Kategori: TV

Does TV still rot your brain?

Much happiness due to the growth in number of character driven plots. Great pain, when studio heads have no understanding of story arcs unfolding over several years, needing interesting characters and not just great CGI/SFX.

Though… (Feb 2017) for a couple of years now it has felt as if most chances taken are with content topics, and not really with story and character development. Can’t really think of a series that really really touched me. Drama tear-jerking, sure. Believable HUMAN characters like in Sense8 or conflicts like Dark Matter and politicising conquest of near space in the Expanse. But any real depth? No, sadly, no. Its all just story developing, which when okay has avoided the most obvious of dramatic clichés and pitfalls. And finding the right bell to ring within the audience seems more important than telling a real story, so… often a steady and predictable decline from season 2. Do you disagree?

Titles in red are shows with time travel elements, which are of particular interest to me; embedded links here lead to wikipedia pages.

Visit CancelledSciFi to see if your favourite is sinking or swimming…

• 3rd Rock from the Sun [Aliens visiting Earth, bumbling around. Likable characters, but in all its zanyness mostly a pointer to normalcy][many, many seasons, forgot how many]
• 5ive days to midnight (time travel mini-series)(fine)
• Aftermath (2016, Supernatural apocalypse. As if human struggle isn’t relevant enough without “a common enemy to all”.)
• Airlock (web-series) (bob-bob)
• Alcatraz (Trying to capitalise on Lost, eh?! You lost that one, you did!)
• Almost Human (Human cops teaming up with android partner (white and black…)(S01 Nov. 2013 – not holding my breath)(Let go of my breath – hero/sidekick white/black killed it for me]
• Alphas (another super-ability series. Let’s see if they can find the story (July 2011).)(Cancelled due to lack of direction or stupidity)(Then picked up again, and now showing promise, even if lacking in emotive ability)(Then someone dropped the ball again)
• Andromeda [5 seasons. At season 2 I wondered why they kept on going. Then I stopped wondering, having found a satisfactory answer: Gene Roddenberry never did get the concept of human development, yeah, that thing, you know.] (Onwards, Ever Onwards, intellectually fuelled pioneers swinging the blunt but great human drive and self-righteous ethics with which to judge and understand everything. And Kevin Sorbo didn’t help One Itty Bit. Talk about stiff. As in “what the heck am I still doing here?!”)
• Ark (cancelled)
• Arrow (Semi-super hero with a bow and unrealisticly learned skills of parkour and martial arts, and Super predictable. A kind of modern Bruce Wayne. Watching S1, as there is nothing else at the moment.)(S2 just begun – March 2013)(Oh, how I hate avenging so-called heroes. “[Such and such person] failed this city. He/She must pay!” My god, how stupid and small their universe. Even if an allegory of a Fox-world consisting entirely of gun-toting republicans!)(Oh, vigilante-something-for-everyone.)
• Ascension (mini-series, fine)
• Ash vs. Evil Dead (Ash lives and is as stupid, selfish and resourceful as ever, and now his desire for pussy has unleashed EVIL onto the earth again – albeit in a somewhat different form than usual.)(Charming in an Ash kind of way, if you get my drift.) (1 cool season, so far). (Good chainsaw-loving, blood-spurting, gut-ripping, fun-having, plus that special brand of cowardice, Ash’erdice, in just the right dosage). (S02 continues the search for max primetime splatter, all in good fun and keeping the hilarity down to a manageable 30 minutes)
• Awake (Loved the concept of the main character always being awake, but in two very different realities.) Cancelled due to I don’t know what – but it was quite obvious the police chief’s nefarious conduct initially was heading in a different direction from the one apparently needed to conclude the series, once it was cancelled. Too bad. Brilliant concept.)
• Being Human (stay away from US version!)(World populated by the creatures of darkness trying to live ordinary lives. Season 1 and 2 were brilliant)
• Believe (Very much like Touch, except with a girl visionary with other super powers, whom everybody wants to get hold of to experiment on. A tad predictable.)
• Best friends whenever (2015. Teen time travel)(Too Disney. There is such a thing).
• Black Mirror (Brilliant mini-series 3 eps)(New eps coming – 2013)(hm…)
• Blake’s 7 (British TV-scifi was always about people and production value secondary. I believe it was a form of arrogance coupled with many-to-please/low budget, but they have pulled off many a series and film on attention to content. This is one.)
• Braindead (Decent Aussie combo of politics and creapy invasion – but it kinda smells of “politicians can’t be helped”…)(But a good laugh)
• BSG (Battlestar Galactica) (2000s) (Very dead-on, though old-school “sci-fi’ish” re-awakening of series from the 80’s – updated with central characters having changed gender. Basic premise: Earth is destroyed by Cylons, an artificial intelligence entity in several parts, and the remaining humans are running for their lives in all available spaceships. Among several existential questions series explores life in space with limited resources and the fractions into unity that ultimately occurs, when keeping contact to the other living humans entails crossing merciless vaccuum.) (What nailed it for me was how Admiral Adama, the chief of fleet tactics, turned off the water faucet immediately after wetting his tooth brush) (Loved the series. But @ series end fans had compiled a two meter long list of plot holes they wished resolved, which of course was impossible. Many do not agree, but I say this: Have a good friend, who doesn’t care for BSG, watch the last episode and tell you what happens!!!)
• Caprica (will it continue, will it be cancelled due to stupidity?) (Cancelled due to lack of courage)
• Carnivale (Amazing!) (a stretch to call it science fiction, but still…) (cancelled due to stupidity)(Oh, god, if we had seen the whole of the planned 3 parts rather than just the one! SO… so…!)
• Charlie Jade (See our own universe with parallel universe eyes) (okay)
• Childhood’s end (I know I read it some 30 years ago, but can’t remember what it was about or how it ends.) (2 eps so far – not exactly mind boggling with the concept of the alien look-a-like; it reeks of short story expanded into novel – or mini-series) (But the general concept of bringing up Baby, I mean Humanity, is pure Clarke essence. Civilisation was his thing, really. Possibly it was a projection?) (Okay, Clarke did say that one culture’s technology is another’s magic, but this is preposterous).
• Chocky (3 short BBC children series, aliens, mind talk, very dated)
• Cleverman (A bit slow, but horribly fouled up version of the Aussie concept of “the Cleverman”, turning the main character into a super hero and avatar of the suppressed, which in no way is what it was.)(But kinda decent as is,)
• Cold Lazarus (Dennis Potter [of Singing Detective-fame] is always interesting) (Cryogenics, with a twist)
• Continuum (Corporate, fascist regime in the future, and our heroine travels back in time to defend just that. Seriously.)(Okay, maybe she WILL realize her mistake and become a good person…)(She did.)
• Crime Traveller (a bit dated, even in 1998, but good time travel concept)
• Dark Season (BBC, children, 6 eps)
• Danger 5 (Spy spoof, very entertaining)
• Dark Matter (Take a scientific concept as title for a series and have a bunch of people wake up without memories and come to understand they were really bad people before whatever wiped their minds, and now that they don’t remember anything all is fine. Not.)(Well, there’s nothing really at the moment, so I gave it another chance. And though its not riveting, there is a slow build-up to cohesion between the very Firefly-like dissimilar characters. But a bit too well polished to really engage, But I still have one and a half season left, so…) (2 seasons/2016) (Okay, Im sold.)
• Dark Skies (UFO-confidential, “they are here”, Roswell) (It was in the wake of X-files. WAS it over-shadowed? I’ll let you know in 15 episodes) (Main character’s front-boss went to greater fame in X-files)(Man, is there a version without voice-over?!) (Now I remember. There’s nothing straight cut about this. Ultra Paranoia).)
• Day 5 (2016, Sleep, and you die!) (It feels as if there is no hope; very real. I need something else at present, so am giving it a miss at ep. 4)
• Dead Set (The Ultimate in no-hope zombie land! Mini-series) (Brilliant!)
• Defiance (I do love aliens with a personality, but why do they always have to be more evil or more nice that humans?! And why do alien names follow suit – bad=Names begin with K or Z with lots of r’s. Nice=lots of vocal and air blown through H-names…)(It must be really hard to be a TV-executive…)
• Defying Gravity (loved the slow buildup, and hated the feeling that the writers were being pushed to speed it up, thus signing their own death certificate)
• Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (2016, so now they are trying once more to put Dirk Gently into moving images. I suppose they will get it right one day. This one exemplifies what happens, when something distinctly British is translated into US dramatic terminology. And how US rights’ owners make square pegs go into the round holes of the US marked).
• Doctor Who (the resurrected Doctor, seasons 1, 5 and 6 are excellent in my eyes, David Tennant playing the Doctor in s.2,3 og 4 I find less interesting, even if the arcs here are better than anything before and after. The last doctors (S07-09) are straight out boring, and only for the die-hards, who cannot get enough. The Who-Universe is being emptied out. Nothing new is coming is. The companions are life-less and un-threatening. I have stopped caring.)(The series is actually being killed by incompetence masked as good story writing. There is an utter fear of women present – for lack of initiative to have the doctor grow up, as he was on his way to in the first eps. Steven Moffat is terrible! A brilliant populist w/o anything on heart, sadly.)
• Doll House (cancelled, due to boredom, I guess)
• Earth: Final Conflict (Invasion, 5 seasons, no great loss)
• El Ministerio del Tiempo (The Time Ministerium) (Spanish, 2S, still going (2017), have seen e1 and 2, and I am not holding my breath.)(3 people from 3 ages brought together to prevent changes to the Spanish History. Refreshing that other nations than USA matter!)[It is packed with cryptic references to the history of Spain, none are explained, all are expected to know them.]
• Eureka (contrived and without emotional substance, but they really work at making it balance between far out silly and good fun)(Final eps descending into pure Eureka silliness. I finally get it: It’s a hi-teck babble for people with low attention span or with a real need to disengage, and nothing wrong with that. The science if pure nonsense; it could just as well have been magic.)(Ended)
• Extant (2014, july ep.1.) (Female astronaut returns to Earth pregnant after 1 year alone in space)(May result in a season 2, thus adding to the pile of Wasted Effort In Spite of Good Intentions – due to production intentionally safeguarding the actor’s reputation as a good person; I won’t mention her name; as she also produces, she doesn’t deserve it, despite some good acting and cleavage) (Warning: Did result in a Season 2)
• Falling skies (Just into S02. Last humans + aliens plot. May yet pick up energy, but stalling from need to credibly oppose the oppressors. Same problem as “V”)(Entered into last season. Still boring. Too much form, too little human intent to really matter)
• Falling Water (Making absolutely sure in the intro that the premise is unmissable. Kinda like saying that all prizes on the top shelf are worth less that in would cost you to win one.) (S01e01 2 minutes in and it is very missable. Sorry.)
• First Wave (Invasion, 3 seasons, missable)
• Forever (Nope)
• Farscape 4 seasons/88 episodes + 2 double episodes “The peacekeeper War” (A looong way from home, and Sci-fi TV’s greatest villean!) (Cancelled due to stupidity and adult darkness, then rounded off with a miniseries). (How ever fantastic and mold-breaking Farscape was, it still was not allowed to become really painful. “Don’t tamper with a well-proven formula” and all that… But viewers also grow up, the world around changes. Darkness is nuanced. There were the slightest hints at that – and then “goodbye”.) (Fear kills many good things.)
• Firefly (Cowboys in space – probably the greatest loss to Science Fiction TV, apart from Stargate Universe. Infectious good spirits!) (14 eps, ended with a movie, Serenity, worthy and decent, but still sad. Cancelled due to Incompetence and Stupidity!)
• Flash Forward (cancelled due to stupidity!)
• Fringe (how it suddenly picked up in S03 and now is running with the Torch of relevant scifi!) (Now ended, on a satisfying, if predicable note) (My vote for most heart portraying actress ever! Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham)
• Futurama (killed by the studio and revived years later, now on S07. Good, light entertainment 1000 years in the future. This how of “continuously being for sale without learning anything” could only have come from the creator of the Simpsons, Matt Groening! Lovely!)
• Game of Thrones (Good soap violence. Good scripts. Good Arc! Strictly speaking Medieval Fantasy) (Okay, I strung it out to the middle of s02 – then I let them have their bloodletting to themselves).
• Goodnight Sweetheart (British retro-fix, “the old days were better”)
• Halfway across the Galaxy and Turn Left (Australian 1993, 2S28E, fine children’s show)
• Harsh Realm (simulation reality) (cancelled at no big loss).(Military messiah in a simulated reality)(Charlton Heston with a terrier)
• Helix (2014. 1 Season. Virus research in Antarctica. Totally unbelievable tech and architecture-in-ice. Kinda silly storyline descending into very stupid. Don’t bother with renewing it for further episodes.) (Oh, god. Some exec didn’t see s01 before renewing!)
• H.G.Wells’ The Invisible Man (Early superhero series…)
• Humans (One should think that History teaches, but naturally that only goes if you know your history. Since no one would suspect an expensive TV-series of being part of national education about the abolition of slavery, right, and an owner’s alleged right over hisher property?
• Hunters (Terrorists are kinda aliens! Or aliens are terrorist? Symbolism is a bit thick here.) (1S/2016)
• Hyperdrive (Occasionally funny BBC spaceship series with toe-cringing characters, who set new (relevant) standards for use of normal people in TV)
• Invasion (Cancelled due to stupidity)
• IQ-145 (web-series)
• It’s about time (animation, dated, travel to past, bring back pre-historic cave people)
• Jake 2.0 16 eps. (Cancelled)
• Jekyll (a modern Jekyll/Hyde. Brilliantly dark, amazing acting!) (6 eps.)
• Jeremiah (post-apocalyptic) (okay)
• Jericho (because of the mood) (cancelled due to stupidity)
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel (Threw me off in ep1, as did the book on page 40, 3 times)
• Journeyman 1 season/13 episodes (Cancelled due to stupidity)
• Killjoys (“Music-video” scifi series with the depth of a supermarket plastic bag.) (Count me out)
• Kinvig (The Brits have a knack for normalising scifi – its an acquired taste, but I like it)
• Legends of tomorrow (Hard not to try to follow this shallow actors-must-hate-it piece of crap story writing about sailing the time stream… Yeah, how often does a time travel series swing by?! I haven’t read the comics, but I assume its on the same level of stereotyping – intelligent, but psycho, dumb, but psycho, brilliant, but psycho, but can learn empathy, loving, and loving, and brainy, but nerdy, bud handsome… oh, god, and nothing is saved by brilliant CGI and violent and sloppy fights.) (1s/2016)
• Legion (2017) (S01ep04 is next for me, and I am THRILLED! I normally take a long time to warmt to hero series, but the Marvel universe does merit credit for memorable storylines and characters. This mind fuck series goes a bit further and is showing gooood promise. April 17]
• Les Revenant (French, brilliant series! 8 eps)(The US version is… okay)(The dead come back).
• Life on Mars (the UK-version) (US-version sucks big time!) (A stretch to call its time travel trope relevant)
• Limitless (Using one’s full potential… through a drug…) (Continues on from the movie by the same name. Has potential, but verges on comedy with the big-boy-character raking in all attention) (S01 2015)
• LOST (Plane crashes on island, and survivors must deal with internal strife, creatures of the night, deadly conspiracies and human experimentation, a lunatic dicator, plus love, treason and every other conceivable human emotion x 100 before realising that… Ah, that would be telling. DO NOT read up on this, if you don’t know the ending. It is a BRILLIANT series, when it comes to writer’s abuse of characters and throwing every conceivable TV trope as spanners into the works, every time something seems to begin to function. Very nasty, that!) (Also, LOST is a model for how to round off a TV-series, even if there were more plot holes than plot points.)
• Marvel’s Agent Carter (Decent, no, really tight, good fun)(Retro) (I hope it resumes, but fat luck on that!)
• Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Avengers Movies’ spin-off, light entertainment in the same vein)(2013) (How it picked up in 2014. Quite entertaining, and interesting mix-in with cinematic movies on the same timeline and arc!) (Good tale of betrayal and how to deal with hurt feelings) (Still rolling, 2016, but I care less for the storyline now, as changed behavior of major characters deviate unrealistically from their previously presented (though stereo-typed) personality.)
• Marvel’s Jessica Jones (Really good first season. She’s a drunk, fed up with a lot of stuff and she IS a hero, no matter how much she denies it. Brilliant villain in S01)
• Minority report (You know its about money, when it’s been a decade since the movie. Come on, guys! You’re lazy. Why don’t you do some world building instead – take a gander at the consequences of living in a world like that?)
• Mork & Mindy (not that much sci-fi comedy around and Robin Williams was fresh from the creativity vat!)
• Mr. Robot (When the pilot came out, it was seemingly much anticipated. And, well, up until halfway through I was duly WOW’ed, but then in the Ferris Wheel I realised this is JUST a story, the scriptwriters never lived this, it was just research on hackers and hacking well done, for once! And since the show is about what to do with the increasing corpocracy and power mindfucks played on all, that just killed it for me. Real solutions are needed. Not putting people to sleep over this too!)
• My favorite martian (it worked a lot of the time – seeing US with outside eyes)
• My own worst enemy (cancelled due to stupidity)(Really!)(Man, that was potential!)
• Now and Again (Body-dead has brain implanted in younger body)(Series with a heart, for once) (Cancelled due to stupidity!)
• Oasis (Intersting pilot. Mining a new planet, no one is there, or…?(Pilot April 2017. Will there be more?)
• Orphan Black (Very strong 1st season. S02 running – less will-to-watch, can’t figure out what’s different?)(Accidentally saw a promo-show with the star of Orphan Black. THAT killed it for me. The arrogance!)(People praising S02. Once the memory of that promo-show wears off, I may give it another shot)
• Other Space (British space soap)(Killed due to producer-cowardice)(Series ended nicely)
• Outcasts (British future soap)(Improves a bit)
• Paradox (data from the future) (Okay) (Cancelled due to lack of imagination)
• Penny Dreadful (S01 2014)(Every modern monster myth, both litterary and historical, thrown together to form a diabolically delightful and raw series with Amazing Eva Green and Strong and cunning Timothy Dalton at the edge of darkness!)(Maintaining the standard)
• Person of Interest (Almost not sci-fi) (Into its 2nd season. Fumbling about for something to make emotionally relevant, and will probably not be renewed for a 3rd season.)(GOT renewed and is an okay show about surveillance)(Has actually managed to stay consistent over 4 seasons, with very little shift in arc-direction or scope. I mean: AI running surveillance or the whole Earth, no big difference) (I mourned the unexpected departure of a lead role. But I suppose it was inevitable. As the plot descended into battling the AI directly, she had less and less human interaction material to work with.)
• Persons Unknown (kind of LOST/Prisoner-like, but evolving)(Cancelled due to lack of direction)
• Phil of the Future (future family go back 15 years, ho-ho-ho)
• Pioneer One (Spaceship crashing on Earth) (Kickstarter series)
• Powers (The superhero concept in general need complex humans to give purpose and opposition to the powers that separate them from others, often burdening the endowed with unwanted responsibility, as well as providing profitable attention. This is one such show. Stealing the idea of transferable/stealable powers from the original Heroes, it goes deeper, trying to depict the hunger for the power fix and the ennui of being alone in a world constantly craving one’s help and attention.
• Preacher (Everyone wants me to love this).
• Primevil (Dinosaurs breaking through from 100-65 million years ago so regularly that a show could be filmed every week.)(Cancelled from exhaustion. Just bad writing without ways to go, and make it interesting).
• Primevil, New World (The new world referred to is USA. Dinosaurs still breaking through regularly)(Not bad, actually, and 2013 seems to be on the way to a sizable story arc).
• Quatermass (British 1979, 4 eps. – good quality)
• Quantum Leap (No real story arc, but thumbs up for its social conscience)(Like Sundays in the rain with ice cream) (Visiting various historical times in time to do good by overtaking the mind of a person not locally regarded as competent to solve the present conflict, mostly leaving a local hero behind, while our real conflict solver skips to a new mind.) (When did he ever sleep?)
• Rabbids Invasion (May correctly portray the fictional (very low) IQ of rabbits evolutionarily in possession of minimal self awareness, or may be the found videos of an entirely alien species, their limited number indicating the were probably left on Earth by casually visiting or casualty stricken alien spaceship)(Or maybe not. Rabbids get in anywhere! WAA WAA WAAAAAAHHHHHH!)
• Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion (German b/w star trek-like series, just 7 eps)
• ReGenesis 4 seasons (Germ scientists – strictly speaking not science fiction, but on the edge. Brilliant lead character)
• Rick and Morty (Ab-so-lu-te and all stops out-BRILLIANT!)(S02 2015)(For un-likeability the characters beat every animated series out there.)(The way they resolved the cliff-hanger from end of S01… I shake my head in admiration. Then S0202… Scriptwriter Dan Harmon is a serious threat to depression everywhere!)
• Sanctuary (Protecting the odd ones out. Always.) (59 eps, Amanda Tapping “reaching her comfort zone” as a reviewer called it. Not my kind of show, even if I agree with the pretext).
• Saving Hope (Hospital series with doctor (Daniel Jackson of SG-1) seeing the dead. Strictly speaking just supernatural, but very charming – and the being dead-concept strikes a chord.)(S03 coming 2014)
• Scorpion (tech-series with lots of holes. Not holding my breath. s01e10)(Light Sunday fare. Okay).
• Sense8 (I can pick holes in this mini-series with a tweezer, but there is only one way to characterise it: It is full of love!)(10 eps. Not sure I want a 2nd season)(X-mas episode a jubilant advocation of sexuality translating into We Are All Connected By Being Human. BRAVO!)(Now I’m looking forward to S02 and willing to forgive everything)
• Seven days (Go back 7 days to fix big calamities)(Okay, but formulaic)(3 seasons)
• Sliders (great 1st season, then 4 not so amazing, but I did love the alternate world concept)
• Space 1999 (2 seasons, mid-70s) (British 1st take on the Star Trek formula) (The moon slips out of orbit and spins into the Universe, taking the space station Moonbase Alpha and its crew with it, who must deal with food shortages, everyday conflicts and philosophical existential explorations in this very British TV show.) (One imdb-commenter called S01 very serious: “like seeing 24 mini-movies”. I concur. S02 descended into campy silliness, though, possibly from pressure from above.)
• Space Island One (story and character driven Brit show) (2 seasons)
• Stan Lee’s Lucky Man (If you could be lucky in anything you did, from falling from up hight to placing a bet with lousy odds, what would you choose to do with that luck? Would it change you?)
• Star-Crossed (Alien boy and Earth girl, and political implications reminiscent of terrorism and freedom-fighting. Kinda lame, but may appease teenagers?)(2014) (Cancelled after 1 season – negative reviewers chiding the network (WB) for continually talking down to their teen audience.)
• Stargate Atlantis (Wasn’t for me. The aliens from an alternative universe – because the kinda “spent” all room in ours for new development – felt contrived. Boring)(5 seasons)
• Stargate SG-1 (I was staying away for the longest time, due to accidental perusals of a few minutes of a few eps. But then I needed something and got the whole 10 seasons together – 214 episodes… – and began from one end. (8 seasons out and I have NEVER seen so high production value in a scifi series as the first 5 seasons. And, frankly – even if the acting is sometimes lousy, and I feel the synopsises appear lame and predictable, I always leave an ep with a feeling of MORE than good scriptwriting. Exalted, enthusiastic scriptwriting, inside a potentially never-ending arc – but soon, they will HAVE to involve the citizens of earth. No matter the budget… It’s not gonna happen, I know.)(A few time travel eps here and there).(Yeah, it IS military rainy-Sunday-TV)(All 214 episodes of it, plus 5 seasons of Stargate Atlantis plus 2 of Stargate Universe plus 3 TV-movies).
• Stargate Universe (My all-time favorite universe-dreamer series. I mean: A Stargate and a Starship travelling to the beginning of time, all in one! What more could you want?!) (Now cancelled due to GREAT GREAT STUPIDITY) (If SG-1 became all about fighting bad guys wanting to take Earth out, Atlantis  a perpetuation of that a long way from home plus more money coming in, then Universe was the beam of hope in the murky waters of existence, the human joy of real exploration with all the darkness of near-death and exhaustion and betrayal included to try and discover “why are we here?”. Fucking brilliant. What a sad person – the one who killed it.)
• Starman (15 years after the film)
• Star Trek – Enterprise (I never thought I’d find Star Trek interesting enough to follow, but beginning 2001 its actually quite charming – even if some things have changed over the years, when it comes to acceptance of what humans are allowed to do simply because they descend from John Wayne. Scott Bakula is a charming captain, and all other characters get to flesh out their characters.) (Nice touch with a female Spock. With very hard nipples in the first episode. That cannot be incidental, and I cannot ever forgive, sorry.) (4 seasons, 90 episodes)
• Stitchers (Promising)(2015)(Entering a dead person’s last thoughts, but very formulaic. How do you fuck up such an idea to make for interesting drama? You need someone who can abuse this tech. And the game is on…)
• Stranger Things (mini-series made out of all the Spielberg movies never made. Really! But I liked it.)(To watch with likeminded friend and icecream)
• Surface (Cancelled due to stupidity, I mean: That LAST image paved the way to a whole new world!) (It’s actually becoming relevant in a realistic kind of way! Maybe they should serialise Stephen Baxter’s 2 adjoining novels on the same topic?)
• Survivors (British Post Apocalyptic series from the 70’s – Very BLEAK) (38 eps)
• Taken (UFO, abductions, Spielberg, don’t worry, no one gets hurt for real.)(Mini series, 10 eps.)
• Terminator, The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Not bad, actually. A bit formulaic, but… there IS something there.)(Yes, there is. Summer Glau is spectacular)
• The 100 (Get rid of the young – not because it makes sense to kill all the young, but because it’s an easy way of giving primetime another Lord of the Flies on Alien Planet)(Some say it’s decent – I lasted 4 eps and saw nothing but LOST in space).
• the 4400 (4400 abductees arrive back on Earth, most endowed with both scary and beneficial new talents.) (4 seasons. I’d say the first 2 seasons were brilliant, in that they explored new territory later picked up by series like Heroes and all later (but then-only-on-paper-heroes) Marvel-series: Normal people being endowed with “super powers”, and how that changes them, for better or worse.
• The Aliens (have landed and they need to be managed in special compounds, and the police is not to bright either and maybe not what they pretend)
• The Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff (Strictly speaking not science fiction, but reminiscent of Neil Gaiman and Terry Gilliam! Promising (jan. 2012))
• The Booth at the End (Everybody wants something, and here you get to give something in return. Brilliant!!) (10 eps.)
• The Event (When will the event take place…!?)(Cancelled due to lack of combustible direction).
• The Expanse (1st season, 3 eps in and looking good!) (Solar system politics) (Best at present)(only 10 eps in s01. Too brief!)(S02 e01 Not as strong, and the Alien virus or whatever feels kinda lame on top of the political conflict btw Mars, Earth, Belters and independant financial contractors. Not sufficiently fleshed out – even if production value never ceases to amaze. THIS is the stuff of our future – if we survive to leave the Earth, that is)
• The Fades (6 episodes series, which ends kind of bleak, due to happenings to likeable characters) (2010)
• The Girl from tomorrow (2 independant childrens series, trapped in the past) (dated)
• The Invisible man (2000s) (Fun, due to infectious mood)
• The Last Man on Earth (I almost cannot se it for its particular brand of embarrasment comedy about the few survivors of the End Days. But on my good days, it IS good and a perfect portrayal of going insane from not being wanted, and from trying not to cringe away from the very few others to pick from for human company) (Uses a swimming pool to defecate in, as there is no more running water. And then proceeds to live right next to it.) (Totally toes-cringing look at end-of-the-world depression populated by narcissists of all sexes, kinda similar to now) (Kinda good.) (s02 2015) (Man, I hate both leads! Insane responses to an insane situation – being almost alone in the world)(But I hate the normals even more, which make the insane reactions the new normal. Neo-crazies?)Watch it with someone you love!) (2S/2016) (WILL get back to this) (Very conflicted about this)
• The Last Ship (Viruses, military, yeah, that kind. 2014)(Renewed)
• The Last Train (British post-apocalypsis)
• The Librarians (Yes, I know, we all miss Indiana Jones, but Noah Wyle is alleviating symptoms of withdrawal for anyone still missing Warehouse 13).
• The Lost Room (great premise for a mini-series, 6 eps.)
• The Magicians (2015, Magic academy. Hmmm)
• The Man In The High Castle (So far just the pilot, and I am not impressed, sorry. Please hook up PKD to a generator – I believe he is rotating in his grave.)(Some like it. So, I’m waiting for a pooring day)
• The Martian Chronicles (from Ray Bradbury) (Have yet to see)
• The Middleman (really fun stuff! – cancelled due to stupidity)
• The Neighbours (Brilliant first season, a gated community of golf playing aliens, then descended into lack of direction in s02. Sad)
• The Nine Lives of Chloe King (Cancelled after 1 season)
• The OA (8 episodes working from a 7. season level plain achieved by an outstanding pilot to a (steep decline of Hollywood teen fare from a) dramatical POV quite ass-licking conclusion)(1 season, and they can keep it for all I care!)(Betraying the whole of the premise of saving one’s soul along with everything else in a fell swoop)(Go suck eggs!)(Even if the prisoner/prisoner’s was interesting, the Stockholm syndrome is a one-on-one-thing and as such totally misrepresented) [Okay, I have forgotten my loathing and disappointment and will warn everyone that they may not like the ending, or that it’s debatable.]
• The Outlander (She is transported from our day to the Scottish past to fall in love and be confused about who to love.)(Everything for love – even abuse of the time travel trope!)
• The Prisoner (orig. 17 ep. series – elegant, British, mysterious, philosophical!)(Avoid the 2009 remake like the plague).
• The Six Million Dollar Man [Lee Majors as the cybernetically enhanced astronaut turned agent. I saw all the episodes I could in the 6 weeks I spent in L.A. in 1977. It was a novelty, but somewhat lame with this incredulous superman masked as a boring adult.)
• the Sparticle Mystery (All adults have vanished) (39 eps)
• The Star Lost (Harlan Ellison’s idea)(Generation ship after the death of Earth)(Only watched a few eps. Kinda dated, even if I love the idea.)
• The Strain (Benito del Torro producing. Ep. 1 tonight. lets see.)(E10 Still haven’t lost me)(The scope and mythology is intriguing. Biology or evil from another realm?)
• The Strangerers (Crazy English mini-series, 9 eps. Very funny. Aliens landing, who have studied 50’s mannerisms)(Yes, it is spelled that way)
• the Refugees (Kinda like the basic idea: 3 billion people escape from the future, but none can talk about what they know. Reeeeaallly! It’s like when the world is going under in a show, but what the script really means is that USA is hit with disaster, and who cares about the rest of the world!? Total lack of perspective and understanding of everything outside of dramatic practicality. It’s called “lazy writers” and narrow minded producers.)
• the Returned (see Les Revenant)
• the Thundermans (family of superheroes, live-action soap)
• The Time Tunnel (30 episodes of 2 scientists time skipping)(Nice 60’s aestetics, but quite predictable)
• the Tripods (BBC children, from John Christopher’s trilogy) (Okay)
• The Walking Dead (incredibly violent, not better than the comic, just more explicit)(Man, where’s the dialogue?!)(Shaping up in S04 – 2013)
• the Whispers (Children’s invisible alien invader friends or something.)(S01, 5 eps in so far okay, but not many calories.) (E10: semi-fast progressing into retirement – they are trying to walk the path between fast drama and real life, and its just too shaky; wasted opportunities for dealing with shame and reproach and fearing your own children and hating yourself, but no. They can’t pull it off). (Cancelled)
• The X-files (No need to see the reboot. Sorry. You did well to create a new genre to boost self-esteem of conspiracy nuts everywhere.)
• They Came From Somewhere Else (Wacky British scifi-comedy, possibly an acquired taste, but is there really such a thing as too wacky !) (6 eps)
• Three Moons over Milford (the series was just finding its feet, and then it was cancelled!) (8 eps)
• Threshold (Invasion scheme altering human DNA to change us into aliens.) (Always us and them. WE are the aliens.) (Well, anyway. Brilliant show cancelled due to stupidity)
• Tidsrejsen (the Time Journey), DR’s julekalender 2014 (Danish christmas calendar series for children i 24 episodes)(Not too bad, though very formulaic)
• Time Travelling Bong (Mini series for dopers.. Very fan’ish, but budget does well.)
• Timeless (2016, Protection of time)(s01 striking many false notes making my teeth jarr. Comedy, political criticism, soap, historical correct, do they know?)(Seems up for cancellation)
• Timeslip (Children’s series from the 70’s, but okay)
• Tom’s Midnight Garden (children’s series from 1974 and again 1989)
• Tomorrow when the world began (Aussie devastation series for young people)
• Torchwood (spin-off of Doctor Who. 1st TV-series with explicitly gay immortal, Captain Jack Harkness and Welsh super(sensitive)female 😀 – seasons 2-4 are captivating).
• Touch (Yet another stereotype save the world-piece, but still entertaining. Killed due to lack of grandeur, I believe. Even if the characters could have grown stronger, if f.ex. forced on the run) (The series was revived, and that was exactly, what happened. Maybe because producer and lead is the same RL-person?)
• Travellers (Time Travel by way of taking over bodies at (future determined) time-of-death) (Not a bad idea, and ripe with evolving paradoxes due to meddling with circumstance, but formulaic to the point of regressing to soapy relationships in order to hide lack of content and keep production costs down. SO transparent) (S01 kinda decent, but I do not hold my breath for S02)
• Tripped (Dimensional travelling dudes fast losing their other-dimensional counterparts, and being long-time stoners makes for less than instantaneous comprehension of WTF to do about it! Fun.)
• True Blood (Could be more serious – they avoid exploiting the potential. Too bad. And sad.) (But crazy-wild first few seasons, before descending into easy nudity.)
• Twilight Zone (Anthology of moral tales, set in magic, fantasy and scifi-scenarios. Has a format spawned a lot of similar
• Under the Dome (Stephen King serialisation, more than half-decent)(S01 okay, S02 I gave up on. Now the Dome can do anything – and that’s boring. The Dome as metaphor for a non-caring God? Boring.)
• Undermind (ITV series from 1965, alien invasion, brainwashing, subversive acts, sabotage, danger)
• V (2010) (For every episode it struggled back to a promise of something new in the coming episode, until it ran out of excuses to try.) (The original series is equally irrelevant).
• Voyagers (A bit dated, and for youngster, but fun) (time travel)
• Warehouse 13 (They are obviously having fun, and everyone love the Pandora’s Box trope) (Okay finish with S05)
• Wayward Pines (Oddland looking much like Normalland, but it’s not. So, it has ferocious monsters outside the door and nobody speaks about anything to the trapped newcomers, who have to figure everything out at the same pace as the viewer, who, however, is way ahead into Boredomland, where nothing surprising is sure to ever happen). (Mysteriously renewed for 2nd season).
• Welcome to Paradox (Anthology series in the vein of Twilight Zone) (13 eps)
• Westworld (2016. Modern take on the Yul Brunner movie from the 70’s)(1 season. Most likely no more.)(In my mind the aspiration to or imbuement with omnipotence makes for un-nourishing fare. From super heroes to robots with adjustable parameters for independence and “free will”. For me science fiction is a case of man against (his own lust for) technology. Acquiring it makes it Fantasy and magic.)(Memorable characters, though).
• What lives Inside (Brilliant proof of concept-animation, and worst case of commercialism ever seen. Talk about product placement! Fuck off, [insert correct IT-mogul]. Web series)
• Wild Palms (Mini-series. Brilliant for its day.)
• Wizards vs. Aliens (Russel T. Davies retirement series after Doctor Who. Okay, but at ep 10, s01 still hasn’t found its real voice) (I think he misses Doctor Who).
• Yonderland (8 eps. 2013. Not holding my breath for a season 2. Housewife gets sucked into alternate world populated by nitwit dummies with long noses. Yawn. Though some love it.)
• You, me and the Apocalypse (Very fresh take on end-of-the-word trope. Good acting, corny characters, delicate antagonist, some religious people we would prefer over those we know, and an ending worthy of humanity’s puny existence. If indeed it IS puny.) (1 season, can’t imagine there will be another)
• X-files (Well, you know – everyone in power covers up everything to do with aliens and strange phenomenon, which apparently riddles everyone and his neighbour. Yes… It’s so hard to feel alone.) (From worst to best episode – but why not do them again sequentially, if you have a lie-in due to broken brain, knees or relationship with yourself, the ex or trust in general?) (2016 – new series – let’s see, what they are up to).
• Z Nation (More zombies. As symbols of mind control, unbridled consumerism, and loosing touch with oneself through abdication of impulse control, okay, relevant comment, but otherwise… I am bored.)

I apologize for those series I have either forgotten – due to too much TV – or missed – due to too much TV. But hey, DO tell me about it \|/

Yet to watch

• A step into the past (Hong Kong historical time travel)(not seen yet, but will) (13 eps)
• Afterworld (130 eps, dystopia, animation) (Ended)
• Babylon 5 (I know people say: “Get past the first season…” So, this I will do one day)
• Frequency (2016, Changing time by communicating with the past)
• Incorporated (kinda feels like a normal money/greed soap in SciFi hide. Not exactly scrambling to watch)
• MARS (2016, About the colonisation of the red planet.
• Mirror Mirror (Children 100 years apart communicate via mirror) (20 eps)
• Objectif: Nul (French space comedy in the vein of Red Dwarf)
• Out of the Unknown (BBC scifi twilight zone look-alike)
• People of Earth (2016, Support group for UFO abductees)
• Second chance (Haven’t given it the first, yet.)
• Silversun (generation ship, teenage reality)
• the adventures of Brisco County, jr., (27 eps)(yet to be seen)
• The Good Place (2016, where the good go, when they die)
• The Mercury Men (retro web-series, 10 eps)
• The Powerless (2017, Insurance against super heroes and villains)
• The Visitor from the Future (4 seasons, French, on youtube) (Wanna see – hope it’s subtitled).
• Time Belt (yet to see) (A product of a monthly contest “Channel 101” founded by Dan Harmon…)
• Time Riders (yet to see) (4 eps)
• Time Squad (yet to see) (animation)
• Time Trackers (yet to see)
• Time Trax (yet to see)
• Time Cop (yet to see)
• Trigun (comes recommended due to excellent storytelling. Must see)