Same point though. They turned a brown actor into a terrorist. Didn't see anyone shedding tears over that...
Poll Disco v Lost in Space v Orville FIGHT
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
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Same point though. They turned a brown actor into a terrorist. Didn't see anyone shedding tears over that...
But Voq was apparently an albino. Hence the joke.
Interesting. I enjoyed it considerably more than I expected to (given that I had no interest in the show at all until I started to hear good word-of-mouth about it in these forums.) In particular, I liked pretty much every member of the cast except Parker Posey (although I've certain enjoyed lots of her other work). I can't help thinking that the only reason Dr. Smith was present in the show was because someone felt the character was an inextricable part of the original concept and just had to be there... because this version of Dr. Smith seemed tonally at odds with the rest of the show, wasn't remotely convincing as someone the other characters would trust, and IMHO didn't add anything useful to the overall plot or themes.
Dunno how much you trust my judgement, but FWIW I came to the new LIS with absolutely zero familiarity with the original show and zero affection for its concept, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think you might be pleasantly surprised. I'll be curious to know what you think when you make it through the season!
I agree on the latter point, but not the former. I didn't really notice the kind of padding that's bothered me about other Netflix shows (especially the Marvel series), where you always come away feeling that they should be at least a couple of episodes shorter. I think LIS paced itself pretty well, in terms of both the length of the season and the length of the individual episodes. It gave its story room to breathe, which IMHO is something DSC could have used a lot more of.
Agree on this, no question. The character is just tiresome and implausible.
Interesting. I thought about this briefly at a couple of points during the show, but it didn't really bother me. I suppose the robot's meager communication abilities made it easier to think of it as falling short of true AI.
Okay, that's a fair point, and a valid comparison. And on those terms, The Expanse is doing a much better job of it.
So, so true.
In fairness, writing good dialogue is hard. The list of screenwriters who stand out as Really Good at it over, say, the past 30 years, is almost short enough to count on your fingers. (Off the top of my head: David Mamet, Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon, J. Michael Straczynski, Charlie Kaufman, Wes Anderson, William Goldman, Callie Khouri, Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, Richard Curtis, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith, Amy Sherman-Palladino... entirely subjective of course and in no particular order, but suffice it to say we're not likely to get anyone from that list writing for DSC.) Of course, we don't need absolutely top-rank talent writing brilliant dialogue to improve the show; we only need capable talent writing reasonably strong dialogue. LIS has that. The Expanse has that. So do Counterpart and Game of Thrones and Doctor Who and quite a few other shows, "prestige" and otherwise. DSC has obviously, and sadly, not invested in that kind of writing talent.
I've never read the books, so I have no basis for comparison. With that in mind, I find Holden to be a perfectly good character on the show. He's clearly in way over his head and trying to recalibrate his moral compass on a regular basis, and I don't know if that's how the character was written in the books, but I find it pretty interesting.
If I had to speculate, I'd say it was because if she was any older, she would plausibly have been off on her own before the family left Earth, and might have had less motivation to go with them. At 18, she's on the cusp of adulthood, and fits in better as part of the "family unit."
FWIW I thought the hints of a relationship between her and Don (few and subtle as they were) worked pretty well; the two seem to have chemistry. The age difference between the actors is only 12 years, and even if it's larger between the characters (we don't know, as we don't know Don's age), at no point did it strike me as "creepy." Any way you slice it, if they do get involved, both characters are consenting adults.
(Granted, age differences in personal relationships really make no difference to me... I've been in relationships with pretty large gaps, in both directions. But I think it's fair to say that's mostly true for our culture as a whole... aren't Bogie and Bacall universally considered a classic couple, after all?)
I can understand the criticism, but I do think the character serves a useful role as an antagonist to provide something other than "space danger!" Some people already are complaining there was too much of that.
She reminds me a bit of Moriarty on Sherlock.
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I have to admit, I enjoyed the character and his twin sister, Missy. (Loooved Missy. Even when the character is poorly written, Michelle Gomez is such fun to watch.)
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Finally finished LiS. It isn't a show that I'm raving about but I will definitely be back for season 2. I liked the way they used the season as a setup and I liked the finale.
Agree with the poster further up thread re: Dr. Smith. I really wasn't interested in the character. Not sure if it is an acting issue or directing issue. The only reason original LiS got as many seasons as it did was almost solely because of Jonathan Harris' hilarious, charismatic, and totally charming performance. So far Parker Posey's Smith hasn't displayed any of this. I'm assuming that the character's real name, "Jessica Harris" might be an homage to Jonathan Harris. I hope so. Anyway, holding out hope she gets better in season 2.
The rest of the actors, to me, turn in merely competent performances. I do like the actor who plays Will much more than the actor who played him in the movie. I swear the actor who plays Judy looks 15 to me.
I thought season 1 of DSC was much more exciting, much more compelling than LiS. But that didn't surprise me and it's no knock on LiS. DSC was telling a war story while LiS told a much smaller story about survival on an unknown planet. I didn't see the part that involved danger to the human race, though I might have missed it. But regardless, LiS is still telling a small rather personal story, which will get even smaller next season.
As I said before, I think the most logical comparison to DSC is The Expanse.
Really? Stipulating, again, that I've never seen it and hold no personal opinion, I've read more than once that Smith was one of the campiest aspects of the original show. Is that not so? (Or if it is, was it perhaps an approach that just wouldn't work with the tone of the reboot?)
Oh, it's so. But bear in mind that the original Lost In Space is probably the most intentionally camp show in television history. It out Batmans Batman. The camp became the whole draw. And it became that way partly because Harris was so good at it. No one could play that character in the same way today, and I'd feel for anyone who had to try.
As terrible as the old show can be, in some ways, I respect LiS' artistic choice to go camp more than what we got from Discovery, where I wasn't clear if the camp was intentional.
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Campier than Batman?That beggars the imagination.
I suppose you could call Harris' performance campy, but it was also hilarious, charismatic, and above all else, charming. The original series pilot which didn't have Smith, plays quite a bit like current LiS, a serious drama about a family trying to survive on a strange planet. It was a bit dull and humorless.
Smith was brought on, I think in the second or third episode, and slowly turned Smith into the show's break out focal point.
Harris' Smith was as manipulative, conniving, deceitful, self serving, and would betray anyone for his own benefit, but you couldn't take your eyes off him. Everyone hated Smith, but loved him. He created a unique character with it's own set of quirky mannerisms and catchphrases.
I'm not saying the current show needs Harris' Smith, it would change the tone of the show, but I do think the current show needs a stronger and more dynamic performance from Parker Posey. But, who knows, maybe they want the main protagonist to be someone other than Smith.
The original show was on Hulu if you'd like to check it out.
Oh. My. God!
In case I had any doubts, I now officially have no regrets about having never watched the original LIS...
I'm mostly fine with the role she played on the show this season. I just don't see a role for her next season. She's a physically weak, not particularly bright (compared to the Robinsons) person with no real applicable skills for survival. Her only talent is the ability to bullshit and a lack of any moral fiber. But using this to get her way requires the other people to trust her. The Robinsons have seen through her completely now. The only way to use her as an antagonist for the second season would be to destroy the character of the Robinsons - have them become gullible fools who give her another chance. Thus a more sensible route would be a redemption arc, but it's bad writing to have a sociopath suddenly grow a conscience. So I'm at a loss to think of what they could do with her exactly.
Yeah, it will be tricky. But the Robinsons can't just leave her behind, so they're stuck with her. (Imagine purehearted Will's reaction if his family tried to abandon her.) They will save her because they are good, not because she is good, in the finest Trek tradition.
I doubt that we'll get a true redemption arc for her -- that seems a little too obvious for this show -- but I suspect that they'll peel the layers of the onion back so that we better understand her, and maybe empathize with her a bit. That might lead to some temporary "rehabilitation," building to a question of what she'll do when the chips are down and it's her self-interest vs. the family's. And if they keep her villainous, that can work too. I'm down for female Walter White in space.
I doubt that we'll get a true redemption arc for her -- that seems a little too obvious for this show -- but I suspect that they'll peel the layers of the onion back so that we better understand her, and maybe empathize with her a bit. That might lead to some temporary "rehabilitation," building to a question of what she'll do when the chips are down and it's her self-interest vs. the family's. And if they keep her villainous, that can work too. I'm down for female Walter White in space.
Finished LiS. Pretty underwhelming, mainly because the "Smith" character doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I kept waiting to see if there was more to her. Disappointing because I love Parker Posey and she was what I looked most forward to in this iteration. Now if they just write Smith off the show altogether I think it would be an improvement.
Pretty interesting to see that the response from this message board is far more positive of this show than elsewhere.
Pretty interesting to see that the response from this message board is far more positive of this show than elsewhere.
I think that's because the show pretty much fills the niché of a family friendly sci-fi show that has previously been occupied by Star Trek itself.
But I have to concur, season 1 had some problems with characterisations, and especially "Dr. Smith" was hard to watch. I just hope that now her identity has been revealed, she can be a bit more openly antagonistic. I think she has great potential as an evil foil on their ship - it was just really annoying to watch her trying to fool everyone else and not get busted.
Smith will tinker with the children psychologically and maybe Don, though he is much more worldly wise like Maureen and John. Then there are new aliens to play with.
The thing with a psychological villian is they plant the seed and the victims actually help it grow. I'm Ok with that though they took it a bit far with Smith. Still, people inherently want to trust, particularily in life and death situations. Remember, everyone was suppose to be heavily screened before being selected. Don and Smith were not part of the original settlers. It makes sense people would assume at least Smith was trustworthy.
Also I'm not sure the original Smith character would work in this day and age. They pretty much had to give her a new set of tools to work with. Imho a snivilling, campy coward just doesn't cut it anymore.
The thing with a psychological villian is they plant the seed and the victims actually help it grow. I'm Ok with that though they took it a bit far with Smith. Still, people inherently want to trust, particularily in life and death situations. Remember, everyone was suppose to be heavily screened before being selected. Don and Smith were not part of the original settlers. It makes sense people would assume at least Smith was trustworthy.
Also I'm not sure the original Smith character would work in this day and age. They pretty much had to give her a new set of tools to work with. Imho a snivilling, campy coward just doesn't cut it anymore.
Actually it is very unscientific. The fuel episode had me wanting to punch someone. Fuel is liquid methane. Yes it is pressurized. Highly pressurized to keep what is a gas at ambient conditions a liquid. The tank flips and hits a rock that magically bursts the high pressure tank and seals it. The odds of this happening are so astronomically small. Any break in a high ( or low) pressure tank is basically game over. Everything would leak out. They showed it dripping out like colored water. I guess it is true to the 60's era crappy sfx. What makes this worse, is that they then claim that there is fuel left after this. All the liquid methane would vaporize and escape the gash in the tank. These non scientist writers treated a pressurized gas like it was water. Stupid, ignorant and lazy. Hire a consultant, Heck hire a guy that delivers liquefied gas.
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