastness of 70’s crime TV. Like a lot of shows at the time, you’re watching because of the talent onscreen or the characters you like, not because the show is doing anything particularly original. There are plenty of shows from the period that had episodes exactly like the ones that I watched. Maybe even better. Something I felt while watching these first four episodes was that I think this show would have benefited from a mystery format. Usually as soon as the Angels take a case we’re treated to a scene where the villains explain their dastardly deed immediately afterward, which reduces the tension of the episode to simply whether or not the Angels will get caught snooping around. The one exception to this is the fourth episode, Night of the Strangler. This was probably the best episode of this batch because the audience doesn’t learn who the killer is until the Angels do, with a few good red herrings and groovy twists along the way. It has it’s downsides, particularly a scene where Sabrina is nearly raped which she laughs about moments later (she then claims the only person who is allowed to rape her is Robert Redford, which is a total YIKES line), but the intent of the route this episode is going down is the right direction, I feel.
I kinda like it. I’ll probably watch some more. That is unless the new movie kills what interest I have in the franchise, but let’s live in the moment and see what trouble the Angels stir.
Also, the pilot has Tommy Lee Jones in it. If I had known that I would have watched this show ages ago.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Nov 13, 2019 11:27:04 GMT -5
Star Trek: Discovery
Season 2 - Part 1
Brother - After the USS Enterprise is damaged on a mission, Captain Christopher Pike takes command of the Discovery to complete Enterprise's investigation of seven red signals that had led to the crippling of the ship. While investigating the last one, the Discovery crew find the downed vessel USS Hiawatha, to which Pike and Commander Bernham lead a team to rescue possible survivors.
New Eden - Investigating another signal, the Discovery uncovers a human colony of religious human settlers on an unknown planet. The planet is in great danger when an anomaly puts the planet directly in the course of a radiation shower.
Point of Light - Ash Tyler now assists L'Rell in keeping the peace on the Klingon home world of Qo'noS, but find their tempering of the Klingon race in jeopardy when other leaders threaten insurrection. Meanwhile, Ensign Tilly is seeing visions of a childhood friend that she knows to be dead, who is leading a "mission" and has "plans" for Tilly. Also, Bernham and her adopted mother Amanda Grayson search for Bernham's foster brother and Amanda's son Spock, who has escaped a psychiatric unit treating him for recurring nightmares, and is wanted for the murder of three doctors.
An Obel for Charon - A mysterious alien sphere tangles the Discovery in its pull and weird things begin happening upon the ship. Commander Saru finds that the sphere has triggered his death cycle, the Vahar'ai, and struggles to help the crew with the potential threat before he dies. Meanwhile, engineers Paul Stamets and Jet Reno study the fungal symbiote that is still trying to bond with Tilly.
Myself and several of my friends are pretty big Star Trek fans, and we watched the entirety of the first season of Discovery as it aired on CBS All Access. However, when the second season premiered and made its run, one of them had just had a baby and we weren't able to hold our weekly "Star Trek viewing," because she was the biggest fan among us and not having her along was unthinkable. So if we weren't watching Discovery, then I dropped the app for a period. I still need to check out the new Twilight Zone, which will inevitably happen at some point.
Rather than catching up on All Access, we decided to wait until the blu-ray release, which came out yesterday. Of course, she told the rest of us to "come over immediately!" and we binged straight through the first four episodes. Be warned, some of these episodes were screened through the lens of screaming children averaging five years old or less. If I missed details, I apologize.
I thought Discovery's first season was one of the more consistently good first seasons a Trek show had ever had. The original series and Deep Space Nine (mostly) probably have a leg up on it, but I enjoyed that first season quite a lot. But it's also been a while, and my memory is a little hazy. While waiting for my friends to put up another free night, I might go through the first season again as a refresher course. I do remember the bitch fests from whiny fans about it being "not Star Trek enough," and don't know if those complaints are still being tossed around, because if I have any issue with this second season it's that it may be too Star Trek. I appreciate the continuation of episodic storylines that snowball into a serial narrative, which I think lets Discovery stand out in Trek lore, though some of the individual storylines are starting to feel a bit familiar. New Eden especially feels like quite a few Trek episodes from series' past, while other episodes seem to borrow a bit from them as well. This always seemed to be the major complaint point of Enterprise, which seemingly got torn apart at every turn way back when. Discovery's identity may be in crisis.
But it's in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position. If it stayed the course of the previous season, it would continue to be "not Star Trek," but if it reverts to what Star Trek was then it's "not different enough." I'm in the camp where I'd rather see it explore some new avenues, whether it's "Star Trek" or not. Give me something interesting. I have the other shows if I want something familiar.
But we'll see where it goes. I still like most of the characters. I like Saru and Bernham, and Tilly is just adorably enthusiastic, while Michelle Yeoh continues to be a scene stealer as Georgiou. Anson Mount is a wonderful addition as Pike, picking up the baton from Jeffery Hunter and Bruce Greenwood. I'm wondering if the captain of the Discovery position is turning into the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in Harry Potter, where it's a different person every season. I anticipate at some point Bernham is going to be promoted to that rank and take command, but until then it's kind of fun. I like Discovery overall, but I just may be anticipating Star Trek: Picard just that much more than further episodes.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Nov 14, 2019 12:41:03 GMT -5
Star Trek: Discovery
Season 2 - Part 2
Saints of Imperfection - The symbiote takes Tilly into the mycelial network, where "May" tells her she needs her help to destroy a "monster." Stamets and Burnham convince Pike to do a half jump with Discovery so they can open a doorway to retrieve her, but once there make a shocking discovery.
The Sound of Thunder - Another red signal appears that leads the Discovery to Keminar, Saru's home world, where he reunites with his sister. While investigating, Keminar's native dominate species, the Ba'ul, learn that Discovery has a Kelpian officer on board that has survived Vahar'ai, and insist Saru is turned over to them for execution. The Discovery then investigates the history of the Ba'ul and the Kelpians and discover their relationship is built upon a lie.
Light and Shadows - Continuing to search for Spock, Bernham visits Vulcan to consult with Sarek and Amanda Grayson, but finds that Amanda has been harboring Spock, who is raving like a madman about a similar series of numbers. Bernham debates Spock's future with Sarek and Amanda. Meanwhile, Pike and Tyler investigate a time anomaly, and are attacked by an evolved version of the probe they sent in.
If Memory Serves - On the run from Section 31, Bernham uses Spock's coordinates to travel to Talos IV, a forbidden planet where Spock and Pike met a beautiful woman named Vina and an advanced race that can create illusions. Vina and the Talosians help Bernham heal Spock's mind in return for her memories of her scarred relationship with her foster brother.
If the first four episodes reminded me of Star Trek in a somewhat bad way, these four reminded me of it in a better way. There are episodes I think echo previous Star Trek adventures while telling their own story, which turn out to be very compelling on their own. The Sound of Thunder is probably a consideration from me for favorite of the series, with a few reservations. This is like one of those episodes Next Generation or Deep Space Nine would do that would take a character we only know verbal stories about and take them home, where they're expanded upon exponentially. It's a great watch, but it slightly goes a tad off the rails in the third act. Since the episode was so keen on hiding the Ba'ul for a long time, I had suspected that the Ba'ul were actually the Kelpians who had already passed Vahar'ai, and they had simply evolved into a more advanced civilization as a way of their culture. I don't want to knock the episode for not following my fan theory (I hate it when people do that), though the climax is almost disappointingly basic by comparison. We finally see a member of the Ba'ul race, and he's some sort of strange tar man who kind of looks like a sludgy version of Sadako from Ringu, and he is certainly not a Kelpian. I'm not entirely sure J-horror vibe they're going for with the Ba'ul works for the legacy they built up for the species, but it's something different, that's for sure. Then Discovery forces evolution upon all Kelpian inhabitants to force the Ba'ul to coexist, which I'm not entirely certain but may violate Starfleet regulations against interfering with civilizations (this storyline brings to mind Dear Doctor from Enterprise a little bit, though not as cerebral). But I don't think this is the only time Star Trek may be guilty of this, so I'll probably let it slide. I'd just have to watch 700 other episodes to make sure.
There is also If Memory Serves, which reminded me of those fourth season episodes of Enterprise that would have tie-ins to future Trek lore, and seeing this episode sequelize The Cage so directly made the nerds of our group squeal with glee. Just seeing "Previously on Star Trek" and seeing clips from the episode was enough to make my nerd senses tingle. It was fun to see original Trek co-exist with modern redesigns of Talosians and recasting of characters like Spock, Pike, and Vina, reminding us all of this fifty year old legacy.
Though speaking of recasting, while I like Anson Mount as Pike, I'm less thrilled Ethan Peck as Spock. His voice is a little too deep and heavy for me to associate him with the character. I actually learned later on that Peck is the grandson of Gregory Peck, which explains his vocal chords. Still, it would have been neat to have seen Zachary Quinto reprise the role, since he always echoed the character better than seen on this show.
Plus his shaggy, Beatles hair and hipster beard look stupid.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Nov 15, 2019 20:02:35 GMT -5
MST3k and Star Trek are on the top of my list as favorite TV shows ever. I've watched every single episode of both series (except the last few of MST3k which I'm going through very slowly on purpose.)
I like Discovery a lot but there were many things about it really bug me. Star Trek to me is a future history. There were a whole bunch of things in Discovery that happened that were never talked about ever again. The Federation and Klingon's fought a major war where Earth was almost destroyed and it was never ever mentioned in The Original Series that was set 10 years later. I don't mind the Spore Drive because it was just on one ship and as far as the rest of the universe knows it was destroyed and half the things it did are put down as rumor.
I actually liked Ethan Peck as Spock a lot. This was Spock 10 years before The Original Series (TOS). Spock is half Vulcan and Half Human. In TOS, Spock talks about not having emotions but as he is played by Lenard Nimoy, he clearly does have emotions but they are suppressed. Discovery takes place before he got the emotional stability to suppress his emotions. His look in Discovery was when he was going through an emotional crisis. The Spock shown towards the end of the season is very much Spock.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Nov 16, 2019 12:54:11 GMT -5
Star Trek: Discovery
Season 2 - Part 3
Project Daedelus - The crew of the Discovery begin to suspect that Spock has been framed by Section 31 and Control, and Pike suspects that Tyler has been leaking Section 31 information on their mission. But the molehunt has him looking in the wrong place, as cybernetic Starfleet officer Airiam has been infected by a virus from the future and has turned on them.
The Red Angel - Tilly discovers that a bio-neural scan of the Red Angel comes up as a match for Michael Burnham, leading the crew to believe that the Red Angel is actually Burnham from the future guiding them. They then devise a plan to use Burnham as bait to capture the Red Angel for questioning.
Perpetual Infinity - The Discovery crew discover that the Red Angel is actually Michael Burnham's birth mother, Dr. Gabrielle Burnham. Now captured, Gabrielle warns Discovery about the sphere's data they had downloaded, and how if it falls into the hands of Control, it will lead to the destruction of all life in the universe.
One thing I do enjoy about Star Trek episodes is when they seemingly focus on a random background character, in in Discovery's case they decide to focus on one of the more eye-catching crew members on the bridge, a lady character who looks like she's mostly machine. I always found he a weird inclusion, since if I'm remembering correctly that Data was the first artificial intelligence inducted into Starfleet (could be wrong). Turns out Airiam was actually once human, then at some point she was turned into a cyborg. I would have liked to learn more about her character, but alas, it doesn't look like she will be in the series going forward. I imagine that make-up was probably brutal though.
As for the Red Angel focused episodes, revelations were interesting and plot elements get pushed forward. I'm intrigued where the story is going to go, though overall I might like this season less than the first season so far, though there have been a couple standout episodes. We probably won't get to watch the final three until next week sometime, but maybe I'll go back and watch the first season in the meantime.
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