The first couple seasons were much more from Malcolm's perspective. Lois was never evil, she just looked that way from her sons' point of view. As the show went on and they developed their ensemble, she got humanized a lot.

Bullshit. The first three seasons may have been more consistent, but some of the best episodes in the whole run are from 4 and 5, and, frankly, the show was never "terrible." Also they didn't even get the episode synopsis right. He goes bowling in both timelines. It's just in one he goes with his dad, plays well, gets…

My problem with Blair Witch is that for 2/3rds of the run time there's really no reason to believe anything particularly heinous is going on. I mean the "witch" or whatever basically just makes noise at night and moves some rocks around. If they hadn't been talking about "local legends" the whole time, I would have…

I know all about sitcom anxiety. I still find certain episodes of Frasier almost unbearable.

Yeah, I love Hal's poker buddies, especially that first episode when it turns out that Hal doesn't care that they're black. It's the fact that they all make more money than him that makes him feel out of place.

As one of three brothers with no sisters, I always related to Malcolm's family (I would have related to the Home Improvement kids, but none of them had any personality). Part of the premise of the show was that there weren't any girls, so Lois always felt outnumbered and tended to overcompensate. One of my favorite…

I didn't think the dude ranch was so bad — the German couple in particular were some of the funniest characters on the whole show. That said, there's only so much you can do with five minutes an episode so sometimes the Francis sub-plots felt incredibly thin. The other thing that bugged me was for the first five…

I could definitely see the Korean "police action" being harder to move on from than World War 2. It was an undeclared war with murky objectives that accomplished almost nothing. So many people were killed or maimed but the border hardly moved. American intervention did help keep the communists from taking over the…

I have a lame little goatee, but it's red where the rest of my hair is brown and I still think that's too cool not to show off.

I hate those guys so much. Not because I don't believe that sexism against men "counts," but because the sort of petty bullshit they usually complain about makes my entire gender seem ridiculous and distracts from actual discrimination.

Unless they're made up. Reading a letter like that always makes me wonder if whoever wrote it started masturbating furiously as soon as he/she hit send.

Is there anyone who actually likes stories about aspiring writers? I've spent years pursuing creative writing and lemme tell you, we're not that interesting. Just because you like to read and know how to structure a paragraph doesn't automatically make you a compelling character with a rich inner life. Maybe that's…

That's Slick Willy for ya, always with the smooth talk.

The love/hate relationship so many of us have with social media is really interesting, actually. Older generations seem to either embrace Facebook (like my dad) or just ignore it (like my mom), but it takes serious guts for a twenty-year-old to not have a Facebook account. I never had a LiveJournal or a MySpace,…

Don't assume we don't care about privacy. A lot of us have spent our whole lives fighting for even a shred of independence.

You guys are right that moving can be a good way of growing, but I wanted to sound a cautionary note. I've known too many people who moved because they were unhappy and just wound up more unhappy. I don't regret going away for school so much as the time in my life I chose to do it. I was very naive and thought that…

Attraction isn't rational and who we crush on doesn't really reflect our values so much as our hormones. Just don't get into the mindset that attraction is the same as compatibility and be willing to say no to your inner fourteen-year-old. Silly crushes fade pretty quickly once you realize they're silly. As for why…

Things you're told while drunk can be really awkward to address later, but if you're really worried about your friend, definitely talk with her. I would avoid using the "r" word (at least at first), because we have a lot of internalized idea about what rape is and how horrible it is and you certainly don't want her…

Stop trying to make people move, Dik. Changing home towns is incredibly stressful and can invite major economic hardship. Not to mention the crushing loneliness that can come from losing contact with your social safety net.

I'm not sure who's getting played more, the guy who buys sex or the guy who sells it. Anyone who is willing to be in a fake relationship like that isn't ready for a real one.