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

aren’t those friends of Chloe Grace Moretz’s brother going to get bored of just hanging around the campfire with their guns cocked all day and night, waiting for something to happen?

watched first episode, exactly the vibe I want from a Gibson adaptation

xp wait until you find out how deployed troops spend most of their time! also, they’re kind of rich now

that eye-shit in ep 1 was full skeleton-leaving-my body NOPE

Had to look away from that and there have been a bunch of things I've watched lately (Mr. Robot, Devs) with finger torture/breakage I couldn't watch. Getting soft in my old age.

watched the first three episodes, some very dumb moments (these badass mercenaries are going to leave a coffee cup on top of their invisible car and leave the invisible car parked on a road? really?) but the visual world building is 100% and it's just fun to watch.

also like the idea that in the future eye surgery involves getting a good grip on the eyeball and using it to yank the optic nerve out, feels like that might cause some issues with the new eye

that was the peripheral getting the stolen eye implanted and it’s basically a remote control (apparently partly biological) robot

they still removed the eye from a human being... I'm no doctor but removing someone's kidney with an ice cream scoop and then jamming into an android's abdomen probably wouldn't result in a functioning kidney?

they’ve got nanobots

so use the nanobots to open the lock

it’s called plot ffs

in other news

If this had occurred to me as another element of the jackpot, I ultimately wouldn’t have used it. 🙄https://t.co/L0G2vBrhF7

— William Gibson (@GreatDismal) October 30, 2022

Pete Townshend voice: let nanobots to open the lock / to your heart

I mean, you could argue why it’s even necessary to have a real eyeball when scanning technology, etc would let you get there, but I’d buy that extreme transplant into a bio-surrogate tech is slightly ahead of detecting real eye in surrogate host detection, in the cat and mouse game of fraud detection but overall it’s a dumb plot tangent to nitpick

I’ve been thinking about the omission of progressions that’s in the novel, where the initial telepresence is in what seems like a more traditional hovering drone, makes sense. Viewers seeing a completely immersive sequence in what is basically a modern DJI quadcopter… ok? We’re probably there, or close enough that it’s no discernibly different on screen. Near-future fic gone boring, as WG keeps admitting

I just watched the first two episodes. then watched an old ep of Community, which had this RV-based adventure: "Space Elder Abed, can you reach backward with your mind and save our species?"

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/community-sitcom/images/9/98/6x10_Abed_and_Frankie.jpg

Is it going to be about a giant hand?

I’ve been thinking about the omission of progressions that’s in the novel, where the initial telepresence is in what seems like a more traditional hovering drone

So in ep 2 or 3 someone comments about how Aelita was kind of their in? The equivalent of the drone you mention I guess? Thats the bit I'm fuzzy on - we're shown this world via the VR headset, so how did Burton end up with it, was Aelita pretending to be the south american VR company guys?

yeah

they’ve mentioned their meddling in passing, but people in the future (not ours) have a fair amount of knowledge from surviving documentation, but every time they change something the stub diverts further from their possible future. so they either create a dummy company or send someone a winning lottery number or whatever when they want to interact with the Flynnes of the world

they’re kind of slow-burning the plot as far as explaining who the villains are in the London timeframe and why they’re bad but I’m sure we’ll get there

lol at how Flynn has heard the name Aelita maybe twice verbally but somehow knows how to spell it when doing her Altavista searches

sorry “Flynne”

Were the southern drawls a plot point in the Gibson book? It comes across as both ornamental but also non-negotiably mandatory in the show.

Gibson required at least 50% of the cast should sound like him so yeah

Big auteurist Protazanov/silent Soviet film fan community in North Carolina irrc.

Is this VR companion to the old bad guy supposed to look AI generated? Cause she sure as hell does.

https://imgur.com/a/BSXwZm6

https://imgur.com/a/BSXwZm6

loved the juxtaposition of the sleeping mask with the VR googles. sleep is the original VR

the local business/drug kingpin’s VR thing is supposed to look kind of rudimentary and generated. his avatar and everything in there looked the same, kind of a universal blur filter

yep, it's great. I love the look of this.

I mentioned that scene looking intentionally painterly/weird too but it mustve been on the other thread.

I was a little disappointed by the "reveal" of the components of the Jackpot. It was better as a phantom terror than when they literally broke it down into parts. Especially when one of the elements was as bland as nuclear terrorism. I mean, how unimaginative.

Book handled it better... just kinda "was everything, not one thing"

oh fuck having put the book down, cos i got bored, i realise i never got to the jackpot reveal. dammit. maybe i’ll push thru after all.

I liked the way this episode didn't force the plot forward, just people doing stuff, bit of a reveal or two. Also appreciated how they didn't even attempt to explain the intertemporal hacker battle (who was that guy anyway?).

Black female bad guy bee assassination scene felt REAL dumb

Lol, I found it pretty entertaining as OTT diabolical bad guy stuff

I kind of wish they’d left the Jackpot thing fuzzier, too. Throwing specific events in really isn’t necessary right now, I’d think, after the last few years demonstrating how emergent events can go sideways

execution by bee scene was quite effective in telling you exactly who this character is

there are two kinds of people in the world

those who execute people with bees and those who are executed by bees

what was the point of flynne being present for the eye thing? couldn’t aelita say “hey, this is going to be pretty intense, log off for a few hours”?

there are two kinds of people in the world

― TWELVE Michelob stars?!? (seandalai), Sunday, November 6, 2022 6:38 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

those who execute people with bees and those who are executed by bees

― Tracer Hand

Type A personalities

And

Type Bee personalities

I liked the way this episode didn't force the plot forward, just people doing stuff, bit of a reveal or two. Also appreciated how they didn't even attempt to explain the intertemporal hacker battle (who was that guy anyway?).

― TWELVE Michelob stars?!? (seandalai), Sunday, 6 November 2022 18:46 (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink/

This week kind of the same, but replace unexplained hacker battle with unexplained martial arts skills (maybe peripherals come with preinstalled fighting software?)

Presumably she’s spent years playing VR-ish martial arts fighting games and was able to adapt that to peripheral-existence. A good fight scene - as was the bridge scene.

This show is dumb as fuck

yeah it started out on a good note but this last episode is just dumb as shit, why are they wasting half the episode on this obnoxious hit man bullshit it's trash

This sounds intriguing but I can’t trust it with my time after Westworld

It's simultaneously more approachable than Westworld or Expanse, whilst having even more unnecessarily convoluted lore behind it than those productions.

Feels more warmly human, I guess. Of these shows I think I like Peripheral better, if only because it has some likable people in it. I guess I am a softy.

One can root for Flynne, Wilf, or Burton in a way you never quite could for Dolores, Bernard, or Maeve.

Probably the show will find a way to kick me in the emotional nads, now that I have said that. It's 2022; I should know by now that we don't get heartwarming entertainment anymore.

Expanse had nothing but likable people!

Purple bass face

So many of the changes from the novel—Cherise, Wilf as a fixer, Pickett as a Stephen King baddie rather than a Justified one—seem primarily to re-center this as an action thriller. But it’s not as though Gibson’s work is lacking in action! It just tends to be more low-key, dismissed in a few sentences. I began the novel after the second episode and it’s really made me think less of the show, though I still do like elements. I feel as though I know exactly where this is going, though: peripheral gun-fu fights that culminate in Flynne et al preventing the nuke/jackpot in their stub in traditional action movie style.

Expanse had nothing but likable people!

― dan selzer, Sunday, November 13, 2022 8:27 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Marco had a certain charisma but was definitely not likable imo

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.

- but wait how does all this work if her body's dead, what is piloting the body in the new stub halp?!

I guess the assumption is that her consciousness can live forever in the future in her robot - but they spent two episodes earlier talking about how the guy with no legs would have to be in a medically induced coma forever to do that.

I still maintain that they ran out of Westworld ideas after two seasons and just started reusing other plot scraps they had laying around. There's an entire season that seemed more like a spinoff of Person of Interest

I think the idea is:
- Create a new stub that branches off the old stub
- New Flynne has the same memories as Old Flynne up to the branching point, so she generally knows what's up
- Old Flynne gets shot, is dead
- Sharice realises there's no point blowing up the old stub because Old Flynne is dead (and the old stub still has value for the RI). Sharice knows there is a new stub with a New Flynne but doesn't know where it is so can't mess with it.

that's the best I can do at least, may be totally wrong

ooh a stub off a stub, that’s a wrinkle (in time and space)

I think the now-destroyed stub map may have had one of those

I'm still going with old Flynne isn't actually dead. It's nearly an unbreakable TV rule that an implied death with no body will be a fake out.

they sent back the files to 3D print a peripheral in 2032 maybe and that's what got shot?

it wasn't a stub of her stub, she started the new one before her friend got Lt. Danned (2028 IIRC)

NONE OF THIS IS HELPING lol

none of it is worth watching either, tbf

did you ever find out why the roads are glossy and transparent in the future?

Isn't a lot of that just AR sort of stuff?

So I'm reading the book. About 10% of the plot has been translated to the TV show but so much is different - does the show cover any later books in this series?

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

About 95% of the way through the book they finally explain what e.g. 'Homes' means that they have been using throughout - obv you can guess but it's kind of lol he then bothers to set it out.

There's only been one more (Agency) in the series, it's not touched at all in the show (and wouldn't make much sense as season 2 with the way they handled things).

If nothing else, this show is kind of great for its costuming -- future fashion that actually looks like fashion.

Renewed:

https://gizmodo.com/prime-video-peripheral-s2-chloe-grace-moretz-sci-fi-1850094151

Glad they renewed. Enjoyed season 1 and plenty more to explore.

...then again:

https://deadline.com/2023/08/the-peripheral-canceled-unrenewed-season-2-strikes-amazon-1235454772

In retrospect, perhaps it's for the best.

now if they would just cancel the jackpot as well...