This is cool, Sci - one of my ( weaknesses? strengths? ) is I form my opinions about stuff before I talk about it with others and I'm disconnected with the tv review world - so I enjoy all of these things that people talk about being so foreign to how I see things, it's a fun mind job on me. Prometheus is case in point, I loved that movie - only to find myself greeted by an online angry mob looking for Ridley Scott's neck for how bad it was.

I was looking on Reddit and the reactions were mixed, justifiably so IMO. The one thing that I really liked was the final scene, showing Kristen's corruption, was not what I was anticipating. I was almost convinced that they'd kill one of the daughters. I think this threat dangling over our heads re: the kids is actually done well from the viewer perspective...
good one. It just doesn't fit together that well.

Agreed - it did do a good job of setting up one of her daughters being killed/kidnapped/mutilated, but flipped the tables on that, so that was good.

Well - you have me re-evaluating my perspective on this whole show as I may have been too harsh because they didn't make the show I wanted ( a serious mystery and exploration of exorcisms with only hints demonic possession could be real ). But it went the way of The X-Files pretty quickly and is one bizarre collection of the absurd+cool+hilarious ( both at and with it ). I think it has it's toe in every genre: comedy, horror, drama, historical, the fantastic ...

OTOH, Kristen seems less concerned about her kids than we the audience. She seems to have no problem continually threatening these people who aren't just assholes & bitches, these people are at the least psychopaths who think they are demonic vessels. OTOH she doesn't live in a gated community or even a nice neighborhood - they live by the tracks in a house that AFAICTell is way too accessible for anyone who comes knocking...so it is no surprise that La Roux the serial killer does come forth.

I actually wasn't put off by this as much - part of her carelessness is her insistence that this stuff isn't real has compromised her danger-sense and even if it wasn't real, these crazies can still hurt ya. She's witnessing and experiencing phenomena that is not easily explained away with science and she's resisting "the truth" and part of her strengthening the frame of that resistance is to casually dismiss the dangers - a mistake ( for her ), but I feel I'm getting what the writers are trying to do here. Also, if I'm right about my assertion this show is an amalgam of styles, underestimating one's threats is a pop horror element.

Kristen's solution is to then no be home because she needs to attend the exorcism...why? She has no cleric/priest class abilities, so to speak, since she doesn't worship a god. That other dude - her old therapist - has the actual medical license...so why does she need to be there when she knows this serial killer is stalking her girls?

True - here is where you're rushed observation comes in, the locks is pat solution and I strike this up to them needing to move the story along. It could've been more drawn out and complex, but they wanted us to get to the daughter was secretly devil incubated part. She goes because she's into it - she's all in and doesn't want to miss any of it. She was asked to join the team by the Priest to provide her scientific ( in her case, psychologist ) perspective as the Priest/church struggles to tell the difference between actual demonic possession, mental illness and fakes. I also think the Priest questions his beliefs in some respects, so if he can convert a true skeptic, it confirms his beliefs.

Also why is the cop Mira such a bitch? Does she really think this guy who attacked Kristen while in his cell, who seemed to accept his guilt when he was found to have set up his insanity defense via 4chan, is totally innocent? As asked on Reddit, why doesn't Kristen get a restraining order?

Could just be bad writing, but it's part of the overall narrative that she's being attacked directly by demonic forces and those forces hold sway over many ( it appears ), so I took the cop being a cog in the devil machinery. I'm hoping the show doesn't cheat us out of this and comes up with a good way to explain how they can move so many, but not her - what makes her different. The priests I can understand being protected.

Lexis, the girl who was born via Satan's Fertility Clinic...what? And this allows the devil to call her to open the locked door? Also...what? And why did Kristen even have so many kids (two, Lexis & Laura, post miscarriage) when she and her husband clearly aren't that financially stable?

Well, not sure where you hail from, but here in the USA having more kids than you can afford is the rule, not the exception. And it could be financially they were in better off in the past, some could've been unplanned, etc.

I realize this is a lot of griping, but part of the issue is this idea of the Devil's Plan of slowly corrupting Kristen is actually a good one. It just doesn't fit together that well.

There's a lot to gripe about this show, so don't beat yourself up 

I'm trying to give it it's due - honestly, I fell backwards when we get to see the head demon/devil, whatever that thing is in that hilarious 50's costume conception of what the devil looks like. I honestly don't know what that angle is - are we supposed to think it's funny? Is it a projection and not real? Is it trying to be scary? Something's amiss with this show, just can't tell if it's intentional or not.

I watch so much fucking television, you'all don't need to watch any of it, just wait for my reviews 

I watched The Irishman. Long movie, but very well done. It was a real treat getting to see Pacino, Dinero and Pesci all on the same screen at once, pretty cool. Pacino and Dinero's parts were not new to them, but still excellent per usual. Pesci stole the show, he really strutted his acting chops in this thing. It's worth the investment, I'll put more on kinda spoilery


I watched The Witcher. I liked it. After a few episodes, it appeared to be just a rehash of the short stories in the first book, which I read and I initially thought that was a mistake as a collection of stories with no epic tale would be boring. But stuck with it and glad I did as as an epic story does emerge. The magic is, well, hmm ... not sure what to make of it, it's very witchy and fairy tale-esc, seems both limited and unlimited and depends on the sorcerer's gifts - I guess we're supposed to learn that on our own, which is good the show doesn't hold your hand on everything - but that said, it's challenging to write overly powerful characters and abilities as you can always think, "why didn't they do that, they did it before ... ". Given the OP nature of the magic, they still did a descent job with it.

Caville did a good Witcher - not too challenging due to the lack of dialogue with the character, just brooding around being a badass, but he did it well. The monsters and lore all fairy tale style, quite a bit of violence, typical fantasy female hotty tropes and nudity ( not tasteful, but also doesn't seem too gratuitous, but that could be me becoming jaded ).

It is very well directed, doesn't hold your hand, we're on our own to piece it all together. There are time jumps with no date/time stamps, but it was fun to keep up and it beautifully weaves together toward the climax. And there are no maps either, so you're having to visualize the continent ( which has no name, it's just The Continent ). This is a strength of the show, it doesn't mire you in a historical introduction and just gets right into it.  I think you cats would dig it, not the greatest thing ever, but it's different enough and good enough to enjoy it.

Quote from: TaoHorror on January 18, 2020, 09:45:08 pm

Evil - fuck, can't believe I'm still watching this stupid thing ... but it's called Evil, so I guess I am. Pretty much drive by crappy tv, but the bad guy is excellent as I said before. I wasn't going to bother bringing up this show again, but the end of the current episode had me laughing hard and loud - I'm not sure if I'm laughing at it or with it, don't know if it was intentionally supposed to be funny or what. Would like to hear some other's thoughts for anyone else watching. It's possible it's good writing if the dude is hallucinating - I will give the show some props as it kinda leaves the door open just a touch that some of this stuff is true or false, either way. That said, too many episodes were just so badly written - it's like the show is trying to have it both ways, being interestingly mysterious pared with bad stories targeting mass market audiences. Man, this show would've been so much better on cable than prime time - oh, well.

Heh I love this show, minus the Murderous Kid one which just came across as way too forced.

The ridiculousness of it all I think is very deliberate - for example the New Prophet using blowing up a beach ball to better heard the Voice of God, the very generic names for the demons, etc.

Sci, you're watching it too! Cool, I have someone I can talk with about the show. Are you all caught up? I want to discuss the end of the current episode, the ending was a trip 

So you're saying the over-the-top stuff is presented intentionally and the story is not a victim of efficiency? Each of these episodes could be a whole season if told properly, or close to it. And each one is a popular equation: heroes encounter the foe, but either don't know it ( a lot of hits to the back of the head looking the wrong way stuff ) or underestimate the situation -> foe almost kills heroes, looks like there's no escape -> heroes win!

I mean, with them getting screwed over so often, you would think they would approach the situations more carefully by now - having each other's backs, processes to confirm safety, checking in. Also, why did they abandoned the good stuff about faith vs atheism? The show just cruises past this stuff - like the psychologist is not "growing" as she witnesses unexplained phenomena, just off to the next episode.

This is pretty cool. Teensie weensie killer robots cruising around in the body, destroying cancer cells. Can even make it an online game, where gamers control them to hunt down the cancer cells ( well, as long as they couldn't destroy non-cancer cells ... ).

Glad you like them Tao, I wish I could do ones more specific to certain philosophers but I figure that's the job of someone like H who's put in the hard work of understanding these philosophical types.

Don't sell yourself short! We're all expecting big things ... ( hee, hee! ). Well, if you feel the urge and add more, you have at least one person here who would enjoy them 

"Eventually, I believe, current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks as conscious beings will be recognized as a gigantic waste of time."
 -Thomas Nagel

Articulated much better than I ever could, but I've felt this way for some time. Though trying may not be a waste of time, we may learn a lot with robotics that could be a boon for humanity. But the idea we can make a computer ( or anything ) conscious beyond the good old fashion way will likely never happen.

I've had this idea for a somewhat scifi story/movie/something ( I'm a shit writer, so it'll forever rot in my head ) whereas we did fail to generate artificial intelligence from hard machines, but we made some ground with soft machinery and succeeded in creating a brain from scratch as a brain ( meaning wholly organic with exact bio materials as a human brain ) and a consciousness shows up ( emerges? ). From there we figure out how to disable the mechanism that allows us to forget and then build another brain and we ask the "person" who shows up where they came from. A lot of details have to be worked out, like is it an infantile consciousness that arrives and we have to wait for it to grow up, learn language, does disabling forgetfulness drive it insane, etc. But I think it could be suspenseful story building up to "summoning" a consciousness that will remember where it came from. So if my story is "true", what's showing up would be a soul.

Agreed - face to face interaction with deities is not handled in 5e or older systems. Maybe it's simply never meant to be, but a card system would be appropriate in lieu of dice.

Sounds trippy, I'll check it out