It's great, but since I started reading this article I was wavering whether 10,000 Maniacs was the ideal band for unplugged (so well suited) or the worst ideal (since they were already essentially unplugged, it couldn't be revelatory.) I guess the set is so good it revealed their power—they had seemingly more oomph…

I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on Ashlie Atkinson's character "Theresa" on "Rescue Me." What strengths and/or weaknesses do you see in her performance and that show's treatment of the issue? I'm not sure how insightful that or other work by Denis Leary, et al is on women. They are shows about men and masculinity,…

I like "Soul to Squeeze" even if it was on the Coneheads soundtrack.

It just so happens this is about the only part of SNL I saw this weekend. I thought it was a curious choice to joke about slavery, women's bodies, cultural standards of beauty—all sensitive issues, each of which could be the basis for electrifying comedy or easily tip into poor taste. A high wire act. The substance of…

Ghost of the Brigadier mutters resignedly "well, here we go again…"

"the Doctor of the RTD era is a godlike figure who invites himself into
the lives of humans, whereas the Doctor of the Moffat era is someone who
invites tiny mortals to join his life."

I'm with you on the first paragraph, but I haven't "come around" to the second paragraph. I'm still stuck on finding it "self indulgent."

I tried to suppress a lot of the later Davies stuff, and pretty much any season-ender. Maybe everyone did.

He was bitten by a radioactive racist spider or escaped from a racist planet and his racism is fueled by the earth's yellow sun or some shit.

I'm not here to defend Downey, Jr. or slam Depp, but one comparison seems illustrative to me. Downey took that role in Tropic Thunder, aware it was in questionable taste, and played it for laughs; Depp's choices to take the Tonto role, and play it the way he did, seem tasteless and imprudent by comparison.

A crazy thought I just had—the reason he is so beloved in Boston is because he played for the Celtics

I can appreciate the argument that I should judge television as a piece of art, not merely scoring it by how well it corresponds with "reality," but when you pass it off as a true story with a historical individual, I think the makers have a responsibility not to carelessly misrepresent or inaccurately disparage a…

yeah, I assumed the "science oven" line is an allusion to American Hustle, so I didn't understand what Jason Statham had to do with it..

intestinally challenged?

Maybe he was being childish—when we were kids, if you could make a guy look at your circled finger & thumb, you got a free punch. A little cherry on top of the threat.

I think you can root for them as people, but not as spies; in the latter case they do terrible things (like poising a woman's son who is shocked by their willingness to do something like that and asks don't they believe in god, which i took as a proxy for morality), but in the former they are spouses and parents who…

Had he not stabbed himself in the face like an oak, Raylan would have shot him. Of course, that's because Danny insisted on it going that way rather than being taken in. In other words, that guy died in a manner fitting his evolutionary status.

I love that line of Krusty's, as well as the looks of horror on the faces of the esteemed representatives of television.

good point, thatguy—to many Americans, Tom Baker was Doctor Who, not one among many.

My eyes flew out of my head and I felt a newfound affection for the Simpson's writers and showrunners the first time I saw Doctor Who file in among the esteemed representatives of television. How many appearances on the Simpsons has he made? I believe he appeared in a sealed container in a Treehouse of Horror episode;…