This is the first episode of the season I was truly disappointed with. And by "disappointed with" I mean "thought was bad." The ep has many of the problems of Ab Aeterno (I wonder if the writers started with the idea of doing this whole ep in Latin, then remembered what a pain doing almost an entire ep in Spanish…

I'm not sure that the Amazon review is any more representative of the book than the blurb on the back. Which probably isn't any more representative than what Duras herself has to say about it in her interview. It's an interesting text, and not one that lends itself to quick summation, despite its brevity.

The flash sideways feel like they're making more sense as we go along. Despite everything seeming initially better for everyone when the plane lands, I think the characters are pretty much the same. It seems to be the main thrust of the flash sideways - even were their circumstances radically different, these…

I thought it was a tremendous episode, and I confess to getting a little misty eyed when Illana told Ben that she'd have him. The episode seems to underscore (perhaps too pointedly too often) that Ben is what I've expected all along: doing the best with what he's got. Sure, he's killed people, but he was essentially…

I kind of hate Saving Private Ryan myself (partially for the reason Josh mentioned, but it's not like I think that excising that would 'fix' the film), but recognize that it's not an opinion shared by everyone. Hence moderately respectable.

I'm inclined to agree.

LAX
My only real complaint regarding the episode was the way they handled Juliet. I'm pretty sure she could have just been dead and everything would have been fine, from a storytelling perspective.

LOST
I rewatched the whole series over the last few months, and I think Locke is (and always has been) the antagonist to Jack's protagonist. It's not a matter of good and evil, but the story's ultimately Jack's, and Locke's there to stand in the way. He's a remarkably well-crafted antagonist, and we've gotten to see…

Frankly,
I think you gave the episode too much credit, Noel. It was fairly horrible throughout.

Truest Words?
Noah: "The Sylar thing was a terrible idea, we all admit that."

The song and dance singlehandedly bumped this up to a B+ from a B- or so. Mostly I enjoyed the episode, but I found the "coyness" around the issue of whether or not Cindy was the mother grating in the extreme. The way they framed it made it abundantly clear she wasn't the mother but the episode seemed really intent on…

Editing
A few odd editing moments tonight, like they had more plot than they had time for and had to rush things. The cut from Peter getting attacked in the herb shop was one, Walter and Astrid's aborted hug was another. I mean, presumably they had a nice, long, cathartic hug, but we only got a moment of it.

Having played them both, I'd posit that Ico is the better of the two. The world is more immersive and more evocative, the plot stronger and more twisty, the gameplay more varied, and all of this done with no visible user interface, underscoring the artistry of the final product. Then there's the empathy inspired by…

Alas
I like Peter Gallagher a lot, but not $55 a lot.

There was a phi at the core of the formula, and that symbol is supposed to be important to the larger plot. Too bad we don't know that yet from anything outside of the title cards and interviews.

Statically Defacticated
I particularly enjoyed Alex tormenting her siblings by playing on their gullibility. Probably because I did the same thing to mine when I was a kid.

As an Alabamian, I can say with authority that any real hillbilly hot tub involves a plastic tarp, a leaf blower, and the bed of a Ford F-150.

The only characters whose names I can't remember off of the top of my head
are Lightman's ex (Zoe?) and the FBI guy, who I always forget about.

A short list of phenomena:

How do you make a film about Tucker Max
in which Tucker Max is boring? Stupid, boorish, annoying, perhaps, but boring? It seems utterly counter-intuitive.