I wonder if this is really new, in that public people have entire mythologies and memes about them that they seem utterly unaware of. This. Ted McGinley as the angel of TV death. Rex Grossman as the Sex Cannon. Chuck Norris as world-destroyer. Millions of people are fully aware of these things, using them in everyday…

So are wizards, humanoid aliens and psychic powers. Fantasy is, by definition, ridiculous, and while you can adult-it-up if you're a great writer, at its base, it's childish make-believe. But that shit sells, and that's the business we're talking here.

They have to be, because writers have no idea how to make an appealing story about people utterly alien to the audience. The filthy rich are still shown as regular folks when it matters, poo-folks are "just like us", and people that can read minds are still worried about that high-school crush. And it gets it both…

But comics kind of require that anyway. You have people that, by all rights, should have major effects on the world around them simply by existing, but if you allow the hero to transform the world it's no longer recognizable to the audience is "real". Whether it's "why doesn't Superman stop wars instead of muggers" or…

I actually went on a first date to Dead Ringers. Scoring did not ensue.

So I have to spend time or effort to find it? That's hardly free.

It's weird; I don't even enjoy hating AD anymore; the joy is completely gone. What remains is a vaguely sinister compulsion, and while the schadenfreude has passed, the hate remains. I hate the show, I hate every actor on it (Mallory is my least favorite character on Archer, even), hate every role they will ever play,…

Duke Nukem Forever and Chinese Democracy say that you should never give up hope, but just lower your standards some.

No money lined up, conditional cooperation (i.e., as soon as one of us gets an actual career outside of emsemble TV roles we're out, and no, a string of poorly-performing movies doesn't count) and a strange collection of episodes that doesn't seem to match network TV, anywhere. What has changed that will give this…

The Aquaman problem is simply that comic-book guys can't deal with people making jokes at their expense. Just like how they HAD to bring back Bucky (and Jason Todd) just to defeat the "only Bucky stays dead" meme - and of course by doing so showed how utterly ignorant they were of the point (no one cared about Bucky -…

Yeah, since I try to avoid network TV except for football, most of what I've seen of her have been places like this. And that, above, is an extremely unflattering image.

Usually when you think "you can't make that up" you're referring to a real thing that seems impossible, not an idea so stupid you'd think people would be paid *not* to write it. But maybe that's why I'm not a writer at NBC.

Univision! Man, maybe it's time I got around to learning Spanish, you know, since the future is coming.

Yeah, Coldplay and hipsters is a really weird combo, which hipsters might complain about, but that would require effort, so that's out. But like the "Brooklyn is pretty much 'Welcome Back Kotter', right - let's go with it" and the basic failure to understand regular-human economic issues, don't these shows have enough…

I read that as "Roy Scheider". I prefer my version.

I dunno; if they can pretend to be sort of interesting for short stretches and quiet the rest, there's always "douchebag's girlfriend".

I thought that was like people (who I've never actually met, even though I know many, many people way-too familiar with the show but I did hear it second hand a few years back from what must have been a good source since everyone else did, too) who don't want to be called "Trekkies" as opposed to "Trekkers". SF? I'm…

I liked Primer, until I realized the time-travel stuff was basically just there to set up the story of the two main's relationship, which I never cared at all about. I know indie means "people first and always above mechanism", but the mechanism was the point for me. Just, unfortunately, not the movie.

So does someone run around doing the equivalent of screaming "WWAAAAAAALLLLLTTTT!!!"? Because for me, that was 90% of Lost, along with people refusing to give straight answers that would've made the next six episodes or so of deadly peril completely unnecessary.

We need a show about a cold-hearted city liberal who is forced by fate to move to aw-shucks good-old-boy land down South, but who realizes that the only place where people were real and honest and true was in the Atlanta airport she was stuck in for 8 hours due to her airplane needing maintenance. She spends the…