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Post by tingramretro on Aug 18, 2016 16:03:35 GMT -5
Blake's 7 is, in my opinion, one of the greatest SF shows ever, and the final episode still one of the most memorable in television history. B7 is often dismissed for being cheap and having poor production values but despite the low budget, I think the writing put it in a completely different league to a lot of other shows of the time. The BBC really broke new ground with it, creating an ongoing show where the "heroes" were basically, when you actually thought about it, a bunch of self centred, murderous criminal misfits. Even Blake was an obsessive madman, willing to sacrifice innocents on a huge scale by destroying Star One just to win his private war. And Paul Darrow as Avon is one of the greatest anti-heroes ever. I haven't watched it since it was on live, so my opinion might change if I saw it again, but my impression, at the time, of the last series was that they trebled the SFX budget and recovered the money by slashing the writing budget. Really? You weren't impressed by that final episode? That still moves me every time I see it. |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 18, 2016 16:12:06 GMT -5
Speaking of regeneration -- what's the current status quo regarding the number of times the Doctor can regenerate? I thought it was twelve times, but since the current Doctor is the twelfth and I presume they have no intentions of stopping the show, have they come up with some explanation or mechanism that enables the Doctor to regenerate past the limit? Yes, they have. You must have missed the 2013 Christmas special Time of the Doctor, which ended Matt Smith's run as the 11th Doctor. It was revealed then that, although he could regenerate twelve times and therefore had potentially thirteen lives, the 11th Doctor was actually the final incarnation; we'd already met the "secret" incarnation, the one played by John Hurt who had fought in the Time War, and we now learned that the 10th Doctor's abortive regeneration in Journey's End back in 2008 had actually wasted another life. With the Doctor on the point of finally dying, the Time Lords sent a burst or regeneration energy through a crack in space-time, effectively granting him a whole new life cycle. We no longer know how many regenerations he has left; it could be one, twelve, or an unlimited number. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,211 
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Post by Confessor on Aug 18, 2016 16:54:14 GMT -5
I haven't watched it since it was on live, so my opinion might change if I saw it again, but my impression, at the time, of the last series was that they trebled the SFX budget and recovered the money by slashing the writing budget. Really? You weren't impressed by that final episode? That still moves me every time I see it. I can't say that I noticed any drop off in quality for the last series when I watched it again semi-recently, and ... yeah, that final episode was amazing. So moving and so unexpected...it really stayed with me for a long time as a kid. Even today, I can still vividly remember being sat on the living room floor aged 9 and watching that finale. That was some seriously affecting TV drama. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 18, 2016 17:09:55 GMT -5
I feel like I should save a pre-made rant like Shax did  Continuity is awesome when a character grows and develops according to what happens in the story. It's even better when several characters interact in a shared universe when those interactions are logical in that universe, and when both characters involved act in the same way all the time, and when ALL the things that happen to them are weaved together into a relatively seemless whole. When people write 10 issue epics to explain while x character was wear red pants in issue 29 instead of blue, when really the colorist just f-ed up, Continuity is bad. What I can't stand is when writers take a story they have in mind and shoe horn it into an existing character for Marketing (Warren Ellis does this all the time, as does Bendis)... 'Bold new directions' should make sense in the greater narrative, rather than just be 'wouldn't it be cool if...' the former is what big, popular shared universes like Marvel SHOULD do.. the latter should be reserved for message boards and fan fiction. A good example: Jim Rhodes taking over as Iron Man while Tony Stark deals with his alcoholism.. then returns when he gets his act together. A decent example: Tony fakes his death to let War Machine be Iron Man for a while, the comes back once he gets his medical issues settled. A Bad example: Tony Stark becomes an irredeemable A-hole to fit into a crossover, then suddenly goes from being a brash CEO and Inventor to an insecure child-like genius. A worse example: Tony Stark suddenly went to college in Europe and has a secret love of his life, instead of running his father's company, which, if taken to it's logical conclusion makes literally no sense time line wise unless he's like 50 years old. the WORST example: The Crossing |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 18, 2016 17:17:10 GMT -5
RE: Doctor Who.. it's a pretty weird thing here in the states, IMO. Most people under 30 LOVE it. As Shax said, any store with any sort of Pop culture cred will be awash in Who merchandise. I'd be surprised if anyone who uses the internet didn't recognize the TARDIS or the Daleks. I have a 'Keep Calm and Don't Blink' t-shirt tht elicits several comments every time I wear it.
There's also plenty of older people that watched and loved Tom Baker on PBS.
OTOH, There's a big swath of people in between though, that could very well have no exposure whatsoever... I guess Ish is one of those.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Aug 18, 2016 17:21:26 GMT -5
I like continuity but if a story is good I don't mind if it doesn't fit. The perfect example of this for mine is Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier, giving us a new, fresh look at a well known story. Yet tomorrow I can grab the next JLA issue and carry on enjoying in-continuity stories. |
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Aug 18, 2016 17:29:02 GMT -5
I'm thinking of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. They had their own continuity. It was part of the appeal of the stories. And TV has embraced telling a season long story instead of "done in ones". Today's TV shows have a tighter continuity than TV shows did when I was a kid. Doctor Who, which has had a couple of hundred writers, has a continuity stretching back 53 years, and it mostly makes sense. The first few years of the show back in the sixties were basically one long ongoing serial, with most adventures leading directly into the next. Hoping this hasnt been pointed out before, but the Doctor is virtually immortal(or extremely long lived) so 50 years of continuity is just 50 years of telling his story, while 50 years of Spider-Man stories is utterly ridiculous to believe of a teen(or slightly older) hero. Even ignoring the occasional issue that foolishly has a date in it, if you added up all the days spent battling all the different villains etc, hes probably really 40 or 50 without time off for work, eat, or sleep. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 18, 2016 17:32:44 GMT -5
OTOH, There's a big swath of people in between though, that could very well have no exposure whatsoever... I guess Ish is one of those. Yeah, I was aware of Dr. Who but didn't sample it. His visibility in NYC back then seemed to only be a late afternoon episode on the seldom watched PBS station back in the 80s as well as the 23 issues of, I believe,reprints Marvel put out. That was about it for the 20th century. I knew there was a Dr Who magazine but they were rare to find in comic shops. Would read occasional articles about him in fanzines. His resurgence of popularity the past 10 or so years was not noticed by me I'm no connoisseur of current pop trends. As far as I know, never heard a Justin Beiber song and kind of proud of that fact |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 18, 2016 17:40:49 GMT -5
Hoping this hasnt been pointed out before, but the Doctor is virtually immortal(or extremely long lived) so 50 years of continuity is just 50 years of telling his story, while 50 years of Spider-Man stories is utterly ridiculous to believe of a teen(or slightly older) hero. Even ignoring the occasional issue that foolishly has a date in it, if you added up all the days spent battling all the different villains etc, hes probably really 40 or 50 without time off for work, eat, or sleep. Agreed, while the Doctor has that built in story gimmick to bypass continuity issues, these other long-lived characters do not. So The Punisher must be in his 60s now, having fought in Vietnam. And Sherlock Holmes lived in gas-light era London, tangled with Jack The Ripper but also fought Nazi spies in WWII and looked and acted just as young. Watson too. And don't forget James Bond battling Khrushchev's Soviet agents as well as Al Qaeda Mid-East terrorists |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 18, 2016 19:31:44 GMT -5
OTOH, There's a big swath of people in between though, that could very well have no exposure whatsoever... I guess Ish is one of those. Yeah, I was aware of Dr. Who but didn't sample it. His visibility in NYC back then seemed to only be a late afternoon episode on the seldom watched PBS station back in the 80s as well as the 23 issues of, I believe,reprints Marvel put out. That was about it for the 20th century. I knew there was a Dr Who magazine but they were rare to find in comic shops. Would read occasional articles about him in fanzines. His resurgence of popularity the past 10 or so years was not noticed by me I'm no connoisseur of current pop trends. As far as I know, never heard a Justin Beiber song and kind of proud of that fact .. and thus you prove your statement by summoning Justin Beiber.. he hasn't been popular for what, 3 years? 5? |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 19, 2016 0:47:21 GMT -5
Hoping this hasnt been pointed out before, but the Doctor is virtually immortal(or extremely long lived) so 50 years of continuity is just 50 years of telling his story, while 50 years of Spider-Man stories is utterly ridiculous to believe of a teen(or slightly older) hero. Even ignoring the occasional issue that foolishly has a date in it, if you added up all the days spent battling all the different villains etc, hes probably really 40 or 50 without time off for work, eat, or sleep. Agreed, while the Doctor has that built in story gimmick to bypass continuity issues, these other long-lived characters do not. So The Punisher must be in his 60s now, having fought in Vietnam. And Sherlock Holmes lived in gas-light era London, tangled with Jack The Ripper but also fought Nazi spies in WWII and looked and acted just as young. Never, ever say this to a Holmes purist. They basically invented the concept of canon as it relates to fictional universes, and the general rule is, if Arthur Conan Doyle didn't write it, it's not canon and doesn't count. Sorry, Basil Rathbone... |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 19, 2016 1:04:57 GMT -5
OTOH, There's a big swath of people in between though, that could very well have no exposure whatsoever... I guess Ish is one of those. Yeah, I was aware of Dr. Who but didn't sample it. His visibility in NYC back then seemed to only be a late afternoon episode on the seldom watched PBS station back in the 80s as well as the 23 issues of, I believe,reprints Marvel put out. That was about it for the 20th century. I knew there was a Dr Who magazine but they were rare to find in comic shops. Would read occasional articles about him in fanzines. His resurgence of popularity the past 10 or so years was not noticed by me I'm no connoisseur of current pop trends. As far as I know, never heard a Justin Beiber song and kind of proud of that fact The Doctor is hardly just a "current pop trend", and I really don't think a character as enduring as him, with a multi-generational fanbase spread across the world, can be compared in any way to someone as ephemeral as Justin Beiber. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2016 1:15:17 GMT -5
Really? You weren't impressed by that final episode? That still moves me every time I see it. It's a long, long time since I saw it, and that episode was indeed probably the high point of that series, but my abiding recollection of the last series is how awful the writing was |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 19, 2016 1:23:55 GMT -5
Really? You weren't impressed by that final episode? That still moves me every time I see it. It's a long, long time since I saw it, and that episode was indeed probably the high point of that series, but my abiding recollection of the last series is how awful the writing was I think it had some very strong episodes. Orbit was another. And also Sand, which contains one of my favourite exchanges from the whole show, when Tarrant is trapped in a base with villainous vamp Servalan. "Oh, Tarrant-I'm just the girl next door".
"If you were the girl next door, I'd move".
"Where would you move to, Tarrant?"
"Next door".
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 19, 2016 5:10:14 GMT -5
Kerr Avon: 'A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.' Cally once said that was a saying among her people.
Dorian: Who's Cally?
Kerr Avon: Cally was murdered. So were most of her people.
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