Who's Roy?

If there's one thing 30 Rock taught us, it's that there is no answer to any of NBC's problems.

I'm assuming NBC is hoping that Great News will find its audience if it's given enough time; it's basically 30 Rock with the levels tweaked — which I am loving, for the record — so it's a safe bet those viewers are out there.

Eh. 30 Rock remains my favorite sitcom to date, so I don't think it's coming from the same place. I'm not asking for deep emotional or intellectual investment; I'm saying that the characters themselves are getting in the way of the jokes for me.

Even Titus has gotten to be a bit much for me — he's such A Thing at this point, kinda like Ron got to be in Parks and Rec. Lillian, much as I love Carol Kane, works better for me as a supporting character.

I'm a little surprised. The first season was spectacular, and the second had some wonderful moments (thank you, Anna Camp!) but started to drag near the end. We haven't made it through the third yet. Am I alone in starting to feel more annoyed by the whole main ensemble — Kimmy, Titus, Lillian, and Jacqueline — than…

N.E.R.D.’s debut is one of the good examples, and that has not exactly gone on to be considered a paragon of the form.

This is the first any of us at Gobias Industries have heard about a time-saving email app.

Copyediting nitpick: It's weird to italicize "go." It's not a game title, like Persona 5; it's a noun, like "checkers" or "baseball." (Merriam-Webster does say it's often capitalized, which personally is a style choice I don't care for, but whatever.)

I went to see Alive in the theater with a couple of friends, right when it came out. The big news about it was how people in the audience were fainting during the opening plane-crash scene. I couldn't stop thinking about that. I still don't know if I fainted because I was genuinely bothered by the scene, or if I…

Just to counteract some of the hate: I thoroughly enjoyed this review and thought it was well written.

These names are insane and great. (Stet Monks — ha!)

It's an interesting thing, right? There are so many pieces you have to fit together to make a movie like Avengers work, and it seems basically inevitable that you're going to need to sacrifice something — I mean, in theory, given unlimited time, you could make it all work perfectly, but you don't have unlimited time.…

But every step of the way, Gottwald and his team have made a point to specifically refute every single one of Kesha’s claims as publicly as possible, making him look like the kid on the playground who shouts “nu-uh!” every time another kid says he threw rocks at them.

"Paterson" is the title of William Carlos Williams's opus magnus, his (epic) response to "The Waste Land" and Pound's Cantos. Pretty clear the title was chosen with that in mind.

That's a fair way to put it! (Though I'd have to say I am a fan of that kind of liberalism. It boils down to "Be self-aware and help people and don't be an asshole and do be suspicious of money and power, and remember that people are people regardless of what color, sex, race, or creed they are," which is IMHO a lot…

Mmm, that's not wrong, exactly, but I'm not sure it's quite fair. King is very much the product of a particular tradition, and that trope — the other as mystical figure — originated way before him. I'm not even convinced his magical Negroes deserve to be derided as such. Mother Abigail in The Stand's blackness is…

You're a total herb, dude.

My prediction is that Trump fails spectacularly, making life harder for a bunch of the people who voted for him (for instance, my friend who, along with his family, derives most of his income from government assistance), and yet many of his supporters still find a way to blame it on Obama and the Democrats.

Pretty sure it's not "herb" with a silent H as in weed, but "herb" pronounced like the name, which means a dork or loser. So: kids trying to treat other kids like losers — i.e., to bully them.