I just knew his character was credited as "Grandpa Grayson," and I headed to imdb to check…yep. Also, Grandpa Grayson says "I'm 80 now," but Devane doesn't look much older than his mid to late 60s. He's 72! Looks pretty good for that age.

I love crime fiction/noir/detective fiction, and I absolutely love the LA Confidential movie, but I've always been a bit leery of getting into Ellroy's books. I don't know if it was the Black Dahlia movie, or just a suspicion that Ellroy's writing might be too super-masculinist for my tolerance (if that makes sense),…

http://www.youtube.com/watc…

Or like House of Leaves, which actually manages to be postmodern literary found footage horror.

You don't get Todd's point, though. Nearly every single show you named is anti-genre, either aggressively, like Mighty Boosh, or mildly, like the British Office. Todd didn't go deep enough with his breakdown of 90s comedy, but it could go something like this - either you build an episode around one joke, like…

Something like this:

Your jokes were better than the blackout jokes that actually showed up in the ep.

Really? Despite the often hacky writing and the times they're trying to pander to some nerd audience that I have a hard time believing regularly watches this show, I like all the characters (okay, I like about 3/4 of each character). It's funny to watch them gesture in the direction of fixing longstanding problems…

Button your shirts all the way up, give yourself an emover, and boom - kid from Misfits.

It looked like it had been stitched up, so presumably someone found her and helped her. I'm guessing we'll find out who did that soon enough.

If you enjoy the first episode, then awesome, and welcome! If you don't, don't write off the show entirely. I hated the first episode the first time I saw it, thought it was a posturing 300 ripoff with about as much wit, but now I love this series, for all its absurdities.

[TV Club users], on the other hand, bitch and moan on the internet incessantly that more people aren't watching [their preferred show], and sneer condescendingly at anyone who likes "inferior" shows like this on.

I'm not even going to bother to try and source this with google, but didn't he set up anti-psychology tents at some film set to educate his costars/crew?

I'm ashamed to say I thought Frank was mispronouncing "Margin Call" for some weird reason, since I've never seen Marwencol. I'll have to see it now. Community's "Critical Film Theory" ep did the same for me with "My Dinner With Andre."

The "big girl with a strong jaw looks like a tranny" casting tactic strikes me as dumb, too. I gave this one a pass, though, since it seemed possible they cast the character to (marginally) resemble the kid. Finding a transgender actress who also looked like a kid actor they could also cast seems like an impossible…

Nope, you're pretty much right on. I kind of like Nick's shambling old-mannish charm, and he and Jess might have a little chemistry, but it would make a stronger show if we could somehow cut Nick and Winston. You do need them for Jess and Schmidt to bounce off, though. They're the comparatively straight-laced ones.

I just noticed this at a cafe in my neighborhood today - the entire waitstaff had transformed into attractive early-twenties white girls, where before they were apathetic poorly groomed men. The girls don't even know how to pour a beer, though.

I was going to say "not Arab, Persian," because their fake names sounded vaguely Persian to me, but then I realized this stupid show just lumped them together because it doesn't care about things like characterization (aside from Max/Caroline) and not being grossly racist.

Would you recommend American Horror Story because of its terribleness? The AVC grades are dipping and spiking all over the place, so I'm tempted but leery. It's gotta be a really gonzo whacked-out stew.

Sarah Shahi was just way too gorgeous for me to buy as his partner, though.