It is a brutal episode... and in a way even more brutal than episodes like “Escape from LA,” because it was about something that was playing out at that very moment in the real world... and got far, far worse. It’s a powerful episode that sadly has remained powerful.

Aw, “Birdhouse in Your Soul” is such a great song. It, for me, encapsulates why TMBG has such lasting appeal: strange, poetic, almost mythic language that teeters between sense and nonsense, but has a clear emotional heart with a clear meaning (even if you don’t get the details).

Also: a shout out to the appropriately…

The show has only been nominated for a total of 6 Emmys, and four of those nominations have been for Ted Danson and Maya Rudolph.

I’m surprised Ralph McQuarrie didn’t come up in this article at all. His concept art is part of what earned Lucas his studio funding for A New Hope, and he designed what would become iconic characters (including Vader, who appears pretty much as he appeared in McQuarrie’s concepts), ships, and locations for the entire…

I thought the series was a pretty wonderful work of galaxybuilding and a fine diversion with compelling characters. The state of the galaxy here seems much better fleshed out than in the sequel trilogy and seemed like a much clearer progression from the original trilogy (pockets of Imperial remnants, small but…

While George Lucas’ whole “I have the entire saga plotted out!” schtick is a bit of self-mythologizing exaggeration, at least the original and prequel trilogies were being guided by one vision, even when Lucas was not directing.

This trilogy suffers from a lack of an overarching vision, other than... “it’s Star Wars!”…

I’m replaying KOTOR 2 right now, as well- for the first time since my initial playthrough not long after it came out- and really find it a stunning piece of work, in terms of writing and scope. Its examination of the Jedi and Sith and the Force itself is truly incisive, and the way it threads its themes so well across…

Most other animated comedies like this would’ve made good on the threat of mailed poop, or would have revealed there wasn’t a nephew, or had the nephew be a completely horrible child or something. The fact that the show doesn’t really ever take that route is part of what makes it so consistently charming. For the most…

Honestly, I think the whole focus on player choice for *any* of the Mass Effect games is massively misplaced. Your choices basically never meaningfully affect how the story develops, except for the big arcs of 3 in which the story cashes in your chips.. but even then, it’s still on rails, to an extent, because it has…

Yeah, this is how I read that interaction too. Mei is a tough cookie and a savvy lady. The doctor thing was clearly played as a flex, particularly after tag-team of Joel and then their ex-wife/girlfriend back and forth, and Midge even had to take a beat to figure out how to respond to that.
Mei’s whole thing this…

But, again, the era the show is set in has to be taken into account. If it were set today, or even THIRTY years ago, this could be a totally valid approach to the character. But in the late 50s-early 60s in which the show has been set, how she dresses and acts means something different. She could have been dowdy or…

From my perspective, also a gay person, her set was less about outing Shy- there is definite deniability and, given the era and the way that women were still throwing themselves at him during his performance, the audience didn’t read it as an outing- and more about violating his trust. He shared incredibly personal…

Is it bad that, three seasons in, we do not know very many details of a main character’s personal life, including something as basic as who they are attracted to, if they are attracted to anybody? Kind of!
Also, the show is set in 1961. You do not have a female character present herself in the way that Susie does in a…

She’s not a confirmed anything. The show hasn’t really ever touched on her romantic life. It’s just... a choice to take dyke signifiers from that time and apply them to a character and then never do more with it.

I am kind of curious how long the show can have Susie be such a blatent lesbian character without ever making it explicit and just using her butchness as joke.

The bartender droid is the same model as EV-9D9, Jabba the Hutt’s droid that gives C-3P0 and R2-D2 their palace assignments in Return of the Jedi.

But don’t worry, they’re still covering (checks papers) The Orville?!

But no one can argue that Susan Stroman is a particularly visionary director. 

I think, in many ways, the advent of music videos has completely warped the idea of the movie musical. Directors and audiences now see music videos as the reference point for on-screen musical sequences, with their visual dazzle and (frequently) incoherent and sidelined storytelling. Musicals are still kind of passe,…

I’ve never seen Deliverance, but I sure feel like I have. I think the first parody I probably saw of it was on The Simpsons?