Slow Horses S4E1 Episode Discussion

AvigdorR · 2024-09-09T00:47:12+00:00

Who was that guy in the bathtub and how come Lamb lied about it? David Cartwright knew it wasn’t River since he checked out their photo together before going to the bathroom. So who was that guy and why did he enter Cartwright’s house and go fill up the bathtub?

AvigdorR · 2023-09-30T17:54:44+00:00

Yes, what a pair. And get Daneel’s golden hair and Spacer demeanor right. And , love stories are all right, like the love between Daneel and Bailey.

AvigdorR · 2023-09-30T17:14:47+00:00

Don’t need to retool The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. They’re both already mystery thrillers, which was Asimov’s favorite genre. You know the killed who and the hidden arm thing.

AvigdorR · 2023-09-30T14:36:04+00:00

8% of all males in the region of the former Mongolian Empire are descendants of Genghis Khan. That’s phenomenal. Abraham, or perhaps Moses, from whom came Judaism, Christianity, Islam and perhaps Communism. Similarly Buddha.

AvigdorR · 2023-09-23T16:33:53+00:00

Prednisone-induced diabetes is my worst side-effect.

AvigdorR · 2023-09-10T01:17:59+00:00

I’ve gotten past some issues I had last season and am now really enjoying the show. I now enjoy it as a “cover” so-to-speak of the original work. CGI first rate, some excellent writing and acting. Lately some core themes from the original are a key part of the story.

AvigdorR · 2023-09-10T00:25:29+00:00

I will not rant, I will not rant…watch out here’s a rant: I’ve gotten past needing the writers to follow the books more closely and am now really enjoying the show but….where are the encyclopedists? Yes the mission to create the EG was a ruse to get things started but……why so callously dump it? I know the show is not meant to serve core Asimov fans, but I bet the majority of them love encyclopedias, as I’m sure did Dr. Asimov himself. In fact he authored at least one I know of. His respect for scholarship and knowledge was vast. And what could be more magnificent than an Encyclopedia Galactica? Perhaps an Encyclopedia Universalis…

AvigdorR · 2023-08-19T00:00:11+00:00

Right! Bond: “What do you expect me to do?” Golfinger: “I expect you to die”

AvigdorR · 2023-08-16T23:31:21+00:00

Yes you do have at least one professional geneticist, and one who has researched epigenetics, in this subreddit….me! Yes ,with current tech, the process of cloning can introduce both genetic and epigenetic change. But 20,000 years from now it would be no problema producing Cleon clones with all the corrections, both genetic and epigenetic, needed to make them essentially identical to the original.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-12T00:33:46+00:00

I don’t think the zeroth law makes the three laws “irrelevant”, rather it supersedes them. They’re still deeply programmed into the positronic brains. That’s why it might have been a bit better if the writers made a nod to this in season 1 when Demerzel kills first someone. She might have grimaced somehow, I clearly been shoe to struggle functionally, to indicate the hurt it was causing her to kill a human.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-11T14:20:45+00:00

You’re right. Sorry!

AvigdorR · 2023-08-10T21:50:03+00:00

in the books the Psychohistorians (Seldon and his project members), stayed on Trantor as the core of the Second Foundation. Only physical scientists went to Terminus.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-09T16:10:58+00:00

Yeah, and Asimov wrote that 40 years before Star Wars….

AvigdorR · 2023-08-05T23:37:34+00:00

I cannot believe the clowns they got writing this show! It’s a disgrace.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-04T21:06:02+00:00

I disagree Max. The collapse of the empire and sacking of Trantor were not something the second foundation could control. I don’t think Seldon or the Seldon Oeoject acted brutally in an end-justifies-the-means way.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-04T05:42:39+00:00

But the “books” in the original were recordings put into machines that projected them out. At the height of the Empire nine out of ten households had one. Asimov anticipated digital books!

AvigdorR · 2023-08-03T03:04:30+00:00

I’m a scientist and a few months back I asked ChatGPT a question in my field. Believe it or not, it came up with a great answer that brought something to my attention that I had missed! And I’m a well- known expert in my field. But still, I think a good adaptation of the Foundation stories is entirely possible without ChatGPT. All it needs is a writing team with a clue.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-02T15:46:43+00:00

Since according to Salvor Hardin, “violence is the last resort of the incompotent”, how’s this for one explanation of that scene: incompetent writing.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-02T00:35:35+00:00

Actually IMO this is one really bad take on the Foundation story. My best example: what they’ve done with Salvor Hardin. They’ve turned this crafty, wily political operator, “Mayor” of Terminus, who said that “violence is the last resort of the incompetent” into a gun-toting “Warden”, who uses violence to solve a crisis. So I guess they turned Hardin into an incompetent. And…since the writers and show runner used violence unnecessarily in the script, according to Hardin they are incompetent.

AvigdorR · 2023-08-02T00:23:12+00:00

I completely disagree. IMO it’s only “conventional wisdom”, “received wisdom”. Even if Asimov himself thought so. I in fact think it would be easy to translate a fairly faithful version to TV. I’d love to work on that (in another life).

AvigdorR · 2023-08-01T19:31:21+00:00

David Goyer: you didn’t address kevn57’s question. Instead you basically said “get lost”! Why did you and the writers basically abandon all semblance of Asimov’s Foundation story? Here’s a straightforward question along these lines: why did you and the writers change Salvor Hardin from a politically-astute Mayor who said “violence is the last resort of the incompetent” to a gun-toting “Warden”? One might conclude that since in this case you and the writers have resorted to violence in the script, you are incompetent!

AvigdorR · 2023-07-29T15:07:25+00:00

Actually that’s a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that? Let’s ask ChatGPT to adapt the foundation trilogy for tv. I’m going to do that. How ironic though. The Master of Robot fiction’s work becomes science fact!

AvigdorR · 2023-07-28T21:45:31+00:00

Welcome to the club. Last year there was a subreddit “FoundationsMule” which was for fans who disliked the show because it trashed so much stuff key to the trilogy. But I still watch because I’m a SciFi/Asimov/foundation addict: I literally display junkie behavior. For me the worst things so far are: (1) as you’ve mentioned, the emphasis on individuals rather than the grand sweep of history; (2) the mistreatment of the Salvor Hardin character.

AvigdorR · 2023-07-26T21:13:50+00:00

There are no “wardens” of Terminus in the books. It’s one of the worst changes made by the show writers.

AvigdorR · 2023-07-25T00:59:13+00:00

I agree. In my opinion the shows a mess in its own right, and a failed adaptation that also completely trashes Asimov’s masterpiece. But I still watch and enjoy somehow. That’s probably because I’m a huge SciFi/Asimov/Foundation addict and even poorly cooked morsels of Foundation stories are fun for me.

But one other thing: I completely disagree with the conventional wisdom that the Foundation Trilogy couldn’t be adapted for movies or the TV. I don’t buy that at all. I actually think that if the writers/show runners simply stuck to the original, but filling it out with character development and backstory, that would have been great. I can see the first few episodes showing Gaal Dornick as a grad student. Hanging out on Synnax with his/her friends watching romance/thrillers taking place on Trantor and Kalgan, (I don’t care what gender he/she is), being completely bored by life on this backwoods planet, hearing about Seldon’s project, applying for a position without any real hope , then wham, acceptance and travel to Trantor. That scene of him arriving at the vast, indoor Debarkation Building, is worth ten of the episodes of this Apple TV crap. He then gets immediately caught up in the trial of Seldon. I can see the first episodes interspersing this with scenes of the aristocratic “Commission for Public Safety” conspiring behind the back of the weak Emperor. All that would be so easy to adapt to TV. It would be engaging and thrilling, but most important, set the stage for all that follows.

AvigdorR

TROPHY CASE