[pkscout]

Well, no spoilers yet. I just sat down to watch it, and the ABC affiliate here apparently decided not to transmit to dialog channel or something. The commercials are fine, but there is no dialog. I tried watching with closed captioning and gave up.

Off to find an alternative source to watch it.

 

[ClutchBrake]

It was craptastically lame.

 

[pkscout]

Well, maybe having no audio is an improvement then. 39 minutes until I know for sure.

 

[LlamaLarry]

Mine recorded something, but twas not Masters of Science Fiction. Was there some sort of sporting event in the DC Metro area that ran long?

 

[UTV2TiVo]

Ran fine out here on the west coast...

The story had some problems but the feed (I watched it OTA in HD) was fine.

 

[dswallow]

It was forgettable, though better than the first episode.

I think they need to just apologize to Stephen Hawking and remove his voiceover as well; it only detracts further from the already-lame experience, sinceso far it's not added anything of interest at all to or about the story.

 

[UTV2TiVo]

Yeah, I also had a very hard time understanding the computer voiced voiceover. I mean I know that's how he has to speak but could they clean it up a little for us?

 

[gchance]

Yeah, I also had a very hard time understanding the computer voiced voiceover. I mean I know that's how he has to speak but could they clean it up a little for us?

It's very identifiable as Stephen Hawking. The fact that it's old (I think it was state of the art in the late 80s) makes it more identifiable as him.

Seriously, where have you ever heard that "flavor" of speech synthesis before. It's better than WOPR, probably on the level of Amiga synthesis, but not as good as current technology.

It does nothing to improve the show though.

Greg

 

[pkscout]

OK, all done. Yup, pretty non-memorable. Marginally better than the first one. I guess we know why they didn't green light this for a longer run.

 

[Church AV Guy]

Isn't anyone going to comment at least that Cigarette Smoking Man has managed to become president? Was that his goal al the time?

Terry O'Quinn is always interesting to watch. The wife saw him for a second while passing through the room and said, "What happened to his scar?" You've got to love it when that happens.

The story was, um, was there a story? The ability to "denature" radioactive substances could be really useful for nuclear waste.

Elisabeth Röhm was looking good. I haven't seen her for long while, and she looked pretty familiar, but I couldn't place her until--IMDB to the rescue.

 

[ClutchBrake]

Well, if that was better than the first one I'm gonna go ahead and delete the first one. And the SP.

Thanks.

 

[acvthree]

It's very identifiable as Stephen Hawking. The fact that it's old (I think it was state of the art in the late 80s) makes it more identifiable as him.

Seriously, where have you ever heard that "flavor" of speech synthesis before. It's better than WOPR, probably on the level of Amiga synthesis, but not as good as current technology.

It does nothing to improve the show though.

Greg

DECtalk.

Pretty amazing for the time. It would run in a very tiny amount of memory on a very low power processor (a portable unit ran on a 9V battery). It actually modeled the human voice in realtime (adult male, adult female and child). It also supported writen Spanish.

Al

 

[mattack]

I thought both this one AND the first episode were "pretty decent". Not great, not horrible.

Though I admit I watched both of them while walking on the treadmill and I tend to like "not complete fluff but not INCREDIBLY deep" stories for that... Though on occassion I did watch Studio 60 that way, which is comparatively deep (at least for the amount of dialog you have to process in a given time.. while trying to stay steady on a treadmill at the same time).

I might have thought they were WAY slower if I tried watching them alone. Both had huge predictable moments though.

 

[Fl_Gulfer]

Well we liked it at my house, but we have a collective IQ of -270

 

[7thton]

I thought that episode was pretty good until the lame ending. But, much better than the first ep.

 

[latrobe7]

It was craptastically lame.

I have to agree. I liked the first half or so, but then it just got so sappy and lame. And they ripped off the aliens from Cocoon.

 

[dianebrat]

Interesting replies,

I'm one of those folks, I liked the first episode better, more human drama, fewer all-powerful aliens

Diane

 

[pkscout]

Interesting replies,

I'm one of those folks, I liked the first episode better, more human drama, fewer all-powerful aliens

Diane

True, but the first episode literally wasn't science fiction at all except that it was set in the future where there had been an apocalypse. Once that premise was set there was nothing science fiction about it. The psychology was pretty basic and non-indicative of anything science fictiony (IMHO).

Really it was psycho-fiction, not science fiction. You could have removed the future and the apocalypse and replaced it with a World War II general or something and had the same effect.

 

[sieglinde]

I remember a movie that was this exact same thing. The aliens take away the nukes and the Pentagon (is the bad guys in this movie) works to conteract it. It was a black and white movie. That is all I remember about it.

Howard Fast was the writer of the short story this was based on but even looking in imdb.com I did not find he had any connection with the old movie.

 

[ElJay]

Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!