Verdict: Ghosted

Last night we finally made it through the second episode of the new show Ghosted. The premise in and of itself sounds interesting, although a little bit Men In Black meets The X-Files.  You have the conspiracy theorist / genius who has been deemed a crazy fraud and a former cop who left the force and hit rock bottom. They get thrown together into a crazy world of paranormal activity.

The thought seems good that there is the cynic cop who is just looking at the logic of the situation and then the former professor who understands the potential science behind the paranormal. So it is the contrasting personalities playing off of each other that would make the show work. The problem is that the connection between the two main characters so far is just not there and everything is happening in such a whirlwind where we are meant to have a connection with what is happening and it is missing.

Too Fast

So part of the inherent problem of the show might be that the episodes are only 20 minutes long instead of the typical 45 minutes. With only 20 minutes to try and explain an entire underground government agency – plus introduce our two main characters – the pilot episode just came across as kind of frantic and it was hard to really get a grasp on anything that was happening. Now understanding that it was the pilot episode I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, which is why we watched the second episode.

The second episode was better, but still lacked. It seemed to jump ahead to days or weeks later and they had a mission together, instead of taking us to right after the first episode like we might expect. There was no real explanation of what they faced or how it worked. Everything just sort of happened and throughout the whole episode there was no connection between the two main characters, which is vital for a show like this.

Lack of Chemistry

The other big issue is definitely the lack of chemistry between the characters. They are there on screen and going through the motions, but nothing seems to be sticking. There are definitely some funny moments and it might get better; at the same time I just don’t think there is enough there. I like that it is a female who leads the organization and a woman is the one who does the weapons, but still there needs to be something to connect with and there is not.

The second episode is almost like walking in mid-way through a season where we are supposed to have seen how they have gotten to this point. Instead the show has just jumped ahead to a point and we are supposed to be along for the ride.

Verdict

Some of it if we didn’t already have a lot of great shows that we are watching I might be willing to give this show more chances, but as it stands I think this is a pass for us. It is not terrible, but it definitely does not hold my interest enough to spend time to keep watching it. Let us know if it gets better if you keep watching Ghosted!

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Happy 30 years of Star Trek The Next Generation!

There’s been lots of stuff going around lately with the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation airing, but then I watched the Honest Trailer and that took the cake:

Funny personal piece, of the three episodes they joke that they want you to forget, 2 of them are some of my favorites. One is the odd Doctor Crusher episode…

Thor Ragnarok: 80s Edition

I haven’t been very good about keeping content going for Science Fiction Saturday, sorry about that. And this one isn’t much, but it’s good, so it has that going for it! Nerdist made a fan trailer for Thor: Ragnarok, a movie that already has awesome trailers. How could they improve on it?

What’s funny with them making an 80s style trailer for this movie is the fact that, with the styling and all, people were already saying it looked like an 80s science fiction film. Now it just has the era-appropriate trailer to ramp that up a notch, I guess!

Should We Go See Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in Theaters?

So after seeing trailers, it’s probably not far wrong to say that Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was the movie that we were most intrigued and excited to go see this year, especially taken on its own merits. Okay, sure, there’s lots of continuing franchise films to see this year – Marvel, Star Wars, etc. But this one captured our imagination, and it’s Luc Besson, and it seemed like a sure hit. The new Fifth Element.

And then… people actually saw it.

We’ve now heard from family that has both said “skip it in theaters” and that has said that they liked it. So… just as split as the Rotten Tomatoes score makes it seem. That means, tossing it back to you, dear readers! Vote in the poll! And if you’ve seen it, comment or shoot us a message on social media, letting us know whether we should go or not go!

BioWare’s New IP: Anthem

Before it got showed off at E3, I wasn’t really aware that BioWare was working on a new intellectual property. After all, they just released Mass Effect Andromeda and though we haven’t beaten it, it sounds like it’s open to sequels. Meanwhile, the ending of Dragon Age Inquisition definitely sets them up for Dragon Age 4. So they have two large universes they are continuing on with, which seems like a lot to be working on.

So with those two games being similar sorts of party-based RPGs, just one fantasy and one science fiction, I suppose it makes sense that if you were to be making another game, you would try to step out of that genre a bit. Enter Anthem.

The early reactions to this game compare it to Destiny, although I couldn’t quite tell if it was an MMO or more just multiplayer up to a certain number, a la Borderlands. Unfortunately, I’ll bet it’s not split-screen like Borderlands is, meaning that the odds of Holly and I playing this one are low.

Which is sad, because this game looks great! It further pushes some of the movement elements that we’ve really enjoyed in Andromeda (and which Holly used even more in playing Re-Core). It’s a big open science fiction world. And the loot!…

Basically, it looks like you’re playing Iron Man.

Different suits, different weapon loadouts, class-like functions on them (like the big old tanky one). I mean, even multi-target targeting and shooting missiles out. Very Iron Man. But like, in the, wouldn’t it be fun to be Iron Man sort of way.

Found on http://www.gamesradar.com/bioware-anthem-will-be-penned-by-the-writer-of-kotor-and-the-first-two-mass-effect-games/

It took me a while watching the video to quite realize that what I was hearing was the players, and not the characters, chatting. Still, it sounds like the main writer from KotoR and Mass Effect is working on this one, so story should still be important. Honestly, I would expect nothing less from BioWare.

If there’s a single player campaign, we might still end up getting this one and playing it that way. If there’s split-screen, we’re absolutely getting this one. If it ends up on our Mac computers, we could play this one. But requiring two X-Box One’s (or PS4’s) for a married couple in a single household? There’s a whole host of games that we can’t play because of the multiple consoles needed. So we’ll see where this one ends up!

Anthem is currently expected late 2018, so plenty of time between now and then (or possible delays) for all these details to sort out.