Anything Ark.

Maybe some Ark.

What about Ark?

Ark.

Have I mentioned Ark?

I'm halfway through season three of Breaking Bad on Netflix. I like it, it's a good show, well above average... But coming off all the hype I find myself underwhelmed. My primary complaint is that it seems to rely an awful lot on coincidences to drive their plots. There are just plenty of shows on TV I'd rather watch than Breaking Bad.

Also, fxguide totally ruined a season four character death for me, so I feel a little bit of anger every time they're on screen, which is not the show's fault at all.

An intermission about endings. There are great movies and lame movies, but most popular mainstream movies fall into the bell-curve middle of 'okay' movies. From these, it's almost always the final act that lets them down. The premise and opening is the easiest to make interesting. The second act is character development and setbacks and raising stakes. But Hollywood movies are like a metaphorical funnel where, no matter how they started, have to end the same way e.g. race against time, chase, one-on-one goody v baddy confrontation, villain dies, loose ends are resolved, etc.

Is it the studios (and test screenings) that insist that the final act conform to some template, like a tablet from the Mount?

I often only see the first two-thirds of a movie (as they're usually the best) and as soon as the final act starts , I switch off as that's where the movie is on metaphorical railroad tracks.

DOCTOR WHO. *randomnoncapitalizedletter*

How about an intermission on time travel in movies, and whether you guys think it can ever be pulled off effectively or not. I was talking to a friend recently about Looper and I told him that the time travel aspect could ruin it for me very quickly. I think the main problem with time travel is that it either makes the movie too complicated too quickly, or it leaves the plot full of holes. In Looper I told my friend that sending someone back in time is actually much more risky than just disposing of the body in the current time frame. This is basically because if the looper did not manage to kill someone, or even if the looper decided to betray the organization, he could simply kill all of the current members while they were kids. Then you get into the whole "impact of the past on the future" thing where you don't know whether time is one line that can be changed (i.e doing something in the past will get rid of the current future and replace it with a new one) or whether changing the past creates a series of parallel universes. Either way the story gets complicated quickly. It's because of something like this that I don't think time travel should ever be used as a gimmick in movies, as it seems to ruin many movies and t.v shows (Heroes most notably for me).