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Stark wrote:Yeah Gands, I did find that.

Three years ago.

I haven't watched anything he's done for a while, with the exception of a few film reviews and more notable Trek episodes. His ENT and VOY reviews all run together. Why review such bland material?

Also, who's paying $50 a video? I get that he might need to buy the DVD, but this is pretty weird.

$50 for an episode of less than 50 minutes
$100 for an episode larger than 50 minutes (or a 2-hour special event)
$75 for a pre-1990 Dr. Who serial, regardless of length (Trial of a Time Lord is 4 serials, not 1)
$50 for a pair of 30-minute or less episodes
$50 per original broadcast hour for mini-series

Look you can't expect him to charge by quality of review or amount of thought or research put into it, can you? He's gotta pay the mortgage somehow.

Gandalf wrote:Has anyone else found these reviews getting stale? Every Voyager review seems to be eight minutes of the same jokes with two minutes of commentary.

Formless wrote:Well, Chuck has re-released Shadows of P'Jem. If you can get past the 3 minute mark without feeling your intelligence is insulted-- BY CHUCK-- over what he says about the invasion of Iraq... yeah, its bad. News at 11.

But seriously, what the fuck, Chuck?

Chuck's politics comes up a few times. Watch the review/companion to In the Pale Moonlight.

I actually like that he's getting more into linking material and providing context. Maybe it's the pedantic schoolteacher in me that appreciates a well-crafted lecture.

Even if I doubt anyone here needs it explained that covertly observing the Andorians isn't necessarily a BAD thing, it bears mentioning if only because the show never does.

Oh hey, and Carpenter Street is up, with more thrashing of the idea that Enterprise could have been a great show if they'd ever contemplated that any of Archer's questionable decisions could actually be wrong.

Ahriman238 wrote:Maybe it's the pedantic schoolteacher in me that appreciates a well-crafted lecture.

Have you ever experienced a 'well crafted lecture'?

Stark wrote:

Ahriman238 wrote:Maybe it's the pedantic schoolteacher in me that appreciates a well-crafted lecture.

Have you ever experienced a 'well crafted lecture'?

A time or two.

Thinks its pretty hilarious that Chuck goes on about how Archer got the vulcan's wonderful historical monument all blown up. I mean boo-frickety-ho-ho. If the Vulcan's weren't willing to risk their monastery being treated like a military installation, don't put a military installation there.

The beginning was a pretty long winded way to say 'i think the vulcans are justified in spying' though.

Crazedwraith wrote:Thinks its pretty hilarious that Chuck goes on about how Archer got the vulcan's wonderful historical monument all blown up. I mean boo-frickety-ho-ho. If the Vulcan's weren't willing to risk their monastery being treated like a military installation, don't put a military installation there.

The beginning was a pretty long winded way to say 'i think the vulcans are justified in spying' though.

The only part about the spying not being alright would be the fact that of where the Vulcans put it. It's the same thing as placing an NSA office inside the Salt Lake Temple, Sistine Chapel or Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām and then complaining when someone blew it up. The problem isn't that the Vulcans were monitoring the activities of the Andorans it was where they put it.

Unfortunately that's not look the show had on it. The way the show handled the situation was to say that spying on someone is just plain dastardly behavior. What makes matter worse is that the guys who act like bad guys, who invade places with minimal provocation and repeatedly used torture are called the 'good' guys. From the way the Andorians acted it does seem that the Vulcans had every right to be wary of them. Of course no matter what Archer does it's always the right thing to do even when he's acting just like the 'bad' guys are.

And you wonder why Chuck isn't all that sympathetic of both the Vulcans or Archer.

I always liked the ending to "The Andorian Incident". It was a nice twist that Shran's aggressive paranoia was right all along, that the monastery was being used for covert activities.

Archer's decision to hand over the sensor logs also had the potential for great long-term geo-political development between Earth, Vulcan, and Andoria -- potential that like so much of the Berman-era, was ultimately wasted.

JME2 wrote:Archer's decision to hand over the sensor logs also had the potential for great long-term geo-political development between Earth, Vulcan, and Andoria -- potential that like so much of the Berman-era, was ultimately wasted.

well that is in many ways true of the whole "Berman-era" alot of great potential but that potential was wasted by poor execution.

And now we have Chuck doing The Most Toys. A fun episode that does make me wonder how long it would take for Data to start just punching through the walls.

Lord Revan wrote:

JME2 wrote:Archer's decision to hand over the sensor logs also had the potential for great long-term geo-political development between Earth, Vulcan, and Andoria -- potential that like so much of the Berman-era, was ultimately wasted.

well that is in many ways true of the whole "Berman-era" alot of great potential but that potential was wasted by poor execution.

One of these failures that drives me crazy to this day is the Maquis.

I still love the concept of renegade Federation citizens. But espite all the work that went into setting up for VOY, the irony is that DS9 benefited the most from them. Even TNG did a better job with them in its penultimate episode than VOY in its entire run.

JME2 wrote:

Lord Revan wrote:

JME2 wrote:Archer's decision to hand over the sensor logs also had the potential for great long-term geo-political development between Earth, Vulcan, and Andoria -- potential that like so much of the Berman-era, was ultimately wasted.

well that is in many ways true of the whole "Berman-era" alot of great potential but that potential was wasted by poor execution.

One of these failures that drives me crazy to this day is the Maquis.

I still love the concept of renegade Federation citizens. But espite all the work that went into setting up for VOY, the irony is that DS9 benefited the most from them. Even TNG did a better job with them in its penultimate episode than VOY in its entire run.

The maquis have an interesting genesis. They were created specifically for Voyager, but during TNG - I was reading up on them on memory alpha the other day.

Memory Alpha wrote:The Maquis were first shown in the eponymous DS9 episode "The Maquis, Part I", although some elements of their story can be traced to TNG: "Journey's End". Regarding the Maquis' origins, Ronald D. Moore commented:
"The Maquis were definitely created for Voyager. When I was working on 'Journey's End', Michael told me quite explicitly about their plans for the role of the Maquis on Voyager and that he wanted 'Journey' to show the roots of the Maquis even though they would later be named on DS9." (AOL chat, 1997)

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Maquis


Which, in a way, is kind of sad because it shows the producers were thinking, and thinking hard, about the new show (Voyager) and the back story for the characters - a multi pronged introduction (via The Wounded, Chain of Command, then specifically in Journey's End) and then DS9's The Maquis and Preemptive Strike (2nd to last episode of TNG). They really wanted, it seems, to introduce some politics and lay a rich background (for TV) for the Maquis... but then it seems once we get past the first episode, other than Seska, there isn't really much done with them. It's brought up a few times - Suda, "alternate reality" type episodes and mentioned when going on about letters from home every so often. Such a shame.

Tell me about it.

Scenes like the arguments between Sisko and Eddington during Seasons 4 and 5 should have been more commonplace on VOY. Imagine what that kind of drama could have done for VOY?

Ah, well. Too late now.

Sorry haven't posted for a bit.

Chuck has since done Menage a Troi aka the horrible Ferengi kidnapping one, and Tsunkatse the Voyager episode guest starring the Rock.

In the middle, he did a large review of Battlefield Earth. Mostly things we;ve alkl hear before, but he talked more about production, why certain decisions were made, how the film was produced in the first place sort of thing.

Chuck's taking a break this week, but has a program auto-posting a short video series he worked on called Astromech Spy. Basically he went over SW Episode IV and added subtitles whenever Artoo makes noise. So we have the series through the eyes of a rather cynical and snarky droid.

Ahriman238 wrote: Chuck's taking a break this week, but has a program auto-posting a short video series

<nitpick>I think he just used blip's calendar tool rather than a program auto-posting for him </nitpick>

Am I the only one having problems with Blip.tv? I can watch videos of similar quality just fine on other websites (or at least on YouTube), but the damn thing keeps buffering every two to three minutes, and sometimes starts buffering even when it has a substantial amount of video already loaded. Unless the piece of shit is lying to me.

What's really fucking irritating is that unless I fiddle around with the slider-thingy every time it starts buffering, it will stay in that buffering state forever, or at least near enough so far as my patience is concerned. Sometimes even that is not enough and I will have to refresh the page and go to the spot roughly where I left off, which all told makes for a frustrating experience that leaves me cursing the programmers and developers whose stupidity has turned my leisure time into an exercise in annoyance.

It's a shame because I liked his Red Dwarf reviews enough to slog through series 1-7 in the above fashion, but I've reached the limit of my patience and won't be watching the OVEG until I get this problem sorted out.

I don't have any problems with Blip.tv. I've got Adblock Plus set up to block Facebook stuff on non-Facebook pages, but I'd be surprised if that was the cause of your problems.

In other news: part 1 of the Children of the Gods review is up. I'm a big fan of Stargate: SG-1, so I'm interested in hearing what Chuck thinks of the series.

NoXion wrote:Am I the only one having problems with Blip.tv? I can watch videos of similar quality just fine on other websites (or at least on YouTube), but the damn thing keeps buffering every two to three minutes, and sometimes starts buffering even when it has a substantial amount of video already loaded. Unless the piece of shit is lying to me.

What's really fucking irritating is that unless I fiddle around with the slider-thingy every time it starts buffering, it will stay in that buffering state forever, or at least near enough so far as my patience is concerned. Sometimes even that is not enough and I will have to refresh the page and go to the spot roughly where I left off, which all told makes for a frustrating experience that leaves me cursing the programmers and developers whose stupidity has turned my leisure time into an exercise in annoyance.

It's a shame because I liked his Red Dwarf reviews enough to slog through series 1-7 in the above fashion, but I've reached the limit of my patience and won't be watching the OVEG until I get this problem sorted out.

Does Blip use HTML5 or Flash?

Would recommend reinstalling Flash / Java / JavaScript, enabling AdBlock and making sure your browser is up to date.

Quick way to test if it's a browser / cache problem - create a new profile on your PC, login with it and try again - if the problem follows, it's a software issue, if it stops, it's profile based (clear cache / reset settings etc).

How are you connected to your router? If wireless, try with a cable.

Grumman wrote:In other news: part 1 of the Children of the Gods review is up. I'm a big fan of Stargate: SG-1, so I'm interested in hearing what Chuck thinks of the series.

Typo notwithstanding.

OK, thats enough. This is the PST forum. If you want general Chuck review discussions, please create a new thread in the OSF.

In that vein, TAS: Beyond the Farthest Star

It's interesting to think what Trek would be like without the movies or Next Generation, if all the old fanon from the mid-seventies (TAS and the many semi-official fanzines) was all we had.

Chuck's put up First Contact the episode, not the video. Plus an accompanying video where he discusses the existence of alien life, the Fermi Paradox, Sagan and the Killing Star. Good stuff.

Good stuff? Like hell it was. The accompanying video is one of the stupidest ones he has ever done. Claiming that he isn't trying to espouse any one viewpoint was blatantly false, and contradicts his whole "opinionated" schtick. Look at how much time he spent on the views of Sagan-- whose views Chuck admitted he hadn't actually read or heard firsthand!-- and compare to how much time he spent on "The Killing Star" and direct quotes from the same, a work of fiction written by an anti-social and scientifically illiterate blowhard who seriously portrays relativistic weapons as if they worked. On top of that, I still have no idea what connection the follow up was supposed to have to the actual review or episode. All in all, it was a bland 20 minutes of cliche drivel, and unlike Stark I actually like most of Chuck's work. The follow up video is just a waste of bandwidth.

Formless wrote:Claiming that he isn't trying to espouse any one viewpoint was blatantly false, and contradicts his whole "opinionated" schtick.

I can't quite follow you.
He's not trying to - it just happens.
Because he's too opinionated for an actual neutral treatment.
Fits together perfectly.

Also, Innocence is up.