I'm not saying Coleman is any Mrs. Siddons, but it's not clear to me what sort of performance would have really improved the Clara character as written. I'm reserving judgment on her because the character's main flaw was in being mostly a riddle for the Doctor to puzzle out, but otherwise having no traits that really…

Even Colin Baker's Doctor wasn't a BAD concept—it could have been quite fruitful if exactly the wrong people hadn't been tapped to implement it. I understand that classic-Who fans have been forever (and rightly) burned by the "Doctor as erratic asshat who has to rediscover his best self" idea, but hope it gets…

It might be paradoxical, but one of the MOST human things about Tennant's Doctor was his recurring temptation towards hubris, and his occasional giving-in to it (with all the consequences to follow). No, the "TIME LORD VICTORIOUS" idea isn't particularly human … but being seduced by such possibilities if they were…

Matt Smith just finished a pretty solid three-year clinic in how to be "a good kind of unsettling."

Those rednecks Homer, Vergil, Valmiki, Herodotus, Lo Kuan-chung, Ariosto, and Malory have so much to answer for.

I'm sure he's sorry about the confusion. Me, I read the review's first sentence, then the first few paragraphs, and assumed that bringing weird, pre-determined axes to grind was the name of the game.

Sure you will, do, and have. Those movies simply tend to sink without a trace.

His Introduction to Christianity is already considered pretty much essential reading in plenty of programs, and The Spirit of the Liturgy is fascinating—especially to cradle low-church Protestants like myself. If you're interested in his Augustinian writings, I'd check out the Catholic-Lutheran Joint Declaration on…

A lifelong scoundrel within a few minutes of burial sounds close to the Platonic ideal of "bottoming out and in need of some immediate rescue."

I'm so sorry.

Garth Hudson's organ on "Stage Fright."

"Kid Charlemagne": perfect, gemlike, and endlessly relistenable. Viva Larry Carlton!

Because if it's a term of art known only to Berkeley alumni and college-sports enthusiasts—neither of which group is widely considered fit company for adults—then insisting on it is a ludicrous affectation.

This movie also boasts one of Miklós Rózsa's best and most underrated soundtracks … which, in turn, qualifies it as one of the the best, most underrated soundtracks of all time.

It's being able to enjoy & embrace your inner fifteen-year-old, free of that self-conscious faux-maturity that's actually pretty damned immature at its core.

Yeah … but mediocre though they were, they were still several cuts above the slick middlebrow stuff of most other decades. I hold no brief for bands like Bush and CS, but when THEY'RE a decade's hatesong fodder, it argues a pretty damned high median (mean?) of quality.

I've never stopped liking "King of New Orleans." Honi soit qui mal y pense.

No. No, you shouldn't.

[Sigh] "Okay … fine. ChinaPERSON."

It's worse than you think. The corporations don't even have much to do with it—none of the suits cares THAT deeply about the death or major life changes of some middle- or lower-tier piece of intellectual property. No, Marvel & DC's continuities are largely in the hands of fanboys … man-children incapable of…