Disappointed

--- In [hidden email], "aredhel1984" <aredhel1984@...> wrote:
>
> I joined this group a few weeks ago after buying the megaset. I set to
watching it, hoping to revel in some childhood memories. But it was a
huge disappointment. The writing on the show is so bad that I can't
believe I ever watched this stuff at all. Some examples:
>
I'm 40 now, and re-watching was great nostalgia. Especially the
memories of all the UFO toys I had as a kid. From your comments, I'd
say you weren't a kid when this show originaly aired on tv.

> Straker deliberately kills his own son because of a mission that ends
up failing anyway. Calling that heroic is sick and anyone who says so
shouldn't be allowed near children at all.
>
The alien invasion took priority. The needs of the many, outweighs the
needs of the few, or the one.

> Alec started out well, chatting up the women, seemed like a fun guy.
But by episode three he was little more than a whining yes man to
Straker. It's a wonder they took so long to drop him.
>
Alec wasn't dropped. He left during a production hiatus. Otherwise
behaved as per the script.

> There's a 'he was only dreaming' episode, always a bad idea.
>
They were very popular for the time, and are still occasionally used.

> By the end of the series they were resorting to cleavage. In the audio
commentary, Wanda Wentham says that people still ask her to autograph
photos of her in the purple shirt. Come on, guys, the woman's over
seventy, get a girlfriend!
>
Ummm ... do you watch many movies or tv shows. Most have their cleavage
hooks. Those actors that do the convention schtick, all do photos from
when they were famous.

> Straker finally gets his hands on an alien, but injects him with
poisonous drugs after half a minute of interrogation, one of the
setbacks of insisting on stand alone episodes.
>
Heros do not do extended torture.

> The DVD enhancement shows that Straker wears blue eye shadow. No one
should ever take orders from a man who wears eye shadow. How could such
a person be placed in charge of planetary security?
>
Silvia Anderson wanting eyeshadow on the main character, had nothing to
do with why Straker is in charge. And when you're military ... you
follow orders, regardless.

> There are some unncessarily futuristic features like Straker's lavish
bar. What's wrong with a bottle? And no one should drink on the job.
>
Up untill recently, martinni business lunches were common place, and
high end executives, would be expected to have a small bar.

> The clothes are horrible. Everyone seems to be wearing pyjamas.
>
The clothing was Sylvia's interpretation of fashion in the future.
She's not far off, I've seen teenagers and adults, walking around in
pj's ... even while at the mall or food store.

> All the smoking is disgusting and makes the show look dated.
>
It IS dated. It's as old as I am. Filmed during a time when many
people smoked, even while on the job. Heck, doctors used to smoke in
hospitals.

> Dr. Jackson is a 100% creep. My skin crawls when he's on the screen.
>
That's personal taste, and we're all entitled to our own opinions.

> Ah well, there's always Stargate.
>
> A disillusioned Rebecca.
>
You'll be happier there Rebecca. Personlly, I couldn't watch the
Stargate series, thought it was awful.

Matt




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> As for my comments about Dr. Jackson, today I understand his multiple
> roles as doctor, lawyer and 'executioner'. Budgetary constraints, I
> suppose. Since they're paying him, get him to work as much as possible
> and save on other potentially expensive actors.

Actually, I don't think this was a budget issue -- I think the producers
liked the actor so much that they kept wanting him to appear in the
series. And since they didn't have a specific part for him at the
beginning of the series, they merely inserted him wherever they could.
By the second shooting block, he became firmly established as a regular,
but before that they just used him wherever they could think of.

> My biggest gripe with the series is its stand alone episodes, meaning
> that nothing can develop.

Well, that's pretty common with many shows. It does have the advantage
that viewers can miss episodes or watch them in the wrong order, unlike
many contemporary series (e.g. "Lost")

Marc

> The DVD enhancement shows that Straker wears blue eye shadow.

Well, that's just it -- on the DVDs (and also on the HDTV versions) you
can tell that Straker has eye makeup in the latter episodes, but could
anyone see this back in the 1970s? I don't think the picture quality
was good enough back then to see this kind of detail...

Marc

I prefer stand alones in some ways - avoids the soap opera rolling story -
the kind of thing that ruined The Bill.



From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marc
Martin
Sent: 19 June 2009 04:05
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [SHADO] Feedback on "Disappointed" comments








> As for my comments about Dr. Jackson, today I understand his multiple
> roles as doctor, lawyer and 'executioner'. Budgetary constraints, I
> suppose. Since they're paying him, get him to work as much as possible
> and save on other potentially expensive actors.

Actually, I don't think this was a budget issue -- I think the producers
liked the actor so much that they kept wanting him to appear in the
series. And since they didn't have a specific part for him at the
beginning of the series, they merely inserted him wherever they could.
By the second shooting block, he became firmly established as a regular,
but before that they just used him wherever they could think of.

> My biggest gripe with the series is its stand alone episodes, meaning
> that nothing can develop.

Well, that's pretty common with many shows. It does have the advantage
that viewers can miss episodes or watch them in the wrong order, unlike
many contemporary series (e.g. "Lost")

Marc





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I had a lot of the same dissappointments as you when I finally got to watch the episodes again as an adult. I found the writing piss poor, some of the plots thin and flimsy, and the acting quite bad in many places.

But to me, the whole UFO concept was inescapably appealing to me, and the special effects still look impressive even by todays standards....And at least some of the eps are just genuinely good.

Before I saw the show UFO, I was a very young kid with essentially no identity yet. Seeing the show UFO as a 6 year old caused me to discover space, become interested in science, and set me on the path that I have followed in life.

Dispite all this rather harsh critisism, I can still watch the show, mentally correct all the flaws I see in it as I watch it, and thoroughly enjoy it for the imaginary world it can place me in. For me, the UFO universe is a cool universe, and this rather flawed show is the entrance gateway to it.

Dave H.


------------------------------------------------------------------

----- Original Message -----
From: aredhel1984
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 10:24 AM
Subject: [SHADO] Disappointed





I joined this group a few weeks ago after buying the megaset. I set to watching it, hoping to revel in some childhood memories. But it was a huge disappointment. The writing on the show is so bad that I can't believe I ever watched this stuff at all. Some examples:

Straker deliberately kills his own son because of a mission that ends up failing anyway. Calling that heroic is sick and anyone who says so shouldn't be allowed near children at all.

Alec started out well, chatting up the women, seemed like a fun guy. But by episode three he was little more than a whining yes man to Straker. It's a wonder they took so long to drop him.

There's a 'he was only dreaming' episode, always a bad idea.

By the end of the series they were resorting to cleavage. In the audio commentary, Wanda Wentham says that people still ask her to autograph photos of her in the purple shirt. Come on, guys, the woman's over seventy, get a girlfriend!

Everyone talks like Julie Christie in 'Darling'.

Straker finally gets his hands on an alien, but injects him with poisonous drugs after half a minute of interrogation, one of the setbacks of insisting on stand alone episodes.

The DVD enhancement shows that Straker wears blue eye shadow. No one should ever take orders from a man who wears eye shadow. How could such a person be placed in charge of planetary security?

There are some unncessarily futuristic features like Straker's lavish bar. What's wrong with a bottle? And no one should drink on the job.

The clothes are horrible. Everyone seems to be wearing pyjamas.

All the smoking is disgusting and makes the show look dated.

Dr. Jackson is a 100% creep. My skin crawls when he's on the screen.

Ah well, there's always Stargate.

A disillusioned Rebecca.






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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi,

Many if not most (exist high refresh) LED tech TV's 'only' use LED arrays for backlighting.

But, high quality monitors use active matrix organic leds, 1:1 ratio pixels, and other technologies... LED's react/thrshhold hugely faster than older LCD technologies reducing flicker, and can also dispense with the cellular processing arrays (where the screen display is broken down into cells like a chess board) that could lead to blocking... i.e. Also, instead of the older screen refreshes of 50/60 times per second, we are now seeing 200 to 500refresh cycles per second which is not perceptible to the human eye.

Also 16-32bit colour depth per pixel (trillions of colours), created by interpolation if the computer is only able to supply 8-bit R 8-bit G 8-bit B, etc.

To be honest, I am just VERY happy to finally have REALLY accurate colours on my screens (without the use of stupid shades and shrouds), and can very accurately replicate colours in CMYK (print), Pantone, and a whole host of other colour space standards. In the case of my new main monitor is even adjusts for the ambient lighting in the room!!!

Hope this helps,

Griff

--- In [hidden email], Paul Bowers <pbowers@...> wrote:
>
> Unless I'm badly mistaken (it's happened before) the LED technology is
> for the backlighting of the screen, not pixel display.
>
> http://gizmodo.com/5271493/giz-explains-whats-so-great-about-led+backlit-lcds
>
> Paul