• What Did You Watch? 2025-02-09 (Sunday)

    From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 10 04:30:41 2025
    On the day of the superb owl (where were the owls?), I watched:

    WE ARE THE 80'S

    WE ARE THE 80'S

    WE ARE THE 80'S

    Several YouTube vids.

    THE LOVE BOAT:
    Happy Valentine's Day!
    • "Computerman". Captain Stubing expositions to the crew that this is
    their annual Valentine's Day cruise, full of single passengers looking
    for love. How is this different from the rest of the year? Anyhow, Julie announces that she hired a computer dating service to hook up the
    passengers this year, just as he arrives with his hopelessly
    antique-looking desktop thru the passenger entrance via a big cart and immediately starts sleazily trying to make the moves on Julie, who
    rebuffs his efforts. Later, on the Lido Deck, the matchmaking begins and
    the sleazy guy starts to pair people off, including Julie, much to her surprise, to the matchmaker. Unfortunately, no matches are found for
    Captain Stubing, which is weird because it seems to imply that the
    computer only matched up six or eight passengers and the ASCII computer
    graphic went through a LOT of names while looking for the Captain's
    match. For the rest of the cruise, the pairs seem to be doing fine, save
    for Julie and hers. OK, he was willing but she was just being a bitch
    about it. Eventually, the paired-up passengers fail, each accompanied by
    a stupid ASCII computer graphic. Meanwhile, Julie has a change of heart
    and discovers they have a connection. Unfortunately, their night in his
    cabin (why was his cabin personalized? I thought it was Julie's at
    first) is interrupted by the angry dissatisfied couples his computer
    matched up earlier. How they got his room number is anyone's guess (OK,
    maybe not THAT much, given previous eps), but what exactly are they
    expecting him to do about it? At the end of the cruise, as the
    passengers disembark, we discover the couples are back together again,
    or maybe they all switched partners, and the sleazy guy admits to having "fixed" his computer to pair him with Julie b/c he fell in love with her
    on first sight. So I guess they're going to date now?
    • "Parlez-Vous?". Two women pretend to be French and not understand
    English in order to get husbands. I have no clue how or why this would
    work, but the one hooks up with a man whose roommate is "Bill Nye the
    Science Guy" and the other falls in love with Gopher. Eventually, the
    one with Gopher gets tired of his embarrassingly bad French and spills
    the beans, which he takes surprisingly well. The other one, however,
    recants his offer to buy her an engagement ring.
    • "Memories of You". Patti Duke is convinced a male passenger is her
    husband who mysteriously vanished, but when she confronts him abut it,
    he denies it. I think she made it up to get Doctor Bricker from
    constantly hitting on her. Eventually, he opens up to the possibility
    that the stress of writing commercial jingles together caused him to get amnesia so she decides to get married to him and move to a more idyllic
    rural residence.

    RIFFTRAX:
    "Super Argo And The Faceless Giants". A useless Mexican superhero who
    happens to wrestle and his Indian guru sidekick are asked to stop a mad scientist's army of robotized athletes. Wow, this one almost didn't
    need the additional mocking.

    SUPERARGO VERSUS DIABOLICUS:
    After accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, masked wrestler Superargo quits wrestling and, following the advice of his friend Col. Alex Kinski of
    the Secret Service, becomes a secret agent, using his superhuman abilities to stop villain Diabolicus' plans to wreck global economy by turning uranium
    into gold.
    After watching Rifftrax, I noticed a passing line to Superargo defeating Diabolicus and wondered if there was more to it. This one made more sense
    than the one Rifftrax did.

    MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000:
    "The Puma Man". Professor Tony Farms discovers that he is really Puma Man, a superhero who is descended from the gods. Together with an Aztec priest, they try to thwart the plans of Kobras, who is in possession of the sacred puma mask, and plans to hypnotize government leaders with it and take over the world. Puma Man spends most of the movie flying awkwardly and jumping around, leaving the Aztec priest to perform all the physically demanding tasks.

    What did you watch?

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  • From Ian J. Ball@21:1/5 to Ubiquitous on Mon Feb 10 05:52:41 2025
    On 2/10/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    What did you watch?

    Yesterday, I did stuff, which means I mostly put sports on while I did
    stuff. I did also get through some soaps:

    soaps: Y&R - Thur's & Fri's ep's. Mostly not very interesting stuff.
    Diane wants to redecorate the Abbott estate house (why is this a
    storyline?!). Amy and Nate realize the guy they've been meeting isn't
    Amy's son - the dude admits that he's just working for Amy's son, so the
    real son sets up a "meet" with Nate. Daniel continues to be suspicious
    of Billy's new venture with Filis[sic!]; after Daniel leaves, Filis
    gives Billy a hard time for traipsing off to Paris with Sally. Chloe
    reviews Billy's dating history with Sally!
    GH - Fri's ep. Nina pitches an alliance with Carly (to Carly) to
    break up Willow and Drew. Drew meets with Jenz Sidwell (Carlo Rota), but
    Laura crashes the meeting and exposes Sidwell's past to Drew. Jordan
    tells Anna that she intends to wear a wire with Sidwell to get dirt on
    Sidwell. Cyrus is now banned from the recovery facility; first, he then confronts Lulu (despite the restraining order) and Lulu rats Cyrus out
    to Anna, and then Cyrus for some reason becomes convinced that Lizzie is
    the one who broke into his place (so Lizzie is probably in danger).
    Sonny discovers he needs a pacemaker, but refuses to get one right now.

    golf - Euro Thomas Detry blew away the field at the (WM) Phoenix Open,
    winning by 7 strokes, for his first PGA win. The only other thing of
    note was Justin Thomas holing off the fairway on the 18th hole to get an
    eagle, and vaulting Thomas into a tie for firth(? I believe).

    2025 Super Bowl - Ugh. This was a throwback to the 1980s and 1990s Super
    Bowls where the NFC teams regularly blew out the AFC teams... Except for
    in the fourth quarter, Kansas City could do absolutely nothing, as
    Mahomes was constantly rushed, forcing interception after interception.
    IOW, unless you were a Phili fan, this game was boring.
    The halftime show wasn't my thing, but at least Lamar's show was
    simple - just him and dancers. No theatrics or stunts.
    Sidenote: I watched this off the Tubi app on the Apple TV which
    promised 4k. But, as expected, I'm not convinced this was "true 4k" - my suspicion is that it was 1080p "upscaled" to 4k by Fox. So while the
    image of the game was clear, it wasn't "hyper-sharp" like you expect
    from 4k.


    What did you watch?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Arthur Lipscomb@21:1/5 to Ian J. Ball on Mon Feb 10 07:30:12 2025
    On 2/10/2025 5:52 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
    On 2/10/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    What did you watch?

    Yesterday, I did stuff, which means I mostly put sports on while I did
    stuff. I did also get through some soaps:

    soaps: Y&R - Thur's & Fri's ep's. Mostly not very interesting stuff.
    Diane wants to redecorate the Abbott estate house (why is this a storyline?!). Amy and Nate realize the guy they've been meeting isn't
    Amy's son - the dude admits that he's just working for Amy's son, so the
    real son sets up a "meet" with Nate. Daniel continues to be suspicious
    of Billy's new venture with Filis[sic!]; after Daniel leaves, Filis
    gives Billy a hard time for traipsing off to Paris with Sally. Chloe
    reviews Billy's dating history with Sally!
       GH - Fri's ep. Nina pitches an alliance with Carly (to Carly) to
    break up Willow and Drew. Drew meets with Jenz Sidwell (Carlo Rota), but Laura crashes the meeting and exposes Sidwell's past to Drew. Jordan
    tells Anna that she intends to wear a wire with Sidwell to get dirt on Sidwell. Cyrus is now banned from the recovery facility; first, he then confronts Lulu (despite the restraining order) and Lulu rats Cyrus out
    to Anna, and then Cyrus for some reason becomes convinced that Lizzie is
    the one who broke into his place (so Lizzie is probably in danger).
    Sonny discovers he needs a pacemaker, but refuses to get one right now.

    golf - Euro Thomas Detry blew away the field at the (WM) Phoenix Open, winning by 7 strokes, for his first PGA win. The only other thing of
    note was Justin Thomas holing off the fairway on the 18th hole to get an eagle, and vaulting Thomas into a tie for firth(? I believe).

    2025 Super Bowl - Ugh.

    That stupid game had one job to do. Keep people off the streets. I
    went out shopping and the store were full of people. What's the world
    coming to when people go out and about, forcing me to wait in line,
    instead of staying home and watching a stupid game on TV like they
    should be doing? :-/

    It did have one other job, produce trailers for upcoming MCU movies and
    it did do that. Thunderbolts is looking good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUUszE29jS0



    What did you watch?


    I watched:

    The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (4K disc) 2021 miniseries set in the
    MCU. Picking up after Captain America has retired and handed his shield
    to Sam Wilson, Sam decides he doesn't want to be the next Captain
    America so Sam hands the shield over to the U.S. government for safe
    keeping. Sam goes off working for the U.S. military on missions but is
    shocked to learn that the government handed the shield to a different
    soldier to be the new Captain America. This doesn't sit well with
    Captain America's other sidekick, Bucky/The Winter Soldier. The two of
    them team up to stop the bad guys and handle the new Captain America who
    isn't exactly cracked up for the job. This series sets up both the
    upcoming Captain America movie and the upcoming Thunderbolts movie.


    Star Trek: Section 31 (Showtime streaming) - I had no idea this was
    available for non Paramount+ subscribers. I just happened to stumble
    across it by accident. The plot has Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh)
    former ruler of the Terran Empire from the mirror universe, being
    recruited by section 31 to stop something really bad from happening.
    I'm going to have to go back and rewatch the opening, because I
    completely missed how/why section 31 got involved in the first place.
    Section 31 clearly didn't know exactly what the threat was, so why would
    it come to their attention when it wasn't even happening in federation
    space? Anyway Georgiou teams up with a group of outrageously flamboyant undercover agents to save the day. Wait a minute, if you're supposed to
    be undercover is it a good idea to also be outrageously flamboyant? I
    didn't hate this the way some others seem to hate it, but it wasn't all
    that great either. It felt rushed. I think they were obviously going
    to do this as a full series then it got cut out to a single movie and it
    looks like they just took the first episode and the finale and tossed
    out everything in between. The overall tone also felt a lot more like
    "Lexx" than Star Trek. "Lexx" was a low budget Canadian sci-fi show in
    the 90s that didn't take itself too seriously. And this just kept
    reminding me of that series.


    Babylon 5 (blu-ray) "In the Kingdom of the Blind" - Season 5, Episode 9.
    More Byron telapthic nonsense as they try to blackmail their way to a homeworld. This isn't going to end well.

    "A Tragedy of Telepaths" - Bester arrives to handle the telepaths. Is
    it OK to root for Bester? Is that even allowed?

    "Phoenix Rising" - The telepath saga comes to an end. I think. Also
    over the course of the last three epsiode Londo and G'Kar have been
    having adventures on Centarui Prime. The Centauri Prime scenes are the
    best, but it makes zero sense for G'Kar to be living with Londo on
    Londo's home planet serving as Londo's bodyguard. That's just some
    twisted convoluted writing to get the two of them to share scenes together.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From anim8rfsk@21:1/5 to Arthur Lipscomb on Mon Feb 10 09:33:15 2025
    Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
    On 2/10/2025 5:52 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
    On 2/10/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    What did you watch?


    What did you watch?


    I watched:


    Star Trek: Section 31 (Showtime streaming) - I had no idea this was
    available for non Paramount+ subscribers. I just happened to stumble
    across it by accident.

    Yeah, they dumped it everywhere the first week hoping to get some eyes on
    it before word got out. They were also making you pay for it a la cart even
    on services that you got already.


    The plot has Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh)
    former ruler of the Terran Empire from the mirror universe, being
    recruited by section 31 to stop something really bad from happening.
    I'm going to have to go back and rewatch the opening, because I
    completely missed how/why section 31 got involved in the first place.
    Section 31 clearly didn't know exactly what the threat was, so why would
    it come to their attention when it wasn't even happening in federation
    space?

    They caught wind of the sale of the evil mystery weapon. Since nobody knew
    it was connected to Phillipa, I have no idea why they felt they needed to
    drag her into the mix.


    Anyway Georgiou teams up with a group of outrageously flamboyant
    undercover agents to save the day. Wait a minute, if you're supposed to
    be undercover is it a good idea to also be outrageously flamboyant?

    At least the captain of the Enterprise C wasn’t outrageously flamboyant.
    Oh, wait, here’s the tragic ending.

    I
    didn't hate this the way some others seem to hate it, but it wasn't all
    that great either.

    Yep


    It felt rushed. I think they were obviously going
    to do this as a full series then it got cut out to a single movie and it looks like they just took the first episode and the finale and tossed
    out everything in between. The overall tone also felt a lot more like
    "Lexx" than Star Trek. "Lexx" was a low budget Canadian sci-fi show in
    the 90s that didn't take itself too seriously. And this just kept
    reminding me of that series.



    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From anim8rfsk@21:1/5 to Ubiquitous on Mon Feb 10 10:27:56 2025
    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    On the day of the superb owl (where were the owls?), I watched:


    MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000:
    "The Puma Man".

    Puma Man
    Puma Man.
    Does whatever a puma can!


    What did you watch?

    Hey, thanks for asking!

    BUFFY season four the first college year

    This had a lot more good episodes than I had recalled, including

    PANGS the Thanksgiving episode where the Indians get theirs

    The body switch episodes with the return of Faith

    SUPERSTAR

    The return of Oz

    Then unfortunately, we hit season five episode one where Marty Noxon
    destroys the series

    A couple of the episodes above also involved an angel crossover, all of
    which got me to wondering about the end of Eliza Dushku’s career. The Hulu keeps trying to get me to watch BULL, so I finally agreed to and it tried
    to charge me extra for it.

    So I turned to the gray. I was surprised to find she only did three
    episodes and they were the end of season one.

    Anyway, this is a lousy show and Michael Weatherly is lousy in it. It’s
    full of big burning rancid onion unraveling stupid. For instance, they have
    a case in Florida and so they pack up all their millions of dollars worth
    of equipment and move it to be on site. Since they’re just in electronic contact with the court room anyway why the hell do they possibly need to go there? The case involves the innocent sister of a drug trafficker who’s trying to frame her for his crimes for no reason I ever understood. At the
    end, they get the judge to go along with forging evidence that proves she’s innocent (they fake the DAs notary seals, which means the drugs were never, actually proven to be drugs) and even as she gets set free, they arrest her brother because somehow the lack of notarization on the drug evidence not
    only proves the drugs are real, but prove that he planted them. Absolutely
    no fucking sense whatsoever.

    Also, she wears long skirts at all times, so we never get to see her legs.

    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Arthur Lipscomb on Mon Feb 10 18:46:42 2025
    Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

    . . .

    "Phoenix Rising" - The telepath saga comes to an end. I think. Also
    over the course of the last three epsiode Londo and G'Kar have been
    having adventures on Centarui Prime. The Centauri Prime scenes are the
    best, but it makes zero sense for G'Kar to be living with Londo on
    Londo's home planet serving as Londo's bodyguard. That's just some
    twisted convoluted writing to get the two of them to share scenes together.

    It doesn't have to make sense. As we said at the time, the two actors
    could read from the telephone book and they'd entertain the audience.

    This is the good stuff in Season 5, Londo's tragic fate and the fall of Centauri Prime, although the latter has to be read in the trilogy of
    novels.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Arthur Lipscomb@21:1/5 to Adam H. Kerman on Mon Feb 10 12:11:38 2025
    On 2/10/2025 10:46 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
    Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

    . . .

    "Phoenix Rising" - The telepath saga comes to an end. I think. Also
    over the course of the last three epsiode Londo and G'Kar have been
    having adventures on Centarui Prime. The Centauri Prime scenes are the
    best, but it makes zero sense for G'Kar to be living with Londo on
    Londo's home planet serving as Londo's bodyguard. That's just some
    twisted convoluted writing to get the two of them to share scenes together.

    It doesn't have to make sense. As we said at the time, the two actors
    could read from the telephone book and they'd entertain the audience.

    I'm not disagreeing. Like I said those were the best scenes. Just acknowledging having the Narn ambassador, and high (perhaps highest)
    ranking government official serve as the bodyguard to his sworn enemy,
    made *no* sense! LOL


    This is the good stuff in Season 5, Londo's tragic fate and the fall of Centauri Prime, although the latter has to be read in the trilogy of
    novels.

    I fear my plan to selective watch season 5 episodes is going to get
    tossed out. According to the Lurker's Guide almost all the remaining
    season 5 episodes are must watch episodes. And who am I to argue with
    the Lurker's Guide?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Dimensional Traveler@21:1/5 to Arthur Lipscomb on Mon Feb 10 19:23:10 2025
    On 2/10/2025 12:11 PM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:
    On 2/10/2025 10:46 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
    Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

    . . .

    "Phoenix Rising" - The telepath saga comes to an end.  I think.  Also
    over the course of the last three epsiode Londo and G'Kar have been
    having adventures on Centarui Prime.  The Centauri Prime scenes are the >>> best, but it makes zero sense for G'Kar to be living with Londo on
    Londo's home planet serving as Londo's bodyguard.  That's just some
    twisted convoluted writing to get the two of them to share scenes
    together.

    It doesn't have to make sense. As we said at the time, the two actors
    could read from the telephone book and they'd entertain the audience.

    I'm not disagreeing.  Like I said those were the best scenes.  Just acknowledging having the Narn ambassador, and high (perhaps highest)
    ranking government official serve as the bodyguard to his sworn enemy,
    made *no* sense!  LOL

    G'Kar was the only being on Centauri Prime that Londo could trust with
    his life!

    --
    I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
    dirty old man.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Dimensional Traveler@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 10 19:23:58 2025
    On 2/10/2025 9:27 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    On the day of the superb owl (where were the owls?), I watched:


    MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000:
    "The Puma Man".

    Puma Man
    Puma Man.
    Does whatever a puma can!


    What did you watch?

    Hey, thanks for asking!

    BUFFY season four the first college year

    This had a lot more good episodes than I had recalled, including

    PANGS the Thanksgiving episode where the Indians get theirs

    The body switch episodes with the return of Faith

    SUPERSTAR

    The return of Oz

    Then unfortunately, we hit season five episode one where Marty Noxon
    destroys the series

    By not wearing underwear?

    --
    I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
    dirty old man.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From anim8rfsk@21:1/5 to Dimensional Traveler on Tue Feb 11 00:59:14 2025
    Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
    On 2/10/2025 9:27 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
    Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
    On the day of the superb owl (where were the owls?), I watched:


    MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000:
    "The Puma Man".

    Puma Man
    Puma Man.
    Does whatever a puma can!


    What did you watch?

    Hey, thanks for asking!

    BUFFY season four the first college year

    This had a lot more good episodes than I had recalled, including

    PANGS the Thanksgiving episode where the Indians get theirs

    The body switch episodes with the return of Faith

    SUPERSTAR

    The return of Oz

    Then unfortunately, we hit season five episode one where Marty Noxon
    destroys the series

    By not wearing underwear?


    Evil

    --
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)