Have we discussed Mythic Quest here yet? I’ve enjoyed it quite a lot, and it seems like the combination of gamer and sci-fi/fantasy culture would hit home for a lot of SP regulars.
I don’t know that we have at all? I enjoyed the first season, haven’t watched the second at all.
Well, I’ve seen the entire first season of Wheel of Time now an never before can I remember being this angry about a show. Sorry, I know I’ve posted plenty about it but it hurts.
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Woof. Bad?
On multiple levels. The production, from acting to special effects to costumes, etc. was very inconsistent and could be great at time and very cringeworthy at times. I’ve read that there were some production constraints because of COVID so I can give them some leeway in that department.
My anger really stems from the fact that we have a long-established and much-loved 14 book series that the show runner seems to think he should have written instead of the actual author. There were so many changes made to the story that go far beyond adapting it to screen. This is elf/dwarf romances in The Hobbit level re-writing. And it isn’t just the story, it is the entire tone of the story that was changed. It is also very clear that the show runners are using this story as a way to experiment with their own worldviews, which I would be perfectly happy to entertain in a different story, just not one that has such a deep and established story as is.
On top of all that, even with all the changes made there still isn’t internal consistency with the lore and world building.
Non-readers may view everything completely differently but the reigns to this beloved series were handed to an imbecile who wants his story told rather than the story he’s actually supposedly adapting.
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I am not really disliking it, as a diehard Marvel fan, alternate story-telling of beloved characters is just part of fandom.
I did see this comment on Reddit that made me laugh though:
I’m very disappointed in the Seanchan. They didn’t ask the adorable little girl if she remembered to “obey, await, and serve”. They just tsunamied her on sight.
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This. As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s been a long time since I’ve read some of the books, and this is, I think, the aspect that really put me off the show. I don’t remember the details of the books, admittedly, but I remember how they felt, and this show does not feel like that.
All of your points are totally true; I stopped watching and have no plans to go back to it. And I wanted to like it. I know how excited you were for this, so I’m sorry to see it turn out like this : (
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So, before watching I read a review on polygon (which I just shouldnt) and their entire viewpoint was about gender disparity (women are enslaved, lots of brown people in casting, why can’t trans people pick their one power? That’s not fair!)
Found the story and show watchable, coo images, but not wheel of time 
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The books are all about gender parity. They are generally fairly a-political but it is clear that the world of WoT doesn’t see gender as a barrier to anything. There are differences in capabilities, especially with the One Power, but there are strong men and weak men, and strong women and week women, and patriarchies and matriarchies, and the most defining differences are in ever character’s moral choices. The books make a point that both males and females are important and they are all strongest when working together.
The show makes it very clear that males are bad. All the world’s problems are because of their stupidity or arrogance. On top of that, women are elevated above their book abilities and the clearest way that the show runner makes men look bad is by neutering every single one of them. Big book scenes are taken from the men and given to the women, men make moronic decisions, men are cruel or stupid or adulterers, etc.
I’m not one for complaining about this except for how very, very obvious the showrunner makes it, and to the detriment of established characters.
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Huh—it’s been a long time, but that fits neither my recollection of the books nor my impression of the show. The books seemed like they had a huge degree of complementarity of the genders built into the structure of society and kind of seriously enforced, which meant that lots of options were one-gender only; that is, there’s a barrier to a person doing lots of things. Anyone could be good or evil, sure, but the show has that, too—the barmaid’s a darkfriend, the Aes Sedai are morally gray, Thom and Rand’s dad are thoughtful and merciful, Lan remains competent and dangerous, Logain’s more powerful than anyone sent after him, and Rand does the thing. I grant that they left open an option for Mat to turn evil, but they also left a possibility that he figured out that he isn’t the dragon and learned something about the dead city and is going back to do something important (and perhaps dangerous and self-sacrificial, which also seems in character for him, despite the darkness Moraine sees).
I don’t think it’s perfect; I have a bunch of minor issues, mostly to do with characters and their journeys not being sufficiently well-established for stuff that happens to feel natural. But I don’t know that I’d have been able to relate to something that had the tone of the books as we get ready to head into year three of a pandemic in which so many seem so motivated by tribal hatreds, and so many others delighted to profit by stoking them. So I feel happy enough with it, and maybe that perspective can help others see it in a more positive light and get more joy out of it.
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Mayor of Kingstown: I Spy the Dread Hand of Tyler Sheridan. Jeremy Rennet is the magic ingredient in another tale of tragic masculinity, playing an eminence grise who knows everyone, in a town deeply involved with the prison industry, acting as a go-between between cops and criminals. It’s not particularly convincing in some respects, Renner’s character is only doing the job ‘temporarily’, he wants to be a cook, etc, and his somewhat brash approach causes reactions that he shouldn’t get, but the plot needs them to happen. It has a lot in common with Yellowstone, where you think it might be a serious drama, but it’s absolutely not, and quickly becomes a bloke opera. Spare a thought for every single female character.
Yellowjackets. A football team has a plane crash and spends 19 months in the Alaskan (?) wilderness before being rescued, and the remaining members 30 years later are having fun with their lives when someone starts causing trouble for them. Again, I thought I was getting something a bit more serious, but it absolutely is not. Some great cast members (Christina Ricci, Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis) that I consider wasted in something like this, where they’re quite capable of acting at about 5,000% capacity over what the script provides. A somewhat sub-par effort, that could have been much better. Also great to see Liv Hewson from Santa Clarita Diet in something.
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Being The Ricardos (Amazon Prime) - A drama about the tumultuous week of show prep for the I Love Lucy show when Lucille Ball was accused of being a Communist and Desi Arnaz was accused of being unfaithful to Lucy. Nicole Kidman was brilliant as Lucy (Cate Blanchett had to back out) and Javier Bardem, despite looking nothing like Desi, turns in a powerful and convincing performance as Desi. JK Simmons portrays William Frawley (Fred Mertz) and Nina Arianda plays Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz). The story is interspersed with comments from two of the writers and the showrunner Jess Oppenheimer that give the viewer more behind-the-scenes exposition while also reminding that these events really happened. (Lucille Ball’s memoirs, which had been locked in a safe for many years because she knew what it would do to her children’s perception of their father, were also a source.) Mrs. Doublebullout is an I Love Lucy superfan in equal measure to my love for the original Star Trek series; she loved every second of this. Honestly, I did too. The cast is fantastic, the story is compelling, and the insight into a time when “cancel culture” was very much alive is fascinating. Highly recommended!
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Titans. Now, this might seem like a hatchet job, but wait a second. Titans started off quite well; not because of Dick Grayson, he’s the boring generic glue that held the interesting parts together. The other characters were all at least vaguely interesting and could have made a great team. Hawk and Dove were so good they could and should have had their own series. Unfortunately the promise of S1 evaporated, and S2 was wandering the wilderness, and S3 is plumbing depths I haven’t seen since Arrow went so badly awry that the subreddit literally started watching Daredevil instead because the fans felt they had been shit on so much. Watching the Jason Todd/Robin go from a slightly interesting character with a bit of an attitude, to being the Red Hood (“That’s it? That’s your power? You have guns?” is all I can think whenever he appears, and I go off on another Mystery-Men inspired round of chortles) who is always pitched against the heroes who are vulnerable to bullets…even when they get the chance to choose who goes up against him. It just…it just isn’t working. He’s not even a particularly good shot, obviously, otherwise he would have killed a bunch of heroes by now.
Part of the problem when it comes to comics-sourced material is you have to keep it the same but also keep it new, otherwise it all goes wrong, so eventually over a long enough timeline, all properties originating from comics will go wrong, and it usually happens quite quickly, because you end up with either one writer going crackers, or a bunch of writers in a room who are tired of smelling each others’ balls, who just knock up any old shit in order to be allowed to go home. They ignore big power differentials and power mismatches despite the fact that those are really interesting because those things tend to be conclusive, one way or the other, and they need to squeeze another ten episodes out. Unfortunately, those ten episodes are then a load of old shit. Titans is now nothing but prime hatewatch material, the Scarecrow plot is rubbish, and it’s such a shame because there’s finally a good Barbara Gordon in Savannah Welch.
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I don’t disagree that the story (lol) for season three was maybe lacking a…story?
That said, I did not mind watching it for pure end of day relaxation fluff, I have seen a lot worse (I actually just gave up on Station 11 after the 2nd episode.)
But only because I think some the actors are fun. I agree that Savannah Welch is a great Barbara, and I hope that season 4 highlights her as Oracle.
But I also really liked Vincent Kartheiser as Scarecrow, and despite that he was given a bad script, I still liked him when he was on screen.
I also really like Ryan Potter in season 3 as Gar, he had some great scenes of frustration with everything (well nothing) going on around him and him just having to deal with it all.
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But only because I think some the actors are fun.
The actors are, again, much better than the material they are getting.
That said, I did not mind watching it for pure end of day relaxation fluff, I have seen a lot worse (I actually just gave up on Station 11 after the 2nd episode.)
Station Eleven is perfect what is this vile calumny you have dropped at my feet.
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I love the word calumny. I wrote a paper in graduate school titled “The Calumny of Animals” that showed how Shakespeare consistently disparaged animals through using them at pejoratives toward characters in his works.
I don’t know, on paper I should have loved it. I love post-Apocalyptic stories, and I love Shakespeare. But after 2 episodes of Station 11, I could not bring myself to care for anyone in that show enough to find out what happened to them.
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Around the World in 80 Days. A bit slow to get started, but when it does the budget shows. Great fun, an excellent adaptation and David Tennant is on form.
Incidentally, much better than the book. Big fat middle finger to everyone on IMDb complaining about wokeness. Giving Fogg actual motivation and character development, who responds to what he encounters, rather than being a rich man with no apparent reason to make the bet and who plays whist in preference to interacting with anything or anyone, makes for a more satisfying narrative.
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My kids watch Teeny Titans and I the dark tone of the show turned me off immediately since I will forever associate the Titans with bonkers comedy.