I think it's a dig at Doc Brown saying 'Marty' a lot in Back to the Future.

Maybe. I do keep meaning to watch Strumpet City, which was kind of the closest thing Ireland has to the kind of big period mid-twentieth century miniseries (in this case, one that is actually about the 1913 Lockout and has Peter O'Toole, which is why that event is on my mind right now.)

I watched Gods of the Arena between seasons one and two, which was its production order, so I thought of it as season two, though I believe it is officially season 1.5.

Oh as a movie it obviously has a lot to commend itself with, it's an obvious achievement that makes the most of its location shooting (mostly West Cork, IIRC.) I just feel its desire to keep you on the side of the heroes through both wars sacrifices a lot of clarity in the second war.

I was like ten. I'm entitled to my stupid ten year old opinions.

Almost is the key word. When I realized what he'd done with Daughter Maitland and her mother basically any sympathy I had drained away… only briefly revived when he's up against white guys being mean to him, but mostly not.

Oh you meant that season two. No when I meant I clocked out by S2 I meant more Gods of the Arena. As far as that season I felt like it was still half-way a gladiator show, I liked the final season movie.

The Civil War half of The Wind That Shakes The Barley feels like such an anti-Treaty apologia (and one that softens them for international audiences and suggests a class component for the same reason) I was pretty pissed off at it. I remember someone saying Loach had kind of conflated the Irish Civil War with the…

The film's treatment of the Irish Civil War is both simplistic and kind of naively idealistic; Loach foists on the anti-Treaty side ideas they didn't even have (like anti-clericalism) but which he'd prefer they had.

A parody of bad soap operas is exactly right with Twin Peaks and tbh on purpose.

Add the Philip Glass operatic biography The Perfect American for an evisceration of Walt, and you have a trilogy.

I think the most revealing part of the movie is where she walks in on Disney smoking. He says he smokes but since he considers it a filthy habit he prohibits anyone from photographing him doing it - and the film obliges.

Sounds about right. See About Elly?

Van Alden's plot has felt kinda directionless for about a season now but I felt he came back into his own this year. He has by far the strangest arc on BE though.

Picking low-level stuff might be boring, but because a lot of people share your sister's opinion, you can make some tidy cash on the AH selling overpriced reagents you no longer need.

Though to be fair Asylum is loved precisely because of how silly it is. But it's a dark, demented, ham-fisted, delirious sort of silly.

Yeah I didn't like the ending much. I wanted something brutal and unpleasant and heart-wrenching - a Red Wedding, if you will - but it spent the entire time blunting the impact of its narrative. And I sort of clocked out of the show mentally somewhere in season two.

"They're not robots, Rick!"

…

Still, in a post-Twilight and post-Vampire Diaries world, you can't be surprised if Syfy wants to get in on that market.