I’ve got lab reports to grade, and I’m giving an exam this afternoon, so more things to grade. But tonight…tonight I shall watch Jessica Jones, and tomorrow I will deal with the deluge.
That is my plan, and I’m sticking to it.
« Cowards
I know what I’m doing tonight
« Cowards
PZ, would you mind letting your community know that I would love their help in a discussion with college students today from 10:30 am – Noon on this page:
https://www.facebook.com/erichovind/photos/a.209085192473733.49092.167980679917518/901644999884412/?type=3&permPage=1
Enjoy Jessica.
Thanks,
Eric
ohdear
Well, at least they’re not coming over here.
I have been waiting for this for Sooooooooooooo long.
Not eric hovind. Jessica Jones. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Annnnnnnnnd… I’ve promised myself and my partner that i’m not going to binge watch it, but rather watch only a single episode each time I finish a final paper or final exam, then binge watch the rest when my whole term is over. This being a responsible adult going to law school while parenting…it kinda sucks some times!
Oh god. Eric’s regular “let’s have my students and a group of atheists troll each other for an hour!” class. Much education.
Also, good god, hadn’t heard about this Jessica Jones, but now I have to see it.
Man in the High Castle for me, despite being Amazon produced.
Followed by Jessica Jones.
Resulting in a weekend binge-watch. (as if)
Eric:
No one is interested. Quit trolling and go away.
****
I probably should have waited until *after* the Jessica Jones show debuted to sell my trade paperbacks of the comic (the show looks to be a faithful adaptation of the comic, right down to the mood and setting).
Eric, when you quit your stupid, inane, and illogical presuppositional gottchas, and lead with scientific evidence, not refuted theology, you might get people interested. Until then, do everybody here a favor and find other sources for your amusement.
Oh my god, the stupid burns.
Does God Exist has the Hovindites arguing that Logic requires God (as usual), one quoting a Bibble verse, and another one arguing that “probably not” is an inherent contradiction.
Then a bunch of people mindlessly bleating that morality comes from God, featuring a guest appearance by Sye Ten Bruggencate.
Apparently, evil doesn’t disprove God because it is All Man’s Fault, and because you couldn’t even know that evil was a thing unless you had a perfectly good deity to compare it to! Just like you can’t know if something counts as blue unless you have a perfect orange to hold up next to it.
Just so fucking banal.
This is not your opportunity to spam this blog, Hovind. Linkfests to your stupid arguments deleted. You’ve invited people to your facebook bullshit, that’s enough. Stop now.
“If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.” Carl Sagan
For a group of people who believe they have the truth and I do not, you are not following the advice of your own Pope. Wish you would be open to engaging in conversation. Sad to see your boldness here with each other wain into cowardliness and shrink into oblivion when challenged to a real discussion.
PZ: In years past you have welcomed this discussion. Guess your not as sure as you use to be!
You are off-topic. You intruded into a post about a TV show to advertise your exercise in apologetics, and I let it stand; then you started posting more off-topic crap. That’s enough. They can go to your facebook discussion and talk about your BS there.
I was willing to debate your father, but he pulled the plug when I let him know I wasn’t going to be exploited so he can make money off of my work. I am confident — confident that I’m not going to be taken advantage of by your scamming ways.
Hi Eric.
Ummmmm, you do know that a wain is a sort of cart or wagon, right? As in – “hop up on the wain, we’ll give you a ride into Cowardliness, we’re headed that way anyway…”
Aiiieee…., it hurts us, it hurts us.
I would be happy to debate you PZ. Can we arrange that?
Well. So is anyone else looking forward to Jessica Jones? I might have to pick up some popcorn & sodie pop and have a Netflix party at home.
I will not say “Netflix and chill”. I recently learned what that means. You kids!
PZ Myers’ debate requirements.
PZ:
I am! It will have to wait until I netflix Agents of Shield season 2, though, because I’ve waited and waited for the damn DVD set to come out, and nope, so streaming it will be. I suppose I’ll have to go find out what “Netflix and chill” means now.
Oh. Same old, different meme.
Anyone remember Drive-ins? *wink wink nudge nudge*
I have no idea what sort of glue poopyhead is using, but I suggest he consider changing it since hovianutters seem to stick to it.
I will not google “Netflix and chill”.
I still live in happy ignorance about that “one cup” thing.
I’ve now watched my one and only episode until I finish the first of my courses.
I can say, without spoilers, that it’s dark and moody, as expected. Also: this is decidedly not a television show for kids. I’ve let my kids watch some superhero stuff, but if the first episode is any indication, it requires an additional two or three years of maturity even beyond netflix’s DareDevil.
Episode 2 in 2 weeks. :sigh:
I’m definitely looking forward to it.
I haven’t read the comics (yet) but based on the previews it did seem to be a bit darker than anything else done in the MCU so far (and Crip Dyke @ 23 confirms this) so I’ll probably need to be the bearer of bad news to my superhero loving spawn that this won’t be something we watch together. I’ll see about starting it tonight and make my own assessment.
I really liked Daredevil, along with some other Netflix originals (sense8, OitNB) – they’re definitely becoming my favorite “channel” for new content.
I’m wondering how this is going to play out given how much higher on the superpowers ladder Jessica is compared to Daredevil.
I don’t think she’s higher on the ladder. What’s interesting about DD is his powers are sensory. People talk about his sonar quite a bit, but all his senses are heightened. Though I don’t know if it’s canonical, I’ve always believed, and it’s certainly implied in the Netflix series, that DD’s hand-to-hand superiority is because he’s much more aware of himself, not just his environment.
So, he never gets pushed off his center of balance, because he’s always aware of how much every tiny bit of his body weighs and what movements will change his balance in what ways, etc. He doesn’t try a move for which he doesn’t have the strength, so he doesn’t fail in ways that leave him vulnerable, etc.
But that only leaves him with the ability to maximize what human muscle can do – it doesn’t actually change his strength. Nor can he affect things without touching them – like by laser eyes, or telekinesis. The range at which your powers operate also affects the range at which they are detectable. His operate internally, so they are not detectable directly, and indirectly he doesn’t leave evidence that couldn’t be reproduced by a human body with someone who is very skilled and manages to apply their force just so.
Since Jessica Jones’ strength operates internally, but is only functional when it has external effects, it would be detectable by sight, by feel (if you’re hit by her), and possibly by sound. But the ranges for this are short. What’s problematic for Jessica, however is that super-strength can cause effects that physical evidence behind, bent steel, for example. So the range of detection extends through time – you don’t have to be an eyewitness.
I don’t know how much Luke Cage will be involved in the series, but he’s higher up the power chain than JJ. But again, only in the same ways.
What’s your thinking, microraptor? Are you thinking from a special effects perspective? Public detection (which, I suppose, was my first thought) and thus the consequences of a public identity perspective? Some other perspective?
I have no idea who Jessica Jones is. My knowledge of comics is sadly lacking. But it popped up on Netflix 5 minutes before I came over to Pharyngula, and it looked interesting. So its playing right now..
And I just recognized who’s playing the villain. I am so hooked now.
Sadly, I lack Crip Dyke’s self-restraint. I am not going to be able to stop binge-watching.
We have a three-screen drive-in here in Carlsbad. And over outside of El Paso, there is an adult drive-in. Oddly, they’re both called the Fiesta.
So like, double nudge nudge.
Very involved.
And after watching 2 1/2 episodes already (amazing how much free time you have when you pull a 40 hour work-week in three days) I have to say, I really wish this show had less sex in it.
Watched the first two episodes, oh, this is gonna be hard not to binge watch.
Forgot to respond to this: yes, DD has vastly heightened senses. But he’s also physically still just human. He can take down a guy in 5-6 hits. Jessica can tear the doors off a car with her bare hands, though the show seems to have removed her flight and drastically toned down her invulnerability.
So I’m halfway though Jessica Jones.
I find it the height of mediocrity. It’s watchable, sure, and engaging enough to keep going, but geez… it’s just not what I would call good. The pacing is off, many moments feel awkward in that they either get too much attention or not enough (it’s worse when serious moments are glanced over and not given gravitas), the script often is lacking – which often makes the characters feel bland, or worse some bad dialogue straight-up made me laugh out loud from how silly it sounded when it was supposed to be emotional.
I like the concept of Tennant’s character more than the actual character. He is fleshed out enough that Tennant can play him in a way where I’m not constantly seeing him as The Doctor, but not fleshed to the point in which I find him captivating.
I dunno, if I had to summarize, I’m basically finding every single aspect of the show subpar.
As somebody not attached to the Marvel comics in any way, I find that Marvel has still yet to make any movie or TV show I would call good, much less great.
Oh, and every flashback to Jessica’s family has been done soooo poorly that I think I laughed audibly nearly every single time. I’m legitimately amazed the directing was handled that poorly. Particularly the scene with the gameboy where the crash happens. I rarely laugh like that in actual comedies, and yet here I am feeling like a jackass because I’m laughing at this traumatic event, but dammit it was just so darn goofy! (I just watched that scene and HAD to comment on it).
It’s just, ugh, these sorts of occasional gaffes in regards to either the script or the directing keep me from being invested even when I want to be.
But even without those, mediocre would still be my go-to word to describe the series.
This show needs a serious trigger warning because goddamnit my skin is crawling with kilgrave. Just goddamn.
@microraptor:
Well, but that just gets us back to the original question: what is higher up the power ladder? When you say:
what could you possibly mean? How could someone physically just human read a newspaper without looking simply by feeling the different texture of the inked spots on the page?
If all you ever really meant was higher up the muscular-strength ladder, I agree. But is power just strength? Or is there another meaning there that makes it hard to say (and arguably even wrong to say) that DareDevil is lesser in power? The only reason I felt comfortable saying that Luke Cage is higher up the power ladder is because you can actually directly compare her invulnerability to his, her lifting capacity to his, etc.
Yeah, a friend told me that there are sex scenes a few episodes in that are pretty adult, but when I was saying that you need serious maturity to handle it, I was thinking only of what happened in episode 1. JJ heading back to the officer after she had her first case in hand, that scene alone was enough to freak me out forever.
I mean that he falls within the limits of actual human physical strength and durability. If a villain smashes him squarely in the knee with a baseball bat, he’s going to be down recovering from it for a long time, no walking it off in thirty minutes. If he tries to punch an opponent with superhuman durability, his fist is going to break before the opponent does. He cannot believable take on opponents who fall too far outside the realm of normal human abilities.
I dont want to spoil anything right now, but with a villain that can literally make a person do whatever he wants, there is going to be a lot of dealing with long term abusive relationship based ptsd in this show.
I have a friend who got triggered by mother gothel in tangled, so i know that anything can hit you hard. And kilgrave is a perfect storm of total violation (and the trauma his victims go through dealing with the aftermath) that people should be aware.
The sex, while raunchy , is technically network pg-13 in presentation. But it is also pretty foreward and frank in presentation, and generally enthusiastic, so yeah even if your kids are late teens, there might be some awkward shifting if you’re watching it together. the violence is less than daredevil, though its still a thing to be wary of for children, and is mostly psychological.
But in my own personal and not at all authoritive opinion, the sex, swearing and blood aren’t anything I’d feel worried a middle (i think? Us school grades confuse me. 11-14 year olds, end of grade school and start of high school range) schooler being exposed to. But a lot of the things they just allude to in relation to kilgrave are hard-r.
I am on the 5th ep. Can I be a bit negative here?
I read somewhere that this was at first going to be an ABC (read: over-the-air network) show. I’m not sure exactly how much was changed for a Netflix audience (of course, the cursing and most of the sex, but I mean in terms of story), but I’m not finding it too compelling. It surely is dark, but I mean, to me a lot of the plot so far seems just conventional. The dialogue is also a kinda sloppy. For instance, when Jessica is going off on to the lawyer about “which side would that be? The side that uses people?!” referring to Kilgrave, the problem is 20 seconds before, she says she doesn’t wanna join the support group because she’s just “using them”. That was weird.
And this show is an example of my pet peeve with superhero and action movies in general. The actors (especially women) are chosen by their looks, and not their ability to look like they can throw a punch and a kick (and act). Fighting scenes are terrible in most American action movies. Even when they do choose a great action actor the director tends to screw it up (see the one Fast & Furious in which Gina Carano shows up, versus the great scenes on Haywire). Same happened with Sense8 (otherwise a pretty great series). Someone like Zoe Bell probably would have made a great Jessica Jones or at least Patsy Walker.
And for the love of dog. One small detail surely but it distracted my phone nerd brain every time. Will someone in TV/movie land finally get smartphone usage right? The screen usually turns off when you put the phone to your ear. But that’s not that bad. Then, at least when you answer the phone, the calling screen with the green and red “answer” and “hang up” sliders goes away! And those are sliders. The first time it happens, Jessica makes the gesture of pressing an external physical button to answer the phone. The subsequent times she answers, she taps on the sliders, which then don’t do anything visually, just stay there.
Well, I’m not at all perturbed by the cell phones. The sex is frequent but not porny, so I am not at all bothered by it.
I agree that pacing is a problem. There are 13 episodes? I’d like fewer, please. Not because they’re bad, but just because that’s too long to tell a single compelling story.
On the plus side, I really like how this is a superhero movie that has substantially dialed down the superpowers overkill. They aren’t demolishing the city! There’s actually room for human interactions! In fact, the one thing that it’s making me wonder is why they need super powers to tell this story at all. Luke Cage could just be a big strong guy, Jessica Jones could just be smart and persistent, etc. It would still work.
And Kilgrave is perfect. That’s how evil works: not “I shall take over the world!”, but “I am selfish & abusive and will make these people do what I want.” He’s also smart: the heroes think they can knock him out and grab him, but he’s used his powers to set up a regularly army of protectors against just that scenario.
But I can also see #36’s point. Man, he is creepy. I think it’s because he’s a little too close to reality: he’s every abusive relationship amped up to the max.
But he’s also indicating a weakness in the show. Right now, the most compelling part of the story, what might get me through all 13 episodes, is that I want to see how they defeat Kilgrave (if they do, and no don’t tell me!). It seems like the Jessica/Luke relationship just snapped into place instantly, so there’s no room for development there, and likewise the Jessica/Trish relationship. There’s something sinister about Carrie Moss’s character, though, so maybe we’ll see something more growing out of that.
I just finished it and my opinions have not really changed any (if anything they got worse). It was mostly a letdown, and the scenarios kept feeling more contrived as this series went on.
I don’t want it to spoil it, but the way the plot went in regards to fighting against Kilgrave was atrocious. It ruins the entire premise.
I agree with a lot of what PZ said: JJ definitely feels like it drags; this is certainly a story arc that should not have taken that many episodes. By the end I was so bored I was fastforwarding through. The show would also have been better if the only super powers were those of the main bad guy.
They may as well have changed Kilgrave’s name too, because for a show trying to take itself super seriously 99% of the time, such a cheesy and dumb sounding name has me rolling my eyes anytime anybody says it. The “Kilgraved” and “Kilgravism” shtick just makes it worse – how can I think anybody is taking the situation seriously when they use such terms?
Really though, the writing overall was just terrible. I’m just gonna be honest about it – it was tripe, horrid, unrealistic, shlocky writing.
Oh, and any time I see that detective played by Clark Peters, all I’m able to think about it is “The Wire” and how amazing that show was, and just makes me want to go watch The Wire again. Like I said earlier, I’m so glad I can look at Tennant and not be picturing him as Dr. Who (that would break my ability to watch JJ entirely), but every time the detective (sorry I can’t recall his name in the show) is on-screen I’m just like “Why aren’t you being Lester Freamon?”
Island Adolescent:
FFS, is 3 posts moaning enough now? I must be close to unique, in that when I watch something I don’t think is good, I shut it down and don’t watch anymore of it, because…I don’t think it’s good! There seem to be a fucktonne of people like yourself, who have nothing better to do that complain and moan about just how not good something is, but you never seem to stop watching it. Perhaps you could stop fucking posting about it – you’d be novel for a change.
Oh geez, a thread about discussing a TV show where apparently the invisible tagline is “You can’t discuss it unless you only have praise” according to Caine. And yes, 3 posts was enough unless somebody responded to me, seeing as how the third post was after I finished the show off. You had 3 consecutive posts in a row about practically fucking nothing in this very thread, so piss off with whining about 3 posts you’re not a fan of.
I must be close to unique, in that when I read a negative criticism I don’t like, I scroll past it and don’t read anymore of it, because…I don’t like it! There seem to be a fucktonne of people like yourself, who have nothing better to do that complain and moan about negative reviews, but you never seem to stop reading. Perhaps you could stop fucking posting about it – you’d be novel for a change.
That’s interesting, Island Adolescent. You think it’s fine to criticize the show (and note, I actually agreed with some of your criticisms), it’s fine to criticize Caine, but criticizing Island Adolescent…now that’s going too far. There was no invisible tagline , since the comments here are a mix of enthusiasm and reservation, and no, Caine didn’t say that at all.
The thing is that despite having nothing but criticism for the show, you watched all 13 episodes already. That is just plain weird. I watched all of the episodes of the first season of “House of Cards”, because I found it fascinating. I watched one episode of the second season, didn’t like it at all (Spacey’s character had just gone so far over the top it lost all believability), and guess what? I stopped watching.
That’s the point of #44. If it was so bad, why did you put yourself in front of the TV for 13 hours to watch the whole thing? Do you even see the contradiction there?
On critisisms; while I am annoyed at some of the victimisation of women, I have to admit its more because of women being the main gender of protagonist and associates (I also really love the lesbian love triangle because its so darned not at all worried about being a *lesbian* love triangle (actually i am a pretty big fan of the female relationships in general, and the overal sex positive and non-sexually violent tone of the show. I cant quite express it proper right now (or with my phones keyboard) but its just kind of brazenly accepting and nonchallant about people being people)) and not generally fridging or damselling. It is still not perfect mind you, but the world of Jessica Jones is a world of broken people, and it doesnt matter how they got that way, you dont keep hammering away to make the pieses smaller.
Thats a much longer and rather spoilery discussion though.
As for the quality; I’ve watched worse, and I enjoy the quirky charm, overall tone, and legitemate good pieces of television it provides enough to go through the rough patches.
Is it? I do that all the time. Some of it’s the hope that the subsequent episodes will explain some apparently illogical character traits/motivations/actions, or there is a good resolution to the plot. And some of it is to analyse what’s wrong with a show.
And oh yeah, what great criticism it was, essentially boiling down to – “Since you didn’t like it, shut the fuck up about it.” I’m not sure I would use the word “criticism” to describe that. I didn’t call anybody stupid for having a good opinion of the show or anything of that sort. Getting asked “Perhaps you could stop fucking posting about it [if you didn’t like it] – you’d be novel for a change” isn’t exactly what I’d call “criticism” – it’s more of a gradeschool verbal scuffle.
The go-to word I chose to describe it was “mediocre”. It wasn’t atrocious – it wasn’t the worst thing ever. Some individual aspects of the show I’d call terrible, such as the writing, but on a whole the show was merely subpar, a degree below average.
What is interesting to me is how fascinating you find the concept of somebody watching a show they are not completely enjoying. Is it really that difficult to comprehend? I’m amazed you think that qualifies as some form of contradiction; this isn’t complicated human behavior nor should it be difficult to understand (see Marc Abain’s post above). But go ahead, be dumbfounded by how weird such a simple thing is.
I watched the first couple episodes intently, as at that point the show looked like it could have potential to build into something pretty great. It started going downhill for me, but with some moments that were still good (the scene you described of KG’s first capture was the last high point of the series for me). The concept of the show was still interesting though, and like you I wanted to see how they could actually defeat a character such as KG (and whether they would have to throw away moral principles to do it or not, or even throw away their moral principles but fail to win – which would have been tragically interesting). Just because the show turns mediocre doesn’t mean it can’t bounce back or finish strongly. But seeing as how I continued having problems with it, I would be multi-tasking around the house while the show runs in the background. JJ wasn’t exactly a complex show where constant attention to the screen was mandatory to keep fully informed of what was happening – as long as you could hear the dialogue nothing would be missed (it’s a type of show where the audio gives clear ques when something important is happening visually and you should watch the screen). And I have to say by the final 5 or so episodes I was also curious whether the show would turn into a complete and utter trainwreck or not.
But hey, even if I was doing absolutely nothing but sitting in front of the TV for 13 hours, that doesn’t make it weird or “contradictory”. That’s just insulting and a pathetic thing to say.
Yeah, I sympathize with the sentiment of (false) hope that the show will get better. I saw literally every episode of Dexter except the final one. For anyone who’s counting that’s 4 full seasons (-1 ep.) wasted. I learned, though, albeit slowly. I stopped watching The Walking Dead at the beginning of the 3rd season.
I sat down and watched the entire season about an hour after it went live (I’d sat my last two exams for the year 2 days before it went up, and wasn’t due back at work for a few days so I could afford the marathon) and it’s really well done.
The concerns about how much of the show’s load got blown too early I could see where you’d think that, but the story doesn’t actually feel stretched. It dramatically slows down for a couple of episodes, but those episodes just give the characters room to act without having to worry about action setpieces.
Pretty much my only complaint with the series is it didn’t inherit Daredevil’s cinematographer. Daredevil had some spectacular camerawork and fight choreography, whereas Jessica Jones lacks a lot of that but makes up for it with the characters and performances.
#41 Nah it wasn’t going to be on ABC. ABC is involved with the production, however. The series Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders are being produced by Marvel TV, Netflix and ABC, since ABC has the TV rights to the MCU via Agents of SHIELD. The show pretty much never would have been made on network TV because the source material was… messed up, to say the least.
#47 I think the reason that it doesn’t dwell (or even really mention) the fact that the lesbian love triangle is a lesbian love triangle is at least partly due to that character being male in the comics and them switching it to suit Carrie Anne Moss, which I would say worked rather nicely.
#49 My bigger issue would be you throwing spoilers into the previous post without a warning, but I haven’t looked at every comment close enough to see if other people have been dropping random spoilers left and right. Also, there’s a term for continuing to marathon a show that you don’t like, they’ve started calling it “purge watching” because it’s like binge watching a show, but you’re just trying to get it over with. (Oh, btw, since you complained about the fact the character was named Kilgrave, keep in mind the original source material calls him The Purple Man and he’s meant to have bright purple skin. By comparison, him choosing a corny name is pretty much fine)
#50 Walking Dead’s quality dropped sharply during the third season, but jumped back up in the fourth and fifth season, as long as you can handle slower-paced story arcs because the pacing is a bit up and down at times.
CX316 @ 52:
The name is from the source material. The Purple Man is Zebediah Killgrave.
As I learned from the show last night, his real name is Kevin, and he intentionally chose the name Kilgrave to sound scary.
Kevin, eh? Haven’t gotten that far yet. Well, Kilgrave isn’t an uncommon surname – they could have gone with Kilgore, or even Kilchrist, but I suppose that would be too far.
(minor spoilers)
Kevin Thompson, no less. But then, when you let a 10yo kid with psychic powers pick what name he wants to go with, it’s going to be corny.