This show is soooooo much better then it should be.
This is my favorite show on the air right now.
Don’t let the original post deter you. Almost everything in his assessment ends up incorrect/gets turned on its head. And which TV show doesn’t have bad science?
It wasn’t incorrect then. The teenagers were in fact incredibly stupid in the pilot episode. If it’s gotten better, that doesn’t retroactively make the pilot any more intelligent.
As for “What TV show doesn’t have bad science?” - good TV shows. Of which there are plenty. “All TV is stupid” is a terrible defense of stupid, particularly when it’s patently not true.
I want to make clear, my primary objection back then was the poor thinking of everyone involved and the childish behavior of the protagonists. Bad science was secondary, but visible. I consider “why didn’t they put radiation detectors in those health-monitoring bands if radiation was their #1 concern?” to be an example of idiotic character actions, not bad science. Stuff like free-fall persisting during reentery is ignorable if the rest of the show were good. Which it wasn’t, then at least.
There’s also a matter of degree. I’m enjoying “12 Monkeys” greatly. It has its lapses, but they’re generally not intrusive, or very forgivable. I’m also enjoying “The Flash,” which is on The CW with “The 100,” and it takes a definite effort of will to ignore the technobabble, which is much worse than average for a show of its type.
To return to the general accusation, many TV shows don’t have any meaningful science at all. Present day shows do show the “bad computer stuff” TV trope often enough, but not always.
Of SF TV shows, there have been a number of notable ones where lapses, if they existed, rarely intruded into the foreground. Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Dollhouse, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles come to mind. BSG got steadily worse with time, of course, but that wasn’t about the science, that was about the lack of plot and Moore damaging long standing characters with stuff like Starbuck’s hysterics or Adama’s crying jag.
If you’re going to defend the science in a show, don’t try and hand wave it away with “all TV is bad.” Talk about whether it’s important / highly visible, whether the show’s rules are internally consistent, how often it happens, whether it’s painfully obvious while watching or something you don’t notice until days later, etc.
The writing for the kids was definitely dumb for the first couple episodes, but I find it to be one of the best post-apocalyptic sci-fi shows I’ve ever watched now. There’s some really solid, very dark stuff going on. It’s worth powering through the first few episodes because it definitely gets better even in season 1. This season has been great.
I should qualify that by inaccurate, [and here be spoilers] I meant your assessment of the supervillain (who turns out be well-meaning but rigid) and that the dorky teenager did not in fact die. It might sound like I’m nitpicking but one of things the show does well is portraying the morally grey world that the characters inhabit, and there are very few black and white villains.
Now the pilot does have its share of teenage antics/beliefs of invincibility, but considering these are delinquents who have been in jail and suddenly given total freedom I’d almost call it unrealistic if they didn’t act stupid (see grown adults in Survivor who delay in building shelter.) The dumb does subside fairly quickly though.
My limit for bad science depends on how whether it gets us to the interesting parts of the story faster with less unnecessary exposition. Magical hackers in shows like Arrow/Flash make me groan because I know something about computers, but I let it pass because the grunt procedural detective work is not generally the focus, and allows the writers to devote time to the actual conflict once they locate so and so. (It’s less forgivable in shows that drags its feet like BSG.) Here the initial conflict is for unwilling, unreliable canaries to be sent into the coalmine; they presumably could have thrown some technobabble line about interference / lacking the tools to modify the wristbands / had dedicated radiation monitors in the dropship that got damaged upon reentry etc; or there could have (and probably should have) been tag along adults who died along the way. The setup may be imperfect, but it’s interesting, gets the story moving, and the show deals with the consequences of the starting conditions well (be warned that it’s not very interested in the food/shelter/survival aspects much, but rather what happens after the spear.)
Was it mentioned that this got picked up for a 3rd season? VERY HAPPY about that.
I just caught up with the last 2 episodes. Talk about edge of your seat TV! I also really liked the conclusion that Marcus came to when talking to Abby, that the choices the made on the ARK really affected how the kids turned out on the planet.
Also the Indra / Octavia / Lincoln story arc has been really great to watch. And its good to see that not everyone in Mt Weather is evil, and that there was a bit of back story about a resistance to using the grounders as bone marrow prisoners.
Also looking at the thread title makes me sad every time I come post here. :(
Damn what a season finale, anyone else still watching?
Clarke seems to keep being put in situations where her only option is to kill tons of people.
Clarke’s decision was pretty dark, though defensible. Not sure about her walking away; that felt a bit off.
Also not sure what was up with the other group searching for the promised land. It might’ve been nice to have more of a tease of what that was all about.
Someone should really start a new thread for this show, since this one isn’t exactly a ringing topic.
I’m still watching and loving it.
Jaha’s story is maybe a bit too mystical for me. I don’t love what happened with him in the finale, but I see where they’re going to set up for season 3.
Great finale (and season), but yeah, I thought it was it’s pretty unfair of Clark to say to Bellamy that she’s taking on the burden when a) he pulled that lever with her and b) he actually knew the people who helped the arkers.
The stuff with Jaha seems to be leading the show into pretty well trodden SF grounds, but the show’s good at surprises so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I thought about starting a new thread but then we’d lose all the ringing endorsements past page 1.
I did kind of think that Cage (the President’s son) got what he deserved, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he was resurrected in a later season. I also felt like there could have been a way to save more people…I understand that the show wants to force hard decisions and generate strong emotions, but a part of me felt like how things ended was too convenient.
I only started watching this show BECAUSE of the wonderful endorsement.
You can do it! The first season starts out weak, but damn does it get good!
Bit of a thread necro, but I sort of half-watched this vicariously through my partner recently. At first I thought it started out immensely dumb, but definitely a little engaging.
One thing that bothered me at the end of the second season was the grounders’ decision to make a deal with Mount Worth. Seemed totally nonsensical in the context. The enormous, blood-thirsty army (under supposedly very tenuous command) just calmly retreats while right on the cusp of defeating the immensely dangerous enemy they’ve quarreled with for almost 100 years? Just like that? Struck me as kinda dumb.
Been watching this (Season 1) on Netflix, and what starts as drek quickly turns into a quite decent sci-fi ride. Only downsides are I’m getting a horrible encoding in dark scenes on Netflix (this title only) and theres no Season 2 yet!
Season 2 Spoilers
I can’t find it now, but I remember reading an interview with the creator where they wanted machine gun emplacements past the gates, so truce spared them from a bloody charge. That was cut from the script due to budgetary reasons, though I think they should have at least mentioned it
Anyone watching Season 3? :D
This past weeks episode regarding the AI was just fantastic, as was finding out what happened to the 13th station, Polaris.
I am betting the new commander is gonna be the Ice nation guy.
I think this is my wife’s favorite show (either this or Grimm), so we have it on every week. I’ve been rather disappointed this season–it keeps drifting more and more into “CW angsty teen-age bullshit” territory. When you want several of the good-guys to die horrible deaths, something is wrong with the writing.
Was going to start a new thread to jettison the unfortunate title. One of my favorite shows as well.
I’m not a big fan of the angst this season either, but it’s not unearned. I actually buy Bellamy acting like an idiot, though I can’t believe Pike won on a “Grounders are going to kill us so let’s die fighting” platform (everyone from the Ark has to know that they’re outnumbered and can’t possibly win in a war, right?)
Things are looking up though. The last episode was great and went in a direction I didn’t expect. Also, the fact that the grounders somehow developed a whole language/culture/mythology within a 100 years has always bugged me; the new developments at least kind of hand waves it away (maybe) on account of
spoiler
magic AI
.
Its funny, in the ‘old days’ people could forgive a show a poor start, but I find it so hard now. I think I gave up on episode 4 but should try again.