IFR

These are good points, but they don't change my assessment. Regardless of whether Homelander "held back" or Maeve did a lot of training, the ultimate outcome was that season 3 saw Homelander getting a fair thrashing throughout, which greatly diminishes the sense of terror which accompanied his character and was such a fascinating part of the show. For me, all that careful buildup of Homeland's character was squandered for Maeve's uninteresting arc. That and the Compound V power up overdid it. As far as I'm concerned the show destroyed its own hook for nothing.

Fair enough. It seems we're looking for different things in this show. I would say if Homelander successfully slapped down Maeve for showing some spine, the spirit of the show would be that sometimes underdogs underestimate themselves and when pressed do remarkable things, but then sometimes underdogs have correctly evaluated themselves and when they attempt some heroism they are beaten down. Which is consistent with real life. I disagree. Homelander was like some elemental terror, a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment. He was this constant menace in the background, like the Joker in The Dark Knight, or Jaws. At some point this would all have to come to a climax, of course. The premise of the show initially was very interesting. When you have this God-like force set against a group of much weaker individuals, one wonders how they could possibly contend with this force? Well, in answer this show provided the characters with a serum that gave them nearly equivalent powers, and also showed that Homelander himself was potentially outclassed by his own colleagues. Nothing clever or interesting. Maeve simply had to have her anime-trope of an emotionally induced power-up and suddenly she could take the most powerful baddies on. This is incredibly boring to me. Suddenly Jaws is just some random shark who can be easily taken down. The writers just have to procure for the characters some improved Compound V, or Maeve can rediscover her powers again - maybe through another introspective, emotional episode. Etc. Homelander comes off as an artificial threat at this point, which largely takes away from the series in my opinion. For me, Maeve is a deeply uninteresting character. The humiliations she endured were sometimes amusing, but the character herself was about as fascinating as a wet noodle. And I don't particularly care for redemption arcs in general. There are exceptions. I liked the one in Schindler's List, and the one in Unforgiven (especially how it ended). I also liked Jaime Lannister's arc (in the books), and also Jean Valjean (probably the most saccharine of the lot, though). Maeve's redemption did nothing for me. It would have been much more satisfying to me to see her further humiliated and then killed off. I would have been fine if A-Train were also killed, though I really enjoy his character. Quite frankly, I would have taken anything for this show to do something fresh. For me, this was the point they should have killed Homelander and ended the show, or taken things in a different direction. I would have liked it if in the battle between Homelander and Soldier Boy, they end up casually killing everyone else like insects (Hughie, Butcher, et al.). And then the final season is just about Homelander mishandling everything, going increasingly insane and then reducing the world to ashes at the end. Or Hughie, in his naive idealism, releasing the formula for Compound V to the public, so everyone can obtain superpowers, which leads to society self-annihilating. Or something. Anything. The premise as it is has been played out and is no longer compelling. On this we are absolutely in agreement. With all the spinoffs and everything in the works, the show has taken a tragic and abrupt nosedive in quality for me.

Thank you! I'm far, far from any kind of expert though. I'm on my final year of a Health Physics degree, so I still have a long way to go before I might be considered beyond adequate. This is one of the more interesting articles I've read on the topic, particularly on the speculation of what Heisenberg did or did not know. I believe Nolan primarily based this on American Prometheus, which I found to be an excellent biography. I would be shocked if Nolan didn't also draw from The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun, and Rhodes is still around for consultation. Also, Nolan apparently has maintained his relationship with Kip Thorne, whose mentor was John Archibald Wheeler. I'm sure there's a lot of inside info there. Nolan may have had a general disregard for science in Tenet, but he seems scrupulous enough that when it comes to a biography of Oppenheimer he will aim for fidelity (I hope).

Yeah, regarding bombs relativity isn’t a factor. Particles are going fast, but they aren't going at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. That's more of a consideration with high energy accelerator physics. A view of material undergoing fissioning would actually be quite boring, though. It would just sit there. If someone really made a mistake and a criticality accident was achieved, then the material would still just sit there, but heat up a little and irradiate anyone nearby until the material quickly went subcritical again. About 10 nanoseconds for a single generation. Depending on the efficiency of the bomb you can get thousands of generations before the fuel tears itself apart and goes subcritical.

I'm with those who found the finale disappointing. Indeed I think it retroactively made the rest of the season worse. Part of the reason the season was good was that it seemed to be building up to something. But it all ended in a whimper. And they've hugely deflated the threat of Homelander. His constant menace was wonderful, but now it seems like anyone can take him on. Maeve spent most of the series terrified of him, and now suddenly she's holding her own against him and Soldier Boy? Very disappointing. They should have killed her off. If the writers were worried about killing a non-hetero character off they should have made her straight and another character bi instead. Mother's Milk probably will last to the end of the show, so why not make him bi if bi people need plot armor? I'm not sure if I will continue with the show now that the writers have shown their cards and seemed determined to needlessly protract things.

Decent follow up episode. Homelander continues to be awesome and Soldier Boy is highly entertaining. "You want to know what I do when I'm sad or scared? Fucking nothing. 'Cause I'm not a fucking pussy." Even though the guy is being parodied, in a sea of weepy, melodramatic characters that's a refreshing take. And it was very satisfying to see Hughie - who has spent the entire series as an annoying and whiny character - get slapped down.

Another entertaining episode of The Boys. I normally get bored by shock humor, but all the goriness and excess has worked for me so far and been surprisingly fun. More shows need to embrace collateral damage!

I finished season one. It was kind of a mixed bag. I still really like the alternate history aspect of the show, but it really goes overboard with the soap opera nonsense. The dead kid was tedious, and I really was disappointed with what the writers did to Deke. He was absolutely correct to be enraged at Waverly. Fair or not, her secret was an exploitable security problem. To have him change his mind, say he was wrong and the bigots are the problem...yeesh. Pam the bartender is extremely annoying. Trying to be open about her orientation, thereby jeopardizing two people who are actively committing felonies...because love conquers all, I guess? I really hope that her idiocy ends up annihilating the careers of Waverly and Wilson. Stupidity ought to have some consequence. And Baldwin going Colonel Kurtz was bizarre and didn't really work for me. Anyway, I feel hesitant to move on. I'm fascinated by the timeline, but the soap opera elements are so over the top, and I do not enjoy being preached at, even if I agree with the message.

Just started this show at the beginning of the week, and I've finished episode 6 of season 1. I love it. The soap opera elements are a bit annoying, and I feel like sometimes the show loosely treads the line between nuanced exploration of sociological issues in an alternate timeline and shameless sermonizing, but overall what this show does well, it does really well and I'm enjoying the ride. My favorite character is von Braun. His entire speech with Margo and the revelation that her father was a Neddenmeyer/Kistiakowski composite I thought was excellent. I really like how the show lets the character inhabit a morally gray domain. And the actor is quite good. In fact, most of these characters are pretty well done.

Season 2 was weaker for me, but I'm very much enjoying this season. Homelander is a wonderful character that really elevates this show. I tried reading the graphic novels and found them to be poorly done, so credit goes to the writers for creating an engaging story from that mess. It is my hope that Homelander's character arc culminates with him slaughtering millions of people in the most comically gory way. I doubt the writers will go that way because I suppose it would be deemed too edgy and too much of a "loss" for the protagonists, but for me that would be one of the few satisfying ways to conclude this kind of character, with all the excellent build up they have managed.

The most recent episode has an imdb rating of 3.6. It seems as though people really, really hated it. Too bad. The concept sounded interesting. Genre shows seem to be spending 100+ million dollars a season, but apparently none of this money is allocated to hire a decent writing staff.

I was kind of curious myself. I haven't played any of the games, but I do like sci-fi and it would be nice to find a new show now that The Expanse is over. Looking at reddit, Halo fans seem to despise this show. And it's getting terrible reviews on imdb. From all appearances, Halo got Witcher'd.

I don't agree with this. In season one The Wire was intelligently exploring the dysfunctions of social systems in great depth. It just happened to be focused on the legal system in the first season. It expanded that intelligent exegesis to other systems of dysfunction with each successive season. Every part fit together beautifully at the end, and the show did as you say become the gold standard of social commentary in fiction. I think Rippounet and the poster formerly known as Kalbear put it rather well. The focus of this show is pretty animation and some good action sequences. The show takes care to develop its characters to lend all of this more impact. It's not being lazy about social commentary, but social commentary certainly isn't the thrust of this series, and the show doesn't really have anything original or deep to say. It's not that kind of show. And it really doesn't have to be. I think it should be praised for what it does do. Making a series based on LoL sounds like the dumbest idea ever, but against all odds the Arcane crew made it work pretty well.

I agree with this. Silco ended up being the one legitimately interesting character in a cast of what felt like your typical array of video game characters. I think anyone trying to argue that this show has an intricate take on social issues has their work cut out for them. It was an entertaining, style over substance show that was well directed. This isn't Mad Men.

I found it decently entertaining, but as others have mentioned, the plot and characters are very derivative and tropey. It was a somewhat subpar story greatly elevated by its visuals. Hopefully they hire better writers for the next season.

I personally think it was a satisfying and well earned ending. The books have earned their place as one of my favorite scifi series.

Good breakdown! I overestimated the amount of radiation one would be subjected to on Mars, so it's good to have more accurate data.

The estimated year long dose for a trip to Mars would be about ten times the NASA recommended annual limit for low Earth orbit astronauts. This xkcd graph is actually a very good reference point. A trip to Mars would unavoidably increase a person's chances of manifesting cancer. However, if the premise of the show were that the space program had continued proportional in effort and expense to what it was for reaching the moon, it's worth noting that standards for radiation exposure were more relaxed then. Further, one can expect that those standards would not change as quickly as they have in our timeline, to accommodate space exploration. A trip to Mars and then time spent developing an infrastructure would be basically a death sentence. Just a trip though would be merely hazardous, but far from a guarantee of premature death. Especially if upon landing you inhabit a properly shielded, subterranean area.

For All Mankind sounds pretty interesting. Wrt radiation hazards of a Mars trip, I figured the space program would send their initial batch of death lemmings to establish an infrastructure on Mars (probably underground), which would then open it up for habitation. Maybe use nukes a la the Plowshare proposal to expedite the excavation of the site. Then it would be quite feasible to send a trial community (though probably not children or pregnant women) to Mars. From what I've read, you're looking at roughly half a sievert for the journey, which definitely correlates to an increased expectation for cancer, but it's not remotely like a death sentence. Radiation safety standards in the first few decades following the moon landing were nothing as strict as they are today. So I could see this being viewed as an acceptable venture. The idea of using the water supply as shielding is pretty interesting. Water would be ideal. The problem with metals and other material is they can potentially become activated and start emitting radiation themselves. This would be a problem with mid to low energy ionizing cosmic radiation interaction. The high energy (mega electronvolts), relativistic radiation will go through any shielding (water or even lead) like it's not there. Anyway, it's a fun topic to think about. Edit: Thinking about it further, I do wonder about the feasibility of the nuking an excavation site approach. It seems like with all the ambient radiation, one couldn't use an H-bomb due to the high risk of predetonation and a fizzle, and would be confined to a fission bomb, which I believe an unboosted weapon still is at submegaton yield. It seems more reliable and affordable to just go with high yield conventional EBX explosives to get the job done. But I honestly don't know enough about explosives to have a good take on this subject.

@Annara Snow I feel like we've taken a bit of an unnecessary detour here. At any rate, you were wondering about the reaction of those who had seen both Foundation and Dune, and I gave my impression. From everything I've gathered from your comments, my feelings of Foundation are much in line with your feelings of Game of Thrones. Or how most people felt about Game of Thrones season 8. I don't want to make this thread about Game of Thrones; I'm simply using it as a reference point that is easily relatable to most people. My feelings about Dune are much better. Dune has problems with how it's structure, but I otherwise found it to be very good.

No, I mean season 8. Earlier than that, I thought there were some missteps in GoT, and they certainly increased with season 6 and 7, but season 8 was comparable to Foundation the show. Critics and most of the audience clearly didn't think much of Game of Thrones was bad writing. It was a worldwide phenomenon, and it was one of the most critically lauded series ever. Most Emmys, for a prime time show, etc. It once was the highest rated non-documentary show on imdb. People clearly thought it was a well done show. So when that stopped being the case, people made their displeasure known on that count, which was when season 8 arrived. I looked through some of the threads on the show on this forum, and I think the boarders here were unusually harsh in their judgment. Certainly more so than most audience members or critics. I thought the first 4 seasons of Game of Thrones were impeccable, seasons 5-6 mostly excellent, season 7 was a mixture of highs and lows, and season 8 was a disaster. That is my opinion. Clearly your opinion differs, which is fine. Neither of us are absolute authorities on what must constitute adequate entertainment for everyone. Enjoy what you can, and if you can't, then there's plenty of other works out there.

My experience for both is as a reader of the original material. For me, the Dune experience was seeing a good plot minimalized for the best visual and atmospheric representation of the story. It was a beautiful movie and a good experience. The movie is very loyal to the book. The Foundation experience is like seeing season 8 of Game of Thrones. A great deal of potential squandered for insultingly bad writing. Even in a vacuum and apart from the original material, Foundation the show is low-brow and pedestrian storytelling. The characters are uninteresting, and the plot is often nonsensical. It is aggressively mediocre, regardless of its pretty CG package. When taking the wonderful original material into consideration, the show really is like having salt rubbed into a wound.

Well, yeah, of course it's hard to make a broadly appealing show that also appeals to OG fandom. It's not impossible though. There are good adaptations out there, even ones that make significant changes to the original material. This show is not an example of a good adaptation. What it comes down to is execution. Virtually any concept could work if the execution is right. Even the strange, meandering path Goyer chose for the show could have worked if the writing staff was a good writing staff. Unfortunately Goyer demonstrates his reputation of mediocrity once again.

I agree with this. It's a dying empire in turmoil. It's incredible that writers can't make that into something watchable. If this story needs padding, pad it with with stories that are actually interesting. Develop all of these worlds and show the gradual effect pschohistory has on them pre-Mule. It allows you to develop the path for the rise of the Mule. And it doesn't feel like a Deus Ex Machina because it's from the perspective of those who feel the terrifying effect of psychohistory, as this small community exerts its power over everyone else. Terminus doesn't need to be center stage. Just follow the original material with Terminus. Anyway, I haven't watched since episode 2, but it is fun to keep up with this thread. It was expected that Goyer would drop the ball here (adapting Foundation is not an easy task), but it's too bad all the same. At least there's Dune!

Yes, and I think season 3 was one of the best. Season 5 suffered a little from having too many episodes, in my opinion. It would have been much better to have season 5 be 10-13 episodes comprising books 5 and 6. I don't know what to expect of this final season. It could work as a "pause" while the showrunners try to shop for another company to fund the conclusion, but it could go incredibly awry too. I hope they don't try to wrap everything up. 6 episodes is not enough for it to be done well, I think.