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chocolatepotSo I watched RHPS - Let's Do The Time Warp Again last night. Thought it was pretty good, and avoided the problem that's messed up every other NBC production (casting people who can't sing for singing parts, people can sing but can't act for acting parts - basically seeming to value star power much over ability or fitting the part). It helped that it wasn't quite as "live" as the others, and that the original is basically the campiest thing ever so it's not being compared to a polished movie musical.
Is anyone else watching Westworld? At first I was kind of like, ugh, this history theme park is so inaccurate, but then it became apparent that it's not a history theme park, it's a theme park for people who love cheesy westerns. I guess cheesy westerns have a Moment in the next century or something. It does have some issues with cable's need for naked ladies, though it also has naked men. At first I was :/ because oh boy, another story about lifelike androids built to be used by humans that become sentient and rebel. But it's different from the other ways I've seen the some thing done, mainly by having a whole bunch of the hosts developing sentience/memories/brain stuff in their own ways, at different times - rather than just one that's the prime mover.
Also, Evan Rachel Wood and James Marsden are such perfect-looking people. I really hope that gaining sentience doesn't make their characters break up. :/
New Black Mirror is interesting. Nosedive is giving me intense anxiety. I find it hard to swallow the basic concept - it's basically the MeowMeowBeenz episode of Community, so ... I'm associating it with "twos and their apples!" and also having a bit of a hard time believing in an economy that shuts people out of their jobs because their social media ranking is too low. But the whole "people are constantly judging you and they can immediately tell how (poorly) everyone else thinks of you" idea is, well, what I think in my day-to-day life, so yes, anxiety. I thought it would get inspirational when she went to the wedding, like she'd spill her guts and everyone would rate her up or something, but ... no, it just got worse! I shouldn't watch this show, it's terrible for me. Good ending, though. Huh, Rashida Jones co-wrote it? Interesting.
(I was reading some AV Club reviews of old episodes - Sea of Tranquility, the show whose fandom appears here, was mentioned in the first episode of BM, the one where Rory Kinnear fucks a pig.)
Playtest is much more my thing - I like dark science fiction stories about someone encountering a new technology and it being horrible. (Black Mirror stories, type 2.) I don't have to think about all these people living in a toxic society, or have my suspension of disbelief broken by not seeing how society would get to that point. It's just one guy and a really messed-up technology. A really really really really messed-up technology. But they let us get to know the guy too well before he went to the game company, that combined with the total accident of his death made it just a personal tragedy happening to a character we cared about rather than a hopeless future.
Shut Up and Dance, scary but not viscerally hitting me. I feel like every series is like this progression? There's one episode I find dark but interesting, one episode that creeps me out, and one episode that MESSES ME UP. What a hopeless ending, though, man. I like the implication that 4chan/Anonymous specifically was behind it all.
San Junipero seems pretty odd for Black Mirror, maybe because it's a period piece rather than an exploration of what technology could do to us in the present or near future. Oh, but then it turns out to be a secret SF piece! Hmm, it seems weird to me to use VR or w/e to visit the late 20th century, but okay. Ohhhh, they're old, that makes more sense! This is actually a lot sweeter and more beautiful than I would have expected. The only BM episode to ever make me think "I hope they develop this technology by the time I'm senile." Even the way the ending is trying to make me think, "it's not real, they're just computer programs," isn't taking. Ha! I've won the game!
Men Against Fire feels like the beginning to something longer. Which is what most BM episodes feel like, tbh, but maybe it's more so here because it's reminiscent of YA dystopic fiction. Like I expect to see him band together with Roaches and mass-unMASS the military to get everyone to turn on the government.
Hated in the Nation is a good concept - I think if you're writing satire about modern technology and web/social media-influenced life, you really have to address dogpiling and OTT vitriol. But it feels ... overworked here? I would have been happier with just suggesting the tie between bee swarm hive minds and the way these social media campaigns work. "The internet is influencing the behavior of robot bees!" That would be just fine. Having someone make this happen deliberately so that it can be turned around and used on people who helped influence the robot bees is kind of dull. Wiki says it was inspired by internet backlash Brooker got when he wrote about how an assassin should take out GWB, which is maybe why it feels so odd.
Decided to watch White Christmas, which I'd never seen for some reason - I think I'd elected to skip it because White Bear screwed me up so much. Jon Hamm was pretty perfectly cast as an expert manipulator, and really so was Rafe Spall - he's such an everyman-looking guy that you instinctively feel for him before they let you in on his crime. The song Bethany sang at karaoke is the same one from 15 Million Credits - very nice. The blocking was well done: at first I thought blocking people on social media was one of the big satire points, which seemed pointless as people blocking their loved ones to shut down communication is not really a thing, but as a set-up for the twist ending it was good. That said, I'm kind of hung up on how any law enforcement agency would justify punishing crimes not bad enough for jail with causing people to be literally invisible/inaudible to all other human beings. On first glace this seemed like a death sentence ... although now that I think about it, I guess if they get benefits and/or do some kind of telecommuting work, they could kind of manage. Still. "No human contact ever again" seems a bit much.
---
Oh no, I was pretty sure I would be good with three pens, which is really one too many (I have designated my first pen as "fiction pen", the two others are "office pen" and "journal pen"), and yet now I'm looking at a vintage Eversharp with a good flex nib. My life D:
Is anyone else watching Westworld? At first I was kind of like, ugh, this history theme park is so inaccurate, but then it became apparent that it's not a history theme park, it's a theme park for people who love cheesy westerns. I guess cheesy westerns have a Moment in the next century or something. It does have some issues with cable's need for naked ladies, though it also has naked men. At first I was :/ because oh boy, another story about lifelike androids built to be used by humans that become sentient and rebel. But it's different from the other ways I've seen the some thing done, mainly by having a whole bunch of the hosts developing sentience/memories/brain stuff in their own ways, at different times - rather than just one that's the prime mover.
Also, Evan Rachel Wood and James Marsden are such perfect-looking people. I really hope that gaining sentience doesn't make their characters break up. :/
New Black Mirror is interesting. Nosedive is giving me intense anxiety. I find it hard to swallow the basic concept - it's basically the MeowMeowBeenz episode of Community, so ... I'm associating it with "twos and their apples!" and also having a bit of a hard time believing in an economy that shuts people out of their jobs because their social media ranking is too low. But the whole "people are constantly judging you and they can immediately tell how (poorly) everyone else thinks of you" idea is, well, what I think in my day-to-day life, so yes, anxiety. I thought it would get inspirational when she went to the wedding, like she'd spill her guts and everyone would rate her up or something, but ... no, it just got worse! I shouldn't watch this show, it's terrible for me. Good ending, though. Huh, Rashida Jones co-wrote it? Interesting.
(I was reading some AV Club reviews of old episodes - Sea of Tranquility, the show whose fandom appears here, was mentioned in the first episode of BM, the one where Rory Kinnear fucks a pig.)
Playtest is much more my thing - I like dark science fiction stories about someone encountering a new technology and it being horrible. (Black Mirror stories, type 2.) I don't have to think about all these people living in a toxic society, or have my suspension of disbelief broken by not seeing how society would get to that point. It's just one guy and a really messed-up technology. A really really really really messed-up technology. But they let us get to know the guy too well before he went to the game company, that combined with the total accident of his death made it just a personal tragedy happening to a character we cared about rather than a hopeless future.
Shut Up and Dance, scary but not viscerally hitting me. I feel like every series is like this progression? There's one episode I find dark but interesting, one episode that creeps me out, and one episode that MESSES ME UP. What a hopeless ending, though, man. I like the implication that 4chan/Anonymous specifically was behind it all.
San Junipero seems pretty odd for Black Mirror, maybe because it's a period piece rather than an exploration of what technology could do to us in the present or near future. Oh, but then it turns out to be a secret SF piece! Hmm, it seems weird to me to use VR or w/e to visit the late 20th century, but okay. Ohhhh, they're old, that makes more sense! This is actually a lot sweeter and more beautiful than I would have expected. The only BM episode to ever make me think "I hope they develop this technology by the time I'm senile." Even the way the ending is trying to make me think, "it's not real, they're just computer programs," isn't taking. Ha! I've won the game!
Men Against Fire feels like the beginning to something longer. Which is what most BM episodes feel like, tbh, but maybe it's more so here because it's reminiscent of YA dystopic fiction. Like I expect to see him band together with Roaches and mass-unMASS the military to get everyone to turn on the government.
Hated in the Nation is a good concept - I think if you're writing satire about modern technology and web/social media-influenced life, you really have to address dogpiling and OTT vitriol. But it feels ... overworked here? I would have been happier with just suggesting the tie between bee swarm hive minds and the way these social media campaigns work. "The internet is influencing the behavior of robot bees!" That would be just fine. Having someone make this happen deliberately so that it can be turned around and used on people who helped influence the robot bees is kind of dull. Wiki says it was inspired by internet backlash Brooker got when he wrote about how an assassin should take out GWB, which is maybe why it feels so odd.
Decided to watch White Christmas, which I'd never seen for some reason - I think I'd elected to skip it because White Bear screwed me up so much. Jon Hamm was pretty perfectly cast as an expert manipulator, and really so was Rafe Spall - he's such an everyman-looking guy that you instinctively feel for him before they let you in on his crime. The song Bethany sang at karaoke is the same one from 15 Million Credits - very nice. The blocking was well done: at first I thought blocking people on social media was one of the big satire points, which seemed pointless as people blocking their loved ones to shut down communication is not really a thing, but as a set-up for the twist ending it was good. That said, I'm kind of hung up on how any law enforcement agency would justify punishing crimes not bad enough for jail with causing people to be literally invisible/inaudible to all other human beings. On first glace this seemed like a death sentence ... although now that I think about it, I guess if they get benefits and/or do some kind of telecommuting work, they could kind of manage. Still. "No human contact ever again" seems a bit much.
---
Oh no, I was pretty sure I would be good with three pens, which is really one too many (I have designated my first pen as "fiction pen", the two others are "office pen" and "journal pen"), and yet now I'm looking at a vintage Eversharp with a good flex nib. My life D:
