The Official, Long Awaited, TV Shows Thread

Grall said:
Sometimes self-imposed limitations like runtime length improve the quality in non-obvious ways. IE, more often isn't better, and frequently just makes things worse.

This is often the case with episodic television I feel. It often happens in games as well, where if you don't have much in the way of hardware resources, or these days - as modern computers can do almost anything in realtime - whittle things away until only a core framework remains you can end up with a timeless classic.

Babylon 5 was a show where many episodes were so packed with story that they felt like a feature movie, and yet they were only about 42mins long.
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Actually, IMO, Babylon 5 episodes rather were not too packed with story - the story was just handled more coherently in general, compared to ST:TNG. The best episodes in ST:TNG are focused in a single story, while in the worst ones the writers seem to have been forced to just come up with something for each main character to do in this episode, leading to two mostly disconnected parallel plotlines inside one episode, which leaves the feeling of either pointlessness or rush.

I wonder if they gave the good scripts in ST:TNG to certain directors, or if the directors modified the scripts much. The first episodes directed by Jonathan Frakes are top stuff; Les Landau directed many pretty good ones but I feel the the said incoherence issues were more present in his work. The episodes directed by Patrick Stewart mostly don't work for me, somehow.
 
WhiningKhan said:
Actually, IMO, Babylon 5 episodes rather were not too packed with story - the story was just handled more coherently in general, compared to ST:TNG.
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Well, my favorite example of B5 story packing is the S2 finale episode. It starts off with combat practice, then you have Earth bureaucrats arriving and chastising Sheridan for training his crew to fight against the Centauri, then a Narn cruiser arrives, then the bureaucrats announce a pact between the increasingly belligerent and warlike Centauri and the increasingly fascist Earth regime, then someone rats the Narn out to the Centauri and they send in a cruiser of their own. Sheridan then shoots up the Centauri cruiser with his new shiny defense grid, but is then forced to issue an apology for defending B5 against the Centauri's unprovoked attack. As he travels to the location, a group of exiting Centauri leave a bomb on his shuttle and Sheridan throws himself out just in time. Kosh reveals himself (in today's political climate he'd be arrested pending indicent exposure and sexual harassment charges.......), and flies to save Sheridan. People are left in wonder about what just happened and what they witnessed.

There's more stuff I skipped for brevity.

I wonder if they gave the good scripts in ST:TNG to certain directors, or if the directors modified the scripts much.
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From what I understand, TV directors just direct the way they're told to by the producers (IE showrunners); basically power relationship basically reversed compared to movie industry. Directors don't get to change stuff, as that would risk interfering with the producers' vision. :p

Also, in STTNG, the actors didn't get to direct episodes of their own until some time had passed, not sure when exactly it started, but the show was clearly a hit by then, thus giving the actors more leverage.
 
Grall said:
Well, my favorite example of B5 story packing is the S2 finale episode.
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Okay, B5 had those 'game-changer' episodes with stuff happening all around, but the preparation work for those often spanned several episodes, totalling much longer running time than a full feature film. That's exactly what I'm referring to - STTNG still often followed the traditional standalone episode format where they crammed a complete story in one episode, giving a sense of rush in cases where the script or its handling wasn't well focused. The long-running stuff (Data's development, Klingon empire and Worf's heritage, Picard and the Borg) was of course much easier for dramatic representation.

Grall said:
From what I understand, TV directors just direct the way they're told to by the producers (IE showrunners); basically power relationship basically reversed compared to movie industry. Directors don't get to change stuff, as that would risk interfering with the producers' vision. :p
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Well according to Chaos on the Bridge, it was mostly the head writer Maurice Hurley exercising power in the first seasons, Roddenberry's condition being not fit for the task anymore. Him leaving, and e.g. Ronald D. Moore entering writer team and Rick Berman taking producer's chair gave the final boost for show's quality which is evident binge-watching the seasons.

Grall said:
Also, in STTNG, the actors didn't get to direct episodes of their own until some time had passed, not sure when exactly it started, but the show was clearly a hit by then, thus giving the actors more leverage.
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Oh, this reminds me I really need to start watching The Orville. Frakes is directing some episodes.
 
WhiningKhan said:
Him leaving, and e.g. Ronald D. Moore entering writer team and Rick Berman taking producer's chair gave the final boost for show's quality which is evident binge-watching the seasons.
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People often shit on Hurley, this is something that has gone back to the early 1990s at least. Maybe he wasn't the right man for the job, I've no genuine idea, as TV shows quite often take a few seasons to find their true identity and form. Maybe TNG could have prospered under his leadership had he stayed on, I don't know.

Not all he did was bad though, I have several favorite episodes in the first two seasons. Plus, he gave us the Borg. Q was Roddenberry's invention I believe - essentially to pad out the pilot episode, and look how that turned out in the end... :p An iconic sci-fi character, which outlasted the death of TNG by the major part of a decade, and probably still lives on in novels; certainly in fan fiction.
 
Am I the only one watching Star Trek Discovery with my jaw just hanging open every week now? Not sure when it exactly happened, but DAMNED did it get interesting and suck me right in! :O

Good stuff, surprising the hell out of me and never sure where it's gonna go...and I like it. :D
 
Grall said:
Only for Mericans, it seems... :(

Also, I still dream about a HD version, but I guess those dreams are of the pipe variety. :p
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The show was filmed (presumably with decent cameras and stock), so a HD version could happen. But the original FX, a not inconsiderable amount of which appears on the screen from time to time, was lost/destroyed. So you'd have 1990s 480p FX* (though excellent for its time) within what would presumably be decent quality 1080p. Fans would still take it, but it adds to the reasons we aren't seeing that happen. The FX could be redone, ST:TOS did that, but who would pay? Not even sure who owns what.

Check here! http://jmsnews.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9
The administrator, Jan, is cool and sometimes has contact with JMS (it's his official forum). Some of the people who were part of the production team are members.
P.S. http://www.jmsnews.com/ That's his personal bulletin board for posting stuff.

*And only the small bits of it within the 480p video that was preserved. That would have to be cut out then blown up to a higher resolution. They didn't save the original stuff, all that's left is what get placed with the 480p (Though TVs received 480i I guess) quality video that got broadcast
 
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digitalwanderer said:
Am I the only one watching Star Trek Discovery with my jaw just hanging open every week now?
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I haven't resumed watching after the show went on hiatus, but up until that point it was surprisingly solid quality-wise I felt, as long as you ignored certain things like how it broke with established Trek continuity and lore, and the ridiculousness overall of the spore drive and such. :p

I've been meaning to resume again in a bit, after there's a couple episodes to watch. Netflix pissed me off by having nuked the first few seasons of New Dr. Who from its roster, and I only watched season 1 so far. I'm not jumping straight to S.4, no way. So I unsubbed in a huff. But I'll be back some day. Preferably after having bought an Apple TV, because running a console which burns 100+ watts just to stream video from the internet fairly annoys me.

Babel-17 said:
But the original FX, a not inconsiderable amount of which appears on the screen from time to time, was lost/destroyed.
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I remember reading some time after the series ended that JS owned all the VFX source files and hung onto them like ancient Narn religious artefacts. :) Maybe that info was wrong. *shrug*
 
Grall said:
I haven't resumed watching after the show went on hiatus, but up until that point it was surprisingly solid quality-wise I felt, as long as you ignored certain things like how it broke with established Trek continuity and lore, and the ridiculousness overall of the spore drive and such. :p
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Can't argue with a single one of your points and I also agree it was solid and good before the hiatus, but since coming back from the hiatus it's BEEN CRANKED TO ELEVEN and also gives rise to several explanations and or reasons for the contiuity, lore, AND ridiculousness of the spore drive! It's bloody fucking brilliant and it's one of the few shows that I feel is actually taking me on a roller coaster ride each week!

The biggest thing for me is how fast it's moving! I keep seeing things and thinking, "Yeah, that's gonna come out in some future story line", and it's f-ing out and resolved before the episode is over! AND THEY KEEP DOING IT!!!

AND THEN THEY KEEP DUMPING MORE SURPRISES ON AND LEAVING YOU ON ANOTHER F-ING CLIFFHANGER FROM HELL!!!!

Highly recommend you catch up. I have no idea about the schedule of 'em, they come out on those sites I don't talk about anymore every Sunday night for me.
 
digitalwanderer said:
I have no idea about the schedule of 'em
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Previous batches released on mondays in Euro Disneyland. I assume it's because of the time difference compared to Merica.

I'm also assuming they're continuing with the same schedule now... :p

digitalwanderer said:
they come out on those sites I don't talk about anymore
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KEK! So *ahem* if I read correctly inbetween the lines, you're in fact NOT subbing to CBS's shitty streaming video service? :LOL:
(No, I promise I won't tell anyone. Sharing is socialism, after all... :LOL:)
 
Grall said:
Previous batches released on mondays in Euro Disneyland. I assume it's because of the time difference compared to Merica.

I'm also assuming they're continuing with the same schedule now... :p
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Yup, samey-same schedule as last season.

KEK! So *ahem* if I read correctly inbetween the lines, you're in fact NOT subbing to CBS's shitty streaming video service? :LOL:
(No, I promise I won't tell anyone. Sharing is socialism, after all... :LOL:)
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CBS has a streaming service? Heck, the show is on CBS?

Double-heck, CBS is still around? :|
 
Grall said:
I haven't resumed watching after the show went on hiatus, but up until that point it was surprisingly solid quality-wise I felt, as long as you ignored certain things like how it broke with established Trek continuity and lore, and the ridiculousness overall of the spore drive and such. :p

I've been meaning to resume again in a bit, after there's a couple episodes to watch. Netflix pissed me off by having nuked the first few seasons of New Dr. Who from its roster, and I only watched season 1 so far. I'm not jumping straight to S.4, no way. So I unsubbed in a huff. But I'll be back some day. Preferably after having bought an Apple TV, because running a console which burns 100+ watts just to stream video from the internet fairly annoys me.


I remember reading some time after the series ended that JS owned all the VFX source files and hung onto them like ancient Narn religious artefacts. :) Maybe that info was wrong. *shrug*
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:(

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=272131

Sadly, it will most likely never happen, for the same reason we will probably never see Blu-Rays of "DS9," "Voyager" and the director's cut of the first "Star Trek" movie:

Foundation Imaging.

As a condition of them getting the job, Foundation Imaging was required to surrender its Lightwave scene and model data to Warner Bros., who then either lost it or destroyed it. This basically happened to every effects house to work on B5. Whatever data Foundation managed to hold onto disappeared around the time they went out of business. Supposedly the lead animator, "Mojo" Leibowitz, managed to salvage some DS9 and "Voyager" data, but he hasn't said anything about B5.
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Wouldn't the studio have at least scanned the movie in 2k?

My understanding with UHD movies is that film can be relatively easily scanned into a 4k master these days.

Only exception is if there is any CGI, which is modeled and rendered in 2k rather than 2k because the production chain isn't up for UHD or HDR yet. Processing and storage needed to render and store CGI in UHD HDR would be too expensive.

As for the shows, they weren't even produced in 720p. No widescreen, probably no 5.1 sound either.

Unless they produced all the CGI assets in 4k to begin with, would all those old assets, targeted for SD TV show be of much use these daYs?
 
wco81 said:
Unless they produced all the CGI assets in 4k to begin with, would all those old assets, targeted for SD TV show be of much use these daYs?
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No they wouldn't. Which is why for the TNG blurays all those scenes were redone.
 
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