Some stuff I watched

[schneefink]

I was lazy and watched some TV just to pass the time.


Sleepy Hollow: I watched one and a half episodes. It looks like a good show, but it's not for me. Abby seems like a character I'd like a lot with a bit more non-work-related development, and Ichabod could be fun too, but overall it's too gloomy for me. Not only is the whole plot "fight off the apocalypse", but it's also shot in mostly dark colors, which I generally dislike. From what I know via fannish osmosis, it looks a bit like an improved version of the later seasons of Supernatural, only with more grey, and SPN isn't my thing either. I'll just enjoy the "best-of" version via Tumblr gifs ;)
Smaller stuff: a witch buried in a graveyard, with her own gravestone, really?


Elementary 2x01: I stopped watching Elementary in the middle of the first season, and watching this episode reminded me why. It's a good show, I really like Joan and I enjoy watching her and Sherlock together, even some of the mystery plots are good, but all in all it doesn't really engage me in any way. I'm completely passive when watching it, and that's boring. When I watch something I want to be interested enough to think about it, speculate about it, add my own stories in my head, and for some reason it's just not happening. Something to watch when I'm bored and can't find anything else.
I still really love the opening sequence.


I'm completely uninterested in watching Person of Interest, even though I've heard that it improves from the "two white guys, the nerdy one and the fighter, save the world" from the pilot. Just one thing about the Machine: There's a machine with the capability to collect and analyze data to the point of predicting large-scale and small-scale crimes. If I understand correctly, the government uses the machine to prevent terrorist attacks and Finch and Reese use the machine to prevent crimes on a smaller scale that the government doesn't care about. That seems like such a waste of time to me - if you have a machine with that sort of computing ability, surely it would also be extremely useful for economic simulations? You could probably solve world hunger with that thing. Finally disprove some ridiculous economic theories. Sorry, but who cares about a terrorist attack or two if that's the alternative? (ETA: badly phrased, of course people care, but from a government&"greater good"-perspective...")

ETA:
Agents of SHIELD: Meh. None of the characters really interested me, they all seemed rather bland, and I've no idea where it's going and nothing that really gives me anything to be excited about. In addition there were some things I didn't like, e.g. the rant at the end was way overdone and Coulson drugging his own agent. I don't think I'll continue watching.

So none of these are shows I will be following - but to be honest I don't need a new one anyway *g* Lost Girl comes back in November, Teen Wolf in January, I could always watch another Gundam series or finally start Buffy (or any of several other shows that were recommended) if I want to.

And the NHL season starts in a week! It's weird, I'm following the Penguins as much as I ever did any canon, but it somehow feels fannish in a slightly different way. I like it, though. I'm short on money right now, but when I have a bit more I want to go to a hockey game in Vienna. The Vienna Capitals are doing quite well at the moment. Top of the league is the new team from South Tyrol, interestingly.

In addition, next weekend I'm meeting with L. and M. and we're doing another lazy "watch TV and eat" day at their place. This time with Babylon 5! We've been planning to watch it for ages, but originally S. wanted to join and she never has time. I'm looking forward to it :)

And now I should do some stuff for school debating, because the other person responsible is apparently procrastinating on that with work, instead of procrastinating on work with it like I do, which is obviously the superior version. Right.

Comments

[naye]

but all in all it doesn't really engage me in any way

I have the exact same reaction to Elementary! It's a good show, I think, and I am super thrilled that they've done genderswitching and included non-white characters and Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are wonderful to watch, but... none of it feels like it matters?

I'm sorry Sleepy Hollow wasn't for you, but I can totally see that - Headless Horseman with a shotgun and a conspiracy to hide the truth and it's clearly going to be a rough ride for Abbie and Ichabod. Is there something that could make you more interested in the show, you think, or is it all just not doing it for you? (A feeling I totally get - Lost Girl just didn't do it for me, even though the concept is so neat and the characters pretty brilliant.)

[schneefink]

I was trying to think of other shows set in this world with little overarching plot that I loved, and the closest I can think of is Leverage. But Leverage is a lot of fun to watch, and I'm missing that with Elementary. I maybe smile once or twice during an episode, but that's it. I want to have fun when I watch TV, and often I want to be cheered up, and Elementary doesn't do that.

The dark colours don't help, but I think a show with the inherent pessimism of fighting against the apocalypse (and, in the beginning, almost alone) is not what I'm looking for, definitely not right now. Also a reason why I never watched Sarah Connor despite hearing good things about it.

I'm sorry you didn't like Lost Girl, but sometimes shows just don't "click" for various and/or unknown reasons.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

The machine can predict a terrorist attack based on analysis of all communications- phone calls, video surveillance etc by connecting keywords. It's not even looking at data involved in economics. Maybe if it was monitoring stock commodities, weather conditions, population trend, but the data and analysis for people planning a crime and economic systems are like looking at apples and oranges.

Who cares about predicting a terrorist attack?

*scratches my head at that question*

I miss Babylon 5.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Not what I meant, of course preventing terrorist attacks is important! But a terrorist attack threatens maybe thousands of people, economic inequality and disasters millions if not billions (and incidentally is often an underlying cause for terrorism.)

I know that the machine looks at completely different data, but that's just a program that's running. It has to have insane computational capabilities (if that's the right term?) to predict attacks and crimes from that sort of data. So if you use the machine and run a program focused on economics I'm sure you could get some amazing results.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

I know that the machine looks at completely different data, but that's just a program that's running. It has to have insane computational capabilities (if that's the right term?) to predict attacks and crimes from that sort of data. So if you use the machine and run a program focused on economics I'm sure you could get some amazing results.

Actually, it is so vastly different, it's hard to explain.

It the simplest terms, think what is involved in me planning to plant a bomb at the post office vs the collapse of say, the sugar market :)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course the economy has a much larger scale. But is the amount of data really so much different from all sorts of surveillance and phone calls etc. to economic indicators? And the machine currently predicts crimes in the future, so there's a major probability element; even better simulations for what happened in the past would be extremely useful for economic theory.

[sholio]

I've heard that it improves from the "two white guys, the nerdy one and the fighter, save the world" from the pilot.

Noo-ooo, I watched most of two seasons before finally getting frustrated enough with various aspects of the show to give up (never did see the last 2 episodes of season two, don't really care), and that's pretty much what it's like all the way through.

And I agree with you that what they're doing with the computer is basically one of the least useful possible things they could be doing with it, but I also think Kristen's right (if I understand her correctly) that it's not just a matter of computational power, but also programming. It's not really just a matter of switching it over to compute economics or a cure for cancer, but someone would have to program it to do that, and I think the show's not really too far off that the programming is the tricky part. I suspect that we actually HAVE the computational ability right now to do what the Machine is supposedly doing; it's just that we don't yet have the programming know-how to do it. We're still struggling to get computers to reliably recognize people's faces, and, thank goodness, we haven't the foggiest clue to predict what they're going to do. So, yeah, I think you could repurpose the Machine for a different application -- economics, medicinal research, whatever -- but you'd need another 10 years of genius programmers working on the actual programming package that would enable it to do that.

(God, I can't believe I'm defending this show considering how much I disliked it after two seasons of it.)

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Then I'm even more glad that I never watched more than one episode.

That makes sense about the programming. From what little fic I read (sometimes I'm bored and something is recced...) the machine is an advanced AI of some kind, much more advanced than the computers we have now, and I think Finch is the guy who programmed it in the first place? From that I'd think that reprogramming it for a different purpose (in a reasonable time) would definitely be possible. But whatever, not everything on a show is supposed to make sense, and I don't need to think about this so much considering I'm not even interested in the show.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

Re: Elementary: I can see why you'd say that, even though I quite like the show. I found it a slog for about half the first season, and I kept voting to drop it, but my friend pointed out we might as well go ahead and watch the episodes that had built up on the DVR first. And I gradually -- with the help of a few fandom discussions I ran across rather gradually randomly -- started to see the subtle character work they were doing. Once I knew to watch for that, rather than the questionable "mysteries" and "deduction", it grew on me rapidly. So now I'm watching for the portrait of an often prickly, genuinely caring, entirely non-sexual friendship between a man and a woman, with the procedural part serving only as the setting. I can strongly recommend it on those terms, though I also understand that not everyone is looking for that (or is willing to put in the watching time to get there).

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

I like their friendship and the character development a lot, but it's not enough for me to be interested in watching regularly. Now if there were spaceships... ;)