ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

_________________________

We're blessed with several fine science fiction series on television this year, and I'm sure we'd all like to know which of these show our friends here at All Sci-Fi like to watch on a regular basis.

Now that All Sci-Fi has become the first message board to have two — count 'em, two — chat rooms, I think it would be terrific if some of us made a regular routine of chatting about our favorite shows while we watch them together, either live or recorded.

Alltare, Bulldogtrekker, and I have already starting doing this with Supergirl each week, even though alltare watches the show an hour later than us Carolinians here on the East Coast!

God bless DVRs . . .

With that in mind, here's a list of the current series that some of us might choose to share on a weekly basis, along with the times they air in the Eastern and Central time zones.

I had trouble getting info about show times in the MST and PST zone, because all the sites I visited automatically detected my cyber location and gave me the Eastern and Central time schedules!

So, one thing you guys can do — in addition to telling us which shows you like to watch — is tell us when they come on in your area.
____________________________

The 100 - CW - Thurs (returns Jan 21st)

Arrow - CW - Wed 8/7c

The Expanse - SyFy - Mon 10/9c

The Flash - CW - Tues 8/7c

Gotham - Fox Mon 8/7c

Haven - SyFy - Thurs 10/9c

The Librarians - TNT Sunday 8/7c

Limitless - CBS Tues 10/9c

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - ABC Tues 9/8c

Scorpion - CBS Mon 9/8c

Supergirl - CBS Mon 8/7c
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Randy]

My 2 most favorite Sci-Fi shows:

Person Of Interest (season 5) returns mid-season 2016

The 100 (season 3) returns January 2016

[Bud Brewster]

Yep, I like Person of Interest, too. However . . .

Person of Interest Renewed For What Will Probably Be Its Last Season


_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

1.} Supergirl. Fun show even with its cliches & imperfections.

2.} The Flash. My favorite sf show to see. Terrific cast with great chemistry.

3.} Arrow. Like it well enough but its not must-see-tv for me.

4.} The Walking Dead. This is must-see-tv.

5.} Agents of SHIELD } Again, like it well enough but if I miss an episode here & there its fine with me.

[Bud Brewster]

Since I like (and watch) every show on your list except The Walking Dead, I guess I should give it a try.

I actually like The Flash and Arrow equally well (I've only seen roughly the first season of each), and Supergirl has really grown on me.

However, I was a bit disappointed by the last episode of Supergirl (S1.E6 Red Faced) because the story had some glaring lapses in logic. The next day I watched the first episode of season two for The Flash, and I noticed about the same number of flaws in it as well!

So, I guess I'll just have to accept a certain level of less-than-perfect stories in these shows and enjoy the many things they do so well.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

I'm not particularly a zombie fan, Bud. After all, there isn't much depth to mine with dead, slow walking characters who can neither think or talk.

However, when the series premiered I thought I'd give it a try. It was Halloween night (one of my favorite holidays), so what could be more appropriate?

What I found happening is I was intrigued with the live characters & how they were dealing with one another & survival. No government or military are there to assist them at all, no law whatsoever.

So it was their stories that were so compelling to me.

Do I enjoy seeing zombies on the scene as a threat?
You bet.

But it truly is the human interest stories that are fascinating. You get to thinking if I were in such a situation just how would I handle it all?

It's one of those rare tv series where you do see the main characters change over a season. Be it for better or worse.

The ongoing mystery of what caused the zombies remains fun to speculate upon.

The zombie make-up is stunning. I confess to looking away from some of the really gory scenes as the humans dispatch the walking dead.

The horror element is also compelling to me. There is something truly frightening about dead corpses walking the earth again. Odd to say but they almost have a reality that vampires, wolf men, or mummies do not.

Maybe the greatest horror for humans is what we have experienced, sadly, throughout history.

Us.

[Bud Brewster]

Thanks, Pow. At least I'll know what to expect if I give it a try.

I started watching Gotham today, and despite being pretty brutal and not exactly geared to my somewhat optimistic world view, I'm enjoying it so far.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

We don't have TV reception (by choice), so the only TV series we catch are about a season behind when they come out on DVDs. We've been following The Walking Dead that way since the beginning.

The series has become another form of Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek, wherein the main characters are the crew of the Enterprise, encountering various pockets of other survivors, who have each adapted in their own way to survival. The zombies are the mode by which the pockets of survivors have become isolated from each other, allowing the individual "societies" to evolve along separate lines.
_________________
...or not...

WayneO
-----------

[Robert (Butch) Day]

I'm tired of all this "zombie" crap.

What are portrayed are GHOULS not zombies.

But we're now stuck with it.
_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

Frankly, I didn't know ghouls from galoshes, so I looked a few definitions. Here's what I found.
__________________________

From the Urban Dictionary

Zombie — A fictional undead creature created through the reanimation of a human corpse. A dead body animated by magic. Modern depictions of zombies do not necessarily involve magic, but invoke other methods, such as viruses

Ghoul — An evil demon, originally of Oriental legend, supposed to feed on human beings, and especially to rob graves, prey on corpses, etc.
_______________________

From Wikipedia

[A main character in the series] reveals that within minutes after death, all people reanimate into mindless shells of their former selves, driven solely by an instinct to spread the unknown pathogen by biting and eating any available living animal, especially other humans.
_______________________

From Bud Brewster

Don't look now, but these guys do in fact fit the definition of zombies much better than the definition of ghouls. They aren't "demons", and they don't actually "feed on corpses".

What they do is bite living victims to deliberately infect them. The zombie myth states that they're reanimated by magic, but the modern version substitutes a virus — which is exactly the premise of this remarkably successful series.

And just to complete my research:

Galoshes — a waterproof overshoe, typically made of rubber.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

[Bud Brewster]

Having never seen the series, I must defer to your expertise on the subject.

And yet the definition states that ghouls "rob graves, prey on corpses" — meaning they don't kill people and eat them, they eat people who died.

On the other hand, the description I read about the series said that the reanimated people were "driven solely by an instinct to spread the unknown pathogen by biting and eating any available living animal, especially other humans."

So, even though the reanimated people in the series are sometimes seen consuming the dead victims' body parts, they're primary motivation is to infect somebody and then kill them so that they will be reanimated and join the Undead Club.

I read a bit more about ghouls and found this in the Wikipededia article.

In ancient Arabian folklore, the ghūl (Arabic) dwells in burial grounds and other uninhabited places. The ghul is a fiendish type of jinni believed to be sired by Iblis. Ghouls are sometimes confused with zombies, causing them to be mistaken as undead monsters rather than demons.

For this reason, referring to a human being who died and came back to life (regardless of his dietary preferences) as a "ghoul" would be inaccurate. Ghouls are demons. They were never human beings who died and came back to life.

Zombies, however, are clearly defined as reanimated dead people.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Robert (Butch) Day]

So what about the zombies in the old horror movies during the 1940s? They are derived from the old use of zombie in the Caribbean.
_________________
Common Sense ISN'T Common

[Bud Brewster]

______________________

I don't understand your question, Butch. The ones in the old horror movies are entirely consistent with the traditional definition.

Zombie - a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.

Perhaps what you meant to say was, "Gosh, Bud, you're right! The Walking Dead is not about demons called Ghouls who dig up dead bodies and eat them."
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Rocky Jones]

What do I currently watch? OK...

Of the things currently being broadcast, I've been watching Once Upon a Time, Gotham, Minority Report, The Flash, Agents of Shield, Arrow, Scorpion (sciency and definitely fiction, even though it's based on a real guy), Limitless, CSI: Cyber (again, full of high tech and science stuff), Heroes Reborn.

I've never binge watched multiple eps of shows like some of you guys do, either. I usually catch them within a week of broadcast. Too much of good thing tends to seem like just that to me.