PureBasic Forums - English

I usually don't watch much TV, especially TV series. No time.

But yesterday, on my flight back from Sri Lanka to Germany,
I discovered a very interesting TV series I didn't know before: Mr. Robot

- English Wikipedia: Mr. Robot (TV series)
- German Wikipedia: Mr. Robot (Fernsehserie)

- Website: Mr. Robot
- IMDB: Mr. Robot (TV series)
- YouTube Channel: Mr. Robot

I think computer freaks may like it, and just found out it's included in Amazon Prime (here in Germany anyway).
Watched the first 5 or 6 episodes of Season 1 on the flight, and I think it is very interesting...

A friend of mine told me to watch it because I'm a coder, but I just don't have time. He says it's excellent. Now that you've said it's good, I might have to make the time.

Spoiler Alert: They start using soap opera writing in the second season that makes it boring and all the tech stuff more or less goes away with a mention of file systems sometimes. This is what most TV series(CSI *, big bang theory, heros etc) do.

I agree though it is a breath of fresh air.

Season 1 trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIBiJ_SzJTA
8.8/10 @ IMDb and 98% @ Rotten Tomatoes, can't be too bad!

Mr. Robot(MR) is way darker than Breaking Bad(BB) and equally entertaining.
BB describes society manipulated by illicit drug money.
MR describes society manipulated by illicit hacking.
BB's tech was chemistry.
MR's tech is hacking(network intrusion/social profiling/electronics).

I have downloaded the first episode and am trying to find a spare hour to watch it, lol
In the meantime I keep reading fascinating articles about it

http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2 ... -internet/

In the same registery you have : Humans...

skywalk wrote:Mr. Robot(MR) is way darker than Breaking Bad(BB) and equally entertaining.
BB describes society manipulated by illicit drug money.
MR describes society manipulated by illicit hacking.
BB's tech was chemistry.
MR's tech is hacking(network intrusion/social profiling/electronics).

At least as dark as BB was, it never tried to cast a positive light on drug use. In fact, it showed the worst side of it.

On the other hand, MR glorifies drug use and gives it a positive spin, almost to the point of promoting it. That's why I quit watching it.

I don't agree MR promotes drug use. It does show characters using them like Mad Men characters smoked and drank whiskey. Without giving away plots, the drug users are not admirable.

skywalk wrote:I don't agree MR promotes drug use. It does show characters using them like Mad Men characters smoked and drank whiskey. Without giving away plots, the drug users are not admirable.

The main character, Eliot uses them regularly, and talks about how he's careful so it wasn't dangerous, etc., and that's a load of bull.

maybe given the counterculture/anarchy/hacker/fringe aspect it would be unrealistic if there was zero drugs. And half of Silicon Valley are on modafinil, lol, and those that aren't drink way too much Red Bull / Monster

Like I said, don't want to give away the plot, but Elliot is a high functioning schizophrenic. You cannot take his drug use as admirable or logical.

The series is bringing in the soap opera writing already which has killed so many shows. Anyone want to watch one plot-point for one week to a month in an effort to span the series more seasons?

Also the series has made the classic average-joe-perception mistake regarding hacking and reverse engineering. You're not going to take down a super-power economy without taking down large-scale infrastructure inside a couple of months, and for that you need an army of insiders(because of policies, subnets, compartmentalization etc..) and some fast-tracked zero-days to make such logistics possible. There is a reason you can retire off Google Chrome bugs; It's expensive to attack even for exceptional talent. Most people even inside engineering departments can't reverse-engineer..

In this show an insider crashed singular infrastructure and controlled population-persuasion with precision and low margin of dynamic-behavior. Basically all the stuff economists and marketers have been trying to do for millenniums with staggering rate of failure.

The irony is "the invisible hand" is mentioned many times. I doubt it's an Adam Smith reference either.

Halt and Catch Fire is also very interesting.

Silicon Valley in the 80's... where the world-wide computer revolution begun.
30 years later, the world is completely different. Computers everywhere,
and everything+everybody connected.

In this series you see many C64, XT's, etc. to run businesses...

Available at Amazon Prime.

I've watched the first two episodes of Mr. Robot now and I must say that I became very tired. The voice of the main actor is so damn slow and covers 90% of the whole time. No energy anywhere, even the other actors are slow as snails. The choice of background music doesn't help either. Often the background is just quiet for long times. That is also what I dislike in German TV series and movies - I can't stand that silence. I watch TV to have no silence. Silence makes me think about society

Keya wrote:maybe given the counterculture/anarchy/hacker/fringe aspect it would be unrealistic if there was zero drugs.

I don't really agree with this and even if, why should a TV series be realistic everywhere? I mean it also has some teaching aspects, because all the people watching it will see the same version of a reality and even if you don't really know it, you will somehow believe parts of it and take them serious. You can't watch/hear/sense something and think your life has not even changed a little bit.

I also don't think Mr. Robot is realistic. Who sits down all night making plans to find someone's social media account passwords? Also I think social anxiety goes hand in hand with not leaving the home nor calling someone to ask some security questions. This guy however, is more outside than at home and calls strangers, talks to them like he never did anything else, etc. etc..