New efforts!

[Sinistar]

The original V mini series and the sequel mini series were good.

The TV series that followed however...was not.  It had some good moments and with the exception of Ironside, Singer and the leading lady, the others were all basically fair game to be killed off.

However there were too many main characters and the writers seemed to have some serious trouble juggling them all.  Eventually one or two were killed off and Ironside and the mother of the star child took off to join up with the west coast area of the resistance, or something like that, it has been awhile.

But by the time the cast was thinned a bit, it was too late.  Kind of like the 2008 Knight Rider series.

Also that they copped out on the red dust by stating that long term exposure could affect humans....weak.

[Tubbius]

The original V mini series and the sequel mini series were good.

The TV series that followed however...was not.  It had some good moments and with the exception of Ironside, Singer and the leading lady, the others were all basically fair game to be killed off.

However there were too many main characters and the writers seemed to have some serious trouble juggling them all.  Eventually one or two were killed off and Ironside and the mother of the star child took off to join up with the west coast area of the resistance, or something like that, it has been awhile.

But by the time the cast was thinned a bit, it was too late.  Kind of like the 2008 Knight Rider series.

Also that they copped out on the red dust by stating that long term exposure could affect humans....weak.

Hmmmm.  So far, I'm through the first ten episodes of the nineteen.  I'm seeing it as holding up better than expected, barring an obvious continuity slip in episodes 3 and 4 due to episode 3's much later production date.  You're right about Michael Ironside, Faye Grant, and Marc Singer really being the main players, with hints toward Robert Englund and Michael Wright.  Jennifer Cooke and Jeff Yagher get a good bit of screen time as the Elizabeth and Kyle couple, and Lane Smith and Jane Badler play suitably over-the-top villains.  There are, perhaps, too many major characters in the show, but these major characters generally get split up along the above lines, so it's easy to keep them separated as needed.  Outside all that, Howard K. Smith's news reporter role is a stroke of genius, putting the viewers immediately into the mindset of being at home, watching the latest information about the war between Resistance and Visitors.

I'll see if my idea of the series drops a little after watching the last nine episodes.  I'm eager to see it play out.  For me, the weakest part so far is actually the dual alien babies from V: The Final Battle and the magical "space girl saves the world from a nuke with the power of PEACE!" moment more so than anything in this nineteen episode series.

[Tubbius]

Anyway, back to City talk! 

[Remaugen]

I don't know if this is related to your personal experience, but I have read that there were several investigations into F-111 crashes that determined that at the time of the crash the pilots had turned off the terrain following autopilot because they did not trust it at extremely low altitude.  Part of the reason was that the autopilot doesn't "fly like a human" and often seems to be making flight adjustments that aren't obvious because it is relying on radar data and not on what the pilots can visually see in the observable flight path.  Sometimes it is making a flight adjustment now not to avoid any of the ground environment nearby but to avoid something it knows is coming up, so it appears to steer *towards* nearby ground obstructions incorrectly to put the aircraft into the right flight attitude to avoid the next incoming obstruction.  That can get unnerving if you don't know why it is doing what it is doing.

That could very well be the case as I don't recall ever hearing an official report.

In one of the crashes in Wales, all we were told was that the crew was flying at 1100 ft, they engaged TFR as instructed and crashed a few minutes later after they dropped below radar cover. It is entirely plausible to me that the pilot could have panicked and fought with the TFR.

[Paragon Avenger]

It is time once again for
The Weakly Update:

Greetings Positron Fans, we here at ParagonSoft have been working on a way to bring back City of Heroes.  We think that we have stumbled upon a brillant cunning plan.  We go to NCSoft and ask nicely.  I know what you're thinking, "Surely, PA, that has been tried before."  It turns out that it hasn't been tried.  When the game was shut-down, everybody was so upset and angry with NCSoft that asking nicely was the last thing anybody would have done.  And don't call me Shirley.

[Vee]

Has it been a weak already? Feels like a couple daze tops.

[blacksly]

Has it been a weak already? Feels like a couple daze tops.

Time passes fast when you're in a daze.

[Angel Phoenix77]

Time passes fast when you're in a daze.

Or surrounded by rabbits.

[Sinistar]

I remember The Simpsons being quite controversial when it first started. Fox pushed back and said it the target audience was adults and parents shouldn't be letting their kids watch it. People eventually got desensitized to it (not to mention the show shifted away from the more adult themes, much to its detriment), and by the time the various other animated prime time shows started showing up everyone was used to it.

South Park has also gotten a lot of flak from various groups, but that show has the luxury of having creators and producers that just don't care... as well as being on cable.

Robot Chicken I think is too obscure to have really gotten noticed, not only because of the network it's on but because of its odd time slot.

The main reason the old Looney Toons aren't shown is because of WB. As a show that's seen as being primarily targeted at kids, they don't want the brand name to be associated with that kind of controversy.

To me the Loony Toons were that generations equivalent to the Simpsons. 
When they first started way back when, they really weren't geared towards kids, and they had some celebrity appearances on the toons also.  Then during WW2 they did some propaganda episodes, such as Daffy Duck dealing with the Axis.   Then as time went on, despite some caricatures of some types of people being shown as dumb (native Americans, hillbillies) the shows did get a bit more oriented to kids and then we got the episodes that many of us know and love. 

Such as Robin Hood Daffy,  Duck Dodgers,  the trilogy of eps that were all about Rabbit/Duck Season,  or how the episode Walky Talky Hawk introduced Chicken Hawk, Barnyard Dog and Foghorn Leghorn and how Foghorn was the break out character from that, the Sylvester vs Tweety episodes....

.....btw if you've never seen the first episodes when Tweety was first introduced, it is an apple/orange comparison between the two versions of Tweety.

And of course,  the always hilarious to watch episodes of Wile E Coyote chasing the Road Runner. 

BEEP! BEEP!

[Sinistar]

Hmmmm.  So far, I'm through the first ten episodes of the nineteen.  I'm seeing it as holding up better than expected, barring an obvious continuity slip in episodes 3 and 4 due to episode 3's much later production date.  You're right about Michael Ironside, Faye Grant, and Marc Singer really being the main players, with hints toward Robert Englund and Michael Wright.  Jennifer Cooke and Jeff Yagher get a good bit of screen time as the Elizabeth and Kyle couple, and Lane Smith and Jane Badler play suitably over-the-top villains.  There are, perhaps, too many major characters in the show, but these major characters generally get split up along the above lines, so it's easy to keep them separated as needed.  Outside all that, Howard K. Smith's news reporter role is a stroke of genius, putting the viewers immediately into the mindset of being at home, watching the latest information about the war between Resistance and Visitors.

I'll see if my idea of the series drops a little after watching the last nine episodes.  I'm eager to see it play out.  For me, the weakest part so far is actually the dual alien babies from V: The Final Battle and the magical "space girl saves the world from a nuke with the power of PEACE!" moment more so than anything in this nineteen episode series.

Yeah the star child having cosmic powers......was a bit much.   The other one dying and through its demise giving the formula for the red dust however wasn't too bad.   There had to be some type of genetic marker or weakness in the visitors that could be exploited. Similar to how Earth bacteria was poison to the Martians in War of the Worlds and the Martian Chronicles.

[Vee]

Yeah the star child having cosmic powers......was a bit much.

And it'd been done to death by the time V came around

[Arcana]

I remember The Simpsons being quite controversial when it first started. Fox pushed back and said it the target audience was adults and parents shouldn't be letting their kids watch it.

Also, at the time the Simpsons launched Fox was still literally building the network, and actually actively courted controversy as a way to attract viewers and affiliate stations.  I remember they did a programming stunt in the late 80s where they announced they were going to run the original Halloween movie uncut and unedited on Halloween in late night, which they then did.  Granted, the original Halloween movie is actually pretty tame as horror movies go and even in the 80s there was maybe a minute of footage you'd have to edit out of it total to run in prime time, but it was still a nervy move for the 80s.

[Arcana]

That brought back memories.  Remember the one where Elmer left an insane asylum thinking he was bugs bunny and dressed in a rabbit suit?  And they had bugs thinking he was Elmer J Fudd?  And they had Porky Pig arrest him for failing to pay his taxes?  Damn those were classic cartoons.  Too bad they don't show them anymore.  Too violent so they say.

There were a couple of years when the Cartoon network aired basically all of those Looney Tunes cartoons in a giant several day marathon (I think they are only missing a few of the most notorious), and somewhere I have a bunch of video tapes of essentially the entire marathon.  I should probably do something with those (i.e. digitize them) while the technology still exists to do something with video tapes.  It is possible that some of those cartoons are not, and perhaps never will, be included in DVD collections.

[Vee]

I'd be really surprised if they don't all exist digitized somewhere. I've never bothered to look since I haven't even bothered to watch the ones that were dvd released yet (they're in the trans-finite playlist somewhere). I do know the censored 11 are out there, but it'd take more work than it's worth to me to try to track them all down, especially with KAT out of the picture now.

[darkgob]

I should probably do something with those (i.e. digitize them) while the technology still exists to do something with video tapes.

Just the other day I discovered that Rite Aid still sells VHS tapes ($18 for a 3-pack, seriously?!), so I think this technology will stick around for a good long time.

[RGladden]

Rocket Squad.........one of the all time best Looney Tunes cartoons.

[eabrace]

Just the other day I discovered that Rite Aid still sells VHS tapes ($18 for a 3-pack, seriously?!), so I think this technology will stick around for a good long time.

I expect that's coming to an end sooner rather than later.

[LadyVamp]

I expect that's coming to an end sooner rather than later.

Maybe...Maybe not.  You can still buy betamax VCRs and tapes and those guys "died" off long before VHS VCRs "did".

[Vee]

Just the other day I discovered that Rite Aid still sells VHS tapes ($18 for a 3-pack, seriously?!), so I think this technology will stick around for a good long time.

An outmoded medium at a ridiculous markup? Quick, to the ironic bicycles!

[pinballdave]

To me the Loony Toons were that generations equivalent to the Simpsons. 
When they first started way back when, they really weren't geared towards kids, and they had some celebrity appearances on the toons also.  Then during WW2 they did some propaganda episodes, such as Daffy Duck dealing with the Axis.   Then as time went on, despite some caricatures of some types of people being shown as dumb (native Americans, hillbillies) the shows did get a bit more oriented to kids and then we got the episodes that many of us know and love. 

Such as Robin Hood Daffy,  Duck Dodgers,  the trilogy of eps that were all about Rabbit/Duck Season,  or how the episode Walky Talky Hawk introduced Chicken Hawk, Barnyard Dog and Foghorn Leghorn and how Foghorn was the break out character from that, the Sylvester vs Tweety episodes....

.....btw if you've never seen the first episodes when Tweety was first introduced, it is an apple/orange comparison between the two versions of Tweety.

And of course,  the always hilarious to watch episodes of Wile E Coyote chasing the Road Runner. 

BEEP! BEEP!

Nod to Pepe le Pew the non-PC amorous skunk
Speedy Gonzales - which I don't know why he was banned, he always got the best of the gringos.
The kitten, alley cat, construction site guard dog
The two identical garden gophers
Marvin Martian
Wile E Coyote and the Sheep Dog (Ralph and Sam?)
Sylvester, Jr. and the Giant Mouse

 ... and many other victims of Bugs Bunny