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muscles like this! posted:I don't know why they're doing the Margo alive in Soviet Union story, especially since everyone in the US thinks she's dead. Unless they all of a sudden reveal she's alive she's going to be siloed off into her own arc that doesn't interact with anyone else. The good news is that Wrenn Schmidt is the best actor on the show and it's not even really close. So having her stay around for another season isn't bad. My guess is everyone will think she is dead and there will be some big reveal during the season where the Soviets and Americans need to work together and she acts as the liaison.
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Aug 14, 2022 03:15
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I liked the finale. The show has fallen off a cliff from season 1, but I'm still entertained and this episode had me on the edge of my seat. Moore has the unique talent of making one scene incredible and then following it up with complete eye-rolling crap. There really isn't a middle ground. We went from Margo giving this emotional speech where Wrenn Schmidt is putting on an acting clinic intertwined with the whole bombing plot which is straight out of some network TV procedural. They bonked the failson on the head and tied him up in a truck for heaven sake. Just embarrassing poo poo. My biggest gripe with the show and time jumps is you don't get real conclusions to stories. They all happen offscreen and you kind of find out during a montage at the beginning of the season or brief mentions throughout. We don't get to see how the Presidency ends or what happens to Larry. We won't see how the folks left on Mars handle the next 18 months. We won't see how the baby handles being in space for the first year and half. Or what happens to Dev. Does the world acknowledge the North Korean as the first to step foot on Mars? And we don't get to see the aftermath of the terrorist attack. I felt like season 1 and 2 did a really good job of tying up most of the loose ends and then giving us some stories for the time jump. This season feels like most of the stories I followed will happen off-screen. Another issue the show has is that it really had a brilliant cast early on, but the younger actors on the show are pretty terrible (doesn't help their stories all suck). Unless they are refreshing the cast with some young talent, it might be unwatchable at times.
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Aug 14, 2022 03:37
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It was also well established in season 2 that Molly will happily put her own health at risk to save other people, which is how she went blind in the first place. She wouldn't have stopped going back into that smouldering wreckage until she was 100% convinced every single living person had been evacuated, or until she died.... and welp, she died.
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Aug 14, 2022 03:57
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Noob Saibot posted:Kid A really? I was hoping for Billy Talent.
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Aug 14, 2022 06:40
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Jerusalem posted:It was also well established in season 2 that Molly will happily put her own health at risk to save other people, which is how she went blind in the first place. She wouldn't have stopped going back into that smouldering wreckage until she was 100% convinced every single living person had been evacuated, or until she died.... and welp, she died. It was a great ending coming after her "We're selfish" speech to Karen. Because Molly really isn't. She's confident, can be arrogant, and doesn't back away from a fight for what she wants, but that's also because she usually knows that she is the best person for the job. She wants the mission to succeed whatever it is, and if the mission is getting as many people out of the building as possible then she'll do that as well.
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Aug 14, 2022 07:42
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Senor Tron posted:It was a great ending coming after her "We're selfish" speech to Karen. Because Molly really isn't. She's confident, can be arrogant, and doesn't back away from a fight for what she wants, but that's also because she usually knows that she is the best person for the job. She wants the mission to succeed whatever it is, and if the mission is getting as many people out of the building as possible then she'll do that as well. It's also a perspective thing, and was a running theme in the show for a while (among others) until they dropped it a little this season. Molly's first "we're selfish bastards" talk was with Ed, when Ed was upset about teaching Shane how to ride a bike and how he reverted to his helpless toxic masculinity crap. Molly says that she and Ed are selfish because they sacrifice their family lives "for all mankind" (  ), and the audience is pounded on the head with this via Karen's tiger dream and Wayne's painting, the wives' gatherings in season 1, and finally Ed just absolutely melting down when Kelly says she wants to go to the naval academy. Because the tables were turned there, and welp.Obviously Molly behaves selflessly to save the people in the blown up building, or Wubbo, or whatever it was that had her floating in orbit by herself for a bit, but Wayne is horrified of her going to space, because he knows that she will be heroic and selfless and that means he could lose her. And the same deal with Karen and Ed, at least when they were married. Of course sometimes Ed is mostly a selfish bastard, like when he took Gordo out for a therapy joyride on fighter jets and got hurtled into the ocean. But still, sucks for those waiting at home!
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Aug 14, 2022 08:14
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Grand Fromage posted:With another several years in there it's possible fusion rockets could be in testing, which would greatly expand what can be done in space. Podcast also mentioned they'll be going somewhere new in season 4, not only moon and Mars. If they do incorporate fusion rockets then travel to the Jovian system would be doable in a reasonable timeframe. And everyone dies instantly because of the radiation there but whatever. I thought he meant by exploring somewhere new, he was referring to the USSR.
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Aug 14, 2022 08:29
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I think this season was just poorly plotted. Take the Margo plot, for instance. Once Aleida discovers something is going on (episode four, basically) the script just hammers the same plot point over and over without any ability to accelerate it. Aleida is suspicious, Margo shuts her down, Aleida feels bad but continues her dogged pursuit. Or the Danny thing. Danny is mad with Ed about Karen and Shane, and this causes him to act out. Same plot beat, repeated over and over, except sometimes it's drugs and sometimes it's bullying and sometimes it's murder and sometimes it's passive resistance. Karen has her space plans scuttled, so she joins Dev. He pisses her off, and she leaves. She joins again. Her space plans are scuttled and she thinks about leaving but she stays. And then she leaves again, permanently this time. It also doesn't help that several conflicts are just raised and dropped randomly -- Larry's infidelity is being threatened by an all male remake of Watergate. Oh, whoops, I guess that guy's... in rehab now? And not just that, there's also the whole Helios base vs Ed, the Commies doing baby shenanigans... Bill (Peanut) has a tearful goodbye scene before going to work for the other guys, then is back to helping Aleida again about four episodes later without much drama. There were some well plotted episodes in the first half, like the space race episode, the landing episode, Will's coming out episode, the space hotel disaster... but the back half was definitely not.
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Aug 14, 2022 08:38
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This show finally broke the suspension of disbelief for me with the North Korean on Mars. It's just too silly, North Korea is a client state of China. China wouldn't allow it and the Soviets who would be providing the materials wouldn't either. It's beyond possibilitiy that North Korea could have a space program without massive Chinese and Soviet help and do anything without their approval. The Kim family wouldn't risk the wrath of Beijing and the Soviets for a stunt like this. DropsySufferer fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Aug 14, 2022 |
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Aug 14, 2022 10:50
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DropsySufferer posted:This show finally broke the suspension of disbelief for me with the North Korean on Mars. It's just too silly, North Korea is a client state of China. China wouldn't allow it and the Soviets who would be providing the materials wouldn't either. Remember that this isn't our history and hasn't been since the 1960s. Are they are PRC client state at this point? Are the Kim family in charge? Hell, they are quite insistent that this isn't the DPRK, it is just the PRK. Plus they did have USSR assistance. That is the whole reason Danni and the soviet captain went to the PRK site was because it was a soviet model derived from soviet assistance. Flip it around, to the people in the world of this show it is quite likely that the DPRK having nuclear weapons seems just as improbable. Why would the USSR and China allow that to happen?
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Aug 14, 2022 11:38
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They did mention that half a dozen countries or so already had probes on Mars, and wasn't in mentioned earlier in the season that multiple countries have space stations? NK being willing to do the suicide mission and the logistics of it seem the most unrealistic part, but assuming they were happy to do that then in the FAM universe this was probably intended to be the North Korean prestige project. In our universe in the late 80s/early 90s North Korea spent like 2% of their GDP (estimated to maybe close to 2 billion in 2022 dollars) building an incomplete hotel. In the FAM universe they clearly pushed that effort into a couple of long shot space shots, along with extra support from a more successful USSR. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel
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Aug 14, 2022 12:08
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Cojawfee posted:I was hoping for Billy Talent. I'm telling you only one group perfectly encapsulates the early aughties. "Everything looks nominal skipper. We are go for Proxima burn." "Alright activate the Alcubierre drive." "Let's... get it started." "No need for radio edits in space. Hit it!" (and the bass keeps runnin runnin!)
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Aug 14, 2022 13:56
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I was honestly hoping the time skip would be bigger this time, maybe to the mid-late 21st century, the reason being that I'd love to see them actually explore the idea of starting a whole new society on another planet. Ellen's political story this season was honestly pretty boring, but a focus on the politics, ideology, law etc of an entirely new world could be awesome. Just go full Red Mars and explore the development of a Martian identity and a split with Earth, culminating in either a bloody revolution or an amicable separation. Of course, it would mean cleaning house of almost every character, and they obviously don't want to do that given how doggedly they're clinging to ol' Ed.
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Aug 14, 2022 15:13
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While that would be neat, how do you justify your show having an entirely new cast?
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Aug 14, 2022 15:21
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Drunk in Space posted:I was honestly hoping the time skip would be bigger this time, maybe to the mid-late 21st century, the reason being that I'd love to see them actually explore the idea of starting a whole new society on another planet. Ellen's political story this season was honestly pretty boring, but a focus on the politics, ideology, law etc of an entirely new world could be awesome. Just go full Red Mars and explore the development of a Martian identity and a split with Earth, culminating in either a bloody revolution or an amicable separation. Of course, it would mean cleaning house of almost every character, and they obviously don't want to do that given how doggedly they're clinging to ol' Ed. Hard disagree. We already have Star Trek, The Expanse, Firefly, Aliens, etc etc etc to say "here's a society with routine space travel in the somewhat distant future, a bunch of stuff happened in the early/mid 21st century to get us there but that's not what this story is about. Don't worry about it we'll have a guy in a jumpsuit mention something about how we got here in a throw-away line every now and again." To me that's the whole unique selling proposition of FAM: That is what this story is all about. The further it gets from the first season point of historical divergence the more maudlin soap opera goofy it gets, but there's still meat on the bone. To me it's more interesting to me to see alt-history where a zig instead of a zag with the USSR's Zond program leads to the space future I was hoping to live in as a kid in the 80s but still recognizable as our world, than yet another show where we get served up warp drives and pan-human one-Earth governments in a future I'll never see. Going decade by decade and really breaking it down from that point of departure is a big part of the draw. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 14, 2022 |
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Aug 14, 2022 15:32
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Cowboy Bebop live action stealth remake
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Aug 14, 2022 16:55
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Rental Sting posted:I thought he meant by exploring somewhere new, he was referring to the USSR. Oh yeah I think you're right and I misremembered.
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Aug 14, 2022 17:22
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Open Source Idiom posted:Karen has her space plans scuttled, so she joins Dev. He pisses her off, and she leaves. She joins again. Her space plans are scuttled and she thinks about leaving but she stays. And then she leaves again, permanently this time. Yeah, Karen's whole back and forth with the Helios board over the last two episodes and conflict with Dev about likely being named CEO seems sort of pointless in hindsight. I suppose the storyline is there for misdirection and subverting expectations.
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Aug 14, 2022 18:46
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I don’t think it’s been mentioned in this thread but I can’t believe they totally skipped over the prospect of abortion. Yes this wasn’t written in 2022 to my knowledge but the repeal of Roe v Wade has been looming for years. l They also totally skipped over the tension of what nationality the baby would be. I guess it’s theoretically still within scope in a time-skipped next season but that was a whole lot of nothing.
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Aug 14, 2022 20:20
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Vegetable posted:
Martian
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Aug 14, 2022 20:25
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Show is still somewhat engaging, but I've been rewatching S1 and 2 with my wife and boy howdy the difference in quality and writing is stark as hell when viewing essentially side by side. Pretty much ever since the Stevens' parents doing their space run the show has been just listless. It's really a shame. Do a 25 year time jump, start afresh and do some interesting poo poo with new people. Hell, timeskip right to the invention of the Stack and Altered Carbon can be the series sequel and you even keep Kinnaman.
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Aug 14, 2022 20:59
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Vegetable posted:I don’t think it’s been mentioned in this thread but I can’t believe they totally skipped over the prospect of abortion. Yes this wasn’t written in 2022 to my knowledge but the repeal of Roe v Wade has been looming for years.
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Aug 14, 2022 21:14
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They needed to cut that so we'd know Danny is creepy and bad
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Aug 14, 2022 21:35
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Maybe in this alternate universe Roe v Wade never happened and abortion is illegal on Mars? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The timeline diverges in 1969, just about when Norma McCorvey / Jane Roe got pregnant...
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Aug 14, 2022 22:25
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It's international waters, which means you legally have to find a pirate doctor to perform the abortion.
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Aug 14, 2022 22:58
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Ed stole his ship from Big Love for a while, doesn't that make him a pirate
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Aug 14, 2022 22:59
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Lotta unimpressed takes on this episode, but I really enjoyed it. Mainly it's a vibe for me at this point; I really love the big long protracted musical cues over the montages, like the somber piano one covering the final ~10m or so, from the bombing to the Mars justice bit. And I will admit to laughing out loud with delight at seeing the Kelly maneuver take place. But then I'm a sucker for audiovisual spectacles like the moon landing scene in First Man. And the aftermath of the bombing, if anyone is at all unclear about the fact that it's meant to parallel the OKC bombing more than anything else, it might be because you weren't around to see the visuals of the building on the news night after night. It was a dead-on point-for-point reference. Also a small note about the Karen "is she dead" scene — another giveaway is blood in the corner of the mouth. You don't walk away from that on film lol.
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Aug 15, 2022 00:26
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Data Graham posted:Lotta unimpressed takes on this episode, but I really enjoyed it. Mainly it's a vibe for me at this point; I really love the big long protracted musical cues over the montages, like the somber piano one covering the final ~10m or so, from the bombing to the Mars justice bit. And I will admit to laughing out loud with delight at seeing the Kelly maneuver take place. But then I'm a sucker for audiovisual spectacles like the moon landing scene in First Man. The spin in first man made me so uncomfortable I loved it it was like being spunup to 8 gs in a tin menards shed. Only extremely dum dums think karen survived getting crushed to death and then getting dead eyes
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Aug 15, 2022 03:45
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My only deal with paralleing the JSC with OKC is that the bombers had no real motivation besides "they're up to something, I tell ya!" That's very asymmetric thinking for a goddam fuel bomb solution. Timothy McVay was a racist Christo fascist wound up by Bill Cooper, The Turner Diaries, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and everything else the 90s far right had to offer. McVay was a self radicalized nut striking a blow against the Jew run globalists. These assholes are just upset over the secondary cooling system thing with the Moon reactor and...I think...fossil fuel jobs. I like to believe that Jimmy is a good enough kid that he'd nope the gently caress out if they started in with white power bullshit, so I don't understand their ideology. Just too much of an escalation.
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Aug 15, 2022 05:50
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DamnGlitch posted:Only extremely dum dums think karen survived getting crushed to death and then getting dead eyes That's fair, but a lot of season 4's plot will revolve around President Danny seeing a ghost of Karen The ghost will absolutely hate Ed, so it will make for funny scenes when Danny and Ed argue over Martian independence and the US constitution
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Aug 15, 2022 05:56
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DropsySufferer posted:This show finally broke the suspension of disbelief for me with the North Korean on Mars. It's just too silly, North Korea is a client state of China. China wouldn't allow it and the Soviets who would be providing the materials wouldn't either. Yeah, my immersion was already sliding and the North Koreans on Mars didn't help even though others called it awhile ago. The North Koreans land/crash on Mars in a capsule the size of a Soyuz or a LEM. Ok, did they spend the entire journey in that capsule? Where did they keep their supplies for the journey? Did they arrive in a larger vessel and this was their landing craft? Once North Korean man is alone, where does he keep getting tins of Korean knock-off Dinty Moore Beef Stew from? We are shown that the Happy Valley NASA base has a whole hydroponic bay for air/food and it's a big deal with Ed shows us with resupply food packs. Where is North Korean man getting his oxygen resupplied from?
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Aug 15, 2022 06:57
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Spiteski posted:Show is still somewhat engaging, but I've been rewatching S1 and 2 with my wife and boy howdy the difference in quality and writing is stark as hell when viewing essentially side by side. I still think the show is terrific despite being much dumber, but yeah they need a bigger shakeup than this. I'm reading the Commonwealth Saga which opens with an astronaut who's basically Ed landing on Mars for the first time only to find the equivalent of Dev already standing there waiting for him because they invented wormhole tech and beat NASA to the punch. Anyway, it then jumps to the late 2300s where the Ed character is still alive because they introduced rejuvenation technology and he has to lead an expedition to another quadrant because no one else knows how to captain spaceships anymore. Just do that. Hakkesshu fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Aug 15, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 10:19
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Yeah the more they tried to explain the logistics of the North Korean manned one-way shot the less sense it made. Was I mishearing something last episode when the Russian guy said NK had sent dozens of probes that all had the piece of tech they needed, and only this one happened to be close enough by that they could reach it by rover? ... Are there 20 other hapless North Korean dudes chilling in Soyuzes all over the planet with 1-year supplies of stew and guns in boxes? Trying to picture what the long-term game plan for any of that was back in Pyongyang
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Aug 15, 2022 10:37
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I think the idea was that the Soviets had sold their tech to a bunch of nations, and it was a ~*lucky coinkidink*~ that it was the Best Korean one that was nearby.
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Aug 15, 2022 10:49
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I don’t know if NK sending a pistol rattling around in a wood box to Mars is too much or too little.
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Aug 15, 2022 10:58
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Which uuuuhhh brings up a different point, which is simply ... what the hell is the narrative purpose of the NK guy at all? How does it even change the story? I thought the big changeup would be to completely upend geopolitics due to making the whole three-way space race just a golly-gee-shucks waste of time, but ... there was no consequence to it that we got to see? Just the JSC and then a time skip. Maybe there'll be a lot more international fallout from it in S4E01 but ... But thinking about how this was framed from a writing standpoint, it's - Conflict: we need to get our guys back up to Phoenix - Ticking clock: Kelly is pregnant - New problem: mystery acronym tech is broken, we have to get a new one - Surprise solution: there's one over there - PLOT TWIST! NK DUDE  - ... Anyway. They get acronym tech and send Kelly back to Phoenix and all is well Like ... what is he now, "Another Crewman!" from the end of Galaxy Quest?
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Aug 15, 2022 11:07
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Data Graham posted:Which uuuuhhh brings up a different point, which is simply ... what the hell is the narrative purpose of the NK guy at all? How does it even change the story? Yeah this season wasn't plotted well at all.
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Aug 15, 2022 12:21
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Marsupial Ape posted:My only deal with paralleing the JSC with OKC is that the bombers had no real motivation besides "they're up to something, I tell ya!" That's very asymmetric thinking for a goddam fuel bomb solution. Timothy McVay was a racist Christo fascist wound up by Bill Cooper, The Turner Diaries, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and everything else the 90s far right had to offer. McVay was a self radicalized nut striking a blow against the Jew run globalists. They never really sell the political stuff because it's like an E-plot wedged in there with 6 other plots and the show seems scrupulously uninterested in exploring any coherent ideological or political framework for the alternate history they've created. There's a vague bit of red-bashing with the Russians and the North Koreans being vaguely sinister, and their attempt to kind of half-do a party flipped Lewinky affair merged with Don't'-Ask-Don't-Tell but it just all falls flat. The Out of Work Coal Miners and general economic malaise we're told exist fall flat because they don't really world build outside "The world is different but the same." There's cheap clean energy everywhere, but it's still The 90's in every other respect, so it's hard to know what the stakes are. President Wilson just seems to have made absolutely no policy decisions to deal with this paradigm change at all. I would take from this the cynical read "capitalism is only capable of exploitation; machines that will deliver paradise will still deliver Hell in the hands of a system with corrupt motives." But I'm not sure if that's what the show is trying to say of if it's just underwritten. The terrorists are just... ridiculous in the interest of giving us a little twist at the end. In part because they don't have the courage to really run with anything that could alienate anyone in the audience-- as said upthread, abortion was never once even mentioned RE: Kelly's absurdly risky pregnancy. And in part because they've spread the ensemble out into so many subgenres of family melodrama, corporate intrigue, West-wing backbiting, etc. on top of the space stuff that they can only like a third do any of them and they seem to re-establish them with every ep by spinning the wheels a fair bit, even with 1:20 runtimes on some eps. I'd love it if in S4 they could pare it down to like... 3 solid plots they really want to drill down on, and let some of the Political Development stuff happen in interstitial segments without needing to try and put a character in the oval office to wring character drama out of it.
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Aug 15, 2022 14:07
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im enjoying this dumb show but between the martian baby, the north korean astronaut, the gay president's shocking address to the nation, and karen's over-the-top death scene, this show is v soap-y. it's got unparalleled special effects and i like a lot of the actors but we exited the realm of reality a long time ago. Data Graham posted:Which uuuuhhh brings up a different point, which is simply ... what the hell is the narrative purpose of the NK guy at all? How does it even change the story? ig they could have shown the north koreans reacting to their victory or dwelled more on the us reaction but there was a lot going on and what was in the episode already reinforced the idea that the space race was dumb. Owlbear Camus posted:They never really sell the political stuff because it's like an E-plot wedged in there with 6 other plots and the show seems scrupulously uninterested in exploring any coherent ideological or political framework for the alternate history they've created. There's a vague bit of red-bashing with the Russians and the North Koreans being vaguely sinister, and their attempt to kind of half-do a party flipped Lewinky affair merged with Don't'-Ask-Don't-Tell but it just all falls flat. for all mankind has always struck me as a particular kind of liberal wish fulfillment. i don't mean that in a derogatory way, just that that it operates under the same logic as something like "The West Wing" where every character is able to deliver inspiring speeches and how expertise and determination alone are able to transform the world. usually this is tolerable in the context of the space program but when the show tries to shift toward depicting actual politics, the limitations of its ideology become v apparent. im not entirely sure why they decided to shove a character in a white house when it was clear their interests were elsewhere and they didn't have the resources to make it anything more than a sideshow. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Aug 15, 2022 |
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Aug 15, 2022 14:10
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Vegetable posted:I don’t think it’s been mentioned in this thread but I can’t believe they totally skipped over the prospect of abortion. Yes this wasn’t written in 2022 to my knowledge but the repeal of Roe v Wade has been looming for years. l I definitely complained about this and still feel salty about it. Also the fact that the Russians had that sinister conversation about "we have to do something about this baby" that in retrospect was there for no reason at all except to end the episode on a cliffhanger. boquiabierta posted:I'm still annoyed they skipped over the whole pregnancy reveal and options discussion. It's fine for the plot and for dRaMa to need there to be a Mars baby, but why couldn't we have at least seen some back-and-forth about the pros and cons of that happening, up to and including discussion of ABORTION. You know that Russian doctor was like abort this poo poo now.
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