What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Although I have usually read the book years before a science-fiction or fantasy movie comes out, The Expanse was never even on my radar. I watched the entire first season on my computer, and just couldn't bother to continue with season two. It felt like a completely absurd sequence of events happened to involve the same four people over and over again. It's like The Expanse wanted to be the sci-fic Game of Thrones, only with a really small cast.

Then I finally bought a modern tv set with a big screen and gave The Expanse another chance, including re-watching the first season. This time the characters clicked for me and I decided that I was willing to forgive the hamhanded plot. I even grew to like Avasarala for her bold wardrobe and dry humor. The Belter accent is indeed a mess, and I eventually got tired of Holden constantly looking like he was about to break into tears in Season 3. But overall, it holds up well, and they ended season three at a good place. If they get another season or two, there are certainly some fascinating possibilities to explore. If they don't get another season, at least they didn't leave any specific personal cliffhangers unresolved.

No spoilers, but there's a natural point you could end the plot if you wanted to bail out early in books, don't know if they've gotten there yet. I haven't seen season 3.

Although I typically agree that authors seem to feel the need to have a cast of a very few be involved in everything that happens (and they often turn out to be related to each other which is completely bogus) the author in The Expanse at least put in due diligence to provide a reason for them to walk through the entire length of the plot.

I was pretty disappointed at the finale of season 1 a couple of years back, but season 2 convinced me that it was still worth watching.

Someone must have been listening to our conversation upthread.

www.tor.com/2019/05/02/the-black-company...nt-come-soon-enough/

Elric politely clears his throat at the notion that The Black Company series is the godfather of grimdark.

Shellhead wrote: Elric politely clears his throat at the notion that The Black Company series is the godfather of grimdark.

HA! Good point. Elric might be a tough one to adapt for a modern TV audience, since everybody wants ongoing, serialized narratives. All the various books and novellas and short stories are very episodic. It's been years since I read those, but from what I can remember, there isn't a cast of recurring characters, no overarching story, right? I suppose the showrunners could take Elric and the basic setting of Melnibone and write a new story.

I found this part of that article interesting:

Perhaps more importantly, Cook’s series tells a wholly different kind of story from A Song of Ice and Fire and the other big-time epic fantasy series also in line for screen adaptations, like The Wheel of Time, The Kingkiller Chronicle, and Brandon Sanderson’s various works.

The Wheel of Time? Fuck! Seriously?? I can't even imagine what a TV show based on that steaming pile of garbage would look like. Get me a goddamn China Mieville "Bas-lag" TV show up in here!

The Kingkiller Chronicles aren't done yet, are they?

Joebot wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Elric politely clears his throat at the notion that The Black Company series is the godfather of grimdark.

HA! Good point. Elric might be a tough one to adapt for a modern TV audience, since everybody wants ongoing, serialized narratives. All the various books and novellas and short stories are very episodic. It's been years since I read those, but from what I can remember, there isn't a cast of recurring characters, no overarching story, right? I suppose the showrunners could take Elric and the basic setting of Melnibone and write a new story.

I found this part of that article interesting:

Perhaps more importantly, Cook’s series tells a wholly different kind of story from A Song of Ice and Fire and the other big-time epic fantasy series also in line for screen adaptations, like The Wheel of Time, The Kingkiller Chronicle, and Brandon Sanderson’s various works.

The Wheel of Time? Fuck! Seriously?? I can't even imagine what a TV show based on that steaming pile of garbage would look like. Get me a goddamn China Mieville "Bas-lag" TV show up in here!

Elric could work, as written, because tv also works just fine with episodic stories or short story arcs. That's mostly what television was, up until maybe 20 years ago. There were some recurring characters in the Elric series but not a regular core cast. Moonglum, Yyrkoon, Cymoril, Arioch, etc. Should be good shock value for non-readers the first time that a recurring friendly character falls to Stormbringer. Might work better with a movie trilogy that cherrypicks the best material, as the stories suggest a need for high production values.

I have only read the first book of The Waste of Time series, and it reportedly gets worse and worse until the original author dies. It might work if heavily adapted, but I hope that it languishes in pre-production hell instead.

Where's my Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser buddy comedy fantasy series?

I was trying to watch through Star Trek Discovery Season 2, but I just couldn't do it. To me Star Trek was always about Science Fiction not fantasy, sometimes they dip their toes in fantasy for an episode or two, but it is rooted in SciFi. However season 2 of Discovery is just pure fantasy in space. Hell Star Wars is more scifi than Discovery. So far they have had a character come back from the dead, characters are unbelievable and boring, and they use the fantasy version of time travel (spinning off new timelines). Hell TOS had the prime example of single timeline internally consistent time travel, city on the edge of forever. I just can't do it.

I also tried Black Summer for three episodes. It feels like I'm watching some shoddy zombie MMORPG. People clump into a small party and turn into murder hobos whose ethics and morals flip back and forth.

The new Twilight Zone is okay. Some are too on the nose, some ore alright.

trif wrote: Where's my Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser buddy comedy fantasy series?

Great point. It seriously baffles me that anybody would want a Wheel of Time tv show when there are better possibilities like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Elric, or Amber. Two or three years ago, there was talk about The Walking Dead producers getting behind an Amber tv show, but I haven't heard anything recently.

RobertB wrote: The Kingkiller Chronicles aren't done yet, are they?

Nope. Not even a projected release date for the third book yet.

Sagrilarus wrote: Please let me know when the season for Game of Thrones is over. This thread will go back to normal shortly after that.

You're right, I should have done this ages ago. I moved all GoT talk into its own thread, and will continue to do so:

therewillbe.games/forum/41-movies-tv/206...ones-tv-extravaganza

First episode of Chernobyl was excellent. Knowing what I do about the incident, my skin was crawling for basically the entire hour, watching these people standing in the middle of or, even worse, walking into what they were. Chilling.

Jackwraith wrote: First episode of Chernobyl was excellent. Knowing what I do about the incident, my skin was crawling for basically the entire hour, watching these people standing in the middle of or, even worse, walking into what they were. Chilling.

Whoa, back up please. Channel? Time?