I saw them in KC on that tour and I concur completely. I still love their shows and never miss a tour, but that small lineup remains my favorite.

So you prefer Oliver to … Oliver?

If you think California Stars is a classic, I don't get why you would find the rest of their output bland or boring. That song is hardly an outlier.

That wouldn't quite be my list, but it's very solid. I'd like to add:

I would argue for A Ghost Is Born as being top-tier Wilco. I like that one better than Summerteeth, at least. I also think the latest album is in the neighborhood of their best work, and I even like the much-maligned WTA. (The only one I don't like is Sky Blue Sky.)

It wasn't my comment, although I'm having difficulty understanding why you would flame a comment 8 pages into this thread and then scoff at the idea of scanning the whole thread if you seriously wanted to discuss this particular subject. Anyway, to answer your question off the top of my head: Fabian Strategy, When It…

I can't decide which of you is more egregiously wrong — you for panning Season 5 or Claude for panning Season 7.

More than a dozen great S5 episodes have been cited upthread. So, you lose.

It was no bigger than a C or even D plot, behind Jack's battles with Devin, Liz's deal-breakers book, and Tracy moving in with Liz. The Iceland thing was no more than about 2 quick scenes with one or two (very funny) gags each. Anyway, Nabin and other commenters seem to agree with you that the episode sucked; I've…

I'm with you, Gabriel. Not even so much because of the cast itself, but just because the writing peaked in that era, IMO.

When the Beaver was killed in Vietnam I thought the show was done, but then they brought in Ted McGinley as the hunky next-door neighbor and all was well again.

I think once it got its groove around S2 or 3, it was consistently awesome until Larry David left. After that, S8 had its moments but 9 was mostly meh, in my opinion.

Too bad there's no way to watch them now that they're off the air. Whaddaya gonna do?

Basically agreeing with Roare here, but as I've mentioned before I would break it down this way…

Baldwin probably got mixed up as to which season he was talking about.

S5 and 7 were great, S6 was less consistently great.

Even better: College, Christmas Attack Zone, Double-Edged Sword, Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning, and 100.

I laughed my ass off at the Iceland bit. Who gives a damn whether it looked realistic or not? I think that whole episode was very funny, although I agree that Season 4 takes a while to get going.

I'm a white person and I know who Avery Johnson is — but you'd have to be hardcore NBA fan (or longtime Spurs fan ). I still think an Avery impression could be amusing to the uninitiated — the guy just talks funny.

I don't think American Beauty DID make any grand point, but it sure pretended to do so, and the Academy bought it.