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I always end up going back to an Onion AV Club (yeah yeah) article that compares Sherlock and Elementary that makes the same broad points. It takes the former show apart in a few incisive paragraphs (it also spoils Elementary's first season pretty heavily). quote:Operating under the traditional American television model, Elementary is allowed more room to breathe. With only a season and a half under its belt, the show has put out nearly 40 episodes; and while not every one of those episodes is a classic, it matters significantly less when a particular adventure fails to live up to expectations. Each episode of Sherlock must be, by the show’s design, an event. This leads to episodes that are wildly dramatic but often lacking in substance, relying on flashy twists and excessive (if frequently effective) emotional manipulation to reach audiences. In contrast, Elementary, with its stolid procedural approach and more conventional pacing, gains strength from allowing character responses in situations to develop naturally over time. Season-long mysteries can fade into the background when necessary, offering the chance for steadier pacing, and far more consistent world building. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 10:47 on Jan 21, 2017 |
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Jan 21, 2017 09:40
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I love Elementary. It has a lot going for it, but the three things that stick out for me are: 1) There's so much chemistry between the male and female leads (who are both phenomenal in their roles) but there is never, not once, a Will-They-Won't-They (Which always turns into the the two involved loving) Yes, it is a goddamn unicorn on broadcast television--a five-season show with two attractive male and female leads that aren't set up to gently caress. 2) The depiction of addiction. Just fantastic. A repeated theme is the potential fatalism of addiction--that you're always a recovering addict, but never recovered, never cured. 3) Sometimes they just go crazy with the mysteries. Procedurals are a stodgy, repetitive bunch, and this is Sherlock Holmes--weird poo poo is welcome.
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Jan 21, 2017 10:23
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this series was so bad there's an elaborate conspiracy theory out there about how there's a secret fourth episode airing tomorrow that's gonna redeem it all, and you should read about it because it's hilarious
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Jan 21, 2017 14:07
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:I always end up going back to an Onion AV Club (yeah yeah) article that compares Sherlock and Elementary that makes the same broad points. It takes the former show apart in a few incisive paragraphs (it also spoils Elementary's first season pretty heavily). I haven't watched Sherlock since season 2 and never thought it was all that (fun tough) and never watched Elementary, but most of the arguments in your quoted part seem real bad. I mean lol just lol at the idea of 'nooo but you need boring pointless filler episodes so there's room to breathe' or whatever. The Brits have the right of it there, if you don't have anything to tell just don't loving do it and make 3 episodes every 2 years instead. While i didn't watch the season as I mentioned I did read a few articles on why it was apparently bad and everything I've seen regarding complaints and plot/characterization details seems to indicate it was bad because the writing was bad - probably caused by an unleashed Moffat - and not because it didn't follow glorious American television formulas like 'milk the show for three dozen episodes a year' or whatever. The last part does have merit but is also something I don't blame the show for as a baseline. Yes Sherlock can be kinda annoying in how much it loves Sherlock, but honestly the books do too, if perhaps not quite as much. That's like half the point of Sherlock Holmes. And as for the 'Sherlock has to be at the center of it' part, again, it seems like that's a problem with the writing of later seasons because I thought the two seasons I watched had a good balance on that. I have no trouble believing that Elementary is better than Sherlock season 4 but I don't really see the point of trying to attribute it to nebulous stuff like more episodes or more developed supporting cast - which I think is nice and all but absolutely not necessary to make a great show - when the actual answer of 'writer known for going up his own rear end went up his own rear end' is available right there. Even if the Brits Brexited all over us Euros I still have enough of a soft spot for the British format of TV-shows I've loved since a kid, and annoyance at how America keeps ruining shows I like by cramming in more and more and more episodes until they turn into poo poo, that I feel a natural urge to defend the former over the latter.
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Jan 21, 2017 14:27
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Jeremy Brett's series from the 80's is my all-time favorite. His performance is by far my favorite depiction of the character. I can watch Season 1 of that series over and over again. The later seasons are much harder to watch mainly because of Jeremy Brett's declining health. It always makes me incredibly sad.
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Jan 21, 2017 14:31
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A procedural, inspired by episodic fiction, has a lot of episodes. It boggles the mind.
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Jan 21, 2017 14:35
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I always preferred Suchet's Poirot over Sherlock myself, even though I only watched a fraction of the total episode output (I was surprised to find it had so many, I barely saw like 10). Probably his smug genius was counterbalanced by being a fat baldie with a weirdo mustache.
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Jan 21, 2017 14:36
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:A procedural, inspired by episodic fiction, has a lot of episodes. It boggles the mind. Procedurals, are bad in the opinion of this poster
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Jan 21, 2017 14:37
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Then what in the world are you watching detective fiction for? No Sherlock... you are the procedural.
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Jan 21, 2017 14:39
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You're right, I didn't really put much thought into my reply and being ESL I'm not really used to the term as relating to detective/mystery-solving fiction in general, it just makes me think of garbage like CSI and poo poo. Procedurals, are good! I'm still not sure what you're trying to say with your first post though. There's nothing inherently episodic about procedurals at all and there's no problem with me simultaneously finding procedural fiction good and T-shows with few episodes good at the same time???
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Jan 21, 2017 14:44
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See I was over here thinking Sherlock was bad because it's driving through line is that "deductive reasoning" means "reading ahead in the script".
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Jan 21, 2017 15:20
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ElNarez posted:this series was so bad there's an elaborate conspiracy theory out there about how there's a secret fourth episode airing tomorrow that's gonna redeem it all, and you should read about it because it's hilarious You forgot to mention that (at least from what I can glean, having never watched the show) the conspiracy is based on the fact that Holmes and Watson were not a romantic couple by the end. Man, delusional shippers are the best shippers. 
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Jan 21, 2017 17:01
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Arcsquad12 posted:Joseph Anderson returns with an even longer video expanding on his thoughts about Fallout 4, a year later. I agree with most of the stuff in this video, but there is one complaint that I’ve seen both there and in a lot of other reviews of Fallout 4 that I don’t think is very fair, and that’s the part where he talks about the lack of urgency in the main quest. He says that the times when the player character is desperate to find their son, and when they’re taking time off explore or work on settlements, feel disconnected from one another and that this is a problem. He’s not exactly wrong, but the thing is this isn’t a feature unique to this game. On the contrary it’s present in almost all RPGs. For example in Final Fantasy VII, despite being told that the meteor is only weeks away from crashing into the planet, Cloud and friends can spend as much time as they want competing in races at the Gold Saucer or exploring random parts of the map, because of course nothing will actually happen until you trigger that part of the story. Yes it’s unrealistic but it’s also basically essential if you want to have a game with both a main plot and a bunch of unrelated minigames or sidequests. Out of all the RPGs I’ve played, only the Persona and Atelier series as well as Lightning Returns make any attempt to consistently keep track of time, and they’re the exceptions to the rule. Also I’m not sold on his idea that the player should have been a synth. It would probably have been better than the story we got, but it feels too much like a sci-fi version of the Dragonborn from Skyrim or countless other fantasy “chosen one” narratives where the protagonist is special because they were born special, and not through any effort of their own. Making the protagonist someone from before the war was one of the coolest aspects of the game, or it would have been if they had done more with the idea. Bakeneko fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jan 21, 2017 |
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Jan 21, 2017 17:05
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If you're going to make a big 100+ hour sandbox experience, you might want to consider taking a crack at writing a story that actually fits with how players will actually be interacting with it. Bethesda-style open world games thrive on their level of immersion; there's no good reason to actively sabotage that with a plot that hinges on false drama, largely disconnected from the game's own mechanics.
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Jan 21, 2017 20:25
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that this is a recurring issue in games is more an indictment of lovely game writing rather than it being a normal thing
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Jan 21, 2017 20:40
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John Murdoch posted:If you're going to make a big 100+ hour sandbox experience, you might want to consider taking a crack at writing a story that actually fits with how players will actually be interacting with it. Bethesda-style open world games thrive on their level of immersion; there's no good reason to actively sabotage that with a plot that hinges on false drama, largely disconnected from the game's own mechanics. My point was that this happens in almost any game that gives the player any degree of freedom, regardless of the quality of the story. Most players can accept that the main plot of a game will get put on pause while they go off and do other things, for the same reason that they accept other unrealistic elements, such as how the character can eat without ever having to use the toilet, or how they can carry an entire arsenal’s worth of invisible weapons somewhere on their person. It’s an example of accurate simulation having to be sacrificed for the sake of fun. I’m not trying to defend Fallout 4’s plot. It’s bad, and full of wasted opportunities, but this issue would have arisen regardless of the plot unless the player was never at any point given any kind of task that their character was supposed to want to do urgently.
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Jan 21, 2017 21:56
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Bakeneko posted:My point was that this happens in almost any game that gives the player any degree of freedom, regardless of the quality of the story. Most players can accept that the main plot of a game will get put on pause while they go off and do other things, for the same reason that they accept other unrealistic elements, such as how the character can eat without ever having to use the toilet, or how they can carry an entire arsenal’s worth of invisible weapons somewhere on their person. It’s an example of accurate simulation having to be sacrificed for the sake of fun. You realize that it is in fact possible to write a story where there is no urgency in between missions. That is possible. Literally every Rockstar game has no problem with this. Effectively writing a story for an open world game is not some paradox of the universe.
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Jan 22, 2017 02:10
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Bakeneko posted:My point was that this happens in almost any game that gives the player any degree of freedom, regardless of the quality of the story. Most players can accept that the main plot of a game will get put on pause while they go off and do other things, for the same reason that they accept other unrealistic elements, such as how the character can eat without ever having to use the toilet, or how they can carry an entire arsenal’s worth of invisible weapons somewhere on their person. It’s an example of accurate simulation having to be sacrificed for the sake of fun. Fallout 4's is egregiously bad because it commits the cardinal sin of making presumptions on the portrayal of the protagonist. It assumes that you are and will always be a relatively-virtuous heroic person merely wanting to find your dear baby Shaun. Whereas the other Fallouts just want you to follow these plot beats with no mind of the fact that you're a night-dwelling cannibal who enslaves people. Some even respond to it, in fact iirc.
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Jan 22, 2017 03:04
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Insurrectionist posted:I always preferred Suchet's Poirot over Sherlock myself, even though I only watched a fraction of the total episode output (I was surprised to find it had so many, I barely saw like 10). Probably his smug genius was counterbalanced by being a fat baldie with a weirdo mustache. That's because, and I'll say this with the risk of sounding like someone who hates ACD, Poirot is a better character than Sherlock Holmes is. Maybe it's because I think, IMHO, Agatha Christie wrote better mysteries. Her books are much more like puzzles, and very much fit to the idea that if you're in the right mindset and investigating the right evidence, you can figure out most of them through deduction and examination. It creates a much more interactive style of fiction that the Sherlock Holmes stories because I feel Sherlock relies too much on sort of out of left field twists introduced at the last second just so Sherlock can stand there and explain everything to look brilliant.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:10
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Poirot's show is really great that half the time you can solve the mystery with Poirot because it shows you a lot of the relevant stuff and when Poirot goes into explaining, which he always does, it shows you where the cracks were and what he deduced or discovered from a situation. So you follow the other characters having that epiphany as well. That and David Suchet is incredible in the role. Man can go from jovial, to concerned to contempt in a matter of seconds with just looks. When he breaks down the particularly nasty criminals, the looks he gives them are so goddamn great. The utter contempt he has on his face for murderers is so cathartic. I just wish the early shows (I'm currently going through Season 2 on Netflix) weren't so flat. The cinematography is basic.
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Jan 22, 2017 05:20
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So much of that show is too good for that show. Sad to hear it got worse, though I never watched past Sherlock's "death". (Also, dedication to the modern-day thing didn't stop them from having a Yellow Peril episode, lol.)
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Jan 22, 2017 05:31
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Speaking of detective shows, would any of you recommend Case Closed/Detective Conan?
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Jan 22, 2017 06:57
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Mraagvpeine posted:Speaking of detective shows, would any of you recommend Case Closed/Detective Conan? They're passable whodunits that may be best viewed through the lens of Conan carrying a horrible death curse wherever he goes. Watch a few and see--there's just a shitload of them.
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Jan 22, 2017 07:04
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Mraagvpeine posted:Speaking of detective shows, would any of you recommend Case Closed/Detective Conan? Detective Conan is great if you're a fan of the genre, I would recommend reading over watching though.
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Jan 22, 2017 07:08
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Mr. Fowl posted:They're passable whodunits that may be best viewed through the lens of Conan carrying a horrible death curse wherever he goes. Watch a few and see--there's just a shitload of them. Not too many shows have 28+ seasons! Once I watched a few they started to grow on me, and now I kinda love the show. It's a fun little show with goofy characters and some real clever stuff going on.
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Jan 22, 2017 07:53
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Insurrectionist posted:I haven't watched Sherlock since season 2 and never thought it was all that (fun tough) and never watched Elementary, but most of the arguments in your quoted part seem real bad. I mean lol just lol at the idea of 'nooo but you need boring pointless filler episodes so there's room to breathe' or whatever. The Brits have the right of it there, if you don't have anything to tell just don't loving do it and make 3 episodes every 2 years instead. While i didn't watch the season as I mentioned I did read a few articles on why it was apparently bad and everything I've seen regarding complaints and plot/characterization details seems to indicate it was bad because the writing was bad - probably caused by an unleashed Moffat - and not because it didn't follow glorious American television formulas like 'milk the show for three dozen episodes a year' or whatever. I mean you can watch both of them if you want, and then you might be able to make a more informed opinion. I have watched both of them and it's night and day how Elementary manages to a) naturally build the Holmes and Watson characters primarily through their interactions with each other and the world and b) do a much better job of creating stakes and reasons why you ought to care about what's going on. It occurs through a much more drawn-out procedural format, but then it also has actual mysteries which the characters are expected to solve. Sherlock saves a lot of time by skipping the mystery portion of the story. On the internet critic subject, I like Shamus Young's articles but I can't help but think that Spoiler Warning would be ten times better if they kicked out at least one person. I know they're capable of thinking through things and making insightful statements, but it's hard to do that when there's like twenty different people trying to talk at any given time.
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Jan 22, 2017 09:29
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Bakeneko posted:My point was that this happens in almost any game that gives the player any degree of freedom, regardless of the quality of the story. Most players can accept that the main plot of a game will get put on pause while they go off and do other things, for the same reason that they accept other unrealistic elements, such as how the character can eat without ever having to use the toilet, or how they can carry an entire arsenal’s worth of invisible weapons somewhere on their person. It’s an example of accurate simulation having to be sacrificed for the sake of fun. Super Bunnyhop did a video comparing the two main quest of Morrowind and Skyrim, and one of the things he points out is that Skyrim suffers by trying to instill a sense urgency that the rest of the game doesn't actually exist, wheras Morrowind main quest meshed better with other distractions. The original Fallout had a time limit (technically two, but the second one was patched out) where you only had 150 days to find the water chip for Vault 13. You always had a reminder of how many days were left before the Vault ran out of water (which would result in a Game Over), and it kept you on track and focused on what you should be doing. On the other hand, I've heard some criticize the time-limit, because it adds an extra layer of stress and difficulty to the game, since you can end up wasting a lot of time trying to figure out what and where you need to go, and you waste so much time that you either have to start over and lose progress. I don't know how applicable this is, but it reminds me of part of an interview that Matt Barton did with Josh Mandel. It was more in relation to MMOs and adventure games, but he discusses how when you remove linearity, it does affect the impact of pacing and build-up when it comes to story-telling.
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Jan 22, 2017 09:37
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Coming a bit late to the mystery conversation, but I highly recommend the A&E series "a Nero Wolfe Mystery" from the early 2000's. It's a fantastic production from top to bottom with Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin and Maury Chaykin as the titular Nero Wolfe, while stays very true to the Rex Stout books. It may be streamable on Netflix, but it is up on YouTube (though some episodes have audio issues, such as gaps in the episode's soundtrack - quite odd). I'm a sucker for mysteries and gave it a shot on Netflix DVD some twelve years ago. I absolutely devoured the series since. If you decide to pick it up, start with "the Doorbell Rang."
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Jan 22, 2017 10:19
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Sage tackles an anime I've been waiting for him to get to since he started:Dark Myth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8kgiI-1ECE I kinda used to like this anime - I have a serious soft spot for slow burn atmospheric stuffs - but even when I liked it (because we didn't know any better in the 90s) it took me and a friend an entire night to watch the whole thing as we kept taking breaks to do other poo poo to keep us awake.  Sage is not overselling how ridiculously boring this anime is.
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Jan 22, 2017 11:38
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Prop Wash posted:I mean you can watch both of them if you want, and then you might be able to make a more informed opinion. I have watched both of them and it's night and day how Elementary manages to a) naturally build the Holmes and Watson characters primarily through their interactions with each other and the world and b) do a much better job of creating stakes and reasons why you ought to care about what's going on. It occurs through a much more drawn-out procedural format, but then it also has actual mysteries which the characters are expected to solve. Sherlock saves a lot of time by skipping the mystery portion of the story. To be honest I don't have that much interest in either show (there's a reason I just never bothered picking up Sherlock season 3 even though it came off of two generally accepted as strong seasons), I was mostly reacting to the arguments whoever was quoted made regarding formats rather than having any interest in defending Sherlock or attacking Elementary. It's perfectly possible for a show to have tons of episodes and also be great, it's just in my opinion a case of 'despite' and not 'because'.
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Jan 22, 2017 13:37
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Max Wilco posted:Super Bunnyhop did a video comparing the two main quest of Morrowind and Skyrim, and one of the things he points out is that Skyrim suffers by trying to instill a sense urgency that the rest of the game doesn't actually exist, wheras Morrowind main quest meshed better with other distractions. That makes sense, although I didn’t personally see the stark difference between the pacing of Morrowind and Skyrim that he did. From what I remember of Morrowind (which admittedly might not be right, as it’s been a long time since I played it) there were still points when you were told you had to hurry to stop the ancient evil magic dude, but you could really take all the time you want. Having thought some more on the issue, it might come down to the quality of the writing after all. The Witcher 3 starts you off in a broadly similar situation in the sense that your character is a father desperately looking for his missing child, but you as a player can instead choose to go around doing other stuff. In either case the story will ignore all that once you hit the next objective and pretend you headed directly there, but I think the reason The Witcher 3 as well as other games get away with that is because their stories are actually good. Fallout 4’s bad writing must cause some players to get annoyed by things they would otherwise not notice or ignore. I can’t say much about the original two Fallout games as I haven’t played them, but the time limit does indeed sound very frustrating if it can render the game unwinnable and force you to start over. Bakeneko fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jan 22, 2017 |
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Jan 22, 2017 14:37
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Bakeneko posted:Having thought some more on the issue, it might come down to the quality of the writing after all. The Witcher 3 starts you off in a broadly similar situation in the sense that your character is a father desperately looking for his missing child, but you as a player can instead choose to go around doing other stuff. In either case the story will ignore all that once you hit the next objective and pretend you headed directly there, but I think the reason The Witcher 3 as well as other games get away with that is because their stories are actually good. Fallout 4’s bad writing must cause some players to get annoyed by things they would otherwise not notice or ignore. Part of this is due to characterization as well. Geralt being an actual character and not just a player avatar helps, as the writers can make Geralt seem cold and distant, making it less weird that he's not super obsessed about finding Ciri ASAP. Meanwhile the player character in Fallout 4 is always yelling about finding their son in dialogue while the player is taking 20 hours to build settlements and kill poo poo.
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Jan 22, 2017 15:32
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WampaLord posted:. And then when you find him you can kill him right then and there with your electrified rocket bat.
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Jan 22, 2017 15:50
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Trojan Kaiju posted:And then when you find him you can kill him right then and there with your electrified rocket bat. You shouldn't though. Not until you've had a chance to walk through the Institute stealing everything that isn't nailed down, because all their tools contain aluminum and you have been given full run of the place. "Engineering robot gorillas? How fascinating! Don't mind me as I slide this tray of sensors into my pants. Do, go on." "Is anyone using that tray of scalpels right this second?"
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Jan 22, 2017 16:01
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Neddy Seagoon posted:You shouldn't though. Not until you've had a chance to walk through the Institute stealing everything that isn't nailed down, because all their tools contain aluminum and you have been given full run of the place. "Engineering robot gorillas? How fascinating! Don't mind me as I slide this tray of sensors into my pants. Do, go on." Also all the betrayal endings are objectively better because those robot gorillas become captureable if you have the first dlc. They are one of the strongest animals and give big happiness boosts.
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Jan 22, 2017 16:42
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Miss Wallace posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuZLAHE91_0 -The kid from Flight of the Navigator (who is in his 40s now) just pled guilty to bank robbery in Canada -The main female lead and the main villain both had guest roles on ST:TNG (obviously Bakula starred in Star Trek Enterprise as well). Another actor (the one who is 7'4'') played the giant alien who fights Kirk on Rura Penthe in ST:VI and who gets punched in the nuts
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Jan 22, 2017 18:00
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Prop Wash posted:I mean you can watch both of them if you want, and then you might be able to make a more informed opinion. I have watched both of them and it's night and day how Elementary manages to a) naturally build the Holmes and Watson characters primarily through their interactions with each other and the world and b) do a much better job of creating stakes and reasons why you ought to care about what's going on. It occurs through a much more drawn-out procedural format, but then it also has actual mysteries which the characters are expected to solve. Sherlock saves a lot of time by skipping the mystery portion of the story. Mumbles quit, because she couldn't take the comments on Shamus' blog anymore.
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Jan 22, 2017 18:09
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Linear Zoetrope posted:Mumbles quit, because she couldn't take the comments on Shamus' blog anymore. Turns out the Vox Day seal of approval is not a good thing to get
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Jan 22, 2017 18:46
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Max Wilco posted:
The only game I felt worked well with a time limit is Dead Rising 1, because it made it clear right off the bat that you would not be able to save everyone on your first run. It instills a sense of urgency without overwhelming you as a player, because in order to progress the story you need to be at story missions on time or else you are doomed to dicking around until the clock runs down. The reason the time limit works so well is because it is integrated into both the story and game mechanics in a way that feels natural and not a forced sense of urgency. The only other way to get the same sense of urgency is to script your game heavily, or just make it a mission based linear shooter. Fallout 4 does neither of these particularly well.
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Jan 22, 2017 19:48
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TheMaestroso posted:Not too many shows have 28+ seasons! I was going to mention Detective Conan - I got some 500+ episodes into detective Conan before fansubs became unreliable. (they are now reliable again so I should catch up.) The thing which why Detective Conan works similar to why Elementary works is there is a hell of a lot of supporting cast and it isn't always murder - sometimes you have a magician thief trying to steal something. Also going back to the early 90s episodes you have the amazing james bond gadgets of a "Bento phone" which is literally replaced in modern episodes with a cellphone but they have still kept the voice changing bowtie because it is cool.
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Jan 22, 2017 20:55
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