THE PERIPHERAL - our stub contemplates the Jonathan Nolan/Lisa Joy show based on the book by William Gibson

All these future weirdos are great, although they kind of make me hate Wilf because his whole job seems to be hanging around looking emo while everyone else does crazy future shit. It was kind of hilarious how he just kind of hung back and watched while Flynne was having a massive matrix kung fu session with the two chop shop people.

I would have liked the future butchers run simulations of the fight which only they can see and then give up immediately based on the projected outcome while Flynn is cycling in a mortal kombat stance waiting for something to happen while saying, "whut's goin oannn y'alll? awr y'aalll gunna fahhyiiit ur whuuuut?"

I think Wilf hung back because if he gets stabbed he actually dies, Flynne just gets whomped back into the present and they have to make a new future peripheral for her

I mean, it makes sense, but it's also just unusual how passive his character is throughout most of the show, I sense there's going to be a big reveal about him and some secret powers.

Dude is passive, yes, but he remains an emotional center. I like his soulful puppy-dog eyes and the way his shirt and tie are the same fabric.

There are a lot of unpleasant things about the show but Wilf is not one of them.

I do not want to see him do a heel turn.

All these future weirdos are great, although they kind of make me hate Wilf because his whole job seems to be hanging around looking emo while everyone else does crazy future shit. It was kind of hilarious how he just kind of hung back and watched while Flynne was having a massive matrix kung fu session with the two chop shop people.

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Saturday, November 19, 2022 12:53 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Read the books. In Pheripheral he is this, in Agency you can feel him starting to evolve. We’ll see about book 3

(I haven’t seen any of this show and am not sure I need to)

this is about the show where Wilf is kind of an Alelita simp and is now a Flynne simp lol

I binged the first four episodes and kinda had a handle on what was happening in this show. But then I left two weeks go by before I watched eps 5 & 6 and apparently I retained nothing from the initiate binge because I have no idea what is happening in this show.

I feel what makes this show bad but digestibly bad vs the book which is presumably good (I couldn't make it past a few chapters) but indigestibly good is the complicated plot and boring protagonists are only there as a backdrop for other characters to do some increasingly hammy mustache-twirling. This last episode really amped it up in that department!

The florid dialoue between Lowbeer and her assistant and then Lowbeer and Zublov, was a wee bit overdone, like some kind of hammy verbal ballet. I'm enjoying this show all that said, if a little confused at times by the plot (I like they dont handhold the audience though I guess?).

And that whole "eat my damn roast beef it is delicious and you will like it" was stupid.

the roast beef is people

(I was thinking this but I do not believe it was actually people)

It was hot, the night we burned roast beef till it was the color of television…

i also left it too long to watch the last ep or two and can't remember what a koid or neoprim or whatever else named people are

Polts and kleps and sims, oh my!

If I was watching correctly they barely explained neoprims and koids not at all.

Not yet, no. Probably this week.

Neoprims seems to be like... luddites? Am I right?

The book is slow to kick off because Gibson does that for like 150 pages, introduces terms and names and gives you no explanation at all for any of them

I’m going to drop this show. Another gratuitous action sequence, more time spent on dull characters like Tommy and the assassin. Despite being the protagonist, Flynne doesn’t get to do much. And so many plot conveniences: why didn’t their monitoring drones catch the assassin waiting out? Why have a single dude escort the mom after last week’s attack? A rural clinic in drug country without security? Hell, a drug lord didn’t have at least one goon in the house with the prisoner and his wife?

I recall reading press before the show that Gibson had a lot of support for the adaptation, loved it, etc., but you gotta figure that’s just "getting behind the product”; I can’t imagine him watching this and thinking, “Yes, this gets to the essence of my novel." I guess even Stephen King has to wait a few years before saying, "this sucked" re: adaptations.

The beat-em-up sim was utterly pointless but idk otherwise it was the same show it's been: inscrutable characters who know more than we do, blank slates who know less than we do, a ~~mystery~~, big statues.

I can’t even believe people made it to ep whatever— after the first three, we stopped watching. Utterly stupid, and we like stupid tv shows in this house.

Yeah I think I made it to ep 3

I'm definitely not loving it. It is making me want to re-read the book, though, from a "I remember liking this...maybe I should re-check my conclusions" perspective.

would be up for a list of stupid tv recommendations from tables (or anyone else)

would be up for a list of stupid tv recommendations from tables (or anyone else)

Ever watched Banshee? It's streaming through HBO Max now. (CW: a whole fuckin' lot of blood. Also some incest.)

another HBO Max show we love that is very stupid is Wellington Paranormal, which is about two idiot cops investigating paranormal events in New Zealand. horrible dad jokes and that kind of thing.

as i’ve gotten older, i’ve discovered that the 25 minute sitcom is one if my preferred viewing lengths/ experiences. funny enough, one of my other favorites is the long, drawn-out, molasses pacing of many art films. feathers or stones, i guess.

wellington paranormal is the best!

ty will check out

Having watched the season finale I am going to wall off this stub and go back to the one in which only the book exists.

I kinda checked out of this series, it threw loads of interesting ideas at me at the start and I feel it petered out a bit, too much of the 'kill all the level bosses' type stuff. Worth reading the book tho??

Evidently had already been lost/not paying attention, but totally didn't realise that last week's was the final episode?! Quite enjoyed the first four or five, but then it just squandered any promise or momentum it had.

Worth reading the book tho??

The book has a beginning, middle, and an end, which already puts it well ahead of the series. Plus, if you've watched some, you won't be as confused by Gibson's drop-you-in-cold style.

I finished the book last week and quite enjoyed it, though the climax is a bit lackluster (won't spoil why). I found the writing took a moment to get used to, as well: Gibson changed his to terse, subject-dropping sentences ala James Ellroy. For example, rather than writing "Flynne woke up, walked over to the computer and turned it on," it's now "Flynne woke up. Walked to the computer, turned it on". (I haven't read the Blue Ant trilogy, so maybe that change predates The Peripheral.)

He’s always had a taste for the hard-boiled

i notice there's a TV company called Blue Ant now, caught their logo on the end of something

One more episode so I’ll finish it but this hasn’t seemed bad-bad to me, just aggressively mediocre.

Thought the Blue Ant books had many more interesting ideas of the near-future than these two, and probably better for TV… but they wouldn’t require a massive CGI budget so less likely to get a green light.

I enjoyed this? I thought visually the wordbuilding looked awesome. Wasnt massively invested in Flynne's family and they were way too sketchy explaining their backstory for too long, but yeah it was fine to me. Not a huge amount ended up happening but re the book's "beginning, middle and end" - cmon this is a 1st season. Why does everyone expect everything to happen all at once these days.

There are some dumb holes - the haptics are so strong Flynn's brother almost killed a guy because of a slight against someone else 15 years ago, they're constantly aware of each other... but when one dies violently they don't know unless they check (also yeah, one guard when they know someone wants them dead enough to send a super assassin).

maybe the haptics need an upgrade after 15 years

Watched all of it over the past week here. Now I haven't read the book yet (don't give me grief, I can't get to everything), but while parts of it were annoying/frustrating, I kinda appreciated it as an ominous mood piece at its best (the credits music helped in that regard). The fact that the local US crime lord guy was like an elevated Ben Gazzara from Road House did amuse me a bit, but also meant I couldn't entirely take that whole arc seriously; I kept waiting for him to throw a full pool party. I guess I'm also aware of enough general tropes and used to imaginative fiction in general that whatever I didn't quite catch or understand as it went I handwaved.

Disappointing ending - instead of trying to fight back against the silo attack I'll just... make one of my two friends in the world execute me and let my mother think I'm dead for the last week of her life?

Given that she'll be walking around future London in the same body, I don't know if that's a particularly effective camouflage from the RI.

We didn't actually see her get shot so....

the ending was so puzzling and vague as to what's going on it was probably intended to be a big teaser for the next season but I just found it dissatisfying

I felt like it was meant to be vague in case there is no Second Season

also a strong possibility!

I had to concentrate REALLY hard to get what was happening in that last ep!
- she realises she and her stub are for the chop
- her solution is to use some kind of portal to... make a new stub and jump into it?
- leave old body in initial stub, get shot to throw off Cherise and her goons
- but wait how does all this work if her body's dead, what is piloting the body in the new stub halp?!

Addendum: is it the new stub's version of herself? Oh god this is convoluted.

it's kind of a mess

there isn't stub-hopping, at least not in the book. the only thing that they could really do is contact a completely different Flynne earlier in the timeline and explain the whole thing to a different version of her

This is the kind of bullshit you get when you get the Westworld people involved. Next season we'll get a whole bunch of "but what about the peripheral's emotions?" crap, probably.