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Tanis season two just started. Nic Silver is having trouble sleeping. Great, we really needed another insomnia subplot.
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Apr 20, 2016 21:30
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Gann Jerrod posted:Wolf 359 is kind of like a Sci Fi Night Vale, starting with a "gag a week" format and switching to a more narrative style as it goes on. It's definitely more of a comedy than drama though. I'd say it's gotten a lot more serious lately. Around episode eleven is where it stopped being "Night Vale in Space" and became its own thing.
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Apr 27, 2016 21:48
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I basically like Black Tapes for the interaction between Alex and Strand. The first few episodes of S2 didn't have much Strand, and you can't have Mulder without Scully. The most recent one was better, and added some nuance to his character. But I'm not fond of apocalyptic cults as villains- I'd rather they stick to "monster of the week" format and have Strand's personal backstory be the driving meta-plot. That worked better than trying to tie everything into this Cenophas or whatever else is going on.
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May 19, 2016 04:52
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rotinaj posted:I personally disagree, and feel it turned into a never-ending cycle of Sparks falling in love with a new woman, their relationship comes between Sparks and Marshalling, and then the relationship ends. It was really soap opera-y, and all their big episodes felt anticlimactic as hell. I did really like where Beyond Belief seemed to be going, but I came to the conclusion that Acker and Blacker never intended to actually get going on the potential their settings had, but were just spinning their wheels to keep doing episodic stuff without a greater plot. None of their characters ever grew, and there were only a few tiny story arcs that ever resolved fully. TAH never really clicked for me- I think the live audience was off-putting. Sparks Nevada was fun, but didn't really go anywhere. If I had to guess, I'd say the lack of continuity was because the show had a lot of big name talent. You can't always count on Paul F. Tompkins to be available, so you don't spend a lot of time crafting an elaborate narrative that you might have to abandon. I could be wrong on this, just a guess. Still, the actors are very talented. My favorite thing they did was when Tim and Guy from The Worst Idea of All Time wrote the entire script to Grown-Ups 2 from memory and the TAH cast performed it.
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May 20, 2016 22:49
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AstroZamboni posted:For serialized fiction that isn't X-Filesey, try Qwerpline. It's improv comedy, but it tells a story with fantastic characters and it's wonderful. Hello from the Magic Tavern is similar (based on your description). It's pretty funny; the only thing I didn't like was an extended subplot about the main character being raped that was played for laughs. Fortunately they don't bring it up too often.
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May 21, 2016 18:46
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rotinaj posted:Do you like it when improvisers have a standard joke they return to when they don't know what to do? Then Chunt's jokes about buttholes are gonna be for you! Yeah, that was the other pet peeve I had. Matt Young made one off-hand joke about wizards having two buttholes, and suddenly it's an obsession, especially with Chunt. Though they did have a pretty good payoff when they did the "Normal Again" style episode where it's suggested the entire show is a hallucination Arnie is having, and the doctor diagnoses him with an anal fixation.
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May 22, 2016 04:01
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Len posted:I'm about halfway through Limetown and holy poo poo it is so much better than Tanis. She is a better protagonist than Nic can ever hope to be. I agree that Limetown is a better show than Tanis or Black Tapes, but I don't agree about it having a better protagonist, and I don't see why no one else seems to notice this. Nic Silver isn't very interesting, I'll grant that (I kind of like MK, though). But Lia Haddock is almost completely passive. She doesn't seek out clues and investigate Limetown; witnesses get dropped in her lap one by one and she interviews them. Her interview skills are better than the You know about X?" "What's X?" style of Alex Regan and Nic Silver, but she never actually does any investigation. I'm not even sure she is the protagonist- she's the main character in the sense that we see everything from her point of view, but in no way does she drive the plot. Some mysterious figure wants the truth revealed and sends witnesses to meet with Lia, and I was assuming that she was picked to tell the story because she had a reputation for being a good journalist. But in the last episode it's made even worse when it's revealed that her uncle was the mastermind and picked her because she was related to him. Thematically, it fits all the stuff about "roles to play," but it means she didn't achieve anything herself- she was chosen because of family connections rather than talent, resourcefulness, or any other positive characteristics. Limetown is a great story- I especially like how it's revealed piece by piece and leaves you guessing- but Lia Haddock is a complete cipher. Practically anyone could have been the main character.
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Jun 28, 2016 03:21
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Len posted:I forgot to mention Limetown. I haven't done Alice isn't dead yet. Is it more than pandering to tumblr like Nightvale became? Does "pandering to tumblr" mean "has gay characters?"
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Jul 6, 2016 15:58
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Len posted:Not just has gay characters but made their relationship front and center. I liked Nightvale more when it was just a town full of weird poo poo with a gay host. Then the relationship between Cecil and Carlos took center stage and the weird stuff was the underplayed background and I jumped off. At least that was how it felt for me. The series changed over time because Finknor wanted it to. You don't have to like it, but it's silly to call it "pandering" just because it's not catering to your tastes anymore.
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Jul 6, 2016 16:43
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Hobo Clown posted:I'm about five episodes in on Bright Sessions and the actress for Dr. Bright is distractingly bad. Does she eventually get any better or is this what to expect? I'm digging the concept so far, it just feels like it's brought down by a main character sounding like she's reading a script rather than having an actual conversation. I don't know why you would say that- I think Julia does a great job. Her character does get developed more over time and she has opportunities to show more range.
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Jul 8, 2016 19:50
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Hobo Clown posted:The performance just feels very wooden, like she's reading off the page as she speaks. It's more noticeable when she's opposite Lauren Shippen, who obviously is much more familiar with the material. Well, Lauren asked Julia to be the star because they had worked together in the past and she really liked her work. I'd say what you're hearing is a deliberate choice because the character is a professional dealing with potentially dangerous people, and she keeps very stiff to stay in control of the conversation. It seems authentic to how therapy works, IMO. One could argue therapy is scripted by its nature, as many doctors have prepared responses for different situations. Later, when she interacts with more aggressive characters like Damien and Green, she's forced on the defensive and her wall drops, and you see a lot more humanity.
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Jul 9, 2016 03:22
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Hughlander posted:But he's outside time is the whole point, the tech from the 90s is there and he's sending messages to various points in the past from various points in the past. Unless I'm thinking of something totally different I thought there was even a line where it's been weeks for him while minutes for the person trying to contact him. (Though it does seem that his time is moving forward at least.) ODIN? You been marathoning Archer?
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Sep 24, 2016 18:09
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head58 posted:Are there any espionage-themed fiction podcasts out there, preferably closer to a LeCarre than a Clancy? Ars Paradoxica is sci-fi espionage. Sort of.
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Sep 30, 2016 04:00
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Wake_N_Bake posted:Just started Wolf 359, and I like it. The voice acting is good, the narrative stays tight, and doesn't have its head up it's own rear end, unlike Pacific Northwest *anything*. In episode eleven, the mood starts to get darker, and in episode twelve and thirteen a plot emerges.
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Oct 2, 2016 18:51
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I gave up on Tanis midway through season two, when it felt like they were just going through a Wikipedia page of conspiracies and mysteries and throwing them in. Apparently Tanis is connected to Charles Manson, the Voynich Manuscript, and 9/11. Preposterous- Tanis can't melt steel beams.
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Oct 26, 2016 20:28
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D34THROW posted:I'm listening through Limetown now and Lia's acting is pretty mediocre as well. The one-off survivors are pretty convincing though and sound kinda familiar. Does anyone else think Max Findlayson sounds like Norm MacDonald? DoctorWhat posted:If you like/can tolerate Doctor Who, there's a seventeen-year backlog of radio dramas from Big Finish, many of which are available for just 3 dollars for two hours of radio. I think you're the one who said I should listen to "Jubilee," and you were right. D34THROW posted:At least it's only another couple months if they release in January again. Then 2-week waits between. TBT was my constant work companion and I just can't get into Tanis. I don't like Nic's voice as much as Alex's. I think my biggest problem with Tanis was that there never seemed to be any urgency in Nic's actions. He was drugged and almost raped once and completely shrugged it off. Every time I heard "We'll talk more about this next week, but first let me tell you about Bombas Socks," I rolled my eyes. If you're in the middle of a massive conspiracy and you're personally being targeted, you publish everything you've got as soon as possible before they can shut you up. You don't tease and hold stuff off until the next episode.
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Nov 5, 2016 02:35
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Aerox posted:I guess I don't know either. From the gushing online I had thought it had some sort of overarching narrative or story about what was going on in Nightvale that picked up after the first set of episodes. It's very much in the Buffy style: start each season with episodic stories, with subtle background elements that build to a major confrontation at the end of the season. The story arcs get stronger later on in the series, so you might like that better. Of course, then some fans of the early episodes say "I liked it better when it was just creepy stuff being narrated and not so much story." *shrug* Can't please everyone.
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Nov 11, 2016 20:02
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Mr E posted:Just binged Limetown yesterday and today I listened to the most recent Bright Sessions episode, and the AM's experiments are pretty similar to what went on in Limetown. I suggested to Lauren Shippen that someone should write a crossover.
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Dec 1, 2016 23:50
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. I can't imagine having listened to it when it came out due to the breaks in between episodes, and the fact that the next season's still not out!
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Hughlander posted:Bright Sessions / Ars Paradoxia was the best thing ever and I hope they do more of it. Or at least acknowledge it on AP. Pretty sure the crossover is non-canonical. It was a just for fun thing and a way of promoting each other, but I don't think it has any consequences in either story.
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Dec 2, 2016 04:43
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Len posted:I've been listening to Wooden Overcoats and I dig it. It reminds me of things like Black Books or Father Ted just a cheesy British sitcom. I loved the first season of WO, but I'm starting to have a problem with it. Basically, in season one, Rudyard was thoroughly unlikable. He was constantly trying to cheat customers and take shortcuts, so it was satisfying to see his plans fail and him get humiliated as Chapman effortlessly showed him up. By now, though, it's gotten to the point where he loses even when he tries to do the right thing and he has no chance against the supernaturally skilled Chapman. Rudyard has become the pitiful underdog, and I'm starting to wish for him to win once in a while. It's not nearly as fun to watch someone in a failing business continue to fail.
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Dec 4, 2016 07:34
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Hughlander posted:I know. But I can still wish. You may have gotten your wish- the latest TBS episode is Sam-centric, and she describes a recent trip through time where she met someone in a dark room who could see her and talk to her.
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Dec 14, 2016 18:10
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It seemed to me at the beginning that Black Tapes was going to be a purely episodic series that used fictional settings to explore how different people deal with unexplained phenomena. I thought the only overarching plot would be "what happened to Strand's wife?" I was hoping we'd never get explicit proof of anything supernatural, but it seems like that's where they're going. I got excited when stuff started tying together at first, but then nearly all of season two felt like stalling. It overrelies on the classic trope of "when you're stuck, add a new element to the conspiracy" without ever resolving anything. This show is basically The X-Files in both good and bad ways.
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Dec 16, 2016 03:33
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Hughlander posted:I read that including the spoilers before starting the show and I'm not done with S2 but I really don't see that yet. The first few episodes of S2 were clearly same old Rudyard. Seance, Cheap funerals. Even later he's done in by his own cheapness same as always. (One bottle of wine for the entire club he worships.) I see what you mean, but it's less the specifics then the whole dynamic changing. After a while, I want Rudyard to win every now and then, or else I start to feel sorry for him (and especially for Antigone). For one, how is he still in business at all if no one wants his services? For that matter, how do so many people die in this tiny village (though they are very nearly a town)? And the cheap funerals wasn't unethical, it was an attempt to tap a new market. He was wrong about what people wanted, but he was trying to serve customers. Hughlander posted:Best part of black tapes was always the music. Haven't listened to it yet, but I liked the set-up in the previous episode.
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Dec 16, 2016 06:49
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Kraps posted:Yo, check out Terms It's pretty eerie. I especially liked when Dunwalke scared the crap out of European allies by saying that he didn't think the U.S. should unconditionally support them. Dunwalke's more overtly religious than Trump, but other than that they're almost identical. The creator, Lindsey Graham (no, not that one) swears up and down that he's been working on the story for years. I think the only unrealistic thing is that the departing president is a two-term popular, centrist Republican, which hasn't really happened since Eisenhower (maybe Reagan if you're VERY generous with your definition of "centrist").
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Jan 20, 2017 02:52
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LordZoric posted:They announced next season is going to be the final one. I'm actually pretty ok with that, seems like we're moving towards a natural conclusion point. Agreed. If they kept with the sitcommy style of season one, it could maybe go indefinitely, but once the premise of "we're going to die unless we get the hell off this station" was established, then there was no natural way to keep it going. A lot of shows would just keep throwing obstacles at them for years, but that would get old fast, so I'm glad they're going to close the book on it.
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Jan 24, 2017 21:46
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Ornamented Death posted:It's amazing how consistently good the Magnus Archives is. Some episodes are stronger than others, but I can't think of any that were bad. Am I the only one who couldn't get into Magnus Archives? It just seems like some guy reading creepy pastas. I went through three episodes and at best there were a few creepy moments. I guess it goes somewhere eventually? Jurgan fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 19:17
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LordZoric posted:Personally I want to see just how many times Richard Strand can order Alex out of his office, declaring he's done working with them, only to come back a few days later. The next to last episode of Tanis season one ended with "person X and person Y are really the same person!" and I was confused because I couldn't remember who either of those people were. I think I eventually stopped listening when they hinted that Tanis did 9/11 and wrote the Voynich Manuscript.
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Jan 28, 2017 18:53
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Kraps posted:Wolf359: hey remember that funny episode where the aliens copied Eiffel's voice? You mean the one where there was a massive explosion that left Eiffel lost in deep space? Yeah, I'm not sure I'd call that funny on the whole. LordZoric posted:Nick's quite the ladies man. Though I always wonder if they're supposed to be actually happening for real or are just stories in each other's universes. Like several times Alex has visited Nick and he says he's "working on the latest episode of Tanis." You'd think there'd be some crossover on the actual plots of the two, but you never know with Pacific Northwest Stories. The only one he was confirmed being in a relationship with was Amalia, the Russian woman. There was one very funny (I think intentionally) bit where Nic was talking to some friend of his and it was like, "So, you and Veronica are doing it, right? Huh? How about Meerkatnip, she's gotta be hot? Come on, you're loving, right? You can tell me!"
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Jan 30, 2017 20:32
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Chairman Capone posted:One of the last episodes of the last season of Tanis, there's a pretty blatant indication that Nick and Meerkatnip meet up to bone at the end of the episode. Cool, I quit around S2 ep 8.
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Jan 31, 2017 03:24
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Paul Zuvella posted:having a main character with the name "meerkatnip" was one of the things that made me hate Tanis because of how stupid it is. I don't know, it seems totally plausible that someone would use that as an online handle.
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Jan 31, 2017 21:54
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Paul Zuvella posted:If you ever put your dick into someone who you exclusively know as "meerkatnip" you have probably hosed up really, really badly in life. Again, I haven't listened in a while, but my guess is that, in-universe, Nic knows MK's real name but doesn't use it on the podcast because she wants to remain anonymous.
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Feb 1, 2017 17:33
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Slamhound posted:Christ, A New Winter is loving terrible. A New Winter would be much better as a novel than a podcast. I like the story (it reminds me of Twin Peaks) but it really doesn't take advantage of the format. The narrator doesn't even try to differentiate the voices so I never know who's talking, and every episode ends with the music getting really loud and then shutting off before saying something dramatic. Also, I think I'm the only one who likes the new season of Archive 81 better. The first season was just another "creepy found footage" series, but the idea of exploring an uncharted world full of eldritch abominations is really exciting. Also the mad scientist makes me laugh because he sounds exactly like Kevin from Welcome to Night Vale- I'm willing to bet that's an intentional choice by the actor.
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Feb 7, 2017 07:34
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rotinaj posted:No but it's okay because they're gonna write a NEW constitution and release it on the 4th of July and it'll be totally rad and modern. No, I do think Graham is going for a "he who fights monsters" idea, here. Pierce instituted a coup d'etat to try to prevent a dictatorship and in doing so created his own dictatorship. That's how a lot of tyrannies started. That's how the Roman Republic became an empire. That said, I thought early on they said the show was only going to be one season, so I wonder if this twist was drawn up at the last minute to keep it going. Tatum Girlparts posted:I assume this is from that drama that sounded like lovely House of Cards/'WHAT I TOTALLY WOULDA DONE IF I WAS OBAMA' Sorkin style fanfic? I don't think that's fair. Graham swears he's been working on it for years, and the first episode dropped just a few days after the election, so there's no way it could have been in response to Trump's victory. Plus, Pierce is a Republican.
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Feb 14, 2017 06:30
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New Leaf posted:I look forward to Magnus more than any other podcast these days. I really need to force myself through the early episodes. I've only listened to the first three and not much has happened. I would probably just drop it altogether but everyone here insists it'll get good later.
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Feb 18, 2017 06:37
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Anyone still listening to Hello from the Magic Tavern? Out of nowhere, the show suddenly developed a serious plot in episode 100. I didn't think they'd ever actually leave on Usidore's quest. When they started counting down to it I kind of thought they'd beat The Dark Lord very easily and make a joke about how anti-climactic it was, like they did with the Lunar Sword. Instead, the surprisingly menacing Dark Lord appeared in person and drove the heroes out of their base, and now they're fugitives hiding in the wilderness. It's a weird direction for a comedy improv show to take, but it's at least got my interest.
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Feb 21, 2017 21:46
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Inkspot posted:The plot was always there. The seriousness was... not? I say with trepidation. The plot was always there as a backdrop, but I assumed Usidore trying to gather a party for his quest would be a running gag and never actually amount to anything. I have a feeling that was the intention at first, so I was surprised they started taking it somewhat seriously.
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Feb 22, 2017 03:59
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Tweak posted:"You'll never believe how this unsolved weird mystery is tangentially related to Tanis" I think "Tanis did 9/11" is when the show jumped the shark for me, and the Voynich Manuscript was when I quit altogether.
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Feb 26, 2017 02:40
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Paul Zuvella posted:There is no loving way there was a "tanis did 9/11" episode I refuse to believe it. I'm being a little facetious, as they didn't say it outright, but there was a thread where Nic's investigation led to a man who killed himself a few days after 9/11 and was rumored to have been involved in the attack. I'd like to think they were mocking conspiracy theorists, but the show is so deadly serious about the investigation that I'm not sure what they were trying to say. It certainly seemed like they were hinting he was involved in both Tanis and 9/11. http://tanis.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_202 Jurgan fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 28, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 21:44
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Parakeet vs. Phone posted:I think it was just them filling space by reading off conspiracy theories for awhile (Lyle Stevik in this case). It's weird to think of how much of Tanis was just "here's a weird unsolved mystery we found on reddit, maybe it was Tanis." I didn't get the sense that there was much mocking, if anything they seem to go out of their way to support the crazier ideas being real, at least within the show's canon. Oh, I didn't realize Lyle Stevik was a real person. I thought it was something they'd made up. That kind of changes the whole thing.
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Mar 1, 2017 02:49
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Hughlander posted:Bright Sessions chat:  Yes, it was immensely satisfying to hear Sam break Damien's nose. You can hear it in slow motion if you want: http://winstonisacannibal.tumblr.com/post/158999327783/the-moment-we-all-were-waiting-for-damien-getting The Bright Sessions continues to be my absolute favorite podcast. I will say Chloe's self-righteousness is getting on my nerves a little, but that's a minor complaint.
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Apr 3, 2017 15:51
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