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EFFORTPOST Extremely long reply to: I've rewatched all of star trek multiple times over the past few weeks. What should I watch now?

[EDIT: I'm adding shows as people suggest them but sticking to ones I've actually seen and can vouch for.]

Number one pick: Space Above and Beyond. It's largely about WW2 (they will mention during the show stuff like this "hey this is like Guadalcanal") and Vietnam but told as sci-fi which gives them the opportunity to open it up to other stories. Made by Morgan & Wong, the guys who did all the really good parts of the X-Files. Hence the nerd in "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" (best episode of tv ever) wearing this t-shirt.

Probably the most underrated TV show of all time. It's not just the same stock war movie characters you've seen since the 1940s, there's interesting stuff going on. Much of it was very directly ripped off for Battlestar Galactica. Canceled after one season in a pretty epic ending.

You may have seen me post my crippled brother Col. McQueen describe how I feel about slumming it with you tards:

Other sci-fi shows from that era that you may have overlooked (at least I did). I ignored these at the time because Trek had my expectations too high, but they're quite watchable:

  • Stargate SG-1 - Doesn't take itself as seriously as Star Trek but in a good way. It's fun. The problem is you've got to watch the episodes in order because you have to actually know the lore.

  • Total Recall 2070 - Blade Runner turned into a TV show, except they couldn't get the rights to Blade Runner so they bought another Philip Peepee property. Very underrated. Maybe the closest to a Star Trek show on this list.

  • Battlestar Galactica - As I said earlier, ripped off a lot from SAAB. It was kind of a breath of fresh air at the time as it was a little bit more real and post-9-11 than the slop we'd been served before. Goes off the rails toward the end because the writers had no idea what to do. Stop watching when you get to a plot twist that's just too much for you.

  • Earth: Final Conflict - I've only seen maybe 15 episodes but it's got some interesting stuff going on. The best depiction I've ever seen of how an alien invasion would really work.

  • The Outer Limits (1990s) - Surprisingly really good, actually better than the original probably. I totally missed this back when it was on. I guess it wasn't broadcast here.

  • Max Headroom - Late 1980s cyberpunk show. Pretty good. To me one of the most interesting things about sci-fi is what it says about the time when it was made. It's very interesting for that. That era when people involved with computers understood the internet was coming soon and the general public had a vague idea that it was.

  • Farscape - I've seen scattered episodes and I'm ambivalent. I do not like the puppet aliens. There's a reason why in Star Trek the aliens are all just people with ridges on their forehead or funny hats. But there's a few episodes of this I got sucked into and really liked. I intend to watch more.

Older TV shows that must be watched (that aren't completely obvious):

  • The Rockford Files - A couple weeks ago I was talking to this random old boomer on the train and I was like "Man, how about the Rockford Files." And he's like "James Garner amirite." And I'm like "We don't have anyone that cool anymore." Private investigator who is a gigachad but also vulnerable and half the time he's clueless about what's going on and getting the shit beaten out of him. Has some very high-brow episodes.

  • Hawaii Five-O - Again, cop show with better scripts, actors, people giving a shit than usual and a fascinating setting.

  • Columbo - The mystery genre flipped around on its head. You see who committed the murder in the beginning. The mystery is how Detective Columbo is going to catch him. It's based on the interplay between Peter Falk's Columbo, who fakes being an annoying slob, against the guest star playing the murderer who is just as good. You'll recognize a lot: Montalban, Shatner, Nimoy, Vaughn, McGoohan, let's see... Culp, Landau... basically all the top actors of the time. Even if it doesn't sound interesting, give it a try.

  • The Outer Limits (1960s) - An inferior rip-off of The Twilight Zone, but still pretty good most of the time. If nothing else, watch the episode that James Cameron ripped off to make Terminator just to see how he never had any good ideas of his own.

  • Relic Hunter - Tia Carrere is being Indiana Jones but she also needs to take her shirt off at least once an episode. Surprisingly good for what it is.

  • Honey West - Early 1960s show with Anne Francis (of Forbidden Planet, Twilight Zone, etc.) as a sexy private detective who has a pet ocelot and a pet man. Again, fascinating if nothing else for seeing how a female action hero was depicted then.

Cop shows:

  • The Shield - A team of corrupt LAPD detectives against all the scum on the street and their honest fellow cops. Remarkably realistic about how people really are. No Hannibal Lecter genius cannibals.

  • Miami Vice - There's actually a lot of overlap between the writers here and TNG. It's a cop show in an interesting setting where they just try a little harder than usual. The writers, directors, everyone is just about 50% better than usual.

Korean and Japanese dramas:

If you're willing to step outside your comfort zone a little, there's endless hours of great content out there. This is what I did when I'd run out of American TV to watch. I don't watch as much anymore but I can recommend lots of stuff.

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In a dark fiber cable, cool memes :marseycdm2: in the air

Warm smell :marseybrap: of mtn dew , rising :marseyjapanese: up from my hair

Up ahead :marseyviewerstare: in the distance, I saw a couple :marseycupid: chuds

My eyes grew heavy :marseysac: and my DC grew light :marseyyinandyang:

I had to stop for the night

There krayon (sister toucher) :marseyautistattentionseeker: stood in my DMs

I saw the little :marseyunicorn: red bell

And I was thinking :marseywrongthonk: to myself

"This could be marsey :marseyunithecat: or this could be heck"

Then they lit up that soyboy :marseysoyhype: and they showed me the gays

They were flaming up and down the board

I thought :marseymindblown: I heard :marseyjacksparrow: them say

Welcome to the homosexual :marseysalutenavy: :marseytrain: :marseybardfinn: cat site

Such a lovely place :marseymap2: (Such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the gay :marseytrain: :marseybardfinn: dating :marseyitsrigged: cat site

Any time of year (Any time of year)

You'll find festive :marseyrabbitnewyear2: our cheer

Her mind is stuck on the dogpill, she got the marsey41 :marseysupersorensoarin: loaded up

She got a lot of big butt neckbeards she calls simps

How they screech in her comments, begging :marseyinshallah: for a tap

Some beg for attention, some beg to forget

So I called up Aevann :marseythreecodecelscucking:

"Please bring me my awards."

He said, "We haven't had that discount here since October 24th"

And still those chuds are flaming from far away

Wake you up in the middle :marseyllama2: of the day

Just to hear them say

Welcome to the homosexual :marseyrdramauser: :marseytrain: :marseytrain: cat site

Such a lovely place :marseyminipixel: (Such a lovely place)

Such a lovely face

Plenty of room at the gay :marseytrain: :marseysignaling: dating :marseyitsrigged: cat site

What a nice surprise :marseyspitmoji:

I only saw goatse twice

UwUs on my haters :marseymemories:

The Olde english :marseybong: on ice

And he said "We are all just visitors here, on your own device"

And in the Jannie :marseyban: groomercord

They gathered for the beast

They stab it with their ban awards

But they just can't kill the OGs

Last thing I remember

I was doxxing :marseydoxingtruck: chtorr

I had to find the passage back to the clique I was in before

"based," as the moon man says

"We are programmed to hate,

You can log out any time you like

But you can never :marseyitsover: delete!"

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Reply to @WayOut's question.

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Have you watched Babylon 5?

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I have, don't know if it'll survive a rewatch though.

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I watched it a few years ago, it still holds up imo. The CGI is hilariously 90s but the stories and characters are still really good.

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The budget for B5 was amazingly low but they had good actors and writing, and pretty good costumes and makeup

They made props out of the junk abandoned in the hot tub warehouse they rented, and that's why there's so much tubing lmao, it was free

https://media.tenor.com/sXk-GlVF8KQAAAAx/kosh-yes.webp

If I remember right, the cost for all five seasons of B5 is close to one episode of many other series

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I typed something about this and then deleted it because I didn't want to sound negative. There's some stuff they did that was incredibly cheap, like the Zocolo just not having any background at all, just blackness. From my avant garde theater days I can appreciate a minimalist approach, but it's not something you do on TV unless you ran out of money.

Looked this up because you got me curious:

Straczynski estimated that each of their episodes cost US$650,000 to make, compared to the US$1.5 million cost of each episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I've heard the figure $2 million/episode for TNG, presumably for the later seasons.

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Do I need to see 1-4 first to get it


https://i.rdrama.net/images/17334134537326243.webp

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:#marseyderp:

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https://media.tenor.com/psKQ1pGBLYsAAAAx/oh-you.webp

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Oh yeah, I knew I was forgetting a lot of stuff. B5 is great. Back in the day nerds would fight about whether it's better than Trek but really they were complementary. I could watch both at the same time and not feel like they were colliding with each other.

I rewatched most of it a couple years ago and it really holds up well. The guy who works for the Shadows is one of my favorite characters ever.

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https://i.rdrama.net/images/17329050113503962.webp

Star Trek was about perseverance and the good guys winning, B5 was about how sometimes evil wins.

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I know its cheesy but the moment when Vir gets his wish from Mr Morden is one of my favourite ever callbacks, still makes me feel like when I was a teenager watching it with my dad. :marseyw#ave:

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https://media.tenor.com/ftA84DcTQYUAAAAx/hello-goodbye.webp

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Babylon 5 dose several episodes better then ds9. Like mass pandemic episode is so bleak in b5. And ds9 its just meh

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The episode where the Narn are defeated is better than anything Star Trek managed.

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I wouldn't say one is better than the other in general, but I will say that the having a big war arc is way better on B5. DS9 had the problem that the writers were butthurt from being constrained by Roddenberry in his weirdo days at the end of life. So once he died, they did everything he didn't want. Having a big war is one.

The problem is, having a big war is what B5 is all about and it's what Star Trek is all not about. Especially ironic because Roddenberry actually fought in a war and probably killed some people but DS9 writers... not so much. I'll limit myself to just saying that I (and most people) have somebody we can ask about how war really is who is more informed than Ira Steven Behr.

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Watch Latin American movies as you already enjoy foreign stuff and you're used to subtitles

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Suggestions of where to start? I've seen very little. Latin America is a part of the world where I haven't known many people. I'm sure my dad made me watch some when I was a kid but the only thing I can think of right now is some groomercordcel here got to me to watch Black God, White Devil.

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Argentina cinema is top notch.

This is a dark anthological comedy. They do a lot of dark humor, even more "serious" films like "El Secreto de tus Ojos" have it, which fits the country mood.

If you're interested in the dictatorship there's "Argentina 1985" which is a recent film about the trial of the Junta. And there's "La Historia Oficial", a film from 1985 which is about an upper class woman who begins to suspect her adopted daughter was an abducted child of a dissident, that film was made right after the end of the Junta when stuff like disappearances and abductions were coming out of light.

Mexico has great cinema but I'm not as familiarized. Brazil's cinema is unfortunately mostly shit (crap slopish "comedies" with gross humor and lame dramas) with a few gems like Tropa de Elite and Central do Brasil.

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Okay, I'm going to write down on paper to do this and put it somewhere I'll see it...

I have r-slur savant powers where I can remember where every tribe lived in 500 BC but not anything about my own life, so remind me if I forget it. :marseydoomer:

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What should I watch now?

Your weight from all the inactivity.

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I might have actually lost a couple pounds from not eating as much. :marseysmughipskorean:

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:surejan:

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You're such a fricking chad, man. Just in time for dinner.

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Watch Arcane but only season 1. The moid character is a chad but he is not in season 2 so the show turns to shit compared to season 1.

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Babylon 5

Stargate

Farscape

Columbo

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add farscape to the list

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Oh yeah Fartscape is great, I plan to rewatch it soon.

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SG1 was kino, Atlantis was ok.

Farscape was also good.

Have you seen Columbo?

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Agree, agree, haven't seen enough to judge, yeah I like it. Updated my post. :marseyblowkiss:

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@Turkeyvann can we have a Columbo-viewing party? I feel like ABC or whoever owns it won't mind :marseyblush:

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SeaQuest DSV: what if Star Trek was on a submarine?

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I remember this! I lost interest pretty quick because it was kind of like the Flintstones. Everything was like Star Trek except it was rock water.

We had a kitten and some tard in the family wanted to name it Darwin after the fricking sentient dolphin. :marseydisagree:

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please provide in depth reviews of each star trek show :marsey:

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I end up talking to my physical therapist about this question every time I go there, so maybe I should save time by writing it up.

I've actually started writing a review of each character on DS9 and I should finish that up. Then go on to Voyager. TNG and TOS are too close to my heart so I don't think I have anything useful to say. After 2nd season TNG they made a decision that they weren't doing "high concept" shows driven by a sci-fi plot anymore. Most of the episodes after that are character-driven focusing on one character. DS9 and VOY were written by basically the same people in the same way. So it's pretty easy to evaluate each one.

My #1 takeaway is that Keiko is so fricking hot in that one episode where's she's an alien psycho femdomming O'Brien that she should have had her own TV show.

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I'm starting to rewatch First Wave cause the sexual tension between Sebastian Spence and Roger Cross is unbearable.

And I love that Traci Lords is in it. She was also great in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160277/

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I've never even heard of this. I don't think I had cable then so that must be why. Just like there's a some good shows that were in broadcast syndication that are totally forgotten now.

:marseynotes:

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I'm sorry to hear your parents didn't love you as a child...

SciFi used to have the Friday night block of shows - LEXX, Farscape, Andromeda, First Wave, Alien Nation, Dark Angel...

The golden times of science fiction on television.

:#marseylaying:

This site is a good resource for remembering the shows we all forgot

https://www.innermind.com/sfc/index.html

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Half of these we had in syndication on broadcast. We had the network stations and we had KPTV 12 which mostly got shows off syndication, which is how Paramount was selling TNG. So it was this weird situation where... that's a story for another time.

I notice you didn't mention Space Above and Beyond. Oh wait, neither did I. :marseyfacepalm:

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Space Above and Beyond

How I first heard Patsy Cline in "Never No More". I almost cried at the end like a cute twink.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0706366/

James Morrison was a fricking stud back then too WOOF

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17329108778893514.webp

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:marseyagree:

And the guy who says he's not a fan of Johnny Cash. And then 10 minutes later he says we're going out on Operation "Get Rhythm".

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Cool Cat.

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Stargate SG-1

Though not compulsory, it's good to watch the film Stargate (1994) before SG-1.

It does a lot of the world building, and is a pretty good movie in its own right. The antagonist is particularly great.

But new viewers should know that the series is more an adaptation of the film, making some changes along the way.

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Agreed. It gives a little more gravitas to the enemy to see them in movie form. But yeah, like Kurt Russel and Richard Dean Anderson are completely different characters. As different as you could possibly be.

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No lexx

https://media.tenor.com/ceE694A3i0QAAAAx/lexx-%D0%B6%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C.webp

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I think this is really obscure in America? I dunno, I almost never hear about it.

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Check out the Orville. I've enjoyed it as a comedy take on Trek far more than Lower Drecks.

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Speaking of cast members of Castle, Penny Johnson Jerald is :marseychefkiss: in everything she does.

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Watch Firefly. Sure it's got some of the usual Whedon trappings but since it's not too long it doesn't overstay its welcome.

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I decided to hate it in the first 3 minutes because they were Confederates, but it has some things going for it. Really good casting. Nathan Fillion is a chad as we all know from Castle.

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Monsters (1988), Perversions of Science (1997).

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Stargate SG1 is the GOAT. I rate it at or above the best Trek.

Farscape is beloved by a lot of people but I always found it entirely mid.

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Stargate SG1 is the GOAT. I rate it at or above the best Trek.

Better than "A Taste of Armageddon", "Balance of Terror", "Best of Both Worlds" (well part 1 at least), "Frame of Mind"?

:#marseydownvote:

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no duet

no pale moonlight

:#marseywut2:

your list disappoints me

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Pale Moonlight is good but it's still really fricking tame. OMG some unlikable characters got killed off. :marseyeyeroll:

Garak is the best character on the show and that's probably the high point of it, but as much as you f-slurs claim it's so good because it's "morally gray", you never will get into that, will you? What if he killed a thousand kids? Ten thousand kids? That would start to approach a moral dilemma.

I guess what I find annoying is it's writers totally disconnected from how war works. Were the guys who bombed Germany in WW2 "morally gray" because they missed sometimes and hit the wrong people or do you want the Holocaust to keep going on? Those are your fricking choices in the real world.

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Isn't that kind of the point, though? The Federation is so cushy and so strictly adherent to their luxury moral code that they can't fathom what's actually needed to win an all-out war like this. Garak, who actually knows how to handle business, has to trick Sisko into doing what's necessary and it causes Sisko to have a whole-butt ethical breakdown about it before deciding that winning and stopping all these people from dying is more important than his moral code.

Fug, what kino. I should go rewatch it right now.

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:marseyagree: I hope.

Yeah, that's obviously the point of it.

I'm saying Garak needs to drag them farther into it. Really into it. Not just killing unlikable people. My grandparents were involved in the deaths of thousands of people. Some of them were innocent women and children. Heck, some of them were on our side. C'est la guerre f-slur.

This was whiny kitties who couldn't make up their minds. Do you want to win in Iraq or Afghanistan or just kill 100,000 people to make it look like the current president is doing something before he bugs out?

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Watch :marseysharksoup: Andor with @Nightcrawler

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I only watched a few hours (IIRC the fish suggested it) but I feel I'm qualified to guess about it. It's a ripoff of 1940s-1960s movies and tv shows about spies in Europe except with laser guns and gay robots and shit. Where they don't use the Star Wars aspect of it to broaden the story or anything. It's just because children these days don't get that 7.62mm Tokarev will kill you and need to see a laser blast and a baby ewok mourn over your corpse. And 8 other characters who are going to get spinoffs.

I might consider it if anyone watches Danger Man (AKA Secret Agent) with me.

!francais Remember when the Deuxieme Bureau just did whatever the frick wanted with no civilian oversight? Those were the days. :marseyboomer:

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The time go right out the window

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Even lower decks?

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I've seen all of TOS & TNG multiple times. (Literally every one.) Almost all of DS9, probably 80% of VOY. ENT I've seen some of but you gotta watch them in order so just the beginning.

Most of my TV watching is when I got insomnia so it's not that systematic.

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Gilmore Girls!

https://media.tenor.com/x1tHMmATsXwAAAAx/gilmore-girls-gilmore-clube.webp

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:#marseydisagree:

Did she ever stick with one boyfriend who wasn't an butthole in that show? (I've only seen it while walking by to go to the refrigerator.)

More importantly, it feels like the mom is vicariously living through her in a really unhealthy way.

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