Yeah, red curtains are what you get in the Black Lodge.

"Honesty and transparency" apparently means "telling blatant lies, being caught in them, owning up to those specific lies while continuing to spin falsehoods about the larger situation, and then repeating the cycle".

Weekend watching report (whew, this one is long):

Not that I don't appreciate the fervor of this review (or, indeed, the fact of its existence), but I still count this season as my least favorite of the four. There are parts of that I like - Sikozu is a great character and, to my mind, a much better spin on what the show was trying to do with Jool; D'argo and…

Well, like I said, to me that felt consistent with how Joy was built up over the course of the season, as someone who is just as ruthless and power-hungry as her father, but who has been surrounded by people who would work to make sure she didn't have to see that when she looked in the mirror. She's not mad at Harold…

OK, but you remember what happens after that, right? Her next step isn't "I'm going to cut all these toxic people out of my life and try to be a good person". It's "Danny Rand is somehow responsible for my father being an abusive psychopath who involved our company in all sorts of illegal stuff, and for my brother…

This weekend I watched the first three episodes of MTV's Sweet/Vicious, about two girls who become vigilantes against perpetrators of campus sexual assault. I was rooting for it, because it's a subject worth talking about, and because I'd like to see more vigilante/superhero stories where the characters are actually…

How likely is for actors in foreign language films to be nominated in the acting categories? Huppert's performance is one of the most lauded of the year, but I'm not sure that'll be enough to vault over the foreign film hurdle, especially in a film whose subject matter and approach are as challenging as this one's.

I hope they'll commit to making Four a villain, though they brought Six back from the brink, and in theory it would have been much more interesting to keep him around as the team's antagonist than do almost nothing with him on the ship (and bring in a new character to play Javert who is a lot less compelling). I'm…

Really, though, what the kids want to see these days is Howard the Duck.

I took it to mean that the pot was damaged beyond repair, though you'd still expect Picard to be more bothered by the destruction of an artifact he'd described as career-making. In hindsight it's surprising that he didn't donate it to a museum, or at least keep it somewhere that wasn't likely to explode.

It's also kind of a mug's game to look for things like that, since I don't think the writers had decided that Bashir was going to be a changeling until fairly close to the episode where it was revealed.

That, to me, is the biggest flaw in the film (except maybe the way it underserves Storm). Magneto goes completely beyond the pale in this movie, and the idea that Charles and Raven would not only be able to forgive him, but invite him to be around their students after what he did, is completely unearned.

I think the crucial difference between Veronica and Liv is that Liv is an adult and Veronica was a child. Her behavior had a lot to do with rage over having her life and her illusions of security ripped away at a very crucial point in her life (one of the reasons she becomes less sympathetic as the show progresses is…

What I liked about Ravi's behavior is how clearly he's trying to be respectful of both his friends. His first instinct is to tell Major the truth, but he recognizes that that would mean exposing Liv and that he hasn't got the right to do that without her permission. And then he realizes that Liv is in too much pain…

Another nitpick: the reveal that the secretary was blackmailing Max Rager is clearly designed to absolve Liv of guilt for her death. But if she really was doing that, then why does Sebastian approach Liv to begin with? He only does it because he wants her to flush out the source of the memo, which according to what…

I think pretty much the only thing that could scotch Jane and Rodriguez's chances at Emmy nominations would be Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (and it's hard to argue that the show and Ellie Kemper don't deserve the attention as well). I wouldn't necessarily expect it to win, though.

Rogelio's hand to god when he mentions Cher, "who is with us here in spirit tonight," was just the perfect touch to take it over the top.

"Ladies, your viewing figures just went up."

Weakest Link is a proto-reality show in a lot of ways. Despite the game show format, the primary appeal of the show was watching Anne Robinson be mean to the contestants, and even the game itself had a component of reality-esque calculation - you want to eliminate weaker players in the early rounds so as to bank more…