frigidmagi wrote:Episode 04 was a good and tense one, although the crew is becoming something of a magic solve settings problem button in some cases. Might want to watch that. In this case though it was a close one. Getting Leo out front and center more is a good idea. I like the Sudanese nurse and hope to see more of her. I'm also glad that this episode advanced both the plot arc and the metaplot with our favorite Not-a-Jedi.
Given that the first three episodes had Robert, Julia, and Zack getting the most focus, I wanted to vary it up. And the story fit Leo to a T, showing us his virtues and his flaws.
I do not intend to undo
everything I disliked about various settings but to make the "solve problem" thing pop up only when it's a reasonable outcome to the changed situation.
The plot with Lucy playing around with her Force powers will be showing up through the next several installments.
Episode 05 I'm less keen on, partly out of well... I'm not that sympethic to Zack here. Look if this was highschool that would be one thing, but you're a grown up now and fuck you've even been a number of fights and scrapes. Man up, either talk to the girl like an adult or let it the fuck go. If you have to, leave and get some space so you can work things out for yourself. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm rolling my eyes at his problem it's that I find a man who's willing to lead and command others being so... Passive and immature about this kinda grating. There are certain flaws that make sense, Robert's for example (although I also roll my eyes at "oh we can't get together! What if it didn't work, our friendship which we have declared to be unbreakable, would be ruined" Self serving nonsense)and there are others that make you sigh and wish the characters would grow the fuck up already.
Zack is... a fundamentally lost character. His willingness to lead and command is tied up entirely in how much he enjoys flying the
Koenig and, at this point, he would probably be happier if he were just the pilot officer of that ship. This story was conceived at the start as exploring his unrequited love for Julia and how he deals with the obvious fact that she's not going to go for him. It would be healthier and smarter if he manned up to it and admitted it, willing to accept rejection... but he's not to that point yet.
He will get there though. After he matures more. And suffers more. He's going to come off as the Chief O'Brien of nUF in woobieness: every year there will be a mandatory "
ZACK MUST SUFFER" episode, MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Okay, that's an exaggeration... to an extent.
You want to deal with interpersonal problems? How about dealing with the fact that has a bunch of buddies they also have to balance professionalism. Cat would get her ass reamed on any other ship that isn't commanded by her older sister's ex-boyfriend. Pouting, whining and wheedling are generally not considered acceptable behaviors and this should be confronted before Cat gets singed. I actually like her as a character but if they're officers now, they're gonna have to act like it and she isn't.
Part of Cat's character arc is the fact she has to mature. I even touched on the issue you've brought up in 1-01 where Locarno points out to her that in this field you have to follow orders and if you don't like it, you resign your commission.
Our sweet little Cat will have a lot of growing up to do in the next couple of years.
I also wish that the actual Mass Effect stuff could have taken a more leading role, but only if you could do it without stealing Commander Shepard's thunder. Which I know is kinda of a conflicting set of desires.
I suppose it slightly undermined the gravitas of the ME first contact by making it the B plot in a story centered on Zack's personal issues. I thought the juxtaposition would prove interesting though. Episode 1-13 will bring us back and give us a more normative first contact-style story.
The ending while interesting, brings up a question, okay misses I'm totally a AI impression of a person despite having only 5 minutes of memory to work from is now a vital intelligence resource. Something came along and destroyed a culture. Add in the story of the Mass Relays (built by a culture that suddenly vanished!) and you have an emerging pattern. This should be something that rings alarm bells.
It will. But there are always going to be... complications.
If you check the years, then, well, I'll list it out now since it's not a big deal. Mass Effect 1's storyline is mid-season 3 of this series, with ME2's timeframe being mid-season 5 and ME3 being the first half of Season 6. A
lot is gonna happen in that timeframe. A-bloody-lot.
So... You planning on getting back to the Nazis? Cause you kinda dangled an entire Story there in front of me and walked away.
1-07 will bring us back to S4W8.
Dr. Who: Never read Harry Dresden, so the wizard council comes off as a bunch of over reaching dicks who deserved 4 servings of Korra to the face. Also, they basically stealth browbeated a boy into suicide. No fuck that, that was murder. So they're babykillers. Fuck them.
The Council is brutally strict. If you break a law of Magic
you die, except if clemency is granted under only very specific criteria. And even then it comes with the Doom of Damocles.
It's not a good thing about them. It's the result of centuries of seeing warlocks develop because a little taste of black magic leads to corruption which drives more tastes, and on. Better Dead Than Warlock, essentially. Even if it means cleaving off an adolescent or young teen's head. Keep in mind they almost executed Harry at age 16 for violating the First Law - Thou shalt not kill with Magic - even when he did so in
self-defense. That it was in self-defense barely convinced enough of the Council to accept his being given to Ebenezer McCoy for training with the Doom of Damocles placed upon him.
Never played Crono Cross I was "HEY IT'S LUCCA! I REMEMBER HER! HI LUCCA! YOU'RE AWESOME! What's that, these other people? Don't know 'em, don't care... HEY IT'S CHRONO AND HIS WIFE, DUDE! YOU RULE!" To be fair if it was me, half the places I could drag you no one would have ever heard of so fair is fair.
Heh.
The dinner with Kira was nice. You should go on a bar crawl with both Kirks just for shits and giggles.
Ha!
She'll have a few new ideas for Firebending, grant you...
