TV Party

Input Cinephile Shodown
#766

Really enjoyed this writeup of one of my all-time favorite series, Babylon 5. Captures both how good the story and characters are, and how fucking dorky it all is:

https://www.tor.com/2019/06/13/babylon-5-is-the-greatest-most-terrible-sf-series/

Babylon 5 depicts a future rife with stratified poverty, union busting corporations, xenophobic hate crimes, colonial legacies blossoming into new conflicts, and the tide of fascism rising right in our own backyard. In J. Michael Straczynski’s imagined future, the smug neoliberal western hegemony that arose from the ashes of the Cold War really was “the end of history”, and the results are simultaneously anodyne and horrific. Psychic powers are real, but those born with them are enslaved by the state. There are ancient terrors lurking on the edges of the map—civilizations who long ago ascended but refuse to let the children of the galaxy play unattended in the sandbox. People who live on the titular station still have to pay for their freaking healthcare in the year 2258.

1 Like
#767

i feel like this won’t be a controversial thing to say here, but i need to say it somewhere.

even though i keep watching Stranger Things, i find it really pretty mediocre as a show. like i think season 1 was fun in the way it was this sort of 80s pastiche and i was chomping at the bit for new Twin Peaks, but seasons 2 and 3 feel like CW shows with better production budgets.

like i’m not having a bad time, but it’s mostly sort of boring? but maybe that’s ok.

3 Likes
#768

I watched a few episodes of Huang’s World. It feels like the successor to the Anthony Bourdain shows. It’s an interesting travel show with a likable host and a focus on food.

Also since it’s from Vice they get to call the fixers fixers. It drove me a little crazy how Bourdain had to pretend to have friends in every country.

#769

It was compulsively watchable in the way a lot of shows are in the Streaming Era but yeah, season 3 felt unnecessary. I kind of hope they’ll just put this one to bed, now.

1 Like
#770

There’s really not much more ground they can cover as an 80/90s pastiche. It certainly ended like there’s more to it which is unfortunate; while I think I liked S3 more than the ones who already voiced their opinion I agree with Mikey in that I can’t see them pulling another decent season out of it.

1 Like
#771

I’m inclined to agree except for the fact I’ve said this about both seasons 2 and 3, so I’m actually if anything more open to the idea of extending it.

#772

to me, s2&3 fail because the character development and drama is superficial at best. i remember watching season 1 and really losing myself in being a kid in the 80s, in seeing Winona Ryder’s character anguish at the loss of her child (another 80s trope of vanishing kids, kidnappings, cults etc). it made me think of my own mom and how much she would have lost her mind if i went missing.

there is nothing in the following seasons with comparable emotional weight, which is why they feel so whatever to me.

but as a friend on fb put it to me, Stranger Things is meant for viewers who are the age of the kids in the show, and watching the final few episodes of s3, i said “ok, sure, i get that.”

1 Like
#773

I guess it only has 8 episodes and we’ve watched 7 now and seriously literally whaaaaat the fuck is up with the whole evil Russian, American capitalism thing it’s driving me insane

Also the Russian assassins at the fair are carrying Tokarevs and it’s like jesus, you’re running a spy program in America, Land of the Gun, why would you spend all that time and energy and risk smuggling in your commie guns when you could just take your bankroll down the street and instantly buy every gun you’d ever need. The directors were literally just “Russians Need Russia Gun!”

6 Likes
#774

Despite the fact that it’s clearly true that kids would get a lot more out of the show, it really, really does not play like that is the intent

2 Likes
#775

yeah i’m not saying i think my friend is totally right, but it made the show more watchable for me thinking this lol

#776

I was almost going to tell you specifically not to watch it because I knew you wouldn’t be able to deal with this part of it

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#777

Eh, it’s one of the only shows my wife and I watch together, there was a 100% chance we’d get to it eventually. We are both making fun of it together so it works out well

1 Like
#778

I mean, Winona Ryder went from anxious mom to empowered lady and finally “I’m going to check out this shit whether you’re coming with me or not Hopper” in S3. Mr. Popular went from dick to group dad to setback and delusional early on but gets his life eventually together. Younger sister revealed as closeted nerd that would definitely have been misdiagnosed by professionals in that era? Will struggling with changes in the boy group he was comfortable with before puberty?

I guess I like the individual developments rather than the overarching plot which is, yeah, pretty similar to things I’d dreamt about when I was in high school.

#779

I mean, it’s hard not to see this as either the ST team buying into the current wave of Russia-phobia (“hey look, it’s just like the 80s!”) or Netflix/ST Team being like “UH OH SOCIALISM” (or both) and like, could we not? No, of course not. Bleh.

#780

i guess i just feel like none of those arcs have enough time to develop or actually matter. the season is 8 episodes long, and they introduce all these concepts which resolve almost immediately or don’t matter because monsters.

i think that’s my main issue, really. there just isn’t enough time to get some idea that these people in this show lead real lives of any sort. season 1 manages to do this, because part of the season revolves around mystery and a build up to the reveal of what’s going on, so we see the mom going to the pharmacy, or the cop being drunk at work, etc. etc.

#781

Yeah, incorporating anti-soviet propaganda into a 2019 show as loving nostalgia for cold war era culture is pretty fucking weird. It felt to me like they were trying to recreate the kind of anti-socialist stuff you’d see and hear in the 80’s instead of comment on anything going on today. Like the Russian scientist being seduced by slurpees because they don’t have flavors in Russia, that sort of really dated shit.

I think they weren’t actually trying to do any real social commentary at all, I think they were just trying to slavishly recreate the themes of American 80’s movies, regardless of how dated they are. But if they really insisted on doing that, they should have undermined the xenophobia and conservatism of cold war America instead of embracing it.

4 Likes
#782

I haven’t watched this, but how much were they expecting it to stand as a form or mockery as part of nostalgic appreciation? As in, you’ll see Red Dawn viewing parties in the city, but people enjoy it through a mix of nostalgic and ironic lenses.

#783

I was expecting them to go the ironic route with it, and I kept waiting for them to tweak the formula in some way or go so over-the-top with it that you know they’re kidding. But nope, they pretty much play it straight.

#784

I guess my instinct would be to play it straight, too, but from what I watched Stranger Things isn’t exactly subtle, so maybe it doesn’t track with the trust they normally show their audience?

#785

Stranger Things has always uncritically reproduced 80’s media forms. This worked well when they were doing straightforward Stephen King and Spielberg homages. I think the real problem here is in their choice of subject matter for season 3. Why do a loving, uncritical homage to regressive cold war paranoia and capitalist cheerleading? It just doesn’t play in 2019.

3 Likes