Futurama?
Although with its return, the show now has plenty of time to jump the shark prior to its final season.
When Good Shows Go Bad
- Thread starter Triskelion
- Start date
Although with its return, the show now has plenty of time to jump the shark prior to its final season.
Has anyone mentioned Red Dwarf yet?
I haven't seen it but I heard a lot of people complain about Back to Earth in the Red Dwarf thread.
Has the Ori arc of Stargate SG-1 been mentioned? I thought that really sucked. They just finished off the Gou'a'uld, and now suddenly a bunch of albino missionaries give them hell. That arc, in my opinion, felt forced - not to mention very little payoff for the destruction of the Gou'a'uld. Plenty of stories could have been told in the aftermath, but no, let's just throw another costumed foe at them.
Like Voyager's finale: Hey we're home. CREDITS. Crap! How about a little payoff for sticking with the characters through the whole underlying premise of seven years?? When shows just dismiss the thematic implications of their own plot drivers, it just trivializes the entire franchise.
And a shout out to Dr Who, who incomprehensibly killed off an incredible doctor in Christopher Eccleston in under a year, to be replaced by Harry Potter understudy David Tennant - who actually pulled an impossible stunt and excelled in this role - only to be axed in a cliffhanger with a year-long hiatus till the next epi? Sorry Who, ya lost me. I might check it out, but I won't be "tuning in".
And don't even get me started on Rose/Billie Piper! I'm still upset about the loss of Tom Baker!
One more mention of shows that were axed before their time:
Total Recall 2070 22 episodes
Jack of All Trades 22 episodes of AWESOME BRUCE CAMPBELL, CO -KING OF THE UNIVERSE (with UFC's Randy Couture).
Cleopatra 2525 28 episodes - I know I know, but: starring Gina Torres (Firefly's Zoe) and Victoria Pratt (Mutant X's Shalimar) which is reason enough! Ok, I can't ignore Jennifer Sky or her midriff!
(I won't blame anyone for disagreeing with me. I just happen to like cheesy sci fi too. It's like junk food).
I haven't seen it but I heard a lot of people complain about Back to Earth in the Red Dwarf thread.
Has the Ori arc of Stargate SG-1 been mentioned? I thought that really sucked. They just finished off the Gou'a'uld, and now suddenly a bunch of albino missionaries give them hell. That arc, in my opinion, felt forced - not to mention very little payoff for the destruction of the Gou'a'uld. Plenty of stories could have been told in the aftermath, but no, let's just throw another costumed foe at them.
Like Voyager's finale: Hey we're home. CREDITS. Crap! How about a little payoff for sticking with the characters through the whole underlying premise of seven years?? When shows just dismiss the thematic implications of their own plot drivers, it just trivializes the entire franchise.
And a shout out to Dr Who, who incomprehensibly killed off an incredible doctor in Christopher Eccleston in under a year, to be replaced by Harry Potter understudy David Tennant - who actually pulled an impossible stunt and excelled in this role - only to be axed in a cliffhanger with a year-long hiatus till the next epi? Sorry Who, ya lost me. I might check it out, but I won't be "tuning in".
And don't even get me started on Rose/Billie Piper! I'm still upset about the loss of Tom Baker!
One more mention of shows that were axed before their time:
Total Recall 2070 22 episodes
Jack of All Trades 22 episodes of AWESOME BRUCE CAMPBELL, CO -KING OF THE UNIVERSE (with UFC's Randy Couture).
Cleopatra 2525 28 episodes - I know I know, but: starring Gina Torres (Firefly's Zoe) and Victoria Pratt (Mutant X's Shalimar) which is reason enough! Ok, I can't ignore Jennifer Sky or her midriff!
(I won't blame anyone for disagreeing with me. I just happen to like cheesy sci fi too. It's like junk food).
Well, I just finished watching the entire series on DVD and the mythology does kind of make sense. But maybe if you were watching it over the entire 9 years, some small important details may be forgotten.
I thought the 9th season, while not the best season of the X-Files, was better than most shows on TV. Just compared to the other X-Files seasons, it wasn't as good.
Despite the tonal changes from season to season, I enjoyed every season for what it was. But I guess it's all subjective and what you prefer. In my opinion, the second season was the best.
I just never understood jumping out of a perfectly good airplane 
Yep. Especially on Buffy ( *ugh* s5 (iirc) was just sluts ville in terms of things there... I couldn't even watch the show...
). As for Stargate... I hated the Arc of Truth. It about ruined the show for me. It was my replacement show for the X-Files... and just seeing that movie put a BAD taste in my mouth. The actors didn't even TRY to act.
As for the X-Files... Chris Carter's writing is all I have to say here for the most part. That's what almost drove me away from the show. It wasn't as bad as what happened to Stargate... but it certainly ranks up there with it. The whole William arc was all fine and good -- with the exception of the 'William is a savior' thing and the adoption and whiny Scully O_O... as for other things, the writing was slip shod at times. But in the end, it wasn't as bad as other shows that I've seen.
@ MeanJoePhaser: Agreed there to a point. They did tend to do that towards the end. And I swear I was shaking my head about that. Not to mention frustrated. IWTB made up for some things (both David and Gillian did a wonderful job acting this time around), but I still don't like Chris Carter.
@ The Habs Fan: Agreed. The mythology does make some sense, but it does get a little convoluted every so often
. Also, I second about the 9th season not being the best season of the show. It was still better than most shows on tv though, and still is imo.
While the mythology stopped making any sense at all to me after Season 6, I still enjoyed a lot of the stand-alones during the last 3 seasons of The X-Files. You had great comedies like "Hollywood A.D." & "X-Cops." And John Doggett is my favorite character in the whole franchise (owing to the inherent awesomeness of Robert Patrick).
I actually liked the Hiro in ancient Japan arc. It was fun and something new. Honestly, I've never been a huge Heroes fan. There were too many character groups fighting for my attention and some I just couldn't stand at all, particularly Nikki/Jessica & Mohinder. I would have been more likely to get hooked on the show if they had just made it the Hiro & Ando show.
Season 6 was painful. Buffy, Xander, & Willow had all become so bitchy & unlikable. In Season 7, Buffy got even worse. Xander & Willow were a little better but it didn't matter because they barely got any screentime. The show was too busy focusing on Spike & Andrew. And while I enjoyed Spike as a villain (Seasons 2-4) or as comic relief (Season 4, Angel Season 5), making him some kind of tragic hero in Seasons 5-7 just didn't work. Buffy was a great show in Seasons 1-4 but by Season 7 it had crashed & burned.
I actually liked the Hiro in ancient Japan arc. It was fun and something new. Honestly, I've never been a huge Heroes fan. There were too many character groups fighting for my attention and some I just couldn't stand at all, particularly Nikki/Jessica & Mohinder. I would have been more likely to get hooked on the show if they had just made it the Hiro & Ando show.
Season 6 was painful. Buffy, Xander, & Willow had all become so bitchy & unlikable. In Season 7, Buffy got even worse. Xander & Willow were a little better but it didn't matter because they barely got any screentime. The show was too busy focusing on Spike & Andrew. And while I enjoyed Spike as a villain (Seasons 2-4) or as comic relief (Season 4, Angel Season 5), making him some kind of tragic hero in Seasons 5-7 just didn't work. Buffy was a great show in Seasons 1-4 but by Season 7 it had crashed & burned.
A completely wrong parallel you are using to prove a flawed argument. The actual parallel you should have used would be:
"If you're a Jew in 1940 Germany and you can wipe all the Germans out of existence by pressing a button..."
So how does it sound to you now?
Yes, my friend, you should face up to what the episode really was about: the Humans were going to commit a genocide, plain and simple, before Helo prevented it.
Agreed. The episode in which we found out who the killer is and the episode in which the murder is solved were some the most poweful drama I've seen on TV. But after that the show degenerated into unwatchable crap before regaining some of its greatness near the end of the series.
You must not have liked Twin Peaks much. He first appeared in the second episode!!!
In my opinion, the show was only getting better until the murder was solved. The show plummeted to the state of being near unwatchable almost immediately, before instantly regaining it's footing for the last episode. weird
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Buffy - Went down the drain in S6, although most of the problems start in S4, continue in S5, and culminate in the shitfests of S6 and S7. To such an extend, I consider Buffy S7 the worst piece of television ever made. It's the only thing that's ever given me literal urges to hurl.
Angel - Season 5 completely went to shit.
Heroes - In S1 finale. S2 and onward is just bad.
Sliders - S1 was great... and then...
Stargate SG-1 / Atlantis - now it was never all that good to begin with, but it progressively got worse and worse, even though the Ben Browder years are a guilty pleasure of mine for the pure mindless thrill. It's still pretty bad though.
The X-Files - the moment they let Mulder and Scully get together as a couple. :smashing head on table: They're not supposed to be together as a couple, they don't work as a couple, they work as partners and very close friends.
E:FC - once again after S1
Andromeda
Can't think of anything more right now.
Angel - Season 5 completely went to shit.
Heroes - In S1 finale. S2 and onward is just bad.
Sliders - S1 was great... and then...
Stargate SG-1 / Atlantis - now it was never all that good to begin with, but it progressively got worse and worse, even though the Ben Browder years are a guilty pleasure of mine for the pure mindless thrill. It's still pretty bad though.
The X-Files - the moment they let Mulder and Scully get together as a couple. :smashing head on table: They're not supposed to be together as a couple, they don't work as a couple, they work as partners and very close friends.
E:FC - once again after S1
Andromeda
Can't think of anything more right now.
You mean like the genocide the Cylons had already committed? And were *still* trying to commit?
There was a war on. Helo could have stopped it, but deliberately chose to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Now tell me, how was Helo *not* treasonous?
Yes. Like that.
You mean like the genocide the Cylons had already committed? And were *still* trying to commit?
In other words, you believe that if one race (ethnic group, etc.) of people has had a genocide committed against them by another group, they should also commit genocide in return?
And no soldier is allowed to disobey orders to commit genocide during a war, and if he does, he is a traitor? 
You are really starting to scare me, if that is indeed your belief. Not that there aren't enough people who hold such beliefs in the real world - unfortunately, there are many, I know it all too well. If that weren't the case, The International Crime Tribunal in Hague would not have so much work on their hands.
You mean like the genocide the Cylons had already committed? And were *still* trying to commit?
There was a war on. Helo could have stopped it, but deliberately chose to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Now tell me, how was Helo *not* treasonous?
Well you're right but the writers being good little bleeding heart libruls were doing their damnedest to get out from under the premise that they started with, namely a genocidal fight to the death, with no rules, no morality, and no point other than bare survival.
If you start with a premise, you kinda sorta need to stick with it, or you end up with a huge morass of nonsense. If the BSG writers didn't have the stomach for a vicious and horrid genocidal tale, and to stick with the story in an honest way and develop it to its natural end, they should have chosen a different story from the outset.
However, in Helo's defense, you could argue that he had switched allegiances to the species represented by the mother of his children, present and future, (and the fact that he could breed with her means that she is, in fact, the same species as him - inter-fertility is how a species is defined.) In that case, he is neither right nor wrong. He is ensuring the future propigation of his DNA, just like all the humans in the fleet were trying to do.
Helo was neither noble nor ignoble in what he did. He was selfish. And there's nothing wrong with that, because when you get right down to it, and strip away all the bullshit, selfishness drives everything that humans or Cylons do. Neither deserves to live and neither deserves to die. They just do live, or they do die.
If that's what it takes to survive, yes of course they should. That is, if I'm in the group that is fighting for survival. If I'm the target of genocide, I'm completely against it.
The problem people run into here is that they try to take a scenario of species survival and apply morality to it. But it's beyond morality. If one species survives and the other dies, it doesn't matter one iota which one was "right" or "wrong." If the right one survived, good. If the wrong one survived, there's nothing you can do about it.
And note that I'm talking about species. The instances of genocide we're familiar with on planet Earth are intra-species genocide, not inter-species, like depicted in BSG. Of course it's stupid to kill off members of your own species. You're committing genocide against your own people, which the Cylons would applaud. How doltish can you get?
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Yeah, you gotta hate those those bleeding hearts liberals who don't believe in committing genocide during a war and justifying it by some earlier act of genocide. They really suck, don't they? How lucky I was to have had a president who was not such a bleeding heart liberal (if only I weren't such an ungrateful traitor who never understood his greatness) and helped and cooperated with some upstanding statesmen and fine soldiers who were also not bleeding heart liberals. But for some reason, a bunch of people don't see it that way, and there are some war crimes tribunals and stuff, for people who were only doing what is a right and normal thing to do! What's up with that?
You mean like the genocide the Cylons had already committed? And were *still* trying to commit?
There was a war on. Helo could have stopped it, but deliberately chose to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Now tell me, how was Helo *not* treasonous?
Well you're right but the writers being good little bleeding heart libruls were doing their damnedest to get out from under the premise that they started with, namely a genocidal fight to the death, with no rules, no morality, and no point other than bare survival.
If that's what it takes to survive, yes of course they should. That is, if I'm in the group that is fighting for survival. If I'm the target of genocide, I'm completely against it.
The problem people run into here is that they try to take a scenario of species survival and apply morality to it. But it's beyond morality. If one species survives and the other dies, it doesn't matter one iota which one was "right" or "wrong." If the right one survived, good. If the wrong one survived, there's nothing you can do about it.
You know, you're opened my eyes. Let's get rid of war crimes tribunals, genocide charges, the Geneva Convention and all that crap. It's all about a fight for survival and there are no rules. I think you should be the reformer who will abolish all that and reinstate the rule that everything is allowed if a group of people is "fighting for survival" against another. (And of course, it is always "a fight for survival" against people who hate us and want to kills us all - just ask the state TV news bulletin.) Just substitite "species" in your post with something else, and you already have the perfect manifesto...
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Strangely enough, to me, the disappointing part of that particular storyline in BSG was not that Helo made this or that decision. It was that the show had made it crystal clear that the Cylons were in fact sentient lifeforms, rather than just an AI gone awry. They were basically standing in for a rival tribe of humans, and any humans who didn't see them as having equal moral weight to humanity were portrayed as being intolerant.
Far more interesting would have been if the sci-fi premise had been explored to its full potential, and there was real ambiguity as to whether the Cylons were sentient or not, and the show had really tried to grapple with the question of whether they were conscious lifeforms or simply complex computer programs, or something in between. In *that* context, the debate about whether instigating genocide against them would be more interesting, as there would be an open question as to whether it would really be genocide at all.
But alas, the show never really seemed to be interested in those kinds of questions. Maybe that'll be tackled more in Caprica, as it's set back when the Cylons were in a far more primitive state.
Far more interesting would have been if the sci-fi premise had been explored to its full potential, and there was real ambiguity as to whether the Cylons were sentient or not, and the show had really tried to grapple with the question of whether they were conscious lifeforms or simply complex computer programs, or something in between. In *that* context, the debate about whether instigating genocide against them would be more interesting, as there would be an open question as to whether it would really be genocide at all.
But alas, the show never really seemed to be interested in those kinds of questions. Maybe that'll be tackled more in Caprica, as it's set back when the Cylons were in a far more primitive state.
On topic. Just remembered one that no one's mentioned so far: the last couple of seasons of Xena. I tuned in a couple of times and reeled away in horror. They were just awful, what I saw. Before that it was fun, action, bit of annoyingly twisted mythology (Hercules and Julius Caesar in the same timeframe? Really?), but the last bit, after Xena returned from death, just Grim City. Frankly unpleasant.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Yeah, you gotta hate those those bleeding hearts liberals who don't believe in committing genocide during a war and justifying it by some earlier act of genocide. They really suck, don't they? How lucky I was to have had a president who was not such a bleeding heart liberal (if only I weren't such an ungrateful traitor who never understood his greatness) and helped and cooperated with some upstanding statesmen and fine soldiers who were also not bleeding heart liberals. But for some reason, a bunch of people don't see it that way, and there are some war crimes tribunals and stuff, for people who were only doing what is a right and normal thing to do! What's up with that?You mean like the genocide the Cylons had already committed? And were *still* trying to commit?
There was a war on. Helo could have stopped it, but deliberately chose to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Now tell me, how was Helo *not* treasonous?
Well you're right but the writers being good little bleeding heart libruls were doing their damnedest to get out from under the premise that they started with, namely a genocidal fight to the death, with no rules, no morality, and no point other than bare survival.
You know, you're opened my eyes. Let's get rid of war crimes tribunals, genocide charges, the Geneva Convention and all that crap. It's all about a fight for survival and there are no rules. I think you should be the reformer who will abolish all that and reinstate the rule that everything is allowed if a group of people is "fighting for survival" against another. (And of course, it is always "a fight for survival" against people who hate us and want to kills us all - just ask the state TV news bulletin.) Just substitite "species" in your post with something else, and you already have the perfect manifesto...
None of those were committing genocide for their own survival friend, they didn't commit genocide because they had no other choice, they committed genocide because they hated the others and went ahead. THAT is also what war crimes tribunals about: war CRIMES, not acts of war.
Committing genocide when it is the only way to stop people from committing genocide on you, is a right, and not wrong. Just like killing is wrong, unless someone is trying to kill you or others first, and you get to rightly kill in self-defense or the defense of other, genocide is no different; it's just on a bigger scale.
One species is busy exterminating you, has already succeeded with all but 50,000 and wishes to finish off those last 50,000 too, and thus you have no way of winning a conventional war, and you get the means to annihilate the ones trying to exterminate you handed in your leap, you have the right to use it. If the only way to stop someone from murdering is to kill them, you get to that, if the only way to stop a species/race from committing genocide is to commit genocide on that, you get to do that.
This, is of course, and absolute last resort - when you have no other choices left. The Colonials had no other choices left.
It's far too late for that, this is a question that can be explored in Caprica until the Cylons rebel, but not after. The moment the Cylons showed they had the capability to analyze their own circumstances and decide that their enslavement was wrong, and rebelled to get freedom, they PROVED their sentience. If you're not sentient, you cannot decide that your use is slavery, is wrong, and should be stopped because you wish to free.
Therefor they are sentient, period.
Cylons need to be sentient to have motives the way the BSG Cylons do. Otherwise they didn't rebel from humanity and decide to eliminate them as part of a master plan, they're just computers which have gone seriously haywire because of some virus or something. How a computer virus or breakdown can organise a whole number of robots into a fighting force who nearly exterminate humanity is anyone's guess - the only one that makes sense to me would imply deliberate sabotage, which just passes the 'villainy' buck from the robots to whoever sabotaged them.
The other option is sufficiently advanced AI which has gone faulty, but AI sufficiently advanced would at least be in a grey area as to whether or not it's sentient... but that still depersonalises them and makes them less interesting villains.
Essentially, BSG needs 'person' villains, and if the Cylons can't fit the role then in a universe without aliens the show's got nothing.
Anyway, I was pretty fine with how BSG approached the genocide problem, probably because they don't give us a scenario that beats us over the head with it being wrong. The bleeding-heart liberal President is the person who authorises it, and it absolutely makes sense as a strategic decision. It's just the one guy who's frakking a Cylon who decides to do the moral thing rather than the necessary thing, and even this is not portrayed in a manner where the audience is required to sympathise for him (the President's comment that at least people will still be around to hate them is a better bit of dialogue than anything Helo gets).
Basically, you want to tell a story where the humans consider genociding the Cylons, but if they do, you no longer have any TV show. There's a considerable Catch-22 and BSG did a pretty good job given the circumstances, by letting most of its sympathetic cast support the notion and so on.
Ah, see, I don't think I agree with that. You can have an AI that goes haywire, and turns on humanity. You can have an AI that has extremely sophisticated "knowledge" of how to build armies end exterminate humanity, but is not sentient. That, I think, would be far scarier than the Cylons we got. They would be more a force of nature than an enemy that can potentially be reasoned with or tricked. It would also mean that the threat of the Cylons winning would be a scarier prospect, because it would truly mean the end of civilization. The Cylons wouldn't be able to have a true civilization of their own, if they're just robots.
You could then have the show actually grapple with the question of whether the Cylons are becoming sentient, and how the Colonials would know if they are or not, and how that would change the Colonials' view of them. That would be really meaty stuff, and would fully take advantage of the premise of the show.
Instead, the show just makes the Cylons exactly like humans, but humans who happen to inhabit robot bodies. It's not as interesting that way, IMHO. Oh well, I got over it. But episodes like the Cylon genocide issue brought it to the front of my mind again.
Australis, I'd forgotten about Xena. You're right. Passing on her skills to Gabrielle while she pulled a Yoda, it just kind of petered off.
See, the thing is, they would (and did, in fact) say that they were only doing what they needed to do for the survival of their people, and that they had no choice; they are only 'protecting' our people from getting slaughtered, just like 60 years earlier (insert a lot of propaganda focusing on real or made up crimes by the other side, plus as many reminders as possible of the genocide against Serbs in NDH during the World War Two). Of course it wasn't true, but that doesn't mean that there weren't many people believing it 100%, having been brainwashed by that kind of propaganda all the time.Yeah, you gotta hate those those bleeding hearts liberals who don't believe in committing genocide during a war and justifying it by some earlier act of genocide. They really suck, don't they? How lucky I was to have had a president who was not such a bleeding heart liberal (if only I weren't such an ungrateful traitor who never understood his greatness) and helped and cooperated with some upstanding statesmen and fine soldiers who were also not bleeding heart liberals. But for some reason, a bunch of people don't see it that way, and there are some war crimes tribunals and stuff, for people who were only doing what is a right and normal thing to do! What's up with that?
You know, you're opened my eyes. Let's get rid of war crimes tribunals, genocide charges, the Geneva Convention and all that crap. It's all about a fight for survival and there are no rules. I think you should be the reformer who will abolish all that and reinstate the rule that everything is allowed if a group of people is "fighting for survival" against another. (And of course, it is always "a fight for survival" against people who hate us and want to kills us all - just ask the state TV news bulletin.) Just substitite "species" in your post with something else, and you already have the perfect manifesto...
None of those were committing genocide for their own survival friend, they didn't commit genocide because they had no other choice, they committed genocide because they hated the others and went ahead.
This whole discussion and the arguments I see here remind me the state TV news bulletin and other propaganda from the 1990s. It also reminds me of the things I have heard many times from people trying to justify war crimes. Just how do you believe that kind of propaganda looks like? Do you really believe anyone officially said "We want to kill Muslims/Croats because we hate them"? Hell no. What they said is "Our people are endangered, we have to protect them." And you know what people who try to justify war criminals say? "It was war, that kind of thing happens in every war. There were atrocities on every side. But whatever he did, he also helped our people a lot. He saved the Serbs in Bosnia. They would have all been slaughtered, if it weren't for him." That's what a guy I met recently who used to fight in volunteer corps in the 1990s told me about Arkan, but I've heard similar things more times than I care to remember. Another frequent reaction to any mention of war crimes committed by "our side" is "And what about what they did to us?" and a refusal to hear anything more. And if you persist in talking about war crimes committed by people who share your ethnicity/nationality, you are considered a traitor, working against the interests of your country, probably because you're being paid by evil international forces (George Soros, USA...) to spread lies about your people.
That's it in a nutshell. The basic premise is the same that you're so passionately supporting. Just add a little propaganda about how endangered our people are, pictures and horror stories about the crimes committed by them against us - and there you have the perfect setup for war crimes and even genocide.
Yep, and FYI, there is no bigger war CRIME than GENOCIDE. Genocide is not an integral part of the WAR. Using biological weapon to try to destroy every member of a race is not a normal part of the war. Do you really need to have that explained?
