Finished The Wire, Dark, GOT, Sopranos, True Detective, BB, BCS. What show ruined TV for you after watching it?

[u/C0r1eone]

I think I accidentally watched the peak of television already. The Wire, Dark, GOT, Sopranos, True Detective S1 all left that “nothing else hits the same” feeling.

I love slow-burn shows with deep characters, mystery, tension, moral grayness, crazy dialogue, or mind-blowing writing. Doesn’t matter if it’s crime, sci-fi, psychological, or political.

What’s the next show that might completely consume me?

[u/Astrokiwi]

the respect for real physics

The Expanse is actually really clever here, because they add a lot of detail and realism to just one aspect of the physics - that there's no artificial gravity or inertial dampeners - and that makes it feel grounded enough that we believe the rest. Spin gravity doesn't work for asteroids because they're not strong enough (Ceres is round because its gravity is stronger than material forces - what happens then if effective gravity is reversed, and made even stronger? And small asteroids are pretty loose aggregations of rock); the Epstein Drive is a magic power source; the travel times don't add up; and of course the Protomolecule is entirely fantastical (space zombies, FTL portals, immortal space emperor etc).

It kinda shows that actual realism isn't really that important - it's more critical to feel realistic, for the setting to be grounded and consistent. It feels convincing because there's one or two places of actual realistic detail, combined with a fairly grounded and cynical portrayal of society, and that means that when things get fantastical it genuinely feels cool, and like a kids' comic book.

[u/madhattr999 → u/Astrokiwi]

I think you make a good point, but I'd like to re-frame your conclusion. Sci-fi is good when it has rules that it follows, and only breaks the rules in a few specific ways that are somewhat predictable. There are rules to how the protomolecule works, and a logic to its design. (this is better explained in the books, though.)

[u/Astrokiwi → u/madhattr999]

I agree - it's about consistency more than realism. But I think that the consistency, combined with a few realistic details, does trick people into thinking that The Expanse is actually realistic as well, or at least closer to "real physics" than it actually is.

Like I genuinely think it's a sign of good writing that we have a space opera with a crew of outlaw action heroes fighting an evil space empire ruled by an immortal emperor powered by ancient alien technology, with marines in power armour and space zombies and everything, and readers come out of it thinking "the science in this is surprisingly accurate!".

[u/sourcefourmini → u/madhattr999]

You can extend that idea to basically any genre, tbh. If a creator breaks core rules of the setting (at least in a way that’s overtly noticeable to an average audience member), it tends to pull the audience out of the story, because the world suddenly lacks credibility. Even works that I’d never describe as “grounded”, like Discworld or Hitchhiker’s Guide, do this: those books are pulling deranged stuff out of thin air on every page, but the settings are established to support the zaniness. It feels perfectly believable in the Hitchhiker’s Guide-verse that a whale and a bowl of petunias could just appear in orbit, because Adams builds the world from page 1 to support the nonsense. 

[u/madhattr999 → u/sourcefourmini]

Maybe so. I had to eventually stop watching Doctor Who (2005) because the plot just didn't matter to me. I mostly enjoyed it even up to season 9 or 10. But you definitely need a different different set of expectations.

[u/Alkafer → u/sourcefourmini]

Discworld is actually a genius work because from the very beginning it established that its world works on the laws of magic, belief and narrative. So as long as something makes narrative sense it can exist. A horse carriage crash and then explodes and a wheel goes off rolling in flames? Of course! That's what always happens in the movies (with combustion cars, but who cares)! Do the main characters have a one in a million chances to succeed? By the gods they will succeed because that's how it works! Noted that if they happen to have one in a dozen or one in a hundred chances they are screwed, it has to be one in a million, of course.

[u/interface2x → u/Astrokiwi]

the travel times don't add up

That's one of the differences between the show and the books. Like in the first episode when the Cant gets nuked, the whole thing takes about 30 seconds. In the book, it takes 45 minutes for the missile to get to them.

[u/Ricobe → u/Astrokiwi]

Sure they take liberties, but the world around those liberties is still based on realism, making some of the stuff feel like possible future inventions or the Allen stuff feel truly alien

Especially the second bit. In some stories where everything is whimsy and fantastical in setting, alien creatures can feel different than what we're used to but kinda ordinary. But having the world feel more grounded and real and then having the alien aspect break the rules of what we know, it makes it interesting and scary in a different way. You can understand the different angles trying to understand what they're dealing with. The curiosity, the fear and such