From the Audience

Don't judge me, I've got a Halloween event to plan, so no Philosophy of Entertainment today.

Interesting. It felt like you were mostly nitpicking, but the only thing I really disagree with is the rewatch value. I love Dr Horrible and rewatch it more or less fortnightly.

Also yes a thousand times about the ending.

--Darth IB 

Well, I was nitpicking. There's only so much I can say about a great and entertaining show. There are always problems, but sometime they're big enough that I don't have to nitpick. With Dr. HSAB, I did. I needed to fill out seven minutes, and even then I just barely made it.

One of the things I didn't understand were the complaints about the characterisation...It's a pretty short series and they can't go into every detail of the characters, which is not necessary to get an idea about their personnalities.

--Tiroe 

It's not that they were badly characterized, far from it. In fact, The Girl was the only one that was badly characterized, and she only suffered because she was built to contrast two completely different characters. The problem that I have with the characterization is really a problem with Joss Whedon's characterization. Which is to say, he's terrible at it. He can create these characters with fascinating backgrounds and wonderful motivations, but then once the show starts, they are all the same. Yes, there are informed differences, but that's a case of Told Not Shown.

Before the Whedon fanboys light me on fire, I enjoy most of Whedon's work. The only thing he writes well is banter, but he has a distinct, interesting style. He likes to play with words and sentance structure, and he has great ideas. That said, I find his work to be empty entertainment sprinkled with valid themes and the occasional thought-provoking segment, and that is why I watched it. The whole reason I watched all five seasons of Angel was because once or twice a season, I encountered something that required some thought, and that doesn't happen often enough.

As a side note: If Joss Whedon wrote the banter, Aaron Sorkin wrote the other dialogue and characters, and JMS wrote plots, would that not be the greatest-written show ever? Seriously, y'all, it'd be fan-fucking-tastic.

In other news, White Collar goes up on Sunday (if I finish the slides. It's looking like sleep is optional this week), and after that, Skins. And may I say, I'm totally doing something that looks good after that, because I've been putting off watching Skins with things like sorting rocks, cleaning my room, and lease agreements.

In other, other news, anyone who's in the Portland (Oregon. The only Portland that matters) and wants to come to the Halloween party that my gaming store is totally sponsoring should email me at opinionatedtvATyahooDOTcom, and I will send them an address and specifics. There's going to be a costume contest for a gaming prize pack worth $100 that includes a set of opal dice, Munchkin Bites, and a setting book whose name I've forgotten, but which is totally awesome. My business partner who's a pastry chef is making some pumpkin whoopie pies and chocolate cake balls for concessions (to go with the usual concession-fare), and if you stick around long enough, we're showing some classic horror films!

Dr. Horrible

Got another dislike! I'm not really sure why the hatedom amuses me so much. Perhaps it's because they took the time to hit the dislike, but couldn't be bothered to tell me why they don't like it. Maybe it's because any attention is good attention. Maybe it's because I got an emotional reaction from someone even if that reaction is abhorence. (Oh, right, link. I'm an idiot)

Doesn't matter.

I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I never thought I would say that about a review that didn't show a lick of footage from the item being reviewed, save for still photos and title cards. Joss Wedon is the bane of my existence, along with J.J. Abrams and other auteurs who have one big hit and try to dictate the nature of entertainment with their own sense of pretentiousness. And they smell.

But like I said, I loved this video. ... You really have a lot to say and it's smart. I hope people get to hear it. Keep it up!

--Righteous Brian

Well thank you RB for fully vindicating me. I actually don't hate Joss Whedon, I just think that banter is the only thing he writes well. But he still produces some great stuff (I'm thinking Firefly), so I hold him to a higher standard than I do people I've never heard of. Purely subjective, there, but I'm'a stick to it. And who the Hell is JJ Abrams?


Okay I went and looked him up, and I'm generally not impressed by the filmography... but then that doesn't really mean anything. I don't watch much in the way of movies, and I gave up most television a long time ago as a useless waste of time.


Which then begs the question of why, exactly, I watch television most of my waking hours. But that's a story for another time.


Anyway, spread my videos, send them to your friends; I'm trying to get an intelligent critique of television out there, but I really cannot do it by myself.

From the Audience

Yeah, I know, been doing a lot of these. Bite me, I'm watching unmemorable TV. What show you ask? Well, I can't tell you; I don't remember.

On the Time Travel episode in SGU Season 1: It was resolved (mostly, sorta) in the webisodes. Really, all it shows is Eli and the others watching the final recording from the retrieved Keeno.
--Izkata


Webisode. Gech, that really is a terrible word. It's difficult to say, and SpellCheck doesn't recognize it. Incidently, SpellCheck also doesn't recognize SpellCheck. In any case, I totally get expanding upon the world that the producers have built in web content, but the bulk of the plot and everything should probably be in the original medium. In other words, it's a television show so everything that goes into the show should be complete and self-reliant. It should not depend on the web content to explain basic plot points.

As to the blue aliens.. Check out the full Season 2 trailer. They did something to Chloe (no longer so useless, eh? =P )
--Izkata


No, she's still useless. In fact, she's so useless she needs an external force in order to have any bearing on anything. Take that.

... But yeah, I see that you are trying to fill a niche that no one is really covering at the Escapist right now. And it is a welcome addition, since I'm a big fan of series TV and that content is missing from most anywhere right now, except straight media entertainment sites. I'd say you should expand your range of possible targets to be any episodic series, since web content is a slowly growing format now. ... but I wrote this whole thing mainly to say: Babylon 5, the greatest sci-fi drama of all time? You, Ma'am, are my new personal hero.

--Shawn

Actually, that's the whole reason I started critiquing TV shows in the first place: No one else was doing it. Well, there are people that do individual episodes, and there are the reviewers that marketing people pay to review shows, but they don't really count. And you're very welcome, Sir. I do my best.

I discussed the idea of expanding into web serieses and that opened up a whole new can of worms: What, precisely, is my purview? So after some conversation I have decided to lay down some rules here where I can look for them if I feel like breaking them.

1. Anything episodic visual media is mine for the reviewing. Miniseries: yes. Made for TV movies: no.

2. Web serieses are also good to review, but in moderation. The bulk of my reviews should be actual television shows. I shall probably resort to web series when I'm behind schedule and need something fast.

3. Web supplements to television shows may be reviewed separately, but will not be considered part of the content to their show. See above comments about web content for explanation, if you haven't yet gleaned my preconceptions about web content.

4. Other rules that I decide to create as the situation arises.

So, within my utterly arbitrary rules, I can review Dr. Horrible because it was released in scheduled segments, like a miniseries (Insert maniacal laughter here). So that's exactly what I shall do. It's only forty-five minutes of watching, so I can get it done in time for Sunday, which will push White Collar back to next week and put me back on schedule. Bonus!

From the Audience

The other day  my computer had a pretty thorough meltdown. It pitched a little fit and shut off and refused to find Windows when I turned it back on. That's happened before, and if I hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete enough times the little bastard usually decides that it's not worth the effort to keep my operating system from me and goes and retrieves Windows from... I don't know, time-out perhaps.

This time, though it didn't work. So I took my laptop to my resident computer guy (that would be Dad. Dude used to contract at Intel, so he gets all the computer-related bitching withing a mile radius), and he did some surgery and concluded that something on the motherboard had melted. Fortunately my hard-drive is just fine, so all of my writing and reviews and stock pictures and slides aren't lost they're just inaccessible. Until someone around here (four other computers in the house, surely someone is willing to let me tear apart their tower to replace their hard-drive with mine for long enough to retrieve a couple of massive folders. Surely) lends me (Dad) their tower for a bit.

So my review schedule is shelved for now. I'm trying to do what I can on the computer in the living room, but unless I revert to nocturnalism (which is looking better and better by the hour), I have to share it. I'm going to try to get White Collar out on time, but no guarantees.

Incidently, White Collar is terrible. More on that on Sunday (I hope), but yeah. Not great.

Seems to be a thing with these shows that could have been. Burn Notice could have been a modern day MacGyver, but is instead James Bond as done by Micheal Bay with worse writing. Heroes, could have been a fresh take on superheroes, but instead was just slow and painful. Stargate could have been an intense, psychology driven survival drama, but instead is shameless cashing in.

Speaking of Stargate, now that I'm a bit calmer, here's the comment I got on... whenever the hell that was. I'm going to outline my response paragraph by paragraph, rather than taking the whole thing on at once. And here we go.

Problems with your review are manifold, and almost all come down to your own unwillingness to watch the intervening series'. Now, you can critique the "big issues" exactly as you did without issue, as the ones you mentioned are all related to the mechanics of the show, for the record we disagree about the characters. However, your "quibbles" section is full of things which are either down to your own inadequacy(really, you can't keep track of nine characters?) or your own lack of knowledge about the franchise, but I'm in a nice mood so I'll help you out.

Points for the condescending tone. Also, the word manifold means "many and varied". You've got half of that down pat, but your complaints with me seem to all be "ignorance", which really isn't very varied. And why the hell are you telling me that you disagree about the characters in the same paragraph as you calling me "inadequate." Insults and legitimate opinions should never go together. And you can take your "nice mood" and shove it where-- oh, look another paragraph.

1. You can't apply Newtonian physics to a damn wormhole. In normal circumstances, a person entering a Stargate will exit with the same direction and velocity. However, while within the wormhole itself, a person is simply energy and an encoded data stream, so in the event other factors influence the gate at either end, or the wormhole itself, they can be literally thrown out of the exit aperture as a safety measure. For the record, this has been observed in each of the ten seasons of SG1, as well as the 5 seasons of Atlantis, and the TV movies.

Now, I'm not a physicist, but why can't you apply Newtonian physics to wormholes? Oh, right, wormholes are unproven. Still, that doesn't mean that you can abandon physics just because half the situation is hypothetical. And further, Meta is Bad, remember? Dude, I don't care if there was an ad in the paper explaining the physics of this show, if there's a logical discrepinsy that isn't covered in the show, it could light itself on fire and tango in my front yard and I still wouldn't care.

2. FTL is explained in the series as one of several standard sci-fi variations based on vague real science hypotheses. Hyperspace is the most common, in the case of the Destiny, it would be appear to be some variation on the Alcubierre drive.

Meta is Bad.

3. Your argument about the ship's longevity is entirely dependent on knowledge of what materials were used in its construction, which we as viewers do not have. Considering the knowledge we have from earlier series'(which you couldn't be arsed to watch), Ancient technology is extremely advanced, one would assume their materials sciences would be as well.

Meta is Bad.

4. Your complaint about the Ancients is, once again, down to your own lack of knowledge rather than a flaw in the program(seriously, you couldn't even waste ten minutes reading the Stargate entry on wikipedia?); Stargate uses the "humanity was seeded by aliens" trope, those aliens being the Ancients who built Destiny. The entire five-season run of the Atlantis series was based on this very premise.


Boy are you proving my point. New audience remember? Not everyone who watches Universe is going to have watched fifteen previous seasons of material! It must be accessible to everyone, elsewise someone is falling down on the job.

5. Stores of food? Seriously? You missed the part of the show which explained the concept of Destiny entirely then, you know, where the Ancients would 'gate into the ship with all the necessary supplies to set themselves up. Including food.

Yeah, that was a dumb complaint... but then it was also part of a list of other spectacularly petty gripes that weren't picked on by Fanboy Prime over here.

6. I'm going in order along with the video, so this is really a repeat, but: Alcubierre drives circumvent special relativity.

Meta is Bad. Also bad, is justification from other shows. The premise is universal, but everything else is, and should stay, compartmentalized.

7. While I agree with you that cutting the "stargate trip" CGI was a bad thing, the irony is this was done by the producers in order to please viewers such as yourself - non-fans who don't have the patience or inclination to understand the lore.

Oh, Gods, a cogent statement! Cutting the trip was a good idea, but they didn't cut it out every time, so it looks sloppy.

8. You're even going to get on top of the episodic cliffhangers? Really? I'm not trying to come off as offensive, but have you watched any sci-fi dramas before? It's pretty much an integral part of the format.

Dude, what kind of a sci-fi fan are you if you make a blanket statement that precludes the greatest sci-fi drama of all time: Babylon 5? And yeah, I was offended.

9. And the time travel. I had a suspicion you would have a crack at that episode after the first minute of your video. Again, watch the preceding series'.

"Everything else is, and should stay, compartmentalized." Just... stop talking. You're done. Just... no. Oh, shit, there's more.

I know I'm coming off as a dick, but SG:U gets a lot of crap, and I really rather enjoy it. Most the points people make I can agree to disagree, but fully half your review is predicated on problems which aren't really problems if you've watched the previous shows, or can muster the energy to type "Stargate" into Wikipedia.

Aaaand we're back to the condescension. Okay, being a fan does not, not, make you entitled. It just doesn't. Further, after watching seventeen hours of show, writing nineteen hundred words, making a hundred seventy six slides, and recording ten minutes of audio (heavily cut down), no I didn't "have the energy" to do some arbitrary research on something only tangentally related to the review! Maybe, SG: U gets a lot of crap because it's not a good show. Just a suggestion.

Would you review Return of the King without having seen Fellowship and Two Towers? If you did, would you base that review in large part on quibbles which would be solved by seeing them?

That's not even a relevant analogy. Apples and oranges there, bud. Or rather, books and television. Different mediums, is my point, and you can't make the standards there linear enough to cross-review.


I know I spoke at length on this last time, but I've since done some stewing, and what is the internet for if not spewing my opinions?


Ooh! Ooh! Also! This... guy on That Guy With the Glasses is featuring part of my Eastwick video in his Forum Feature segment. I'll put up a link here as soon as I have it. Let's just say that if he pans me unfairly I'm'a review his stuff and see what he makes of it.


In other, other news (This one's getting a tad long, so I'll keep it short), I saw Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog the other day, and I would love, love, to review it. Sadly, it's technically outside of my purview, being an internet series, not a television series. So I'm'a leave this one up to ya'll. Review Dr. Horrible, yay or nay?