Extreme Video Edition!
What to watch Fall 2016?
UPDATE (9/30/2016):
This is an update of an old post about watching genre TV on your phone or tablet using apps! The original post is listed below after the update for your information. Enjoy!
Summer 2015 saw the end of 2 mainstays: Falling Skies (TNT) and Defiance (SyFy). Falling Skies, by Noah Wyle, was always top notch. I'm gonna miss it! Librarians ain't gonna cut it. BTW, Falling Skies started the "After Show" tradition that Walking Dead is so famous for now. Will Wheaton hosted the Falling Skies After Show for 2 seasons and then it fizzled out IDK why. I like Chris Hardwick's After Show for Walking Dead, but I miss Will Wheaton! Also, Defiance started putting Comic Book stories on TV way before Walking Dead did.
So, when Summer 2016 rolled around, I was wondering if it was gonna be a flop. Well, enter The Last Ship (TNT) and Dark Matter (SyFy). Both of these series started in prior Summers but escaped my notice. So, it was time for binge watching to catch up. All I have to say is: SyFy finally has some SciFi back on air! Oh, The Last Ship isn't quite a genre show (SciFi-Fantasy-Horror) but it's top notch! Eric Dane is great as the commander of the Nathan James and he's a great Producer too. He, like Noah Wyle, also started out on a prime time medical soap opera. Noah started out on ER and Eric started out on Grey's Anatomy. Both are fine shows and both are fine actors, producers, writers and directors!
So, what am I watching now during the Fall 2016 season? Here you go:
Sundays Walking Dead AMC
Mondays Timeless NBC
Tuesdays Marvel Agents of Shield ABC
Tuesdays Aftermath SyFy
Wednesdays Frequency theCW
Thursdays Big Bang Theory CBS
Thursdays Supernatural theCW
Fridays (waiting for Reign theCW)
Fridays (waiting for Vikings History)
Fridays (waiting for Last Kingdom BBCA)
Saturdays Star Wars Rebels DisneyXD
I enjoyed all these shows last year except for some new comers: Timeless, Aftermath, Star Wars Rebels, Frequency. Unfortunately, Timeless is a bit too predicatbale. However, Aftermath is good SciFi on SyFy again! Thank you SyFy channel. I missed good SciFi on SyFy ever since Babylon5, Star Gate (SG1 and Atlantis) and BattleStar Gallactica ended! Star Wars Rebels I discovered and binged on last Summer. It's very much like the original Star Wars movies. It has great characters and writers. I recommend it, even though it's animated. Maybe since it's animated, it has some great graphics! I wanted to catch up to this season, as one of my fave SciFi writers of all time, Timothy Zahn, is joining the writing team and contributing his Grand Admiral Thrawn for good measure! Frequency is a new take on the 2000 movie classic. You have to see it to appreciate it. Here's a cool podcast about it. So, enough said!
BTW, Reign, Vikings and The Last Kingdom aren't really genre shows, but I highly recommend them if you are into historical fiction. In fact, get all the Bernard Cornwell novels you can, and read up on The Last Kingdom yourself!
ORIGINAL POST (9/30/2014):
OK, I have to admit it, I've probably been a massive media maven since birth! I probably had the first VCR on the block! I remember recording every episode of ST:TNG starting with the very first episode September 1987! You couldn't do that with The Original Series in the 1960s. You had to watch everything live back then, they hadn't even invented reruns yet.
This is an update of an old post about watching genre TV on your phone or tablet using apps! The original post is listed below after the update for your information. Enjoy!
Summer 2015 saw the end of 2 mainstays: Falling Skies (TNT) and Defiance (SyFy). Falling Skies, by Noah Wyle, was always top notch. I'm gonna miss it! Librarians ain't gonna cut it. BTW, Falling Skies started the "After Show" tradition that Walking Dead is so famous for now. Will Wheaton hosted the Falling Skies After Show for 2 seasons and then it fizzled out IDK why. I like Chris Hardwick's After Show for Walking Dead, but I miss Will Wheaton! Also, Defiance started putting Comic Book stories on TV way before Walking Dead did.
So, when Summer 2016 rolled around, I was wondering if it was gonna be a flop. Well, enter The Last Ship (TNT) and Dark Matter (SyFy). Both of these series started in prior Summers but escaped my notice. So, it was time for binge watching to catch up. All I have to say is: SyFy finally has some SciFi back on air! Oh, The Last Ship isn't quite a genre show (SciFi-Fantasy-Horror) but it's top notch! Eric Dane is great as the commander of the Nathan James and he's a great Producer too. He, like Noah Wyle, also started out on a prime time medical soap opera. Noah started out on ER and Eric started out on Grey's Anatomy. Both are fine shows and both are fine actors, producers, writers and directors!
So, what am I watching now during the Fall 2016 season? Here you go:
Fridays (waiting for Reign theCW)
I enjoyed all these shows last year except for some new comers: Timeless, Aftermath, Star Wars Rebels, Frequency. Unfortunately, Timeless is a bit too predicatbale. However, Aftermath is good SciFi on SyFy again! Thank you SyFy channel. I missed good SciFi on SyFy ever since Babylon5, Star Gate (SG1 and Atlantis) and BattleStar Gallactica ended! Star Wars Rebels I discovered and binged on last Summer. It's very much like the original Star Wars movies. It has great characters and writers. I recommend it, even though it's animated. Maybe since it's animated, it has some great graphics! I wanted to catch up to this season, as one of my fave SciFi writers of all time, Timothy Zahn, is joining the writing team and contributing his Grand Admiral Thrawn for good measure! Frequency is a new take on the 2000 movie classic. You have to see it to appreciate it. Here's a cool podcast about it. So, enough said!
BTW, Reign, Vikings and The Last Kingdom aren't really genre shows, but I highly recommend them if you are into historical fiction. In fact, get all the Bernard Cornwell novels you can, and read up on The Last Kingdom yourself!
ORIGINAL POST (9/30/2014):
OK, I have to admit it, I've probably been a massive media maven since birth! I probably had the first VCR on the block! I remember recording every episode of ST:TNG starting with the very first episode September 1987! You couldn't do that with The Original Series in the 1960s. You had to watch everything live back then, they hadn't even invented reruns yet.
I've used them all: VCRs, DVRs and even a DVDR for recording directly to DVD instead of VHS tape. DVDRs are great for converting VHS tapes to DVDs too. I even use my DVDR to make mp4s for YouTube of old VHS video.
Anyway, this post is supposed to be an update to this post. That was back in July of 2012. My arguement then was that the best way to watch your fave SciFi TV shows (old and new) was via online streaming to you PC, tablet of cellphone ie: not on TV! You could use NetFlix, Hulu or Amazon Prime with your device of choice. I used my WiFi Kindle Fire HD 7" with Amazon Prime.
Don't forget your fave webseries! Many of mine a Star Trek related like ST:Continues, ST:Phase2 and ST:Renegades. BTW, ST:Axanar is a new series that looks really promising! Webseries such as these are great to watch on your tablet or cellphone using an App called YouTube Downloader (not to be confused with the FireFox add-on) whereby you can download the next episode of your fave webseries from YouTube when you are near a WiFi Hot Spot and watch it whenever and wherever you want. Other webseries on YouTube you may want to look for are: HISHE, TED, Ignite, ViHart, Kahn Academy, Geek & Sundry, Table Top, Nerdist!
BTW, it's such a shame that the SyFy Channel is no longer the SiFi Channel! Now we get to watch WWF on SyFy, TNG on BBCA and FireFly on History Channel?
So, here's what's new. Now, most TV channels have an App. So, download the App for the channel that runs your fave series and watch it on the road! You're no longer relegated to just the YouTube Downloader app. So, you have a lot more choices for content. You do need WiFi or 4G. BTW, in a pinch, you could always setup a WiFi hot spot on your cellphone! I'm using my WiFi Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" now.
FYI: I refuse to get a tablet with 4G. Why pay extra for such hardware when WiFi Hot Spots are so prevalent now? Remember the early days of the iPhone and iPad? That's Steve Job's legacy. You had to get 2 devices each with it's own data plan. So, you pay Apple twice as much as should be necessary. That was the business model that made Jobs rich! Ever hear of a phablet? It's a large cellphone with apps or a small tablet with cellphone capability. Let's cut to the chase: I want a large tablet (like this) with cell access! That's one device with one data plan, done!
Note, TV seasons used to be Fall-Spring with repeats in the Summer. Some series went Winter-Summer. Maybe they'd break for XMas or Easter. Maybe you'd get a Halloween or Thanksgiving special and that was it! Now you get 1/2 season shows in the Fall and Spring with 12-13 episodes per calendar season like Supernatural. Some shows are only one calendar season like Vikings, Defiance, Falling Skies and Last Ship!
So, what follows are my genre related picks for 2014 to give you examples of this new way of keeping up with your fave shows:
WINTER 2014:
APP: PBS
SHOW: Downton
SPRING 2014:
APP: History
SHOW: Vikings
SUMMER 2014:
APP: TNT
SHOW: Falling Skies
APP: TNT
SHOW: Last Ship
APP: TNT
SHOW: Legends
APP: SyFy (not for streaming - extra content)
SHOW: Defiance
SHOW: Dominion
FALL 2014:
APP: AMC
SHOW: Walking Dead
APP: CBS
SHOW: Big Bang Theory
APP: ABC
SHOW: Marvel
APP: ABC
SHOW: Forever
APP: CW
SHOW: Supernatural
APP: CW
SHOW: Flash
APP: CW
SHOW: Reign
APP: BBCA (no app, sorry)
SHOW: Dr. Who
NOTE ON LEGENDS:
I was really looking forward to Sean Bean in Legends but I was disappointed. His is the only good character. They don't really flesh out the other characters and the other actors don't have much to do. But you gotta love Sean in LOTR and an old BBC series called Sharpe based on the Bernard Cornwell novels!
NOTE ON DOMINION:
Dominion was another diappointment! I love Anthony Head from Buffy and BBCA's Merlin. However, the plot was slow and Head was not the main character. He couldn't carry the whole show on his shoulders all by himself, I'm afraid.
NOTE ON FOREVER:
By contrast, I'm really liking Ioan Gruffudd in Forever! All the characters are nicely fleshed out and work well together. I remember the first season of ST:TNG. The actors were so stiff and fake! I'm a big fan of Ioan since the film Titanic and an old BBC series called HornBlower based on the C.S. Forrester novels. BTW, in a similar vein, I also love what they did with the Patrick O'Brien novels in the movie Master and Commander!
Now go enjoy some of your own Extreme Video Streaming adventures!
Well, that's all folks,
